[Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News] 06/16 Links Pt1: Instead of investigating IDF, UN should probe itself; UNRWA is Counterproductive

From Ian:

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UN-believable:Israeli Organizations Working Against Israel at the UN

Im Tirtzu’s latest report reveals how three Israeli organizations, which have consultant status at the Economic-Social Council of the United Nations (ECOSOC), have been acting against the State of Israel and promoting the delegitimization of Israel in the international community. The groups have also been calling for an inquiry into IDF actions in Gaza.
Because the status conferred upon the organizations is a very prestigious one, as far as non-governmental organizations go, they are able to advise UN institutions on human rights, and can influence formulation of positions and resolutions adopted by the various UN bodies.
The groups – Adalah, Itijah, and the Israeli Committee against House Demolitions – use their access to UN organizations to accuse Israel and the IDF of war crimes, violations of international law related to combat and human rights, torture of Palestinians, and other crimes.
Im Tirtzu said that all three organizations have enjoyed funding from the New Israel Fund (NIF), among other sources, and Adalah receives money from the NIF to this day.

UNRWA in the Gaza Strip is Counterproductive

It must have come as a great shock to the so-called international community that in June 2015 the so-called refugees, the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip protested that the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) was giving resources they deserved to other Palestinians.
The Gaza Palestinians demanded of UNRWA that it not cut the funds allocated to them, nor transfer those resources to the Palestinians who remained in the Yarmouk refugee camp in south Damascus, despite the fact 150,000 had fled the camp because of the Syrian War They also demanded that the international community, implicitly the U.S. and the EU, provide extra funding for their needs.
Perhaps because of this protest, Robert Turner, Director of UNRWA in Gaza, without reason or explanation, announced his intention to leave his position in mid July 2015. He has held that position since May 2012. His resignation might have been a cause of regret if he had not continued to refer, inaccurately, to the Gaza Strip as “Occupied Palestinian Territory.” He seems unaware that since 2007 it has been ruled by the terrorist group Hamas. He has always been a true naïve believer in the self-serving fallacious Palestinian Narrative of Victimhood.
Sometimes people in power do speak truth, or part of it, to the rest of us. On June 2, 2015, commemorating more than 65 years since UNRWA was established, the United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon remarked that it was “never meant to exist for this long.” Ban regards it as a political failure.

UN Watch: "Why is the U.N. Rewarding the Perpetrators?" — Hillel Neuer blasts election of Iran & Saudi Arabia




UN High Commissioner of Human Rights: Israel, not Hamas, Responsible for Human Rights Abuses

The UN's High Commissioner for Human Rights, Jordanian Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein, is less than a year in the job but he has already found how to win hearts and minds in the UN "human rights" world. Pick on Israel and give the Palestinians a pass.
Speaking at the opening of the 29th session of the Human Rights Council in Geneva on June 15, 2015, the High Commissioner raised concern about the human rights of Palestinians. And nothing about the human rights of Israelis. Notwithstanding ongoing rocket fire from Gaza into Israel, targeting Israeli civilians and clearly a war crime, the High Commissioner never once named Hamas. Nor did he mention Hamas abuses of its own people, which include extrajudicial killings and torture of Gaza residents. His only call to action was directed to Israel.
In his words, "The continued presence and expansion of Israeli settlements and related activities, as well as settler violence, remain at the core of most of the violations of human rights in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and I repeat my calls to Israel to end immediately the expansion of the settlements, and to address settler related-violence."

Spat with Israel lurks in new UN president’s past

Denmark’s former parliament speaker Mogens Lykketoft, who was voted in Monday by the United Nations General Assembly as president of its 70th anniversary session, has been criticized by Jerusalem in the past for meeting Palestinian officials on a visit to the region but not Israeli officials.
Lykketoft, who also served as Denmark’s foreign minister and finance minister, downplayed the February 2014 spat with the Jewish state at the time, saying he didn’t meet the Israelis because of scheduling conflicts.
According to a Channel 10 report in February, Lykketoft asked to meet then-Knesset speaker Yuli Edelstein, but the Israeli lawmaker replied he would not be able to meet Lykketoft because of prior engagements. Lykketoft did not reply and proceeded to plan the visit without including any meetings in Israel.
In an interview last year with the Jydske Vestkysten daily, Lykketoft said Ariel Sharon, the former Israeli prime minister who had then just passed away, was “a brutal military leader who was not interested in reaching an agreement with the Palestinians.”

