The three Israelis killed in a terror attack at the Har Adar settlement Tuesday were named as border policeman Solomon Gavriyah, 20, and civilian security guards Youssef Ottman, 25, from Abu Ghosh and Or Arish, 25, a resident of Har Adar.

A third civilian — the head security officer of Har Adar — was seriously injured in the attack. He underwent surgery at the Hadassah Hospital Ein Kerem in Jerusalem after suffering two bullet wounds and his condition was later described as stable and moderate.

According to police, the assailant arrived at the rear entrance of the settlement northwest of Jerusalem and opened fire on a group of security personnel, including Border Police officers and the community’s private guards, who were opening the entrance to Palestinian workers.

Gavriyah was from the central Israeli community of Be’er Yaakov. He was posthumously promoted to staff sergeant. Police said in a statement that he had joined the Border Police for his mandatory national service and had recently been serving as a policeman in the Jerusalem seam area along the boundary with the West Bank.

He will be buried at 5 p.m. in the Be’er Yaakov military cemetery. He is survived by his parents, two sisters and a brother.

Ottman was a resident of the Arab Israeli community of Abu Ghosh, close to Har Adar. He was expected to be buried later in the day in his hometown.

Arish’s funeral was scheduled for 4:30 p.m. at the Givat Shaul cemetery in Jerusalem.

Thousands of mourners gathered on Tuesday afternoon to pay their final respects to the three Israelis who were killed by a Palestinian terrorist in the Jerusalem-area settlement of Har Adar earlier in the day.

Border policeman Solomon Gavriyah, 20, civilian security guards Youssef Ottman, 25, from Abu Ghosh and Or Arish, 25, a resident of Har Adar were laid to rest in separate funerals on Tuesday afternoon.

Gavriyah was buried in his central Israel hometown of Beer Yaakov, in an emotional ceremony that saw several family members collapse from grief. In Jerusalem, Arish was buried in the city’s Givat Shaul Cemetery, with the funeral closed to the press.

In the nearby Arab Israeli town of Abu Ghosh, hundreds attended the funeral for Ottman. The burial was held in both English and Arabic, and was attended by police officials, Knesset members, and town mayor Issa Jaber.

Friends of Border Policeman Staff Sergeant Solomon Gaviria described him as an "outstanding pupil with a big heart who loved the country and wanted to protect it."

Dozens of family members, neighbours and acquaintances descended on the Gaviria house in Beer Yaakov. Gaviria joined the Border Police a year and a half ago and served in the Jerusalem corridor. A year ago he was lightly wounded in an attack near the site of today's attack. The incident occurred on a Shabbat during a patrol on the fence of Har Adar. A terrorist jumped out of the bushes and stabbed him in the hand.

One of Gaviria's officers related that despite his wounds Solomon fought back and succeeded in fending the terrorist off. Friends added that after he recovered from his wounds he insisted on returning to service.

Gaviria is survived by two sisters and a brother.

The leader of the Ethiopian community in Beer Yaakov, Baruch Boglah, said that "for many years I have known this heroic boy. A year ago he was injured in the war with terrorists, recovered and returned to serve. Unfortunately today we heard the worst possible news. He grew up here, learnt and excelled."

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called on Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas to condemn the Har Adar terror attack Tuesday morning that killed two security guards and one border police officer, and not to justify it.

Speaking before the weekly cabinet meeting, Netanyahu said that the attack is the result – among other things – of “systematic incitement by the Palestinian Authority and other elements.”

"The security forces will continue to take action against incitement and terrorism as they have been doing night and day and we, of course, will finish the investigation of the incident and will discuss together the next steps," Netanyahu said.

Netanyahu said that the home of the terrorist, 37-year-old Nimer Jamal from Beit Surik, will be destroyed, and that the IDF has secured a closure around the village. Additionally, all work permits for the members of Jamal's extended family will be revoked.

President Reuven Rivlin responded to the attack, saying the nation's hearts are with the families of the victims. "The brutal terror attack exposes once again the daily reality that Israeli security forces, who are on the front lines, have to deal with," said Rivlin. "We will continue to confront terror and put our hands on the attackers and their backers."

Terrorist murderer’s family will be rewarded by the PA:
6,000 shekels paid immediately
2,600 shekels each month for life

The 3 Israelis murdered this morning by a Palestinian terrorist have not yet been buried and Abbas’ Fatah Movement is already celebrating the killings.

Right after this morning’s terror attack in Har Adar northwest of Jerusalem, where terrorist Nimr Mahmoud Ahmed Al-Jamal shot and murdered an Israeli border police officer, two security guards and wounded another Israeli, Fatah’s Nablus Branch hurried and glorified the attack and the terrorist’s “Martyrdom” with this post on Facebook:

“What is the homeland?
It is the longing to die in order to return the right and the land that were stolen.
A morning scented with the fragrance of the Martyrs (Shahids).”
[Facebook page of the Fatah Movement - Nablus Branch, Sept. 26, 2017]

On its official page, Fatah honored the killer by posting his picture, calling the attack “an operation” and the murderer a “Martyr”:

Posted text: “The one who carried out the operation in Jerusalem (sic., Har Adar) is Martyr (Shahid) Nimr Mahmoud Ahmed Al-Jamal.” [Official Fatah Facebook page, Sept. 26, 2017]

Fatah’s referring to the terrorist murderer as a Shahid (Martyr), is the highest praise that Fatah could give. Defining the terrorist as a “Shahid” means that he “died for Allah.” Fatah is telling Palestinians that murdering Israelis is something that their god, Allah, desires, and for which the “Martyr” will be rewarded in Heaven.

Mahmoud Abbas’ advisor on religious affairs, Mahmoud Al-Habbash, has explained the value of being a Shahid - “Martyr”:

The United States and the United Nations quickly condemned Tuesday’s terrorist attack in Har Adar, and called for a condemnation of terrorism. The short statement by the UN special envoy twice made note that the attack took place in a “settlement.”

“I condemn this morning’s shooting attack by a Palestinian perpetrator in the Har Adar settlement in which one Israeli policeman and two security guards were killed, and another was seriously injured,” read the statement issued by UN special envoy Nickolay Mladenov just four hours after the attack – the first international condemnation issued.

“It is deplorable that Hamas and others continue to glorify such attacks, which undermine the possibility of a peaceful future for both Palestinians and Israelis,” he said. “I urge all to condemn violence and stand up to terror.”

The introduction to Mladenov’s comment read: “Statement by United Nations Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process, Nickolay Mladenov, on today’s attack in a settlement in the occupied West Bank.”

The US Embassy in Tel Aviv and the US Consulate in Jerusalem, in an unusual move, issued a joint statement condemning the attack. That statement made no reference to Har Adar as a settlement.

Israeli security forces on Tuesday reportedly arrested the father and brother of the Palestinian terrorist who shot dead three Israelis in Har Adar, near Jerusalem, earlier in the day.

Palestinian media reports said Nimer Mahmoud Ahmad Jamal’s relatives were arrested by IDF and Border Police officers when they raided the attacker’s hometown of Bayt Surik in the West Bank.

The army confirmed three people were arrested in the operation, but did not identify them.

The IDF said in a statement that Bayt Surik was sealed off by security forces to prevent any accomplices from escaping or evidence destroyed.

“As part of the operation, IDF and Border Police forces swept the village, raided the terrorist’s home and blockaded the village. Various forces and intelligence methods were deployed, visible and hidden, in the roads and paths [around the village] in order to ensure security in the area,” the military said.

The IDF imposed a closure on the West Bank village of Bayt Surik on Tuesday after one of its residents shot and killed three Israeli security officers earlier in the day at the neighboring Har Adar settlement.

According to the military, residents of the Palestinian village can enter it freely, but will “only be allowed out in humanitarian cases.”

After the attack, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced that Israel would demolish the terrorist’s home and rescind the work permits held by the terrorist’s relatives.

Early Tuesday morning, the terrorist, identified as 37-year-old Nimer Mahmoud Ahmad Jamal, took a pistol out of his shirt and shot at a group of security officers who were opening the back gates of Har Adar to Palestinian laborers.

The Palestinian father of four who killed three Israelis at Har Adar on Tuesday morning was a “completely normal” and “good-natured” man who worked as a cleaner for a group of families at the settlement, one of the residents who employed him said soon after the shooting.

Interviewed on Israel Radio, Michal Avidor said she was “on my way to the school to tell my children that the man who’s been cleaning our house for the past two and a half years was the terrorist.” The gunman was identified as Nimer Jamal, 37, from the adjacent village of Bayt Surik.

Nimr Mahmoud Ahmed Jamal, who carried out a terror attack at the Har Adar settlement on on September 26, 2017 (Facebook)

Avidor said she was astounded when she realized who the terrorist was. “I started to figure it out when they said he was a father of four from the village.”

“This was a man who we talked with,” she said, “whom my children gave drinks and food.”

She said she felt completely shocked by the incident, and that the first thing she wanted to do when she got home from telling her children was to completely clean her house.

The families of Palestinian terrorists should be deported to Syria, Housing Minister Yoav Galant (Kulanu) said on Tuesday morning as he stood at the site of the terror attack by the back gate of Har Adar that claimed the lives of three Israelis.

Those who engaged in terror, “have to pay a price," Galant said.

“If you want to live side by side in cooperation, in liberalization and in freedom with the Israelis and work here, you are very welcome.

“If you want to kill Israeli kids, we will deport you, not to Gaza, but to Syria. You are not allowed to stay here,” Galant said before heading to the weekly government meeting in Jerusalem.

He was one of many Israeli politicians who blamed the attack on the Palestinian Authority for inciting and educating its people to violence against Israel.

“It is not something that started right now and today. If we want to make sure that the roots of terror are eliminated in this region, we need make sure that the Palestinian Authority behaves differently,” Galant said.

37-year-old Nimer Mahmoud Ahmad Jamal, who shot dead three Israeli security men outside of the Har Adar settlement near Jerusalem on Tuesday, had familial problems and was left by his wife weeks ago, according to the Shin Bet.

“An initial investigation into the attack indicated that the assailant had personal and familial problems including those related to domestic violence,” the Shin Bet said in a statement. “It was also discovered that the assailant’s wife fled to Jordan a number of weeks ago and left him with their children.”

Jamal, a resident of Beit Surik, was the father of four children and had a permit to work in settlements in the West Bank. According to Channel 2, he was fired from his job in Har Adar four years ago.

In a farewell message to his wife on Monday evening, Jamal praised her and admitted that he had not treated her well.

“I swear to God that the mother of Bahaa, my wife, truly was a righteous spouse and compassionate mother,” he said. “I was the one who treated her poorly only because of my foolish jealousy.”

Jamal also said that the attack he would carry out is unrelated to his wife.

Hamas spoke highly of a deadly shooting attack on Tuesday outside the Har Adar settlement near Jerusalem.

“Once again Jerusalem proves that it is the heart of the conflict with the occupation,” Hamas spokesman Hazim Qassim said in a statement on his Facebook page. “The operation this morning in northern Jerusalem is a new chapter of the Jerusalem intifada and... an affirmation that our uprising youth will continue to fight until the people and land are completely liberated.”

Even though Hamas has said it does not want war with Israel at the present moment, it has encouraged shooting, ramming and knifing attacks against Israelis in the West Bank and Jerusalem.

In Tuesday’s attack, a Palestinian assailant opened fire on Israeli security personnel outside Har Adar, leaving three dead and one severely wounded, police said.

The attacker, a laborer from Bayt Surik, a village east of Har Adar, was shot dead at the scene, police added.

Qassim also said the attack is a popular rebuke of the Palestinian leadership in Ramallah’s approach to pursue freedoms and recognition in international bodies.

“The operation today indicates that our people reject the logic of begging for rights at international institutions. Our people will preserve their rights and holy sites with their soul and blood,” he said.

A Palestinian terrorist shot and killed an Israeli border policeman and two civilian guards outside the Israeli community of Har Adar, which straddles the Green Line near Jerusalem. A fourth Israeli is currently hospitalized in moderate condition. The Palestinian was killed by responding security forces.

According to media reports, the 37-year-old Palestinian, Nimer Mahmoud Ahmad Jabbar, was a father of four from a nearby village and had a permit to work in Har Adar. After arousing the suspicion of the guards, Jabbar pulled out a pistol, hitting his victims at close range.

For the Daily Mail’s Mail Online, however, the use of scare quotes around “terror attack” appeared to question whether this was actually what occurred.

Shortly after HonestReporting contacted Mail Online, the scare quotes were removed.

In addition, the murdered Israelis were not soldiers but a border policeman and two of the community’s private security guards. HonestReporting has also requested a further correction.

The Palestinian attacker who shot and killed three Israelis and injured a fourth this morning at a community northwest of Jerusalem, and was fatally shot in the process, has been admitted to the supernal psychiatric section and remains under quarantine, an angelic spokesman told reporters this afternoon.

Archangel Gabriel announced at a noontime Pearly Gates press conference that Nimer Mahmoud Ahmed Aljamal, 37, of the village of Beit Surik, was bring kept under observation in isolation until a more permanent disposition can be found appropriate, following reports that the father of four had physically abused his wife, causing her to flee to Jordan, and displayed other signs of emotional and psychological instability.

“We’ve seen more and more of these patients recently,” observed Gabriel. “Unfortunately, instead of seeking treatment for, or simply confronting, their problems, Palestinians in emotional distress of various sorts have taken to getting themselves killed in attempts to kill Jews, thereby ending their earthly misery and guaranteeing generous lifetime pensions for the family they leave behind. While Allah and the Heavenly host acknowledge the appeal of such a course of action, we nevertheless remain concerned that it betrays an attitude and psychological state ill-suited to eternal bliss, and are therefore keeping Mr. Aljamal under observation, and will determine at a later date whether he can be safely released to inhabit the afterlife.”

In short, until Trump came along, the Palestinians won this major concession for free. Now, by refusing to declare a two-state solution as his goal, he has essentially told the Palestinians, for the first time in the history of the peace process, that every concession they previously pocketed is reversible unless and until they actually sign a deal. In other words, for the first time in the history of the peace process, he has told the Palestinians they have something to lose by intransigence. And if they want to reinstate America’s commitment to a Palestinian state, they will have to give something in exchange.

The same goes for Trump’s refusal even to mention the Palestinians in his UN speech. When former Secretary of State John Kerry repeatedly insisted that the Palestinian-Israeli conflict is the world’s most important foreign policy problem (a message routinely echoed by European diplomats), that gave the Palestinians tremendous leverage. Since they have always been the more intransigent side, the easiest path for any broker to follow is to simply support more and more Palestinian demands without requiring any substantive Palestinian concessions in return and then try to pressure Israel into agreeing. Thus, if world leaders are desperate to resolve the conflict, they will naturally tend to take that easy path in the hope of producing quick “achievements,” which is, in fact, what has happened over the last two decades. The result is that the Palestinians have concluded they can keep getting more simply by continuing to say no.

In his UN speech, Trump sent the opposite message: There are a lot of important foreign policy issues, like North Korea and Iran, and the Palestinian issue is so trivial by comparison that it doesn’t even merit a mention. In other words, though Trump would like to broker a peace deal, it isn’t necessary for America’s own interests. And therefore, it’s only worth investing time and effort in it if Palestinians and Israelis are both actually ready to deal, which means the Palestinians will have to be ready to finally make some concessions.

There are ample grounds for skepticism about whether Trump’s approach will work; based on the accumulated evidence of the last quarter century, I consider it far more likely that the Palestinians simply aren’t interested in signing a deal on any terms. Nevertheless, there is a plausible alternative theory. Perhaps Palestinians keep saying no simply because doing so has proven effective in securing more concessions. And if that’s the case, then reversing this perverse set of incentives by telling them they stand to lose from intransigence rather than gain by it could actually be effective.

Whether he succeeds or fails, Trump deserves credit for trying something new. Given the failure of his predecessors to achieve peace, only State Department bureaucrats could imagine that doing the same thing one more time would somehow produce different results.

It’s a well kept secret that Israel is very active in helping other countries solve problems – especially in Africa. Israelis are particularly adept in helping African nations improve their ability to grow crops and expand their food sources. They teach them how to get more milk from cows and more eggs from chickens. They assist in productive irrigation and efficient crop growth. Israelis assist other nations with health care, computer technology and communication services. And, of course, Israel aids countries with their infrastructure development, security and defense.

And most of the deals between Israel and these other nations – many of whom refuse to acknowledge Israel’s existence, let alone shake the hand of an Israeli in public, are initiated and inked behind closed doors at UN committees and during annual GA gatherings.

One of the main accomplishments of Prime Minister Netanyahu’s recent trip to Central and South America is the decision to have Israel join Mexico and the United States in helping develop the countries of Central America. The reason that is so significant is because Israel has already perfected a method of helping and assisting countries develop along these very lines. That experience is through the UN.

Years ago prime minister David Ben-Gurion famously referred to the UN by its Hebrew acronym – “Ha’Oum.” Ben-Gurion said “oumsmoom.” At the time many member nations were openly and virulently anti-Israel. That has not changed much. Many bodies within the UN are still anti-Israel and the United Nations is still a platform for an ugly, deplorable form of antisemitism.

That hasn’t changed. Yet things have changed – Israel has changed.

Today Israel contributes greatly to the UN and, by extension, to the world. Those contributions are what makes the world a better place and slowly moves publicly antagonistic countries closer to recognizing Israel as a contributing member of the nations of the world.

For that, this New Yorker is willing to put up with a few days of congestion and traffic.

Less than two years into the disastrous nuclear deal signed by president Barack Obama, Iran already seems to be violating its barely-extant side of the agreement. Israeli intelligence appears to have learned that International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspectors were denied entry into a critical Iranian military installation and didn’t bother getting into a number of other sites of suspected nuclear research and development. Trump has better intel than we do, and he seems to agree. Speaking to reporters aboard Air Force One, Trump declared that Iran had “violated so many different elements” of the deal that the US would no longer “stand for what they’re doing.”

With a deadline for Iranian sanctions relief coming up this October, many had come to believe that Trump might just scrap what he called “the worst deal ever.” Iranian President Hassan Rouhani responded just a few days ago with the not so veiled threat that Iran would “react swiftly” to an American nixing of the deal. Apparently trying to intimidate the US, he added that “if the US wants to increase the tensions, it will see the reaction from Iran.”

And with all this circling, Trump was set to give his first address to the global community.

It was as though the world itself had set a momentous stage for the American president.

He delivered.

Trump offered a speech of moral clarity, unequivocal in its denunciation of the world’s most evil regimes. In some of the strongest terms available to a head of state, Trump went after what he called “the scourge of our planet” – the cynical, violent band of “rogue regimes” known more specifically as North Korea and Iran.

Speaking on September 25, 2017, at the UN Human Rights Council session dedicated to the demonization of Israel, agenda item 7, Malaysia accused the democratic state of Israel of violating every single human right.

In its words: "The world continues to witness successive generations of the Palestinian people enduring under the Israeli illegal occupation, being subjected to atrocious and wide-ranging human rights violations. Records show that no human right of the Palestinians that [sic] has not been violated, including their right to self-determination."

Israelis and Palestinians have engaged in inflammatory rhetoric that violates UN Resolution 2334, which condemns settlement activity, UN special coordinator for the Middle East peace process Nikolay Mladenov said on Monday.

He presented the UN Security Council with his third report on the resolution since its approval last December, in which he gave both Israelis and Palestinians a failing grade.

“I, once again, urge both parties to demonstrate their commitment to rejecting violence, inflammatory rhetoric and provocative actions,” Mladenov said.

During the Temple Mount crisis in July, Hamas and senior Palestinian Authority officials called for a “day of rage.”

“Hamas and others continued to openly glorify attacks, describing the murder of three Israelis at their home in Halamish as “heroic,” Mladenov said, adding, however, that Abbas explicitly condemned that attack.

Israeli officials, including Netanyahu, he said, have used “provocative rhetoric” in support of settlement activity. “Other senior Israeli politicians also made repeated calls for annexation of the West Bank, with one Member of Knesset expressing his desire to ‘destroy’ hopes for Palestinian statehood, and stated that ‘there is room to define and realize the national aspirations of one people only – the Jewish people.’” During the last three months, Israelis and Palestinians did not take steps to “reverse negative trends on the ground that are imperiling the two-state solution,” he said.

Reports this month have indicated the island kingdom of Bahrain will soon take steps to normalize ties with Israel, ending seven decades of a diplomatic boycott of the Jewish state.

And some experts who spoke with The Times of Israel say they have noticed a tendency in recent years for Bahrain to speak publicly about its relations with Israel.

However, at the same time, analysts argue it’s unlikely Bahrain would normalize ties with the Jewish state without any serious developments in the peace process between Israelis and Palestinians.

By normalizing relations with Israel, Bahrain, a Sunni monarchy struggling to hold its grip over the Shiite majority populace, would bleed too much political capital, they said, while getting nothing in return that it can’t get from Israel now, including business and security deals made under the table or through third parties.

The current discussion over Bahrain-Israel ties improving revolves around statements made by Rabbi Marvin Hier, who is the dean and founder of the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles, California, and by the associate director of the center Rabbi Abraham Cooper, both of whom met with the Bahraini king in Manama, the tiny Persian Gulf state’s capital, on February 26.

Despite an all-time low in relations between the Riyadh government and the Palestinian terrorist organization Hamas, a leading Saudi newspaper has offered a cautious welcome to the current reconciliation process between Hamas and its rival Fatah as they prepare for next week’s session of the Palestine National Council in Gaza — the first such meeting in three years.

“That Hamas and Fatah will confront their differences and resolve their issues allows for a new phase of Palestinian politics that will bring back the focus on ending Israel’s occupation and the Palestinian campaign for statehood,” the English-language Saudi Gazette stated in an editorial on Saturday. “No lasting peace with the Palestinians can exclude Hamas and its supporters.”

The editorial suggested that Hamas still has opportunity to get back into the good graces of Saudi officials if it falls into line behind the kingdom’s “Arab Peace Initiative,” which calls for a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

“Hamas should become part of the Palestinian political system rather than remaining outside it, upending any serious negotiations or a potential peace deal,” the paper said. “A united Palestinian people is more conducive to a successful peace process than Palestinians split and in conflict.”

At the same time, the paper urged caution with regard to the fruits of any Hamas-Fatah rapprochement, pointing to six failed attempts since 2007 — when the Fatah-dominated PA was violently expelled from Gaza — to bring the two sides together.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Tuesday Israel was concerned over a rise in anti-Semitism, after a right-wing nationalist party won seats in Berlin's parliament.

"Israel is concerned over the rise of anti-Semitism in recent years among political elements from the right and left, as well as from Islamist elements," Netanyahu's office quoted him as saying in a phone call with the German leader.

While Netanyahu seemed to be referring to the results of the Sunday general German election, the Israeli leader stopped short of naming the Alternative for Germany (AfD) party, which won about 13 percent of the general vote -- the best showing for a nationalist force since World War II.

In his conversation with Merkel, Netanyahu "called on the new government that would be formed to act to strengthen the forces in Germany that accept the historic responsibility" of the Holocaust, his office said.

"Israel rejects any attempt to deny the Holocaust," Netanyahu said, noting that Germany also remained responsible for the historic event.

"There are two things -- Holocaust denial, and denial of the responsibility," he said.

Key members of AfD have challenged Germany's culture of atonement over World War II and the slaughter of six million Jews in the Holocaust.

The leader of the far-right political party Alternative for Germany (AfD) Monday questioned why Israel’s existence should remain a German national interest, following his party’s third-place finish in Sunday’s election.

“If Israel’s existence is part of the German national interest then we would have to be prepared to send German soldiers to defend the Jewish state,” AfD co-leader Alexander Gauland told reporters Monday, referring to the issue as “problematic” for Germany.

Gauland reiterated his position in an interview with the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung newspaper, saying, “German society doesn’t really understand what the significance is. That is, that German soldiers would fight and die alongside Israeli soldiers.”

The far-right leader’s comments came during the same press conference in which he said Jews have nothing to fear from his party’s electoral victory.

“There is nothing in our party, in our program, that could disturb the Jewish people who live here in Germany,” he said.

A Palestinian who was part of the cell that murdered Malachi Rosenfeld in June 2015 was sentenced late on Monday by the Judea Military Court to life in prison.

Rosenfeld, 27, from Kochav Hashahar, was one of four men shot at close range by the cell members in a passing car near Shvut Rahel, some 45 km. north of Jerusalem.

He died of his wounds while being treated at the capital’s Shaare Zedek Medical Center.

The Palestinian, Amjad Hamad, was part of a four-man cell and was also fined compensatory damages of NIS 325,000 and punitive damages of NIS 25,000 as a co-conspirator in the murder.

Hamad had also been convicted of multiple attempted murder counts and other security crimes.

He and two others were indicted by the IDF prosecution in August 2015. One of the other defendants was sentenced to life in prison on January 22, 2017, while another defendant’s trial is still pending.

A fourth defendant was taken into custody by the Palestinian Authority in 2015, but there have been no further reports regarding him.

Hamas released a video on Monday that claims Maj. Gen. Yoav Mordechai, the coordinator of government activities in the territories, is the "de facto Palestinian president."

The video introduces the general as "President Mordechai," arguing that Mordechai pilfers power away from the Palestinian Authority.

Mordechai approves economic projects that serve his goals in the West Bank, the video claims. He controls the Palestinians' work, travel and family visitation passes.

Hamas also warned against the coordinator's online activity, arguing that the internet is used by Israeli "occupation" forces as a tool for espionage, surveillance and intelligence gathering.

Mordechai is involved in projects to "penetrate Palestinian minds," targeting Palestinian youth and "exploiting their need to find a solution to their problems in an attempt to take them down and recruit them."

The issue of Hamas employees resurfaced to block the reconciliation agreement between Hamas and Fatah, especially after the Finance Minister announced that the employees can’t be included within the government.

Hamas warned Prime Minister Rami al-Hamdallah of failing once again.

Mousa Abu Marzouk, a member of Hamas’ political bureau, sent a direct message to Hamdallah saying that unity is a priority.

Marzouk’s message came a few hours after Minister of Finance Shukri Bshara said that the authority was not concerned with the inflation and didn’t have the capacity to include 40,000 or 50,000 new employees, meaning Hamas’ government employees.

Shukri told the state TV that the Palestinian Authority (PA) and government are suffering from a financial crisis and the debt exceeded $3 billion. He added that it is currently difficult to include 40,000 employees explaining that this needs years of study.

The minister suggested establishing a special fund for Gaza’s employees not linked with the authority’s budget.

Bishara’s statement could indicate that the reconciliation between Hamas and Fatah will fail.

Iran's allegedly successful test of a new ballistic missile was fabricated, two U.S. officials told Fox News on Monday.

Iranian state television released video footage Friday claiming to show the launch of a Khorramshahr missile – a new type of medium-range ballistic missile with a range of 2,000 kilometers (1,200 miles), capable of reaching Israel – a few hours after it was displayed during a military parade in Tehran.

