Monday, October 07, 2013
PMW: Fatah praises terrorist shooter of 9 year-old
After a nine-year-old girl was shot in the Israeli town of Psagot in the West Bank yesterday, the administrator of an official Fatah Facebook page praised the terrorist shooter. He related the attack to a sniper attack that killed an Israeli soldier in Hebron two weeks ago. Writing on behalf of Fatah, the page administrator praised "the sniper of Palestine" who began his work in Hebron (the shooting of the soldier), passed through El-Bireh (the shooting of the girl), and - according to the Fatah Facebook page administrator - will continue in more places in the future: (h/t Yenta Press)Terror victim's father says two centimeters saved his daughter's life
The life of Noam, 9, was saved because the bullet that hit her on Saturday night didn't move two centimeters to the left or the right, her father Yisrael Glick told reporters as he described the terror attack in his Psagot settlement home.MK Chetboun: Releasing Terrorists Encourages Terrorism
"It was a miracle," he said as he stood on Sunday morning in the hallway outside the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit in the Sha'are Tzedek Hospital in Jerusalem, where his daughter is being treated.
Chetboun, who is currently serving on the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, met with the town's officials and visited the family. The MK was also given a briefing by military and police officials. This was followed by a meeting with the head of the Binyamin Council, Avi Roeh, along with Binyamin Brigade Commander Lt-Col. Yossi Pinto.Fatah Official: Israel is to Blame for Psagot Attack
“Terrorism is rearing its head, and it is impossible not to see this in the context of the two previous shootings in the past few weeks,” Chetboun said, referring to the shootings of two IDF soldiers by Palestinian Authority (PA) terrorists in recent weeks.
Speaking to Kol Yisrael radio, Jibril Rajoub was asked if he condemns the attack, to which he responded, “Listen, listen, I condemn everything that causes damage. I condemn it and I condemn those responsible for it. And those responsible for it are the Government of Israel and the prime minister of Israel.”BBC Watch: Nine year-old wounded in attack in Psagot: BBC silent
Rajoub went on to say that the Israeli government was responsible for the attack, in which nine-year-old girl Noam Glick was wounded, because it “incites and provokes by building settlements.”
The day after the incident, October 6th, a message praising the attacker was posted on an official Fatah Facebook account. Despite the fact that the head of Fatah is also the president of the Palestinian Authority and chairman of the same PLO which is currently conducting negotiations with Israel, the BBC apparently does not find this story newsworthy.CIF Watch: Is the Guardian unmoved by the recent terror attack on a 9-year-old Israeli girl?
Thus far, the Guardian has not devoted any coverage to the attack on Noam.Erekat protests Czech president’s call to move country’s embassy to Jerusalem
Their dearth of coverage regarding the attempted murder of a little Israeli girl stands in contrast to their coverage, in July, of a 5-year-old Palestinian boy who was briefly detained by Israeli troops after throwing rocks at cars near Hebron. Here’s a snapshot of the Guardian video report on the incident:
Czech President Milos Zeman’s proposal to move the Czech Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem prompted Saeb Erekat, chief negotiator in the peace talks with Israel, to send a letter of protest to Prague stating that such a move would undermine the peace process.Hamas to PA: Stop Talking to Israel
Zeman publicly voiced his views on the subject at the opening of the annual Days for Israel forum in Hradec Kralove in East Bohemia last week.
According to the Czech news agency CTK, Erekat has asked the Arab League and other Arab organizations to call extraordinary meetings at the ministerial level to support the Palestinian stance.
Hamas on Sunday called on the Palestinian Authority, headed by Mahmoud Abbas, to stop peace talks with Israel. Instead, said Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri, the PA should work for national unity.Death Toll in Egypt's Bloody Sunday Stands at 51
Abu Zuhri said that the remarks made by Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu during his speech at the Bar-Ilan University, according to which negotiations with the PA are fruitless so long as the PA refuses to recognize Israel as a Jewish state, require the PA to renounce the dialogue with Israel, implement the terms of the reconciliation plan between Hamas and Fatah and formulate a strategy agreed to deal with the “Zionist stubbornness and crimes,” as he put it.
More than 246 people were wounded during the day as Egyptian security forces clashed with supporters of ousted former President Mohammed Morsi.The Muslim Brotherhood has not yet had the last word
Supporters of Morsi and his Muslim Brotherhood movement were protesting in several cities to show their displeasure of the military’s overthrow of the former president. The demonstrations took place as thousands took to the streets on the 40th anniversary of the 1973 war with Israel - known as the "Yom Kippur War" by Israelis, and the "October War" by Arabs.
Over the past few months, the Muslim Brotherhood’s brand of political Islam has suffered several blows. First, it lost power in Egypt. Second, the movement’s popularity in Jordan has weakened if not been put down by the Hashemite monarchy. Third, Muslim Brothers in the Syrian opposition have lost their standing to a stronger al-Qaeda. Fourth, Hamas is also losing its standing in Gaza in light of the tension with the current Egyptian regime. Fifth, Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdogan, an ally of the Brothers, is facing a popular protest, while another ally, North Sudan’s Omar Al-Bashir, has also seen violent demonstrations against his rule in the country.Gunmen kill 6 Egyptian troops near Ismailia
And yet the Muslim Brotherhood is far from finished. Sunday underlined that.
