WEDNESDAY’S “NEWS IN REVIEW” ROUND-UP

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Contents: |  Weekly Quotes |  Short Takes   |  On Topic Links

 

On Topic Links

 

Wanted: A Palestinian Leader Who Builds Bridges, Not Burns Them: Abraham Cooper & Yitzchok Adlerstein, Algemeiner, Oct. 13, 2015

Turkey is the Next Failed State in the Middle East: David P. Goldman, Middle East Forum, Oct. 10, 2015

The One-Minute Guide to Obama’s Foreign Policy: Daniel Pipes, National Review, Oct. 13, 2015
 

“An Arab boy critically wounds a Jewish boy, and after the security forces stop him so that he cannot continue with his stabbing spree, he is turned into a martyr who was supposedly executed, having done no wrong.” — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Four attacks by Palestinians in Jerusalem and a city 40 miles away killed three Israeli Jews and wounded at least a dozen others on Tuesday. The outbreak of violence came after four stabbing attacks on Monday in Jerusalem, including one in which a 13-year-old Jew riding his bicycle was critically wounded by two Palestinian cousins, 13 and 15. The younger assailant was hit by a car and severely hurt as he tried to flee, the police said, while the older one was fatally shot by officers. Nabil Abu Rudeineh, spokesman for President Abbas, called the killing of the 15-year-old a “heinous crime” and compared it to an episode widely seen as having helped incite the second Palestinian intifada in 2000. (New York Times, Oct. 13, 2015)

 

“We are calling for the strengthening and increasing of the intifada… It is the only path that will lead to liberation…Gaza will fulfill its role in the Jerusalem intifada and it is more than ready for confrontation.” —Ismail Haniyeh, Hamas’s chief in Gaza. Gaza has been the site of three wars with Israel since 2008, but it has remained mainly calm amid the recent unrest in Israel and the West Bank. However, a march of about 300 people on Friday near the border with Israel in the northern Gaza Strip saw youths throw stones toward Israeli soldiers on the other side of the frontier, who responded and caused two injuries, Gazan rescue services said. (Times of Israel, Oct. 9, 2015) 

 

“The significant question is why so many Palestinians have been seized by their present blood lust—by a communal psychosis in which plunging knives into the necks of Jewish women, children, soldiers and civilians is seen as a religious and patriotic duty, a moral fulfillment. Despair at the state of the peace process, or the economy? Please. It’s time to stop furnishing Palestinians with the excuses they barely bother making for themselves.” — Bret Stephens (Wall Street Journal, Oct. 12, 2015)

 

“There’s a viral nature to these attacks: One person goes out, they get killed, then they get glorified, it makes other people want to go out…You have a significant number of people who are willing to basically commit suicide attacks; they just don’t have access to sophisticated weapons.” — Daniel Nisman, president of the Levantine Group, an Israeli security analysis firm. Fourteen of 23 alleged assailants since October 3rd were 20 or younger, and one was just 13, according to a Levantine Group compilation of police reports. At least 16 of the 23 are from East Jerusalem, where the Palestinian Authority has no presence. (New York Times, Oct. 14, 2015)

 

“What we see now is like an octopus with many hands but no brain…You don’t need something sophisticated. We’re talking about 15-year-old boys. You just write the word ‘it’an,’ stab in Arabic, and then whoever has a knife in his house and wants to go, that’s it.” Orit Perlov, an expert on Arab social media at the Institute for National Security Studies. (New York Times, Oct. 14, 2015)

 

“We have patients of all kinds coming in. It doesn’t matter who they are. We treat them all…It’s surreal, but that is the way we are. Jews and Arabs mingle and shop at each other’s stores and work at each other’s businesses and they lie at the hospital together.” — Daniel Weiss, the chief resident of surgery at Hadassah Medical Center, Jerusalem’s largest emergency ward. The Center prides itself on checking politics at the door and treating Palestinian attackers and Jewish victims alike. (Times of Israel, Oct. 13, 2015)

 

“I’m the first one to acknowledge it has not worked the way it was supposed to…A part of the reason, frankly, is because when we tried to get them to just focus on ISIL, the response we get back is, ‘How can we focus on ISIL when, every single day, we’re having barrel bombs and attacks from the regime?’ ” — U.S. President Barack Obama. Obama’s administration scrapped its costly but ineffective scheme to recruit, train and equip Syrians keen to fight Islamic State (I.S.) on Friday, admitting that hundreds of millions spent and years of effort had failed to put more than a handful of “boots on the ground.” (Globe & Mail, Oct. 9, 2015) 

