Today was the day many of us dreaded. Tension has been building all week since the murder of two Israeli police officers and the liquidation of their Palestinian attackers at the Haram al Sharif. Israel’s immediate response to seal off the entire Old City for three days along with the Muslim holy sites, and then reopen them with metal detectors and surveillance cameras, was a gross overreaction. Predictably, Palestinian Muslims refused to accept this unilateral shift in the status quo by Israel. They reacted with defiance and refused to re-enter the Haram al Sharif under the conditions set by Israeli security authorities. So began a stand0ff that lasted all week till today.
At Friday prayers in Jerusalem, the fuse was lit and exploded. As tens of thousands of Muslims made their pilgrimage to the holy city to worship, thousands of Israeli police and five brigades of IDF troops were waiting to meet them. As soon as the prayers ended, the worshippers arose and began chanting “Allahu Akbar” and other defiant chants. That was all the Israelis needed to begin their counter-offensive. They charged into the masses of Palestinian congregants and unleashed tear gas, batons and even live ammunition. One protester was killed during these clashes, another died in a separate incident in Jerusalem, and a third died in the West Bank.
Palestinians also shot photos of Israeli stormtroopers forcing entry into East Jerusalem’s hospital where they sought to kidnap the bodies of the dead. In doing so, they hold the body ransom in a sense, forbidding the mourning family to erect the traditional mourning tent and hold the traditional public funeral at which nationalist slogans are chanted. If the family agrees, then Israel returns the body (but usually demands a nighttime burial so as to avoid stoking popular rage). If not, it refuses to return it until the family relents. The goal is to suppress Palestinian anger by disappearing the bodies of those killed by Israeli forces. As a result, Palestinians have become adept at spiriting the dead out of the hospital so they may be quickly buried (and not fall into the hands of the Israelis).
Video shot by Palestinians in the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Ras al-Amud clearly shows an armed settler (see accompanying still photo) firing a rifle directly into a crowd of Palestinian demonstrators. Maan declares the Palestinian who died in Ras al-Amud was killed during this time period and likely by this same settler. Still photos clearly show his face and the gun in his hands. An informed Israeli source tells me the security services are investigating the incident. Given the history of impunity settlers enjoy, we will have to wait to see if the alleged killer is questioned or charged. The odds, in this climate, are highly against it.
The Israeli government response to the Palestinian uprising has been predictably rigid and unyielding. Led by the police chief, former deputy Shin Bet head Roni Alsheikh and security minister, Gilad Erdan, they have put forth an implacable response. No compromise, no surrender. The metal detectors and spy cameras remain. Meet prayer with night sticks, chants with guns. Netanyahu has allowed them to take the lead. The informed source I mentioned suggested that the Shin Bet is not in agreement and has suggested climbing down from the high branch the police are perched on perilously. He told me before today’s murder of three Israeli settlers: “”I’m sure – 101% – this will soon lead to deadly terror attacks.”
Later in the evening, a Palestinian infiltrated the West Bank settlement of Halamish and stabbed a father and his two adult children to death as they ate a Shabbat meal. The attacker, from the nearby village of Khobar, was later shot and wounded. Israeli forces were preparing to demolish his family’s home. Of course, they will never demolish the stolen home from which the Jewish settler launched his murderous attack, just as the Supreme Court refused to demolish the home of the settler who burned the Dawabsheh home to the ground, murdering a father, mother and baby.
You want to talk about apartheid? This is apartheid justice. Justice (if you call it that–I’d call it state-sanctioned vigilantism) for Jews, nothing for Palestinians. That’s apartheid.
“Allah who Akbar”? No, you need to fix that! 😉
Elisabeth: Ugh, I inadvertently Hebraized it! Sorry! Now corrected.
No you did not Hebraize it because there are two seemingly corresponding words in Hebrew. ‘akhbar with an ע which means mouse and kabir כביר which means strong, elevated.
So in Arabic it simply translated that Allah is great/elevated.
The addition of aleph/alif א/ا in Arabic in the beginning of a word does not exist in Hebrew.
This seeming onomatopoeia gave us much mirth as immature kids but is offensive to Moslems.
