27-Dec-22: Suspect held in November's twin Jerusalem Arab-on-Israeli bombings

The two Israelis murdered in the twin bombing attacks last month

The authorities here cleared for publication earlier today that a suspect in the November 23, 2022 twin-bombings in Jerusalem ["23-Nov-22: In Jerusalem, twin bomb blasts put terror in the spotlight again"] has been in the hands of Israeli law enforcement officials for a month. He was detained by Israeli security forces six days after those lethal attacks on innocent commuters standing at bus-stops.

The news came in the form of a statement issued jointly by Israel Police and the Shin Bet domestic intelligence service.

According to one report, ["Israel announces arrest last month of Jerusalem bombing suspect", i24NEWS, today], the suspected bomber is a mechanical engineer, Aslam Faroh, 26, described as "an Israeli resident who was living in Kafr 'Aqab in east Jerusalem and Ramallah in the West Bank." (His name is spelled in different ways in English reports.)

He had fled the scene of the morning rush-hour attacks on a motorbike, and was hiding out in a cave in the Judean desert. A search there turned up an additional explosive device secreted in the cave.

The theory is he acted alone "after planning the attack for an extended period of time."

A statement naming him Froukh and attributed to the Shin Bet says the attacker acted alone "out of Salafi-jihadi ideology identified with the Islamic State (ISIS) terror organization" and that he used how-to guides viewable on the Internet to learn to make the bombs used in the attack.

A chilling postscript reports something we had not known earlier;

"Israeli police also revealed that a third explosive device had been found at the bus stop where the first bombing occurred. A mechanical failure prevented its detonation, which had been timed to take place thirty minutes after the initial explosion."

A delayed explosion would indicate that the bomber intended to inflict injuries and death on rescue workers and police at the scene.

Two Israelis were killed in the bombings. Aryeh Shechopek, a 16-year-old student, died at the scene of the earlier of the two explosions at a bustling bus stop (the "trampiada") at the entrance to Jerusalem on Highway One. A second victim, Tadasa Tashume Ben Ma'ada, 50, died three days later in hospital from injuries suffered in the same attack. Some twenty other people suffered injuries.

A Times of Israel report ["Arab Israeli with Islamic State ties arrested for bombings at Jerusalem bus stops"], where his name is rendered as Eslam Froukh, says

"Security forces located the site [near Ramallah] where Froukh allegedly tested his explosive devices. The Shin Bet said troops seized explosive materials, a makeshift sub-machine gun and a primed bomb similar to the ones used in the Jerusalem attack. The agency said it suspected Froukh planned to commit another attack using the explosive device and the weapon. Several other suspects were arrested in the days following the bombing, but were all released. Prosecutors are expected to file an indictment against Froukh in the coming days, which will include murder and other terror charges."

Froukh was reportedly unknown to security authorities until now. 

His posts on social media (quoted here) show that his engineering studies were done at the well-regarded Azrieli College of Engineering in Jerusalem. Azrieli's comprehensive website includes an Arabic language edition reflecting its engagement with Arab students. A 2017 article ("Fulfilling Arab Startup Dreams in Jerusalem") sheds light on Azrieli's efforts to bring young Arab professionals into Israel's start-up culture.

ISIS connection?

An analysis published by The Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) gives some context to the claim that this terrorist was aligned with the jihadists of the Islamic State. Though Israel has never been the site of much ISIS activity, its terrorists have laid claim to a handful of attacks over the years. 

Two terror attacks in late March 2022 were perpetrated by ISIS supporters. An attack involving a car-ramming and stabbings in Beer Sheba, killing four Israeli civilians and was perpetrated by Muhammad Abu Al-Qi'an who had been in prison for trying to join ISIS in Syria. A shooting in the Israeli city of Hadera killed two border guards and injured twelve Israelis and was carried out by cousins Ayman and Ibrahim Ighbariyeh, the latter of whom had also tried to travel to Syria to join ISIS. ISIS sources threatened in the wake of these killings that "the unbelieving Jews should know that our promises [to attack them] will reach them sooner or later, Allah willing."[7]

MEMRI suggested in May 2022 that ISIS has gone through a shift in focus

and now sees masterminding attacks against Israel as a greater priority than it previously did. However, it is more likely that the perpetrators of these recent attacks acted on their own and that ISIS leadership is not facilitating operations against Israel, other than inciting to them periodically, generally when tensions are high between Israel and Palestinian factions. Thus, it seems probable that ISIS... attacks against Israel will remain at a minimum. At the same time, there are still ISIS supporters living in Israel and the Palestinian territories, who may decide, under the influence of ISIS propaganda, to instigate attacks in the name of the jihadi organization, which views Israelis and Jews as enemies whom it is meritorious to target, provided that the attack is carried out for the sake of Allah and not out of nationalistic motives. [Quoted from The Evolution Of Islamic State (ISIS) Views On Attacking The State Of Israel, May 20, 2022]

20-Apr-18:"Moderate" Palestinian Arab president-for-life rolls out red carpet for a murdering "Fatah knight"

Image Source: Times of Israel

While Palestinian Arab extremism is currently being driven from Gaza, and along with it the bulk of media attention from the Arab world and more broadly, the envious Fatah factionists of the Palestinian Authority are not far behind. And constantly on the look for opportunities to grab some of the limelight.

Mahmoud Abbas, who in addition to regaling in the title of president of the Palestinian Authority heads Fatah, features in a Times of Israel news report that shines some light - or perhaps it's more appropriate to say darkness - on how the moderate strain of Palestinianism views the cold-blooded murder of Israeli civilians.

The report describes the gala welcome-home reception bestowed on Rajaei Haddad. He recently completed serving a 20-year sentence in an Israel prison for murder. Naturally, he's hailed in their circles (literally) as “a leader, a hero, and a fighter.”

Palestinian Authority TV showed footage of the meeting between Abbas and Haddad, who spent two decades in prison for his role in the November 1997 murder of yeshiva student Gabriel Hirschberg הי"ד in Jerusalem's Old City of Jerusalem.