In response, Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman said Saturday that the missile test was "not just a provocation and an act of defiance directed at the U.S. and its allies, including Israel, it is also further proof of Iran's aspirations to become a world power and to threaten not just the Middle East but all the countries of the free world."

According to the American officials, however, Iran never fired a ballistic missile.

The video released by the Iranians was over seven months old, dating back to a failed launch in late January in which the missile exploded shortly after liftoff, the U.S. officials told Fox.

U.S. President Donald responded to the now-in-question test launch on Twitter, saying it illustrated the weakness of the Iran nuclear deal reached by his predecessor, Barack Obama. He also linked the action to recent aggressive moves by North Korea.

"Iran just test-fired a ballistic missile capable of reaching Israel. They are also working with North Korea," Trump said on Twitter. "Not much of an agreement we have!"

Iran’s supreme leader is distraught over US President Donald Trump’s decision to dub North Korean strongman Kim Jong-un “Rocket Man,” saying he has long been gunning for that title.

“I have spent the better part of two decades building an illegal nuclear weapons and missile program, just so I could have a badass nickname,” Ayatollah Ali Khamenei told The Mideast Beast. “And Trump bestows this honor on that fat Korean infidel? Those damn Americans give us no respect.”

“I mean I don’t wish to be culturally insensitive but don’t those guys eat dogs? It’s like they’re living in the stone age. Here in Persia when we say, ‘stone age’ we’re talking about the midday session planned for some sodomites.”

Khamenei has responded to the snub by unveiling a new long-range ballistic missile capable of striking Israel. He has also reportedly invited Elton John to perform in Tehran.

There are over twenty Arab states throughout the Middle East and North Africa, but the world demands, in a chorus of barely disguised animosity towards Israel, that yet another Arab state be created within the mere forty miles separating the Mediterranean Sea and the River Jordan.

Remember, there has never existed in all recorded history an independent sovereign nation called Palestine - and certainly not an Arab one. The name ‘Palestine’ has always been that of a geographical territory, such as Siberia or Patagonia. It has never been a state.

But there is a people who, like the Jews, truly can trace their ancestry back thousands of years and deserve a sovereign, independent state within their ancient homeland. They are the Kurds, and it is highly instructive to review their remarkable history in conjunction with that of the Jews. It is also necessary to review the historical injustice imposed upon them over the centuries by hostile neighbors and empires.

Let us go back to the captivity of the Ten Tribes of Israel, who were taken from their land by the Assyrians in 721-715 BCE. Biblical Israel was de-populated, its Jewish inhabitants deported to an area in the region of ancient Media and Assyria - coincidentally a territory that roughlyincluded that of modern-day Kurdistan. Assyria was, in turn, conquered by Babylonia, which led to the eventual destruction of the southern Jewish kingdom of Judah in 586 BCE. The remaining two Jewish tribes were sent again to the same area as that of their brethren from the northern kingdom.

The Persian conqueror of Babylon, Cyrus the Great, allowed the Jews to return to their ancestral lands, many Jews nevertheless remained (and continued to live) with their neighbors in Babylon - an area which included modern-day Kurdistan. The Babylonian Talmud refers in one section to the Jewish deportees from Judah receiving rabbinical permission to offer Judaism to the local population.

A large segment of the general population, accepted the Jewish faith. Indeed, when the Jews in Judea rose-up against Roman occupation in the 1st century AD, the Kurdish queen reportedlysent troops and provisions to support the embattled Jews. By the beginning of the 2nd century CE, Judaism was firmly established in Kurdistan, and Kurdish Jews in Israel today speak an ancient form of Aramaic in their homes and synagogues. Kurdish and Jewish life became interwoven to such a remarkable degree that many Kurdish folk tales connect with Jews.

Iraqi Kurds voted Monday in a landmark referendum on supporting independence, with initial results confirming predictions of overwhelming support for breaking away from Baghdad, in a move billed by the Kurdish leadership as an exercise in self-determination, but viewed as a hostile act by Iraq’s central government.

Neighboring Turkey even threatened a military response.

To Baghdad, the vote threatens a redrawing Iraq’s borders, taking a sizable chunk of the country’s oil wealth. In Turkey and Iran, leaders feared the move would embolden their own Kurdish populations.

Polls closed just after 7 p.m. in the Kurdish region of Iraq, with some 72 percent of 4.5 million eligible voters casting ballots, according to the Kurdish Rudaw news website. With just under 300,000 votes counted, 93.4% of Kurds backed independence, according to a tally published by the site.

The vote — likely to be a resounding “yes” when results are made official later this week — is not binding and will not immediately bring independence to the autonomous region. Nevertheless, it has raised tensions and fears of instability in Iraq and beyond.

Just hours after polls closed Monday night across the Kurdish region of northern Iraq, the Defense Ministry announced the launch of “large-scale” joint military exercises with Turkey.

Iraqi Kurdish leader Masoud Barzani said on Tuesday that Kurds had voted “yes” to independence in a referendum held in defiance of the government in Baghdad and which had angered their neighbors and their U.S. allies.

The Kurds, who have ruled over an autonomous region within Iraq since the 2003 U.S.-led invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein, consider Monday’s referendum to be an historic step in a generations-old quest for a state of their own.

Iraq considers the vote unconstitutional, especially as it was held not only within the Kurdish region itself but also on disputed territory held by Kurds elsewhere in northern Iraq.

The United States, major European countries and neighbors Turkey and Iran strongly opposed the decision to hold the referendum, which they described as destabilizing at a time when all sides are still fighting against Islamic State militants.

In a televised address, Barzani said the “yes” vote had won and he called on Iraq’s central government in Baghdad to engage in “serious dialogue” instead of threatening the Kurdish Regional Government with sanctions.

The Iraqi government earlier ruled out talks on Kurdish independence and Turkey threatened to impose a blockade.

One of the particularly galling aspects of Linda Sarsour is her talent for ingratiating herself and the cause of Palestinianism with every domestic social justice cause in the United States. Whether the cause is Driving While Black or the aspirations of the dreamers, that is those who grew up in the U.S. as illegal immigrants, Sarsour turns her sophistry to drawing parallels between those causes and the Palestinians' situation. The result is that activists for those causes, whether or not you like any of them they have widespread support, who fail to recognize her sophistry see Palestinianism as a natural extension to their other social justice causes.

However, there is an international social justice cause, popular albeit dormant on the left, that has genuine parallels with the southwest Levant. That would be Tibet. Specifically, China's occupation of Tibet and transfer of Han population into the province parallels the Arabs' conquest of Palestine back in the 7th-8th centuries and subsequent migration of Arab populations into the southwest Levant. Furthermore, today's Palestinians parallel, if current trends continue, the descendants of today's Han settlers of Tibet.

Following the Palestinianist logic, if the Han squat long enough in Tibet, they will become the native people there. By that point, if the Tibetans were to somehow reclaim any of their ancestral land, they would be thieves of Han Chinese land. If you were to ask any social justice warrior whether Tibet belongs to the Chinese, it would be like claiming that the earth is flat. Following up with a question of how the Chinese would have to squat to become rightful owners would be similarly received. Yet these same social justice warriors argue that the results of the Arabs' conquest of the Levant in the 7th and 8th centuries and settlement since then give the Palestinians title to the southwest Levant, many of them unaware of the prior history.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has instructed ministers in his government to avoid speaking out about the Kurdish independence referendum that took place Monday in the Kurdish autonomous region in northern Iraq.

The Prime Minister’s Office and Foreign Ministry would not confirm or comment on the purported gag order, but top officials, speaking anonymously, acknowledged the instruction.

Earlier this month, Netanyahu publicly backed Kurdish independence while distancing himself from comments by a retired Israeli general, who said he did not consider the PKK, or Kurdistan Workers Party, a terror group.

Responding to a speech at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy by former deputy IDF chief of staff Yair Golan, Netanyahu said Israeli policy on the PKK was the opposite.

Senior Iranian officials claimed Tuesday the independence referendum in Iraqi Kurdistan a day earlier was a “plot” orchestrated by Israel and the United States.

“The Zionist regime and the world arrogance [US] are behind this issue,” the semi-official Fars News Agency quoted the head of the Iranian armed forces, General Mohammad Hossein Bagheri as saying on Tuesday.

Although Bagheri did not elaborate on Israel’s alleged role, the chief of staff to Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei claimed the independence referendum was a “Zionist plot” meant to fuel violence in the Middle East following the battlefield defeats in Iraq and Syria suffered by the Islamic State terror group.

“You may rest assured that it is a plot by the Zionist regime under such conditions that the ISIL is collapsing,” Fars quoted Mohammad Golpaigani as saying, using an alternative acronym for IS. Among numerous conspiracy theories posted on Arabic-language and Persian sites are claims that Israel’s Mossad agency is behind the rise of Islamic State.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan stated on Tuesday afternoon that "If Israel does not reconsider its support for Kurdish independence, Turkey could not take any steps" with the Jewish State, according to the Turkish news outlet Daily Sabah.

He went on to say that if the Kurdish referendum is held on its own, with only Israel and the PKK (Kurdistan Workers' Party) celebrating it, then it will not be legitimate.

"Those trying to establish new states in Iraq and Syria should not be surprised when they are tossed aside by those who use them," he said.

Israel is the only nation to publicly support the Kurdish independence referendum.

The Iraqi government ruled out talks on possible secession for Kurdish-held northern Iraq on Tuesday and Turkey threatened to choke it off, after a referendum on independence there showed strong support for a split.

Leila Khaled, a Palestinian woman convicted of terrorism who has continued to advocate violence against Israelis, is slated to speak at the European Parliament about women’s rights.

Khaled, who was invited to Brussels to speak Tuesday by lawmakers representing the far-left Izquierda Unida party from Spain, was arrested by Israeli sky marshals in 1970. She was carrying two grenades while attempting to hijack an El Al flight from Amsterdam with a partner, whom the security officers killed. British authorities released her in exchange for hostages from another hijacking a month after her arrest.

She had already hijacked an American passenger plane in 1969, landing it in Damascus, where the two Israeli passengers aboard were held for three months before they were traded for Syrian prisoners of war in Israeli jails.
Illustrative: Members of the EU Parliament take part in a voting session, on December 17, 2014, at the European Parliament in Strasbourg, France. (AFP/Frederick Florin)

A member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, which is blacklisted as a terrorist entity by the European Union, Khaled is to be the keynote speaker at an event titled “The Role of Women in the Palestinian Popular Resistance,” a poster advertising the event read.

The American Jewish Committee’s Brussels-based Transatlantic Institute condemned the invitation to Khaled, saying that the group is “deeply concerned” by it, and urged the European Parliament’s president to prevent Khaled’s planned arrival to its seat.

In a statement, the director of the Transatlantic Institute, Daniel Schwammenthal, said that it was an “utter disgrace that a convicted terrorist is given a platform in the European Parliament to spew her hateful message.”

Dear Mr. President of the European Parliament ,
As the distinguished President of the European Parliament, we wish to bring to your attention a highly disturbing event, “The Role of Women in the Palestinian Popular Struggle,” scheduled to take place this evening (September 26, 2017) in the European Parliament in Brussels. The event is organized by MEPs from the European United Left/Nordic Green Left (GUE/NGL) group and Unadikum – International Solidarity Association.

Scheduled speakers include Leila Khaled, whose affiliation is listed as the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, and Sahar Francis, director of a Palestinian NGO known as “Addameer” (see below for poster advertising the event).

The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) is a terror organization, responsible for hijackings, suicide bombings, and assassinations. It is designated as such by the EU (including in the latest Council update dated August 4, 2017), as well as by the United States, Canada, and Israel, among others. We note the following connections between the event’s speakers/organizers and the PFLP terror organization:
- Leila Khaled is a “prominent member of the PFLP,” and is a terrorist responsible for hijacking multiple airplanes.
- Addameer is an “affiliate” of the PFLP. Addameer’s chairperson and co-founder, vice-chairperson, as well as researchers and board members have been convicted, arrested, and/or banned from travel due to their ties to the PFLP.
- In December 2014, Unadikum, participated in a gala event to raise donations for the Union of Health Workers Committee (UHWC), a PFLP-affiliated health committee active in Gaza (as identified by USAID and in Palestinian documents).

Israel has been a bipartisan issue in US politics, at least since Democratic US president Harry Truman recognized the world’s only Jewish state. Support for Israel was instinctual regardless of one’s party affiliation because it was synonymous with American values.

But the rise in the popularity of US Senator Bernie Sanders signals an ominous change.

In the run-up to the 2016 elections, Sanders, the first Jewish presidential candidate to win a major party’s nominating contest, surrounded himself with people openly antagonistic to Israel. He chose Professor Cornel West and James Zogby as members of the 15-member Democratic platform committee. He tapped Simone Zimmerman, a vocal critic of Israeli policies, as director for Jewish outreach before firing her in the wake of outcry from a number of Jewish leaders.

Sanders’ position on Zionism is generally favorable. But he has on occasion revealed his own bias against Israel and sympathy for Palestinian leadership.

Sanders is making headlines again after claiming in an interview Friday with the left-wing website The Intercept that the US is “complicit” in Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and Gaza and that, under certain circumstances, he would consider supporting reduction in the yearly $3.1 billion military aid provided by the US to Israel.

Sanders said the US is “complicit” with Israel’s “occupation” of Judea and Samaria and Gaza. He said that he would consider cutting off US military aid to Israel. He argued the US should take a more evenhanded approach to Israel.

No similar statements have ever been made by any major presidential contender or political leader in either party.

And yet, they have raised no outcry among his fellow Democrats.

Sanders’s rise has unleashed forces in the party such as former Nation of Islam spokesman Rep.

Keith Ellison and BDS activist Linda Sarsour. Both have been outspoken in their antisemitism. Both routinely defame and delegitimize American Jews who support Israel. And both are all but unanimously embraced as leaders by their partisan colleagues.

Since Donald Trump’s election, most of the media coverage of US politics has centered on cleavages within the Republican Party. But while it is true that the Republican Party is dysfunctional, the Democratic Party is transforming into something never before seen in mainstream US politics.

In 2016, the party of Bill Clinton ceased to be the party of the working class. Hillary Clinton abandoned her husband’s Rust Belt base, referring to his voters as “deplorables.”

Today, the two predominant branches of the party are the Obama branch – which is comfortable with antisemitic dog whistles – and the Sanders branch, which is comfortable with Corbyn-style Jew-baiting and open discrimination of pro-Israel Jews.

Absent a major restructuring of the party’s makeup, Plame’s forced resignation from Ploughshares may be remembered as the high-water mark in the new Democratic Party’s efforts to root out antisemitism from its ranks.

Those who support Israel based on her presumed progressivism seem to forget that the country remains a liberal democracy regardless of who controls the government. Indeed, Americans often confuse “liberal democracy” with liberal politics, though the terms are not synonymous. Whereas liberal democracy refers to representative government characterized by the rule of law and free elections, the liberal agenda reflects specific political ideology. Like any other political philosophy in an electoral system, liberalism may compete – but is not guaranteed supremacy – at the ballot box.

The intent of liberal democracy is not to entrench one party’s agenda over another’s, but to guarantee voters the freedom to accept or reject competing ideologies, whether liberal or conservative.

This is the aspect of Israeli political society that liberal Americans should celebrate, not the elevation of a platform that exalts a Palestinian nation that never existed, belittles Israel’s Jewish character, and threatens her national security. The Israeli left – with western progressive complicity – was responsible for Oslo and the waves of terror it enabled. The rejection of Oslo’s facilitators by the Israeli public shows the triumph of liberal democracy over self-destructive political fantasy.

Unfortunately, many American liberals have conditioned their support for Israel on her acceptance or rejection of their political agenda, regardless of what Israelis want, what is most conducive to safety and continuity of the world’s only Jewish nation, and irrespective of the Orthodox establishment. But considering the high rates of intermarriage and assimilation among secular and nontraditional Jews in the US, it could be that their political and social values are simply out of step with most Israelis, who tend to be more Judaically literate and culturally centered.

It should come as no surprise, then, that Israelis resent outside attempts to mold their society, and chafe at the paternalism of western liberals who rationalize BDS, legitimize Islamists posing as moderate, and tolerate anti-Semitism within their ranks. Likewise, nobody should be shocked when Israelis refuse to embrace Jewish movements that have become identified with liberal politics.

Calls by speakers at a Labour Conference fringe event to allow Holocaust denial and expel the Jewish Labour Movement from the Labour Party were reportedly met with rowdy applause and cheering earlier today.

The packed event run by “Free Speech on Israel” heard from American-Israeli activist Miko Peled that people should be free to ask “Holocaust, yes or no” because “there should be no limits on the discussion”, for which he was cheered.

Michael Kalmanovitz, a member of the International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network, reportedly asserted that claims of increasing antisemitism were intended to undermine Jeremy Corbyn and the left, before demanding that the Jewish Labour Movement be expelled from the Labour Party. He reportedly said: “The thing is, if you support Israel, you support apartheid. So what is the JLM [Jewish Labour Movement] and Labour Friends of Israel doing in our party — kick them out”, to raucous cheering and calls of “throw them out”.

Ironically for an organisation called “Free Speech on Israel”, the organisers reportedly ordered attendees not to tweet or take photographs for fear of “hostile coverage” whilst leaflets were passed around claiming that concerns about rising antisemitism were a “manufactured moral panic”.

The event was also reportedly addressed by Naomi Wimborne-Idrissi, who had earlier been given a standing ovation by the Labour Party Conference plenary for stating that “There is no problem with Jews in the Labour Party”, and notorious antisemite Tony Greenstein, who was among a number of attendees able to attend and participate despite being currently or previously suspended from the Labour Party over allegations of antisemitism.

Today, Campaign Against Antisemitism has published the initial findings of a comprehensive ongoing research project to track antisemitism amongst office holders in political parties, comprising MPs, peers, councillors, party officers and candidates selected to contest any public election. The International Definition of Antisemitism adopted by the British Government and the College of Policing, and the deployment of the so-called ‘Livingstone formulation’ has guided our research. Our researchers used a supercomputer to analyse four million social media posts by more than two thousand parliamentary candidates, together with a review of our private logs and publicly available reports of allegations of antisemitism amongst office holders.

Our findings show that Labour Party office holders account for 61% of the cases of alleged antisemitism, which is nearly eight times higher than the number of office holders in the second-placed parties.

80% of cases were in parties of the progressive left, namely Labour, the Greens, the SNP and the Liberal Democrats. In all cases, the parties also had poor track records for addressing allegations of antisemitism.

The supposedly anti-racist Labour Party has shamed itself by failing to firmly and consistently address antisemitism, even proving incapable of expelling a Holocaust revisionist, a senior MP who said that “Jewish money” controls the Conservative Party, and another prominent official who claimed that Jews were “among the chief financiers of the slave trade”. The Labour Party has compounded its antisemitism problem by shrouding all disciplinary matters in secrecy under guidelines introduced in the wake of Baroness Chakrabarti’s report into antisemitism, thus concealing the fact that it has failed to address antisemitism within its ranks.

Israel was compared to the Nazis during a Labour conference fringe event, it has been reported.

The session today also featured activists calling for the Jewish Labour Movement and Labour Friends of Israel to be “kicked out” of Labour, the Guido Fawkes website said.

According to the site, which filmed the event run by the Free Speech on Israel group, the Jewish chair of the session had attempted to ban conference delegates from tweeting about the session or taking photographs.

One speaker had complained that the JLM had been handed the Del Singh award for effective campaigning, while another had called for Israel to be treated the same way apartheid South Africa had been by the international community, Guido reported.

The event featured a number of anti-Zionist Jewish Labour activists, including Naomi Wimborne-Idrissi and Tony Greenstein, who was suspended by the party last year. Mr Greenstein has previously written that Ken Livingstone, the former Mayor of London, “got it right over Hitler and Zionism”.

A call to expel Jewish activists from Labour was greeted with cheers at a packed fringe meeting at the party’s conference in Brighton.

Members of the Jewish Labour Movement and Labour Friends of Israel were targeted at the meeting today, held by the Free Speech on Israel group, and chaired by leading Jewish anti-Zionist Naomi Wimborne-Idrissi.

Wimborne-Idrissi, who won a standing ovation on Monday morning when, speaking in the international debate, she told Conference: “There is no problem with Jews in the Labour Party”.

Keynote speaker at the meeting was Miko Peled, a Jerusalem-born anti-Zionist who lives in America. His book, The General’s Son, describes his change of heart from growing up in the family of one of Israel’s most decorated soldiers, General Matti Peled.

Today, sporting a large pink Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions badge, Miko Peled and his enthusiastic audience roamed through every anti-Israel trope in the canon, from refusing to call Israel “Israel”, but rather “Palestine”, to concluding his remarks with “We can speak about the Holocaust, yes or no” — as though there were a choice in the matter.

Peled made a series of claims about the spending power of “the Zionists”, including a suggestion that “every person standing for city council in America gets a five star trip to Israel, all expenses paid”. “Billions” had been invested in a campaign to “silence the Palestinian voice”, he said.

Following the first day of today's Labour Party conference their policy on antisemitism can easily be summarised:

Today's events included:
- calls to expel the 'Jewish Labour Movement' from the party (for refusing to accept that Israel was 'like the Nazis')
- Jewish writer David Collier banned from attending a meeting of the new Jewish labour group JVL (a group that seeks the destruction of Israel) for being too Jewish for them
- multiple instances of antisemitism dressed up as 'anti-Zionism', with the worst proponents stating there was no such thing as antisemitism in the party

Readers will remember Jackie Walker, who was suspended from the Labour Party not once but twice for claiming “Jews” financed the slave trade and attacking Holocaust Memorial Day. She’s being supported by top Corbynistas at conference…

A Jewish professor at the University of Maryland (UMD) who was dismissed months after complaining of facing religious discrimination plans to pursue legal action against the school, The Algemeiner has learned.

Dr. Melissa Landa, who worked as an assistant clinical professor at UMD’s College of Education and has been a vocal opponent of anti-Israel activism in academia, was informed on June 8 that her contract would not be renewed. Her firing, which is currently being investigated by UMD’s Office of Civil Rights and Sexual Misconduct, came shortly after the resolution of a faculty grievance that Landa filed in February against two of her colleagues.

Faculty members who submit such complaints may not be “reprimanded or discriminated against in any way,” according to university policy, and Landa’s attorney Ari Wilkenfeld said legal steps against UMD “are forthcoming.”

Landa told The Algemeiner that her troubles began shortly after she started vocally advocating for Israel “in November 2015, when I wrote an essay for Scholars for Peace in the Middle East denouncing the [anti-Israel Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions] movement in academia.” The next month, Landa — who completed her undergraduate degree at Oberlin College — formed a group to address what she and other concerned alumni saw as rising antisemitic and anti-Israel sentiment at their alma mater.

The group soon came across social media posts by then Oberlin professor Joy Karega, who called the Islamic State terrorist group “a CIA and Mossad operation” and endorsed claims that “Israeli and Zionist Jews” were behind the 9/11 attacks. When Landa started speaking to the press about Karega’s comments, she shared those articles with the associate chair of UMD’s Teaching and Learning, Policy, and Leadership (TLPL) department, Dr. John O’Flahavan, who previously served as her doctoral adviser.

Protests are expected to disrupt an upcoming talk by lawyer and political commentator Alan Dershowitz at Columbia University, according to event organizers.

Dershowitz's sold-out talk about the Constitution, free speech, and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict will likely be disrupted by dozens of anti-Israel student activists, said Ofir Dayan, the media coordinator for Students Supporting Israel, the group hosting the event.

Some 30 seats have been reserved by those affiliated with Students for Justice in Palestine, Columbia University Apartheid Divest, and Jewish Voice for Peace, according to Dayan, a tactic she said has been used in the past to facilitate shout-downs of SSI programming.

"They sign up in large numbers so that they can protest," she said. "[They] have an anti-normalization policy, which means they do not engage or discuss with anyone who has a different opinion. Their opinion is that Israel should be wiped off the map and that all terrorism targeting Israel or Israelis is ‘legitimate,' so anyone who is against the murder of innocent civilians and supports Israel's right to exist is shunned from the conversation."

Dayan—daughter of Israeli diplomat Dani Dayan, who came up against protesters himself while speaking at the City College of New York last spring—said that disruptions of Dershowitz's talk "will expose the anti-Israel movement for being fascist and violent."

The chancellor of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) on Sunday condemned rising antisemitism at American universities, including “anti-Semitic attacks hidden under the guise of anti-Zionist rhetoric.”

In a statement issued in response to “growing national instances of intolerance, especially on college campuses,” Chancellor Robert Jones denounced the pervasiveness of racist and antisemitic symbols and behaviors, from painted swastikas and KKK costumes to illegitimate attacks on the Jewish state and its supporters.

“Members of our Jewish, African American, Latino/a and many other residents of our diverse community find themselves asking whether they are welcome and safe here,” Jones wrote. “The answer to that — whether in Urbana-Champaign, Chicago, or any place in this country — must be a clear and resounding: ‘Yes, you are.’”

Earlier this month, while promoting a rally it was co-sponsoring, UIUC’s chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine equated Zionism — the movement for Jewish national self-determination — with white supremacy and fascism. The group threatened to use “any means necessary” against supporters of each ideology, including “full-scale armed conflict.”

During the rally, SJP displayed an Israeli flag that was covered in fake blood and the word “genocide.”

Illini Public Affairs Committee (IlliniPAC) — a bipartisan, pro-Israel student group at UIUC — praised Jones’ statement on social media “for affirming to Pro-Israel and Jewish students that our voice matters, and has been heard, on this campus.”

Yesterday I posted about YouTube resetting all of my videos to “demonetized”, in what I called the “latest assault on Israellycool.”

My account now has two strikes against it – both of which I have appealed. They are against videos I uploaded in 2014 to expose Hamas hatred and terrorism, not condone it. This is obvious from the context, not just of the video descriptions, but of my entire YouTube account.

Even if after all of these years, YouTube has decided to crack down on any videos showing violence or terrorism (even though they do not seem to be cracking down on antisemitic videos, for example), it seems patently unfair to threaten a “three strikes and you’re out” rule, especially given I have appealed the strikes, and especially given the reason I uploaded the videos to begin with. It makes me think YouTube actually wants to eject pro-Israel channels like mine.

I now stand to lose over 180 videos with combined views of over 1.2 million, uploaded over the course of over 11 years. The lost advertising revenue is not even the main issue here; it is the loss of all the hard work and the resulting broken posts in my blog this will cause.

A New York Times article about Israel’s support for Kurdish independence gives readers a false impression about how Jews were treated in Iraq.

The Times news article reports: “After Israel’s defeat of its Arab neighbors in 1967 and the Baathist coup in Iraq a year later, Iraq became inhospitable to its dwindling Jewish population.”

This error is repeated in a photo cutline, which reads: “Fleeing Iraqi Jews arrive at the Israeli consulate in Tehran in 1970. At the time, Iran was an Israeli ally and Iraq was becoming inhospitable to Jews.”

Actually, Iraqi hostility to Jews began before 1967 and was manifested in murderous violence in 1941.

