Arutz Sheva Daily Israel Report
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Friday, Mar. 04 '16, Adar 24, 5776
HEADLINES:
1. LEHI LEGEND: ISRAEL IS NO LONGER FIGHTING TERROR!
2. CAR RAMMING ATTACK AT GUSH ETZION JUNCTION
3. NEW INITIATIVE TO TOPPLE NETANYAHU FROM POWER
4. YITZHAR FUMES AFTER ARAB INFILTRATORS GO FREE
5. ISRAELI AMBASSADOR: EGYPT WILL NEVER AGAIN BE OUR ENEMY
6. PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH'S UNHOLY MATRIMONY OF BDS AND ANTI-SEMITISM
7. HAMAS SAID TO HAVE FULLY RESTOCKED ITS MISSILE ARSENAL
8. WHO STOLE MOTHERS' DAY?
1. LEHI LEGEND: ISRAEL IS NO LONGER FIGHTING TERROR!
by Eliran Aharon
Ezra Yakhin, now 88 years old, was a legendary fighter for the Lehi Underground ("Lohamei Herut Yisrael" - Fighters for the Freedom of Israel) that fought the British Empire during the 1940s to liberate the land of Israel.
In the midst of an Arab terror wave gripping Israel since last September, Yakhin spoke to Arutz Sheva about how he knew from his youth that one must fight their enemies - and said Israel is no longer fighting to win.
Yakhin lost many friends and acquaintances in his childhood, which he says led him to a clear understanding of what must be done.
"Since I first opened my eyes as a baby, I see and hear that the Arabs murder Jews and that continues to today. As a baby we were saved by a miracle from the massacre that took place in the Yemin Moshe neighborhood (of Jerusalem - ed.), and mother would wake up every few days with screams and nightmares," he said.
Explaining how he decided to join the Lehi Underground, Yakhin said, "this situation developed in me the desire to fight. As a child my brother explained to me about how the Maccabees fought the Greeks because they ruled Israel and we didn't, I understood that we would need a state and army to fight the Arabs because the British wouldn't do it for us."
"And that brought me the aspiration that when I would grow up, I would fight for the nation of Israel."
Yakhin expressed shock at how things have changed, saying, "today I don't see fighting against terror! The nation of Israel is not fighting terror!"
"They kill us and we aren't fighting. In war you kill the enemy, but we aren't doing that. Since the Bar Lev Line (fortifications built in the Suez Canal in 1968 - ed.) the nation of Israel stopped fighting in order to win. We put up the security barrier and stopped fighting, and since then we are just on defense and curbing the enemies."
"The leaders are to blame"
The former Lehi fighter laid the blame for the situation squarely on the shoulders of Israel's leaders and government.
"The problem is in leadership and only in leadership, the nation wants to fight, the nation is disappointed every time they (the government - ed.) jump on a ceasefire," he said.
According to Yakhin the generally agreed upon theory that Iran is the primary threat to Israel's existence today is wrong, and "we need to defend ourselves a lot more from the Egyptians than we do from the Iranians - they are closer and the people there hate us more than the Iranian people."
He added that the Egyptian government, led by President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, has been cooperating with Israel and improving ties only out of its own interests and not as part of any meaningful shift in relations between the two nations.
Making a suggestion as to how to deal with Israel's enemies, the veteran underground fighter said, "we are in our country and we decided to live, all those who harm us should know that they and their surroundings will pay a price."
"This is our land and all of it is our land, and those who harm any part of it or part of the nation of Israel - their blood is on their head. If you harm Jews in Europe and the Diaspora, we have no right to get involved there. They have the right to rule there and to do what they want with those who are there. Jews want to live and defend themselves - let them come to this land."
2. CAR RAMMING ATTACK AT GUSH ETZION JUNCTION
by Arutz Sheva Staff
An IDF soldier was lightly wounded on Friday morning in a car ramming attack at Gush Etzion Junction in Judea, a site of frequent attacks in recent months.
Large forces were dispatched to the area.
The attack was conducted by a female Arab terrorist, who was shot and killed as she conducted her attack. A search of her car revealed that she had a knife inside, in apparent preparations for getting out of the vehicle and stabbing her prone victim to death.
The soldier, aged around 20 years old, was evacuated to Shaare Tzedek Hospital in Jerusalem for treatment.
