Israel News Digest - Daily News Alert from Israel

News Resources - North America, Europe, and Asia:

Netanyahu Links Hamas with ISIS, and Equates ISIS with Iran - Somini Sengupta and David E. Sanger
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel, in an address to the UN General Assembly on Monday, called Hamas and the Islamic State "branches of the same poisonous tree," and said Iran was the most dangerous country in the world. He said that just as the world would never allow Islamic State extremists to gain control of centrifuges for enriching uranium or a heavy-water nuclear reactor, it would be equally dangerous to allow Iran to possess either. (New York Times)
See also Netanyahu: Iran Poses Greater Threat than Islamic State - Louis Charbonneau and Michelle Nichols (Reuters)
See also Netanyahu Corrects the UN's Warped Mideast View - Editorial (New York Daily News)
See also below Observations: ISIS and Hamas Are Branches of the Same Poisonous Tree - Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (Prime Minister's Office)
Netanyahu Reveals Photo of Children Playing near Hamas Rocket Launcher - Bob Fredericks
"Hamas deliberately placed its rockets where Palestinian children live and play," Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told the UN General Assembly on Monday, displaying a chilling picture of kids amid weaponry. The photo "shows two Hamas rocket launchers, which were used to attack us. You see three children playing next to them. Hamas deliberately put its rockets in hundreds of residential areas like this." "Israel was using its missiles to protect its children. Hamas was using its children to protect its missiles." (New York Post)
Obama: Middle East Peace Is Going to Take Some Time - Steve Kroft
President Obama told "60 Minutes" on Sunday: "Islam is a religion that preaches peace and the overwhelming majority of Muslims are peaceful. But in the Muslim world right now, there is a cancer that has grown for too long that suggests that it is acceptable to kill innocent people who worship a different God....We've got to get Arab and Muslim leaders to say very clearly, 'These folks do not represent us. They do not represent Islam,' and to speak out forcefully against them."
"The beginning of the solution for the entire Middle East is going to be a transformation in how these countries teach their youth. What our military operations can do is to just check and roll back these networks as they appear and make sure that the time and space is provided for a new way of doing things to begin to take root. But it's going to take some time." (CBS News)
Fort Hood Shooter Says He Wants to Become "Citizen" of Islamic State Caliphate - Catherine Herridge
Nidal Hasan, who fatally shot 13 people and injured more than 30 at Fort Hood in 2009, has written to the leader of the Islamic State saying he wants to become a "citizen" of the caliphate, in the latest example of the terror group's reach inside the U.S. (Fox News)
Jewish Graves Vandalized at Jerusalem's Mount of Olives Cemetery
More than 40 graves were vandalized in the Ger Hasidic section of the Jewish cemetery on the Mount of Olives, it was discovered Friday. Many headstones were toppled over or smashed, and brass lamps and other items were stolen. Newly installed surveillance cameras were broken by the vandals. Nearby residents said that masked Arab youths vandalized the cemetery. (JTA)

News Resources - Israel and the Mideast:

Netanyahu at the UN: A Focus on Israel's Security - Herb Keinon
Prime Minister Netanyahu sees his role as leader of Israel not necessarily as being the one who will bring peace, but rather the one who will ensure the country's security, even if it means taking positions unpopular around the world. One such position may be his signal Monday at the UN that he now prefers partnership with the Arab world as a way to reach some kind of accommodation with the Palestinians, rather than negotiations and peace with the Palestinians as the ticket to rapprochement with the Arab world.
In the role he envisions for himself as the defender of the Jewish people and the Jewish state, Netanyahu sees it as his responsibility to sound the warning loudly and clearly about the incoming storms. And if the world does not heed his warnings, he had another message as well: Israel will always defend itself, by itself, against any threat. (Jerusalem Post)
Ya'alon: Hamas Political Maneuvers Delayed End of Gaza War - Gili Cohen
Defense Minister Moshe Ya'alon told a conference at Bar-Ilan University on Monday that the Gaza war lasted for 50 days mainly because Israel insisted that Hamas accept the Egyptian cease-fire proposal - which it ultimately did - and would not agree to alternative proposals that Hamas preferred. A schism in the Hamas leadership also contributed to prolonging the war, he added, saying that Khaled Meshaal, the Qatar-based head of Hamas' political bureau, "brought about a significant delay in the cease-fire." (Ha'aretz)
See also Ya'alon: Hamas Retained Only 20 Percent of Its Rocket Arsenal - Mitch Ginsburg
Hamas has retained only 20% of its rocket arsenal, totaling roughly 2,000 projectiles, Defense Minister Moshe Ya'alon said Monday at Bar-Ilan University. Hamas lost 40 senior operatives, along with 10 Palestinian Islamic Jihad leaders, Ya'alon said. (Times of Israel)
The Strength of ISIS-Type Groups in Gaza and Sinai - Aaron Y. Zelin
In the previous Israel-Hamas war of November 2012, five jihadi groups launched 99 rockets at Israel over ten days. In the eight months leading up to that war, jihadi groups launched 50 rockets at Israel. In the 2014 Gaza war, a different configuration of six jihadi groups launched 117 rockets over six weeks. During the 20 months between the wars, they launched 30 rockets. During the latest war, they launched 12 rockets from Sinai, with Jama'at Ansar Bayt al-Maqdis taking responsibility. In addition, I have been able to confirm the names of 33 Palestinians, Egyptians, and Saudis killed in the latest fighting in Gaza who were members of global jihadi groups. Some were declared members or supporters of the Islamic State (ISIS). The writer is a fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. (Ha'aretz)
See also Jihadi War in Sinai - Yoram Schweitzer and Shani Avita
Growing terrorist activity by Ansar Bayt al-Maqdis in Sinai, and the tightening of its relations with non-Egyptian terrorist organizations headed by ISIS and Salafi jihadi affiliates from Gaza, constitute a strong challenge to the stability of the el-Sisi regime in Egypt. The group, whose founding declaration in 2011 expressed public loyalty to al-Qaeda, apparently recently transferred its loyalty to ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. (Institute for National Security Studies-Tel Aviv University)

