Palmyra “carries the memory of the Syrian people, and the values of cultural diversity, tolerance and openness that have made this region a cradle of civilization.”

By Caroline Glick, JPOST

Last month, UNESCO’s director general, Irina Bokova, issued a statement congratulating Russian- backed Syrian forces for liberating the ancient city of Palmyra from Islamic State (ISIS).

Bokova said Palmyra “carries the memory of the Syrian people, and the values of cultural diversity, tolerance and openness that have made this region a cradle of civilization.”
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T. Belman. I made the same point in In war, what purpose does morality serve?:

‘There is no absolute morality. Morality is a luxury that can get you killed. Morality is a good thing in a civilized world but not in the jungle. In the jungle, its kill or be killed. The higher the moral plain you function on the more casualties you will suffer and the more impossible victory becomes. When our leadership call for morality they are saying we don’t want to win. Or they are saying winning is impossible. Maintaining the status quo is the only option.”

I have been there, to that area of Hevron, and no one who loves the Land of Israel could call to prosecute the soldier who shot a terrorist there.

By Giulio Meotti, INN

“Has Israel’s “purity of arms” become a joke of political correctness for a kind of self-righteous defeatism?”

In 2013 it was Lt. Colonel Shalom Eisner, who was suspended from duty after striking a Danish anarchist holding a knife and blocking a highway near Jericho, as if the IDF was expecting its soldiers to submit to being beaten by “pacifists” who hinder the army’s activities and facilitate terrorism. Eisner was left on his own.
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Tommy Robinson is the leading grass roots voice in the UK against Islamization. In this video he talks of how he was persecuted by the state for his views. Though its all true, you won’t believe it. The state trampled on all western values in order to suppress his freedom of speech. You absolutely must listen to it all to realize the lengths the state goes to to protect the Islamization of Britain. The same suppression is happening in western Europe.

By Victor Sharpe, AMERICAN THINKER

According to a report dated April 16, 2016 in the sometimes reliable Debka Special Report, “Israel’s top political leaders and military commanders were stunned and shocked last weekend when they found out that US President Barack Obama and Russian President Vladimir Putin have agreed to support the return of the Golan to Syria.”

If this is true, Barack Hussein Obama is plotting yet again a way to torment the Jewish state with yet another vile edict, one which clearly has nothing to do with enlightened statecraft but much more to do with evil witchcraft. Read more…

Andrew Benjamin
The Lawfare Project in cooperation with the Law Center Shurat Ha’Din in Israel appear to be successfully crushing the businesses and incomes of racist anti-Israeli businesses all over the world. They are winning major lawsuits against Israel’s enemies in world courts, the details can be found at the links above. The latest news from Switzerland is below. For example, these lawfare organizations won a judgment large enough to put the Palestinian Authority out of business permanently. They will put a major dent into the sanctions money Iran is “supposed” to be getting. Several Arab airlines can no longer fly to and from the US, and the same restrictions will be duplicated in several Euro countries and Canada.
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Analysis: Hamas probably didn’t plan on invading an Israeli town, and is more likely digging in a zigzag pattern, looking for another Gilad Shalit.

By Ron Ben-Yishai, YNET

IDF Chief of Staff Gadi Eisenkot at the tunnel’s site (Left). (Photo: IDF Spokesperson)

This is not the first time the IDF exposed a Hamas attack tunnel burrowing into Israel. This is, however, the first time it was done with the unique new technology that was developed and implemented here. The tunnel the IDF recently discovered was apparently dug after Operation Protective Edge’s conclusion, and penetrated a few dozen meters into Israel, at a depth of about 30 meters. It seems that Hamas is digging its new tunnels in a zigzag pattern, with many divergent paths, in order to confuse Israeli forces. That way, when the IDF demolishes a tunnel, it’s not entirely destroyed. Read more…

Jordanian PM Abdullah Ensour says his country is calling off U.S.-brokered plan to install surveillance cameras on Temple Mount due to Palestinian concerns • Israeli official: Jordan submitted to pressure from Palestinian Authority and Islamic Movement.

By Shlomo Cesana, Israel Hayom Staff and Associated Press

T. Belman. In a sign of weakness, Netanyahu has been allowing cement into Gaza to enable rebuilding, warning all the time that he would not allow it to be used for tunnels.

When it became obvious to everyone that the cement was also being used for tunnels, he did nothing just as he did little to stop illegal building in Jerusalem or Area C and to demolish all houses built without permits. But now with this massive tunnel being discovered, he had no choice but to stop cement shipments.

Following discovery of attack tunnel under Gaza border, PM Benjamin Netanyahu stops delivery of cement into Hamas-ruled enclave, vows to prevent construction of a port • “I will not sacrifice Israel’s security for the sake of a good headline,” PM says.

