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1. IAF Attacks Gaza Terrorists after Israel Under Massive Attack
by Tzvi Ben Gedalyahu
Israeli Air Force bombed targets in Gaza Wednesday, killing at least one terrorist after a massive missile and mortar barrage on southern Israel Wednesday morning.
At least 10 explosions rocked the area from the western Negev to an area between the port cities of Ashkelon and Ashdod. A major electricity generating station and oil and gas pipelines are located in Ashkelon. Ashdod is home to dozens of oil refineries.
Arab sources said one terrorist was killed in an attack at Rafiah, a city the straddles the border between Gaza and Egypt and which is a prime source of smuggling tunnels. The IDF aerial attack came hours before Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas is scheduled to meet with Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu at his official residence in Jerusalem.
Neither Abbas nor American officials have commented on the terrorist attacks from Gaza, a region that is part of the Palestinian Authority but which has set up a separate government in Gaza since it ousted Abbas’ Fatah party government in a militia war more than three years ago.
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and U.S. Middle East envoy George Mitchell have been holding private discussions with both sides since the morning hours, preparing for the talks between Prime Minister Netanyahu and Abbas.
The same officials talked in Sharm el Sheikh Tuesday as the United States carries out its strategy of creating “momentum” that it hopes will convince Israel and the PA to compromise on procedural issues and discuss the status of Jerusalem and future borders of a proposed PA state.
However, the same momentum could fall apart in the face of the PA demand that Israel extend the 10-month building freeze on Jewish homes in Judea and Samaria. The PA reportedly has so far rejected American proposals for a compromise.
2. PA: Jewish Worship 'Sin and Filth' at Western Wall
by Chana Ya'ar
The Palestinian Authority has publicly labeled Jewish worship at the Western Wall to be “sin and filth” in a television program broadcast in Arabic on Rosh HaShanah, the Jewish New Year.
The documentary was broadcast in Arabic on Fatah's PA TV, run by the faction headed by PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas, and it was translated by the PA media watchdog organization, Palestinian Media Watch (PMW).
Abbas is participating Wednesday in a third round of direct talks with Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu. The talks are being personally supervised by U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and U.S. Special Mideast Envoy George Mitchell.
The program, which was broadcast after the first round of talks in Washington two weeks ago, showed Jews praying at the Western Wall – Judaism's holiest site, along with the rest of the Temple Mount area. As the camera panned the scene, the narrator explained, “They [Israelis] know for certain that our [Arab] roots are deeper than their false history. We, from the balcony of our homes, look out over [Islamic] holiness and on sin and filth [the Jews praying at the Western Wall].”
Denial of the Jewish history in Jerusalem and the existence of the Holy Temples is a central component in the PA's political ideology. One of the most important themes in the harangues of Islamic clerics in the PA is the libelous charge that Israel plans to destroy the Al Aqsa mosque, today perched atop the site where the First and Second Jewish Temples once stood. The clerics whip up Muslim worshippers into a frenzy during their Friday sermons, and they in turn direct their murderous rage at Israeli soldiers, policemen and civilians.
In June, PA Mufti Sheikh Muhammad Hussein warned that Israel planned to implement “plans for Judaization of the Al-Buraq Wall (Western Wall), aimed at turning it into a center for the Jewish nation.” Hussein made the statement in an interview with the Arabic-language Al-Hayat Al-Jadida daily newspaper, linked to the Fatah-led PA government in Ramallah.
3. War on Peace: Rocket Attack Near Ashdod
by Tzvi Ben Gedalyahu
Terrorists in Hamas-controlled Gaza escalated rocket fire Wednesday morning and fired what apparently was a Grad missile that flew over Ashkelon and exploded near Ashdod. No one was injured and no damage was reported.
A Kassam rocket and at least three more mortars exploded in the Eshkol region south of Ashkelon in the second round of attacks in several hours, bringing to 10 the total number of rocket and mortar fire. An Eshkol regional council official said mass media mistakenly call the locations of rocket explosions “open areas.”
“These are farm areas and are not in the middle of the desert. People work there. The mortars and rockets fall near them,” he told Voice of Israel government radio. Several agriculture workers have been killed or wounded in previous attacks.