Here's how the terrorist murder was reported in the New York Times

At about a quarter past midnight, Mr. Hirschberg, 26, was walking with a friend in the dark alley when a gunman believed to be a Palestinian militant sprayed them with automatic weapons fire. Both of the students were unarmed and unaccompanied by the yeshiva's security guards or border police who guard the area. 

Mr. Hirschberg, an immigrant from Hungary, was killed; his friend was badly wounded. (Initial reports said the second man also died.) The police said the weapon used was an AK-47 assault rifle. No arrests were reported, and there was no immediate claim of responsibility... 

In the alley where Gabriel Hirschberg was cut down by a burst of automatic weapons fire early today in Jerusalem's walled Old City, four of his fellow yeshiva students held a study session opposite a makeshift memorial of Israeli flags and a candle. Bent over religious books, the students from the Ateret Cohanim Yeshiva -- run by a right-wing group that has been buying homes in the Muslim quarter and elsewhere in East Jerusalem -- recited their lessons as Palestinian schoolgirls walked by warily, averting their eyes. 

''This is to wake people up,'' said one of the yeshiva student, sitting near a bullet-scarred wall. ''Something happened here.'' ["A Jew's Slaying Fuels Tensions in Jerusalem's Muslim Quarter", NY Times, November 21, 1997]

On April 10, 2018, the PA's official television station aired a report on the festivities surrounding the convicted murderer's return to Palestinian Arab society. It emphasized, according to the Times of Israel report, 

that our leadership gives top priority to the issue of our prisoners. "The president asked me about each and every one,” Haddad said. 

It also mentions - quoting an Arabic language report translated to English by the MEMRI Middle East Media Research Institute - that the gala event, held in Jerusalem, was graced by the presence of senior members of Fatah, the dominant faction in the ruling Palestinian Authority.

Some nauseating violence-adoring quotes worth noting:

• The convicted murderer: "The president [Abbas] asked me about each and every one. Let me thank the president for this meeting – he cleared his schedule so that we could meet immediately after my release. We sat together for a full hour, and he listened to me. He asked me about the prisoners, listened to me, and wrote down everything. The president sends his regards [to the prisoners]. He heard what I had to say."
• “First, let me salute our prisoners who are languishing in prison,” said Fatah Revolutionary Council secretary Adnan Ghaith, “Here, in our capital of Jerusalem, our people welcome a leader, a hero, and a fighter, who sacrificed 20 years for the sake of Jerusalem, Palestine, and our great people.”
• Fatah said the celebrations were intended to send a message to the Israelis that the issue of prisoners and “martyrs” was non-negotiable.
• “I am very happy to join the people of Jerusalem, our eternal capital, in welcoming this Fatah knight, who spent 20 years in the prisons of the Israeli occupation, in defense of our land, our people, our independence and our freedom,” said Fatah Central Committee member Jamal Moheisen. “This (event) is a message of loyalty to the prisoners, the heroes. It is also a message to the occupation that the issue of the prisoners and martyrs is where we draw the line.”

To remind ourselves of the unbridgeable gulf between us and the blood-lusting thugs arrayed against Israeli society, a brief video clip from the November 1997 funeral of Gabriel Hirschberg of blessed memory:

As far as we can tell, there was trivial-to-no news reporting coverage (other than in Israel) for the public honoring by our peace partner of this unrepentant murderer of Israeli civilians.

May Gabriel Hirschberg's memory continue to be a blessing for the people of Jerusalem and Israel.

16-Feb-17: When they talk to Arabic-speaking audiences, a different message about terror and a two-state solution

A Nov. 2012 Gaza City rally honoring an Arab military victory over Israel

Shaath, and to his left, Hamas chief Haniyeh, Islamic Jihad arch-terrorist

Mohammed Al-Hindi and Ahmed Bahar of the Palestinian Arab

parliament, Gaza City [Image Source: Reuters]

While impassioned speeches about a "two state solution" to the Arab/Israel conflict remain in the air, we think it's useful to publicize the views of one of the most central figures in the Palestinian Arab political firmament.

We're speaking about Nabil Ali Muhammad Shaath, also known as Abu Rashid, who has been the foreign minister of Palestinian Authority (between April 2003 and February 2005, the first person to occupy that office), a cabinet minister in the Palestinian Authority regime, the Acting Prime Minister of the Palestinian National Authority, a member of Fatah's Central Committee and currently the Commissioner of the Fatah Department of International Relations (whose website, we see today, has been hacked, evidently by pro-Israel vandals).

Shaath has established himself as an important Palestinian leader with close ties to European and other governments. He maintains a strong relationship with President Abbas but is viewed by a large part of the Palestinian public as corrupt. Still, he has never having spent time in prison, unlike most Fatah Central Committee members. He has developed a substantial fortune and owns an excellent collection of Palestine stamps. [Fatah Central Committee Profiles, Washington Institute for Near East Policy, 2015] 

Shaath is a figure of top-level seniority. He's also well-educated, having gotten both a masters degree and a doctorate from the University of Pennsylvania. The consulting firm he established in the mid-seventies, TEAM International, is well-known and successful. What he says has significance.

So we're indebted to the good people at Palestinian Media Watch for translating into English the hateful and dangerous Shaath bombast reproduced below. They were recorded when Shaath was interviewed on Awdah TV, which PMW calls a Fatah channel, on January 23, 2017.

Watch it (above) and you will see Shaath manage three times in the course of a very brief interview to justify a claimed Palestinian Arab right to use what he terms "armed struggle", a well-established euphemism for terror.

"Our cause is just. Our right to the armed struggle is an indisputable right. The Israelis didn't come here through negotiations. They did not come at our request. They are usurpers who came with weapons to murder and tried to expel [us]. They succeeded in expelling a large part of our people by force. Therefore, our right to the armed struggle is indisputable... We are humane people. We want to liberate our homeland. After we liberate our homeland, we will have no problem with living in a democratic state in which Jews, Muslims and Christians live - in a Palestinian Arab democratic state... [As a Palestinian] - your cause is just. You are occupied. Your land was stolen. Your rights were taken. Therefore, I've never seen any problem with carrying out the armed struggle while diplomatic and political activity supporting your cause is being carried out." [Awdah TV, January 23, 2017]

Reaching for lethal violence - stabbings, shootings, bombings, truck-rammings - is an "indisputable" right, he asserts. Resorting to it is justified because it enables Arabs to "liberate our homeland". And once that liberation process runs its course, in Shaath's way of looking at things, a "Palestinian Arab democratic state" will then exist within whose borders Muslims, Christians and Jews will party together or something similar.

