Has a 3rd Intifada Started?

Nadene Goldfoot                                                                      

The Islamic Jihad and Hamas have called for the 3rd intifada to begin against Israel.  Riots have broken out in some parts of Judea and Samaria even though the Palestinian Authority there has said that they don't want it to happen.  Six Israelis were injured.  This happened on the 13th anniversary of the 2nd Palestinian Intifada.  The 2nd one, or Al-Aqsa Intifada started in September 2000 and ended in 2005 with 3,000 Palestinians dead and 1,000 Israelis as well as 64 foreigners.  During peace negotiations, this tells us something.  Abbas does not have control over his people.  This is not demonstrating the value of their neighborliness.  It's showing why Netanyahu is so adamant about security.

Riots started up in Hebron, an ancient city of  Judah, on  September 27th. This is the city where Abraham bought a plot of land called the Cave of Machpelah in which to bury his wife, Sarah.  Jews had lived here since then, but in 1929, Arabs massacred almost all the 700 Jews in Hebron , causing survivors to flee.  Some returned in 19331 only to have faced more riots in 1936.  Today a mosque stands on this site.  After the Six Day War of 1967, a number of Jews again settled in Hebron, establishing the Kiryat Arba quarter east of the city.  They had a population of 3,700 in 1988.  Rioting has happened in east Jerusalem

Friday, which is the Muslim holy day and when Shabbat starts for Jews at sundown, an IDF soldier was wounded by a stone that was thrown at him just north of Hebron in the village of Beit Ummar.  He was treated right there by a medical team.  Dozens, meaning more than 24 Palestinians of Hebron were throwing stones and lighting their garbage cans on fire.  The IDF in return shot rubber bullets at the protesters, injuring about 4 Arabs.
                                                                           

                                                                    Ramallah
Other outbursts came from the old Christian village of Ni'lin outside Ramallah, now almost all Muslim, which is 6 miles north of Jerusalem,  where an Israeli was injured and taken to Tel  Hashomer Hospital and treated for minor wounds.  Ramallah is in Judea/Samaria.   Near Ramallah is the Ofer prison where a a demonstration outside was taking place.  Rock throwing and tire burning were part of the demonstration.  Several Palestinian Arabs received some slight injuries during this riot.  Evidently the peace talks have stalled as well. Ramallah is where they meet.  The problem is that paramount in importance to Israel is the settlement about borders and Israel's security which Abbas is avoiding.  This peace initiative started in July.  Now the USA has sent Martin Indyk to lead the meetings and he hopes to get more accomplished.  He should be there now to see why security is so important and see how friendly our neighbors are behaving with this uprising called an intifada.

Two Palestinians were caught carrying fire bombs near Bethlehem, which is almost  all Muslim  today.  They also threw rocks and burned tires, causing the IDF to respond with tear gas, stun grenades and rubber bullets.

In northern Gaza, there was a demonstration of Hamas governed Palestinians who were marching toward the Israeli border fence, meaning to tear it apart, no doubt.  The IDF managed to disperse them.

The actions of the 1st intifada started on December 6, 1987 with the stabbing of an Israeli in Gaza while shopping.  Rioting then was instigated on December 9, 1987 in the Jabalia refugee camp. A 17 year old threw a molotov cocktail at an IDF soldier and he was shot in return.  This brought on the intifada to Gaza, Jerusalem and Judea and Samaria.    It didn't really stop until the 1993 Oslo Accords.  The Madrid Conference of 1991 slowed things down a little.  About 1,000 Palestinians lost their lives during this 6 year demonstration.

A 9 year old girl was shot point blank in the chest on Shabbat by a rifle from  a black masked rioting shooter in Psagot, a Jewish town in Judea/Samaria with a population of 1,623 back in 2008.  No one can be safe in such rioting.  Psagot lies outside Ramallah and seems  cuts off the expansion of the larger city. When Israel won land by the Arab attack in 1967 when resulted in the Arab loss, Israel gave the people of Ramallah Israel identity cards which meant they could travel into Israel and Gaza.  Yet they were the first to rebel in the 1st intifada.

One wonders if this anniversary Intifada was called in reaction to the Muslim Brotherhood being dismantled in Egypt.  They held the same type of doctrine as Hamas.

Abbas had agreed in July to 9 months of discussions about a resolution between Israel and the Arabs' desire to create their own state of Palestine out of part of Israel,  but Hamas threw him out of Gaza and now seems to be trying to take over Abbas's territory.   Even during a peace talk, there is no peace.

Resource:  http://www.breakingisraelnews.com/palestinians-hurl-stones-israelis-mark-intifada-anniversary/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=palestinians-hurl-stones-israelis-mark-intifada-anniversary
Jerusalem Post
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ramallah
http://www.jpost.com/Diplomacy-and-Politics/Abbas-US-envoy-Indyk-discuss-Israeli-Palestinian-peace-talks-in-Ramallah-327909
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/History/intifada.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Intifada
http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/1.550672
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psagot
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ramallah
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Intifada

Those Terrible Israeli Doctors; Such Chutzpah !

