Shocking video of one of today's terror attacks in Jerusalem
It's been a difficult, painful day here in Jerusalem, as we have gone back into intifada mode (2000-04).
Here's video of one of today's terror attacks in the city. This took place at a bus stop on Malchei Yisrael Street in the city's Geula neighborhood - a major thoroughfare that I usually walk down at least once a week. In fact, at least two of my children were there yesterday!
Let's go to the videotape.
SHOCKING FOOTAGE: Moment of Arab terrorist ramming his car into bus stop then stabbing Israelis before being shot. pic.twitter.com/c4AAomN4xr
The terrorist - like all of the terrorists involved in today's five terror attacks around the country - was an Arab resident of 'east' Jerusalem, which means that he could roam around freely without hitting any army checkpoints. He was an employee of Bezeq, Israel's national phone carrier, and used his company-issued truck to carry out the attack. His job at Bezeq? Repairing home phone lines.
There is now talk of placing checkpoints outside Arab neighborhoods to prevent terrorists from leaving or imposing a curfew on them altogether.
Last night, I had to take (because we are trying to minimize bus trips - there was a bus attacked today as well) one of my children to a place near where there were two terror attacks during the day yesterday. There were police on every corner and that is likely to be supplemented with army units. That is why police have been on the scene of each attack quickly and casualties have been minimized.
The good news is that the security forces believe that the attacks were coordinated, which would mean that these are not lone wolves and that there is a terror cell behind them that can be broken.
Keep praying for us - living like this is quite stressful....
Within the last hour, a 20-year old Israeli was stabbed in the neck and critically wounded by a 15-year old 'Palestinian' terrorist outside Israel's National Police Headquarters.
UPDATE: Palestinian terrorist stabbed 20 y/o man in his neck seriously wounding him, terrorist shot and wounded. pic.twitter.com/kP2x6UYpzN
Each individual incident isn't exactly something you can anticipate. But so far, it's much more a police action than an army action that seems necessary to stop it.
UPDATE 1:36 PM
⚠URGENT⚠ - SHARE: Public asked to pray for ARON MOSHE CHAIM BEN CHANA, Israeli student stabbed in neck by Palestinian terrorist in Jerusalem
And again: Attempted stabbing attack on Jerusalem light rail
There's been yet another attempted stabbing attack on the Jerusalem light rail, this time at the Givat HaMivtar station located at the French Hill intersection (one stop east of where a 'Palestinian' plowed into a station with his car a few months ago).
There are no injuries in today's attack, and the terrorist was taken into custody.
But if we don't talk about terror attacks, they don't exist, right?
Can you imagine what would happen if an Israeli consulate in the US did this?
On Friday, US consulate personnel from 'east' Jerusalem showed up at the Israeli encampment in Samaria known as Adei Ad to 'investigate' the alleged uprooting of trees by local residents. The consulate personnel were accompanying 'Palestinians.' They did not coordinate their visit with the Israeli security forces (as is the accepted protocol) and when the residents started throwing stones at them, at least one consulate security guard pulled a shotgun and an M-16 rifle.
An Israeli police spokeswoman said the delegation arrived at Adei Ad in U.S. diplomatic cars without first having coordinated the visit with Israeli authorities. She said the purpose of the trip was to inspect nearby trees that had been uprooted in what their Palestinian owners suspect was vandalism by Jewish settlers.
"Rocks were thrown at them by residents of Adei Ad. We are investigating. Arrests have yet to be made," the spokeswoman said. She said she did not know of any damage to the vehicles and had no further information on the delegates' identities.
An Adei Ad resident who spoke to Reuters on condition of anonymity said that he had not witnessed the incident but had been told by fellow settlers who were involved that the U.S. delegates came within 50 yards (metres) of the settlement in two diplomatic cars accompanied by local Palestinians.
The resident said several settlers went out to confront the group. He declined to confirm or deny that the settlers threw stones, but said two armed diplomatic guards briefly emerged from the cars.
"One had a pistol, the other an M-16, and they pointed them at the settlers," the resident said.
Asked about this account, the Israeli police spokeswoman said: "We have no indication that anyone in the U.S. delegation brandished weapons."
Can you imagine if the Israeli embassy sent someone to investigate alleged vandalism (against Israeli citizens - here the 'Palestinians' may not have been American citizens) in the US? Everyone involved would be immediately declared persona non grata. And that's exactly what the revenants would like to see happen.
