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Terrorism

The Cause of the Current War in Israel

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The Arab propaganda (including Jordan which has custodianship of Muslim and Christian sites in Jerusalem) is claiming Israel doesn’t respect worshippers and international law safeguarding Arab rights. East Jerusalem tensions have resulted in clashes between Police and Palestinians on the Temple Mount around the Muslim Al-Aqsa mosque, at the height of the Ramadan fasting month.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel was safeguarding the right of worship but would not tolerate rioting in the compound of the Temple Mount that houses Al-Aqsa Mosque. Israel was forced to take police action against rioters in Jerusalem.

No one is talking about the elections in the PA west bank, the first since 2006, that were supposed to take place at the end of May. (They are now delayed indefinitely.) Abbas, the president of the PA territory was concerned that if the election went forward as scheduled, his party, Fatah, might lose ground to two Fatah splinter groups, and Hamas would take over the territories, as it did in Gaza.

Abbas had to prove to the young radical Palestinians he can be as anti-Zionist as Hamas. He knows the formula of firing up his young people – spreading fake news about Israel trying to take over the Temple Mount by “storming” their holy Al-Aqsa mosque. Adding to the fuel is his denial that the Temple Mount was ever the site of the Jewish Holy Temples. This is the same fiction -perpetrated by his predecessor, Yasser Arafat. Their policy is to reject any history or facts connecting the Jews to Jerusalem. Hamas in Gaza took advantage of the situation to target Jerusalem.

Fake news that the Jews aim to destroy Al-Aqsa and replace it with the Third Temple has been going on for years. Regardless of evidence refuting it, once a lie is repeated many times and spread, it becomes a fact to those who wish to believe it.

The reality is that even when an Israeli politician wishes to visit the Temple Mount, he must get permission from a PA Preventive Security Service officer, as did Ariel Sharon in 2000, a visit that ignited the second Intifada (Palestinian uprising in the West Bank) which went on for four years with many suicide bombings and killing of many innocent Israeli citizens.

It is preposterous but true, that any Israeli, even a high-ranking government official, must request permission from an Arab minor ranking officer to enter the holiest Jewish site in the world. Or because he does, it will cause a bloody outburst of violence.

The Palestinian youth continue to accept the fabrication of this fake news as being true. The fake news continues to claim that the Jewish state does not allow the Muslims to pray in the Al-Aqsa mosque when the truth is that Jews, not Muslims are forbidden to pray on the Temple Mount. Israel’s law grants freedom of worship to all religions. Any statement to the contrary is just an excuse to carry out an intifada, which was most certainly planned in advance.

  1. At this time, even Jordan blames Israel for allowing right-wing religious Jews entry into the Al-Aqsa mosque compound on the Temple Mount, claiming it provokes Muslim passions and raises the risk of igniting the area. “Israel’s illegal actions have dangerous repercussions on the stability of the region.”
  2. Another cause for the clashes is the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah, where Palestinian families face eviction. Jordan’s King Abdullah II (whose Hashemite family claims descent from Islam’s Prophet Mohammad and draws legitimacy from its custodianship role) accused Israel of attempting to change the demographic status of the holy city, which contains sites sacred to Judaism, Islam, and Christianity.

Jordan had earlier provided the Palestinians with land deeds in Sheikh Jarrah stating it proves previous Israeli owners’ claims to the property are groundless. “The eviction of Palestinians of Sheikh Jarrah from their homes is a war crime.”

Several hundred Jordanians protested near the fortified Israeli embassy in Jordan’s capital, yelling “Death to Israel” and calling for the expulsion of the Israeli ambassador while opposing the unpopular peace treaty with Israel. Many citizens in Jordan are of Palestinian origin.

The Legal Battle in Sheikh Jarrah

What is the legal battle over property rights in Sheikh Jarrah?

The plots in dispute were purchased by a Jewish endowment before Israel’s Independence in 1948.

After the 1948 partition of Jerusalem into east and west, with the Israel-Jordan border dividing them, the Jordanians took possession of the Old City of Jerusalem and gave the area of Sheikh Jarrah land to some Palestinians.

After the 1967 Six-Day War, when Israel won control of the entire city, Israeli laws were made allowing Jewish-owned land to be reclaimed from the Palestinians. The Jewish owners then began claiming property inhabited by Palestinian families, some of whom are now facing eviction from homes that they have lived in since 1948.

Last Friday, right-wing Israeli Knesset member, Itamar Ben-Gvir, visited the neighborhood to announce he would be opening his parliamentary office there. That provoked more protests and violence.

The legal dispute in this East Jerusalem neighborhood must be resolved on a governmental level. The government cabinet could rule that the land and homes in question remain in the possession of the Palestinian residents. However, at this time, there is no functioning government, and the responsibility to resolve the dispute falls to the Israeli Supreme Court, which has a majority of left-wing judges that rule most of the time contrary to the ruling of the government.

Right-wing Religious Jews on the Temple Mount?

Anticipating riots and violence on the Temple Mount, Jerusalem police decided to cordon off the area outside the Damascus Gate and entered the al-Aqsa mosque compound last week to guard the place but ended clashing with Palestinian protesters.

The riots caused the Police to limit buses carrying Israeli Arab worshippers into Jerusalem for prayers on Laylat al-Qadr, the holiest night of the Muslim calendar.

Muslim worshipers pray outside in the al-Aqsa Mosque compound on Saturday night.

