Two suspected Palestinian terrorists struck a synagogue in Jerusalem early on Tuesday, killing at least five people before being shot dead by the security forces.
Israeli security personnel search a religious Jewish Yeshiva next to a synagogue, where a suspected Palestinian attack took place, in JerusalemReuters
Worshipers were slain in morning prayer (Photos courtesy:Yehuda Ashin in J'lem)
Nine other worshippers have been injured, including five who are critically wounded. The attack took place at the Kehilat Yaakov synagogue located in a religious study hall in the Har Nof neighbourhood in west Jerusalem.
Cousins, Uday and Ghassan Abu Jamal, members of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine terror group, unleashed an attack on worshippers, armed with guns and knives, shouting 'Allahu Akbar', The Times of Israel reported, citing witnesses. Two police officers then shot down the militants in an exchange of fire.
Uday and Ghassan Abu Jamal beneath their machine-gun
Palestinian media report that the two cousins who carried out the attack, Uday and Ghassan Abu Jamal, were members of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine terror group.
Head of the 'Torat Moshe' Kollel (academy for advanced Torah study), Rabbi Moshe Twersky has been named as one of the four who was killed in this morning's terror attack at the Kehillat Bnai Torah Yeshiva Synagogue in Jerusalem's Har Nof neighborhood. The rabbi's funeral will take place at 2:00 p.m., starting from the Beit HaTalmud Yeshiva to the Har Hamenuhot cemetery.
Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu responded to this morning's terror attack in Jerusalem's Har Nof neighborhood saying, "This morning's murderous attack is a direct incitement at the hands of Hamas and (Mahmoud) Abbas, an incitement which has been continuously and irresponsibly ignored by the international community."
Netanyahu, who is due to enter a consultation on the security situation this afternoon, added, "We will respond harshly to the brutal murder of Jews who came to pray and were killed by vile murderers". (Arutz Sheva)
Foreign Minister Avigdor Liberman (Yisrael Beytenu) responded to this morning's Jerusalem terror attack, blaming incitement by Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas for the deadliest attack in the capital in years.
'Mahmoud Abbas incited this terror,'- Israeli Min Avigdor Lieberman
Will our world be safer since 9/11, Iraq, and Afghanistan under Obama (& Hillary's) administration's management? Former U.N. Amb. John Bolton's address to the American Freedom Alliance, September 11, '11 at the Intercontintal Hotel in Century City, Los Angeles.
Amb. Bolton assesses how the Obama administration has proven itself unwilling or incapable to protect the world from Islamofascism.
A Palestinian Arab resident of Jerusalem rammed his car into a group of Artillery Brigade soldiers at a central Jerusalem thoroughfare late Monday night, wounding 20 of the troops, before being shot dead, police and rescue officials said. Two of the casualties were in moderate condition, while the rest were lightly hurt. It was the third such attack in the city in recent months.
The 11:00 p.m. attack at the city's Kikar Tzahal near Jaffa Gate ended quickly after the Arab assailant was shot and killed by a policeman and one of the soldiers, an IDF officer, police said. The soldiers were on a penitential (Slichot) tour of the Old City.
The lone assailant, who was driving a BMW, crashed into pedestrians on the sidewalk, where his car came to a grinding halt.
The casualties were rushed to Jerusalem's Hadassah-University Hospital at Ein Kerem, and the city's Sha'are Tzedek Hospital.
The attack comes after two back-to-back bulldozer attacks in Jerusalem in July which left three Israelis dead and dozens wounded.
Police said armed civilians killed the driver. He was not immediately identified, but the wording of the police statement indicated it was believed he was a Palestinian.
The intersection is situated near Jerusalem's Old City at the junction of Jewish and Moslem areas.
In recent months, Palestinians who lived in Jerusalem carried out two attacks within three weeks of each other using heavy construction machinery, killing three people and wounding many others. (Jerusalem Post)
Secretive U.S.-backed discussion focuses on West Bank, Jerusalem as Checkpoints removed and Jewish settlements' defenses confiscated
Aaron Klein of WorldNetDaily reports: U.S.-backed negotiations between Israelis and Palestinians are expected to generate an agreement by the end of the year that would set up a Palestinian state in the West Bank and eastern sections of Jerusalem, according to a source who has participated in the talks.
According to the source who has been playing a role in the meetings, the two sides are drafting an agreement, to be signed by the end of the year, requiring Israel to evacuate most of the West Bank and certain eastern sections of Jerusalem.
The source said Israeli community blocks in the zones of Gush Etzion, Maale Adumin and Ariel would remain Israeli while most of the West Bank and parts of Jerusalem will be slated for a Palestinian state.
In contradiction to statements by Olmert, the status of sections of Jerusalem is being negotiated but the specifics of any agreed-upon Israeli withdrawal is as yet unclear, said the source.
"It is understood [Jerusalem] Arab neighborhoods would become part of a Palestinian state," the source said.
The source told WND both sides agreed Israel would retain Jerusalem's Pisgat Zeev neighborhood, which is located near large Arab communities. Many of those Arab towns were constructed illegally on property owned by the Jewish National Fund, a Jewish nonprofit that purchases property using Jewish donors funds for the stated purpose of Jewish settlement.
At the same time, Israel Today reports: Israeli authorities in recent weeks began seizing weapons issued to Jewish residents of Judea and Samaria (the so-called "West Bank") to protect them in case of Palestinian terrorist infiltrations into their communities.
