The IDF is considering revoking a ban on Jews entering PA controlled areas in Judea and Samaria.

The army is considering revoking a ban on Jews entering West Bank cities that are under Palestinian Authority control, in view of significant improvement in security and in Israel’s coordination with Palestinian security services.

The Palestinian Authority is interested in having Israelis visit Palestinian-controlled West Bank cities and their environs, designated as Area A, because it could signal the resumption of trade and tourism, which would boost the Palestinian economy.

Israel and the PA are cooperating more closely on security matters now than they have been since the Oslo Accords were signed in 1994, an Israeli defense source familiar with Israeli-Palestinian ties over the past 15 years said last night.

“For the first time, the parties are operating on an equal basis – not as leader and follower, as it had been over the years,” the source said. “The main reason is that both sides have a shared enemy. The PA is concerned about Hamas no less than us, and is interested in improving its control on the ground to prevent Hamas from threatening its rule and the calm that has been achieved.”

Fatah-affiliated Al Aqsa Martyr’s Brigades terrorists must be licking their chops at the thought of being gifted opportunities to kidnap Israelis.

Updates (Israel time; most recent at top)

6:32PM: Australian opposition leader Tony Abbott – about whom I blogged about here – continues to display his staunch support for Israel.

Tony Abbott yesterday accused Labor of weakening the bipartisanship on Israel.

The Opposition Leader voewd a government led by him would never “overreact” to international incidents and said the Coalition’s support for Israel was “unshakeable”.

“Of course, the Israeli government from time to time makes mistakes — what government doesn’t from time to time make mistakes? — but Australians should appreciate that a diminished Israel diminishes the West; it diminishes us,” Mr Abbott said.

“I have to say it’s a little disappointing, given the deep affinity between the Australian people and the Israeli people, that the current Australian government has somewhat weakened our long-standing bipartisanship on Israel.”

Mr Abbott appeared to be referring to Labor’s expulsion of the Mossad station chief in retaliation for the Israeli intelligence agency’s use of counterfeit Australian passports in the Dubai assassination of Hamas leader Mahmoud al-Mabhouh in January.

He said a Coalition government would never support a one-sided UN resolution against Israel.

6:15PM: It has been released for publication that the IDF and Shin Bet  have arrested a cell of Hamasholes behind a shooting attack last month which killed policeman Shuki Sofer.

But we obviously had it coming.

One of the cell’s heads said in his interrogation that just two weeks before he embarked on the attack, his six-year-old daughter was hospitalized in Hadassah Medical Center in Jerusalem, where she had a tumor removed from her eye. The operation was funded by an Israeli organization. (YNET)

Walla reports that some of the terrorists in the cell were released from Israeli prisons just weeks before the terror attack.

They were clearly driven to despair by all of our goodwill gestures.

3:50PM: This next video brings forward many points I have raised on this blog before.

9:56AM: Yet another report that Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak has one foot in the grave, and one on a banana skin.

Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak is terminally ill, according to US and other Western intelligence agencies, The Washington Times reported on Monday.

Most Western intelligence agencies were said to have estimated that the Egyptian president is dying from terminal cancer in his stomach and pancreas. Earlier this month, Mubarak was reportedly treated in a hospital in France, and in March his gallbladder was operated on in Germany.

A Central European intelligence officer told The Washington Times that Mubarak will probably die within a year, before Egyptian presidential elections in September 2011.

“When I was in Cairo in May, it was interesting. People were mellow about the prospect of him being ill. Everyone understood the end was near; the estimates were 12 to 18 months,” Steven Cook, an Egyptian-affairs specialist at the Council on Foreign Relations, said to The Washington Times.

A senior US intelligence officer said: “We have access to, for lack of a better word, his court. We know he is dying, but we don’t know when he will die. You can be dying for a long time, by the way. Look at [former Cuban President Fidel] Castro.”

Sources told The Washington Times that the National Intelligence Council and the US Central Command are reportedly analyzing possible situations and power transitions after Mubarak’s death.

However, State Department spokesman, P.J. Crowley said in a briefing that “no one is looking past Mubarak. He is still the president of Egypt, and we rely on him and his government for the critical role they play in security and stability in the Middle East.”

22 thoughts on “The Day In Israel: Monday July 19th, 2010”

    1. Its amazing to me that not once was it mentioned in the video how we all support Iran when we use oil. Sanctions are meaningless when we send Iran money every time we fill our tanks.

      Stan

      1. It's totally possible not to use Arab oil – and there are websites that list the companies to buy from who get their oil from non-Arab sources.

  1. Michael Zvi Krumbein

    I just read a heart-wrenching article, about a young married woman who was in the "border guard" during the Gaza "disengangement", and is still haunted by what she did.

