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Hamas

What is the PIJ?

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Map of Gaza Strip, Arutz Sheva

The Palestinian Islamic Jihad is a militant terrorist organization that operates mainly in the Gaza Strip where most of its military strength is located. The PIJ also operates terror cells in cities in Judea and Samaria, mainly in Jenin and Shechem (Nablus.)

The PIJ has headquarters in Lebanon and Syria and is a proxy of Israel’s archenemy, the Islamic Republic of Iran. Both are determined to eliminate Israel as the state of the Jewish people.

With Iran’s help, the PIJ has grown militarily and now has an arsenal that includes:

  • Rockets that reach up to 120 km (north of Tel Aviv)
  • Mortars of various ranges
  • Cornet-type anti-tank missiles
  • Anti-aircraft missiles
  • Sniping capabilities
  • Attack tunnels (that penetrate Israel for terror attacks) 
  • Explosive drones and 
  • A naval unit. 

Here is a short film that shows the scope of their rockets:

In the 1990s, the PIJ began suicide attacks against Israelis in Israel and Judea and Samaria, and carried out more than 400 bombings in the years 2000-2005, murdering 134 Israelis and injuring 880.

When in 2007 Hamas, the larger Palestinian terror group, took over Gaza, the PIJ became the secondary terror group. Yet it continued rocket attacks on Israelis across the border.

The PIJ was founded in 1981 in Egypt but was expelled from the country. Its leaders moved to south Lebanon, where they collaborated with the militant Palestinian organization of Hezbollah and Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.

Iran is the main sponsor of PIJ. It funds the organization with tens of millions of dollars annually, as well as providing it with weapons and military training. Although the PIJ is Sunni, and Iran is mostly Shiite, they nevertheless unite to achieve their common goal, the destruction of Israel as a Jewish state.

Concerning the Middle East crisis: Iranian leader, Khamenei states that Palestine is “a part of their body and the only solution is the elimination of the root of this crisis, which is the Zionist regime – the Jewish state of Israel

The PIJ claims to be the indigenous people of the land of Israel which they call Palestine and is determined to continue the armed struggle until Israel’s defeat. They do not accept any “Two State Solution” and refuse to acknowledge Israel’s existence under any conditions.

Is there a threat that Americans will lose their freedom due to domestic revolutionaries?

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These things I have spoken to you, that in Me you may have peace.
In the world you will have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world.”
John 16:33 NKJV

According to Israeli/American journalist, Carolyn Glick the answer is, yes.

In an article she published, revolutionaries are willing to use force, as they showed in the summer of 2020 when they burned and looted their way through U.S. cities. But generally speaking, their weapon is not the gun or the jackboot, but demonization and intimidation. And now, with the Biden administration firmly ensconced in power, they move forward with their revolution with the firm backing of the state, and its weapons of repression and criminalization. (And of course, Jews and Israel are always a target.)

Kamala Harris at George Mason

Last month, the revolutionaries and the administration converged before the cameras at a meeting between Vice President Kamala Harris and students at George Mason University in Virginia. The Vice President was taking questions after speaking recently at George Mason University. A female student, who identified herself as “Yemeni and Iranian” rose to ask in a childlike voice a “question,” which was actually an opportunity to promote the revolution’s vicious hatred of Jews and America. She sniffed emotionally under her mask and told America’s second-highest elected official that her feelings were hurt when Congress passed a bill for supplemental funding to Israel’s Iron Dome anti-missile system, and how Israel supposedly commits “ethnic genocide” and therefore should not receive any aid from the United States.

The move, she yowled, “hurts my heart because it’s an ethnic genocide and a displacement of people, the same that happened in America, and I’m sure you’re aware of this.” Harris, seemingly nodding in agreement with the student as she spoke, could have (and should have) rebuked the student for lying. That is the standard of honesty to which our leaders should adhere.

Instead, Harris empowered the young bigot. She praised the student without directly commenting on the anti-Israel libel.

“Your voice, your perspective, your experience, your truth should not be suppressed, right? And this is one of the things we’re fighting for in a democracy, right?” Harris declared, which was actually a non sequitur since nobody was “suppressing” the Yemeni-Iranian student for promoting anti-Semitic and anti-American blood libels. On the contrary, the Israel-genocide slur is featured prominently on university campuses and op-ed pages all the time these days.