Global Commentary and Think-Tank Analysis (Best of U.S., UK, and Israel):

Mahmoud Abbas' Dangerous Grandstanding - Editorial
PA President Mahmoud Abbas delivered a bridge-burning speech to the UN General Assembly last week, mendaciously accusing Israel of "a new war of genocide" and declaring that a return to negotiations was "impossible." Abbas is trying to win support for a UN Security Council resolution, after refusing to respond to a U.S. framework for peace talks painstakingly developed by Secretary of State John Kerry.
Abbas has now rejected platforms for a settlement on two occasions from two U.S. presidents. He persists in grandstanding gestures that he must know will only delay the serious negotiations that must precede the creation of a Palestinian state. He has spoken for years of retiring but, at 79, he clings to his post four years after his elected term expired. Hamas has done the most harm to Palestinians and their cause in recent years. But Abbas has done little good. (Washington Post)
Abbas Justifies Palestinian Terror in UN Speech - Lt. Col. (ret.) Jonathan D. Halevi
PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas accused Israel of a "new war of genocide perpetrated against the Palestinian people" at the UN General Assembly on Sep. 26. He made no mention of the firing of thousands of rockets by Palestinians in Gaza at Israeli cities, strategic facilities, and its international airport. Abbas demanded that Israel pay the full price for its "war crimes," while directing no such demand at the Palestinian terror organizations for firing rockets at Israeli civilian communities.
Praise for terror is a constant motif in Abbas' speeches, as he again referred to all Palestinian terrorists whom Israel has prosecuted for murder or attempted murder as "political prisoners" to be immediately released. (Institute for Contemporary Affairs-Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs)
See also At UN, Netanyahu Outs Abbas' Lies about Israel - Alan M. Dershowitz (Ha'aretz)
The Intellectual Battle Against ISIS - Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum
We cannot extinguish the fires of fanaticism by force alone. The world must unite behind a holistic drive to discredit the ideology that gives extremists their power. ISIS certainly can - and will - be defeated militarily by the international coalition that is now assembling. But lasting peace requires three other ingredients: winning the battle of ideas; upgrading weak governance; and supporting grassroots human development.
What we are fighting is not just a terrorist organization, but the embodiment of a malicious ideology that must be defeated intellectually. With its twisted religious overtones, this pre-packaged franchise of hate carries the power to mobilize thousands of desperate, vindictive, or angry young people and use them to strike at the foundations of civilization.
Only one thing can stop a suicidal youth who is ready to die for ISIS: a stronger ideology that guides him onto the right path and convinces him that God created us to improve our world, not to destroy it. The writer is Vice President and Prime Minister of the United Arab Emirates and Ruler of Dubai. (Project Syndicate)

Observations:

ISIS and Hamas Are Branches of the Same Poisonous Tree - Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (Prime Minister's Office)

