This was released today by the Prime Minister's Office.
You should share it as much as possible on social media.
Let's go to the videotape.
RETWEET THIS: The Palestinian Authority pays convicted terrorists hundreds of millions of dollars. The more they kill, the more they get. pic.twitter.com/onrhdNDvl6
It goes to the core of the question of whether there CAN be a 'peace process.' Right now, the answer is clearly 'no.'
And the Trump administration - unlike its predecessor - seems to get it:
If you want to stop terrorists, you shouldn’t be rewarding them or their families for their heinous acts.
The White House seems to get that: On Wednesday, Al-Quds
reported that Team Trump will demand the Palestinian Authority end its
practice of paying terrorists and their families and stop funding Hamas.
The demand is part of a White House plan to restart
Israel-PA peace talks — the subject of a May 3 meeting between Trump and
PA President Mahmoud Abbas.
Peace talks or not, Trump is right to demand an end to
rewards for those who slaughter innocents. However fair Palestinians’
political gripes might be, it doesn’t justify terror.
Plus, as we’ve noted before, US taxpayers fund the PA — and they surely don’t want their cash rewarding terrorists.
Stopping those payments won’t be easy. The PA has dodged
past efforts to halt them, and Abbas himself regularly encourages terror
attacks.
If only American Jews got it half as much as the White House does.
'Palestinian' terrorists in Israeli prisons, led by convicted mass murderer Marwan Barghouti, are going on a hunger strike starting Monday.
Prisoners affiliated to the Palestinian People's Party (PPP)
announced they would undertake what has come to be known as the “Freedom
and Dignity” strike, according to jailed PPP leader and member of the
PPP Central Committee Bassem Khandaqji.
"After
consultations with prisoners of various factions, PPP-affiliated
prisoners decided to join the battle for freedom and dignity on April
17, which coincides with Palestinian Prisoner's Day." Khandaqji said in a
statement.
The Palestinian Popular Struggle
Front (PPSF) also said on Sunday that prisoners affiliated to the group
would join the Fatah-led strike.
The PPSF
statement went on to warn of a potential “serious escalation by Israeli
authorities against prisoners after they launch the battle for freedom
and dignity, which will mark a turning point in the life of Palestinian
prisoners.” The group said it "urged the
Palestinian people to organize actions to support the hunger strikers in
their battle, both at popular and official levels."
Hamas
meanwhile confirmed in an official statement on Sunday that prisoners
affiliated to the movement held in Hadarim prison would join the strike.
The
higher leading committee of Hamas-affiliated prisoners in Israeli
custody said it “completely supports the Freedom and Dignity hunger
strike, which an elite group of brave prisoners will start tomorrow in
order to forcibly obtain our stolen rights.”
“We
warn the Israel Prison Service against bringing any harm to the hunger
strikers. Any delay in answering their just demands will explode the
situation inside all prisons. All prisoners will unite in the face of
all those who might harm prisoners and their dignity,” the Hamas
statement said.
In the past, Israel has panicked by releasing terrorists who went on hunger strikes in Israeli prisons to avoid letting them die in prison. But Barghouti may be too big to let go. Until his arrest in 2002, Barghouti was the leader of the Fatah Tanzim terror organization that carried out many of the most murderous attacks of the Second Intifadeh (2000-04). He was convicted of five murders in 2004 and has been in an Israeli prison ever since. Barghouti is also regarded as a rival and possible successor to 'moderate' 'Palestinian' President Mahmoud AbbasAbu Mazen since he is allegedly even popular among Hamas supporters.
But not all the terrorists are going on strike.
It was previously reported that all prisoners in Hadarim and Nafha
prison would join, regardless of their political affiliation, including
those affiliated to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine
(PFLP), the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine (DFLP),
Hamas, and the Islamic Jihad.
However, the
left-wing PFLP later said that despite its “appreciation” for
Barghouthi, it was not in fact undertaking the hunger strike, because it
was organized by Fatah without coordinating with all other Palestinian
political factions.
Hopefully, this time, Israel will not force feed the 'prisoners' (as it has been forced to do by its 'Supreme Court' at times in the past). If they want to starve themselves to death, let them. This isn't about prison conditions. It's about politics.
UPDATE 5:24 PM
As usual with the 'Palestinians,' things aren't quite what they seem, as you can see in this series of tweets from Israel Radio's Gal Berger (translation follows).
מרוואן ברגותי העביר מסרים בחשאי להנהגת חמאס מחוץ לכלא ובהם הוא קורא ללחוץ על אסירי חמאס בכלא להצטרף לשביתת הרעב שהוא מתכנן להוביל ממחר>>
Marwan Barghouti sent secret messages to the Hamas leadership outside the mail calling on them to pressure Hamas prisoners in jail to join the hunger strike that he plans to lead starting tomorrow.
Hamas announced that it will support the strike and that Hamas prisoners in the Hadarim jail will join it, but did not announce general participation of its prisoners in all prisons in the strike.
Barghouti expects Hamas' leadership to join the strike later after it gathers volume. It's estimated that in the First Phase more than 1,000 prisoners will participate; not all of Fatah's prisoners are participating.
The added emphasis is mine. Note that Hamas is really taking a 'wait and see' attitude, and that not even all of Fatah's terrorists - to whom Barghouti technically belongs - are joining in.
In the Washington Post, Charles Krauthammer explains what was different about that UN Security Council resolution, and how the Obama administration stabbed Israel in the back by allowing its passage.
An ordinary Israeli who lives or works in the Old City of Jerusalem
becomes an international pariah, a potential outlaw. To say nothing of
the soldiers of Israel’s citizen army. “Every pilot and every officer
and every soldier,” said a confidant of Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas, “we are waiting for him at The Hague,” i.e. the International Criminal Court.
Moreover,
the resolution undermines the very foundation of a half-century of
American Middle East policy. What becomes of “land for peace” if the
territories that Israel was to have traded for peace are, in advance,
declared to be Palestinian land to which Israel has no claim?
The peace parameters
enunciated so ostentatiously by Secretary of State John Kerry on
Wednesday are nearly identical to the Clinton parameters that Yasser
Arafat was offered and rejected in 2000 and that Abbas was offered by Prime Minister Ehud Olmert in 2008. Abbas, too, walked away.