[video:2013153]
Shaare Tzedek later reported that the victim's tests for internal bleeding came back clean. He will be kept at the hospital for several more hours of observation before being released.
Senior Magen David Adom (MDA) medic Eliyahu Badil and emergency MDA medic Shmuel Daniel were on the scene and related what they witnessed.
"We saw a youth around 20-years-old fully conscious, he suffered wounds to the leg, an IDF medical force that was on the scene provided him with first aid, we put him on the ambulance and evacuated him while giving him treatment to the hospital as he was in light and stable condition," they said.
Gush Etzion Junction has become a key target for attacks during the current terror wave, which has been raging since last September.
Just last Wednesday Eliyav Gelman, an IDF officer in reserves, was tragically killed by friendly fire during an Arab terror attack at the site as he shot an Arab attacker seeking to stab Israelis.
Stabbing attempts and attacks have been common at the junction, to the point that one heroic IDF soldier identified as Corporal T. eliminated three terrorists conducting attacks at Gush Etzion Junction during the space of just two weeks from late October to early November last year.
3. NEW INITIATIVE TO TOPPLE NETANYAHU FROM POWER
by Arutz Sheva Staff
A new initiative has reportedly been agreed upon by leaders of the parties classified as "centrist" and "right-wing," according to which they will not recommend Binyamin Netanyahu as prime minister in the next elections, thereby denying him the chance to form the government.
The initiative, revealed by Channel 2 late Thursday, comes after Netanyahu's erstwhile ally Yisrael Beytenu head MK Avigdor Liberman gave a speech last week, in which he promised not to sit in a leftist government, and likewise not to sit with Netanyahu under the current conditions.
While the pledges would appear to obligate him to remain in the opposition, talks held in recent weeks between the heads of "centrist" and "right-wing" parties have formulated a plan that apparently would force Likud to forego Netanyahu if it wants to remain in power.
The new initiative would have the party heads inform the president after the next elections that they will not agree to sit in a government formed by Netanyahu, but would be open to any other candidate for prime minister from Likud.
In this way they hope to force Netanyahu's demotion within Likud, as the party will want to retain control and be allowed first crack and forming a coalition government by the president, should it receive the most mandates in elections as polls suggest it will.
Just this Monday Liberman held a joint meeting with Yesh Atid head MK Yair Lapid, in which the two slammed the government. Netanyahu responded by calling Liberman a "blabbering" leftist, to which Liberman charged him with selling out to the Arab Joint List party.
It was already revealed in the last elections that Liberman had planned to cooperate with Lapid and Moshe Kahlon of the Kulanu party to create a united bloc to unseat Netanyahu. The plan, exposed by ex-Yisrael Beytenu MK Faina Kirshenbaum, later fell apart as Liberman's party came under investigation in a massive corruption scandal.
Netanyahu is currently in his fourth term as prime minister, and his third consecutive term in the role which he has now held since 2009.
4. YITZHAR FUMES AFTER ARAB INFILTRATORS GO FREE
by Ido Ben-Porat
The two Arabs who were arrested on Wednesday night adjacent to the northern neighborhood of the town of Yitzhar in Samaria - at roughly the same time as a stabbing attack took place nearby in Har Bracha - were released just several hours later.
At around 7:30 p.m. on Wednesday the military observation post in Yitzhar identified two suspicious figures approaching the Jewish town. A warning siren was sounded in the town and the residents were ordered to stay indoors.
The local security team and an IDF force were called up on site and after a chase they managed to arrest the two Arabs, who were found to be carrying weapons including long crow bars, hammers and metal spikes.
In the Har Bracha attack that took place at the same time, two Arab terrorists stabbed two soldiers at a military post, moderately and lightly wounding them, before fleeing.
The two Arabs arrested near Yitzhar, who were identified as a 20-year-old and 34-year-old from the village of Hizme located adjacent to Jerusalem, were brought in for interrogation by the Israeli Security Agency (ISA).
In investigation the two claimed they were heading for a well adjacent to Yitzhar in order to "search for gold" and not in order to conduct an attack - their claims were apparently accepted, as they were released the same night they were arrested.
Residents of Yitzhar sharply criticized the decision to release the two Arabs, arguing that the decision endangers the lives of Israelis and ignores the danger incumbent in the act of Arabs being allowed to approach Jewish towns in the region.
