Arson Terrorists Hit Home in Duma

    Nadene Goldfoot                                                 

Duma is in Samaria (Israel) near Nablus (Shechem in the Bible) more than Judea.    Judea was created after King Solomon died from the southern half of Israel.  The red dot did not transfer to this picture.  

  Evidently some Jewish extremists are breaking our own rules of  ethics  and have stepped over the line in their horrid arson attack today on a Palestinian family in Duma.  They will be caught. 

 "Abbas said he had ordered his foreign minister to file a complaint at the International Criminal Court in The Hague."

My thoughts on this are that there have been horrible things that have happened to Israelis living in Judea and Samaria, and now something has turned and it has happened to a Palestinian family. Too bad we didn't turn to the Hague immediately.   What was the reaction of everyone when a Jewish family was slaughtered in a very bloody attack  several years ago?  Remember that?

The Itamar attack, also called the Itamar massacre, was an attack on a Jewish family in the Israeli settlement of Itamar in the West Bank that took place on 11 March 2011, in which five members of the same family were murdered in their beds. The victims were the father Ehud (Udi) Fogel, the mother Ruth Fogel, and three of their six children—Yoav, 11, Elad, 4, and Hadas, the youngest, a three-month-old infant. According to David Ha'ivri, and as reported by multiple sources the infant was decapitated  The settlement of Itamar had been the target of several murderous attacks before these killings <sup>. 

Well, 2 wrongs don't make a right;  ever. However, this is how we learn.  If the Jewish family's death wasn't dealt with by the Palestinians  in the manner in which Israel is now handling this case, it remained a festering sore in some Jewish teens' minds.  It was also a time for a good sermon on why we can't turn around and do the same thing to Palestinians and why we're not like that.  The arsonists didn't learn a thing except to copy their enemy.  Isn't that what Golda Meier said that she hated?</sup>   

“We can forgive the Arabs for killing our children. We cannot forgive them for forcing us to kill their children. We will only have peace with the Arabs when they love their children more than they hate us.”  She said that never dreaming that we would have a couple of Jewish copycats do a similar horrid  deed.  

From Israel's Daily Alert

News Resources - Israel and the Mideast:

• Prime Minister Condemns "Horrific, Heinous Terror Attack" on Palestinians - Marissa Newman
• 
  Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Friday forcefully condemned the arson attack on a Palestinian family - in which an infant was burned to death - as a "horrific, heinous" crime that is "a terror attack in every respect." Two homes in the Palestinian village of Duma, south of Nablus, were set alight, and Hebrew words spray-painted on their walls overnight Thursday, apparently by Jewish extremists. An 18-month-old child was killed in the attack, while his father, mother, and 4-year-old brother were injured. The mother was in critical condition.
• 
      The prime minister said he instructed the security forces to "use all the resources at their disposal to capture the killers and bring them to justice as soon as possible." He added that "The State of Israel deals forcefully with terror, regardless of who the perpetrators are." Netanyahu said the Israeli government was "unified in its fierce opposition to these awful, base acts."  (Times of Israel)
• 
      See also Netanyahu Orders PA Be Updated on Israeli Efforts to Find Arsonists - Marissa Newman (Times of Israel)
• 
      See also Defense Minister Ya'alon: We Will Not Allow Jewish Terrorists to Harm Palestinians - Yaakov Lappin
• 
  Israeli officials, including Defense Minister Moshe Ya'alon, expressed their shock and outright condemnation of the terror attack in the Palestinian village of Duma. Ya'alon referred to the incident as "a most severe terrorist act that we cannot tolerate, and we condemn in every way," and he sent his condolences to the Dawabsha family.
• 
      He noted that all Israeli security forces are making a "supreme effort" to find those responsible, saying, "we will pursue them until we get our hands on them. We will not allow Jewish terrorists to harm the lives of Palestinians across Judea and Samaria. We will fight them in every way, with every tool at our disposal."
• 
      The IDF has deployed additional forces in the West Bank to maintain stability and respond to potential disturbances. "We are coordinating with PA security forces to calm the area," said IDF Spokesman Brig.-Gen. Moti Almoz. (Jerusalem Post)
• 
  
• Resource: http://news.yahoo.com/israel-pm-calls-palestinian-toddler-death-act-terrorism-064132916.html
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Itamar_attack
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duma,_Nablus

Prime Minister Shamir Died

sNadene Goldfoot
Prime Minister  "Yitzhak Yzernitzky" Shamir b: October 15, 1915 in Ruzinoy, Poland, Israel's 7th, PM,  passed away Saturday  "Shabbat" at age 96 years 8 months 15 days.  For the past 10 years he has suffered from Alzheimer's disease. He has been in a coma during this period as well.  The funeral will be on Monday.

President Shimon Peres said in a statement that "Yitzhak Shamir was a brave warrior for Israel, before and after its inception.  He was a great patriot and his contribution will be forever etched in our chronicles.  He was loyal to his beliefs and he served his country with the utmost dedication for decades.  May he rest in peace.

 He started his life's work as an underground leader in Palestine and became Israel's Prime Minister.  He immigrated to Palestine from Warsaw at age 22 where he had been studying law. After reaching Palestine he enrolled in the Hebrew University and then  joined the Irgun Tzevai Leumi  or known as Etzel in 1937.  It was an offshoot of the Haganah, a  Zionist paramilitary group  which started in 1931 and continued till the birth of Israel in 1948. It turned out to be the political predecessor to the Likud party that Shamir belonged to.
  