Report: Islamic Jihad threatens to break Gaza 'cease-fire' if Israel stops new flotilla

A senior official from the Palestinian group Islamic Jihad has reportedly threatened to break the Egyptian-brokered cease-fire that ended last summer's conflict in Gaza if Israel stops any new flotillas attempting to break the naval blockade of the Strip.
According to a Channel 2 report Sunday, senior Islamic Jihad leader Khaled al-Batash said his group was closely monitoring a Swedish ship that has set sail toward the coastal Palestinian enclave.
In comments cited by Channel 2 regarding the Swedish Marianne of Gothenburg - the first boat in the Freedom Flotilla III to leave for Gaza - al-Batas said he hoped the vessel would make the same uproar in the international arena as did the Turkish Mavi Marmara flotilla did in 2010.
As the trawler left Sweden in May, a Foreign Ministry spokesman said Israel will not allow unauthorized boats to enter its territorial waters.
Without relating to the Marianne, Foreign Ministry spokesman Emmanuel Nachshon said that “if the so-called helpful Gaza flotillas were really interested in the welfare of the population in Gaza, they would send their aid via Israel. The fact that they insist on a flotilla demonstrates this is an unnecessary provocation.”

'Instead of investigating IDF, UN should probe itself'

Turning to the upcoming U.N. report, Netanyahu said, "Israel was pronounced guilty before the investigation even began. They appointed a person to head this committee who was being paid by the Palestinians. This committee has more resolutions against Israel than against North Korea, Syria and Iran combined. This tells you what we're dealing with. So this campaign, these attacks against Israel, these investigations against Israel, have nothing to do with human rights. They have everything to do with politically inspired attacks in a cynical effort to delegitimize Israel using U.N. bodies."
Opposition Knesset members also took part in promoting the Israeli government's report on the fighting in Gaza last summer. Zionist Union MK Tzipi Livni met in London on Monday with Parliamentary Undersecretary of State for the Foreign and Commonwealth Office Tobias Ellwood and presented him with the Israeli report.
"It is important that the British government have an accurate picture of the factual, ethical, and legal reality, because the U.N. report is expected to be so twisted and anti-Israel," Livni said.
Yesh Atid leader Yair Lapid said on Monday that the U.N. had "lost its mind."
"It's not the IDF -- the most moral army in the world -- that the U.N. should be investigating, but rather itself," Lapid said.
Meanwhile, Defense Minister Moshe Ya'alon said Monday that Hamas was dealt the harshest blow in its history during Operation Protective Edge.
"The criticism on the results of the operation are not consistent with the security situation on the ground," he said.

Ambassador to UNHRC: 'Israel does not behead people, we use our heads'

The UNHRC has a growing obsessions with Israel, said Manor as he spoke on the first day of its 29th session, which will last for three weeks.
Since the UNHRC’s inception in 2006 it has dispatched six fact-finding missions into Israeli human rights violations and issued at least 60 country resolutions against it,” Manor said.
This kind of behavior shows that the council “exhibits double morals and is ethically flawed,” Manor said.
“Israel does not cut off [the] hands of people. We use our hands to vote in ballot boxes. Israel does not stone women. We empower women," said Manor as he alluded to the atrocities committed by some of Israel's neighbors and regional terrorist groups.
“Amos Oz, the well-known Israeli author, says there are degrees of evil and one who cannot make a distinction ends up serving evil. You have been advised,” he warned.

