Iran’s revenge: Syria and Hizballah join to sink Israeli warships
DEBKAfile Exclusive Report September 3, 2010, 8:40 AM (GMT+02:00)
Israeli warships targeted
Tehranand its extremist and terrorist allies, having failed to abort Barack Obama’s initiative for direct Israel-Palestinian diplomacy, have hit back with two belligerent steps. debkafile’s military sources disclose that Syria and the Lebanese Hizballah have set up a joint military command for sinking Israeli warships, and Hamas has brought all 13 Palestinian rejectionist organizations under one roof for a sustained bid to intensify terror operations against Israel.
At a news conference in Gaza early Friday, Sept. 3 - shortly after the Washington talks were rated positive - a Hamas military arm spokesman announced the creation of a single command encompassing all 13 Palestinian rejectionist groups operating out of the Gaza Strip and Damascus for a concerted campaign of terror against Israel.
In answer to a question, Abu Obeida said the new policy of expanded attacks may well rain missiles on Tel Aviv. “From now on, everything is open,” the Hamas spokesman said.
At that moment, Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu was on a flight home from Washington, surrounded by an intense PR effort to present him as emerging from his first conversation with Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas as a super-peacemaker. The Americans, the Palestinians and his own aides were well aware that the ceremonial inauguration of the talks had yielded very little after their goals were sharply pared down. No accord but only a document of general principles is now expected to come out of the continuation of the dialogue - once every two weeks in the coming year. This, too, would oblige Israel to withdraw from large sections of the West Bank. Further steps were relegated to the distant future.
In the meantime, Syria, Hizballah and the Palestinian terrorist community are using the very act of diplomacy as the impetus for a violent response.
Whereas the prime minister’s rhetoric in Washington laid heavy emphasis on the negotiations measuring up to Israel’s security needs, in practice, he refrained from ordering an Israeli reprisal against the Hamas command centers which ordered two attacks on West Bank roads, although four Israeli civilians paid with their lives and two more were injured.
Syria, Hizballah and the Palestinian terrorist commands operating out of Damascus, Gaza, Beirut and Sidon to took this restraint as a starting signal for reviving concerted attacks on Israel.
Syrian President Bashar Assad and Hizballah leader Hassan Nasrallah decided to expand the secret military cooperation pact they recently concluded - to which no Israeli political or military leader has so far responded - to the Mediterranean Sea, where their operational and intelligence assets will together seek out and try and sink Israeli missile ships and submarines.
To this end, they have earmarked marine units and their Iranian- and Russian-made shore-to-ship missile force - the largest of its kind in the world - as well as Syrian assault helicopters flown by crews trained to strike seaborne targets. The Hizballah marine unit was trained and equipped by Iranian Revolutionary Guards marine instructors.
The Mediterranean coastal strip from Syrian Latakia in the north, running through the Lebanese ports of Tripoli, Sidon and Tyre and down south to the Gaza Strip, have been declared a joint sea front dedicated to attacking Israeli targets.
High-ranking Israeli military sources told DEBKA file Thursday night that while it was hard to imagine Syrian or Hizballah managing to hit Israeli submarines, they are quite capable of fomenting violence on the sea and attacking Israeli naval craft and bases. Their joint command means they are sharing intelligence on Israeli naval activity and monitoring the movements of vessels while still in Israeli territorial waters and before they take up stations opposite the Lebanese or Syrian coasts.
Our military sources add that, from the strategic viewpoint, the Washington dialogue and the disproportionate
hype surrounding it were counter-productive in that it led to the resumption of Hamas terrorist activities on the West Bank and strengthened the military partnership between Syria and Hizballah for aggression against Israel. Netanyahu’s single-minded focus on diplomacy at the expense of neglecting rising threats and blocking military activity allowed these perils to develop and abound.
