Muslim Hate of Israel

Israel-Hamas conflict: Timeline and key developments

"Israel is at war," said Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

By Bill Hutchinson
October 19, 2023
ABC News

More than a week after Hamas terrorists rained thousands of rockets down on Israel and infiltrated the country by air, sea and land in an unprecedented surprise attack, the region stands on the brink of war -- with fears of a wider conflict and thousands dead on both sides of the Israel-Gaza border.

The conflict was touched off by the Oct. 7 sneak attack, which included thousands of armed Hamas fighters breaching a border security fence and indiscriminately gunning down Israeli civilians and soldiers taken off guard. Other militants stormed beaches in Israel in motorboats and some brought death from the sky, swooping in on paragliders.

More than 1,400 people have been killed in Israel, including children, and more than 4,500 people have been injured, Israeli officials said. At least 32 of those killed in Israel are Americans, according to the U.S. State Department.

At least 3,400 people have been killed in Gaza and more than 12,000 have been injured, according to the Palestinian Health Authority.

The Israel Defense Forces said 203 people have been taken hostage by Hamas and it's believed they are being held in Gaza.

Israel has responded with a barrage of airstrikes that have decimated the Gaza Strip, leaving more than 350,000 residents displaced. Israel has warned more than 1 million Palestinians to move to a safer part of the territory in southern Gaza or potentially face the wrath of 400,000 Israeli soldiers prepped to annihilate Hamas militant units, many believed to be hiding in a miles-long network of tunnels under residential neighborhoods.

And many fear those trapped in Gaza, including an estimated 400 Americans, are on the cusp of a humanitarian disaster with no electricity or running water, and a food supply that is dwindling by the hour.

Here are the key developments that have happened so far in the war:

Oct. 7, 6:30 a.m. in Israel

Air raid sirens begin sounding in Jerusalem around 6:30 a.m. local time, warning citizens of the attack in progress and to immediately take cover. An estimated 2,200 rockets were fired toward southern and central Israel, including Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, by the Hamas militants, according to the Israel Defense Forces. Meanwhile, Hamas claims at least 5,000 rockets were fired, all landing in southern and central Israel.

Armed Hamas militants, many on motorcycles, storm blockaded areas of the Gaza Strip, shooting at Jewish settlers and slaughtering people at kibbutzim and small towns. Video footage surfaces of Hamas militants taking Israeli citizens -- including mothers, children and the elderly -- hostage and carrying them across the Gaza border.

Oct. 7, shortly after the attack begins

Mohammed Deif, commander in chief of Hamas' military arm, Al Qassam Brigades, releases a video statement claiming responsibility for the attack.

Israeli jet fighters launch retaliatory strikes in Gaza. Video surfaces of a high-rise residential building and the Al-Sousi Mosque in Gaza City being bombed and flattened.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu tells his country, "Israel is at war."

President Joe Biden tells Netanyahu in a phone call that the United States "condemns" Hamas' assault and has Isreal's back. In a televised address from the White House, Biden says, "Israel has a right to defend itself and its people."

Oct. 8

At least 30 Israeli police officers are killed in the fighting, mainly in Sderot, Israel, where Hamas gunmen took control of the police station.

Israeli officials announce that fighting is ongoing in six places, including Sderot -- which sits just 2 miles from the border with Gaza -- and that a rocket injured four people.

Videos posted online show a packed all-night music festival in a desert in southern Israel near the Gaza border being attacked by rockets and armed Hamas fighters on the ground. The footage shows women and children being dragged away in vehicles and driven back into Gaza. Israeli rescue service Zaka says at least 260 bodies were removed from the venue following the attack.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken tells ABC's "This Week" anchor George Stephanopoulos that the U.S. has pledged its full support to Israel and says, "The world should be revolted at what it's seen."

Oct. 9, morning

Air sirens sound in northern Israel, prompting residents to rush to safe rooms. The Israel Defense Forces claimed at least two rockets were fired toward northern Israel from Lebanon. One of the rockets, according to the IDF, landed in Lebanese territory.

"The IDF neutralized a number of terrorist infiltrators who crossed from Lebanon into Israel. We are defending our country and stand ready on all borders," the IDF says in a statement.

An official with the U.S. National Security Council confirms there were nine Americans killed in Israel. The death toll would continue to climb.

The IDF announces its jet fighters struck 130 targets in the Gaza Strip, and Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant orders a "complete siege" of Gaza, cutting electricity to the region and blocking fuel and food from entering the territory from Israel.

The IDF announces it has mobilized 300,000 reserves -- the largest and quickest call-up in Israel's history.

Hamas says the group will start killing Israeli hostages one by one and film the executions unless Israel immediately stops shelling homes in Gaza without warning.

'Pure, unadulterated evil'

Oct. 10

The U.S. confirms that an undetermined number of Americans had been taken hostage by Hamas.

"I've directed my team to share intelligence and deploy additional experts from across the United States government to consult with and advise Israeli counterparts on hostage recovery efforts. Because as president, I have no higher priority than the safety of Americans being held hostage around the world," Biden says.

Biden says the atrocities committed by Hamas fighters included the "slaughter" of men, women and entire families, as well as "stomach-churning reports of babies being killed."

Gallant tours southern Israel along the Gaza border, telling soldiers they are moving to "a full-scale response" to the Hamas surprise attack and that he has "removed every restriction."

"Hamas wanted to see a change in Gaza -- the reality is Gaza will make a 180. They will regret [their actions]," Gallant said.