If Hamas is Evil, then Israel Must be Evil Too

Schabas can’t understand how there could be a situation in the world where one side is evil and the other side is good, where one side commits war crimes, and the other side doesn’t.
Following Schabas’s logic, if Hamas sends suicide bombers to blow up civilians, then Israel must also be doing something bad.
If Hamas is kidnapping soldiers bodies and not letting the International Red Cross check on live prisoners, then Israel must also be doing something bad.
If Hamas is launching thousands of rockets on Israeli civilians, men, women and children, then Israel must be also be doing something bad.
If Hamas is building terror tunnels and tried to enter Israeli towns to massacre civilians, then Israel must be also doing something bad.
If Hamas uses human shields, then Israel must be also doing something bad.

Israel’s preemptive strike at a United Nations smear

Even as he released a comprehensive 277-page report documenting Israel’s adherence to international law during last summer’s war with Hamas, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu knew it would change no minds at the United Nations.
As Bibi said, the UN Human Rights Council investigation set to be released this week found Israel “guilty even before the examination began.” Just so.
The UN, after all, continues to all but ignore the ongoing human-rights tragedy that ISIS inflicts on Palestinians at the Yarmouk refugee camp in Syria. And the Israel-obsessed Human Rights Council closes its eyes to real war crimes in Syria, Iraq and Libya.
So expect the UN agency to declare Israel guilty of war crimes and hand the Palestinians a legal basis for bringing a case to the International Criminal Court.
Yes, the lead UN investigator, Canadian law professor William Schabas, promised to investigate Hamas “in the most neutral and objective way possible.” But it’s a safe bet that this report, like past UN studies of Israeli wars, won’t bear much relation to the facts.
Indeed, we feel confident the Israeli Foreign Ministry document is not only closer to the truth but also far more objective.

France founds Palestine as US stands by

France’s support for the Palestinian diplomatic initiatives at the UN and elsewhere deepens a lingering (although discreet) tension between Paris and Jerusalem. This growing frustration on both sides is already affecting French-Israeli strategic dialogue on key issues of the Iranian nuclear program and the future of Syria, for which France has held a closer position to Israel than the Obama Administration.
Tragically, Israel fell asleep when the Palestinians jump-started their diplomatic Intifada at the UN and other international fora. Truth be said, Israeli hasbarah failed and Israelis need to develop a comprehensive and radically new counter-strategy.
In parallel, the US Congress should deploy every effort possible to block the French initiative from the start:
(1) Seen from Jerusalem, it is biased and counter-productive as it lifts pressures from the Palestinians and bypasses Israel as a core party of the negotiations. Israelis were not consulted for the wording of the draft while the Palestinians, the Arab states, and several members of the Security Council were.
(2) There is a considerable difference between forcing a resolution and encouraging a dialogue. While the latter is desired and essential, the former is not.
(3) A French proposal is redundant with the American parameters based upon Secretary of State Kerry’s document summary of US insights from last year’s negotiations.
(4) In the words of former Israeli senior negotiator Gilead Sher, achieving a two-state solution requires replacing the old paradigm that gives exclusivity to direct negotiations for reaching an agreement of two states, with a new paradigm that allows all stakeholders – Israelis, Palestinians, the US and the international community – to take independent steps that will advance a reality of two States.

PMW: New Congressional Resolution based on PMW documentation

On June 3, 2015, Representative Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL) introduced House Resolution 293. The resolution is based on documentation provided by Palestinian Media Watch and expresses "concern over anti-Israel and anti-Semitic incitement within the Palestinian Authority." Fourteen of the sixteen examples of hate and terror promotion cited in the resolution were supplied by PMW. PMW has added links to those examples as they appear on the PMW website (see below).
The resolution has been sent to the House Committee on Foreign Affairs.
PMW is gratified that Congress is taking action to fight the PA's hate and terror promotion that PMW has exposed.

