12/14 Links Pt1: PA’s baby killers; Palestinian Leaders Have a Disturbing Idea of "Heroism"; NY Times Described Deadly Drive-By Shooting as “Bold”; How Europe Has Gone Astray on Iran ~ EoZ

From Ian:

NYPost Editorial: Palestinian Leaders Have a Disturbing Idea of "Heroism"

Propaganda from Hamas and Fatah, the rulers of Gaza and the West Bank, routinely sings the praises of the “heroes” and “martyrs” who slaughter Israeli civilians in the name of justice for the Palestinian people. Obscenely, that even extends to the murderer of a 4-day-old baby.

Little Amiad Yisrael Ish-Ran perished Wednesday, just four days after his delivery by emergency Caesarian at 30 weeks — surgery made necessary when he and his mother, Shira, were badly wounded in a West Bank shooting (as was his father, Amichai).

Hamas’ military wing, the Izz ad-Din Al-Qassam Brigades, took “credit” for the attack, but both rival Palestinian groups praised the killer, Saleh Omar Saleh Barghouti — himself killed Wednesday resisting arrest.

Hamas called the attack a “heroic and qualitative operation” serving “to affirm our people’s legitimate right to resist the occupation.” Fatah called him a “heroic martyr of the homeland,” with lots of poetry about his blood spreading a fine scent on the wind.

As with all Palestinians who commit the political murder of any Israeli, the late killer’s family will qualify for a substantial stipend from the Palestinian Authority.

You don’t have to support Israel to find this beyond barbaric.

Soldiers killed in West Bank terror attack named as Yovel Mor Yosef, Yosef Cohen

A pair of Israeli soldiers killed in a terror shooting in the central West Bank were identified on Thursday evening as Staff Sgt. Yovel Mor Yosef, 20, and Sgt. Yosef Cohen, 19.

Mor Yosef was from the southern city of Ashkelon. Cohen was a resident of Beit Shemesh. Both were members of the Kfir Brigade’s Netzah Yehuda infantry battalion, a unit for religious soldiers.

The army said Mor Yosef and Cohen were posthumously promoted from the ranks of sergeant and corporal respectively after they were killed by gunfire in the attack outside the Givat Assaf settlement outpost.

Mor Yosef’s funeral will be held at the Ashkelon military cemetery at 11:00 a.m. on Friday. Cohen will be buried in Jerusalem at 10:30 a.m. on Friday morning.

A third soldier was critically injured in the shooting and underwent surgery for a gunshot wound to the head at Hadassah Hospital Ein Karem in Jerusalem on Thursday. A civilian woman was also seriously wounded.

Mor Yosef’s uncle told reporters his nephew was supposed to return home Thursday, but volunteered to remain with his unit to give other soldiers time off.

“His life goal was to serve in a combat unit. This is what he did and wanted. He really enjoyed serving, [he] contributed and volunteered,” Sami Mor Yosef said.

Thousands attend funerals of soldiers killed in West Bank attack

The two Israeli soldiers killed in Thursday’s terror shooting in the central West Bank were buried on Friday, solemnly and fondly remembered by their families, friends and commanders.

Sgt. Yosef Cohen and Staff Sgt. Yovel Mor Yosef were members of the Kfir Brigade’s Netzah Yehuda infantry battalion, a unit for ultra-Orthodox soldiers.

Mor Yosef and Cohen were posthumously promoted from the ranks of sergeant and corporal, respectively, after a Palestinian shot them dead in the attack outside the Givat Assaf outpost. A third soldier was critically injured in the shooting, and a civilian woman was seriously wounded although her condition was improving Friday.

Cohen’s funeral began at the Shamgar funeral home in Jerusalem, where hundreds of people mourned the 19-year-old resident of Beit Shemesh, including Deputy Defense Minister Eli Ben Dahan (Jewish Home), MKs Moti Yogev (Jewish Home) and Oren Hazan (Likud), and Jerusalem Mayor Moshe Lion.

“Yosef, sweet child, righteous child, I never believed we would come to this moment,” Cohen’s stepfather, Rabbi Eliyahu Merav, said in his tearful eulogy. “For years I raised you, you great, holy, pure child… full of love, giving and soul.”

Cohen’s father, Eitan, had died when he was young, and his mother — who like other women didn’t speak at the funeral in accordance with ultra-Orthodox custom — married Merav.