Acting Head of the Samaria Regional Council, Yossi Dagan, has filed a
request to the Minister of the Interior Gilad Erdan demanding he
immediately expel the American Consulate staff members who entered the
Samaria village of Adei Ad Friday and threatened Israeli Jews with an M-16.
"As revealed through Wikileaks few years ago, these supposed
'officials' are intelligence agents and spies in every respect," said
Dagan, adding "this time, they went too far and participated in a
provocative tour with the Palestinians in the southern
Samaria and north Binyamin, without any coordination as required with
the IDF and police, and pulled out a firearm and threatened Israeli
civilians."
"This is a crossing of all red lines," he continued. "This event
could have descended easily into bloodshed and only as a result of the
settlers' responsible behavior was [a scenario like that] prevented."
"I request that in view of the serious and criminal conduct, that
these [US] security guards and officials be deported," he added.
"If Israeli intelligence officials and armed Israeli security
guards stationed in one of the Israeli consulates in the United States
had participated in a political provocation without any coordination
with the police and threatened American citizens with weapons, at best,
they would be arrested and deported, and the more likely case would be
them spending several years in federal prison."
Indeed they would. The hostility of the 'east' Jerusalem consulate to Israel is well-known and this is not the first incident involving consulate personnel overstepping their bounds. It will be interesting to see what is said at the State Department briefing on Monday about this incident (there has not been a briefing since last Tuesday). But if the US makes a fuss out of this, Israel should push back hard.
Video: Israel police arrest 15-year old 'Palestinians' for throwing stones at cars
Imagine if you were driving one of the cars in this video.
Here's a video of Israeli police arresting four 15-year old 'Palestinians' who were on a footbridge throwing stones outside their school in Beit Hanina - a neighborhood in Jerusalem.
The cars (and buses) at which they were throwing the stones are headed for Pisgat Zev and Neve Yaakov, which are also neighborhoods in Jerusalem.
This is about a five-minute drive from my home, and yes, I have driven this road dozens of times.
Let's go to the videotape.
For the record, one car and one bus were damaged and the 'children' confessed. Maybe their parents should be spending some time in jail too?
Jewish construction worker murdered by 'Palestinian' co-worker who cut his rope
It took two weeks, but police now suspect that Jewish construction worker Netanel Arami HY"D (May God Avenge his blood) was murdered when a 'Palestinian' co-worker cut the rope from which he was suspended, sending him plunging 11 stories to his death.
This is from the original report from two weeks ago (the second link).
The few details known about the event so far, according to Walla! News,
hint that Arami's fall may not have been accidental. Armi worked at the
site along with fellow worker Liron Ovadiah in the hours before the
fall, according to the daily, and was first noticed to have been missing
after he did not show up for a planned ride home. One worker returned
to the construction site to search for him and found him laying dead on
the ground.
Both Arami and Ovadiah were to close the vent caps of the security
rooms spread along the length of the building, which is being built on
Shraga Naftali Street. Due to the complexity in assembling the
building's scaffolding, contractors have asked the workers to put up the
structure using abseiling, or a form of rappelling along the outside of
the building.
For several hours they worked on the site, and were due to end at
5:00 pm. At that time, Arami - hanging from cables on the 11th floor via
a harness - asked his employees to prepare for the end of the day and
pack up.
After the fall, and after he was was found lifeless on the ground,
Arami's colleagues called an ambulance, but the Portable Intensive Care
Unit at the scene pronounced him dead shortly thereafter.
The police now know a lot more. This is from the first link.
Police investigators think an Arab co-worker at the site cut the rope
that Arami was connected to as he rapelled down the side of the
building.
Arami, 27, owned a small rapelling business which he had been running for several years.
MK Moshe Feiglin (Likud), who visited the grieving Arami family
shortly after Netanel's death, was convinced from the outset that he was
murdered. “For five hours, Netanel lay crushed on the ground,”
wrote. His mother learned of the accident from news site Ynet,” he
wrote on Facebook. Netanel's co-worker “arrived there with the police.
They went up to the roof and found the slashed rope, heard the Arabs
laughing. A rapelling rope that has been cut looks completely different
from one that was worn out. And there are two of them – one main rope
and one for security.”
