So, how are you going to ensure the demilitarization of Hamas? They have not agreed to it until now, so you saying they should demilitarize will be enough for them to agree? And what happens if you announce the State of Palestine and then they do not demilitarize - is there a "no backsies" rule or do you take back your recognition?

So it seems President Trump has a strong bark and people are worried about the bite behind it.

RUSH HAMAS — a frightening fraternity social experiment 😳🎓#antisemitism #college #university #israel #palestine #gaza #jewhate #columbia #columbiauniversity #nyu #nyc #greek #greeklife #frat #fratparty #rush #fallrush #backtoschool #classof2028 #fraternity #GenZ pic.twitter.com/I7vejBkapM

— Zach Sage Fox (@zachsagefox) September 8, 2024

Eyal Golan, the artist/musician, is being investigated for calling to wipe out Gaza. He said this in the aftermath of the October 7th attacks.

לקראת בואו של @itamarbengvir לזירת הפיגוע בתל אביב: מפגיני שמאל קוראים לחבר הכנסת לצאת מהעיר pic.twitter.com/ggV1FQm2b5

— רן שמעוני Ran Shimoni (@ran_shimoni) April 9, 2022

MKs Avi Dichter (Likud) and Orit Struk (Religious Zionism) have proposed a law that 42 other MKs signed on to. 

The various news sources are reporting that Saeb Erekat has died. He has been very ill after coming down with CoronVirus, and rumors have been spreading every few days of his death. I guess now it is official.

This is funny.

According to Kol Hai News, PM Benjamin Netanyahu went on a rant during the Yom Yerushalayim celebrations about how Iran is sending money, millions, hundreds of millions, of dollars to Hezbollah in Lebanon to help fund their fight against Israel. He said the money is sent using diplomatic cover, sending it to the Lebanese government who then transfers it to Hezbollah.

Sounds almost exactly like, no - exactly like, money sent from Qatar to Hamas in Gaza via the Israeli government, via Netanyahu himself. That money is used to fund terror against Israel, is used to fund the digging of terror tunnels, the shooting of rockets into Israel, the burning of Israeli fields. I wonder if he is just upset at Iran for funding terror with more money than what he himself does.

It seems whenever Netanyahu is in trouble and needs to bolster his image he simply turns to Iran. I guess we'll be inundated by Iran stuff again this election season just like in the previous two.

MKs Haneen Zoabi and Jamal Zahlaka, both on the United Arab List representing Balad, have announced today that they will not be running for re-election and have finished their time in the Knesset.

After all the efforts to get rid of them, they are finally leaving on their own. Hopefully the Arab citizens won't replace them with two more terrorist supporters. Goodbye and good riddance.

Here is a pretty funny, perhaps "ironic" is a better word, item...

President of the Palestinian Authority Mahmoud "Abu Mazen" Abbas has criticized Israel, specifically Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, for transferring monies to Hamas in Gaza.

Abu Mazen said, "Ntanyahu personally transfers monies to Hamas in Gaza to commit acts of terror in the West Bank and we are the ones who pay the price!"
sources: Israel Hayom, Ynet, JPost

Abbas is referring to the recent transfer of cash from Qatar through Israel to Hamas to pay salaries and to distribute to others. According to Abu Mazen, money was sent by Hamas to the West Bank, much of which was taken by the PA but some of which was used to fund terror attacks.

He is not wrong, and somehow Abbas is more of an opposition to Netanyahu than Avi Gabbai, Yair Lapid, Avigdor Lieberman and Tzippi Livni!!!

Netanyahu has worked hard to pass laws allowing them to freeze Palestinian monies balanced against money spent on terror, but then Netanyahu himself lets the money in. He regularly criticizes the Palestinians for this behavior, but he facilitates it as well..

Maybe the Palestinians should pass their own version of the Taylor Swift act against Israel...