As violent as the riots became in the following days, the Israeli police deserve credit for not using deadly force.

A New Intifada

Last week, Hamas’ leaders announced their detailed plans to open a new intifada against Israel on May 9. May 9 was an excuse based upon a combination of three events: Jerusalem Day – Israel’s annual national day celebrating the unification of Jerusalem in 1967; Muslims marked the holiest day of the month of Ramadan, and Iran (who supports Hamas) marked its own Jerusalem Day, the purpose of which is to call for the destruction of Israel and end Jewish rule in Jerusalem.

Hamas’s leaders kept their word. The combination of Arab violence in Sheikh Jarrah, the Damascus Gate, and the Temple Mount, along with balloon bombs and rocket launches againisIsrael from Gaza, arson fires, and terrorist attacks in Judea and Samaria, are precisely what Hamas’ leaders said would transpire.

What About Fatah (the PA)?

Fatah (the Palestinian authority party in the territories of Judea and Samaria a.k.a. “The West Bank,”) for its part has been a full participant in the violence. The PA took credit for the drive-by shooting of three young Jewish students at a bus stop in Samaria last Monday, who were critically wounded. One of them died of his wounds three days later, and the other two are still fighting for their lives.

Conflict Background 

In 63 BC, Judea became a protectorate of Rome under the administration of a governor but was allowed a king. The governors were corrupt and often would attempt to squeeze as much revenue as possible from the citizens of their regions and take for themselves as much money as possible. 

Jerusalem, the capitol city of the only remaining Jewish nation, was totally destroyed in 70 AD following the Romans’ victory over Judah’s Great Revolt against Roman rule over the Jewish nation. It is estimated that as many as one million Jews were killed in this Great Revolt against Rome and many were sold into slavery outside the country. 

The Great Revolt of 66-70 AD and the Bar Kokhba revolt that followed 80 years later, were the greatest calamities in Jewish history before the Holocaust. A large part of the Jewish population was either massacred or exiled, and these failed rebellions resulted in total loss of Jewish political authority in Israel and Judah for over 2,000 years until 1948.

After the last revolt, the conquering Romans annexed Judea as a Roman province, and changed the name to Syria-Palestina (later known as Palestine), and built on the ruins of the destroyed Jerusalem the Roman city they called Aelia Capitolina. All this was an attempt to remove any connection of the Jewish people to the land and the city. The Romans systematically drove the Jews out of Palestine. That began the history of the Diaspora as the Jewish people spread over Africa, Asia, and Europe. Some Jews remained and became a minority in their own land.

In the 7th century, the new religion of Islam spread throughout the known world. Palestine and Jerusalem were conquered by the Muslims. They built on the Temple mount their Mosques. 

When the Zionist movement started in Europe in the late 19th century, and as a result of great persecution of the Jews in Eastern Europe, Jewish pioneers immigrated to Palestine and started building the land which was occupied by the Turkish Muslim Othman Empire. These new immigrants bought land to build settlements and cities. The British claimed authority of the land under a League of Nations Mandate (temporary keepers) after Germany, and its Muslim ally Turkey capitulated ending WWI. The French and British as victors divided the spoils of war.

All of this time, there were Jews who lived in Jerusalem. After Israel won the war of Independence in 1948, the Old City of Jerusalem (as well as the territories of Judea and Samaria) fell into the hands of Jordan. The Jews who lived in the old city, including the area that is called now Sheikh Jarrah, were evicted from their homes and fled to Israeli West Jerusalem. The Arabs took possession and began squatting on the Jews’ property.

After Israel won the 1967 Six-Day War, the old city was united with the new City and Israel elected to reinforce its historic and legal rights to reclaim Jewish property and holy sites. 

To reassure the Arabs that Israel had no intention to change the Status Quo, then-Defense Minister Moshe Dayan’s made the infamous decision to allow the Temple Mount – the holiest place in Judaism, as well as the site of important mosques – to remain in the hands of the Waqf, a Muslim religious authority. Ironically, freedom of religion was observed everywhere except on the Temple Mount where Jews were forbidden to pray and restricted in their visits to the site. The Muslims abhorred the Jew’s “filthy feet” even walking on their “Holy Grounds.” 

Even though Dayan believed that he acted in the country’s best interests, it set a precedent that led to the Arab Muslims claiming possession of the entire site.

In 1967, Israel passed a law permitting Jews to recover property lost to them in the 1948 war. As far as Sheikh Jarrah was concerned, it eventually led to a long, drawn-out legal case in which Jews sought to recover this property from Arabs who had been living on it for decades without legal title or paying rent.

Now, as the case is about to be heard by Israel’s Supreme Court, there is a concern that pictures of “poor” Arab Palestinians being evicted from what is considered their homes would be bad for

Israel’s image. The world, including the US, still equates Israel to the Palestinians. “Both sides” are urged to do their best to avoid violence, even though it’s only the Palestinians who are rioting at the site and bombarding Israel with rockets and missiles.

While the Jews who own the four houses in question in Sheikh Jarrah have the law on their side, it would be better for Jewish security that they lose their case. They believe that evicting the illegal Arabs occupying the premises will do more harm than good since enforcing the law will only provide an excuse for more violence.

