RUTHFULLY YOURS

Following the 1973 Yom Kippur War, armchair pundits determined that the age of the tank as king of the battlefield had come to an ignominious end. They argued that the introduction of anti-tank guided missiles rendered the tank obsolete. How wrong they were. Several post-war studies of the conflict demonstrated that the tank was still indispensable to modern warfare and when employed in a combined arms manner with artillery and mechanized infantry, still reigned supreme.

Israel learned many lessons from the Yom Kippur War and incorporated those lessons into the development of its own indigenous tank, the Merkava (Chariot). The Merkava 1 entered service with the Israel Defense Forces in 1978 and first saw action in 1982 during Operation Peace for Galilee when it engaged and destroyed no fewer than nine Soviet-made, Syrian T-72 tanks without sustaining a single loss. It also reportedly succeeded in downing a Syrian anti-tank helicopter with its main gun.

Since that time, the Merkava has undergone several modifications and improvements, the latest iteration of which is the Merkava 4. The Merkava 4 is considered by armored warfare experts to be among the finest tanks in the world, and in terms of crew survivability, the safest.

In the summer of 2006, Israel was forced to go to war again, this time with the notorious terrorist organization Hezbollah. On July 12, two Israeli reservists were killed and their bodies snatched during a Hezbollah cross-border attack. Israel could not allow the outrage to go unanswered and decided to launch an offensive against Hezbollah. Nearly 400 Merkava tanks, mostly of the older II and III variants, were haphazardly deployed in the latter stages of the 34-day conflict.

During the course of the war, Hezbollah guerrillas fired thousands of anti-tank missiles – from the first generation Sagger to the highly advanced Kornet – at static Israeli infantry and tanks but only succeeding in damaging some 40 tanks and of these, there were only 20 penetrations. Despite these encouraging numbers, so-called experts began to once again challenge the utility of the tank and its place in modern warfare.

IDF planners saw things differently. They went back to the drawing board in an effort to draw conclusions from the performance of the Merkava and tactics employed by its crew members.

With at least 1/3 of its fighting force permanently stationed in Syria, the probability of Hezbollah initiating war against Israel in the near future is low. Even in the absence of the Syrian conflict, Hezbollah will soon not forget the thrashing it took at the hands of the IDF during the 2006 campaign. Nevertheless, most experts agree that the next Lebanon war is not a question of if, but when, and when it does begin, Israel’s latest Merkava variant, the vaunted Merkava 4 will be in the thick of it.

Straight from the Jerusalem Boardroom #221, July 21, 2017 http://bit.ly/2vqdYQu

According to the June 15, 2017 Wall Street Journal, six Israeli startups (three in the cybersecurity sector) are among the top 25 tech companies, which may be the global leaders of tomorrow.

2. According to Forbes Magazine, Israel has become a cybersecurity powerhouse, creating more than 300 cybersecurity startups, exporting in 2016 $6.5BN in cybersecurity products, convincing more than 30 multinationals to establish local research & development centers in Israel and attracting foreign investors. According to Forbes, there are six reasons leading to Israel’s prominence in the world of cybersecurity: the close government-military-business-academia interaction; government support of early-stage cybersecurity startups; Israel’s military as a startup incubator and accelerator, combining research and operation; investing in human capital (e.g., cybersecurity is an elective high school matriculation exam, and operating six university cybersecurity research centers); Israel’s overall inter-disciplined and diverse human factor enhanced through military service and interaction with global giants; Israel’s constant need to defy security and commercial odds.

3. Enhancing the mutually-beneficial, two-way-street US-Israel cooperation, a cybersecurity bilateral working group was established by the Trump Administration, aimed at combatting cyber offensives. Tom Bossert, White House homeland security and counterterrorism adviser, stated: “Israel’s agility in developing solutions will innovate cyber defenses that the US can test in Israel and bring back to America….”