“Dear Eitan, are you happy with your dear child, now? Are you dancing with him up there?” Merav addressed Cohen’s late father.

Khaled Abu Toameh: The Barghouti clan’s jihad against Israel

Saleh Barghouti, the 29-year-old Palestinian who was killed on Wednesday night by the IDF near the village of Surda, north of Ramallah, belongs to a clan whose members are famous for carrying out a series of terrorist attacks against Israel in the past four decades.

The IDF says that Saleh belonged to the cell that carried out the shooting attack outside Ofra, which resulted in the nine Israelis wounded. An infant boy was delivered prematurely after his mother was seriously wounded in the attack and died on Wednesday.

Saleh was the most recent member of the prominent Barghouti clan to be involved in terrorist attacks against Israel. The clan has several families that live in the villages of Kobar, Aboud, Bani Zeid and Beit Rima in the Ramallah area. Saleh was from Kobar.

Saleh’s father, Omar, 65, spent more than 25 years in Israeli prison for his role in terrorism. The father was first arrested by the IDF in 1978 for killing an Israeli citizen and was sentenced to life in prison. However, Omar, who is known as Abu Asef, was released seven years later in a prison exchange. Since then, he has been repeatedly held in administrative detention for several years. Omar entered Israeli prison as a member of Fatah, but later became a prominent leader of Hamas.

A clan member also named Omar Barghouti is a founding member of the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic Boycott of Israel and co-founder of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions Movement (BDS). Omar was born in Qatar.

JPost Editorial: PA’s baby killers

Another act of unfathomable cruelty has been added to the annals of Palestinian history with the murder of Amiad Yisrael Ish-Ran. There is a direct line between the Palestinian sniper who killed 10-month old Shalhevet Pass in her stroller in Hebron in 2001 to Saleh Omar Barghouti, who the IDF said shot at Amiad Yisrael in utero this week.

Amiad’s mother, Shira, was 30 weeks pregnant when Barghouti shot her and six other Israelis at a bus stop outside the town of Ofra.

Shira had to undergo an emergency Caesarean to deliver her baby, and the doctors in Jerusalem’s Shaare Tzedek Medical Center fought for three days to save his life, to no avail.

Barghouti shot Shira in the stomach only because she is Jewish. Amiad Yisrael was murdered only because he is Jewish. He died so young, at only three days old, that his name was only announced at his funeral. It means “my Nation of Israel forever,” signifying that the Jewish people will not be terrorized out of their homeland.

Hamas has praised this act of barbarism, and after security forces shot and killed him, Palestinian social media accounts praised Barghouti as a hero and martyr.

Meanwhile, all you hear is a deafening silence from the Palestinian Authority. As Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said earlier this week: “There is no reason to expect a condemnation from the Palestinian Authority. They only contribute to the incitement here.”

Haim Silberstein, grandfather of Amiad Yisrael Ish-Ran, the baby who was murdered in a Palestinian terror attack, delivers a gut wrenching eulogy as baby Amiad is laid to rest in #Jerusalem, #Israel

May Amiad's memory be a blessing, may his family know no further suffering. pic.twitter.com/lPnHkmGcOS
— StandWithUs (@StandWithUs) December 13, 2018

Eyewitness to Deadly West Bank Terror Attack Tells Media: ‘It’s a Miracle I’m Talking to You Right Now’

An eyewitness to Thursday morning’s terror attack at the Givat Asaf junction in the West Bank that left two Israeli soldiers dead has recounted the incident to the Israeli media.

Shari Arviv was waiting at the junction when the shooter burst out of a passing car and opened fire on a crowd of soldiers and civilians. Along with the murdered soldiers, two other people — one soldier and one civilian — were severely wounded.

“I haven’t digested it,” Arviv told the Hebrew news site Mako. “I could have been in the place of any one of the dead.”

“I was standing at the hitchhiking stop,” she said, “and I waited for them to collect me to go home … suddenly a blue car stopped and I thought they had come to collect me. And then a man with a weapon came out. I saw his weapon, he fired several times, and I heard a lot of shots.”

“I only remember that I ran and kept running, I don’t know how far — if it was kilometers or meters — until I saw an army jeep,” she recounted. “I shouted to them, ‘Hurry! Hurry! There was a shooting, come quick!’ I remember I saw people fallen on the ground, I remember people screaming for help — I’m just in shock, it’s a miracle I’m talking to you right now.”