After Vice President Harris received criticism for actually praising the Israeli-hater student, Harris’s spokesperson emailed a private statement to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, saying the Vice President “strongly disagrees” with the Israel-bashing student. The spokesperson did not actually state what Harris, “strongly disagrees” with; not even not condemns, just “disagrees” with an opinion that can be debated, like whether or not there was a Holocaust.

By not rebuking the student on the spot, and by not condemning publically the lies that Israel is committing genocide against the Palestinians, Harris didn’t stand for truth.

The truth is that the Palestinian Muslim’s constant war against Israel (terror attacks and missile attacks by Hamas and Hezbollah) is an attempt to annihilate the Jewish state, which the US and other civilized countries should attempt to prevent. By failing to expound upon this truth, VP Harris showed her true two-sided face.

Critical Race Theory – CRT

The second reason Harris may have decided to support the George Mason’s student’s slander of Israel and America is that she most likely approved of what the student was saying. This brings us to what the revolution is about, and to the Biden-Harris administration’s position on its goals.

As Barack Obama said after winning the 2008 presidential election, the purpose of the revolution is to, “fundamentally transform the United States of America.” The doctrine that stands at the heart of the revolution is Critical Race Theory. 

The wrong-think mobs who reign supreme in most U.S. campuses have spread their tentacles to the political realm.

This week, revolutionaries in Arizona hounded moderate Democrat Senator Kyrsten Sinema in a public bathroom. They chastised and threatened her while she sat in a stall, and as she washed her hands in the sink. Sinema was deemed deserving of bullying in the ladies’ room because she opposes the revolutionaries’ $3.5 trillion social engineering budget for 2022.

CRT researcher, Christopher Rufo of the Manhattan Institute states that Critical Race Theorists believe American institutions, such as the Constitution and legal system, preach freedom and equality, but are mere “camouflages” for naked racial domination. They believe that racism is a constant, universal condition.”

Rufo explains that “critical race theory” reformulates the old Marxist dichotomy of oppressor and oppressed, replacing the class categories of bourgeoisie and proletariat with the identity categories of White and Black. But the basic conclusion is the same: in order to liberate man, society must be fundamentally transformed through moral, economic, and political revolution.”

In early 2020, Rufo exposed the federal government, including government departments and agencies as well as the U.S. armed forces for requiring their employees and servicemen to undergo CRT workshops and seminars. Participants in the seminars are separated by race. White participants are required to acknowledge and disavow their “whiteness,” that is, their inherent racism, and apologize to non-whites and commit themselves to empowering their non-white colleagues at their own expense, since, they were told, as white people, they were inherently oppressors.

Rufo’s revelations caused an uproar. The then President Donald Trump reacted by issuing an executive order banning CRT training from the federal government and the armed forces.

Trump’s executive order was one of the first policies Biden overturned. Biden canceled Trump’s executive order on his first day in office. In the days and months that have followed, his administration has reinstated and expanded CRT indoctrination.

CRT in the Classroom

Since early this year, the center of gravity in the fight against the CRT revolution has moved from the government to the classroom. Rufo and others have exposed how, under the cover of fighting racism, local school boards from coast to coast are transforming K-12 classrooms into CRT indoctrination centers. For example, Kindergarten children are taught that their gender is not fixed, but fluid.

Hardcore communist, anti-American, anti-white, and anti-police indoctrination have abounded across America. For example, fifth-graders in a Philadelphia elementary school were forced to celebrate “Black communism. Kindergarten pupils in Buffalo, New York, we’re taught that “all white people” are racists, and were forced to watch a video of dead black children. They were warned of “racist police and state-sanctioned violence” that placed their lives in constant jeopardy.

Because of the Covid-19 pandemic, as the schoolrooms moved into the homes through Zoom, due to the school shutdowns over the past year and a half, American parents saw the indoctrination first hand. They saw their children’s teachers demonize police and teach them to hate their country, judge people by their skin color, and reject the values at the heart of the American experience. The backlash has been profound.

Over the spring and summer, thousands of concerned parents countrywide began attending school board meetings and demanding that the indoctrination stop and CRT curricula be withdrawn.

