Arutz Sheva Daily Israel Report
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Wednesday, May. 11 '16, Iyar 3, 5776
HEADLINES:
1. WATCH: VICTIM'S BROTHER CONFRONTS NETANYAHU
2. PM AT TERROR VICTIM EVENT: 'OUR ENEMIES WON'T ACCEPT US'
3. DID YA'ALON TAKE A POT SHOT AT ELOR AZARIYA ON MEMORIAL DAY?
4. WATCH: THANKS TO HEROIC SACRIFICE, 'WE ARE HOME'
5. ELDERLY TERROR VICTIMS: ARABS REFUSED TO HELP US AS WE BLED
6. EUROPE TO CAMPAIGN FOR ARCH-TERRORIST'S NOBEL PEACE PRIZE
7. TRUMP CONFIRMS HE WILL VISIT ISRAEL BEFORE ELECTIONS
8. WATCH: 'WE WILL SING LIKE BIRDS WHEN REUNITED WITH OUR SON'
1. WATCH: VICTIM'S BROTHER CONFRONTS NETANYAHU
by Eliran Aharon
An emotional confrontation took place on Wednesday at the Memorial Day ceremony for terror victims at Har Herzl in Jerusalem, in which Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu had his speech interrupted by a terror victim who is also the brother of a terror victim.
Rahamim Cohen was wounded in a terror attack in 2000, when he was run over and stabbed 11 times by an Arab taxi driver. His brother is security guard Tzvika Cohen, who remains in a coma after being critically injured in an horrifically brutal Arab ax attack in Ma'ale Adumim to the east of Jerusalem in February.
Connecting the two tragedies, Rahamim Cohen shouted to Netanyahu before the latter could begin his speech, and prevented him from starting for a long minute.
Cohen said the same fanaticism of Arab terror "met my family for the second time two months ago when a terrorist smashed my brother's skull, after I was wounded 15 years ago and the wounds still haven't scabbed over to this very day."
"And now again we are behaving with forgiveness, and we don't know how to deal (with terrorism)," he continued, criticizing the government for not decisively wiping out Arab terror.
Visibly exhausted from the emotional toil, Cohen said "enough" and stopped addressing Netanyahu as his wife urged him to sit. Netanyahu then began his speech, even as Cohen shook with sobs as his wife tried to comfort him.
Video of the confrontation in Hebrew can be seen below.
[video:2015218]
Later during his speech, Netanyahu noted on Cohen's words and said, "I understand you, I am a member of the same family."
Cohen's criticism and talk of forgiveness likely refers to Netanyahu's recent decisions to return the bodies of terrorists, even after his conditions of returning the bodies were grossly breached.
Tzvika Cohen, 48, was attacked shortly after midnight on February 26 while on duty at a mall in Ma'ale Adumim by 21-year-old Saadi Ali Abu Hamad, who also worked at the mall.
Hamad took advantage of his position at the mall to catch Cohen by surprise and brutally hit him with an ax numerous times inflicting severe injuries, head injuries, and a finger amputation. The terrorist kept leaving the scene and returning, trying to beat the guard to death; he also took the guard's pepper spray and sprayed it into his mouth to suffocate him.
Hamad then fled the scene to his village, Azariyeh, where friends helped him change and dispose of his bloody clothes. He then made his way to a relative's home, where he confessed what he had done and the relative convinced him to turn himself in.
However, Palestinian Authority (PA) security officials in Bethlehem were reluctant to report the incident to the IDF over concerns they would damage the building during the arrest. Eventually, the relative convinced the terrorist to turn himself in between Bethlehem and Jerusalem, and called the police hotline.
2. PM AT TERROR VICTIM EVENT: 'OUR ENEMIES WON'T ACCEPT US'
by Arutz Sheva Staff
Israel's Memorial Day ceremony for victims of terror began at Jerusalem's Mount Herzl cemetery early Wednesday afternoon.
The memorial service was opened by Rabbi Uri Sherki, whose son Shalom was murdered in a car-ramming attack in Jerusalem last year. Rabbi Sherki recited the traditional mourner's kaddish prayer, which was followed by the yizkor memorial prayer.
Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu then ascended the podium to speak, but - in what has become a yearly phenomenon - was interrupted by the relative of a victim of terror. Netanyahu paused to allow the man - who could not be heard clearly and whose identity has yet to be confirmed - to finish his impassioned intervention, before starting his own speech.