Feiglin hinted broadly that the gag order placed on details of
the investigation was unjustified. “What is there to hide here except
the wish to block, to cover the eyes of the public?”
There's much more: The police handling of this entire case was apparently grossly negligent. Read the whole thing.
If a terror attack is committed and no one talks about it, does it still exist?
My opinion of Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat has just sunk some more. Barkat apparently believes that if we don't talk about the terror attacks he's been unable to prevent in Jerusalem, they don't exist.
News site 0404 has published a recodring of Barkat speaking before the City Council on Thursday.
The mayor can be heard saying: “In my opinion, if people are too
afraid – and we know that the problem exists – this can serve the
interests of the terrorists and rioters who want to disrupt our lives.
We are must make a great effort to put the city back on routine tracks.
We are not ignoring the problem. We are aware of it. This discourse does
not advance us, media wise.
“We are aware of the problem. This discourse does not advance us
media-wise – not the city of of Jerusalem, Every time there is a
discussion and great fear about some matter, immediately the merchants
and the businessmen and the cultural institutes will tell you that their
income is down."
...
"I am very angry at the railway people,” he says, in a reference to
the Light Rail, which has been very hard hit by terror attacks. “I, the
Transport Ministry and the police are very angry at them. They could
have said that Light Rail is the safest means of transport and there are
zero casualties. It is protected. Instead of talking about it every
day, contrary to the position of the police, the Transport Ministry and
the Municipality – and by the way, they are doing so for the wrong
reasons.”
The fact that Jews are no longer using the Light Rail is the
railways' fault, Barkat insisted. “They are causing it. They scare
people for no reason. They keep on making it public. The police closed
down the Light Rail twice or thrice when the police thought that there
was need for this. The fact is that although windows were smashed, no
one was hurt because it is protected.”
"I trust the police on this matter and it is better for this
discourse to remain outside the media. We are not avoiding anything. The
prime minister is worried about this and the minister for public
security is worried about this and the police commissioner and the
district commander and myself and all of us. We have one police force,
we cannot replace it.”
Sure - let's just pretend the problem doesn't exist. What could go wrong?
Clashes broke out Friday night between masked Arabs and security forces in eastern Jerusalem.
The clashes took place in the neighborhoods of Shuafat, Isawiyya,
Wadi Joz, Abu-Tor and Umm Tuba. During the clashes in Shuafat, the
rioters tried to damage an electricity pole using an electric disc.
The forces are using riot dispersal means to fend off the Arab rioters.
In a separate incident in Ma’aleh Adumim, Palestinian Arabs threw rocks and firebombs towards security forces.
Those neighborhoods should be locked down by police. No one in, no one out.
It was widely publicized during the kidnapping that the parents of Gilad Shaar, Naftali Frenkel and Eyal Yifrach HY"D (May God Avenge their blood) had all heard the recording of Gilad's call to the police within a few days of the kidnapping. It was also reported that the IDF brass knew that it was searching for bodies and not for living people (Although I don't think I wrote it on this blog, I told Mrs. Carl within a couple of days that the boys were dead because there was no demand to free terrorists). But the parents were told otherwise.
Based on an interview with Gilad's mother, YNet reports that although the parents walked out of the room in which they heard the tape 'shaken,' police had assured them that the shots were blanks.
"Security officials told
us the gunshots (heard in the recording) were blanks, because if you
want to kill someone, you shoot them straight away without warning them
first," she said. "We heard Gil-Ad yell in pain but it sounded like he
was being pinched, (he didn't sound) like someone who was about to be
murdered. They told us they must've fired out the window, and this is
why they found cartridges on the sides of the car. We had real hope that
they were alive."
Bat Galim said the
recording hasn't been released until after the bodies were found because
"we were afraid the kidnappers found out it was Gil-Ad who called,
under the assumption they are holding our son captive. We didn't want
them to know he's the one who made the call."
They haven't learned much about blanks in the last 19 years, have they?
But the Shaar's put their faith in the IDF, and the IDF lied to them and left them unprepared for the reality that they now face.
Despite what we now know, Shaer said security officials told the
families in the days following the abduction that no blood or DNA traces
had been found in the burned car. "This gave us hope," she said.
