RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/271652/winds-war-brewing-gaza-ari-lieberman

On Wednesday, at approximately 3:40 a.m. Israeli time, sirens blared throughout the southern Israeli city of Be’er Sheva (Beersheba) shattering the stillness of the night. In what is considered to be a major escalation, Gazan-based terrorists fired a single rocket at the city, which is located approximately 25 miles from Gaza Strip. Miraculously, the projectile, which landed in a courtyard, caused no casualties but five people were treated for shock. Israel responded by hitting 20 military targets throughout Gaza. The Israeli Air Force also launched a precision strike against a group of terrorists in the midst of setting up a rocket launch from the northern Gaza Strip. The IDF later released video footage of the strike, which appears to have liquidated the rocket squad. The brazen and indiscriminate terrorist attack comes amid talk by Israel’s political echelon of the need to take decisive military action against Hamas, the entity that controls the Strip.

This past Friday, Palestinian terrorists, using violent demonstrations as cover, placed an explosive charge on the security fence marking the border between Gaza Strip and Israel and blew a hole through it. They then charged through the newly created opening toward the direction of a nearby Israeli outpost. An alert female Israel Defense Force soldier of the “Nesher” battalion quickly detected the infiltration and guided a response team to the area. All three infiltrators were liquidated. An additional four Palestinians were killed that day while engaged in violent Hamas-inspired, anti-Israel border rioting, rioting which has been occurring on a regular basis with no letup since May.

That same day, Israeli firefighters were forced to battle and extinguish 10 blazes sparked by incendiary balloons sent by Palestinians in Gaza and carried by wind patterns into Israel. Thus far, this form of eco-terror has devoured some 7,000 acres of forest and agricultural land. Large swaths of what were previously productive agricultural lands and lush greenery have been transformed into charred and blackened acreage. Israeli farmers on the Gaza periphery have lost millions of dollars as a result of what has been dubbed “kite terror.”

Just a day earlier, Israeli combat engineers detected and destroyed a Hamas terror tunnel that penetrated 200 meters into Israeli territory. It was the 15th such tunnel that Israel had destroyed since October 2017. Israel estimates that the cost of constructing the tunnel was $3 million, money that could have been spent on improving the lives of ordinary Gazans.

https://cyberstartupobservatory.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/Observatory-Israel_Fourth_Edition-October_2018.pdf
Last year, Tom Bossert, former White House homeland security and counterterrorism adviser, disclosed the new partnership to combat cyberattacks during remarks at an annual cybersecurity conference in Tel Aviv.

“These high-level meetings represent the first step in strengthening bilateral ties on cyber issues following President Trump’s visit to Israel,” Bossert said at Cyber Week 2017, according to Reuters. “The agility Israel has in developing solutions will innovate cyber defenses that we can test here and bring back to America,” the White House aide continued. “Perfect security may not be achievable but we have within our reach a safer and more secure Internet.”

The strengthening of the U.S.-Israel partnership makes great sense on many levels including the rate of investments, collaboration and technical capabilities, government support, and resourcefulness.

The New York data firm CB Insights notes that Israel, the country with the world’s 100th-largest population, signed the second-largest number of cybersecurity deals internationally last year. And according to a report published by Startup Nation, investors poured a record-breaking $815 million into the Israeli cyber ecosystem in 2017, totaling some 16% of all global investment in the cybersecurity industry, despite Israelis making up only about 0.1% of the world population. The report states that “Individual hackers are now armed with state-level cyberattack capabilities.”

According to YL Ventures, the global cybersecurity incursions of 2017 illuminated the continuing role that innovation plays in information security and defense. They believe that Israeli startups will continue in 2018 to leverage the immense pool of local talent to build comprehensive solutions addressing global markets.

https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/haley-u-s-will-continually-remind-un-that-palestinians-arent-any-state-at-all/

The Palestinian Authority won a Tuesday vote to lead the G77 group of developing countries at the United Nations, while the United States said no such move could be supported because no Palestinian state has been admitted as a member state.

As the PA leads the G77 next year, though, it will essentially be acting like a full UN member.