The move comes at the same time that Israel, under US pressure, is fulfilling its latest security gesture to the Palestinian Authority by removing from Judea and Samaria tens of military checkpoints and roadblocks meant to hinder the movement of terrorists.
In a letter this week to the Israeli army commander in charge of the region encompassing Judea and Samaria, Dani Daya, who chairs the council of Jewish communities in the area, expressed shock and deep concern that "these steps are being carried out...at the same time that unprecedented steps are being taken to ease the security restrictions on Palestinians."
Daya and others suggested that the parallel moves appear to have been coordinated to purposely undermine the security of Jews living in Judea and Samaria as the government tries to accelerate plans to surrender the area to the Arabs.
Existential pleadings from a Zionist in America to Israelis; and from an Israeli pioneer to world Jewry.
The Silent Jews by Jewish-American commentator, Adina Kutnicki, addressed to Israelis, in Israel National News
For an entire portion of the Jewish population to live under siege, while the remainder remains generally oblivious to their plight, is not only unseemly, but it places Jewish lives the world over in peril. Whatever is allowed to happen to a portion of Jews in Israel reverberates worldwide. For if Jews do not care enough to protect their own, surely the expectation for strangers to do otherwise is clearly whistling past the graveyard.
Furthermore, history will be totally unforgiving to this generation of Jews, who have been blessed to return to reclaim their homeland and to have the finest army in the Middle East, yet who remain passive as sheep to the slaughter. The calling to this generation of Jews - both in Israel and in the Diaspora - is to meet these deadly challenges we are faced with in a bold, resolute and unflinching manner. Our collective fate depends on how we answer the call to what history has placed before us, by confronting Israel's malignant leadership and our outside enemies seeking to destroy us.
Zionist Israeli pioneer and former Parliamentarian, Elyakim ha' Etzni, once among Hebron’s original settlers remains an important leader. A practicing attorney, he still remains a most clarion voice to the Jewish state and the world about the strategic necessity of supporting the Jewish return to their ancestral homeland, especially with regard to the nature of global Islamist imperialism. He summons world Jewry to step-up now in Israel's moment of need. Where is American Jewry? in the Jewish Press.
Mr. Ha'Etzni's presentation, "Worshipping the false G-d called 'Peace'" from the Knesset' Christian Allies Caucus 'Days of Elijah Symposium' '06, is excerpted here: and here.
"We address our cries to those for whom Eretz Yisrael still holds a place in their hearts – and to their organizations and institutions. We ask them the following: Where are you in our hour of need? Don’t you know that if we sink, the ground beneath your own feet will quake? Have you not yet learned that the very fact that the Jews have their own country has buttressed your status in the Diaspora?
Don’t you understand the danger looming over Israel? The entire world, led by the United States, is hunting Israel down to wrest from it Jerusalem and Judea and Samaria, the Land of the Bible – its entire raison d’etre as a Jewish state.
And faced with all this, you remain silent? Worse, most of your organizations support this anti-Jewish, pro-Arab policy! Today, missiles are flying from the ruins of Gush Katif and landing in the Negev. On the day that missiles are being launched from the ruins of the Jewish towns in Samaria, please don’t say, “We didn’t see. We didn’t hear. We didn’t know." You knew very well!
The Annapolis Conference, in which a blind, stumbling, defeatist Israeli government open to American pressure knowingly consented to commit national suicide, occurred in your country. Rice, whose total identification with Palestinian interests is patently obvious, is applauded by your audiences. And you call President Bush, the man with the “vision” of a Palestinian state that will endanger every city and village in Israel, “the greatest friend Israel ever had in the White House.” You say this when in reality (and history will be the judge) he is the first president openly and explicitly raising the demand and exerting heavy pressure to establish in our midst a devil, a dragon, a dybbuk – in the form of an Islamic, Arabic, radical terrorist state called by the false name of “Palestine.” That state would transform every day in the life of the Jewish state to Hell. And all this for the sake of a fictitious people and a fictitious land that never existed throughout history.
Many Jews in America have good reason to be embarrassed that the only organized American community supporting the rights of the Jewish people to its historic homeland in Judea and Samaria and its eternal capital, Jerusalem, consists of non-Jews. They are the Evangelical Christians. For Jews faithful to their patrimony, some Christian churches are more open today than many Jewish temples. Their organizations and media are more open to nationalistic Jews than are the mainstream Jewish establishment. They visit Hebron, Shiloh and Beit El – places that many Jewish leaders stay away from.
Everyone talks about the political power of American Jewry, but from here we see only the weakness and lockstep obedience to every presiding administration. We ask ourselves, “Why do Christian pastors have no inhibitions about criticizing their president regarding his policy toward Israel, while Jewish rabbis wouldn’t dare?” Please send comments to Zvi Katzover, mayor of Kiryat Arba, at Rivka@kiryat4.org.il.
Asserting "Allah is the Greatest," a Muslim-Israeli rampaged through a Jerusalem Bible seminary, machine-gun-massacring more than 18 youngsters. The attacker, 20-year-old Alaa abu Dhein, entered the yeshiva seminary and opened fire of more than 400 rounds on students in a planned attack, murdering 7 adolescent students, one 26-year-old student; and wounding more than 10 more boys. Witnesses say that the attack began in the seminary's library with the terrorist spraying bullets in every direction before anyone could react.
"It was a slaughterhouse," said Yehuda Meshi-Zahav, head of the Zaka emergency service after surveying the scene at the Merkaz Harav seminary, one of the most prominent Jewish educational centres in Jerusalem.