This is the kind of blather that Arab political figures reserve for their Arabic-speaking audiences. It used to have little traction or credibility outside those circles. But that has changed.

It's worthy of note that Shaath's speech puts the lie to numerous public undertakings given by Fatah and the PLO to stop doing terror at various points in the past three decades. Those commitments were a quid pro quo for things the Palestinian Arabs wanted to achieve in their political campaigning.

PMW refers to several key Palestinian Arab commitments to stop terror:

• "The PLO renounces the use of terrorism and other acts of violence and will assume responsibility over all PLO elements and personnel in order to assure their compliance, prevent violations and discipline violators." [Source: Arafat to Rabin, Letters of Mutual Recognition, Sept. 9, 1993, attached to the Oslo Accords] 
• "1. Both sides shall take all measures necessary in order to prevent acts of terrorism, crime and hostilities directed against each other, against individuals falling under the other's authority and against their property and shall take legal measures against offenders." [Oslo Accords ARTICLE XV]  
• "2. Both sides will, in accordance with this Agreement, act to ensure the immediate, efficient and effective handling of any incident involving a threat or act of terrorism, violence or incitement, whether committed by Palestinians or Israelis... Each side shall immediately and effectively respond to the occurrence or anticipated occurrence of an act of terrorism, violence or incitement and shall take all necessary measures to prevent such an occurrence." [Oslo Accords Annex I, ARTICLE II]

Just how solidly does Shaath support the idea of a two-state solution? You can judge for yourself from this subtly-titled video:

"We Will Never Accept the "Two-States for Two Peoples" Solution to the Palestinian-Israeli Conflict". [ANB TV, Lebanon/London via MEMRI, July 13, 2011

Shaath's exhortations to violence over the years have had little impact on the public relations people at University of Pennsylvania, Shaath's alma mater, who wrote of Shaath that he "has devoted decades his life working toward peace between the Israelis and Palestinians" ["A Palestinian Voice for Peace", Wharton School, 2007].

We're guessing they don't speak Arabic.

08-Jul-16: Violence, terror, cash and the PA Rewards for Terror Scheme: Congress takes a look

Shell Game: Back in February 2013, the man on the left was
the PA's then Minister of Prisoners Affairs. He's boasting 
of the huge number of prisoners receiving guaranteed 
monthly salaries from the PA. [Source Video: PMW]

Eli Lake, writing for Bloomberg last week ["The Palestinian Incentive Program for Killing Jews", July 1, 2016] says

Whoever said crime doesn't pay hasn't talked to the family of a Palestinian terrorist. For the Palestine Liberation Organization and the related Palestinian Authority, the killers of Jewish Israelis are considered "martyrs." And as such, their families are paid for the service these murderers have done for the Palestinian cause. [Bloomberg - Eli Lake]

A few days later, and in the wake of several especially shocking Arab-on-Israeli terrorist murders, the US Congress' House Foreign Affairs Committee conducted hearings into how that works. We're not claiming to be objective by-standers in the discussion: we know that all the members of the Hamas gang who bombed Jerusalem's Sbarro pizzeria in 2001 have been, and some still are, major takers of those payments.

The Committee was told on Wednesday that the Palestinian Arab government spends about a tenth of its annual budget

"paying terrorists who attack Israelis and supporting their families... [T]he Palestinian Authority is investing $137.8 million this year in salaries to terrorists jailed in Israel and payments to the families of imprisoned terrorists or suicide bombers, in violation of the Oslo peace accords with Israel."

Describing how the payments to Palestinian Arabs who have carried out murderous assaults on frequently-unarmed Israeli civilians are made - it's a process we call the PA Rewards for Terror Scheme - in recent months, Dr Yigal Carmon, president of the Middle East Media Research Institute [MEMRI] told committee members that

the PA transfers funds to terrorist prisoners in Israeli or their families using two Palestinian Liberation Organization funds. The financial support of these individuals is mandated by [Palestinian Arab] law. Prisoners must be provided a monthly salary ranging from $364 to over $3,000 during their detention, and salaries or jobs upon their release. Those who commit the most grievous attacks receive the most substantial monthly payments and are also entitled to jobs in the Palestinian Authority institution upon their release. ["Palestinian Authority Pays Terrorists and Their Families $140 Million a Year", Morgan Chalfant in Washington Free Beacon, July 7, 2016]

This is relevant to the stabbing, ramming and/or shooting attacks on Israelis by non-uniformed, seemingly random Palestinian Arabs that have come to be frequently termed in parts of the news media as the work of "lone-wolf" attackers. It's become a currently fashionable term. The chairman of the House committee turned his attention to that aspects and argued (as we have repeatedly done in this blog):

“These terrorists are not, in fact, lone rangers. They are not lone wolves,” said Rep. Ed Royce (R., Calif.), who chairs the committee, in opening remarks during the hearing. “Instead, these terrorists are the product of the programming done by the PA’s perverted culture that glorifies the willingness to die or to spend time in prison in pursuit of killing or maiming Israelis.” [Washington Free Beacon, July 7, 2016]

Roughly 250 such Arab-on-Israeli attacks have been carried out or attempted since the outbreak of the latest wave of extreme violence in October 2015. More than 30 Israeli lives have been lost, and dozens of Palestinian Arabs have been killed by Israeli police and security actions during and after them.