The attacks have brought back the era of trauma and anger that reigned over southern Israel two years ago, shortly before Israel launched the Operation Cast Lead campaign against the terrorist infrastructure in Hamas-controlled Gaza.
Despite a ceasefire agreement in January 2009, Hamas and allied terrorist have attacked Israel with more than 350 rockets and mortars.
Several southern Israel leaders called on the government to allow the IDF to return to Gaza and silence the terrorists. However, the attacks apparently are timed to coincide with the Palestinian Authority-Israeli talks for the creation of a new country on the land of Judea, Samaria and Gaza to be headed by the PA, led by Hamas' rival Fatah party.
The government is unlikely to order a massive retaliation, which would place PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas in the difficult position of having to condemn the rocket fire from Gaza or criticize Israel for defending itself against terror. Abbas has rarely condemned Arab violence.
Following previous rocket attacks in the past several months, the IDF has responded with pinpoint bombings of smuggling tunnels and weapons factories. Military officials have not explained why the tunnels are bombed only after rocket attacks.
4. Clinton Lays Groundwork for PA as Necessary for ‘Jewish State’
by Tzvi Ben Gedalyahu
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton Wednesday morning laid the groundwork for arguing that Israel needs a new Arab state in order to remain “democratic and Jewish.”
Speaking with President Shimon Peres in Jerusalem at the opening of the second straight day of talks between Israel and PA leaders, Clinton stated, “The status quo is unsustainable” even if it can last for another 30 years. “The only path to ensure Israel’s future as a secure democratic and Jewish state“ is an Arab state, headed by the Palestinian Authority, “alongside” Israel.
The United States has adopted almost all of PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas’s demands that a new PA state should include all of Judea and Samaria and parts of Jerusalem that were restored to Israel in the Six-Day War in 1967, nearly 2,000 years after the destruction of the Second Temple and the end of Jewish rule over the city. Many PA clerics and leaders deny that the Temples ever existed.
Clinton's speech effectively expresses the thesis that the continued existence of a “Jewish Israel” is dependent on transforming all of Judea and Samaria, where 300,000 Jews live, into a new country under the sovereignty of the Palestinian Authority.
She did not mention the building freeze on Jewish homes in Judea and Samaria, which is to expire in 12 days and which Abbas demands be extended as a condition for continuing discussions with Israel.
The Obama administration has made no direct demands of the Palestinian Authority, which continues a campaign of incitement against Israel despite several previous agreements that conditioned future talks on a halt to agitation.
The State Department last week ignored a reporter’s query on what concessions the Palestinian Authority must make to Israel. Israeli government spokesman Mark Regev told Israel National News Wednesday that Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu insists on two things: that a new PA state be de-militarized—meaning without the capability to attack Israel with rockets and artillery—and that it recognize Israel as Jewish country.
The American strategy appears to give a ladder to Abbas, who has perched himself on a limb by refusing Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s demand that he recognize Israel as a “Jewish” country. “I hear the term two states” but not ”two peoples,” the Prime Minister told the Cabinet Sunday morning.
Clinton put the ball back in Israel’s court by implying that Israel cannot remain Jewish unless it surrenders areas that Abbas wants and which have been part of Israel for more than four decades.
Arab recognition of Israel as a Jewish state would virtually deny its demand that Israel allow the immigration of several million foreign Arabs who claim Israel as their ancestral home dating back to 1948, when the State of Israel was established.
5. Surprising Report: Netanyahu will Head to Washington Sunday
by Gil Ronen
Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu will fly to Washington DC Sunday, in a surprising development reported by Channel 1 national television Tuesday evening. The station's political reporter Ayala Hasson said the trip is "90% certain" to take place and that it seems to reflect some kind of political development, but that the nature of the development is not known.
Netanyahu and Palestinian Authority chairman Mahmoud Abbas met in Sharm el-Sheikh Tuesday and discussed “core issues” of a possible solution to the decades-long conflict over the Land of Israel. The term "core issues" usually refers to Israeli concessions, including the status of Jerusalem and the holy sites within it, as well as final borders and the Arab demand that descendants of Arab residents who fled decades ago be allowed into Israel. Before the meeting, Netanyahu had insisted that recognition of Israel as a Jewish state and addressing security issues were the primary issues for Israel.
