Abbas must be stopped

Reblogged from The Jerusalem Post - Israel News

Photo by: AMMAR AWAD / REUTERS Column One: Abbas must be stopped By CAROLINE B. GLICK 10/08/2015 "The man who propagates this murderous lie and orchestrates the death and mayhem that is its bloody harvest is none other than the West’s favorite Palestinian moderate."

All the Palestinian terrorist attacks that have been carried out in recent weeks share one common feature. All the terrorists believe that by attacking Jews they are protecting the Temple Mount from destruction. And why shouldn’t they believe this obscenity? Everywhere they go, every time they turn on their televisions, read the paper, go to school or the mosque they are told that the Jews are destroying al-Aksa Mosque. Al-Aksa, they are told, is in danger. They must take up arms to defend it from the Jews, whatever the cost. One man stands at the center of this blood libel. The man who propagates this murderous lie and orchestrates the death and mayhem that is its bloody harvest is none other than the West’s favorite Palestinian moderate: PLO chief and Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas. On September 16 Abbas gave a speech. It was broadcast on PA television and posted on his Facebook page. In it, he incited the Palestinians to kill Jews. In his words, “Al-Aksa Mosque is ours. They [the Jews] have no right to desecrate it with their filthy feet. We won’t allow them to do so and we will do everything in our power to defend Jerusalem.” Abbas added, “We bless every drop of blood spilled for Jerusalem. This is clean and pure blood, blood that was spilled for God. It is Allah’s will that every martyr will go to heaven and every wounded [terrorist] will receive God’s reward.” Two weeks later, Abbas opened his address before the UN General Assembly with the same lies, threats, and incitement. Almost exactly a year ago, Abbas spewed the same bile in a speech, with the same murderous consequences. In a speech before Fatah’s executive committee last October, Abbas said, “We must prevent them [the Jews] from entering the holy site in every possible way. This is our holy site, this is our al-Aksa and our church [the Church of the Holy Sepulchre]. They have no right to enter them. They have no right to desecrate them. We must prevent them from entering. We must block them with our bodies to defend our holy sites.” In subsequent weeks, Abbas’s words were rebroadcast 19 times on Palestinian television. During that period, Arab terrorists massacred rabbis in prayer at a Jerusalem synagogue, attempted to assassinate human rights activist Yehudah Glick, and murdered Jews standing at light rail stops in the capital. Eleven Israelis were butchered in that terrorist onslaught. Then as now, Abbas and his lieutenants not only incited attacks, they incentivized would be perpetrators to kill Jews. Every year, the same PA that claims perpetual poverty pays more than $100 million to terrorists imprisoned in Israeli jails. Their salaries range between four to seven times the average PA salary, depending on the lethality of the attacks they carried out. Popular awareness of the financial benefits of terrorist activities has played a critical role in motivating Palestinians to attack Jews. This is made clear by the actions in recent weeks of several of the supposedly “lone wolf” attackers in the hours before they struck. Several of them – like their predecessors in last year’s onslaught – announced their intention to become martyrs to protect al-Aksa from the Jews on their Facebook pages immediately before they carried out their attacks. Money may be the greatest incentive Abbas and his PA provide for potential terrorists. But it isn’t the only one. There is also the social status they confer on terrorists and their families. Every would-be terrorist knows that if he succeeds in killing Jews, he will be glorified by the Palestinian media and his family will be embraced by the PA establishment – first and foremost by Abbas himself, who has made a habit of meeting with terrorists and their families. Presently, Israel’s security brass is embroiled in a bitter dispute with our elected leaders regarding the nature of the current terrorist offensive. The dispute bubbled to the surface Wednesday night when the generals used military reporters to criticize Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for blaming Abbas for the violence. The generals insist that Abbas is a good guy. He’s trying to calm the situation, they argue, and Israel needs to support him. From the looks of things, the IDF seems to have the upper hand in this fight. This is the only way to read Netanyahu’s announcement Wednesday night that he is barring government ministers and members of Knesset from visiting the Temple Mount until further notice. Netanyahu’s move is nothing less than a signal that he accepts Abbas’s premise that there is something wrong with Jews exercising their right to visit Judaism’s holiest site. The generals’ rationale for defending Abbas is fairly straightforward. Throughout the current Palestinian terror onslaught they have continued to cooperate with Abbas-controlled Palestinian security forces in Judea and Samaria. These forces cooperate with the IDF in seeking out and arresting terrorists from Hamas and other groups that are not subordinate to Abbas. The fact that Abbas has ordered his men to work with the IDF has convinced the generals that he is a positive actor. So as they see it, he must be protected. In their view, Israel must limit its counterterrorism operations