Abbas: Hamas plot against PA threatens unity govt

[OriZ 3,157]

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas replied to Shin Bet claims Monday, that Hamas was responsible for attempts to incite a third intifada in the West Bank and topple the Palestinians Authority government, saying that he was following the reports with great concern.

Abbas warned that the developing information posed a serious threat to the future of the Palestinian Unity government. In his statement, the Palestinian leader repeatedly stressed the name Hamas to more severly highlight the organization behind the foiled attempt some are calling a coup.

The Shin Bet revealed earlier that the investigation of 93 Hamas activists arrested across the West Bank in recent months revealed that they participated in planning a series of mass attacks on Israeli targets – with a focus on violence in the Temple Mount compound – in order to instigate a third intifada.

The plan called for using the intifada as cover to seize rule in Ramallah, which would have been led by the "Mohammed Deif of the West Bank" who currently operates out of Turkey.

More than 70 indictments were served in recent days at military tribunals in the West Bank, and they expose the largest coordination effort Hamas has attempted in the area since Operation Defensive Shield more than a decade ago.

Under the framework of the planned operation, terror cells were created in 46 Palestinian towns and villages – in Jenin, Nablus, East Jerusalem, Ramallah, and Hebron.

Weapons discovered in the house of a Hamas operative in the West Bank.

The infrastructure for the operation was exposed in May, along with the identity of its leader, Hamas operations officer Saleh al-Arouri, who remains in Turkey, according to the Shin Bet.

Ynet was told that in recent months there was an active movement of Hamas activists arriving to Hebron from abroad. These operatives were known to security forces to be loyal to al-Arouri.

The operatives were assisted by Jordanian couriers, who transferred $600,000 – $50,000 in each border run. The funds were moved through Turkey and Jordan and were intended to purchase vehicles and safe-houses.

The Shin Bet confiscated the cash, as well as 24 M-16 rifles (not of Israeli manufacture), six handguns, and seven missile launchers, magazines, and loads of ammunition.

Money that was transferred to the West Bank.

Al-Arouri was released from Israeli prison several years ago; he was one of the Hamas officials involved in the negotiations for the release of captured IDF soldier Gilad Shalit. In recent years sources in the security establishment have named him as the source shaping terror operations against Israelis in the West Bank.

At the head of the military infrastructure in the West Bank stood Riyad Nasser, who was arrested several months ago – but whose interrogation only started in the summer after terminated his hunger strike.

Palestinian engineering and chemistry students were recruited for the operation. One of the most notable detainees holds a doctorate in computer science – he was recuited in Malaysia and trained in encryption and cyber-attacks.

"The discovery of the infrastructure attests to the great danger posed by Hamas' headquarters abroad given its strategic plan to collapse the Palestinian Authority," said the Shin Bet.

"Khaled Mashal was aware of this and the Turkish government knew about the operations emanating from its territory. The PA's security forces received updates about the investigation. Hamas' plan was the same as its seizure of the Strip in 2007. Al-Arouri is the Mohammed Deif of the West Bank."

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4560000,00.html

See Karee, this is exactly what I was talking about when I said it's mutual - Abbas needs and benefits from Israel just as much as Israel needs his help and cooperation and benefits from it. Without Israel in that region where regimes topple on left and right - his west bank would look kind of like...you know, Syria, Egypt, etc...He needs stability and Israel provides it for him.

[OriZ 3,157]

On the way to a deal?

Sources in Jerusalem said late Monday night that Israel had coordinated with the US to define the details of a future permanent accord with Hamas.

The sources claimed that US Secretary of State John Kerry is expected to arrive in Israel next week in a show of support for Israel and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and in order to demonstrate that the two allies' relationship is not in crisis.

The same sources added that Israel and the US secretly decided that Israel will agree to a gradual lifting of the blockade on Gaza Strip, starting with the land crossings and eventually opening up sea traffic.

Govt. sources claim that John Kerry helped reach a series of agreements with Benjamin Netanyahu to slowly lift the Gaza blockade. (Photo: Motti Milrod)

Under the agreement, Israeli will not oppose the transfer of salaries to Hamas civil workers in Gaza and will allow for the rehabilitation of the Strip with the use of international assistance.

