IDF rescues Palestinians during mortar attack on Erez Crossing

Several mortar shells hit the Erez Crossing, just as three Palestinian women and two infants were crossing back into the Gaza Strip after receiving medical treatment in Israel.

On Thursday night (August 25th), the terror organizations from the Gaza Strip continued launching rockets and mortar shells towards Israel.

During the attack several mortar shells hit the Erez Crossing, just as three Palestinian women and two infants were crossing back into the Gaza Strip after receiving medical treatment in Israel, causing damage to the crossing's infrastructure and an electrical shutdown. The power outage disabled gates at the crossing. Two of the women passed through safely but a third woman, along with her infant daughter, got caught between two disabled gates while rockets were falling.

The commander of the Erez crossing and another security officer rescued the woman and her daughter. All of the Palestinian women were brought to a protected shelter at the crossing where they were given a meal for the end of the daily Ramadan fast.

The squad of terrorists that fired a mortar shell hitting the Erez Crossing was targeted shortly afterwards by an IAF aircraft, in the northern Gaza Strip.

Erez Crossing damaged by mortar fire 

Terrorist groups in the Gaza Strip have fired over 15 rockets and mortars at Israel on Thursday, causing severe damage to the Erez Crossing.

The Erez Crossing is used for the movement of Palestinians and foreign staff members of international organizations in and out of the Gaza Strip. It should be noted that this is the second time this week the Erez Crossing has been hit by mortar shells and rockets. Despite rocket attacks from Gaza, the Erez crossing continued to operate in recent days, allowing for the passage of Palestinian medical patients and staff members of international organizations. The supply crossings into Gaza continued to operate, delivering over 150 truckloads of goods and food.

Source: Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs

Who will endorse Palestine?

How will Germany vote? What about Japan? Ynet maps out global interests ahead of Palestinian UN bid

Ynetnews
by Ronen Medzini

On September 20th, the Palestinian Authority will submit its statehood bid at the United Nations General Assembly; the process will culminate with the UN's 193 member states voting on recognizing a Palestinian state. What can we expect at the vote?

Officials in Jerusalem presume that should a vote indeed take place, the Palestinians will win an automatic majority thanks to the guaranteed support of the 116 "non aligned" states," which tend to vote as a bloc and promote joint interests. Hence, Foreign Ministry officials are focusing their efforts at what they refer to as the "moral majority," that is, large, influential states – this list includes the 27 members of the European Union, global powers, and several other key states.
Read more »

Give Peace A Chance

Egypt and Israel: Springtime in Sinai

Israel is worried by extremists on its desert border and political changes in Cairo

The Economist

“SOMETIMES you have to subordinate strategic considerations to tactical needs,” says Ehud Barak, Israel’s defence minister, former prime minister and the country’s most decorated military man. This is one such time: Mr Barak, backed by the current prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, is going to agree to Egypt deploying thousands of troops in Sinai even though the Israel-Egypt peace treaty strictly forbids it. They will have helicopters and armoured vehicles, Mr Barak says, but no tanks beyond the lone battalion already stationed there.

The decision comes after an audacious attack on August 18th on Israeli vehicles travelling on a scenic road that hugs the Israel-Egypt border and ends at the resort town of Eilat. Eight Israelis, civilians and soldiers, died in the attack and in shoot-outs involving the army. Ten attackers were killed, two apparently by Egyptian border guards, six of whom were also killed in the crossfire. Egypt blamed Israel for the deaths. Israel replied that a hard-core group of Palestinians, all heavily armed, had entered Egypt’s Sinai peninsula from Gaza a month ago, camped and trained there, and made their way unhindered across open desert to the site of the attack. Egyptian and Israeli security sources believe that several militants operating in Sinai joined them to take part in the attacks. Read more »

Saudi Columnist Calls on Arabs to Learn from Israel's Handling of Protests

The Middle East Media Research Institute

In an article in the London-based Saudi daily Al-Sharq Al-Awsat, Saudi academic and writer Amal 'Abd Al-'Aziz Al-Hazzani called on the Arab rulers to learn from Israel's handling of the social protests there, contrasting the swift measures taken by the Israeli government and Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu with Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad's use of military force against his own people.