Allahu akbar (اللهُ أَكْبَر) does not mean “Allah is great”, that would be ‘kabir’, akbar is an elative/comparative so the translation is “God is greater (than) ….” and this is crucial for understanding the meaning of the sentence.
@ shaul: Without knowing any Arabic (which I’d venture to say you don’t either), I’d venture to say you’ve made a bollocks of things. Why don’t you stick to explaining your own native language and leave Arabic to others. When I said I Hebraized the saying I only meant that I separated the Allahu into “Allah” and “who.” Who in Hebrew means “he” or “he is.” That’s all I meant.
The Palestinians started this latest violent spasm after they carefully and deliberately smuggled weapons into the Haram al Sharif, and assassinated two policemen in cold blood.
Obviously that site had to be shut down in order to search for any more hidden weapons. Obviously metal detectors would be needed to prevent a recurrence. A child can understand this.
The first and second intifada came and went. The knife intifada came and went. This latest bloodshed will end. Meanwhile, Jewish babies are born in Israel ever day, and homes are being built and jobs created.
Richard. The Jewish State of Israel will exist long after you and I are dead, buried and forgotten.
You are so disgusting with your “Jewish babies”, and you have no idea why. Racist to the core.
Pls tell us what the disgust is.
Maybe you don’t like or have children?
@ shaul: I do not appreciate commenters invading the personal privacy of others. Do not ask such questions or make any implications about the personal life of other commenters. You have no right to ask such a question.
But if you don’t understand why someone who writes as if she’s a Jewish settler is offensive in boasting about making Jewish babies, while implying that they will swamp the making of non-Jewish babies–then you’re as bad as she is.
Sorry but I don’t understand the disgust.
It seems she [Anya]was including the entire Jewish population and you seem to know where and who she as but I am not privy to that info.
@ shaul: Hasbarists do not need to rise from the stands & cheer for their fellow hasbarists here. They don’t need to defend or explain their comments. So don’t do it.
Shaul, you I don’t understand the disgust? Really? Excluding the entire non-Jewish population comes naturally to your Apartheid mind?
Shaul, are babies a nationalist product to you? If so, you disgust me equally. You and Anya do not like children, you just count them.
” Excluding the entire non-Jewish population comes naturally to your Apartheid mind?”
To call Israel apartheid is absurd. It is just another way of demeaning the country. Have you ever been to Israel? I have daily contact with Arabs and there is no friction.
There are Arabs {mostly Christian} who live in my city and the outskirts and no one bothers them and they send their children to Israeli schools on an equal basis.
On the the other hand no Jew can live in an Arab town and I have known of cases where Jews have been told if they buy they will be killed. So who is actually practising ‘virtual apartheid’?
“Shaul, are babies a nationalist product to you? If so, you disgust me equally. You and Anya do not like children, you just count them.”
I think you misread/interpret because of your innate bias towards Israel. Since the inception of Zionism there has always been a demographic push for more Jews to either come here or to have more children. Do you call that a ‘national product’?
It has actually been the Muslim world that has stated a multitude of times they they will conquer thru the womb of the Arab women. It is now happening in Eurabia where in most countries the birth rate for couples is -2 which means the Europeans are slowly disappearing. From what I remember you are Dutch. What is the most popular boy’s name in the Netherlands.?…….Muhammed.
So I reject your statements and also ask.. Have you ever said anything good about Israel? There must be something good here, no?
@ shaul:
No it isn’t absurd. It’s quite apt. And Israel is being demeaned because it is an apartheid state. It’s quite easy for a Jew enjoying all the privileges of Jewishness in his Jewish supremacist state to protest there is no apartheid. But you don’t set the rules. Those who suffer get to tell us what they think and the vast majority of the victims say you’re apartheid.
I just pointed out Anya’s feeble Hasbara 463 Gambit & you go and try the same trick on us. You have daily contact with Arabs and you don’t feel any friction. Wow, that decides the matter. Tell it to the tens of thousands of Palestinians (many of them citizens of your own country) who are felling an awful lot of “friction” about now. Are all of them your pals too?
Not to mention your individual anecdotal experience, even if we could credit it as accurate (we can’t), means absolutely 0.
