26-Feb-07: The Real Threat to Islam

Yehuda Litani, a journalist for the Yediot Aharonot newsmaker and a noted film-maker published this first-person insight into what motivates the leadership of Jerusalem's Islamic religious establishment, the Waqf.

Litani writes:

In the years 1992-3 the late King Hussein of Jordan financed the renovations of the golden dome, which was carried out by a construction company from Northern Ireland. On a visit to the site during those renovations I discovered a story that wasn’t known until then, regarding the Jewish-Ottoman-Palestinian connection to the mosques on Temple Mount.

The Dome of the Rock was surrounded with scaffolding, and before ascending one of them a friend of mine drew my attention to an iron panel that lay on the floor and was inscribed in French. The foreman of the Irish construction company said the panel had been found between the two halves of the crescents at on top of the mosque, and was temporarily dismantled so that the dome could be coated in gold.

The words in French revealed that the Mosque had been renovated in 1899 during Turkish rule, and that the works had been assisted by the Jewish community in Jerusalem led by a public figure called Avraham (Albert) Entebbe, who among his numerous other activities was also the principal of the city's "Kol Israel Haverim" school.

Entebbe, who was the undersigned on the French inscription, was known for his courageous ties with the heads of the Ottoman rule, and the inscription noted that for the purpose of renovating the mosques on the Temple Mount five acclaimed Jewish artists had been invited to Jerusalem. The Jewish stone carvers, wood carvers and iron mongers from various cities in the Mediterranean basin, shared their skills with their Muslim brothers during months of work.

The inscription also noted that all the students at Entebbe's school were given a three-month leave in order to assist their Muslim brothers in the renovations works on Temple Mount. In the last lines of the inscription, Entebbe described the ideal cooperation and understanding that prevailed between Jews and Muslims in the Holy City, which reached its zenith when the Jews undertook renovations of the Temple Mount mosques in 1899.

I told the Irish foreman about my discovery, and asked him to look after the iron panel so that I could take a photograph of it. The foreman apparently told Waqf representatives about the panel, and when we came back to the site the next day the panel was no longer there. The foreman said the Waqf had taken it away. When I asked one of them a few days later where the iron panel was, he said that he didn’t know what I was talking about.

The iron panel, which told the story of the wonderful cooperation between the Jews and Muslims under Turkish rule, disappeared. There is no chance of it reappearing in the future, because it doesn't serve the Waqf's current interests. Yet at a time of harsh words and hatred it's rather nice to reminisce on days gone by.

Appalling. And the sort of analysis we will never see in the brand-name media, but that, if we did, would help our friends and neighbours make better sense of what goes on in this part of the world.

25-Feb-07: Why Don't They Tell Us About Thwarted Palestinian Murder Attacks?

The depressingly familiar media distortions and agenda-driven reporting of events in our neighborhood continue to keep us furious.

Most people we spoke with during the last few days (not only here in Jerusalem but also in Paris where we had to be for some work-related meetings this week) seem to have no idea Palestinian Arab terror continues to be a central feature of Israeli lives.

TV and newspaper reports we saw in Europe and here in Israel are largely focused on Abbas smilingly wanly at the cameras while Hamas steamrollers ahead unhindered with its Iranian/Syrian-sponsored offensive, and on the US secretary of state receiving the usual kindergarten lesson from the Pal-Arab ruiling junta on how and why things never get better in this part of the world.

For those who get their information from the brand-name news sources, here's some information you probably didn't see or hear. It's about the massive terror attack of last week in Tel-Aviv. The one that, thanks to active counter-measures and divine intervention, never happened.

Four days ago, on February 20th 2007, a Palestinian Arab man exited the village of Jalboun, near Jenin in the northern Samaria district, and headed off in the direction of the Tel-Aviv area. The police say he had a backpack containing a large quantity of instruments of death, mainly explosives. As far as they can tell, his plan was to go to a central bus station - one of the many in the Tel-Aviv area - or a shopping mall - ditto - and meet his 72 virgins by means of a massive act of murder and self-mutiliation. In other words, precisely the sort of action that the current political leadership of the Pal-Arabs praises constantly.

It seems he got as far as Rishon Letzion, one of Tel-Aviv's southern suburbs by the early afternoon. Something then happened, possibly a technical fault. As a result, he threw his bombs into a public garbage dumpster and headed off to an apartment in Bat Yam, another suburb of Tel-Aviv, where he was evidently assured of some shelter and protection. No details of who or why or where have been released at this stage. He was arrested there - again the details are not a matter of public knowledge at this stage.