The issue of the Strip's demilitarization, which Israel demanded during Operation Protective Edge, will most likely not be included in the accord developing in Cairo, though the US will support the Israeli demand for the prevention of Hamas and other terror organization's efforts to rearm. Israel said it would actively work to promote the issue on the international arena.

Though there has been no official American confirmation of the agreement, according to Israeli officials Kerry and Netanyahu will announce in a joint statement that the ties between the two countries are strong, and that the disagreements between them are only on certain points.

The statement would reiterate America's commitment to Israel's right to defend itself and to prevent rocket fire from Gaza towards Israel.

Meanwhile, a senior political source told Ynet on Monday night that the US has agreed to take part in an international donor conference on the rehabilitation of Gaza.

Senior Israeli sources have already been working with the Americans on the issue; in the coming days intensive diplomatic efforts are expected to occur in Israel and in Europe to assure the conference takes place.

Meanwhile, Israel announced late Monday night that it had agreed to extend a temporary truce in Gaza for 24 hours while – at Egypt's request – it continued to negotiate a permanent agreement with the Palestinian delegation in Cairo.

In a statement, Egypt confirmed a deal had not been reached but that talks on a long-term arrangement in Gaza Strip would continue.

"Palestinians and Israelis agreed on extending ceasefire to 24 hours to continue current negotiations," Egypt's official news agency said, quoting an official statement.

"The delegation in Cairo represents all of us. We will not renew fire given the announcement of a 24-hour ceasefire extension," said a spokesman for the military wing of the Popular Resistance Committees – which had earlier declared it would resume rocket fire if an official agreement was not announced.

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4560083,00.html

[OriZ 3,157]

The novelist Rebecca West once said that Jews, having suffered so much, had an “unsurprisable soul”, In 2000 our daughter, then a university student, attended an anti-globalisation rally in London that turned into a tirade against America, then Israel and finally Jews. “Dad, they hate us,” she said through her tears. Hearing those words in Britain in the 21st century showed me that I had a surprisable soul.

Jews in Europe have been shaken these past few weeks by the virulence of the demonstrations about the war in Gaza that also turned into something older and darker. More than a century after the Dreyfus trial the cry of “death to the Jews” has been heard again in the streets of Paris. Seventy years after the Holocaust, “gas the Jews” has been heard again in Germany. In Britain last month antisemitic incidents were at almost their highest level in 30 years. These are danger signals not just for Jews but for Europe.

After our daughter’s experience I saw events move rapidly. In August 2001 at the UN international conference against racism in Durban, Israel was accused by NGOs of the five cardinal sins against human rights: racism, apartheid, ethnic cleansing, attempted genocide and crimes against humanity. A new blood libel was born. Days later came 9/11, and almost immediately an opinion poll found that 40 per cent of Pakistanis believed it was carried out by Mossad, Israel’s secret service.

The new antisemitism is different from the old. In the past Jews were hated for their religion, then for their race. Today they are hated for their nation state. But it was not long before I saw how seamlessly the old and new hatreds meshed.

In April 2002 our family was in Italy celebrating Passover, which usually falls close to Easter. In Israel a group of Palestinian terrorists had taken refuge in the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem. The Israeli army, not wishing to enter a house of worship, stationed soldiers outside to wait until the terrorists emerged. It took several weeks. One day we opened the Italian newspaper La Stampa and saw a cartoon of the infant Jesus in a crib with an Israeli tank pointing at the child. The caption read: “Surely they don’t want to kill me again?!”

Weeks later the Catholic Herald in Britain published an apology about its reporting of the event. Initially it had criticised the Israelis. However, once the terrorists had left, Christians returned to the church to discover they had torn up bibles, stolen all religious artefacts of value and hidden 40 bombs, some booby-trapped, to kill or injure those who had given them refuge. The paper admitted that it had misjudged the situation.

It has been this rush to judgment, the assumption that if people are killed it is Israel’s fault, that convinces many of us that something other than the normal passions of politics is at work. In the 12 years since, the situation has become steadily worse. Criticism of Israel is not antisemitism, but demonisation is.