4. During the first half of 2017 – in addition to Intel’s March 2017 acquisition of Israel’s Mobileye for $15.3BN – Israeli hightech companies were acquired by foreign companies for a total sum of $1.8BN. For example, Symantec, the Mountain View, CA software security and storage systems giant, acquired Israel’s FireGlass and Skycare (cybersecurity) for $250MN each (Globes, July 13, 2017).

5. During the second quarter of 2017, $1.3BN were invested in Israeli startups, mostly by foreign investors, second highest quarter in the last five years, compared to $1.1BN in the first quarter, as well as the fourth quarter of 2016, and $1.7BN in the second quarter of 2016. For instance, the Japanese giant SoftBank invested $100MN in Israel’s cybersecurity, Cybereason, and Johnson & Johnson led a $12MN round by Israel’s medical/nutritional tech, Day Two. Israel’s venture capital fund, Qumra, raised $115MN for its second fund, mostly from US and European Family Offices (Globes, July 20).

6. Intel is bolstering its operations in Israel – over and beyond its 10,000 employees, four R&D centers, two manufacturing plants and $4BN annual exports out of Israel – leveraging Israel’s cybersecurity added-value. Intel has recently expanded its Israel Cybersecurity Center of Excellence, partnering with Illusive Networks, a cybersecurity startup, and Israel’s Team8, a cybersecurity powerhouse, which has developed close contacts with Microsoft, Cisco, Qualcomm, ATT&T, Nokia, Mitsui and Eric Schmidt’s Innovation Endeavors, aiming to develop cutting edge cybersecurity technologies.

7. India-Israel trade balance surged from $200MN in 1992 to over $4BN in 2016.

According to the Executive Editor of Business India (published by the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies), “this sliver of a country [Israel] of 8.4 million is a leading innovation hub with the highest density of startups and venture capital in the world. It has more NASDAQ-listed companies than any other country save the US and China – more than India, France, Germany, Japan, South Korea, Singapore and Hong Kong combined. The total market capitalization of these Israeli companies exceeds $85BN…. Israeli companies either pioneered or were among the first to commercialize firewalls (CheckPoint), voicemail (Comverse), USB flash drives (M-Systems), VoIP (Vocaltec) and digital printing (Indigo).

“Israeli startups have also driven innovation across all major technology sectors, as in the cases of Amdocs and Comverse in telecommunications applications, Verint and NICE in contact center applications, Mercury in information technology (IT) management, Check Point in security, DSPG in semiconductors and Mellanox in Infiniband…. Israel has proportionately more scientists and tech professionals than any other country. Almost 40% of Israeli hightech employees are engaged in R&D for [over 200] major global tech companies that have subsidiaries or research centers in Israel. These include Intel, Microsoft, Google, Cisco, Facebook, Applied Materials, Apple, IBM, Hewlett-Packard (HP), Oracle and Motorola….

“Israel is a country 0.63% the size of India. Its population is 0.64% that of India and its GDP $297BN to India’s $2.25TN, but its GDP per capita is $34,000 to India’s $6,700…. With India its largest arms client, Israel netted its biggest-ever defense contract in April, 2017 when India awarded Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) contracts totaling almost $2BN [medium-range surface-to-air missiles, air and missile defense systems and a long range SAM air and missile defense systems for India’s aircraft carrier]…. India buys from Israel military hardware worth an average of over $1BN annually… Israeli technologies can be used to boost the development of India’s critical sectors, including food security, water management and efficiency, cyberspace and data protection, e-learning and innovation and digitalization…. 21 memoranda-of-understanding were recently concluded between Indian and Israeli academic institutions….”

For years, the most delicate dispute in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has been the status of the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. The Al Aqsa Mosque sits on the spot from which Muslims believe Mohammed ascended to heaven. At its base are the remains of the outer wall of the second Jewish Temple.

This is why Friday’s terror attack on this sacred ground is so important.

It’s hard to think of a worse debasement of a holy place than for armed gunmen in the middle of a shooting spree to flee to it for sanctuary. Add to this the fact the Jerusalem police now say there were guns hidden in the Temple Mount complex at the time.