The talks were hosted by Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak. United States Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and US Special Envoy for Middle East Peace George Mitchell also took an active part in the talks that reportedly got off to a "rocky start" in the morning.
Netanyahu, Clinton and Abbas / GPO
The day began with separate bilateral meetings that Mubarak held with Netanyahu, Abbas and Clinton. Clinton then also held bilateral meetings with Abbas and Netanyahu separately.
This was followed by a 100 minute meeting attended by Netanyahu, Abbas, Clinton and Mitchell.
According to Mitchell, the drafting of a framework agreement for a “permanent status” solution is now “well under way.” The parties agree, however, that negotiations must be kept strictly confidential.
6. Abbas Meeting Netanyahu at Home Breaks PLO Boycott of Jerusalem
by Tzvi Ben Gedalyahu
Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas will meet Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu at his official residence in Jerusalem—one week after the PLO said the united capital should be boycotted.
The two leaders will meet for the second time two days following Tuesday’s discussions at the Red Sea resort city of Sharm el Sheikh. U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Middle East envoy George Mitchell again will oversee the talks.
The Prime Minister’s official residence is located next to Paris Square, at the edge of the Rehavia neighborhood near downtown Jerusalem. It also is only several hundred feet from the David Citadel Hotel, the venue of the World Jewish Congress convention two weeks ago.
The Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), which is the superior body overseeing the PA, called the event a “provocation to the feelings of Arab and Islamic nations” because most of the world does not recognize it as Israel’s capital.
The official Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) WAFA news agency reported its “deep concern because Israel opened the door to the World Jewish Congress to hold its 14th meeting in occupied Jerusalem [with] the participation of more than 200 representatives of Jewish groups in the world.”
Although the David Citadel Hotel is within the limits of Jerusalem that were recognized by the United Nations after the 1949 armistice that officially ended the War of Independence, WAFA said that holding the convention there was “a blatant defiance of the resolutions of international legitimacy, which considers all Israeli actions in Jerusalem 'invalid and illegal', which emphasizes that Jerusalem is part and parcel of the occupied territory."
The United States, like the rest of the international community, relocated its embassy to Tel Aviv after Jerusalem was united during the Six-Day War in 1967. U.S. President Barack Obama has strongly opposed a Jewish presence in neighborhoods in the areas restored to Israel after the war, and he has labeled the Jewish areas “settlements.”
Approximately 300,000 Jews live in the neighborhoods that mass media mistakenly call “eastern Jerusalem.” The homes are located in the southern, and northern—as well as the eastern—areas of the capital and include Shimon HaTzaddik (Sheikh Jarrah), Ramat Shlomo, French Hill, Ramat Eshkol, Ramot, Gilo, Har Homa and part of Talpiot.
7. More 'Peace': IDF Kills Gaza Terrorists Who Fired RPG
by Gil Ronen
A squad of terrorists fired an RPG anti-tank missile at an IDF force near the security fence in northern Gaza Tuesday. No IDF soldier was hurt and no damage was caused.
In response, the IDF force fired tank shells and light weapons fire. The force verified that the enemy squad was hit and that one terrorist was apparently killed.
This is the second time this week that Gaza terrorists fire RPG missiles at the IDF.
Brigadier-General Eyal Eisenberg, commander of the IDF's Gaza Division, said after the incident that Hamas controls Gaza, and that Israel “holds it responsible for everything that happens on Gaza.”
Nationalist spokesmen have noted that Israel's terrorist enemies have stepped up their attacks on Jews markedly since the start of 'peace' talks between Israel and the Palestinian Authority two weeks ago.
Residents of Shaar HaNegev, the local authority that includes the city of Sderot, woke up Monday to the sounds of explosions and sirens as terrorists in Gaza fired two short range Kassam-type rockets towards Israel. The rockets blew up within the council's territory. No one was hurt and no damage was reported.
Shin Bet chief Yuval Diskin predicted Sunday that terror would escalate because of the diplomatic process.
The pattern is a familiar one for Israelis. When terror attacks escalated after the Oslo 'peace' accords were signed, then-Prime Minister Yitzchak Rabin called the casualties "the victims of peace."
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