 

“The work we’ve done with the Kurds in northern Syria is an example of an effective approach…That’s exactly the kind of example that we would like to pursue with other groups in other parts of Syria going forward.” —U.S. Defense Secretary Ash Carter. Officially the $500-million (U.S.) train-and-equip scheme, which put only a few dozen fighters in action, has been only “paused,” but senior officials admitted the basic strategy has been scrapped. No longer will the U.S. seek to individually recruit, vet, train and equip supposedly moderate, secular, democratically inclined fighters who are willing to agree to combat I.S. Instead, the Pentagon will seek to back existing rebel groups such as the Kurds who – with the help of U.S. air strikes – retook the border city of Kobani from I.S. earlier this year. (Globe & Mail, Oct. 9, 2015) 

 

“The Russian actions are extraordinarily counterproductive…Russia is targeting opponents of the Assad regime who are not extremists.” —Ben Rhodes, Obama’s deputy national security adviser. Even as they were admitting failure, the U.S. officials were heaping scorn on the newly launched Russian air war in concert with thousands of Syrian troops loyal to the Assad regime. Scrapping the effort to recruit a fighting force focused solely on battling I.S., in the middle of the far larger Syrian civil war that has now killed more than 250,000 and driven more than 11 million people from their homes, was the latest setback for Obama’s broader war strategy. (Globe & Mail, Oct. 9, 2015) 

 

“We are in constant dialogue and assessing the situation with Turkey, but the main thing is we have a duty to reinforce.” — NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg. NATO is prepared to step up support for Turkey and warned Russia against escalating its campaign in neighboring Syria, as U.S. officials said some Russian missiles intended to hit Syrian rebels fell short, landing in Iran. The events underscored the worsening of regional tensions as Russia flexed its muscles in its first military campaign outside the former Soviet Union in three decades. (Bloomberg, Oct. 9, 2015)

 

“The resolve of the entire group is … to address both the southern front and the eastern front simultaneously…From the Kamchatka Peninsula in the Pacific, through South Asia, into the Caucasus, and around to the Baltics, Russia has continued to wrap itself in a shroud of isolation. Only the Kremlin can decide to change that.” —  U.S. Secretary of Defence Ashton Carter. Carter referred to the Syrian-Turkish border as a second “front” in a growing conflict with Russia. Carter said Russia’s strategy of supporting Assad’s forces was “a fundamental strategic mistake” and predicted it would come at a high cost. “This will have consequences for Russia itself, which is rightfully fearful of attacks upon Russia. And I also expect that in the coming days, the Russians will begin to suffer casualties in Syria,” Carter said. (Globe & Mail, Oct. 8, 2015)

 

“Since…Obama backs down and backs down and backs down and backs down, it is virtually certain, from Russia’s point of view, that Obama’s not going to stand up to them, so they have plenty of leeway to use force…Russia is an empire and has long believed that it ought to be extended enough to the Mediterranean that it has a warm water port. It now has that in Syria.” — Former CIA director James Woolsey. From airstrips in Syria and warships in the Caspian Sea, Russia has conducted more than 100 missile strikes since Sept. 30, and while Moscow claims it is targeting I.S. and al-Qaida, it has also bombed insurgent forces fighting against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, including those that make up the Free Syrian Army. (National Post, Oct. 12, 2015)

 

“The original people, the Palestinians — and please remember, Jesus was a Palestinian — the Palestinian people have had the Europeans come and take their country,” — Rev. Jeremiah Wright, at a rally in Washington on the 20th anniversary of the Million Man March. Wright, who is President Obama’s former pastor, also called Israel an “apartheid state” and said Israelis “illegally occupied territories as they take the people whose countries it is and make it their because their God told them that they could have somebody else’s country.” Then he delivered his conclusion “The youth in Ferguson and the youth in Palestine have united together to remind us that the dots need to be connected …Palestinians to have a fight just like the fight we are having here trying to get people to understand that black lives matter, Palestinians are saying that Palestinian lives matter.” (Breaking Israel News, Oct. 13, 2015)

 

