• Amotz Asa-El offers a history of metal detectors and their use as a security device, given the key part they apparently played in the events of recent weeks in Jerusalem.
• Israeli academic Oded Eran proposes Israel suggest an international summit, chaired by the US and Jordan, and including the Saudis, Moroccans and the PA, to discuss security arrangements and freedom of worship on the Temple Mount.
• In contrast, former senior military officer Brigadier-General (Res.) Amir Avivi says the message of the Temple Mount outcome was “violence pays.”
• Palestinian politics expert Gaith Al-Omari says the result of the Temple Mount clash may look like a win for PA President Mahmoud Abbas, but may give rise to possibly severe future costs.
• Allegations Iran may have been involved in funding Temple Mount violence – here and here.
• Liel Leibowitz points out that, under the murderous math of the Palestinian Authority, the Palestinian youth who stabbed to death three members of a Jewish family in their home on July 21 will get a high monthly salary amounting to more than a million dollars over his likely 30 year sentence. More on this overall Palestinian “pay for slay” policy comes from columnist Julie Lenarz.
• Also, official Palestinian Authority TV presented the youth who carried out that attack murdering innocent civilians in their home as a “hero” who was compassionate because he supposedly did not kill the children who were also in the home (in fact, they were locked in a separate room and he was shot by a neighbour before he could attack them).
• Examples – here, here, here and here, of the incitement spread by the Palestinian Authority’s ruling Fatah party during the current unrest, assembled by Palestinian Media Watch. Moreover, that incitement still continued over the weekend, despite the removal of all Israeli security measures around the Mount.
• American columnist Cliff May takes on the refusal by many in the West to see the destructive nature of Al-Jazeera.  Plus, an Al-Jazeera reporter claims to have been abused by Israel soldiers – video shows he’s exaggerating a bit.
• Some examples from the many stories and comments now appearing at AIJAC’s daily “Fresh AIR” blog:
  • Sharyn Mittelman on Iran’s latest missile test – and how it relates to North Korea’s ICBM launch on the weekend.
  • Sharyn also had a piece in the Adelaide Advertiser online explaining why efforts in the South Australian paliament to call for recognising “Palestine” are a mistake.
  • AIJAC’s statement on the NSW ALP conference resolution on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict passed over the weeked.
  • Colin Rubenstein’s complete response to queries he received from the Guardian about claims made by Australian journalist John Lyons in his new book.

Article1

The Al-Aqsa Conspiracy Theory Redux

BACK TO TOP

Article 2

Erdogan, Haniyeh and Abbas are praying for an intifada

Ron Ben-Yishai

Ynet.com,  27.07.17 , 13:26

Analysis: The violent energy on the Palestinian street, the Islamist aspiration to ignite an intifada and the Palestinian president’s attempt to leverage the metal detectors crisis for diplomatic achievements require the Israeli government to use force, but to exercise restraint and avoid killing Palestinians. On the diplomatic level, Israel should enlist the US and EU to pressure Turkey, Hamas and Abbas, and launch a regular dialogue with the Waqf.

The Islamists who incited and ignited the metal detector crisis at the Temple Mount wanted an intifada. They haven’t given up their wish just yet. That’s the main reason the Waqf was preventing Muslim worshipers from returning to the Temple Mount until Thursday afternoon, although the Israeli government had already removed the metal detectors.

Muslim worshippers outside the Temple Mount (Photo: MCT)
 
One of these famous Islamists is Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who—like in the Marmara crisis—is leading the anti-Israeli religious incitement. He’s doing it in his speeches, but also behind the scenes.
 
Erdogan wants to be the leader of political Islam in the Middle East—in other words, the leader of all the Muslim Brotherhood movements, which both Hamas and Sheikh Raed Salah’s Islamic Movement in Israel are affiliated with. Preserving the conflict at the Temple Mount serves the Islamist-radical camp in the intra-Arab conflict between the moderate Sunni Arab states and Qatar, Turkey and the different Muslim Brotherhood movements. Hamas is one of these movements, and its supporters—together with Raed Salah’s people—are trying to maintain and leverage the violent energy that has accumulated on the Jerusalem-Palestinian street and in the Muslim world in general. Their goal is to turn this energy into a long intifada, which will encompass not only Jerusalem but also the territories and Israel’s Arabs, and will echo and be imitated in the Muslim world in general.
 
