Jerusalem News (22 May, 2015, 4 Sivan, 5775)
Contents:
1. Arnold Roth: Arab Attacks are Unceasing
20-May-15: Car-ramming attack again in Jerusalem
2. IRAN: 800,000 MISSILES POINTED AT TEL AVIV by  Moshe Cohen
3. NORWEGIAN FM WARNS NETANYAHU: PRESSURE ON ISRAEL FORTHCOMING
by Cynthia Blank
4. Col. Richard Kemp (Britain) : The Amoral Revolution in Western Values, and its Impact on Israel
5. The US and Iraqi and Syrian armies go to pieces against ISIS drive. Israel, Jordan, Saudis alarmed
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1.  Arnold Roth: Arab Attacks are Unceasing
20-May-15: Car-ramming attack again in Jerusalem
Posted: 20 May 2015 01:03 AM PDT
It's a beautiful, sunny morning here in Jerusalem. But there are reports of yet another deliberate car-ramming attack done by a Palestinian Arab for an evidently-terrorist motivation. This time, it has happened at the A-Tur junction on Jerusalem's north side, close to the Hebrew University's Mount Scopus campus and the Mount of Olives. So far, we know of two Israelis, uniformed police - one female, one male - who are injured.
Times of Israel says the driver was shot by police and in critical condition and that he is being treated for his wounds at the scene. But both Haaretz and Ynet say, in updated reports, that he is dead. According to Ynet, immediately after running down his victims he tried to "confirm the kill" by reversing back over the wounded officers. He was then shot by police... {Arab] Bystanders hurtled stones at security forces as they arrived at the scene. There were also riots reported at the site. [Ynet]
The Haaretz report, providing some context and perspective, says
Jerusalem Police Chief Moshe Edri who arrived on the scene said that "the Border Patrol officers acted as was expected of them, neutralized the terrorist and prevented further harm to innocent people."
Our most recent previous report on a similar attack is just five days old:
"15-May-15: Attempted murder by vehicle: yet another Palestinian Arab attack on pedestrians".
http://thisongoingwar.blogspot.co.il/2015/05/15-may-15-attempted-murder-by-vehicle.html
A couple of weeks before that, a similar vehicle-borne attacker struck at almost the same spot in Jerusalem's A-Tur. We wrote about here:
"29-Apr-15: Almost entirely unreported, violent Arab attacks in and on Jerusalem".
http://thisongoingwar.blogspot.co.il/2015/04/29-apr-15-almost-entirely-unreported.html
It's highly likely today's attack will get minor media coverage outside Israel, if any.
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2. IRAN: 800,000 MISSILES POINTED AT TEL AVIV
by Moshe Cohen
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/195681#.VV7Q3U9VhBc
Iran issued yet another threat against Israel on Thursday, Channel 2 reported. According to a top Iranian advisor, Tehran has "tens of thousands" of missiles pointed at Israel, and will not hesitate to use them.
Speaking Thursday, Yahya Rahim Zafabi, a top advisor to Iran's Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, said the tens of thousands of missiles will "sow the seeds of destruction in Israel" if they are to be fired.
"The Zionists and the Americans know what the powers of Iran and Hezbollah are," he added. "They know that over 800,000 missiles are pointed at Tel Aviv and Haifa," with the figure apparently including the many short-range missiles Hezbollah is believed to have.
Zafabi was apparently responding to remarks made Wednesday by Defense Minister Moshe Ya'alon, who said Israel "will not allow for the opening of another war front against Israel. We will act strongly against those who act against us or plans to act against us. We will reach their bases, damage them, and destroy their weapons."
"Iran is directly involved in all conflicts in the Middle East," Ya'alon emphasized. "Iran's bloody regime spreads terror and destruction throughout the entire area, and it expresses loudly its desire to destroy Israel."
"Unfortunately, the West is ready to make a deal with Iran on its nuclear program, which will shield Tehran from criticism."
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3. NORWEGIAN FM WARNS NETANYAHU: PRESSURE ON ISRAEL FORTHCOMING
by Cynthia Blank
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/195680#.VV7Rkk9VhBc
Extract:
The international pressure on Israel to come to a solution with the Palestinians will only grow stronger after Iran and the P5+1 world powers sign a nuclear deal at the end of June, Norway's Foreign Minister warned Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu on Wednesday.
According to a Haaretz report Thursday morning, Netanyahu and Borge Brende, who is considered friendly to Israel, held a notably long 90-minute meeting at the Prime Minister's Office in Jerusalem on Wednesday.
During the meeting, as reported by a Norwegian diplomat, Brende told Netanyahu that given the impending resumption of serious international pressure on Israel, Netanyahu's new government would need to come up with its own diplomatic measure.
According to the diplomat, Netanyahu responded positively to the friendly advice, saying, "I hear you loud and clear."