"Enough apologizing to terrorists!" the man shouted to the prime minister.
"I understand you... I understand the pain," Netanyahu told the man, who collapsed back into his chair in tears.
Watch: Netanyahu heckled by bereaved family member:
[video:2015218]
"As a bereaved relative I feel your pain, as a citizen I stand with you, as prime minister I will strengthen you," he told the assembled.
Describing Israel's war against Arab terrorism as a "national, generational struggle", he voiced confidence that the Israeli nation would withstand all the challenges, as it has in the past.
"We are in a generational struggle, and I salute you for your endurance," Netanyahu told the bereaved families.
"We do not wave a flag of hostilities. We believe in brotherhood, reaching out for peace, to the nations of the world and to our neighbors, in accordance with the passage 'Nation shall not lift sword against nation,'" he continued, quoting the prophet Isaiah. "Who wrote that if not our prophet?"
Israel's enemies, however, refuse to reciprocate.
"Our enemies refuse to accept that we are here - they see all of us as targets for attack - uniformed soldiers and civilians, Jews or not.
"They attack women and children, elderly men and elderly women - as occurred just yesterday," he added, referring to the stabbing of two elderly Jewish women by Arab terrorists in Jerusalem.
"Their lust is the product of blind hated, the results of wild incitement. The names change, but the motivations remain."
"You are not alone... the nation is with you."
3. DID YA'ALON TAKE A POT SHOT AT ELOR AZARIYA ON MEMORIAL DAY?
by Hezki Baruch
A special Memorial Day ceremony was held on Wednesday at the Kiryat Shaul military cemetery in Tel Aviv, which was attended by Defense Minister Moshe Ya'alon (Likud), Deputy Chief of Staff Yair Golan, IDF commanders and family members of fallen soldiers.
In his speech Ya'alon spoke of the "heavy price" paid while defending the Jewish national homeland for the past 68 years since the modern state of Israel was established in 1948.
Addressing the security challenges to Israel, he said, "just last week we again met the attempts of Hamas and the terror organizations in the Gaza Strip to disrupt our lives and fire at IDF soldiers in order to prevent them from activities to locate tunnels in the south."
"We will not compromise and we will not be deterred from these or other threats," said Ya'alon. "We will act with an iron hand against those who seek our harm and we will strike them at any time or place. We will do that with firmness and decisiveness, with intelligence and with responsibility."
Ya'alon mentioned the fallen IDF soldiers Oron Shaul and Hadar Goldin whose bodies are being held by the Hamas terrorist organization, as well as Israeli civilian Avraham Mengistu and a Druze Arab civilian who are likewise being held hostage in Gaza. He said Israel is obligated to bring them back.
He then spoke about the Arab terror wave that has claimed the lives of 34 victims since last September, and said that while the attacks are lessening in frequency, the wave of terror is liable to escalate again.
"A wave, which unfortunately added additional families to the circle of bereavement. The pain is great, and who like you can understand what is taking place in the hearts of the newly bereaved families," he said, addressing the widows of fallen soldiers.
A liberal manifesto?
"Even in the difficult moments, in which the blood boils and there is much rage, woe unto us if we lose our path and our values," he said. "A sanctified path and moral values have accompanied us for a generation, and compromising on them is liable to lead Israel to the abyss."
He called "to use force when needed, but also to understand its limits and its ability to cause insensitivity. To strictly guard the purity of the weapon and humanity, and not to lose our senses."
Ya'alon's statements bring to mind his surprisingly harsh criticism of IDF soldier Elor Azariya, who is on trial for shooting a wounded terrorist and who argues he did so out of concerns the terrorist was trying to detonate a bomb belt. Ya'alon previously went so far as to compare the soldier with ISIS terrorists.
In his speech, the defense minister also called to uproot phenomena such as racism and violence, physical and verbal abuse of women, and exclusion of the other simply for being different.
He continued, calling "to struggle to protect equal rights and opportunities without discrimination of religion, race, gender or sexual orientation."
Along those lines he condemned hatred of "minorities," a term frequently used for Palestinian Arabs, and called to integrate them into Israeli society, "because they are an important and inseparable part of it."
He also called not to allow any harm to the courts or judges, warning that such criticism leads to "the threshold of anarchy."
According to Ya'alon the various calls he listed summarize Israel's democracy and are a guarantee of a strong IDF. He added, "this is our obligation to those who paid with their lives so that we could establish a thriving and advanced state here, which strives for peace and extends its hand to the nations of the region."