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas was also trying to leverage the negative energies and the rage that accumulated during the metal detector crisis. While the prevailing opinion is that Abbas is influenced by the masses in this crisis, there are many signs indicating that he is using the crisis for his own needs. He is trying to take advantage of the Islamist wave to advance what he refers to as “a diplomatic intifada” in the international arena. The goal of this intifada is to delegitimize the State of Israel, isolate it in the international arena and impose an agreement agreement which the Israeli government finds unacceptable through international pressure and sanctions.
 
Abbas isn’t hiding it. He’s saying it openly and even shooting himself in the foot by reducing the security cooperation with Israel. He isn’t cancelling it altogether because he knows that Hamas will bring him down if he doesn’t have Israel to protect him, but he believes he can have it both ways.
 
These are the people who are interested in a continuation of the Temple Mount riots. They’re hoping for more deaths and injuries in the clashes with the Israel Police and the IDF in the coming days, and for a local event which will inflame the Palestinian and Islamist street again.
 
They’re also relying on the traditional tendency in the Arab and Muslim world to believe in mystic conspiracy theories. The facts at the Temple Mount at the moment are that the situation has returned to its original state before the murder of the Israeli police officers on July 14. The metal detectors have been removed, the cameras have been dismantled and the new smart cameras haven’t been installed and it will take a long time before they are installed.
 
Al-Jazeera, for example, which is inspired by the radical Islamist camp that Qatar is a member of, is promoting myths among the incited crowds in Jerusalem about hidden Israeli cameras allowing the Israeli security forces to see the naked body of the Muslim worshipper who innocently arrives to pray at the Temple Mount. The masses in Jerusalem and outside Jerusalem are enthusiastically buying into these theories, sticking to them and, most importantly, acting as if they were true.
 
All this—the violent energy that has accumulated on the Palestinian street, Hamas and Erdogan’s aspiration to ignite an intifada and Abbas’ attempt to leverage the metal detectors crisis for diplomatic achievements—require the Israeli government to use force, many police officers, but to exercise maximum restraint. Erdogan, Salah and Ismail Haniyeh want deaths to inflame the intifada. We must not give them that. So we must ensure that there is a massive presence of police forces in any place where riots break out in the coming days, but there must be clear orders to avoid opening fire.
 
The forces on Jerusalem’s streets, and the roadblocks preventing the arrival of incited crowds from outside Jerusalem, should be reinforced as early as Thursday rather than on Friday morning. A massive reinforcement of the forces in Jerusalem is like throwing a blanket on a fire that has just started burning.
 
Another measure the Israeli government should take is to enlist the American administration and the European Union countries to pressure Erdogan, Abbas and Haniyeh. Erdogan is a NATO member, and NATO member states can’t stand idly by while one of the alliance’s members incites against a democratic Western state in the Middle East.
 
Enlisting the Trump administration

Both Abbas and Haniyeh are receiving help and life thanks to the aid they get from the Americans and the Europeans. This aid is an influential leverage which could definitely restrain the Palestinian leaderships both in Ramallah and in Gaza. While Abbas is relaunching his diplomatic intifada because he is disappointed with the Trump administration, as he sees no progress in the efforts to advance peace negotiations according to his conditions, the Trump administration can still definitely make it clear to him that he must not bite the hand that feeds him.

As for the crisis with Jordan, the incident should be thoroughly investigated. Did the security guard have to shoot the Palestinian teen who attacked him with a screwdriver, or could the former Givati company commander have kicked and neutralized the youth? Not every incident requires shooting in order to kill. And in light of the international sensitivity, it would be advisable to look into the possibility of having Foreign Ministry’s security guards undergo intensive Krav Maga courses that will prevent the need to shoot. The way the prime minister solved the crisis with Jordan proves that insufficient efforts had been made beforehand to enlist Jordan and Egypt to calm the situation down in the metal detectors affair.