Kerry
mentioned none of this because it undermines his blame-Israel
narrative. Yet Palestinian rejectionism works. The Security Council just
declared the territories legally Palestinian — without the Palestinians
having to concede anything, let alone peace. What incentive do the
Palestinians have to negotiate when they can get the terms — and
territory — they seek handed to them for free if they hold out long
enough?
Indeed. The Post can look back at this column from 2009 and realize that the 'Palestinians' were correct.
Yet
on Wednesday afternoon, as he prepared for the White House meeting in a
suite at the Ritz-Carlton in Pentagon City, Abbas insisted that his
only role was to wait. He will wait for Hamas to capitulate to his
demand that any Palestinian unity government recognize Israel and swear
off violence. And he will wait for the Obama administration to force a
recalcitrant Netanyahu to freeze Israeli settlement construction and
publicly accept the two-state formula.
Until Israel meets his
demands, the Palestinian president says, he will refuse to begin
negotiations. He won't even agree to help Obama's envoy, George J.
Mitchell, persuade Arab states to take small confidence-building
measures. "We can't talk to the Arabs until Israel agrees to freeze
settlements and recognize the two-state solution," he insisted in an
interview. "Until then we can't talk to anyone."
And what the Post doesn't mention is that Netanyahu is reported to have offered even more in 2013.
If Hillary Clinton had won November's election, Israel would now have its back to the wall. Fortunately, Donald Trump won the election, and if he is willing to go to the wall in Israel's defense, perhaps this disgraceful resolution can be mitigated.
It's the last day of Chanuka, so I couldn't resist the graphic.
Some 2,300 years after the Hasmonean's Chanuka military victory (caused by some miracles from God), Daniel Pipes argues it's time for another Jewish victory.
I propose an Israeli victory and a Palestinian defeat. That is to
say, Washington should encourage Israelis to take steps that cause
Mahmoud Abbas, Khaled Mashal, Saed Erekat, Hanan Ashrawi, and the rest
of that crew to realize that the gig is up, that no matter how many U.N.
resolutions are passed, their foul dream of eliminating the Jewish
state is defunct, that Israel is permanent, strong, and tough. After the
leadership recognizes this reality, the Palestinian population at large
will follow, as will eventually other Arab and Muslim states, leading
to a resolution of the conflict. Palestinians will gain by finally being
released from a cult of death to focus instead on building their own
policy, society, economy, and culture.
While the incoming Trump administration’s Middle East policies remain
obscure, President-elect Trump himself vociferously opposed Resolution
2334 and has signaled (for example, by his choice of David M. Friedman
as ambassador to Israel) that he is open to a dramatically new approach
to the conflict, one far more favorable to Israel than Barack Obama’s.
With his lifelong pursuit of winning (“We will have so much winning if I
get elected that you may get bored with winning”), Trump would probably
be drawn to an approach that has our side win and the other side lose.
Victory also suits the current mood of Israel’s prime minister, Binyamin
Netanyahu. He’s not just furious at being abandoned in the United
Nations, he has an ambitious vision of Israel’s global importance.
Further, his being photographed recently carrying a copy of historian
John David Lewis’s Nothing Less than Victory: Decisive Wars and the
Lessons of History signals that he is explicitly thinking in terms of
victory in war: Lewis in his book looks at six case studies, concluding
that in each of them “the tide of war turned when one side tasted defeat
and its will to continue, rather than stiffening, collapsed.”
Finally, the moment is right in terms of the larger trends of
regional politics. That the Obama administration effectively became an
ally of the Islamic Republic of Iran scared Sunni Arab states, Saudi
Arabia at the fore, into being far more realistic than ever before;
needing Israel for the first time, the “Palestine” issue has lost some
of its salience, and Arab conceits about Israel as the arch enemy have
been to some extent abandoned, creating an unprecedented potential
flexibility.
#CHANGE Trump transition team wants Netanyahu at inauguration
Recall that in 2009, President Hussein Obama's first phone call was to 'moderate' 'Palestinian' President Mahmoud AbbasAbu Mazen. Israel's Prime Minister at the time was Ehud K. Olmert. The times... they are a changin'. The Trump campaign is pushing for Israel's current Prime Minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, to be in Washington at President Elect Trump's inauguration in two weeks.
President-elect Donald Trump’s advisers want to invite Israeli
President Benjamin Netanyahu to the inauguration or arrange a meeting of
the two leaders before then, a source close to the transition said.
Transition leaders led by Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner have been
aggressively courting Netanyahu and want him to attend the Jan. 20
festivities, the source said.
“There’s a plan for Trump to meet with Netanyahu,” the source said.
“They’re talking all the time. And Netanyahu is talking about possibly
going to the inauguration.”
This time, there is real hope for change. And not a moment too soon.
Lawless: Obama trying to handcuff Trump on Middle East
Greetings from Israel. I am home again (briefly).
President Hussein Obama is trying to handcuff President Elect Donald Trump's Middle East policy.
Washington DC insiders widely expect the president to launch a bold
effort to constrain the president-elect's options in dealing with the
Israeli-Palestinian conflict by supporting unilateral international
recognition of Palestinian statehood, possibly in the UN Security
Council.
...
In seeking to overturn longstanding precedent and thwart the expressed
policy positions of his successor, Obama presumably hopes that
supporting (or not vetoing) a UN Security Council resolution on
Palestinian statehood will create an irreversible fait accompli
that will eventually spur Israel to make concessions, like a settlement
freeze, which will in turn strengthen moderates on the Palestinian side.
It's the same thinking that led the United States to make concession after concession in the Iran nuclear deal,
and it is likely to backfire in the same way. Unilateral recognition of
a Palestinian state will communicate to Palestinian leaders that they
do not need to concede anything and validate the use and incitement of
violence, vindicating hardliners.
Until the Palestinian leadership can recognize
and accept a Jewish state in the land of Israel, the United States must
continue working to prevent international recognition of a Palestinian
state.
Anyone still want to claim that the Obama administration is the 'most pro-Israel administration evah'? If yes, it's time to take your blinders off.
I've already written a couple of times about the fears here in Israel of what President Hussein Obama might try to do to us in his final days in his office. Here's a really disturbing Wall Street Journal piece from Jonathan Schanzer about some of the possibilities.
The Middle East has few
bright spots these days, but one is the budding rapprochement between
Israel and its Sunni Arab neighbors, including Saudi Arabia and the
United Arab Emirates, thanks to shared threats from Iran and Islamic
State. Now the Obama Administration may have plans to wreck even that.
