Israel bezorgd over rapport Amerikaanse denk-tank over Iran

 

Israel houdt ook rekening met de mogelijkheid dat zij zonder Amerikaanse goedkeuring tegen Iran zal moeten optreden.

 

_________________

Restoring the Balance A Middle East Strategy for the Next President
Richard N. Haass and Martin S. Indyk, Brookings Institution Press 2008 c. 288pp.
www.brookings.edu/press/Books/2008/restoringthebalance.aspx

 

Chapter - A Time for Diplomatic Renewal Toward a New U.S. Strategy in the Middle East
www.brookings.edu/~/media/Files/Press/Books/2008/restoringthebalance/restoringthebalance_chapter.pdf

 

 

Think-tank comments on Iran worry Israel

 

HILARY LEILA KRIEGER and HERB KEINON , THE JERUSALEM POST

Dec. 3, 2008
www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1227702420961&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull

 

Israeli officials expressed concern Wednesday about some of the recommendations in a report top American experts have prepared on Middle East policy for the Obama administration, including expanding engagement with Iran and possible responses should Teheran acquire nuclear capabilities.

The report, drafted by the Council on Foreign Relations and the Brookings Institution, will be a major focus of the latter's Saban Center for Middle East Policy forum this weekend for top US and Israeli officials, as Washington heavy hitters try to play a role in shaping the policies of the next administration.

Foreign Ministry officials weren't thrilled about the report's recommendations, but downplayed its significance.

"We have nothing to be afraid of," one official said, refuting those who expressed fear that this report would become Obama's diplomatic road map. "Obama is surrounding himself with people who we know - from Hillary Clinton, to Rahm Emanuel, to James Jones. There is no reason to panic.

"It could be that the new administration's policy will be different from the Bush administration's; in fact, it will be a little different. But that doesn't mean it will be against Israel."

The official remarked that the report would likely be passed around by Obama subordinates, along with many other similar documents being prepared over the transition period. It was unrealistic, he said, to think Obama is going to internalize this report's findings and make them his own policies.

Still, the Saban gathering draws together international figures of the highest order and leading thinkers and experts on Middle East issues. US President George W. Bush is set to give his valedictory speech on the region at the weekend event, being held in Washington.

Despite Bush's presence, the report is blunt in assessing that current US policies toward Iran have "failed." Instead, the report calls for direct engagement with Iran, to begin at a low level as soon as possible.

Though it acknowledges that diplomacy is not a cure-all, it considers diplomacy more likely than other options - including a military attack and regime change - to productively manage Iran's nuclear ambitions.

A separate chapter on Iran estimates that the country won't be capable of producing a credible nuclear weapons option for another two to three years, during which increased sanctions alongside engaged diplomacy are advocated.

But, it adds, "If diplomacy or force fails to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons, a declared US nuclear umbrella for the region or parts of it should be a key mechanism for deterring Iran, reassuring Israel, and incorporating our other allies into an effective regional balance."

Martin Indyk, who heads the Saban Center and co-wrote the report's introductory section - though he didn't author the chapters dealing with specific countries - explained the latter recommendation as potentially helping to synchronize the American and Israeli time frames on Iran.

Speaking to the press after the report was unveiled on Tuesday, Indyk said that the US and Israel have different deadlines for dealing with the threat of a nuclear Iran, because Israel sees the issue as an existential one while the US sees room to maneuver, even if Tehran did acquire some nuclear capabilities.

By the US providing security guarantees, such as a nuclear umbrella, he argued, it could reassure Jerusalem and "buy more time" for diplomacy to work.

Indyk also backed US support for Israeli-Syrian negotiations that are already under way through a third party, Turkey.

He suggested that they could strengthen the ongoing Israeli-Palestinian peace process, since a price for an agreement would be Syria cutting its ties to radical Islamic parties and Iran, whose influence the Fatah-led Palestinian Authority also wants to see diminish as part of its effort to tame Hamas.

In its chapter on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the report contends that Hamas needs to be brought back into a Palestinian national unity government to try to reshape its current role as a spoiler.

The report doesn't push the US to recognize Hamas, but suggests mediation by the Arab countries between the rival Palestinian parties.

Indyk also said the current Annapolis process could continue to provide a good framework for moving forward on the Israeli-Palestinian issue.

Richard Haass, president of CFR and the co-author of the introduction, agreed that there were positive aspects of Bush's policies that shouldn't be thrown out in the new administration's haste to turn the page.

"It's important that the administration not start with an ABB approach - anything but Bush," he said.

 

 

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IDF onderzoekt opties voor aanval op nucleaire doelen Iran

 

Een Israëlische functionaris meent dat het regime in Iran geen 10 jaar meer zal standhouden. Laten we het met hem hopen. Toen de Shah van (toen nog) Perzië in 1979 ten val werd gebracht, waren velen blij, want hij gold als een wrede dictator. Toen de Ayatollahs de macht kregen was het snel gedaan met het enthousiasme.

 

Wouter

__________

The Jerusalem Post
Dec 4, 2008 0:40 | Updated Dec 4, 2008 16:30

 

IDF preparing options for Iran strike
By YAAKOV KATZ
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1227702421218&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull

 

The IDF is drawing up options for a strike on Iranian nuclear facilities that do not include coordination with the United States, The Jerusalem Post has learned.

While its preference is to coordinate with the US, defense officials have said Israel is preparing a wide range of options for such an operation.

"It is always better to coordinate," one top Defense Ministry official explained last week. "But we are also preparing options that do not include coordination."

Israeli officials have said it would be difficult, but not impossible, to launch a strike against Iran without receiving codes from the US Air Force, which controls Iraqi airspace. Israel also asked for the codes in 1991 during the First Gulf War, but the US refused.

"There are a wide range of risks one takes when embarking on such an operation," a top Israeli official said.

Several news reports have claimed recently that US President George W. Bush has refused to give Israel a green light for an attack on Iranian facilities. One such report, published in September in Britain's Guardian newspaper, claimed that Prime Minister Ehud Olmert requested a green light to attack Iran in May but was refused by Bush.

In September, a Defense News article on an early warning radar system the US recently sent to Israel quoted a US government source who said the X-band deployment and other bilateral alliance-bolstering activities send parallel messages: "First, we want to put Iran on notice that we're bolstering our capabilities throughout the region, and especially in Israel. But just as important, we're telling the Israelis, 'Calm down, behave. We're doing all we can to stand by your side and strengthen defenses, because at this time, we don't want you rushing into the military option.'"

The "US European Command (EUCOM) has deployed to Israel a high-powered X-band radar and the supporting people and equipment needed for coordinated defense against Iranian missile attack, marking the first permanent US military presence on Israeli soil," Defense News wrote. The radar will shave several precious minutes off Israel's reaction time to an Iranian missile launch.

In a related article at about the same time, TIME magazine raised the possibility that through the deployment of the radar, America wants to keep an eye on Israeli airspace, so that the US is not surprised if and when the IAF is sent to bomb Iran, a scenario Washington wants to avoid.

The US army sent 120 EUCOM personnel to Israel's Nevatim Air Base southeast of Beersheba to man the new radar.

Last week, Iran's nuclear chief Gholam Reza Aghazadeh revealed that the country was operating more than 5,000 centrifuges at its uranium enrichment plant in Natanz and would continue to install centrifuges and enrich uranium to produce nuclear fuel for the country's future nuclear power plants.

"At this point, more than 5,000 centrifuges are operating in Natanz," said Aghazadeh, who is also the head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran. This represents a significant increase from the 4,000 Iran had said were up and running in August at the plant.

The Islamic republic has said it plans to move toward large-scale uranium enrichment that will ultimately involve 54,000 centrifuges.

Israeli officials said last week that the drop in oil prices and the continued sanctions on Iran were having an effect, although they had yet to stop Teheran's nuclear program. The officials said that while Iran was making technological advancements, it would not have the necessary amount of highly-enriched uranium for a nuclear bomb until late 2009.

"There is still time and there is no need to rush into an operation right now," another Israeli official said. "The regime there is already falling apart and will likely no longer be in power 10 years from now."

The IAF was preparing for a wide range of options, OC Air Force Maj.-Gen. Ido Nehushtan recently said, adding that all it would take to launch an operation was a decision by the political echelon.

"The air force is a very robust and flexible force," he told Der Spiegel. "We are ready to do whatever is demanded of us."

On Monday, Teheran dismissed the possibility of an Israeli strike, saying it didn't take Israel seriously.

"We think that regional and international developments and the complicated situation faced by Israel itself will not allow it to launch military strikes against other countries," Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Hassan Qashqavi told reporters in Teheran, according to the Press TV Web site. "Israel makes threats to promote its psychological and media warfare," he said.

 

Palestijnen protesteren tegen vernielingen door kolonisten Hebron

 

Laten we hopen dat dit geen trend wordt, want er zijn nog heel wat nederzettingen te ontruimen op de Westoever...

 

__________________________

 

Last update - 23:58 05/12/2008       
Palestinians protest rampage by Hebron settlers

 

By Reuters
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1044015.html

 

 

Palestinians protested on Friday against a rampage by settlers in response to Israel's eviction of squatters from a disputed building in Hebron, and Israel deployed extra forces to contain the unrest.

 

Palestinian youths burned tyres in Hebron and threw stones at Israel Defense Forces soldiers at a checkpoint, who responded with tear gas and rubber bullets, witnesses said.

 

Violence spread to another West Bank town where Palestinians said settlers torched olive orchards, a day after settlers shot and wounded three Palestinians in anger at the removal of Israeli families from a building occupied in defiance of a court order.

Palestinian Foreign Minister Riyad al-Malki accused the settlers of "waging war" on Palestinians and urged the United Nations Security Council to take up the issue. Malki told reporters in the West Bank town of Ramallah that settlers were taking advantage of a power vacuum since Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's recent resignation in a corruption probe.

 

Olmert is staying on as caretaker premier with limited power until a Feb. 10 Knesset election. Until then, Israel seems "too weak to take any action against settlers", Malki said.

 

Justice Minister Daniel Friedmann called the settlers' assaults a "shocking pogrom" and told Channel One television "I regret very much the security forces weren't prepared to prevent" them.

 

Robert Serry, the UN envoy for the Middle East, issued a statement saying he was "concerned about the potential escalation". He demanded "an immediate end to the settler attacks and restraint and calm from all parties".

 

Serry also urged "vigilance from the Israeli authorities to ensure that the events of yesterday are not repeated".

 

Tensions have flared in Hebron since settlers defied a Nov. 16 court order to vacate a house they said they had bought from a Palestinian man who denied ever selling it.

 

Israel sent in club-wielding troops to remove a dozen settler families from the building on Thursday, after days of stone-throwing protests there between Palestinians and settlers.

 

Israel reinforced security in Hebron by deploying 500 riot police on Friday, police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said.

 

Some restrictions were also imposed on Palestinians. Rosenfeld said Palestinians under 45 were barred from attending Friday prayers at al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem to prevent any violence from spreading there.

 

Some violence was reported on Friday but there were no reports of injuries.

 

Palestinian witnesses said settlers set fire to hundreds of olive trees near the town of Qalqilya on Friday, near the scene of similar torchings on Thursday.

 

Palestinians said settlers had erected makeshift roadblocks on several roads in the territory on Thursday, blocking their travel.

 

Border Police stood guard outside the padlocked disputed house in Hebron on Friday, allowing settlers in only to remove their belongings from the building.

 

Faiz Rajabi, the building's owner, said he had not yet regained access. "I am waiting to get my house back," he told television stations.

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Egyptische mensenrechtengroep bekritiseert Arabische landen

 

Waarom lezen we hier zo zelden over in de krant? En waarom vinden hier geen verwoede discussies over plaats op de Volkskrant?

-------------

Last update - 19:52 05/12/2008      
Egyptian group slams Arab world's poor human rights record

 

By The Associated Press
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1044008.html

 

A leading Egyptian human rights group said Friday that human rights in the Arab world have deteriorated over the past year and the future looks bleak for reform.

The Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies, one of the oldest such groups in the Arab world, accused Arab governments in its annual report of attempting to silence rights organizations at home and abroad.

The report, which was released Friday, chronicled the human rights records of 12 Arab countries in the Middle East, where the group says sectarian tensions are on the rise, judicial systems lack independence and power-sharing mechanisms are largely absent.

The group singled out Egypt, accusing the country of using its influence in various international organizations, such as the United Nations, to thwart human rights reform. It also criticized the Arab League, an umbrella group of 22 Arab states, for supporting repressive regimes like the ones in Sudan and Yemen.

"The Arab League has become more expressive of authoritarian tendencies than any time in the past," the report said.

Officials from Egypt and the Arab League could not be reached for comment because Friday is the weekend in the Mideast.

The rights group said Islamic extremists are no longer the principal targets of Arab government repression. Instead the report said there is an increase in repression of reformists, human rights defenders and independent press.

