ISRAELI DEVICE LETS PARALIZED PEOPLE WALK AGAIN!
WATCH: FDA Approves Israeli Device that Lets Paralyzed People Walk Again! | United with Israel
https://unitedwithisrael.org/watch-fda-approves-israeli-device-that-lets-paralyzed-people-walk-again/
There has been substantial pushback across the Israeli and American Jewish media (including in Haaretz) against the New York Times in the last two days, for what has been called the “disgraceful” misrepresentation of U.S. Ambassador David Friedman’s remarks in an interview with New York Times Jerusalem bureau chief David Halbfinger.
Both Halbfinger and his editors and headline writers at the Times are being criticized for badly misleading readers in a piece of “fake news” that has, in turn, been picked up and copied from the Times in hundreds of other publications across the world.
Halbfinger’s headline and article began: “Israel has a right to annex at least some, but ‘unlikely all,’ of the West Bank, the United States ambassador, David M. Friedman, said in an interview, opening the door to American acceptance of what would be an enormously provocative act.”
Yes, as is pointed out in the articles attached below from Haaretz and other publications, Friedman never said the word “annexation.” Nor did he say anything different from long-standing international policy to try and solve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
As the articles below point out, what Friedman said was consistent with the policy of US presidents dating back to Lyndon Johnson in 1967. It is consistent with the policy of the Soviet Union/Russia and much of the rest of the world which supported the key UN 1967 Security Council Resolution 242 that envisaged border adjustments in order to bring about lasting peace and security. It is consistent with the words of the president of the International Court of Justice in The Hague.
It is consistent with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’ acknowledgement that land swaps will be necessary in any final agreement and that Israel has the right to keep Jerusalem’s Western Wall and other parts of terroritory beyond the 1948 armistice lines.
No serious observer of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict could imagine sustainable peace existing along the exact 1948 armistice lines. Hence resolution 242.
The leading left-wing Israeli paper Haaretz has now acknowledged that it also misrepresented the US’s ambassador’s remarks (after it first rushed to follow the New York Times’s lead). Will the New York Times have the integrity also to do so?
US Ambassador David Friedman’s June 8 interview in the NY Times was inconsistent with the worldview of the State Department establishment, but quite consistent with Middle East reality and US national security interests.
Ambassador Friedman stated: “The absolute last thing the world needs is a failed Palestinian state between Israel and Jordan…. Israel retaining security control in the West Bank should not be an impediment…. Certainly, Israel is entitled to retain some portion of it [the West Bank]…. I think Israel has the right to retain some, but unlikely all, of the West Bank….”
While the State Department establishment (except for Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and National Security Advisor John Bolton) rejects Friedman’s assessments, its own track record in the Middle East has been systematically flawed. For example:
*During 1947-48, the State Department opposed the reestablishment of the Jewish State, contending that it would be a pro-Soviet entity, militarily overrun by the Arabs, while undermining US ties with the Arabs. In 2019, Israel is the most effective, unconditional ally of the US, whose ties with all pro-US Arab countries are unprecedented in scope and expanding.
*In the 1950s, the State Department establishment considered the radical, pro-Soviet President Nasser of Egypt – who attempted to aggressively topple every pro-US Arab regime – a potential ally of the US.
https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/273956/six-day-war-52-years-ago-joseph-puder
June 5, 1967 was a day that will live in glory in the annals of Jewish history. On that day in 1967, the Israeli air force destroyed on the ground and in the air the Arab air forces, and gained full supremacy in the air, and ultimately on the ground and at sea. This was the Six Day War 52-years ago. It was one of the greatest victories in Jewish history, and a seminal event in Israel’s history.
It all began a month earlier. The Egyptian dictator Gamal Abdul Nasser, made bellicose statements on the Voice of the Arabs radio station, including the threat of drowning the Jews in the Mediterranean Sea. It was not only verbal threats coming out of Nasser’s and his underlings’ mouths, it was the actions he took, including the closing of the Straits of Tiran to Israeli navigation, making Israeli trade from Eilat to Asia and the Far East nearly impossible.