How does that "perverted culture" stay funded? It's a non-trivial question. Dr. Carmon, in the written testimony he filed in conjunction with his appearance before the committee, includes a revelation which is, not surprisingly, consistent with those we have published here in the past year. Let's call it the mechanics of the shell game, the one that the Abbas regime, and Mahmoud Abbas himself, use to hide the true nature of the PA payments:

[Mahmoud] Abbas issued a presidential order according to which the payments to prisoners would no longer be made by the PA's Ministry of Prisoners' Affairs. Instead, they would be disbursed by a PLO Commission for Detainees and Ex-Detainees Affairs. The aim of this deliberately misleading move was to alleviate pressure on the PA by donor countries that do not wish their money to be channeled to support terrorism. However, the offices remained the same and the official in charge remained the same under a new job title. The source of the money remains the PA, which receives them from donor countries, and the overseeing body remains none other than the PA. [Quoted in "Is U.S. Foreign Aid Funding Terrorists?", Josh Luckenbaugh for MRCTV, July 7, 2016]

What that reporter could have said but did not - and we will - is that this transparent blood-soaked fraud is fully understood and known to officials throughout the foreign ministries, and other parts of the governments, of all the Western nations who provide the funding. 

The United States and the European Union are the major sources of that cash, but Norway is prominent in the list as well and so are the UK, the Netherlands and Germany in their own right. We have written a stream of background pieces about it - for instance (and the list is much longer than these pieces) "27-Mar-16: In UK, facing up to UK Aid's scandalous ongoing financing of Palestinian Arab jihad"; "27-Mar-16: The PA's "Rewards for Terror" scheme and the lies that keep the pounds flowing in"; "28-Mar-16: Is it time yet for UK's foreign aid office to come clean on their part in funding Palestinian Arab terror?"; "31-Mar-16: More on UK funding of Abbas' Reward for Terror scheme"; "02-May-16: Norway's polite and cautious funding of Palestinian Arab terror"; "04-May-16: The PA's Rewards for Terror scheme: Abbas, fobbing off Norwegian criticism, incriminates self"; "13-May-16: Ongoing gullibility: UK foreign aid and the Palestinian "Rewards for Terror" scheme"; "25-May-16: Wall-to-wall agreement at last: The Pal Arab kleptocrats and the devastation they wreak"; and "14-Jun-16: In the UK, law-makers (some) worry over the bloodshed funded by their taxpayers". 

As we said, there are many others.

In his appearance before Congress, Carmon called the PA scheme a “deliberately misleading move” to assuage concerns from donor countries worried about their money being funneled to terrorists.

“The source of the money remains the PA, which receives them from donor countries, and the overseeing body remains none other than the PA,” Carmon told lawmakers. He said that countries who provide aid to Palestine, including the United States, are “complicit” in inciting terrorism because the Palestinian Authority uses foreign donations to subsidize terrorists and their families. By providing this support, the PA is encouraging terrorism in violation of its Oslo commitment. Furthermore, the PA has been using money granted by donor countries for this purpose, and by doing so, has made [the funders] complicit in encouraging terrorism as well,” Carmon said. [Washington Free Beacon, July 7, 2016]

We're not sure Dr Carmon's term "encouraging terrorism" is the best way to look at this. Numerous public opinion polls taken of their view on violence and terror and their utility consistently suggest that not much encouragement of the Palestinian Arabs is needed.

Eli Lake, in the article we mentioned above, describes efforts made by the US and Israel in particular to disincentivize Abbas' PA regime from continuing its Rewards for Terror Scheme. He writes:

One problem is that the payments to terrorists' families are exceedingly popular these days. Ziad Asali, the president and founder of the American Task Force on Palestine, told me that in recent years the media and politicians have elevated these payments to something "sacred in Palestinian politics." Asali said the Palestinian Authority president, Mahmoud Abbas, and others are too weak to stop it. "This is where we find ourselves now. The vast majority understand there has to be an end to violence; it's not serving the Palestinians in any way," Asali said. "But I think nobody really has the stature and clout to confront these issues publicly."

Really? How great it would be if a statement like "The vast majority understand there has to be an end to violence; it's not serving the Palestinians in any way" were true.

But if Ziad Asali is referring to the vast majority of Palestinian Arabs (which he seems to be doing), the numbers show he has it back to front. And we mean Arab numbers compiled by Arab pollsters. We explained that in a recent blog post:

In the March 2016 poll, the last time this question was asked, 60% of Palestinians backed Arab-on-Israeli-civilian terror attacks... We believe, and the polling data bear it out consistently over years, that when columnists and analysts speak of the desire of Palestinian Arabs to live in peace, to get on with ordinary, quiet, constructive lives - as compelling as this interpretation is, the data don't support it. It's, to put it kindly, wishful thinking unsupported by any evidence and contradicted by what we can measure based on Arab pollsters. Anyone paying attention to the incitement pumped, generation after generation, into their communities and heads will not be surprised. What the people living on the other side of the fence are saying is clear, credible and measurable. Being optimistic about the prospects for the sort of painful compromise that leads to peaceful relations is counterfactual and foolish, as much as we wish it were otherwise. That's a message we wish the public figures pushing their literally-hopeless "peace plans" would internalize. ["15-Jun-16: What do the Palestinian Arabs think?"]

So in the face of this, and the overwhelming support that lethal violence gets among the people we call our neighbors, what legal and financial steps make sense? And what does the Obama administration (as distinct from the Congress) say? And how about the Europeans?

It's a big subject. We will come back to it in the next few days.

08-Mar-16: The lethal anguish of "moderate" Abbas

The Abbas letter eulogizing the vehicle rammer

With three separate Arab-on-Israeli terror attacks in the late afternoon and early evening hours today (Tuesday), and with a dozen or more Israelis now wounded in the violence, let's take a moment to examine what the political leader of the side doing the stabbing and shooting means when he says

"We always oppose terror incidents and we firmly slam these events. We pray for the injured people's recovery." [Source]

Mahmoud Abbas is not a moderate - at least not in the sense of holding to the conventional meaning of moderate views. If there were any doubt about this, and about the duplicity in which he routinely engages, condemning terror while praising the Palestinian Arabs who do it, the letter below ought to put the matter beyond doubt. (But we're confident it will not for those chronically inclined to side with the terrorists.)

In the wake of the March 4, 2016 Arab-on-Israeli car-ramming attack [we reported on it here and here] executed by a young woman from the village of Husan, the mother of several young children, Abbas wrote a letter of consolation to the family.

The tone of the Abbas letter can be summed up in a few of his words: Amani Hosni Jawad Al-Sabatin is "a martyr who quenched the land of Palestine with her pure soul".