The decision is all the more serious "particularly when we are in the midst of a wave of Arab terror," said Uriya Cohen, chairman of the Yitzhar secretariat.
"Just hours before the incident in Yitzhar, two terrorists infiltrated Givat Hayovel in the town of Eli," he noted, remarking on an attack on a home that miraculously ended only with one victim lightly wounded. "Did they also only come just to steal?!"
"We are at the beginning of a wave of infiltrations into towns, which we must cut off firmly and clearly. The settlements are tired of blood filled infiltration attacks, and the release of the terrorists the same night as the infiltration broadcasts weakness and God forbid invites additional infiltrations," said Cohen.
5. ISRAELI AMBASSADOR: EGYPT WILL NEVER AGAIN BE OUR ENEMY
by Elad Benari
Israel's Ambassador to Egypt, Haim Koren, on Thursday addressed the recent goings on in Egypt, where a parliamentarian was sacked from the legislature after meeting Koren last week.
Speaking to BBC Arabic, Koren said the incident would not affect Israel-Egypt relations.
"The move is contrary to the relations between the two countries,but this is an internal Egyptian issue that has nothing to do with Israel," Koren told the network in comments quoted by the Hebrew-language Walla! website.
Koren said that the Israeli embassy in Cairo is happy to meet with anyone who would be interested.
"My presence is accepted everywhere in Egypt. We have good relations with Egypt. I meet daily with Egyptian officials, including members of the government," said the ambassador, adding, "I talk to many Egyptians who turn to me. We respect the desire of everyone, even if their desire is that the meeting remain secret and not made public."
Asked about the cooperation between the two countries, Koren replied, "We are working on a daily basis with the authorities in Egypt and share our knowledge with them. We have understandings about the situation in Sinai. Due to current situation in the region, it is natural that we will cooperate in various fields. The biggest enemy of Egypt today is terrorism - Hamas in Gaza and ISIS in the Sinai. There is no chance that we will act against Egypt. It is in the interest of Israel that Egypt will develop and succeed."
Koren also told BBC Arabic that he believes "that the leadership in Egypt believes that Egypt should cooperate with Israel against terrorism so that the situation does not deteriorate as it did in Yemen and Iraq. It is no secret that in the past the two countries were enemies, but from our perspective, Egypt will never again be our enemy. I think President Al-Sisi leads Egypt the right way."
The peace treaty between Egypt and Israel has come under renewed scrutiny this past week following Koren's meeting with Tawfik Okasha.
Egypt's political elite remains hostile to any normalization of ties with Israel and so do many locals, as seen by a recent poll which found that Egyptians see Israel as the "most hostile" of their neighbors, despite the peace treaty.
Nevertheless, there has been a warming of relations between the two countries since the election of President Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi. Just last week, President Reuven Rivlin accepted the credentials of Egypt's new Ambassador to Israel, Hazem Ahdy Khairat, marking the end of a more than three-year period without any Egyptian Ambassador in Israel.
6. PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH'S UNHOLY MATRIMONY OF BDS AND ANTI-SEMITISM
by Ari Yashar
A new report by an official committee of the Presbyterian Church USA (PCUSA) shows how the church is actively promoting the BDS movement seeking to economically cripple Israel, and downplaying Palestinian Arab terrorism at the same time.
The report, "Israel-Palestine: For Human Values in the Absence of a Just Peace," was released by the church's Advisory Committee on Social Witness Policy (ACSWP) on February 25, and was analyzed by the Jerusalem-based NGO Monitor on Thursday.
"This report, based on selective claims, myths and distortions from anti-peace NGOs promotes boycotts under the guise of religious responsibility," said Professor Gerald Steinberg, president of NGO Monitor.
"For years some factions of the Presbyterian Church have echoed calls by radical anti-peace NGOs promoting discriminatory attacks against Israel, while ignoring murderous Palestinian terror. Last year, these groups convinced the PCUSA to vote to join the BDS attack."
"Now, the ACSWP is again promoting this agenda, including the promotion of anti-Semitic theological themes. In order to advance peace between Israelis and Palestinians, PCUSA's 2016 General Assembly must reject the blatant bias, distortions and immorality of the ACSWP report," concluded Steinberg.
Throughout the PCUSA committee's report it excuses and downplays Palestinian terror attacks against Israeli civilians, revealed NGO Monitor.