Videos of the meetings, the invariably dismissive and hostile responses parents received from school board members, were seen by tens of millions of people. In Virginia, which has been a focal point of the struggle, parents were subjected to arrest for trying to protect their children from CRT.

Recently, the CRT revolutionaries opened their counter-assault on the parents. At a governmental debate in Virginia on September 28, former governor and current Democrat candidate Terry McAuliffe said that parents have no right to interfere with school curriculum.

“I’m not going to let parents come into schools and actually take books out and make their own decisions,” he said, adding, “I don’t think parents should be telling schools what they should teach.”

The next day, the National School Boards Association shot off a letter to Biden asking him to direct his administration to treat the protesting parents as “domestic terrorists.”

And this week, Attorney General Merrick Garland issued a memo to the FBI Director and federal prosecutors effectively ordering them to fulfill the NSBA’s request.

Garland’s memo was directed at parents, no less than to federal law enforcement officials. And his message was clear: If you object to CRT indoctrination in the classroom, the federal government will treat you like terrorists. You will lose everything. Under the circumstances, how many parents will be willing to continue the fight for their children’s American souls?

Conclusion

This brings us back to the student at George Mason. The anti-American, anti-Semitic, anti-Israeli lies she propounded to Harris were not her lies. They were the lies she has been taught by the CRT revolutionaries in the classroom. They taught her that the U.S. was born not in liberty, but in slavery, racism, and genocide. She has been taught that the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, the Civil War, and the Civil Rights Act were all fig leaves behind which the true venality of America operates and carries out its oppressive, genocidal, and racist machinations. There is no forgiveness for America’s crimes. Only the revolution, which will “fundamentally transform the United States” can fix what is ailing Uncle Sam.

Likewise, the Jewish state, America’s mini-me, can only be redeemed when the “colonialist Jewish settlers” and their “genocidal,” “apartheid” Jewish regime are kicked out of “Palestine.”

Consistent polling data show that between two-thirds and three-quarters of Americans oppose the inclusion of CRT in school curricula. But the revolutionaries don’t care. With the FBI, the U.S. attorneys, the President, and the Vice President on their side, the revolutionaries don’t need the public’s approval. They have the full force of the federal government behind their efforts.

No, Americans are not losing their liberty to invading armies from China or Russia, or even to terrorists from al Qaeda. Those enemies are all sitting on the side, eating popcorn and watching as the combined force of CRT revolutionaries and the federal government trample the rights and freedoms that have defined America since its founding, in favor of “their voice, their perspective, their experience, and their truth.”

Our Response

Who initiated all these lies? It is none other than the father of lies himself, Satan, whose entire existence is to steal, kill and destroy, and is now intent on stealing, killing, and destroying America’s great heritage.

Are Americans losing their freedom? Not if the body of born-again believers, with authority and power endowed from the Holy Spirit stands in the gap in prevailing prayer. Yeshua said that He gave us life, and more abundantly. However, it is a spiritual battle. As it is written in Ephesians 6:12, we wrestle not against flesh and blood but against rulers and against principalities and cosmic powers over this present darkness, and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places. It is critical that the church now take up her spiritual weapons in combat.

Can America prevent her loss of freedom? Yes, if the Church unites in prayer to God, for nothing is impossible with Him. In the name of Yeshua/Jesus, we already have the victory, He has overcome the world. In Him, we are more than conquerors. Hallelujah.

Let us pray fervently, with the power and authority He gave us. Pray for the salvation of America and Israel.

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.

Terror Strikes Israel

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

When Israel withdrew from Gaza in 2005, Israelis left their homes, greenhouses, and farms intact. Immediately, the Palestinians entered and destroyed everything. And as soon as Hamas took control by force in 2007, they spent all international monies donated to them on rockets, ammunition and building tunnels.

Hamas terrorizes Israel by firing thousands of rockets indiscriminately into southern Israeli cities and villages. They even use their own citizens as human shields and store rockets near or even inside hospitals, mosques, and schools. They fire rockets from residential areas and civilian facilities and dig tunnels from beneath homes and civilian institutions.

Despite the terror attacks, and for humanitarian considerations, Israel continues to supply electricity and water to the Palestinian people. Thousands of truckloads of supplies of meat, vegetables, canned food, milk products medical and school supplies and more from Israel have crossed into Gaza for consumption and use by the citizens.

