The men with the bombs and the pistols keep coming
We have posted several reports in recent weeks about would-be terrorists being spotted and stopped at or very near Tapuah Junction in the Shomron (Samaria District). The most recent of these was “7-May-12: Caught another would-be terrorist carrying pipe bombs”. Tonight it’s happened again.
Israel National News says two Palestinian Arab men were apprehended by alert Border Police officers during Nakba Day (Tuesday - today) after their conduct aroused suspicion. As with several other very similar recent incidents, the men’s bags and clothing were searched, and they were found to be carrying four pipe bombs, an improvised pistol and a large quantity of ammunition. Sappers were called in to explode the pipe bombs safely, and the two Arabs are now in the hands of the security services for interrogation.
Tapuah Junction and its environs are becoming a focus for terrorist activity. Previous arrests and seizures in the area include:
- January 8: Two men, 12 pipe bombs, a combat knife
- April 11: One man, multiple improvised explosive devices, three knives, 50 bullets.
- April 21: Two youths, with 5 pipe bombs, a gun, and ammunition
- April 24: Two Arab men, 4 improvised bombs
- April 28: Two Arab men, 4 pipe bombs
- May 7: A youth, 3 pipe bombs
It hurts to think about the harm to be caused if one or two individuals from this stream of men with terror on their minds manage to slip through without being apprehended en route.
A different story of displacement for Nakba Week
The Baghdadis, a Jewish family in Aleppo, Syria, around 1940. In Aleppo, and in other cities and towns across north Africa and the Middle East, some 850,000 Jews were pushed out of their homes beginning in the mid-20th century. (Courtesy of Asher Ron)
As the Palestinians mark their Nakba Week, Matti Friedman, author of a new book on the Aleppo Codex, thoughtfully recalls in The Times of Israel the Jewish story of displacement and loss from the Arab world. The Arabs see reminders of this vanished Jewish world every day: we often hate most the things or people that remind us of something we dislike about ourselves, and here lies one of the hidden dynamics of the Israel-Arab conflict, he writes. Read the whole thing!
On May 15, many in the Arab world and elsewhere mark the Nakba, or the “Catastrophe,” mourning the displacement of the Palestinian Arabs during the 1948 war with Israel. This year, as always, the commemoration will obscure the collapse at the same time of a different Arab society that few remember.
I have spent a great deal of time in the past four years interviewing people born and raised in Aleppo, Syria. Some of these people, most of whom are now in their eighties, are descended from families with roots in Aleppo going back more than two millennia, to Roman times. None of them lives there now.
On November 30, 1947, a day after the United Nations voted to partition Palestine into two states, one for Arabs and one for Jews, Aleppo erupted. Mobs stalked Jewish neighborhoods, looting houses and burning synagogues; one man I interviewed remembered fleeing his home, a barefoot nine-year-old, moments before it was set on fire. Abetted by the government, the rioters burned 50 Jewish shops, five schools, 18 synagogues and an unknown number of homes. The next day the Jewish community’s wealthiest families fled, and in the following months the rest began sneaking out in small groups, most of them headed to the new state of Israel. They forfeited their property, and faced imprisonment or torture if they were caught. Some disappeared en route. But the risk seemed worthwhile: in Damascus, the capital, rioters killed 13 Jews, including eight children, in August 1948, and there were similar events in other Arab cities.
At the time of the UN vote, there were about 10,000 Jews in Aleppo. By the mid-1950s there were 2,000, living in fear of the security forces and the mob. By the early 1990s no more than a handful remained, and today there are none. Similar scripts played out across the Islamic world. Some 850,000 Jews were forced from their homes.
If we are to fully understand the Israel-Arab conflict, the memory of these people and their exodus must be acknowledged — not as a political weapon, a negotiating tactic or as part of a competition about who suffered more, but simply as history without which it is impossible to understand Israel and the way the Arab world sees it.
Everyone knows the Palestinian refugees are part of the equation of Mideast peace, and anyone who is interested can visit a Palestinian refugee camp and hear true and wrenching stories of expulsion and loss. Among the Jews expelled by Arabs, on the other hand, one can find few who think of themselves as refugees or define themselves by their dispossession. Most are citizens of Israel.
Of the 20 families in my fairly average Jerusalem apartment building, half are in Israel because of the Arab expulsion of Jews, and that is representative of Israel as a whole. According to the Israeli demographer Sergio dellaPergola of Hebrew University, though intermarriage over two or three generations has muddled the statistics, roughly half of today’s Israeli Jews came from the Muslim world or are descended from people who did. Many Arabs, and many Israelis, consider Israel a Western enclave in the Middle East. But these numbers do not support that view.
These Jews have shaped Israel and are a key force in the country’s political life. They also make Israel very different from the American Jewish community, which is overwhelmingly rooted in Europe. They are a pillar of Israel’s right wing, particularly of the Likud party. They maintain a wary view of Israel’s neighbors — a view that has been strengthened by the actions of the Palestinians but that is rooted in their own historical experience and in what might be considered an instinctive understanding of the region’s unkind realities.