Israeli survivors recount terror at music festival, where Hamas militants killed at least 260

BY ISABEL DEBRE AND MICHAEL BIESECKER
Updated 5:01 PM PDT, October 9, 2023

JERUSALEM (AP) — The night was a getaway. Thousands of young men and women gathered at a vast field in southern Israel near the Gaza border to dance without a care. Old and new friends jumped up and down, reveling in the swirl of the bass-heavy beats.

Maya Alper was standing toward the back of the bar with teams of environmentally conscious volunteers, picking up trash and passing out free vodka shots to party-goers who reused their cups. Just after 6.a.m., as a light-blue dawn broke and the headliner D.J. took the stage, air raid sirens cut through the ethereal trap music. Rockets streaked overhead.

Alper, 25, jumped into her car and raced to the main road. But at the intersection she encountered crowds of stricken festival attendees, shouting at drivers to turn around. Then, a noise. Firecrackers? Panicked men and women staggering down the road just in front of her fell to the ground in pools of blood. Gunshots.

Saturday’s attack on the open-air Tribe of Nova music festival is believed to be the worst civilian massacre in Israeli history, with at least 260 dead and a still undetermined number taken hostage. Dozens of Hamas militants who had blown through Israel’s heavily fortified separation fence and crossed into the country from Gaza opened fire on about 3,500 young Israelis who had come together for a joyous night of electronic music to celebrate the Jewish holiday of Sukkot. Some attendees were drunk or high on drugs, magnifying their confusion and terror.

The Associated Press reviewed more than dozen videos taken during the massacre and interviewed survivors to reconstruct how the deadly attack unfolded. The party was held in a dusty field outside of Kibbutz Re’im, about 3.3 miles (5.3 kilometers) from the wall that separates Gaza from southern Israel.

“We were hiding and running, hiding and running, in an open field — the worst place you could possibly be in that situation,” said Arik Nani from Tel Aviv, who had gone to the party to celebrate his 26th birthday. “For a country where everyone in these circles knows everyone, this is a trauma like I could never imagine.”

While rockets rained down, revelers said, militants converged on the festival site while others waited near bomb shelters, gunning down people who were seeking refuge. Many of the militants, who arrived in trucks and on motorcycles, were wearing body armor and brandishing AK-47 assault rifles and rocket-propelled grenades.

Videos compiled by Israeli first responders and posted to the social media site Telegram show armed men plunging into the panicked crowd, mowing down fleeing revelers with bursts of automatic fire. Many victims were shot in the back as they ran.

Israeli communities on either side of the festival grounds also came under attack, with Hamas gunmen abducting dozens of men, women and children — including elderly and disabled people — and killing scores of others in Saturday’s unprecedented surprise attack.

The staggering toll from the festival was becoming clear Monday, as Israel’s rescue service Zaka said paramedics had recovered at least 260 bodies. Festival organizers said they were helping Israeli security forces locate attendees who were still missing. The death toll could rise as teams continue to clear the area.

As the carnage unfolded before her, Alper pulled a few disoriented-looking revelers into her car from the street and accelerated in the opposite direction. One of them said he had lost his wife in the chaos and Alper had to stop him from breaking out of the car to find her. Another said she had just seen Hamas gunmen shoot and kill her best friend. Another rocked in his seat, murmuring over and over, “We are going to die.” In the rear-view mirror, Alper watched the dance floor where she had spent the past ecstatic hours transform into a giant cloud of black smoke.

Festival-goers who managed to make it to the road and parking lot where their vehicles were parked found themselves trapped in a traffic jam, with militants stalking the cars and spraying those inside with gunfire. Drone footage of the scene taken after the attack and reviewed by the AP show chaotic lines of cars where drivers had attempted to flee. Some burned-out vehicles were flipped onto their sides, while others had bullet holes visible in shattered windows.

Nowhere was safe, Alper said. The roar of explosions, hysterical screams and automatic gunfire felt closer the further she drove. When a man just meters away shouted “God is great!”, Alper and her new companions sprung out of the car and sprinted through open fields toward a mass of bushes.

Alper felt a bullet whiz past her left ear. Aware the gunmen would outrun her, she plunged into a tangle of shrubs. Peering through thorns, she said she saw one of her passengers, the girl who had lost her friend, shriek and collapse as a gunman stood over her limp body, grinning.

“I can’t even explain the energy they (the militants) had. It was so clear they didn’t see us as human beings,” she said. “They looked at us with pure, pure hate.”

Videos show the gunmen executed some of the wounded at point-blank range as they crouched on the ground. Some of the militants even rifled through the vehicles of their victims, grabbing purses and backpacks.

An unknown number of people from the festival were taken hostage. A video posted to social media by militants and verified by the AP shows an Israeli couple, Noa Argamani and her partner Avinatan Or, being dragged away by their captors.

Argamani, her face contorted in panic, shouts “No, no!” in Hebrew while being forced onto a motorbike, sandwiched between two gunmen. She reaches out for Or, whose hands are bound behind his back as a group of militants march him forward.

Their whereabouts are now unknown. But Hamas claims it is now holding more than 100 Israelis as hostages. On Monday, the group threatened to begin systematically killing captives if the Israeli military bombs Palestinian areas without warning.

For over six hours, Alper and thousands of other concert attendees hid without help from the Israeli army as Hamas militants sprayed automatic gunfire and threw grenades.