The vital shipment of oil to Israel came through the Straits to Eilat. On May 23, 1967, Nasser, addressing Egyptian pilots in the Sinai, announced the blockade of the Straits. He stated, “The Gulf of Aqaba constitutes our Egyptian territorial waters…under no circumstances will we allow the Israeli flag to pass through…” Earlier, on May 21, 1967, Egyptian troops occupied Sharm el-Sheikh, and two days earlier the United Nations Emergency Force (UNEF) contingent, based in the Sinai, was ousted by Nasser, in contravention of the decade long armistice agreement following the 1956-57 Sinai Campaign, in which Israeli forces reached the Suez Canal and captured the Sinai Peninsula. Under pressure from the U.S. and western powers, Israel withdrew from the Sinai. Israel was guaranteed freedom of navigation through the Straits and the Suez Canal, and a UN observer force was dispatched to the Sinai and serve as a barrier against aggression.
In Israel, the news throughout May 1967 filled the people with doom and gloom. In the streets of Tel Aviv, Jerusalem and Haifa, as well as elsewhere in Israel, it was felt that once again Jews were abandoned to their fate by the world. In Tel Aviv, ditches were dug to bury the anticipated thousands of casualties. A sense of desperation pervaded the country, and memories of the Holocaust came flashing back. The Maritime powers did nothing to fulfill their promise. Israel was alone to face the Arab world seething with hatred and revenge and promising a bloodbath.
https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/273966/disband-students-justice-palestine-and-all-bds-jason-d-hill
Editors’ note: Jason D. Hill is a professor of philosophy at DePaul University in Chicago. Below is his Open Letter to Attorney General, William Barr making the argument to disband Students for Justice in Palestine and all BDS movements.
Mr. Attorney General, On May 16, 2019, The German Parliament voted, as you know, to condemn as anti-Semitic, the BDS movement in Germany. The BDS is a Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement that targets Israeli organizations, academic institutions and companies engaged in entrepreneurial activities in Israel to weaken the Israeli economy and politically in an attempt to force Israel to change its policies towards Palestinians living there.
BDS movements, mainly conducted by their most visible branch, Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) are prolific on US campuses and enact a reign of verbal terror, and physical and psychological violence against anyone who dares to be pro-Israel, critical of Palestinian terrorist or defend Israel against false charges of it being a genocidal an apartheid state. Really, it represents an assault against Western civilization and United States interests and should properly be considered a national security threat.
As a recent victim of vicious assaults by members of the SJP at DePaul University where I am full tenured professor, and, with the highest praises and respect from the Acting Provost Salma Ghanem, for the ways in which members of the DePaul community made their voices heard—I call for a disbandment of all SJP campus units by the US Justice department, and a thorough investigation into the motives and political involvements of higher level academic bodies that endorse these organizations which have ties with terrorist organizations such as Hamas.
https://www.jns.org/opinion/an-ill-deserved-assault-on-ambassador-david-friedman/
He said nothing controversial whatsoever about the West Bank, except in the eyes of those who consider any Israeli territorial or other claims illegitimate.
Palestinian and leftist Jewish leaders called for America’s Israel ambassador to be fired for telling The New York Times in a recent interview that the Jewish state has, “under certain circumstances, the right to retain some, but unlikely all, of the West Bank.”
Yes, for daring to suggest that Israel has the right even to “some” of its land, David Friedman was called a “settler” by Palestinian Authority chairman Mahmoud Abbas, who had previously dubbed him a “son of a dog.”
And the P.A. Foreign Ministry announced that it would weigh filing a complaint against Friedman at the International Criminal Court for “trying to impose his racist visions and threatening peace and security in the region, as well as exposing the Palestinian people to several dangers and conspiracies.”
