ISRAEL (IINO)
Netanyahu: We wiped out half of Islamic Jihad’s leadership in one blow
May 16, 2023 – ‘Something has changed,’ says the prime minister after Operation Shield and Arrow. “The message has been delivered.”
Israel’s recent air campaign against the Islamic Jihad terrorist organization in the Gaza Strip restored Israel’s deterrence in the region, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Monday, comparing the operation to the conflict with Hamas two years ago.
Speaking at a Likud party meeting Monday afternoon, Netanyahu touted Operation Shield and Arrow as a major success and a definitive victory over Islamic Jihad, claiming that the five-day campaign had wiped out half of the terrorist group’s leadership, and restored quiet to southern Israel.
“I came now from Ashkelon. I was at the marina and I met smiling, happy people, who are sitting in the cafes and supporting the government’s determined fight against terrorism,” Netanyahu said.
“Something has changed. We came to change the deterrence equation and not for the first time. The most significant change in the balance of deterrence took place two years ago in Operation Guardian of the Walls,” the prime minister continued, referencing the May 2021 conflict with Hamas.
EU officials engage in public spat over new conditions for Palestinian aid By Ariel Kahana
“The Palestinian Authority is in a difficult situation and it risks bankruptcy if financing from the EU is blocked,” Foreign policy chief Josep Borell says after parliament passes new measure. Commissioner for neighborhood and enlargement says EU’s action aimed at ensuring that PA adheres to its standards of coexistence.
05-16-2023 12:22 – A rare public clash between EU officials took place in recent days after the 27-member body announced unprecedented measures to potentially cut aid to the Palestinian Authority over its incitement to terrorism.
On Wednesday, the European Parliament declared that the 300 million euros ($326 million) per year it gives to Ramallah are set to be conditioned on removing “the problematic and hateful material in Palestinian school textbooks and study cards”.
Commissioner for Neighborhood and Enlargement Oliver Varhely tweeted following the decision that “we have a shared interest to ensure an education for the next generation that supports peace & coexistence.” He added, “The budgetary authority’s request to condition EU financial assistance to the Palestinian Authority to full adherence of its textbooks and study cards with UNESCO standards is duly noted. To this end, Commission will reach out to the Palestinian Authority without delay and finance a 2nd study on Palestinian textbooks to support this constructive engagement.”
Lack of Gaza strategy means another round of hostilities is already in the making By Tamir Hayman
Israel continues to operate without any master plan relating to the Palestinian theater as it refrains from making any clear decision as to where it is headed.
05-15-2023 22:10 – Operation Shield and Arrow was an extremely impressive success from a tactical military point of view. The Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) was dealt a severe drubbing, its senior commanders were taken out, its assets damaged and Israel was not made to pay any diplomatic price in return for the eventual cease-fire. The curtain-raiser to the operation was a precision strike involving a focused targeting effort to eliminate three senior PIJ figures, following a decision not to take immediate ‘hot-blooded’ action but to wait and then exact a much more painful price, based on precision intelligence information. The ability to successfully target an additional three senior PIJ terrorists later on during the operation was an even more impressive achievement, especially as once they realize they are on the ‘wanted list’ they evidently tend to go to ground.
Cities across Israel go on strike to protest tax transfer plan
The so-called “Arnona Fund” would see wealthier municipalities subsidize poorer ones with local business property taxes.
A strike by municipalities in protest of the government plan by Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich to transfer funds from wealthier cities to less affluent ones entered its second day on Tuesday.
The Federation of Local Authorities, which represents around 200 municipalities, launched the open-ended strike on Monday, and included cities like Tel Aviv, Holon, Ramat Gan, Givatayim, Kfar Saba, Ra’anana, Rishon Lezion, Herzliya, Hod Hasharon, Modi’in, Ramle, Ness Ziona, Ashdod, Hadera, Haifa, Nesher, Beit She’an, Kiryat Ono, Shoham, Ganei Tikva, Yokne’am, Maale Gilboa and Eilat.
Several regional councils were also reportedly participating in the strike, which is affecting basic services for residents and shuttering the education system. Jerusalem, Lod, Ashkelon and Harish are not participating.
At issue is a proposed business property tax fund that would see wealthier municipalities subsidize lower-income communities to incentivize the construction of affordable housing. The Knesset’s Finance Committee on Sunday approved the inclusion of the “Arnona Fund” as part of the Arrangements Bill presented alongside the 2023-2024 state budget. The Arrangements Bill includes the government’s economic priorities.
“This law is not acceptable to the Federation of Local Authorities,” Modi’in-Maccabim-Reut Mayor Haim Bibas said on Sunday, according to Arutz Sheva. “We oppose it and have opposed it from the beginning. It is contrary to any concept of municipal rule and central government-municipal government relations.”