Criticizing those who claimed that Israel's strikes in response to the attacks in Eilat had been meant to distract attention from the protests in the Israeli street, Ms. Al-Hazzani aked how Palestinians and Arabs could condemn this expected response while keeping silent over the Syrian army's shelling of the Al-Ramal Palestinian refugee camp in Latakia. She added that in contrast to the Israeli government, which clearly defined and took action against its enemies but maintained respect for its own citizens, the Syrian regime defined Syrian citizens who threatened the regime's legitimacy as the enemy, but had relinquished its legitimate borders in the Golan Heights
Following are excerpts from Ms. Al-Hazzani's article:

"We rejoiced when the contagion of the Arab revolutions reached Israel. We said that this was an unintentional direct hit, that the Israeli street would revolt and demand to topple the regime – which would lead Netanyahu, who [at the time] was traveling abroad, to rush back to Tel Aviv and mobilize the Israeli army in full force to suppress the protestors. [We said that] he would fire live ammunition at them, and humiliate them by beating them with shoes, throwing them in prison, and sending them the mutilated corpses of their children. Then, [we said,] the Hebrew state would crumble, weaken, and collapse, and would ask America for help; disputes would arise among [Israel's] leaders; [Israel] would go from being strong to feeble; and the long story of Israeli tyranny would end, without a single Arab batting an eyelash.

"But this joy did not materialize. Unfortunately, Netanyahu disappointed us. While he did, in fact, wake up and return [to Israel], it was not in order to massacre his citizens, but to contain the crisis and propose swift solutions to what the street was demanding. He felt concern over the [public] anger toward him. It is said that he and his ministers did not sleep for a week, staying up nights in order to study tactical and strategic plans to meet the protestors' demands. And, fearing that the people would not think that he was in earnest, he established a committee of academics at Haifa and Tel Aviv Universities and at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem to serve as his mouthpiece vis-à-vis the public, and he committed to accepting whatever [this committee] proposed.

"It was the protestors who set the demands, accusing Netanyahu's government of failing to [ensure] social justice, and of failing to notice that the youth among the Israeli people had grown in number over time – and that these same youth would marry and need higher wages, more reasonably priced housing, advanced healthcare, and lower taxes.
Read more »

Arab Spring for Dummies

Last year, Israel had three stable borders and one unstable border. Now that the Arab Spring has turned into Terror Summer, those numbers have flipped around. Israel’s border with Egypt has become as troubled as the Lebanese border. And the Syrian border is following close behind.

FrontPage Magazine
by Daniel Greenfield

Obama had thought to use the Arab Spring as the linchpin of his reelection campaign, tying the unrest that brought down Mubarak to his Cairo speech. But the ugly turn of events in the region has him distancing himself from events instead.
The Arab Spring did not become the Soft Power alternative to the Bush Doctrine that his advisers expected it to be. Instead the economic protests exploited by State Department backed activists are sliding formerly pro-American countries into the Islamist camp. Read more »

No more Israeli apologies

In face of world indifference, Israel should be fighting terror without apologizing

Ynetnews
by Avi Yesawich

While rockets were falling on Israeli towns and innocent Jewish blood was being spilled, an odd debate raged on in the UN Security Council: whether to issue a condemnation of the recent terror attacks perpetrated against innocent Israeli civilians, including children. Amazingly enough, a current member of the Security Council – Lebanon – prevented the condemnation from coming to fruition.
 