“Jews have no forgiveness in them…Find me a Jew who forgives Hitler…And they say they’re the children of God, and they don’t have no forgiveness in them.” — Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan, in his two-hour speech at the rally in Washington. (Breaking Israel News, Oct. 13, 2015)

Contents

THREE KILLED, OVER TWENTY INJURED AS TERROR ATTACKS ROCK JERUSALEM, RA’ANANA (Jerusalem) — Two separate attacks hit Jerusalem on Tuesday morning, when two Arab men attempted to stab passengers on a bus before being shot and a car rammed into a group of people in the center of the capital. In a separate incident minutes earlier, two male passengers were killed — a 60-year-old who died at the scene, and a 45-year-old who died in the hospital — and three others suffered gunshot wounds in a combined shooting and stabbing attack on a bus in southern Jerusalem. Two assailants were involved in attack, and were shot and subdued by police. In Ra’anana, a man stabbed four people with a knife. (Times of Israel, Oct. 13, 2015)

 

ISRAEL DEPLOYS HUNDREDS OF SOLDIERS IN JERUSALEM (Jerusalem) — Six companies of Israeli soldiers were mobilized in Jerusalem Wednesday, as the IDF joined efforts to secure the city following an escalation in the violence there. The move is part of a slew of measures passed by the security cabinet overnight Tuesday aiming to prevent further terror attacks after the deadliest day so far in the current wave of unrest. In an effort to prevent terror attacks emanating from East Jerusalem — all five of Tuesday’s attackers hailed from Arab neighborhoods there — the security cabinet also voted to allow a lockdown on several Arab neighborhoods. (Times of Israel, Oct. 14, 2015) 

 

TURKEY FOCUSES ON I.S. AS SOURCE OF BOMBING (Ankara) — Turkey’s premier said Monday that I.S. is the prime suspect in the country’s deadliest terrorist attack, while opposition parties and protesters blamed the government in a sign of deepening divides tearing at the nation before critical November elections. Authorities are close to identifying the two suicide bombers who struck a peace rally in Ankara on Saturday, the government said two days after twin blasts in the capital killed at least 97 people, wounded hundreds and left scores in critical condition. (Wall Street Journal, Oct. 12, 2015)

 

IN SYRIA, I.S. ADVANCES ON ALEPPO DESPITE RUSSIA AIRSTRIKES (Aleppo) — I.S. fighters advanced Friday on Syria’s second city Aleppo, despite Russian air strikes that Moscow says are aimed at routing the jihadists. The I.S. gains came as regime forces, backed by Russian bombing and fighters from Hezbollah, intensified an offensive against rebels in the northwest, where I.S. is absent. Western governments say the vast majority of Russian strikes have targeted rebel groups other than I.S. in a bid to defend Assad’s rule. The jihadists are now just 10 kilometers from northern edges of Aleppo, edging closer to the front line where pro-regime forces are positioned. (Times of Israel, Oct. 9, 2015)  

 

SENIOR IRANIAN REVOLUTIONARY GUARDS GENERAL KILLED IN SYRIA (Damascus) —  An Iranian Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) general has been killed near Aleppo while advising the Syrian army on their battle against I.S. fighters. The Guards said General Hossein Hamedani was killed on Thursday and that he had “played an important role … reinforcing the front of Islamic resistance against the terrorists”.  Iran is the main regional ally of the Syrian President and has provided military and economic support during Syria’s four-year-old civil war. Hamedani, a veteran of the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war, was made deputy chief commander of the elite forces in 2005. (Telegraph, Oct. 9, 2015)

 

IRAN SET TO PUT NUCLEAR DEAL IN MOTION AFTER RATIFICATION (Tehran) — The final step for Iran to start carrying out the nuclear agreement was completed on Wednesday, after an oversight panel ratified the bill passed by Parliament supporting the deal with six world powers. The ratification by the veto-wielding panel, the 12-member Guardian Council, made within 36 hours after the Parliament accepted the details of the agreement, now clears the way for the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran to start dismantling thousands of centrifuges and redesign a heavy water reactor into a much less a dangerous light water reactor. In exchange, as soon as the International Atomic Energy Agency verifies the steps, sanctions against Iran will be lifted. (New York Times, Oct. 14, 2015)

 