to tactical operations against trigger pullers and their immediate commanders and ignore the overarching cause of the violence. In behaving in this manner, our security brass is being willfully blind to the fact that Abbas is playing a double game. On the one hand, he orders his forces to be nice to IDF officers in Central Command when they fight terrorist cells from Hamas and other groups not loyal to Abbas, and so wins their appreciation. But on the other hand, Abbas works with those same terrorist forces, incites them to attack, and rewards them for doing so. Perhaps the most outrageous aspect of the IDF’s insistence that Abbas is critical to its counterterrorism efforts is that the IDF’s own data demonstrate that Abbas has played an insignificant role in quelling terrorist attacks against Israel. As Jerusalem Post columnist Evelyn Gordon showed in an article in Commentary this week, according to official data, from 2002 when Palestinian terrorist activities in the areas were at their peak until 2007, when Israel began transferring security control over some Palestinian cities to Abbas’s forces, levels of terrorism went down 97 percent. Even after Israel began permitting Abbas to deploy his security forces to Nablus and Jenin, the IDF has continued to operate at will in these areas, often on a nightly basis. As Gordon noted, the only place Abbas has exercised sole security control was in Gaza. From September 2005, when Israel removed its military forces from Gaza until Hamas expelled Fatah forces from the areas in June 2007, Abbas’s forces had full control over Gaza. During this time, his forces did nothing to prevent Hamas – and Fatah forces – from attacking Israel with thousands of mortars and rockets. His forces did nothing to prevent the massive transfer of advanced weaponry to Gaza from Egypt and Iran. True, since his forces were routed in Gaza, Abbas has ordered them to work with the IDF in Judea and Samaria to prevent Hamas from overthrowing him. But at the same time, he continuously seeks to form a unity government with Hamas. He funds Hamas. He glorifies its terrorists. And he refuses to condemn their attacks against Israel. Moreover, while ordering his men to help the IDF to protect him from Hamas, he leads the diplomatic war against Israel internationally. The goals of that war are to harm Israel’s economy and deny Israel the right to self-defense. Our political leadership’s reluctance to stand up to the army is understandable. It is nearly impossible to order the IDF to take action it opposes. At some point though, the government is going to rein in our insubordinate generals. Fortunately, the government doesn’t need the IDF to deal with Abbas and destroy his capacity to foment and direct attacks against Israel. Our elected officials have the authority to go after the twin foundations Abbas’s terrorist offensive on their own. Those foundations are the incitement and the financial incentives he uses to motivate Palestinians to attack Jews. On the financial end, the Knesset should pass two laws to dry up the wells of terrorism financing. First, the Knesset should pass a law stipulating that all property belonging to terrorists, and all property used by terrorists to plan and carry out attacks, will be seized by the government and transferred to the victims of their attacks. Moreover, all compensation paid to terrorists and their relatives pursuant to their attacks will be seized by the government and transferred to their victims. The second law would relate to Israel’s practice – anchored in the Oslo Accords that Abbas revoked last month at the UN – of transferring tax revenues to the PA. The Knesset should pass a law prohibiting those transfers unless the Defense Minister certifies that the PA has ceased all terrorism- related activities including incitement, organization, financing, directing and glorifying terrorist attacks and terrorists. Until he so certifies, all revenues collected should be used to pay PA debts to Israeli institutions and to compensate victims of Palestinian terrorism. As for the incitement, the government needs to go to the source of the problem – Abbas’s blood libel regarding Jewish rights to the Temple Mount. As things stand, Abbas is exacting a price in human lives for his obscene anti-Jewish propaganda about our “filthy feet defiling” the most sacred site in Judaism. By barring elected officials from visiting the Temple Mount, not only is the government failing to exact a price for Abbas’ obscene propaganda. It is rewarding him and so inviting Abbas to expand his rhetorical offensive. To remedy the situation an opposite approach is required. Rather than bar elected officials from visiting the Temple Mount, Netanyahu should encourage them to do so. Just as he sent a letter to Jordan’s King Abdullah telling him that Israel is preserving the status quo on the Temple Mount, so he should write a similar letter to our lawmakers. In his letter, Netanyahu should say that in keeping with the status quo, which protects the rights of members of all religions to freely enter the Temple Mount, so he commits the government to protect the rights of all believers of all religions to ascend the Mount. The Palestinian terrorist onslaught now raging against us is not spontaneous. Abbas has incited it and is directing it. To stop this assault, Israel must finally take action against Abbas and his machinery of war. Anything less can bring us nothing more than a temporary respite in the carnage that Abbas will be free to end whenever he wishes. http://www.CarolineGlick.com