Should Netanyahu want to resume negotiations with the Palestinians, Brende asserted, he would have to agree to at least one of three conditions presented recently by Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas.
The three conditions include: freezing construction in Judea and Samaria, releasing all Palestinian prisoners jailed prior to the signing of the Oslo Accords in 1993 and consecutive talks for no more than a year, with a Palestinian state established by the end of 2017.
In an effort to deflect pressure later on Wednesday, Netanyahu stressed his commitment to peace and his support for a two-state solution, i.e. the creation of a Palestinian state.Â
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4. Col. Richard Kemp (Britain) : The Amoral Revolution in Western Values, and its Impact on Israel
by BESA Center May 21, 2015 BESA Center Perspectives Paper No. 298
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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: To fight for Israel on the international stage is also to fight for the values of democracy, freedom of speech and expression, and civilized social values everywhere. Unfortunately, the morality and values of the West have been transformed and undermined over the past thirty years almost beyond recognition. Judeo-Christian principles of honesty, honor, loyalty, family values, patriotism, religious faith and respect for the state have all been eroded; whereas negative values, such as the acceptance of betrayal, duplicity and deceit, have flourished. The Western media is chiefly culpable in advancing this deleterious values transformation. And this transformation is the basis for the growth of anti-Jewish and anti-Zionist perspectives, and anti-Israel narratives.
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What follows is the text of an address delivered by Col. Kemp CBE at the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies on May 19, 2015. Kemp was Commander of the British Forces in Afghanistan. He subsequently worked for the Joint Intelligence Committee and the British cabinet national crisis management group. He testified in defense of Israel before the United Nations Fact Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict, and the United Nations Human Rights Council in response to the Goldstone report. This week, he received an honorary doctorate from Bar-Ilan University in recognition of his stalwart defense of Israel.
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Col. Kemp's 40 minute address can be viewed here.
https://youtu.be/IsJDbnZjQik
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Extracts:
As an officer cadet at Sandhurst in 1977, I studied the wars and campaigns of the Israel-Palestine conflict in great depth, learning lessons in leadership, tactics and strategy from the always victorious operations of the IDF.
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Years before that, in my school playground, girls always shopped and boys played war. Normally it was British and Germans or cowboys and Indians. For a time in 1967 it became Israelis and Arabs. After a few weeks, however, it reverted to the usual antagonists because nobody seemed to want to play on the Arab side.
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I gather a similar recruitment problem exists today in the playgrounds of England with the Taliban side short of troops.
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At 8, I was a little young for the serious study of military science beyond the playground, but later, as a 14-year-old schoolboy, I remember one day during the Yom Kippur War, my form master, a young chap just out of teacher training, came into the classroom with an arm full of newspapers.
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He said that normal lessons would stop as there was a 'real war' starting and that this was really exciting so we should study it. Every day, we followed the events, wrote stories of our own, and learnt the geography. My father was unamused when all of the articles about the war had been cut out before he could get his hands on his breakfast-time paper. We were quite disappointed when it finished quickly and we had to resume normal lessons.
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Why am I telling you all this?
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It was all about the good fighting the bad and the good were expected to win. It was very simple even to a 14-year-old.
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Even as late as 1973, Israel was still widely seen as the good guys and the Arabs were the bad. Sympathy was with Israel because they were being picked on and bullied. There was little consideration of the 'legitimacy' Â of Israel; it was taken for granted.
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In 1967, the capture and occupation of East Jerusalem, which of course we commemorated on Sunday as Jerusalem Day, and of Judea and Samaria were accepted as a legitimate act of self-defense.
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This was not true just for those of us still at school and in the fledgling days of a military career. This was the general view of British people, and of many in the West, obviously with plenty of exceptions.
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In general, popular culture still reflected the long accepted beliefs and principles of a Christian society. All of this shaped the views of the majority of people.
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We live in a very different world today. In 40 years the general opinion of Israelis and their Arab foes has been reversed.
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What has changed? Some say the situation is different. But this is not the case. Fundamentally the situation remains the same. Israel's stance is unchanged from 1948. A desire for the survival of the Jewish national homeland, at peace with its neighbours.
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All that has changed about this has been that Israel has made repeated costly concessions, including giving up land, for peace. Concessions which have not been reciprocated by the Palestinians, but instead exploited at the grave expense of Israel. Concessions which have not been acknowledged or remembered by the international community, who, like the Palestinians, simply and uncompromisingly demand more and more and more and more.
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Nor have the Arabs fundamentally changed. ...
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But the underlying perspective and agenda, especially among the Palestinians, is the same as it was in the 1920s, 1930s and 1940s. Rejection of Jewish communities in the land of Israel. The destruction of the Jewish State....
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The values and morality of the average person in the West have changed dramatically since the 70s. The new values often have more in common with Israel�s enemies than with Israel itself.