Oren: Obama ‘deliberately’ made mistakes with Israel

In an article in The Wall Street Journal headlined “How Obama Abandoned Israel,” Oren, who served as Israel’s ambassador in Washington during Obama’s first term in office, recounted various gaffes committed by the Israeli government. Currently a lawmaker with the Kulanu party, Oren cited the announcement of settlement expansion on the eve of visits by top US officials, the now infamous “lecture” Netanyahu gave Obama during a photo op in the Oval Office in 2011, and the prime minister’s speech to Congress earlier this year.
Oren absolved Netanyahu of some of the incidents, claiming that some missteps were taken by mid-level staffers without the prime minister’s knowledge (e.g., two instances where settlement expansion was announced just as Vice President Joe Biden was scheduled to arrive in Israel).
Netanyahu even apologized to Biden personally for the timing, Oren noted.
Obama, on the other hand, deliberately deviated from several long-held traditions in the US-Israel relationship, aired disagreements in the media, and pointedly skipped over Israel on his first Middle East tour after being elected, he said.
With these very public displays of dissatisfaction with Israel, Obama violated the “no sunlight,” as Oren referred to it, principle of not airing discord between the two governments.

The Israel-Saudi Labyrinth

Notwithstanding the expansion of the Iran-oriented Israel-Saudi strategic dialogue and moderate Saudi policy pronouncements, Saudi Arabia’s short-term national security interests have yet to impact Saudi Arabia’s long-term, inherent Wahhabi worldview, which rejects the “infidel” Christian, Jews and Buddhist, as well as other branches of Islam, considering a Jewish sovereignty in the Middle East an aberration to be decisively uprooted.
According to a multi-year Hudson Institute study of Saudi school textbooks – which are also disseminated to Saudi controlled mosques throughout the globe, including the US – the Saudi education system, K-12, indoctrinates children in religious intolerance and violence, which constitutes an extremely fertile ground for recruits to Islamic terrorist organizations in Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, Chechnya, Syria, Iraq, the Persian Gulf, Africa, Europe and the American continent. Most September 11, 2001 terrorists were Saudi.
Until recently – when overtaken by the Ayatollahs – the Saudi royal family was the leading world banker of Islamic (Sunni) terrorism. Covert ties with terror organizations are still sustained today via Saudi businessmen and “charitable organizations.” The Policy Department of the European Parliament concluded: “the risks posed by Salafist/Wahhabi terrorism go far beyond the geographical scope of the Muslim world. The attacks on New York, Washington D.C., London and Madrid remind us of this….”

Yair Lapid: Schabas Report Proves the UN is Out of its Mind

Chairman of Israel’s centrist Yesh Atid party Yair Lapid criticized on Monday a U.N. report on last summer’s Operation Protective Edge, saying the United Nations was “out of its mind.”
Speaking at a Yesh Atid faction meeting, the chairman said “the report was born in sin and … should get a donkey’s burial. The very establishment of this commission is another example of how the United Nations has gone out of its mind.”
Lapid called the U.N.’s focus on Israel in light of the deterioration of the general situation across the Middle East an “obsession,” which “states that the Jews are always guilty for everything.”
Lapid also noted that the investigation intentionally ignored the kidnapping and murder of three Israeli teenage boys — Gilad Shaer, Naftali Fraenkel, and Eyal Yifrah — by Hamas operatives a few weeks before the IDF launched the operation. “They chose not to investigate this dastardly action by Palestinian terrorists. If this is not hypocrisy, I don’t know what is,” said Lapid.

Gaza pullout commander says settlers will return to the Strip

The newly retired Israeli general who served as the commander of the withdrawal from Gaza in 2005 came out strongly on Monday against the notion of a two-state solution, saying that the demographic reasoning behind the removal of Jewish settlers “was a manipulation” and that Israel would yet build settlements in the Strip.
Maj. Gen. (res) Gershon Hacohen, who comes from a family of national religious rabbis and is himself a believer, was tapped to head the August 2005 Disengagement Plan precisely because of his deep ties to the settlement movement.
Over the years he has revealed how difficult the decision was for him on a personal level. On Monday, at a settlers’ conference for advocacy and media in Jerusalem, he told a semi-circle of still grieving settlers, after his formal address, that “my heart was with you there” and that “I didn’t want it to happen.”
When a man from the Jewish settlement in Hebron told him he should have served as an example and stepped down the moment he received the order, he replied, “You have no idea how much worse it would have been had I not been there.”

