Israel in the News Jul/Aug 2010
Obama’s Threat
U.S. President Barack Obama has threatened to impose his own solution to the Middle East problem, which “the Israelis won’t appreciate,” if Israel and the Palestinians fail to settle the situation themselves.
Reported WorldNetDaily.com (WND): “If Israel and the Palestinians fail to reach an agreement to create a Palestinian state, the Obama administration will look into imposing a solution on the parties, a senior Palestinian Authority [PA] negotiator told WND.”
The article also said, “A PA negotiator said recent meetings between the Obama administration and the Palestinians revealed the White House is on board a Palestinian threat to unilaterally ask the United Nations to recognize a Palestinian state outside of negotiations with Israel.”
Fighting U.S. Guns
ARUTZ-7–The American-trained, Fatah-led Palestinian Authority (PA) security forces could turn their guns on Israel, an Israeli general warned Israeli soldiers recently.
Maj.-Gen. Avi Mizrahi said, “This is a trained, equipped, American-educated force. This means that at the beginning of a battle, we will pay a higher price. A force like that can shut down an urban area with four snipers….It is a proper infantry force facing us, and we need to take that into account. They have attack capabilities, and we do not expect them to give up easily.”
Their trainer, U.S. Lt. Gen. Keith Dayton, said his PA army would likely attack the Jewish state if Israel does not give in to the demands of the Middle East quartet, comprising America, Russia, the United Nations, and European Union.
Jihad Tourism
ARUTZ-7— Hezbollah guerrillas are promoting themselves to the folks at home and winning credibility and legitimacy with weekly tours of southern Lebanon in what the group is calling “Jihad tourism.” The tours were created to mark the 10th anniversary of Israel’s pullout from the area.
After maintaining a security buffer zone for 22 years, Israel’s then-Prime Minister Ehud Barak withdrew all Israeli troops in May 2000. Hezbollah terrorists quickly honeycombed the area with tunnels and concrete bunkers. Their kidnapping of Israeli soldiers caused the 2006 Lebanon War.
A “tourist jihad center,” new war museum, and a parade of ordnance accompanied by strutting terrorists are part of what one commentator called the “Disneyland of Islamic Terror.” Hundreds of university students already have taken the tour. Wide-eyed, they hear the Hezbollah version of the guerrillas’ battlefield experiences against the Israeli army.
A special spot on the tour is where Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah’s son Hadi “was martyred” while leading a raid against Israel in 1997, explains a tour guide, indicating a blue prayer mat laid out among the trees. As students snapshots, the terrorists make themselves available for photos but ask that their faces not be seen.
“This is an excellent, very well-organized trip,” a 19-year-old university student commented on the tour. “I think it’s very important to get a firsthand look at Hezbollah because there are a lot of prejudices out there.”
At its opening in May, Lebanon’s president and prime minister both sent representatives. Also there was Noam Chomsky, an American Jew who is pro-Hezbollah and pro-Iran.
Warm Words for Hezbollah
ARUTZ-7—John Brennan, deputy national security adviser for U.S. Homeland Security, called Jerusalem by its Arabic name, praised Saudi Arabian religious “tolerance,” and encouraged Hezbollah. The Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) has called these remarks “outrageous” and “disgraceful.”
Speaking to an apparently Muslim audience at New York University in February, Brennan first told a story in Arabic, evoking laughter and concluding with, “Don’t tell the folks who don’t speak Arabic what I said.” He then said his favorite city in the Middle East is “Al Quds, Jerusalem.”
In another speech before Lebanese leaders who visited Washington recently, Brennan told them, “Hezbollah is a very interesting organization,” and said it had evolved from “purely a terrorist organization” to a militia and now to an organization that has members within the parliament and cabinet.
The ZOA noted Hezbollah is actually a Lebanese-Iranian proxy terrorist group that continually calls for Israel’s elimination. Said ZOA President Morton Klein: “John Brennan is yet another hand-picked Obama adviser who shows a distinct animus against Israel and partiality for its enemies. It is unsurprising that, when Barack Obama is advised by people like these, quite apart from the president’s own troubling history of friendships with vicious critics of Israel and having belonged for two decades to an anti-Israel, anti-American, black-supremacist church, the Obama administration has ignited major tensions in its relations with Israel while not holding accountable and penalizing the Palestinian Authority for continuing terrorism and incitement to hatred and murder.”
Egypt in Training
ARUTZ-7—The Egyptian military has completed large-scale training maneuvers in the Sinai Peninsula. The official Middle East News Agency (MENA) said the weeklong maneuvers included an exercise to cross the Suez Canal, as well as a simulation of an offensive thrust deep into what is termed “enemy” (meaning Israeli) territory.
MENA further reported that helicopters, fighter jets, armored units, paratroopers, and special shock troops participated in the military exercises.
Police Hustle Gideons off Street
Eight members of the Gideons International in the Trenton, New Jersey, area were forced off a public sidewalk while handing out free Bibles in front of a high school, despite the fact they showed police a letter from the Gideons’ legal department explaining their First Amendment right to freedom of speech and assembly.
A Hamilton Township police officer looked at the letter, said it meant nothing, and ordered the men to leave. They had handed out approximately 300 Bibles over 40 minutes to students at Nottingham High School.
“We have very strict rules,” explained Don Ober, a member of the world-wide organization famous for placing Bibles in hotels and hospitals. “We stay on the public sidewalk. We don’t step a toe on the grass. If someone says, ‘No thank you,’ we don’t give him a Bible. If someone asks a question, we’ll answer it. We never once vary from that.” Ober said the Gideons, as a courtesy, even spoke to the principal so he would know what they were doing. Police told the Gideons the school called the authorities.
John Whitehead, founder and president of the Rutherford Institute in Charlottesville, Virginia, a conservative, nonprofit legal organization that specializes in defending civil liberties, told Israel My Glory magazine the Gideons should have stayed put. “They have a right to be on the sidewalk as long as they’re not blocking ingress or egress,” he said. “We relent too easily. Why relent? Stand up and fight!” Whitehead said the only way Americans will keep their freedoms is if they stand their ground. “You hurt your fellow believers when you don’t stand up and fight these things.”
He called the late civil rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. “my hero. He would not have gone down this easily. He would’ve said, ‘No. I’m going to stay here.’ Dispersing too easily gives the police the feeling they can do this to anyone,” he said.
Whitehead said most police officers “know virtually nothing” about the First Amendment or Bill of Rights because they’re not trained in them.
Although several students refused the Gideon Bibles, most accepted them. And some ran over to get them. One boy asked for several so he could give them to his cousins and brothers. “They need God in their lives,” he told Ober.