Israeli diplomats gird for the possibility
that President Obama may try to force a diplomatic resolution for Israel
and the Palestinians at the United Nations. The White House has been
unusually tight-lipped about what, if anything,
it might have in mind. But our sources say the White House has asked
the State Department to develop an options menu for the President’s
final weeks.
One possibility would be to sponsor, or at
least allow, a U.N. Security Council resolution condemning Israeli
settlement construction, perhaps alongside new IRS regulations revoking
the tax-exempt status of people or entities involved
in settlement building. The Administration vetoed such a resolution in
2011 on grounds that it “risks hardening the position of both sides,”
which remains true.
But condemning the settlements has always been
a popular way of scoring points against the Jewish state, not least at
the State Department, and an antisettlement resolution might burnish Mr.
Obama’s progressive brand for his postpresidency.
Mr. Obama may also seek formal recognition of a
Palestinian state at the Security Council. This would run afoul of
Congress’s longstanding view that “Palestine” does not have the
internationally recognized attributes of statehood,
including a defined territory and effective government, though Mr.
Obama could overcome the objection through his usual expedient of an
executive action, thereby daring the next President to reverse him.
Both actions would be a boon to the bullies in
the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement, while also subjecting
Israeli citizens and supporters abroad to new and more aggressive forms
of legal harassment. It could even criminalize
the Israeli army—and every reservist who serves in it—on the theory
that it is illegally occupying a foreign state. Does Mr. Obama want to
be remembered as the President who criminalized Israeli citizenship?
The worst option would be an effort to
introduce a resolution at the U.N. Security Council setting “parameters”
for a final settlement between Israel and the Palestinians.
The French
have been eager to do this for some time, and one
option for the Administration would be to let the resolution pass
simply by refusing to veto it. Or the U.S. could introduce the
resolution itself, all the better to take credit for it.
As the old line has it, this would be worse
than a crime—it would be a blunder. U.S. policy has long and wisely been
that only Israelis and Palestinians can work out a peace agreement
between themselves, and that efforts to impose
one would be counterproductive. Whatever parameters the U.N.
established would be unacceptable to any Israeli government, left or
right, thereby destroying whatever is left of a peace camp in Israel.
The Palestinians would seize on those
parameters as their birthright, making it impossible for any future
Palestinian leader to bargain part of them away in a serious
negotiation. Arab states would find their diplomatic hands tied,
making it impossible to serve as useful intermediaries between
Jerusalem and Ramallah. It could refreeze relations with Israel even as
they finally seem to have thawed.
President Obama may be the last man on earth
to get the memo, but after decades of fruitless efforts to end the
Israeli-Palestinian conflict it might be wiser for the U.S. to step back
until the Palestinians recognize that peace cannot
be imposed from the outside.
If Mr. Obama is still seeking a Middle
East legacy at this late stage in his presidency, his best move is do
nothing to make it worse.
A few comments. First, it is longstanding US policy that peace between Israel and the 'Palestinians' can only come through direct negotiations between the parties. Obama has done much to undermine that policy through his insistence on international peace conferences and other ways of allowing the 'Palestinians' to avoid direct negotiations, including his support for preconditions to negotiations. Perhaps that's why Obama has zero influence in Israel, where the government once again spat in his face on Monday, announcing that it would build 98 new homes in Shilo, which is well outside the 'settlement blocs.'
On Monday the state informed the High Court of Justice it awaited
final bureaucratic approval to develop the site within six months as a
relocation option for the 40 families from the Amona outpost.
It, therefore, asked the HCJ to delay by seven months the mandated December 25 demolition of the outpost.
Alternatively,
the state said, it was also pursuing the option of using the abandoned
property law, so that it could relocate the outpost to land adjacent to
the community’s current location.
Washington has rebuked Israel
for both plans, but the State Department issued a particularly sharp
statement in which it said the Shiloh project was tantamount to the
creation of a new settlement, something Israel had promised the US it
would not do.
“This settlement's location deep in the West Bank…
would link a string of outposts that effectively divide the West Bank
and make the possibility of a viable Palestinian state more remote,” the
State Department had said.
Second, as much as I will never vote for Hillary Clinton (#NeverHillary), it is clear to me that this sort of scorched earth strategy from the Obama administration is far more likely if Donald Trump wins next week's election than if Clinton wins it. After all, it was Netanyahu who set up Clinton's illegal private server, and it was he that caused it to be used for government business (/sarc). Obama would have far more interest in trying to tie Trump's hands than in trying to tie Clinton's.
All in all, the outlook is bleak with the 'most pro-Israel administration evah' set to extract revenge from an Israeli government that has not been willing to surrender to Obama's wishes over the past eight years.
The Clinton Tapes: 'We should have made sure that we did something to determine who was going to win'
From an Israeli perspective, what is perhaps the most interesting leak comes not from Wikileaks, but rather from the release of an old-fashioned audio cassette with a 2006 interview with Hillary Clinton.
The tape is 45 minutes and contains much that is no longer relevant,
such as analysis of the re-election battle that Sen. Joe Lieberman was
then facing in Connecticut. But a seemingly throwaway remark about
elections in areas controlled by the Palestinian Authority has taken on
new relevance amid persistent accusations in the presidential campaign
by Clinton’s Republican opponent Donald Trump that the current election is “rigged.”
Speaking to the Jewish Press about the January 25, 2006, election for
the second Palestinian Legislative Council (the legislature of
the Palestinian National Authority), Clinton weighed in about the
result, which was a resounding victory for Hamas (74 seats) over the
U.S.-preferred Fatah (45 seats).
“I do not think we should have pushed for an election in the
Palestinian territories. I think that was a big mistake,” said Sen.
Clinton. “And if we were going to push for an election, then we should
have made sure that we did something to determine who was going to win.”
The sentiment is not surprising. In 2011, former Bush National Security aide Elliott Abrams told the Jerusalem Post that the 'Palestinian Authority' sought to call off the 2006 'Palestinian' elections, and the reason it didn't happen was that they insisted on blaming Israel.
According to Abrams, the Palestinians seized on the voting in Jerusalem
as a possible pretext to cancel the elections, since this issue has been
debated amid questions of how and where Palestinians would vote.
“The
Palestinians said to Sharon, ‘Why don’t you say no voting in Jerusalem.
Zero. Not in the post offices [where voting was allowed in 1995]. Zero.
And this will be a reason to call off the election.’”