Israel continues manhunt, braces for violence as Hamas calls for ‘day of rage’

As Israel continued its manhunt Friday for the gunmen who killed two soldiers in the central West Bank, security forces readied for possible further violence as the Palestinian terror group Hamas called for a “day of rage” to mark the anniversary of its founding.

On Thursday, a Palestinian opened fire at a bus stop outside the Givat Assaf settlement outpost in the West Bank and killed Sgt. Yovel Mor Yosef, 20, and Cpl. Yosef Cohen, 19, while another soldier and civilian were wounded.

Troops searched for the terrorists overnight in the Palestinian city of Ramallah, the Israel Defense Forces said.

Soldiers arrested 40 Palestinians throughout the West Bank suspected of involvement in terror and rioting, 37 of whom the IDF said were known Hamas operatives.

“The IDF will continue to act to thwart terrorism and maintain security in the area,” the army said in a statement.

IDF beefs up troops in West Bank, steps up manhunt, after 2 soldiers killed

The Israeli military deployed additional infantry battalions to the West Bank on Thursday, following a spate of terror attacks in the area, including a shooting earlier in the day in which two Israeli soldiers were killed and two other people were severely injured.

The Israel Defense Forces also established a dedicated command center — made up of officers and soldiers from the Kfir Infantry Brigade, which specializes in counter-terrorism — to lead the effort to find the perpetrator of the shooting attack at a bus stop outside the Givat Assaf outpost in the central West Bank.

The army refused to specify the number of additional battalions it was deploying in the West Bank. An IDF spokesperson said the reinforcements would assist in the search for the shooter and any accomplices, as well as provide additional protection to settlements and the area’s roadways.

The past week has seen a significant increase in the level of violence in the West Bank and Jerusalem. Before dawn on Thursday morning, a Palestinian man stabbed two border guards in the Old City of Jerusalem, lightly injuring them, before he was shot dead by the officers.

On Thursday afternoon, a Palestinian terrorist opened fire at the bus stop near Givat Assaf, killing two soldiers, critically injuring a third and seriously wounding a civilian woman, before fleeing the scene.

Soldier wounded in West Bank terror shooting continues to fight for his life

An Israeli soldier critically injured in Thursday’s terror shooting in the central West Bank remained in very serious condition on Friday morning, while other Israelis hurt in several attacks this week continued to recover.

The soldier suffered severe gunshot wounds to his head during the attack by a Palestinian gunman at a bus stop near the Givat Assaf settlement outpost, in which two other soldiers were killed.

“After he underwent complex head surgery last night, he is currently sedated and on a respirator in the intensive care unit, and his life is still in danger,” said a spokesperson for Hadassah Hospital Ein Kerem in Jerusalem.

The condition of a civilian woman who was also wounded in the terror attack was improving. The woman, who has been named as Shira Sabag, was seriously injured and had undergone “successful” surgery at Jerusalem’s Shaare Zedek hospital on Thursday, the medical center said.

Sabag was slated to be transferred Friday from the hospital’s recovery unit to a different ward.

Staff Sergeant Yovel Moryosef (20) and Sergeant Yosef Cohen (19) were killed during the shooting attack that took place earlier today.
We express our heartfelt condolences and will continue to support their families.
May their memory be a blessing. 🕯 pic.twitter.com/Z3KnirEwvs
— Israel Defense Forces (@IDF) December 13, 2018

Father of one young men killed today. Ultra-orthodox now, served in the army in his youth. Is very proud of his son for serving. The last words he said in his house were thanking God for the privilege of guarding over the nation of Israel. This is utterly heartbreaking pic.twitter.com/tQyhNTDXKv
— Shoshanna Keats Jaskoll (@skjask) December 13, 2018

IDF Soldier In Critical Condition After Fresh Terror Attack Outside Beit El

A Palestinian man infiltrated an IDF army post outside the town of Beit El in southern Samaria on Friday morning, bashing the head of an Israeli soldier with a rock and seriously injuring him before fleeing to a nearby Arab enclave.

According to Israel Defense Forces reports, the terrorist broke into the position, just outside Ramallah. A fight ensued between the infiltrator and a soldier, during which the attacker smashed his head with a rock. The 21-year-old soldier was evacuated to Jerusalem’s Hadassah Ein Kerem Hospital in serious condition, unconscious and hooked up to a ventilator. Doctors said his condition was life-threatening.