Arab refugees fled the country in 1948 and 1967, mainly because their leaders urged them to get out to avoid the fighting and promised them to win the next time when they would be able to return and have even more property once the Jews had been driven into the sea. A much fewer number of Arabs were driven out by Israel as a result of bitter fighting during the war. An Israeli law canceled the property rights of those who left to go to an enemy country, which applied to all of the Arab refugees.

The world forgets the fate of more than 800,000 Jews from Arab and Muslim lands who were expelled from their homes after Israel became a nation and their possessions confiscated. They were never offered compensation for their losses.

Even if Jews have the right to recover their property in Jerusalem, does this mean that it is wise to do so at this time? It will and did, stir up resentment, both among Palestinians and foreign opponents of Israel.

By giving in to the Arab invaders, Israel may gain a period of quiet; however, as with the case of Dayan and the Temple Mount, at the end of the day, it will not serve Israel’s best interest, and violence will continue as the militant Palestinians like Hamas, will always find an excuse to fight Israel, whose stated goal is that one day the Land of Israel and Jerusalem will be theirs.

The time has come for Israel to stop giving a pass to Arab Jew hatred

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This entire article is from Israel Hayom newspaper

Leftist scholars of Nazism insisted that Nazis didn’t hated Jews because they were Jewish. They hated Jews because many Jews were Communists and Nazis were anti-Communist. By this reasoning, it was the Jews’ fault that the Nazis hated them and in due course, annihilated them. For scholars of the left, the Holocaust itself was a mere byproduct of Jewish membership in Communist parties.

Much of the same doctrinaire thinking has long informed – or misinformed – leftist understanding of the Arab war against the Jewish state. Immediately after the UN General Assembly adopted the partition plan to divide the League of Nations Mandate for Palestine into two separate states – one Arab and one Jewish on Nov. 29, 1947—the Arab war against the Jewish state began. Until Israel declared independence six months later, the war was waged by local Arab militias. The local Arabs were joined by five invading armies the day Israel declared independence. The declared goal of all the Arabs was to eradicate the newborn State of Israel and throw the Jews into the sea to “finish Hitler’s work.” The rhetoric and actions of the Arabs left no room for doubt. Their aim was genocidal and it was driven by Jew hatred.

In 1949 – just four years after the gas chambers were shut down – the Soviets used the Marxist model to legitimize the Arab war against the Jews to a world still embarrassed by the Holocaust. That year, the KGB invented a new term, “anti-Zionism.” The Arabs weren’t anti-Semites. They only hated Jews who wanted to live as free Jews in their sovereign homeland. Notably, as the KGB laundered Jew hatred to suit post-war sensibilities, the Soviet regime was outlawing the practice of Judaism and purging Jews from public life in the Soviet Union.

Outside the Soviet bloc, anti-Zionism was a hard sell early on. It was given a big push forward though in the wake of the 1967 Six-Day War. Israel’s victory in that defensive war placed it in control of the Golan Heights, Sinai, the Gaza Strip and Judea and Samaria and enabled it to unify Jerusalem. Despite the fact that Israel had a right to incorporate these areas into its sovereign territory both under the laws of war and the borders of the Jewish state as set out in the League of Nations Mandate, the Soviets and leftists in Western Europe used Israel’s control over these territories to build a new, counterfactual narrative to justify the Arab war against the Jewish state.

If the Jews were responsible for the Nazis’ genocidal antisemitism because some Jews were Communists, then Israel was responsible for the Arab aggression because it “stole” Arab land and refused to give up land for “peace.”

Setting aside the obvious logical fallacy – putting the cart before the horse – this narrative made no sense practically speaking. If the problem was Israel’s size rather than its existence, then why did the Soviets and the Arabs ram through UN General Assembly Resolution 3379 in 1975, which said Zionism is a form of racism, and so proclaimed Israel’s very existence illegitimate and immoral? Why do the Palestinians demand the so-called “right of return” of Arabs who left Israel in 1948 and their descendants to Israel rather than a future Palestinian state? And why did both Yasser Arafat and his successor Mahmoud Abbas refuse Israeli peace offers that gave in to nearly all of their territorial demands?

All of these things occurred because the post-1967 leftist narrative of Israeli avariciousness for “Arab” land, like the 1949 Soviet narrative of anti-Zionism is entirely wrong. Yet despite its obvious absurdity, the left’s land-for-peace/two-state solution narrative dominated the international and domestic Israeli discourse on the Arab-Israeli and Palestinian-Israel conflict for the past half century.

This week it disintegrated.

Photo From Israel365 News

The dominant – indeed leading – role Israeli Arabs are playing in the current round of the Palestinian war against Israel puts paid the notion that the Palestinian war on the Jews has something to do with specific territories Israel controls. Israeli Arabs are not burning synagogues, schools, yeshivot (religious schools,) Jewish-owned stores, cars and homes because of the so-called “occupation.” They are not lynching Jews that fall in their paths because of the so-called “settlements.” They are assaulting the citizens and institutions and symbols of the Jewish state because they seek to destroy the Jewish state.

Timing is everything in war and in life. And the Israeli Arabs and Palestinians clearly believe that the time is ripe for them to discard the nonsense about “the occupation.”

The Biden administration is on their side. Not only did President Joe Biden restore US funding to the PA despite its funding of terrorism. Over the past month of escalating Palestinian violence against Jews in Jerusalem and other cities around Israel, the Biden administration has embraced the Fatah narrative that Israel is “provoking” the Palestinians to attack Jews because Israel deployed police to the Temple Mount to restore the peace after the Palestinians attacked Jews. The Biden administration has also adopted Fatah’s antisemitic claim that Jews have no right to assert their property rights in Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood of Jerusalem because they are Jews.