"Everywhere we look, militant Islam is on the march....To protect the peace and security of the world, we must remove this cancer before it's too late....ISIS and Hamas are branches of the same poisonous tree. ISIS and Hamas share a fanatical creed, which they both seek to impose well beyond the territory under their control."
"Listen to Khaled Meshaal, the leader of Hamas:...'We say this to the West....By Allah you will be defeated. Tomorrow our nation will sit on the throne of the world.'...They also want a caliphate. Hamas shares the global ambitions of its fellow militant Islamists. That's why its supporters wildly cheered in the streets of Gaza as thousands of Americans were murdered on 9/11. And that's why its leaders condemned the United States for killing Osama Bin Laden, whom they praised as a holy warrior."
"They all share a fanatic ideology. They all seek to create ever expanding enclaves of militant Islam where there is no freedom and no tolerance - where women are treated as chattel, Christians are decimated, and minorities are subjugated, sometimes given the stark choice: convert or die. For them, anyone can be an infidel, including fellow Muslims."
"The Islamic Republic [of Iran] is now trying to bamboozle its way to an agreement that will remove the sanctions it still faces, and leave it with the capacity of thousands of centrifuges to enrich uranium. This would effectively cement Iran's place as a threshold military nuclear power. In the future, at a time of its choosing, Iran, the world's most dangerous state in the world's most dangerous region, would obtain the world's most dangerous weapons. Allowing that to happen would pose the gravest threat to us all."
"Would you let ISIS enrich uranium? Would you let ISIS build a heavy water reactor? Would you let ISIS develop intercontinental ballistic missiles? Of course you wouldn't. Then you mustn't let the Islamic State of Iran do those things either....To defeat ISIS and leave Iran as a threshold nuclear power is to win the battle and lose the war. "
"For 50 days this past summer, Hamas fired thousands of rockets at Israel, many of them supplied by Iran....Israel was doing everything to minimize Palestinian civilian casualties. Hamas was doing everything to maximize Israeli civilian casualties and Palestinian civilian casualties....No other country and no other army in history have gone to greater lengths to avoid casualties among the civilian population of their enemies."
"After decades of seeing Israel as their enemy, leading states in the Arab world increasingly recognize that together we and they face many of the same dangers: principally this means a nuclear-armed Iran and militant Islamist movements gaining ground in the Sunni world....Many have long assumed that an Israeli-Palestinian peace can help facilitate a broader rapprochement between Israel and the Arab World. But these days I think it may work the other way around: Namely that a broader rapprochement between Israel and the Arab world may help facilitate an Israeli-Palestinian peace."