All of this challenges a prevailing Palestinian narrative about the Al Aqsa Mosque: that Jews are a threat to its preservation. You hear it in the speeches of Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas, in which he falsely claims Jewish settlers are building tunnels underneath the Temple Mount. He complains of “dirty feet” stepping on this holy ground.

When former Prime Minister Ariel Sharon visited the Temple Mount in 2000, Palestinians were so angered that it sparked the second intifada. Later that year, Yasser Arafat formed a militia called Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade to kill Jews at random in the name of reclaiming the holy site.

Now it should be said that Al Aqsa Mosque, believed to be built in 690, has endured the crusades, British colonization and Israeli statehood. In the 1980s, a group of Jewish terrorists plotted to blow it up, but they never followed through. When Israel won the land that includes the Temple Mount in the 1967 Six-Day War, it decided to allow a religious trust called the Jordanian Waqf to remain the administrators of the site.

Now we have an atrocity that threatened the mosque’s worshippers. The real threat to the Mosque on Friday did not come from Jewish settlers, but from Israeli Arabs. So it’s important to examine the response from Palestinian leaders.

Let’s start with Abbas. He was forceful in his condemnation of the act, noting that there is no room for violence in such a holy place. Other members of his party, Fatah, were also quick to denounce. And Ayman Odeh, the head of Israel’s largest Arab political party, condemned all armed struggle from Israeli Arabs against Israel in the wake of the attack.

That’s pretty good. But by Monday the old patterns emerged. Fatah called this week for a “day of rage.” Was this to protest the gunmen who entered the noble sanctuary or those mourning their deaths? No. This protest is aimed at Israel for erecting metal detectors at the entrance of the Temple Mount compound after the shootings.

The most telling response, however, came from Hamas, the Muslim Brotherhood-affiliated group that rules Gaza. A spokesman for the group, Sami Abu Zuhi, said on Friday the attack “was a natural response to Israeli terrorism and their defilement of the Al Aqsa mosque.”

Now there are many things one can say about Hamas. They are killers, of course. They are also fanatics. Hamas favors the imposition of Islamic law on the people of Gaza. The group was responsible for changing the tenor of the Palestinian national liberation movement in the 1980s and 1990s, from largely an anti-colonialist struggle to a kind of holy war to reclaim Jerusalem.

Palestinian Authority leader Rami Hamdallah has just warned of “grave consequences” and called on Muslims to “shoulder their responsibilities and put a stop to Israeli violations against Al-Aqsa Mosque and to provide international protection for our people and holy places.” The Fatah Party of Palestinian Authority president Mahmoud Abbas has called for a “Day of Rage.” Other Palestinian Authority spokesmen condemned the Israeli “fierce and organized attack against Jerusalem Arabs.” There have been nightly violent protest riots, in which large groups of Palestinians have assaulted Israeli police with rocks and bottles.

Reading the above, one would surmise that the Israelis must have done something horrific.

The Israelis’ crime? Installing metal detectors on the Temple Mount, and closing the Mount for two days due to extreme security concerns, immediately after Muslims shot two Israeli policemen dead there last Friday in a terror attack. There was also the discovery of numerous weapons being stored by Muslims on the Temple Mount.

Yes, the Israeli “crime” was that the nation dared to install metal detectors at the scene of a double-murder of its policemen and take basic security precautions. The Muslim terrorists are not the villains; that would be the Israeli police, who keep the Mount safe and allow innumerable Muslims to safely ascend there for prayer every day.

And there is more: Grand Mufti Mohammed Hussein, the Temple Mount’s chief Muslim cleric, has just warned Muslim worshipers that they should violate security protocol and refuse to enter through the metal detectors, as “Allah will not accept offered prayers through a Zionist metal detector” (!). Never mind that Saudi king Salman, who is the official custodian of the Temple Mount’s mosques, expressed a full understanding of the Israeli security upgrade. Never mind that the Saudis themselves have mandated the use of GPS bracelets at the annual Hajj pilgrimage to prevent violence and injury amid the millions of Muslims who travel to their prayer site in packed crowds for the Hajj’s rock-throwing ritual. Never mind that the violence and terror at the Temple Mount are solely the work of Muslims, and that the Israelis have acted with civility to assure security. Palestinian leadership, whose tools are deception, intimidation and violence, know better.