Israel under Fire and The West’s Pusillanimous Response by Richard Kemp
May 14, 2023 at 5:00 am
- Neither Ukraine nor Israel has any territorial ambitions or aggressive intent against their attackers — both Ukraine and Israel are fighting purely defensive wars to protect their civilian populations.
- There is another common factor. Islamic Jihad in Gaza is an Iranian proxy terrorist group, funded and directed from Tehran. Iran’s hand is behind this conflict….
- I do not recall any Western government or international body suggesting moral equivalence between the aggressor and the defender in the Ukraine war, but that is exactly what we have seen repeatedly in this and previous conflicts between Israel and Gaza with the UN Secretary General calling on “both sides” to exercise restraint.
- Unlike the immediate condemnation of Russian violence, we have seen only silence in the US and Europe since Islamic Jihad’s rockets began to fall on Israel. The best we have heard from the White House is that “Israel has the right to protect itself”, a statement of the blindingly obvious. None of this is good enough when what is needed is the strongest support for Israel and the most blunt condemnation of Islamic Jihad, along the lines we see over the Ukraine war.
- The usual media suspects, such as the BBC and CNN, both cheerleaders for Ukraine’s defensive operations, have predictably been doing their best to slant their coverage against Israel.
- As we can see from the Western approach to Ukraine as well as wars everywhere, no other country that is unlawfully attacked by a foreign power is portrayed as the aggressor or at best on a par with the attacker…. The IDF takes the greatest possible care to defend its civilians while avoiding unnecessary casualties among civilians on enemy territory, frequently aborting attacks when there is the risk of killing innocent people….
- Gaza terrorist leaders, on the other hand, make sure their wives and children are nearby and ready to die whenever there is the risk of attack against them. They deliberately position their weapons stores, missile launch sites and fighters among the civilian population, including in schools, hospitals and occupied residential buildings. The IDF will frequently warn civilians to get out of the area when preparing an attack. Understanding how this undermines their policy of causing maximum casualties on their own civilians in order to achieve international condemnation of Israel, terrorists in Gaza have warned their citizens that anyone who complies will be punished.
Who Wants to Destroy Israel? You Might Be Surprised. by Guy Millière
May 15, 2023 at 5:00 am
- It is the first time in Israel’s short history that a large-scale movement has been launched using undemocratic means to overthrow a democratically elected government.
- The new government, in fact, is trying to restore democracy – by reforming Supreme Court practices that were adopted starting in the 1990s, which allow unelected, unaccountable Supreme Court justices to deliver rulings based on “reasonableness” rather than on written law – often meaning, “whatever I think is reasonable”. Israel’s Supreme Court is currently said have “virtually limitless power’: it asserts the right to veto both political appointments and military decisions; it has no mechanism for recourse, and no requirement for “standing” — meaning that the litigant need not be directly affected by the decision, such as having a personal wrong righted. On the contrary, anyone can directly petition the Supreme Court, anytime, about anything. The last provision has opened the floodgates for lawsuits by “concerned” non-governmental organizations dissatisfied with decisions Israel has taken. In addition, sitting Supreme Court justices – not the electorate and not the parliament – have the power to approve or veto any appointment of new justices, leading to a closed “club” in which no one is flustered by dissent.
- The Biden Administration, staffed by many of the same people who were in the Obama Administration, has behaved as an enemy of Israel from day one. The Administration quickly restored US funding to the Palestinian Authority without asking it to stop supporting terrorism or even to stop inciting violence. The Biden Administration then opened a U.S. Office of Palestinian Affairs and installed, as “special representative for Palestinian affairs”, Hady Amr who has admitted being “inspired by the Palestinian intifada”.
Jews and the Land of Israel: Part X: Wording of the Balfour Declaration and the San Remo Declaration By Alex Grobman PhD.
23 Iyyar 5783 – May 14, 2023 – *Editor’s Note: This is the tenth installment in the most recent series of articles from Jewish Press Online contributor, Alex Grobman, PhD
Allen Z. Hertz, formerly senior advisor in the Privy Council Office serving Canada’s Prime Minister and the federal cabinet, suggests we should consider why those drafting the Balfour Declaration and the San Remo declaration didn’t use the words “establishment of Palestine as the national home for the Jewish people” or “establishment of Palestine as national home for the Jewish people.” They were not chosen, he contends, “Because the British government “never intended to give the Jewish People all of historic Palestine i.e. the whole territory both east and west of the Jordan River. The Balfour Declaration and the San Remo treaty were drafted to reflect the intention that there would be the establishment of a national home for the Jewish people in Palestine, but not that all of Palestine would be created as the national home for the Jewish people.” [1]
The Palestinians’ Other Jihad Against Israel by Bassam Tawil
May 16, 2023 at 5:00 am
- The Palestinian Authority (PA) wants the International Criminal Court (ICC) to issue arrest warrants against Israeli leaders and punish them for speaking out against, or combatting, terrorism.