In Last-Ditch Effort for Peace, Israel Set to Present Gaza With More Goodwill (satire)

In what many see as a last-ditch effort to salvage the peace process between Israel and the Palestinians, Prime Minister Netanyahu announced new goodwill measures to be implemented soon.
Israel currently provides Hamas-controlled Gaza with electricity, water, food and medications. Israel’s government will now also provide them with a weekly supply of ten thousand beer kegs, two tons of Jewish pastries (chocolate and cinnamon), imported Starbucks coffee (low fat milk of course) and a 500,000 bags of party favors. In addition, and as long as Hamas keeps its rocket fire to under five launchings per month, Israel will consider supplying Gaza with two squadrons of F-16i fighter jets and five hundred Merkava Mark IV tanks.
“We will do whatever it takes to convince the Palestinians to talk peace with us, even if it kills us” said Israeli government spokesman Ari Ben Canaan.
Hamas Chief Operations Officer Aziz Al-Najaf commented to The Israeli Daily: “Israel owes us big time. We give your soldiers something to do year round; we provide your citizens with an opportunity to go jogging when they run for shelter; we allow you knock on our roofs, and all you give us is electricity, water and food for a million and a half people. What are we asking for? A few planes? A couple of tanks?”
When asked about Hamas’ long-term intentions, Al-Najaf said “we are not looking for a long-term commitment. Believe me, it’s not you, it’s me”.

Security forces arrest Islamic Jihad man on suspicion of running over 3 Israelis

Security forces arrested a 22-year-old resident of Hebron on suspicion of running over and injuring three Israelis at Alon Shvut Junction at Gush Etzion in May.
In a joint Shin Bet, IDF and Israel Police operation, Muhammad Arfaya, an Islamic Jihad member, was taken into custody, security forces announced on Tuesday.
During questioning, the Shin Bet said, the suspect confessed to acting on his own initiative to murder Israelis in Judea and Samaria.
He told interrogators that he set out on past occasions with a knife to stab Israelis, but that his efforts were unsuccessful.

Culture minister defunds Arab theater hosting controversial play

Culture and Sport Minister Miri Regev froze state funding Tuesday for an Arabic-language theater that has become embroiled in controversy over its production of a play based on the life of a killer of an Israeli soldier.
Regev’s decision to shut the spigot for the Al-Midan theater cited a recommendation by the Israel Arts and Culture Council that alleged the theater had questionable sources of funding.
The Haifa theater has been at the center of controversy for months for its play “A Parallel Time,” which documents a day in the life of a Palestinian prisoner.
The Palestinian prisoner is a fictionalized version of terrorist Walid Daka, an Arab-Israeli man who received a life sentence for abducting and murdering Israeli soldier Moshe Tamam in 1984.
Since its release, the family of Tamam has protested “A Parallel Time,” causing Education Minister Naftali Bennett to pull his ministry’s funding of the play earlier this month.

Fed Up with Madness, Artists Hold Alternative Event in Jerusalem

Artists who are disgusted with the extremist political line associated with much of the artistic community in Israel will meet Tuesday at the Tmol Shilshom coffee shop in Jerusalem at 4:00 p.m., in an ad hoc conference titled “Culture that Unites instead of Dividing.”
Ortal Tamam, whose uncle Moshe Tamam was murdered by terrorist Walid Daka, will also attend the conference. Tamam was reduced to tears by hecklers when she addressed the leftist artists' conference Sunday, and had to cut short her speech. The leftist artists opposed Education Minister Naftali Bennett's decision to stop support for a play that glorifies Daka – and a threat by Culture Minister Miri Regev to stop supporting an Arab theater company whose director, Norman Issa, refused to appear in the Jordan Valley.
The organizers say the conference is not for “right wing” artists, but for what they call “the transparent artists” – creative Israelis from the artistic and culture scene “who think differently from the artists who covened on Sunday and who are not cited in the media all of the time because they hold different views,” in the words of Aspaklaria Theater director Hagay Lober.
Co-organizer Yonatan Dobov, who manages the Gula club in Petach Tikva, wrote on Facebook: "I saw the unbridled attacks yesterday, the term 'grass-munching beasts' and especially the awful intolerance toward a bereaved niece – and I could no longer remain silent.