J Street president Jeremy Ben-Ami was equally incensed, accusing Friedman of “once again [making] clear that he is acting not as the U.S. ambassador to Israel but as the settlement movement’s ambassador to the United States. By essentially giving the Netanyahu government a green light to begin unilaterally annexing Palestinian territory in the West Bank, the Trump administration is endorsing a flagrant violation of international law.”
Peace Now chimed in, referring to Friedman as a “Trojan horse sent by the settler right, which sabotages Israel’s interests and the chance for peace,” and urging U.S. President Donald Trump to “send him packing.”
The outcry over Friedman’s perfectly reasonable remark is worthy of note, particularly in view of what the U.S. envoy said next.
When asked how Washington would react if Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu followed through on his campaign vow ahead of the April 9 Knesset elections to annex part of Judea and Samaria, Friedman replied: “We really don’t have a view until we know how much, on what terms, why does it make sense, why is it good for Israel, why is it good for the region, why does it not create more problems than it solves. These are all things that we’d want to understand, and I don’t want to prejudge.”
https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/273964/remembering-operation-mole-cricket-19-ari-lieberman
June 9, 2019 marked the 37th anniversary of Operation Mole Cricket 19, a complex Israeli aerial undertaking that obliterated Syria’s air defense capabilities in Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley. In the immediate term, Mole Cricket 19 gave the Israeli Air Force complete dominance over the skies of Lebanon, but the long term effects of Mole Cricket 19 were far more consequential.
The sequence of events leading up to the operation began in London, where a PLO terrorist hit squad attempted to assassinate, Shlomo Argov, who was Israel’s ambassador to the UK. That provocation sparked an Israeli reprisal raid against PLO elements in Lebanon. The PLO responded with indiscriminate rocket and artillery fire on Israeli communities in Galilee forcing much of the population into bomb shelters. On June 6, 1982 Israel answered the PLO’s aggression with a full-scale counter insurgency campaign aimed at creating a 40 kilometer buffer zone between PLO forces and Israel’s northern border. The overall operation was codenamed “Peace for Galilee” but the stage had been set for Operation Mole Cricket 19.
Israeli ground forces required tactical air support but the IAF was hampered by the presence of 19 Syrian surface-to-air missile batteries situated in the Bekaa Valley. The Syrians deployed a dense anti-aircraft umbrella consisting of SAM-2, SAM-3 and the SAM-6 missiles. The formidable SAM-6 caused considerable problems for the IAF during the Yom Kippur War, and the NATO alliance was still trying to figure out a way to defeat the system. On June 9, 1982 Israel showed NATO how to it and in an instant displayed to the world the West’s technological dominance over the decaying Soviet Union.
https://saraacarter.com/congressional-middle-east-peace-initiative-funding-ngos-not-peace/
What a name: “Partnership Fund for Peace.” What a goal: promoting peace in the Middle East. That should sum up legislation introduced in Congress last week. But what a waste, because the Fund, which will be given $250 million of U.S. taxpayer money for its first five years in existence, is nothing more than a retread of past Middle East projects, so many of which are already being funded and not one of which has moved the peace needle one inch forward.
The stated overarching goal of the bill’s sponsors is to “help create the necessary conditions on the ground to support an eventual two-state solution.”
The bill’s sponsors are Democrats Rep. Nita Lowey (NY) and Senators Tim Kaine (VA) and Chris Coons (DE) and Republicans Rep. Jeff Fortenberry (NE) and Senators Cory Gardner (CO) and Lindsey Graham (SC). They claim the Fund is intended to promote economic health for Palestinian Arab companies and entrepreneurs, to improve the quality of life and stimulate the economy of Palestinian Arabs and to “further shared community building, peaceful coexistence, dialogue and reconciliation between Israelis and Palestinians by financing people-to-people peacebuilding programs.”