"Blood covered the religious books. Blood covered the floors. Blood covered the white prayer shawls the boys wore.
"One Orthodox Jewish man came up to me and said, "I want you to report this attack means something completely different to us because it wasn't on a bus or a coffee shop ... it was in the most sacred place for us Jews ... an institute of Jewish holiness and sanctification!" Here is a range of video clips covering the massacre from varying perspectives: from eyewitness footage of the crime-scene, to Britain's Channel Four News' diverting the tragedy to Israel or blame to Palestinian; to Iran's global English "Press TV" Channel justifying the action. Also available are the Israeli reaction, a New York reaction, and several memorial tributes on YouTube attempting to find meaning from the tragedy. (Click on the second button for video menu, or the arrow on the right margin to advance to the next of 12 videos).
As a Jewish Ethiopian mother came to identify her dead son’s body at the school, she was crying loudly. Her other son shouted in Hebrew, "I will avenge for my brother's blood that was spilled."
Although the attack itself was carried out on behalf of a terrorist organization it is still not clear which one. Several have claimed credit, including Hamas, which later retracted its statement. A relatively new terrorist gang, calling itself the Martyrs of Imad Mughniyeh (the Hizbullah second-in-command who was assassinated in Damascus last month) also claimed responsibility, as did an Israeli-Arab terrorist group in the Galilee.
All but one of the 8 murdered students are high-school aged boys: Avraham David Moses, 16, of Efrat (pictured); Yochai Lipschitz, 18, of Jerusalem; Yonatan Yitzchak Eldar, 16, of Shiloh; Yonadav Chaim Hirschfeld, 19, of Kochav Hashahar; Neriah Cohen, 15, of Jerusalem; Roey Roth, 18, of Elkana; Segev Pniel Avihayil, 15, of Neveh Daniel; and Maharata Trunoch, 26, of Ashdod.
It was the deadliest attack on Israeli civilians in nearly two years and the first attack inside Jerusalem in four. It occurred at the start of the Hebrew month in which the Purim holiday occurs, and many of the witnesses at first thought the gunfire was firecrackers in celebration.
The part-time yeshiva student who killed the terrorist, 40-year-old Yitzchak Dadon, said that he shot the attacker in the head with his personal weapon. David Shapira, a yeshiva graduate and officer in the paratroopers, heard the shots from his nearby home, ran to the yeshiva and "finished [the terrorist] off."
Asked by a Channel 2 TV reporter what weapon the Palestinian Authority terrorist had, Dadon said, "A Kalachnikov," and turning to the camera, he angrily added, "The Kalachnikov that you gave him, President Peres ..."
The scene outside the yeshiva was furious and passionate, with at least 50 ambulances and as many police cars on the streets outside, and angry yeshiva students and local residents lined up behind police tapes, chanting, “Death to Arabs,” “Olmert — you are to blame” and “Who gave them weapons?”
Daniel Seaman, head of the Israeli government press office, said: “Jerusalem is a town where Jews and Arabs live together. The terrorist took advantage of the fact that he could move freely in west Jerusalem.”
In Gaza City, Palestinians went out into the streets and fired rifles in the air in celebration of the attack against the Jews of Jerusalem. Some fired weapons in the air, and threw sound bombs in the streets, while drivers pressed on their cars horns. Other Palestinians delivered candies and sweets in the streets in celebration. Mosques loudspeakers in Gaza also broadcasted verses of the Quran, the Moslem holy book, with speakers saying "we congratulate our people for the heroic and selective attack in Jerusalem."
The Abu Dhein family gave public celebrations in Jerusalem and in Jordan to honor their son's 'martyrdom.' Consistent with IDF policy, the home of the terrorist was subsequently razed to the ground by bulldozers.
The Merkaz HaRav Yeshiva is located near the entrance to Jerusalem, in the Kiryat Moshe neighborhood. The yeshiva, founded by Rabbi Avraham Yitzchak Kook, is at the heart of the national-religious movement in Israel.
Asked what the government should do, Rabbi Nachum Levy, 60, said: “I would like to see Olmert go with a strong hand.” Where? “Everywhere, in Gaza and the north and inside,” he said, “and not dismantle settlements.” (from Israel National News & combined sources).
"The celebration of this sort of slaughter entails a dehumanization of the victims so intense as to dehumanize the apologist. Such hatred is all-consuming.
This addiction to violence has been the Palestinian national movement's central failing. The repeated embrace of violence over compromise, and the celebration of barbaric terrorist attacks, serve to blacken the soul, individually and collectively."
The Jerusalem Post reports that the 3-month rookie police officer who was the first to arrive at the scene of the terrorist attack at Jerusalem's Mercaz Harav Yeshiva on March 6 but failed to enter the building and engage the attacker remains on active duty, police said Wednesday.
The 22-year-old sergeant, who completed his training at the police academy three months ago, was performing well, and had not been reprimanded or demoted, Jerusalem police spokesman Shmuel Ben-Ruby said.
Jerusalem police chief Cmdr. Aharon Franco said Wednesday the officer should have tried to make direct contact with the terrorist, rather than wait at the entrance to the school while the shooting continued.
According to a police investigation, almost two minutes elapsed between the officer's arrival on the scene and the entry into the yeshiva of an off-duty paratrooper captain, David Shapira, who arrived from his nearby home with his M-16 rifle and, together with yeshiva student Yitzhak Dadon, killed the attacker, Ala Abu Dhaim, from the capital's Jebl Mukaber neighborhood.
Abu Dhaim first killed eight, including six high school students, and wounded nine.
