• White House: "Strong Indications" Iran Missile Test Violated UN Resolution
  The White House said Tuesday that the U.S. has "strong indications" that Iran violated UN Security Council resolutions with its ballistic missile test over the weekend. However, White House press secretary Josh Earnest said the move wouldn't complicate efforts to implement the nuclear deal with Iran. "This is altogether separate from the nuclear agreement that Iran reached with the rest of the world," Earnest said. State Department spokesman Mark Toner said Tuesday that the U.S. planned to raise Iran's missile test at the UN Security Council. (Dow Jones)
• Syria Rebels Plan Suicide Attacks on Russians - Austin Bodetti and David Axe
  The Homs Liberation Movement, a Free Syrian Army faction close to al-Qaeda, plans to infiltrate the Syrian military to find where the Russians are - and blow them up, said rebel Capt. Rashid al-Hourani. (Daily Beast)
      See also Al-Qaeda in Syria Calls for Revenge Attacks on Russia - Loveday Morris and Natasha Abbakumova
  Abu Mohammed al-Jolani, the leader of Jabhat al-Nusra, al-Qaeda's offshoot in Syria, has called on followers in the Caucasus region to "distract" Moscow from Syria and attack both civilian and military targets in Russia. "If they kill from our soldiers, kill from theirs. One for one," he said in an audio recording released Monday. Jolani set a bounty of 3 million euros for the killing of Assad and 2 million euros for the elimination of Hizbullah leader Hassan Nasrallah. (Washington Post)

• Netanyahu: Fight the Murderers and Inciters
  Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, speaking Tuesday at a special Knesset session to mark 14 years since the assassination of Minister Rechavam Ze'evi, said: "Israel will settle accounts with the murderers, those who attempt murder, and all those who assist them. Not only will they not enjoy their privileges, but we will exact from them the full cost. Anyone who raises his hand to harm us - will pay dearly. And we will not hesitate to use all means at our disposal to restore peace to the cities of Israel."
      "Numerous measures are continuing to be implemented on the ground in answer to the current wave of terrorism....We knew waves of terrorism in the past and we overcame them. They did not achieve their aim to uproot us from our land, to destroy our country. They will not achieve it this time either. We are focused on our mission to fight the murderers and inciters, and I am confident that the actions we take will lead to the other side's recognition that terrorism does not pay."  (Prime Minister's Office)
      See also Security Cabinet Approves Additional Measures to Deal with Wave of Terrorism (Prime Minister's Office)
• Kerry Links Wave of Terrorism in Israel to Settlement Activity - Michael Wilner
  A "massive increase in settlements" built by Israel in recent years has led to the "frustration" and "violence" now stoking its conflict with the Palestinians, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said at Harvard University on Tuesday. Kerry said he plans on visiting Israel, without announcing a date. (Jerusalem Post)
      See also Transcript: Kerry at Harvard (State Department)
      See also Less Settlement Construction under Netanyahu than Any Other Prime Minister since 1995 - Chaim Levinson
  Since Netanyahu became prime minister in 2009, there has been less construction activity in the settlements than under any other prime minister since 1995. According to data from the Housing and Construction Ministry, an average of 1,554 houses a year were built in the settlements from 2009 to 2014 - fewer than under any of his recent predecessors. (Ha'aretz)
• Israel Sets Up Checkpoints around Arab Neighborhoods in Jerusalem - Judah Ari Gross and Raoul Wootliff
  Police began setting up checkpoints at "the exits of Palestinian villages and neighborhoods in east Jerusalem," a police spokeswoman said. All five of Tuesday's attackers hailed from Arab neighborhoods in east Jerusalem. "IDF units will reinforce the Israel Police in cities and along roads," and will deploy "along the security fence," the Prime Minister's Office said.
      The security cabinet approved Public Security Minister Gilad Erdan's proposal that Israel not hand over to their families the bodies of terrorists killed during attacks. Erdan said terrorists should not be honored with admiration and ceremonies after carrying out attacks. "The families of terrorists turn their funerals into a demonstration of support for terrorism and incitement to murder. We must put an end to this," he said. (Times of Israel)
      See also A Wave of Palestinian Attacks - Aron Heller
  Eight Israelis have died in a wave of deadly Palestinian shooting and stabbing attacks, while 29 Palestinians - including 12 identified by Israel as attackers - have been killed. (AP-Washington Post)