- Instead of demanding that ICC punish the terrorists — who are intentionally firing rockets at Israeli civilians — the PA is asking the court to prosecute Israelis for launching operations to counter terrorism.
- The PA… according to the Oslo Accords is officially supposed to be Israel’s peace partner and to prevent terrorism and violence….
- At the heart of the PA’s campaign against Israel is the argument that Israel has no right to target terrorists… involved in terrorism against Jews. Instead, Israel should agreeably allow its citizens to be killed.
- Mahmoud Abbas and his associates, instead of denouncing the terrorists for indiscriminately firing rockets at Israeli civilians, is actually supporting the terrorists — both financially in a pay-for-slay “jobs program,” as well as verbally. In this regard, the PA is not only abrogating its commitments under the Oslo Accords and international law, but is acting as an enemy of Israel — not a peace partner.
The Palestinian Authority Is Trying to Have It Both Ways, But It Can’t By Hugh Fitzgerald
May 14, 2023 – Israel is doing its best to help the Palestinians economically. It recently raised the number of permits allowing Palestinians to work in Israel, to 100,000 for those living in the West Bank and 20,000 for those living in Gaza. Those jobs pay more than twice what Palestinians earn at home. And when relative calm is restored, Israel could raise that number still further. But Israel will continue to withhold, from the taxes and tariffs it collects for the PA and transfers to it, an amount equal to what the PA spends on its “Pay-For-Slay” program. The minute the PA gives up that program, which rewards past, and incentivizes future, terrorism, Israel will willingly transfer the full amount of what it has been withholding. More on the PA’s refusal to accept the challenge can be found here.
IDF detains terrorists who shot and wounded two soldiers Ido Ben Porat
The IDF arrested terrorists who shot two soldiers, wounding them in the PA village of Huwara.
May 14, 2023, 10:06 AM (GMT+3) – This morning, the IDF apprehended the two terrorists who carried out the shooting attack in the PA-controlled village of Huwara on March 25, 2023, wounding two IDF soldiers in Shechem (Nablus).
The two arrested terrorists have been named as 24-year-old Iyad Tahruri and 21-year-old Zaev Mezar, residents of Shechem.
During the operation, soldiers surrounded the hideout where the two were trying to evade capture and instructed the terrorists to come out. The two were apprehended after turning themselves in with an M16-type weapon, cartridges, and ammunition in their possession. The suspects were transferred for further questioning. No soldiers were injured in the raid.
The shooting attack in March left two Kfir Brigade soldiers in their 20s – Eilon Tzobal and Uri Hajabi, both students at the pre-military yeshiva in Sderot, injured. They were treated at the scene before being evacuated to Beilinson Hospital.
Following today’s raid, all the terrorists who participated in the murder of the Yaniv brothers and American-Israeli David Stern have been apprehended by security forces.
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[Ed.: Yes, I found a mistake! Terrorists who shoot us are not civil criminals, they are enemy combatants. You shoot and kill them, not arrest them.]
Group funded by Israeli government to host ‘Nakba Day’ event
Culture Minister called on to enforce law against Tishreen Association, which received NIS 142,050 from the ministry last year.
May 14, 2023, 4:20 PM (GMT+3) – The Tishreen Association will hold an event at its headquarters in the city of Tayibe to mark ‘Nakba Day’ tomorrow, which will be hosted by the left-wing Lochmim L’Shalom (Combatants for Peace) organization.
Pro-Palestinian organizations often hold ‘Nakba Day events on May 15 to mourn the failure of the effort to destroy the nascent State of Israel in 1948.
Tishreen received NIS 142,050 in funding from the Israeli Culture and Sports Ministry in 2022. In 2021, the organization received NIS 134,235 from the Culture Ministry.
Section 3-b of the Budget Foundations Law authorizes the Finance Minister to reduce funding to an organization that carries out “activity that is contrary to the principles of the state,” including by “commemorating Independence Day or the day of the establishment of the state as a day of mourning.”
Related articles:
- ‘UN Nakba event destroys any chance of peace’
- Bernie Sanders gives Rashida Tlaib venue for ‘Nakba Day’ event
- McCarthy is a ‘moral giant’ for blocking Tlaib’s Nakba event
- Kevin McCarthy torpedoes Rashida Tlaib’s planned Nakba day event
Shai Glick, the CEO of the B’Tzalmo organization, wrote to Culture and Sports Minister Miki Zohar to demand that he enforce the law by removing the Tishreen Association’s funding
[Ed.: Nothing wrong with that; we pay our enemies to kill us here in the U.S. as well. It’s the new ‘normal’.]
Warning sirens sounded in southern Israel – despite ceasefire
Less than a day after ceasefire between Israel and Islamic Jihad goes into effect, warning sirens sounded in Ashkelon, Gaza frontier.