Palestinian Flag flies over the U.N. as Hurricane brews in Atlantic. Leo Hohmann- WND

Palestinian flag flies over U.N. as Hurricane brews in Atlantic
from wnd.com 

Note from this blog´s author: 
Is it not interesting to see that the 2015 season was considered low in the hurricanes total and now this one named Joaquin (in Hebrew meaning "established by YHWH") comes right at the time the world is trying to mess with God´s established eternal covenant with Israel? 
One must be totally blind ignorant or defiant of God´s sovereignty to miss the connection.

  
This is what God says in his Word:

Job 38:22-30
"Have you entered the storehouses of the snow, Or have you seen the storehouses of the hail, Which I have reserved for the time of distress, For the day of war and battle? "Where is the way that the light is divided, Or the east wind scattered on the earth? read more."Who has cleft a channel for the flood, Or a way for the thunderbolt, To bring rain on a land without people, On a desert without a man in it, To satisfy the waste and desolate land And to make the seeds of grass to sprout? "Has the rain a father? Or who has begotten the drops of dew? "From whose womb has come the ice? And the frost of heaven, who has given it birth? "Water becomes hard like stone, And the surface of the deep is imprisoned.

This is the solution provided by God himself: a contrite heart, crying out in repentance for our sins, turning toward and accepting God´s pardon, and in faith trust that God keeps his Word that will prevail in every instance, gratitude and praise will follow.


Psalm 107: 23-32
They that go down to the sea in ships, that do business in great waters;
²⁴ These see the works of the Lord, and his wonders in the deep.
²⁵ For he commandeth, and raiseth the stormy wind, which lifteth up the waves thereof.
²⁶ They mount up to the heaven, they go down again to the depths: their soul is melted because of trouble.
²⁷ They reel to and fro, and stagger like a drunken man, and are at their wit's end.
²⁸ Then they cry unto the Lord in their trouble, and he bringeth them out of their distresses.
²⁹ He maketh the storm a calm, so that the waves thereof are still.
³⁰ Then are they glad because they be quiet; so he bringeth them unto their desired haven.
³¹ Oh that men would praise the Lord for his goodness, and for his wonderful works to the children of men!
³² Let them exalt him also in the congregation of the people, and praise him in the assembly of the elders.

Now from the New Testament:

Jesus Stills the Sea Mark 4:35- 41

³⁵ On that day, when evening came, He *said to them, “Let us go over to the other side.” ^36 [a]Leaving the crowd, they *took Him along with them in the boat, just as He was; and other boats were with Him. ³⁷ And there *arose a fierce gale of wind, and the waves were breaking over the boat so much that the boat was already filling up. ³⁸ Jesus Himself was in the stern, asleep on the cushion; and they *woke Him and *said to Him, “Teacher, do You not care that we are perishing?” ³⁹ And He got up and rebuked the wind and said to the sea, “Hush, be still.” And the wind died down and ^[b]it became perfectly calm. ⁴⁰ And He said to them, “Why are you ^[c]afraid? Do you still have no faith?” ⁴¹ They became very much afraid and said to one another, “Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey Him?”