Hamas could have decided to improve the economy and offer Palestinians a better life. Instead, it has focused only on attacking Israel and maintaining its goal of “return” to Palestine (the entire land of Israel) and the destruction of the Jewish state.

Hamas concentrated on building tunnels: Tunnels to Egypt brought consumer goods, fuel and, of course, weaponry; tunnels into Israel were to kidnap or kill Israelis and infiltrate Israeli territory. However, Egypt has closed the tunnels, and Israel has developed high-tech capabilities to detect and destroy them.

In the last eight months, Hamas has mobilized thousands of Gazan civilians on the border fences along with its own armed men; carrying grenades, guns, and other weapons. The goal is obviously to enter Israel, in order to kill and destroy as much as possible. With Israeli soldiers defending the border, all are pushed back, except for a few who are caught and arrested. Several who cut through the wire fence were shot, killed or wounded. Despite all this, every Friday, after their prayers, Hamas calls its citizens to storm the border fence by the thousands. Unfortunately, they were able to destroy Israeli border fields, trees, and livestock with fire.

If only Hamas would stop using its citizens in their fight against Israel; if only they understood that their dream of destroying Israel and taking over the land is a fantasy that will never come true. If only they would concentrate on economic recovery rather than building tunnels and amassing Iranian rockets and missiles. If only they would cooperate with Fatah and put away their arms. If only they would recognize Israel’s right to the land. Then there would be peace and quiet.

Should Israel topple Hamas and then leave? There is a real risk that either an ISIS affiliate or Islamic Jihad would take over. Both are much more militant than Hamas, and things would get worse. War with Hamas, who uses its own people as human shields, would cause many civilian casualties, including women and children. The ensuing global anti-Israel outcry would seriously hinder present Israeli diplomatic efforts for support against Iran. This would obviously be most sorrowful, especially in light of Israel’s new relations with Sunni moderate Arab nations, such as Saudi Arabia and the Gulf nations, who oppose Iran.

For these reasons, Netanyahu agreed to the cease-fire, hoping that the Egyptians will help Israel achieve quiet at least for a bit longer.

Hamas

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“The Peaceful Demonstration”

The world is in an uproar over the sixty Palestinians from Gaza who died on the border of Israel. Most of them, however, were Hamas and Islamic Jihad terrorists. The world protests the excessive use of force by Israel. “Hamas placed many women at the front in an effort to make it difficult for us to deal with terror targets. That’s the most significant level of violence we have seen since the start of the protests.” Said an Israeli army spokesman. Gaza’s terrorist rulers make no secret of their agenda. They are out to destroy Israel. Suicide bombers, rockets, and tunnels have failed. So now its mass marches on the border with their weapons of human shields.

Hamas Incitement
Hamas Incitement

One of their leaders said it very clearly: “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.”

”Hamas’ control of the events is evident in its ‎blatant incitement to violence, its calls on Gazans to arrive at the border, it has control over events taking place near the security fence. These acts prove that Hamas has abandoned all of its restraints and it is openly acting to intensify riots and violence on the border,” the Israeli army Spokesperson’s Unit said in a statement.

”The IDF is prepared for a variety of scenarios and is determined to defend Israel’s sovereignty and the Israeli public. We will not allow security infrastructure to be compromised and we will neutralize anyone seeking to undermine Israel’s security,” the statement said.

Who is Hamas

Hamas is a violent Islamist anti-Semitic terror group that seeks to destroy Israel. 7 countries have classified Hamas as a terrorist organization. Israel and “The Quartet on the Middle East” (US, Russia, UN, EU) imposed economic sanctions on Hamas and Gaza, including the cessation of foreign aid to the Palestinian government, and restrictions on movement, imposed by Israel. In order to lift these economic sanctions and movement restrictions, Hamas must: renounce violence against Israel, recognize Israel, and honor all previous agreements between Israel and the Palestinian Authority. Following the Battle of Gaza in June 2007 in which Hamas violently took control of Gaza from Mahmoud Abbas’s Fatah (and even killed some of them, driving the rest out of Gaza), two years after Israel withdrew its military and civilian presence from the Strip, both Israel and Egypt heavily tightened their respective border crossings, creating a “blockade”, including a naval blockade. So far Hamas has not abided by the conditions, and the blockade is still in place. Hamas declared continually that the land of Palestine (not recognizing Israel’s right to the land) is their land, and they will not stop fighting until they take the land back from “the occupiers” (the Jews).