May 14, 2023, Updated:8:02 PM – Less than 24 hours after a ceasefire between Israel and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad terrorist organization went into effect, officially ended Operation Shield and Arrow, Red Alert sirens were heard Sunday in the southern industrial zone of Ashkelon and in Kibbutz Zikim.
Sirens were also reported in Gaza frontier towns.
According to an IDF spokesperson, one rocket launch was detected in the Gaza Strip. The rocket landed in an open field, and there are no reports of injuries or damage.
An official from the Joint Room of the Palestinian Resistance Factions – the unified front of Gaza terrorist groups which claimed responsibility for the recent rocket attacks – said Sunday’s launch was accidental, telling Al Jazeera that the organization remains committed to the ceasefire with Israel.
“The rocket fired at Israel was the result of a technical malfunction. We are still committed to the ceasefire.”
[Ed.: Oops! A friend wrote, when he heard about IINO possibly agreeing to a cease fire, “WTF? Israel agreed to a cease-fire. That’s bullshit. They need to bomb the fuck out of them.” Eloquent! I wish I could have been quoted for saying that!]
Netanyahu: Our operation against Islamic Jihad was ‘perfect’
May 14, 2023, 4:58 PM (GMT+3) – Israeli prime minister brags of ‘perfect’ operation in Gaza. ‘We eliminated dozens of terrorists, hit missile arsenals, anti-tank units.’
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu touted the recently completed Operation Shield and Arrow against Islamic Jihad terrorists in the Gaza Strip as being “perfect” in its execution, claiming the operation surprised the terrorist organization.
Speaking at the weekly cabinet meeting Sunday, Netanyahu lauded Israeli security forces for the operation, which led to the elimination of six top Islamic Jihad terrorists and dozens of other members of the organization.
“Last night, we successfully concluded five days of fighting against the Islamic Jihad terrorist organization. Before starting the operation, the directive I gave, together with the Defense Minister, to the IDF and ISA amounted to two words: ‘Initiative’ and ‘surprise’.”
[Ed.: He’s got that WRONG! If it was “perfect”, Gaza would be a parking lot. Maybe he should set his standards of perfection a bit higher? If Israel’s government was leading us through the Sinai desert today, we would still be lost…]
In light of ceasefire: Southern Israel returns to normal life
At 12:00, Homefront Command restrictions on the Gaza periphery will be gradually removed. Erez and Kerem Shalom crossing partially open.
May 14, 2023, 8:11 AM (GMT+3) – In light of the ceasefire announced on Saturday night between Israel and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad terror group, the IDF Homefront Command decided Sunday morning to gradually loosen restrictions put in order during Operation Shield and Arrow.
All restrictions were removed from towns in the Western Negev, Central Negev, Western Lachish, and Lachish areas.
At noon, the restrictions on the Gaza periphery will be removed as well. Despite this, only minimized activity will be allowed in these areas, and educational activities will not take place, this excludes special education, which can be held if the students can reach a shelter on time.
Places of work can operate in places where it is possible to reach a shelter.
Gatherings and services in these regions are restricted to 10 people in open areas and up to 100 in a building. Beaches are closed to the public.
COGAT Maj. Gen. Ghassan Alian announced the partial and gradual openings of the Kerem Shalom and Erez crossings.
[Ed.: Kumbaya!!! Isn’t that special!]
Scholars expound on Mount Ebal curse tablet with oldest Hebrew text By Etgar Lefkovits, JNS
The 3,200-year-old find could prove Israelites were literate when they entered the land.
May 13, 2023 – A lead tablet found at a site where millions of Jews and Christians believe the Israelite leader Joshua built an altar contains the oldest Hebrew text ever found in the Land of Israel as well as the name of God, an academic article published Friday concludes.
The peer review of the small 3,200-year-old curse tablet discovered at Mount Ebal in Samaria more than two years ago is expected to reignite the debate in the archaeological community over the find. It could prove the Israelites were literate at the time as well as shed light on the date of the Exodus from Egypt.
“The text … is the oldest Hebrew text found within the borders of ancient Israel … by at least two centuries,” the article published in Heritage Science states.
“The big point here is that we have evidence of Hebrew writing in Israel earlier than has previously been established, as well as mention of two of names of the Hebrew God, all from the site where the Bible said Joshua built an altar,” Scott Stripling, the provost at the Bible Seminary in Katy, Texas, who uncovered the tablet, said in a telephone interview with JNS.
… “You are cursed by the god, yhw, cursed. You will die cursed—cursed you will surely die. Cursed you are by yhw-cursed,” a translation of the inner inscription reads, according to the article.”
[Ed.: I admit to having a somewhat demented sense of humor, but I find it hilarious that the oldest Hebrew text ever found would say essentially ‘FUCK YOU’!]