For their part, Congressional leaders of the Democrat Party’s dominant hard left faction – Ilhan Omar, Rashida Tlaib, Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Betty McCollum and their comrades – are pushing Hamas’s PR line. Like Hamas, they project the Palestinians’ crimes onto their victims. Israel, they slander, murders Palestinian children in cold blood. Obviously, a state that kills children on purpose is a criminal state that must be given no place in the community of nations.

The anti-Semitic disposition of both the administration and prominent Democrats serves as a tailwind for the Palestinians today. This state of affairs makes things more difficult for Israel to defeat its enemies. But at the end of the day, the Americans are not the ones who will decide Israel’s fate. That is the responsibility of the people of Israel.

The Palestinian war, now joined by Israel’s Arabs and supported by the ruling party in America, presents Zionism with its supreme test: Will Israel protect its Jewish national identity or will it crumble under pressure?

Israel must quell the Israeli Arab violence and confiscate all illegal weapons now in the hands of the Arabs.

Israel must do two things to persevere. First, it must quell the Israeli Arab violence and confiscate all illegal weapons now in the hands of the Arabs. Over the past two decades, reports of thefts from IDF bases of everything from small arms to automatic rifles to shoulder launched missiles have surfaced with some regularity. Nearly all of the theft was the work of Arab Israelis and few and far between have been the instances where stolen weapons were located and returned to the army.

Israel’s security forces must use all necessary force to locate and seize those weapons. The Arab pogromists marauding through mixed Jewish-Arab towns lynching Jews and torching their synagogues and their property prove incontrovertibly that so long as huge caches of illegal weapons remain in the hands of Israeli Arabs, Israel’s future is imperiled.

More fundamentally, after 75 years of making excuses and denying the plain fact that antisemitism is the root and the branch of the Arab conflict with Israel, Israelis of all walks of life and across the political spectrum need to accept this truth. As a society, we must demand that Israel’s Arab citizens and their leaders recognize the legitimacy and justice of the existence of the State of Israel. And we must not accept no for an answer any more.

When discussions began several weeks ago about the possibility of forming a governing coalition based on the direct or indirect support of Arab Knesset members from the Muslim Brotherhood affiliated United Arab List, Islamic scholar Daniel Pipes wrote an article considering the issue. Pipes explained that just as there are Judeophobic and philosemitic versions of Christianity, so the Quran includes two approaches to Judaism and Jews. The first and most familiar approach is the jihadist approach. The jihadist approach rejects the Jews, the Torah and Jewish rights to Israel. The second approach embraces all three. Pipes said that the only way to include the United Arab List in a government, or to base a government on its support, is by first demanding that the party’s members publicly declare that they uphold the Quranic approach that celebrates Jews and the Torah and recognizes that the land of Israel belongs to the Jews.

For the past 75 years, Israelis across the political spectrum have passively accepted Arab Jew hatred. The left believed Jews earned the Arabs’ hatred by defeating them in successive wars. To appease their hate, the left has pushed policies that restrain public expressions of Jewish pride and holds Arabs to lower standards than they hold Jews – forgiving their anti-Semitism while condemning rare expressions of Jewish anti-Arab racism with all the passion and urgency they can muster.

The Israeli right also has taken Arab Jew hatred for granted. Its members have argued that the way to defuse or mitigate the hatred is to integrate Arab citizens into all walks of public life, never asking that they first accept the legitimacy of the State of Israel.

The time has come to end this state of affairs. The Israeli Arab pogroms of 2021 together with the Western left’s adoption of narratives legitimizing Arab Jew hatred give Israel no option of continuing to pretend away or excuse this reality. Just as antisemitism was the central animating ideology of Nazism so it is the central ideology of the Arab war against the Jewish state. To put an end to these pogroms now, and to prevent them from recurring, Israel must end its tolerance for Arab Jew hatred and must stop making apologies for Zionism and Jewish peoplehood. Israel must assert its national rights to all areas of this country without apology. It must do so consistently. Israel’s future, and the possibility that coexistence between Jews and Arabs will ever be restored, depend on our willingness to forthrightly demand that Arab Israelis abandon their hatred of this country.

In recent days, we have witnessed severe riots in the city of Lod perpetrated by extremist Muslims, who want to heat the city up and harm the coexistence we have been working on for many years.

As mayor, I see first and foremost the good of the residents of Lod, Jews and Arabs alike. As a result, yesterday I came out with an uncompromising call to declare a state of emergency and bring in police and army forces in order to restore calm to the city streets.

Residents of Lod felt people could die if the government did not impose a closure on the city. This threat and the possible harm to human life is more severe than rocket fire on Israel.

I am not criticizing the police, but the situation in the city is completely out of control and endangering human life and property, and therefore requires a determined response and mobilization of the Israeli government.

Sometimes a map helps to understand
the situation on the ground.

The leaders of the Arab public in the city and the Arab politicians in the country must call for calm, prevent the rift between the societies and work to restore order to the streets. We will not shy away and we will work to increase governance and law enforcement without compromise.

It is important to understand that these are difficult days, after which we will look at ourselves introspectively. But now we must focus on calming the sectors within the country, along with hitting the terrorist organizations, those organizations that do not differentiate between people. Evidence of this can be found when both Jews and Arabs were killed throughout the country by rocket launches.