The West Bank security wall has greatly curbed Palestinian terror. Hopefully, the Temple Mount metal detectors will do the same. But the ingrates who ascend the Temple Mount to ask Allah to curse the Israelis, and who celebrate terror against Israelis, have it too good. Most countries would severely crack down on them, shut the Mount’s mosques for an extended period, and take really forceful action.

The Israelis act with restraint but with a strong dose of reality. And Palestinian leadership responds with lies, delusion and violence.

On Friday, two Israeli policemen were murdered on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. The same day, Seth Siegel wrote in The New York Times, “A Good Story about Israel and the Palestinians,” detailing how Israeli and Palestinians sat on a dais to announce an update on the Red Sea-Dead Sea project. Siegel, author of Let There be Water, is probably Israel’s greatest water expert, and his understanding of the challenges of water use and distribution in Israel and with its neighbors is unsurpassed. But what he passes off as a “good story” is simply the old story of Israel giving something to the Palestinians (and Jordan) in exchange for a phony smile.

The agreement includes no change in the Palestinian Authority’s nasty attitude or incitement to violence against Israel. No decision to stop paying terrorists for killing Jews. There was condemnation of Israeli security measures after the murders from P.A. strongman Mahmoud Abbas, King Abdullah of Jordan, and the Arab League – not a positive comment from any of them about the water project. The extent of the good news appears to be that Palestinian water officials were permitted to accept Israeli-generated improvements in Palestinian life.

Reviewing Siegel’s excellent book a year ago, I wrote:

Rawabi, a planned Palestinian community, is a case in point. Existing Palestinian-Israeli protocols require the two sides to meet to discuss new pipelines for the town, but for years the PA refused to convene a meeting on principle. After the developer was nearly bankrupt and the PA was telling the world Israel was withholding water from thirsty Palestinians, Israel finally just turned on the water. The PA called it a win, but for the Palestinians who invested in the construction of the town and the Palestinians who hoped to live and work there, the delay was no win at all.

Siegel acknowledges precisely that in the Times:

Beginning in 2008, the Palestinian leadership decided to turn water into a political tool to bludgeon Israel. The claim, which gained currency among some in the human rights community and the news media, was that Israel was starving Palestinians of water to oppress them and to break their economy. Never mind that Israel was scrupulously adhering to the Oslo Agreement and providing more than half of all of all of the water used by Palestinians in the West Bank. The Palestinian Authority and its supporters began to speak of Israel’s “water apartheid.”

In short form: Palestinian leadership subjects its people to limited dirty water or no water so it can blame Israel for the limited dirty water or no water.

It did the same in Gaza, as I wrote then in covering Siegel’s book:

Gaza is a disaster ready to happen – happening already, in fact – between illegal wells draining the aquifer, salt water running in to fill the space, and lack of sewage treatment. When Israel had farms inside Gaza, the deal was to supply an amount of water to Gaza authorities equal to the amount used by the farms. When, in 2005, Israel left Gaza, the government continued providing the water – and later doubled the amount. But that doesn’t address the underlying issues.

“Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results” observed Albert Einstein. His observation comes to mind after hearing that the Trump administration has urged Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to limit building in Judea and Samaria, issue permits for thousands of Palestinian Arab homes in portions of Area C (areas under complete Israeli security and civilian control) adjacent to Palestinian Arab cities, and provide other “good will gestures” that will potentially aid the Palestinian Arab economy. 2

These are not concessions to the Palestinian Authority (PA). They are acts of appeasement, distressing signs of naiveté and a failure to learn the lessons of the past. The PA is being rewarded once again for intransigence; ongoing incitement against Israeli citizens; and for not being held accountable for continuing to provide financial support to families of convicted terrorists who are either incarcerated in Israeli prisons or who have died while murdering Israelis.