What motivates crimes of this barbarity among Arab-Muslims? Investors' Business Daily published this editorial with one answer:
When a (West Bank-based Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research, a professional and independent polling agency that surveys Palestinians four times a year has found that no less than 84% of 1,270 Palestinians questioned by the center in personal interviews said they supported the March 6 shooting inside Jerusalem's Mercaz Harav yeshiva) poll reveals all but a fraction of Palestinians support the murder of eight innocent Jewish seminarians, it shows a people wedded to evil. It's a short trip from this hate to the kind Hitler espoused.
The message we get from this is very clear: The vast majority of Palestinians advocate such acts of terrorism against young innocents because the victims were Jews.
Their version of the Final Solution may not entail gas chambers and concentration camps, as Germany's National Socialists did in the last century. But it does apparently include murdering, at random, Jews because they are Jews. Not to say that there was not a clear political purpose behind the choice of target. The Mercaz Harav yeshiva is considered the flagship of the religious Zionist movement, the roots of which date back to a century and a half ago.
Religious Zionism holds that Jews have an inalienable and permanent right to the land of Israel because God bestowed the Holy Land upon the ancient Israelites. The resettling of Israel by Jews and the establishment of a Jewish homeland there, according to its rabbinical supporters, can hasten the coming of the messiah.
Founded in 1924, the yeshiva's alumni include leading Israeli armed forces officers and prominent rabbis. One of them, Rabbi David Stav, said the attack struck the heart of religious Zionism.
"The terrorist targeted a place that symbolizes love for the land of Israel, love for the people of Israel and love for the Torah," he told the Jerusalem Post.
"No Jewish soul can remain indifferent to the horrible thought that a despicable terrorist attacked a group of young men who were busy studying the holy Torah," added Stav, who has taken part in inter-religious activities with Muslim clerics. "Followers of Islam claim they respect the people of the book. But this horrific act proves the emptiness of their claims."
It's one thing for a tribe or nationality to oppose its neighbors, even by war. Arabs can fight the Israeli military, oppose its settlement policies, and even question the very existence of the state of Israel as artificial. But what we're seeing here sinks far beneath that.
What's at issue here is the difference between ordered liberty and barbarism, between humanity and savagery.
Khalil Shikaki's poll shows that nearly an entire people support the murder of innocent kids because they're religious Jews. The civilized nations once fought a world war to prevent the global dominance of that kind of hate.
Melanie Phillips' coverage of the "27 minutes of hitherto unseen footage of the ‘killing’ of Mohammed al Durah which the court had required France 2 to produce. For readers who are unfamiliar with this scandal, I wrote about it here, here and here. Suffice it to say here that the iconic image of the child Mohammed al Durah, pictured crouching with his father behind a barrel next to a concrete wall in an apparently vain attempt to shelter from the gun-battle between Israel and the Palestinians that was raging around them before he was allegedly shot dead by the Israelis, served to incite terrorist violence and atrocities around the world after it was transmitted by France 2 at the beginning of the second intifada. Yet it is clear to anyone looking at this in detail that the whole thing was staged, not least from the devastating evidence here which shows the boy raising his arm and peeping through his fingers seconds after the France 2 correspondent Charles Enderlin said he had been shot dead.
After Philippe Karsenty, founder of the French online media watchdog, Media Ratings, accused France 2 of staging the al Durah ‘killing’ and called for the resignation of both Charles Enderlin and France 2’s News Director, Arlette Chabot, France 2 and Enderlin sued Karsenty for defamation, and won. In a disgraceful piece of judicial cronyism after the gratuitous intervention of the then French President Jacques Chirac, the court decided against Karsenty and in favour of France 2 and Enderlin. Karsenty appealed; the judge ordered France 2 to produce the unscreened footage of this incident; today it did so.
Well, sort of. What it actually produced was 18 minutes out of the 27 it was required to bring forward. From this footage, which according to France 2’s Palestinian cameraman was filmed during an implausible 45 minutes of continuous shooting by Israeli soldiers, there is no evidence that anyone at all was killed or injured -- including Mohammed al Durah who by the end of the frames in which he figured seemed to be still very much alive and unmarked by any wound whatsoever.
The drama of today’s hearing was enhanced by the appearance of Enderlin himself, who until today had not graced this case with his presence. As the film was shown to a packed and overheated (in every sense) courtroom, Enderlin and Karsenty offered rival interpretations of the images on the screen. If Enderlin thought he would thus demonstrate the inadequacy of Karsenty’s case, he was very much mistaken. On the contrary, parts of his commentary were so absurd that the courtroom several times burst into incredulous laughter.
Enderlin offered only a vague, rambling and unconvincing explanation of why he had only produced 18 minutes of footage rather than the 27 he claimed to have received from his cameraman in Gaza (Enderlin himself was not in Gaza when these events occurred). After the hearing Professor Richard Landes, one of the people who had already seen the contested footage, said that two scenes had been cut out which clearly showed that the violence had been staged -- including one in which a Palestinian preparing to throw a missile is suddenly picked up and carried into an ambulance despite showing no signs of injury. This scene, said Landes, was filmed by Reuters, who actually filmed the France 2 cameraman filming it. Yet there was no sign of it today.