Sharon,
according to Abrams, “said he was not going to take the blame for this.
He said, ‘If you want to call off the elections, call off the election, I
don’t care. If you want to have an election, great; if you want to call
off the election, great. But you do it – I’m not taking the blame for
it.’” The Palestinians, Abrams said, then came to the Americans with a
request that they call off the elections.
The American reaction
was that the US doesn’t call off elections just a few days before they
are scheduled, “because it looks like you’re not going to win anymore.
That’s ridiculous.
Your job is to win the election, go out and
work, and get your people to the polls and win the damn election. So the
election was held, and Hamas won.”
Of course, it was 'moderate' 'Palestinian' President Mahmoud AbbasAbu Mazen who insisted that Hamas participate in that election in the first place.... And by the way, after the election, there were discussions over the possibility of Hamas being expelled from the 'Palestinian Authority.' So Hillary's statement about making sure that Fatah won the election was practically mainstream thought back then.
But there's something else on that audio tape that's even more significant.
Regarding capturing combatants in war—the June capture of IDF soldier
Gilad Shalit by Hamas militants who came across the Gaza border via an
underground tunnel was very much front of mind—Clinton can be heard on
the tape saying, “And then, when, you know, Hamas, you know, sent the
terrorists, you know, through the tunnel into Israel that killed and
captured, you know, kidnapped the young Israeli soldier, you know,
there’s a sense of like, one-upsmanship, and in these cultures of, you
know, well, if they captured a soldier, we’ve got to capture a soldier.”
Equating Hamas, which to this day remains on the State Department’s official list
of Foreign Terrorist Organizations, with the armed forces of a close
American ally was not what many expected to hear in the Jewish Press
editorial offices, which were then at Third Avenue and Third Street in
Brooklyn. (The paper’s office has since moved to the Boro Park section
of Brooklyn.) The use of the phrase “these cultures” is also a bit of a
head-scratcher.
In other words, Hillary equates Israel with Hamas. That ought to bother you all a lot more than whether she thought the 'Palestinian election' should be rigged.
On
the surface, the latest message to the Palestinian Authority from the
Obama administration is no different from the past two decades of
American policy: the U.S. will veto any resolution attacking Israel or
demanding Palestinian independence without them first making peace with
the Jewish state. But, as Haaretz reported, there
was one significant caveat to the warning. They were told not to push
for any such resolution until after the presidential election next
month.
The “senior Palestinian official” who spoke of this message to Haaretz
said PA leader Mahmoud Abbas had “no illusions and no expectations”
that the U.S. wouldn’t veto any resolution they put forward. They also
thought Washington might not have any plan of its own ready. “All we
know is that there are ideas.” But the significance of those “ideas” is a
function of the time frame enunciated by the administration.
If
President Obama had no plans to use his last two months in office to
launch some kind of a diplomatic initiative on the Middle East or to
stick it to the Israelis and his longtime antagonist Prime Minister
Benjamin Netanyahu, then why would he even mention the election? Were
the U.S. to keep faith with the Israelis, the Palestinians would just be
told that there would be no change in American policy. Period. Abbas
and the PA would be put on notice that, if they actually had any desire
for peace or hope of future independence, they should do what they
promised to do in the Oslo Accords: head back into direct negotiations
with the Israelis.
...
Yet nothing the
Palestinians have done has been enough to cause Obama to rethink the
mistaken assumption he brought with him into the White House in January
2009. He still thinks creating more daylight between the U.S. and Israel
is the best path to peace, or, at least, is the stance that reflects
his personal inclinations. That’s why he’s still flirting with the idea
of using the lame duck period between the presidential election and the
inauguration of his successor to put forward some kind of plan to
pressure Israel, or even going as far as betraying the Jewish state at
the UN by allowing a pro-Palestinian resolution to pass without an
American veto. Earlier this month, Secretary of State Kerry told Netanyahu that the administration was still thinking about it. Now they’ve told the Palestinians to hold their fire until November 9th.
You don’t have to be a conspiracy theorist to connect the dots and
realize that there is an excellent chance that Obama will finally make
good on this threat. The president may make a gesture before leaving
office that will damage the U.S.-Israel alliance in a way that even a
less hostile president won’t be able to completely undo.
Asking
the Palestinians to wait until after the election is a reflection of the
fact that Obama knows any move against Israel would hurt Hillary
Clinton. But with only 18 days to go until the election, friends of
Israel–both Republicans and especially Democrats–need to use this time
to speak up against any last minute betrayal of Israel.
Which Democrats will speak out against any last minute betrayal of Israel? Surely not Hillary Clinton.
'Palestinian' terrorist a Hamas member blessed by Hamas, mourned by Abbas' Fatah, and an Israeli citizen to boot
Two victims of this morning's Jerusalem terror attack - apparently a woman in her 60's and a police officer who gave chase - have been pronounced dead. Six other people were wounded, three of them seriously. The terrorist opened fire from a vehicle at the Ammunition Hill tram station, and then tried to escape into the nearby Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood.
According to an initial police investigation, a terrorist driving in a
car came to a nearby junction, opened fire and hit a civilian. The
suspect fled the scene, driving in the direction of the Sheikh Jarrah
neighborhood. Police motorcycle forces chased after the suspect's
vehicle, stopping him in Sheikh Jarrah. When the terrorist saw the
officers, he opened fire in their direction. The officers shot back at
the suspect, successfully neutralizing him.
Three others were in
moderate condition following the attack. One was taken to Hadassah
University Medical Center on Mount Scopus, the second was taken to
Hadassah University Medical Center in Ein Kerem while a third was taken
to Shaare Zedek Medical Center.
An additional three people were
lightly wounded, with two of them going to Shaare Zedek and one going
to Hadassah's campus on Mount Scopus.
The terrorist is Misab Abu Sbeih, a resident of the Silwan neighborhood just outside Jerusalem's Old City, and a Hamas 'activist.' The picture below is from Hamas' social media.
In a notice posted to its Facebook and Twitter pages, the 'moderate' Fatah terrorist organization, headed by 'moderate' 'Palestinian' President Mahmoud AbbasAbu Mazen has called for a general strike in Jerusalem as a sign of mourning for the terrorist (link in Hebrew). And you thought they were 'rivals'....
The terrorist was indicted last year on 14 counts of incitement to terror and eight counts of supporting a terror organization, although according to Maan, the prison sentence he was to serve stemmed from his assaulting a police officer in 2013.