Had US President Donald Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, telephoned Jordan’s King Abdullah last Thursday, we may have been in a different situation right now. Religious crises have a tendency of escalating quickly, and as time goes by without any significant change, they become chronic and are very difficult to settle, as we are witnessing now.

Most importantly, we must not be afraid. Israel must protect its right and its duty to keep Jerusalem safe and to use force for that purpose. It must, however, avoid killing Palestinians. Experience shows it’s the one thing that leads to lone-wolf terror attacks and inflames the situation more than anything else.

Equally important, the Israeli government and its security organizations must do everything in their power to neutralized the religious rage and the violent energies on the Muslim street:

First of all, they must avoid public statements, like the one Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu made, about “individual security checks.” While the statement was meant for the Israeli Right’s ears, it echoes in the Muslim world and affirms the claim that the status quo has not been restored at the Temple Mount.

Dialogue needed with religious leadership (Photo: AFP)

Second, they must avoid activities that could provoke the Muslim street and social media. They can, for example, wait a week or two before demolishing the home of the terrorist from the June 2016 shooting at Tel Aviv’s Sarona compound.

The Islamists should be allowed to blow off steam, but in a controlled manner which will be made clear to them in advance. A large force at the entrances to the east Jerusalem neighborhoods that are prone to violence will convey the messages to the incited Jerusalem residents as well.

Finally, there is a need for a continuous dialogue with the Waqf, and maybe even with Jerusalem’s mufti. Even it doesn’t help, it won’t hurt to try. The coordinator of the government’s activities in the territories, Major-General Yoav Mordechai, can be tasked with that mission.

BACK TO TOP

Article 3

The al-Aksa Intifada

The intifada has been in the making for years already

The Third Intifada, aka the al-Aksa Intifada as the Arabs prefer to call it, is not just another abstract concept dealing with a threat that might materialize at some point in the future. This intifada has been in the making for years already, like a barrel of explosives whose extremely long fuse was lit a long time ago. Although we’ve been able to detect its fumes for some time now, Israel’s merely been dribbling a few drops of water on them here and there. Unfortunately, this method hasn’t help put out the flame, or even slowed the countdown to the impending explosion.

But the progression of the flame toward the explosive is inevitable, since there are too many Islamist extremists and war-hungry fundamentalists who are fanning the flames.

They use slanderous slogans and lies to incite violence, money that’s channeled to them for defamatory campaigns, and media strategy that is so cleverly deceptive it should be taught in communications departments in universities worldwide.

On the one hand, we have the Palestinian Authority, which has been trying to achieve full authority over the Temple Mount as part of their campaign to establish Jerusalem as the capital of a Palestinian state. Following the lead of Mahmoud Abbas, for years the Palestinian Authority has been spreading lies about Israeli intentions to take over the Temple Mount and alter the status quo.

A post on the official Facebook page of Mahmoud Abbas’ ruling Fatah party demanding a day or “rage” for Jerusalem. (Source: Palestinian Media Watch).

Then there is Hamas, whose operatives are working day and night in the West Bank to incite Palestinians to violence and ignite the area with two main goals in sight.

Their first goal is to gain power and status among the Palestinian public and be perceived as the savior of the people in anticipation of a regime change in the West Bank.

Their second goal is to lead the Muslim struggle for sovereignty over the Temple Mount in order to receive complete control over the site in the future.

In addition to the Palestinian Authority and Hamas, there is a third puzzle piece: the Jordanian Wakf Islamic trust, which is of course backed by the Jordanian government, which has no real need or demand to have sovereignty over the Temple Mount. Its real aspiration is to preserve its power and its international status in the Muslim world as protector of holy places. To that end, Abdullah King of Jordan occasionally claims that the State of Israel intends to change the status quo on the Temple Mount.

Key player Sheik Raed Salah of the illegal Islamic Movement – northern faction, funded by Turkey and Qatar

A fourth contender is the Islamic Movement in Israel, which is led by its Northern Branch.