Humanitarian Crisis

Although Israel has tolerated many months of rocket attacks from Gaza on its cities, the international outcry from the United Nations as well as worldwide media has focused almost entirely on the Palestinian plight in Gaza, which they assume to be a result of Israel’s actions. The international media portrays the residents of the Gaza strip as poverty-stricken, malnourished and scared. They claim that there is a humanitarian crisis going on in Gaza. All of these things are true, but they are the result of the actions of the Hamas leadership.

Israel unilaterally withdrew from the Gaza Strip to the pre-1967 lines in 2005. It uprooted thousands of Israeli settlers from their homes. It dismantled all military infrastructure in the Strip. Israel has no physical presence there. It makes no territorial claims there.

Despite the terror onslaught, Israel continues to supply electricity and water to the Palestinian people, and these plants are sometimes hit by the rockets fired by Hamas from within the Gaza Strip, cutting power to thousands. Since the beginning of 2013, over 20,000 truckloads of supplies from Israel have crossed into Gaza for consumption and use by the citizens. These supplies include meat, vegetables, canned foods, milk products, medical supplies, fuel, water, medical equipment, livestock and pet food, school supplies, and cosmetic products. The Palestinian Authority accused Hamas of stealing thousands of liters of fuel from local Gazan companies and then telling the media that there is a fuel shortage. Fatah members also claim that Hamas is lying about the fuel shortage “crisis” for propagandistic reasons.

Israel says the blockade is vital to prevent Hamas from importing weaponry and other means of materials for attacking Israel. Even so, Hamas was able to smuggle weapons into Gaza through tunnels.

Weapons and Rockets and Blockade

Having attempted to terrorize Israel into capitulation with its strategic onslaught of suicide bombers in the Second Intifada, Hamas has, since grabbing hold of Gaza, continued its efforts to terrorize Israel by firing thousands upon thousands of rockets indiscriminately across the border. Hamas has cynically and relentlessly exploited Gazans — a large number of whom have supported it in elections — by storing its rockets near or even inside mosques and schools, firing rockets from residential areas, and digging tunnels from beneath homes and civilian institutions. It has subverted all materials that can be utilized for the manufacture of weaponry, necessitating a stringent Israeli security blockade whose main victims are ordinary Gazans.

Human Shields

With the Iron Dome Israel invented, and high-tech capability to detect and destroy tunnels Hamas dug in order to infiltrate Israel to kill and kidnap soldiers, Hamas has no other means to attack but to use their people as human shields, willing to “pay any price” necessary to carry out their plans of destruction.

Hamas has gone to great lengths to bring more people to the “fence protests.” Israeli Defense officials said Hamas was offering Palestinian families in the Gaza Strip $100 if all family members took part in the protests. The terror group also offered Gazans transportation to the fence area and to the different points of friction.

Organizing and encouraging mass demonstrations at the border in the so-called “March of Return” to face off against Israeli troops, while branding the campaign non-violent, is merely the latest iteration of Hamas’s cynical use of Gazans as the human shields for its aggression.

Demographic Warfare

Palestinians are the only refugees who kept their status as such for generations. Their demand of a “right of return” to Israel for tens of thousands of Palestinian refugees and their millions of descendants is nothing less than a call for the destruction of Israel by demographic means. No Israeli government could accept this demand since it would spell the end of Israel as a Jewish-majority state.

On April 6, the Hamas political leader, Yahya Sinwar, stated: ‘We will take down the border [with Israel] and we will tear their hearts from their bodies.’ On Facebook, Hamas posted maps for their operatives showing the quickest routes from the border with Israel to Israelis’ homes, schools, and day-care centers near the border. Israel Defense Forces had precise intelligence that the violent riots were masking a plan of mass infiltration into Israel in order to carry out a massacre against Israeli civilians. Hamas called it a ‘peaceful protest,’ and much of the world simply fell for it.

Hamas’s Gaza chief Yahya Sinwar setting out the ultimate goal to Gazans at the border on Friday, “The March of Return will continue… until we remove this transient border.” The protests “mark the beginning of a new phase in the Palestinian national struggle on the road to liberation and ‘return’… Our people can’t give up one inch of the land of Palestine.”