His restraint did not help Mahmoud Abbas’ failing fortunes at home. His standing took a bad knock from the way Hamas managed to pull off two terrorist operations on the West Bank. In a desperate bid to show they were in control, Palestinian security sources reported Thursday night that two suspects were in custody for Monday’s drive-by shooting near Hebron and they had leads to the perpetrators.
debkafile’s counter-terror sources disclose that the two “suspects” are the used car salesmen who sold the vehicle the Hamas gunmen used in their attack. They had no clues to offer about the identities or whereabouts of the purchasers who have disappeared without a trace.
Netanyahu is scheduled to continue his talks with Abbas in Sharm el-Sheikh on Sept. 14-15 - and again at fortnightly intervals during the coming year under Washington’s watchful eye. It is hard to see how they can keep going in a climate of rising military tensions and expanding terrorist outbreaks.
US envoy Oren warns: Hizbullah has 15,000 rockets on border
By JPOST.COM STAFF
09/04/2010 03:23
Ambassador says Islamist group amassing arsenal in southern Lebanon with long enough range to hit Eilat; missiles now hidden beneath hospitals, homes and schools to avoid Israeli Air Force strikes.
Hizbullah has an arsenal of approximately 15,000 rockets amassed on Lebanon’s border with Israel, including some with a long enough range to hit the southern city of Eilat, US envoy Michael Oren told AFP on Friday.
“The Syrian-Iranian backed Hizbullah poses a very serious threat to Israel…Hizbullah today now has four times as many rockets as it had during the 2006 Lebanon war. These rockets are longer-range. Every city in Israel is within range right now, including Eilat,” he said.
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Oren expressed Israeli concerns with Hizbullah’s concealment of the weapons as well.
“In 2006, many of their missiles were basically out in the open, in silos and the Israeli air force was able to neutralize a great number of them…Today those same missiles have been placed under hospitals, and homes and schools because Hizbullah knows full well if we try to defend ourselves against them, we will be branded once again as war criminals.”
This was not the first time that Oren has warned of the threat that Hizbullah poses to Israel. Following a clash on the northern border between the Lebanese Army and IDF soldiers last month, in which Lebanese soldiers opened fire on two IDF officers, killing one and seriously wounding the other, Oren warned that the distinction between Lebanon’s Army and Hizbullah has become “cloudy.” He expressed concerns that advanced weaponry given to the regular army could find its way into the hands of the Islamist group.
Following the border clashes and Oren’s warnings, the US Congress voted to suspend $100 million in aid to the Lebanese Armed Forces
Talkback
Of Course, To Hell With The EU & UN & Everyone
- Author: Victor Galindo
- Country: USA
- 09/04/2010 04:17
will criticize Israel for bombing WHEREVER missiles threaten Israeli citizens. Those kind of people are to be killed whenever possible. They are mortal enemies. Israeli lives are infinitely more important than enemy lives. If ‘innocents’ are hiding or even openly in a ‘hospital’ with enemy arms, they are NOT INNOCENTS. In WWII we bombed those kind of places in Germany and in Japan - with even nuclear weapons. They saved American lives and that is all that was important. That nuclear attacks saved Japanese innocents as well was nice, but not necessary.
NYC mosque investor gave to Hamas-linked charity
By ASSOCIATED PRESS
09/04/2010 01:46
Ground Zero backer’s lawyer says his client had no knowledge of the group’s involvement with terrorist organization when he donated money.
NEW YORK — One of the investors in a proposed Islamic center and mosque near Ground Zero in New York City is a Long Island medical clinic owner whose expressions of sympathy for Palestinians included a donation to a charity later shut down for links to Hamas.
The developer leading the project confirmed Friday that Hisham Elzanaty, 51, is among the members of a real estate partnership that paid $4.8 million last year for the vacant clothing store that is to be torn down and replaced by a cultural center and mosque.
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The partnership’s general manager, Sharif El-Gamal, confirmed Elzanaty’s role in response to a media report about his reputed involvement.
“All of these investors are committed, as I am, not to receive funding from any organization that supports terrorism or is hostile to America,” El-Gamal said in a statement.
