Tag Archives: Israel

News

Syrian armed forces murder 16 innocent protestors

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Political map of the Middle East
Political map of the Middle East

Syria is really beginning to get on my nerves. This new violence against their own citizens is coming after several  assassinations of key political figures in nearby Lebanon, e.g. – Rafik Hariri, Pierre Gemayel, etc.

Excerpt:

Syrian security forces killed at least 16 people Friday, including a teenage boy, as thousands of people poured into the streets across the country calling for the downfall of President Bashar Assad’s autocratic regime, activists said.

The unrest also appeared to be spilling over into neighboring Lebanon. A senior member of a Lebanese political party allied with Syria and an off-duty soldier were killed Friday after gunmen opened fire and lobbed a grenade near hundreds of people holding an anti-Assad protest in northern Lebanon, a security official said in Beirut.

The protests in Syria came hours after Syrian troops backed by tanks and helicopter gunships seized control early Friday of another northwestern town in the latest military operation to quell the dissent.

Since the protests erupted in mid-March, Assad has unleashed the military to crush street demonstrations. Human rights activists say more than 1,400 Syrians have been killed and 10,000 detained.

“What is our guilt? We just demanded freedom and democracy nothing else,” said Mohamed, who spoke to The Associated Press from a refugee camp in neighboring Turkey and asked to be identified only by his first name. He and other refugees offered fresh accounts of summary executions to suppress the pro-democracy movement.

“I saw people who were beheaded with machine-gun fire from helicopters,” and a man tortured to death when security forces “poured acid on to his body,” he said.

Mohamed fled with his family as the military besieged Jisr al-Shughour, a rebellious town the government recaptured last Sunday.

He said a sugar factory in the city was turned into a jail where they “hold quick trials and execute anyone who they believe participated in protests.”

He is among some 9,600 people are seeking shelter in Turkish refugee camps.

We are wasting $9.5 million PER DAY in a pointless war in Libya. We should stop that war immediately, and pull our troops out of South Korea, Japan and Western Europe, and attack Syria, while we have our forces already deployed in Iraq. A two-pronged assault from the West and the East would be ideal, and we would not even have to use ground forces. I don’t mind spending money on war, but we have no strategic goal in Libya. Syria makes a lot more sense as a target. We should take advantage of Syria’s aggression towards peaceful protesters to target and destroy their military power. It would be difficult, but it would certainly take the pressure off of Lebanon and Israel in the Middle East region.

Commentary

Michael Brown explains five simple truths about the Middle East conflict

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Map of Israel
Map of Israel

Mary sent me this article from TownHall.

Here’s the introduction:

Is there any subject more controversial than the question of the legitimacy of the modern State of Israel? Is it the eternal home of the Jewish people, promised to them by God Himself? Or is it the illegitimate home of violent Jewish occupiers, an apartheid state guilty of ethnic cleansing? Or is it something in between? In the midst of the often emotional arguments on both sides, it is helpful to review five simple truths about the Mideast conflict.

And the list of 5 points:

  1. There is no such thing as a historic “Palestinian people” living in the Middle East.
  2. There were anti-Jewish intifadas in Palestine two decades before the founding of the State of Israel in 1948.
  3. Jewish refugees fleeing from Muslim and Arab countries were absorbed by Israel after 1948; Arab refugees fleeing from Israel after 1948 were not absorbed by Muslim and Arab countries
  4. Only one side in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is truly committed to peaceful co-existence.
  5. The current uprisings throughout the Muslim and Arab world today remind us that Israel cannot fairly be blamed for all the tension and conflicts in the region.

And what I think is the most significant point:

4. Only one side in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is truly committed to peaceful co-existence.It is often stated that if the Palestinians put down their weapons, there would be no more war but if the Israelis put down their weapons, there would be no more Israel. This is not to say that all Palestinians are warmongers and all Israelis are doves. But the vast majority of Israelis are not driven by a radical ideology that calls for the extermination of their Arab neighbors, nor are they teaching their children songs about the virtues of religious martyrdom.

Israel does not relish spending a major portion of its budget on defense, nor does it relish sending its sons and daughters into military service. It simply will not surrender Jerusalem, its historic and religious capital, and it will not commit regional suicide by retreating to indefensible borders. In return it simply asks the Palestinians to say, “We embrace your right to exist.”

I think point #4 tells you everything you need to know.

 

News

IDF arrest two Palestians for murder of the Vogel family

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Map of Israel
Map of Israel

From the Jerusalem Post.

Excerpt:

Two Palestinian youths from Awarta, have confessed to killing five members of the Fogel family in nearby Itamar on Friday night, March 11.

The suspects, who were arrested in the past few days – along with several accomplices – are Hakim Maazan Niad Awad, 18, a high-school student, and Amjad Mahmud Fauzi Awad, 19, also a student.

They are from the same clan, but not directly related.

The two men have admitted to planning a terrorist attack against Jews, and confessed to the stabbings. They reenacted the attacks for investigators, security personnel said on Sunday.

The intruders broke into the Fogel home in the Itamar settlement and stabbed to death five members of the family in their sleep: Udi Fogel, 36, Ruth Fogel, 35, and their children Yoav, 11, Elad, four, and Hadas, three months.

The terrorists did not know that the Fogels’ two other children were sleeping in a side room, so their lives were spared.

“I have never heard such heartless testimony,” a Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) source told Channel 2 on Sunday night.

The suspects reenacted the murder and the planning leading up to it with accuracy and without emotion, the source said, adding that they expressed no remorse.

When asked if they regretted killing small children and a baby, Amjad responded that they had killed “five Israelis and Jews,” and didn’t regard their age as a factor.

Although the young men carried out the attack on their own initiative, they are affiliated with the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, and received significant help from family members and friends after the attack, the IDF said.

In other news, a 16-year-old boy has died as a result of injuries sustained during a Hamas attack on a school bus using anti-tank missiles. Anti-tank missiles.