 The Lord Jesus can bring on a storm and calm it as part of a manifestation of his power for our benefit. 
I hope that this latest warning will cause people to repent, and turn to God who will act in mercy as he has promised in his Word. 

Look at this image and draw your own conclusion!   














Image taken from weather.com 

More reading on storms by this blogger

Poem:
http://lightnseed.blogspot.com.br/2014/03/peace-be-still.html

Essay on Paul´s shipwreck on Malta Acts 27 Part I and Part II
http://thelightseed.blogspot.com.br/search?q=A+ship+named+relations

http://thelightseed.blogspot.com.br/2011/01/ship-named-relations-study-on-human_25.html

Diplomats: EU has Israel sanctions ready, and Uncle Sam may not be able to help

Reblogged from www.jpost.com/Israel-News/Politics-And-Diplomacy

Western diplomatic sources say that EU may levy sanctions against Israel unless an initiative is presented to break the stagnation in the peace process.

European Union flags. (photo credit:REUTERS)

Israel wishes to delay the signing of a nuclear deal between world powers and Iran, but not solely because such an agreement would be dangerous to the Jewish State.

The concern is that immediately following such an agreement, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict will become the UN Security Council's and European Union's top priority, and the international community will be freed up to deal with the party it sees as responsible for the stagnation in the peace process - Israel.

This is the widely-held assumption in off-the-record conversations among diplomatic sources in New York and in Washington. "A diplomatic attack against Israel is expected soon that will surprise even the pessimists in Jerusalem," a senior Western diplomat told The Jerusalem Post's Hebrew-language sister publication, Ma'ariv. "In the Security Council, in western capitals and at EU headquarters, they are just waiting for the Iran deal to be signed and for it to be approved by the American Congress."

The estimate is that the forced period of waiting will end in September. Then, as the UN General Assembly opens, the signal will be given to start the diplomatic attack against Israel.

Diplomatic sources involved in the western European capitals' handling of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict say that the EU has already prepared documents which list a number of sanctions that will be levied against Israel in the fields of trade, agriculture, science and culture if Jerusalem does not soon present a diplomatic initiative that leads to a meaningful breakthrough toward a solution to the conflict.

"S‭enior officials in Jerusalem are aware of the existence of sanctions documents at EU headquarters, some of which have even fallen into their hands," a source told Ma'ariv. When US President Barack Obama said on numerous occasions recently that the US will have a difficult time defending Israel in international forums, he is referring especially to "the sanctions file" against Israel, which is waiting at EU headquarters.

The Americans are facing a difficult dilemma. The White House and the State Department are against interference by the Security Council and international forums  in diplomatic efforts to solve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, a role that the Americans see as their own exclusively.

The White House has yet to decide on its response to the French draft resolution making the rounds at the Security Council, which Israel staunchly opposes, and Washington is still mulling its response to the EU sanctions plan.

Unfortunately, Western diplomats in New York say, the new Israeli government is not at all expected to present a new and daring diplomatic initiative. "The make-up of the government is such that no faction or minister will stand up to the lack of an initiative from Prime Minister Netanyahu," a diplomatic source in New York told Ma'ariv. "The coming months will be difficult for Israel. This time Israel will pay a heavy price for continued stagnation. This time, it is also uncertain if Uncle Sam will succeed in saving Israel, and maybe he won't want to do so."