What struck me very forcibly about the 18 minutes overall was that, although this was supposed to have been filmed during continuous firing by the Israelis for 45 minutes, much of the footage consisted merely of a violent demonstration by stone throwing youths, many of whom who appeared to be enjoying the exercise. One child was pictured riding a bicycle through the melee. There was no evidence of any of them being killed or injured. From time to time, to be sure, youths were dragged onto stretchers and into ambulances – but there was no sign of anyone actually being shot, no-one falling under fire, no sign of any blood or injuries whatever. The nearest it got to an injury was a sequence in which a young man coyly pulled his shirt open a little to provide a glimpse of a neat red circle on his stomach, which he claimed was a (rubber?) bullet wound. But since he appeared to be in no pain whatever and was grinning throughout his turn for the camera, this seemed an eminently implausible way for someone who had just been hit by gunfire to behave.
There were many very strange things about this footage which just didn’t add up. When it came to the footage of the ‘killing’ of Mohammed al Durah, the following stood out:
* This sequence was not a continuous narrative but was repeatedly broken up and spliced onto footage of other scenes from the demonstration;
* Although the France 2 cameraman had told a German film-maker, Esther Schapira, that he had filmed six minutes of the al Durah father and son under continuous Israeli fire, the footage of them lasted for less than one minute;
* There was a camera tripod next to them;
* There was no evidence of the boy actually being hit;
* At one point, people in the crowd cried out that the boy was dead, while he was sitting up large as life clinging onto his father with his mouth wide open;
* After he was said to be dead, he moved his arm (the sequence I have already reported which has been available on the web for years).
The Appeal Court is not due to give its verdict in this case until next February. As of today, such are the fresh contradictions and questions thrown up by the showing of this footage it would seem that France 2 has painted itself into a corner from which it will find it increasingly hard to escape.
But this scandal goes far beyond France 2. Soon after it transmitted the 55 seconds which showed the ‘killing’ of Mohammed al Durah, it helpfully sent various news agencies three minutes of the footage of this incident – including the frames in which the ‘dead’ child is seen moving, but which of course it had not broadcast. For reasons which invite speculation, not one of these agencies broadcast it either. Had they done so, there would have been no ‘killing’ of Mohammed al Durah and untold numbers of subsequent deaths would have been avoided.
It is therefore not surprising, but no less shocking, that with a couple of heroic exceptions the mainstream media has until very recently ignored the evidence suggesting that a monumental and deadly fraud was perpetrated here, indicators which have been around for years. As of today, the Karsenty case has been totally ignored by the mainstream French media.
It is also deeply troubling that the Israel government ignored this evidence for seven years, that it is only very recently that its press spokesman Danny Seaman said the incident was staged, and that even now certain representatives of the Israel government are playing a most ambiguous role in defending their country against this modern, blood libel.
The ‘killing’ of Mohammed al Durah was swallowed uncritically by the western media, despite the manifold unlikeliness and contradictions which were apparent from the start, because it accorded with the murderous prejudice against Israel which is the prism through which the Middle East conflict is habitually refracted. This scandal has the most profound implications not just for the media, not just for the Middle East conflict but for the western world’s relationship to reason, which seems to grow more tenuous by the day.
Prof. Landes and Philippe Karsenty spoke outside the courtroom about the video evidence presented and omitted which confirm "the al-Dura hoax."
Boston University Professor Richard Landes, who has viewed all the original footage of the alleged shooting that day, attended France2 TV News' Charles Enderlin's subpoenaed evidence footage. Coverage from Augean Stables:
"Then we viewed the rushes with a preamble and running commentary by Enderlin, with comments by Karsenty. It was something of a circus. But it did give me an insight into how Enderlin’s mind works. He explained about Sharon’s provocative visit to the Temple Mount on the 28th, and the riots that ensued on the 29th in the West Bank, and how everyone expected the rioting to spread to Gaza the next day, “because that’s how it works.”
And sure enough, when we see the tapes, we see scene after scene of people being evacuated into ambulances. We don’t see them hit, we don’t see their injuries, but we do see them taken to ambulances, and Enderlin explains: “The Israelis are firing with rubber bullets.” Now there’s no evidence that the Israelis are firing. But because Enderlin expects violence, when he sees Palestinians evacuated in ambulances, he concludes that they have been shot by Israelis.
Most of the material was inconclusive or boring, and I patiently waited for the material I’d seen. Then, at about 15 minutes on the time code, Enderlin announces that there will be a break and we will see the final scenes. That’s when I knew he had cut the scenes. Sure enough, the screen went blank, and then began the final three minutes...
Now there are at least two scenes that I remember specifically, one of which we have documented by Reuters. One scene that wasn’t there I described as follows:
At another point, a boy faked a leg injury, but instead of drawing big kids who could pick him up and rush him past the cameramen to an ambulance, he only attracted little kids. He shooed them away, looked around, and, seeing that no one was coming to evacuate him, straightened up and walked away without a limp.
Indeed this scene provoked a snort from the Israeli cameraman working for France2 who was watching the film with me and Enderlin at the time.
When I asked him why, he said, “because it looks so fake.”
“That’s my impression as well,” I responded.
Enderlin commented, “Oh, they do that all the time. It’s their cultural style. They exaggerate.”
“But if they do it all the time, why couldn’t they have staged Al Durah?” I asked.
“Oh, they’re not good enough.”
Now ultimately, this is my (B.U. Prof. Richard Landes') word (and possibly, if they remember and have the courage to come forward, those of Denis Jeambar and Daniel Leconte), against Enderlin.
But the second piece I remember is actually documented by Reuters (video sequence).
Past photographers, among whom we find Talal abu Rahmah, with his France2 equipment.
Talal is in close, for maximum effect. Note the fellow on the far left who’s in for the ride. He’s seen smiling in the video.