Tent camp set up in Israel for Jewish Refugees from Iraq, 1950
“A Muslim Moses, the predecessor of Saul, led the exodus of the Muslim Children of Israel out of Egypt”
Over the past weekend, three murders were committed in the Arab sector within a period of 24 hours. Reducing crime rates in the Arab sector is a goal of the government and of the state. Without law enforcement, all of the steps we take to integrate Israeli Arabs in the State of Israel’s progress will fail to achieve their goals.We will take action at our end, and I call upon the Arab sector to help itself by way of stronger enforcement of the law, by way of civil service volunteer-ism
בסוף השבוע שעבר בוצעו בתוך יממה שלושה מקרי רצח במגזר הערבי. צמצום הפשיעה במגזר הערבי זה יעד של הממשלה ושל המדינה. ללא אכיפת חוק כל הצעדים שאנו עושים לשילובם של ערביי ישראל בקדמה של מדינת ישראל לא ישיגו את יעדם. אנחנו נפעל מהצד שלנו ואני קורא למגזר הערבי גם לעזור לעצמו באכיפה חזקה יותר של החוק, באמצעות פעולות של התנדבות בשירות האזרחי
- Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu
צילום: אבי אוחיון, לע”מ
"The Land of Israel, for the people of Israel, according to the Torah of Israel" so does this mean that the basic law of israel will be ignored? What will happen to the majority of the israelis who are secular and what will be the status of the palestinians in the "land of israel". by Anonymous
Other moderators can add in their opinions and thoughts below; however, I’ll state what I believe the phrase means.
First, it is reference to the Redemption, the times of the Messiah when Torah Law will be the law of the Land. Ultimately, this - the Redemption, is what the Jews have been striving, praying and hoping for, for thousands of years.
Practically, I believe it means that Israel’s Basic Laws and any new legislation that the Knesset passes, should be in the spirit of Jewish principles and if possible, reflect Halacha and the Torah.
As of now, I do not believe that the Halacha should be an enforceable law, however, I do think that anything Israel of her government does officially and publicly, should be in accordance with Halacha. This would show the world that we ARE a Jewish state, and conduct ourselves according to the Torah. This type of behaviour demonstrates that we would never sarcrifice our integrity and our Jewish character. We would truly be an ‘Or Lagoyim’ - ‘A light unto the nations’.
Palestinians in the Land of Israel (no need for quotations there - she exists), would retain citizenship and residency and would be afforded the same rights as Jewish Israelis, Arab Israelis, Druze Israelis and Christain Israelis. Quite simliar to the system now.
Gentiles have always co-existed with Jews in the Land of Israel - even in Biblical times. They were known as “Ger Toshav Ba’aretz” - ”a foreigner that is a resident of the Land”. They were merely required to accept monotheism - which many did. Furthermore, korbanot - sacrifices in the Beit Hamikdash - the Temple, were not exclusively for Jews. Non-Jews offered sacrifices as well. The Temple was an international house of worship. In addition to this, every year on Sukkot, the priests would offer 70 sacrifices on behalf of the 70 nations of the world.
Today, the 6th of Adar, the 29th February 2012 marks the first anniversary of the massacre of Udi, Ruth, Yoav, Elad and Hadas Fogel from Itamar, a mother, father and three of their children who were brutally murdered while in their home on a Friday night last year.
Their brutal murder, and what…
ϟ Jewish Population In Yesha Set to Pass 350,000 in 2012
The Jewish population in Judea and Samaria soared to 342,414 last year, a yearly increase of 4.3 percent, and the 350,000 figure is all but certain to be passed this year.
The numbers, stated by the Interior Ministry and reported by the Hebrew-language Yisrael HaYom newspaper, are higher than the 300,000 estimate used by most mainstream news agencies.
There are also an estimated 250,000-300,000 Jews in Jerusalem neighborhoods that are claimed by the Palestinian Authority for its desired new country within Israel’s borders.
Population figures are less precise for the Arab population in Judea and Samaria and areas in Jerusalem that the Palestinian Authority claims. Using the Palestinian Authority estimate of 2.4 million, a number that may be largely inflated, Jews now make up approximately 22 percent of the total population.
The actual percentage may be substantially higher because the World Bank and American-Israeli Demographic Research Group identified a 32 percent discrepancy between first-grade enrollment statistics documented by the Palestinian Ministry of Education and Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics, according to Wikipedia.
The true figure may be only slightly over 1.6 million Arabs, which would raise the Jewish percentage to closer to 25 percent.
PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas has said that a PA state would be devoid of Jews. The Arab population of areas in the capital and in Judea and Samaria is estimated at 2.4 million. The presence of 650,000 Jews represents approximately 22 percent of the total population.
The figures for the Jewish population do not include thousands of students from urban centers who are learning in high schools and post-high school institutions in the region.
Judea and Samaria: The heart of the eternal Jewish homeland
(Source: israelnationalnews.com)