I ask all residents of the city to avoid violence, to choose dialogue, friendship and comradery and to promote coexistence and good neighborliness.

Lod should be a lighthouse for the other mixed cities in Israel. I am sure that this challenging period will pass, and push us to continue to intensify the momentum of development in the city across all neighborhoods and all sectors.

Special Report: ISRAEL IS UNDER ATTACK!

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This weekend Hamas will be marking the one year anniversary of the start of The March of Return demonstrations that led to weekly tensions on the border fence with Israel. At first, their grandiose goal was to actually return to what they call “their” land of Palestine, encouraging the masses to force themselves through the fence into Israel. Loyal Hamas supporters have demonstrated tirelessly week after week over the past year along the security fence but were stopped each time by Israeli fire.

Their next goal was to lift the blockade on Gaza; they did not succeed in that either.

Now, a year later Hamas has not accomplished either goal. They succeeded, however, in sending incendiary kites and balloons tied with explosives to nearby Israeli fields and residential areas causing a lot of fires and devastation to Israeli crops and livestock along the border.

The blockade, combined with sanctions by the Palestinian Authority and Hamas using donations to build up their military capabilities and tunnels, has caused an economic crisis in Gaza with an unemployment rate above 50 percent.

Are the masses of Gaza’s poor citizens willing to be dragged into yet another year of those kinds of demonstrations?

Hamas can’t take this chance. Now their leaders have to make desperate moves to survive politically by dragging Israel into another round of fighting. As a notable accomplishment to show off their military capability, they fired two rockets to the Tel Aviv area on March 14th. Hamas announced it was “accidental”, but Israeli aircraft bombed 100 targets in Gaza in retaliation.

On the same day, hundreds of Gazans protested against Hamas and their dire conditions, to which Hamas responded with a violent crackdown, beating and arresting dozens of demonstrators.

Meanwhile, Israelis demanded from its leaders an end to the impossible situation of being constantly under threat from Hamas.
Netanyahu’s main election rival and former army chief, Benny Gantz, urged a “strict, stern and continuous policy against Hamas”. However, Hamas and the Israeli government are trying to avoid all-out war at all cost.

The latest round of violence began this week early Monday when seven Israelis, including a small child and an infant, were wounded as their house in a village northeast of Tel Aviv was completely demolished by a long-range rocket 120 kilometers (75 miles) fired by Hamas from Gaza, making it one of the deepest strikes ever carried out by Hamas. The family members said it was a miracle their lives were spared.

The Israeli military mobilized into the Gazan border two armor and infantry brigades and drafted some reserve forces before striking back at militant sites in Gaza. Israeli attacks caused panic to the Gazans. They stayed inside their homes since bomb shelters are only available to Hamas officials. (Before bombing, Israel warns Gazas citizens to stay away from Hamas buildings and facilities.) Hamas leaders went down to hide in bunkers.

Israeli air force bombings included a Hamas military intelligence headquarters building and the office of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh. Israeli naval ships targeted the Gaza seaport, while Israeli warplanes struck an underground facility east of Gaza City near the security fence. Gaza’s Health Ministry said seven Palestinians were wounded in the airstrikes. In retaliation, beginning at around 11:20pm Monday, a barrage of rockets was fired at the southern cities and villages through the night. “If (Israel’s) aggression continues, the resistance (Hamas) will not hesitate for a moment to fulfill its role,” the Palestinian Islamic Jihad said in a statement.

The back and forth attacks between Israel and Hamas, which resumed late Tuesday evening, continued into early Wednesday, with Israeli military striking several Hamas military positions in Gaza, while air-raid sirens sounded in southern Israeli communities, forcing Israelis to run into sheltered areas. Israeli Air Force retaliated shortly after with air strikes on Hamas facilities. Rockets fired early Wednesday morning at the southern city of Ashkelon were intercepted by the Iron Dome defense system.

Israel has already been in this situation.

There have been many rockets and the IDF (the Israeli army Israeli Defense Force) was engaged in many rounds of fighting — but the situation has remained the same. The results of yet another war, in the same format, will be the same.

The blockade of Gaza that was supposed to bring Hamas to its knees, did not happen. Meanwhile the humanitarian conditions of the Gazan citizens have dramatically worsened, Hamas has been strengthened and has become even more sophisticated. Their rockets can now reach anywhere in central Israel and will probably soon be able to reach anywhere in Israel. Because of the humanitarian situation, Israel is allowing millions of dollars to pour into Gaza while Hamas is using the money and building materials to build up their military capabilities and building tunnels. Knowing Israel will avoid at all cost killing citizens and children, Hamas is hiding behind them in every war, making it impossible for Israel to destroy them.

So when Israel gets dragged into another round of fighting, Hamas survives but the people of Gaza suffer the consequences; homes are destroyed and women and children injured. Hamas is using it cynically to cause world opinion to turn against Israel.
The world may at first justify Israeli actions as a right to defend itself. But as more women and children are being killed, (if they don’t respond to Israel’s warning to evacuate) and when Israeli citizens are being saved by the Iron Dome protection, there will be an outcry that Israel is using unbalanced power against the poor Palestinians.