The attack took place just a few miles from a shooting attack Thursday at a bus stop near Givat Asaf junction, which claimed the lives of two IDF soldiers and seriously injured two additional people, as well as a drive-by shooting at a bus stop outside Ofra Sunday, which seriously injured seven and claimed the life of a baby whose pregnant mother was shot.

There is now a manhunt underway for the attacker, as well as for several Palestinians from the attacks of the previous week.

Terrorist infiltrated through opening in wall left by High Court

The IDF and the Judea and Samaria Civil Administration sealed on Friday an opening in the protective wall near Bet El, through which a terrorist infiltrated to attack a soldier.

The IDF also demolished an old abandoned Arab stone structure that was located several dozen meters from the wall, on the Jewish side. The High Court had ruled that the opening in the wall must remain in order to allow the Arab owner access to the structure.

The terrorist stabbed the soldier and threw a large rock that hit his head.

He escaped, unharmed into Arab territory, and apparently headed for Ramallah.

After being treated on the scene, the soldier was evacuated to Hadassah Ein Kerem Medical Center in Jerusalem in serious-to-moderate condition.

Upon his arrival at the hospital, the soldier’s condition was listed as serious.

Palestinian terrorists are incited and rewarded by the Palestinian Authority for murdering Israelis

Brutal Palestinian terror continues to take the lives of innocent Israelis. This week alone, 3 Israelis were murdered by Palestinian terrorists, who are incited and financially rewarded by the Palestinian Authority for murdering Israelis.

Palestinian Cleric Nasser Maarouf: A Martyr Killed by Jews Receives a Double Reward; Jihad must be Continued, Abandoning It Causes Discord pic.twitter.com/V6jQE32Z2m
— MEMRI (@MEMRIReports) December 14, 2018

Former Hamas Leader Khaled Mashal Calls for West Bank "Guerrilla Warfare," States: "I Resist, Therefore I Am" pic.twitter.com/OyZr0Ehc0q
— MEMRI (@MEMRIReports) December 14, 2018

NY Times Described Deadly Drive-By Shooting as “Bold”

All kinds of things — ambitious, vibrant, exciting things — are characterized as “bold” in the pages of the New York Times.

So far this month, the adjective has been used to describe the flavors of a Spanish red; a rendition “Oklahoma”; a residential zoning plan that could address Minnesota’s affordable-housing crisis; the confident style of French president Emmanuel Macron; political maneuvers by Theresa May; an Indian investor’s purchase of so many airplanes; the arrest of an international criminal suspect; a choreographer’s collaboration; the signing of an All-Star lefty; people brave enough to criticize the Houthis; disco beats on a pop album; how women should behave, according to wall art at a non-profit; the way Paul Manafort deceives with a smile; an unusual architectural design; an actress’s stage presence; the type of progressive political decisions Jay Inslee thinks we need; excitingly provocative imagery at the opera; engineering projects; a music recording; geometry; and colors.

And today, that same word, “bold,” is used to describe a Palestinian drive-by shooting that took the lives of Israelis at a bus stop. “Palestinians sought in two deadly attacks were gunned down by Israeli security forces after intense manhunts,” reports David Halbfinger, “but hours later a bold midmorning drive-by shooting on Thursday killed at least two Israelis and raised fears that the West Bank was heating up into a new phase of violence.”

IDF chief visited UAE twice in recent weeks, Arab media reports

IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Gadi Eizenkot visited ‎the United Arab Emirates twice over the past month, ‎Lebanon's Al-Akhbar newspaper reported Friday.‎

According to the report‎, during both visits to Abu Dhabi, Eizenkot met with Crown Prince ‎Mohammed bin Zayed. ‎

The meetings focused on a potential Israeli arms ‎sale to the UAE, the report said, adding that ‎Eizenkot and the crown prince also discussed a visit ‎by UAE defense officials to Israel. ‎

The Lebanese daily further alleged that Prime ‎Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was looking to normalize ‎Israel's relations with Bahrain.‎

Quoting American Israel Public Affairs Committee ‎President Mort Fridman, the report said that Saudi ‎Arabia, Bahrain's regional patron, has given the tiny ‎Gulf emirate its blessing to set up an economic ‎mission in Israel and to host a corresponding ‎Israeli mission in Manama.‎

The report further said that Netanyahu was currently ‎exploring visiting Bahrain, as part of his efforts ‎to promote diplomatic normalization between the ‎Jewish state and the moderate Sunni states in the ‎Persian Gulf. ‎

Australia warns citizens ahead of expected Jerusalem move

Australia on Friday warned citizens to take care while travelling in neighbouring Muslim-majority Indonesia, ahead of an expected but contentious move to recognise Jerusalem as Israel's capital.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison is expected to announce -- as soon as Saturday -- that his government will follow US President Donald Trump's lead and recognise the contested city as Israel's capital.