This matters because antisemitism is not really about Jews. It is about how societies treat the Other, the one-not-like-us. For more than 1,000 years Jews were the most conspicuous non-Christian presence in Europe. Today they are the most prominent non-Muslim presence in the Middle East. Jews were hated because they were different. But it is our difference that constitutes our humanity. Because none of us is the same as another, each of us is irreplaceable. A nation that has no room for difference has no room for humanity.

The hate that begins with Jews never ends with Jews. It was not Jews alone who suffered under Hitler and Stalin, nor is it Jews alone suffering from the ruthless pursuit of power that today masquerades as religion. Christians are under assault in more than a hundred countries: put to flight in Syria, driven out of Mosul, removed from Afghanistan, butchered, beheaded and terrorised elsewhere. Hundreds of Muslims are dying daily, 90 per cent at the hands of fellow Muslims. Bahais, Buddhists, Hindus and Sikhs have all suffered their own tragedies. Yazidis are on the brink of the abyss. The world is awash with hate across religious divides.

The West misread the 21st century. This is not an age of secular ideologies. It is an era of desecularisation. Our greatest challenge is not political or economic or military. It is in the deepest sense spiritual. No one expected this and we have not been equal to it. What rescued Europe from its last age of religious wars, in the 17th century, was not weapons but ideas: those of Milton, Hobbes, Spinoza and Locke that laid the foundations for religious liberty and the free society. Thus far the 21st century has been marked by an unprecedented series of new technologies, but no new ideas.

That is the challenge of our time and it will take a generation. First, we must stand together in defence of religious liberty and the scandalously neglected Article 18 of the UN universal declaration of human rights. People have the right to practise their faith, or lack of it, without fear. But without determined action on the part of the West it will not happen.

Second, we need a commitment by leaders of all the great faiths to work to ensure the rights of religious minorities in every part of the world where they have an influence. None of us will win if we work alone: not Jews, not Christians, not Muslims. The victim cannot cure the crime.

There is serious spiritual work to be done. The 17th century curbed religious conflict by depriving faith of power. That does not work in an age where religious extremists are seizing power. Here we need theological courage. The historic danger in monotheism has been the willingness of believers to divide humanity into the redeemed against the infidel.

To guard against this, Genesis 1, common to Judaism, Christianity and Islam, says that every human being, regardless of colour, class or creed, is in the image of God. Our shared humanity takes precedence over our religious differences. Until we are prepared to take this seriously, people will continue to kill in the name of the God of life and practise cruelty in the name of the God of compassion. And God himself will weep.

http://www.rabbisacks.org/hate-starts-jews-never-ends-published-times/

Edited August 19, 2014 by OriZ

[OriZ 3,157]

Whoopsies.

A photograph has emerged of UK Consul General to Jerusalem Alastair McPhail wearing a keffiyeh scarf that bears the image of a Palestinian flag superimposed over a map of the whole of Israel, West Bank and Gaza, with the words "Free Palestine" emblazoned next to it.

The image appears on the Islamic Relief Palestine website, under the headline "British Consulate visits Islamic Relief in Gaza", and was taken during a visit McPhail paid earlier this year to Gaza City for the opening of a new lab at Al-Azhar University, a project apparently co-sponsored by the British government.

The design of the scarf appears to advocate the destruction of Israel and the creation of a Palestinian state in its stead.

Right-wing website Breitbart reported Monday that it had contacted the British Foreign Office about the issue, but the FO refused to refer directly to the image. The query, Breitbart said, "was met with a pro-forma response about the two-state solution, largely ignoring our line of questioning about the appropriateness of the scarf."

British Consul General Alastair McPhail, left, wearing the scarf (Photo: Islamic Relief Palestine)

The British government has long been a staunch supporter of Israel, with Prime Minister David Cameron in London to remove all of its kosher produce in order to avoid a confrontation with pro-Palestinian protesters was met with outrage and drew a quick apology from the supermarket chain.

McPhail has been serving in Jerusalem since January. In July 2011, he became Britain's first official ambassador to the new country of South Sudan, after having previously served there as consul general.