Her limbs were so contorted into a tangled mess in the bush that she couldn’t wiggle her toes. At different points, she heard militants speak in Arabic just beside her. A yoga devotee who practices meditation, Alper said she focused on her breath — “breathing and praying in every way I knew possible.”

“Every time I thought of anger, or fear or revenge, I breathed it out,” she said. “I tried to think of what I was grateful for — the bush that hid me so well that even birds landed on it, the birds that were still singing, the sky that was so blue.”

A tank instructor in the Israeli army, Alper knew she was safe when she heard a different kind of explosion — the sound of an Israeli army tank round. She shouted for help and soon soldiers were lifting her out of the bush. Around her lay the lifeless body of one of her friends. The girl from her car she had seen collapse was nowhere to be found; she believes that Hamas militants took her into Gaza.

Alper said the Israeli army, on its way to fight Hamas militants in the hard-hit kibbutz of Be’eri near the Gaza border, was at a loss as to know what to do with her.

At that moment, a pick-up truck full of Palestinian citizens of Israel pulled up. The men from the Bedouin city of Rahat were scouring the area to help rescue Israeli survivors. Helping Alper into their car, they drove her to the police station, where she collapsed, crying, into her father’s arms.

“This is not just war. This is hell,” Alper said. “But in that hell I still feel that somehow, we can choose to act out of love, and not just fear.”

COVID-19 Omicron outbreak due to homosexuality and Israel - Al-Aqsa Imam

By JERUSALEM POST STAFF - Dec 23, 2021

The LGBTQ+ community, as well as the Israeli government and media, are to blame for the rapid spread of the Omicron variant of COVID-19, Imam of al-Aqsa Mosque Issam Amira has claimed, according to N12.

The Palestinian Islamic scholar and preacher made the controversial statements in a sermon during Friday prayers at the Islamic holy site in Jerusalem.

According to Amira, the Omicron variant "did not spread until the government and media announced its existence."

Amira went on to claim that the government and media that "brought the variant" are the same that "allow and encourage homosexuality."

This is not the first time that the Imam has made controversial and problematic comments.

In 2020, Amira was arrested by Israel Police and received a six-month ban from al-Aqsa Mosque for praising the Muslim who murdered and beheaded French teacher Samuel Paty for using illustrations of the prophet Mohammed.

Right-wing Zionist NGO Im Tirzu reportedly responded to Amira's controversial comments, calling for the "dangerous person who should sit behind bars" to be arrested by Israel Police as soon as possible.

"His incitement poses a danger to the LGBTQ+ community and to the Jewish people," the NGO said.

Iran accuses Israel of stealing its CLOUDS and SNOW in BIZARRE outburst

IRAN’s head of Civil Defence Organisation claimed he is suspicious about the role of Israel in climate change in Iran and accused the neighbouring nation of stealing clouds and snow from the Islamic Republic.

By MARTINA BET
Express
July 3, 2018

Speaking at a conference on agriculture in the Iranian capital of Tehran, Brigadier General Gholam Reza Jalili said a number of Iranian scientific centres have confirmed such foreign role in the adverse climate condition in Iran.

He said: “Foreign interference is suspected to have played a role in climate change.

“Joint teams from Israel and one of the neighbouring countries make the clouds entering into Iran barren.

“Moreover, we are faced with the cases of cloud theft and snow theft.”

Pointing to scientific evidence corroborating his argument, Mr Jalali cited a survey carried out over the past four years about the climate of high altitudes stretching from Afghanistan to the Mediterranean Sea.

He claimed that above 7200 feet all mountainous areas are covered in snow, except Iran.

However, the head of Iran's meteorological service Ahad Vazife immediately dismissed Mr Jalili's comments.

He said that the General "probably has documents of which I am not aware, but on the basis of meteorological knowledge, it is not possible for a country to steal snow or clouds".

He added: "Iran has suffered a prolonged drought, and this is a global trend that does not apply only to Iran.

"Raising such questions not only does not solve any of our problems, but will deter us from finding the right solutions"

This is not the first time that an Irani official has accused other countries of an atmospheric precipitation theft.

In 2011, former President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad claimed Western countries were involved in plans to "cause drought" in Iran.

He said: "European countries used special equipment to force clouds to dump their water on their continent.

"Today our country is moving towards drought, which is partly unintentional due to industry and partly intentional, as a result of the enemy destroying the clouds moving towards our country and this is a war that Iran is going to overcome."

In the meantime, in southern Iranian cities security forces have broken up violent protests as residents have taken it to the streets, complaining about salty, muddy water coming out of their taps drinking water.

The protests are the latest sign of dissatisfaction with the government, which is accused of failing to manage supplies as the demand from a growing population is rising and temperatures have gone above 50C.

Unveiling clock showing 8,411 days left for Israel, Iranians rage against Jewish state

Parliament speaker calls Israel ‘mother of terrorism’ as Islamic Republic parades missiles, rallies in support of Palestinians and against raft of enemies

BY AGENCIES AND TIMES OF ISRAEL STAFF
June 23, 2017

TEHRAN — Iran held major anti-Israel rallies across the country Friday, with protesters chanting “Death to Israel” and declaring that destroying the Jewish state is “the Muslim world’s top priority.”

Iranians participating in Quds Day rallies also called for unity among pro-Palestinian groups against the “child-murdering” Israeli government, according to Iran’s Tasnim News Agency.