It’s official, America is in BIG trouble

Reblogged from servehiminthewaiting.com

By STLloyd March 31, 2015

 

Folks, at this point in time, the question of God’s plans for America, how it will all end, and whether we have “more time” is answered, because Scripture has already told us that those who curse Israel will themselves be cursed.  Can God be swayed?  Of course He hears the effectual fervent prayers of righteous men and women.  But on the question of the treatment of Israel, the verdict has already been announced, and is non-negotiable.  Chastisement is coming.  The only room for variableness, may lie in degree of severity, which is all the more reason to put on the armor, and fast and pray like never before.
Here is Jan Markell’s commentary on this:

Revenge, Abandonment, Betrayal

By Jan Markell

March 30, 2015

www.olivetreeviews.org

Did you ever expect to see those three words linked to the U.S.-Israel relationship? Have we fallen down a hole and we now are in an “Alice-in-Wonderland” world? America embraces her enemies and lifts sanctions on Iran. She will likely place sanctions on Israel. It is an upside down world. Is the Mad Hatter in charge?

Things aren’t falling apart–they’re falling in place.

The entire world is in the process of abandoning Israel which the Bible foretells in Zechariah 12:3. It is ultimately fulfilled in the Tribulation but the process begins much sooner.

Here’s what some are saying.

Pamela Geller, President of the American Freedom Defense Initiative  and Stop Islamization of America says, “The White House actions against Israel and Prime Minister Netanyahu are a ‘jihad against the Jews.'”

She refers to the story broken by Israel National News that the Obama administration declassified a Department of Defense top-secret document with details of Israel’s nuclear assets, a highly covert topic that Israel has never formally announced to avoid a regional nuclear arms race.

Geller states that Israel has shared its nuclear secrets with America for decades. They just never imagined someone in the White House would stoop so low as to reveal them to the world.

Joel Rosenberg says, “There is mounting evidence that Obama is preparing to ‘divorce Israel.’ Once it would have been preposterous even to ask such a question. Today, it feels like it’s a matter of ‘when’, not ‘if’ Mr. Obama will formally abandon American support for the Jewish State. And the situation is rapidly going from bad to worse.”

Rosenberg cites some headlines:

• U.S. Could Abandon Israel at the U.N. (CNN)
• Washington Threatens to Abandon Israel at the U.N. (Times of London)
• The U.S.-Israel Relationship is at “The Lowest Point in the Alliance That Diplomatic Sages Can Recall (New York Times)
• Israel-White House Relations at All-Time Low (Breaking Israel News)
• Iran Deal Worse Than Israel Feared (Times of Israel)

Rosenberg states,”For an American President, or Congress, or the American people, to turn against Israel and the Jewish people would be more than bad policy or unfortunate politics. According to Bible prophecy, such moves would pose an existential threat to the future of the United States.” 

Israeli commentator Caroline Glick writes, “the administration’s animosity toward Israel is a function of Obama’s twin strategic aims, both evident since he entered office: realigning U.S. policy in the Middle East toward Iran and away from its traditional allies Israel and the Sunni Arab states, and ending the US’s strategic alliance with Israel.
“Over the past six years, we have seen how Obama has consistently, but gradually, taken steps to advance these two goals. Toward Iran, he has demonstrated an unflappable determination to accommodate the terrorism supporting, nuclear proliferating, human rights repressing and empire building mullahs.”

Find Jan’s newest DVD on which U.S. Presidents have blessed or cursed Israel here. What are the consequences of cursing? How has our current President contributed to this? The DVD is just $15 and runs almost 60 minutes..

White House correspondent Bill Koenig, my frequent conference and radio guest writes in his e-newsletter, Koenig’s Eye-View from the White House:“The more President Obama’s actions affect or jeopardize Israel’s security, the stronger the response will be from the God of Israel as evidenced in Scripture. This will have enormous implications for the United States.” 
Koenig writes, “The Obama administration keeps speaking about its unprecedented security cooperation with Israel, but what good is that if Iran gets nuclear weapons? What good is it if Iran deploys missiles in Syria and Lebanon, or Hamas takes over the Palestinian Authority, entrenches itself in the mountains of Judea and Samaria and brings in arms from Iran and Turkey? What good is it if Iran takes control of Yemen and the Red Sea?”

(Find info on subscribing to Koenig’s e-newsletter here. It’s well worth the nominal cost.)