In Haifa the new mayor, Einat Kalish Rotem, has decided to appoint City Councilman Raja Zatara as a deputy mayor. Minister of Interior Aryeh Deri is disturbed by this upcoming appointment as Zatara is an avowed supporter of both Hezbollah and Hamas, supports the BDS movement and also supports and promotes activities against the State of Israel as a Jewish and democratic state. Deri is working to prevent the appointment. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has now said that he agrees with Deri's opinion on the matter and supports his efforts.

I agree with all of the above. An enemy of the State should not be allowed to attain such positions.

I go further though. Such a person should be disqualified from running in the elections at all. His citizenship should, perhaps, be stripped. Should the deputy mayor position the only thing he cannot do? Why let him run in elections and be involved in politics at all, if you are not going to let him be deputy mayor?

MK Elazar Stern (Yesh Atid) has proposed a law that would deduct the amount of money paid by the Palestinian Authority to terrorists and their families for acts of terror perpetrated against Jews/Israelis from the tax monies that Israel transfers to the Palestinian Authority.

According to Stern, the budget for supporting terrorists, which includes bonuses for killing more Jews and for sitting more time in jail, show the priority given to this in the PA. This is in the law books of the Palestinian Authority, and it does not jibe with a true peace process.

Stern says stopping such payments is not a prerequisite for returning to the negotiating table, but it should be done anyway. The monies deducted will be frozen, not confiscated, and can eventually be given over, though the lives taken in terror can never be returned.

The initial draft of the proposal passed its vote 48-13 in the Knesset and will be prepared for further readings.
source: Kipa

"Adderaba", as we say. Au Contraire. The monies deducted should be confiscated and not returned, because it incentivises terror.

Reading about this law made me think of the Taylor Force Act being worked on in the United States. This is an attempt to promote a law that would, similarly,, freeze all monies given by the USA to the PA as long as the law paying for Palestinians to kill Jews remains on the books in the Palestinian Authority. The attempt to put this into law began after Taylor Force, a US citizen and former US Army office, was stabbed to death in Israel by a Palestinian.

It is incomprehensible that Western countries, in 2017, can be ok with a law promoting the murder of any specific people, let alone Jews.

Minister of Defense Avigdor Lieberman today said that Hamas and Hizbollah are the continuation of the Nazis, as are Israeli [Arab] MKs that smuggle cellphones into prisons to jailed terrorists.

As always, I protest the comparison to the Nazis. No matter how bad smuggling a phone into prison might be, no matter how bad helping a jailed terrorist might be, no matter how treasonous it might be for a Member of Knesset to try to help a terrorist, it has nothing to do with Nazism. Perhaps a case could be made for Hamas and others like them as they want to destroy the Jews and work towards that goal...

Comparing everything you don't like, even very bad things, to the Nazis disrespects the memory of the Holocaust and of the survivors. Whether it is a policeman acting on orders you disagree with or be it smuggling a phone into prison, it does not turn them into Nazis.

Today MKs Ahmed Tibi and Osama Saadi (UAL) submitted a law proposal that would limit the amount fo time the government can hold the body of a killed terrorist to a maximum of 5 days from the time the body is identified.

In the proposal they explain that holding the bodies of terrorists is leftover from the '70s and is damaging to religious sensitivities and is degrading to the Palestinians.
source: NRG

obviously this won't pass. It is even a tremendous chtuzpah to propose it. Holding the bodies is damaging to religious sensitivities but them murdering innocent civilians is not?

Netanyahu today said, regarding the Palestinian bid to join the International Criminal Court in the Hague that "The Palestinian Authority is an entity that maintains an alliance with a terrorist organization, Hamas, which commits war crimes." Netanyahu encouraged the ICC to reject the Palestinian application.

The only problem I see with Netanyahu's argument is that he seems to be forgetting that Europe, the home of The Hague and the ICC, no longer considers Hamas to be a terror organization. Europe recently removed Hamas from their list of terror organizations.