That’s a lie you moron. There are Jews living in Ramallah for chrissakes! Nor can you prove there are no Jews living in Israeli Palestinian towns. I’d venture to say you’re wrong about that too. But even if you are right (& I doubt that greatly) the likely reason is that that Jews don’t choose to live in communities which have far worse services & standard of living than Jewish ones.
“I have known cases where…” One of the more laughable hasbara ploys. You have known? What have you known and through whom? Cases? Which cases? I’ve known cases where the moon is made of green cheese.
That’s how credible your claim is.
No, no, no. Fella, that’s not the way it works around here. You don’t spew such nonsense with impunity. You make a claim that someone harbors “innate bias” against Israel. You prove the claim. In this case your claim is a lie. So you don’t get to make it. And if you stray into this sort of territory again you’ll be history.
That may’ve been true once. But it is hardly true any longer. If it was still true, all Jews would have many children (aside from ultra Orthodox Jews, who are a different story entirely). But they don’t. So old fashioned Zionism doesn’t work like that any more.
Now the “Jewish baby” commmenter is likely an Orthodox settler. They do indeed harbor Jewish supremacist views and would celebrate Jewish babies because they view this as a battle to the death with the other side for demographic and political supremacy. But most Israelis realize that babies are not weapons in war. They’re fragile vulnerable humans who deserve not to be tools of a national battle as you and she have painted them.
Where have you been reading such swill? In Debka? Or Arutz Sheva? And even if this is true (which I do not concede) it’s a direct response to the Israeli Jewish chauvinist perspective which turns Jewish babies in demographic weapons.
Whoa, no, no, no. Eurabia?? That’s the way you want to play this game? Sorry bub. This shit doesn’t happen in my blog. You’re banned. I refuse to permit such Islamophobia. But I’m glad you showed your true colors. I only wish you’d done it sooner so I could’ve banned you earlier.
With haters like you representing Israel, why should she? You are the worst advertisement for the worst Israel has to offer.
BTW, they’re calling your Ben Gurion flight for departure. Have a nice flight & please tell your replacement to do better here than you did. It’s embarrassing.
Look, I do not know what kind of Neo-Nazi panic sites (‘Eurabia’ etc.) you frequent, but pls get your facts straight:
Most popular baby names for boys in 2017 in the Netherlands:
1. Daan
2. Bram
3. Noah
4. Luuk
5. Levi
6. Jesse
7. Finn
8. Lucas
9. Sem
10. Liam
11. Milan
12. Thijs
13. Max
14. Adam
15. Lars
16. Sam
17. Mats
18. James
19. Luca
20. Tim
For 2016:
1. Daan
2. Noah
3. Sem
4. Lucas
5. Jesse
6. Finn
7. Milan
8. Max
9. Levi
10. Luuk
11. Bram
12. Mees
13. Liam
14. Thijs
15. Adam
16. Sam
17. Thomas
18. Ruben
19. Julian
20. Lars
For 2015
1. Liam
2. Sem
3. Lucas
4. Luuk
5. Noah
6. Milan
7. Daan
8. Levi
9. Finn
10. Jesse
11. Max
12. Thomas
13. Bram
14. Thijs
15. Sam
16. Tim
17. Lars
18. Ruben
19. Julian
20. Adam
etc.
Daan (< Daniel), Bram (< Abraham), Sam (< Samuel), Noah, Levi, Sem, Adam, Ruben… Almost half of the top 20 are Jewish names. Care to comment?
It may exist. But it will be full of messianic nutjobs and bloodthirsty soldiers. The soul of the Jewish people is getting crushed and twisted under a security state. The land isnt worth what it is costing us to hold it.
@ Anya: “The Palestinians” no more started the al Aqsa violence than “Israelis” burned down the Church of Loaves & Fishes. Now, if you want to blame all Palestinians for the actions of three Israeli citizens, I’m all for it…as long as you blame all Israelis for every killing of an unarmed Palestinian civilian, etc.
Then why was the entire Old City sealed shut for three days? Were they searching every street and every Palestinian home there? No, they weren’t. It was entirely punitive.
Hey babe. I ain’t a child and I neither “understand” it nor accept it. Muslims feel even more strongly than I do. Why aren’t you asking how Israeli security permitted a Palestinian to smuggle weapons into the Haram al Sharif instead of calling all of us “children.”