Journalist Bill Wilson writes, “The U.S. government is trying to literally ‘cut’ Israel in half with its proposal of a Palestinian state. All that burden themselves with this issue may find themselves ‘cut into pieces.'”

The White House has also suggested Israel shrink her borders to PRE-1967 borders. Call them suicide borders. They are not defensible.

Bill Koenig states, “This is the White House that continues to leak information that puts Israel’s security at risk, while speaking of its close co-operation with Israel. This is the White House that pressured the Pentagon to leak potential Israeli military actions against Iran to the press in 2012, 2013, and 2014. This is the White House that leaks news about Israeli air strikes inside Syria.”

Koenig provides a complete timeline of Obama’s anti-Israel hatred in his newsletter. He quotes Breitbart News suggesting President Obama finally called Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to congratulate him on his re-election — but the “congratulations” was actually a lecture directed at forcing Netanyahu to surrender to the terrorist Palestinian regime.

Joel Rosenberg summarizes that we are watching Barack Obama:

• Negotiate an incredibly dangerous nuclear deal with Iran.
• Refuse to share the precise details of this deal with Israel, America’s most faithful and trusted ally in the region.
• Treat the Israeli Prime Minister nearly as persona non grata.
• Send his political strategists and operatives to defeat the Prime Minister and his party in Israel’s recent elections.
• Threaten revenge because Netanyahu won re-election.
• Threaten to abandon Israel at the U.N. and allow anti-Israel resolutions to pass without an American veto.
• And now declassifies details of Israel’s top secret nuclear program in what is being described as an unprecedented move.

Rosenberg concludes, “This is the most dangerous moment in the 67-year history of the U.S.-Israel relationship. What do the next two years hold? I cannot say for sure. I’m praying for the President and his top advisers to back off, turn from this dangerous path, and find common ground with Israel, despite policy and personality differences.”

Iran is about to become a nuclear power player with the blessing of America and a few other blind-as-bats nations. That means many nations in the region will  have to pursue this goal as well. If you ever wondered what end-time references to fire, vapors of smoke, and the resulting strange signs in the heavens mean, I think it is obvious. At the time of the very end, nuclear war will be raging — for sure in the Mideast. Maybe it will happen before the Rapture. The timing of all such events is uncertain. The Bible references appear to be Tribulation-based.

Things are coming together. They are falling in place. Even if it seems they are falling apart, they really are not. Nations must have “distress with perplexity.” (Luke 21:25.)  Can you think of a single nation that is not plagued with some kind of perplexity or plague? A dilemma for which the leaders have no solutions.

Neither kings, generals, mullahs, ayatollahs, presidents, Fuhrers, or pharaohs can obliterate Israel. But the evil they perpetrate on God’s covenant land can boomerang back on them and their empires.

We have been warned. Scripture is clear. Mess with Israel and there are consequences.

“And I will bless those who bless you, and the one who curses you I will curse. And in you all the families of the earth will be blessed.” (Genesis 12:3)

  

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Israel indicts American over plot to bomb Muslim holy sites

Reblogged from ynetnews.com
Ñote form the blog author: If Israel really wanted to provoke its enemies into a retaliatory reaction, what a better opportunity than this. The opposite happened which show the good will of a people who want to live in peace with their neighbors and will do everything to promote and protect human beings. That is why I support Israel.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Texas native Adam Everett Livix attempted to purchase 1.4 kilos of stolen explosives from IDF soldiers; Palestinian operative tried to convince him to assassinate President Obama. Eli Senyor, Itay Blumental

An American Christian was indicted Monday for plotting to blow up Muslim holy sites in Jerusalem, the Justice Ministry said Tuesday, after the court cleared the case for publication at the request of the state.

The man, Adam Everett Livix, 30, a Texas native, is wanted in the United States for drugs-related offenses. In Israel, he was indicted for three offenses.

According to the indictment, Livix passed himself on as a member of the elite American unit the Navy SEALS. He told friends he had strong anti-Arab sentiments and wished to target Muslim sites.