El-Gamal has so-far declined to reveal the names of his other financial backers, but has said the eight-member group is diverse and includes Jews and Christians.
Those involved with the Islamic Center proposal have come under intense scrutiny from groups opposed to the project, and critics point to a donation Elzanaty made to the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development a decade ago as evidence that its backers secretly harbor extremist views.
Tax records show that Elzanaty gave $6,050 to the foundation in 1999. At the time, it was the largest Islamic charity in the US. It raised millions of dollars from Americans in the 1990s, telling donors the money would fund schools, orphanages and social welfare programs.
Two years after Elzanaty made the donation, the US government froze the foundation’s assets and accused it of acting as a fundraiser for Hamas, which was labeled a terrorist organization by President Clinton in 1995.
The foundation and some of its leaders were indicted in 2004 on charges of supporting Hamas. Five were ultimately convicted.
Elzanaty’s lawyer told a WNYW reporter in a report broadcast Thursday night that his client had no knowledge of the group’s involvement with Hamas when he donated the money, and had intended the cash to go to an orphanage.
Many other donors to the foundation gave thinking their donations would fund humanitarian programs.
Other people and companies who donated money, equipment or services to the foundation the year Elzanaty gave included NBA star Hakeem Olajuwon, the Microsoft Corp., and a medical equipment company owned by General Electric, according to tax records.
Elzanaty, whose mother and father died on a flight from New York to Cairo that went down in the Atlantic in 1999, has made no secret of his past philanthropy involving the Palestinians. In a 2002 interview with Newsday, he spoke of a hesitation to donate to Middle Eastern charities because of concerns that it could unwittingly land him in a terror investigation.
“When you see people surrounded by tanks and F-16s, you ask how can we help?” he told the paper. “But you don’t want years later to have a knock on the door and someone asking why did you donate money?”
‘Jerusalem cannot be the capital of state called Israel’
By JPOST.COM STAFF AND ASSOCIATED PRESS
09/03/2010 18:28
Nasrallah derides peace talks as dead on arrival in “Jerusalem Day” speech after explosions erupt from suspected Hizbullah arms cache.
The current round of Israeli-Palestinian peace talks will not succeed, Hizbullah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah said during a “Jerusalem Day” commemoration speech on Friday.
Nasrallah characterized the talks as “stillborn” and said, “Jerusalem, and not even one of its streets, can not be the capital of the state called Israel.”
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The Hizbullah chief’s comments came hours after explosions ripped through a building Friday in southern Lebanon that might - according to Lebanese security officials - have been used to store weapons for the terrorists group.
It was not clear whether there were any casualties from the blasts, which set off a large fire, the officials said. Rescue crews responded to the scene.
The three-story building is in the Hizbullah-dominated village of Shehabiyeh, part of a volatile border zone south of the Litani River in which Hizbullah has been banned from having weapons under a UN resolution that ended the 2006 war between the terror group and Israel.
Phyllis Chesler: Jewish Blood as Portrayed in the Western Media
by Professor Phyllis Chesler
Four young civilians: human beings, fathers, mothers, one of whom was also pregnant, collectively the parents of seven children, were brutally gunned down by armed, masked terrorists. Their murders were openly celebrated in the streets by their attackers and by thousands of their supporters.
You would think that the world would recoil in horror—or that those who report the news, world-wide, would do so. Think again. These four precious souls were Israeli “settlers” and, as such, have already been so demonized that they are now seen as having provoked their bloody, pitiless deaths.
First, they came for the settlers. Then, they came for the secular Israeli pro-peace demonstrators in Jerusalem, Haifa and Tel Aviv. And then they came for….you and me.
Predictably, sadly, my three local area New York City newspapers present this tragic news in very different ways.
