News Resources - North America, Europe, and Asia:
- Jet Downing Exposes Limits of Russian Force in Syria, Analysts Say - Thomas Grove
The downing of a Russian jet on the Syrian border this week by Turkey and the deadly search-and-rescue mission that followed it exposed limitations in the modest force Moscow has sent to back the regime of President Assad, military experts say.
Once the Su-24 warplane was shot down, Russia suffered further losses when a search-and-rescue mission went awry after the Mi-8 helicopter being used in the mission was hit by small-arms fire from the ground. The helicopter made an emergency landing in neutral territory, Russia's Defense Ministry said, where it was ultimately destroyed by a mortar round.
(Wall Street Journal)
- Emirates Secretly Sends Latin American Mercenaries to Yemen Fight - Emily B. Hager and Mark Mazzetti
The United Arab Emirates has secretly dispatched hundreds of Latin American mercenaries to fight in Yemen. The 450 troops are from Colombia, Panama, El Salvador and Chile. The Latin American troops now in Yemen were handpicked from a brigade of some 1,800 soldiers training at an Emirati military base over the past five years. They join hundreds of Sudanese soldiers whom Saudi Arabia has recruited to fight in Yemen. (New York Times)
- British Documentary Exposes UK Muslim Women Supporting ISIS - Tom Whitehead
British Islamist women are brainwashing young female Muslims in the UK and encouraging them to join ISIS, an undercover investigation by Britain's Channel 4 has revealed. They were caught on camera, at meetings where young children were present, attacking the "filthy Jews" and telling young Muslim women that Britain is waging war against them. (Telegraph-UK)
News Resources - Israel and the Mideast:
- Ya'alon: Israel to Build Anti-Terror Fence in Southern West Bank - Arik Bender
Defense Minister Moshe Ya'alon informed the Knesset on Wednesday that Israel intends to construct a security fence separating the West Bank city of Hebron from the Israeli city of Kiryat Gat. On Friday, a terrorist from the Hebron area stabbed four Israelis in Kiryat Gat.
(Jerusalem Post)
- Egypt to Buy Large Amount of Advanced Weapons from Russia
Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu on Wednesday ordered the federal service for military-technical cooperation to respond rapidly to an Egyptian request to buy large amounts of advanced weapons from Russia, the Interfax agency reported. Shoigu's announcement comes after a two-day visit to Egypt where he met Egyptian President El-Sisi on Tuesday in Cairo.
Russian media reported earlier that Russia may sign a deal with Egypt for the delivery of Kamov Ka-52K helicopters. Last week the two countries signed a deal to build four third-generation nuclear reactors in Egypt.
(Al-Ahram-Egypt)
- Palestinian Tries to Stab Soldiers in West Bank on Thursday - Yoav Zitun
A Palestinian man, Samer Seresi, 51, drove to the Tapuach junction in the West Bank on Thursday, then ran at Israeli soldiers while brandishing a knife. The troops opened fire and killed him.
(Ynet News)
- Greek PM Calls Jerusalem Israel's "Historical Capital" - Tal Shalev
Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tzipras, currently on his first visit to Israel, signed Israeli President Reuven Rivlin's guestbook, "With great honor to be in your historic capital." A former Israeli diplomatic official said that Tzipras' reference to Jerusalem as Israel's capital was "unprecedented, especially for a European leader." (i24 News)
See also Prime Minister Netanyahu Meets with Greek Prime Minister Tsipras (Prime Minister's Office)
- Israeli-Made Airplane Protection System Passes NATO Test - Gili Cohen
Elbit Systems' SkyShield defense system for countering shoulder-launched missiles has successfully passed a test by NATO on an Airbus C-295 plane. The system has already been installed on Israeli planes. (Ha'aretz)
- CNN Map Replaces "Israel" with "Palestina"
A recent CNN money article titled "Beyond ISIS: 2015's Scariest Geopolitical Hot Spots" featured a map that omitted the word "Israel" and replaced it with "Palestina" (the Spanish name for Palestine). According to media watchdog Honest Reporting, which first reported the case, CNN has since removed the map. (Ynet News)
Global Commentary and Think-Tank Analysis (Best of U.S., UK, and Israel):
- Still Blaming Israel First - Daniel Mandel
Swedish Foreign Minister Margot Wallstrom declared that the Paris attacks are really about the war that entwines the Israelis and the Palestinians. Dutch Socialist Party leader Jan Marijnissen opined that the Paris terrorists' behavior "eventually is connected also to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict" which he described as "the growth medium for such an attack." The notion that the Arab war with Israel lies at the core of Middle Eastern problems now washing over Europe has been popular among the political class in all continents for years.
The idea is both nonsensical and tenaciously disproved by history: the Arab war on Israel had no bearing on the Algerian war in the 1950s; Egypt's invasion of Yemen, the bloody emergence of the Ba'athist dictatorship in Iraq, or the Aden Emergency in the 1960s; the Libyan-Chad war or the Polisario war against Moroccan forces in Western Sahara in the 1970s; or the Iran-Iraq war of the 1980s, which claimed a million lives; or Iraq's invasion and annexation of Kuwait in 1990.