In October, Livix asked his roommate, a serving soldier in the IDF, to help him obtain weaponry, including 1.4 kilograms (3 pounds) of explosive material, to use to blow up the unidentified Jerusalem holy sites. Livix went as far as paying a part of the sum agreed upon for the explosives.

Livix was also indicted for negotiating, with the help of his acquaintance the soldier, the purchase of two IDF demolition blocks stolen by a friend of that acquaintance. When Livix asked for time to come up with the money for the deal, the acquaintance's friend sold them to a military police agent.

The third offense concerned the attempt to purchase another demolition block from another soldier.

Livix's crimes were being investigated by the Netanya Police, the Police Central Unit, military police and the Shin Bet.
Continue reading ynetnews.com

Benny Gantz´s Troubling assessment by Caroline Glick

Reblogged from Caroline Glick´s blog  Tuesday, October 14th, 2014

The outcome of the donor conference for Gaza reconstruction that was held in Cairo on Sunday was not surprising. 

Representatives of 50 countries convened to pledge funds to Hamas and the PLO. The Palestinians had hoped to receive $4 billion in pledges. They raised $5.4b. 

Most of the money will be transferred to the PLO-controlled Palestinian Authority led by President Mahmoud Abbas. But at least $1b. will go directly to Hamas, from its primary financier, Qatar.

With its $1b. Hamas will be able to pay its terrorist operatives and rebuild its terrorist forces. 

 

The air force revealed last week that Hamas is rebuilding its rocket arsenal already.

As for the money that will be transferred to Abbas, the billions in funding will give the PLO the money it needs to finance Abbas’s rapidly escalating political war against Israel in the international arena. At least some of the money will also go to Hamas, Abbas’s partner in the unity government.

The entire nature of the conference was surreal, but again predictable.

Surreal because it was based on a total disregard for reality.

In last summer’s war, Hamas wantonly and deliberately waged an unprovoked, illegal missile campaign against Israel for the third time in five years. It fired 4,500 projectiles at Israeli territory. It also used tunnels it dug into Israeli territory to attack Israel.

Had Hamas not attacked, Israel would not have counterattacked. There would have been no damage to repair in Gaza.

If the US, Europe and the Arab world were interested in actually helping Gaza, rather than organize a conference to fund Hamas and the PLO, they would have enjoined Israel to finish the job two months ago and end Hamas’s criminal, terrorist state in Gaza once and for all.

Yet, they did no such thing. Throughout the war, the US and the EU joined Qatar and Turkey in blaming Israel for Hamas’s illegal war.

And on Sunday, they put their money where their mouths are. They pledged billions to the PLO and its political war against Israel. And they funded Hamas – both directly and indirectly. Moreover, they gave Hamas a political victory by agreeing to fund Abbas, even though he is the head of a PLO-Hamas government.

All of this was predictable because it happens every time Israel is attacked, whether by terrorist armies in Judea, Samaria and Gaza, or in Lebanon.

Every time the Palestinians and Lebanese Hezbollah attack Israel, the US and Europe eventually side with the Arabs and demand that Israel stop defending itself.

The only difference between the most recent war with Hamas and its predecessors is that this time, the US was even more adamantly opposed to Israel’s attempts to defeat Hamas than the Europeans and many Arab governments.

In other words, the only difference between the most recent war and its predecessors is that the level of hostility towards Israel – and conversely support for Hamas – among leading members of the international community was unprecedented.

Israel’s job in contending with this hostile environment should have been similarly unprecedented.

Israel should have been offering to lead an international force in Gaza to overthrow Hamas and arrest its leaders pending war crimes trials. It should have been sticking the international community’s nose in the stench of its hypocrisy and anti-Israel bias.

Operationally, it should have recognized that Israel’s chief achievement in the war was its ability to withstand US pressure and maintain Gaza’s physical isolation by maintaining the borders shut, and so preventing the terrorist regime from resupplying and rearming.