 

De obsessie van de VN met het demoniseren van Israël

 

Er is zeker een en ander aan te merken op Israëls behandeling van de Arabische minderheid, en terwijl Israël vredesvoorstellen deed ging de bouw in de nederzettingen gewoon door, behalve een relatief korte periode onder Rabin. Dat laat onverlet dat de discriminatie en rechteloosheid van minderheden in de Arabische staten velen malen erger is.

 

Het standaard antwoord op dergelijke verwijzingen naar de Arabische staten is altijd dat dat een excuus is om van Israëls wandaden af te leiden. In dit geval gaat het echter om de vraag welke landen in de VN het hardst worden veroordeeld, en dan zou je enige evenwichtigheid mogen verwachten. De VN heeft immers maar beperkte tijd en middelen, en alles wat in Israël/Palestina wordt gestoken gaat ten koste van Soedan, of Congo, of Oezbekistan, of Zimbabwe...

 

Bovendien is deze totaal eenzijdige aandacht niet bevorderlijk voor een oplossing van het conflict, zeker niet als het bestaansrecht van een VN lidstaat (impliciet) wordt ontkend.

 

RP

---------------

The UN's obsession with demonizing Israel

By Jeff Jacoby
Globe Columnist / November 30, 2008
http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2008/11/30/the_uns_obsession_with_demonizing_israel/?p1=Well_MostPop_Emailed7

 

THE PRESIDENT of the UN General Assembly, Miguel d'Escoto Brockmann of Nicaragua, last week denounced the policies of a certain Middle Eastern nation. They are "so similar to the apartheid of an earlier era," he said, "that the world must unite against them, demanding an "end to this massive abuse of human rights" and isolating the offending nation as it once isolated South Africa: with a punishing "campaign of boycott, divestment, and sanctions."

Of which country was he speaking?

Was it Saudi Arabia, where public facilities are segregated by sex, and where a pervasive system of gender apartheid denies women the right to drive, to dress as they choose, to freely marry or divorce, to vote, to appear in public without a male "guardian," or to give testimony on an equal basis with men?

Was it Jordan, where the law explicitly bars Jews from citizenship and where the sale of land to a Jew was for decades not only illegal, but punishable by death?

Was it Iran, where homosexuality is a capital crime - at least 200 Iranian gays were executed last year - and whose president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, asserted at Columbia University that there are no homosexuals in Iran?

Was it Sudan, where tens of thousands of black Africans in the country's southern region, most of them Christians or animists, have been abducted and sold into slavery by Arab militias backed by the Islamist regime in Khartoum?

It was none of these. The General Assembly president, a radical Maryknoll priest who served as Nicaragua's foreign minister during the Sandinista regime in the 1980s, was not referring to any of the Middle East's Muslim autocracies and dictatorships, virtually all of which discriminate against ethnic and religious minorities. He was speaking of the Jewish state of Israel, the region's lone democracy, and the only one that guarantees the legal equality of all its citizens - one-fifth of whom are Muslim and Christian Arabs.

D'Escoto's call for Israel to be shunned as a pariah and strangled economically came on the UN's Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People, an annual occasion devoted to lamenting the rebirth of Jewish sovereignty in the 20th century, denouncing the national liberation movement - Zionism - that made that rebirth possible, and championing the cause of the Palestinian Arabs. The event occurs on or about Nov. 29, the anniversary of the UN vote in 1947 to partition Palestine into two states, one Jewish and one Arab. There are impassioned speeches, in which Israel's sins are enumerated and condemned, and the statelessness of the Palestinians is bewailed. Unmentioned is the fact that Palestine's Arabs would have had their state 60 years ago had they and the Arab League not rejected the UN's decision and chosen instead to declare war on the new Jewish state.

Like so much of what takes place at the UN, the obsession with demonizing Israel and extolling the Palestinians is grotesque and Orwellian. More than 1 million Israeli Arabs enjoy civil and political rights unmatched in the Arab world - yet Israel is accused of repression and human-rights abuse. Successive Israeli governments have endorsed a "two-state solution" - yet Israel is blasted as the obstacle to peace. The Palestinian Authority oversees the vilest culture of Jew-hatred since the Third Reich, and wants all Jews expelled from the land it claims for itself - yet Israel is labeled an "apartheid state" and singled out for condemnation and ostracism.

Make no mistake: In likening Israel to apartheid-era South Africa, the UN is engaged not in anti-racism but in anti-Semitism. In the 1930s, the world's foremost anti-Semites demanded a boycott of Jewish businesses. Today they demand a boycott of the Jewish state.

"No good German is still buying from a Jew," announced Hitler's Nazi Party in March 1933. "The boycott must be a universal one . . . and must hit Jewry where it is most vulnerable." Seventy-five years later, the president of the General Assembly urges the world to throttle Israel's 6 million Jews with "boycott, divestment, and sanctions." There is no significant difference between the two cases -- or the animus underlying them.

When the UN adopted its odious "Zionism is racism resolution" in 1975, US Ambassador Daniel Patrick Moynihan minced no words. "The United States," he declared, "does not acknowledge, it will not abide by, it will never acquiesce in this infamous act." Where is such a voice of moral outrage today?

Jeff Jacoby can be reached at jacoby@globe.com.

Jodenhaat van Jihadisten en Nazi's (Bradley Burston)

 

The other doctor, who had also conducted the post-mortem of the victims, said: "Of all the bodies, the Israeli victims bore the maximum torture marks. It was clear that they were killed on the 26th itself. It was obvious that they were tied up and tortured before they were killed. It was so bad that I do not want to go over the details even in my head again," he said.

 

Schokkend. Bijna net zo erg is het wellicht dat dit totaal genegeerd werd door de media.

 

RP

-------------

The Jihadi as Nazi, from 9/11 to Mumbai
By Bradley Burston
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1042960.html

 

 

Asked what was different about the victims of the incident, another doctor said: "It was very strange. I have seen so many dead bodies in my life, and was yet traumatised. A bomb blast victim's body might have been torn apart and could be a very disturbing sight. But the bodies of the victims in this attack bore such signs about the kind of violence of urban warfare that I am still unable to put my thoughts to words," he said.

 

Asked specifically if he was talking of torture marks, he said: "It was apparent that most of the dead were tortured. What shocked me were the telltale signs showing clearly how the hostages were executed in cold blood," one doctor said.

 

The other doctor, who had also conducted the post-mortem of the victims, said: "Of all the bodies, the Israeli victims bore the maximum torture marks. It was clear that they were killed on the 26th itself. It was obvious that they were tied up and tortured before they were killed. It was so bad that I do not want to go over the details even in my head again," he said.
 
Krishnakumar P. and Vicky Nanjappa, reporting from Mumbai, cited by Andrew Sullivan and Jeffrey Goldberg in The Atlantic Online

 

________________

 

For the whole of my adult life, it irked me when my fellow Jews would routinely and without compunction, accuse anti-Zionists of being anti-Semitic, and conflate anti-Israeli sentiment with the Nazis.

 

I felt that the latter eroded the memory and the magnitude of the Holocaust, and that the former was a slightly more elegant way of telling people with whom one took issue, to shut the hell up.

 

Only this week did I realize my error.

 

It turns out, that when Jews suspected that the Jihadi hated the Jew the way the Nazi hated the Jew, they were right.

 

After all this time, I am embarrassed to admit that only when the monsters entered Chabad House in Mumbai, did I understand.

 

Monsters, not solely for what they did there, but, if the reports are to be believed, for the fact that they were able to do what they did after having actually gotten to know the young couple who founded the center, after asking them for shelter in Chabad House, after telling them that they were Malaysian students eager to learn about Judaism.

 

Monsters, for having befriended these sweet people in order to better learn how to execute them. Monsters, for having targeted a young couple who had devoted their lives to helping others better live theirs, despite having had a baby who died of a genetic disease and a second child ill and under treatment far away in Israel.

 

The monsters in Chabad House were not Nazis because they were Muslims. It was specifically because they so faithfully emulated the Nazis, that they, in fact, betrayed Islam.

 

The hatred of the Jihadi for the Jew is such that - as in the case of the Nazis - the killing of Jews - anywhere they may be found - is an obligation on par with whatever other enemy, target, cause, mission, goal or creed they may be pursuing at the moment.

 

Their hatred of the Jew is such that - as in the case of the Nazis - all tragedy that befalls the Jews was brought on by the Jews themselves.

 

Their hatred of the Jew is such that even if a Jew rejects the concept of a state of Israel and is wholeheartedly opposed to Zionism, if he wears the clothing of a believing Jew - as in the case of victim Aryeh Leibish Teitelboim - he will be bound and tortured and put to death.

 

It is no longer a question of geography or personal experiemce. On September 11. the jihadis told us that the attacks came, in part, in response to the atrocities of the Jews. In the next breath, they told the Muslim world that the Jews were also behind the attacks.

 

"The Jews are a virus resembling AIDS, from which the entire world suffers," Sheikh Ibrahim Mudeiris said in a sermon broadcast on Palestinian Authority television shortly before Israel pulled out of Gaza in 2005. "You will find that the Jews were behind all the civil strife in this world."

 

"It was the Jews who provoked Nazism to wage war against the entire world, when the Jews, using the Zionist movement, got other countries to wage an economic war on Germany and to boycott German merchandise. The Jews are behind the suffering of the nations."

 

"They are committing worse deeds than those done to them in the Nazi war. Yes, perhaps some of them were killed and some burned, but they are inflating this in order to win over the of the media and gain the world's sympathy. The worst crimes in history were committed against the Jews, yet these crimes are no worse than what the Jews are doing in Palestine."

 

" We have ruled the world before, and by Allah, the day will come when we will rule the entire world again. The day will come when we will rule America. The day will come when we will rule Britain and the entire world - except for the Jews. The Jews will not enjoy a life of tranquility under our rule, because they are treacherous by nature, as they have been throughout history. The day will come when everything will be relieved of the Jews - even the stones and trees which were harmed by them. Listen to the Prophet Muhammad, who tells you about the evil end that awaits Jews. The stones and trees will want the Muslims to finish off every Jew."

 

While waiting, hours and then days, for word of the fate of Gabi and
Rivki Holtzberg, I happened onto the memoirs of the handful of survivors of a now-extinct Jewish community near Bialystok, Poland, where my father's uncle, Herschel Cinowitz, had been born.

 

In 1941, when he was a young man, he escaped the Nazis by making his way to refuge in Bombay, later Mumbai.

 

This is the first thing that I learned: You don't have to be German to be a Nazi. The SS ruled Yedwabne, Herschel Cinowitz' little town, but the locals were only too pleased to do their work for them.

 

"In the middle of the market place was a statue of Lenin," one survivor recalled. "The goyim forced the old Rabbi to carry the statue and recite, "We Jews are responsible for the war and want the war to continue". Then they ordered a burial for the statue in the Jewish cemetery."

 

Forty of the Jews of Yedwabne were forced to dig graves, then were buried alive. The remainder, 1,440 in all, were taken to a large barn, where they were burned alive.

 

It occurs to me not a coincidence that the officers of the SS wore silver skulls on their caps and skulls on their lapels, as a token of their love of death.

 

The jihadi shows his love in other ways. He delights in quoting Khalid ibn al-Walid, the 7th Century Muslim general who warned the emperor of Persia that if he failed to submit to Muslim authority, "you will be conquered against your will by men who love death as you love life." He delights in dismissing the Jews as weak for their love of life, which is equated with cowardice.

 

A Jew who, as memory serves, was neither Zionist nor observant, once quoted a verse of Hindu scripture which could serve us in comprehending the work of the jihadi:

 

"Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds."

 

Muslims the world over have recognized that the jihadi is a terrible threat to Islam. The world has seen that the jihadi, in hating the Jew, the Christian, the Hindu, the Muslim of another denomination, has become - like the Nazi - the enemy of all peoples everywhere.

 

The jihadi shows his love of death in brutality, sadistic executions, the self-righteous calm of the premeditated mass murderer, the blaming of the victim for the crime.

 

One lesson of the Holocaust is that one can't afford to miss the signs and the intentions.

 

My father's uncle saw them in time. At the time, Mumbai was his salvation.

 

I'm only seeing it now.

 

 

Geweld in Hebron beschamend voor Joden en Zionisten

 

Zoals Ami Isseroff hieronder schrijft: wat de extremisten in Hebron doen, heeft niks met zionisme te maken.

Onderstaand bericht is van voor de ontruiming van het 'huis van de vrede' in Hebron op donderdag.

 

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

Not Zionists: Hebron violence shames us as Jews and Zionists.

What a pity that some are taken in by the antics of Hebron hooligans, and think that defending them is part of 'Zionist advocacy.' Breaking the law, insulting the Jews state, harming innocent people, fighting the Israeli army - none of these can be part of Zionism in any way. It is up to rabbis to decide if it is "Judaism," but we can decide it is not Zionism.  (A.I.)