By Shlomo Cesana, ISRAEL HAYOM

Cement being delivered to the Gaza Strip [Archive] | Photo credit: AP

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ordered on Monday a halt to Gaza Strip-bound cement shipments, following the discovery of a Hamas attack tunnel under the Israel-Gaza border.

Netanyahu’s office also stressed that the prime minister would prevent the construction of a sea port in Gaza. Read more…

Gaza’s terrorist rulers have been digging around the clock in a relentless battle of wits and will with Israel

BY AVI ISSACHAROFF, TOI

The army spokesman’s announcement on Monday of the exposure of a Hamas attack tunnel that crossed into Israel from the southern Gaza Strip was both grim and unsurprising. It constitutes just one more of the many examples of the ongoing confrontation being waged above and beneath the surface between Israel and Hamas.

Hamas has made no secret, ever since Operation Protective Edge ended on August 26, 2014, of the fact that it is continuing to dig terror tunnels into Israel. It devotes close to 1,000 men working 24 hours a day, six days a week, and many millions of dollars per month, to the task.
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T. Belman. The Golan is more important to Israel than a peace agreement with Syria. Israel captured it in a defensive war and by international law can keep it.

After Germany, Arab League speak out, State Department says Washington maintains Heights are not part of Israel; Cruz backs PM

TOI

The United States on Monday objected to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s assertion that the Golan Heights will forever remain under Israeli control, reiterating that it does not recognize the Jewish state’s claims to the strategic plateau.

US State Department spokesman John Kirby said that the Obama administration does not consider the Golan Heights to be part of Israel.

“The US position on the issue is unchanged,” Kirby said at a daily media briefing at the State Department in Washington. “This position was maintained by both Democratic and Republican administrations. Those territories are not part of Israel and the status of those territories should be determined through negotiations.”
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T. Belman. Kerry said at same conference:

“Despite the fact that we have spent time and effort to try to get there for these past few years I can tell you that for these next nine months we will not stop working to find a way,”

“And so we will continue to advance the two-state solution as the only solution, because anything else will not be Jewish and it will not be democratic,”

In her pre-state days, Israel embraced the doctrine of taking the war to the enemy, i.e., playing offense, not.defense. The same doctrine should apply in the diplomatic wars.

Instead of reacting to all the initiatives of the PA or the international community, Israel should go on offense, and declare that she will never accept the ’67 lines as the border, even with swaps. She should define the border she will support. Thus the debate will shift from whether the two state solution should be imposed to where the border should be.

Since Bibi accepted the two states for two people, there would be nothing new here except that he would be setting out another demand to add to the demands for a demilitarized state and recognition of Israel as a Jewish state.

Bibi has failed to mount an offense on the location of the border or even a defense. Israel must take this issue on, not hide from it, by not making our own claims.

Not only should we mount an offense on the borders, we must act like we mean it by building within the land we claim, just as we are doing on the Golan.

By REUTERS

VP Joe Biden on Monday acknowledged “overwhelming frustration” with the Israeli government and said the systemic expansion of Jewish settlements was moving Israel toward a dangerous “one-state reality” and in the wrong direction.
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Zionist Organization of America

President Morton A. Klein issued the following statement:

The ZOA is horrified that at the recent April 9-11, 2016 U.S. Universities Debating Association (USUDA) national championship, held at African-American Morehouse College in Atlanta, (Martin Luther King’s Alma mater) top college debaters from all over the country were given the unprecedented Nazi-like anti-Semitic debate topic: “This House Believes That Palestinian Violence Against Israeli Civilians Is Justified.”  A ZOA volunteer and former college debater Michael Schneider stated: “This topic was akin to asking African Americans to debate that the Ku Klux Klan was justified in lynching blacks.” Read more…

by David P. Goldman,  Asia Times
Alan Kurdi, 3, drowned last year in a failed attempt to sail from Turkey to the Greek island of Kos.

Just after the September 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center, I warned that radical Islam would horrify the West into submission. In Europe, it has taken a giant step towards success. Europe’s horror at the prospect of human suffering has made it supine. Sadly, the more the Europeans indulge in their humanitarian impulses, the more Muslims will suffer. To be kind is to be cruel.
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Bus explodes in capital’s southeast, 2 seriously wounded, 1 critically – he is likely the terrorist. Police admit it was a bombing.

By Ari Yashar, INN

Twenty-one people were wounded in an explosion on Monday, which hit Egged bus line 12 on Derekh Hevron and Moshe Baram Street in the southeast of Jerusalem, not far from Kibbutz Ramat Rachel. Read more…

Tunnel discovered thanks to new tunnel detection capabilities • Despite the find, IDF does not expect escalation in Gaza in near future.

For the first time since Operation Protective Edge in the summer of 2014, the IDF recently uncovered a Hamas attack tunnel that reached inside Israeli territory.

The tunnel, which entered Israel from southern Gaza, was uncovered thanks to new tunnel detection technological capabilities employed by the IDF.