IRAN TESTS NEW LONG-RANGE MISSILE (Tehran) — Iran announced Sunday it had successfully tested a new domestically produced long-range missile, which it said was the first that could be guided all the way to targets. The defense ministry posted pictures of the launch of the missile, named Imad, on its website but no details were given about its maximum range or other capabilities. The launch comes months after some Iranian officials voiced concern that the Islamic republic’s recent nuclear deal with world powers could place limits on its missile program. A United Nations Security Council resolution adapted a few days after the nuclear agreement bars Iran from developing missiles “designed to carry nuclear warheads.” (Times of Israel, Oct. 11, 2015)

 

THE MIDDLE EAST FORUM DEFEATS TEHRAN’S UNOFFICIAL D.C. LOBBY (Washington) — The Middle East Forum’s Legal Project announced a victory over Tehran’s unofficial American lobby, the National Iranian American Council (NIAC). The Legal Project helped fund the legal case that culminated in the U.S. Federal Court of Appeals upholding a $183,480.09 sanction penalty against NIAC. The sanctions arose from NIAC’s predatory defamation suit against Iranian-American blogger Hassan Daioleslam for his investigatory research exposing NIAC’s ties to the Iranian regime. That suit was dismissed with Legal Project assistance, after the U.S. District Court found that the work of NIAC president and founder Trita Parsi was “not inconsistent with the idea that he was first and foremost an advocate for the [Iranian] regime.” (Middle East Forum, Oct. 8, 2015)

 

RUSSIAN GANGS TRYING TO SELL RADIOACTIVE MATERIAL TO I.S. (Moscow) —  Moldovan police working with the FBI have disrupted a string of attempts by gangs in the former Soviet Republic to sell radioactive materials to Islamic extremists, including a putative deal to supply I.S. with enough caesium to contaminate several city blocks. No less than four such attempts by groups with suspected Russian connections have been interrupted in the past few years, the sellers repeatedly seeking out buyers who would use the radioactive products to target the U.S. The alarming findings, made in an AP investigation based on documents provided by Moldovan police, raises fresh concerns about unaccounted for materials taken from vast stockpiles of radioactive substances when the Soviet Union collapsed 24 years ago. (Telegraph, Oct. 7, 2015)

 

ASSASSINATION ATTEMPT IN TUNISIA HIGHLIGHTS MOUNTING CHALLENGES (Tunis) — Hours before the Norwegian Nobel Committee gave its highest-profile honor to a coalition of Tunisian groups that had helped ease the country’s path to democracy, unknown gunmen attacked a member of Tunisia’s Parliament, firing seven or eight shots at his car as he drove to work. The assailants missed their target. But the attack was an urgent reminder of the violence that still menaces Tunisia’s transition. Twice in the last two years, high-profile assassinations have thrown Tunisia into political crisis. This year, the country has also grappled with an unprecedented wave of jihadist violence, including two attacks on tourists that killed at least 60 people. (New York Times, Oct. 9, 2015) 

 

THREE WEEKS AFTER KIDNAPPING IN PHILIPPINES, VIDEO SURFACES OF CANADIANS BEING HELD (Manila) — A two-minute video posted online Tuesday shows the first images of four hostages, including two Canadians, since their abduction three weeks ago by the Islamist group Abu Sayyaf in the southern Philippines. About 11 gunmen captured John Ridsdel, 68; fellow Canadian Robert Hall, 50; Hall’s Filipino girlfriend and a Norwegian. In the video, black and white flags resembling those used by I.S. appear to hang in the background. Formed in the 1990s with funding from al-Qaida, Abu Sayyaf is a collection of autonomous gangs spread across the jungles of the Sulu Archipelago with no centralized leadership. (National Post, Oct. 13, 2015)

 

FAHMY BACK IN CANADA AFTER RELEASE FROM EGYPTIAN PRISON (Toronto) — Mohamed Fahmy, a Canadian journalist who was released from prison in Egypt last month, has returned home. Fahmy was arrested in 2013 with two Al-Jazeera colleagues. He was sentenced to three years in prison in a retrial this year for airing what a court described as “false news” and coverage biased in favour of the now-banned Muslim Brotherhood. The case was widely condemned. He and his Egyptian co-defendant, Baher Mohammed, received a presidential pardon last month. (Maclean’s, Oct. 12, 2015)

 