---------------------------------------------

 

IDF: Hebron violence shames us as Jews

 

Senior military officer launches harshly-worded assault on behavior of right-wing extremists in case of disputed West Bank house slated for eviction. Meanwhile army decides to deploy special Border Guard force to isolate, secure area

 

Efrat Weiss - Ynet News
Published:  12.02.08, 19:54

 

 

"The events in Hebron are riots, plain and simple. The damage caused to the Muslim graveyard, and the graffiti on the walls of mosques throughout Judea and Samaria – they shame and disgrace us as Jews," a senior IDF officer belonging to the army's Central Command told Ynet on Tuesday evening following a particularly violent day in Hebron.

 

Dozens of right-wing activists and Palestinians were wounded in the clashes, and it was decided that a special Border Guard force will be deployed to secure area of the disputed house in the city slated for eviction.

 

"I don't understand how the preparatory schools and yeshivas are willing to allow these boys to run about and riot without restraint," the officer said.

 

"Just today a 15-year-old youth was seriously wounded in Hebron; it's unclear why he there and not in school like the rest of the boys his age.

 

The Hadassah Ein-Kerem Hospital in Jerusalem said that the boy is undergoing surgery, and is in serious but stable condition.

 

Another military official told Ynet the Civil Administration has been working to calm the tensions in Hebron.

 

"We've sent calming messages to the Palestinians, without our taking this action the Hebron region might have erupted from both sides," said the official. He added that the situation is spiraling out of control, and the feeling in the field is that there is no leadership capable of dealing with the feral youths.

 

Following the escalation in violence a special meeting was held Tuesday morning by Central Command chief, Maj. Gen. Gadi Shamni, to assess the security situation. It was decided to deploy a special Border Guard task force to the volatile area in order to deal with the riots.

 

Border Guard officials told Ynet that "despite the public disturbances these past few days, we believe that the relationship between the Border Guard troops and the Jewish community will help calm the tensions in Hebron. The idea behind the decision to send in a special force is to isolate the Hebron region and that of the disputed house, and by doing so decrease the rioting and prevent the arrival of more people.

 

The officials noted that placing a Border Guard task force in Hebron, similar to the deployment of a task force in Naalin due to the rioting of left-wing activists, will allow the IDF to focus on terror threats and protecting residents of the region.

 

Extreme-rightist Baruch Marzel called the deployment "a miserable decision. Putting the force there will only fan the flames. We have seen before that the judgment of Border Guard troops is flawed and impaired. Putting them there will only lead to more violence."

 

'Huis van Vrede' in Hebron ontruimd door IDF

 

Eindelijk heeft Israel laten zien dat het in staat is de wet te handhaven - ook tegenover extreem gewelddadige kolonisten die met een burgeroorlog dreigen. Men heeft geprobeerd het anders op te lossen, maar de vele gewelddadige incidenten van de afgelopen dagen lieten zien dat dat er niet in zat. Nu is gedaan wat nodig was, maar daarmee is de rust allerminst weergekeerd. Het leger moet er op toe zien dat de kolonisten hun frustraties niet - zoals gisteren al gebeurde - bot gaan vieren op de Palestijnen.

Hieronder 4 berichten uit de Jerusalem Post (met dank aan MidEast Web ).

 

RP

------------
 

The Jerusalem Post
Dec 3, 2008 12:29 | Updated Dec 4, 2008 19:04

 

Hebron house evacuation completed
By TOVAH LAZAROFF, YAAKOV KATZ, ABE SELIG AND JPOST.COM STAFF
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1227702412841&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull


A large police force evacuated the disputed Beit Hashalom building in Hebron on Thursday afternoon which took approximately an hour and a half. Clashes between right-wing activists and security forces were reportedly continuing in the vicinity of the disputed house following the evacuation.

The decision to evacuate the house was made after a meeting between Defense Minister Ehud Barak and Yesha Council leaders earlier in the day failed to reach a compromise.

Dozens of police entered the building Thursday afternoon, while other police formed a line in front with shields to prevent demonstrators from disrupting the activity.

Police made a statement saying seven people were hurt in the evacuation, two policemen and five civilians.

Minutes after police entered the building, protesters began to come out. Some walked out, while others were dragged or carried by security forces. Demonstrators at the scene had a much higher count, claiming that at least 20 people had been wounded just ten minutes into the operation. A young girl, was carried away on a stretcher, at which point teenage onlookers yelled at the soldiers "you are partners to a crime!"

One police officer suffered moderate to serious wounds by flour thrown at his eyes. He was quickly evacuated to a hospital in Jerusalem. Initially security forces thought he was hit by powdered acid, but in the hospital the powder turned out to be flour.

At one point during the evacuation, soldiers entered the portion of the building which had been used as a sanctuary by the Jewish occupants, and where 20 to 30 people were praying. Police began to pull out the protesters as they yelled, "God is one."

As police cleared away the last of the teens from the synagogue, other officers in a nearby hallway began to kick in a wall that leads to an apartment where a family has lived for the past year and a half. Once the wall was destroyed, police led out a number of women who were holding small children in their arms.

On a road in between the disputed house and the West Bank village of Kiryat Arba, a number of Jewish teenagers attempted to link up with the demonstrators at Beit Hashalom. Border police tried to disperse the youth with stun grenades and tear gas. The teenagers also exchanged rocks with Palestinian children standing on the roofs of the houses in the valley between the Hebron house and the West Bank village.

Dozens of youths from a nearby Kiryat Arba yeshiva started throwing stones at a Palestinian house causing the inhabitants to come out of the structure. Another man from Kiryat Arba carrying an M-16 started shooting at a gathering Palestinian crowd nearby, wounding two men, one in the arm and one in the chest. They were being treated at the scene by army medics awaiting evacuation to hospital.

The alleged assailant ran off. No arrests had yet been made.

At another point during the clashes, security forces began to push protesters down a small hill into the main road using large sticks.

IDF officers from the Central Command said an order was given to evacuate the protesters "with the utmost sensitivity, but we will use force if we are met with violence."

Meanwhile, a very large convoy of IDF vehicles was making its way to the scene by way of Road 60, in the West Bank.

The office of the defense minister issued a statement shortly after the operation began in which he said that the evacuation was ordered "after all the dialogue failed and after meetings with Yesha leaders did not bring resolution."

Further, Barak called on the leaders in the settler community to ensure that there was no violence during the evacuation.

Earlier on Thursday, Barak and leaders from the Council of Jewish Communities of Judea, Samaria and the Gaza Strip met to discuss the evacuation of the Hebron house.

At the end of the meeting, Barak told Yesha leaders that "settler leaders and the inhabitants of Beit Hashalom must abide by the law and evacuate the house as instructed by an existing court ruling while simultaneously going to a hastened court proceeding over the future of the house."

The defense minister also said that the IDF would assume control of the house until the ownership claims are settled in court.

Yesha leaders reiterated that a peaceful solution could be found, one that avoided further violence and expressed hope that Barak would not miss the opportunity to do everything possible to reach a compromise.

On Thursday morning, the meeting between the two sides was held in hopes of reaching a compromise that would avert the evacuation of the house.

Defense officials said Thursday's meeting was the "last chance" Barak planned to give the settlers before ordering the IDF and the Israel Police to use force to evacuate the building.

Barak insisted Wednesday night that he planned to evacuate the house even as settler leaders tried to negotiate a compromise and politicians, including those on the Right, sharply criticized the violent tactics of the activists who have streamed into the city to defend the structure.

"We will not allow a small group of extremists to undermine the state's authority," Barak told Channel 2. "The [High Court of Justice's eviction] order will be implemented within the time frame set by the court."

He spoke as right-wing activists clashed with security personnel in Hebron for the fourth day in a row, causing border policemen to don riot gear and throw stun grenades at those who had lobbed stones at them.

Israeli media outlets reported on Thursday that Defense Ministry officials secretly met late Wednesday night with settlers inside the Hebron house in effort to come to a last-minute arrangement which would both avert a bloody evacuation, and keep with the ruling of the High Court of Justice.

Barak, officials said, had already been presented with the operational plans for an evacuation that would include more than 2,000 policemen and soldiers operating in several circles around Beit Hashalom. Police would be tasked with the actual evacuation from the home, and the IDF would prevent additional activists from reaching the area.

On November 16 the High Court ruled that the state could evacuate the building even though its ownership had yet to be resolved by the Jerusalem District Court.

The Jewish Community of Hebron, which in March 2007 moved nine families into the structure on Worshipers' Way, at the edge of the city near Kiryat Arba, says it bought the building for close to $1 million. The Palestinian seller has said that no such transaction took place.
_______________________________


The Jerusalem Post
Dec 4, 2008 16:49 | Updated Dec 4, 2008 19:38

 

'Surprise led to swift evacuation'
By YAAKOV KATZ
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1227702434839&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull

 

Some six hundred troops participated in the evacuation of a disputed building in Hebron on Thursday afternoon, in an operation that police commanders said was smoother and quicker than the evacuation of the Amona outpost in February 2006, due mainly to security forces surprising the settlers inside.

"Had we not acted by surprise there would have been different results and more violence," Dep. -Com. Avshalom Peled, commander of Hebron Police said.

Peled said that security forces found rocks, different chemicals, acids and tires, as well as paint-filled glass light bulbs in the house, all of which the settlers prepared in advance to fight the evacuating forces. On the second floor of the house potatoes with nails in them were found.

Peled added that he was expecting people to try to return to the building, and said that in such a case Border Police would prepare and act accordingly.

Some rooms were heavily damaged during the evacuation, but police encountered only sporadic resistance.

The IDF said that it would issue a warning saying that anyone trying to return to the disputed house would be countered with full force.

Commander of the Judea and Samaria Brigade, Brig. -Gen. Noam Tibon, declared Judea a closed military zone for an indefinite amount of time to prevent people from returning.

Shlomo Katabi, commander of the Judea and Samaria Police, told The Jerusalem Post that the police feared settlers would try to attack Palestinians as a form of revenge for the evacuation.

"We expect public disturbances throughout the Hebron area as well as throughout the West Bank," Katabi said, "and for those we are prepared."
_______________________________


The Jerusalem Post
Dec 4, 2008 19:30 | Updated Dec 4, 2008 20:42

 

Barak praises Hebron house evacuation
By JPOST.COM STAFF AND ELIE LESHEM
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1227702436793&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull

 

Defense Minister Ehud Barak on Thursday evening commended security forces for the evacuation of Beit Hashalom in Hebron and called for restraint.

"I call upon every leader with clout to exert his influence so that things do not deteriorate further," Barak said at a press conference.

"We had no choice" but to go forward with the evacuation, the defense minister continued; "any other attitude would have been a betrayal of my job.

"A defense minister in Israel has no choice but to ensure that the law is upheld; without that we won't have a state," he continued. "We are only a hair's breadth from utter anarchy."

President Shimon Peres on Thursday evening also commended security forces on the evacuation of Beit Hashalom in Hebron, saying that they had acted with "sense and responsibility."

"In order to safeguard its constitution and security, the state must sometimes take difficult measures," Peres said. "In this instance there was no escaping the difficult steps that were taken by defense forces. I commend the government and security forces for making a difficult decision and carrying it out with sense and responsibility."

"There is no joy in what we say today, the events are saddening, but it must be said that the process that took place today was correct," Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni said at the opening of Kadima's security forum in Tel Aviv. "The time that passed since the start of the events at the disputed house only made things worse."

"There is no place and will be no place in which citizens may feel they can do as they please," she continued. "Nobody can harm a soldier or policeman."

But on the right wing, reactions criticized Barak's decision to evacuate the Hebron house as politically motivated.

"It's a shame that someone has an interest in setting Hebron alight," MK Reuven Rivlin (Likud) asserted Thursday evening, several hours after hundreds of police stormed the disputed building and cleared it of its inhabitants.

"Barak chose a political evacuation when he could have employed wisdom and justice and waited for the legal situation to clear up."
_______________________________

The Jerusalem Post
Dec 4, 2008 16:46 | Updated Dec 4, 2008 20:46

 

Fearing spread of riots, IDF declares Hebron a military zone
By ABE SELIG AND JPOST.COM STAFF
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1227702434796&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull

 

As the evacuation of the disputed Beit Hashalom house in Hebron began Thursday afternoon, Jewish youths from Kiryat Arba made their way across the valley and through the fence and started lighting fires, throwing stones at Palestinian homes, knocking down satellite dishes and torching olive trees.

A Palestinian man who lives near Beit Hashalom and identified himself as Majd told The Jerusalem Post that a few days ago he saw Jewish youths cut the fence for easier access to Palestinian olive groves in preparation for the revenge planned in the wake of the evacuation. He also claimed that these youths set the laundry hanging outside his house on fire.

Earlier Thursday, a Kiryat Arba man opened fire on a Palestinian crowd, wounding 2 people. The man allegedly used rubber bullets and the wounded, a man in his late sixties with an arm injury and a man in his fifties with a chest injury, were evacuated to a hospital in Hebron. Palestinian sources said that the shooter fired live rounds.

Meanwhile, mobs of Jewish youths were still making their way across the valley lighting fires and causing damage to Palestinian property in an effort to extort a 'price tag' for the forced evacuation of Beit Hashalom and create a diversion for the soldiers and police forces.