The Lebanese demanded a toned down, more “balanced” denunciation that includes criticism of Israeli retaliatory strikes in Gaza. It did not matter that the IDF responded by attacking legitimate targets – leaders of the terror group that executed the attacks, weapons compounds, smuggling tunnels and rocket and mortar cells aiming to kill Jews indiscriminately. No condemnation was issued, and no one blinked an eye. Read more »

Egypt: Muslim Brotherhood threatens Israel's ambassador: "Zionist envoy, leave Egypt or die" | Jihad Watch

More glories of the Arab Spring from the genocide-minded, Nazi-loving Egyptian demonstrators. "‘Zionist Envoy, Leave Egypt or Die,' Demonstrators Demand," by Tzvi Ben Gedalyahu for Israel National News, August 23 (thanks to all who sent this in):

[...] “Revolution,” cried out Muslim Brotherhood activists. “Revolution is stronger than the Zionist attackers. The entire Egyptian people are Hamas.”
One hostile placard threatened that the ambassador must “get out [of Egypt] or die here.”

The demonstrators also proclaimed, “Oh Zionist traitor, blood and fire are between you and us.“ They charged that “Zionists mock us with calls for peace, and their principles offend Muslim [sic].”..."

Source: Jihad Watch

Jews have human rights, too

Until Palestinians recognize this, we will never have peace.

JPost
by Roz Rothstein and Roberta Seid

The recent coordinated terrorist attacks on Israel and the latest poll of Palestinian public opinion offer insight into why Middle East peace remains so elusive: The Palestinian public is simply unwilling to recognize the human rights of Jews.

Consider Palestinians’ reactions to the grisly coordinated attacks against Israel last Thursday. Terrorists assaulted travelers and soldiers in the South with gunfire, mortars, anti-tank missiles and two suicide bombers. Eight civilians – including two kindergarten teachers and their husbands who were going to vacation in Eilat – and two soldiers were murdered; 30 were wounded. A four-year-old and a sevenyear- old child were among those hurt.

Officials from Hamas, which rules the Gaza Strip, denied direct responsibility, but praised the coordinated attack. Hamas websites and some websites associated with Fatah, the political group that governs the West Bank, celebrated the assault.
Read more »

Egyptians plan million-man rally against Israel | Ynetnews

Facebook groups call for mass protest outside Israeli embassy in Cairo, as protesters demand ambassador be expelled, embassy be closed.

...protesters continue to demonstrate outside the embassy for the fifth day in a row. They called out "Expel the ambassador immediately". Others gathered outside the ambassador's Cairo residence and called fellow citizens to join them in order to "force the ambassador to leave Egypt".
Read more »

Cyprus wants Israeli support in offshore drilling spat JPost

With her country locked in a nasty tiff with Turkey over maritime gas exploration rights, Cypriot Foreign Minister Erato Kozakou-Marcoullis came to Israel Wednesday looking for signs of support on the matter from Jerusalem, and received it in the form of statement put out by the Prime Minister’s Office.
Read more »

Rebels asks leader of UK’s Libyan Jews to run for office JPost

Raphael Luzon tells 'Post' that rebel council chief told him post-Gaddafi gov't should include women and Jews.

The day after the fall of Tripoli to the rebels, the leader of a Libyan-Jewish Diaspora group said he was offered by the emerging ruling power to run for office in free elections in that country.

Raphael Luzon, the head of Jews of Libya UK, told The Jerusalem Post on Monday that opposition leader Mustafa Abdul Jalil recently invited him to return to his country of birth and participate in the political discourse. Read more »

Iraqi Commentators Come to Blows Discussing the Legacy of Saddam Hussein

London 1940, Israel 2011 | Ynetnews

Israelis facing similar onslaught to London blitz, but without world’s support

by Giulio Meotti

Sderot, Ashkelon, Ashdod, Beersheba....All major southern Israel cities are now under a heavy rocket offensive from Gaza. There are Jewish dead, babies wounded, schools and synagogues destroyed, entire cities and towns terrorized.

There is only one historical precedent of a modern democracy besieged under rocket attacks. During the afternoon of Sept. 7, 1940, 348 Nazi bombers appeared over London’s skies. For the next 57 days, London was bombed day and night. Fires consumed many portions of the city. Residents sought shelter wherever they could find it - many fleeing to the underground that sheltered as many as 177,000 people during the night. Read more »

Libyan Blues | by Daniel Pipes

Many are ready to party about the political demise of the hated, eccentric, and foul Mu'ammar al-Qaddafi as rebel troops move into Tripoli. I am not partying. Here's why not.