See also Video: Prime Minister Netanyahu's Speech at the UN

Prepared for the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations by the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs
*DAILY ALERT*	Tuesday, September 30, 2014
News Resources - North America, Europe, and Asia: Netanyahu Links Hamas with ISIS, and Equates ISIS with Iran - Somini Sengupta and David E. Sanger Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel, in an address to the UN General Assembly on Monday, called Hamas and the Islamic State "branches of the same poisonous tree," and said Iran was the most dangerous country in the world. He said that just as the world would never allow Islamic State extremists to gain control of centrifuges for enriching uranium or a heavy-water nuclear reactor, it would be equally dangerous to allow Iran to possess either. (New York Times) See also Netanyahu: Iran Poses Greater Threat than Islamic State - Louis Charbonneau and Michelle Nichols (Reuters) See also Netanyahu Corrects the UN's Warped Mideast View - Editorial (New York Daily News) See also below Observations: ISIS and Hamas Are Branches of the Same Poisonous Tree - Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (Prime Minister's Office) Netanyahu Reveals Photo of Children Playing near Hamas Rocket Launcher - Bob Fredericks "Hamas deliberately placed its rockets where Palestinian children live and play," Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told the UN General Assembly on Monday, displaying a chilling picture of kids amid weaponry. The photo "shows two Hamas rocket launchers, which were used to attack us. You see three children playing next to them. Hamas deliberately put its rockets in hundreds of residential areas like this." "Israel was using its missiles to protect its children. Hamas was using its children to protect its missiles." (New York Post) Obama: Middle East Peace Is Going to Take Some Time - Steve Kroft President Obama told "60 Minutes" on Sunday: "Islam is a religion that preaches peace and the overwhelming majority of Muslims are peaceful. But in the Muslim world right now, there is a cancer that has grown for too long that suggests that it is acceptable to kill innocent people who worship a different God....We've got to get Arab and Muslim leaders to say very clearly, 'These folks do not represent us. They do not represent Islam,' and to speak out forcefully against them." "The beginning of the solution for the entire Middle East is going to be a transformation in how these countries teach their youth. What our military operations can do is to just check and roll back these networks as they appear and make sure that the time and space is provided for a new way of doing things to begin to take root. But it's going to take some time." (CBS News) Fort Hood Shooter Says He Wants to Become "Citizen" of Islamic State Caliphate - Catherine Herridge Nidal Hasan, who fatally shot 13 people and injured more than 30 at Fort Hood in 2009, has written to the leader of the Islamic State saying he wants to become a "citizen" of the caliphate, in the latest example of the terror group's reach inside the U.S. (Fox News) Jewish Graves Vandalized at Jerusalem's Mount of Olives Cemetery More than 40 graves were vandalized in the Ger Hasidic section of the Jewish cemetery on the Mount of Olives, it was discovered Friday. Many headstones were toppled over or smashed, and brass lamps and other items were stolen. Newly installed surveillance cameras were broken by the vandals. Nearby residents said that masked Arab youths vandalized the cemetery. (JTA) News Resources - Israel and the Mideast: Netanyahu at the UN: A Focus on Israel's Security - Herb Keinon Prime Minister Netanyahu sees his role as leader of Israel not necessarily as being the one who will bring peace, but rather the one who will ensure the country's security, even if it means taking positions unpopular around the world. One such position may be his signal Monday at the UN that he now prefers partnership with the Arab world as a way to reach some kind of accommodation with the Palestinians, rather than negotiations and peace with the Palestinians as the ticket to rapprochement with the Arab world. In the role he envisions for himself as the defender of the Jewish people and the Jewish state, Netanyahu sees it as his responsibility to sound the warning loudly and clearly about the incoming storms. And if the world does not heed his warnings, he had another message as well: Israel will always defend itself, by itself, against any threat. (Jerusalem Post) Ya'alon: Hamas Political Maneuvers Delayed End of Gaza War - Gili Cohen Defense Minister Moshe Ya'alon told a conference at Bar-Ilan University on Monday that the Gaza war lasted for 50 days mainly because Israel insisted that Hamas accept the Egyptian cease-fire proposal - which it ultimately did - and would not agree to alternative proposals that Hamas preferred. A schism in the Hamas leadership also contributed to prolonging the war, he added, saying that Khaled Meshaal, the Qatar-based head of Hamas' political bureau, "brought about a significant delay in the cease-fire." (Ha'aretz) See also Ya'alon: Hamas Retained Only 20 Percent of Its Rocket Arsenal - Mitch Ginsburg Hamas has retained only 20% of its rocket arsenal, totaling roughly 2,000 projectiles, Defense Minister Moshe Ya'alon said Monday at Bar-Ilan University. Hamas lost 40 senior operatives, along with 10 Palestinian Islamic Jihad leaders, Ya'alon said. (Times of Israel) The Strength of ISIS-Type Groups in Gaza and Sinai - Aaron Y. Zelin In the previous Israel-Hamas war of November 2012, five jihadi groups launched 99 rockets at Israel over ten days. In the eight months leading up to that war, jihadi groups launched 50 rockets at Israel. In the 2014 Gaza war, a different configuration of six jihadi groups launched 117 rockets over six weeks. During the 20 months between the wars, they launched 30 rockets. During the latest war, they launched 12 rockets from Sinai, with Jama'at Ansar Bayt al-Maqdis taking responsibility. In addition, I have been able to confirm the names of 33 Palestinians, Egyptians, and Saudis killed in the latest fighting in Gaza who were members of global jihadi groups. Some were declared members or supporters of the Islamic State (ISIS). The writer is a fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. (Ha'aretz) See also Jihadi War in Sinai - Yoram Schweitzer and Shani Avita Growing terrorist activity by Ansar Bayt al-Maqdis in Sinai, and the tightening of its relations with non-Egyptian terrorist organizations headed by ISIS and Salafi jihadi affiliates from Gaza, constitute a strong challenge to the stability of the el-Sisi regime in Egypt. The group, whose