This organization has been declared illegal by the government, but continues to operate under a bogus name under the leadership of Sheikh Raed Salah. For years, this faction has been leading the incitement against the State of Israel’s alleged intentions to take control of the Temple Mount compound, and its official slogan is “al-Aksa is in Danger.” The Islamic Movement receives funding from Turkey and Qatar to incite and call upon Israeli Arabs to fight against the Zionist occupier that is threatening to conquer the Temple Mount.

The fifth contender is extremist Arab MKs who are calling upon Israeli Arabs to come and fight to “defend” the Temple Mount compound. In their incredible insolence, and after incessant incitement, they claimed that they’d warned us many times that such an outbreak was likely to occur, as MK Osama Sa’adi reiterated.

There are also a number of organizations that operate both in and outside of the Temple Mount according to a similar principle. All of the extremist Muslim organizations have been following a clear anti-Israel line for years.

Their main goal is the complete liberation of the Temple Mount from Israeli control and its return to full Arab Muslim sovereignty. It’s clear that this scenario is unlikely to take place in the foreseeable future, but even if it were theoretically possible, then an all-out Muslim world war over control of the Temple Mount would break out between Palestinians and Israelis; between Jordanians and Palestinians; and among all of the people who yearn to establish an Islamic caliphate in the Middle East on the ruins of Israel and the other countries in the region.

It’s clear to everyone that the installation of metal detectors is not the real issue, but merely an excuse they’ve been seeking for years to start another intifada. The world has already forgotten – or didn’t know in the first place – that three Israeli Muslim Arabs murdered two Israeli policemen who were securing the compound entrance.

No one understands that Israel made the decision to bolster the security at the entrances to the Temple Mount after the murderous terrorist attack took place, in an effort to prevent additional attacks from occurring at sensitive, holy sites. It’s clear to everyone – including Muslims – that securing the compound and preventing attacks is in everyone’s interest, especially of the Muslims who actually enter the site.

The truth is that all the Muslim leaders know very well that the State of Israel has not had in the past and has no plans to change the status quo on the Temple Mount. The mosque is still intact, all the Muslims are still allowed to pray freely everywhere on top of the Temple Mount, and not one thing has changed except for the fact that the Israeli authorities would like to prevent another murderous attack from taking place in this sensitive location.

It is fundamental that Israel not concede on this matter. Conceding on this matter will not end with the removal of all the metal detectors at the entrances to the Temple Mount.

A concession will only lead to their demand that we also remove all the cameras so as not to invade the privacy of worshipers. And what would the next demand be? To refrain from placing any policemen at the entrances to the Temple Mount? Removing policemen from the entire compound and putting a halt to all inspections? A demand to remove all Israeli security forces from the entire city of Jerusalem and having the Wakf and Palestinian intelligence agents take control of security? Retreating all the way to the Mediterranean Sea and evacuating the entire country for the sanctity of an Islamic caliphate? Hamas, the Palestinian Authority, the Islamic Movement, the Arab MKs, and all the other radical operatives have no intention of halting their struggle to liberate the Temple Mount from Israeli occupation until the entire compound is completely under Muslim control.

It is common in these types of situations for one attack to trigger another. The ongoing incitement encourages young, frustrated Arabs to go out into the streets and carry out unplanned attacks, such as the one last week in Halamish. And in the end, everyone ends up pointing their fingers at Israel. Something is defective in our public diplomacy and our approach to the various media if we are perceived as the illegitimate occupier of Muslim holy places.

Unfortunately, isolated attacks will continue to take place here, and Muslim extremists will continue to sell their wares and encourage all Muslims to join an all-out war against Israel. We have a long struggle ahead of us, and we must not falter or blink even for a moment.

Israel must do what it needs to in order to protect itself, including providing hermetic protection of the Temple Mount by any means necessary. Israel must demonstrate that is has complete control over every part of the country, including by taking a tough stand against all acts of incitement, which are not currently being suitably handled. And we must accomplish all of this without adding fuel to the fire and harming innocent civilians.

If we are determined and courageous in our struggle, we have a chance to come out victorious.

But we can settle for just not losing.

The writer is a former brigadier-general who served as a division head in the Shin Bet (Israel Security agency).

BACK TO TOP