The NATO intervention in March 2011 was done without due diligence as to who it is in Benghazi that it was helping. To this day, their identity is a mystery. Chances are good that Islamist forces are hiding behind more benign elements, waiting for the right moment to pounce, as roughly happened in Iran in 1978-79, when Islamists did not make clear their strength nor their program until the shah was well disposed of. Read more »

New Cypriot FM makes Israel 2nd port of call | JPost

This will be Kozakou-Marcoullis’s second trip since becoming foreign minister, her first being a trip to Greece some 12 days ago.

New Cypriot Foreign Minister Erato Kozakou-Marcoullis will visit Israel on Wednesday, less than three weeks after taking over her new post, in what is widely viewed as a sign of the importance Cyprus now attributes to ties with Israel. Read more »

Israeli energy talks ‘very serious’ | Cyprus mail
The two governments would also discuss Turkey’s warning to Cyprus not to go ahead with plans to explore and drill for natural gas.
In recent weeks, the Turkish leadership has warned Cyprus against making any moves that might ignore the rights of Turkish Cypriots, saying that if gas exploration goes ahead, it will take “appropriate measures”. Read more »

Meet the Legal Wonks Who Brought Down the Flotilla Commentary Magazine | by Alana Goodman

At a radical left-wing coffee shop in Washington, D.C. last month, Code Pink founder and “Freedom Flotilla II” passenger Madea Benjamin woefully recounted the moment she realized her boat, the Audacity of Hope, wouldn’t be legally permitted to leave a port in Greece to sail to Gaza.

“There was something called a ‘complaint’ that was put against our boat,” Benjamin explained to a crowd of anti-Israel activists stuffed into the back room of the restaurant. “Well, it didn’t take long for somebody to uncover that the person, or entity, that lodged the complaint was none other than this right-wing Israeli law center based in Tel Aviv, that knew nothing about our boat and certainly had no interest in the passengers’ safety.”

The “right-wing” law center that caused Benjamin so much grief is Shurat HaDin – the Israeli group that single-handedly took down the “Freedom Flotilla II” simply by filing creative lawsuits. In total, nine out of the 10 boats in the flotilla never touched Israeli waters, largely due to Shurat HaDin’s work.

Led by Nitzana Darshan-Leitner and her husband Avi Leitner, the legal center is pioneering a new strategy of Israeli-self defense: Pro-Israel Lawfare. Read more »

Is Terrorism Against Israel Really More Justified Than Terrorism Against Norway? Hudson New York | by Alan M. Dershowitz

In a recent interview, Norway's Ambassador to Israel has suggested that Hamas terrorism against Israel is more justified than the recent terrorist attack against Norway.

His reasoning is that, "We Norwegians consider the occupation to be the cause of the terror against Israel." In other words terrorism against Israeli citizens is the fault of Israel. The terrorism against Norway, on the other hand, was based on "an ideology that said that Norway, particularly the Labor Party, is foregoing Norwegian culture." It is hard to imagine that he would make such a provocative statement without express approval from the Norwegian government.

I can't remember many other examples of so much nonsense compressed in such short an interview. First of all, terrorism against Israel began well before there was any "occupation". The first major terrorist attack against Jews who had long lived in Jerusalem and Hebron began in 1929, when the leader of the Palestinian people, the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, ordered a religiously-motivated terrorist attack that killed hundreds of religious Jews-many old, some quite young. Terrorism against Jews continued through the 1930s. Once Israel was established as a state, but well before it captured the West Bank, terrorism became the primary means of attacking Israel across the Jordanian, Egyptian and Lebanese borders. If the occupation is the cause of the terror against Israel, what was the cause of all the terror that preceded any occupation? Read more »

Hit Gaza Strip hard, now | Ynetnews | by Yakir Elkariv

Self-declared leftist Yakir Elkariv says Israel must pound Gaza terrorists, without apologies

Even if you turn Israel upside down and shake it up, you won’t find a worse leftist than me. If it depended on me, in the framework of an agreement with the Palestinians they would get a state with east Jerusalem as its capital, and a few more gestures “on the house.” Peace is not a favor we’re doing someone, but rather, the most genuine guarantee for the continued existence of the Zionist enterprise, or what we refer to as “home.”