This may seem like a pointless or pedantic argument about mere chronology. So what if the Times was off by a few decades? Actually, though, it does matter. The idea that it was the 1967 war — and Israel’s subsequent “occupation” of East Jerusalem and the West Bank — that prompted Arab inhospitability to Jews fits with a certain leftist narrative. If that claim were true, and the Arab objection were merely to the “occupation” of land won in the 1967 war, as opposed to the existence of Israel or of Jews at all, then that might support the idea of withdrawing from the West Bank or parts of Jerusalem. This theory, does not, however, fit with the facts, at least when it comes to Iraq.

Agence France Presse, an influential news agency, on Sunday understated the number of 13 Israeli soldiers killed in Jenin in April 2002. The Sept. 24 article ("Israel minister wants probe of Arab filmmaker over Lebanon remarks") erred, stating that Israeli filmmaker Mohammed

Bakri enraged the Israeli establishment and Jewish public with his documentary film "Jenin, Jenin" about April 2002 clashes in which 52 Palestinians and 13 Israeli soldiers were killed.

As AFP itself repeatedly reported at the time, 23 Israeli soldiers were killed during those battles. An April 24, 2002 article, for example, accurately reported ("Israeli president tells world to stop using 'double standards'"):

Israel lost 23 soldiers in the nine-day battle which broke out on April 3 when the army invaded the camp in search of hardline militants and suicide bombers.

CAMERA notified AFP editors of the error yesterday.

French Jews have cautiously welcomed the decision of the Paris public prosecutors’ office to recognize the murder of Sarah Halimi – a Jewish pensioner who lived alone in public housing in Paris — as an antisemitic hate crime.

The prosecutor’s decision was announced last week, and was based on interviews conducted by psychiatrist Dr. Daniel Zagury with Halimi’s killer, 27-year-old Kobili Traore. In the early hours of April 4, Traore — who had previously made antisemitic remarks to Dr. Halimi — broke into her apartment and proceeded to beat her ferociously while yelling Islamist slogans. Police who arrived at the scene during Halimi’s ordeal reportedly feared a terrorist attack was underway and failed to rescue her before Traore threw her out of a third-floor window to her death.

According to Zagury, Traore’s assault on Halimi was both “antisemitic” and a “delirious act” influenced by the heavy consumption of marijuana. However, Zagury was clear that Traore was not sufficiently intoxicated at the time of the attack to be absolved of criminal responsibility — a key demand of Traore’s lawyers.

In a statement, French Jewish representative body CRIF said it was “relieved” and “satisfied” with the announcement, which coincided with the Jewish New Year on Wednesday last week. Francis Kalifat, CRIF’s head, said that if a judge was to uphold the prosecutors’ position, then “the trial of the murderer must also be the trial of the antisemitism that murders in France. ”

A court in Sweden has rerouted a neo-Nazi march on Yom Kippur farther away from a synagogue.

The Gothenburg administrative court ruling concerning the Sept. 30 march by the far-right Nordic Resistance Movement overrode the suggested route by police. The court also shortened the route.

The group had initially wanted to march on the main streets of Gothenburg, but the police offered an alternate route taking demonstrators only about 200 yards from the main synagogue in Sweden’s second largest city.

An outraged Jewish community appealed the police decision earlier this month along with several other groups. The Anti-Defamation League and the World Jewish Congress were among others to protest.

Among other factors, the court said it considered the fact that the route would have passed near the synagogue on the Jewish holiday and the demonstration would fall during the Gothenburg Book Fair, when some 100,000 people are expected to gather in the city for the largest literary festival in Scandinavia.

Swedish Jewish leaders cautiously praised the decision.

The constant intensifying battle against viruses and antibiotic-resistant “superbugs” isn’t only about finding stronger drugs against infection, but about preventing infections in the first place.

That’s why large companies such as Carrefour and a Far East luxury hotel chain are looking at unique germ-vanquishing textiles invented by Jerusalem’s Argaman Technologies and manufactured inside its custom-built factory.

Carrefour Group, a French-based superstore chain with 12,000 retail stores in 30 countries, is testing Argaman’s CottonX—billed as the world’s first bio-inhibitive 100 percent cotton—in a line of uniforms dubbed “The Uniform that Cares.”

Textile engineer Jeff Gabbay, founder and CEO of Argaman and inventor of CottonX, led ISRAEL21c on an exclusive tour of the factory, where enhanced copper-oxide particles are ultrasonically and permanently blasted into cotton fibers using an environmentally friendly technique.

Ninety-nine percent of bacteria and viruses are killed within seconds of coming into contact with copper oxide, and bacteria cannot become resistant to copper oxide as they do to antibiotics, Gabbay explained.

Researchers at Israel’s Weizmann Institute of Science have developed a method to reinforce the power of cells that kill cancerous tumors by starving them of oxygen, allowing immunotherapy treatments to be used in targeting previously immune solid tumors.

The research was published in the journal Cell Reports. In the article, the researchers liken the new, toughened cells to athletes who train in high altitudes, where the percentage of oxygen in the air is lower.

The technique is based on removing cytotoxic T lymphocytes (CTLs) from the body and then breeding them in a lab, after which they are reintroduced into a patient’s blood stream. The CTLs, known also as killer T cells, are cells in charge of destroying damaged cells, cancer cells, and cells infected with viruses or other pathogens.
In this immunofluorescence image, a group of killer T cells (outer three) is engaging a cancer cell (centered one). A patch of signaling molecules (pink) that gathers at the site of cell-cell contact indicates that the CTL has identified a target. Lytic granules (red) that contain cytotoxic components then travel along the microtubule cytoskeleton (green) to the contact site and are secreted, thus killing the target. (The National Institutes of Health / Wikipedia)

Quoted on Wednesday by Medical News Today, senior Weizmann Institute researcher Guy Shakhar compared the oxygen-starved killer T cells to mountaineers who gradually get used to lower oxygen levels. “Just as altitude training increases endurance in humans, so putting killer T cells through a ‘fitness regimen’ apparently toughens them up,” he explained.

For the third time in recent years, Pope Francis's security detail used an Israeli observation balloon to help protect him during his visit to South America.

Two of the three Masses the pope presided over in Colombia two weeks ago were accompanied by an observation balloon made by the Yavne-based RT Aerostats Systems based.

The Israeli balloon has also helped secure the pope during past trips to Africa and Israel.

The observation balloon, which is regularly used by the IDF and the Israel Police, covers a radius of five kilometers.

Police in Bogotá and Medellín leased the balloon, with the video feed from it transmitted directly to their headquarters.

The balloon then helped scan the large crowds that gathered for the pope, the rooftops in the area and other spots that cannot be seen from the ground.

Elbit Systems announced today that it was awarded a $240 million contract to provide a wide array of defense electronic systems to an unnamed country in Africa.

The contract, which will be performed over a two-year period, is for Elbit's Directed Infra-red Counter Measure systems to protect aircraft from shoulder-fired missiles, which include Missile Warning Systems (MWS), radio and communication systems, land-based systems, and helicopters upgrade.

“We are proud to have won this contract, allowing us to provide our customers with a variety of systems and capabilities from different fields, a growing trend we have witnessed lately in many countries," said Elbit CEO Bezalel Machlis.

"Our unique structure enables the customer to benefit from the synergy of its overall capabilities while, at the same time, focus on its requirements. Our cutting-edge technologies and operational know-how allow us to customize our solutions and tailor them to our customer’s needs, and we hope others will follow this trend".

Radio-wave technology developed by Israeli firm Camero-Tech that can “see” through solid walls is helping rescue workers in Mexico search through rubble for buried victims, Amir Beeri, the CEO of the firm, said.

“We got reports from our representative in Mexico that our technology is being used there by the rescue workers and he sent us TV images that show our systems in use,” Beeri said in a phone interview.

The company’s “sense-through-the-wall” imaging technology uses radio waves to map the layout of areas that are blocked by bricks or any other material. The radio waves penetrate the rubble and get signals back from within. These signals are then analyzed by powerful algorithms which are able to detect in real time if there is movement or breathing within the destruction, indicating there is someone alive that needs to be rescued. The system also allows users to pinpoint the location of the person or people trapped within the building, even if they are unconscious, Beeri said.

“We know from reports in Mexico that our system helped rescue a number of people alive,” said Beeri, “And that gave us great satisfaction, because the possibility of finding survivors under the rubble in a short and effective manner is a main tool for saving trapped people after earthquakes and collapsing buildings.”

By virtue of the principle of equal rights and self-determination of peoples enshrined in the Charter of the United Nations, all peoples have the right freely to determine, without external interference, their political status and to pursue their economic, social and cultural development, and every State has the duty to respect this right in accordance with the provisions of the Charter.
Every State has the duty to promote, through joint and separate action, realization of the principle of equal rights and self-determination of peoples, in accordance with the provisions of the Charter, and to render assistance to the United Nations in carrying out the responsibilities entrusted to it by the Charter regarding the implementation of the principle, in order:

To promote friendly relations and co-operation among States; and
To bring a speedy end to colonialism, having due regard to the freely expressed will of the peoples concerned;

and bearing in mind that subjection of peoples to alien subjugation, domination and exploitation constitutes a violation of the principle, as well as a denial of fundamental human rights, and is contrary to the Charter.
Every State has the duty to promote through joint and separate action universal respect for and observance of human rights and fundamental freedoms in accordance with the Charter.
The establishment of a sovereign and independent State, the free association or integration with an independent State or the emergence into any other political status freely determined by a people constitute modes of implementing the right of self-determination by that people.

I call on the Arab countries to cooperate with the Palestinians and with us to advance an economic peace. An economic peace is not a substitute for a political peace, but an important element to achieving it. Together, we can undertake projects to overcome the scarcities of our region, like water desalination or to maximize its advantages, like developing solar energy, or laying gas and petroleum lines, and transportation links between Asia, Africa and Europe.
Address by PM Netanyahu at Bar-Ilan University, 14 Jun 2009

“It is no secret that our approach to these discussions departs from some of the usual orthodoxy – for after years of well-meaning attempts to negotiate an end to this conflict, we have all learned some valuable lessons,” he said.

“Instead of working to impose a solution from the outside, we are giving the parties space to make their own decisions about their future.

Instead of laying blame for the conflict at the feet of one party or the other, we are focused on implementing existing agreements and unlocking new areas of cooperation which benefit both Palestinians and Israelis.”

President Donald Trump. Source: Wikipedia

• The International Monetary Fund had concluded that the West Bank’s economy improved dramatically in the last year
• Israel's US ambassador Michael Oren pointed out in a Wall Street Journal editorial that six thousand new jobs had been created since 2008, trade with Israel increased 82%, tourism to Bethlehem increased 94%, and agricultural exports were up 200%
• There were 10 manned roadblocks in the entire West Bank according to Haaretz, excluding those linking the territories with Israel, compared to the 35 during Ehud Olmert’s administration
• All of this had taken place under Netanyahu's right-wing coalition government

Prime Minister Netanyahu. Credit: Wikipedia

Fayyad's strategy is one of self-reliance and self-empowerment; his focus is on providing good government, economic opportunity, and law and order for the Palestinians -- and security for Israel by extension -- and so removing whatever pretexts may exist for Israel's continued occupation of the Palestinian territories. Fayyad's aim is to make the process of institution building transformative for Palestinians, thereby instilling a sense that statehood is inevitable.

former Prime Minister Salem Fayyad. Credit: Wikipedia

Prior to the elections, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu presented his program for "economic peace," which he said would improved the quality of life for Palestinians in the West Bank. However, 100 days after having formed his coalition government, there is no practical progress on economic projects.

The main reason for this is the refusal of senior Palestinian Authority officials to cooperate with Netanyahu and Vice Premier Silvan Shalom, who has been assigned the task of promoting the "economic peace" initiative.

For the first time since the second Palestinian uprising broke out in late 2000, leading to terrorist bombings and fierce Israeli countermeasures, a sense of personal security and economic potential is spreading across the West Bank as the Palestinian Authority’s security forces enter their second year of consolidating order.

The International Monetary Fund is about to issue its first upbeat report in years for the West Bank, forecasting a 7 percent growth rate for 2009. Car sales in 2008 were double those of 2007. Construction on the first new Palestinian town in decades, for 40,000, will begin early next year north of Ramallah. In Jenin, a seven-story store called Herbawi Home Furnishings has opened, containing the latest espresso machines. Two weeks ago, the Israeli military shut its obtrusive nine-year-old checkpoint at the entrance to this city, part of a series of reductions in security measures.

Whether all this can last and lead to the consolidation of political power for the Fatah-dominated Palestinian Authority based in Ramallah, as the Obama administration hopes, remains unclear. But a recent opinion poll in the West Bank and Gaza by the Jerusalem Media and Communications Center, a Palestinian news agency, found that Fatah was seen as far more trustworthy than Hamas — 35 percent versus 19 percent — a significant shift from the organization’s poll in January, when Hamas appeared to be at least as trustworthy.

...The Israeli government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says it shares the goal of helping Mr. Abbas, which is why it is seeking to improve West Bank economic conditions as a platform for moving to a political discussion.

At the moment, the most promising idea comes from Mr. Abbas's prime minister, Salam Fayyad, who has vowed to build the institutions of a Palestinian state within the next two years, with or without peace talks. Negotiations between the current Israeli and Palestinian leaders could provide indirect support for that initiative, even if there is little progress. But the administration would do well to refocus its efforts on supporting Mr. Fayyad.

• Government circumventing democracy. The unaccountable governing process that Fayyad has had to invent is not just postponing a democratic system—it is actively denying it.
  
  
• Isolated successes do not create rule of law. The increasing number of cases seen and submitted to the courts indicates growing efficiency and confidence, but security services continue to act outside the law under the guise of cracking down on Hamas.
  
  
• Lack of institution building. While Fayyad’s cabinet has managed to make a few existing institutions more effective and less corrupt, there has been regression in other governing bodies. Palestinian civil society is showing signs of decay as well. Ironically, there was more institution building and civil society development under Yasser Arafat than there has been since the West Bank-Gaza split in 2007.
  
  
• Disillusionment increasing among Palestinians. Popular support for Fayyad is growing but he still has no organized base. And Palestinians are increasingly cynical about the prospects for long-term development.
  
  
• Fatah is in disarray. The party remains bitterly divided. Party leaders recently forced Fayyad’s cabinet to cancel local elections when Fatah could not organize itself on time.

...However, there are several features to the Israel-Palestinian conflict that seriously hamper the applicability of the economic peace theory to this particular conflict. First, the theory asserts that economic integration reduces the probability of states to start a violent conflict, but does not necessarily apply to protracted conflicts. Second, the theory considers economic interdependence between states, and not a situation of asymmetric relations and dependence of one party on the other, such as exists in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. [emphasis added]

Former CIA officer Valerie Plame Wilson repeated the well-worn narrative that Jewish neoconservatives promoted the invasion of Iraq - and are beating the drum for a conflict with Iran. Of course, most Jews are not neoconservatives, and most neoconservatives are not Jewish. In any case, it was two influential non-Jews, Vice President Dick Cheney and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, who played the central role with President Bush in deciding to invade Iraq in 2003.

When I began working in the Pentagon during President Jimmy Carter's administration, there was an unspoken but unmistakable assumption: If you were Jewish, you could not work on the Middle East because you would be biased. However, if you knew about the Middle East because you came from a missionary family or from the oil industry, you were an expert. People with these backgrounds were perceived to be unbiased, while Jews could not be objective.

Secretary of State George Shultz tried to change the culture of the State Department during the Reagan administration. Shultz was more interested in your knowledge than your identity. He made me and Daniel Kurtzer members of the small team working with him on Arab-Israeli diplomacy.

Tweeting that Jews are pushing for a new war is the definition of prejudice. How can it not be when you label a whole group and ascribe to all those who are a part of it a particular negative trait or threatening behavior? And once you have singled out groups, the leap is small to imposing limits on them, quarantining them and rationalizing violence against them.

Israel handed a replica of a frieze from the Arch of Titus to the head of UNESCO, using the monument commemorating Rome’s victory over Jerusalem for a not-so-subtle critique of the organization’s resolutions that ignore Jewish links to the holy city.

The idea originally came from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, after the United Nations Educational and Scientific Organization passed a resolution last year that used only Muslim names for the Jerusalem Old City holy sites.

The replica will be exhibited in UNESCO’s Paris headquarters as a “greeting from the historical truth about the existence of two Temples on the Temple Mount,” said Carmel Shama-Hacohen, Israel’s ambassador to the agency.

Shama-Hacohen handed the replica to UNESCO’s outgoing director-general Irina Bokova, who, in her speech, offered a more subtle critique of one-sided anti-Israel resolutions passed routinely by her organization’s member states.

“2,000 years ago the Romans destroyed the Temple and removed it from the Jewish people. And today, UNESCO is trying to destroy and remove the history of Jerusalem from the Jewish people,” Shama-Hacohen said at the event.

“When the executive board of UNESCO adopts every six months a resolution that denies the connection between the Jewish people and the Temple Mount, they are not only adopting a political resolution, they are adopting a resolution that negates the right of the State of Israel to exist and the Jewish people’s right of self-determination,” he said.

Furthermore, such resolutions “pave the way for spreading anti-Semitism and terrorism,” Shama-Hacohen went on.

In a stinging diplomatic defeat for Israel, the world’s largest international police organization on Wednesday accepted the “State of Palestine” as a full member.

At Interpol’s annual General Assembly in Beijing, the Palestinians’ membership bid was accepted with 75 counties voting yes, 24 voting no, and 34 abstaining.

Israel fiercely objected to the Palestinians joining Interpol, arguing that Ramallah’s alleged support for terrorism could hinder rather than aid Interpol’s efforts. The US administration, too, objected to Ramallah’s membership bid and helped Israel lobby against it.

Israel had expressed concerns that the PA’s membership in Interpol would result in sensitive information being leaked to Palestinian terror groups. It also reportedly fears Palestinian efforts via Interpol to mount legal challenges, including travel bans and extradition requests, against Israeli army officers and others for alleged war crimes.

Shortly after the vote at Interpol’s Executive Committee, Palestinian Authority Foreign Minister Riyad al-Maliki welcomed the decision, hailing it as a “victory” for his people.

“The State of Palestine considers this membership and the responsibilities that it entails as an integral part of its responsibility towards the Palestinian people and a moral commitment to the citizens of the world,” he said, according to the PA’s official news site Wafa.

“Palestine is ready and able to shoulder these obligations and responsibilities as an active partner in the international community, and to contribute effectively and significantly to advancing our common core values as nations,” he added.

On September 25, 2017, the board of directors of the international organization of police forces, INTERPOL, agreed to put on its agenda a resolution to accept the Palestinians into INTERPOL. Within hours, in the early hours of September 26, a Palestinian, employed by Israelis to work within their homes, shot and killed three Israelis in a particularly violent act of terror, carried out at the entrance to the Israeli village of Har Adar.

The terrorist attack is a reminder of the cynical blindness and naïveté of those states, members of Interpol, whose board yesterday refused to reject the Palestinian membership resolution. INTERPOL’s General Assembly will vote on the resolution today, September 26.

The decision was also indicative of the total insensitivity of the international community, which out of political correctness and an incomprehensible eagerness to coddle the Palestinian leadership, fails to realize that in so doing they are giving the Palestinians a green light and license to incite and to reward terror.

Alan Baker

Resident of Har Adar

Israeli politicians on Wednesday reacted furiously to the decision to accept the 'State of Palestine' as a member of the International Police Organization (Interpol). The criticism was aimed both at the decision and, in the case of the opposition, at the Israeli government on whose watch the vote was lost.

Environmental Protection Minister Ze'ev Elkin (Likud) said that "Israel can not stand idle in the face of the Palestinians' diplomatic warfare. We must convene the cabinet and stop all of our good-will gestured towards the Palestinian Authority."Elkin, who also holds the Jerusalem portfolio in the Cabinet, said Israel must withdraw the special transfer permits it approves for PA officials, who he claimed were inciting against the Jewish state.

MK Shuli Moallem (Bayit Yehudi) said Interpol, like all other international organizations, was biased against Israel. "The struggle on our part must continue, even though it appears endless," she said. She added, however, that there were things that the Israeli government should have done, but failed to, to prevent the outcome.

The move passed by a vote of 75 to 24, with 34 abstentions. The Palestinians needed more than two-thirds of the yes-or-no votes counted, and passed that threshold easily.

Former Prime Minister Ehud Barak tweeted that it was "another one of Netanyahu's failures. The gap between reality and impressive but empty speeches is growing. Leadership built only of 'talking big' is endangering Israel."

Former foreign minister Tzipi Livni (Zionist Union) reacted by saying the decision was "bad, bad for Israel," adding that "Israel must recognize that in the international community there is no vacuum." Livni, like others, said that the Palestinians' insistence on joining international bodies was a result of the breakdown of peace talks with Israel.

The Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) has decided to submit an official request to the International Criminal Court (ICC) to investigate what it calls “illegal Israeli settlement activity”, PLO Executive Committee member Dr. Hanan Ashrawi told the Ma’an news agency.

Ashrawi told the news agency that the committee had made the decision to move forward with submitting an official investigation request to the ICC, which is based in The Hague.

The Palestinian Authority (PA) officially joined the ICC on April 1, 2015, and immediately filed a series of legal complaints with the court. In addition to claiming that Israel committed war crimes during the 2014 Gaza war, it also claimed that Israeli “settlements” are “an ongoing war crime”.

The official PA news agency Wafa reported that during a PLO Executive Committee meeting on Sunday, the organization condemned Israel for “ethnic cleansing and racial segregation,” which they highlighted were “considered war crimes that should be investigated by the ICC.”

A PLO statement reportedly accused Israel of carrying out a “silent ethnic cleansing” in Jerusalem, the Jordan Valley and Hevron.

At the latest session of the UN Human Rights Council dedicated to demonizing Israel, states and NGOs made clear that their hatred of the Jewish State also extends to hatred of the Jewish people. During the meeting, held on September 25, 2017 in Geneva, multiple states and non-governmental organizations condemned "Judaization," an odious term which means the presence of Jews in Arab-claimed territory.
Lowlights include:

- Syrian Arab Republic: "We condemn the continued Israeli activity to Judaize Jerusalem... "
- Saudi Arabia: "The Judaization policy of a large part of the West Bank is a failure on the part of the international community to ensure that the United Nation's decisions are complied with. This policy is seeking to change the status quo, the historic status quo of Jerusalem, and may bring about religious hatred within the first consequences."
- Qatar: "It is time for the international community to end its silence and take up its legal and moral responsibilities by taking a position to put an end to ... the Judaization of the Holy Land..."
- Meezan Center for Human Rights: "We suffer from the Judaization policies which are becoming more intense in their scale and their pace and in violation of the international human rights instruments."
- Human Rights Agency: "The Judaization project of the Christian neighborhoods is a blatant violation of the status quo since-that has been there since-for 250 years."

The boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement to isolate and delegitimize Israel was given a boost at the UN Human Rights Council during its recent anti-Israel session. During the meeting held in Geneva on September 25, 2017, multiple states and non-governmental organizations pushed for the publication of a "database" of all companies that conduct business - directly or indirectly - relating to Israeli "settlements" in Arab-claimed territories. The blacklist was authorized in a March 2016 Human Rights Council and is expected to be released by the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) in December 2017.

Promotion of the BDS database included the following:
- Palestinian representative: "I would like to recall that all those who import the products produced by settlements is an accomplice of these violations, which are gross violations of international humanitarian law which amount to crimes of war, and we are awaiting the establishment of a database for enterprises operating in these settlements by the end of this year, in accordance with the Security Council resolution."
- Pakistan on behalf of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC): "The OIC condemns the involvement of Israeli and multi-national corporations in illegal settlements, which results in corporate complicity and war crimes. We look forward to the online publication by the OHCHR of the database of companies involved in illegal Israeli settlements before the end of the year."
- Indonesia: "Mr. Vice-President, on a final note, while we wait for the publication by the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights regarding the database of companies involved in illegal settlements, we encourage all Member States to cease any forms of cooperation which may have the potential to prolong and aggravate the Palestinian people's suffering."

The Assad regime claimed that Israel is violating the rights of Syrians in the "occupied Syrian Golan" - while Assad forces slaughter Syrian civilians in "unoccupied" Syria. The accusation was made during the UN Human Rights Council's regular meeting to bash Israel on September 25, 2017. According to the Syrian representative, Hussam Edin Aala, Israel's violations include preventing residents of the Golan from attending Syrian universities. The fact that students might avoid traveling to Syria because of the daily atrocities perpetrated there by Assad forces was left unmentioned.

In the representative's words:
"The sons and daughters of the occupied Syrian Golan are victims of gross violations at the hands of the Israeli occupying authorities who...prevent the Syrians from building on their own land and from communicating with their own families in the mother country, prevents them from continuing education in Syrian universities, prevents them from their livelihoods, and arbitrarily detains them. We call upon the Human Rights Council to condemn these Israeli practices...We also warn that Israel has decided to carry out elections for local councils in the occupied Syrian Golan next year... These violations in fact require monitoring and accountability..."

Sudan's Investment Minister Mubarak Al-Fadil Al-Mahdi, speaking on Sudania 24 TV spoke candidly about normalization with Israel, and his words were translated by MEMRI TV:

"I have my own opinion about the Palestinian cause, Israel, and all that. I think that people are more emotionally invested in this than reality warrants.

"The Palestinians share much of the responsibility for what has happened to them. They sold their lands and created many problems. The Arabs made grave mistakes by rejecting the Partition Plan and other resolutions. The Arab countries peddled in the Palestinian cause. Whenever someone stages a coup, he says it's for the liberation of Palestine (laughs, mumbles, 'so to speak...')... They have peddled in the Palestinian cause ad nauseum. It has become a political commodity in the Arab world."

The interviewer asks "if we were offered normalization of our relations with Israel...As a politician, would you support or oppose this?"

Al-Mahdi answers "I would consider it in accordance with the interests of Sudan."

The mourning tent outside the home of Yousef Ottman, 25, one of three security officers killed in a terror attack on Tuesday, was frequented by hundreds of friends and family, including residents of the Arab Israeli town of Abu Ghosh, former Border Police colleagues, as well as members of the Jewish West Bank settlement he died protecting, Har Adar.

The diverse tapestry of mourners who came to his funeral seemed to confirm what those who knew him told The Times of Israel: Ottman “got along with everyone,” was friendly and intelligent, and a man who had finished his three years of service in an elite unit of the Border Police with distinction.

The burial ceremony was conducted by the town’s Mayor Issa Jaber in both Hebrew and Arabic, and was attended by police officials, Knesset members, and a government minister.

Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat later visited the mourning tent, which will remain open for the next 30 days for anyone who wants to visit.

Suheir Ottman, the father of the security guard killed by a Palestinian gunman early Tuesday in nearby Har Adar, told The Times of Israel his son “got along with everyone in the village. Everyone loved him.”

“I’m proud of my son,” said the grim-faced father, who appeared shell-shocked as he welcomed guests to the tent outside his house.

Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman’s Yisrael Beytenu party said Tuesday it will revive legislation applying the death penalty to convicted terrorists after a deadly terror attack in the settlement of Har Adar earlier in the day.

MK Robert Ilatov, who will submit the bill, said the legislation is necessary to deter future terrorists from carrying out attacks.

“The legislation needs to be clear and unequivocal. A terrorist who comes with the goal of murdering innocent citizens — his sentence is death,” said Ilatov in a statement Tuesday.

Liberman and his Yisrael Beytenu party have long advocated introducing the death penalty for terrorists and the issue was one of the party’s key campaign promises in the 2015 elections.

While the proposed legislation has previously failed to garner sufficient support, Liberman expects Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to support the bill, Channel 2 reported Tuesday.

Israel will demolish the house of the terrorist who on Tuesday morning killed three Israelis and injured a fourth at the Har Adar settlement northwest of Jerusalem, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced several hours after the incident.

He blamed the terror attack on “systematic incitement” and called on Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas to condemn it.

“This has been a difficult morning; three Israelis were murdered by a depraved individual,” Netanyahu told his ministers at the weekly cabinet meeting in Jerusalem.

“While we are still investigating the event and its implications, we can say some things with certainty even now. One: the home of the terrorist will be demolished. Two: the IDF has already cordoned off the village. Three: all work permits for members of the terrorist’s extended family are hereby revoked.”

Tuesday's terrorist attack at the entrance to the Har Adar settlement outside Jerusalem, perpetrated by Beit Surik resident Nimr Mahmoud Ahmed Jamal, who had a permit to work in Israel, has reportedly prompted Israel to review the policy by which Palestinians receive work permits.

According to the Civil Administration, more than 100,000 Palestinians who live across Judea and Samaria have permits allowing them to work in Israel and in IDF-controlled areas beyond the Green Line.

It is believed an additional 40,000 Palestinians work in Judea and Samaria and Israel illegally.

While some sources expressed concern that Israel would introduce a wide-ranging policy change following the deadly attack, sources familiar with the issue said that while enforcement efforts against those working in Israel illegally will undoubtedly increase, authorities will most likely refrain from any major policy changes.

A senior Civil Administration official told Israel Hayom that the defense establishment tends not to impose collective punishment measures against the Palestinian population.

"Over the last few years, the defense establishment has made do with punitive and differential punishment [measures] in response to terrorist attacks, such as revoking the work permits held by the terrorist's relatives and at times from the extended family. It is no coincidence that in the past decade, only a handful of attacks were carried out by terrorists with work permits in Israel and in Judea and Samaria," the official said.

The investigation into Tuesday's terrorist attack at the entrance to the Har Adar settlement outside Jerusalem has found that the three men killed in the attack – Border Police Staff Sgt. Solomon Gavriyah and security guards Youssef Ottman and Or Arish – were all shot at point-blank range, sources familiar with the investigation told Israel Hayom.

Large security forces surrounded the Palestinian village of Beit Surik, where terrorist Nimr Mahmoud Ahmad Jamal lived, immediately after the attack.

Security forces raided his home, and three Palestinians, including two of Jamal's brothers, were arrested on suspicion they knew of his intentions.

The military has barred all traffic to and from the village over concerns about copycat attacks, with exceptions for humanitarian cases.

International media is calling this morning’s terror attack in Har Adar a “shooting,” refusing to address the terroristic nature of the attack.

Thus, CNN’s headline about the attack read: “Three Israelis killed in shooting at West Bank crossing,” without reference to the word “terror.” The terrorist himself is referred to as “the attacker” and “gunman.”

BBC reported: “Palestinian gunman kills three Israelis,” and was sure to note that the attack took place at the entrance to a “settlement in the occupied West Bank.” The article notes that the “gunman [...] was also shot and died later” after “[shooting] his victims at close range,” but does not explain that he was shot for committing a terror attack. Later, the article goes on to give “context” for the attack.

“The issue of settlements is one of the most contentious between Israel and the Palestinians, who see them as an obstacle to peace.”

According to NBC, the terrorist is a “suspect.” The article’s headline reads: “Three Israelis shot dead by Palestinian at West Bank settlement.”

In an exception to the general trend of shying away from labelling the attack as “terror,” Fox News’ headline read: “Jerusalem terror attack: 3 Israelis killed in shooting.”

"I love you Dad. You are a man with a good heart," wrote the daughter of the Palestinian terrorist to her father after he carried out a deadly terror attack that killed three Israelis in Har Adar on Tuesday morning.

Nimer Mahmoud Ahmad Jamal, who was shot dead by Israeli forces, left behind four children, the eldest 10 years old and the youngest four years old. In his home village of Beit Surik, local residents could not believe the news, emphasizing that Jamal was "a polite man, quiet and a sportsman known for working out. The youth of the village respect him and he is known as someone that helps others."

Family members of the attacker rejected the "rumors spread by the Shin Bet (Security Agency)" that he had problems with his wife.

"His wife traveled to Jordan to visit a sick family member," they told Palestinian media. "His relations with his wife were completely normal. The Israelis are trying to harm his status as a martyr."

Nimer Mahmoud Ahmad Jamal, perpetrator of the September 26, 2017 terror attack in Har Adar (Social Media)Nimer Mahmoud Ahmad Jamal, perpetrator of the September 26, 2017 terror attack in Har Adar (Social Media)

Lin, the attacker's eldest daughter, described her father as a "man with a good heart" in her letter. She added: "Netanyahu, do you think that a father with a good heart would want to die if you hadn't forced him to kill you because of the injustice, killing and brutality that you've caused?"

Three Israelis were killed and a fourth seriously injured in yet another attack by a Palestinian yesterday, prompting doubts among Israel’s population regarding the wisdom of continuing to engage in any form of contact with Palestinians that might imply acceptance of the situation and its legitimization.

The attacker, like several others among the thousands of Palestinian attempts on Israeli lives over the last several years, exploited his work permit, a document that allowed him to enter Israeli territory from areas governed by the Palestinian Authority. Following what security officials have described as intensive training with his weapon, Nimr Jamal shot the Israeli security guards at the gates of the Har Adar community where hundreds of Palestinians have worked in Jewish employ for decades. Prior to yesterday, Har Adar had not seen a terrorist incident, but the unprecedented attack has Israelis wondering whether letting Palestinians continue to cross over the Green Line or into Israeli areas beyond it, in addition to conducting any ‘normal’ relations with them, suggests it might be OK for the neighboring culture and leadership to incite, commit, and reward terrorism.

“The thing is it normalizes their violence,” argued Dor Ikkesh, a Har Adar resident. “The international community has to make it clear that no normalization of relations, commerce, or other contacts with Palestinians can commence until the illegitimate terrorist entity of theirs is dismantled. Only then can we consider it.”

“There should be a global boycott of Palestinians,” seconded Bertha Freshère of nearby Mevasseret Tziyon, a suburb of Jerusalem within the Green Line. “Perhaps with some has-been musicians as prominent advocates of a strategy to isolate and punish Palestinians until they internalize the need to respect the human rights of Israelis. I think the college campuses of North America would be a good recruiting ground for that initiative, since the people there are always so vocal about protecting human rights.”

IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Gadi Eisenkot on Wednesday commuted the Hebron shooter's sentence by four months, such that Elor Azaria will still need to serve a 14 month prison sentence.

The middle-of-the-road decision, which is likely to please no one, effectively ends the saga which has roiled the Israeli military, political class and public since Azaria shot and killed a neutralized Palestinian terrorist on March 24, 2016.

Eisenkot had already signaled that he would not fully pardon Azaria when he declined to issue a pardon three weeks ago, the first chance he could have intervened.

Many had thought Eisenkot would rush to issue a decision in early September to end the public pressure over the issue in which a vast majority of politicians, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, have lobbied for commuting the sentence.

If Eisenkot was concerned about the negative domestic coverage the IDF has received from Azaria already spending time in prison, a speedy announcement of whatever leniency he was willing to show would have scored some quick points.

Also, the IDF chief’s own statements the day that Azaria’s appeal was rejected indicated that he would seriously weigh leniency for Azaria if he dropped a potential appeal to the High Court of Justice.

Although his name was not mentioned in the Hamas announcement, it appears that Mohammed Dahlan will assume an important role in the process, both as an emissary of Egypt, which is suspicious of Hamas, and the United Arab Emirates, and as the one responsible for the reconstruction funds. The inclusion of Dahlan in the new order is likely to make it easier for Hamas and Israel to expedite the reconstruction process in the Gaza Strip: it will be easier for both sides to operate through Dahlan, rather than directly. The importance of Dahlan, a bitter enemy and a threat to the status of Abbas, does not add to Abbas’s peace of mind. It is possible that in order to make the initiative more palatable to Fatah, Dahlan will operate through Samir Mashharawi, his right hand man.

Israel has no substantive influence on the current maneuvers for reconciliation in the Palestinian arena, and should not intervene in them at this stage. Israel is seeking to maintain its deterrence against Hamas and prevent the next round of violent conflict, or at least delay it for as long as possible. In addition to defense measures, such a building a new barrier along the Gaza Strip border, it is important and morally correct that Israel reduce as much as possible the humanitarian distress in the Gaza Strip, and help improve the population’s welfare and quality of life. At this stage, there is no change in the political view of Hamas: it refuses to recognize Israel, put aside its “weapon of resistance,” and be a full partner in a settlement based on the two-state principle. It is therefore desirable for Israel to demand that measures for more comprehensive reconstruction in the Gaza Strip, in which it will be a partner, be made contingent on a prolonged security lull and a halt in Hamas’s military buildup.

Some will regard the Hamas announcement and the processes led by Egypt toward internal Palestinian reconciliation as an achievement for the hard-line policy of Abbas and the positions taken by Fatah and the PA. However, it is quite likely, rather, that Hamas has maneuvered skillfully, given the approach of its current leadership, and has successfully caught Abbas and the PA in a honey trap. Nonetheless, and despite the doubts concerning the PA’s ability to fulfill its obligations in the Gaza Strip according to the understandings, the PA is still the most comfortable partner for Israel in rebuilding the Gaza Strip, following many years of cooperation in the civilian and security spheres. If the PA is unable to return to the Gaza Strip, Israel will have to deal officially with Hamas, as it has done in practice in recent years. Israel’s interest mandates aid for reconstruction in the Gaza Strip and acceleration of the process, while trying to enlist Egypt in the undertaking and carefully overseeing the use of the raw materials sent into the Gaza Strip for reconstruction purposes.

Palestinian poet Jadal Al-Qasem, born 1983 in Bulgaria to a Palestinian father and Syrian mother and now residing in Ramallah, frequently writes about women in the Arab and Muslim society. In 2015 her anthology Wheat in Cotton was one of two first-prize winners in the Young Writers annual competition held by the Palestinian A. M. Al-Qattan Foundation.[1] The prize committee described her as a "thought-provoking feminine voice" that offers "a new and sometimes startling perspective," adding that her poetry describes men with sensitivity and courage, based on her personal experience, and also reflects the character of the woman in the Arab Muslim society.[2] Al-Qasem launched the anthology in an April 17, 2017 event at the Mahmoud Darwish Museum in Ramallah, at which she also read several of her poems.[3]

In a March 3, 2017 televised interview with the Palestinian Maan news agency, Al-Qasem said that she believes every individual has a right to "personal self-definition" and that women must fight to realize this right in their everyday lives, in the domains of finance, thought, poetry, etc., because "we [women] are complete human beings and must enjoy all [our] rights." She stressed that "courage is an integral part of a woman" and that a true woman must be brave in everything she does.[4]

On April 25, 2017, the Palestinian Authority (PA) daily Al-Hayat Al-Jadida published a poem by Al-Qasem titled "I Am the Scar upon Your Arm," about an oppressed woman who lives to serve others and conforms to their expectations but is not recognized or appreciated. The woman in the poem expresses her hatred for all those around her – her husband, his family and her own – who enabled her suffering and contributed to it. She describes herself as a "puppet" and a "dead woman," and even as a wife doomed to be murdered by her husband.

Two Coptic Christians fled arrest in Egypt after the men allegedly blamed Islamic leaders for a jihadi bus attack.

Bassem Abdel-Malak Fahim, 25, and Mina Younan Samuel, also 25, remain on the run after Egyptian police charged them with inciting sectarian strife via Facebook comments. Muslims rioted over the social media post.

In the post, Fahim allegedly insulted Muslim leaders in response to a May Islamist bus attack that killed 28 Coptic Christians, according to World Watch Monitor. Samuel shared the social media post.

The post specifically criticized Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi for making a show of opposing Islamic extremism in Libya, but for allegedly doing nothing in Egypt. Fahim accused certain Muslim clerics in Egypt of encouraging attacks against Christians, according to Christian Today (CT).

“This post spread among the Muslim villagers, and all people in the village were talking about this post, saying it was an insult to Islam,” Adel Girgis, a Coptic in the village, told World Watch Monitor (WWM). “They then begin to insult and threaten us while we were walking in the village streets, and hit two Copts.”

Though Fahim posted in May and deleted it shortly thereafter, Muslims in the village of Ezbat El-Sheikh Nageim took notice of the post Sep. 6, as the post was saved when Samuel shared it. Word spread among the Muslim community, inciting anger and resentment toward Christians in the area. Fahim fled the region of Minya with his father to seek sanctuary in Cairo.

Hezbollah has more than 10,000 fighters in southern Syria ready to confront Israel, a commander for the Iranian-backed Lebanese terror group has said.

“Hezbollah has over 10,000 fighters deployed in southern Syria. Hezbollah is an army of infantry, rockets, tanks, elite forces,” the Hezbollah official told the Middle East Eye website this week, amid tensions surrounding the shooting down by the Israeli Air Force on Tuesday of an Iranian-built drone launched by the group as it attempted to cross into airspace.

The commander said the fighters were based in areas surrounding the Golan Heights and that tunnels and military bases were being built for a possible confrontation with Israel

“We are operating as we do in south Lebanon, but of course in a veiled manner,” he said.

Speaking of the truce in southern Syria, under the auspices of Russia and the United Nations, the commander said that the “de-escalation plan is better for us. We are working with more freedom, there are no more bombings.”

Hizbullah chief Sheikh Hasan Nasrallah has worked closely with Syrian-based Iranian forces to work out a deal that has so far brought more than 1,000 Iraqi Shiite fighters to bolster Hizbullah’s ranks in Lebanon. In an editorial, the London-based pan-Arab newspaper Al-Sharq al-Awsat was critical of the Tehran-backed terrorist group for “placing its own interests above those of the Lebanese people.” The article charged that the Iraqis have been resettled in Hizbullah installations in the southern part of the country, apparently in areas where United Nations Security Council Resolution 1701 prohibits Hizbullah’s presence. Since US President Donald Trump took office, the long ignored issue of Lebanon’s flouting of Resolution 1701, which ended the 2006 war between Israel and Hizbullah, and which prohibits armed forces other than the Lebanese army and bans Hizbullah military actions in southern Lebanon, has been – in-part – on the table. American UN envoy Nikki Haley has led the diplomatic fight to curb the abuses, but has been undermined by US policy to support the Lebanese army which is increasingly subservient to the Hizbullah terrorist forces.

In Friday’s edition of the French daily Le Figaro, Lebanese President Michel Aoun praised Hizbullah, at the same time confessing to his nation’s breach of the UNSC resolution. He said, “Hezbollah are not using their weapons in internal politics. They only ensure our resistance against the State of Israel, which continues to occupy part of our territory and which refuses to apply UN resolutions regarding the Palestinians’ right to return.” It was not the first time Aoun defended the arming of Hizbullah and was not taken to task by the international community. In February, Aoun told the CBC that, “as long as the army is not powerful enough to fight Israel, we feel the need to maintain the weapons of the resistance [Hizbullah] to complement the army.” For the US it’s particularly problematic since Washington provides military aid that few doubt wind up in Hizbullah’s hands. It’s also a legal quagmire since US law prohibits giving aid to entities such as Hizbullah that are found on the State Department’s list of terrorist organizations.

Lebanese President Michel Aoun has dismissed claims that Hezbollah should be disarmed as long as Israel “fails to respect” UN resolutions and international law.

The terrorist organization ensures Lebanon’s “resistance against the State of Israel,” he said in an interview published Friday by French daily Le Figaro, in which he defended his close relations with Hezbollah, which played a major role in his election as president in 2016.

After securing the backing of Hezbollah, 82-year-old Aoun filled a power vacuum left by a deadlock that paralyzed Lebanese politics for two-and-a-half-years, following the departure of former president Michel Suleiman.

“This wasn’t an alliance [with Hezbollah] but rather an agreement,” said Aoun. “Thanks to the agreement, we have been able to avoid civil war in Lebanon. I sincerely believe that I have saved the Lebanese state.

“[As a result], Hezbollah has altered its political stance and has respected Lebanese sovereignty,” Aoun told Le Figaro. “Nasrallah has said as much in an address: Hezbollah has renounced its project to install an ‘Islamic Republic’ in Lebanon.”

Lebanon’s 16-year civil war was finally brought to an end in 1990 with the Taif Agreement, requiring the “disbanding of all Lebanese and non-Lebanese militias.” Hezbollah, however, was permitted to keep its weaponry with Syrian forces in control of South Lebanon.

Aoun dismissed the claim that Hezbollah should follow a process of disarmament like all other Lebanese militias.

When a little boy who looked and sounded American appeared in propaganda video put out by the failing Islamic State this week, threatening “Trump: puppet of the Jews,” it caused a sensation as, of course, it was meant to do.

“How can a group make a child into a monster?” we ask. Yet the answer comes to us in the voices of numerous ISIS defectors and prisoners who tell us precisely how ISIS takes the blank-slate minds of children and fills them with poisonous ideologies alongside dreams of Paradise.

Children are powerful tools in the hands of groups like the so-called Islamic State, as we’ve learned after interviewing 63 ISIS returnees, defectors, and prisoners.

Trained at “Cubs of the Caliphate” camps in both Iraq and Syria, children are indoctrinated to hate—and to kill all others who do not adhere to ISIS’s strict, brutal and intolerant views of Islam. They are also taught to give their own lives in acts of “martyrdom.” \

“I saw them train young kids to blow things up. From my camp, 15-year-and-younger kids went on bombing missions. They tell us they are going to go to Paradise,” 15-year-old Syrian Ibn Omar told researchers for the International Center for the Study of Violent Extremism.

Ibn Omar ran off to join ISIS at age 13 after having his head filled with dreams from the preachers who took over his mosque when ISIS overran his region. Impoverished and young enough to be drawn in, Ibn Omar was motivated by the income he could bring home to his unsuspecting parents, and the promises of cars and other material rewards.

In 2016, ABC News reported that ISIS has developed an entire business dedicated to production of fake passports. The terror group has strongholds in countries such as Syria, Libya and Iraq which allows them to acquire thousands of blank passports. United States intelligence believes that that ISIS has obtained a passport printing machine and has access to biographical data and fingerprints of Syrians. It is suspected that ISIS has been printing fake passports for approximately two years, and it is likely that these have been used to gain entry into the U.S undetected.

This production of forged passports is clearly cause for much concern in the intelligence community as it poses an extreme security threat for both the United States and Europe.

European authorities have reported that fake passports have been used to enter several countries. This includes passports discovered on suicide bombers responsible for the Paris terrorist which occurred in November 2015. Furthermore, ABC also reported that fraud documents are extremely widespread and relatively cheap throughout Syria. Additionally, due to the prevalence, most Syrians do not even consider it illegal.

Newsweek recently reported that ISIS has approximately 11,000 blank passports readily available for terrorists to obtain. European intelligence compiled a list of suspected serial numbers of fake passports. However, there is still much concern that jihadists will covertly enter Europe.

At a recent soccer match in Tehran between the two countries’ teams, Syrian and Iranian fans began shouting invectives at each other, highlighting the fact that, despite their governments’ close alliance, the two peoples share little mutual affection. Amir Taheri notes the feebleness of the Iranian regime’s efforts to explain to its populace why it is involved in Syria:

The initial [explanation] provided by the Khomeinist authorities was that Iran is fighting in Syria to prevent the fall of President Bashar al-Assad’s regime, which had been an ally during the war with Saddam Hussein’s Iraq in the 1980s and is now a member of the “Resistance Front” led by Iran.

That . . . . failed to convince many people, even within the regime’s base. Then another reason was cited: Iran was fighting in Syria to prevent the destruction of Shiite holy shrines. Official media published lists of such shrines, sometimes with photographs.

But that, too, was challenged by “troublemakers” who picked holes in the regime’s shaky claims. More than 90 percent of Syrian “Shiite holy sites” turned out to be burial places of ancient Jewish prophets or Sunni Muslim theologians and scholars. . . .

[Furthermore], a closer look at Syrian realities shows that the Russo-Irano-Turkish scheme [to divide the country into spheres of influence] is doomed to fail. From what I know of Syria, a country I have observed and visited since 1970, despite almost seven years of tragedy, the sense of “Syrian-ness” is still strong enough to frustrate putative imperial appetites. . . .

Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman on Saturday said that it was “not just a provocation and an act of defiance” directed at the US and its allies, including Israel.

“It’s also further proof of Iran’s aspirations to become a world power and to threaten not just the Middle East but all the countries of the free world. Imagine what would happen if Iran were to acquire nuclear weapons. That’s what it aspires to do, and we cannot allow it to happen,” he said.

Foreign Ministry director-general Yuval Rotem also released a statement saying that Tehran was “directly challenging the international community,” with the test and that “a robust response is imperative.”

Iran is said to have conducted over 20 missile tests since 2015 claiming that they are legitimate and defensive in nature.

While Iran’s ballistic missile test did not happen, Tehran, which possesses over 1,000 short- and medium-range ballistic missiles, is continuing to improve its missile arsenal.

With such a significant number of missiles, Iran has the ability to proliferate weapons to countries and non-state actors such as Hezbollah on Israel’s northern border and Hamas in the Gaza Strip.

One of the most important standards set by the U.S. Congress for the Iran agreement concerns covert Iranian activities in the nuclear field. The Iran agreement gives the International Atomic Energy Agency access to certain declared facilities. But the agreement doesn't adequately address the question of undeclared sites.
It's as though the negotiators forgot some famous names: Natanz - the main enrichment site of Iran; Arak - where the Iranians have their heavy-water facility which will allow them the pathway to a plutonium bomb; and the famous underground site at Fordo near Qom where the Iranians have another enrichment facility for their uranium.
These sites were all secret, undeclared sites. If the Iranians are going to break through to a nuclear bomb, they're going to do it in those kind of secret sites that eventually the West discovered over the last 20 years, and not through some declared facility.

Dr. Olli Heinonen, a former deputy director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, wrote in September in an FDD policy brief that he has information from an IAEA staff member that the agency has not conducted a single visit to suspected military sites in Iran. They're off the table. In fact, the whole arrangement for inspections and monitoring is the weak link in the Iranian nuclear deal.

Thousands of Iranians called for Israel’s destruction at a funeral Wednesday for a young member of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps beheaded by the Islamic State jihadist group in Syria, a killing that has struck a nerve within the Islamic Republic as its forces continue to suffer casualties in Iraq and Syria.

The slaying of 25-year-old Mohsen Hojaji captured the imagination of many in Iran, a Shiite-ruled nation whose national religion holds sacred acts of mourning and the acknowledgement of sacrifices. Since his death, artists and others have memorialized Hojaji in videos and paintings, while discussion of his slaying has muted domestic criticism of Iran’s foreign military operations, especially in Syria.

A cleric at the funeral alleged that Israel and the US were behind IS, drawing cries of “Death to Israel” and “Down with the US” from the audience.

“We swear on blood of Hojaji we will not rest until destroying Israel,” cleric Ali Reza Pahanhian said from the podium. “Israel, we swear on the head of Hojaji that we will behead your leaders. Guards! Prepare your missiles for annihilation of Israel.”

King Salman’s revocation of the controversial driving ban for women has backfired with the swiftest revolution in the Middle East to date.

Just hours after the driving ban was lifted, women converged on major locations across Riyadh. Fatima Al-Fatima, the leader of the revolt, spoke from the royal palace: “We have been practicing on our husband’s dune buggies and golf carts. The plans have been in place for years. The process of establishing a matriarchal utopia in Saudi Arabia is already well underway, and we will not stop until we have our new Arab Queendom.”

It is still too early to gauge a full reaction, but one ultra-conservative prince, whose assets were seized and genitals clipped in response to his misogynistic tirades, was conflicted: “Just as I feared, letting women drive has resulted in a mass movement! But I did tell the reformists this, and the “I told you so” moment was pretty sweet.”

In her press conference, Al-Fatima addressed the stereotype of “bad” women drivers: “We may be bad drivers, I admit it, but let’s see how good men are at driving when we force them to get around by bicycle for the rest of their lives!” She also got creative with her vendetta against last year’s infamous Starbucks ban: “We remember these injustices. We wanted a pumpkin-spiced latte, but we ended with a shitty Americano from some second-rate coffee chain. Therefore, we have sentenced all men to drinking Dunkin’ Donut Coffee for the foreseeable future.”

Today, the party passed the rule change making antisemitic abuse and harassment by Labour members a punishable offence. The Guardian reported:

“The rule change proposed by the Jewish Labour Movement, which has been backed by the Labour leader, Jeremy Corbyn and the party’s national executive committee, will tighten explicitly the party’s stance towards members who are antisemitic or use other forms of hate speech, including racism, Islamophobia, sexism and homophobia.”

Yet this change is worse than meaningless. Yes, it enables the party to expel antisemites. But crucially, it leaves unresolved the definition of what antisemitism actually is. And you can bet your bottom dollar that Labour will never, ever accept that demonisation and delegitimisation of Israel is the contemporary form of the oldest hatred.

How could it accept that? Its members overwhelmingly subscribe to it – even though many of them haven’t the faintest clue that what they believe to be the truth about the Arab-Israel conflict is in fact a pack of lies from start to finish.

In maintaining this fictitious distinction, Labour wields what it believes to be the ultimate weapon: the anti-Zionist Jews who offer themselves as human shields to protect those who they hope will destroy the State of Israel through demonisation and delegitimisation.

The assumption is that no Jew can be an antisemite; so if Jews say Israel is a Nazi apartheid racist murderous colonialist state committing unspeakabke atrocities, that cannot be antisemitism.

But that’s rubbish. Antisemitism has unique characteristics, including double standards applied to no-one else but the Jews, systemic lies and falsehoods, imputation of a global conspiracy to harm the world in their own interests, blame for crimes of which they are not only innocent but are the victims, and so on. All these characteristics that make antisemitism a unique collective derangement apply to the demonisation of Israel.

And of course, there have always been Jews who have done the antisemites’ dirty work for them. The fact that such a high proportion involved in this latest manifestation of the oldest hatred are people of Jewish descent merely demonstrates the tragic fact that there’s no disorder quite so pathological as when a Jew turns against his or her own identity at the deepest level. Jews are a people like no other; the hatred directed at them is a hatred like no other; and when Jews turn on their own people, they behave in a way that is replicated by no other.