Scores of Australians preparing to jet off to Bali and other tropical island destinations for upcoming summer holidays should "exercise a high degree of caution", the Department of Foreign Affairs warned.

Officials in Canberra told AFP they expected the announcement to come on Saturday, the Jewish Sabbath, but cautioned that events could yet alter those plans.

Both Israel and the Palestinians claim Jerusalem as their capital. Critics say declaring Jerusalem the capital of either inflames tensions and prejudges the outcome of final status peace talks.

Natalie Portman Calls Israel's 'Nation-State' Law 'Racist'

Oscar-winning actress Natalie Portman, who was born in Israel, told a BBC reporter that Israel’s nation-state law is "racist, and there's nothing else to say about that."

Portman, who has slammed Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu before, added, “It's wrong and I disagree with it. It's hard to be from a place where you don't have choice, where it's political. It's the people you love, and their lives are personally affected by all the decisions politicians make. I just hope to be a part of changing that and making us truly love our neighbors, and working with our neighbors. It's like your family: You love them the most but you're also the most critical."

After Hamas instituted riots on the Israeli border last spring, Portman, who originally accepted the award, refused to attend a ceremony where she would receive the Genesis Prize. The Genesis Prize Foundation said Portman’s representative stated “[r]ecent events in Israel have been extremely distressing to her and she does not feel comfortable participating in any public events in Israel” and that “she cannot in good conscience move forward with the ceremony.”

Israeli Culture minister Miri Regev fired at Portman, "I was sorry to hear that Natalie Portman fell into the hands of the BDS supporters. Portman, a Jewish actress born in Israel, joins those who tell the successful, wondrous founding of the State of Israel as 'a tale of darkness and darkness.'"

IsraellyCool: Saeb Erekat on Fire…Well, At Least His Pants

The epic evisceration of Chief Palestinian propagandist Saeb Erekat I posted a few weeks ago was apparently only part of his Conflict Zone experience. Following the interview was a Q&A with the audience, and while the questions were not nearly as bold as those he received from Tim Sebastian, his lies most certainly were.

Allow me to deal with the worst of them.

Israel engages in mass executions of peaceful protesters
We already know there are no mass executions and these peaceful protesters are really violent rioters with a bloodlust.

Note he makes this accusation right after speaking about a lung transplant. What he did not mention was how he received medical help in Israel. Clearly, he couldn’t, because how would that jibe with his narrative of a genocidal, cruel regime?

He doesn’t have any gripe with Judaism, and this is a territorial conflict
Except he is on record as attacking Jewish biblical figure Joshua, well before this so-called “territorial conflict.”

Saeb Erekat, the chief Palestinian negotiator over the weekend again ruled out the notion of Palestinian recognition of Israel as a Jewish state. Speaking at a Munich conference, on a panel with his Israeli counterpart Tzipi Livni, Erekat said the demand was unacceptable: “When you say ‘accept Israel as a Jewish state’ you are asking me to change my narrative,” he claimed, asserting that his ancestors lived in the region “5,500 years before Joshua Bin-Nun came and burned my hometown Jericho.

JCPA: Israel Security Agency’s Long Reach in the West Bank

A Blow to Hamas and Iran

The arrest and elimination of these terrorists has struck a blow to Hamas and Iran, which instructed Hamas to incite the West Bank to create another front with Israel. Israel is currently facing Hamas in the Gaza Strip in the south, the Hizbullah terror tunnels in the north, and the establishment of an Iranian presence in Syria designed to open an additional front against Israel from the Golan Heights.

During the first two weeks of December, there was growing criticism in Israel for the security forces’ failure to apprehend Naalwa. However, ISA worked thoroughly and professionally to successfully track him down before he carried out another terror attack.

The elimination of Naalwa was a big failure for Hamas, which had taken him under its wing and tried to turn him into a “symbol of the resistance” and a role model for emulation.