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4560298,00.html

Edited August 19, 2014 by OriZ

[OriZ 3,157]

Three Grad rockets fired from the Gaza Strip fell near Be'er Sheva and Netivot on Tuesday afternoon, breaking a ceasefire set to expire at midnight. The IDF responded by hitting different targets in the Gaza Strip.

Later, at 6:38pm, rockets were fired at Netivot and the Sdot Negev Regional Council. Two of the rockets were intercepted over Netivot while one fell in an open area in Sdot Negev.

Rockets intercepted over Netivot (Photo: Sdot Negev Spokesman's Office)

According to reports, the IDF attacked control and command sites in agricultural near Beit Lahiya, in Al-Zaytun neighborhood in Gaza City and in the Maghazi refugee camp. There were also reports of artillery fire in the northern Gaza Strip. Later reports were of IDF strikes in open areas in the center and north of the Strip, as well as a post of one of the military factions in Rafah.

A Gaza health official said two children were moderately wounded in an IDF strike east of Rafah, near Dahaniya.

IAF strikes targets in the northern Gaza Strip (Photo: AP)

Even before the rocket fire, the Associated Press quoted Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhoum, who hinted of more rocket fire, saying: "If Netanyahu doesn't understand ... the language of politics in Cairo, we know how to make him understand."

The rocket attack came

In a statement, the IDF said it was attacking targets throughout the Strip, and said it was "ready to continue and work to secure the residents of Israel." Palestinians said that the Strip was sustaining IDF fire from both sea and air.

"In response to the breach in the ceasefire by Hamas, the prime minister and defense minister have ordered the IDF to hit terror targets in Gaza," an official within the Prime Minister's Office said.

Local residents in Gaza said they saw militants attempt to fire rockets, and afterwards Israelis living near northern Gaza and the Be'er Sheva region said they heard a number of blasts.

Eyewitnesses in Gaza further said scores of people flocked to UN shelters, anticipating heavy IDF response fire on Gaza. Another report said movement on the streets in the Strip has decreased since the rocket fire at Israel, likely due to the fear of IDF strikes.

While Palestinian sources expressed optimism that the fighting would not resume at midnight, Israeli officials continued to emphasize that the IDF was prepared to resume its operations.

"We are prepared for every scenario. The IDF has made arrangements for a forceful response if the fighting resumes. In the Middle East you need a combination of force and resilience. The IDF has the necessary force, and the 'eternal people' have proved they are not afraid of a winding road," said Netanyahu earlier Monday night.

He emphasized: "The combination of perseverance and fortitude will help us reach the aim of the operation – security and safety for all Israelis."

Shaky ceasefire

Last Thursday, in response to the breach in the ceasefire, Israeli fighter planes targeted "rocket launchers and terror sites" across the enclave later Thursday. No casualties were reported and hostilities died down by dawn Friday.

The second extension of the ceasefire, at the time for five days rather than three, has raised hopes that a longer-term resolution to the conflict can be found, although the way ahead remains fraught with difficulty.

A senior Hamas official who returned to Gaza from the negotiations in Cairo said they had been tough but expressed some optimism.

"There is still a real chance to clinch an agreement," Khalil al-Hayya told reporters, saying that it depended on Israel not "playing with language to void our demands".

"The Egyptian mediators are entering a good effort and we wish them success in this negotiation battle."

After more than a month of intense conflict, which killed over 2,000 Palestinians, many of them civilians, as well as 64 Israeli soldiers and three civilians in Israel, there is little appetite on either side for a resumption of bloodshed.

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4558497,00.html'>

Hamas and its allies want an end to the Israeli and Egyptian blockade on Gaza. But Israel and Egypt harbour deep security concerns about Hamas, the dominant Islamist group in the small, Mediterranean coastal enclave, complicating any deal on easing border restrictions.

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4560337,00.html

Are we shocked yet? According to my count that's the 7th time in less than 2 months.

[Expat1 971]

In America we are never surprised when locked up, starved, and oppressed people whose basic civil rights are violated on a daily basis try to fight their way free from those who oppress them.

Sometimes we are surprised at the lengths the oppressors will go to conceal, downplay, justify, and cover up their abuses.