After outlining his vision of Israel's democracy, Ya'alon turned to the bereaved families at the ceremony, and said, "dealing with the loss is very personal, and every one expresses it in their way, towards themselves and their family."
He noted that on Memorial Day the private mourning turns to national mourning.
"We, who sanctify life and strive for peace, stand in pain before the memories and the stories," he said, stating that bereavement crosses all religious and ethnic group lines in Israel.
4. WATCH: THANKS TO HEROIC SACRIFICE, 'WE ARE HOME'
by Yoni Kempinski
[youtube:2015200]
In honor of Memorial Day on Wednesday and Independence Day on Thursday, the a cappella group Kippalive has released an uplifting song on the miraculous return of the Jewish people to their ancestral homeland of Israel.
The song, which features lyrics written by Kippalive to the tune of "500 Miles" by Hedy West, is entitled "We Are Home."
"On Memorial Day we honor and remember those who fell in battle for the state of Israel and its daily existence," Kippalive told Arutz Sheva.
"Their sacrifice ensures the security of our land and enables Jews from around the world to make aliyah if they only desire to do so."
Explaining the video, the group said, "Kippalive has new olim (immigrants - ed.), veteran olim and also sabras. This is their story."
5. ELDERLY TERROR VICTIMS: ARABS REFUSED TO HELP US AS WE BLED
by Ari Yashar
Marina Fuchs, 86, a friend of the two elderly women in their 80s who were stabbed by Arab terrorists in a knife attack in southeastern Jerusalem on Tuesday, spoke to Channel 10 about the harrowing experience.
Police continue to search for the two masked terrorists, who stabbed the two women as they walked on Armon Hanatziv's Haas Promenade overlooking the Old City together with Fuchs and two other elderly women. The victims were classified as being in moderate but stable condition.
Fuchs revealed that Arab laborers at the scene of the attack refused to help the Jewish victims, even as they bled from their stab wounds.
The five elderly women had set out from the senior residence where they all live for a walk on the promenade, as is their custom. Suddenly the two terrorists pounced on them, stabbing the two victims repeatedly before fleeing the scene.
Fuchs recalled how one of the five elderly women shouted to her friends: "girls, run, run!"
"We looked back and she was sitting on the ground bleeding from her chest," she described. Another of her friends was also wounded in the attack.
She said she and her friends asked Arab workers who were nearby to help, but they ignored their requests.
"We walked and next to the bathrooms stood Arabs who were cleaning there. We asked them to call an ambulance. They wouldn't agree to do so, and acted as if they were talking on the phone."
Two Arab residents from the adjacent neighborhood of Jabel Mukaber were arrested shortly afterwards on Tuesday, but they were later released after it was clarified they were not connected to the attack. The terrorists remain at large.
The refusal to help wounded Jewish terror victims brings to mind the lethal stabbing in Jerusalem's Old City last October, in which Arab doctors apparently refused to treat a young seriously wounded mother and her infant son after her husband and another man was murdered.
6. EUROPE TO CAMPAIGN FOR ARCH-TERRORIST'S NOBEL PEACE PRIZE
by Dalit Halevi
The wife of arch-terrorist Marwan Barghouti has revealed that European MPs and political parties support her husband's candidacy for the Nobel Peace Prize, and will soon come out and publicly express their position of support for him.
Fadwa Barghouti, the wife of the senior terrorist from Palestinian Authority (PA) Chairman Mahmoud Abbas's Fatah party who is serving five life sentences in Israel, welcomed her husband's Nobel Prize candidacy in an interview with the Turkish Anadolu news agency.
She praised the Arab League support for his candidacy, which was submitted in early March by Adolfo Perez Esquivel of Argentina, who won the Nobel Prize back in 1980 for his human rights work.
According to Fadwa Barghouti the very submission of her husband's candidacy for the prize gives a message to the world that the "struggle" of the Palestinians is legitimate, and that Barghouti is a symbol of a legitimate "struggle" and not a symbol of terror.
Her talk of a European campaign of support comes after Labour party head Jeremy Corbyn - whose party is in the midst of a massive anti-Semitism scandal - was revealed in early May as having glorified Barghouti as an "icon," comparing him to Nelson Mandela of South Africa.