MEMRI ("the Middle East Media Research Institute"), an invaluable organization that has been translating Arabic source material (along with Farsi, Urdu-Pashtu, Dari, and Turkish media) into English since 1998, published the entire Abbas letter today. It turns out to have been written on the letterhead of the Palestinian Authority's embassy in Jordan for reasons MEMRI does not try to explain. Here is MEMRI's translation of the text:

Embassy of the State of Palestine
The Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan
March 6, 2016
In the name of Allah the merciful and beloved,
[Scriptural quote] "And never think of those who have been killed in the cause of Allah as dead. Rather, they are alive with their Lord, receiving provision."
Distinguished residents of Husan,
Distinguished Al-Sabatin family,
With great sorrow and deep anguish we received the news of the death of the martyr Amani Hosni Jawad Al-Sabatin.
We consider her to be someone who is with Allah, may He be exalted and elevated, as a martyr who quenched the land of Palestine with her pure soul.
I share your deep sorrow and anguish, and express my most sincere condolences to you and to your distinguished family, and to the residents of Husan and the dear Al-Sabatin family. I beseech Allah the Exalted and the Omnipotent to bestow upon this martyr His many mercies, and may she rest in Paradise. May Allah fill your heart with forbearance and consolation.
Mahmoud Abbas,
President of the State of Palestine

Hamas poster tribute to the
deceased vehicle-ramming woman

With the official seal of the PA on it, can anyone seriously doubt the letter and its sentiments deliver a message to the PA's subjects of encouragement and incitement to terror?

Not to be outdone in such matters, Abbas' bitter Islamist rivals over at Hamas honor the dead woman in the way they know best.

The Facebook page of the Hamas-operated Palinfo.com website has a tribute poster [on the right] that was uploaded in the last day or two, showing the dead driver's portrait against the backdrop of Al-Aqsa and Jerusalem along with details of how she died.

Unlike the delicate souls in so many corners of the pro-Palestinian Arab media - and we're especially thinking of Ma'an News Agency (click to see what we mean) - the Hamas page is refreshingly free of references to an allegedly "alleged" vehicle-ramming attack:

"The 35-year-old martyr Amani Al-Sabatin, killed by the occupation's bullets near the 'Gush-Etzyon' settlement in Bethlehem, after carrying out a car-ramming operation against the occupation's soldiers, on the morning of Friday, March 4, 2016."

Clear enough, no?

Messages like those from Hamas ["Jerusalem: Hamas calls for third intifada"] and the president of the PA ["Abbas calls terror attacks 'justified popular uprising'"] ought to be seen for what they actually are: elements in a psychological warfare they and their trusted cronies are waging against vulnerable individuals in their own society. Yet more deaths and lives wasted in futile acts of terror are the certain outcome.

There is no sign of outrage about this among even the most enlightened segments of Palestinian Arab society, and so it continues. As for outsiders, if serious-minded global humanitarian organizations are expressing outrage at the manipulation and the lives thrown away, they are being tragically modest and quiet about it.

20-Oct-15: Children: This is what you can do to them if you have enough hatred in you

MEMRI (Middle East Media Research Institute) has the video clip and the background here.

14-Apr-15: From Gaza, where seldom is heard an encouraging word, a (very) cautiously optimistic note

Smoke rises (in this Getty Images photo published in The Guardian) in October 2013 from
the mouth of a smuggling tunnel dug beneath the border between Egypt and the Gaza Strip. "Egypt's army has destroyed many of the tunnels on the Egyptian side of Rafah", the caption reads

Here's a slightly surprising follow-on to a post we put up yesterday: "13-Apr-15: The carnage resulting from Gaza's Hamas tunnels may now be sharply reduced". 

Khaled Abu Toameh, one of the most well-informed and worthwhile news sources in the Arab parts of the Middle East, writes on the Gatestone Institute that Egypt's tough new regime of security measures and laws to strangle the massive number of tunnels running underground between the Hamas-dominated Gaza Strip and Egypt is having an impact:

"The smuggling (of weapons into the Gaza Strip) has been stopped almost completely," admitted Abu Mohammed, a Palestinian arms dealer from the town Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip. "Rarely does anyone manage to smuggle light weapons or ammunition." ...He complained that it has become impossible to smuggle missiles and rockets into the Gaza Strip... ["T]he cost of one bullet, which used to sell for one US dollar, had doubled in recent months. Similarly, the price of an Egyptian-made AK-47 assault rifle has risen from $900 to $1300"... Sisi has shown real guts and determination in his war to drain the swamps of terrorists. The tough measures he has taken along the border with the Gaza Strip have proven to be even more effective than Israel's military operations against the smuggling tunnels. That the Gaza Strip is facing a weapons shortage is good news not only for Israel and Egypt, but also for the Palestinians living there. It is hard to see how Hamas will rush into another military confrontation with Israel -- where Palestinians would once again pay a heavy price -- at a time when Sisi's army is working around the clock to destroy smuggling tunnels, and the prices of rifles and bullets in the Gaza Strip are skyrocketing... ["Gaza: Egypt Responsible For Weapons Shortage", Khaled Abu Toameh, Gatestone Institute, April 13, 2015]

A note of a less sanguine kind is sounded in a bulletin issued yesterday by MEMRI. The MEMRI mission is to render into English some of the published Arabic-language material that would otherwise go ignored in the West, and thank goodness for its work. Quoting a March 14, 2015 report on the Hamas-controlled Alqassam.ps website, the MEMRI report says the Al-Qassam Brigades, an arm of Hamas, are 

preparing for the next conflict with Israel by establishing military camps. Recently, the Al-Qassam Brigades' preparation and training division began constructing two camps, named Al-Yarmouk and Filastin, near the Israel-Gaza border. A department official said: "The brigades will continue to train, with no fear of Israel." He added, "The training is also meant to assure the residents that the resistance is in good shape, that it has not ceased operations as the occupation claims, and that it is on the frontlines to defend the people.