Bat Galim also described
the events of that fateful Thursday night from her end. "At a certain
point that night we realized it wasn't the police that needs to handle
it, but the army, and that (the army) wasn't getting it. We realized
they were putting roadblocks in the Beit Shemesh area . I told myself:
'We must have connections. We must have someone do something.' We're
ordinary citizens so we turned to people in our community that had some
connections. It was only after we got the head of security, who is in
contact with the IDF, that something moved. This entire time we felt
like we were losing precious time.
"When they told us at 6am that the army was now in the picture, I
told myself we were in good hands. This entire time I told myself that
by Shabbat, I'll have my child back. I was very naive in my trust of the
system. I told Ofir (her husband, Gil-Ad's father): You are going to
the army now and making sure they're sending troops to the field, so we
won't later find out there were failures. I know in hindsight that at
4am, they located a phone in Judea and it was clear something was going
on.
There's more - read the whole thing. The way that the IDF and the police bamboozled this entire story ought to be proof to anyone who is paying attention that it's God who Protects us and not the army. The army, in a best case scenario, is His agent.
5:08 PM In her eulogy for her son Naftali, Racheli Frenkel thanked the
Police, IDF, Shabak, and Security forces for bringing their son home ...
even if for burial...because it can not be taken for granted that they
would be found.
I have goose bumps just reading that, but we all know how true it is.
Released from gag order: Shot heard on tape during call from Naftali Frenkel HY"D to police
The IDF has now lifted a gag order over the fact that a gunshot was heard in the background as Naftali Frenkel HY"D (May God Avenge his blood) called the police on June 12. There was also forensic evidence found that the boys were murdered in the kidnap vehicle almost immediately.
Israeli officials have imposed a gag order on many details of the
search for the teens. That gag order initially included a phone call
made from one of the teens to police, as well as evidence found in a
burnt-out car in the Hebron area.
BuzzFeed spoke to an Israeli official involved in the case, who
confirmed that during the police call a gunshot can clearly be heard.
The car, he added, had clear evidence of foul play. Over the last week.
Israeli soldiers could be seen digging through rocks and dredging wells
in Hebron in the search for the teens.
“We have been operating, for some time now, with evidence that these
boys were killed,” he said. “It is with a heavy heart that we realized
we were looking for bodies.”
An Israeli army officer, who spoke to BuzzFeed by phone from the
Hebron area, said that an autopsy had not yet been conducted. He said
that the bodies of three teens had been found shot, likely very close to
the time of their abduction.
The families of the three, however, kept hope that they would be
found alive – holding prayer rallies for the safe return of their sons.
The
officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity before the official
announcement, said the Army had found the three bodies buried “in a
field near Hebron” and were waiting to inform the families before
releasing information.
“They
know it’s the three, they will know for sure after they do the
autopsy."The official said the three appeared to have been shot to
death, likely “very close to the kidnap” time, and that the prime
suspects had still not been caught.
Four police officers have been removed from their posts as part of
the findings of an internal police probe into the handling of a distress call placed by one of the three kidnapped teens on the night of June 12th.
The
officers do not include the “Shaham” cop performing his national
service in the police, who answered the call and passed it on to his
supervisors. He was found by the probe to have conducted himself as
expected.
Those removed from their posts include the head of the operations
branch of the Judea and Samaria district, the deputy head of district
operations, the head of the police control center where the call was
handled, and the shift leader responsible for supervising the dispatch
center that night.
During the 2:09 call, which was received at
10:25 pm on June 12th, a single voice can be heard whispering “they
kidnapped me” after which he goes silent. The call was not given the
proper urgency or handed over to security services until nearly five
hours later, when one of the boy’s parents reported him missing to
police.
The handling of the call represented a severe failure “that ran along
along the entire chain of command at the center, crossing a series of
police, officers, and commanders," police said Monday.
National
Police Commissioner Yochanan Danino said Monday that the incident
represented “a failure of the utmost severity" and vowed to improve
service at police dispatch centers, which he calls "the address the
public turns to when they face trouble".
He has also appointed
Deputy National Commissioner Nissim Mor to head a team to examine the
performance of dispatch centers nationwide.
Police have not handed
over the tape to the press, saying that the Shin Bet does not want it
published. They have however played it for the families of the kidnapped
teens, a number of whom were reportedly seen leaving the meeting highly
distraught afterwards.