And then run back right in front of the Israeli position (where he was presumably shot) and loaded on the ambulance right in front of the Israelis.
Israeli position in the background. No one is afraid of being hit by them.
Pajamas Media Parisian blogger Nidra Poller provides eyewitness commentary to fill in the blanks of Prof. Landes' participation in viewing France2 TV News' Charles Enderlin's subpoenaed 'master' b-roll video evidence presentation at the trial:
"Reading an excerpt from the cameraman’s testimony under oath—”I filmed 27 minutes of the incident that lasted 45 minutes—” the judge asks why there are only 18 minutes on the CD. The seasoned France 2 journalist gives a garbled excuse...
So how did the 27 minutes boil down to 18? Enderlin denies that anyone ever said there were 27 minutes… and then says there was some irrelevant material that he chopped off the day after the incident.
The judge presses the point, asking Rosenzweig and Landes to estimate the duration of the footage they viewed. They both attest to more than 20 minutes… Rosenzweig remembers someone mentioning 27. Karsenty’s lawyer concludes for the record: something is missing.
The raw footage was not so raw. And it was barely al Dura. If we take the cameraman’s word for it, given under oath a few days after the incident, not something but everything is missing. This is supposed to be the raw footage of the al Dura death scene. What we get is raw footage of Palestinian youths throwing stones, firebombs, and burning tires at the Israeli outpost. And provoking no reaction, except for one teargas bomb. Real provocations alternate with those familiar fake battle scenes with instantaneous ambulance evacuations...
As Charles Enderlin switched on his anchorman’s voice and stonewalled, his legal team—Maître Amblard, who has been handling the cases for the past year, reinforced by a tall dashing Maître Pierre Olivier Sur and the scowling Guillaume Weill-Raynal— stood squarely in front of Landes and Rosenzweig, blocking their view of the screen...
Finally—it’s not clear how—we get to the al Dura footage. And all we see is what you got in the original September 30, 2000 broadcast. It’s spliced. But we recognize the details. Karsenty interrupts every few seconds to point out the anomalies. No blood. The boy is holding a red kerchief to make it look like blood. The soldiers were supposed to be firing at them for 45 minutes, the wall is intact, there are a few holes. Round holes, shot head on.
Charles Enderlin and Talal Abu Rahma have consistently claimed that the Israeli position was directly opposite the targeted man and boy. It is not true. Enderlin stands in front of the judge and says everything and the opposite about the positions. He does not reply to a single objection raised by Karsenty, raised by other analysts repeatedly over the past seven years: The father’s arm is intact, he claims he was hit nine times by high power bullets, his muscles smashed, his bones crushed. No blood on his white t-shirt. Voices in Arabic shout “the boy is dead! the boy is dead!” He is sitting next to his father, eyes wide open.
Charles Enderlin standing in a French court explains: Oh, that’s something cultural. In their culture, when they say “the boy is dead” they mean he is in danger of dying, that he is in a very dangerous situation, he might die. The judges smile.
We reach the end of the scene as it figured in news reports, the point where Charles Enderlin said, “Mohamed is dead, his father is critically wounded.” We might ask what that means in his culture…because the scene continues for another three seconds in which we see the boy who is lying on his stomach with his hands over his eyes, turn, lift his elbow, shade his eyes, look at the camera, and slowly return to his prone position.
Philippe Karsenty interrupts every few seconds, leaps up, points to the screen, asks for a slow forward, backward, forward. The boy is moving. He is alive."
Palestine Media Watch via Arutz 7 evidences the Palestinian Authority's duplicitousness in purporting a Two-State solution:
"While the Palestinian Authority announces in English its demand for a two-state solution, to its own people in Arabic it continues to define all of Israel as 'Palestine,' and to promise Israel's destruction. A new video clip, broadcast numerous times daily since it first appeared on Fatah-controlled TV last week, passionately promises 'Mother' thatevery Israeli city will be 'liberated' because its 'identity is Arab' and 'Palestinian.'"
"We will liberate the Land..." the PA singer chants, "[which] is Arab in history and identity, Palestine is Arab in history and identity." The "Palestine" that is to be "liberated," according to the song, includes cities such as Jerusalem, Acre, Haifa, Bethlehem, Jaffa, Be'er Sheva, Tiberias, Hevron and Ramle, as well as the Galilee. Most of those cities listed are located within pre-1967 Israel.
"This is significant not only because it was broadcast on Fatah TV," note Itamar Marcus and Barbara Crook, "but because the constant repetition of this clip promising Israel's destruction comes at the very time that the world is preparing for a peace conference."
\ The lyrics of the latest PA video calling for Israel's elimination, as recorded from PA TV on October 23, 2007 and translated by PMW:
"Oh mother, they destroyed our house The house of my brother and my neighbor [2X] Do not be angry, oh mother, we got more stones [2X] We are Palestinians, we are not terrorists [2X]
"We have the right, oh mother, we want to bring our home backHand in hand, and arm in arm, we will protect your land, Palestine We will pray in Al-Aqsa and the [Church] of the Nativity, Islam and Christians[2X]
"We will liberate [Palestine] the Land of Religions.And we will build Jerusalem of the homelands.We are the sons of glory, oh mother....
"We are Palestinians we are not terrorists; We are the students of freedom we are not terrorists
"Oh Arab, oh noble son, your blood is in my blood and your business is my business Peace will be achieved through unity, oh my brother and cousin The land is Arab in history and identity Palestine is Arab in history and identity We will live in peace, oh mother, and our lives will not be wasted...