Barghouti was convicted of organizing numerous terror attacks against Israeli civilians, and was sentenced to five life sentences in 2002 for his leading role in planning suicide bombings during the 2000 Second Intifada or Oslo War.
Those life sentences stem from his conviction on five murders - Yoela Hen (45), Eli Dahan (53), Yosef Habi (52), Police officer Sgt. Maj. Salim Barakat (33) and Greek monk Tsibouktsakis Germanus.
The arch-terrorist is considered one of the founders of Tanzim, one of Fatah's armed terrorist factions. Numerous Israeli civilians were murdered by Tanzim terrorists under Barghouti's reign, although he was not tried for those murders.
Barghouti has continued to exert great influence within the Fatah party even from prison. Likewise he has been visited by Arab MKs, and has sought presidency of the PA from jail.
As outrageous as Barghouti's candidacy for the Nobel Peace Prize may be, it is not the first time an arch-terrorist has been considered for, or indeed awarded, the prize.
Yasser Arafat, the founder of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and an arch-terrorist responsible for the murder of hundreds of Israelis, was given the prize together with then-Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin after the 1994 Oslo Accords.
Recent Nobel Peace Prize candidates were US Secretary of State John Kerry and Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif for their work forming the controversial nuclear deal - which reportedly has already sparked a regional nuclear race. Kerry and Zarif ended up being snubbed by the prize committee.
US President Barack Obama won the award in 2009 after less than a year in office, and before having taken any concrete steps in his post that would have possibly warranted the more than $1 million prize.
Geir Lundestad, former Director of the Nobel Institute for 25 years, said last September that giving Obama the award was a mistake.
7. TRUMP CONFIRMS HE WILL VISIT ISRAEL BEFORE ELECTIONS
by Ari Yashar
Presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump on Tuesday confirmed a report that he plans to travel to Israel sometime after formally receiving the nomination at the Republican convention in July, and before general elections in November.
His confirmation came after the Trump campaign on Monday denied an Ma'ariv report last Friday, according to which he will visit Israel, Russia and Germany after the convention. A close adviser to Trump was cited in the report as saying the trip was meant to improve his image and to keep him more abreast of foreign affairs.
But the real estate mogul's spokesperson Hope Hicks denied the report as "not true."
However, in an interview with Israel Hayom published on Wednesday ahead of Israeli Independence Day, Trump confirmed the report.
When asked by journalist Boaz Bismuth, "I heard you are going to visit us soon, before the election," Trump responded, "yes. I will be coming (to Israel) soon." The Republican candidate did not elaborate further.
Trump had scheduled a visit to Israel for late last December, but postponed it a few days before it was to take place following an uproar over his proposal to temporarily bar all Muslims from entering the US until better security measures were in place.
Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu in response rejected Trump's remarks in an official statement, and in response Trump said on Twitter that he was rescheduling his meeting with Netanyahu for "a later date after I become president of the US."
Trump last month told Jewish Insider that he postponed the trip because Netanyahu "said something that wasn't as positive as I would have liked, and I cancelled it. I did not particularly like his statement."
In the Israel Hayom interview published Wednesday, Trump said, "I just want to say that my support for Israel is great and strong, and I have always loved the Israeli nation. I have many friends in Israel. We will ensure that the situation in Israel will be very good, and will remain that way forever."
He also criticized US President Barack Obama's controversial nuclear deal with Iran last July, saying, "the current threat against Israel is more important than ever" because of "President Obama's policy towards Iran and the nuclear deal."
"I think the people of Israel have suffered a lot because of Obama."
Trump has recently made numerous expressions of support for the Jewish state. One of his advisers last Wednesday said he will not pressure Israel into concessions as Democratic frontrunner Hillary Clinton would likely do.
Earlier last week Trump supported Israel's right to build in Judea and Samaria, and last Wednesday he told a haredi magazine that "violence towards Israel is also violence towards us."
8. WATCH: 'WE WILL SING LIKE BIRDS WHEN REUNITED WITH OUR SON'
by Arutz Sheva Staff
[youtube:2015205]
Koby Mandell was horrifically murdered by Arab terrorists back in 2001 at the tender age of 13 together with his friend 14-year-old friend Yosef Ishran near their home in Tekoa, Judea.
His parents, Rabbi Seth Mandell and his wife Sherri, recently spoke about how the horrible tragedy affected their lives, and their work in the Koby Mandell Foundation to "replace" the strength that he would have brought to the world if his life hadn't been tragically cut short.
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