Over two minutes on the phone and they weren't taken seriously. Those police officers' careers ought to end in ignominy.
The murderer is Ziad Awad. Awad is 42 and is from the village of Idna. He was arrested at the beginning of the month along with his 18-year old son Iz-a-Din, who helped plan the terror attack and helped his father to escape. The family that plays together....
Awad carried out the attack with a Kalashnikov rifle while riding a motorcycle. He told his son that he did it for the sake of Islam and that those who murder Jews gain admittance to Paradise. So much for anyone who still believes that this is not a religious war.
Awad was originally arrested in 1999 and sentenced to 27 years in jail for murdering 'Palestinian collaborators.' He was released in the 2011 terrorists for Gilad trade.
The army says it was a miracle that no one other than Mizrachi was killed - Awad shot hundreds of rounds.
I believe that tens of people should spend some time in Mizpe Hila this summer in front of the Shalit home with pictures of Mizrachi.
I also believe that Awad (not from the same village as - but possible related to - the two Awad scumbags who murdered the Fogel family of Itamar in 2011) and his son ought to get the death penalty. It's long past time to start implementing it.
UPDATE 2:22 PM
Israel to renew punitive measure - discontinued in 2005 - of destroying homes of terrorists. Will start with home of B. Mizrachi's killer.
— Herb Keinon (@HerbKeinon) June 23, 2014
I'm sure Leftist Noam Shalit will lead a demonstration against the home demolition. He's only into collective punishment when Jews are being punished.
But the death penalty would be much better. It is the only thing that will assure that Awad will never again go free.
Disgraceful: Kidnapped teen called police, police didn't take it seriously
How many times have I written on this blog that Israel's Leftist police treat the revenants ('settlers') with contempt?
Earlier, it was reported that one of the teens called the police, that the call was cut off and that the police did not bother to report it to the army until many hours later. It's actually worse than that. The police received a call from one of the boys saying that they had been kidnapped and did not take the call seriously. In other words, they decided - without any investigation - that someone was playing a prank on them.
One of the three boys kidnapped
in the West Bank on Thursday night managed to tell police "we've been
kidnapped" but the report was still not given to security sources for
hours, the military censor cleared for publication on Sunday afternoon.
The call was made to police dispatch around 10:30 p.m. but it was
only as much as five hours later before security services were notified.
For the past 24 hours there has been furious criticism of police
amid reports that they were notified of the suspected kidnapping but
did not notify security forces, giving the kidnappers hours to flee the
scene with the boys.
The Israel Police have not directly responded
to the report, telling reporters to speak to the Judea and Samaria
police district and not the national headquarters. Later on Saturday
night, the Judea and Samaria district sent out a reply saying that they
would neither confirm nor deny the reports which are the responsibility
of the media outlets themselves.
On Sunday, the national police
branch said that there is no truth to the reports that a committee of
inquiry has been opened to probe the incident, and that they would still
neither confirm nor deny reports.
The call was received at 10:25 p.m. The youth whispered: "We've been abducted! We are being kidnapped."
The call lasted about two minutes and additional noises could
be heard in it. It is being investigated by the Israel Security Agency
(ISA, or Shin Bet).
This information was under a gag order, which was lifted Sunday.
A source in the Israel Police said that the hotline did not take the
call seriously and thought it was one of the numerous calls it receives
from hostile Arabs who seek to overload it with false alarms. It was
only when a brother of one of the abducted boys arrived at the police
station that they understood the call had been real.
That emphasis is mine. TWO MINUTES - not just a call that was dropped after a few seconds like we thought before.
And as to the possibility that the call was from hostile Arabs - that's a load of garbage. Every Israeli can tell the difference between an Arab and a Jew talking. The police are trained to tell the difference very quickly (there's a way you can confirm this for yourself if you're in Israel, but I won't publicize it on this blog).
Bottom line: The police could care less about the 'settlers.' Time and time again we have seen the police take the side of the Arabs (remember Amona?)against the revenants. Perhaps that's why every time the government decides to expel Jews from their homes, they send the army (which ought not to be doing such tasks even if they were legitimate) instead of the police. It's time to clean up the police rather than calling in the army to cover for their misdeeds.