"Oh mother, they destroyed our house; The house of my brother and my neighbor[2X] Do not be angry, oh mother, our rocks increased [in number]
"From Jerusalem and Acre, from Haifa and Jericho and Gaza and Ramallah [2X] From Bethlehem and Jaffa, from Be’er Sheva and Ramla, [2X] from Nablus to the Galilee, from Tiberias to Hebron." [2x]
40-Year Anniversary of Palestinian failure replace belligerency with self-governance noted by Arab press:
(Courtesy MEMRI.org's translators):
The Clashes "Are Murdering the Palestinian Cause"
Al-Ayyam columnist Abdallah Awwad attacked both Fatah and Hamas:
"Between one murder and another, between one kidnapping and the next... our leaders continue to sit in their [meaningless] seats and to speak of 'resistance,' 'liberation,' 'unity,' and 'return'... They are all liars. The weapons they wish to retain, [ostensibly] as the weapons of resistance, are actually weapons of internecine terrorism and murder... You are murdering the [Palestinian] cause, [our] people and [our] future... Oh murderers, you have ruined our world, castrated our nationalism, prostituted our resistance... You have turned our lives into hell. [In fact,] hell is preferable... Take your government, your militias, and your gangs and go to hell." [16]
Palestinian columnist Abd Al-Nasser Al-Najjar wrote in a similar vein:
"Oh murderers in the streets of Gaza, we renounce you. You cannot have emerged from the womb of the Holy Land. You are despicable. You are chasing after [what is left] of our shattered government, [pursuing your own] interests... You are neither Muslims nor believers... Today, we are ashamed to speak out loud of our Palestinian [identity], when in the past we took pride in our Palestinian self-sacrifice, revolution and martyrdom. Oh you mercenaries, you have betrayed our dreams and murdered our promised state. [Our] enemies have used you as a Trojan horse. Oh murderers, you are the Satan of Palestine... Know that a bullet you fire in the Gaza street, no matter what your affiliation, will turn into a curse that will pursue you to your own graves. Oh murderers of Gaza... you have no place [among us] now that you have killed everything that is beautiful within us." [17]
Palestinian Officials: The World Perceives Us as a People Incapable of Establishing a State
Columnists also expressed concern that the fighting would affect the Palestinians' image in the eyes of the international community. Bassam Abu Sharif, who was an advisor to Arafat, wrote:
"The situation in Gaza has reached the explosion point, and the Israeli message to the West and to Washington is 'do you really want these people to establish an independent state? If they are shooting each other [now], what will they do when they have a state? If they violate the agreements they have signed with each other and with the Arabs, what will they do with the agreements [they sign] with Israel?" [18]
Columnist and Palestinian official Yousef Qazzaz wrote: "To this very day, I do not understand why most of our senior [officials] are afraid to declare in all honesty that we - [our] government, [our] security apparatuses and the [Palestinian] people - have [all] failed in implementing the law and in maintaining security. We are immersed in the worship of chaos, in the destruction of our national institutions and our home. Why are we angry with those who say that the Palestinians are incapable of managing their country's affairs?" [19]
Papers reported that some people in Gaza even want the Israelis to return to the Strip. Faiz Abbas and Muhammad Awwad, journalists for the Israeli-Arab weekly Al-Sinara, wrote:
"People in Gaza are hoping that Israel will reenter the Gaza Strip, wipe out both Hamas and Fatah, and then withdraw again... They also say that, since the [start of the] massacres, they [have begun to] miss the Israelis, since Israel is more merciful than [the Palestinian gunmen] who do not even know why they are fighting and killing one another. It's like organized crime, [they said]. Once, we resisted Israel together, but now we call for the return of the Israeli army to Gaza." [20]
Al-Hayat Al-Jadida columnist Yahya Rabah wrote: "When the national unity government was formed, I thought, 'This will be a government of national salvation.' If a government that includes Fatah, Hamas, other factions and independents associated with [various] factions has not been able to save the day, it means that no one can, unless Israel decides that its army should intervene. Then it will invade [the Gaza Strip], kill and arrest [people] - but this time not as an occupying [force] but as an international peace-keeping force. Look what we have come to, how far we have deteriorated, and what we have done to ourselves." [21]
Palestinian journalist Majed Azzam wrote: "We should have the courage to acknowledge the truth... The [only] thing that prevents the chaos and turmoil in Gaza from spreading to the West Bank is the presence of the Israeli occupation [in the West Bank]... [as opposed to] its absence from the Gaza Strip." [22]
Bassem Al-Nabris, a Palestinian poet from Khan Younis in the Gaza Strip, wrote: "If a there was a referendum in the Gaza Strip [on the question of] 'would you like the Israeli occupation to return?' half the population would vote 'yes'... But in practice, I believe that the number of those in favor is at least 70%, if not more - [a figure] much higher than is assumed by the political analysts and those who follow [events]. For the million and a half people living in this small region, things have [simply] gone too far - in practice, not just as a metaphor. [It did not begin] with the internal conflicts, but even earlier, in the days of the previous Palestinian administration, which was corrupt and did not give the people even the tiniest [ray of] hope. The fundamentalist forces which came into power [after it] also promised change and reform, but [instead, people] got a siege, with no security and no [chance of] making a living... If the occupation returns, at least there will be no civil war, and the occupier will have a moral and legal obligation to provide the occupied people with employment and food, which they now lack." [23]
[16] Al-Ayyam (PA), May 17, 2007. [17] Al-Ayyam (PA), May 19, 2007. [18] Al-Quds (Jerusalem), May 19, 2007. [19] Al-Hayat Al-Jadida (PA), May 14, 2007.