MEMRI quotes other Gazan sources (via Felesteen.ps, and almajd.ps) from March 8, 2015, saying 

joint training was conducted for the first time by the military wings of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (the Al-Quds Brigades) and Hamas (the Al-Qassam Brigades). The Hamas website Al-Majd explained: "The training is a deterring message to the occupation from the resistance, as well as a message of strength for the domestic Palestinian front."

Sadly, it's premature for the swords on our side of the fence to start being beaten into plough-shares.

29-Nov-14: Is Turkey providing cover for Hamas terror?

Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey hosts Khaled Mashaal
and Ismail Haniyeh of Hamas in his Ankara bureau, June 18, 2013
[Image Source: Turkish Prime Minister's Press Office]

Since the disclosures made in Israel two days ago about Turkey's involvement in a major Hamas terrorism initiative directed at killing yet more Jews and sowing ever-greater chaos in Jerusalem, we have been paying extra attention to what is making news in Turkey.

(For the background, see this post: "27-Nov-14: Hamas terrorist ring is busted; Israel says the handlers operate from Turkey; Qatar is involved")

Let's start with the Turkish 'denials' of involvement in hosting, tolerating or otherwise co-operating with the terrorists of Hamas. Ynet yesterday published a not-so-comprehensive refutation of the allegations:

Turkey denies harboring Hamas terror command | Ynet, November 28, 2014 | Itamar Eichner | Turkey denied on Friday the claim that Hamas planned terrorist attacks from headquarters in Istanbul. The Shin Bet made the accusation on Thursday, setting off a diplomatic face-off between Israel and Turkey. Turkish sources argued that the Shin Bet's announcement was meant to demonize Turkey and sabotage attempts to mend the countries' diplomatic ties. Israel requested NATO and the American government to take steps against Turkey in response. "It's illogical for a NATO member to host a terrorist organization that trains and plans terror attacks on its soil," said the Israeli statement. Turkish diplomats were enraged by Israel's allegations, calling them "lies and deception... There are elements in Israel who are trying to torpedo the attempts to smooth things out between the two countries and turn a new leaf. They are telling lies, as though Hamas operates in Turkey with the government's knowledge. Turkey has a dialogue with Hamas, but will absolutely not allow any terror organization to operate on its soil."

Had Ynet quoted Turkish names or Turkish titles, the broad, but entirely non-specific, Turkish statements might have had some persuasive value. But they did not. It's simply "Turkey denied" and "diplomats said". So we went looking elsewhere.

So far, the only article we have found (Turkish, but published in English) is from the website of the Turkish newspaper, Daily Sabah. It published the denials of Turkish involvement with the busted Hamas gang ["Top Hamas Official Denies Israel's Claims of Hamas Fighters Trained in Turkey", November 2, 2014], by interviewing a person it oddly sees as a credible source: Osama Hamdan, the man who runs Hamas operations in Lebanon. The 'unimpeachable' Hamdan clears things up by saying (direct quote):

"This is a story made up by Israel... I can say this for certain this is a big lie. They say these lies about Turkey or Jordan for political reasons. They know that after their attack in Gaza there is huge sympathy for Palestine from Europe, from Latin America. Also there is huge sympathy for Turkey. The Turkish government, politically, stands by the rights of Palestinians. They are trying to create stories about militant activities outside Palestine and involve these countries in it. These countries are not supporting terrorist actions. They are supporting Palestinians against occupation. What Israelis say about training and recruiting in Turkey is a big lie..."

To us, it's actually fairly clear that Hamdan is admitting the facts. But he is changing the definitions: what Turkey is doing (our interpretation of what the Hamas terrorists is saying) is supporting the Palestinian Arab anti-"occupation" "resistance" activities. And that's not terrorism, even if Israel and the rest of the world say it is.

Daily Sabah has some fascinating aspects to its own story, according to its Wikipedia entry. Established in 1985, it ran afoul of the Erdogan government which seized its assets in 2007 and then sold them off to (as it happens) a media company controlled by Erdogan's son-in-law. Starting in 2009, it was the local publishing partner in Turkey of the New York Times, distributing the New York Times International Weekly on Sundays. That Sabah/NYT partnership ended earlier this year but Wikipedia is unable to say why. We also don't know.

Osama Hamdan, defender of Turkish virtue, pursuing
a favourite theme in July 2014 [Image Source]

What we do know is that in choosing to defend Turkey's honour by turning to Osama Hamdan, the editors at Daily Sabah somehow neglected to draw readers' attention to the man's passionate attachment to nauseating antisemitic blood libels. On July 28, 2014, here's what he said on the Al-Quds TV channel (controlled by Hamas, beamed throughout the Arabic-speaking world). It's translated from Arabic by the indispensible MEMRI organization:

The Israelis concentrate on killing children. I believe that this is engraved in the historical Zionist and Jewish mentality, which has become addicted to the killing of women and children. We all remember how the Jews used to slaughter Christians, in order to mix their blood in their holy matzos. This is not a figment of imagination or something taken from a film. It is a fact, acknowledged by their own books and by historical evidence. It happened everywhere, here and there. [Transcript here; Video clip here]

Another major Turkish news source, Todays Zaman, published the Israeli claims ["Israel claims ‘foiled Hamas attacks’ were planned in Turkey", November 27, 2014] but has not - as far as we can tell - found any Turkish government source who will go on the record to deny them. Nor have we seen any Turkish official going on the record anywhere else so far to deny. We do expect those denials to come.

Some of the stories that are capturing Turkey's headlines in the recent past are, we think, worth noting.

• "Muslims discovered Earth is round, Turkey's science minister says", Hürriyet Daily News, November 29, 2014 | Muslim scientists working around 1,200 years ago were the first to determine that the Earth is a sphere, Turkey's science, industry and technology minister, becoming the latest Turkish official to inform the world about apparent scientific firsts on the part of Islamic world...
• "Foreigners don’t like Muslims, only their money: Turkish President Erdoğan", Good Morning Turkey, November 28, 2014 | “Foreigners” are unable to solve the problems of the Middle East because Western states “don’t like us” and are more interested in just following the cash, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said on Nov. 27. “Only we can solve our problems. I speak openly; foreigners love oil, gold, diamonds, and the cheap labor force of the Islamic world. They like the conflicts, fights and quarrels of the Middle East. Believe me, they don’t like us,” said Erdoğan during an address to the Standing Committee for Economic and Commercial Cooperation of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (COMCEC) in Istanbul. “They look like friends, but they want us dead, they like seeing our children die. How long will we stand that fact?”...
• "Erdoğan says America was discovered by Muslims, not Columbus", Hürriyet Daily News, November 15, 2014 | "...Converting people by force, by the sword, has never been a part of Islam. Our religion has never been a tool of exploitation," Erdoğan continued, arguing that "those who colonialized America for its gold and Africa for its diamonds, now do it in the Middle East for its oil with the same dirty plot..."