Israel Radio: Judea and Samaria police wasted precious hours Thursday night
Israel Radio reports (11:40 pm) that the police received a distress call on Thursday evening from the cell phone of one of the three boys who was kidnapped. The call was cut off. That much you heard on Friday. Here's where it gets worse.
The police tried to call back and could not reach the cell phone from which the call originated. And they did nothing about it. Until about 3:00 - 4:00 am on Friday when one of the boys' fathers came to the police to file a complaint about his missing son. Then, the token dropped.
And while the IDF search began on Friday, damning claims of have
surfaced Saturday night, with sources saying that police in Kiryat Arba
knew about the kidnapping for hours before informing the IDF, Walla! News reports.
According to the Israeli daily, the Kiryat Arba police were informed
of the kidnapping shortly after the abduction Thursday evening. Police
forces instantly set up a checkpoint to make sure that the boys would
not leave Hevron, sources said - but did not actually inform the IDF of
the kidnapping until several hours later, at nearly 4:00 am Friday.
An investigation shows that Sha'ar and Frenkel left the Kfar Etzion
yeshiva at 10:00 pm Thursday, and notified their parents around that
time that they would make their way home to Talmon and Nof Ayalon
respectively.
Eyewitnesses have stated that a short time later, they saw the two
teens standing at the Alon Shvut intersection, trying to find a ride.
The third teen, Yifrah, told friends he was waiting for a ride around
the same time, at about 9:40.
For political and financial reasons, buses in Judea and Samaria are
infrequent, and hitchhiking home has become a way of life for residents
across Judea and Samaria and is a widely accepted - and common -
practice. Car travel is too expensive for many families, due to both a
150% sales tax on new vehicles in Israel and gas prices topping 7.66
shekel per liter ($6.50 per gallon).
The Walla! report indicates that the first inklings of a
problem had been reported to police, or IDF officials, sometime prior to
the first police report filed on the abduction at 3:00 am Friday.
A
command post and checkpoint was established as soon as the police report
was made, the source said, but the unit failed to report the incident
to the IDF until over an hour later; the Israel Security Agency (ISA, or
Shin Bet) was then notified shortly thereafter.
Moreover, according to the report, the Judea-Samaria District Police
were only notified of the early-morning call from concerned parents well
into Friday morning; only still later was it clarified that the
complaint indicated a kidnapping in Gush Etzion.
Maybe if the Knesset could stop sucking at the teat of the public dole, cars wouldn't have 150% tax (yes, you read that correctly) and gas wouldn't be $6.50 (down from $8 due to a stronger shekel) per gallon.
How many people died because the government insisted for 20 years on taxing anti-lock brakes and air bags as luxury items? I just bought my first car with air bags three years ago.
Living in Judea and Samaria without a car means almost never leaving. It takes hours to get anywhere. Then again, to get from Jerusalem to Petach Tikva (where Mrs. Carl works) is 45 minutes each way by car and two and a half hours each way by bus.
Arutz Sheva is reporting that the security forces and the media are covering up what happened in the Jerusalem neighborhood of Ramat Shlomo on Friday night. This is from the first link.
Strangely, however, the Jerusalem police insisted Sunday that “it is still not clear what the nature of the attack was.”
Apparently following the police's lead, Israel's mainstream media –
which makes front page headlines out of graffiti attributed to Jews –
has not even deemed the potentially lethal attack inside the capital
newsworthy.
A Google search indicates that besides Arutz Sheva, Behadrei Haredim and another hareidi site, Kikar Hashabat, only the Jewish Press and the Maariv-NRG website reported the attack.
An epidemic of burglaries that plagued Ramat Shlomo, which is home to
about 20,000 people, has reportedly subsided somewhat recently, as a
result of neighborhood patrols that are coordinated with the Israel
Police. However, there is serious concern in the neighborhood that
security will deteriorate as a new road connecting Ramat Shlomo with the
adjoining Arab neighborhoods of Shuafat and Beit Hanina is completed.
Jerusalem Councillor Aryeh King promised to convene the city's
Committee for Emergency and Security Matters in two weeks' time and
demand explanations from police, whom he accused of neglecting the
residents' security.
Police are rarely seen in Ramat Shlomo, except for one neighborhood resident who was made an auxiliary police officer so that he can direct traffic at the entrance to the neighborhood on days when the poorly-located charity fund at the neighborhood's entrance hands out free produce. There is no police station in Ramat Shlomo - residents are meant to call Ramat Eshkol or Neve Yaakov.