Nor did it have any bearing on events that followed – like Saddam's subsequent massacres of hundreds of thousands of Kurds and Shia, the Taliban seizure of most of Afghanistan, or the disintegration of Somalia. Events in post-Saddam Iraq and Syria have followed their own trajectory, unrelated to what Israelis and Palestinians say or do.
Those who insist on the centrality of this conflict to the world's misfortunes are not making a credible assertion.
Rather, they are availing themselves of an alibi for their own hostility to Israel's existence.
The writer is a Fellow in History at Melbourne University in Australia.
(American Spectator)
- Outlawing the Northern Branch of the Islamic Movement in Israel - Alan Baker
The orientation, motivation, ideology, funding and activities of the northern branch of the Islamic Movement in Israel are on the whole openly identified with Hamas and the Islamic State terror organizations. Their main purpose is to incite mass violence and undermine the basic integrity, public safety and order within Israeli society. Specifically, their incitement has generated the recent wave of terror attacks in the streets of Israel, including stabbings, shootings, and the use of vehicles to run over bystanders.
Once the basic purpose, funding and orientation of the organization are aimed at harming Israel and its public, then the entire organization, including its funding, assets and properties, must be criminalized in order to enable the state to block funding and to act to prevent further mass incitement.
Amb. Alan Baker served as legal adviser and deputy director-general of Israel's Ministry of Foreign Affairs and as Israel's ambassador to Canada. (Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs)
- The American Anthropological Association's Boycott of Israeli Academics - David G. Post
I began my professional career as an anthropologist and from 1981 to 1983 I worked at the American Anthropological Association (AAA) in Washington as its director of programs. At the 1982 annual meeting, the members passed a resolution condemning Israel's invasion of Lebanon.
Why was the AAA taking a position as an organization on the question? What made anthropologists think that (a) anyone cared what they thought as anthropologists or (b) they had some expertise that would give their voice, as anthropologists, some special weight? And where was their condemnation of the Soviet Union's treatment of the Hungarians or the Czechs or the Afghans? China's brutal suppression of Tibetans or other ethnic minorities? The Rwandan genocide? Why single out Israel for special attention?
One of the tasks I was responsible for in my job was implementing the various resolutions passed at the annual meeting - which in this case meant writing a letter to the Israeli ambassador to the U.S., to be signed by the board, expressing the condemnation. I refused to do it.
The current action by the AAA is much, much worse than the 1982 resolution. There is something particularly repellent about calling for a boycott of institutions of higher education, which has as its goal the stifling of academic discussion. The writer is a Senior Fellow at the New America Foundation's Open Technology Institute.
(Washington Post)
- Israeli Spiders Deployed to Save Colombia's Coffee Crop - David Shamah
Spider mites that harm plants and crops in Colombia will soon meet their match when Israeli-produced carnivorous spiders are deployed to destroy their colonies. In a new deal, Israeli biotech firm BioBee will send 600 million spiders to help Colombian farmers battle the spider mites that threaten Colombia's biggest cash crop - coffee. The spiders, raised at BioBee's Jordan Valley facility, are twice the size of the mites they will be attacking. And they're not interested in the leaves of plants that the red spider mites attack. "With our product, farmers will be able to reduce the amount of pesticides they use, and thus meet international standards for export," the company said. (Times of Israel) ¯
Observations:
How Palestinian Propaganda Warps the Truth and Undermines Peace Efforts - Col. (res.) Dr. Eran Lerman (Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies-Bar-Ilan University)
- On Nov. 5, PA negotiator-in-chief Saeb Erekat's office issued a media guidance document called "Key Points to Remember when Reporting on Occupied Palestine." The document reveals just how far the Palestinian leadership is from accepting the premises necessary for true peace with Israel.
- The document says that "Israel imposes a policy of forced displacement of the indigenous Palestinian population and replacement with foreign settlers." Whether or not the Palestinians are "indigenous" (there may be good reason to doubt that they have been there "from time immemorial"), Jews are certainly not "foreign" in their own land.
- Erekat alleges that the "colonization enterprise and illegal occupation" is the "root cause of the continuous uprisings of the Palestinian people." "Colonization"? The League of Nations mandate authorized, indeed encouraged, Jews to settle in the land of their forefathers. The term "colonization" is an attempt to tar Israel with the brush of European colonialism.
- The Palestinians signed the Oslo Declaration of Principles, which made it very clear that full sovereignty, borders, and settlements are issues to be settled in "permanent status" talks. Palestinian attempts to now leap over this requirement for negotiations do not alter the fact that the path to independence through negotiations has very much been open to the Palestinians. Three times over the past decade the PA has rejected the compromises put on the table by Israel.
- To write that "Israel today continues to reject the two-state solution" is to pile lie and insult upon injury. It was Abbas who effectively rejected the U.S. framework proposals suggested in spring 2014 by Secretary of State John Kerry.
The writer, a senior IDF Military Intelligence officer, served as deputy for foreign policy and international affairs at the National Security Council in the Israeli Prime Minister's Office.
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