Marchers in Tehran headed from various points of the city to the Friday prayer ceremony at Tehran University. Similar demonstrations were held in other cities and towns in Iran.

Iran’s powerful Revolutionary Guard used the demonstration in the capital’s Valiasr Square to showcase three surface-to-surface ballistic missiles, including the Zolfaghar — the type that Iran used this week to target the Islamic State group in Syria. The Guard said it fired six such missiles on Sunday at IS targets in the city of Deir el-Zour, more than 600 kilometers (370 miles) away. The Guard said the airstrike was in retaliation for an IS attack earlier in June on Iran’s parliament and a shrine in Tehran that killed 18 people and wounded more than 50.

Another missile on display at the Tehran rally was the Ghadr, with a range of 2,000 kilometers (1,250 miles) that can reach both Israel and US bases in the region.

Iran’s ballistic missile program has been the subject of persistent concern in Washington and the target of repeated US sanctions.

Iran claimed its missile strike on Sunday killed 360 Islamic State fighters. Israeli sources, by contrast, said the strike was a “flop,” that most of the six or seven missiles missed their targets, and that three of them fell to earth in Iraq and didn’t even reach Syria.

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, in remarks carried by the official IRNA news agency, said Israel supports “terrorists in the region.”

Parliament speaker Ali Larijani, in a speech to Tehran demonstrators, called Israel the “mother of terrorism” and said that in the “20th century, there was no event more ominous than establishing the Zionist regime.”

The rally also inaugurated a huge digital countdown display at Tehran Palestine Square, showing that Israel will allegedly cease to exist in 8,411 days.

In 2015, Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei predicted that after 25 years — by 2040 — there will no longer be a State of Israel.

“Death to the House of Saud and Daesh,” demonstrators chanted, using another name for the Islamic State. “Death to America”, “Death to Israel”, “Death to the UK.”

This year’s commemoration comes amid an intensifying battle for influence in the region between Shiite Iran and its Sunni arch rival Saudi Arabia who have had no diplomatic relations since January last year.

State media put the number of participants at over 1 million.

The anti-Israel rallies are an annual event marking Al-Quds Day, a historic Arabic name for Jerusalem. Iran says it’s an occasion to express support for the Palestinians and emphasize the importance of Jerusalem for Muslims.

Iran doesn’t recognize Israel, calls for its demise, and staunchly backs terror groups, including Hamas and Hezbollah.

In comments ahead of the day, Khamenei said the rallies were meant to “fight arrogance and global hegemons,” likely hinting at recent tensions with Sunni Gulf states.

“Defending Palestine today is defending a reality much greater than the issue of Palestine,” he said, according to the semi-official Tasnim News site.

Iran holds al-Quds day rallies held each year on the last Friday of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, which is expected to end this weekend. Iran has marked the day since the start of its 1979 Islamic Revolution, when it cut relations with Israel.

On Sunday, marchers in the annual Quds Day parade in London blamed a fire in a low-income apartment complex there that left at least 58 dead on “Zionists.”

Hujjat al-Islam Ali al-Kourani, a Lebanese scholar and researcher in the field of Mahdism, referred to the recent remarks made by the Supreme Leader of the Islamic Revolution, Ayatollah Sayyed Ali Khamenei, wherein he stated that Israel “will not exist in 25 years’ time,” and said that since Muslims in Arab countries agree that the Zionist regime is their enemy, thus they must fight and so work toward destroying this regime.

His Eminence explained that the destruction of the Zionist regime will occur in two phases, and in regard to the first phase, he quoted verse 17:5 from the Holy Quran, explaining that Israel will be eventually punished for their actions.

He also mentioned an authentic hadith from Imam Ja’far al-Sadiq which states that “They are those who will be resurrected by God before the rise of [Imam Muhammad al-Mahdi] to fight Israel” and said: “Our youths’ resistance against the Zionist regime and the Islamic Resistance [Hezbollah] are proof for this.”

“Imam al-Mahdi and his companions will enter al-Aqsa Mosque and later they will re-enter it, just as they entered it the first time,” he explained.

Hujjat al-Islam al-Kourani stressed that the predication made by Ayatollah Khamenei that Israel will be destroyed is based on Quranic verses and authentic narrations and stressed that this will be achieved in the near future.

The Lebanese scholar referred to the causes and signs of the destruction of Israel, saying: “As the Supreme Leader of the Islamic Revolution said in his speech, people throughout the Muslim world are awake and alert... the power of the forces of the Islamic Resistance against the Zionist regime has changed.”

He stressed that the strength of the Islamic Resistance is such that they are able to attack the Zionist regime at any time and place that they want.

Hujjat al-Islam al-Kourani said that when the Zionist regime was first established, it attacked several Islamic countries and Muslims were extremely afraid and unable to defend themselves. But now the balance of power has changed in the world and Muslims hold much power and authority.

He invited the worldwide Islamic community and religious centres to prepare the ground for the rapid destruction of the Zionist regime and said that the Zionist regime is the mirror-image of Wahhabism and added that he is very hopeful of its destruction in the very near future.

The researcher in the field of Mahdism called on the Islamic Resistance to preserve their unity and advance their strength and to prepare themselves for a wide-ranging battle against Israel, saying that the Resistance has power and advanced weapons, but they still must strive to equip and increase their military power.

Referring to the expulsion of several Israeli ambassadors from Latin American countries and the opening of embassies in some Arabic countries such as Qatar and Jordan, he said the people of Latin America have true freedom and liberty but the so-called Arab countries have lost their roots.