There also have been very few problems for many years. The neighboring village of Shuafat (NOT the 'refugee camp') is considered quite wealthy and its residents (who are rumored to include a small handful of Jewish families) are supposedly not interested in creating 'trouble.'
In an earlier post, I reported that police were attempting to place two Jewish teenagers under arrest for putting up posters protesting the upcoming visit of Pope Francis I. Early this afternoon, a Jerusalem judge threw out the arrests.
Jerusalem Magistrates' Court Judge Shmuel Herbst rejected early
Friday afternoon a request by police to place two youths under house
arrest for seven days, distance them from Jerusalem and slap them with a
security deposit after they were caught putting up posters hostile to
Pope Francis.
The posters said, among other things, that Christianity is an
“accursed” religion that is complicit in the murder of millions of Jews,
and that its leaders dream of “annihilating the Jewish state.” It
called on the “impure” pope to “get out of our holy land” and “return
the stolen vessels of the Temple.”
Police claimed this was incitement to racism but the judge rejected
this, determining that “theological arguments and disputes between
religions have existed from time immemorial and these arguments do not
constitute a danger to the public.”
The judge added that there is a “very weak” case to be made against
the sentence that says Christians dream of annihilating the Jewish
state, but that it does not constitute racism in any case.
He ruled that the youths are allowed to protest against the pope, but
determined that they may not come within 150 meters of him.
Meanwhile, the police continue to announce administrative detention orders against known activists whom they'd like to keep out of sight while the Pope is here.
Police on Friday announced ten more nationalist activists would have
restraining orders issued against them, bringing the total to 15 ahead
of Pope Francis's visit next Sunday and Monday.
"Yesterday the head of the Jerusalem district mentioned that there
would be a further 10," police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld told AFP without giving details.
The detentions began Wednesday, when several Jewish youths were put under house arrest in a move justified by concerns they might carry out "provocative acts" during the pope's visit.
This is the Middle East's only 'democracy.' Obama could take lessons from us.
Oh my: Cost of Oslo accords would have financed 50 years of guaranteed income for 'Palestinians'
Research by Moshe Feiglin's Jewish Leadership faction in the Likud party shows that the cost of the failed Oslo accords - NIS 900 billion ($250 billion) and counting - would have financed 50 years of guaranteed income at current levels for each 'Palestinian' who would have left Israel instead.
The failed attempt
at regional peacemaking known as the Oslo Process has cost the state of
Israel over 900 billion shekels – more than $250 billion – since 1993,
and the costs keeps rising, according to a study by the Likud party's
Jewish Leadership faction, which is headed by MK Moshe Feiglin
(Likud-Beytenu).
By comparison, the total state budget for 2014 has been set at about 400 billion shekels, or about $115 billion.
The numbers came as a shock to the researchers, who recently gave a much lower estimate of the total financial costs of the botched endeavor.
Jewish Leadership's report on the study's results note that the same
amount of money would have sufficed for ensuring that 3.5 million Arabs
receive the same income that they currently enjoy, for a period of 50
years, in exchange for voluntary repatriation to Arab countries.
Instead of turning Gaza, Judea and Samaria into arms depots and
terror hotspots, Israel should apply its sovereignty to all of these
areas, settle them, make them flourish, and adopt a policy of reducing
the size of the Arab population and isolating it.
The research, which was led by Jewish Leadership's R&D Head,
Michael Fuah, examined nine fields of expenditure and tallied up what it
said were the minimal costs of the Oslo process to date, as follows:
Transfers of funds to the Palestinan Authority – 88 billion shekels
Added costs to Israel Security Agency (Shin Bet) – 37 billion shekels
Added costs to the IDF – 300 billion shekels
Costs to Ministry of Public Security (police) and damage from massive car thefts – 105 billion shekels.
Hiring of civilian security guards all over Israel – 220 billion shekels
Construction of separation fence around territory handed over to the Palestinian Arabs – 4.7 billion shekels
Loss in tourism revenues during peak years of terror – 150 billion shekels
Cost of evicting Jews from Katif Bloc – 9.5 billion shekels
The study also found that more than three times as many Jews were murdered in terror attacks between 1994 and 2012 (the Oslo years) as between 1977 and 1993.
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
