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Posted by William A. Jacobson on July 30, 2016 11 Comments
On July 1, 2016, we covered the murder of Rabbi Michael "Miki" Mark, a father of 10 children, in front of his wife and several of the kids, Palestinian War of Terror – Israeli father of 10 murdered in front of his family: MichaelMark1
A Palestinian shot and murdered Michael “Miki” Mark, an Israeli father of 10, as he drove near Hebron. His wife and two of their children sustained injuries in the attack. From The Jerusalem Post:
In Friday’s incident, the rain of bullets against the vehicle caused it to overturn. Paramedics who arrived at the scene found Mark in the upside down vehicle, while the other passengers had been managed to exit the car. Magen David Adom paramedic Zaki Yahav said that it was a “very difficult” scene. Mark “was trapped inside” with gunshot wounds and other injuries form the accident. He didn’t have a pulse and he wasn’t breathing. “We tried to resuscitate him,” said Zahav, but it was not possible they declared him dead at the scene.

Posted by Anne in Petah Tikva on July 04, 2016 5 Comments
Today is the 4th of July and besides being the 240th birthday of America... (Mazal Tov! You've already doubled the usual wish of "until 120" ) ...it is also the 40th anniversary of an equally auspicious day - the miraculous rescue by IDF special forces of over 100 Jewish hostages held by German and Palestinian terrorists in Entebbe, after their Air France airplane was hijacked on its way from France to Tel Aviv.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on June 16, 2016 18 Comments
We know that media outrage and exaggeration, combined with biased anti-Israel Non-Governmental Organizations and U.N. agencies, form a strategic asset for terrorist groups like Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon. The international reaction to Israeli self-defense measures ignores actual international legal standards, and substitutes completely politicized measures, such as "disproportionality." That term does not mean that one side suffers more than the other in a war; rather it is a case by case measure of whether the threat to innocent civilians in a particular military strike is disproportionate to the military value to be achieved. Israel goes to extraordinary measures to comply with the laws of war, but it doesn't matter to the media and the anti-Israel propaganda machine. Hamas and Hezbollah deliberately store and fire rockets from civilian areas for this very reason. http://youtu.be/A_fP6mlNSK8

Posted by Miriam Elman on June 04, 2016 6 Comments
Tomorrow (June 5) is Yom Yerushalayim (Jerusalem Day). The newest addition to the Jewish calendar, it’s held on the 28th day of the Hebrew month of Iyar—six weeks after the Passover seder and one week before the eve of the holiday of Shavuot. In June 1967, 28 Iyar was the third day of the Six Day War. As I discussed in a post for last year’s Yom Yerushalayim, the day celebrates the reunification of Israel’s capital city, when Jewish forces brought Jerusalem “back to Jewish sovereignty”. There’s a huge amount of information and research on the two-day (June 6-7, 1967) Battle for Jerusalem, when the 55th Paratroopers Brigade retook the Old City and liberated Jewish holy places from an illegal Jordanian occupation.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on May 28, 2016 7 Comments
As of now, I'm still planning on heading to Israel at the end of next week, though that could always change last minute. Family health issues seem under control at the moment, and I'm going with one of my daughters so I really didn't want to cancel if at all possible. I think I'll have some interesting perspectives, based on what's currently planned. As before, there will be an emphasis on security-related issues. I found this video, tweeted out by Becky Griffin, of interest. https://twitter.com/dorothyofisrael/status/736564981995606016 Here's the video:

Posted by Mary Chastain on May 18, 2016 3 Comments
Israel has debuted a sea version of their successful Iron Dome to provide more protection from Hamas and Hezbollah. https://twitter.com/LTCPeterLerner/status/732941770280013825 The sea Iron Dome will also protect the natural gas fields off the coast of Israel. The discoveries led to a $15 billion deal to supply Jordan with natural gas.

Posted by Miriam Elman on May 11, 2016 8 Comments
The Day of Remembrance for the Fallen Soldiers of Israel and Victims of Terrorism (Yom Ha’zikaron) began yesterday when a memorial siren at 8:00 p.m. brought Israel to a standstill. It marked the start of the commemoration day nationwide, with an official state candle-lighting ceremony at the Western Wall (the Kotel) in Jerusalem also taking place at that time. https://twitter.com/Hilajes81/status/730323383284604929 Another two-minute siren wailed this morning across Israel.