In recent weeks, Hamas conducted a social media campaign calling upon the Palestinian public to help Naalwa hide and continue his work. However, the long arm of ISA still got to him.

ISA’s operation was also a blow for Saleh al-Arouri, vice-chairman of the Hamas political bureau and leader of its military wing in the West Bank, who handled the sleeper cells via his office in the Hizbullah headquarters in Beirut, the headquarters for West Bank operations in the Gaza Strip, and the Hamas office in Istanbul, Turkey. Sleeper cells are recruited in the West Bank and handled by former prisoners released under the Shalit prisoner exchange deal, who were deported to the Gaza Strip and Turkey.

Settlers rebuild the Amona outpost to protest terror attacks

Settlers on Friday announced that they had begun to rebuild the Amona outpost to protest what they fear is a new wave of West Bank terror attacks.

“This is the basic Zionist response to Arab terror,” the Binyamin Regional Council said.

The IDF forcibly evacuated the outpost in 2017. It did so in response to a High Court of Justice ruling that the outpost was built on private Palestinian property and must be evacuated.

To compensate the 40 Amona families Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu authorized and built the first new West Bank settlement in close to 25 years. It is located near the Shiloh settlement and is called Amichai.

The Binyamin Regional council said that with the help of private donations settlers legally purchased 40 dunams of land on the Amona hilltop located on the outskirts of the Ofra settlement.

On Friday morning, the council announced it had erected two modular homes at the site of the former Amona hilltop community.

PA security forces use batons to beat Hamas protesters in West Bank

Palestinian Authority police cracked down on a Hamas protest in the southern West Bank city of Hebron on Friday, beating demonstrators with batons and throwing stun grenades.

Some 50 Hamas activists confronted Palestinian forces after Muslim prayers on Friday, as the terror group marked the 31st anniversary of its establishment.

An Associated Press cameraman said Palestinian police brutally beat Hamas activists to disperse the protest, injuring five and arresting 15.

Meanwhile, street clashes between Israeli soldiers and Palestinian protesters erupted outside Ramallah, with protesters slinging rocks and soldiers responding with tear gas.

Palestinian policemen used force to break up a pro-Hamas demonstration in Hebron. pic.twitter.com/YFob2LPhRe
— Khaled Abu Toameh (@KhaledAbuToameh) December 14, 2018

Hizballah’s Manufacture of Precision Missiles Poses a Strategic Threat to Israel That Grows Graver by the Day

Since 2011, Jerusalem has carried out over 100 strikes on Iranian forces in Syria to curb Tehran and its proxy army, Hizballah, from positioning sophisticated weaponry and military infrastructure on Israel’s northeastern border. Jerusalem has, however, refrained from attacking Hizballah’s similar infrastructure in Lebanon. Yet, writes Tony Badran¸ the Jewish state can’t turn a blind eye to the military build-up in Lebanon forever:

[W]ith Iranian assistance, Hizballah has embarked on what Israeli officials refer to as the “missile precision project”—an effort to upgrade its large arsenal of rockets with guidance systems, increasing their accuracy, and thereby changing the severity of the threat they pose. . . . [While] Iran and Hizballah had little choice but to absorb Israeli strikes in Syria, hitting targets inside Lebanon would precipitate retaliation. As Israel worked to reduce the threat from Syria, the threat from Lebanese soil therefore continued to grow. . . .

With Iran and Hizballah holding their positions in Syria, and no longer concerned about the collapse of their Syrian client Bashar al-Assad, the Lebanon problem is now firmly back at center stage. Hizballah and its Lebanese government are betting the bipartisan embrace by U.S. policymakers of the fiction of Lebanese state institutions—which in reality are controlled by, and provide institutional cover for, Hizballah—will complicate any Israeli decision to act against the strategic threat being posed by Iran. [But] it seems unlikely that Israel will accept a large arsenal of guided missiles controlled by Iran and targeting its major population centers and strategic sites as part of a new regional status quo.

Instead of confining itself within Hizballah’s preferred rules of engagement, and thereby cementing the group’s dangerous delusion that it has achieved deterrence—a delusion that is likely to lead to further aggression—Israel might consider throwing the ball in Hizballah’s court. If [the terrorist group] thinks itself immune in Lebanon, even now that the Syrian war is decided, it should think again. . . .

How America Helps Hezbollah

The United States has, for more than a decade, been responsive to the face that Lebanon shows it — and seems unaware, unconcerned, or unwilling to deal with the other face.