At least on the last count, keeping Gaza sealed was Israel’s unflinching position throughout the war. To prevent the opening of Gaza’s borders, and through it, the rebuilding of Hamas’s terrorist infrastructure and political power, at great diplomatic cost, Israel repeatedly rejected US demands for an open border.

But today, this position is collapsing. True, Israel is insisting officially that stringent controls be placed on all dual use goods brought into Gaza. But officials openly acknowledge that there is no way to enforce the controls once the goods are imported.

Far worse than accepting that its position is difficult to enforce, Israel is actually facilitating the opening of Gaza’s borders. In so doing, Israel is giving Hamas the victory it failed to achieve on the battlefield.

And worst of all, the chief proponent of this policy is not Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, or even Justice Minister Tzipi Livni. Its chief advocate is IDF chief of staff Lt.-Gen. Benny Gantz.

Throughout the war, tremors of criticism were heard in governing circles and the media against the IDF leadership in general, and against Gantz, in particular.

In a series of media interviews on the eve of Yom Kippur, Gantz showed that not only was the criticism warranted – it was far too mild.

For years, it has been rightly said that Israel suffers from a chronic shortage of strong leaders. But what Gantz showed in his interviews is that even if Israel was blessed with the strongest leaders in Jewish history, it is far from clear that they would have the capacity to act on their convictions.

In Israel, as in all countries, for a government to get things done political leaders require the assistance of professional echelons who develop tactical options for achieving strategic goals and implement government policies.

The chief criticism of Gantz during the war was that he failed to present the government with options for defeating Hamas or that when he did present them, he did so in ways that made it impossible for the government to adopt options he opposed.

It was also said that he failed to respect the government’s sovereign authority to determine policy, and interjected his position on issues that were well beyond the professional authority of the IDF.

In his interview with Maariv, Gantz said that the only way to guarantee that the cease-fire will hold is by paying off Hamas. That is, he made clear that he sides with the US and the rest of the international community against the government.

In his words, “At the end of the day, 1.8 million Palestinians live there, and the quiet is also dependent on the trend of creating economic hope there.”

Gantz placed the blame for their supposed hopelessness on Israel, and its measures to contain Hamas’s threat to Gaza. In his words, “The people there need to live, and they are caught between Egypt on one side, us on another side and the sea with a six mile fishing zone on the other side.”

Later in the interview, Gantz insisted that Israel’s interest is in enabling the international community to fund Hamas, arguing that terrorism is simply the result of economic privation.

As he put it, “The Palestinians also do not want to see terrorism operating from within them. Hamas absorbed a mighty blow and sustained great damage. It needs to see economic recovery, and this need, for economic growth is an opportunity for us.”

The question of whether or not Gaza should be enriched is not a military one. But that doesn’t bother Gantz. After dictating what the government’s position must be, he then coyly winked, “I leave this for the elected leadership.”

Throughout the war, Israel’s elected leadership insisted that Gaza remain sealed.

The Left has followed Gantz’s lead and attacked the government for not opening Gaza’s borders and even participating in the Cairo conference.

But again, reality tells a different tale.

Israel has nothing to gain from participating in a Hamas funding drive.

It does however have an interest in influencing the international agenda. To do so, the most basic requirement for the government is to reject the lie that Israel is to blame for Hamas’s aggression. Israel’s leaders – elected and appointed – need to internalize the fact that the war this summer, like all previous acts of Hamas aggression against Israel stemmed not from privation and hopelessness, but from empowerment and hopefulness.

Hamas doesn’t attack Israel because it needs money. It attacks Israel because doing so empowers it and weakens Israel – as we saw in Cairo on Sunday.
Unfortunately, for as long as our unelected professional class is led by men who have internalized our enemies’ narratives, there is no way that Israel can act on these basic strategic truths regardless of whom voters elect. And as a result, we shall continue to witness our soldiers’ hard won victories being squandered by our leaders – in and out of uniform.

Originally published in The Jerusalem Post. 

‘Arab Idol’ viewers demand removal of Israel

‘Arab Idol’ viewers demand removal of Israel