I find this Jewish cheerleading & exceptionalism to be racist and offensive.
Israel ceased to exist two millenia ago and wasn’t restored until 65 years ago. Your certainty is not only misguided and ahistorical, it’s inane.
@Elisabeth
Some of the finest human beings I’ve ever met in my life were Muslims. One of the dearest friends I ever had in my life is an Arab Christian.
You haven’t insulted me. You can’t.
But don’t stop trying!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rm81LSKJC2k
@ Anya:
Amazing, she’s using Hasbara Gambit 436: the one claiming ‘some of my dearest friends are Muslims, so I can’t possibly be what I am: a Palestine hater.’ A tired hoary old trick. Tried here by others so many times it’s pathetically repetitive. Do they teach them all this set of tricks?? And don’t they keep track of who’s tried to use it here before??
[comment rule violation: don’t repeat things you’ve previously written. It is boring & repetitive.]
Anya, you are a pathological liar, who has posed here as a member of B’Tselem, Breaking the Silence, as an old lady etc. There is zero ground to believe any of your statements as to your ‘best friends’. (Your infantile style, such as your routine to post dumb little vids, as above, always betrays you.)
If what you claim here were true, and if you had such great friends, it is only the more shocking that you only care about the production of JEWISH babies. But that may be too hard for you to understand.
PS: I have fed Jews in my home! Fact! Fact! Fact! (You are really hilarious.)
[comment deleted: comments must contain an argument or idea. Do not post links to YouTube as the entire substance of a comment. And do not comment again in this thread.]
There is no need to believe anything your latest persona claims, Barbar. You turn up again and again lying about who you are, and you expect me to get all teary eyed over your imaginary friends? (Funny, how you still don’t seem to care about the non-Jewish babies of these wonderful people.)
The one word that screams from this article is not “apartheid” but “eisegesis” the practice of bringing one’s bias then finding specious “facts” to support it/them”.
It is shameful to condense the Middle Eastern conflict vis-à-vis Palestine/Israel into the superficially cute emotive pomo aphorism of “apartheid”.
There is much hatred and discrimination of Jew against Arab, and Arab against Jew but to single out the modern Jewish state (for acts that occur in other parts of the region in much more inflated forms go un-noticed and un-reported by the author of this blog) is myopic.
cui bono?
@ gefulla-s(&t:
There is nothing cute, emotive or aphoristic about the term apartheid. It’s a perfectly apt historical reference with current connotations to Israel’s treatement of Palestinians both inside Israel and in the Occupied Territories.
I’m OK with you calling Israel a “Jewish state” if you add an additional term like “theocratic” or “supremacist” or “exclusivist” state. Because you can’t have a Jewish state when you have 1 million non Jewish citizens unless it is going to privilege Jews and treat Palestinians like dirt (aka apartheid).
There is nothing “myopic” about this. It’s 20-20 vision.
It is only apropos in as far as one can construe and conflate the situation there through the lens of one’s own bias (bias which I am aware I also have).
I am also OK with calling Israel a Jewish state and can accede to your request to your aforementioned additional terms, if you can apply your adjectives to surrounding (and other world) states which prefix their country and/or state names with religious designation (not Jewish) and have policies that are detrimental to those (in their midst) not defined under that designation (of which you will find quite a few in this world).
@ gefulla-s(&t: I have no idea what this comment is supposed to mean nor do I much care. You’re done in this thread. And remember hasbara brigade members only get three comments in any 24 hour period. Do not publish more than that here.
Are there different rules for different people depend on their opinion?
@ James: The rules are clearly stated in the Comment Rules section. Read them and respect them and you’ll have no problem.
I would also like to call you out on your offensive “changing my nickname” practice when I posted here (and in the past). One, which if it were to be directed towards you, would certainly raise your ire and possibly your blocking prerogative, please practice what you preach.
The stabber is a hero..I wish more people were passionate enough to trade their life for a cause. And of course no condemnation for the horrible “Jews” who moved their children to the front line of a war into enemy territory. What kind of parents would do that?
I do not accept the celebration of death or murder whether on the Israeli or Palestinian side. Do not do this again or your comment privileges may be restricted.