Suspected militants killed six Egyptian soldiers near the Suez Canal and fired a rocket-propelled grenade at a state satellite station in Cairo on Monday, suggesting an Islamist insurgency was picking up pace three months after an army takeover.Huge explosion hits security HQ in Sinai
A massive explosion, possibly from a car bomb, hit the security headquarters in a southern Sinai town, killing three people and wounding 48, Egyptian officials said Monday.Israel's Final Warning on Iran
The attack came hours after six Egyptian soldiers were killed by gunmen in an attack near the Suez canal. It was not immediately known if the incidents were linked.
Also Monday, at least two rocket-propelled grenades slammed into a compound housing the country’s main satellite earth station in a southern Cairo suburb, security officials said.
The coming weeks probably represent the last opportunity for Iran and the international community to reach an enforceable deal that will dismantle Tehran's nuclear weapons program, before Israel concludes that time has run out, that Iran has gotten too close to creating its first atomic bombs, and that the time for a military strike has arrived.What Would Be a Good Deal on Iran's Nuclear Programme?
Despite Iranian President Hassan Rouhani's well-planned and deceptive charm offensive at the United Nations last week, so far not a single uranium-enriching centrifuge has stopped spinning in the underground nuclear facilities in Natanz and Qom. The heavy water plutonium facility at Arak is moving forward, and Iran has already amassed enough low-enriched uranium for the production of seven to nine atomic bombs.
There needs to be intrusive inspections, including to all sites which are suspected by the IAEA of being related to weaponisation research, such as Parchin, which the IAEA has been demanding access to for years.Iran’s Ayatollah Khamenei Says U.S. is ‘Untrustworthy, Self-Important and Breaks its Promises’
The plutonium track needs to be solved. Once the Arak heavy water reactor (which is capable of producing weapons grade plutonium) becomes hot it will be impossible to stop it. Israel took out the Iraqi reactor at Osirak in 1981 before it went hot, and according to media reports, did the same with a Syrian reactor in 2007, so the situation is very dangerous.
There needs to be a strict timeframe. It would be best if during talks the Iranians freeze their programme, so the clock is stopped. If the Iranians insist on continuing their programme, there must be a very limited timeframe, otherwise they are just buying time until they reach a critical breakout capacity.
The heaviest sanctions should be left in place until it is clear the Iranians are serious.
If the major sanctions are lifted and then they fail to fulfill their obligations, it will be very difficult to regain the momentum and build up the pressure again.
Iran’s Ayatollah Seyed Ali Khamenei, Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic, said he was “pessimistic about the U.S. government,” describing the administration of President Barack Obama as “untrustworthy, self-important and breaks its promises,” according to the UK Telegraph on Sunday.As US touts thaw in Iran relations, Iranians spit on Obama image, prepare for ‘Death to America’ day
And while the Obama administration and U.S. media have generally portrayed the phone call and Twitter exchange between Obama and Iranian president Hassan Rouhani as evidence of warming relations, in September the website of the Quds cyber officers posted an image of Obama, wearing a Nazi field marshal’s uniform, surrendering with his hands on his head. The caption reads, “In the not too distant future…. One [Gen. Qasem] Soleimani is enough for all the enemies of this country.”Kerry: WMD destruction a ‘credit to the Assad regime’
Kerry, speaking at a press conference with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, said the Assad regime deserves credit for its speedy compliance thus far with the UN Security Council resolution calling for the elimination of the weapons. However, Kerry stressed that Assad is not off the hook yet and needs to continue to comply with UN demands.Forget Chemical Weapons. Assad Regime Uses Starvation as Tactic Against Rebels
“I think it’s extremely significant that yesterday, Sunday, within a week of the [UN] resolution being passed, some chemical weapons were being destroyed,” Kerry said at a press conference Monday in Bali.
With the threat of using chemical weapons now off the table, the Syrian regime has apparently turned to even more punitive actions to force rebellious citizens into submission: blockade-induced starvation. For months now the government of President Bashar Assad has encircled the rebel-aligned suburbs south and east of the capital Damascus, cutting off road access, telephone connections, water and electricity. But in the wake of the Aug. 21 chemical-weapon attack on the area, which rebels and the West blame on the regime, the government tightened the blockade even further, increasing fears that mass starvation might lead to even more deaths than the estimated 400 to 1,400 victims of the chemical attacks. Already six have died from malnutrition, according to activists, and as winter approaches, conditions are likely to worsen. One rebel brigade has dedicated its forces to breaking the siege in Moadhamiya, a town about 10 km from Damascus that has been under siege for more than six months.Erdogan Embraces “Separate but Equal”
In the most recent German elections, Cemile Giousouf, a 35-year old daughter of a Turkish immigrant, was elected to the Bundestag as a member of Angela Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union. That is good news. For too long, Europe has been a pot in which little has melted.Saudi Poet: I Would Pray for Hitler's Soul
Alas, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan now seeks to keep it that way. He has now demanded that European countries teach the children of the Turkish Diaspora in Turkish, rather than the language of the land
In a diatribe against the Russians for supporting Bashar al-Assad's regime, Saudi cleric and poet Muhammad Al-Farraj praised Adolf Hitler for “barbecuing the Russians and the Jews through and through with gasoline.”Saudi Cleric and Poet Muhammad Al-Farraj Lauds Hitler for "Barbecuing" Russians and Jews