• Jews Are Being Killed Simply for Being Jews - Eitan Na'eh
  Arab rioters burned my great-great grandparents' house in Hebron in 1929. In 1936, the house of my great-grandparents in Jaffa was burned down by Arab rioters. In 1939, my father's cousin, Zalman Na'eh, was murdered at age 8, shot in the stomach by Arab terrorists while travelling on a bus from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. What prompted all these acts of terror? Was it the Israeli "occupation" - which did not exist at the time? Was it frustration about the peace process?
      The very presence of Jews in the Land of Israel appears to be the root cause of terrorist violence against them. We have heard the lie that "Al Aqsa is in danger" since the 1920s. What we are seeing is not about religious rights or land. The reality is that, be it 1929 or 2015, Jews are being murdered simply for being Jews. The writer is Israel's Acting Ambassador to Great Britain. (Telegraph-UK)
• The Bigger Villain Whitewashes the Crimes of the Lesser Villain - Yoram Schweitzer
  We watch in amazement as Islamic State, a terrorist entity which employs extreme, particularly grotesque violence, becomes a rallying point for a coalition of terrorist perpetrators that are just as bad - among them Syria led by Bashar Assad, and Iran and Hizbullah working alongside Russia in order to block the Sunni jihadist terrorism.
      Suddenly al-Qaeda and its affiliates became "light Salafi jihadists" and are presented today as pragmatic. Bashar Assad murders hundreds of thousands of his people and is presented as a legitimate ruler, and Iran, the world leading state sponsor of terrorism, is presented as a stabilizing force in the Middle East. The writer is head of the research program on Terror and Low-Intensity Conflict at the Institute for National Security Studies in Tel Aviv. (Jerusalem Post)

The Israeli Claim to Jerusalem - Nadav Shragai (Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs)

• The Israeli claim to Jerusalem has not only been based on practical considerations but, primarily, on a deep commitment to the Jewish right and connection with Jerusalem, with roots that lie deep in the Jewish past. According to the Book of Chronicles, it was King David who broke the ground for the building of the Temple. King Solomon, David's son, built the Temple on the plot of land that was purchased from Araunah on Mount Moriah.
• The phrase "Next year in a rebuilt Jerusalem" became the flag and the anthem that bound together the Jewish diaspora communities, including the founders of Zionism, the Jewish national liberation movement. When a couple recite the marriage vows, the groom says: "If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, may my right hand lose its cunning." Throughout all the generations, Jews ascended to Jerusalem to pray there, kiss its soil, and also to die there and be buried on the Mount of Olives.
• Islam, which now claims priority and precedence over Jerusalem and its holy places, only emerged two thousand years after the Jews became a people. The Palestinians - who claim east Jerusalem, including the Old City and the Temple Mount - as their capital, only began to define themselves as a people about a hundred years ago.
• Jerusalem and Zion are mentioned 821 times in the Bible and another 3,212 times in the rabbinical literature. The Koran does not mention it even once. The Muslim holy city of Mecca, however, is mentioned hundreds of times in the Koran, and so is the city of Medina. Jerusalem was not part of the world of Muhammad and the ancient Muslims; the focus was solely on the Arabian Peninsula.
• One cannot base claims regarding Jerusalem on existential-security needs alone. These claims must be based on a right - the Jewish people's connection and commitment to Jerusalem. Such a commitment rests on Jewish religion, tradition, culture, and history. Without this ancient legacy, what justification is there for the Jewish state's existence in the Land of Israel, or for making Jerusalem the capital of the Jewish people and their state?
• David Ben-Gurion, during the 1948 War of Independence, said: "If a land has a soul, then Jerusalem is the soul of the Land of Israel, and the battle over Jerusalem is determinative and not only from a military standpoint."
  
  The writer, a veteran Israeli journalist and author of Jerusalem: Delusions of Division (2015), is the grandson of Shlomo Zalman Shragai, the first elected mayor of Jerusalem after the establishment of the State of Israel.
  
      See also See the Truth Behind the Lies - Nadav Shragai
  Muslim religious and political leaders have been deceiving Muslims in Israel and around the world, brainwashing them with unfounded lies and blood libels, and driving terrorists to wreak havoc and death on our streets under false pretenses. Israel is no threat to the Al-Aqsa mosque. Israel is not excavating the area. No one is trying to infuse the Temple Mount's foundations with chemicals that would cause them to dissolve, and Jewish, Christian, and Muslim zealots who threaten the compound are thrown in jail. (Israel Hayom)