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We all know but rarely have the courage to say, that hypocrisy, duplicity, betrayal and sensationalism are the 4 corner stones of violent radical Islam as so often demonstrated to us on our TV screens by Hamas and the Islamic State.
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It is impossible to avoid a connection between the shift in public opinion on Israel and the change in Western morality.
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How has the new morality impacted on public opinion and perception?...
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The glorious fight for a noble cause inspired by Christian values and beliefs and fought with honor and dignity, the like of which has preoccupied generations of British soldiers before me is now, regrettably, a thing of the past.
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So many of these extraordinary changes have been influenced and even driven through by a media, especially broadcast media, especially television, that has to a very large extent been taken over and subverted by those with a moral relativism heightened by an abhorrence for the traditional Judeo-Christian values of the West and a desire to promote as superior the values of other cultures in a form of all-pervading post-Colonial guilt.
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The target is Western values themselves; most often represented by the United States, the most powerful country in the world. But Israel has increasingly become a proxy for the United States. For three reasons.
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Firstly, the US President and the US Government is at present left wing and liberal and thus harder for left-wing liberals to attack.
Second, Israel is smaller and more easily bullied and impacted by corrosive media sniping than is a superpower.
 Third, Israel can be portrayed as a Western colonial outpost in a rightfully Arab world.
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These three things are underpinned by a pervasive and increasing anti-Semitism which intensifies the obsession with Israel and its portrayal as a true evil to be attacked at every possible opportunity.
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This contrasts with the post-Colonial guilt I mentioned, combined also with a frequent desire to appease violent Islam and promote its cause and values as being superior to our own and certainly to Israel's.
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Any anti-Islam comment or perspective cannot be tolerated, while anti-Jewish, anti-Zionist and anti-Israel perspectives are all acceptable and encouraged.
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In turn these double-standards are reinforced by the grey man syndrome, the corrosive political correctness that I mentioned, under which the majority feel obliged to support Israel's enemies, and oppose Israel, and feel nervous about not doing so.
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Israel's fight is the Western world's fight. Upon Israel's survival depends the survival of Western civilization.
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IMRA - Independent Media Review and Analysis
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Website: www.imra.org.il
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5. The US and Iraqi and Syrian armies go to pieces against ISIS drive. Israel, Jordan, Saudis alarmed
DEBKAfile Special Report May 21, 2015, 10:18 PM (IDT)
http://debka.com/article/24615/The-US-and-Iraqi-and-Syrian-armies-go-to-pieces-against-ISIS-drive-Israel-Jordan-Saudis-alarmed
Extracts:
The fall of Damascus and Baghdad, or large slices thereof, into the rapacious hands of the Islamic State, is no longer a debatable subject of strategic forecasts. Today, the capital cities of Syria and Iraq are within the Islamists' grasp. The Middle East is about to pay the price for President Barack Obama's single-minded obsession with a US d'tente with Tehran and a nuclear accord. It is the end product of Washington's insistence on playing down ISIS as a formidable opponent and contention that the meager US-led coalition air campaign destroyed much of its operational capabilities, which proved to be an illusion. Equally fallacious was Obama's trust in the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps and its terrorist arm, the Al Qods Brigades, to curtail the Islamist momentum.
Washington's trust has since faded. Tehran too has cooled to the idea.
In March, a group of Iraqi Shiite militias commanded by Al Qods chief Gen. Qassem Soleimani, managed to snatch parts of the Sunni Iraqi town of Tikrit from Islamist grasp. That was Iran's first and last engagement against ISIS in Iraq. After that, supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei decided to pull back from engaging Sunni Muslims in an overt sectarian showdown. It was clear to him, that the battlefield was not Iran's forte, but rather subversion, clandestine warfare and limited support for local Shiite surrogates.
As the Islamists advanced, therefore, Tehran cut back on further military intervention in Syria and Iraq and turned instead to Yemen and the Houthi rebellion as its vehicle. This is a smaller arena, which is no less strategically valuable than Iraq and Syria, thanks to its command of the globally important Gulf of Aden and the Strait of Bab el-Mandeb to world shipping.
Khamenei also saw the US president had little appetite for fighting the Islamic State. He concluded that Tehran would be better off saving the Iranian army and Revolutionary Guards forces for defending its borders against potential ISIS assault from neighboring Iraq, instead of wearing them down in Iraq and Syria.
The Iranian leader also decided that if the United States could only afford a very minor-key air campaign against the Islamist terrorists, Iran's air force should not be called on for a greater effort.
...ISIS has caused a Middle East earthquake after another by capturing Ramadi in Iraq and Palmyra in Syria in a matter of days. Their alarmed neighbors in Jerusalem, Amman and Riyadh have been forced to conclude that their borders are in danger - not just from Iran, but also from ISIS, and they will have to confront these perils on their own.