Given his long arrest record, the investigation will focus on how the terrorist was able to obtain/buy an M-16 rifle.
Unfortunately, terrorism is not dead here in Israel. We live with it daily.
And oh yeah, Abu Sbeih was an Israeli citizen. That's how he got into 'west' Jerusalem in the first place. (The tram station where the attack took place is within 100 meters or so of the site of one of the biggest battles of the Six Day War.
Abu Mazen earns praise for plan to attend Peres funeral, but Fatah says he's 'destined for hell' and Hamas calls for 'days of rage'
'Moderate' 'Palestinian' President Mahmoud AbbasAbu Mazen is drawing praise from the Israeli Left for his plan to attend Shimon Peres' funeral. Peres was the man who brought the 'Palestinians' in from the cold.
But Israel's Arab MK's are being criticized for ignoring Peres' death, while Abu Mazen's Fatah faction has described Peres as 'destined for hell' and his Hamas rivals are calling for 'days of rage' in response to Peres' death.
This is the second link from the above paragraph.
On the day after former Israeli
President Shimon Peres passed away, Fatah demonized Peres as a murderer
about to enter Hell. In a cartoon on Fatah's official Facebook page
(shown above) Peres is shown trembling and handcuffed as the Grim Reaper
shows or reads to Peres from an English language scroll the long list
of "crimes" that the PA-Fatah accuse Peres of committing. In the
background flames are seen, representing the fires of Hell that,
according to Fatah, are awaiting Peres.
Likewise, official PA TV's "Israeli
affairs expert" spoke about Peres. The "expert," an Israeli Arab named
Fayez Abbas, described Peres as a man of war who should have been tried
in the International Criminal Court, and as "the greatest fraud in the
history of the Zionist movement." The essence of his message about Peres
was that he succeeded in deceiving the entire world when he talked
about peace:
The Hamas terror group urged Palestinians to hold a “Day of Rage” on
Friday, coinciding with the state funeral of former Israeli president
Shimon Peres, which will be held in Jerusalem on that day.
The call is meant to mark the one-year
anniversary of the beginning of a wave of terror attacks, including
stabbings and car-rammings throughout the West Bank and in Jerusalem,
that launched in September 2015.
Hamas’s call follows a Wednesday statement by the group’s spokesman in Gaza that expressed happiness at Peres’s death.
A spokesman for the group, Sami Abu Zuhri,
told AP on Wednesday that “the Palestinian people are very happy at the
passing of this criminal who caused their blood to shed.”
He added, “Shimon Peres was the last remaining
Israeli official who founded the occupation, and his death is the end
of a phase in the history of this occupation and the beginning of a new
phase of weakness.”
Meanwhile, Abu Mazen expressed sorrow over Peres' death... at least in English.
In a statement, Abbas said he has sent a condolence letter to Peres’s family expressing “sorrow and sympathy.”
He called Peres a partner in reaching a “peace
of the brave” with the late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat and prime
minister Yitzhak Rabin. The three men shared the 1994 Nobel Peace prize
for reaching the Oslo interim peace accord.
Abbas said Peres “exerted persistent efforts to reach a just peace from the Oslo agreement until the final moments of his life.”
Once again the 'Palestinian Authority' is speaking from both sides of its mouth.
It's come to this: Saudi editorial blasts Abu Mazen for not responding positively to Netanyahu invitation
It's finally happened. A major Sunni Arab country has told Abu Bluff where to get off. And it's a big one: It's 'our friends, the Saudis.'
The editorial, published Sunday in the Saudi Gazette, a daily published
in Jeddah that has a woman editor-in-chief, seemed to depart in tone
from the widely-held position in the Arab world that Israel is
responsible for the impasse with the Palestinians. It likened
Netanyahu’s proposal that the two leaders address each other’s
parliaments, to Prime Minister Menachem Begin’s 1977 invitation to
Egyptian president Anwar Sadat to visit Israel, and implied it could
also lead to a breakthrough. Begin made the invitation “and the rest is
history,’’ the editorial said.
“For all its shortcomings, Camp
David demonstrated that negotiations with Israel were possible and that
progress could be made through sustained efforts at communication and
cooperation,’’ it added.
As another example of how “official
visits can bend the arc of history’’ the paper cited then-US President
Bill Clinton’s 1998 visit to the Gaza Strip to address the Palestinian
National Council on the day it deleted clauses calling for the
destruction of Israel from the PLO charter.
Well, except that deletion had not legal effect, but let's leave that for now.
The editorial said that Palestinians had rejected overtures from
Netanyahu with the explanation that his hard-line position on all core
issues made dialogue impossible.
“But the Palestinians should note that at that time, Egypt and Israel were mortal enemies having fought three wars.’’
The
editorial went on to second guess the Arab world for rejecting Camp
David, saying “in hindsight if the provisions had been carried out,
Israel and the Palestinians might not be in the impasse they are at
present.’’ Saudi Arabia was a leader of the Arab opposition to Camp
David.
'Moderate' 'Palestinian' President Mahmoud AbbasAbu Mazen sent 'Palestinian' Christian mouthpiece Hanan Ashrawi out to respond.
‘’Whoever wrote this editorial is totally unaware of the reality of
this so-called invitation,’’ said PLO spokeswoman Hanan Ashrawi. “It is
a very obvious public relations trick that’s been overused. If
Netanyahu wants peace, let him abide by the requirements of
international law, the two-state solution and the 1967 boundaries.’’
...
Ashrawi took issue with the analogy to Egyptian-Israeli peacemaking.
“It’s not a question of Egypt and Israel, two countries that wanted to
make peace, it’s a question of an occupying force that is destroying the
other state and it’s about people under occupation who have no right
and no power.’’
Funny. I don't recall Begin or Sadat imposing any preconditions... and I am old enough to remember.
Ashrawi said she thinks that “below the surface there are contacts
[between Israel and Saudi Arabia] and all sorts of security
considerations and Israel is positioning itself to be a regional
power.’’ But she added: “No matter what happens, they won’t recognize or
normalize with Israel because it hasn’t respected Palestinian rights
and international law. Once the Palestinian issue is resolved things
can move. Before that they might have secret contacts, but they can’t
afford to lose their own constituency.’’
Except that the 'Palestinians' have made the 'Palestinian issue' impossible to resolve by rejecting any form of compromise.