Tali and Yitzhak Ames with five of their children
Kochava Even-Chaim
Avishai Schindler
Allow me to first quote from the Bible of the intelligentsia aka The New York Times, which presents this incident on page 4, not on page 1; the early pages are usually reserved for all incidents in which Israelis fight back so that Israeli “evil” is seen immediately and framed as among the most “important” world news of the day. The accompanying Times headline? Unbelievably, it is this: “Killing of 4 Israeli Settlers on the Eve of Peace Talks Rattles Leaders on Both Sides.” It’s really not clear who killed the “settlers.” What is clear is that “both sides” are “rattled.” The piece opens with a paragraph that made me see red, both literally and metaphorically. It reads as follows:
“The killing of four Israeli settlers, including a pregnant woman, in the West Bank on Tuesday evening rattled Israeli and Palestinian leaders on the eve of peace talks in Washington and underscored the disruptive role that the issue of Jewish settlements could play in the already fragile negotiations.”
Note: This opening paragraph literally blames the past and future peace failures on the Israeli settlements. The Times neither blames nor characterizes Hamas accurately. It does not say the Arab Muslim terrorist group, Hamas, the Palestinian version of the Muslim Brotherhood in Gaza, probably also backed by Iran and Hezbollah, and the group which is claiming responsibility for the attack—is also responsible for a deadly civil war with the not-so-moderate President Abbas, an Islamist war on Palestinian women, homosexuals, and dissidents; and a jihadic war against the Jews which began a long time ago and which will never stop until either such terrorist leaders and their propaganda are utterly vanquished militarily, or until the Jews have been driven out of the Holy Land once again.
On the contrary. The piece also positions President Mahmud Abbas as the “good” guy who, like his negotiating partner, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, has “condemned” the attacks. Yes—even as Abbas is busy honoring the Palestinian terrorist who planned the Munich massacre of Israeli athletes at the 1972 Olympic games, Amin Al-Hindi, as well as the Palestinian terrorist, Omar Muhammad Ziyada, who murdered an Israeli civilian in a human bomb homicide in 2002.
The Gray Lady does not even tell us the names of the Israeli civilian victims, nor are they in any way humanized. Their histories are not presented. They are only “particularly militant settlers”: faceless, shadowy figures. We are not supposed to care about them. We do learn what Hamas said about the attack, namely that it was a “natural response to the crimes of the Israeli occupation and its settlers.” We also learn that “hundreds” of Hamas supporters “took to the streets…to celebrate the news of the attack.”
Shame on you, Isabel Kershner and Mark Landler (who share this byline of infamy), and shame on your editors.
As usual, The Wall Street Journal does better. Their headline reads: “Hamas Attacks Israelis on Eve of Talks.” At least they tell us who the perpetrators and who their victims are. According to Charles Levinson, “multiple gunmen” were involved; the “victims” included “two men, ages, 25 and 40, and two women, also ages 25 and 40, one of whom was pregnant, according to Israeli officials.”
Why do Kershner and Landler consider such facts irrelevant to their piece? Are these facts too hard to find—or are these facts too dangerous because they would begin to humanize the Jewish, “settler” victims?
However, the august WSJ does not name the victims either. For that, I had to turn to The New York Post, which places the terrorist act on its cover with a picture of a fully head-and-face masked Palestinian gunman. The title? “Peace, Hamas Style: Terrorist fiends kill 4 Israelis on the eve of DC talks.” Their reporter, Andy Soltis, begins this way:
“Hamas terrorists yesterday murdered four innocent Israelis, one of them pregnant, in a twisted attempt to derail President Obama’s peace summit in Washington…the soulless thugs sprayed a car on the West Bank with dozens of bullets, leaving behind a gruesome scene on a blood-stained road.”
The Israeli media is filled with the facts which humanize this terrorist act but here, in my home town, I can only find such facts in The New York Post.
The victims were Yitzhak and Tali Imes, who had six children, including a year-and-a-half old infant; and Kochava Even-Haim and Avishai Schindler. One of the members of the Israeli rapid response medical team discovered that his own wife (!) Kochava was one of the victims. Kochava was a “married schoolteacher” who struggled for many years to have a child and finally succeeded. She leaves behind an 8-year-old daughter.