“The Prophet Muhammad said that anyone that has a relationship with the [Zionist] Jews will become deviated,” he said.

Hujjat al-Islam al-Kourani explained that the ultimate destruction of the Zionist regime will occur in Lebanon, and added that he will speak about this subject on his weekly television program on the al-Wilayah satellite network.

Basij commander Mohammad Reza Naqdi also threatens Saudis, saying their fate will be like that of Saddam Hussein

BY LAZAR BERMAN
March 31, 2015,
The Times of Israel

The commander of the Basij militia of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards said that “erasing Israel off the map” is “nonnegotiable,” according to an Israel Radio report Tuesday

Militia chief Mohammad Reza Naqdi also threatened Saudi Arabia, saying that the offensive it is leading in Yemen “will have a fate like the fate of Saddam Hussein.”

Naqdi’s comments were made public as Iran and six world powers prepared Tuesday to issue a general statement agreeing to continue nuclear negotiations in a new phase aimed at reaching a comprehensive accord by the end of June.

In 2014, Naqdi said Iran was stepping up efforts to arm West Bank Palestinians for battle against Israel, adding the move would lead to Israel’s annihilation, Iran’s Fars news agency reported.

“Arming the West Bank has started and weapons will be supplied to the people of this region,” Naqdi said.

“The Zionists should know that the next war won’t be confined to the present borders and the Mujahedeen will push them back,” he added. Naqdi claimed that much of Hamas’s arsenal, training and technical knowhow in the summer conflict with Israel was supplied by Iran.

The Basij is a religious volunteer force established in 1979 by the country’s revolutionary leaders, and has served as a moral police and to suppress dissent.
In January, a draft law that would give greater powers to the Basij to enforce women’s compulsory wearing of the veil was ruled unconstitutional.

By: Jameel Muqata
The Jewish Press
Published: February 7th, 2013

Due to the rising tensions in the countries neighboring Northern Israel, the IDF has recently positioned multiple “Iron Dome” anti-rocket systems around Israel’s north.

Some of the installations are nearby to Israeli Arab villages, and NRG/Maariv reports that today a group of Israeli Arabs cursed the IDF soldiers manning the installation, and pelted them with rocks till the police arrived.

The IDF denies that the recent placement of Iron Dome batteries has anything to do with the insurgency in Syria or the alleged chemical and game-changing weapon transfers.

The question is, why would Israeli Arabs hurl curses, harass and stone IDF soldiers — when the anti-rocket system protects them as well?

An Israeli court has convicted a leading Israeli Arab activist of spying for Lebanon's Hezbollah militant group.

Amir Makhoul, 52, admitted to the charges in a plea bargain that will see him jailed for seven to 10 years.

Under the deal, prosecutors dropped the most serious charge - assisting an enemy in a time of war - for which he could have faced life in prison. He will be sentenced in November.

Charges against Mr Sayid were reduced in a plea bargain and he was freed last month after serving a seven-month jail term.

The Israeli press was initially barred from reporting on the case, but when the gag order was lifted, Israeli Arab pressure group Adalah said their arrest and interrogation had been conducted "in gross violation of their fundamental rights to due process".

Makhoul's lawyer, Hussein Abu Hussein, said he agreed to a plea bargain because of the difficulty of proving his innocence.

He said the information that Makhoul shared was common knowledge and available on the internet.

In May, Makhoul and Sayid confessed that they passed information about Israeli bases to the Lebanese militant and political group, Hezbollah, which is blacklisted by Israel as a terrorist organisation.

Prosecutors said they sent information to their Lebanese contacts over the internet using sophisticated encryption programmes.

In 2006, Israel and Hezbollah fought a devastating war that killed more than 1,200 people in Lebanon, most of them civilians, and more than 160 Israelis, mostly soldiers.

Makhoul is the director of Ittijah, the Union of Arab Community-Based Associations, the brother of a former Israeli-Arab member of Israel's Knesset, or parliament, and an outspoken critic of Israel's treatment of Palestinians and Israeli Arabs.

Leader of Israeli Arab Islamic movement convicted of assault

(AFP)
November 5, 2009

Western Press Ignores Iran's Hate-Filled Quds Day
The MEMRI Report

It is disturbing when the entire leadership of one nation, along with hundreds of thousands of its citizens, comes out with celebrations and parades every year that call for the annihilation of another country.

It is more twisted that no world leaders or international bodies, including the United Nations, have denounced the activities surrounding Quds Day, an Iranian holiday introduced by Ayatollah Khomeini that is marked on the last Friday of Ramadan.

While the world was focusing on North Korea last week, Iran's mad scientists were hard at work preparing for the annual Quds Day celebrations.

Most of the Western press outlets that reported on the popular holiday simply downplayed it as just another "anti-Israel" day. However, this year's revelries focused both on calling for the annihilation of America and embracing Iran's nuclear program.

The celebrations included proclamations by the country's leaders and activities for university students and artists.

Isfahan University's Mechanical Energy College took first place in a Quds Day competition for its design of a pilotless plane that can be used for "suicide attacks." The director of the Iranian Broadcasting Organization of Music Production, Mohammad Mirzamani, composed a symphony dedicated to "the victory over the Zionist regime," and the country's religious Web logs were told to report on all the festivities.