Channel 2 reported that there was an exchange of fire heard in Hebron, potentially involving settlers and Palestinians. The station also reported that Palestinians were setting alight Jewish houses in Tel Rumeida, near Hebron.

The IDF declared the Hebron and the surrounding are a military zone.

At the entrance to Jerusalem on Highway 1, young teenagers were blocking the road, throwing stones and shouting slogans in condemnation of the state's evacuation of the Hebron building, causing serious congestion on the capital's main entrance at the height of rush hour.

IDF tegen plan voor NAVO troepen op Westoever

 

"NATO is a very bad idea," the officer said. "No other country in the world has successfully dealt with terror like Israel has. There is a need for continuous combat; NATO will not want to endanger its soldiers on behalf of Israeli citizens."

 

Het is meer dan begrijpelijk dat Israel de verdediging van haar eigen veiligheid niet uit handen wil geven. Bovendien is het al heel moeilijk om genoeg soldaten te vinden voor de missies in Afghanistan, Congo en Soedan. De Westelijke Jordaanoever zal niet gemakkelijker worden.

 

RP

-------------------

IDF opposes plan for NATO in W. Bank

 

Yaakov Katz , THE JERUSALEM POST

Dec. 2, 2008
www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1227702404886&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull

 

A day after President-elect Barack Obama chose retired general James Jones as his national security adviser, Israeli defense officials said Tuesday that they were opposed to the deployment of a NATO force in the West Bank following an Israeli withdrawal, a plan Jones supports.

A former commander of NATO, Jones has for the past year served as a security envoy to Israel and the Palestinian Authority.

During his meetings with Israelis, Jones has proposed that a NATO-based international force deploy in the West Bank in the interim period between an Israeli withdrawal and the Palestinian forces becoming able to curb terror activity.

"This plan was proposed in order to ease our concerns," explained one official who had met with Jones on one of the latter's many visits to the region. "In reality though, it isn't likely to work."

The IDF is particularly wary of such a plan, a top IDF officer said, who added that the military's operational freedom in the territories was responsible for the drop in terrorist attacks.

"NATO is a very bad idea," the officer said. "No other country in the world has successfully dealt with terror like Israel has. There is a need for continuous combat; NATO will not want to endanger its soldiers on behalf of Israeli citizens."

On Tuesday, Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni flew to Brussels for a gathering of foreign ministers at NATO headquarters. The visit comes amid growing ties between Israel and NATO, marked by a visit to Brussels two weeks ago by IDF Chief of General Staff Lt.-Gen. Gabi Ashkenazi.

In the past year, Israel has hosted a number of NATO workshops in Tel Aviv, the latest of which focused on unmanned aerial vehicles. In the next few months another workshop will be held in Israel for all NATO members, dealing with logistic supply.

But despite the warming of ties, Israeli defense officials said it was unlikely that NATO would be willing to deploy forces in the West Bank before a final peace agreement was signed between Israel and the Palestinian Authority. In addition, NATO Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer has said that NATO would only begin to consider such a deployment after an official invitation from both sides as well as approval by the United Nations Security Council.

3 Qassams en mortiergranaten uit Gazastrook treffen westen Negev

 

De strijd tussen Israel en Hamas gaat door ondanks dat beide zijden hebben aangegeven voor hervatting van het staakt-het-vuren te zijn. Daarbij probeert Hamas de 'regels van het spel' in zijn voordeel te veranderen.

 

RP

--------------

Three Qassams hit west Negev, further unraveling Gaza truce

 

By Amos Harel and Avi Issacharoff, Haaretz Correspondents and Haaretz Service

Last update - 15:39 03/12/2008
www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1043301.html

 

Palestinian militants fired three Qassam rockets into the western Negev on Wednesday, further unraveling an Israel-Hamas truce in the Gaza Strip.

The rockets struck open areas near a Kibbutz in the Sha'ar Hanegev Regional Council.

Gaza militants earlier in the day fired a volley of mortar shells into Israel, one of which damaged a power cable transferring electricity to the energy-strapped Gaza Strip, according to Army Radio.

The militants launched a total of eight shells at the Eshkol regional council in the attack. Neither the Qassam rockets nor the mortar shells caused any casualties.

On Tuesday, the Israel Air Force killed two Gazans in the Rafah area, in an air strike the army said targeted a Palestinian cell launching mortar shells at Kibbutz Kerem Shalom, which borders southern Gaza.

Palestinians fired at least two Qassam rockets and five mortar shells at the western Negev Tuesday, causing no injuries.

Palestinian sources said the fatalities were brothers, and that four others were hurt in the air strike, adding that the brothers and three of the other casualties were "youths." It appears they may have been sent by the organization that fired the rockets in order to dismantle the launcher.

This latest incident is part of a largely low-profile struggle between Hamas and the Israel Defense Forces along the border fence surrounding the Gaza Strip.

Since a November 4 IDF operation to locate a tunnel in Gaza, calm has yet to prevail. The small Palestinian groups are responsible for most of the rocket and mortar fire, although Hamas is also occasionally involved.

The IDF believes Hamas is trying to force new rules on Israel in the so-called "security perimeter" within the Gaza Strip, the section about half a kilometer into the Palestinian side of the border fence.

Between July and October, Hamas militants rarely approached the fence, but over the past few weeks, Palestinian cells have been sent there to place explosives in the area, in anticipation of renewed fighting with the IDF.

The cells are also gathering intelligence and reestablishing military outposts. In some cases, most recently on Thursday, the IDF has fired at the militants.

Hamas is trying to force Israel to accept its activity in the security zone, and when the IDF hits the militants, the Palestinians respond with heavy mortar and rocket fire on the Negev.

At this point, the Palestinian reaction does not appear to be keeping the army from targeting the militants, but it has so far refrained from more extensive action. The IDF held back from responding to mortar fire on the Nahal Oz army base on Friday, which wounded eight IDF soldiers, one of them seriously.

It appears that the future of the semi-enforced lull will be determined December 19, six months after the unwritten cease-fire went into effect.

Hamas has so far failed to ease the financial blockade of Gaza and bring in more goods, since the crossing points have been closed for most of the past month in the wake of the rocket fire.

Meanwhile, a rift is deepening between the Hamas leadership in Gaza and the Egyptian and Saudi governments because Saudi Arabia is not granting entry permits to Palestinians who registered with religious affairs officials in Gaza, rather than Ramallah, to go on the hajj pilgrimage to Mecca.

Israeli security sources believe Hamas may breach the Rafah crossing, as it did in January, if the situation is not resolved.

Both Hamas and the Palestinian Authority, which is trying to retain control of Hamas-run Gaza in addition to the West Bank, have submitted lists of Gaza Palestinians who want to go on hajj to Egypt and Saudi Arabia. Hamas is refusing to let the Gazans registered with Ramallah to leave for the hajj.

Rellen in Hebron tussen kolonisten, het leger en Palestijnen

 

De spanningen tussen Palestijnen en Joden in Hebron, maar ook tussen de kolonisten en het leger, nemen verder toe. Het is vaak niet duidelijk wie begon: Palestijnen of kolonisten. Wat wel duidelijk is, is dat de radikale elementen binnen de laatsten zich ook tegen de staat en het leger keren en niet terugschrikken voor aanvallen op de soldaten die hun daar juist beschermen. Ook richten zij zich, al of niet uit wraak voor Palestijnse aanvallen, vaak op onschuldige burgers of religieuze plaatsen.

 

Hoewel de Joden zeker een gerechtvaardigde claim op Hebron hebben (tot zij in 1929 werden aangevallen door door de moefti opgehitste Arabieren was er een aanzienlijke Joodse gemeenschap in Hebron), en hun aartsvaderen er begraven liggen, lijkt de radikale gemeenschap van ca. 500 kolonisten tussen meer dan 50.000 hun vijandig gezinde Palestijnen niet te handhaven. Tot nu toe durft Israel het echter zelfs nog niet aan om een gebouw, Beith Hashalom, te ontruimen, en de kolonisten hebben al met een burgeroorlog gedreigd als dit toch gaat gebeuren.

 

RP

--------

 

The Jerusalem Post
Dec 1, 2008 22:30 | Updated Dec 2, 2008 18:47

 

Israeli youth seriously wounded by stone-throwers in Hebron
By JPOST.COM STAFF AND AP

http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1227702390742&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull

 

A fragile calm appeared to have returned to Hebron on Tuesday afternooon, after Palestinians and settlers clashed earlier in the day. An Israeli youth, who was hit in the head by a rock, was seriously injured in the scuffles. Some 1,500 right-wing activists had poured into the city Monday night on the heels of rumors that the police was preparing to evacuate Beit Hashalom.

Security forces arrested at least five youths on the city's streets.

All in all, some 18 settlers were wounded by Palestinian rioters. Two were evacuated to the hospital in light condition and 15 others were taken to a clinic in nearby Kiryat Arba for treatment.

Palestinian sources said that some 20 Arab residents of Hebron had been injured by rocks thrown by settlers since Monday night.

IDF troops located the house that served the Palestinian stone-throwers and broke into it. Earlier, soldiers were trying to disperse the rioters, most of whom were teenagers, with tear gas and stun grenades and two settlers were arrested for allegedly hurling rocks at Palestinians. The wounded youth, 16, was administered initial care by an MDA team and later evacuated to the Hadassa Ein-Karem Hospital.

Sources within the Jewish community of Hebron squarely placed responsibility for the incident on the army and police, who, they said, "are exhibiting powerlessness in dealing with Arab rioters who are throwing cinder blocks from the rooftops."

Earlier, in two villages in Samaria in the northern West Bank, Palestinians said groups of settlers burned animal feed and slashed tires in what has become a broader tactic on the part of the settlers meant to deter Israeli authorities from dismantling unauthorized outposts.

Word of mouth spread Monday night that security forces were poised to carry out a state order to evict nine families and their supporters from the building, where Jews have lived since March 2007.

Their claim that they purchased the building has been disputed by the Palestinian said to have been the seller. Until the dispute is resolved, the High Court of Justice has said that the state can evict the settlers.

On Monday night, even as they were preparing for a funeral, relatives of Mumbai victims Rivka and Gavriel Holtzberg took time to protest the possible eviction.

As he spoke with The Jerusalem Post, Rivka Holtzberg's brother Yossi Rosenberg received a message that the IDF might move against the settlers late Monday night or early Tuesday morning. He asked the Post to mention his family's ideological opposition to the eviction.

Nachman Holtzberg, Gavriel's father, wrote a letter to Prime Minister Ehud Olmert in which he asked that the state refrain from taking such action during a time of national mourning for the Mumbai victims. It should be a moment of unity for the Jewish people, which should not be disrupted by divisions or fighting, he told the Post.

"My son was an emissary for the united Jewish people," he added.

The violent incidents started Monday night as rumors of the impending evacuation in Hebron were circulated.

"Emergency - the destruction and eviction forces have reached 'Beit Hashalom'," stated an urgent message sent out by by Hebron settlers. "Everyone is requested to arrive immediately. This is the moment of truth for the settlement movement."

The settlers claimed that police and border policemen were streaming toward the center of Hebron and called upon supporters to come and "prevent the disgrace." They predicted that the evacuation would take place Monday night.

As the rumors started to circulate, youths began blocking various transportation routes in order to prevent the forces from reaching Hebron. Several incidents of rock throwing between the settlers and Palestinians were reported.

Protesters broke windows of cars and homes and defaced a Muslim cemetery in the area near the house. Settlers in several other locations in the West Bank also blocked roads and threw stones at Palestinian cars. Protesters also blocked the Jerusalem-Dead Sea road next to Mitzpe Yericho Monday evening but dispersed peacefully when police arrived.

Since the Supreme Court decided that the state may evacuate Beit Hashalom even before a final ruling regarding its legal ownership, many right-wing activists made a stronghold in the building, bracing for the arrival of the IDF and police.

Last week, Defense Minister Ehud Barak announced that security forces were striving for dialogue to try and convince the settlers to willfully evacuate the compound. However, he warned that they would be forcefully evicted if they failed to do so.

"Any harm inflicted upon an official Israeli representative; soldier, policeman... is a severe incident, which widens the crack that his tearing at the gentle fabric of Israeli democracy."

Abe Selig and Tovah Lazaroff contributed to this report.

 

Arabische en moslim reacties op terreuraanvallen in Mumbai

 

Hoewel het politieke leiderschap in de Arabische en islamitische landen de aanslagen in Mumbay scherp veroordeeld heeft, is in de media naast veroordelingen ook veel steun geuit voor de aanslagen, of werden ze in de schoenen geschoven van de 'zionisten', die de oorzaak van alle terrorisme zouden vormen en zelf ook wel zo'n aanslag verdienen. Op de website van Al Jazeera werd met vreugde gereageerd op het bericht dat een rabbijn en zijn vrouw onder de doden waren. Ook op de website van Hamas was er veel waardering voor de aanslagen en de 'martelaren' die ze uitvoerden.