The US Embassy

Israel’s Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman posted on Twitter on Monday, June 14, “Few are the moments in a nation’s life like the one when the world’s greatest power recognizes our sovereignty on our capital, Jerusalem.
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”We are ready to counter Hamas’ threats to disrupt our celebrations. I advise the residents of Gaza: Do not be fooled by [Hamas military leader Yahya] Sinwar, who sends your children to sacrifice their lives for nothing. We will defend the [Israeli] people with all the means at our disposal. We will not allow anyone to breach the border.”

Since the day before, the IDF has been dropping warning leaflets into Gaza, urging residents to stay away from the security fence and stressing that any attempt to breach the border will be met with force.

“The Israel Defense Forces had precise intelligence that the violent riots were masking a plan of mass infiltration into Israel in order to carry out a massacre against Israeli civilians. Hamas called it a ‘peaceful protest,’ and much of the world simply fell for it,” Several dozens to several hundred, depending on the week, tried to damage and break through the security fence. A few succeeded, but were quickly turned back by Israeli troops. Some weeks have also seen direct armed clashes between Israeli forces and Palestinians armed with guns or explosives.

In response, the Israeli military used tear gas, rubber bullets and live rounds, which the army says were fired in accordance with its rules of engagement and always with the approval of a commander. In the past eight weeks, thousands of Palestinians have been wounded by live ammunition and over 100 have been killed, according to the Hamas-run Gaza health ministry.

International Outrage

The deaths of over 60 Palestinians during last week’s violent protests were met with international outrage and calls for an independent investigation of events. The UN’s Human Rights Council on Friday ordered a probe, and a resolution prepared by Kuwait for the UN Security Council urges the deployment of an international force to protect Gazans. Hamas has subsequently admitted that 50 of the dead were members of the terror group. Three others were Islamic Jihad members.

Former Grand Mufti of Lebanon Video
Former Grand Mufti of Lebanon – Watch Video

Sheikh Mohammed Rashid Qabbani, former Grand Mufti of Lebanon, urged Muslims from the pulpit on May 16 to wage a jihad, to liberate Palestine from the foreign Israeli occupation. He decreed: “This is in accordance with the Islamic legal decree that Palestine and Jerusalem constitute Arab land throughout history, in the present, and in the future. The Al Aksa Mosque is the third holiest place, after Mecca and Medina. I reiterate therefore this religious legal law that Palestine is historical Islamic Arab land. It was occupied by the Zionist Jews of the Balfour Declaration, who immigrated to Israel from all countries of the world on May 14, 1948. The liberation of Palestine is an Islamic duty of the Palestinian people and the countries of the Arabs and the Muslims. They are forbidden to surrender, to reconcile, to make peace treaties, and to concede to a piece of Arab Palestinian land to the foreign Jewish occupation.

Mahmoud Al-Zahar, a co-founder of Hamas - Video
Mahmoud Al-Zahar, a co-founder of Hamas, Turkey – Watch Video

On May 13, Mahmoud Al-Zahar, a co-founder of Hamas, said in an interview with Al Jazeera: ‘When we talk about ‘peaceful resistance,’ we are deceiving the public”.

“A senior Hamas leader, Salah Bardawil, said in a May 16 interview with a Palestinian TV station: ‘In the last round of confrontations, if 62 people were martyred, 50 of them were Hamas,’” the general wrote.

There are daily attempts by Gaza to infiltrate to Israel, and shoot at Israeli border soldiers. IDF fighter jets and tanks attacked Hamas targets in a training camp in Jabalia, in the northern Gaza Strip, following earlier attempts to plant an explosive device on the fence and gunfire at soldiers. The IDF also killed the three terrorists who tried to plant the explosive in the Rafah area. Hamas placed many women at the front in an effort to make it difficult for us to deal with terror targets. That’s the most significant level of violence we have seen since the start of the protests.”

And that is what is happening on the ground in Gaza. …

As Bible believers, followers of Messiah Yeshua/Jesus, we understand that the battle is not against flesh and blood but against powers of darkness (Eph 6:12). We are called to pray and intercede according to God’s will and share the truth. Remembering that Israel can be looked at as the prophetic clock showing us the times we are living at according to the Bible.