Exploiting American speech-freedoms while stifling it in others, Muslim students at posh U Cal Irvine spew vitriol in disrupting of Dr. Daniel Pipes lecture to Hillel students on Islamist war to conquer Israel.
The Muslim disrupters reflect a demogogic inculcation of victimhood and persecution- ironic since that has been the history of Muslim culture against ethnic minorities (such as Jews) and inconsistent with the fact that Arabs in Israel receive the highest standard of living in the entire Middle East.
Dr. Pipes's supporters applaud the departure of the pre-planned protestors (thoughe the protestors were videotaped outside pronouncing their role in Global Jihad / Holy War to establish Islamic rule over Israel and everywhere Muslims live).
What organization radicalizes these students to blind rage against the esteemed Professor Pipes? What is their goal? How are they monitored? How are faculties complicit? How is the west safeguarding itself against Muslim cultural supremacists, cloaked in racist-guilt mongering ?
Writing in the Syndey Morning Herald, Paul Sheehan puts away prejudices and preconceptions to consider the viability of a Palestinian state.
"For the sake of reality, let's put aside whatever views and prejudices you may hold on the Palestinian question. Put aside any animosity about grasping Jews or murderous Arabs. Put aside the Holocaust, and Muslim anti-Semitism. Put aside hopes and judgements. Simply look at what has happened on the ground. Stripped of all emotion and prejudice, right and wrong, one reality becomes clear: there is no chance of a sovereign, autonomous Palestinian state. Not within our lifetimes. No chance. None.
Not only won't there be a sovereign Palestinian state, there can't be. It's no longer viable. At every historic juncture since Israel was created in 1948, rhetoric has taken precedence over pragmatism in the Arab world. As a result, every one of these historic junctions has resulted, without exception, in material defeat for the Palestinians....
"Fatah is the mafia," (Palestinian journalist Khaled) Abu Toameh told me. "It is responsible for most of the anarchy on the West Bank. Fatah is a monster." Nor does he think much of Hamas, though he thinks it is much less corrupt, much more competent, and more pragmatic. He believes the West erred shockingly in trusting and subsiding Fatah and has now mishandled the transition to Hamas.
"But on the Muslim side, the message has always been 'No', and 'No', and 'No'. They quote the Koran: God is on the side of the patient . . .
"And what is the West Bank now? It is six Arab cities, two refugee camps, 150 villages. A series of cantons, with no economic base. And Gaza? An awful place."
And Israel? Through all the wars, terrorist bombings and threats of annihilation, and despite intense internal divisions, Israel has grown into a muscular economy of almost 7 million, with a per capita gross domestic product far higher than any Arab neighbours, including Saudi Arabia. The Jewish population has grown from 600,000 to 5.3 million, with a birthrate higher than those in Western Europe. Per capita, Israel has the most engineers and the most high-tech economy in the world.
Untold damage would be done to this economy if one anti-aircraft missile, fired from the West Bank, brought down an airliner flying out of the futuristic new Ben Gurion International Airport. Israel can't afford to let this happen.
Sixty years of years of "No" has put an end to a sovereign Palestinian state, indefinitely. This pawn has been sacrificed in a much larger game."
The shift of antisemitism westward from the former Soviet Union has shifted the source of new immigration to Israel westward. Total immigration to Israel is down, but Jewish emigration from France, Britain, and to a lesser extent from North America has increased. L.A. Times' perspective:
Since renewed Palestinian-Israeli violence began six years ago, however, the number of emigrants to Israel has dropped markedly, from 61,542 in 2000 to 19,200 as of November this year, according to Israeli government statistics.
During the same period, however, the number of emigrants from North America slowly but steadily increased by nearly 50%, to nearly 3,000 this year. Unlike other emigrants, many of whom fled persecution and discrimination in their home countries, North Americans tend to be motivated by dreams of spiritual fulfillment or idealistic longing to help build up the relatively young Jewish state, said Nefesh B'Nefesh spokesman Charley J. Levine, who lives in Israel.
Evidence exonerates Israel from propaganda used to vilify Israel and justify Palestinian intifada. Mohammed al Dura was a conspiracy of Arafat and French TV news bureau.
The fundamentalist Islamist ego, shamed by the socially-progressive (but religiously-inferior) Jewish self-determining culture in their midst (the Islamic "ummah"), seek to fulfill their religious (and cultural) mandate to subjugate them:
* Through character-assassination (by perpetuating Palestinian 'victim-hood' & framing Jewish-state for hypocracy)
* in order to garner international support & pressure for their ongoing, war-of-attrition to weaken Jewish resolve against cultural/political advances, and territorial-concessions in anticipation of coming, Islamist, military onslaught to conquer the Jewish state.
Arab victimization of Palestinians is demonstrated in this documentary "Hostages of Hate" by Pierre Rehov. Please share trailer.
a Muslim-Israeli rampaged through a Jerusalem Bible seminary, machine-gun-massacring more than 18 youngsters. The attacker, 20-year-old Alaa abu Dhein, entered the yeshiva seminary and opened fire of more than 400 rounds on students in a planned attack, murdering 7 adolescent students, one 26-year-old student; and wounding more than 10 more boys. Witnesses say that the attack began in the seminary's library with the terrorist spraying bullets in every direction before anyone could react. 