Here's betting that Abu Mazen and Ashrawi go to their graves without seeing any kind of compromise or 'Palestinian state.'
Israel's Channel 1 (government-owned television) disclosed on Wednesday night that 'moderate' 'Palestinian' President Mahmoud AbbasAbu Mazen is a longtime KGB spy. He was recruited while doing a PhD in Holocaust Denial in Moscow in the early 1980's.
Here are some of the details that make this story so compelling: The
Channel 1 report is based on a new study by two research fellows at
Hebrew University’s Truman Institute, Isabela Ginor and Gideon Remez.
(Ginor, a Russian native, and Remez, a veteran Israeli journalist, are
married.)
They obtained documents from a collection kept by former KGB chief
archivist Vasili Mitrokhin, who defected to the West in 1992 and lived
in London. Mitrokhin kept mementos from his spook days, and part of his
collection was recently opened up, allowing researchers to study it.
That’s where the Israeli couple found files that mentioned Abbas, code-name “Krotov” (“mole”).
“They could have called him ‘friend,’ or ‘our man,’ or whatever, but
in the documents he’s referred to as an agent,” Remez says.
Specifically, Abbas was described in a 1983 document as a KGB agent in
Damascus. (It isn’t clear if the spy agency used Abbas’ services after
that date.)
Moscow is where Abbas wrote his infamous Ph.D. thesis that included
some choice Holocaust denial. But the researchers say these new
revelations don’t change the facts on the ground. Abbas can’t be ignored
just because we now know his anti-Western bona fides were more robust
than previously thought.
But Remez conditions that with a warning.
“Look, Abbas now heads the Palestinian Authority, and as such he’s
the man to talk to,” Remez told me. Yet, he added, “the Americans should
know that the Kremlin may well still have stuff on him, and Washington
must take that into account.”
Especially now, as President Vladimir Putin is trying to arrange an
Israeli-Palestinian peace conference in Moscow, perhaps in the next few
weeks.
If successful, even as a photo-op, such a powwow could help Putin add
yet another Mideast corner to his collection of spots once dominated —
or at least mostly influenced — by America.
But Israel cannot be complacent either.
Remez told me he doesn’t know whether Putin, the ex-KGB man, knew of
the recruitment of the future Palestinian leader in the early 1980s. But
Abbas’ direct KGB handler at the time was Nikolai Bogdanov, and that’s
just as crucial.
After all, Bogdanov, a top Mideast hand at the Kremlin, is now one of
Putin’s closest aides, serving as special envoy to the
Israeli-Palestinian dispute. He is the main player in orchestrating the
Moscow peace parlay. “As we speak, Bogdanov is working with the Israelis
and Palestinians,” trying to coax them to come to Moscow, Remez says.
So Abbas is an old, ahem, acquaintance. But Israelis should also
worry about how Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu increasingly
consults with Putin, Remez says: “It’s a mistake to see the Russians as
our allies.”
But let’s remember: The main reason Putin’s influence is growing is
that for nearly a decade America has decided to watch from the sidelines
one of the most transformative periods in the modern history of the
Mideast. The vacuum America has left has driven some of our closest
allies and friends to the arms of the former spymaster.
And now, in addition to that loss of influence, we’re placing a
diplomatic bet on a leader who has been exposed as a former Kremlin
agent.
There are no friends in international relations. Only interests.
Using language rarely heard from an Israeli Minister about a 'Palestinian leader' since the death of Yasser Arafat, Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman has bluntly said that 'moderate' 'Palestinian' President Mahmoud AbbasAbu Mazenmust go.
The defense minister views Abbas as a bitter enemy of Israel and says that Abbas’s policies have eliminated any possibility of advancing the peace process.
In the past two weeks, Lieberman has said several times that defense officials meet frequently with West Bank Palestinians, without the involvement or approval of Abbas and his people.
“We’ve met dozens of economists and businessmen from the Palestinian Authority, and when you ask what’s most important for the Palestinian economy, they all reply that the most important thing is to get rid of Abu Mazen,” he said on one such occasion, referring to Abbas by his nickname. “He has imposed a reign of corruption that encompasses everything. He has people in every economic sector — in real estate, the fuel market, the communications market. Abbas’ people take a tithe from every deal, and aside from the people in the inner circle, the PA leadership doesn’t allow anyone there to develop economically.
“That’s why it’s so important for him to go,” Lieberman continued. “As long as Abbas is there, nothing will happen.”
Lieberman said he didn’t think Israel should actively work to end Abbas’ rule, but at the same time, he said, it shouldn’t blame itself for the situation in the West Bank.
“Not everything depends on us,” he said. “As long as the PA’s corrupt and ineffective management continues, the economic situation there won’t improve.”
The defense minister also charged that Abbas rarely visits Nablus and Jenin, the major cities of the northern West Bank, as he prefers to take diplomatic trips abroad. “He doesn’t want to deal with problems of economics and employment,” Lieberman said. “The entire system of management there has failed.”
All of which probably makes 'Abbas' no more corrupt than any other Arab leader. But then other Arab leaders don't lead a 'people' that have a real democracy in their midst as a standard of comparison.
By the way, yes, this could well be the end of the 'peace process.'
Last week, Arab media outlets reported that Russian President Vladimir Putin was trying to arrange a diplomatic summit between Abbas and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu later this year. Netanyahu doesn’t use Lieberman’s blunt language, but he apparently shares the defense minister’s skepticism about the prospects for real diplomatic progress as long as Abbas remains in power. And, like Lieberman, he blames the impasse entirely on the Palestinians.
Russia supports the Palestinian-Israeli settlement process, but there
are no specific agreements on holding a meeting of the sides’ leaders
in Moscow, Russian presidential press secretary Dmitry Peskov said on
Monday.
"There are no specifics on this matter yet," he said, commenting on related reports issued by the Israeli media.
"Moscow maintains rather trust-based and active relations with both
the Israelis and Palestinians, but there are no specifics yet," he
added.
October 8, 2016: The end of the 'Palestinian Authority'
There are 'local' 'Palestinian' elections scheduled for October 8, and while 'moderate' 'Palestinian' President Mahmoud AbbasAbu Mazen may be hoping that Israel will step in to stop them, because Hamas seems likely to win them, that is increasingly unlikely according to Caroline Glick, who sees the elections as signifying the end of the 'Palestinian Authority.'