The United States, Israel and Australia voted against the PA’s chairmanship, while 146 countries voted in favor, 15 abstained, and 29 countries didn’t vote.

“Australia’s decision to vote no on this resolution reflects our long-standing position that Palestinian attempts to seek recognition as a state in international fora are deeply unhelpful to efforts towards a two-state solution,” Australian UN Ambassador Gillian Bird told the General Assembly.

Deputy U.S. Ambassador to the UN Jonathan Cohen said that the U.S. “cannot support efforts by the Palestinians to enhance their status outside of direct negotiations.”

“The United States does not recognize that there is a Palestinian state and notes that no such state has been admitted as a UN Member State. Therefore, we strongly oppose the Palestinian election as Chair of the G77, as well as this so-called enabling resolution,” he said.

https://bit.ly/2Qzzmgj
While Iraq delivers staunchly pro-Palestinian talk, a 2017 Iraqi law has reversed Saddam Hussein’s pro-Palestinian policy, depriving Palestinians (including those born in Iraq) of free education, healthcare, travel documents and employment in state institutions.

While Jordan calls for sweeping Israeli concessions to the Palestinians, and while the Hashemite regime has absorbed over one million Syrian refugees, Amman stopped (since 2012) admitting Palestinian refugees from Syria. Furthermore, the significantly enhanced trilateral Jordan-US-Israel strategic cooperation has become a major artery of the Hashemite regime’s national and homeland security.

While Egypt urges Israel to satisfy Palestinian demands, Egypt-Israel strategic cooperation, especially (but not only) in the area of counter-terrorism in the Sinai Peninsula and Gaza, has surged unprecedentedly.

While there is no progress on the Israel-Palestinian front, Saudi Arabia and all other pro-US Arab Gulf States have substantially expanded military and commercial cooperation with Israel. Riyadh has never considered the Palestinian issue a top geo-strategic priority – except its generous talk, but no walk – as demonstrated from 1979-1989 by its $1BN annual aid to the anti-Soviet Islamic campaign in Afghanistan, compared with $100MN annual aid to the PLO. Also, while UNRWA highlighted a “$50MN landmark contribution by Saudi Arabia” on behalf of Palestinian refugees, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman put it in realistic perspective by purchasing a 440ft-long yacht for $588MN and a Leonardo da Vinci painting for $450MN.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/271456/abbas-deceit-joseph-puder

Mahmoud Abbas, President of the Palestinian Authority, has denied U.S. claims that the Palestinians have refused to enter peace talks with Israel according to the Associated Press (September 21, 2018). This is the same Mahmoud Abbas, who like his predecessor Yasser Arafat, walked out of peace negotiations with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert in 2008. Mahmoud Abbas has done nothing but evade bilateral negotiations with Israel while incessantly repeating the longstanding irredentist demands.

Palestinians, it seems, have much greater concerns to attend to than worry about President Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital. Mahmoud Abbas’ (Abu Mazen) leadership has been less than an inspiring. His presidency of the Palestinian Authority (PA) ended in January, 2009, and he has not called for elections since. January, 2019 will mark the 10th year that Abbas has held the office of President of the PA without a mandate from the people. Worse yet, Abbas’ Fatah party was kicked out of the Gaza Strip in 2007 by Hamas, which won a parliamentary majority in 2006. The autocratic Abbas, in the words of Palestinian civil and human rights activist, Bassem Eid, “represents only his wife and three sons.”

Mahmoud Abbas is responsible for failing to accept the generous peace deal offered to him in 2008 by the dovish Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert. In a New York Times article (June 11, 2011), former PM Olmert said that he and Abbas were very close to a peace deal two years earlier. Abbas however hesitated, and Olmert was then beset by legal troubles, as well as the Gaza war between Hamas and Israel, all which caused their talks to end.