If the current round of hostilities ends up as an air and ground war, the results are predictable. At first, Western leaders may support Israel. However, after a few days, the television channels will be broadcasting images of the devastation in Gaza. Protesters against Israeli “war crimes” will flood the streets of major world cities. Anti-Israel organizations will use the opportunity to bash Israel. Leading world newspapers will print harsh condemnations of Israel. The leaders who supported Israel initially will give in to pressure and the UN Security Council will convene, there will be another ceasefire. After a short time, the violent protests will resume, incendiary balloons will be launched into Israel from Gaza and eventually, rockets will again be fired. A few months will pass, and an inquiry commission will publish its conclusions blaming Israel.

So what is the solution?

We need a miracle from God. We need wisdom for our leaders. We need a lot of prayers.

The test will be this weekend. The escalation can reach its peak on Saturday, as Gazan leaders announced the anniversary demonstration will take place on Saturday, and not on Friday as is customary. It will be combined with the reminder of Land Day which they mark every year on March 30, commemorating that day in 1976 that Israeli Arabs and Palestinians staged violent protests against the Israeli army and police over claims of Israeli appropriation of territory in which six unarmed Arabs were killed and around one hundred others were wounded.

Hamas is hoping 50,000 demonstrators will storm to the border fence, violence can flare up.

          Pray that God gives Israel’s leaders wisdom and strategy to win this ongoing battle that seeks to destroy Israel and take over the land the God of Israel has given to His people. With elections coming up on April 9th more terror attacks are predicted both from Gaza and also from our northern border. Pray for the salvation of Israel – spiritually and also physically.

Hezbollah

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A Brief Background

After the British mandate left Palestina in 1947, (a name given to the land of Israel by the conquering Romans), the Arabs refused to divide the land and attacked the Jews in the land from all sides. Against all odds, Israel won the war of Independence and became a nation in 1948. The name of the land was changed back to the land of Israel and Jewish citizens to Israelis instead of Palestinians (all people living in the land before 48 were called Palestinians, Jews and Arabs.) Many Arabs fled in the war to neighboring countries, mainly Jordan and Egypt.

Lebanon was at that time multi-sectarian, with Sunni Muslims and Christians being the majorities in the coastal cities, Shia Muslims in the south and east, and Druze and Christian in the mountains. The Lebanese government operated under the influence of the elites Maronite Christians and the western world. However, the Muslims opposed the western influence of the government.

The Palestinian Arabs formed the PLO (Palestine Liberation Organization) and Fatah brigade to fight Israel.

After the six-day war with Israel, Jordan lost the West Bank and allowed Fatah under the PLO and their leader, Yasser Arafat, into the country from where they stepped up their guerrilla attacks against Israel. However, after many fights with the PLO who turned against the Jordanian leadership, they were expelled to southern Lebanon along with Yasser Arafat, where they regrouped.

The enlarged PLO presence in Lebanon and the intensification of fighting on the Israeli–Lebanese border stirred up internal unrest in Lebanon. The PLO recruited militants from among the families of Arab Palestinians who had fled to Lebanon during the Israeli independence war.

Demographic tensions over the Lebanese National Pact led to the Lebanese Civil War (1975–1990) where militia clashed with Palestinian factions over their terror attacks against Israel from Lebanese territory.

A PLO terror attack on March 11, 1978, was the last straw for Israel. An Israeli bus was seized by terrorists, and 38 Israeli civilians including 13 children were killed, with 76 wounded. The Israeli air force, navy, and land units entered south Lebanon with the aim of capturing the strongholds of the terrorist groups. Heavy face-to-face fighting resulted in Israel taking over the south Lebanon region, 300 terrorists were dead and many civilians fled to northern Lebanon, among them many terrorists. Israel suffered 18 dead soldiers.

Eventually, Israel withdrew back to the original border. UNIFIL units were stationed in the demilitarized zone. Another force, the Christian militia who were favorable to Israel and were supported by the Israeli army, formed the army of south Lebanon there.

However, terror attacks continued now from northern Lebanon which fired Katyusha rockets and missiles into northern Israel. Simultaneously, Israeli and Jewish targets were hit around the world. The situation became unbearable, forcing Israel to launch another large-scale military operation in 1982.

This new operation, called “Peace in Galilee” targeted the terror organizations who had returned to southern Lebanon. Heavy fighting broke out between the Israeli army and PLO terrorists who also had headquarters in Beirut. Many Katyusha rockets were fired into northern Israeli northern population. Israeli paratroopers fought terror pockets in villages along the road from the border to Beirut.

The Israeli army got tangled up in the Lebanese war against thousands of terrorists who were hiding in densely populated areas with the help of the Syrian army. The result was the defeat of the Syrian army, the death, and capture of many terrorists and much ammunition being taken by Israel. The PLO was expelled from Lebanon, including Arafat who fled to Tunisia.

Israel withdrew from most of Lebanon in 1985 but kept control of a 12-mile security buffer zone, held with the aid of proxy militants of the South Lebanon Army (SLA). Israel suffered many losses, about 1200 soldiers died in the first Lebanon war between the years 1982-2000. The war also resulted in the surfacing in south Lebanon of another terror organization, Hezbollah.

Eventually, the Israeli army had to withdraw also from the militarized zone in southern Lebanon in 2000.

The Rise of Hezbollah

Hezbollah, which means in Arabic “Party of Allah”, is a Shi’a Islamist militant organization and political party based in Lebanon headed by Hassan Nasrallah. Hezbollah, along with its military wing is considered a terrorist organization by the United States, Israel, Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia, and the European Union.