Using international funds to stop Palestinian Arabs from engaging in terrorism is the standard western response to the conflict. One stark difference is that PFfP funds cannot be made available either to the Israeli government or to Hamas, the Palestinian Authority or the PLO. That’s good. But the primary source through which funding will be distributed is non-governmental organizations (NGOs): that’s not so good.
https://www.hoover.org/research/israels-narrow-path-peace
Pitilessly, the past quarter century’s events have dismissed the hopes for peace with the Arabs that Israeli diplomats, often accompanied by U.S. counterparts, detailed to the world in 1993 as they explained the concessions they had finalized in Oslo. Previously, they had treated Yasser Arafat’s Palestine Liberation Organization as a terrorist organization to be marginalized if not destroyed. The list of its outrages, from bombing school buses and airports to murdering Olympic athletes, spoke for itself. In 1982, the U.S. saved the PLO from imminent destruction by an Israeli and Lebanese alliance, and sustained it in supervised exile in Tunisia. U.S. policy had always nourished hopes that, were the PLO to be given responsibility and treated as a partner, it would moderate itself. This would result in a Palestinian state living peacefully alongside Israel.
In Israel, substantial high-level opinion had come to share these hopes. And why not? The Soviet collapse, having removed the PLO’s main source of funding and hope of support, radically weakened Syria. The Israelis judged that the PLO had little choice but to take the generous option of peace and partnership offered to it. Besides, Israel had been suffering from a wave of PLO-organized violence in the West Bank, and longed for a broad path to peace. Hence, the Oslo Accords.
The accords delivered the opposite. Subsequent waves of violence, escalating demands, and outright wars, have convinced the Israeli public’s vast majority that its only path to peace is very narrow—a long-term commitment to very hard, defensible borders, coupled with encouraging Egypt and Jordan, who are almost as equally threatened as Israel by what the Palestinian people have become, to take control of Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank. Only the Arab parties and the left wing of left-wing Meretz regret abandoning attempts at a “two state solution.”
So firmly is Israel on this path, so lacking are credible alternatives, that the highly touted “plan of the century” that Jared Kushner is to unveil in June 2019 may trouble it, but is unlikely to alter it.
https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/14357/palestinian-leaders-butcher-truth
Yusef Wajih, the terrorist, came to Jerusalem armed with a knife to kill Jews. That was his only goal. He could have taken advantage of Israel’s easing of restrictions during Ramadan — a move that saw hundreds of thousands of Muslims to enter Jerusalem every Friday to pray at the Al-Aqsa Mosque.
The Palestinian Authority (PA) is also not concerned that two innocent Jews were stabbed by the terrorist. What the Palestinian Authority is disturbed about is the killing of the terrorist.
If the International Criminal Court ever looks into this incident, it should begin its inquiry by investigating the vicious incitement of Palestinian leaders, who use Jewish visits to a holy site in Jerusalem to butcher the truth, just as it whips up Palestinians such as Yusef Wajih to wake up in the morning and butcher the first Jew he meets. The blood of Wajih is on the hands of Palestinian leaders, and not the police officers who stopped a terrorist from stabbing yet more Jews.
The Palestinian Authority (PA) is up in arms because Israeli policemen killed a Palestinian who stabbed two Jews in the Old City of Jerusalem. The terrorist, 19-year-old Yusef Wajih, from the West Bank village of Abwain, near Ramallah, stabbed one of the men in the neck and head near the Old City’s Damascus Gate, leaving him in serious condition.
The second victim was a 16-year-old who was stabbed by the terrorist in the back a few hundred meters away from the scene of the first attack. The teenager sustained light to moderate injuries. Police officers shot and killed the terrorist, thus preventing him from harming more Jews.
Such stabbing attacks are not uncommon on the streets of Jerusalem. In the past few years, Palestinian terrorists have carried out several stabbing and shooting attacks against Israeli police officers and civilians, particularly ultra-Orthodox Jews who were on their way to or from prayer at the Western Wall.