It claims that Israel "labels any resistance as terrorism," but says Palestinians have "the right to armed struggle." Later the report says that "while there have been occasional internal spikes of violence (such as knife attacks in late 2015) and indiscriminate rocket attacks, most Israelis lead relatively secure lives."
Regarding the BDS movement, the report "affirms the traditional freedom of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) and other religious, civic, and private organizations in the United States to determine their own practices of investment or divestment, boycott or selective purchasing."
It also makes use of theological language to oppose Jewish self-determination, and calls on the US to reevaluate its support of Israel.
The document will be presented at the 2016 PCUSA General Assembly and urges escalating the discriminatory attacks on Israel, even though other voices in the Presbyterian Church are challenging BDS.
7. HAMAS SAID TO HAVE FULLY RESTOCKED ITS MISSILE ARSENAL
by Ari Yashar
Just over a year-and-a-half has passed since Israel's government agreed to a ceasefire with the Hamas terrorist organization in August 2014, ending Operation Protective Edge, but new Israeli assessments indicate Hamas has already fully restocked its missile arsenal.
The appraisal, reported by Walla on Friday, notes that most of the missiles that bring Hamas back to the amount it had before it launched its third terror war on the Jewish state are of a shorter-range, and are domestically produced and therefore of a lower quality.
Back in June 2014 the terror group had around 12,000 rockets of various ranges, including long-range missiles. According to reports Hamas used around 4,600 of its rockets during the Operation, and another 4,000 or so were destroyed in Israeli strikes, leaving the terrorists with a third of their arsenal by the end of the fighting.
But in the 18 months that have passed, Hamas has worked intensively to rebuild its military capabilities while largely ignoring the civilian population in Gaza that continues to suffer from poor conditions, to the point that the UN has estimated Gaza will be "unlivable" by 2020.
Hamas has been rebuilding its terror tunnel system breaching into Israel, and likewise has ramped up its domestic production of rockets given that the Israeli naval blockade and Egyptian construction of a buffer zone has largely cut off the influx of weapons to the terrorists. However, Hamas is unceasing in its efforts to illegally smuggle in materials for building weapons and digging tunnels.
In addition to the many short-range missiles held by Hamas it has added many mortar shells, which were proven to be lethally effective in the last round of fighting. While of a much shorter range than rockets, mortars are easier to transport, quicker to fire and are not detectable under Israel's Color Red warning system.
Israel estimates that the number of Hamas terrorists and members of the various Hamas mechanisms in Gaza including its civilian police force stands at roughly 40,000 people. Around half of that number are members of the terror group's Al-Qassam Brigades, with around 1,000 of them working on the tunnel digging project.
Mohammed Deif remains the terror chief for Hamas, after having survived a sixth assassination attempt by Israel against him during Protective Edge, and is playing a key role in rebuilding the terror group's capabilities. Deif is supported by Yahya Sanwar, who serves as a sort of "defense minister" for him - Sanwar sat in an Israeli jail for 22 years before being released in the 2011 Shalit deal.
Deif, who is missing his legs from previous assassination attempts, had his wife and son killed in the strike that missed him during the Operation.
According to a report as Protective Edge wound down, Israel delayed striking Deif for three full days when it had concrete information on his whereabouts due to a ceasefire agreement, thereby missing the chance to take out the elusive terrorist - even though Hamas had breached numerous ceasefires during the war.
Amos Yadlin, formerly the head of Military Intelligence, revealed in August 2014 that in the last attempt on Deif's life in 2006, "instead of a one ton bomb, we decided to shoot two quarter ton bombs in order to avoid hitting innocent civilians. One of them didn't explode, and Deif survived."
8. WHO STOLE MOTHERS' DAY?
by Arutz Sheva Staff
[youtube:2013163]
From 1951 until the late 1980s, Israel marked its version of Mothers' Day on the 30th day of the Hebrew month of Shvat. It was a happy day on which the entire family showed Mom how much everyone loved her and appreciated her sacrifices.
In the 90s, however, we stopped marking Mothers' Day, and started marking another day, International Women's Day, on March 8. The message of this day is actually anti-family.
How did this happen and who was behind this change? The answer is strange, but apparently, on matters of family and gender, Israeli reality is sometimes stranger than fiction.
As Women's Day approaches, The Familists, Israel's pro-family movement, presents a 5-minute video explaining what happened.
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