Hamas is widely expected to win control over most of the local
governments in Judea and Samaria. Hamas’s coming takeover of the
municipalities is likely playing a role in decisions by Fatah terrorist
cells to reject the authority of the PA. Many of those cells can be
expected to transfer their allegiance to Hamas once the terrorist group
wins the elections.
Given his Fatah party’s looming electoral
defeat, more and more PA functionaries are wondering why Abbas doesn’t
use the growing anarchy in Palestinian cities as a reason to cancel
them. Abbas seems to have calculated that Israel will step in and, as
it has repeatedly done over the past 20 years, cancel the elections for
him.
Media organs Abbas controls are full of conspiracy theories
whose bottom line is that Israel is not canceling the elections Abbas
declared because it is in cahoots with Hamas and other “collaborators”
to undermine the PA.
Although Israel, of course, is in cahoots
with no one, it is the case that the government has apparently finally
lost its patience with Abbas and is looking past him.
Repeated
angry denunciations by government leaders of Abbas for his lead role in
inciting violence against Israelis, leading the international movement
to delegitimize Israel, refusing to negotiate anything with its
leaders, and radicalizing Palestinian society, are finally being
translated into policy.
Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman’s
recent announcement that Israel is adopting a carrot-andstick approach
not toward the PA but toward the Palestinians themselves, and will
advance development projects in areas where terrorism levels are low
and take a hard line against areas where terrorist cells are most
active, has sent shock waves through Abbas’s palaces.
For 22
years, Israel has bowed to Palestinian and Western demands and agreed
to speak only to PA functionaries and Palestinian civilians authorized
by the PA to speak to Israelis. Liberman’s decision to base Israel’s
actions on the ground on the behavior of the Palestinians themselves
rather than act in accordance with PA directives, along with his
decision to speak directly to Palestinian businessmen and others, marks
the end of Israel’s acceptance of this practice.
Without a
doubt, Israel’s willingness to let Abbas fall is in part a function of
the wider Arab world’s increased indifference to, if not disgust with
the Palestinians. As MEMRI has documented, the Arab media is
registering growing impatience with PA spokespeople. Arab commentators
have harshly criticized PA functionaries who continue to insist their
conflict with Israel is the most pressing issue on the pan-Arab agenda.
The
disintegration of Syria, Iraq, Yemen and Libya and the rise of Iran as
a mortal threat, along with Israel’s growing importance as an ally to
Sunni Arab regimes have made the Palestinian cause look downright
offensive to large swaths of the Arab world.
Part of Israel’s
willingness to let Abbas fall also owes to its inevitability. Once
Hamas wins the elections and takes control over the local governments,
Abbas’s already weakened position will become unsustainable. As is
already happening in towns and villages throughout the areas, Fatah
cells will transfer their allegiance to Hamas. The areas will become
Balkanized and radicalized still further.
Confrontation between Israel and the Hamas-controlled Palestinians in Judea and Samaria is inevitable.
Moreover,
this process will likely be rapid. Just as Hamas’s complete takeover
of Gaza from Fatah forces happened seemingly overnight in June 2007, so
its seizure of control over Judea and Samaria will happen in the blink
of an eye.
The collapse of the 'Palestinian Authority' and the likely end of the 'two-state solution' are also part of Barack Hussein Obama's disastrous foreign policy legacy. It's been more than seven years since 'Abbas' told the Washington Post's Jackson Diehl that his only role in the 'peace process' was to wait until President Obama forced Prime Minister Netanyahu to give him what he wanted.
Yet on Wednesday afternoon, as he prepared for the White House meeting
in a suite at the Ritz-Carlton in Pentagon City, Abbas insisted that his
only role was to wait. He will wait for Hamas to capitulate to his
demand that any Palestinian unity government recognize Israel and swear
off violence. And he will wait for the Obama administration to force a
recalcitrant Netanyahu to freeze Israeli settlement construction and
publicly accept the two-state formula.
Until Israel meets his demands, the Palestinian president says, he will
refuse to begin negotiations. He won't even agree to help Obama's envoy,
George J. Mitchell, persuade Arab states to take small
confidence-building measures. "We can't talk to the Arabs until Israel
agrees to freeze settlements and recognize the two-state solution," he
insisted in an interview. "Until then we can't talk to anyone."
So why is that Obama's fault? Because instead of taking 'Abbas' to task for his recalcitrance, Obama and his two Secretaries of State pandered to the 'Palestinian leader,' continuing to pressure only Israel to make concessions. Abu Mazen read that correctly seven years ago, and he still reads it correctly today.
What's interesting about Abbas's hardline position, however, is what it
says about the message that Obama's first Middle East steps have sent to
Palestinians and Arab governments. From its first days the Bush
administration made it clear that the onus for change in the Middle East
was on the Palestinians: Until they put an end to terrorism,
established a democratic government and accepted the basic parameters
for a settlement, the United States was not going to expect major
concessions from Israel.
Obama, in contrast, has repeatedly and publicly stressed the need for a
West Bank settlement freeze, with no exceptions. In so doing he has
shifted the focus to Israel. He has revived a long-dormant Palestinian
fantasy: that the United States will simply force Israel to make
critical concessions, whether or not its democratic government agrees,
while Arabs passively watch and applaud. "The Americans are the leaders
of the world," Abbas told me and Post Editorial Page Editor Fred Hiatt.
"They can use their weight with anyone around the world. Two years ago
they used their weight on us. Now they should tell the Israelis, 'You
have to comply with the conditions.' "
That is why for the past seven years, nothing has happened with the 'peace process.' And that is why nothing will happen during Obama's remaining months in office. Obama only knows how to pressure one side, and the Democratically elected government of Israel has a much better ability to resist Obama's pressure than does Abu Mazen, in his 11th year of a four-year term.
At this point, as Caroline Glick notes above, there are more reasons for peace not to happen than there were seven years ago. The Arabs don't care about the 'Palestinians' anymore. They are busy with their own. If there was an opportunity for peace during the past seven years, it was surely missed.
Tit for tat: Iran accuses Abu Bluff of collaborating with the CIA, 'Palestinians' accuse Iran of 'serving the Zionist project'
Pass the popcorn!
The 'Palestinians' and Iran are nearly in open war.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Maryam
Rajavi, president-elect of the National Council of Resistance of Iran
(NCRI), an Iranian diaspora opposition group, met in Paris on Saturday,
renewing tensions between the Palestinian leadership and Iran.