All of the above is true on normal days – when everyone makes an effort to behave like adults. Yet until this happens, we cannot allow the wellbeing and security of hundreds of thousands of Israeli citizens – southern residents in this case – to hinge on the caprices of some member of some resistance committee that convenes at some cave or tunnel somewhere in Gaza. Read more »

Libyan Draft Constitution: Sharia is 'Principal Source' of Laws | blog.heritage.org

The dust has not yet settled over the Libyan capital of Tripoli since rebels took control over the weekend. But already, a draft constitutional charter for the transitional state has appeared online (embedded below).

It is just a draft, mind you, and gauging its authenticity at this point is difficult. There is also no way to know whether this draft or something similar will emerge as the final governing document for a new Libyan regime.

As both the Morning Bell and Washington in a Flash noted today, Heritage Fellow Jim Phillips recently pointed out that Islamist forces “appear to make up a small but not insignificant part of the opposition coalition,” and must be prevented “from hijacking Libya’s future.” Parts of the draft Constitution allay those fears, while others exacerbate them. Read more »

Time Out | by David P. Goldman | Tablet Magazine

Conventional wisdom says Israel must reach a peace deal quickly, before population trends and diplomatic isolation overtake the Jewish state. Demographics and geopolitics tell a different story.

"Time isn’t on Israel’s side” must be the most-repeated phrase in Israeli politics, in the Jewish state as well as in the Diaspora. It’s Kadima party leader Tzipi Livni’s refrain, as Simon Schama put it recently in the Financial Times. Ronald Lauder, the president of the World Jewish Congress, said so in a Jerusalem speech to Jewish legislators from various parliamentary democracies June 29. We’ve heard the same shibboleth this year from Australia’s Foreign Minister Kevin Rudd, Turkish commentator Ömer Taşpinar, Rabbi Donniel Hartman of the Shalom Hartmann Institute, Jewish Week editor Gary Rosenblatt, and many others.

The claim that Israel is fighting the clock has two components: diplomacy and demographics. Israel’s diplomatic isolation will corner the Jewish state while fast-breeding Arabs will overwhelm the population balance between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean, goes the argument. On both counts, though, the facts speak against the notion that time is running out for Israel. Time, on the contrary, seems to be on Israel’s side. Read more »

Israel - Birth of a Nation - Sir Martin Gilbert

Egyptian protesters promise to destroy Israel

Terrorism is proof that the "peace process" has nothing to do with peace | Elder of Ziyon

Let's imagine that Israel and the PLO had agreed to the boundaries of a Palestinian Arab state back in 2008.

Would today's terror attack have still happened?

The answer can be seen by looking at where the attack occurred - in the "internationally recognized borders" of Israel.

Not in Gaza. Not in the area that the PLO officially claims they want for a state.

In fact, the attack was not even in a place that would have been called "Palestine" before the British Mandate.

People are so used to hearing the phrase "peace process" that they are conditioned to believe the biggest lie of all: that if only Israel would give up more territory, then there would be peace. An agreement, it is widely assumed, would mean no more claims against Israel and a chance for both nations to live side by side in harmony. Read more »

92-Year-Old Palestinian Woman: Palestinians Should Massacre Jews Like We Massacred Them in Hebron

Palestinian Arabs respond to terror attack with glee Elder of Ziyon

The talkbacks on Palestinian Arab news sites are filled with happiness and glee at the murder of Israelis today near Eilat.

And not only the Hamas or Islamic Jihad oriented sites, but the Fatah-leaning sites as well.