So, according to Europe's belief, there is nothing wrong or sinister with the Palestinian Authority's alliance with Hamas.

On that merit alone, I don't see why their alliance with Hamas would hurt their application. On the other hand, the argument that they are not a state might hold more water.

I'm surprised that it was only religious and Haredi MKs involved in this, but at least they stepped up.

Israel transfers to the PA money it collects in taxes for the Palestinian Authority.

Israel has frozen 22,000,000nis from the time of the war, and MKs want to use that money to cover some of the debt held by the Electric Company for unpaid bills by the Palestinian Authority.

Beyond that, these MKs are disturbed by the fact that the PA pays money to terrorists jailed and their families. They pay millions of shekels per month out to the families of 6000-7000 terrorists. Each terrorist receives from the PA 3500nis per month. This is higher than the average salary in the Palestinian areas. Financially, this gives them incentive to commit terror attacks.

The MKs, Mozes (UTJ), Zeev (Shas) and Strouk (habayit Hayehudi) filed a petition with the Foreign Affairs and Security Committee of the Knesset for an accelerated debate on the issue.
source: Bechadrei

At least someone isn't sleeping on the job It is incomprehensible that Israel should pass along money it knows in advance is going to be used for supporting terror.

this post definitely raises an interesting question. There are calls out, here in Bet Shemesh as the post refers to but also elsewhere around the country including in Haredi enclaves, to stop employing Arabs and to stop supporting stores that continue to employ them.

All these people, including many Haredim, are they still going to be makpid about buying only Arab produce and no Jewish produce (hetter mechira and otzar haaretz)? Will the same people now stop supporting the Arab produce industry? Will the same people now stop supporting the Arab terror industry?

It is definitely a paradox, to boycott Arab employment but to only buy Arab produce.
It is definitely something to think about.

After a brief but intense campaign, Larry Derfner was fired from the Jerusalem Post for his post about supporting the right of Palestinians to murder Israelis.

Many blogs posted about the Larry Derfner statement, and a few newspaper columnists wrote about it as well. Many people responded and wrote in to the Jerusalem Post, and Derfner got the ax. His joining the unemployment line is not nearly as bad as the people he supported being killed for living in Israel. Despite his apology.

Derfner comments on what bothers him most about the firing, and that is that he was not given an opportunity to explain, to clarify. I might add that nothing he has said so far, nothing he could ever say, could explain his support for the right of the Palestinians to kill Israelis in a good light.

JPost columnist Larry Derfner, in a personal blog post, has called for Israelis to recognize the right of Palestinians to kill Israelis and defended the Eilat terror attack as justified.

Derfner writes:

I think a lot of people who realize that the occupation is wrong also realize that the Palestinians have the right to resist it – to use violence against Israelis, even to kill Israelis, especially when Israel is showing zero willingness to end the occupation, which has been the case since the Netanyahu government took over (among other times in the past).
[...]
But if, on the other hand, we were to say very forthrightly what many of us believe and the rest of us suspect – that the Palestinians, like every nation living under hostile rule, have the right to fight back, that their terrorism, especially in the face of a rejectionist Israeli government, is justified – what effect would that have? A powerful one, I think, because the truth is powerful. If those who oppose the occupation acknowledged publicly that it justifies Palestinian terrorism, then those who support the occupation would have to explain why it doesn’t. And that’s not easy for a nation that sanctifies the right to self-defense; a nation that elected Irgun leader Menachem Begin and Lehi leader Yitzhak Shamir as prime minister.
[...]

I would recommend that, if this disturbs you, you email Derfner (lderfner@gmail.com) to complain about his vile support for Palestinians killing Israelis. As well, you should also email the JPost (letters@jpost.com) to complain, requesting that he be fired immediately.


This week's edition of AMI Magazine has a piece by journalist Samuel Sokol on the topic. Sokol writes:

Calling his comments "an attempt at patriotism," Jerusalem Post columnist and well known political commentator Larry Derfner endorsed the use of violence against Israeli citizens this week in an article posted on the self-described left-wing Zionist blog "Israel Reconsidered."