    At first she tried to be humane. She didn't touch any of the kids who told her not to, and she coaxed a six-year-old girl until she had the strength to leave her home. Then all of the girls (soldiers) went under a tree, emotionally drained.

    That was it. After that, she says, she was just a robot, dragging out whomever. The regulations (men remove men, women remove women) were ignored. Now she is a young, religious, wife and mother, still bearing the burden of her past.

    So, even if this is a good idea, ladies and gentlemen, shall we turn our soldiers, male and female, into Kapos?

    Maybe all of those journalists and "artists" and "human rights activists", who struggle to dehumanize and demonize our "settlers" should be made to do the dirty work. Some of them might even enjoy it.

    "He who is merciful to the cruel, will in the end be cruel to the merciful."

      1. Michael Zvi Krumbein

        B'sheva. It's not a party paper, and so doesn't have the anti-chareidi component, even though they blew the Emmanuel thing. Besides, it's free. 🙂

  2. Jim from Iowa

    This video on the "unauthentic" nature of the Palestinians uses arguments that are old and tired. Because someone was born in Cairo, Egypt makes it impossible for that person to identify as a Palestinian? Does this also mean that a Jew born in Perth, Australia will always be an Australian and can never be considered an authentic Israeli?

    1. Michael Zvi Krumbein

      If he lives here. At least one of my Arab / Druze co-workers concedes his progenitors came from elsewhere, but he is certainly an Israeli. Besides, any Jew born here is also a Palestinian.

      1. Michael Zvi Krumbein

        Oh, I see what you mean. But since they claim we are NOT Palestinians, then they can't claim the right because they moved here.

  3. Arafat was an Egyptian. He was recruited by the USSR and Nassar to begin a terror organization to both destabilize the Me and to damage the US. When did Arafat become a Palestinian. Arafat was a muslim not a jew.. Please dont forget that a palestinian is a jew. there are no Arab palestinians. those arabs were egyptian lebanese, Yemeni, Iraqi, Libyan, Saudi, Syrian,etc. Dave immigrated to and became a citizen of Israel. Arafat was an egyptian until he died and carried an egyptian passport.

    On an aside, Arabs are shooting rockets again into Israel according to Fox. Could this be confirmed

    1. Jim from Iowa

      I'm no fan of Arafat either. He was a murderous thug and terrorist. Good riddance to him. But your logic escapes me. Does denying the authenticity of self-identified Palestinians really help make the case for Israel? Obviously Dave applied for Israeli citizenship because there is a state of Israel to become a citizen of. If Palestine was a country then Palestinians would become citizens of that country.

      1. It's not a question of citizenship, but of one's ethnic/cultural/religious self-identification. If I identify myself as a Jew, I thereby automatically believe to have descended from a people that originated in Judea, on the basis of my family's history, religious practices, etc. Analogously, an Arab living in Egypt can identify himself as a Palestinian if his ancestors' history, religious and cultural practices, etc indicate that they came from Palestine AND also identified themselves as Palestinians, i.e. distinguished themselves from their neighbors. Did Arafat have any basis for such a claim?

        1. Jim, the Jewish people are indigenous to Israel – we may live other places, but we techinically come from Israel. I once heard Prof. George Lencowski, emertius of UC Berkeley, speak about his days as an attache to the Polish embassy in Palestine. Thought no lover of Zion, he made it clear that prior to 1948, when you refered to Paletinians, you were referring to Jews. Not Arabs. Does that mean Arabs didn't live there – no. it means they did not have the same national identity as Palestinians – there were Arabs, which was all the national identity they needed then. If they became referring to themselves as Palestinians in the 1960s, then you know something's wrong with their narrative.

          1. One thing more. The Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan was originally part of the Mandate of Palestine. The royal family there was imposed on the residents by the British after the Saudis had kicked them out of western Arabia. The Arabs living in Jordan can rightfully call themselves Palestinian, and it is hardly a stretch to opine that a two-state solution already exists.

            1. Further both the Brits and French used the same minority tribe to bequeath leadership status on the Jordanian and Syrian govts Assad was also a member of that Allewaite tribe

      2. The whole purpose of "palASStine" is to delegitimize Israel. First they tried riots, then they tried wars. Neither worked, so they realized if they created a legendary country that could be corroborated by maps (Thank you Hadrian) going back for 19 centuries, they would suddenly gain a lot of legitimacy and make it look like their land was taken out from under them.

        If Israel was never recreated, there would be no "palestine". If Israel shut down tomorrow, there would be no "palestine".

Leave a Comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Scroll to Top