Palestine Press Agency, which is a Fatah-leaning site, has commenters saying

"God praise the [Hamas] Al-Qassam Brigades" (they have not taken responsibility)

"Our Lord is with the heroes"

"[I] call for resistance in the Gaza with rocket fire and suicide bombings and the Glory of God and His Messenger"

"Tribute to the Heroes of each attack and no matter what their affiliation"

"God is great and victory is coming"

By far the most popular comment in the Hamas-oriented PalTimes is "God is great." Read more »

UN Fails to Condemn Eilat Attacks | Israel National News

The United Nations will not condemn as "terrorism" the attacks near Eilat in which eight Israelis were murdered after Lebanon's representative rejected the measure.

Lebanon's representative to the U.N. Security Council said it would endorse a condemnation of the attacks only if the council were to condemn Israel as well, for killing the terrorists who planned the massacre. Read more »

Muslim Brotherhood-tied ICNA Calls for Obama to Take Action Against Critics of Islam | Atlas Shrugs

Jihad is the means of spreading the Islamic call and of preserving the sacred principles of Islam. This is another religious duty imposed by Allah on the Muslim, just as He imposed fasting, prayer, pilgrimage, alms, and the doing of good and abandoning of evil. He has imposed Jihad upon them, and entrusted them with it. He did not excuse anyone possessing the strength and ability from performing it, for it is a Qur'anic verse which is imperative a warning, and an exhortation which is binding: Muslim Brotherhood site

The Muslim Brotherhood groups (named in the largest terrorist funding trial in US history) that operate freely in America are demanding my head and that of Robert Spencer for speaking the truth about Islamic jihadists and their seditious agenda.

Answering Muslims is reporting that the Islamic Circle of North America is calling on the Obama Administration to take action against Robert Spencer and me. If given the chance, they would have all of America in jail under the sharia (save those who converted to Islam).

Islamic Circle of North America Calls for Government Action against Critics of Islam

Have you ever noticed that many Muslims and Muslim organizations from around the world work towards the same goals, but by different means? Muslim nations pressured the United Nations to take a stand against "defamation of religion." The goal? Keeping people from criticizing Islam. Muslims killed people after Rushdie published the Satanic Verses, and after a Danish newspaper published cartoons of Muhammad, and after Terry Jones burned a copy of the Qur'an. The goal? Keeping people from criticizing Islam. CAIR routinely labels anyone who opposes Sharia as a hate-mongering, racist, bigoted Islamophobe. The goal? Keeping people from criticizing Islam. And now, the Islamic Circle of North America (the group behind the "Why Islam?" campaign) is calling for the U.S. government to take action against Robert Spencer and Pamela Geller for speaking against Islam.

Read more »

Egypt reportedly recalls its ambassador to Tel Aviv | JPost

Egypt said on Saturday that it is withdrawing its ambassador from Israel pending an investigation by Jerusalem of the killings of Egyptian security personnel at the border, Egyptian media reported.

The announcement came as a sign of rising tension between the two countries.

Separately, Egypt was reportedly acting as a mediator between Israel and Hamas in an effort to stop the escalation taking place in the Gaza Strip. Read more »

'Iron Dome' intercepts rocket fired from Gaza | JPost

Three Palestinian workers injured by Grad in Ashdod; eight hospitalized in Beersheba area attack with light injuries, shock; rockets, mortar strike in Gaza border region; over 45 rockets fired in 48 past hours.

A Grad rocket fired from the Gaza Strip toward Ashkelon was intercepted by the "Iron Dome" rocket defense system Saturday afternoon. The "Color Red" warning siren was sounded in the city prior to the interception.

Rocket fire from the Gaza Strip intensified Saturday morning in the second day of attacks that followed IDF strikes on the Strip, responding to a deadly terror attack near Eilat Thursday, in which eight Israelis were killed and dozens injured. The IDF Spokesman's Office said that over 45 rockets have been fired at Israel from the Gaza Strip in the past 48 hours. Read more »