[OriZ 3,157]

Said the person that wants to cut the cord from the only country in the ME that didn't hand out candy after 911 and the only country in the ME that doesn't burn American flags. Good thing most Americans aren't as loony.

[OriZ 3,157]

I didn't want to post this in the Isis thread because I thought that would be politicizing it and that thread should stay about the horrible situation in Iraq and Syria, unlike our little friend over here that keeps insisting on proving he doesn't know how to read already and had to go and bring a completely different topic and situation into that thread(which proves - btw - he only cares about people when Israel is killing them - whereas I care about all innocent human beings and genuinely feel terrible for the yazidis and the other minorities Isis is going after and think something should be done about it).

About 150 children from Arab countries and the Palestinian territories undergo heart surgery every year at the Wolfson Medical Center in Holon. The logistics of getting them in and out of Israel often present challenges, but rarely does it get this complicated.

That’s because 17-month-old Wisam and his father Khairi al-Shingali, members of the Yazidi minority in Iraq, have no home to return to.

Diagnosed with congenital heart disease when he was barely a month old, Wisam was brought to Israel in early June by Save a Child’s Heart, an Israeli humanitarian organization that provides free cardiac care to disadvantaged children from the developing world. On Sunday, he underwent a seven-hour long heart operation that his doctors have determined was successful.

But while Wisam’s life was being saved, a great tragedy was unfolding back home. Fearing for their lives, his mother, two older sisters and three-month-old twin brothers earlier this month fled their home in Sinjar, a town west of Mosul, after it was captured by Islamic State militants. The Yazidis, who practice their own secret religion and live predominantly in northern Iraq, have been a key target of the Islamic extremists who are determined to cleanse the region of non-Muslims.

“My wife woke up at 4 in the morning, and together with my brother and his family, she walked for four hours until she reached Syria,” recounts Khairi, speaking Arabic through an interpreter. “From there, they were transported back to the Kurdish area of Iraq, where my in-laws live. For days, I couldn’t communicate with her because the Internet was down, but I spoke to her yesterday on the phone, and she told me it was a miracle they survived.”

His wife and other family members were joined by thousands of other desperate Sinjar residents in their long trek to Kurdish territory in Syria. But tens of thousands of others fled into the surrounding mountains, only to find themselves trapped without food or water or proper medical care. Many have since died of dehydration and heat.

Dressed in a plaid shirt and brown pants, Khairi sits cross-legged on a hospital bed in the children’s ward as he waits to be admitted to the intensive care unit where little Wisam is in recovery. If anything lifts his spirits these days, he says, it’s knowing that his little boy can now breathe on his own. “Yesterday when I saw him, after they took him off the respirator, he opened his eyes and tried to talk to me,” relays Khairi, his eyes sparkling.

It was Wisam’s mother who first noticed a problem with the child’s breathing soon after he was born. A Kurdish specialist was the one who hooked the family up with Save a Child’s Heart, an organization founded in 1995 in partnership with physicians at Wolfson, which has since treated 3,400 pediatric cardiac patients from 47 different countries. About half its patients come from Arab countries, the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

Having spent every hour of the past few days in the hospital, Khairi, 33, has managed to befriend a few other fathers in the same predicament. He chats avidly in Arabic with a man from Syria whose child recently underwent emergency heart surgery. Moving down the corridor, he spots a Kurdish father and son who are watching a clown perform, and after exchanging a few words of greeting with them, proceeds to the intensive care unit.

Lying in his hospital crib wearing just a diaper, little Wisam is hooked up to several monitors, his little body wrapped in tubes. His father bends over to kiss him gently on the head, breaking into tears as he mumbles reassuring words to the little boy. When Wisam begins to whimper, Khairi whips out his smartphone and shows him some cartoons on the screen. It appears to do the trick of distracting his son from his pain.

Stepping out for a cigarette break, Khairi reflects on the situation back home. Although the rest of the world may be shocked by the dire predicament of his fellow Yazidis, Khairi says he definitely is not. “We have been oppressed by the Islamic extremists for years,” he says. “Four times already, there have been attempts on my life by them. For them, we are considered like the Jews. They think we are devil worshippers.”