Iranian press outlets featured hundreds of photographs from the celebrations in Tehran. Among the notable scenes captured were children in Condoleezza Rice costumes; effigies of President Bush, Prime Minister Olmert, and Prime Minister Blair being lit on fire and dragged through the streets; the burning of American and Israeli flags; and hundreds of posters of Sheik Hassan Nasrallah featuring the caption "I swear to Allah that Israel is weaker than [a] spider house." The posters called for a boycott of such "Israeli" goods as McDonald's, Kit Kat bars, Intel, L'Oreal, Nestlé, Disney, and Marlboro.

President Ahmadinejad gave a series of speeches leading up to and on Quds Day. At an Iftar address on October 14, he discussed his "connection with God" and said: "The president of America is like us. That is, he too is inspired ... but [his] inspiration is of the satanic kind. Satan gives inspiration to the president of America."

Mr. Ahmadinejad delivered his Quds Day speech under a banner that read, "Israel must be wiped off the face of the world." He described the holiday as "a day for confrontation between the Islamic faith with the global arrogance."

In another speech, he said Israel was "doomed" and promised that the Israeli "regime will be gone, definitely."

The words "the Zionist regime is a cancerous gland that needs to be uprooted" were written in a communiqué from the Iranian Foreign Ministry in honor of the holiday. Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki held a meeting for other Islamic countries' ambassadors to Iran and told them that Israel's existence would be shattered and that death bells were tolling for the Zionists. At the meeting, the Palestinian Arab ambassador to Tehran, Salah Zawawi, said, "The day for the liberation of Quds Day is close at hand."

A who's who of the Iranian leadership marched in the main Quds Day parade before crowds chanting "death to Israel" and "death to America." The marchers included a former Iranian president, Mohammed Khatemi, and a spokesman for the parliament presidency board, Mohsen Kouhkan, who predicted a quick "final and total defeat of America and the Zionist regime."

The chief of the judiciary, Ayatollah Mahmoud Hashemi Shahroudi, praised "the fasting people taking part in the rally [who] are chanting slogans such as ‘death to America' and ‘death to Israel.'"

"The world arrogance and Zionism today are shivering from Muslim vigilance and are on the threshold of annihilation," he added.

Information Minister Hholam-Hossein Mohseni Ejei explained that the holiday "is a proper occasion for people to declare their hatred of America and Israel," while a representative of the Islamic Consulate Assembly, Ahmad Pish-bin, promised that the "final defeat for world arrogance" is coming.

The chairman of the Expediency Council and a former Iranian president, Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, who led Friday prayers, said Quds Day is an important factor "between Islam and unbelief and the stage for Muslims' jihad." He added, "The world's 1.5 billion Muslims back this jihad."

Mr. Rafsanjani also led Quds Day prayers on December 14, 2001. Then, he warned of a coming confrontation between the "pious and martyrdom-seeking forces" and the "highest forces of colonialism," which "might inflame a third World War."

Mr. Stalinsky is the executive director of the Middle East Media Research Institute.

Rethinking the Egypt-Israel "Peace" Treaty

Ninety-two percent of respondents in a recent poll of one thousand Egyptians over 18 years of age called Israel an enemy state. In contrast, a meager 2% saw Israel as "a friend to Egypt."

Also, the Egyptian government has permitted large quantities of weapons to be smuggled into Gaza to use against Israeli border towns. Yuval Steinitz, an Israeli legislator specializing in Egypt-Israel relations, estimates that fully 90% of PLO and Hamas explosives come from Egypt.

Cairo may have no apparent enemies, but the impoverished Egyptian state sinks massive resources into a military build up. According to the Congressional Research Service, it purchased $6.5 billion worth of foreign weapons in the years 2001-04, more than any other state in the Middle East. In contrast, the Israeli government bought only $4.4 billion worth during that period and the Saudi one $3.8 billion.

Egypt ranked as the third largest purchaser of arms in the entire developing world, following only population giants China and India. It has the tenth largest standing army in the world, well over twice the size of Israel's.

This long, ugly record of hostility exists despite a peace treaty with Israel, hailed at the time by both Egypt's president Anwar El-Sadat and Israel's prime minister Menachem Begin as a "historic turning point." U.S. president Jimmy Carter hoped it would begin a new era when "violence no longer dominates the Middle East." I too shared in this enthusiasm.

With the benefit of retrospect, however, we see that the treaty did palpable harm in at least two ways. First, it opened the American arsenal and provided American funding to purchase the latest in weaponry. As a result, for the first time in the Arab-Israeli conflict, an Arab armed force may have reached parity with its Israeli counterpart.

Second, it spurred anti-Zionism. I lived for nearly three years in Egypt in the 1970s, before Sadat's dramatic trip to Jerusalem in late 1977, and I recall the relatively low interest in Israel at that time. Israel was plastered all over the news but it hardly figured in conversations. Egyptians seemed happy to delegate this issue to their government. Only after the treaty, which many Egyptians saw as a betrayal, did they themselves take direct interest. The result was the emergence of a more personal, intense, and bitter form of anti-Zionism.

The same pattern was replicated in Jordan, where the 1994 treaty with Israel soured popular attitudes. To a lesser extent, the 1993 Palestinian accords and even the aborted 1983 Lebanon treaty prompted similar responses. In all four of these cases, diplomatic agreements prompted a surge in hostility toward Israel.

Defenders of the "peace process" answer that, however hostile Egyptians' attitudes and however large their arsenal, the treaty has held; Cairo has in fact not made war on Israel since 1979. However frigid the peace, peace it has been.