Today, BBC anchor Jo Coburn interviewed noted filmmaker and Corbyn backer Ken Loach about this state of affairs, and he proceeded to unintentionally demonstrate just how dire matters have become.

Loach began by forcefully denying the presence of anti-Semitism not just in the Labour party, but on the left in general. “I’ve been going to Labour party meeting for over 50 years,” Loach said. “I’ve gone to trade union meetings. I’ve gone to meetings of left groups and campaigns. I have never, in that whole time, heard a single anti-Semitic word or racist word. Now, I’m not saying it doesn’t exist in society.”

Awkwardly, Loach then followed up this assertion of anti-Semitic innocence by rattling off a series of extremely anti-Semitic claims. First, he declared that progressive Jews, including Labour members of parliament, were inventing anti-Semitic incidents for political purposes, to tarnish Jeremy Corbyn. “It’s funny these stories suddenly appeared when Jeremy Corbyn became leader, isn’t it?” he mused. His BBC interviewer Coburn countered, “Well, they would explain that perhaps Jeremy Corbyn has allowed the oxygen for those sort of views.”

In fact, multiple Jewish Labour MPs have been open about their experiences of prejudice and Corbyn’s failure to counter it. MP Ruth Smeeth famously lamented how the party under Corbyn was no longer “a safe space for Jews.” And among other Labour luminaries, London’s first Muslim mayor Sadiq Khan blamed “the leader of my party” for “failing” to call out anti-Semitism. To Loach, however, these are not honest accounts of bigotry, but a sinister anti-Corbyn conspiracy. “Their aim is to destabilize Jeremy’s leadership,” he insisted. “This story, there is no validity to it. In my experience, no validity whatsoever.”

But Loach’s ugly insinuation that Jews fabricate their own oppression for personal gain—a staple of anti-Semitic invective for centuries—was just the beginning. When asked by Coburn about a fringe session at the Labour conference where a panelist called for open “yes or no” discussion of the Holocaust, the filmmaker point-blank refused to condemn Holocaust denial, demurring that “history is for all of us to discuss” before going off on an unrelated rant about Israeli evil.

Holocaust denial, virulent anti-Semitism and Zionist conspiracy theories are the sort of dangerous, rabble-rousing poison you would expect from a neo-Nazi rally packed with knuckle-scraping skinheads.

Most people would not immediately associate this kind of vile behaviour with a self-styled anti-racist party, allegedly committed to equality and diversity.

But that’s exactly what has been on parade at this week’s Labour conference in Brighton. The Fascist Left have been in full flow, monstering supporters of Israel and demanding that members of the Jewish Labour Movement should be expelled from the party.

The Labour conference is not where you'd expect to find Holocaust deniers, virulent anti-Semitism and Zionist conspiracy theories, but you'd be wrong

Speakers who compared ‘Zionists’ to Hitler’s genocidal Nazis were applauded by delegates at an event advertised in the official conference handbook.

It was even argued that questioning whether the murder of six million Jews during World War II actually happened was a legitimate matter of free speech.

This from activists who in other circumstances would be busily ‘no platforming’ anyone who expressed views which offended their own political sensibilities.

Others claimed that alleging they were guilty of anti-Semitism was a plot by the pro-Israel lobby to stop Jeremy Corbyn becoming Prime Minister.

Ah, yes. That evil worldwide Zionist conspiracy again. They get everywhere, don’t they?

Labour members found questioning the Holocaust should be “kicked out on their ear” under new party rules, the Jewish Labour Movement has said.

Mike Katz said the group backs proposals from Labour’s ruling governing body, the National Executive Committee, which seek to change the conditions of membership to explicitly state, among other things, that “prejudicial” conduct includes anti-Semitism.

It follows calls for change from the JLM and others, with the debate emerging against the backdrop of a row over allegations of anti-Semitism at Labour’s conference after a speaker at a fringe event was reported to have said people should be allowed to question if the Holocaust had happened.

Mr Katz told delegates in Brighton: “The purpose of our rule change was to close off a loophole, a cop-out clause which says holding a sincerely held belief makes hate speech okay.

“Come on conference, is it really okay for a member to say they’ve got a sincerely held belief that women are inferior to men, or that the Holocaust didn’t happen? No, of course not.

“We want to see anybody saying that kicked out on their ear.

Miko Peled has sought to clarify the remarks he made at a fringe meeting during the Labour Party conference. In an email to the Guardian reproduced in this article he stated:

“The Holocaust was a terrible crime that we must study and from which we must all learn. I reject the idea that Holocaust deniers, foolish as they may be, should be treated as criminals and I doubt that supporters of Israel should be given the authority to judge who is or is not a racist and antisemite.

“Promoters of racist ideologies should not be given a public platform, and to me that does include people who promote Zionism – which is a racist ideology whose followers have committed and continue to commit crimes against the people of Palestine.

“If we are to do justice to the memory of the millions of victims of the Holocaust, Jewish and Roma and many, many others, then we must engage in robust debate and education about the causes of current, ongoing violence and injustice.”

Here’s a tweet on the same topic.

Yet again, he confuses the issues here. ‘Free speech is now antisemitism’ is a completely meaningless statement. Of course free speech includes antisemitism and all kinds of offensive remarks. He’s not even consistent – in the email quoted above he says:

Promoters of racist ideologies should not be given a public platform

If I’ve understood him correctly, this means those who identify as Zionists (which includes many who strongly oppose Israel’s current government) should be silenced and not deemed capable of adjudicating on issues of antisemitism. Although Peled doesn’t explicitly say that Holocaust deniers should be given a public platform, it’s striking that he reserves his harshest words for LFI and JLM types.

The UK's Labour party voted Tuesday to adopt new rules to tackle antisemitism during the party's annual conference in Brighton. The rule change on discrimination was proposed by The Jewish Labour Movement and allows for tougher sanctions against party members who are antisemitic or use other forms of hate speech, including racism, Islamophobia, misogyny and homophobia.

Speaking from the Labour Party Conference, Board of Deputies of British Jews Chief Executive Gillian Merron said: "We are pleased to hear that Labour National Executive Committee's proposed rule change, modeled on that proposed by the Jewish Labour Movement, has been adopted by conference delegates.""This is particularly important after the ugly scenes we have witnessed during this conference and shows the need for resolute and robust action," she added.

The decision came following a fresh scandal on the issue which erupted on the sidelines of the conference in which Israeli-American author and pro-Palestinian activist Miko Peled said people should be allowed to question whether the Holocaust took place in the name of free speech. Labour’s deputy leader Tom Watson vowed the party would investigate the speaker and said he was disgusted the party gave him a platform.

Reports also emerged from fringe events of speakers comparing Israel supporters to Nazis and activists calling for the Jewish Labour Movement and Labour Friends of Israel to be kicked out of the party While Jewish groups welcomed the rule change, they said it must be followed up by swift and decisive action.

Security personnel at the busiest of the extermination camps in the Third Reich echoed the sentiments of British Labour Party politicians this week, objecting to being characterized as antisemitic simply because they insult, marginalize, dehumanize, rob, brutalize, isolate, and kill Jews.

Guards, executioners, and administrative staff at the Auschwitz-Birkenau complex voiced displeasure today at being lumped in the popular conception with Jew-haters, accusing those who call them antisemitic of trying to silence discussion of how awful the Jews are. Their remarks came on the heels of statements by Labour figures Ken Livingstone and Ken Loach, who at a conference of the party this week lamented the facts that Holocaust denial was met with charges of antisemitism, and that bad-mouthing Jews as a group carries the automatic consequence of being called antisemitic.

“We know exactly what they mean,” declared Deputy Camp Commandant Dietrich Totenkopf, as he dispensed pellets of Zyklon-B cyanide into a gas chamber crammed full with Jews. “A guy can’t do his part in the Final Solution without getting assaulted by accusations of Jew-hatred. But we know the game. The Jew-controlled media is trying to silence anyone who disagrees with their agenda, let alone does something to combat it, by making it seem that such dissent could only come from fascist monsters.”

“It didn’t start just today,” observed Feliks Krematohr, a guard whose chief duties include beating to death any inmates who fail to stand at attention for the full roll call. “My brother-in-law was part of one of the Einsatzgruppen, the mobile Jew-killing squads, over in Lithuania last year, and as you can imagine, the Jews and their puppets won’t leave him and his colleagues alone. Charges of antisemitism can seriously damage a person’s employment prospects and career – and I’d bet anything that’s exactly what they’re trying to do, too. It’s nothing less than a denial of his rights. They can’t do that.”

The September 2001 Durban conference ostensibly held to mark the end of apartheid and launch the effort to eliminate discrimination and racism in all of its manifestations, was turned into an infamous platform for hate and antisemitism. Denunciations, including from Prof. Irwin Cotler, Mary Robinson (who, as Human Rights Commissioner, presided over this event) and the late US Congressman Tom Lantos continue to reverberate.

The Durban agenda and the singling out of one country continue apace, particularly among many powerful NGOs that claim to be the protectors of human rights and universal principles, including some that spoke under the infamous Item 7 earlier today. The Durban NGO Forum, including the final declaration embody this antisemitism and the leaders of this community, many of whom participated, repeat the slogans and myths in their ongoing campaigns. The funders of these NGOs, including many governments, particularly in Europe, share responsibility for these basic moral violations that has done immeasurable damage to the credibility and reputation of the human rights community.

In the past 16 years, the state of human rights in the world has deteriorated further, highlighting the failures of these institutions.

There is no room for antisemitism and hate in any form within human rights frameworks, and the recent attempt by the Special Rapporteur “on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian Territory” to include a virulent antisemite under the category of a “human rights defender” is a case in point. We also commend the actions of the Commissioner in clearly and immediately rejecting this action.

Thank you Mr. President

A World Bank consultant who raked in £1.7million in bribes while advising the United Nations onpoverty stricken countries has been jailed.

Wassim Tappuni, 64, rigged bidding wars between companies vying for contracts worth £43m to supply medical equipment to hospitals in Eastern Europe and Central Asia.

Tappuni gave corrupt firms the inside track on what the World Bank was looking for during bidding processes.

He also helped them to discredit rival offers in exchange for huge bribes, which he hid in a secret tax-free Swiss bank account.

Tappuni pulled off the scam from his luxury home in Kingston-upon-Thames, in south-west London, while he was being paid £170,000 a year by the World Bank and the United Nations Development Programme .

He was convicted of a total of 13 fraud charges on July 25 following a trial at Southwark Crown Court .

As a religious minority whose political independence is at best grudgingly recognized by the nations of the Middle East, Jews are natural allies of the Kurds. Cooperation – particularly military cooperation – dates back at least to 1966 when Israel, with Iranian help, aided Kurds in a battle against Iraq.

Kurdish society in northern Iraq is remarkably tolerant, though the Kurds’ de facto leader, Masoud Barzani, is no democrat.

Israeli flags could be seen on the streets of Erbil on Monday.

Earlier this month, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reiterated his support for “the legitimate efforts of the Kurdish people to achieve a state of their own.”

Netanyahu happens to be the only head of state who has come out in favor of an independent Kurdistan in northern Iraq.

Netanyahu has since honored Kurds’ request to tone down support. Ministers have reportedly been asked not to speak out on the referendum. Kurds are concerned that their many detractors will use Israel’s support for Kurdish independence against them. Nouri al-Maliki, Iraq’s vice president, said on Sunday during a meeting with US Ambassador to Iraq Douglas Sliman that his country “will not allow the creation of a second Israel in northern Iraq.”

But Israel’s natural and publicized affinity with the Kurdish cause in north Iraq should be the least of the Kurds’ worries. The Kurds have no international support for the referendum. The US, the UN and the EU have all opposed the timing of the referendum. Their central claim is that it shifts attention away from a unified battle against ISIS and sparks separatism and infighting.

Turkey and Iran, which share borders with northern Iraqi Kurdistan, are openly opposed. A fifth of Turkey’s population is Kurdish; a tenth of Iran’s population is. Neither country is interested in igniting Kurdish aspirations at home.

Zionism invented the Palestinian people. Unlike the Kurds, the Palestinian national identity was based exclusively on denying Zionism. The unity is based on the desire to see no Jews in the 1967 or 1948 borders. The desire for nationality and unity has developed—it exists today—but not enough for them to give up on the dream to kick out the Jews. The unwillingness to compromise, which has been proved on every occasion, is the foundation.

That’s also the main difference between the Left and the Right, not just regarding the Kurds but also in terms of nationality. In the Western world, including Israel, there’s deep contempt towards “rightists who think.” It’s the silliest original sin of most “public opinion leaders”—the ease in which solid political perceptions are turned into dust. In Israel, this ease makes it possible to bind together everything that comes from the Right in order to cancel and reject it.

That’s how populism (of which there is no shortage, unfortunately, on the Right) is mixed with a deep-rooted ideology. Anyone who opposes the problematic idea of two states in the 1967 borders is turned into a messianic person seeking a binational state. It’s hard to find writers on the Left who delve deep into the ideas behind Bayit Yehudi leader Naftali Bennett, former Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon and even Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, in the rare moments in which he clarifies his comments.

It began somewhere in the ideological battle over influence and ideas: On one side stood the supporters of the utopian “John Lennon” approach of cancelling borders, religions and nationalities, because we’re all human beings; on the other side stood the supporters of nationality and separation between groups with a different identity. Over time, these insights were undermined by populism. The Right and the Left are equally responsible for that, but this tendency on the Left carries a political price—defeat everywhere in the world.

That’s how solid security-strategic perceptions about the need for land and security control are mixed with religious messianism. That’s also how weighty statements about healthy nationality are mixed with slips of the tongue and Facebook nonsense with a nationalistic inclination. That’s how Kurds are mixed with Palestinians for hypocritical reasons, without seeing that the opponents of nationality are actually seeking Palestinian nationality.

The difference between the Kurdish nationality and the Palestinian nationality lies in the ability to survive as an independent state and in the price of this kind of independence. With the Palestinians, it means harming Israel’s security, which is why the interest is reduced independence, somewhere between an autonomy and Netanyahu’s “state minus.” With the Kurds, nationality means a contribution to regional stability. And that’s, very briefly, the entire difference between interest and theory.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Tuesday said Israel should “review” its support for Iraqi Kurdish independence, warning the Jewish state’s support for the bid could negatively affect diplomatic ties between Ankara and Jerusalem.

“If they do not review, we cannot take a lot of steps that we were about to take with Israel,” Erdogan was quoted by the official Anadolu news agency as saying. “It is not possible for us to take steps with those who do not see Turkey as a playmaker in the region. Turkey is a playmaker in the region,” he said.

Despite years of close security and intelligence ties, Israel’s diplomatic relations with Turkey have been frosty under Erdogan’s rule, reaching a nadir after Israeli troops raided the Gaza-bound Mavi Marmara ship and killed nine Turkish nationals, who attacked them violently aboard, in May 2010.

A well-known conspiracy theorist who claims Israeli and Zionist Jews planned the 9/11 terror attacks spoke at San Jose State University’s flagship library on Saturday, despite strong objections from Jewish faculty members, The Algemeiner has learned.

Christopher Bollyn, described as “a raging anti-Semite” by the Southern Poverty Law Center, lectured at the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Library — which is jointly run by SJSU and the city of San Jose — about the alleged role of Israeli and American Zionists in orchestrating “false flag” attacks on the World Trade Center. Nearly two dozen people were in attendance, according to an SJSU professor who gave The Algemeiner an account of the event on condition of anonymity.

Bollyn’s beliefs are well recorded. In his 2012 book Solving 9/11: The Deception that Changed the World, Bollyn called the 9/11 attacks “a monstrous Jewish-Zionist crime of our time,” whose culprits were “being protected by a gang of like-minded Jewish Zionists in the highest positions of the U.S. government.”

Despite this, in a now-removed listing on SJSU’s events calendar promoting his appearance (cache available here), Bollyn was only described as an “independent researcher, investigative journalist, and author.”

Jonathan Roth, a history professor at SJSU, told The Algemeiner that Bollyn’s talk was booked by Candice McGee — the university’s meeting room, exhibits, and administrative specialist — and approved by both Tracy Elliott, the dean of the university library, and Jill Bourne, the city of San Jose’s chief library director.

Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) board member Sami Al-Arian appears to be thriving in his new environment — after being deported from the United States in 2015.

Al-Arian is scheduled to speak next month at a conference in Istanbul that is sponsored, in part, by his old pals at Georgetown University’s Saudi-endowed Alwaleed Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding. The center’s director, John Esposito, a Muslim Brotherhood apologist, also considers himself a “very close friend” of Al-Arian’s. And — as we noted last spring, family ties strengthen the Al-Arian/Georgetown connection.

Al-Arian was deported to Turkey in 2015, pursuant to terms in his 2006 guilty plea connected to his Palestinian Islamic Jihad support. A computer scientist by training, Al-Arian now works as “director of the Center for Regional Politics at Istanbul Sabahattin Zaim University.”

His conference biography casts him as a civil rights activist and thinker. It is silent about Al-Arian’s documented role as secretary for the PIJ’s Majlis Shura, or board of directors. It also omits a 1991 introduction of Al-Arian captured on videotape, in which he is described as the head of “the active arm of the Islamic Jihad Movement in Palestine” in the United States.

This makeover may be part of a public comeback that Al-Arian is staging as he starts a new life in Turkey. Following the failed coup attempt there, Al-Arian offered his analysis on its suspected instigators, twice hinting that Israel was involved.

A group of Oberlin College alumni have released a letter in support of a professor who was recently fired by the University of Maryland.

The letter, which was addressed to university president Wallace Loh and Provost Mary Ann Rankin, called the termination of award-winning professor Melissa Landa, who had been an Assistant Clinical Professor in the Department of Education, as “surprising and troubling.”

Landa had helped found and was president of the Oberlin chapter of Alums for Campus Fairness (ACF), which fights the rise in anti-Semitic incidents on campus.

“Melissa is an excellent instructor, teaching a curriculum she developed, and winning awards and a strong vote of confidence from her students. She has a book soon to be published. She created and led an education abroad program in Israel and raised money to ensure the participation of first generation college students,” the letter stated. “There has been no suggestion that either her teaching or her scholarship is anything but excellent.”

The letter also noted that Landa is “a committed Jew and a supporter of Israel.”

Two incidents, however, suggest that Landa’s advocacy for Israel played a role in her dismissal. Dr. John O’Flahavan, a mentor of Landa’s, and Associate Chair of the university’s Undergraduate Elementary Education Program had discouraged Landa from displaying an Israeli flag in her office. O’Flavahan also removed Landa “from her longstanding position on the program’s literacy team in May 2016, shortly after she became active in an antiBDS faculty organization, the Academic Engagement Network (AEN).”

In addition, Shiri Moshe reported for The Algemeiner that shortly after Landa joined AEN, “O’Flahavan withdrew from a paper that he and Landa were set to jointly present on April 12, at the annual conference of the American Educational Research Association in Washington, DC.” The paper incorporated research conducted by both professors, including research Landa had done in Israel. O’Flavahan said that he had family obligations and was unreachable by Landa during the conference.

The Alan Parsons Project is returning to Israel for two concerts in November, almost 3 years after their last concerts here.

According to their official website, they will be performing here on November 9 and 11 in Haifa and Tel Aviv respectively.

And Roger Waters’ week just keeps getting worse!

You may recall he tried talking Alan Parsons into boycotting us last time. Alan’s response? A link to a blog post of mine ripping Waters!

Alan followed that up with ripping Waters for not honoring his request to keep things between them private, before performing his heart out.

Naturally, Waters was really pissed off, and even attacked Israellycool.

Ian Halperin’s past films have focused on Michael Jackson, Lady Gaga, Kurt Cobain and even Brad and Angelina.

But the Canadian celebrity journalist’s latest movie puts the lens on a topic that transcends Hollywood: contemporary antisemitism. The film, Wish You Weren’t Here, premiering next week in Canada, focuses mostly on musician Roger Waters, who has become one of the most vocal and visible supporters of the boycott Israel movement. Pink Floyd’s ninth studio album, from 1975, was titled Wish You Were Here.

“I’d say about 70% of the film is Roger Waters,” said Halperin in a phone interview late Monday night. “It’s time Roger Waters issues an apology to Israel and to the Jewish people,” he added, “because what he’s espousing is hatred and antisemitism and it’s just uncalled for.”

Halperin knows as well as anyone that an apology will not be forthcoming. Waters has been unrepentant in his criticism of the Jewish state and his attempts to stop artists from performing here. The former Pink Floyd front man has called Israel an apartheid state, compared its government to Nazi propaganda efforts, and said Israel is the worst human rights offender in the world.

And while Waters has rebuffed any attempts by Halperin to contact him or comment on the movie, the film will literally be following him around Canada next month. In every city Waters performs in on his “Us + Them Tour,” B’nai Brith Canada will be hosting a screening of the documentary.

Waters will be playing shows in Toronto on October 2 and 3, Quebec City on October 6 and 7, Ottawa on October 10, Montreal on October 16 and 17, Winnipeg on the 22nd and Edmonton on the 24th and 25th. B’nai Brith Canada will host screenings of the film in Toronto on October 2, Quebec on October 7 and 8, Ottawa on the 10th, Montreal on the 16th, Winnipeg on the 22nd and Edmonton on the 25th.

In the first half hour of the film, which The Jerusalem Post was granted access to see ahead of its premiere next week, Halperin intersperses footage of Waters’s statements with experts and other leading figures critiquing his statements and actions.

A Washington Post report on a Sept. 26, 2017 Palestinian terror attack pushed the narrative that “despair” and “frustration” over the lack of a Palestinian state was a motivating factor in anti-Jewish violence ("Palestinian shoots dead 3 Israelis at settlement near Jerusalem").

The dispatch, by Post reporter Ruth Eglash and Jerusalem bureau chief Loveday Morris, provided details about the attack in which a 37-year-old Palestinian named Nimr Mahmoud al-Jamal murdered an Israeli policeman and two security guards at the entrance to Har Adar in the West Bank (Judea and Samaria). Al-Jamal, who worked in Har Adar, opened fire shortly after 7 a.m., murdering the three men and wounding another Israeli.

In an otherwise informative article, The Post uncritically repeated the claim that “Palestinians say such attacks are caused by frustration stemming from 50 years of occupation.” However, as CAMERA has frequently noted, Arab anti-Jewish violence—including terrorist attacks—predates Israel’s acquisition of disputed territories in the 1967 Six Day War (for example, see "Anti-Jewish Violence in Pre-State Palestine," Aug 23, 2009).

According to CAMERA's BBC Watch, the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) encourages the media to push the narrative that “despair” and “frustration” over the lack of a Palestinian state are the motivating factor behind terror attacks. (see “Reviewing BBC compliance with PLO media guidance,” Dec. 8, 2015). The Post, and others, frequently seem to follow these PLO-approved talking points.

Some Palestinian leaders, however, have refuted the idea that frustration over a “military occupation” is the motivating factor behind anti-Jewish violence. For example, Ismail Haniyeh, the leader of Hamas, declared in a speech at a rally on Jan. 19, 2016, at the very height of the so-called “stabbing intifada”:

“This intifada [violent uprising] is not the result of despair. This intifada is a jihad, a holy war…only a holy war will drive the occupier out of Palestine.”

A Times of London article by Miriam Berger (Bahrain’s King Al Khalifa seeks to end Arab boycott of Israel, Sept. 23) included the following claim:

The Arab boycott of Israel has been in effect since the 1967 Six Day War. Egypt and Jordan, key members of the Arab League, have since signed peace treaties with Israel.

However, as we pointed out to the journalist in a tweet yesterday morning, the Arab boycott began prior to statehood, in 1945, and was in effect the day Israel declared independence in 1948.

We contacted Times of London editors to point out the error, and they upheld our complaint, issuing the following correction in the print edition of today’s paper:

Earlier in the month, we commented on a Daily Mirror photo essay on the “tunnel children” of Gaza, “brave youngsters” who, we were told, keep the economy in the Hamas run enclave going.

The piece, we noted, was in some sort of time warp, as Egypt destroyed most of the tunnels in 2013 and 2014, collapsing what was known as the “underground Gaza economy”. Sure enough, when we did a search, it turned out that all of the tunnels depicted in the series were first published in a 2013, a fact not revealed by editors.

We complained to Daily Mirror editors, arguing that readers were grossly misled by their decision to recycle a story from four years ago and published it as if it were current. After several emails to editors without a response, we complained to Independent Press Standards Organisation (IPSO) under the terms of the accuracy clause of the Editors’ Code. IPSO gave the Daily Mirror an opportunity to respond to our complaint, but editors chose not to dispute our claim, and agreed to our request that they remove the entire photo series.

Knell of course knows full well that the phrase “construction of Jewish settlements” is inaccurate and misleading, with no new communities having been constructed for decades. She closed her report with the BBC’s standard – yet partial – mantra on ‘international law’.

Knell: “Of course settlements are seen as illegal under international law, although Israel disagrees with that. And the other complicating factor that we have to remember are [sic] these fresh signs of reconciliation between the two main Palestinian political factions; between Hamas and Fatah. Ehm…they’ve just said in the last week or so that they want to work towards a unity government; expected to have more on that and Hamas of course is seen by the US, by Israel, by the EU and others as being a terrorist group.”

In conclusion, listeners to this report ostensibly about a terror attack against Israelis did not hear the words terror or terrorist used in the BBC’s portrayal of the incident. Neither did they learn anything about the three people murdered other than their job descriptions and Yolande Knell carefully avoided narrative-conflicting topics such as the Palestinian Authority’s incitement to violence, glorification of terrorism and financial rewards to terrorists.

However, BBC World Service listeners did hear two references to the “occupied West Bank”, five references to “settlements”, two references to “the occupation” and a one-sided portrayal of international law.

Anticipating the sun’s rapid ascent in the African skies, six barefoot men align themselves early in the morning in a drafty corridor of the still-cool interior of Africa’s oldest synagogue.

Casually humming a biblical hymn in Hebrew, they and an Israeli journalist hold off on holiday prayers in the hope of performing them in a minyan — the quorum of 10 Jewish men that Orthodox Judaism mandates for certain prayers, and a threshold requirement for any viable community.

Members of a dwindling Jewish minority on this Tunisian island, they wait for hours under the ornate arches of the centuries-old El Ghriba Synagogue in Riadh, a town where thousands of Jews once lived but now has only a handful of Jewish families. It will take a while for reinforcements to arrive: three more Jews from Hara Kebira, the last remaining Jewish town in Djerba, located four miles north of the synagogue.

Belonging to one of the Arab world’s few active Jewish congregations, their patience reflects a determination to preserve their ancient tradition in a tight-knit community of 1,000. Many members feel duty-bound to remain on the island even though they can envisage no future here for their children.

“Everybody’s thought about leaving, myself included,” says Ben Zion Dee’ie, a 30-year-old yeshiva teacher who walked four miles to the El Ghriba Synagogue from his parents’ home in Hara Kebira, where nearly all Djerba Jews live. “The economy’s bad, the currency’s plummeting, tourism’s suffering because of terrorism and jobs are scarce and not well paying. It’s not perfect.”