JERUSALEM COURT RULES SAYING “AM YISRAEL CHAI” PERMISSIBLE ON TEMPLE MOUNT (Jerusalem) — A Jerusalem Magistrates court has ruled that a Jewish visitor arrested for saying the phrase “Am Yisrael Chai” (“The nation of Israel lives”) on the Temple Mount was in violation of no laws and ordered his release from police custody. Itamar Ben Gvir was arrested for responding to a Muslim chanting “Allahu akbar” with “Am Yisrael Chai”. Israeli judges have upheld the Jewish right to prayer on the Temple Mount while allowing the Jordanian Waqf, which has de-facto rule over the site, to enforce its ban on non-Muslim prayer. (Breaking Isreal News, Oct. 7, 2015)

 

ISRAELI MOON MISSION HAS SECURED A LAUNCH CONTRACT FOR 2017 (Haifa) — The Israeli nonprofit SpaceIL announced that it has secured a verified launch contract for what it hopes will be the first private—and first Israeli—mission to achieve a soft landing on the moon. SpaceIL, the first of the 16 teams participating in the Google Lunar XPRIZE competition, held a press conference in Jerusalem, with Israeli President Reuven Rivlin and XPRIZE President Bob Weiss in attendance. The Google Lunar XPRIZE challenge asks teams to land a rover on the surface of the moon, travel 500 meters and send back high-definition videos and images. So far, only the U.S., the former Soviet Union and China achieved successful soft landings on the lunar surface. (Newsweek, Oct. 7, 2015)

 

NASA AND ISRAEL SIGN SPACE COOPERATION AGREEMENT (Haifa) — NASA and the Israel Space Agency (ISA) signed an agreement Tuesday to expand cooperation in civil space activities. The ISA expressed hope that Israel’s technology would play a key role in future missions to Mars. NASA first signed a cooperation agreements with Israel in 1996. That agreement paved the way for the training of the first Israeli astronaut, Ilan Ramon. Ramon trained for five years starting in 1998 in preparation for his mission on the Space Shuttle Columbia. The ill-fated flight — it tragically exploded upon reentry into the earth’s atmosphere on February 1, 2003, and all on board were killed — was Israel’s most famous foray into space. (Times of Israel, Oct. 14, 2015)

 

ISRAEL SINFIONETA BEERSHEBA ORCHESTRA MAKES HISTORY IN GERMANY (Berlin) — The Israel Sinfionetta Beersheba will make history today when it becomes the first Israeli ensemble to perform at the Reichstag in Berlin, home of the German parliament. The orchestra will share the stage with the Hamburg-based Philharmonie Der Nationen, with Justus Frantz on the conductor’s dais. Frantz also serves as artistic director of the Israel Sinfionetta Beersheba which will follow the Berlin date with concerts in Frankfurt, Hamburg and Wuppertal, together with Philharmonie Der Nationen, before returning to Israel. (Jerusalem Post, Oct. 14, 2015)

 

On Topic Links 

 

Rafah Cleric Brandishes Knife in Friday Sermon, Calls upon Palestinians to Stab Jews (Video): Memri, Oct. 9, 2015

Wanted: A Palestinian Leader Who Builds Bridges, Not Burns Them: Abraham Cooper & Yitzchok Adlerstein, Algemeiner, Oct. 13, 2015 —On October 3, Muhannad Halabi knifed his way onto the Palestinian top ten terrorist list. The Arab law student stabbed Rabbi Nehemiah Lavi, Aharon Bennett, and Bennett’s wife and two-year-old son in the Old City of Jerusalem. Only the latter two survived.

Turkey is the Next Failed State in the Middle East: David P. Goldman, Middle East Forum, Oct. 10, 2015 —We do not know just who detonated the two bombs that killed 95 Kurdish and allied activists in Ankara Saturday, but the least likely conjecture is that President Erdogan’s government is guiltless in the matter. As Turkish member of parliament Lutfu Turkkan tweeted after the bombing, the attack “was either a failure by the intelligence service, or it was done by the intelligence service.”

The One-Minute Guide to Obama’s Foreign Policy: Daniel Pipes, National Review, Oct. 13, 2015—We who follow U.S. foreign policy, and especially the Middle East, sometimes get asked whether Barack Obama is a community-organizing naïf way out of his depth or a brilliant ideologue who knows exactly what he is doing. Is he inept or purposeful? Does he see his foreign policy as a failure or a success?