 

Moslims zouden niet alleen de aanslagen die in naam van hun geloof zijn gepleegd hard moeten veroordelen, maar ook al dit soort van rechtvaardigingen, goedkeuring en de neiging OVERAL Israel de schuld van te geven. Men krijgt de indruk dat een belangrijke reden dat er nog geen vrede is, ligt in het feit dat de Arabieren dan een belangrijke zondebok zouden verliezen....

 

 

RP

-----------

 

 

Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center
at the Israel Intelligence Heritage & Commemoration Center (IICC)

December 2, 2008

 

 

Reactions in the Arab and Muslim world to the terrorist attacks in Mumbai
(Preliminary report)

http://www.terrorism-info.org.il/malam_multimedia/English/eng_n/html/ipc_e002.htm

 

Overview

1. At the level of political leadership, the Arab and Muslim world condemned the terrorist attacks in Mumbai and expressed solidarity with the Indian government, including terrorism-sponsoring countries like Iran and Syria . Iranian president Ahmadinejad sent a message of condolence to the Indian president and prime minister in which he deplored the terrorist attacks which cost innocent lives; Iranian foreign ministry spokesman Hassan Qashqavi also condemned the attacks; and the Iranian media used expressions like "terrorism" and "terrorist attack." The Syrian newspaper Tishrin gave a short summary of the events and also called the attackers "terrorists." Even Muhammad Mahdi 'Akef, leader of the radical Islamic Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt , issued a denunciation of the attacks.

Op-ed Commentary in the Iranian and Syrian Media

2. However, in commenting on the reasons for the terrorist attack, the Iranian and Syrian propaganda was quick to exploit the event to assail the United States, Israel and the Zionist movement, and to represent them as responsible for terrorism in India and the world in general:

i) Iranian president Ahmadinejad , in a vague statement hinting at the United States , said that "the ugly phenomenon of terrorism…has its roots in [an] international unfair order and …occupationist and disuniting policies" (ISNA News Agency, November 28). On November 29 the Iranian newspaper Al-Wifaq was much more explicit in its reaction. It criticized the Western media for describing the attackers as "Islamists." It also said that Israel ("that hypocritical entity") had sown terrorism in the Middle East and the entire world. It added that the attacks in India had a Zionist background with goals of interfering in regional matters, and fingerprints of American crimes could also be seen on the Indian sub-continent. According to the article, ten years ago the United States and the Zionists started spreading to the Indian arena to encourage a civil war within India and strife between India and its neighbors. Their intention was to impose their hegemony in the region. "Thus it is not enough to put an end to the military attack [in Mumbai], the true American string-pulling behind the terrorist [attack] must also be exposed…"

ii) On November 30 a columnist named Hassan Hassan wrote an anti-Semitic column about the events in Mumbai for the Syrian paper Al-Thawra. It attacked the United States and Zionism which, he claimed, were responsible for global terrorism. Islam, according to the article, is a religion of peace, not violence, and religious extremism is common to all nations and not just Islam. The article also claimed that accusing Islam of responsibility for global violence and terrorism was "anti-Islamic aggression" and bore the fingerprints of Zionism. That proved that the international community, led by the United States , was not serious about dealing with the problem of terrorism, despite the claim that it was waging a war against it. The article ended by saying that "the problem of terrorism will remain as long as Zionism stirs things up behind the scenes, everywhere, with complete liberty, especially in view of the lack of international law and order, and the lack of balanced political standards, which have led to anarchy and the collapse of countries…"

Support for Terrorism in Talkbacks on Hamas and Al-Jazeera Internet Sites

3. Opinions opposing the official stance could be found on the Internet sites of Hamas and the Qatari Al-Jazeera TV, whose editors gave a forum to surfers wishing to identify with the terrorists in Mumbai. Talkbacks on those sites expressed support for the attacks and identification with the attackers and their goals, expressing hope that such acts of violence would be carried out against Israel and the United States .

4. Surfers on Hamas's PALDF Forum , which appears on the Palestine-info website (Hamas's main website), expressed support, their remarks shown next to pictures of those in killed in the attacks. The forum did not post any talkbacks criticizing the terrorist attacks . The following is a representative sampling (November 29):

i) "Abu Majed" wrote: "Our guys in India are great."

ii) "Abu al-Muhannad:" "If Allah so desires, we will see a similar attack in the [Zionist] entity very soon. "

Lower right, in small letters: "If Allah so desires, we will see
a similar attack in the [Zionist] entity very soon."

iii) "Ayash," [for Yehieh Ayash, the Hamas terrorist called "the engineer," who was responsible for many suicide bombing attacks and died in a targeted killing] who "greatly desires the maidens of paradise" [i.e., who desires to carry out a suicide bombing attack] wrote: "Oh, Allah, bestow a victory on jihad fighters [ mujahideen ] everywhere."

"Ayash – who greatly desires the maidens of paradise" (upper inscription, second row):
"Oh, Allah, bestow a victory on jihad fighters everywhere."

iv) "Spideman [sic]" attached a computer-generated picture of " Washington after an attack," with the caption "By Allah, this picture is nice to look at… With Allah's help, it will happen soon…"

Computer-generated "picture of the ruins of Washington DC " attached to a talkback,
with the caption "By Allah, this picture is nice to look at… With Allah's help,
it will happen soon…" (Hamas's PALDF Forum, November 29).

v) "Awamir bil-Intilaq" ("marching orders") wrote: "Allah, pave the way for the jihad fighters on your way everywhere."

vi) "Al-Hamsawi 11" wrote: "Allah, bestow a victory on our brothers in India ."

vii) "Funoun al-Shahadah" ("the art of dying a martyr's death for the sake of Allah") wrote: "Allah, sow terror and destruction in all the infidel countries. Best wishes to the heroic jihad fighters everywhere."

A talkback from "Funoun al-Shahadah" (second and third rows): "Allah, sow terror and
destruction in all the infidel countries. Best wishes to the heroic jihad fighters everywhere."

viii) "Aqsana" ("our Aqsa [mosque]") wrote: "Allah, bestow victory on the jihad fighters fighting for your sake, oh lord of the world; Allah, grant them a victory which will freeze our hearts, oh most merciful; Allah, do not leave a place for the infidels on your land, for they will divert from your work everywhere they are thrown and will give birth only to wantonness and heresy Allah, you promised victory to your servants fighting the jihad and breathing down the necks of your enemies, Allah you aim the weapons in their hands."

Aqsana (fourth row): "Allah, bestow victory on the jihad fighters
fighting for your sake, oh lord of the world…"

5. An op-ed article in Hamas's organ Felesteen ( December 2, 2008 ) accused Israel of responsibility for the terrorist attacks in Mumbai. Dr. Issam Shahwar, in his column "Free Zone," claimed that the captive in Indian custody ¹ had said that the objective of the attack was to kill as many Israelis as possible in retaliation for the "barbaric crimes" Israel has committed against the Palestinians. Thus, he claimed, Israel bears responsibility for international terrorism and for the dangers faced by many countries around the world.

6. Qatar 's Al-Jazeera TV , the most popular channel in the Arab-Muslim world, gave extensive coverage to the terrorist attacks in Mumbai. However, in general, the attackers were not referred to as terrorists, but rather in neutral terms such as "armed men ( musallahim )," although the channel did not support the attacks.

7. On the other hand, Al-Jazeera's website did provide a forum for support of the attacks alongside its criticism of them. For example, in response to a posting titled "Seven Israelis killed and tension between India and Pakistan ," a talkbacker calling himself "Majdi" wrote that "Allah will give success to the resistance [i.e., terrorism] everywhere." There were also talkbacks condemning the terrorist attacks. Particularly conspicuous were the outpourings of joy in response to the Al-Jazeera notice that "a rabbi and his wife were among those killed in the Jewish center in Mumbai" (November 28). Some of the talkbacks were the following:

i) "Palestinian eagle" wrote: " The killing of a Jewish rabbi and his wife in the Jewish center in Mumbai is heartwarming news ."

ii) "Abdallah" wrote: "Allah, grant victory to Muslims. Allah, grant victory to jihad fighters everywhere."

iii) "Al-Sana'ni" wrote: "Allah is the greatest, thank you Allah. Victory to jihad fighters everywhere: aim their fire, break [their enemies] into little pieces, and accept them as shaheeds , amen."

iv) "Nabil Riyadh" wrote: " The Jews are the reason for all the world's problems , they created it [terrorism] and encourage it and support it with weapons and money. They [are the ones who] train terrorists everywhere."

v) "Doctor of Terrorism" wrote: "Terrorism is the Muslims' answer, while it is the modus operandi of the Jews, the West and their vassals among the non-Arab governments. India is a country which wages terrorism in a certain place in the world [apparently a reference to Kashmir], and according to Newton 's basic laws of physics, this was a natural reaction…"

8. The providing of a forum for talkbacks supporting and identifying with the attacks in Mumbai was not a random act by Hamas and Al-Jazeera TV. The propaganda spread by Hamas's media in the Palestinian Authority-administered territories often expresses identification with global jihad networks on various fronts ( Chechnya , for example), as part of its basic identification with radical Islam and jihad. As for Al-Jazeera, in the past it has often provided a forum for Al-Qaeda publications, including the propaganda campaign Osama bin Laden has been waging since September 2007. ² Al-Jazeera TV thus supports Al-Qaeda and the global jihad in the battle for hearts and minds, and at the same time global jihad exposure increases the number of its viewers in the Arab and Muslim world.

---

¹ He uses the word "survivor" and avoids calling him a "terrorist."

² For further information see our September 21, 2008 Bulletin entitled " During the past year Osama Bin Laden, Al-Qaeda leader, waged an intensive media campaign after a long silence. "

 

Speech president Shimon Peres bij begrafenis Israelische slachtoffers Mumbai terreuraanval

 

Het zal zeker geen toeval zijn dat een Joods religieus centrum in Mumbai tot de doelwitten van de terroristen behoorde.

 

Wouter

__________________

PRESIDENT OF ISRAEL SPOKESPERSON'S OFFICE
Tuesday, December 2, 2008

President Peres at the Burial Ceremony for Victims of the Terror Attack at the Chabad House in Mumbai:
"The Whole World Must Answer Moishe, Who is Asking, 'Where is My Mother?'"

 

President Shimon Peres took part today in a burial ceremony that was held at Kfar Chabad alongside the Chief Rabbis of Israel and other prominent rabbis. President Peres gave a special eulogy in memory of the six victims of the murderous terror attack at the Chabad House in Mumbai.

The President's Remarks are Below:

For several days now, the whole world has had to answer the question of a small child, Moishe, who is asking, "Where is my mother?" We all need to be able to answer clearly why little Moishe's mother was murdered. The world will not know calm, and will not be able to be a world of quiet and peace, a world of believers, a world of decent people, until we can give a clear answer to Moishe's question.

I saw Rivky's face, I saw Rabbi Gavriel's face; modest people, glowing faces, who had nothing but nevertheless gave everything out of an uncommon generosity. They did not seek wealth or prestige, only the light of the Torah, which they brought forth to the ends of the earth as emissaries of the Jewish people to bring salvation and hope. They did not want to force anything on their fellow man and they did not ask for anything. This was the greatest mission for a believing person, a Jew.

I was privileged to see the Lubavitcher Rebbe and to meet with him and I know that the Rebbe would not let anybody despair, nor would he let anybody cast doubt; in this way, faith will triumph. But Moishe's question is still awaiting an answer. Throughout the world are scattered hotels, kindergartens, schools, and houses of prayer, and no state is immune to terror. The world is divided into two: places in which people are as cruel as animals, and places in which people know that they were created in the image of God. We need to tear out terror at the root without hesitation and without equivocation. I don't understand how it is possible to accept a state like Iran, which constitutes a nest and a hotbed for terror and which calls for the destruction of Israel, as a member of the international community and of the United Nations. If the whole world cannot stand up to one man with a strong, meaningful stance, and if the world will not fight with a war of boycotts against all places in which there is money that is financing terror, then the peace and quiet of the world will be in danger. Terror represents an epidemic that we must stop and we must eradicate.

We, the Jewish people, have known sadness and martyrdom. We never lost our humanity and we never supported murder. Terror is not just a problem for the Jewish people or for the State of Israel; it is a problem and a danger for the entire world. From this point must emanate a clear cry to stop the insanity, to stop the terror and to provide a clear answer to Moishe. The answer to Moishe needs to be given by the whole world, because if not, we will not be able to live in a world of peace and security. The world must answer why a wonderful woman like Rivky was killed, why a holy man like Gavriel was killed, and why Moishe is left an orphan.

We will not rest and we will not relax until an answer is found. With us today are the Ambassador of India and the Deputy Ambassador Of the United States to Israel. It is incumbent on us to remember today that together with those of the Jewish people who were killed, Indian citizens, American citizens, and citizens of many states throughout the world were also murdered. In the name of the Jewish people, we offer our condolences to all of the victims of the terror attack in Mumbai. Our hearts grieve over the murder of those innocent of any crime. We also seek to comfort the Indian families whose loved ones, in their attempts to save our loved ones, were killed during the terror acts. We are one people, we are one world. Nonetheless to the family - to the grandfather and grandmother, Moishe does not just bring a question; he also brings consolation, that he will grow up and will continue the important mission of Chabad, which travels to all corners of the world to save souls through the compassion of their emissaries. The whole nation weeps today, and together with Moishe all of our people ask his question: "where is my mother?"