Incitement

Incitement to violence against Israel and glorification of Palestinian Arab terrorists are ubiquitous in the Arab media and school curricula. Daily examples are so pervasive, it is incomprehensible how anyone can realistically discuss a peace process until this demonization and unrelenting determination to destroy Israel ceases entirely.

Stopping the incessant provocation must begin in the educational system, yet the opposite is happening. This is the conclusion reached by IMPACT-SE 3 in an April 2017 report evaluating the recently released Palestinian Arab curriculum for grades 1-4 and 11-12. 4

“The new PA school textbooks for grades 1–4,” the report warned “points to a further radicalization of the Palestinian national identity. This curriculum is now educating …children to engage in active conflict. Children are mentally prepared to jump into action and sacrifice their lives when the opportunity arises; they grow up with the disposition to fight against Israel, either from the current status quo or from an imagined future Palestinian state serving as a springboard for anti-Israeli activities.” 5

IMPACT-SE’s analysis of the PA’s upper-grade textbooks found “a commitment to the PLO’s [Palestine Liberation Organization] path that combines diplomacy and violence with a commitment to the full liberation of Palestine.” In other words, “The PA educational system has created a Palestinian nationalism that is incompatible with Israel’s existence” 6

Master Sgt. Haiel Sitawe, the father of a newborn baby, and Kamil Shnaan, who was newly engaged, were murdered in an Islamic terrorist attack in Jerusalem. The two Israeli police officers were members of the Druze community in Israel. The terrorists who shot them were killed by other police officers.

While Israel will compensate the families of the dead police officers, the Palestinian Authority will compensate the families of the terrorists. And American taxpayers will compensate both.

This is typical of a foreign policy in which we fund both the terrorists and the terrorized.

Sooner or later, we are going to have to choose a side.

This mad policy is facing its biggest threat with the Taylor Force Act. The bill, named after a murdered Afghanistan and Iraq War veteran stabbed to death in Tel Aviv, would strip funding from the Palestinian Authority unless the terror state stops giving money to terrorists and their families for their crimes.

The Taylor Force Act has plenty of support in Congress. But the Palestinian Authority has made it abundantly clear that it will not stop paying terrorists to kill Israelis. PA terror boss Abbas is gambling that our politicians will blink first rather than stop sending him hundreds of millions of dollars.

And the tragedy of it is that he appears to be right.

Everyone condemns the Palestinian Authority’s policy of funding terrorists. Typical adjectives include “abhorrent” and “abominable”. But don’t expect them to actually cut off the cash.

Senators are scurrying to neuter the Taylor Force Act. There are dire warnings that if we stop funding the biggest Islamic terrorist group in Israel, it will collapse and make way for more terrorism.

If we don’t stop giving Islamic terrorists money to commit terrorism… the terrorists will win.

This sums up the insanity of our foreign policy in which we fund terrorism to fight terrorism, and in which the “moderate” Islamic terrorists of the Palestinian Authority and the Muslim Brotherhood are our best hope for restraining the really scary “extremist” Islamic terrorists of ISIS and Al Qaeda.

Senators have been complaining about the act’s “All or nothing” approach. All or nothing means that the Palestinian Authority would have to stop funding terror or lose funding. And since the Palestinian Authority won’t stop funding terror and they don’t want to cut its funding, they hate all or nothing.

AIPAC hasn’t gotten behind the Taylor Force Act. Instead it’s holding out for some “revised” version that would make it meaningless while attracting bipartisan support. Meaningless pro-Israel measures that pass with huge majorities are AIPAC’s bread and butter. They’re its political Potemkin villages.

The ideal Taylor Force Act, according to AIPAC, most Democrats and some Republicans, would condemn terrorism without cutting a cent in foreign aid to the Palestinian Authority. It would contain a national security waiver and plenty of gimmicks that would actually increase funding for terror.