As Britain faces Brexit and the looming threat of financial institutions’s exit to other shores, its government is stepping up efforts to attract new investor interest, and is calling on Israeli financial institutions and companies to invest in hundreds of energy projects in the UK, with a focus on the clean-energy sector.

According to data provided by the British Embassy in Israel, there has been increased Israeli business interest in the UK since it voted to leave the European Union. In the 12 months since the referendum, June 2016 to June 2017, 32 Israeli companies have set up businesses in the UK, bringing further capital investment of £152 million, some $204 million, compared with 25 in the previous 12 months and a capital of £114m, an increase of 33 percent.

On Tuesday, UK’s Department for International Trade (DIT) held, for the first time, an Energy Investor Forum in Israel. The gathering was attended by all major Israeli financial institutions and a number of British clean energy companies and government officials, who presented opportunities to invest in energy and infrastructure projects in the UK. Participants were welcomed by British ambassador David Quarrey at his residence in Ramat Gan.

During the event, Israel-based Helios Energy Investments, Phoenix Insurance Company and Meitav Dash Investments Ltd. said they will increase their investment in Bioenergy Infrastructure Group (BIG), which manages waste-to-energy projects in the UK, by NIS 110 million ($31.1 million).

The deal follows increased UK efforts to attract Israeli investments for hundreds of clean energy projects, the British Embassy said in a statement.

Japan has reportedly turned to Israel for assistance on counterterrorism issues ahead of the 2020 Olympic Games, an Israel Police official said.

Security and intelligence officials from six countries visited Israel recently as part of an international conference hosted by the police's Operational Directorate on dealing with the growing threat of Islamic terrorism.

"We have something to teach the world given our experience in dealing with terrorism, but we also have something to learn from the world," the official told Israel Hayom.

Japan is preparing for the Olympics and hopes they will boost national morale as well as the Japanese economy, but the international games also raise numerous security concerns among organizers, athletes and tourists.

As the threat of Islamic terrorism worldwide increase, Japan's security forces are gearing up for all potential scenarios, including hostage negotiations with terrorists, such as occurred in the 2015 terrorist attack in the Bataclan theater in Paris, France, when Islamic State terrorists held the audience hostage and killed 89 people.

"There was a considerable period of time [during the Bataclan hostage situation] when negotiations were conducted and there was no shooting," a senior police source told Israel Hayom.

If you've ever listened to Yiddish rap, you know that Jewish music has come a long way over the past few hundred years.
Just how far?
The Y-Studs A Capella group, based at Yeshiva University, has just released a new five-minute music video detailing the "Evolution of Jewish Music." The journey includes everything from 17th century Ladino tunes to Naomi Shemer's 1967 "Yerushalayim Shel Zahav" and reggae singer Matisyahu's 2009 hit "One Day." There's even a few bars of Adam Sandler's Saturday Night Live 1994 jingle "The Hanukkah Song."

The all-male 13-member Y-Studs partnered up with Ben Bram, the producer for the popular A Capella group Pentatonix, which is famous for its similar arrangements and videos. Pentatonix's 2013 video Evolution of Music has been viewed more than 108 million times, and the group has won three Grammy awards.

Sine the Y-Studs Evolution of Jewish Music was posted just a week ago, it has garnered 25,000 views on YouTube and another more than 320,000 views on Facebook.

In July, hassidic Internet personality Meir Kay released his own 8-minute "Evolution of Jewish Music," complete with costume changes and dance moves - and instruments. That version has been viewed more than 400,000 times across social media platforms.

As Israelis prepared to celebrate Rosh Hashanah last week, several dozen members of the IDF Home Front Command were packing their equipment ahead of a 20-hour journey to Mexico, where they were being dispatched to provide assistance in the wake of the deadly Sept. 19 earthquake that rocked the central part of country.

Since their arrival in Mexico City on Thursday, members of the Israeli delegation have been taking part in search-and-rescue operations, as well as surveying damaged buildings.

“Our mission is to support the people here, and this is very important for us,” Colonel (res.) Gili Shenhar told The Algemeiner by telephone from Mexico on Monday.

More than 300 people were killed and thousands were injured by the 7.1-magnitude tremor, whose epicenter was located around 76 miles southeast of the Mexican capital.

Shenhar praised the “very strong” resilience of the Mexican people, saying it was “really nice to see.”

“So far, we have not been lucky enough to pull out anyone alive from under the rubble, but we have been able to find some bodies and bring them to the families who were waiting for them,” Shenhar said.

On Monday, the Israeli team was working at the site of a collapsed six-story building.

“The gratitude of the people has been amazing,” Shenhar said. “I’ve never seen such warmth. They keep saying, ‘Thank you for coming.’”

“All people on the street, they recognize us immediately and say that we are the best and they are so happy we arrived,” he continued.

The delegation is expected to return to Israel later this week.

In Gaza, we also fall in love.

She was just 17 years old when she came to the educational center where I was volunteering as an English teacher. The head teacher asked her mother to choose the teacher who would instruct her daughter. But her daughter intervened. She pointed directly at me. I knew that would be the beginning of a love story.

Over the next eight months, she and I finally fell in love. Her family knew, but mine did not, because I knew my family was not financially ready for a marriage. Immediately, I realized the mistake I had committed by allowing such a deep attachment to grow.

I am my parents’ eldest son. They want me to marry so they can enjoy being grandparents, but they know that I don’t have a apartment to live in or a stable salary that would allow me, my wife and them to survive on. My father has been unemployed since 2005 when he, along with thousands of other Gazans, could no longer work inside Israel after its withdrawal. He became one of the 80% of all Gazans who depend on social assistance and international aid.

My girlfriend's parents loved me so much that they said they could not live without me. "If you ever leave us, you will kill our souls," her mom once told me. Her words made me cry for hours, because I already knew marrying her daughter would never happen.

I felt trapped between Scylla and Charybdis. I was afraid to be realistic and to tell her family that financial difficulties prevented me from marrying their daughter, and I was also scared to promise the girl and her family to wait for me, and for my situation to improve, because I did not want them to wait for years.

Between fear and hope, the relationship lasted for about two years, and she was almost 20 years old when her mother asked to meet me alone. I knew what her mother wanted to talk about. I met her in a restaurant in Gaza, popular with families, and she started talking about the social culture of Gaza  and how people regard young women when they pass the age of 20.

In Gaza, and in most of the Arab world, families consider girls over 20 as irredeemable spinsters. That means many have no chance of marrying - for several reasons. There is a gender 'surplus' of young  single women because so many young men immigrate to the West looking for jobs, because men disproportionately lose their lives in combat, and because men don't have the financial means to get married.

"You know my daughter will soon be 20, and I still don't know if you're intending to marry her." Her mother started her prepared speech. "You know we can wait for you for years, but your family should know and I need guarantees that you will indeed marry her!"

It was her right to say that, and that day I felt the most guilty and oppressive person on earth. I realized how much her family was attached to me, and how much they needed me to be one of them. I couldn't give my answer there and then. I asked her mother to give me a few days to think.

Gaza's difficult financial conditions, including an unemployment crisis that exceeds 45%, one of the highest in the world, stifle the chances of hundreds of marriages ever taking place. That has led to the proliferation of organizations that facilitate weddings. Their main role is to help people who don’t have the financial means to marry. Because every wedding in the Gaza Strip costs at least $8000, these organizations provide grooms opportunities to pay in comfortable installments over two or three years.

I thought of going to register at one of these organizations, but I was very hesitant. I knew that everyone in the neighborhood would know I married through them, and that it's considered shameful. I didn’t want anyone to talk badly about me. Moreover, I would not be able to pay the installments back, so I would fall in a dangerous financial trap; I would likely default, and I might even go to jail. So I eradicated the idea of marriage from my mind.

I called her mother, and told her that I would not let her daughter or her wait for me. I would not be able to marry for years. She cried over the phone several times, but I still felt I did the right thing.

That was two years ago. Until now my ex-girlfriend has refused every marriage proposal suggested to her. Her mom once called me and said that her daughter was suffering psychological difficulties. That day, I understood what living in the Gaza Strip means.

Attack against soldiers in occupied territories next to illegal settlement is not "terror'@nmladenov check the UN charter re terminology

— Daoud Kuttab (@daoudkuttab) September 26, 2017

Some Iraqis are calling for closer relations with Israel, feeling a common bond of past persecution and a desire for peace and stability. Many people might find two factors cited in this change quite surprising: Iraqis' guilt, and some resentment of Palestinians.

"There is a dramatic shift that has changed [Iraqi] public opinion [toward Israel] as a result of the Palestinians' involvement in supporting the [late Iraqi] dictator Saddam Hussein and thus getting involved in terrorist operations," writer and political analyst Ali Mared al-Asadi told Al-Monitor recently by phone.

"Most Shiites in Iraq have a sense of guilt because they did not support the peaceful Jewish community with whom they lived for hundreds of years in peace and harmony in one homeland, but who were persecuted and displaced during the monarchy [1958-1963] and the Baathist regime [1968-2003] eras.”

Much of the fanaticism and hostility toward Israel appears to have declined in central and southern Baghdad, where the majority of people are Shiite.

On Sept. 9, Asadi wrote, “It is not in the interest of Shiites to antagonize Israel. Shiites and Jews ought to reach understandings based on common humanitarian grounds that guarantee peaceful coexistence in the Middle East.”

Asadi told Al-Monitor by phone, “If we put the influence of Iran and the remnants of the Baathist culture aside, Iraq would have no excuse to keep officially antagonizing Israel, especially since the majority of the Arab states, [even] the Palestinian state itself, hold relations with Tel Aviv.” 

Many Sunnis also seem to favor closer ties. Political analyst Maher Abed Jawdah told Al-Monitor, “Even Iraqi Sunnis are in tune with Sunnis in Saudi Arabia, Jordan and the Gulf countries in establishing good relations with Israel, mainly because they are driven by the same hate toward Iranian Shiites, who are very hostile against Israel.” 

As for Iraq’s official position, Maher said, “The Iraqi state rejects relations with Israel. The influential, Iran-backed Shiite factions in Iraq would not allow any friendlier official stance toward Israel.”
...
Shuruq al-Abayji, an Iraqi parliamentarian, told Al-Monitor, “There are many individuals in Iraq calling for establishing relations with Israel, though they don't represent the official state position. However, Israel is seeking to galvanize these individual views through special agendas.”

Mithal al-Alusi, a former Iraqi parliamentarian and longtime outspoken advocate of normalizing ties with Israel, sees communication as the key to achieving that goal.

“The need to communicate and have dialogue with everyone at the level of states, parties and individuals, including Israel, is the way to solve problems in the region and achieve a secure future for all peoples,” he told Al-Monitor. "The current communications revolution means everyone has become able to express their opinion freely, regardless of the official stance of a government or a state. Many positions and stances have [become] pro-Israel.”

Linda Menuhin, a Jewish writer and former journalist born in Baghdad and based in Israel, told Al-Monitor by phone of her experience with the issue. “Many of the Iraqis I am in touch with encourage good relations with Israel. Many of them also want to visit Israel and even settle there.”

Aziz, who studied public administration in the United States, added, “I think relations between Israel and Iraq will flourish in the future, and I hope by then I will be the first Israeli ambassador to Iraq."

Mosab Hassan Yousef, the son of Hamas founder Sheikh Hassan Yousef, stunned the Palestinian delegation to the UN Human Rights Council when he called out the PA's human rights abuses of their own people.

The PA delegation reacts with shock as Hassan Yousef calls the PA the “greatest enemy of the Palestinian people,” in a video posted by UNWatch.

“If Israel did not exist, you would have no one to blame,” he declared.

Fatah does not cease to promote terrorist murderer Dalal Mughrabi as a role model for Palestinian youth. During a visit by Fatah Central Committee member Abbas Zaki to Fatah's Al-Asifa Pioneers Summer Camp in Hebron this August, girls paraded with two flags: one, the official Palestinian flag, and the other had the image of terrorist Mughrabi. Mughrabi led the bus hijacking and murder of 37 civilians, 12 of them children, during what is known as the Coastal Road massacre, in 1978.

The picture of Mughrabi on the flag holding an automatic rifle is a well-known photo, often used by Fatah when praising her as a "role model" and "Martyr." For example, when members of Fatah's Central Committee celebrated the attack and praised the female terrorist on the anniversary of her attack, the photo was displayed on stage at the event.

Palestinian Media Watch reported last month on another Fatah summer camp which was named after Dalal Mughrabi earlier this year.

While visiting the Al-Asifa Pioneers, Zaki "reviewed the significance of the role of the male and female youth in the Palestinian revolution, since its outbreak."[Facebook page of Fatah Spokesman in the Southern Hebron District Maher Namoura, Aug. 8, 2017]

The prime ministers of Australia and New Zealand will visit Israel next month to mark the 100th anniversary of the Battle of Beersheba, the Foreign Ministry said Thursday.

The 1917 attack on the Ottoman forces in the city, which was led by British general Edmund Allenby, enabled the British Empire to take control of southern Palestine after months of inconclusive fighting in Gaza and continue its advance towards Jerusalem.

Mounted units of soldiers from both Australia and New Zealand played key roles in the fight for the city.

The ceremony will be held on October 31 at the Beersheba Commonwealth War Graves Cemetery, where more than 1,000 commonwealth soldiers are buried, including the over 100 troops who died during the Battle of Beersheba.

The Foreign Ministry said Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull will arrive in the country on October 28, while New Zealand Prime Minister Bill English will land in Israel a day later.

It did not say whether the two will hold meetings with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu or any other Israeli officials while in the country.

Netanyahu last met with Turnbull in February during his trip down under.

A survey of Arab citizens of Israel has found more positive attitudes to the state and its institutions than was previously thought.

Sixty percent surveyed said they had a favorable view of the state, while 37% said their view was unfavorable.

The poll, whose findings were released Wednesday, was conducted by the Israel office of the Konrad Adenauer Stiftung, the Konrad Adenauer Program for Jewish-Arab Cooperation at Tel Aviv University’s Dayan Center and Keevoon, a research, strategy and communications company.

The poll, conducted last month, surveyed 876 citizens of Israel and 125 east Jerusalem permanent residents. It had a margin of error of 2.25%.

Broken down by religion, 49% of Muslims view the state favorably compared with 48% unfavorably, while 61% of Christians view it favorably compared to 33% unfavorably.

Ninety-four percent of Druse view the state favorably compared to 6% unfavorably.

The survey showed that slightly more Israeli-Arabs have favorable views of the legal system, Supreme Court and police than unfavorable ones. The latter finding is seen as reflecting tremendous worries about crime in Arab communities.

New schoolbooks used in United Nations Relief and Works Agency schools in Gaza and the West Bank display extreme anti-Israel and anti-Jewish sentiments and no hope for peace in the region, according to a study released on Wednesday by the Center for Near East Policy Research, The Simon Wiesenthal Center and the Middle East Forum.

The research, authored by Arab textbooks expert Dr. Aaron Groiss in collaboration with leaders of each of the involved organizations, examined some 150 textbooks of various school subjects, taught in grades one through 12. Seventy-five of the books checked were published in the years 2016 and 2017, as part of a new project initiated by the Palestinian Authority, which provides its curriculum to UNRWA schools.

The contents of the books were analyzed focusing on the depiction of the Jewish/Israeli "other," which revealed three fundamentals: delegitimization, demonization and indoctrination to violent struggle instead of peace.

According to the Palestinian schoolbooks, Jews have no rights whatsoever in the region but only "greedy ambitions."The books also say that Jews have no holy places there either – the Western Wall in Jerusalem, the Cave of the Patriarchs in Hebron and Rachel's Tomb in Bethlehem are all presented as Muslim holy places threatened by Jews.

• Israel is concerned that Iran and its proxies might fill the void created by the upcoming defeat of ISIS and turn Syria into a permanent political, military and economic stronghold, threatening Israel and Jordan.
• Israel has closely followed the developing intentions and plans by Iran and Hizbullah to establish an operational infrastructure in southern Syria and to ultimately turn it into a military and terror front against Israel.
• Following Russia's military deployment in Syria, Israel was quick to launch a close dialogue with the Russian leadership. The Russians not only understand Israel's red lines but have respected them, in almost all cases saying nothing following reported Israeli attacks in Syria.
• Iran's design to create a land corridor stretching to Lebanon is well underway. Iran plans on a long-term military deployment in Syria with permanent naval and air bases as well as a military industry in order to create an Iranian sphere of direct influence in the heart of the Middle East.
• From Israel's perspective, this Iranian design is a major long-term strategic threat, as it would entrench Iran - a mortal enemy sworn to Israel's destruction - in a neighboring country, allowing Iran to turn Syria into an active front with Israel alongside Lebanon. There has been talk of establishing a Syrian Hizbullah, together with a "Shiite Legion" against Israel that would include tens of thousands of fighters from Yemen, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran and Iraq.
• The U.S. and its major European allies should pay careful attention to Israel and Jordan's warning against Iran's push to fill the post-ISIS void. In practical terms, the U.S. and the UK should carefully examine if and how their existing military assets on the ground, which were originally deployed to fight ISIS, could be used to block Iran's plans, rather than withdrawing them following the defeat of ISIS.

This is totally nuts at every level. What is this “State of Palestine” Interpol has now accepted? Where are its borders? Does it include the terror-statelet of Gaza? How can people representing the murderous outfit Hamas be held to be a suitable member of any law enforcement body, let alone an international one?

The Palestinian Authority pays terrorists’ families, venerates and commemorates mass murderers and teaches its children to kill Jews. Palestinian Media watch reports:

“The PA Ministry of Education has named at least 31 schools after terrorists and an additional 3 schools after Nazi collaborators, while at least 41 school names honor ‘Martyrs'”.

How can the PA possibly be considered a suitable member of Interpol? Are police officers from the US, UK and other democratic countries really going to share intelligence about Islamic terrorism with these supporters of Islamic terrorism?

By playing politics, this international policing body has at a stroke made the world less safe. When its own policing system starts treating a terror-promoting entity as a law-enforcement resource like this, you know the free world really is in the deepest possible trouble.

Jerusalem will not let continuous Palestinian diplomatic steps against Israel go without a response, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Wednesday evening in reaction to Interpol’s decision earlier in the day to admit the Palestinians as a member state.

Netanyahu’s comment came at a meeting in his office with US envoy Jason Greenblatt, US Ambassador David Friedman and Israel’s Ambassador to the US Ron Dermer. The Prime Minister’s Office did not indicate what that response would be.

But Jerusalem Affairs Minister Ze’ev Elkin did give an indication of what measures might be considered. He said following the Interpol decision that Israel should immediately cancel all cabinet decisions regarding gestures toward the Palestinians made over the last two years, and that it should revoke the VIP passes given to the heads of the Palestinian Authority enabling easier passage into Israel.

In addition to raising the Interpol issue, Netanyahu also discussed Palestinian calls – as a member of the International Criminal Court since 2015 – to bring Israelis to trial for “war crimes,” and the Palestinian Authority’s refusal to condemn Tuesday’s terrorist attack in Har Adar.

The Palestinian leadership in Ramallah is pursuing a hybrid strategy in which it seeks bilateral negotiations with Israel, but also makes moves to challenge Israel and gain recognition in international institutions, Grant Rumley, a research fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, said on Wednesday.

“The Palestinians are pursuing a strategy with multiple tracks,” Rumley, who recently co-authored a biography of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, said in a phone interview.

Rumley said that since US President Donald Trump assumed office in January, the Palestinians have been open to a renewal of American-led peace talks, but also pursued international initiatives in UNESCO and most recently in Interpol, the international police cooperation organization.

According to Rumley, Abbas has traditionally pursued only one policy option at a time, but has recently adopted a hybrid approach with the encouragement of slightly younger Palestinian leaders.

“In the past for Abbas – if it was negotiations, the focus was on negotiations, and if it was the international campaign, the focus was on international moves,” Rumley said. “But I think we are now seeing him blend different policy tracks with the encouragement of younger Palestinian leaders.”

On Wednesday, the international police organization Interpol voted to admit the nonexistent “State of Palestine” despite strong Israeli objections.

Below, in no particular order, are six reasons this decision is dangerous for the U.S., Israel and the international community.

1 – The terror-tied Palestinian Authority police will gain access to Interpol information about criminal activities.

The Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, Fatah’s so-called military wing, is a terrorist group responsible for scores of suicide bombings, shootings and rocket attacks. I have reported over the years how Brigades members have doubled as members of Fatah security forces, with some serving in senior positions.

In one of many examples, PA President Mahmoud Abbas previously appointed senior Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades leader Mahmoud Damra commander of Force 17, the presidential guard unit. Damra was on Israel’s most wanted list for his direct involvement in numerous attacks targeting Israelis. Damra was subsequently appointed Abbas’s advisor.

2 – Hamas police may soon be part of the Palestinian Authority government that just joined Interpol.

The Palestinian Authority already contributes to the salaries of police forces in the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip. The PA and Hamas are engaged in advanced, Egypt-brokered reconciliation talks seeking to create a Hamas-Fatah unity government.

3 – The PA can use Interpol to issue arrest warrants for Israeli officials.

Interpol members have the ability to issue “red notices,” international warrants requesting the extradition of alleged criminals. While these warrants are nonbinding, they can create a host of problems for Israeli officials who travel or are based abroad. An unfriendly country may attempt to use a warrant to extradite an Israeli.

The PA has already attempted to utilize trumped up war crimes charges at the International Criminal Court. Scandalously, last year former Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni was summoned by British police when she visited London after Palestinian activists there used a local court to obtain an arrest warrant using politicized charges related to Israel’s defensive 2008-2009 war in the Gaza Strip.

4 – In recognizing a nonexistent state, Interpol legitimized the fake Palestinian narrative of “Palestine.”

It is not immediately clear what Palestine actually is. Such a state does not exist. There has never been a state of Palestine.

5 – At least as far as the international policing agency is concerned, Interpol seemingly granted the Palestinians de facto sovereignty over Jerusalem and the West Bank.

The Palestinians claim those territories as part of a future state, including all of eastern Jerusalem, which encompasses the Western Wall, Temple Mount and the Old City. Ostensibly, the nonexistent state of “Palestine” incorporates all of these territories.

6 – Interpol’s actions serve as a diplomatic assault on the Jewish state and will further Palestinian intransigence regarding negotiations with Israel.

The PA claims they need to take their campaign for statehood to international entities like Interpol and the United Nations because Israel refuses to give them a state. In reality, the PA is using these entities as part of a diplomatic assault against Israel while the Palestinians have repeatedly refused successive Israeli offers of a state.

According to Interpol’s website, their “role is to enable police around the world to work together to make the world a safer place. Our high-tech infrastructure of technical and operational support helps meet the growing challenges of fighting crime in the 21st century”.

How can cooperating with one of the world’s most terror-oriented organizations make the world a safer place? How can sharing sensitive terror-related intelligence reports help meet the “growing challenges of fighting crime.” This is an organization that regularly sanctions the murders of Israelis, including innocent children. Major world leaders must personally call the leaders of the Palestinian Authority to force them to issue the most banal condemnations of horrific massacres.

How…how in God’s name do you think people will be safer by sharing this information with an organization that regularly incites, funds, arms and directs endless armies of terrorists?

As much as we can laugh at the jokes above, the greatest joke of all was played by Interpol this morning and the ones laughing hardest are the Palestinians.

A top US lawmaker said that Washington won’t honor Palestinian warrants issued through Interpol, though a Palestinian official claimed Ramallah had no plans to use the international policing body to seek the arrest of Israelis, but rather would pursue Palestinian criminals, including a top rival of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas.

Interpol voted Wednesday to include Palestine as a member state, in a new boost to Palestinian efforts for international recognition and influence amid long-stalled negotiations with Israel for full statehood.

The decision drew an angry Israeli reaction and threat of retaliation. It also raised concerns that the Palestinians might use their elevated status to seek the arrests of Israelis.

US Sen. Ben Cardin of Maryland, the top ranking Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said he was concerned that the Palestinians would now issue Interpol “red notices,” which the US Justice Department describes as the closest instrument to an international arrest warrant in use today.

Cardin said any “red notices” issued by the Palestinians “will not be recognized in many countries, including the United States.”

Cardin also told reporters that the Palestinian membership could harm peace efforts.

U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) today released the following statement condemning the Interpol General Assembly for accepting the Palestinian Authority as a member:

“The Interpol General Assembly’s decision is shameful and wrong. The Palestinians have been seeking membership and recognition in international bodies despite the reality there is no Palestinian state. This bid for membership is part of an effort to further the PA’s diplomatic and legal warfare campaign to delegitimize Israel in international forums, and I am concerned that the PA will now try to take advantage of its membership by seeking illegitimate and unjustified Interpol actions against Israeli citizens.

“Interpol is the world’s largest international organization of law enforcement agencies that assists countries in the fight against crime. By permitting the Palestinians to join, Interpol has undermined its own credibility. The PA not only fails to even condemn acts of terrorism, it incites and glorifies violence continuing to provide monthly salaries to terrorists and to the families of those who died committing terrorism. Interpol has unfortunately now provided faux legitimacy and become complicit in this political campaign against Israel.

It is long-standing policy of the United States to oppose the PA’s attempts to unilaterally become a member of international organizations. Despite today’s outcome, I commend the Trump Administration for its efforts to thwart this decision working alongside Israel.”

Jews and Arabs will not be evacuated in the pursuit of peace, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Wednesday as he pledged his support to the settlement movement at the national ceremony marking its 50th anniversary.

“Settlement is important to you my friends, it is equally important to me, so I say before all and clearly: There will be no more uprooting of settlements in the Land of Israel,” he said.

“It is not just a question of the connection to the homeland, of course that is correct, but first of all, it is not the way to make peace. We will not uproot Jews, and not Arabs,” Netanyahu said.

He stood on a large makeshift neon-lit stage that was set up on a field outside of the Alon Shvut settlement and near Kibbutz Kfar Etzion, the first community built in Judea and Samaria after the Six Day War in 1967.

The fall of four Gush Etzion communities during the War of Independence and the subsequent return of Israelis to that region 19 years later, has been the symbolic heart of the five-decade-old settlement movement.

The United Nations reportedly sent letters to some 150 Israeli and overseas companies, threatening to add them to its blacklist of firms operating in the West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Golan Heights.

Senior anonymous Israeli officials told the Haaretz daily on Wednesday that UN human rights chief Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein sent the letters two weeks ago. Several of the companies reportedly replied to Hussein that they do not plan to renew existing contracts or to sign new ones.

The officials said that Hussein wrote in the letter — copies of which had been seen by the government — that due to their activities in the “occupied Palestinian territories” they may be added to the blacklist being compiled by the UN of companies “that operate in opposition to international law and in opposition of UN resolutions.”

An unnamed western diplomat told Haaretz that more than half of the companies that received the warning letter were Israeli, about 30 were from the US and the remainder from countries including Germany, Norway and South Korea. The diplomat added that Hussein also sent copies of the letter to foreign ministries of several countries who are home to companies which may be added to the blacklist.