The victims’ funeral on September 1, 2010 (Reuters)
The Post also tells us that the terrorists may have videotaped the assault, that Hamas claimed responsibility for this “heroic” operation and that Hamas also “launched a sickening celebration that drew 3,000 people in the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip.”
I am purposely remaining silent about the “politics” involved.
My point here is simply this: If American journalists, professors, scholars, teachers, read and trust only the New York Times, they will continue to view “militant Israeli settlers” as more blameworthy than Islamist Palestinian terrorists. This view is confirmed by articles, editorials, and op-eds which appear in their pages almost daily, often two or three in each issue. In edition after edition, this point is made over and over again.
Worse: Those who read The Wall Street Journal and The New York Post are viewed as rabid, right-wing conservatives, racists, “Islamophobes,” non-intellectuals, anti-progressives, anti-feminists, etc., and their views, and the views of the WSJ and the NYP are easily dismissed—demonized—just as the “militant settlers” have been.
If I want to profile the recent and powerful conference on global anti-Semitism at Yale, in which I participated, if I cannot do so in the New York Times, or better yet, in the Times of London, academics will not take a word I write seriously. They will not even bother to read my words.
Quo vadis, my friends?
(IsraelNationalNews.com)
NY Demo: ‘Peace, Peace, but There Is No Peace’
by Fern Sidman, INN NY Correspondent
Dozens of Jewish supporters of Israel gathered across the street from the Israeli Consulate in New York City, on Thursday evening, September 2nd, to call upon Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to “just say no to demands for more concessions from Israel that will continue to endanger the lives of Jews throughout Israel.” Organized by Helen Freedman of Americans For A Safe Israel, the demonstration came at the end of the first round of direct peace talks between Prime Minister Netanyahu, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and US President Barack Obama at the White House.US Middle East envoy George Mitchell along with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton met with Abbas and Netanyahu met for 90 minutes, with the two leaders pledging to work together to maintain security and reiterating their goal of a two-state solution. The three-way meeting was “long and productive,” Mr Mitchell said, adding the leaders pledged to work in “good faith” and with “seriousness of purpose.” He said Mr. Netanyahu and Mr Abbas then went off on their own for a one-on-one meeting, which may be designed to build trust between the two leaders. There were no notetakers or translators in either of the meetings.
The US sponsored peace talks come on the heels of the heinous murder of four Jews in the Hebron region on August 31st. Talya and Yitzchok Imas, Kochava Even-Chaim and Avishai Shindler were gunned down in cold blood by Hamas terrorists at the Bani Naim junction just south of Hebron. This was followed by yet another drive-by shooting on Route 60 between the Rimonim Junction and the Jewish community of Kochav HaShachar in the Binyamin region of Samaria that left Rabbi Moshe Moreno and his wife Shira moderately wounded. A Fatah cell calling itself the Al-Namir cells of the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades claimed responsibility for the attack as did Hamas. 
“It’s all very well for the ‘Quartet’ led by President Obama to decide that ‘peace’ must come to the Israeli-Arab situation within the next year, but what are the Arabs saying? And what are they doing? Where is the control of anti-Israel terror and incitement”, said AFSI coordinator Helen Freedman. Hold aloft Israeli flags and signs saying, “No Negotiations With Terrorists: Just Say No”, “Bibi: Trust in Hashem, Not Them” and “No Palestinian State”, the demonstrators braved the oppressive 97 degree New York City heat as they chanted, “Jewish blood is not cheap” and “They kill and we build”.
“We need a president that understands the ideology of radical Islam” declared Madeline Brooks, the Manhattan chapter head of ACT for America, as she addressed the demonstrators. “These four innocent Jews were tragically murdered because there were no security checkpoints and that was ordered at the behest of President Obama. We need to seize the moment to educate our fellow citizens about the pernicious nature of jihad”, she said.