founding declaration in 2011 expressed public loyalty to al-Qaeda, apparently recently transferred its loyalty to ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. (Institute for National Security Studies-Tel Aviv University) Global Commentary and Think-Tank Analysis (Best of U.S., UK, and Israel): Mahmoud Abbas' Dangerous Grandstanding - Editorial PA President Mahmoud Abbas delivered a bridge-burning speech to the UN General Assembly last week, mendaciously accusing Israel of "a new war of genocide" and declaring that a return to negotiations was "impossible." Abbas is trying to win support for a UN Security Council resolution, after refusing to respond to a U.S. framework for peace talks painstakingly developed by Secretary of State John Kerry. Abbas has now rejected platforms for a settlement on two occasions from two U.S. presidents. He persists in grandstanding gestures that he must know will only delay the serious negotiations that must precede the creation of a Palestinian state. He has spoken for years of retiring but, at 79, he clings to his post four years after his elected term expired. Hamas has done the most harm to Palestinians and their cause in recent years. But Abbas has done little good. (Washington Post) Abbas Justifies Palestinian Terror in UN Speech - Lt. Col. (ret.) Jonathan D. Halevi PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas accused Israel of a "new war of genocide perpetrated against the Palestinian people" at the UN General Assembly on Sep. 26. He made no mention of the firing of thousands of rockets by Palestinians in Gaza at Israeli cities, strategic facilities, and its international airport. Abbas demanded that Israel pay the full price for its "war crimes," while directing no such demand at the Palestinian terror organizations for firing rockets at Israeli civilian communities. Praise for terror is a constant motif in Abbas' speeches, as he again referred to all Palestinian terrorists whom Israel has prosecuted for murder or attempted murder as "political prisoners" to be immediately released. (Institute for Contemporary Affairs-Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs) See also At UN, Netanyahu Outs Abbas' Lies about Israel - Alan M. Dershowitz (Ha'aretz) The Intellectual Battle Against ISIS - Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum We cannot extinguish the fires of fanaticism by force alone. The world must unite behind a holistic drive to discredit the ideology that gives extremists their power. ISIS certainly can - and will - be defeated militarily by the international coalition that is now assembling. But lasting peace requires three other ingredients: winning the battle of ideas; upgrading weak governance; and supporting grassroots human development. What we are fighting is not just a terrorist organization, but the embodiment of a malicious ideology that must be defeated intellectually. With its twisted religious overtones, this pre-packaged franchise of hate carries the power to mobilize thousands of desperate, vindictive, or angry young people and use them to strike at the foundations of civilization. Only one thing can stop a suicidal youth who is ready to die for ISIS: a stronger ideology that guides him onto the right path and convinces him that God created us to improve our world, not to destroy it. The writer is Vice President and Prime Minister of the United Arab Emirates and Ruler of Dubai. (Project Syndicate) Observations: ISIS and Hamas Are Branches of the Same Poisonous Tree - Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (Prime Minister's Office) "Everywhere we look, militant Islam is on the march....To protect the peace and security of the world, we must remove this cancer before it's too late....ISIS and Hamas are branches of the same poisonous tree. ISIS and Hamas share a fanatical creed, which they both seek to impose well beyond the territory under their control." "Listen to Khaled Meshaal, the leader of Hamas:...'We say this to the West....By Allah you will be defeated. Tomorrow our nation will sit on the throne of the world.'...They also want a caliphate. Hamas shares the global ambitions of its fellow militant Islamists. That's why its supporters wildly cheered in the streets of Gaza as thousands of Americans were murdered on 9/11. And that's why its leaders condemned the United States for killing Osama Bin Laden, whom they praised as a holy warrior." "They all share a fanatic ideology. They all seek to create ever expanding enclaves of militant Islam where there is no freedom and no tolerance - where women are treated as chattel, Christians are decimated, and minorities are subjugated, sometimes given the stark choice: convert or die. For them, anyone can be an infidel, including fellow Muslims." "The Islamic Republic [of Iran] is now trying to bamboozle its way to an agreement that will remove the sanctions it still faces, and leave it with the capacity of thousands of centrifuges to enrich uranium. This would effectively cement Iran's place as a threshold military nuclear power. In the future, at a time of its choosing, Iran, the world's most dangerous state in the world's most dangerous region, would obtain the world's most dangerous weapons. Allowing that to happen would pose the gravest threat to us all." "Would you let ISIS enrich uranium? Would you let ISIS build a heavy water reactor? Would you let ISIS develop intercontinental ballistic missiles? Of course you wouldn't. Then you mustn't let the Islamic State of Iran do those things either....To defeat ISIS and leave Iran as a threshold nuclear power is to win the battle and lose the war. " "For 50 days this past summer, Hamas fired thousands of rockets at Israel, many of them supplied by Iran....Israel was doing everything to minimize Palestinian civilian casualties. Hamas was doing everything to maximize Israeli civilian casualties and Palestinian civilian casualties....No other country and no other army in history have gone to greater lengths to avoid casualties among the civilian population of their enemies." "After decades of seeing Israel as their enemy, leading states in the Arab world increasingly recognize that together we and they face many of the same dangers: principally this means a nuclear-armed Iran and militant Islamist movements gaining ground in the Sunni world....Many have long assumed that an Israeli-Palestinian peace can help facilitate a broader rapprochement between Israel and the Arab World. But these days I think it may work the other way around: Namely that a broader rapprochement between Israel and the Arab world may help facilitate an Israeli-Palestinian peace." See also Video: Prime Minister Netanyahu's Speech at the UN Subscribe \| Search \| Back Issues