To which I reply: if the mere absence of active warfare counts as peace, then peace has also prevailed between Syria and Israel for decades, despite their formal state of war. Damascus lacks a treaty with Jerusalem, but it also lacks modern American weaponry. Does an antique signature on a piece of paper offset Egypt's Abrams tanks, F-16 fighter jets, and Apache attack helicopters?

I think not. In retrospect, it becomes apparent that multiple fallacies and wishful predictions fueled Arab-Israeli diplomacy:

The time has come to recognize the Egypt-Israel treaty – usually portrayed as the glory and ornament of Arab-Israel diplomacy – as the failure it has been, and to draw the appropriate lessons in order not to repeat its mistakes.

Israel's Domestic Enemy

After nearly sixty years on the sidelines, Israel's third and final enemy may be joining the battle.

Foreign states are Israel's enemy no. 1. With the declaration of Israeli independence in May 1948, five foreign armed forces invaded Israel. All the major wars that followed – 1956, 1967, 1970, 1973 – involved Israelis at war with neighboring armies, air forces, and navies. Today, the greatest threat comes from weapons of mass destruction in Iran and Syria. Egypt increasingly presents a conventional arms danger.

External Palestinians are enemy no. 2. Eclipsed for two decades after 1948, they moved to center-stage with Yasir Arafat and the Palestine Liberation Organization. The 1982 Lebanon war and the 1993 Oslo accords confirmed their centrality. External Palestinians remain active and menacing today, what with terrorism, missiles landing on Sderot, and a global public relations campaign of rejectionism.

The Muslim citizens of Israel, usually known in English as Israeli Arabs, constitute enemy no. 3. (But I focus on Muslims, not Arabs, because Arabic-speaking Christians and Druze are generally less hostile.)

Israeli Muslims began inconsequentially; in 1949, they constituted a population of 111,000 and 9 percent of Israel's population. They then multiplied ten-fold, to 1,141,000 in 2005, 16 percent of the population. Beyond numbers, they took full advantage of Israel's open, modern society to evolve from a small, docile, and leaderless population into a robust, assertive community whose leaders include a Supreme Court justice, Salim Joubran; an ambassador, Ali Yahya; members of parliament; academics; and entrepreneurs.

This ascent, along with other factors – enemies no. 1 and 2 at war with Israel, increased ties to the West Bank, the surge of radical Islam, the Lebanon war in mid-2006 – emboldened Muslims to reject the Israeli identity and turn against the state. Their blatantly celebrating Israel's worst enemies evidences this, as does growing Muslim-on-Jewish violence within Israel. This month alone, Muslims pillaged a Jewish religious school in Acre and nearly murdered a Jezreel Valley farmer. A teenage boy was arrested for planning a suicide attack on a Nazareth hotel.

This hostility has been codified in an impressively crafted document that was published in early December, The Future Vision of Palestinian Arabs in Israel. Issued by the Mossawa Center in Haifa – which is partially funded by American Jews – and endorsed by many establishment figures, its extremism may well mark a turning point for Israeli Muslims. The paper rejects the Jewish nature of Israel, insisting that the country become a bi-national state in which Palestinian culture and power enjoy complete equality.

The document's notion of a "joint homeland" means Jewish and Arab sectors that run their own affairs and have the right of veto over certain of the other's decisions. Future Vision demands adjustments to the flag and anthem, canceling the 1950 Law of Return that automatically grants Israeli citizenship to any Jew, and elevating Arabic to be the equal of Hebrew. It seeks separate Arab representation in international fora. Most profoundly, the study would terminate the Zionist achievement of a sovereign Jewish state.

Unsurprisingly, Jewish Israelis reacted negatively. In Ma‘ariv, Dan Margalit dismissed Israeli Arabs as "impossible." In Ha'aretz, Avraham Tal interpreted the outrageous demands as intentionally continuing the conflict, even should Israel's external conflicts be settled. Israel's deputy prime minister, Avigdor Lieberman, implicitly rejects the document's very premises. "What is the logic," he is quoted in The New York Sun, of creating 1½ countries for Palestinians (an allusion to the Palestinian Authority becoming a full-fledged state) and "a half country for the Jewish people?"

Mr. Lieberman wants to restrict Israeli citizenship to those willing to sign a statement of loyalty to the Israeli flag and anthem, and prepared to do military service or its equivalent. Those who refuse to sign – whether Muslim, far-leftist, Haredi, or other – may remain in place as permanent residents, with all the benefits of Israeli residence, even voting and running for local office (a privilege non-citizen Arab residents of Jerusalem currently enjoy). But they would be excluded from voting in national elections or being elected to national office.

The diametrically opposed proposals of Future Vision and Mr. Lieberman are opening bids in a long negotiating process that usefully focus attention on a topic too long sidelined. Three brutally simple choices face Israelis: either Jewish Israelis give up Zionism; or Muslim Israelis accept Zionism; or Muslim Israelis don't remain Israeli for long. The sooner Israelis resolve this matter, the better.

By ISABEL KERSHNER and STEVEN ERLANGER
The New York Times
March 8, 2008

KFAR ETZION, West Bank — They carried the body of Avraham David Moses, 16 years old, on a stretcher down the slope of the vibrant green cemetery here, shaded by tall pines, overlooking a valley, in utter silence.

The boy was wrapped in a black-and-white prayer shawl, and as the pallbearers slipped him into the grave on Friday, the long silence was broken by quiet weeping and occasional sobs.