President Peres also transmitted a special letter to the President of India, Mrs. Pratibha Patil, in which he expressed his sadness over the murderous terrorist attacks that took place in Mumbai and offered his condolences to the victims. He also thanked the Indian government for their rescue efforts during the attack and promised that Israel will stand beside India in the fight against terrorism.

 

----------------------

THE LETTER FOLLOWS:

THE PRESIDENT

Jerusalem, 1 December 2008

Dear Madam President,

I was deeply shocked and saddened by the murderous terrorist attack in Mumbai, which claimed the lives of so many innocent people, among them citizens of India, Israel, and many western countries.

Global terrorism is a major threat that must be combated without let-up. The terrorists are the fanatical enemies of peace and stability to which we aspire and the values that we hold dear. Therefore, it is essential that all of us unite in this vital battle for freedom and human dignity. You can be sure, Madam President, that Israel stands together with India in this crucially important fight to eradicate terrorism. Israel very much appreciates the heroic efforts of India's security forces, despite the adverse conditions and the casualties, to rescue the hostages and defeat the terrorists who carried out the atrocity in Mumbai.

Please allow me to extend to Your Excellency, on behalf of the people of Israel and myself, our heartfelt sympathy and, through you, our sincere condolences to the bereaved families and our wishes for a speedy recovery for the injured.

Please accept, Your Excellency, the assurances of my highest consideration.

Sincerely,

Shimon Peres
Her Excellency
Mrs. Pratibha Patil
President of the Republic of India
 

--------------------------------------------
IMRA - Independent Media Review and Analysis
Website: www.imra.org.il

Israel gaat Hamas ministers en parlementatiërs vrijlaten

 

Wie één mens redt, redt de mensheid? Shalit had allang vrij moeten zijn, maar Hamas laat liever hem en honderden Palestijnse gevangenen al 2 jaar in gevangenschap zitten, dan een redelijke deal met Israel te sluiten.

 

Wouter

_____________

Israel to free Hamas 'bargaining chips' arrested over Shalit

 

By Amos Harel and Avi Issacharoff - Haaretz

Last update - 02:47 30/11/2008
www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1042010.html

 

Israel will soon be freeing all the "bargaining chips" it arrested in 2006 in order to trade them for kidnapped soldier Gilad Shalit: Dozens of Hamas parliamentarians, along with several Hamas ministers, will have to be released within the next year, even if no deal for Shalit is struck, because they will have finished serving their two- to three-year sentences.

"Everyone understands that the arrests of these men will not have helped Shalit much," a security official involved in the affair said.

On June 29, 2006, four days after Shalit was kidnapped, Israel arrested dozens of Hamas members throughout the West Bank and East Jerusalem, including eight ministers in the Hamas government and some 20 Hamas parliamentarians. Others were arrested in the following weeks.

Though Israel never said so officially, it was clear that this was retaliation for Shalit's abduction, and that the detainees were meant to serve as bargaining chips for his release. At the time, senior legal and defense officials said the arrests "spearheaded" efforts to get Shalit back.

When the detainees were indicted, the aim was to secure jail terms of seven to ten years. In practice, however, it turned out to be impossible to prove most of the detainees were directly involved in Hamas' terror activity. Thus they were generally charged only with lesser offenses, such as membership in an illegal organization, Hamas.

Meanwhile, the trials have been proceeding lackadaisically, and some have still not concluded. But those that have ended generally resulted in the defendants receiving relatively light sentences, ranging from two to three and a half years. As a result, some have already been released, and most of the rest - including those whose trials have not yet concluded, since time served will count toward their sentences - are expected to be freed sometime between next April and the end of 2009.

Those who have already been released include some of the most senior Hamas officials: then-deputy prime minister Nasser al-Din Shaer, then-minister for Jerusalem affairs Khaled Abu Arafa, then-finance minister Omar Abdel Razek, and Adnan Asfour, Hamas' spokesman in the West Bank.

Ironically, longer sentences could have been secured through plea bargains in some cases: Early in the process, defense attorneys for some defendants feared that they would indeed be jailed for long terms, and therefore proposed plea bargains under which the men would be sentenced to four to six years in jail. However, the prosecution refused, since at that time it still believed it could obtain longer sentences by going to trial.

In reality, however, the courts have thus far imposed a sentence of more than three and a half years in only one case: Hatem Jarrar, then mayor of Jenin, was sentenced to six years. As a result, "the approach now [in the ongoing trials] is to sign relatively lenient plea bargains and be done with the matter," said the defense official involved in the affair.

All of the arrested Hamas ministers and parliamentarians are included in the list of prisoners Hamas is demanding in exchange for Shalit, and Israel has no objection to including them in the swap. Thus far, however, there has been no significant progress in the negotiations, senior defense officials said.

The officials said that while Hamas recently responded to Israel's latest proposal, the gap between the sides remains large. Altogether, Hamas is demanding Israel free 1,400 prisoners, including 350 it has specified by name. Most of these 350 were convicted of involvement in major terror attacks, and Israel has thus far agreed to release only 150 of them.

Memri video - 'Israelische kinderen zijn legitieme doelwitten'

 

"These things lead us back to the root of the problem: Who is a civilian, and who is a soldier, who is being targeted, and who is targeting me? We must not include civilians in the list of military targets."

Dat is helemaal waar, maar het zijn juist de vijanden van Israel, groepen als Hamas en Hezbollah, die het onderscheid tussen burgers en strijders bewust doen vervagen. Zij verschuilen zich tussen burgers, opereren vanuit burgergebied, schieten raketten af vanuit het speelplein van een school, slaan wapens op in huizen of zelfs scholen, en zetten Israel zo voor soms welhaast onmogelijke dilemma's. Ze weten wel dat Israel niet zomaar schiet als de kans op burgerslachtoffers groot is, anders pasten ze deze taktiek niet toe.

Overigens zijn soldaten volgens het oorlogsrecht alleen een legitiem doelwit als zij in dienst zijn en een uniform dragen. Een soldaat op weekendverlof is een burger als ieder ander. Dat een kind later een soldaat kan worden is dus totaal niet to the point, en is een walgelijke manier van denken.

 

RP

-------------
 
Special Dispatch | No. 2129 | November 25, 2008
Reform Project

British Islamist Kamal Al-Hilbawi and Liberal Nabil Yassin Debate: Are Israeli Children Legitimate Military Targets?


Following are excerpts from a TV debate featuring Dr. Kamal Al-Hilbawi, introduced on the program as director of the London Center for the Study of Terrorism, and political analyst Dr. Nabil Yassin. Dr. Hilbawi is also former spokesman of the international Muslim Brotherhood in the West.(1) The debate aired on BBC Arabic TV on October 17, 2008:
   
To view this clip on MEMRI TV, visit http://www.memritv.org/clip/en/1922.htm
__________________________

 

Al-Hilbawi: "I Believe That Every Israeli Civilian is a Future Soldier... Even If He Is a Child"

Dr. Kamal Al-Hilbawi: "I condemn the targeting of any civilian, but incidentally, I believe that every Israeli civilian is a future soldier."
  
Interviewer: "He is what?"
  
Dr. Kamal Al-Hilbawi: "A future soldier."
  
Interviewer: "Even if he is two years old?"
  
Dr. Kamal Al-Hilbawi: "Even if he is a child. A child born in Israel is raised on the belief that [the Arabs] are like contemptible sheep, and that this is a land without a people, and they are a people without a land. They have very strange concepts. In elementary school, they pose the following math problem: 'In your village, there are 100 Arabs. If you killed 40, how many Arabs would be left for you to kill?' This is taught in the Israeli curriculum. What would you say about that? Should a child studying this be considered a civilian? He is a future soldier."
  
[...]
  
Dr. Nabil Yassin: "What Kamal said is very dangerous. He is familiar with the case of the Kharijites. He takes us back to the Azariqa, the Kharijites who were most lethal to Muslims. They used to cut open the bellies of pregnant women, because they believed that the child would become an enemy of the Kharijites."[...]
    
Yassin: "I Do Not Condemn the Child, Who Still Doesn't Know How He Will Kill the Arabs in 20 Years' Time, When He Becomes A Soldier"
"If we, as Arabs and Muslims, condemned every operation targeting civilians anywhere, we would be able to demand that all parties – not only the U.S. – commit themselves to the same position. I condemn the Israeli governments for teaching children such things, but I do not condemn the child, who still doesn't know how he will kill the Arabs in 20 years' time, when he becomes a soldier. We should differentiate... These things lead us back to the root of the problem: Who is a civilian, and who is a soldier, who is being targeted, and who is targeting me? We must not include civilians in the list of military targets."
  
[...]
  
Dr. Kamal Al-Hilbawi: "We must first ask ourselves, with regard to the Polish or Russian Israeli, who came with his children to occupy a land and a home that are not his, expelling the Palestinians to America, Britain, France, and Lebanon – what is his status according to international law?"
  
Interviewer: "We don't want to limit the show to the Palestinian cause and the Arab-Israeli struggle, we are talking about terrorism in general."
    
Al-Hilbawi: "In My View, Sheikh Al-Qaradhawi is One of the People Responsible for the Development of Religious Violence"
Dr. Kamal Al-Hilbawi: "Allow me. I absolutely do not condone the killing of civilians. But those responsible for the killing of these civilians are sometimes their own relatives and their own country.
  
[...]
  
"In my view, Sheikh Al-Qaradhawi is one of the people responsible for the development of religious violence, I'm sad to say."
  
Interviewer: "Dr. Nabil, we don't want to..."
  
Dr. Nabil Yassin: "Let's be clear on that... Religious scholars issued fatwas..."
  
Interviewer: "We are not here to pass judgment on Sheikh Al-Qaradhawi or anyone else."

Yassin: "Jurisprudents... Fuel the Phenomenon of Religious Violence"
Dr. Nabil Yassin: "We need to be realistic. For 1,400 years, we've been speaking in the name of Islam, while concealing the facts of reality. There is a movement among the clerics – and I don't believe in clerics, because there is not supposed to be any clergy in Islam... There is a group of clerics, or religious jurisprudents, who fuel the phenomenon of religious violence, provide religious justifications [for terrorism], and allow people to go to Paradise and marry the black-eyed virgins, by killing themselves and others, some of whom are Muslims."

Endnote:
(1) Al-Sharq Al-Awsat (London), February 17, 2006.

_______________________________________________

For assistance, please contact MEMRI at memri@memri.org
The Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) is an independent, non-profit organization that translates and analyzes the media of the Middle East. Copies of articles and documents cited, as well as background information, are available on request.

MEMRI holds copyrights on all translations. Materials may only be used with proper attribution.

MEMRI
P.O. Box 27837, Washington, DC 20038-7837


MEMRI | P.O. Box 27837 | Washington, DC 20038-7837 | T: 202-955-9070 | F: 202-955-9077 | E: memri@memri.org
www.memri.org | www.memritv.org | www.thememriblog.org
 

Extreemrechtse rabbi Wolpe verkiesbaar voor de Knesset

 

In contrast to the prevailing perception in religious Zionism, Wolpe believes that Zionism and the state have in fact distanced "the beginning of the Redemption" and it appears that this was manifested most clearly at one of the SOS Israel assemblies, when a large audience sang the Neturei Karta anthem with Ariel Zilber: "We do not recognize the heretic Zionist regime and its laws do not apply to us."

 

 

In tegenstelling tot de heersende indruk, is rabbi Wolpe geen zionist en zijn veel ultra-orthodoxe Joden geen zionisten. Ze zijn tegen teruggave van Judea en Samaria aan de Palestijnen, maar dat betekent niet automatisch dat je zionist bent. Deze mensen erkennen de staat niet, roepen op haar wetten te overtreden en beschuldigen haar leiders van ergere misdaden dan waar zij door pro-Palestijnen veelal van beschuldigd worden.

 

RP

-----------

Rabbi Wolpe, right wing Chabad extremist, plans to run for Knesset

http://zionism-israel.com/israel_news/2008/12/rabbi-wolpe-right-wing-chabad-extremist.html

Wolpe cannot, thankfully, be classified as a right wing Zionist, because Chabad are anti-Zionist. They want the "territories" but for their own reason. (A.I.)

 

 

Last update - 08:23 02/12/2008
Renegade Chabad rabbi 'right of Kahane' plans run for Knesset

 

By Nadav Shragai

 

 

Meet Rabbi Shalom Dov Wolpe, head of the World Headquarters to Save the People and Land of Israel (SOS Israel), director of the Chabad educational institutions in Kiryat Gat, author of more than 40 books on a wide range of topics in rabbinical law and Torah and the man who a few days ago said that "the state of Israel is the enemy of the Jewish people," before softening his stance a bit. He is further to the right than the late Rabbi Meir Kahane, a person who thinks Ariel Sharon is "Haman" and a "false Messiah" and that the foreign minister is "the second Isabella," perhaps the successor to the first Isabella, who is credited with the Inquisition and the expulsion of Jews from Spain.