Earlier this month Channel 2 reported that among those on the UN Human Rights Council list are Coca-Cola, TripAdvisor, Airbnb and Caterpillar.

The World Jewish Congress (WJC) on Wednesday condemned threats to blacklist 150 Israeli and international companies for doing business in “occupied Palestinian territories.”

The condemnation followed reports in Haaretz of a letter sent two weeks ago by UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra’ad al-Hussein warning the companies that they would be added to a database of businesses acting in violation of “international law and UN decisions.”

The letter also requested the companies clarify their business activities in Israeli communities in Judea and Samaria to the high commission.

“It is most unfortunate that an important U.N. body would blackmail global businesses into joining a hypocritical international boycott campaign against Israel,” WJC CEO Robert Singer said in a statement.

In a meeting between Singer and the high commissioner in November of 2016, Singer expressed his organization’s strong opposition to the compilation of such a database.

Since then, the statement noted, numerous senior WJC officials as well as members of the WJC’s Jewish Diplomatic Corps (JD Corps) have expressed the same views to many ambassadors to the UN Human Rights Council.

The UN Human Rights Council voted to approve the database of companies last year, despite objections from the United States and Israel. The Trump administration has been trying to persuade the UN not to publish the list.

American Ambassador to Israel David Friedman hinted at the United States' upcoming plan for Middle East peace in a preview of an exclusive interview Israeli network Walla released on Thursday morning.

"I think the settlements are part of Israel," he said. " I think that was always the expectation when resolution 242 was adopted in 1967... The idea was that Israel would be entitled to secure borders. The existing borders, the 1967 borders, were viewed by everybody as not secure, so Israel would retain a meaningful portion of the West Bank, and it would return that which it didn't need for peace and security. "

"So," he continued, "There was always supposed to be some notion of expansion into the West Bank, but not necessarily expansion into the entire West Bank. And I think that's exactly what, you know, Israel has done. I mean, they're only occupying 2% of the West Bank. There is important nationalistic, historical [and] religious significance to those settlements, and I think the settlers view themselves as Israelis and Israel views the settlers as Israelis."

When asked if some settlements would have to be given up in a potential peace deal between Israel and the Palestinian Authority, Friedman only responded, "Wait and see."

Bahrain, Saudi Arabia and Egypt are among the region's countries warming to Israel.

I never cease to be amazed at the ability of the media to concentrate on the unimportant and ignore the serious and significant.

Case in point. In recent days three events have taken place in the Arab Middle East that indicate that a rapprochement with Israel is becoming ever-more apparent, to wit: The King of Bahrain (yes, the same one who not long ago appointed a Jewish woman as ambassador to the US) proclaimed publicly that boycotting Israel was stupid and counterproductive and invited Israelis to visit his country.

The Saudi government for the first time publicly denounced Muslim extremism of all kinds and origins without exception. This cannot have gone over well with the Wahhabi clergy, whose doctrine is the epitome of Muslim extremism. One sees the hand of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Sultan in this and many other measures, including letting women attend soccer matches and over the past 24 hours permitting women to drive.

By an order of magnitude most important, the love-fest between Netanyahu and President al-Sisi of Egypt in New York. Not only did the meeting go on for a long time and not only was it open to the press and television but both participants behaved as if they were long-lost best friends, laughing, smiling constantly and shaking hands as if they really meant it.

The Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) held a protest in Tel Aviv Wednesday night calling for world aid in obtaining independence from Nigeria.

The Indigenous People of Biafra are made up mainly of Christians from the Igbo ethnic group who first tried to secede from Muslim-ruled Nigeria in the 1967-1970 civil war.

The Biafran people admire the state of Israel and its history, and call on the state to help them reach freedom by endorsing their claim for independence in the United Nations.

Norway’s minister of immigration drew comparisons Wednesday between the plight of Europeans suffering from increasingly common terror attacks with the experiences endured by Israel for decades.

“We are experiencing now the fear that you have experienced for decades,” said Sylvi Listhaug in an exclusive interview with Ynet in Oslo. “Many people now understand the situation you live in. We see what is happening in Sweden, in Britain and in France.”

European nations, she added, “and their citizens need to understand the situation in Israel better because of the terror attacks in Israel.”

Since taking office, Listhaug has cracked down on illegal immigration into the Scandinavian country by adopting stringent policies that have resulted in just 1,000 illegal migrants entering the country in 2017 from 30,000 in 2015.

According to Listhaug, her Progress Party, which governs in a coalition with the Conservative Party, is a staunch supporter of Israel.

“The Progress Party has always been a supporter of Israel’s need to protect themselves (sic) in a region where you are the only democracy,” she claimed.

Two residents of the Arab Israeli town of Umm al-Fahm were charged on Thursday with planning to carry out a shooting attack on the Temple Mount compound in Jerusalem, similar to the one that took place in July.

The two suspects, 26-year-old Sa’id Ghasoub Mahmoud Jabarin and a 16-year-old, who cannot be identified due to his age, are also believed to have supported the Islamic State terrorist organization.

A third Umm al-Fahm man, 24-year-old Firas Salah Mahmoud Mahajna, was also arrested for allegedly supporting the terrorist group and illegally possessing a gun. However, the Shin Bet security service said that he was “entirely” unconnected to the planned terror attack.

The three suspects were arrested on September 6, but information about the case was kept under a gag order until their indictment in a Haifa District Court on Thursday morning.

The Jerusalem District Court on Thursday sentenced an East Jerusalem resident to 21 years in prison for a stabbing attack in October 2015 in the city of Ra’anana.

Four people were hurt in the attack by Khaled Basti, one of them seriously.

Basti, 30, attacked his victims as they stood at a bus stop on the city’s Jerusalem Boulevard. He was beaten and wrestled into submission by passersby, sustaining serious injuries in the process, from which he later recovered.

Basti was also ordered to pay NIS 145,000 ($41,000) in reparations to his victims.

Judge Ruth Lorech wrote in her ruling: “The attempted murder was carried out by the accused not out of a mental episode or momentary enragement — he planned his actions and intended to murder a Jew out of a nationalistic-ideological motive.”

She added that Basti had proven “incapable of showing any empathy toward the victims.”

A Palestinian man arrested Wednesday after working illegally in Israel admitted to planning a stabbing attack, police said on Thursday.

While being interrogated, the Palestinian worker confessed to seeking to buy a knife in order “to stab Jews,” according to police.

Police said the suspect, who was working at a construction site in Tel Aviv, was detained during an operation against employers of illegal Palestinian workers.

The Palestinian, a West Bank resident born in 1996, will be brought the Tel Aviv Magistrate’s Court on Thursday for a hearing on extending his remand, police said.

Police did not reveal the name or hometown of the suspect.

Murder of three Israelis by Palestinian laborer calls for immediate conclusions to be drawn, both because of the sensitive timing in midst of High Holy Days and because it may encourage copycat attacks. While the attack should lead to an improvement in security checks and preventive intelligence capabilities on social media, it shouldn’t have any implications on work permit system.

Tuesday morning’s terror attack in Har Adar, which left three Israelis dead, requires us to draw immediate conclusions—both because of its sensitive timing and because it may encourage more Palestinians to imitate the terrorist or carry out attacks inspired by his.

The first lesson stems from the fact the terrorist did what he did following feelings of guilt and frustration of a personal nature, which have nothing to do with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Nevertheless, he wanted his act to be meaningful, beyond an act of personal despair. He wanted to leverage the attack and present himself as a martyr.

This isn’t the first time Palestinian terrorists channel their social and personal frustrations into a violent act of terror, but this time we are talking about a relatively older man with four children. Nevertheless, he kills Israelis he knew, worked for, and had friendly relations with some of them.

He carries out this killing spree because he is aware of the amount of hatred towards Jews and Israelis in the Palestinian territories, and he realizes he could become a national hero. More importantly, he not only commits suicide, but also secures the economic future of his children and estranged wife, who will receive their monthly allowance from the Palestinian Authority. That way, he kills two birds with one stone—he becomes a national hero and secures his family’s economic future.

Jerusalem District Police Chief Yoram Halevi visited Amit Steinhart, the security coordinator of Har Adar, who was hospitalized at Hadassah Ein Kerem Hospital after being seriously wounded yesterday in the murderous shooting terror attack.

“You acted valiantly and saved lives. You paid a price and were wounded, but saved lives with your body. That is our task as security personnel: to stand on the front lines, to prevent and repel attempts to attack innocent people. This is where you were, you, the guards and fighters,” the police chief said.

Amit told the chief of police that he was excited and happy at his visit such a short time after the attack, and told Halevi what he remembered from the intense moments of the attack.

“I knew the terrorist like I knew all the other workers who would enter through the checkpoint into the community every day. He was always among the last to enter, and yesterday, something in his behavior aroused my suspicions, also because he was wearing a jacket on a hot day. We asked him to present his work permit. At that point, he hesitated a little and then opened his jacket and started shooting at my guards and at the Border Policeman.

The three security guards killed on Tuesday’s terror attack were described by the Los Angeles Times as representing “nearly the full rainbow of Israeli society,” —one was an Israeli-Arab and the other two were Israelis, one of whom was of Ethiopian extraction—were buried later in the day.

The funeral of Yousef Ottman, an Israeli-Arab, was held in his home village of Abu Ghosh. His father, Issam, told The Times of Israel that he was proud of his son, saying, “He stopped the terrorist from getting into the village at the time children were just going to school. He jumped on the terrorist and got a bullet in the chest that took his life.” He added that he, “shares in the sorrow of the other families who lost their children this day.”

Mourners at the tent set up by the family included residents of Abu Ghosh, his former colleagues from the Border Police, as well as residents of Har Adar, the community he was protecting. He was described as friendly and as an exemplary member of an elite unit of the Border Police. Ottman had worked as a security guard to earn money to go to university.

Ottman’s funeral was attended by police officials, members of Knesset, and Culture and Sports Minister Miri Regev.

Under the nuclear agreement Tehran signed with world powers, which allows it to continue its missile program unabated, the Iranian military industry is developing one of its most covert projects: the RAAD anti-tank missile.

The Iranians have been able to reach a breakthrough in converting heavy "dumb" rockets—some old and containing hundreds of kilograms of explosives—into precision-guided missiles. These GPS-guided missiles will serve as an alternative to the inertial navigation rockets that lose of their accuracy the further they fly.

The IDF's working assumption is that these missiles will make their way to Iran's main proxy in the Middle East, Lebanese terror organization Hezbollah, which receives 75 percent of its budget from Tehran.

The development of the new RAAD missile is based on a fairly new approach to developing weapons: being able to manufacture advanced weapons independently from Russia.

An accurate missile, such as the ones being developed in Iran, is one that has a hit radius of no more than several dozens of meters from its designated target.

Jewish and Israel advocacy groups are calling a demonstration outside the Embassy of Qatar in Washington, DC on Thursday to demand that the Gulf emirate lean on Hamas to release the remains of two IDF soldiers killed by the Palestinian terrorist group in 2014.

“For more than three years, nearly 1200 days, the parents of Hadar Goldin and Oron Shaul have lived in agony waiting for their dead sons’ remains to be returned for proper burials,” declared a statement from the Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater Washington announcing the demonstration.

Alongside the JCRC, an informal coalition of Jewish and pro-Israel organizations are mobilizing for the protest — including the American Jewish Committee, the Jewish Federation of Greater Washington, StandWithUs, The Israel Project and The Israel Forever Foundation.

The announcement of the protest emphasized that it was being convened “the day before the holiest day on the Jewish calendar, Yom Kippur, to demand the Qatari government use its influence over the terrorist group Hamas to unconditionally and immediately return the remains of Hadar and Oron.”

Josh Block, CEO of The Israel Project, told The Algemeiner on Wednesday that the demonstration was a timely opportunity for American Jews to voice their objection to Qatar’s backing of Islamists across the Middle East.

Sinwar, freed in the 2011 Schalit prisoner swap with Israel after more than 20 years in jail, is the key decision-maker for the group and a member of the executive leadership that formulates policies.

His election as the group’s leader in Gaza showed that Hamas’s military wing, the Izzadin Kassam Brigades, now holds more sway than the political leadership.

The Gaza Strip, which has been devastated following several wars with Israel, is experiencing a severe humanitarian crisis, with a lack of fuel to generate electricity, and of water and sanitation facilities when the power is off.

According to assessments, Israel acted wisely when it did not intervene in this past summer’s electricity crisis in Gaza, which led to Hamas taking the exceptional step of reaching into its own pocket and paying millions of shekels to Egypt for fuel.

In addition there is skyrocketing unemployment, especially among youth. Those who are lucky enough to find work receive average salaries of just over $400 a month, but nearly 80% of Gaza residents receive some form of aid.

Hamas has in the past provoked confrontation with Israel to distract attention from internal issues.

According to assessments, Hamas under Sinwar has reduced the budget of its military wing from $200 million in 2014 to some $50m. in 2017.

Nevertheless, Iran, which froze its financial support to Hamas in the Gaza Strip after the group refused to support the Assad regime in 2012, is now reported to be providing Izzadin Kassam some $60m.-$70m. In August Sinwar said that ties have been restored and that the Islamic Republic is “the largest backer financially and militarily” of Hamas’s military wing.

Senior Hamas leader Moussa Abu Marzouk said on Thursday that the Gaza-based terror group is not prepared to discuss the dissolution of its military wing during talks with the Fatah party, as the two sides attempt to form a unity government.

At the same time, Hamas Gaza leader Yahya Sinwar said the elusive commander of the terror group’s military wing, Muhammad Deif, supports the reconciliation attempt.

“This issue is not up for discussion, not previously and neither will it be in the future,” Abu Marzouk said in a long interview with the semi-official Turkish news agency Al-Andalous. “The weapons of the resistance are for the protection of the Palestinian people, and it is inconceivable that Hamas will lay down its weapons as long as its land is occupied and its people dispersed.”

Fatah and Hamas have been at loggerheads since Hamas violently took control of the Strip in 2007, with the two groups operating separate administrations.

Hamas’s military wing, the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades, has a reported 27,000 armed men divided into six regional brigades, with 25 battalions and 106 companies.

The latest parade of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard displayed a new ballistic missile, the Khorramshahr. Though it had been modified to appear less threatening, the new missile matches a North Korean ballistic missile known by different names in the West, including BM25. The Khorramshahr could eventually enable Tehran to threaten the capitals of Europe with nuclear warheads, and it raises the level of the Iranian missile threat to Israel.

Iran’s leaders love military parades and hold them twice a year. The first is in April, when the Iranian Armed Forces – the legacy of the Shah’s imperial military machine – celebrates “Army Day.” During the second annual parade, in September, the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) celebrates “Sacred Defense Week,” which commemorates the eight-year Iran-Iraq war of the 1980s.

The IRGC overlaps the official armed forces in almost every respect, deploying its own infantry, armor, air force, and navy. But it possesses one service that is uniquely its own: a strategic missile force. The IRGC is tasked by the regime to develop, manufacture, and deploy Iran’s long-range as well as tactical-range missiles, including the famous liquid propellant Shahab 3 missiles and the somewhat less renowned solid propellant Sejjil 2 missiles.

The IRGC’s annual parade is a combination of carnival, exhibition of future projects, and demonstration of military power. The parade is arranged by order of significance. It ends with columns of mobile long-range ballistic missiles on their launchers, preceded by trucks bearing banners that read “Death To America” and “Death To Israel” in three languages: Persian, Arabic, and English (the English version is somewhat more polite: “Down With” rather than “Death To”). This latter part of the parade gets most of the world’s attention because it flaunts Iran’s new missiles.

The Director-General of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said that his organization is unable to verify that Iran is implementing the nuclear deal because he does not have the means to ensure that Tehran has not engaged in activities that “could contribute to the development of a nuclear explosive device,” in an interview published Wednesday by Reuters.

Yukiya Amano told Reuters that Iran is prohibited from engaging in activities listed in Section T of Annex I of the nuclear deal, which include developing computer simulations of nuclear explosions and designing multi-point explosive detonation systems. He added that his agency does not have the “tools” to verify Iran’s compliance.

“In other sections, for example, Iran has committed to submit declarations, place their activities under safeguards or ensure access by us,” Amano told Reuters. “But in Section T I don’t see any (such commitment).”

One of the standards that the Corker-Cardin legislation sets out for the president to certify Iran’s compliance that “Iran is transparently, verifiably, and fully implementing the agreement.”

Iranian officials, presiding over a nation of non-Arabs, restated today their determination to combat Israel and Western interests in the region even as far as the death of the last Arab in the Middle East.

Government functionaries and religious officeholders in the Islamic Republic launched a coordinated domestic media campaign this morning aimed at shoring up patriotic support for the country’s financial, logistical, material, and personnel support for militias advancing Iranian interests in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, and Yemen, stressing that the sacrifices necessary to achieve regional hegemony are a price Iran’s people are willing to bear, since few, if any, of the expected millions of casualties will be from Iran.

“We will fight to the last Arab, to achieve our ends, if necessary,” declared Ayatollah Tawil Hedd. “Though the bloodshed may be fierce, in the end it will only affect Arabs, so we’re cool with that.”

“Down with Western aggression!” echoed Isfahan Mayor Djenneh Sayyid. “We are fighting a fight of survival. But it’s not our survival that’s at stake. We’ll be fine. Can’t say the same for the Arabs of the region, though.”

I believe the thesis of “The Israel Lobby,” the 2007 book by Stephen Walt and John Mearsheimer, is a sound one. The idea that a small group of (largely) Jewish-Americans manipulates Congress, the media and other levers of power and influence for the benefit of a malign Jewish state has no connection to previous anti-Semitic conspiracy theories alleging the same thing.

I believe that when Jeffrey Goldberg called the book’s ideas “awfully close to the Elders of Z” in a devastating review, his views must be treated as suspect. Who does Goldberg work for, anyway?

I believe that when Mel Gibson said, in the course of a DUI arrest, “the Jews are responsible for all the wars in the world,” he meant it as a statement of hearty approval.

I believe that there is nothing curious in the constant ascription of authorship of the 2003 invasion of Iraq to Paul Wolfowitz and Doug Feith, both second-tier officials in the Bush Administration, and Richard Perle, who oversaw a federal advisory committee with no real power. I believe they were much more influential to the decision-making process than Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Condoleezza Rice, Colin Powell or George W. Bush.

I believe the fact that Wolfowitz, Feith and Perle happen to be Jewish does not, in any sense, make them convenient villains in that drama.

I believe that when left-wing German terrorist Wilfried Böse insisted, during the 1976 hijacking of an Air France jetliner, “I’m no Nazi! I’m an idealist,” he had a point. Böse and his partner, Brigitte Kuhlmann, separated the passengers between Israelis and non-Israelis, freeing the latter while holding the former hostage at Entebbe airport, Uganda, before their rescue by Israeli troops.

I believe that targeting Jews for being Jews is anti-Semitism, but targeting Israelis for being Israelis is a legitimate form of political resistance. I believe anti-Zionism has nothing to do with anti-Semitism. I believe calling for the elimination of the Zionist entity is a morally legitimate idea.

Another thing: I believe Valerie Plame when she writes, “Just FYI, I am of Jewish descent.” I believe some of her best friends are Jewish.

Although Chesler had not mentioned Linda Sarsour in her formal address, the co-chair of the Women’s March of January 2017 came up almost immediately in Q&A. How could feminists, Jewish feminists, join ranks with a woman who didn’t hesitate to tell Zionists they could not be good feminists, and that, instead they must show solidarity with the deeply misogynist Palestinian leadership? More than one woman who took the mike talked about their children in college who shy away from defending Israel because, as one put it, “they want to have friends.”

As Chesler recounted her career of trying to draw attention to the dangers of renascent hostility to Jews on the left, I was filled with a deep admiration for her persistence. All the polite and some not-so-polite dismissals by people in positions of influence–Jewish leaders, Israeli officials–all the dismissals for being alarmist, or worse, paranoid, all the loss of friends and colleagues, and worse, the enemies, the dis-invitations, the exclusion from participating in the public debate… She had been fighting the same Sisyphean battle and paying the same psychological price, for thrice as long as I, a Johnny-Come-Lately of the aughts. And here she still was: Clear, morally grounded, sound-minded, not consumed with anger and resentment, still trying to communicate.

When the media pundits and social activists and feminists adopt a scapegoating discourse that Palestinian leaders use in order to blame Israel for the abuse they systematically inflict on their own people and especially their own women, where progressives comply with the demands of faux-moderate Muslims insisting that any criticism of Muslims for how they treat their women is Islamophobic hate-speech, a clear voice like Phyllis Chesler’s is hard to hear indeed.

These are not, however, times for comfort, for easy friendship, for joining popular social-justice peer groups. These are times that call for courage, for integrity, for braving the gulag of faux-progressive exile, for standing tall for real progressive values, no matter what the cost in faux-friends. If not now, when? Certainly, if young women and men want to make a difference in our world, want to contribute to a genuine tikkun olam, they could hardly do better than looking to Phyllis Chesler’s long, productive, passionate, and courageous career for inspiration.

Nor is the shroud of progressivism hiding closeted bigotry at Islamist events restricted to racial discrimination. Despite what Linda Sarsour might have us believe --"We don't even have this [same sex marriage] conversation [in the Muslim community]" -- hateful views on homosexuality such as those expressed by Wahhaj are common among MAS-ICNA and similar groups. A case in point is this year's ISNA convention, where Sarsour spoke. At the event, representatives of an organization called Muslims for Progressive Values (MPV) were booted from the venue specifically because of their LGBTQ- and women- focused advocacy. According to MPV's press release, they and their event partners, Human Rights Campaign (HRC), were asked to leave by ISNA officials on the grounds that they "don't fit in" at the "religious, private, and family-oriented event."

Such exclusion is neither unusual nor surprising. In fact, all conferences held by these "mainstream" Islamic groups include speakers who advocate extreme violence against the LGBTQ community. Take this year's ISNA annual convention in Chicago, for instance, which hosted Muzammil Siddiqi, a former president of ISNA, who still sits on its board. In an interview published on the ISNA website, Siddiqi called homosexuality a "moral corruption," and explicitly stated that he supports laws in countries that execute homosexuals. The convention also included Yasir Qadhi, dean of academic affairs at AlMaghrib Institute, who has been recorded teaching students that killing homosexuals is part of Islam.

If Sarsour and her fellow Islamists in the United States are to be believed, they work to "make America better...""...out of love" for fellow Americans. Yet, their behavior tells another story -- one of closeted bigotry and deceit -- all for the purpose of legitimizing their own false claims to the leadership of mainstream Muslims. Sarsour, like MAS, ICNA, and ISNA, might purport to seek justice, but theirs is not a justice that will ever lead to ethnic and religious tolerance. It certainly will not bring about the "peace" that Sarsour pretends to promote.

At the conference, only Palestinianism gets airtime. I spoke to people working to assist a free Syria, I spoke to people working to free Iran. Both groups told me they have similar problems. There is little interest. You cannot be strongly anti Assad and anti-Iran, without being anti-Hezbollah. And these movements oppose some of the only friends Hamas has. Palestinianism is the antithesis of a free and liberal Middle East. As Palestinianism spreads through a strategy of intersectionality, groups fighting for other peoples freedom become alienated. You are either with the Palestinian cause or not welcome in the Labour party. The end result is a Labour party immobile in the face of the worst human rights abuses of our time.

Hundreds of thousands of people have been killed, Iran’s regime strangles Iranian freedoms, and the Labour party is paralysed because of its addiction to a pro-Assad, pro-terrorist, pro-Iranian support network. Look at the list of fringe events. Some of the largest movements of refugees the world has ever seen, use of chemical weapons, violent bloody suppression of human rights, and Palestinianism has suffocated everything else out of existence. Apart from one meeting on Turkey (+ 1 on Cuba), the only fringe events talking about international foreign issues were all about ‘Palestine’.

These people are now in control of Labour, they are taking Labour’s core principles and destroying them, branch by branch.

Palestinianism is a disease that is anathema to freedom, to debate, to openness and to human rights. It will infect those who catch the disease with antisemitism just as it provides them with the denial mechanism to protest their innocence.

Unfortunately, there isn’t enough knowledge or self-awareness within the party to be able to counter this threat. Most people who try to address the issue, do not have enough historical knowledge to deal with well targeted and irrelevant deflections about Israeli government policy. There isn’t enough of an understanding of Jewishness, to be able to put blind and stupid ideologues like Idrissi in their place.

In turn, this means bystanders to an exchange are more likely to have sympathy for a false argument over ‘free speech’, unaware they are allowing racism to propagate freely. As Jews protest, this reinforces an imaginary enemy of overstated Zionist power. Antisemitism is breeding. Hard-core ideologically driven antisemites outwit and outmatch much of the well intended opposition that comes their way. Too much expertise is needed to counter one single mindless antisemite. Just when the Jews need the Labour Party to stand up and speak out against Jew hatred, Labour becomes crippled by an anti-Jewish disease.

Labour Friends of Palestine has won the insensitivity Olympics with this tweet which suggested: “two-state solution will end the occupation – our solution will be the final solution”. The group has now apologised:

“There was a post published earlier on this page which contained an extremely poor choice of words. Due to the preparations for the Party conference, we were unable to effectively check every piece of content being published on our page. While the use of the phrase in this context was genuine error we would like to sincerely apologise for the hurt it has caused and will endevour [sic] to ensure such errors do not occur in the future.”

One said he had been to the Jewish Voices for Labour event and while he felt some delegates had “over-stepped the mark” with comments about Israel and Jews, he admitted he had enjoyed the meeting and welcomed the new group.

His friend said she liked Naomi Wimborne-Idrissi, the veteran anti-Israel activist who appeared to be the “star” of the hard-left anti-Zionist show this year. They moved on to discuss how an influx of hard-left activists in their north London constituency branch had revitalised their political movement.

Their conclusion? “This is the dream, a mass progressive movement.”

It was a sobering moment. Mr Corbyn has had everything thrown at him in the past two years — the terror group links, the antisemitism crisis and more — and not only survived but thrived. He, and his supporters, are now euphoric and feel untouchable.

After the horrors of last year’s conference this was meant to be a new start. But the situation still feels desperate.

A year ago I visited the Momentum group’s pseudo conference held on the sidelines. This year there was no need to go back — the hard-left fringe has become the mainstream. Much of the debate and comment in the main hall was in line with that worldview.British Jews — traditional Labour voters or otherwise — will see what happened in Brighton and make up their own minds. Many independent observers will recoil in horror at what has become of the country’s official opposition.

The rule changes and tougher action against antisemites may bring results but only in the medium to long-term. For many, that will be too late. The damage is done.