In his memoirs published by Israel’s daily Yediot Ahronot, and in an interview with the New York Times, Olmert revealed that the two sides had agreed on key principles: the state of Palestine would have no military; an American-led international security force, not Israeli soldiers, would be stationed on its border with Jordan; Jerusalem would be shared, with the holy sites overseen by a multinational committee; and a limited number of Palestinian refugees would be permitted back into what is now Israel, while the rest would be generously compensated. The two agreed that Israel would keep some land in the West Bank on which settlements had been built, but disagreed on how much. Abbas failed to grab the best possible deal he was offered to make peace and establish a Palestinian state.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/six-palestinians-die-in-clashes-at-gaza-israel-border-1538158029

TEL AVIV—At least seven Palestinians were killed in clashes with Israeli security forces on the Gaza-Israel border Friday, after militant group Hamas issued calls for bigger protests amid growing frustrations over stalled cease-fire talks with its neighbor.

Among the dead were a 14-year-old boy, a 15-year-old boy and an 18-year-old man, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry, which said at least 506 people were injured.

The Israeli military said none of its soldiers were injured by Palestinians who hurled grenades, explosive devices and stones at its soldiers across the fence. The military said it also carried out two airstrikes in the northern Gaza Strip in response to violence directed at its soldiers.

Around 20,000 Palestinians gathered in several parts along the border fence between Gaza and Israel after Hamas called for protests on mosque loudspeakers and the radio, according to Israel’s military. More than 10,000 had gathered on the fence last Friday.

Demonstrations on the Gaza-Israel border have picked up in the past two weeks, sometimes turning deadly as protesters have clashed with Israel’s security forces. More than a thousand Palestinians have participated in nightly demonstrations, rather than just the weekly Friday protests held over the past six months.

A fragile cease-fire in early August, which ended intense bouts of fighting between militants in Gaza and Israeli forces, has largely held as the United Nations and Egypt have mediated talks for a longer-term truce. Cairo is also pushing for a political agreement between rivals Hamas and the Palestinian Authority, which largely governs Palestinians in the West Bank.

Israeli security officials attributed the increased protests to a breakdown in negotiations between Hamas and the Palestinian Authority. Hamas officials said Israel is delaying any longer-term peace deal, but they also slammed Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas’s speech at the U.N. on Thursday, in which he said he would not be responsible for the consequences if there is no agreement with Hamas. Many in Israel and the Palestinian territories interpreted Abbas’s statement as a veiled warning that he’d cut all funding for the embattled Gaza Strip, which he has threatened to do in past speeches.

Mr. Abbas said talks with Hamas could come to a close over the next several days.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/271413/israels-lessons-two-historical-events-joseph-puder

This month (September, according to the Hebrew calendar) marks the anniversary of two major historical events in the Middle East. Both of these events have had major repercussions on the region and in Israeli-Palestinian relations. Forty-five years ago, on October 6, 1973, the armies of Egypt and Syria launched an attack on Israel during the holiest day of the Jewish calendar, Yom Kippur. Israeli military intelligence cautioned against a rush to war. Major-General Zaira, Israel’s Chief of Intelligence, with an over-confident attitude, dismissed reports of Egyptian forces concentrating along the Suez Canal front as the same old Egyptian maneuvers. Prime Minister Golda Meir, conscious of what might be the western reaction to Israeli military mobilization, and in particular, wary of a negative U.S. reaction, declined to order full mobilization, even when the Mossad Chief Zvi Zamir brought her a tip from an Egyptian double-agent (President Sadat’s son-in-law) that the Egyptians would attack on Yom Kippur. As a consequence of the delay in Israel’s mobilization, and Egypt’s surprise attack, the Israeli fortification along the Suez Canal fell, albeit after a heroic fight by the defenders. The lack of preparedness on the part of Israel as a result of over-confidence stemming from the Six-Day War, cost the lives of almost 3,000 Israeli soldiers. Ultimately, Israel triumphed in spite of the early setbacks.

Twenty five years ago, on September 13, 1993, the Oslo Accords were formally signed on the White House lawn, with a grinning President Bill Clinton overseeing the historical handshake between Israel’s Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and Yasser Arafat, Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) chairman. The signing of the Oslo Accords launched what we now know as the “peace process.”