Following the Islamic revolution in Shīʿite Iran in 1979 and the Israeli operation in Lebanon in 1982, a group of Lebanese Shīʿite clerics formed the Hezbollah organization, which holds to an extreme Shīʿite ideology with three main aims: Jihad (holy war) against all foreigners in Lebanon, the destruction and annihilation of Israel; and spreading the Islamic revolution and turning Lebanon into another Islamic republic like Iran. Since its beginning, Hezbollah organization considers Israel an enemy and never refers to it by its name but rather calls it “occupied Palestine,” or the “Zionist enemy.”

Hezbollah organization uses guerrilla and terror warfare in order to achieve its goals. It promotes suicide bombing, kidnappings, car bombings and grand terror attacks around the world and against foreigners in Lebanon, which gives other terror organizations inspiration to do the same. Hezbollah was based in the predominately Shīʿite areas in southern Lebanon, and southern Beirut. Throughout the 1980s, Hezbollah engaged in attacks against Israel and fought in Lebanon’s civil war (1975–90). It also worked at establishing a comprehensive social services network for its supporters.

Being a proxy of Iran and Syria, Hezbollah remained a militia organization after the end of the Lebanese civil war In May 1991, when the other militias were dissolved and continued to fight a sustained guerrilla campaign against Israel in southern Lebanon.

After the Israeli army withdrew from the militarized zone in southern Lebanon in 2000, Hezbollah took control over the area, with the help of Syria and Iran. It built many headquarters and strongholds, built military infrastructures, and a massive missile and rocket arsenal. Hezbollah members were trained in progressive fighting techniques by Iranian military and intelligence personnel, who helped build bunkers across the Israeli border in South Lebanon, and assisted in forming command headquarters and control and surveillance systems within the organization’s headquarters in southern Beirut.

On July 12th, 2006, Hezbollah executed a preplanned artillery attack across the Israeli northern border. They ambushed two Israeli patrol vehicles, killing three Israeli soldiers, wounding two and kidnapping two.

IDF (Israeli Defense Force) began a war against Hezbollah with an aerial attack on thousands of targets within Lebanon: Hezbollah’s rocket system, Hezbollah posts, arms storages, training camps, command headquarters, Beirut Airport, and bridges. The Israeli Air Force dropped pamphlets calling Lebanese citizens of settlements in southern Lebanon to evacuate their homes.

Hezbollah began firing hundreds of rockets towards populated areas in Israel. The citizens of Haifa and northern Israel had to reside in shelters and protected areas. On July 14th, Hezbollah fired at an Israeli missile boat, in which four naval soldiers were killed. The war escalated into massive attacks and crackdowns on all terrorists who were hiding in civilian facilities.

In the 33 days of the war, there were 164 Israeli citizen casualties (119 soldiers and 45 civilians) and hundreds injured. Approximately 4,000 rockets hit the north of Israel and significant economic damages were incurred. Hezbollah had also lost hundreds of its members and the organization’s strategic fighting ability was hurt. Its headquarters in South Beirut were destroyed.

On August 11th, the United Nations’ Security Council issued a resolution calling for “a complete halt of acts of aggression, and especially those committed by Hezbollah and the military actions of Israel.”

The UN resolution called for the withdrawal of the Israeli Defense Force from Lebanon and for the South Lebanon Army and UNIFIL to take control over the south Lebanon area, prohibition of carrying arms without the consent of the Lebanese government; and the prohibition of the trade or transfer of arms to Hezbollah. Lebanon had to see to the disarmament of armed militias and the unconditional release of the Israeli soldiers imprisoned.

Somehow Hezbollah and its leader, Hassan Nasrallah, emerged from the war with Israel as heroes throughout much of the Arab world. Hezbollah used its new position to attempt to topple Lebanon’s government after its demands for more cabinet seats were denied.

In May 2008, clashes between Hezbollah forces and government supporters in Beirut were sparked by government decisions that included plans to dismantle Hezbollah’s private telecommunications network. Nasrallah saw it as a declaration of war and mobilized Hezbollah forces, which quickly took control of parts of Beirut. In the following days the government reversed its decisions and granted the Hezbollah-led opposition the desired veto power.

A wave of popular uprisings in early 2011, known as the Arab Spring left Hezbollah in a difficult position. After applauding revolutionary movements in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, and Bahrain, the group found its interests threatened by a similar movement against its key ally, Syrian Pres. Bashar al-Assad. As protests spread throughout Syria and the civilian death toll mounted, Nasrallah spoke out in support of Assad, echoing Assad’s denunciations of the Syrian opposition as being agents of a foreign conspiracy. The conflict soon escalated into a full-blown civil war.

Since 2012, Hezbollah has helped the Syrian government during the Syrian civil war in its fight against the Syrian opposition, which Hezbollah has described as a Zionist plot and a “Wahhabi-Zionist conspiracy” to destroy its alliance with Assad. It had deployed its militia in both Syria and Iraq. Nasrallah publicly confirmed Hezbollah’s involvement and vowed to fight until the rebels had been defeated.

On May 6, 2018, Lebanon held its first legislative election since 2009. Hezbollah got a politically dominant position in the government for the first time. Top-level positions in the parliament nonetheless remained the same, including Hariri as prime minister.