Tonight there are reports in many news channels [for instance, "Isis launches attack on Kobani from inside Turkey for first time", The Guardian, November 29, 2014] that jihadists from the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) terror forces have launched an attack on the beleagured border town of Kobane, Syria, from inside Turkish territory. Turkey is officially and energetically [here] denying that too.

24-Nov-14: What it takes to be a real man in a society of sociopaths

Courtesy IDF Blog [here]

Fathi Hamad, once the Hamas minister of the interior and a man who has a way with words - ugly words, conveying violent hatred, often directed at putting the lives of children at risk - got a mention in a post we published here earlier today, and not for the first time: click here for other Hamad appearances in our blog.

Just this afternoon, by coincidence, someone over at the IDF Spokesperson's Office gave Hamad the ultimate accolade: a poster of his own, and a quote that reminds people of what a man's man this man is. 

Ah, but this Hamad is so much more than just a pretty face. 

Six years ago, Frimet Roth quoted him in a post ["27-Mar-08: Palestinian infanticide"] on our blog that got a fair amount of attention because of the way Hamad's rant completely upended some outrageously dishonest statements famously made some years earlier by Hanan Ashrawi, the long-time apologist for the now-deceased, corrupt despot, Yasser Arafat. 

Frimet quoted a Hamad speech delivered on February 29, 2008 that had been broadcast on the Hamas Al Aqsa television channel, reaching an exclusively Arabic-speaking audience, unfortunately. MEMRI fixed that; they translated it to English, under the title "We Used Women and Children as Human Shields" and put it where the world could see and pay attention:

"For the Palestinian people", Hamad boasts in Arabic, "death has become an industry at which women excel and so do all the people living on this land. The elderly excel at this and so do the mujahideen and the children... This is why they [the Palestinian people] have formed human shields of the women, the children, the elderly and the mujahideen, in order to challenge the Zionist bombing machine."

Frimet recalled how Ashrawi had appeared on the CBS "Sixty Minutes" program back in October 2000 [transcript here], injecting heat but not so much light into an interview with the show's Bob Simon:

"To me this is the essence, the epitome, of racism... They're telling us we are – we have no feelings for our children? We're not parents? We're not mothers or fathers? This is just incredible." 

As Frimet wrote in that 2008 post: Indeed it is. But we in the Middle East learned long ago that reality can be incredible.

1-Aug-14: Iran says its terror-enabling role in this war is about to rise by several notches

Khamanei the supreme

This past Tuesday in a speech marking the Muslim breaking-of-the-fast festival of Eid al-Fitr, the Iranian "supreme leader" since 1989 Ayatollah Ali Khamenei celebrated the occasion by urging the Islamic world to counter what he termed Israel’s “genocide” in the Gaza Strip by arming the Palestinian Arabs. Israel, he said, was acting like a “rabid dog” and “a wild wolf,” causing a "human catastrophe that must be resisted", according to this video report.

The next step, a solely-Iranian one that does not depend on the goodwill of the Islamic world, came quickly but has been reported nowhere outside Israel as far as Google knows:

A former adviser to Iran’s defense minister said that Tehran would seek to arm Palestinians in the West Bank with “strategic weapons” including missiles to target Tel Aviv and Haifa. Iranian researcher Amir Mousavi told Lebanon’s Mayadeen TV channel this week that “a major reshuffle awaits the region” as “new and significant fronts will be opened all of a sudden, to support the Palestinian cause in the West Bank and Gaza.”
“A new front must be opened from the West Bank, after it has been armed, especially with missiles,” Mousavi said in comments relayed by the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI), “because we know very well that the distance between the West Bank and Tel Aviv, Haifa, and other areas is much shorter than the distance from Gaza. Therefore, simple means are required. There is no need for long-range missiles. Short-range missiles can change the entire picture in the occupied lands.”
Mousavi added that Gaza would also receive increased military support from Iran. As for the Palestinian Authority which controls the West Bank and has in recent years cooperated closely with Israel on security issues, Mousavi remarked: “We hope that the brothers in the Palestinian Authority will help rather than impede this.” [Times of Israel, July 30, 2014]

Mousavi [Composite of
images from MEMRI]

Whatever Mousavi's bluster means, it has little to do with blunting Israel's military force and (in common with the strategy of both Hamas and its 'moderate' PA counterpart, Fatah) everything to do with again terrorizing Israel's civilian population.

As for how to get those "strategic weapons" into place, Mousavi is not bashful. The “resistance camp” - his euphemism for Iran's clients in our area: Hamas, Hezbollah, Iraq, Syria - have “established very important channels via Jordan, the Golan Heights, and other areas.”

Israel has gotten to see some of the "important channels" - those running underground from the Gaza Strip into the earth directly underneath Israeli civilian settlements - from up close and from inside (like these) in the past three weeks. It's been an explosive experience.