However, Shamir left the group in 1940  for the Lohmei Herut Israel (Lehi)  or the Stern Group (Fighters for the Freedom of Israel) of which he became one of the 3 heads. This is the group my cousin, Stanley Goldfoot b: 1914 belonged to and had been the Chief of Intelligence.  They held to the belief that Britain must be fought notwithstanding the war effort against the Germans.  Shamir was its operational commander.  They had about 300 members. " Lehi split from the Irgun in 1940.   Stern declared that he incorporated elements of both the left and the right."  Twice the British tried to arrest Shamir but he escaped, as they were arresting many Jewish men, including Goldfoot who was imprisoned.   Shamir had been deported to Eritrea ( on Horn of Africa between Sudan and Ethiopia) and had escaped that place. He found asylum in France in 1947 and returned to Palestine in 1948 to continue as head of Stern Group (Lehi)  until Israel's birth May 14, 1948.  The group did see the British as the most evil of all their enemies.  

From 1955-56 he worked for the Mossad (Israeli Secret Service).  From 1973 he served in the Knesset as a Herut member, serving as speaker in 1977-80 and foreign minister from 1980.

In 1983 he succeeded Menahem Begin as prime minister.  The 1984 elections led to a stalemate and an agreement was reached between Shamir's Likud party and Shimon Peres' Labor party for a government of National Unity with rotation between the two men.

1984-86 Shamir was the Prime Minister.  After the 1988 elections he continued being the head of the National Unity government.  The Labor party left the government in 1990 when he led a right wing-religious coalition which was involved with the peace talks with the Arabs.  Shamir must have been frustrated with those talks like we are today, as he then believed in the expansion of Jewish life in the Administered Territories.

He will be remembered also for giving the green light to Major Hadad of the Christian Militia in 1982, when the Major's men went into Lebanon to clean out the PLO terrorists who had been hammering the northern border of Israel-Lebanon where Hadad and his men patrolled.  Major Hadad was a good friend of Israel and took his R&R in the army hospital in Haifa.  Then men took advantage of the situation and it was not a good scene.  This put Shamir in a bad light for having allowed the deaths of the PLOs.  My feeling was that he had no idea of what they could do, trusting in Hadad, who I can't believe realized it, either.

Resource:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irgun
Arutz Sheva news@israelnationalnews.com  Netanyahu eulogizes shamir on "The Arabs Are The Same Arabs" by Chana Ya'ar
The New Standard Jewish Encyclopedia
http://www.jta.org/news/article/2012/07/01/3099566/former-israeli-prime-minister-yitzhak-shamir-dies
Also read http://jewishfactsfromportland.blogspot.com to see the British attitude in Palestine and understand where the Jewish fighters were coming from-1st two posts that come up.  .

Security Barrier in Judea-Samaria

Nadene GoldfootA security barrier is up in the Judea-Samaria area near the 1,800 populated Arab village of Bil'in, which lies 7 miles from Ramalla in the center of Judea-Samaria. The Arabs held a demonstration-rally consisting of about 1,000 people. Some people crossed the barrier and put the Palestinian flag on top of the IDF outpost while others broke apart a 30 meter section of the fence. Then the crowd became very rowdy and hurled stones at the IDF. They had been allowing a non-violent protest to continue up to this point. When it became very dangerous with stones flying, the IDF fired tear gas into the crowd. In this crowd was the Palestinian PM Salam Fayyad, Mustafa Barghouti and Nabil Shaath, most likely instigating the crowd. If they weren't helping to cause the uproar, the crowd could have been showing off because of their presence.
The village lies next to the barrier and the ancient Jewish town of Modi'in, well known in history in the Chanukah story. Bil'in happens to be the headquarters of the Palestinian Authority, a stronghold of Fatah. No wonder that many Fatah heads were in attendence. The beef the people have is that the barrier separates the village from 60% of its farmland, so they have had to create a different path to get to their crops.

Since 2005 they have held weekly protests where they arrive wearing gas masks while chanting obscenities at the soldiers such as calling them fascists. This demonstration always drew buses of tourists to watch. They put on quite a show.

Since March 15, 2010, the IDF closed the area, calling it a military zone which kept spectators out from 0800 til 2000 on Fridays when protests would commence. It was not closed to the Arabs.

Jawher Abu Rahma, 36 year old woman, inhaled the fumes, stumbled and fell. She was taken to the hospital where she died. Evidently she had said that she wanted to be a martyr, and it came true. She died like several brothers before her. Her body was wrapped in the Palestinian flag and 3,000 mourners followed her body to burial.
The problem in keeping demonstrations peaceful is that they never stay that way. People in the Middle East can become very worked up and excitable, which is what happened. They turn into a dangerous situation. If people were peaceful in the first place, a security barrier would not be thought of or necessary to put up. This tells you something of the situation here.
There was a follow-up protest in Tel Aviv with about 200 in attendance. Israel has asked for a medical report but it has been refused. Palestinians are calling this a war crime.
Breaking the barrier is quite costly. This will cost hundreds of thousands of NIS to repair.
Resource: http://www.jpost.com/MiddleEast/Article.aspx?id=201774
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20110101/wl_mideast_afp/israelpalestiniansconflictprotesttoll
http://www.haaretz.com/news/bil-in-protesters-dismantle-section-of-west-bank-separation-barrier-1.263651
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bil