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Jordan Tag

Posted by Miriam Elman on June 08, 2017 4 Comments
Note: This is the third in our daily re-created coverage of the Six-Day War, which will run through Saturday, June 10. Prior posts: 50th Anniversary of Six-Day War: The Eve of War; Six-Day War Day 1 — War Begins; Six-Day War Day 2 — At the Gates of Jerusalem’s Old City; Six-Day War Day 3—“The Temple Mount is in Our Hands”. On this fourth day of the war pitting Israel against a coalition of Arab armies, the Jewish state has managed to avert near certain annihilation. Israel’s defense forces are now fully in control of Judea and Samaria (the West Bank)—important territory from both a historical and strategical standpoint. Along with the eastern front, the IDF has also neutralized the threat from Egypt in the South. Israel’s advance to the Suez Canal has tonight finally convinced President Gamal Abdel Nasser to accept a cease-fire.

Posted by Miriam Elman on June 07, 2017 1 Comment
Note: This is the third in our daily re-created coverage of the Six-Day War, which will run through Saturday, June 10. Prior posts: 50th Anniversary of Six-Day War: The Eve of War; Six-Day War Day 1 — War Begins; Six-Day War Day 2: At the Gates of Jerusalem’s Old City. Israel’s armed forces are emerging triumphant in a lightning war which today saw the Egyptians defeated and forced back to the banks of the Suez Canal. The blockade of the Gulf of Aqaba has also been broken with the Israel’s Navy now holding Sharm el-Sheikh and reopening the Straits of Tiran to Israeli shipping. This afternoon, Egypt’s President Nasser also surrendered Gaza.

Posted by Miriam Elman on June 06, 2017 0 Comments
Note: This is the second in our daily re-created coverage of the Six-Day War, which will run through Saturday, June 10. Prior posts: 50th Anniversary of Six-Day War: The Eve of War; Six-Day War Day 1 — War Begins. Yesterday, a surprise aerial attack on the Egyptian Air Force set the stage for some impressive military gains by Israel against her enemies in this second day of fighting. The Egyptian armed forces are now in retreat as the IDF continues to “smash deeply into the Sinai.” Gaza has also been captured by the 7th Armored Brigade led by Major General Yisrael Tal, and shells from there have now stopped falling on the beleaguered Jewish settlements lining that border. Over the last 24 hours the IDF has fought its way to the gates of the Jordanian-held Old City in Jerusalem.

Posted by Miriam Elman on June 05, 2017 4 Comments
Note: This post is the first in our daily re-created coverage of the Six-Day War. Starting Monday June 5 and concluding on Saturday June 10, we will cover each night the war as the events happened in 1967.  For a prelude, see 50th Anniversary of Six-Day War: The Eve of War. In the early morning hours of June 5, Israel launched an aerial strike on Egyptian air force bases. The attack was in response to the huge dangers that the country has faced in recent weeks—at least 200,000 Arab troops and some 1,000 tanks massed at its border—and the Soviet-backed Egyptian leader Gamal Abdel Nasser’s ongoing provocations. Israel has finally come to terms with Egypt’s threat to destroy it.

Posted by Miriam Elman on June 04, 2017 8 Comments
Note: This post is a prelude to our daily re-created coverage of the Six Day War. Starting Monday, June 5, we will cover each night the war as the events happened in 1967. The Six-Day War, the fiftieth anniversary of which takes places tomorrow on June 5, 2017, is “one of history’s most brilliant—and controversial campaigns.” In a mere six days, from June 5 through June 10, 1967, the state of Israel routed a numerically and materially superior Arab war coalition, decisively defeating the surrounding Arab armies in a pre-emptive act of self-defense. As the editors of a special Summer 2017 issue of Middle East Quarterly put it:
On June 4, 1967, the ecstatic Arab leaders were prophesying Israel’s imminent destruction and promising their subjects the spoils of victory; a week later, they were reconciling themselves to a staggering military defeat, the loss of vast territories, and sharp international humiliation.”

Posted by Miriam Elman on May 24, 2017 2 Comments
Today (May 24th) is Yom Yerushalayim (Jerusalem Day). The newest addition to the Jewish calendar and an Israeli national holiday, Jerusalem Day is 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, when Jerusalem’s Old City fell to Israeli forces. As we discussed in prior posts, Jerusalem Day celebrates this reunification of Israel’s capital city, when the IDF essentially brought the holy city back to Jewish sovereignty. It also commemorates the two-day (June 6-7, 1967) hard-fought battle for Jerusalem, when the elite 55th Paratroopers Brigade, led by its legendary commander General Motta Gur, liberated Jewish holy places from an illegal and immoral Jordanian occupation.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on March 20, 2017 15 Comments
We reported last week on the unsealing of a criminal complaint against Ahlam al-Tamimi, the mastermind of the 2001 Sbarro Pizzeria suicide bombing in Jerusalem, U.S. to seek extradition of Ahlam Tamimi, the Savage of Sbarro Pizzeria bombing. The Sbarro bombing killed fifteen people, including two American citizens. Ahlam’s only regret, expressed multiple times in interviews (see prior posts) is that she did not kill more people. As we have pointed out in prior posts, Ahlam is a ghoul who took pleasure in killing children, and became joyful when a reporter informed her that more children had been killed than she originally thought.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on March 17, 2017 12 Comments
We reported a few days ago on the unsealing of a criminal complaint against Ahlam al-Tamimi, the mastermind of the 2001 Sbarro Pizzeria suicide bombing in Jerusalem, U.S. to seek extradition of Ahlam Tamimi, the Savage of Sbarro Pizzeria bombing. The Sbarro bombing killed fifteen people, including two American citizens. Ahlam's only regret, expressed multiple times in interviews (see prior posts) is that she did not kill more people. She smiled with joy during one interview when she learned that she killed 8 children, not the 3 she previously thought. After the bombing, Ahlam presented a news story on the bombing in her role as an announcer on Palestinian television, without a hint that she had masterminded it:

Posted by William A. Jacobson on March 14, 2017 14 Comments
The 2001 Sbarro Pizzeria suicide bombing in Jerusalem for me has been one of the place markers in the history of terrorism, one of those reference points which changed everything. Other such "before and after" points, to me, are the 1972 Munich Massacre of Israeli athletes (1972); the bombing of the Beirut Marine Barracks (1983), the World Trade Center attacks (1993 and 2001); and the videotaped beheading of Daniel Pearl, February 1, 2002. We have written many times about the Sbarro bombing, you can view them all in our Sbarro Pizzeria Bombing tag.

Posted by Mary Chastain on September 28, 2016 2 Comments
Companies in Israel's natural gas field has signed a $10 billion agreement with Jordan to supply the country with gas, thus pushing Israel into a natural gas powerhouse. The Wall Street Journal reported:
Noble Energy Inc. of Houston and its partners in the Leviathan gas field will supply Amman-based National Electric Power Co. with 1.6 trillion cubic feet of gas over 15 years, the company said. Leviathan is the largest natural-gas reserve in Israeli waters. The country’s officials hope development of the field can spur regional exports and deepen economic and diplomatic ties with some traditionally hostile neighbors such as Jordan, which has few energy sources of its own.

Posted by Mike LaChance on September 25, 2016 11 Comments
A prominent Jordanian writer named Nahed Hattar was facing charges in Amman for sharing a cartoon on Facebook which was deemed offensive to Islam. He was killed outside the courthouse this weekend. Al Jazeera reports:
Jordan: Nahed Hattar shot dead ahead of cartoon trial A gunman has shot dead prominent Jordanian writer Nahed Hattar outside a court where he was facing charges for sharing a cartoon deemed offensive to Islam.

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 Miriam Elman on May 01, 2016 6 Comments
This past week, during the intermediate days of Passover (Chol Hamoed), nearly 900 Israeli Jews, roughly 100 to 300 per day, ascended Jerusalem’s Temple Mount. Thousands of tourists also visited the sacred place over the course of the week. The site is the place of the two Jewish Temples in antiquity. It’s considered Judaism’s “holiest of holies” and is treasured by Jews across the planet. [caption id="attachment_136001" align="alignnone" width="600"]The Jewish Temple, replica The Jewish Temple, replica[/caption]

Posted by Demetrius Minor on November 28, 2015 3 Comments
Amidst growing concerns of his lack of knowledge of foreign policy, Dr. Ben Carson headed on Friday to Jordan to visit a refugee camp in Jordan. From ABC News: 
"Republican presidential candidate Ben Carson has traveled to a refugee camp in Jordan on a "fact finding and information gathering mission."
Is this a smart move by the campaign? Carson is viewing the trip as an opportunity to see up close the complexities surrounding the Syrian and Iraqi refugee crisis:
“I find when you have firsthand knowledge of things as opposed to secondhand, it makes a much stronger impression.”
Carson's itinerary includes not just a visit to the United Nations-run refugee camp, but to a clinic and hospital as well. The famed neurosurgeon is looking to become a student of these experiences.

Posted by Miriam Elman on July 27, 2015 12 Comments
Yesterday July 26, 2015, Jews worldwide marked Tisha B’Av, an annual fast and day of mourning that commemorates the destruction of the first and second Temples. The 37-acre Temple Mount compound (roughly about the size of 15 football stadiums) in Jerusalem’s walled Old City, where the Temples once stood, is Judaism’s most holiest site. The Jewish Temple, replica Jerusalem The Temple Mount (Har HaBayit) has been the focus of Jewish longing for millennia. According to Jewish tradition, it’s the location in which God’s “shekhina” (presence) is thought to reside. The area is also considered sacred to Muslims who call it the Haram al-Sharif or Noble Sanctuary, and see it as the third holiest site in Islam. It is commonly considered the “furthermost sanctuary”—the site from which the Prophet Muhammad made his Night Journey to the Throne of God. Today it houses the Al-Aqsa Mosque and the Dome of the Rock. [caption id="attachment_136002" align="alignnone" width="600"]The Dome of the Rock The Dome of the Rock[/caption] Tisha B’Av is the saddest day on the Jewish calendar.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on February 08, 2015 19 Comments
Hey, remember when Hamas was lobbing thousands of missiles at Israeli cities, trying to kidnap people, and killing when they got lucky? Of course you remember it. It has happened every couple of years since Hamas took over Gaza. And before that, the Palestinians strapped bombs on their loved ones and sent them to blow up restaurants, supermarkets, buses, and anything else they could sneak into. And before that .... But always the question is whether Israel's response is proportionate, like pointed out in this Al Jazeera column:
... on June 26, [2014] the UN Human Rights Council deliberated on the situation in Palestine and other Arab-occupied territories. During the deliberations, the council issued a warning to Israel that there may be serious repercussions as a result of its campaign against the Palestinian people, which constituted a continuing violation of international humanitarian law, following the abduction of three Israeli teenagers.
EU leaders on Gaza: 'Israel has right to protect itself but it must act proportionately':
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