Men recited psalms, and Naftali Moses, the boy’s father, his garments torn in grief, said the Hebrew prayer for the dead, his voice breaking, before moving back up the slope to the parking lot, through a somber line of mourners, men on one side, women on the other.

The boy’s stepmother, Leah, described Avraham David, as he was known, as “a really good kid — he would come home and unload the dishwasher without being asked.” If the adults started gossiping at the table, she said, he would recite mishnayot, or oral teachings. “He was just an incredible blessing,” she said.

Avraham David was one of eight seminary students killed Thursday night in an act of terrorism, shot by a Palestinian from East Jerusalem who sprayed them with hundreds of rounds of automatic weapons fire before being killed himself. Ten other students were wounded, three of them seriously.

It was unclear what group, if any, was responsible for the massacre. The radical Islamic Hamas movement praised the deed on Thursday but did not claim it.

On Friday an anonymous caller claiming to be from Hamas took responsibility in a phone call to Reuters and said that details would come later. But Fawzi Barhoum, a senior Hamas spokesman in Gaza, said that no claim was official unless made in a written statement signed by the military wing of Hamas. The family of the gunman, identified as Ala Abu Dhaim, 25, said he had been intensely religious, but did not belong to any militant group.

Mark Regev, spokesman for Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, said Israel would act after proper investigation and deliberation, and he condemned those, like Hamas, who celebrated the killings with parades in Gaza. “That Hamas calls this a heroic act, and praises it, this exposes them for what they are,” he said.

The young men died as they were studying in the library of the Mercaz Harav yeshiva in Jerusalem, a major center for the religious Zionist movement that supports Israeli settlement in the West Bank — settlements like this one, which Israel intends to keep in any future peace treaty.

The dead, most of them 15 or 16, with the oldest 26, were all buried Friday, in separate funerals drawing thousands of weeping and angry Israelis.

The funeral processions began together earlier on Friday at the yeshiva itself, where thousands of people, many of them in the traditional black clothing of the ultra-Orthodox or wearing knitted skullcaps, characteristic of more modern religious Zionists, lined the streets. In the large courtyard, where the blood had been washed away, eight benches were marked with the names of the dead, and one wall of the yeshiva was covered with large posters listing them.

As each body was brought forward to rest on its bench, the crowds outside the gates parted to let the pallbearers pass, with cries and screams from relatives and friends.

In every corner, students hugged and cried, and many went to see and touch the closed library door, shattered by bullets. In his eulogy, the yeshiva’s chief rabbi, Yaakov Shapira, said that the gunman had made targets of “everyone living in the holy city of Jerusalem” and criticized the Olmert government for its willingness to negotiate the return of some occupied land to the Palestinians.

“The time has come for all of us to understand that an external struggle is raging, and an internal struggle, and everyone believes the hour has come for us to have a good leadership, a stronger leadership, a more believing leadership,” he said.

Weeping, Rabbi Shapira said, “The murderers are the Amalek of our day, coming to remind us that Amalek has not disappeared, just changed its appearance.” The Amalekites were indigenous nomads who attacked the Israelites on their flight from Egypt, and were annihilated by King David. “God asked Abraham to sacrifice his only son,” the rabbi said. “We had to sacrifice eight.”

The ceremony ended as it began, with the procession of bodies taken out of the gates, one by one, for their separate burials.

The Israeli government declared a high alert on Friday and barred Palestinians in the West Bank from traveling to Jerusalem over the weekend, deploying thousands of police officers and limiting the numbers of Muslims allowed to pray at the Al Aksa Mosque in Jerusalem.

The killer was a Palestinian with permanent residency in Jerusalem. His home in the Jebel Mukaber neighborhood of East Jerusalem was adorned Friday with the flags of Hamas, Islamic Jihad and Hezbollah. According to his family, he was a driver for a private company that had made deliveries to the yeshiva, but the police would not confirm that.

His family said that although he had been intensely religious, he was not a member of any militant group, and he had planned on marrying this summer. But he had been transfixed by the bloodshed in Gaza, where 126 Palestinians died from Wednesday through Monday, his sister, Iman Abu Dhaim, told The Associated Press. Several of his relatives were detained for questioning.

The Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas of Fatah, condemned the killing of civilians by both sides, and Israel said it would continue peace talks with him. Mr. Abbas had suspended such talks after the Gaza deaths.

Mr. Regev urged Mr. Abbas to do more to stop terrorism. “They have clear obligations to act against terror cells,” he said. “While we understand that they have limitations on their capabilities today, we believe that they could be doing much more.”

A senior Israeli official who spoke anonymously because of the delicacy of the issue said many details about the killing were unclear and no major decisions had been made. Mr. Olmert, Defense Minister Ehud Barak and Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni “understand that there is no quick fix for Hamas, that this will take time, and the goal is to continually apply pressure on the Hamas leadership — economic, military, diplomatic and political,” the official said.

Isabel Kershner reported from Kfar Etzion, West Bank, and Steven Erlanger from Jerusalem. Rina Castelnuovo contributed reporting from Jerusalem, and Taghreed El-Khodary from Gaza.

Western Press Ignores Iran's Hate-Filled Quds Day The MEMRI Report

Rethinking the Egypt-Israel "Peace" Treaty

Israel's Domestic Enemy

Western Press Ignores Iran's Hate-Filled Quds Day
The MEMRI Report