Derfner, well known as a staunch advocate for a two-state solution, posted a link to his article on Facebook on Monday, drawing praise from friends for his contention that "Palestinians have the right to resist [the occupation] – to use violence against Israelis, even to kill Israelis." This is especially the case, Derfner wrote, since "Israel is showing zero willingness to end the occupation, which has been the case since the Netanyahu government took over."


According to Derfner, Israelis, many of whom he regards as secretly agreeing with him, do not want to come out and say this, however, for "fear of being called a traitor." However, he asserted, "it’s time to overcome this reticence, even at the cost of enflaming the already enflamed sensitivities of the Israeli public, because this unwillingness to say outright that Palestinians have the right to fight the occupation, especially now, inadvertently helps keep the occupation going."


Continuing to explain his thesis, Derfner argued that since the continuing Israeli presence in the territories validates Palestinian terrorism, "the Left’s ritual condemnations of terror are translated in the Israeli public’s mind – as justification for the occupation and an iron-fist military policy."


"But if, on the other hand, we were to say very forthrightly what many of us believe and the rest of us suspect – that the Palestinians, like every nation living under hostile rule, have the right to fight back, that their terrorism, especially in the face of a rejectionist Israeli government, is justified – what effect would that have?" he asked. "A powerful one, I think, because the truth is powerful."


Stopping short of actively calling for terrorism, however, the columnist -a Los Angeles native who immigrated to Israel in 1985- asserted that while he "think[s] the Palestinians have the right to use terrorism against us, I don’t want them to use it, I don’t want to see Israelis killed."


"As an Israeli," he explained, "I would do whatever was necessary to stop a Palestinian, oppressed or not, from killing one of my countrymen."


"Still, I don’t think Hamas and their allies need any more encouragement, so whatever encouragement they might take from me or any other liberal Zionist is coals to Newcastle," Derfner quipped.


He also stated that he is opposed to "encouraging Israelis in their blindness" that prevents them from seeing that they are "compelling [the Palestinians] to engage in terrorism." Such encouragement, he explained, "endanger[s] their lives and ours, their country and ours, much more than if we told the truth and got quoted on Hamas websites."


Concluding with a brief discussion of last week's triple-terror attack in Eilat, Derfner said that "Whoever the Palestinians were who killed the eight Israelis near Eilat last week, however vile their ideology was, they were justified to attack."


The government of Israel, which he termed "harsh" and "unjust," is "to blame for those eight Israeli deaths."


"Writing this is not treason. It is an attempt at patriotism," Derfner explained.


Responding to comments on Facebook, Derfner summed up his thesis by saying that "the occupation makes Palestinian terror justified and inevitable." After all, he asked, "if non-violence doesn't convince Israel to end the occupation, what are [the Palestinians] supposed to do?"


These shocking comments, coming as they do on the heels of a national tragedy that almost led Israel to war, will certainly create a stir.


They are certainly a far cry from his comments in March, following the murder of the Fogel Family in the West Bank town of Itamar.


At the time, Derfner wrote that "Until Palestinians acknowledge the savage streak in their society – even if only to themselves – and resolve to root it out, then, if history is a guide, there will be more abominations done in their name. And it’s completely legitimate to expect Palestinians to understand this – even before they have their own state."


As of press time, Ami has received no reply to requests for comment from the Israeli Ministry of Justice regarding the possibility of Derfner's statements constituting incitement to violence, a criminal offense under Israeli law.

It is reprehensible that he should defend the right of Palestinians to kill Israelis. The Jerusalem Post should be ashamed to have someone like him on their payroll. I am all for free speech, and I am all for presenting varying viewpoints in a newspaper (though, again, this was not written in the JPost newspaper but on his own personal website), but Derfner has crossed a line.