Early Friday morning, three Arab citizens of Israel attacked Israeli police on the Temple Mount, killing two. This led Israeli security forces to close Jerusalem’s holiest site for Jews and Muslims, sparking outrage as Muslims intended to worship there on their holy day, Friday.

“We cannot allow for agents of murder, who desecrate the name of God, to drag us into a bloody war, and we will deal with a heavy hand against all the arms of terror, and its perpetrators,” Israeli President Reuven Rivlin said in a statement. “The state of Israel will defend its sovereignty and its citizens with a strong hand, and will not allow anyone to provoke the region into a bloody war.”

A video of the scene captured an assailant yelling “Allahu Akbar!”

Israeli police said the armed attackers had been spotted around 7 a.m. local time approaching the gateway from within the sacred compound which Jews revere as the Temple Mount and Muslims as the Noble Sanctuary, The New York Times reported. Police pursued the assailants inside the compound and both groups opened fire, killing two police and three assailants.

Police identified the slain officers as Hayil Satawi, 30, from the northern Israeli Arab town of Maghar, and Kamil Shnaan, 22, from another northern town, Hurfeish. Officials said both officers were Druze, members of an Islamic sect which most Muslims consider outside of Islam.

Shin Bet, Israel’s internal security service, identified the attackers as Muhammad Ahmed Jabarin, 29; Muhammad Hamid Jabarin, 19; and Muhammad Ahmed Mufdal Jabarin, 19. All three were residents of Umm el-Fahm, a large Arab town near the border of Israel and the West Bank. It was not known if they were related, but their names indicate membership in the same large clan.

Martin Luther, in his criticism of Catholic pilgrimages, once said, “There are 12 apostles, and 18 of them are buried in Spain.” He probably would not be pleased that Protestants have resumed journeying on the Camino (Road) to Santiago (Saint James) de Compostela. But, the Camino to Santiago will not start a war. The Temple Mount will.

A new $5 million Anglican Centre is to be built in Spain in Santiago de Compostela, the end of the world-famous Catholic pilgrimage route the Way of St James. — Christianity Today

Putting aside all arguments about whether Israel should be in Judea and Samaria, whether Israel should be in Jerusalem, or even whether Israel should be in the land itself, one thing is clear: Mohammed never set foot in Jerusalem. That is incontestable. Absolutely beyond debate, even from accepted Muslim history.

Mohammed died in 632 A.D. Arab forces did not besiege Jerusalem until 636 A.D. They did not enter the city until 637 A.D. No one doubts this. No one denies this.

It follows that if Arab forces did not enter Jerusalem until 637 A.D., then Jerusalem did not have a mosque before that date. The present structure for Al Aqsa — the Furthest (Mosque) — was built around 690 A.D., possibly using materials from an earlier destroyed church. There is a possibility that an earlier mosque had been built soon after the Arab conquest.

But all of this, whenever or if ever it occurred, took place after Mohammed died.

Therefore, whenever Mohammed made his supposed night journey – the miraj – it could not have been to a mosque in Jerusalem that did not exist. The whole Islamic claim to Al-Aqsa is a historic fraud.

One can argue whether Muslims originally faced Mecca in their prayers (as Muslim tradition demands), or whether Muslims originally faced Petra, as new scholarship shows; but even that does not affect the very real fact that Mohammed never set foot in a mosque in Jerusalem.

The present crisis over Al-Aqsa – two Israeli Druze policemen were killed last Friday by Muslim terrorists– is based on an absolute lie. The Muslims are fighting for a mosque that is a demonstrable fraud, and that can be shown so in five minutes.

Returning to Spain for some insight: even Catholic scholars now admit that the Saint James – of Santiago de Compostela fame – is probably not buried in Spain. James seems to have been buried in Jerusalem. Luther was right after all.

Numerous scholars suggest that the cult of St James in Spain has not been around longer than the 9th century A.D. this suggests that it is unlikely that the remains belong to the apostle from the times of Jesus. There is also no record connected with his grave from a period before early medieval times. — Ancient Origins