IDF Thwarts Infiltration Attempt in Gaza Belt

An Arab terrorist attempted to cross the border fence on Tuesday, according to 0404, from Gaza near Kibbutz Zikim.
IDF forces were forced to shoot at the infiltrator after he ignored calls to halt.
The terrorist is injured and was transferred to hospital for treatment. He is currently in moderate condition at Barzilai hospital in Ashkelon.
An IDF spokesperson confirmed to the news site that soldiers shot in the air before wounding the terrorist, as is IDF protocol when confronted by a threat.

Cyprus minister confirms foiled attack targeted Israelis, Jews

The foreign minister of Cyprus confirmed Monday that bomb-making equipment discovered last month with a Lebanese-Canadian suspect was linked to the Hezbollah terrorist group and was intended for attacks against Israeli and Jewish targets on the island.
Cypriot forces arrested the 26-year-old suspect last month when a stash of ammonium nitrate, a common bomb-making component, was discovered in the basement of the place where he was staying in the southeastern city of Larnaca, Foreign Minister Ioannis Kasoulides told reporters.
Following the arrest, Israeli reports connected the man to the Hezbollah terrorist group, which operates mainly in Lebanon and Syria.
During a press conference Monday, Kasoulides confirmed those reports.
The potential targets of the attacks would have likely been visiting Israelis and Jews on the island, the foreign minister said.

Israeli Arabs Sentenced in Wedding Hall Terror Plot

The Jerusalem District Court sentenced three Israeli Arabs to prison terms on Monday, for planning a terror attack against Jews for the Nof Yerushalayim event hall in the capital.
In its verdict, the judges stated that "the accused intended to assist terrorist organizations, whether via consultation with them or whether on their own, to attack Jews and undermine the sovereignty of the country."
Judge Yaakov Tsaban sentenced terrorists Anas Awisat and Basel Abidat to eight years in prison; terrorist Ahmed Srour was sentenced to seven years in prison.
In his decision, Tsaban cited the attacks' potential death toll - which would have been very high, as the three chose an event hall. The three chose the hall "carefully" after examining the premises, he noted, and "outlined a plan of action for killing many people."
According to the indictment, in early December 2013 Awisat and Abidat, residents of Jabel Mukaber, decided to carry out a terror attack against Israeli civilians in Jerusalem, for "nationalistic reasons" - i.e. to commit a terror attack.
They decided to carry out the attack in a banquet hall in Jerusalem, in order to kill the largest possible number of Jews.

Torah Scroll Donated in Murdered Teens' Memories

The IDF's Paratroopers' training base in Shumriya received a sefer Torah (Torah scroll - ed.) on Monday evening, in a moving ceremony attended by the families of murdered teenagers Eyal Yifrah, Gilad Sha'ar, and Naftali Frankel, as well as Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu's wife Sara.
The Torah scroll was written in the memories of the three boys, in a project funded by anonymous donors. The families specifically requested that the scroll be donated to this training base, in gratitude for the efforts the unity took to find their sons during last summer's Operation Brothers' Keeper.
While Netanyahu himself was unable to attend the event, he penned a heartfelt letter in its honor.
"In the months since Operation Brothers' Keeper to return the boys who were abducted and murdered by villains, we have not forgotten your spirit and faith," he said. "Thanks to your standing firm and your deeply noble conduct [in the weeks which follows - ed.], the nation united, and both Israeli and Diaspora Jews rallied in hope, prayer - and pain."
"The bright characters of your sons will stay with us forever," he continued. " They will serve as a symbol of love for humanity, the nation and the country."