Also addressing the gathering was New York radio personality and long time Jewish activist, Charlie Bernhaut who said, “If you want to see a real terrorist up close, just look at Mahmoud Abbas. His links with Palestinian terrorist organizations are numerous and legendary. He is a Holocaust denier and rabid Jew hater. Clearly, the creation of a Palestinian state will represent an existential threat to Israel’s survival because it will become a terrorist state under the leadership of Hamas.”
Susan Kone, a GOP candidate for the congressional seat in New York’s 8th district said, “There is never a justification for the intentional murder of innocents and my deepest sympathies go to the families of the four Jews who were murdered by Hamas terrorists. These purported peace talks in Washington should not be taking place at this juncture because Israel cannot make peace with those whose ideology is predicated on wanton murder.”
“Why can’t we have a prime minister of Israel who is proud of being a Jew and who has a sense of honor?”, said Rabbi David Algaze of Forest Hills, Queens. “Who even entertains the notion of proposing territorial compromise and the division of the holy city of Jerusalem when four precious Jewish lives have been snuffed out?” he continued. Concluding on a sober note, he intoned, “No appeasements, no negotiations, no peace with those who seek our destruction and no to charades orchestrated by Washington.”
(IsraelNationalNews.com)
Garden Tomb Threatened by Muslim Construction
video
http://www.cbn.com/cbnnews/shows/cwn/2010/September/Garden-Tomb-Threatened-by-Muslim-Construction/
JERUSALEM - More than a quarter of a million Christians visit Jerusalem’s Garden Tomb every year. The holy site is believed by many to be the place where Jesus rose from the dead.
But now, the sacred ground is in danger of being damaged by a Muslim construction project. Garden Tomb Director Richard Meryon showed CBN News the 15-foot wall being built above the tomb.
“In the last few weeks the cemetery above has built this wooden construction into which they are now ready to pour hundreds of tons of concrete on top of our wall,” he explained.
Jerusalem’s Islamic waqf is building the wall to enlarge a Muslim cemetery. However, Meryon fears the construction could bring a catastrophe.
“Just beneath (the wall) we have three or four areas where Christians are worshipping every day. So we have the potential here in heavy rain or in snow, or even in one of those earth tremors that Jerusalem is famous for — you only need one of those events to happen and this new wall could collapse,” he said. “It could kill 200 visitors, pilgrims, and tourists in the garden worshipping.”
The new wall also violates three local building codes and does not have a city permit. The structure is supposed to be built three feet away from any existing structure and permission is required.
“They have never sought my permission,” Meryon said. “We have been in active discussion and I am now negotiating with them. I cannot allow them to build this wall until they prove to me beyond all reasonable doubt that this wall is going to be safe.”
A spokesman from the Muslim cemetery told CBN News they do not have a license, but claim the new wall is safe. The mayor’s office also said officials will make sure the building is legal so Jerusalem can remain open to tourists.
“We walk through the garden, we’re hearing groups of people praising God, worshiping Him in every language from everywhere and we have taken people through the garden literally from every corner of the globe,” one tour guide said.
And the concrete wall is not the only construction Meryon is worried about. He said recent digging on top of Golgotha next to the Garden Tomb threatens the hill known as the Place of a Skull. Many believe Jesus was crucified there.
“Golgotha is mentioned in John 19, where Jesus was led outside the city walls… into a place called Golgotha,” Meryon said.
“Above Golgotha, in the last few days - bucket by bucket, load by load - a lot of dirt has been imported above the rock and below those graves on the skyline.” he added. “I’ve known for some weeks that they were thinking of building a minaret up there.”
Meryon wants to make sure Golgotha and the Garden Tomb remain intact.
“This is a very important Christian holy site,” he said. “And we just want to live here in peace and provide this amazing opportunity for Christians all around the world to come here and continue to worship and be exposed to the gospel.”