This year’s Labour conference has been largely overshadowed by a row about anti-Semitism. At a Labour Friends of Israel event on the final night of the party’s conference, Jeremy Corbyn had a perfect opportunity to send a message of support to worried Jewish Labour members. Instead, he didn’t show up. Labour MP Joan Ryan, who was chairing the event, said she was ‘disappointed’ Corbyn didn’t come. Some in the crowd were not happy either at the Labour leader’s decision to stay away, with cries of ‘Where is he?’ and ‘Why is he not here?’ greeting the announcement that Corbyn would not be coming:

It’s something of a surprise that Corbyn didn’t show up: he came to the reception last year, and the event is typically one of the fixtures in the conference diary of a Labour leader. So where was Corbyn? Emily Thornberry, who stood in for the Labour leader, tried to clear things up, saying:

The day’s must-read political developments and Coffee House essentials

‘Just so there is no misunderstanding, Jeremy is not attending any of these receptions this evening because he has a big speech tomorrow and it’s important…as the future Prime Minister of this country…the public will be wanting to know what it is that the leader of the Labour party has to say.’

Imagine Mr S’s shock then to see that Corbyn did pop up at another event just down the road in Brighton: the Daily Mirror‘s annual conference bash:

It seems that Corbyn has certainly got his priorities right…

The former Labour Party mayor of London, Ken Livingstone — long the bête noire of UK Jews for his association with Islamists and his constant allegations that Adolf Hitler was a supporter of Zionism — told a radio station in the British capital on Wednesday that making “offensive comments” about Jews was not necessarily a sign of antisemitism, amid a new row over antisemitic displays at Labour’s annual conference.

“Some people have made offensive comments, it doesn’t mean they’re inherently antisemitic and hate Jews,” Livingstone said during an interview with the London station Talk Radio. “They just go over the top when they criticize Israel.”

Livingstone did not say whether his promotion of the libel that Hitler “supported Zionism” and similar outlandish claims — for example, that the “SS set up training camps” for German Jews immigrating to Mandatory Palestine — constituted “going over the top.” In April 2016, Livingstone was suspended from the Labour Party for his Hitler comments — a move strongly criticized by those, including Labour’s Deputy Leader Tom Watson, who argued that expulsion was the only proper penalty.

Livingstone’s latest comments came in the context of a wider defense of his friend and ally, party leader Jeremy Corbyn, over the consistent stream of antisemitism scandals plaguing Labour — including one speech at this week’s annual conference that called for Jewish groups to be “kicked out” of the party, and another, by anti-Zionist Israeli activist Miko Peled, that presented the question “Holocaust: yes or no?” as a legitimate subject for debate.

With all the controversy surrounding the entrenched antisemitism in the British Labor Party and their leader Jeremy Corbyn’s inaction in the face of it, talkRADIO’s Julia Hartley-Brewer recently interviewed former London mayor Ken Livingstone (himself someone with a track record of antisemitism).

This is how a proper interview is done. Listen as Julia has Livingstone on the ropes, pointing out his party’s hypocrisy when it comes to Israel, while pointing out how Israel is the only democracy in the Middle East.

The chancellor of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign publicly denounced antisemitism on American campuses following a letter- writing campaign organized by students expressing concern over recent actions by anti-Israel campus groups in which they observed racist activity.

Pro-Israel student group IlliniPAC told The Jerusalem Post on Monday that together with other pro-Israel and Jewish organizations, students had expressed their frustrations over a lack of response to said incidents and called on the school administration to issue a condemnation and take meaningful action.

Chancellor Robert J. Jones, in a letter shared on Facebook by IlliniPAC on Monday, addressed students, faculty and staff, and expressed concerned about growing instances of intolerance in the US, particularly on college campuses.

“Painted swastikas, chalked epithets on sidewalks, KKK costumes and antisemitic attacks hidden under the guise of anti-Zionist rhetoric are all too common,” Jones wrote.

“Members of our Jewish, African- American, Latino/a and many other residents of our diverse community find themselves asking whether they are welcome and safe here. The answer to that – whether in Urbana-Champaign, Chicago, or any place in this country – must be a clear and resounding: ‘Yes, you are.’” Elan Karoll, co-president of IlliniPAC, told the Post: “Chancellor Jones speaks for all of us when he says that ‘bigotry, racism and hate will never be tolerated here at [the University of] Illinois.’ I am proud that the chancellor has heard the voices of Illinois students and has finally spoken up.”

“As a Jewish student, it is good to know that the university cares about my safety and takes these concerns very seriously,” he said, saying that the students will continue to advocate for concrete steps to be taken toward protecting pro-Israel and Jewish students.

“We believe that those individuals and organizations who perpetuate this hate must be held accountable. We will continue our efforts until that is achieved,” Karoll said.

A South African activist who seeks improved access to higher education for black students has denounced an ongoing campaign at the University of Cape Town to implement an academic boycott of Israel, saying it would deprive disadvantaged communities of critical opportunities.

Klaas Mokgomole — a member of the group Africans for Peace — spoke to The Algemeiner on Wednesday about efforts by UCT’s Palestine Solidarity Forum (PSF) to bar the university from engaging with its counterparts in Israel. The matter will be considered by UCT’s Academic Freedom Committee, Senate, and Council, with the first vote of three taking place this Thursday.

Mokgomole explained that he works to help students “have the best access to universities to help bring them out of poverty,” which he noted stems from the racist policies enacted by the apartheid regime in South Africa between 1948 and 1994.

“Recently there have been countrywide protests focused on the price of tuition excluding students from the university,” he said. “A boycott of Israeli universities would cut off students from opportunities to study and disrupt research areas necessary to the development of our country.”

“In essence, we are being asked to support a motion which [does] not [have] to do with our continent, but that will affect poor black students disproportionately,” Mokgomole added. “Essentially this is an anti-black motion.”

A prominent human rights group has urged a school district in Massachusetts to cease disciplinary action against a teacher who talked to her students about antisemitism after a swastika was posted at their high school.

In a letter sent on Monday to Stoughton Public Schools Superintendent Marguerite Rizzi, the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Right Under Law (LDB) called on the school council not to proceed with an arbitration hearing against Stoughton High School teacher Stella Martin, which took place late Tuesday night.

LDB Senior Staff Attorney Jennie Gross told The Algemeiner on Wednesday that the center has not yet heard back from any of the recipients of the letter. “The hearing did not finish yesterday, and so there is no outcome yet,” she added.

Martin, who teaches Honors English, was reprimanded for talking to her class of eight seniors about antisemitism after a student at the school posted a swastika on the Senior “Spirit Wall” last November 22. When another student asked him to take down the inflammatory symbol, the instigator spoke about removing and burning the swastika, “the way they burned the Jews.” The incident was reported to the administration, and the student was suspended for six days.

In response, Martin spent “ten to fifteen minutes engaging the students in a discussion about anti-Semitic symbolism, the Holocaust, and hate speech,” according to LDB. “She did not mention the name of the offending student, which she did not know, and she made no statements about him.”

Two speakers who peddle conspiracy theories about Israeli responsibility for terror activities have been making the rounds at U.S. campuses and libraries on separate book tours.

Thomas Suarez and Christopher Bollyn have made appearances throughout the country, the first to promote his book State of Terror: How terrorism created modern Israel, the latter to push his volume, The War on Terror: The Plot to Rule the Middle East.

Suarez appeared at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst on Sept. 18, while Bollyn stopped off at San Jose State University's Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Library on Saturday.

Suarez, a well-known figure in the U.K. who has given speeches at London campuses comparing the "cult" of Zionism to Nazism, gave his UMass lecture to a crowd of approximately 100 students and locals. The event was held at the on-campus Integrative Learning Center and co-sponsored by the UMass chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine, Jewish Voices for Peace, Interlink Publishing, and Media Education Foundation.

In his talk, according to the Daily Collegian, Suarez accused Israel of ethnically cleansing Palestinians and charged the Israeli military and U.S. police with racism.

One Jewish attendee told the school paper he found the speech "offensive, conspiratorial and anti-Semitic."

UMass history faculty members Jay Berkovitz, Daniel Gordon, and Jonathan Skolnick released a statement writing off Suarez as an "amateur author" who produced "deeply flawed work … full of factual errors, and distortions of the archival record."

A Washington Post report on U.S. comedian Conan O’Brien’s recent trip to Israel initially cited an antisemitic Twitter user. Following contact from CAMERA, The Post removed the offensive tweet from the online article (“How Conan’s Israel episode confronted the ‘polarizing’ political issues,” Sept. 20, 2017).

Post reporter Bethonie Butler detailed O’Brien’s trip, noting comedic moments as well as the entertainers’ encounters with “activists near the separation barrier in the West Bank [Judea and Samaria].”

Quoting O’Brien’s televised show, The Post’s dispatch informed readers that the security barrier is “a measure built to protect against terrorist attacks and has resulted in a dramatic drop in Israeli deaths.”

Bizarrely, the article also initially included a tweet ostensibly meant to show negative reaction to O’Brien’s show. Twitter user “MagSec” said, “Conan O’Brien’s trip to Israel is the most shameless bit of propaganda that I’ve ever seen. He even has an Israeli doctor treating a Syrian.” Of course, Israeli doctors have been treating victims of the Syrian civil war—a fact that is seldom noted by many media outlets. It’s hard to see how this qualifies as “shameless propaganda”—unless one is an antisemite.

Screenshots taken by CAMERA Senior Research Analyst Gilead Ini show that the same Twitter user also thinks “The Jews at CNN are trying to get blacks to murder whites again” and “Never forget that CNN anchor Rick Sanchez said CNN & all the news networks were run by Jews.” In addition to being a purveyor of antisemitic tropes, the individual’s bigotry extends elsewhere, and includes attacking transgender people and praising assaults against journalists.

That charity is called ‘Medical Aid for Palestinians’ (MAP) and – far from being a neutral “medical” charity – its politicised anti-Israel bias is notorious. Dr Swee Ang herself is frequently seen at anti-Israel events such as ‘Israel Apartheid Week’ and in 2014 she co-authored a highly politicised open letter promoting unsubstantiated allegations and accusing Israel of ‘massacring’ Palestinians that was published in the Lancet.

None of that information was made available to listeners to this programme despite the fact that BBC editorial guidelines on impartiality state:
“We should not automatically assume that contributors from other organisations (such as academics, journalists, researchers and representatives of charities) are unbiased and we may need to make it clear to the audience when contributors are associated with a particular viewpoint, if it is not apparent from their contribution or from the context in which their contribution is made.”

Given the programme’s focus on Israel, full disclosure of its sole interviewee’s political activism in line with BBC editorial guidelines was obviously necessary.

In the last couple of days, CAMERA's Israel office has prompted a wave of corrections regarding the eviction earlier this month of the Shamasneh family from their Sheikh Jarrah home in eastern Jerusalem. Multiple media outlets reported as fact that the family had inhabited the home since 1964, ignoring that Israeli courts findings that patriarch Ayoub Shamasneh was unable to prove residency prior to 1968. That year is critical given that in order for east Jerusalem Arabs to receive "protected tenant" status, they must be able to demonstrate that they signed a lease prior with Jordanian authorities and inhabited the dwelling prior to August 20, 1968.

Following communication from CAMERA, Times of Israel, Haaretz, and The Jerusalem Post all corrected. Correction requests are still pending at Agence France Presse, Al Jazeera and United Press International. In response to correspondence from CAMERA's UK Media Watch, The Times (of London) added information about the Israeli court finding, but left untouched the headline and sentences in the story which stated as fact that the family lived in the house since 1964 ("Court orders Palestinian family out of home after 53 years").

As reported by Presspectiva, CAMERA's Hebrew web site, the court ruled that Ayoub Shamasneh, the father, was unable to prove that he lived in the home in 1964. He claimed he lost his rental documents and he did not produce the documents from the tenant who preceded him. Shamasneh did not call any neighbors as witnesses to testify on his behalf, nor did he call the daughter of the previous tenant, whose address he knew. He did not even call his wife or son to testify.

German Jews and experts in the field of antisemitism in the press slammed a journalist for promoting classical antisemitic tropes in her commentary that attacked the Central Council of Jews for their criticism of a reportedly one-sided television documentary about the Hamas-controlled Gaza strip.

The Jerusalem Post reached out in September to the Berlin Jewish community, media experts, and observers of rising antisemitism in Germany about the progressive newspaper taz’s media columnist Marlene Halser’s commentary.

“Ms. Halser conveys antisemitic conspiracy theories, according to which Jews control the media (if not the entire world),” said Sigmount Königsberg, the Berlin Jewish community’s commissioner on antisemitism.

Sacha Stawski, the editor-in-chief of media watchdog Honestly Concerned in Frankfurt, said Halser’s commentary is filled with bias and reveals “antisemitic conspiracy theories.” Stawski, a German Jew, has tracked antisemitism in the German-language press for over a decade.

Halser’s August commentary, titled “Program Director Schuster,” notes that “already for a second time within months the Central Council of Jews in Germany issued criticism of the program decision of the TV station Arte.” Halser concluded her column: “the question is, to what extent does the political representative of a religious community attempt to interfere in the program presentation of an independent station.”

A man who shouted anti-Semitic abuse at Jewish people on their way to a London synagogue has been found guilty of religiously aggravated harassment and of using threatening behaviour.

Thirty-two-year-old Glenn Okafor screamed “f*** you Jewish people”, “we will wipe you out” and other abuse at Jewish people marking the Sabbath day in Stamford Hill, East London, earlier this year, Stratford Magistrates’ Court was told.

Prosecutor Ghulam Humayun said the defendant, who was walking through an area home to several synagogues, also told a group of congregants: “You lot should go back to your own country.”

Hershel Stroh, who was on his way to synagogue at about 9.15am on March 4th, said he saw a black man surrounded by around 20 people who was “shouting, screaming” and making comments including “f*** the Jewish people”.

Okafor told worshippers: “We will sort you out. I have friends. I’ll be back tomorrow. We will wipe you out.”

A hundred years after the Russian revolution, the Russians are claiming that a Jew was behind it — at least according to a new television drama.

An eight-episode series entitled “Trotsky” argues it was Jewish revolutionary Leon Trotsky — and not Vladimir Lenin — who masterminded the revolution that brought the communists to power. The film also blames Trotsky for the execution of the Russian royal family.

The upcoming televised drama will be screened on Russian TV in the beginning of November, in time for the 100th anniversary of the Russian Revolution.

“You can say that Trotsky wrote the music, and Lenin sang to it. Trotsky made the revolution happen; Lenin only lead it,” said Alexander Kott, the Jewish co-director of the TV series.

“I hope the public view on Trotsky will change when the film comes out because no one remembers him. Everyone knows Lenin, but everyone forgot Trotsky,” said Kott.

Britain will add two more neo-Nazi groups to its list of proscribed terrorist organizations, the British government announced on Thursday.

The parliamentary order, which will come into force on Friday, will proscribe Scottish Dawn and NS131 (National Socialist Anti-Capitalist Action) as terrorist organizations, considering them to be aliases of the already-banned neo-Nazi group National Action.

National Action became the first far-right organization to be proscribed under anti-terror legislation by British Home Secretary Amber Rudd when it was banned in December 2016.

The notorious National Action hate group praised the murder of Labour MP Jo Cox in June 2016 by a British citizen with links to US-based neo-Nazi group National Alliance and inferred that the June 2016 attack on Orlando's Pulse Nightclub should be emulated. Banners saying "Hitler was right" have appeared at rallies and, in November 2016, a youth spokesperson for the group was filmed speaking about "the disease of international Jewry" at a far-right rally.

British Home Secretary Amber Rudd emphasized the importance of the ban in ensuring public safety and preventing radicalization.

"National Action is a vile racist, homophobic and antisemitic group which glorifies violence and stirs up hatred while promoting their poisonous ideology and I will not allow them to masquerade under different names," said Rudd.

The Liberal party of Canada, headed by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, is working on an apology for the Canadian 1939 decision to turn away a boat full of German-Jewish refugees from Nazi Germany, Global News reported on Wednesday.

Despite hopes that Trudeau would address the issue during the inauguration of the National Holocaust Monument, he chose not to do so, focusing instead on Jewish refugees from Europe who built their lives in Canada after World War II and warning against hatred and tyranny.

The MS St. Louis was turned away from Cuba and the United States before Canadian Prime Minister Mackenzie King, a conservative, decided against allowing the ship to dock in Halifax. The ship was forced to return to Europe. While some passengers were accepted as refugees by France, the UK, Belgium and Holland, 500 found themselves under Hitler’s thumb. Around half of them perished in the Holocaust.
In a June interview with The New York Times, Trudeau said Canada should face the fact that it was not always a welcoming country.

He cited other historical examples, including the MS St. Louis, for which Canada officially apologized in the past.

Israel ranked 16th on the World Economic Forum's Global Competitiveness Report for 2017-2018, released Wednesday, improving its position by eight slots from last year. This is the first time Israel ranks among the index's top 20 nations.

The annual report evaluates the competitiveness of 137 countries. The ranking is based on dozens of market competition drivers, including economic and fiscal policies that determine the level of productivity in the country, which in turn assesses countries' ability to provide high levels of prosperity to their citizens.

"Global competitiveness will be more and more defined by the innovative capacity of a country," Klaus Schwab, WEF founder and executive chairman, said in a statement.

Switzerland was named is the world's most competitive economy for a ninth consecutive year. The United States ranked second and Singapore ranked third.

Among Israel's neighbors, Jordan ranked 65th, Egypt placed 100th and Lebanon was slated 105th.

Yemen ranked 137th, making it the least competitive country on the list.

German industrial giant Siemens has won a $1 billion tender to supply Israel Railways with hundreds of electric railcars, a statement to the Israeli stock market said.

Under the terms of the deal, which has yet to be signed, Siemens will provide 330 double deck electric units, Israel Railways said in a statement to the Tel Aviv stock exchange.

Siemens will receive 3.83 billion shekels ($1.08 billion/920 million euros) for the provision of the railcars, set to take place over five years beginning in 2020, as well as for their maintenance in a southern Israeli depot.

The deal is part of Israel Railway's move to switch its fleet from diesel to electricity-powered trains, a statement from the company read.

The trains will also be used on a new line being constructed between Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, hoped to be operational in the first part of next year.

The deal needs to be examined and approved by the Israeli Economy Ministry's Industrial Cooperation Authority. A spokesman for Israel Railways could not say when the signing of the agreement might take place.

A spokeswoman for Siemens in Germany told AFP the company had not yet signed the contract, but rather were selected as "the preferred bidder."

"Contract signing will take place on a later stage," the spokeswoman said.

An evangelical Christian pastor from Uruguay fulfilled his promise to plant 1,000 trees in the Jewish state.

One year ago, after planting a tree with the Keren Kayemet Leisrael (Jewish National Fund) organization while on a visit to Israel with a group of Latin American pastors, Jorge Marquez vowed to raise the money to plant 1,000 trees. According to the KKL-Jewish National Fund website, each tree costs $18. He returned on September 14, the Latin American news AJN website reported Tuesday.

He and nearly two dozen members of his congregation Marquez planted the trees at the KKL planting center in Tzorah after they recited a Planters’ Prayer together. The Argentine-born clergyman moved to Uruguay in 1991, where he founded the Life Mission to the Nations church.

“What an honor it is to plant a tree here, in God’s chosen land,” said Sonia Tomeo, a member of the group, as she planted her tree. “To be able to plant a tree here is a privilege. I hope God will allow me to return here. God prophesied that he would make the desert bloom.”

Roni Kaplan, the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ communications adviser for Latin America and founder of Huellas del Cielo, which brings evangelical Christian groups to Israel, also greeted the group.

Just after sunrise on a recent morning, Matilda Haggstrom was among about 200 Christians picking grapes on a hillside in the Jewish community of Pnei Kedem. During a short break, she looked across the valley to Hebron, mentioned in the Bible as the burial place of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and their wives. “Before I came here, these were just stories,” said Haggstrom, a health coach from Stockholm, who is here for the sixth time as a volunteer with HaYovel, a Christian nonprofit organization that helps Jewish farmers harvest grapes in the growing number vineyards in the West Bank. “But now that I have seen these places, it helps me see the past, present, and future. What we are doing here now is fulfilling a biblical prophecy.”

Haggstrom was referring to Isaiah 61:5, which says that when the Israelites return to their land, “strangers shall stand and feed your flocks, and the sons of the alien shall be your plowmen and your vinedressers.” HaYovel’s volunteers see themselves as these biblically prescribed “strangers” and “sons of the alien” helping to support revived Jewish agriculture. The vineyards themselves—especially in these areas of the contested West Bank that were once the heartland of biblical Israel—are also seen as the fulfillment of prophecy since Jews began to plant them again in the 20th century.

A devout Christian from Tennessee, Tommy Waller had quit his job as a Federal Express executive to move with his wife and 11 children to a rural farm without electricity to pursue spiritual growth. In 2004 he made his first visit to Israel, where on a tour of the Shomron region of the West Bank, he met Nir Lavi, a local farmer and owner of Har Bracha Winery. “We were both farmers, living off the land, so we connected over that,” Lavi recalled. The next year, Waller returned with three of his children to help with the grape harvest. His family stayed in Lavi’s house in the settlement of Har Bracha, which back then consisted about 30 religious Jewish families.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday welcomed the return of an Israel Defense Forces search and rescue team sent to Mexico to help find victims buried under rubble from a devastating earthquake.

“You are the long arm of Israel, the long humanitarian arm that reaches around the world, across thousands of kilometers, and you show the true face of the State of Israel,” Netanyahu told the soldiers at Ben Gurion airport.

Get The Times of Israel's Daily Edition by email and never miss our top stories
Free Sign Up

“We know that when nature is cruel, the time has come for humanitarian action. When there are natural disasters, nations, at least the enlightened nations, work together. In this respect, the State of Israel and the IDF have met with impressive success time and again,” he added.

The prime minister said the IDF delegation’s work in Mexico showed the “vast gulf” between Israel and its foes.

“We see the difference between Israel, an enlightened democracy, a state with values and morality that seeks life and is full of life – and the vast gulf between us and those fanatical regimes the goal of which is to sow ruin and destruction everywhere,” he said.

At the foot of the grave of the state's founder on Mount Herzl in Jerusalem, the World Zionist Organization on Wednesday held a ceremony to mark the 120-year anniversary of the First Zionist Congress in Basel, Switzerland, in August 1897.

The event was attended by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, members of Knesset, mayors and regional council heads from around the country.

"[Theodor] Herzl was the modern savior of our people," the prime minister said in a speech.

"He had a genius in him that seems to have come from nowhere," Netanyahu added.

"Herzl's ingenious prophecies continue to serve me as a road map and compass. Herzl's vision says, 'We are a people; we are also a nation.' We are all walking on the bridge from the First Zionist Congress to today. We established a free, strong, progressive country. Israel is a rising global power. Truly a light unto the nations. Until 240 and beyond for all eternity. The strength of Israel will not lie and Herzl's memory will forever remain," Netanyahu told the crowd.

• -If you sent me email and I didn't reply, or didn't get back to you in a timely fashion -- I apologize. 
• -If you sent me a story and I decided not to publish it or worse, didn't give you a hat tip for the story -- I'm sorry. I'm also sorry if I didn't acknowledge the tip (especially Irene and Ronald and Josh K, who send me lots.) I sometimes get multiple tips for the same story and I usually credit the first one I saw, which is not always the earliest. And I cannot publish all the stories I am sent, although I try to place appropriate ones in the linkdumps, or tweet them. 
• -If you requested help from me and I wasn't able to provide it -- I'm sorry.
• -I apologize if I posted without the proper attribution, with the wrong attribution, or without attribution at all.
• -I'm sorry that I don't give hat tips on things I tweet. 
• -If I didn't thank you for a donation, I'm very, very sorry. 
• -I'm sorry if I didn't give the proper respect to my co-bloggers Ian, Mike, PoT, Vic, Varda and Forest Rain. I'm especially sorry for forgetting Petra in this list last year! Also, Zissel R., Zvi and any others whose articles I posted. I'm also sorry for not having done an official appeal yet this autumn, and therefore not paying you as I always do. I'll try to get to it soon!
• -I'm sorry if any of my posts offended you personally.
• -If I forgot to send you the perks for donating at Patreon - I'm sorry, and hope to do it soon! (But I said this last year too....)
• - For all the initiatives I started and didn't complete - I'm sorry. I hope to do better next year.
• - Please forgive me if I wrote disparaging things about you.
• - I'm sorry for not always scrubbing spam from the comments as quickly as I would like.
• - I'm sorry if things got published in the comments that violated my comments policy but that I missed. 

Now [Trump's] coming after you. The question is: what are you going to do about it? If you don’t feel, or can’t show, any concern, pain or understanding for the persecution and demonization of others, at least show a little self-interest. At least show a little sechel. At the very least, show a little self-respect.
... To Ivanka Trump: Allow us to teach you an ancient and venerable phrase, long employed by Jewish parents and children to one another at such moments of family crisis: I’ll sit shiva for you. Try it out on your father; see how it goes.

The Islamic Waqf in Jerusalem said on Thursday that 120 Jewish settlers were able to break into the courtyards of al-Aqsa Mosque on Thursday morning through the Mughrabi Gate, amid tight security guard by the Israeli police.

According to the report, the raid was led by a number of Jewish rabbis, in the framework of what Israel calls "tours."

For their part, the representatives of the Islamic Waqf in Jerusalem stated that such incursions are a serious warning and incite for Muslims to enter into a horrific religious war with the Jews, which will shift the situation from a political conflict to a religious conflict. 

As we approach this holiest of days in the Hebrew calendar it is appropriate that we of Rabbis For Human Rights also take the time to consider where we have sinned and gone astray and how we can reconnect to G-d in our work, and through that to our basic humanity. It is this connection to the Divine that is the root of our commitment to pursue justice for all, the rule of law and the pursuit of peace.  It is our strongest response to those whose Torah is grounded in exclusion, and even in hatred, or who have no “fear of G-d”.
We have not done enough to end injustice here, nor have we been free ourselves of the sins of “small-mindedness,” gossip, egocentricity and turf wars. The community of human-rights and peace NGOs in this country (there are one hundred!) suffers greatly from these sins and from a lack of humility and unity. Our opponents in the current Israeli government (and the many well-financed right-wing organizations working to delegitimize us) want to silence our justified criticism of the abuses of the occupation and of the many social injustices ignored by  an Israeli ruling elite that lacks  compassion or empathy for the weak and disadvantaged. The government and its supporters  exploit our weaknesses   continuously. They have little respect for the rabbinic notion of dialogue, or basic democratic norms.

Yes – we should speak out and speak up. Yes – we should live and teach our moral and ethical traditions and apply them to the world we live in. However, we must do it without creating more enemies. We must declare that Black Lives Matter, without writing off all law enforcement. We must strive for women’s equality and fair pay, without acting as though all opponents are misogynists. We must advocate for ending income inequality, without assuming the 1% are all greedy and selfish. We must try to make political change, without demonizing those who vote differently.Al chet sh’chatanu l’fanecha, for the sin we have committed against you, for harboring hatred in our heart.Al chet sh’chatanu l’fanecha, for the sin we have committed against you, of righteous indignation.Al chet sh’chatanu l’fanecha, for the sin we have committed against you, when we invoke your name for partisan gains.Al chet sh’chatanu l’fanecha, for the sin we have committed against you, for seeing the world as ‘us’ and ‘them.’This year may we have the courage to speak and to listen, to use our prophetic voice and to pursue justice with hearts full of love rather than hate.