 

Now Wolpe, one of the heads of the Messianic faction of Chabad, is registering a new political party, "Eretz Yisrael Shelanu - A United Jewish Party for the Wholeness of the Torah, the Land and the People."

 

If he makes it past the Central Elections Committee - Peace Now has already filed a request to disqualify him - and if he survives, politically, the police investigation on suspicions of incitement, evasion of military service and disobeying orders for having given cash prizes to families of soldiers who refused to take part in the evacuation of Jews - we shall see him running for the Knesset, perhaps with Baruch Marzel of the Jewish Front, the successor to the banned Kach movement.
 
Wolpe's style and his path are not exactly the official Chabad movement's cup of tea, and in the past Chabad spokesmen have come out against him and have expressed reservations about his way and his style. But Wolpe, together with his colleague in the United States, Rabbi Yekutiel Rapp, is gaining more and more popularity, especially among the public that has decided to divorce itself from the state of Israel.

 

Wolpe himself talks about this openly in his book "Between Light and Darkness." In it, he calls upon the religious Zionists to disengage themselves from the state, because there is no proof that it is "the start of the Redemption," and proposes relating to the state as though it were British rule, as something technical. "Do not recite the prayer for the welfare of the state or the Hallel [prayer of thanksgiving] on Independence Day," he wrote. "We are in the diaspora, and we are anticipating the kingdom of the House of David."

 

Wolpe believes that the power to carry out the disengagement was given to Sharon by the same public that decided that the state of Israel is its state and that the government of Israel headed by Sharon was its government, the same public that blessed him from the depths of its heart every Sabbath before an open Torah scroll as a part of the prayer for the welfare of the state.

 

"All the limits have been reached," wrote Wolpe. "Therefore the holy one, blessed be he, has set over us a king as harsh as Haman. The holy one, blessed be he, is expecting us to internalize the truth that the establishment of the democratic state has nothing to do with the redemption, and in fact it is entirely a rebellion against the God of Israel, the Torah of Israel, the people of Israel and the land of Israel. Only when we stop believing in the sanctity of the state and its institutions will we be able to plead from the depths of our hearts: Speedily cause the offspring of David, thy servant, to flourish, and let his radiance be exalted by thy salvation."

 

In contrast to the prevailing perception in religious Zionism, Wolpe believes that Zionism and the state have in fact distanced "the beginning of the Redemption" and it appears that this was manifested most clearly at one of the SOS Israel assemblies, when a large audience sang the Neturei Karta anthem with Ariel Zilber: "We do not recognize the heretic Zionist regime and its laws do not apply to us."

 

Wolpe and his organization are the ones behind the giving of cash to soldiers and their families who refuse to take part in uprooting outposts in the West Bank and Jewish areas in Hebron. Wolpe is also the one who is behind the continuing campaign Yesh din veyesh dayan - "There is a law and there is a judge," the SOS Israel version of "Crime and Punishment." The crime is "the crime of the disengagement" and the "expulsion," and the punishment takes different forms: ousting, resignation, illness, a commission of inquiry, conviction of a crime or just plain political failure.

 

The list of the victims of the "disengagement curse" has been composed by Wolpe and his colleagues and more than a million copies have been distributed in synagogues around the country.

 

The list starts with Sharon, who has sunk into a coma in the wake of a stroke, goes on to his son Omri, who has served a prison term, enumerates a long series of public figures who were involved in the disengagement and have been harmed in one way or another and ends with the last of the afflicted: Prime Minister Ehud Olmert.

 

In recent years, Wolpe has become the bluntest spokesman of the extreme right, though his recent remarks about the state of Israel as "the enemy of the people" roused the ire of Rabbi Eliezer Waldman, the head of the Nir Yeshiva in Kiryat Arba, who has protested strongly against him.

 

Wolpe sees the late Lubavitch Rebbe Rabbi Menachem M. Schneerson as the messiah who will be revealed in the future. Of United States President George W. Bush and Olmert he has said in the past that they are bringing about a Holocaust. In his opinion, the media are serving the enemy; the presence of Shas in Sharon's government was "a crime that will never be forgiven until the end of all generations.

 

"Anyone who gives weapons to the Palestinians is tantamount to a spiller of blood and a collaborator with the enemy and transgresses the prohibition thou shalt not stand in thy neighbor's blood," he says.

 

Wolpe might not get into the Knesset, but his influence among groups like the hilltop youth and disengagers is increasing. Alongside rabbinical figures like Rabbi Yitzhak Greenberg and Rabbi David Dudkevitz, Wolpe is acquiring a position of honor for himself.

 

 

EU plannen Midden-Oosten conflict maken Israel bezorgd

 

De Europese Unie is plannen aan het smeden voor een actievere betrokkenheid bij het oplossen van het Midden-Oosten conflict, plannen die in Israel onrust veroorzaken. Doorgaans in overleg met de Amerikanen stippelt Israel haar eigen koers uit voor vredesonderhandelingen en veiligheidsmaatregelen. Het overdragen van bevoegdheden aan de Palestijnse veiligheidsdiensten en politie vindt al plaats, maar geleidelijk en met steeds tussentijdse evaluaties en risico inschattingen. Daarbij blijkt dat de PA nog niet voldoende in staat is om aanslagen tegen Israel te voorkomen. De EU lijkt Israel te willen pushen om dit tempo op te voeren, en dat maakt nerveus. Israel wil uiteraard zelf de regie in handen houden, en gebruikt het al dan niet doen van concessies ook als drukmiddel jegens de PA. Het EU beleid zou dit kunnen gaan doorkruisen.

 

Het openen van Palestijnse instellingen in Jeruzalem zou voor Israel pas aan de orde komen als er overeenstemming is over de deling van Jeruzalem en met name van de Oude stad. Abbas heeft nog niet duidelijk gemaakt dat hij Israelische aanspraken op de Joodse delen, waaronder de Klaagmuur en de Olijfberg, wil erkennen. Ook de grote woonblokken rond Jeruzalem wil Israel houden en de PA alternatief grondgebied van binnen de Groene Lijn in ruil bieden, zoals al tijdens de Oslo onderhandelingen is voorgesteld. Een bouwstop binnen deze woongebieden zou moeilijk te verteren zijn.

 

Het feit dat de EU zo ontzettend op de nederzettingen hamert, roept ook irritaties op. Waarom neemt de EU niet net zo'n eenduidig en stevig standpunt in wat betreft het zogenaamde 'recht op terugkeer' van de Palestijnse vluchtelingen, en de verheerlijking van geweld tegen Israel in Palestijnse media?

 

Wouter & Ratna

____________________

 

EU paper on solving Mideast conflict worries Israel

By Barak Ravid - Haaretz

Last update - 07:13 01/12/2008
www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1042316.html

 

Israeli officials are deeply concerned over an internal European Union document outlining the EU's plans for advancing an Israeli-Palestinian deal in 2009. Inter alia, it calls for increased pressure on Israel to reopen Palestinian institutions in Jerusalem, including Orient House, which formerly served as the Palestinian Authority's headquarters in the city.

The document, a copy of which was obtained by Haaretz, was written by the French Foreign Ministry, as France currently occupies the EU's rotating presidency.

It is slated to be discussed next week at a meeting of the EU's foreign ministers, and Israel is trying to get various elements changed before then.

Titled "The EU Action Strategy for Peace in the Middle East: The Way Forward," the document proposes various steps the EU should take in 2009 on both the Palestinian and the Syrian tracks, with emphasis on the former. However, its proposals are liable to result in a clash with whatever new government Israelis elect in February, whether headed by Tzipi Livni or Benjamin Netanyahu.

The EU, it states, must encourage the newly elected American government to be actively engaged in Israeli-Palestinian talks.

In addition, the document states, the international community must closely monitor implementation of the first stage of the road map peace plan, which requires Israel to freeze settlement construction and remove West Bank roadblocks, and the PA to fight terror.

Regarding the so-called core issues of the conflict - borders, security, Jerusalem and refugees - the document proposes three main lines of action.

"A key part of building the Palestinian state involves resolving the status of Jerusalem, as the future capital of two states," it declares. Therefore, "the EU will work actively towards the re-opening of the Palestinian institutions, including the Orient House."

Orient House, which once served as the PA's de facto Foreign Ministry, was closed in August 2001 following the deadly terror attack on Jerusalem's Sbarro restaurant. Since then, successive Israeli governments have refused to reopen it, as it symbolized Palestinian claims to sovereignty in East Jerusalem.

On security, the document expresses EU willingness to play a role in Israeli-Palestinian security arrangements, mainly by sending policemen, soldiers or civilians to help train Palestinian security forces or to supervise implementation of a final-status agreement.

Regarding the refugees, the document says an "agreed, just, fair and realistic" solution must be found, adding that the EU would be willing to help establish and operate an international mechanism to compensate and rehabilitate Palestinian refugees.

The document praises the PA for having greatly improved security in the West Bank, and therefore concludes that Israel must transfer additional large swathes of this territory to Palestinian security control. "During the coming period, Palestinian security presence should be expanded beyond cities," it says.

In addition, it notes, the EU "expects a complete freeze of all settlement activities including natural growth, including in East Jerusalem ... The EU will continue to send clear messages to Israel and examine practical ways to exert more influence on these issues, including on goods from settlements."

Israel stuurt Libisch schip weg van Gazakust

 

De eerdere schepen die Israel uiteindelijk heeft laten doorvaren, waren kleine boten met vooral actievoerders aan boord. Op Cyprus waren die al aan een inspectie onderworpen, en Israel had geen trek in de publiciteit die een confrontatie zou opleveren.

Het Libische schip was schijnbaar van een ander kaliber. Libië is een staat die het bestaansrecht van Israel nog nooit heeft erkend.

Overigens erkende ook een deel van voornoemde actievoerders Israels bestaansrecht niet.

 

Wouter

___________

 

 

Last update - 10:57 01/12/2008       
Israel turns back Libyan ship bound for Gaza with aid

 

By Reuters
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1042587.html

 

 

The Israel Navy turned back a Libyan ship on Monday as it tried to transport humanitarian aid to the blockaded Gaza Strip, Palestinian officials said.

 

They said the ship, Al-Marwa, sailed instead to a port in neighboring Egypt. It had departed from Libya last Monday, carrying 3,000 tons of food, medicine and other aid, Palestinian and Libyan officials said.

 

Israel said there had been no physical confrontation between its naval vessels and the Libyan ship.

 

"They understood that the navy was there and decided to turn around," said Andy David, a Foreign Ministry spokesman.

 

"We have a very clear policy [on the blockade] which is constantly publicized."

 

Imposed to generate political pressure on Gaza's Islamist Hamas leadership, the blockade has been stepped up in recent weeks amid a surge in border clashes between Israeli forces and Palestinian militants.

 

But Israel has in the past allowed ships carrying humanitarian goods to dock in Gaza to avoid a public confrontation.

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250 Palestijnse gevangenen komen vrij als gebaar van goede wil

 

In Israelische gevangenissen zitten 10 tot 11 duizend Palestijnen vast, varierend van zware terroristen tot autodieven tot onschuldigen. Over de verhouding tussen 'gewone criminelen' en 'verzetsstrijders' lijken geen cijfers voorhanden te zijn. Minder dan 10% zou in administratieve detentie zitten, dwz. zonder veroordeling opgesloten op basis van wetgeving uit de tijd van het Britse mandaat. Wikipedia heeft een apart artikel over de Palestijnse gevangenen, maar dat is -zoals vaak- omstreden.

 

Wouter

____________

Cabinet approves releasing 250 Palestinian prisoners in gesture to Abbas

 

By Reuters

Last update - 19:03 30/11/2008
www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1042253.html

 

The cabinet on Sunday approved the release of 250 Palestinian prisoners as a goodwill gesture toward Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.

The prisoners will be released to the West Bank, where Abbas's government holds sway, before next week's Muslim holiday of Eid al-Adha, officials said of the decision.

Outgoing Prime Minister Ehud Olmert had promised to free the prisoners during a meeting earlier this month with Abbas, who launched peace talks with Israel a year ago after Gaza's violent takeover by Hamas.

"This is a confidence-building measure," said Olmert's spokesman Mark Regev.

Regev said Israel will release prisoners from the ranks of Abbas's secular Fatah faction and other non-Islamist groups.

"This is a national priority for every Palestinian household," Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat said, welcoming the cabinet decision.

He said Israel has yet to tell the Palestinians whether it would consider freeing high-profile Fatah inmates such as Marwan Barghouti, who is seen as a possible successor to Abbas as president.

Minister Gideon Ezra said the goal in releasing prisoners was to help Abbas "earn the cooperation of the population" without undermining Israeli security.

"Abu Mazen [Abbas], in the past few months, has made efforts that we've never seen before, including trying to stop terrorism," Ezra said, referring to arrests made by Abbas's forces. "It's our commitment to do everything possible...to make it easier for him."

