Root of the Conflict not Territorial

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Wednesday that an Israeli withdrawal would not bring peace with the Palestinians because the heart of the conflict was their refusal to recognise Israel as a Jewish state.

“You saw what happened when we left the Gaza Strip. We evacuated the last settlers and what did we get? Missiles,” he said of Israel’s withdrawal of all troops and settlers from the coastal enclave in 2005.

“The Palestinians’ lack of will to recognise the state of Israel as the national state of the Jewish people is the root of the conflict,” he said, in remarks communicated by a senior government source.

The Saudi-led proposal, which offers full diplomatic ties with the Arab world in exchange for Israel’s withdrawal from land occupied in 1967, now includes a reference to the principle of mutually agreed land swaps, in a move hailed by Washington as “a very big step forward.”

But Netanyahu has categorically ruled out any withdrawal to the “indefensible” 1967 lines, and on Wednesday said such a move would not solve the conflict, which was not about land but about “the very existence of a Jewish state,” the source said.

“If we reach a peace agreement I want to know that the conflict will not continue. That there won’t be any more Palestinian claims afterwards,” Netanyahu told the diplomats.

“The root of the conflict is Acre, Jaffa and Ashkelon and you need to say it. You don’t need to apologise. You need to say the truth,” he told them.

(The Saudi plan, with or without land swaps, is a trick to force Israel to take all the so-called refugees and their descendants. Item 1 is a “just solution” based on UN resolution 194, which requires all countries to take all the refugees who want to “return”. In other words, the idea is to turn Israel into another Arab state.)

Declaration of War or Prevention of Terror

Syria's Deputy Foreign Minister Faisal Mekdad said the strike at Syria overnight represented a "declaration of war" by Israel. He spoke in the wake of Israel’s renewed strikes against Iranian missiles bound for Hizballah and other targets around Damascus. Tehran condemned “Israeli aggression against Syria.” Russia Today claimed killed at least 300 members of the Syrian Army’s 501st Unit. This unit operates the chemical weapon facility at the foot of Mt. Qassioun north of Damascus.

Food for Thought by Steven Shamrak

More and more ordinary Europeans - Poles, Ukrainians, Russians etc - are mindlessly shouting “Heil Hitler” now! The hate for others, not just Jews, made them ignore the fact that not long ago Nazis killed millions of their own compatriots. How long will it take for governments to join them?

Hamas has No Plan for Peace with Israel

Hamas movement has rejected a revised Middle East peace initiative put forward by the Arab League. Arab states appeared to soften their 2002 peace plan, acknowledging that Israelis and Palestinians may have to swap land in any eventual peace deal. "The so-called new Arab initiative is rejected by our people, by our nation(?) and no one can accept it," Haniyeh, prime minister of the Hamas government in the coastal enclave, said. "The initiative contains numerous dangers to our people in the occupied land of 1967, 1948 and to our people in exile." He was referring to the partition of British-mandate Palestine in 1948 when the United Nations voted to divide the territory into a Jewish state and an Arab state. (Which Arabs rejected!)

Israel Strikes Syria while US ‘Considers’

Israel launched an airstrike into Syria. Israel has targeted weapons site in the past that it believes are being delivered to the Lebanon-based terror group Hezbollah. In 2007, Israeli jets bombed a suspected nuclear reactor site along the Euphrates River in north eastern Syria.

Arab Enemies in the Knesset

Member of Knesset Jamal Zahalka has refused to condemn the murder Tuesday of a young father-of-five. A terrorist stabbed actor Evyatar “Napo” Borovsky to death. When asked to condemn Tuesday’s attack, Zahalka instead addressed Israelis living in Judea and Samaria. “Get out of there. You’re thieves and criminals. You come to steal and to take what belongs to us…” (“to us“ - he admitted that he and all Arab-Israelis do not consider themselves members of Israeli society. It is time to recognise it and start working toward removal of this ‘cancer’ from Jewish land!)

Will She Receive a Life Sentence?

The United States has indicted a former State Department employee now living in Sweden with conspiracy to commit espionage for Cuba. Marta Rita Velazquez, 55, allegedly helped to "spot, assess and recruit US citizens" in sensitive national security positions to serve as Cuban intelligence agents. (Israeli spy did!)