The police took him back to Rishon Letzion and he showed them where the bomb or bombs had been thrown away. There's no suggestion that this story is fabricated. The man, it's fair to assume, was proud of what he set out to do. His organization publicly confirmed to the media that he was trying to carry out a massacre.

After his apprehension, Israeli security forces, presumably acting on information provided by the arrested terrorist, immediately mounted an action focused on the Jenin "refugee" camp. This happened the day after the arrest - on February 21st. There they intercepted Muhammad Ibrahim Qassem Ubeid. he's known as Abu Jahim in the pro-murder publicity announcements that Pal-Arab society has grown so proficient at propagating. Ubeid was riding around in his car at the time, equipped with an M-16 rifle. The IDF says in its official report that explosive devices were found in his car. Ubeid was one of the most wanted Palestinian Islamic Jihad terrorists in the area. He is the person who dispatched Jalboun, the failed bomber. He was responsible for recruiting other murderer/bombers and for manufacturing explosive devices. He will no longer engage in acts of barbarism or terror because, in the course of the security forces' activities this week, his life ended.

In case you have forgotten just how soaked with innocent blood these people are, here's a brief reminder of the role played by Palestinian Islamic Jihad:

• Headquartered in Damascus and sponsored and supported by Iran and Syria, PIJ is designated as a terror organization by the United States, the European Union, the United Kingdom, Japan, Canada, Australia and Israel.
• PIJ has been responsible for more murder/bombing attacks in Israel than any other terror group. In the past year, it executed two massacres in Tel Aviv including one on 27th April 2006 at a felafel stand near the Old Tel-Aviv Bus Station. Two attacks that left 9 people dead and 110 injured.
  
• Its most recent 'achievement' is the Eilat bakery murder we described three weeks ago. That multi-murder was done in collaboration with agents of Fatah, the mainstream Pal-Arab terror organization that owes its loyalty to Abbas. (Currently the president of the Pal-Arab Authority, Abbas is absurdly called 'moderate' by many of the reporters active in the field.)
• Dozens more PIJ attempted massacres have been thwarted by Israeli police, army and other security services and by solid, unpublicized undercover work in the past year.

Dozens. Remember reading about that in your newspaper?

4-Feb-07: Here's What We're Up Against... Every Day

Another (yet another) small, almost invisible, news story from among this evening's media reports. To be kept in mind for the next time they tell you Israel's security problems are all a matter of propaganda and some sort of national phobia. Living in the cross-hairs of the terrorists here in Jerusalem and reading other peoples' frequently superficial and ill-informed analysis from far-off, the thing you need to keep reminding yourself is that even paranoids have enemies. And we're not especially paranoid.

Security forces nab two terror cells operating in Jerusalem
Last update - 16:56 04/02/2007
By Jonathan Lis, Haaretz Correspondent

The Shin Bet security service and the police last week arrested members of two Palestinian terror cells operating in Jerusalem, a gag order lifted Sunday revealed. The cells, one linked to the Islamic Hamas militant group and the other to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, both originated from the Al-Ayada refugee camp in the West Bank.

Security forces arrested some 20 suspected members of the cells, which allegedly carried out a number of attacks including opening fire and hurling explosives at Israeli military and civilian cars near Rachel's Tomb, in the Jerusalem envelope and the Tunnel Road.

During questioning of the alleged members, security services learned that the cells produced dozens of pipe bombs, based on information gathered from the Internet. The members of the Hamas cell were recruited by a 40-year-old clergyman from a Bethlehem mosque. In the past, members were paid NIS 50 head for preparing explosives or executing an attack. The members of the cell also helped transport equipment, arms, and money. During a search of the suspects' houses, security forces found materials for creating explosives, Israel Defense Forces uniforms, rifles and an ax.

3-Feb-07: Time For New Leaders

[The opinion piece below by Frimet Roth appears today in the online edition of the Israeli daily, Yediot Aharonot]

Time for new leaders
Failed leadership at fault for needless deaths in Lebanon, on our streets
Frimet Roth
Published: 02.02.07, 22:46

This week's Eilat terror attack was a harsh reminder of the urgent need for the Winograd Committee conclusions. A people under constant threat of attack must know that its leaders are consumed with concern for them. A nation in an ongoing state of war must be reassured that its decision-makers are never distracted from the top priority: Protecting us from our enemies.

The Winograd Committee is no mere formality. Its anticipated grim findings will impact us all. But nobody will feel the brunt more than the parents of soldiers killed in the Second Lebanon War. It is painful enough to endure the loss of a child at the hands of an enemy. But to live with the knowledge that their deaths could have been prevented by our leaders is unbearable. Far too many bereaved parents in this country carry that burden. Their conviction that many casualties were entirely avoidable will apparently soon be confirmed.