MKs squabble over Jewish access to Temple Mount

A Knesset committee convened Tuesday to discussed a possible increase of the Jewish presence on the Temple Mount quickly deteriorated into a shouting match as MKs hurled insults at each other.
Ten minutes into a meeting of the Knesset’s Interior and Environment Protection committees, as lawmakers reviewed an initiative calling for changing the Temple Mount status quo, Balad MK Jamal Zahalka yelled at Jewish Home MK Yinon Magal, calling him a fascist.
“If I’m a fascist, then you’re a terrorist,” Magal shot back at the Israeli Arab MK.
Zahalka warned the assembled MKs that “blood will flow” if the current agreement — in which Israeli security forces restrict Jewish prayer and occasionally access to the site in an attempt to keep a shaky peace at the holy site — is changed. The meeting soon disbanded.

MKs want security beefed up for Jewish visitors to Jerusalem's mount of olives cemetery

The police must increase its presence around the Mount of Olives Cemetery in east Jerusalem, where Jewish visitors are often attacked, MKs and activists said at a Knesset Interior Committee meeting Monday.
Police Kedem District commander Chief Superintendent Chaim Shmueli recommended that a fence be built around the cemetery with gates leading to the graves.
Shmueli said 26 officers are assigned to the police station on the Mount of Olives, which is active 24 hours a day.
The meeting’s attendees pointed to continued problems of vandalism and rock-throwing, saying that the police is not doing enough.
“Either give [private] security guards more authority or increase the protection,” on the mount, MK Yoav Ben-Tsur said. “It cannot be that in the State of Israel our sovereignty is abandoned.”

Unprecedented: Gov’t to allow Muslims from West Bank, Gaza to observe Ramadan on Temple Mount

In an unprecedented move, the Defense Ministry announced on Tuesday that it will permit hundreds of Palestinians from the West Bank and Gaza Strip to visit family members, and enter Jerusalem to observe Friday prayers on the Temple Mount during the month of Ramadan.
The decision was made based on the recommendation of IDF Chief of Staff, Lt. Gen. Gadi Eizenkot as part of the policy to improve the quality of life for the Palestinian population in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, the ministry said.
In a statement issued one day before the holiday commences – and after weeks of security preparations by the IDF and government officers – the Defense Ministry’s Spokesman’s Unit announced a series of historic steps to ease restrictive traveling policies for Ramadan.
“For the first time, the arrival of worshipers will be allowed via bus directly from the city centers to the Temple Mount,” said Major-General Yoav Mordechai. “The IDF will allow the entry of all Palestinians, men and women without a special permit, with the exception of men between the ages of 30 to 40.
“The departure of 500 residents from Judea and Samaria abroad via Ben Gurion Airport has been confirmed, and 500 families from the Gaza Strip have been approved to visit residents of Judea and Samaria,” he added.

Egypt court upholds Morsi death sentence over jailbreak

An Egyptian court upheld on Tuesday a death sentence against ousted Islamist president Mohamed Morsi for plotting jailbreaks and attacks on police during the 2011 uprising.
The court had initially sentenced Morsi and more than 100 other defendants to death last month.
Tuesday’s ruling comes after the court consulted Egypt’s grand mufti, the government interpreter of Islamic law who plays an advisory role.
Earlier on Tuesday, the same court sentenced Morsi, the country’s first democratically elected president, to life in prison on charges of spying for the Palestinian Hamas movement, Lebanon’s Shiite Hezbollah, and Iran.
Tuesday’s verdicts can be appealed.

Israel Helped Obama Prevent Syria Strikes

US President Barack Obama's antipathy against Israel persists despite critical help from Jerusalem during the Syrian chemical weapons scandal in 2013, Bloomberg revealed Monday.
Obama faced an awkward moment of truth in 2013, after the Syrian regime, led by President Bashar al-Assad, was publicly accused of using chemical weapons on the Syrian people - a move which Obama had deemed a "red line" and threatened airstrikes over.
However, it was then-Intelligence Minister Yuval Steinitz and Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu who floated the US-sponsored plan for Syria to relinquish its chemical weapons supply to Russia to prevent Washington from becoming involved in another war, Bloomberg notes.
The full details will be revealed in former Ambassador to Israel Michael Oren's book Ally: My Journey Across the American-Israeli Divide.
Both Steinitz and Netanyahu allowed Obama to save face by pitching the move to Washington and the Russians, allowing the two countries to take credit for the sudden solution.