The US government has provided military training and weapons — plus $1.5 billion in aid — to the government of Lebanon since 2006, which marked the end of the war that Hezbollah instigated against Israel. The goal of this aid was to encourage Beirut to abide by the terms of UN Security Council Resolution 1701, and to allow the LAF to operate in the south and on the border with Israel as a closer-to-neutral force.

A Pentagon spokesperson told Reuters in May:
The United States remains committed to supporting Lebanon’s sovereignty, stability, security, and its state institutions, to include the Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF) as the professional, multi-confessional and sole legitimate armed forces of the Lebanese state.

She noted that the United States considers the LAF “the sole legitimate defender of Lebanon’s sovereignty.”

But in the 12 years since the 2006 war, UNIFIL and the LAF have failed to establish or defend Lebanese sovereignty separate from Hezbollah. The United States pays for the fiction that the Hezbollah government in Beirut will order the LAF to fight the Hezbollah army in the south.

Israel has no territorial aspirations in Lebanon. But the Trump administration’s current policy helps Hezbollah threaten it in a way that can easily lead to more and bigger wars.

How Europe Has Gone Astray on Iran

Europeans – especially the EU under the direction of foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini – have been doing everything in their power to undermine US efforts to recreate pressure on Iran as a starting point for a new negotiation with Iran that would cover its nuclear, missile and regional activities.

The latest steps in the ongoing and determined European effort to obstruct the Trump administration’s pressure campaign vis-à-vis Iran include the €18 million “support package” extended to the Islamic regime, and, more significantly, the Special Purpose Vehicle that France, Britain and Germany are seeking to put in place in order to evade US sanctions. These states envision an alternative payment system that will skirt the global financial system, and enable them to continue trade with Iran despite US sanctions.

So far they have not succeeded in setting up the system – Austria, Luxembourg and Belgium refused to host it, although France and Germany have recently pledged to do so – and Iran is threatening that “they will not wait forever” for the EU to implement “operational solutions” to Trump’s pressure campaign. Iran President Hassan Rouhani has even threatened that due to the effect of sanctions, Iran will not be able to stop drugs, refugees and terrorism from pouring into Western states.

As far as the nuclear deal is concerned, the Europeans place all blame on the Trump administration for leaving the deal, rather than on Iran for its ongoing regional and missile-related aggressions. The Europeans continue to maintain that “the deal is working” because Iran is fulfilling the minimal concessions that it made according to the JCPOA.

But do the Europeans not recognize that there are serious flaws in the nuclear deal? Do they not understand that because of these flaws, the deal that was achieved is a far cry from the originally stated goal of the P5+1, which was to achieve a comprehensive and final deal that would prevent Iran from becoming a nuclear state? And don’t they see that it is in everyone’s interest to try to strengthen the deal, especially in light of the fact that Iran has become an even more aggressive regional actor since the JCPOA came into force?

MEMRI: Reports: Leading Muslim Brotherhood Anti-Semitic, Jihad-Inciting Religious Leader Yusuf Al-Qaradawi Removed From Interpol's Wanted List

Reports And Clips On Al-Qaradawi From The MEMRI Archives

Media reported today that the Qatar-based Egyptian cleric Yusuf Al-Qaradawi, who heads the International Union of Muslim Scholars and is considered a spiritual leader of the Muslim Brotherhood, has been removed from Interpol's "wanted" list and that all international arrest warrants against him have been dropped.[1]

MEMRI has published numerous reports on Al-Qaradawi over the years – for example, on his 2006 justification of killing Israeli women and children in suicide operations, his 2005 praise for jihad and martyrdom, his view, expressed in 2004, that Jews should be excluded from interfaith dialogue, his May 2013 wish for personally dying as a martyr, and his fatwa calling for abducting and killing American civilians in Iraq.

He is also known for making virulent and specifically anti-Semitic statements. In January 2008, he said on Al-Jazeera TV that Allah had imposed Hitler upon the Jews to punish them, and called for a second Holocaust, saying, "Allah willing, the next time will be at the hand of the believers" – i.e. the Muslims.

Al-Azhar Cleric Saeed Numan: Male and Female Fetuses Can Be Married Off to Each Other by Their Guardians pic.twitter.com/REMREhaO2M
— MEMRI (@MEMRIReports) December 14, 2018

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