But the culprits - poor judgment, irresponsibility, indifference - did not make their debut this past August. Sadly, they have been claiming lives for several years now. Many of the more than 1,000 Israelis killed by the Palestinians in the current Intifada were victims of the very same leadership defects.

So much of what our army now knows about fighting terrorists was learned on the bodies of hundreds of precious children including my daughter, Malki. Had the tactics of our police and army been as professional and determined during the first three years of the Intifada as they are now, innumerable deaths could have been avoided.

Winograd could signal dawn of new era

Critiquing our army's and our government's conduct of the war in Lebanon is a breath of fresh air for this country. But it is long overdue. Not one leader's head rolled during the years after Arafat launched an Intifada war on Israel in September, 2000. Nobody resigned while terrorists infiltrated our borders several times a week and Israeli blood flowed in our cafes, our pizzerias and on our buses. The tactical failures were glaring then too but who was scrutinizing them? The mounting casualty list was written off as the cruel fate of having blood-thirsty neighbors.

The Winograd conclusions could signal the dawn of a new and better era, provided all the responsible parties follow in Halutz's footsteps. If he remains but a lone scapegoat, the status quo will endure. We, the everymen, will remain stuck with a deplorable reality. More of us will lose loved ones, will cry to the media – and will find we have addressed deaf ears.

It's what I've been doing for five and a half years.

On the morning of the ninth of august, 2001, our army, our government and Jerusalem's police force were all warned of the presence of a Palestinian terrorist strolling the streets of the city center. Their reaction was to conceal the information. No civilians, other than hospital personnel, were alerted to the threat.

Several days later, MK Meir Sheetrit shamelessly informed the public that the cabinet had tried to enlist, of all people, Yasser Arafat's assistance in tracking down the terrorists. There is no reason to expect our leaders to be geniuses. But can we afford for them to be that daft?

My daughter's murderer walked the streets of Jerusalem with a load of deadly explosives hidden in a guitar case slung over his shoulder. Alongside him was an accomplice – a young Palestinian woman, pretty and trendily dressed so she would blend in with the Israelis and tourists around them. The couple probably passed several unsuspecting police officers during their stroll from east Jerusalem to their target on corner of Jaffa Road and King George Street, the Sbarro restaurant.

Miki Levy, at the time head of the police force in Jerusalem, had decided to send his men onto the city's streets to find someone masquerading as, well, a terrorist. But the terrorists failed to co-operate, and the police action failed horrifically.

Days of innocence over

Several months later, when on two separate occasions similar alerts were uncovered, a drastically different approach was taken. The two city centers affected were entirely evacuated until the suspects were apprehended several hours later. No lives were lost.

Furthermore, security alerts have come to be treated as declassified information – the sort of news that is now considered worthy of being shared with us, members of the public. Too late for me, Israelis now get to know when we are gravely threatened. We - and not our leaders - get to decide when to put our lives on hold.

Other errors of judgment resulted in avoidable losses. Soldiers were often sent into risky house-to-house combat with Palestinians in order to minimize civilian enemy deaths.

The days of our innocence are over. We can no longer presume that our army, our police and our government are focused on keeping us alive. That they aren't obsessed with their stock portfolios. Or their political standing; Or their facial wrinkles.

Personally, I have never been persuaded that our lives are in competent, caring hands. For example, Olmert's unabashed involvement with his appearance has always appalled me. Last August, in the midst of war, he was seen frantically plastering several wind-blown strands of hair across his bald pate whenever he was out surveying the front-lines of battle.

Then two weeks ago, with political and security crises erupting all around him, Olmert chose to have cosmetic surgery to lift his droopy eyelids. How many hours did he spend examining his face in a mirror before deciding to go under the knife; hours that ought to have been devoted to the demanding job we elected him to do? Is it any wonder he is, as he confided in us last year, "tired of fighting"?

Sometimes I wonder what was on Mr. Olmert's mind the morning of the Sbarro massacre, when as mayor of the threatened city, thousand of lives were in his hands? Which narcissistic worry absorbed him then? What is on his mind today, as we bury three more innocent victims of Palestinian terror?

We cannot see into the souls of our leaders. The snippets of behavior that we are privy to are our only barometer of their inner thoughts and values. Let's not overlook them when we next approach the ballots. Our very lives depend on it.

Frimet Roth is a freelance writer based in Jerusalem who frequently contributes articles dealing with terrorism and with special-needs children. She and her husband founded and run (as unpaid volunteers) the Malki Foundation ( www.kerenmalki.org) in their daughter's memory. The foundation provides concrete support for Israeli families of all religions who care at home for a special-needs child. She can be reached at frimet.roth@gmail.com