As long as they are Killing Each Other

Hizballah’s elite Al Qods Brigade suffered a grinding defeat since intervening in the Syrian civil war on Monday, April 29. The Al Qods Brigade commander, known as “Abu Ajib” and his lieutenant Hamza Ramloush, were killed along with scores of combatants dead and wounded in a surprise ambush mounted by rebel militias reinforced by radical Salafists from Lebanon. They were newly armed with Grad rockets.

Return of the Temple Mount is a Good Step Forward

MK Moshe Feiglin (Likud-Beyteinu) wrote his party members "I have decided to suspend all of my parliamentary activity and deal with only one issue: The fact that the government has relinquished Israeli Temple Mount sovereignty to the Muslim WAKF. Catering to their threats of violence in case I set foot as an MK on the Mount, the government ordered the police to deny Moshe Feiglin the right to ascend to our most sacred (Jewish) site, abandoning our historic bond of heritage to the Temple Mount. This is an imperative national concern, not a personal crusade. I will do all I can to restore Israeli sovereignty to the Temple Mount."

Another Terrorist Gone

The IAF killed a senior terrorist in Gaza. Mishal, 25, was behind an attack two weeks ago in which rockets were fired at the city of Eilat. He was previously affiliated with the Salafim-Jahadim terrorist group, but in recent years had switched to working with a variety of terrorist groups, helping each with his knowledge of weapons.

Jahadism is without Borders

Italian police arrested four men, who are suspected of planning terrorist attacks in Italy, the US and Israel. One of the arrested men is a Tunisian former imam. The men aimed to train terrorists and send them to fight abroad, and are suspected of conspiracy to commit international terrorism and incite racial hatred.

The Biggest problem for Israel is International Bigotry

Google Replaces “Palestinian Territories” with “Palestine” on its search engine, giving recognition of the PA’s unilateral bid at the United Nations. The domain name www.google.ps now brings up a homepage with "Palestine" written underneath the Google logo.

Islamic Terrorism Supported by Muslim Population

As many as four in ten (40%) Muslims living in Afghanistan and PA controlled areas support the use of suicide bombing. In Egypt and Bangladesh support for terrorist actions is up to 29 per cent. The worldwide poll of Muslims by the Washington-based Pew Forum found that in most countries (only) three-quarters or more rejected suicide bombing and other forms of violence. (But, how many of them lied?)

Quote of the Week:

“Many people, especially ignorant people, want to punish you for speaking the truth, for being correct, for being you. Never apologize for being correct, or for being years ahead of your time. If you’re right and you know it, speak your mind. Speak your mind. Even if you are a minority of one, the truth is still the truth.” - Mohandas (Mahatma) Ghandi

Democracies Cannot Defeat Terrorism

by Maayana Miskin

The Academic College in Tzfat held a conference Monday on the subject, “The Limitations of Democracies War on Terrorism.”

Faculty member and terrorism expert Shimon Carmi explained that the way society reacts to terrorism affects the society itself, first and foremost.

States have more means of waging war at their disposal than do terrorist organizations, he said. However, states cannot fully defeat terrorism.

“The state wants to create a certain balance between upholding its democratic values - which do not discriminate between citizens based on ethnic or religious identity - and defending the state’s citizens and its values,” he said.

“That means we have to work intelligently. To hold a covert dialog with the other side - that is a cornerstone of coping with terrorism,” Carmi continued. “We need to learn from the other side in order to counteract it in the most effective, and most just, manner.”

“We need to do everything wisely, and not to overreact, because terrorism was, is, and will continue to be… It’s easy to use violence but in the war on terror we need to look forward - meaning less revenge, and more focus on our future security,” he said.

He looked to Israel’s neighbours, “In Syria, the Alawi minority is slaughtering its own people in the cities. It is attacking itself to purge the opposition. Do we want to be like Syria?”

“I’m not talking about solving the problem, but about decreasing it, turning down the flames,” he explained. “The nature of man is to be violent, there is violence in the streets and in our homes. A violent response is not necessarily the right answer.”

“Personally,” he added, “I see more importance in the fact that the state of Israel can produce seven or eight Nobel Prizes… That’s the direction we should take. Terrorism never dies, but when we, as the opponents of terrorist groups, prove that we are a better, more advanced society, more moral and ethical, we destroy many of their arguments.”