Nadene Goldfoot
The Israeli doctors have a lot of nerve.  PA Health Minister Fathi Abu Mughli and director Ahmed Bitawi also are pretty nervy.  They all toured the Palestine Medical Compound in Ramallah causing an Arab protest.  Ramallah, only 6 miles north of Jerusalem,  used to be a Christian city but is now mostly all Muslim and serves as the capital of Fatah's PA with about 25,500 population. 

How dare they all visit!  Doctors and nurses in the compound were instructed to meet these 3 Israeli doctors!  It amounts to fraternizing with the enemy, they seemed to think, and complained that it was a form of normalizsation with Israel which they are opposed to. 

Against the doctors' visit was Fatah's Dr. Mutasem Muhaisen who described the idea to host the Israeli team of doctors as "irresponsible.  It was an offense to the memory of Palestinian martyrs who died in clashes with IDF soldiers over the past 20 years, he complained.  The accusation was made that the doctors weren't doctors but IDF officers and soldiers.  Abu Mughli knew the truth that they were in fact, simply doctors.  Mughli also reminded people that patients were being transferred to Israeli hospitals on a regular basis.  Probably they are sent to Ashkelon's hospital. 

Mughli also stated that the PA was ready to provide medical services to Israelis, and at least he isn't against meeting with Israeli doctors.  Bitawi also said that this was a part of coooperation between Israelis and Palestinianss in the medical field and that for doctors this is not a political issue but a humanitarian mission. 

However, back in the Gaza Strip, Basem Naim, Minister of Health in the Hamas government, had a fit and claimed it was part of security coordination between Israel and the PA (Fatah).  I can see that Hamas and Fatah are getting along just fine. 

Small steps.  Just a few doctors were amiable to fraternizing with Israeli doctors, but it's a start in the right direction.  Now, if only they could work on the killers who keep shooting at Israelis.  That would be a giant step for mankind.  I guess it depends on their goals; help patients to live and be well or to kill Israelis.  I see what most want.

Resource: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ramallah
http://www.jpost.com/ Diplomacy & Politics

Barak and Communities in Judea and Samaria

by Nadene Goldfoot

The USA has called for a freeze on any building planned for Israel, but Israel's government has its own decisions to make and decided to allow 50 new homes in Judea-Samaria to be built. There are plans for 1,450 houses, but nothing was said about those.

A few hours after this decision, Defense Minister Ehud Barak flew to the USA to talk to George Mitchell, something I'd hate to do. Israel's need is to relocate settlers from Migron to Adam, which lies north of Jerusalem. Adam is where the 1,450 homes are needed.

Obama is pressuring Israel to stop all building so that the "Palestinians" would join in peace talks needed to create a Palestinian state. Here we have Israel, already a state, experiencing a population growth with the need to build some homes for people who were removed from the neighborhood they had just recently built, deeming that other neighbood "illegal". They have to go somewhere.

I might add that most of Israel consists of apartment buildings. Individual homes are a rarity. I lived in a high apartment building in Safed, and was lucky enough to be invited to a couple of exceptional homes for a visit. One was dug out of some earthquake ruins and was beautiful. Another was more like an American home with a backyard belonging to a writer friend of ours. So the opportunity to actually have a home is very special.

There are 500,000 Israelis living in Judea and Samaria and East Jerusalem. There are over 1,000,000 Arabs living in the state of Israel. Arabs do not want any Israelis living in their so called future state. Obama looks like he's accepting this unfairness. Palestinians are insisting that Judea and Samaria Jewish neighborhoods are illegal. In my previous blog, I refute that. Obviously Israel also is refuting it by allowing building to take place. As I note, the Palestinians have not recognized Israel to this date, something a new neighbor should do to be neighborly.

Tensions are mounting now between the two different groups; Palestinians and Israelis. Palestinians are claiming that the Israelis raided the village of Asira al-Qiblya and fired guns at their windows, injuring two of them. In the news, the word "village" was used. Why is it that Palestinians are said to have villages and in many newspapers while the term "settlements" and "West Bank" is used instead of the name of villages or towns and Judea and Samaria. I believe these terms were chosen for their political usage. The Israelis said that the action began with a Palestinian arson attack on Yitzhar. While they were trying to put out the fire they were stoned by Palestinians and that an Israeli was hurt. Troops called in used rubber bullets, not real ones.

In Ramallah, Abbas said that he refuses to negotiate with Israel until they stop building. I say-I would refuse to negotiate with him until he accepts the reality of an Israel and deal with it! Abbas expects Israel to just accept their state being there and not put conditions on it as it is meaningless. I do not understand his logic at all. It's not computing other than the Arabs refuse to accept a Jewish state in their midst. And just how badly do they really need their own state? They don't plan on taking a first baby-step of accepting Israel's existence.

Being that Israel is a democracy, we have a group of Israelis called "Peace Now." They are protesting the construction activity planned for Adam. They're claiming that 2,500 homes are in the future plans and are even under construction already.

Reference: http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20090629/wl_nm/us_palestinians_israel_settlements_8