Considering the other close calls he’s experienced, living under rocket fire in Israel this past month, say Khairi, was no big deal. “I come from Iraq, so I know what missiles are and I’m not afraid of them.” Even before making this trip to Israel, he was aware of the wonders of the Iron Dome rocket interceptor system, which strengthened his conviction that there was little to fear.

For the past 10 years, Khairi has worked as a police officer and in 2005, completed a special training course in Jordan. Was he concerned about possible repercussions from his trip to enemy territory? “In the beginning, I was told that if I went to Israel, I might not have a job to come back to,” he says. “But now, that’s not even an issue, since I don’t even have a home to go back to.”

Back in the intensive care unit, Khairi is determined to meet the surgeon who operated on his son. A social worker beckons Dr. Lior Sasson, and Khairi throws his arms around the pediatric cardiologist – ironically, of Iraqi descent as well – planting a huge kiss on his cheek. “We’re thrilled that he’s doing well,” says Sassoon. “We hope that he can go back to a place that is safe for him and his family.”

Khairi requests that they take a photograph together so that he can send it to his wife and family, and the Israeli surgeon is happy to oblige.

http://www.haaretz.com/news/national/.premium-1.610179

The SACH mission is achieved in three ways:

• Providing life-saving cardiac surgery and other life-saving procedures for children from developing countries at the Wolfson Medical Center in Holon, Israel, near Tel Aviv;
• Providing an in-depth outreach post-graduate training program for medical personnel from these developing countries in Israel;
• Sending staff overseas to provide this education to local medical professionals, as well as to perform surgeries side-by-side with them.

As of the October of 2012, SACH has brought more than 3,200 children to Israel from countries that include Ethiopia, Vietnam, Jordan, Moldova, Tanzania, Russia, the Philippines, Nigeria, Ghana, Kenya, Angola, Iraq, Haiti, St. Vincent, Trinidad, Ecuador, Mauritania, Senegal, Côte d'Ivoire, Sierra Leone, Uganda, Congo,Zimbabwe, Zanzibar, Rwanda, Somalia, Eritrea, Sri Lanka, China, Kazakhstan, Romania, Ukraine, and Syria, as well as from Gaza and the West Bank (the Palestinian Territories). About half the patients treated over the years are Arabs from the West Bank, Gaza and Iraq, and the other half from the other countries listed. In December 2010 the first child from Indonesia was brought to Israel by SACH and underwent successful surgery in January 2011.

Medical personnel who have trained with SACH in Israel have come from China, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Moldova, Nigeria, Vietnam and Zanzibar, as well as from the Palestinian Authority. SACH has instructed hundreds of physicians and nurses during 60 medical missions to China, Congo, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Jordan, Mauritania, Moldova, Nigeria, Russia, Ukraine, Vietnam and Zanzibar.

SACH's doctors and medical personnel completely volunteer their time and services for this project, with the only costs (about $10,000 US) used to provide post-surgical care at SACH’s Children’s Home in Israel for an average stay of about three months. Children are brought to Israel from their home country in groups of four to six, accompanied by a nurse or, if they are under age three, by a family member

Israel is such a horrid horrid place with such horrible people that it is helping people from ALL over the world - including Palestinians, Syrians, Iraqis get their medical care that they need for free - medical care Israelis would have to pay alot of money for. Shame on Israel. It's only the most humane place in that region.

[Jacque67 7,328]

Having fun OriZ?

I admire your #######!

Oh. Aussie slang is edited too- lol!

Edited August 20, 2014 by Jacque67

[OriZ 3,157]

Thanks but um, why would I need guts to post what I think?

And yes I'm having fun

[OriZ 3,157]

[OriZ 3,157]

One of the funniest responses to "boycott Israel" ever.

[Jacque67 7,328]

Thanks but um, why would I need guts to post what I think?

And yes I'm having fun

Oh. Nothing to with guts. I was talking about energy.

So does your wife have you locked up in a bunker or something??

Edited August 20, 2014 by Jacque67

[Trumplestiltskin 5,791]

Who is going to read all that?

[Jacque67 7,328]

Who is going to read all that?

No idea!