Abbas
hosted Rajavi at his hotel in Paris and updated her on the latest
developments in the Palestinian territories and the Middle East,
according to Wafa, the official Palestinian Authority news site.
The following day, Tehran learned of the meeting and
accused President Abbas of working as a secret agent on behalf of the
United States government.
A top advisor to the Iranian Foreign Minister Hussein Shiekh
al-Islam said, “That man [Abbas] is known to us and documents from the
US Embassy in Tehran revealed that he has been a collaborator with the
Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) for a long time and his actions in
the past decades have proved that.”
Later in the evening, Wafa
published a press release from the Fatah Media and Culture
Commissariat, saying Iran, without mentioning its name, is carrying out
a campaign to undermine President Abbas and the Palestinian cause. “A
careful reading of advisor to the Iranian Foreign Minister Hussein
Sheikh al-Islam’s statements…have made clear to us of the horror that
many people are carrying out to serve the Zionist project through
organized campaigns against the president of the Palestinian people and
the Palestinian issue.”
The statement stated further that Iran
hopes to entrench division between Palestinians. “They have vied and
are still vying to destroy and ruin the Palestinian people, entrench
the division, and encourage internal conflict to gain political points,
nothing else. Their goals have nothing to do with Jerusalem or
justice,” it said.
The 'Palestinians' are trying to show they stand with the 'moderate' Sunni countries (Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Jordan). Coincidentally, those are the same countries who have been ramping up ties with Israel. Hmmm.
'Palestinians' to sue God over covenant with Abraham
Last week, I reported on the 'Palestinian Authority's plans to sue the United Kingdom for issuing the Balfour Declaration in 1917.
And as many of you know, the Bible says that God promised the land of Israel to the Jewish people.
So what's a 'Palestinian' to do? It's easy. They're going to sue God over His Making that covenant with Abraham.
“The God of Abraham had no right to promise this land to the Jews. Being
all-knowing, He had to have foreseen that some 4,000 years later, we
would suddenly decide that we have a national identity tied to this
land”, said a spokesperson for the Palestinian Authority. The
Palestinians claim that God should have known that they would seek to
retroactively deny the rich and well-documented history of Jews in the
land of Israel and therefore should not have promised it to Abraham and
his descendants. “Although we were living in Arabia for thousands of
years after the covenant, God really should have taken us into
consideration when making such promises” said the P.A. spokesperson. We
reached out to God for comment via a note in the Wailing Wall. The
Almighty issued a statement through his spokesperson, the angel Gabriel,
“Are you serious with this sh*t??? I have much more important things
to worry about. There’s a war in Syria killing hundreds of thousands of
people in my name, the ice caps are melting, and I’m trying to figure
out how to stop the bees from dying off so you guys don’t starve to
death. I don’t have time for this nonsense.”
The Palestinians assert that time is a construct invented by God, and he
is simply avoiding having to address the issue. An archangel, speaking
on condition of anonymity, said that God is indeed worried about the
lawsuit since there are no good lawyers in heaven. “All of the most
cutthroat and lawyers are either in the U.S. Government or in Hell, so
God is really at a loss here. He won’t say it publicly, but he’s
scared.”
'Moderate' 'Palestinian' President Mahmoud AbbasAbu Mazen has in essence now admitted that lied when he told the European Parliament on Thursday that a 'rabbi' ordered Jews to poison 'Palestinian' water. The 'rabbi' doesn't exist, the organization he 'represented' doesn't exist, but none of that stopped Abu Bluff from telling the lie, nor did it stop the European anti-Semites who make up the European Parliament (including a grinning ear-to-ear foreign policy chief Federika Mog - a pity you can't watch the video anymore).
Mr.
Abbas’s retraction was sent to reporters early Saturday morning, issued
by the P.L.O., of which Mr. Abbas is the chairman. It said that Mr.
Abbas “rejected all claims that accuse him and the Palestinian people of
offending the Jewish religion.” It added that he “also condemned all
accusations of anti-Semitism.”
“After
it has become evident that the alleged statements by a rabbi on
poisoning Palestinian wells, which were reported by various media
outlets, are baseless, President Mahmoud Abbas has affirmed that he
didn’t intend to do harm to Judaism or to offend Jewish people around
the world,” the statement continued.
It
was not immediately clear why Mr. Abbas repeated the allegation on
Thursday, days after it was widely debunked. Neither the rabbi who
supposedly made the claim, nor the organization quoted in the original
P.L.O. article, appear to exist.
And of course, this is not the first time that 'Mr. Abbas' has invented a lie. In fact, the entire existence of a 'Palestinian people' is one great big lie.
In October, Mr. Abbas erroneously accused Israeli forces of killing a 13-year-old Palestinian boy who had taken part in the stabbing of two Israelis. The boy had actually been wounded and later recovered.
So what's the genesis of this particular lie (aside from the Bubonic plague in 14th century Europe)? Here's where it came from.
The story was discovered to be false by Palestinian Media Watch (PMW),
an Israeli NGO that monitors Palestinian incitement. PMW claims that
Abbas’ accusation is based on an article published last week in Anadolu,
a Turkish news service, which claimed , “Rabbi Shlomo Mlma (sic),
chairman of the Council of Rabbis in the West Bank settlements(sic), has
issued an advisory opinion in which he allowed Jewish settlers to
poison water in Palestinian villages and cities in the West Bank.”
PMW reported that the story in Anadolu was based on a claim by Yehuda Shaul, a leader of the extreme left-wing Israeli NGO Breaking the Silence. Shaul was quoted in the Hebrew news service, NRG, as saying that “settlers poisoned” the water of a Palestinian town a number of years ago causing the Palestinians to leave”.
The story was confirmed as incorrect by several news services including Reuters and Haaretz. No such rabbi or council was found to exist.
Shocked. Just totally shocked... to see the Turks and the self-hating Jews at 'Breaking the Silence' involved in this....
I am an Orthodox Jew - some would even call me 'ultra-Orthodox.' Born in Boston, I was a corporate and securities attorney in New York City for seven years before making aliya to Israel in 1991 (I don't look it but I really am that old :-). I have been happily married to the same woman for thirty-five years, and we have eight children (bli ayin hara) ranging in age from 13 to 33 years and nine grandchildren. Four of our children are married! Before I started blogging I was a heavy contributor on a number of email lists and ran an email list called the Matzav from 2000-2004. You can contact me at: IsraelMatzav at gmail dot com