Nearly 200 prisoners were freed by Israel in August. U.S.-sponsored peace talks between Olmert and Abbas, rejected by Hamas, have shown little sign of progress.

Israel will also have to begin releasing the "bargaining chips" it arrested in 2006 in order to trade them for kidnapped soldier Gilad Shalit: Dozens of Hamas parliamentarians, along with several Hamas ministers, will have to be released within the next year, even if no deal for Shalit is struck, because they will have finished serving their two- to three-year sentences.

All of the detained Hamas officials are on the list of prisoners Hamas is demanding in exchange for Shalit, and Israel has no objection to including them in the swap. Thus far, however, there has been no significant progress in the negotiations, senior defense officials said.

The officials said that while Hamas recently responded to Israel's latest proposal, the gap between the sides remains large. Altogether, Hamas is demanding Israel free 1,400 prisoners, including 350 it has specified by name. Most of these 350 were convicted of involvement in major terror attacks, and Israel has thus far agreed to release only 150 of them.

 

Arabische obsessie met de bezetting van Palestina

 

Geen zionist maar een Arabier wijst op het feit dat door de obsessie met Israel alle andere bezettingen van Arabisch gebied werden genegeerd, en de Palestijnen evenmin geholpen zijn.

"I am positive - [in fact, I am willing] to bet and even to swear by Allah - that if only 10 percent of the money that the Arab countries invested in  arming their forces during the futile fighting [with Israel] had been invested in  what was left of Palestine and its people, the West Bank and Gaza would now be enjoying a living standard higher than that of Singapore."

 

 

RP

-------

Saudi Columnist: Why Do We Object to Occupation Only in Palestine?

Friday , 28 November 2008
http://www.memri.org/bin/articles.cgi?Page=archives&Area=sd&ID=SP213208

 

 

In light of the tension between the Gulf states and Iran following Iran's takeover of the three UAE islands in the Persian Gulf (Greater Tunb, Lesser Tunb and Abu Moussa), columnist for the London daily Al-Sharq Al-Awsat Mash'al Al-Sudairi criticized the Arab world for its obsession with the Israeli occupation and its indifference to the occupation of other Arab territories - for example, the Turkish takeover of the Syrian Alexandretta district (currently Iskenderun), or the aforementioned occupation of the three islands.

Following are excerpts from Al-Sudairi's column: [1]

"There Is No Doubt That the Jewish Occupation of a Part of Palestine Constitutes Great Oppression..."

"Occupation is occupation is occupation, and oppression is oppression is oppression, regardless of the color, race or religion [of the occupier or oppressor]. During its modern history, the Arab nation has suffered both occupation and oppression...

"There is no doubt that the Jewish occupation of a part of Palestine constitutes great oppression, which we have not known how to deal with. When, in the early 1930s, we were offered 80 percent of Palestine, while the Jews were offered 20 percent, we rejected the offer. In the late 1940s, we were offered 49 percent of Palestine, and the Jews 51 percent, and we rejected that [offer], as well.
Today, we are begging them to give us a mere 22 percent of what remains of Palestine after their complete occupation of it in 1967, and Israel is refusing to do so, offering us no more than 20 percent - as if they want to taunt and defeat us, and to remind us of the 1930s…

"I realize that political talk is annoying. However, what I am saying now has nothing to do with politics. I am [only] recounting the history of our self-inflicted blows, whose severity and harm we have not yet comprehended."


"Over Six Decades Ago... We [Began to] Talk of Nothing But Palestine... Which Exhausted All Our Resources, Abilities, Time, and Freedom"

"We started to dither over six decades ago - when we [began to] talk of nothing but Palestine and take an interest in nothing but the Palestinian cause, which exhausted all our resources, abilities, time and freedom. [At the same time], we were preoccupied with coups that occurred here and there, the murders,  arrests, detentions and expulsions that took place here and there, and the civil wars, summits, arms deals, escapades, conferences, accusations, and treason allegations that were brought here and there.

"I am positive - [in fact, I am willing] to bet and even to swear by Allah - that if only 10 percent of the money that the Arab countries invested in  arming their forces during the futile fighting [with Israel] had been invested in  what was left of Palestine and its people, the West Bank and Gaza would now be enjoying a living standard higher than that of Singapore."


"Other Arab Countries Have Been Robbed of Parts of Their Territories... And We Never Uttered a Word of Protest"

"[Furthermore], with all the turmoil over the Palestinian issue, we have completely forgotten that other Arab countries have been robbed of parts of their territories, in broad daylight - and we never uttered a word of protest.

"Have we forgotten Alexandretta and how, after World War I, France formed an alliance with Turkey, and both mocked the United Nations [by] conducting a preposterous census among the residents of this district? Instead of dividing the district based on race, its population was divided on a sectarian basis.

Since most of the Arabs of Alexandretta are Sunni, like the Turks, they were classified as Turks. [Moreover], not all of them are even Sunnis - some are Shi'ites, 'Alawis and Christian Syrians... In this way, Alexandretta, 95 percent of whose population was Arab, was taken away from [the Arabs and annexed to Turkey]. The same thing happened to the Al-Muhammara Emirate, the former 'Arabistan, which Britain gave to Iran on a 'tray of oil.' And now Iran has occupied the islands belonging to the UAE, exactly as it did in the Shah's era.

"What are you Arabs doing about these occupied territories?! Or perhaps it is permissible for a Muslim to occupy the land of his [Muslim] brother… Under these unhappy circumstances, I would like to ask 'the [achiever] of the divine victory,' [Hizbullah leader] Hassan Nasrallah: What do you call the Gulf - the 'Arab Gulf' or the 'Persian Gulf'? Who is the rightful sovereign of the three islands - do they belong to the Arab UAE or to the Islamic Republic of Iran?"

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[1] Al-Sharq Al-Awsat (London), September 15, 2008.

Slachtoffers van terreuraanslagen Mumbai ook uit Israel

 

De terreuraanval in Mumbai heeft veel publiciteit gekregen in onze media, maar was voor Indiase begrippen helemaal niet zo uitzonderlijk. De Metro gaf vrijdag een lijstje van de grootste aanslagen in India in recente jaren:

 

Augustus 2003: 60 doden

Augustus 2004: 60 doden

29 oktober 2005: 65 doden

11 juli 2006: 174 doden

19 februari 2007: 66 doden

13 mei 2008: 63 doden

26 juli 2008: 160 doden

30 oktober 2008: 76 doden

 

Met meer dan 195 doden is dit wel de grootste aanslag, die zich bovendien over meerdere dagen afspeelde. Verder valt op dat gericht naar Amerikanen, Britten en ... Joden werd gezocht.

 

Het lijkt mij dom om gelijk weer rivaal Pakistan tegen zich in het harnas te jagen met beschuldigingen, tenzij hard bewijs voor is betrokkenheid van de Pakistaanse regering. Samenwerking tussen India en Pakistan zou vruchtbaarder zijn, want extremisme en terrorisme is ook voor Pakistan een groot probleem. Hetzelfde geldt voor Israel, dat in India een sterke bondgenoot kan hebben.

 

Wouter

___________

 

Last update - 10:52 29/11/2008

Two more bodies found at Mumbai Chabad center
By Anshel Pfeffer in Mumbai, and News Agencies
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1041834.html

 

MUMBAI - A Foreign Ministry statement issued Saturday announced that the bodies of eight hostages had been removed from the Chabad House in Mumbai and taken to local hospitals for identification. On Friday, only six of the eight had been discovered, and only four have so far been identified.

More than 195 people were killed in the attacks across the city, which began Wednesday night. Indian security forces stormed the Jewish Chabad center early Friday.

Defense Minister Ehud Barak told Channel 1 Television on Friday that the bodies of two women and three men had been found at the center, one of 10 targets attacked by suspected Muslim terrorists across India's financial capital. The body of a third woman was found later in the building.
 
The Chabad-Lubavitch movement confirmed Friday evening that an Israeli-born American rabbi Gavriel Holtzberg, 29, and his wife Rivka, 28 were among the dead.

Barak said two men who supervised Jewish dietary laws were also apparently among the dead. They were later identified as Leibish Teitlebau, an American from Brooklyn, and Ben-Zion Croman, an Israeli with dual U.S. citizenship.

Barak added that some of the bodies had been tied up, and that two women had been killed many hours before.

"All in all, it was a difficult spectacle," he said.

The defense minister said, without elaborating, that the roots of the attack were in India, but involved militants in Pakistan and Afghanistan as well.

While acknowledging the complexity of ending the attacks across sprawling Mumbai, Barak added, "I'm not sure it had to last three days, but that's what happened."

Israel offered all manner of help to Indian officials, Barak said, including assistance "that is inappropriate to detail here."

Israel's ambasssador to India, Mark Sofer, however, consistently dismissed reports that Israeli commandos took part in the operation.

Channel 1 reported that the bodies of the Israelis killed in the attack would be returned to Israel on Sunday for burial.

"Rabbi Gavriel and Rivka Holtzberg, the beloved directors of Chabad-Lubavitch of Mumbai, were killed during one of the worst terrorist attacks to strike India in recent memory," the Chabad's New York headquarters said in a statement.

The couple ran the Chabad's Mumbai headquarters. Their toddler son, Moshe, was smuggled out of the center by an employee on Wednesday, and is now with his maternal grandparents, who arrived from Israel on Thursday.

Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, speaking at a news conference in Jerusalem, said Friday that it was no coincidence the Chabad center had been attacked.

"There is no doubt, we know, that the targets the terrorists singled out were Jewish, Israeli targets and targets identified with the West, Americans and Britons," Livni said.

"Our world is under attack, it doesn't matter whether it happens in India or somewhere else," she added. "There are Islamic extremists who don't accept our existence or Western values."

Her words echoed those of Mark Sofer, who said earlier that out of the thousands of building in Mumbai, it was hard to believe that the terrorists had stumbled by chance upon the Jewish center.

"Rabbi Gavriel and Rivka Holtzberg, the beloved directors of Chabad-Lubavitch of Mumbai, were killed during one of the worst terrorist attacks to strike India in recent memory," the New York-based Chabad-Lubavitch Movement said in a statement.

Gavriel Holtzberg, 29, was born in Israel and moved to the Crown Heights section of Brooklyn with his parents when he was nine. His 28-year-old wife, born Rivka Rosenberg, was a native of Afula.

They arrived in Mumbai in 2003 to serve the small Jewish community there, running a synagogue and Torah classes, and assisting Jewish tourists to the seaside city.

"Gabi and Rivky Holtzberg made the ultimate sacrifice," Rabbi Moshe Kotlarsky, vice chairman of the educational arm of Chabad-Lubavitch, said in a statement.

"As emissaries to Mumbai, Gabi and Rivky gave up the comforts of the West in order to spread Jewish pride in a corner of the world that was a frequent stop for throngs of Israeli tourists."

Israeli diplomat Haim Choshen told Israeli television by telephone from the scene that the bodies of hostages were found after Indian security forces stormed the Chabad center.

Chabad first raised the alarm Wednesday night, when attacks began in Mumbai, saying it had failed to make contact with the rabbi. Hundreds of people were also wounded in the attacks, which appeared to target locations popular with foreigners.

The chief of India's elite National Security Guards, J.K. Dutt, told Indian television that the commandos had also killed two militants in operations at the center.

A short way across the city, frequent gunshots and explosions rang out throughout Friday from the luxury Taj hotel, as commandos fought cat-and-mouse battles with gunmen holed up inside.

 

 

8 IDF-soldaten gewond bij mortieraanval op West-Negev

 

Dit ondanks dat Hamas had gezegd dat er overeenstemming was onder de Palestijnse facties het staakt-het-vuren voort te zetten.

RP

---------

Last update - 01:10 29/11/2008 
Eight IDF soldiers wounded in mortar barrage on western Negev

By Amos Harel and Yanir Yagna, Haaretz Correspondents, and News Agencies
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1041947.html


Eight Israel Defense Forces soldiers were wounded Friday evening, two seriously, after mortars fired by Gaza Strip militants hit a military base near Kibbutz Nahal Oz in the western Negev.

The soldiers were evacuated to Soroka Hospital in Be'er Sheva and to Barzilai Hospital in Ashkelon.

Responsibility for the attack was claimed by the small Popular Resistance Committees, an ally of the Islamic Hamas militant group that rules Gaza. The military base is located near a fuel terminal that supplies much-needed gasoline and cooking fuel to impoverished Gaza.

According to the Israeli military, Palestinian militants fired a total of 11 mortars at southern Israel from Gaza on Friday. Three of them landed at the base, the military said.

The mortar barrage came after earlier on Friday an IDF patrol clashed with Palestinian militants in the southeastern Gaza Strip near Kibbutz Nir Oz, killing at least one.

The violence is further marring a 5-month-old truce between Israel and Gaza militants that began breaking down in early November.

Israel has responded to mortar and rocket attacks from Gaza by tightening its blockade of the coast strip. Only small shipments of aid and fuel are currently allowed into Gaza, deepening the hardship there.

Israel says cargo crossings won't open until militants halt rocket fire at Israeli towns.