Hezbollah has been described as a “state within a state”, and its military strength has grown significantly with its military wing that is now considered more powerful than the Lebanese Army. The organization has seats in the Lebanese government, a radio and a satellite TV station, social services and large-scale military deployment of fighters beyond Lebanon’s borders, Hezbollah receives military training, weapons, and financial support from Iran, and political support from Syria.

Terror Strikes Israel

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“I will say of the Lord He is my refuge and my fortress;
My God, in Him I will trust… You shall not be afraid
of the terror by night,  Nor the arrow that flies by day,” Psalms 91:2, 5

Direct Gaza rocket hit into an Ashkelon apartment.
Direct Gaza rocket hit into an Ashkelon apartment.

We experienced sitting in the sheltered room in the summer of 2014, waiting to hear the explosion while Ashdod was under missile attack from nearby Gaza. We thanked God for His protection and for the Iron Dome that shot down most of the missiles and kept us safe. It happened again this month…*Photo is a direct rocket hit into an Ashkelon apartment from Gaza.
The bomb-shelter diary of 8-year-old Israeli Renana, broadcast on a morning talk show on November 12, raised some painful emotions, while a series of interviews with tiny, scared children from the villages close to the Gazan border did the same.
In 2005, Israel withdrew from the coastal strip, thus allowing the Palestinians to set up a terror base. Since March of this year, Hamas has initiated violent events on the Gazan border, while Israel has shown restraint, seeking a diplomatic solution for the sake of the residents of the south who want to live in peace and quiet.

However, the basic problems, which are worsening with time, remain.

Why does it seem impossible for Israel, a country with such sophisticated weapons, missile defense systems and intelligence systems – to conquer a small, fanatical terror organization which hides behind its citizens, women and children included, and uses them as a front in their fight against Israel?
The Hamas leaders make no secret of their aim. They are out to destroy Israel. Since suicide bombers, rockets, and tunnels have failed, Hamas leaders have encouraged mass marches over the last eight months, to violently storm the border fence. One of their leaders stated: “We shall come and take down that (border) fence. With blood, with martyrs, with women, and with children, the Palestinian people shall liberate its land.”
Since the last war with Israel in 2014, Hamas has rearmed itself with an arsenal of some 10,000 rockets and mortar shells. Learning from the last operation that most missiles, even the long-range ones, were effectively shot down by Israel’s Iron Dome, Hamas leaders have invented new ways of achieving their goal. They have moved their operations underground, including launching missiles by remote control. Consequently, It is much harder now for the Israeli army to detect their launching sites. Hamas has also connected their launching system to the electricity of hospitals and mosques, so Israeli attacks on their military targets will kill civilians in those facilities. This will benefit the terror organization’s propaganda.

Iron Dome batteries protecting the city of Ashkelon.

These new Hamas tactics require more precise Israeli intelligence gathering. Hence, a special Israeli army unit has been active undercover, doing this in the last few weeks. Unfortunately, two weeks ago, when the special undercover unit entered 3 kilometers into the Gaza Strip, apparently to plant listening devices, they were discovered by Hamas officers and fierce gunfight erupted. One Israeli special forces officer was killed and another wounded. Seven Hamas members were killed in the incident.

The trapped Israeli troops radioed for aerial assistance which arrived within minutes and rescued them out of Gaza.
In retaliation, Hamas, and some of the Iranian-backed Palestinian Islamic Jihad, launched some 500 rockets and mortar shells within a period of about 24 hours at Israel’s southern towns, mostly the city of Ashkelon, killing one person and injuring dozens more (they figured that by concentrating their barrage of missiles on one city, the Iron Dome would be overwhelmed.)

Palestinian terrorists fire rocket barrages from Gaza.

After warning Gazan civilians to evacuate the facilities, the Israeli military launched strikes against some 160 targets connected to the two terror groups in the Gaza Strip, killing seven people, most of whom were later identified as members of terrorist organizations, including some who were in the process of launching projectiles at Israel at the time they were killed. Israeli residents near the Gaza border were instructed to remain close to their shelters.
The battle ended with Hamas asking for a ceasefire through an Egyptian brokerage, which has largely held since November 13. However, considerable criticism has arisen in Israel among those who wanted to continue fighting to finally topple Hamas. Among them was Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman, who resigned in protest of the ceasefire, calling it “capitulation to terror.” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu temporarily took over the position of Defense Minister.
All of this has left residents of Israel’s south traumatized and many in Israel protested as they were seeking a once and for all destruction of Hamas and other Gaza terror groups, such as Islamic Jihad.
PM Netanyahu addressed the issue: “Sometimes being a leader means withstanding criticism when you know classified and sensitive things,” (in the era of open communication, everything we hear in the news falls on the enemy’s ears too.)
“I hear the voices of Israeli citizens and the residents of the communities around the Gaza area. They are dear to me, and their words touch my heart.” the Prime Minister continued, “and I can’t share [the information] with the public. I wish I could tell citizens everything I know.” He added: “Leadership means not doing what’s easy, but rather doing what’s right and what must be done, even if it’s difficult. When it comes to Israel’s security, there’s more than meets the eye…In times of crisis, when making critical security decisions, the public often can’t be involved in the deciding considerations, which must be concealed from the enemy at all costs,” Netanyahu added.

[Read More].

 

We know our Lord is sovereign. Please pray for this sensitive situation, the enemy of Israel is the enemy of God. Pray for the Israeli government to make the right decision. and for Israel’s citizens support the government’s decisions and to have faith in God for their protection.