Iran's wholehearted and whole-pocketed backing (other than during a brief spat in 2013) for the terror practiced by Hamas, PIJ and Fatah is an open secret. In "Iran’s fingerprints all over Hamas-Israel conflict", lawyer and former-Iranian Sayeh Hassan (Toronto Star, July 19, 2014) writes that while

few have picked up on the significant Iranian connection to the conflict... one cannot comprehend the events of recent weeks without an adequate understanding of Iran’s role in Gaza... Many of the more than 1,000 missiles fired at Israelis in the past month were manufactured in Iran, transferred by Iran or built in Gaza with Iranian technology. This includes, for example, the Iranian-built Fajr 5 and the made-in-Gaza M-75, both of which have a range of 75 kilometres. In 2012, Iran openly admitted to having given Hamas the technology to manufacture the M-75. These weapons have been a strategic game-changer for Hamas, allowing it to extend its range of attack to Israel’s two largest cities: Jerusalem and Tel Aviv. The longer-range M-302, which enabled Hamas to hit cities in northern Israel, was reportedly imported from Syria via Iran... None of this would be possible without extensive funding from Iran. At one point, the government of Egypt revealed that Iran was funnelling upwards of $300 million annually to Hamas. Additional numbers are equally staggering. Prior to Israel’s current operation, terror groups in Gaza possessed an estimated 10,000 missiles. Hamas operatives, many of whom were trained in Iran, now also number at least 10,000. Palestinian Islamic Jihad, which is even closer to Iran than is Hamas, boasts several thousand fighters in Gaza. Analysts have noted that the two factions have been competing to see which one can fire missiles deeper into Israel. Despite a falling-out between Hamas and the Iranian-Syrian axis when the group moved its headquarters out of Damascus in the wake of the Syrian civil war, co-operation in fighting the common enemy, Israel, has resumed... Iran’s mentorship of Hamas in Gaza is modelled on its development of Hezbollah in Lebanon. In both cases, Iran seeks to advance the Islamic Revolution throughout the Middle East and support local groups willing to wage a proxy war with Israel. Unfortunately, those who pay the price for Iran’s destructive ventures are Israelis and innocent Palestinians alike... Tehran’s fingerprints are all over the current round of violence.

Final note: as critically important as Iran's support is for the terrorist forces of Gaza, its role is augmented by both North Korea and Qatar. They may be relative minnows in a sea of sharks but each brings to the Gaza war a passionate dedication to the harm that terrorism inflicts on ordinary people, making what they have to offer (advanced weapons in one case, cash in the other) indispensable to the dreams of the Hamas fat-cats.

21-Oct-13: An insider's insight into who carried out most of those Palestinian Arab terror attacks over the past decade

Ramallah, July 2, 2012: PA security officer engages with
Palestinian Arab protestor [Image Source]

Building bridges of mutual trust between neighbouring peoples who have deep issues between them is always going to be tough, as anyone with a passing familiarity with the generations-long conflict between the Arabs and the Israelis knows.

Does that mean overcoming the mutual distrust is impossible? No, but it's a very serious challenge. A published quotation that emerged in the past few days helps to show why.

This comes from MEMRI, whose translations from Arabic into English and other languages are often the sole reason why things said to Arabic-speaking audiences get viewed and understood by non-Arabic speakers.

Mutawakkil Tahah, the ambassador of the PA to post-Qadaffi Libya since April 2012, was interviewed on an Al-Jazeera television talk program on September 27, 2013. What he revealed there provides for some hard-to-digest food for thought. This extract comes from MEMRI's transcript of that Al-Jazeera interview:

Israel decided to gather the youth who had fought it in the first Intifada, and to organize them into security forces, showering them [with money], so that they would defend it, rather than Israel having to defend itself. But what really happened? When the 2000-2001 (sic) Intifada broke out, it turned out that 70% of the martyrs, and of the people who carried out attacks against the occupation, were members of the Palestinian security forces. In other words, even when [Israel] establishes [our] security forces, these security forces remain patriotic and continue to fight the occupation. They will continue to serve as a wall defending the Palestinian spirit and the Palestinian interests.

Not so common to have a Palestinian 'insider' confessing that it was the members of the armed Palestinian security forces who constituted the bulk of the front line in the blood-soaked Arafat War (aka Second Intifada) against Israelis from September 2000 onwards.

We wonder whether there is going to be a reaction from Washington, especially about that "continue to serve" phrase. The US government has played a key role for years [NYTimes: "U.S. Helps Palestinians Build Force for Security] in the funding, training and facilitating of those PA forces.

20-Aug-12: What would it take to make you as happy as this woman?

The link to the 2m 46s video is here

Please spend two minutes and 46 seconds in watching the edited extract of a television  interview with the woman who planned and executed a massacre of innocent civilians, most of them children, eleven years ago. Following the killings, she went to her place of work which happens to have been a television studio, and calmly read the evening news bulletin, starting with a report of the massacre that she herself had perpetrated some hours earlier.

After an intense criminal investigation, she was arrested less than two months later and charged with the murders of fifteen people, along with a host of other felonies. She was convicted and sentenced to sixteen terms of life imprisonment. But as a result of a controversial and cynical political deal, she was freed (not pardoned) in October 2011 and released to the land of her birth where she has become a major celebrity. Her recent wedding to her cousin, another unjustly freed murderer, received live television coverage and extensive media attention. Not only a celebrity but a hero.

Watch how the woman's face radiates the joy that comes from recounting how the death toll grew steadily in the hour or so that she spent fleeing the scene via public transport, unhindered by the police. Absorb the message of how members of the public, unaware the murderer was seated beside them, expressed happiness at the deaths of anonymous children. 

Imagine the feelings of the families of the innocents murdered by a person like this as they see her achievements celebrated and honored, as they listen to the prideful boasting of an unrepentant killer whose only regret is that she did not manage to kill more. She has confessed over and again since being allowed out of captivity. There can be absolutely no doubt that her deeds are an inspiration to countless others seeking the glory and vindication that her society has delivered to her.

The video, which went to air in July and has just been translated and edited by MEMRI, is here. 

This post continues after the pictures below.

Ahlam Tamimi, a very happy person, lives in complete and unfettered freedom in the Kingdom of Jordan from where she has traveled several times in the ten months since her release to such places as Tunisia, Lebanon and Qatar to give public speeches. She hosts a television program of her own that is broadcast by satellite throughout the Arabic-speaking world. She married her cousin in June. 

Among the fifteen people murdered by her on August 9, 2001 is our daughter Malki who was fifteen years old. A sixteenth victim, the young mother of a two year old child, has remained in a vegetative state since being injured in the attack.

What should a civilized society do in the wake of this woman's story?

[UPDATE: Please read our follow-up post: "21-Aug-12: What might civilized people be thinking when sociopaths like Tamimi bask in adulation?]