Posted by Miriam Elman on May 02, 2016 1 Comment
This past week during Passover, Palestinians rioted and assaulted several Jews on Jerusalem’s Temple Mount, Judaism’s most sacred site. As we highlighted in an earlier post, the mere sight of Jews at their holiest place was seen by Muslims there as an affront. Two Jewish men who dared to pray were beaten up. Other Jewish visitors were harassed with verbal taunts and Israeli police and border patrol units also came under attack. But the Temple Mount wasn’t the only place where Muslims rioted against Jewish worshippers this Passover. On April 27, Jews making a pilgrimage to Joseph’s Tomb, located near the biblical city of Shechem, were also set upon by Muslim rioters.

Posted by Miriam Elman on April 06, 2016 6 Comments
In a post last December we highlighted the history of Israel’s prisoner exchanges with various Palestinian armed factions. As we noted:
For the past three decades, Israel has been forced to exchange scores of incarcerated terrorists for a mere handful of its POWs. In the majority of these lopsided prisoner swaps the Israeli soldiers had already been killed and came home in body bags. And in many cases the freed terrorists have gone on to perpetrate further terror attacks”.
Israeli soldiers, either dead or alive, have proven to be valuable bargaining chips. So basically, as we discussed, Palestinian terror organizations have been running a prisoner-exchange extortion racket. Now it looks like Israel may again be forced to pay a steep price for several of its civilians too. On Friday, Hamas publicly claimed for the first time that it was holding two Israeli men in captivity.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on March 11, 2016 4 Comments
This is pretty big political news, signaling a larger Arab versus Iranian divide. The Arab League had just declared that Hezbollah, the Iranian proxy which dominates Lebanon and fights for Assad in Syria, is a terrorist organization. Al-Jazeera reports:
The Arab League has declared Lebanese movement Hezbollah a "terrorist" group, only days after the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) adopted the same stance. The move came during the Arab League foreign ministers' meeting at the organisation's seat in Egypt's capital Cairo on Friday. Nearly all 22 Arab League members supported the decision, except Lebanon and Iraq which expressed "reservations", the bloc said in a statement read out at a news conference by Bahraini diplomat Wahid Mubarak Sayar.

Posted by Miriam Elman on December 23, 2015 9 Comments
In two recent posts (see here and here) we reported on the December 20 assassination of Lebanese Druze terrorist Samir Kuntar in Jaramana, a suburb of Damascus. As we highlighted, Kuntar received three life sentences for his role in a 1979 terrorist attack which brutally devastated an entire Israeli family. https://twitter.com/AviMayer/status/678564278195068928 Kuntar was caught at the scene of the attack after a shootout with police and was convicted of murder.

Posted by Vijeta Uniyal on December 17, 2015 6 Comments
More than 15 months have passed since the end of the conflict in Gaza between Israel and the terrorist outfit Hamas, but the campaign of slander against Israel and witch-hunt against the members of its armed forces still continues. Last week British authorities briefly detained a retired IDF reserves officer, apparently based on a list compiled by a "pro-Palestinian group" of soldiers involved in alleged 'war crimes' during last year's Operation Protective Edge. The officer was held for questioning for hours and was only released after Israeli Foreign Ministry intervened. British authorities have since apologized for the incident, but this once highlights how anti-Israel groups are subverting the laws in the West in an attempt to strip Israel of its right to defend itself in the face of terror. The incident took place just days after a fact-finding group comprising of military experts from around the world published their report on the 50-day clash between Israel Defense Force (IDF) and militant islamist outfit Hamas in Gaza. Around 14 high-ranking military officers came together to form the High Level Military Group (HLMG) earlier this year. Former head of India's Defence Intelligence (DG DIA) Lt. General Kamal Davar was accompanied by former Commander of British Forces in Afghanistan Colonel Richard Kemp, along with other top military commanders from U.S., Germany, Italy, Spain and France.