Israel to Donate $2.6 Million to Syrian Druze for Arms Purchases

Israel is set to donate $2.6 million to the Druze community in Syria for the purchasing of weapons and other items as that community comes under increased threats from Islamic terrorists, Israeli Druze Member of Knesset Ayoub Kara (Likud) said Monday.
“Israel is not a part of this fighting and doesn’t want to be, because if we say we’re going to be part of the fighting it makes it worse for our people in Syria,” Kara said, the Times of Israel reported. “But me, as a Druze guy, I’m going to do what I can to support my nation. I’m very loyal to my nation.”
According to Kara, the money was mostly raised through donations from the Israeli Druze community as well as Jews, Muslims, and Circassians who want to help protect the embattled Syrian Druze community.
Israel has also asked the United States to increase its aid to the Syrian Druze, and leaders of the Israeli Druze community met with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday to discuss the situation in Syria.

Israel sends message to Nusra Front: Cease attacks on Syria's Druse

The Druse community in Hader and in Israel is concerned over the development because the Nusra Front has sought to control Hader for some time in order to gain control of the entire Golan Heights. The al-Qaida-linked fighters number several hundred men as well as dozens of tanks that they have seized. Five Druse have been injured in the fighting, and they have been offered the chance to come to Israel for treatment, but they refused because they fear the response of the regime of Syrian President Bashar Assad.
Amid the threat to Syria's Druse community, the IDF began setting up a field hospital on the border, but they have frozen the process, as the situation has calmed. The IDF has sent messages to the Nusra Front through the Free Syrian Army, warning the Islamist group not to harm Syria's Druse.
The IDF Spokesman's Office stated that IDF Chief of Staff Lt.-Gen. Gadi Eisenkot and Defense Minister Moshe Ya'alon held a situation assessment about the plight of the Syrian Druse and spoke with the OC Nothern Command Maj.-Gen. Aviv Kochavi who reported to them that the siutation is currently calm. The defense minister ordered continued surveillance of the events and instructed the IDF to take steps to maintain the quiet.
Likud MK Ayoub Kara, who himself is a Druse, plans to ask Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Moshe Ya'alon to allow Israeli Druse to cross the border to Hader in order to provide humanitarian aid. Entering Syria without permission is illegal for Israelis and Druse who do so can be charged with entering an enemy state, or aiding the enemy.

Saudi Reporter Tweets: I Will Be Saudi Ambassador to Israel

Saudi Arabian journalist Dahham Al-Enazi expressed his desire to be appointed to his country’s future embassy in Israel, NRG reported on Monday.
“I want a Saudi Arabian embassy to be established in Tel Aviv,” Enazi tweeted on his official Twitter account, adding that “I want Saudi General and strategist Anwar Ashki to be the first ambassador to Israel and I will be happy to replace him as the second ambassador.”
Shortly after Enazi posted this week, the hashtag #NotoanEmbassyinIsrael began trending. Many using the hashtag called supposed proponents of a Saudi embassy in Israel “Arab Zionists.”
But Enazi did not back down. He said in a follow-up tweet that he would “welcome Israel’s embassy in Riyadh,” the Saudi capital.
The background to Enazi’s comment was the increased threat that the reporter felt directed at the Saudi Arabia from what he repeatedly termed “the Iranian enemy.” In earlier tweets he said that “our goal is the expulsion of the Iranian enemy from Arab countries and destroying their [nuclear program].”
This preference for Israel over Iran was highlighted in many of Enazi’s tweets. In one of them, he said “We welcome an Israeli embassy in Riyadh in the same place as the Iranian Embassy after we cooperate in fighting Iran and destroying its reactors.”

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Posted By Ian to Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News at 6/16/2015 12:00:00 PM