The IDF does not believe the discovery of the tunnel will lead to a security escalation in Gaza in the near future.
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NEW YORK SUN

President Obama owes Americans a public explanation for why his administration is lobbying Congress to protect Saudi Arabia from lawsuits by families of those killed in the attacks of 9/11. The lobbying was disclosed Friday in a scoop by the New York Times. It reported that the kingdom threatening to sell hundreds of billions of dollars in American assets if Congress exposed it to suits related to the attacks, most of whose perpetrators, including Osama bin Laden, were Saudis.

Mr. Obama’s administration isn’t alone. Its truckling to the Saudis, its siding against Americans, is part of a long scandal going back to the Clinton administration, which fetched up in court on the side of Iran against the estate of Alisa Flatow. She was the Brandeis coed who was slain in 1995 by Iran in a bus bombing at Israel. Her heroic father, Stephen Flatow, pressed her case in an early test of whether American tort law could be used in this war.
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Al Monitor

The failure to date of Turkish-backed Syrian armed groups to retake the Syrian border town of al-Rai from the Islamic State (IS) should be a warning to US intelligence officials reportedly preparing a “plan B” for Syria, should the cessation of hostilities collapse.

According to The Wall Street Journal, the Central Intelligence Agency and its regional partners are drawing up plans to provide more advanced arms, possibly including anti-aircraft weapons, to Syrian opposition forces as a contingency plan. Old habits and bad ideas seem to die hard in some Washington policy circles. One might recall, for example, the failure of the ill-fated initial train and equip mission, which cost $382 million to train 180 fighters, 95 of whom are reportedly still active. But instead of coming to a reasonable conclusion of “been there, done that, that didn’t work,” for many understandable reasons, the CIA is consulting with Turkey and Saudi Arabia on a scheme to ramp up the capabilities of Syrian proxies, which would of course be devastating for the Syrian people who have enjoyed a mild reprieve from the bloodbath of the past five years, as Mohammed al-Khatieb reported from Aleppo last week.
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By Clarice Feldman, AMERICAN THINKER

My online friend Lisa Schiffrin notes that “As we know from personal relationships, the less you care about your relationship with someone, the more leverage you have.” That’s the lesson, it seems, the Saudis are about to learn.

It’s hardly been a secret to those who paid attention that some Saudis, including some highly placed ones, have funded and fanned the flames of Wahhabism, the ultra-conservative form of Islam throughout the world. Perhaps it was out of religious belief, but just as likely it was to keep the ruling families in power and the extremists from attacking them. If so, it may now prove to have been an unwise strategy.

The role of Saudis in the 9/11 attack on the U.S. has hardly been completely hidden: 15 of the 19 hijackers were Saudis, trained in Wahhabi schools. More than that, there is evidence that Saudi officials in the U.S. aided and abetted them once they were here — people like Omar al-Bayoumi, who met with some of the hijackers on the very same day he met with someone (as yet not publicly identified) in the Saudi consulate in Los Angeles.
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Cabinet Communique

At the weekly Cabinet meeting, today (Sunday, 17 April 2016), which was held at Maaleh Gamla, on the Golan Heights, in honor of the 34th Government’s first year in office:

1. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu made the following remarks:

“We are here, on the Golan Heights. This is the first time that the Government of Israel has held an official meeting on the Golan Heights in the 49 years that they have been under Israeli rule. The Golan Heights have been an integral part of the Land of Israel since ancient times; the dozens of ancient synagogues in the area around us attest to this. The Golan Heights are an integral part of the State of Israel in the new era. During the 19 years that the Golan Heights were under Syrian occupation, when they were a place for bunkers, wire fences, mines and aggression, they were for war. In the 49 years that the Golan Heights have been under Israeli rule, they have been for agriculture, tourism, economic initiatives and building. They are for peace. In the stormy region around us, Israel is the stabilizing factor; Israel is the solution, not the problem.
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T. Belman. Although this article is 6 weeks old it is still worth reading.

By Boaz Bismuth, ISRAEL HAYOM

PARIS – “Beware the Ides of March,” the soothsayer warned Julius Caesar in William Shakespeare’s famous play. The Roman emperor was killed on March 15, 44 years before the Common Era. The soothsayer was right. It is unclear if somebody warned Bashar al-Assad, the Syrian ruler, of the same date, for the bloody riots in the town of Daraa began 2,055 years after the death of Caesar. The goal was – and remains – to oust Assad from the seat of power. In the meantime, unlike Caesar, Bashar still lives, and he is butchering his people.

The many army officers that have deserted to neighboring Turkey have no intention of halting their struggle even if a military confrontation serves Assad’s interests. Assad, for his part, wants a head-to-head clash with what he deems “a gang of terrorists.” But if you ask the Free Syrian Army (FSA), which comprises army defectors and rebels, Assad is a spent force. This newly formed, thin military outfit cannot succeed by itself, but if international aid does arrive, even from the enemy Israel, the balance of power will change.

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