Posted by Vijeta Uniyal on November 27, 2015 1 Comment
According to a press release issued by Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI), Israeli Navy has successfully tested Barak 8 Air and Missile Defense system developed jointly by Israel and India. The 4.5 meter-long surface-to-air missile can carry a payload of up to 60 kg. The missile is built to counter comprehensive airborne threats including fighter jets, combat helicopters, incoming missiles, and weaponised drones. Jerusalem Post reports:
Israel Aerospace Industries carried out on Thursday the first successful interception test of the next generation Barak 8 missile system, which is designed to protect naval ships and offshore gas rigs from hostile aircraft, missiles and rockets. In the test, the INS Lahav, a Sa’ar 5-class corvette, positioned just south of Haifa, fired a Barak 8 missile and destroyed a fast-moving, jet-powered drone at 7 a.m. It was the first time the missile was launched from a ship, Vice Admiral Eli Sharvit, navy chief-of-staff, told reporters. (...) The project has been in joint Israeli and Indian development in recent years, and is officially due to become operational in both navies within one to two years, he said.
According to London-based newspaper The Guardian, Barak 8 is set to play a key role in securing the Israeli offshore gas fields.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on October 23, 2015 11 Comments
We have seen various levels of incitement in recent weeks, frequently involving false claims of Israeli murder of Palestinians. Palestinian knife-attackers who are shot dead frequently are portrayed as the victim. The most infamous example of such incitement was when Mahmoud Abbas claimed in a televised speech that a 13-year old Arab boy who stabbed a 13-year old Jewish boy was executed by Israel. In fact, the 13-year old Arab boy was alive and being treated (he was not shot, a car hit him during the attack) in an Israeli hospital; he since has been discharged. When Israel showed video of him in the hospital to dispel Abbas' lie and to try to calm the situation, Israel was accused of violating the boy's privacy (seriously). Another incitement took place yesterday, over the death of Hashem Azzeh, a 54-year old Palestinian live in the section of Hebron (H2) which by a 1997 agreement between Israel and the Palestinian Authority is under complete Israeli security control. Hashem is described as a "peace activist" struggling to survive with his family in the Israeli-controlled section of Hebron. That section, as I reported from my trip to Hebron and the Cave of the Patriarchs last June, is part of what was a several-hundred year old Jewish community which was driven out during 1929 Arab riots, in which 67 Jews in Hebron were massacred. That small section of town has been reclaimed by a few hundred Israeli Jews, causing daily strife and requiring a heavy Israeli military presence. There are tall metal sniper shields to protect people and armed soldiers almost at every corner. There have been attacks on Arabs as well as on Jews, and Hebron is one of the most difficult situations of conflict.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on July 18, 2015 8 Comments
Periodically throughout this summer, we are taking a look back at our coverage of the 2014 Gaza conflict. It's important to do this because a relentless propaganda campaign portrays the conflict as initiated and continued by Israel in retaliation for the kidnapping and murder of three Israeli teens by a Hamas-affiliated cell in the West Bank. In fact, the conflict started as a result of relentless Hamas rocket fire into Israel, a topic we recently revisited in Gaza July 8, 2014 – Hamas Rockets Ignite War. On July 10, 2014, CNN reported on the Hamas rocket fire: In this post, we revisit how the ground war started only after Hamas rejected an Egyptian ceasefire proposal, which Israel had accepted. Had the conflict stopped at that point, only a small fraction of the deaths and destruction which eventually were visited on Gaza to try to stop the rocket fire would have happened. Hamas, and it supporters in the West including leading pro-BDS websites which justified and encouraged "the resistance," bear responsibility for what befell Gaza. On July 15, 2014, Hamas formally rejected the Egyptian ceasefire proposal and continued rocket fire into Israel.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on July 08, 2015 2 Comments
On June 12, 2014, three Israeli teens were kidnapped and murdered in the West Bank by a Hamas-affiliated group. The bodies would be found on June 30. During June, an intensive search was conducted for the teens and the murderers, including the arrest of many Hamas members in the West Bank and a crackdown on its operations. Militants in Gaza fired a total of 62 rockets into Israel during June (even before the kidnapping), and Israel retaliated by targeting rocket crews and militants in Gaza: On June 30, 2014, 16 rockets were fired into Israel by Hamas, leading to more Israeli targeting and a massive Hamas rocket offensive. Hamas or other militants fired over a dozen rockets a day the first few days of July, and then on July 7 as Israel retaliated with airstrikes, the daily count grew to 80 rockets on July 7 and 156 on July 8.
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