• Germany Grapples with Refugee Tips in Terror Probes - Ruth Bender and Mohammad Nour Alakraa
  It was three Syrian refugees in Germany who captured and turned in Syrian terror suspect Jaber Albakr in October. Refugees from the Middle East have been banding together to hound suspected terrorists and war criminals hiding among the nearly two million who have settled in Europe over the last two years, most of them in Germany.
      In Frankfurt, a Syrian human rights activist is collecting files on suspected war criminals and Islamists. Online, refugees are posting pictures of suspected war criminals at a pace authorities can barely keep up with. Some of the information is invaluable, security officials said.
      In Germany, authorities have received 445 tips on potential terror and Islamist supporters over the past 18 months, and another 1,250 on suspected war criminals this year, according to the federal criminal agency BKA. Islamic State has boasted of directing three attacks in Germany this year. (Wall Street Journal)
• Canadian Universities Move to Quell BDS Activity on Campus
  Universities Canada, representing 97 Canadian universities, on Thursday made it much tougher for the anti-Israel Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement to be promoted on campuses. The body added "places of origin" to its list of discrimination criteria on campuses, which already prohibit discrimination based on race, religion and sexual orientation. (JTA)

• Palestinian Forces Raided Home of PA Policeman Before He Shot 3 IDF Soldiers - Adam Rasgon
  The Palestinian Authority attempted to arrest the Palestinian officer who wounded 3 IDF soldiers near Beit El on Monday. "The [PA] security forces came to our home about an hour before he carried out the operation and confiscated [illegal] weapons," a brother of Muhammad Turkman told the Jerusalem Post. Another relative said that after the raid, Turkman's "mother called him and told him the officers confiscated his weapons. He then became really angry and carried out the operation [against the soldiers]. He did not plan to carry out an operation. It was spontaneous."
      The brother added that Turkman carried out the attack because he thought he had nothing to lose. "Muhammad knew that they [the PA] were coming to arrest him." He is the third member of the PA security forces to carry out an attack against the IDF in the last year. (Jerusalem Post)
      See also Why Some Palestinian Security Forces Go Rogue - Pinhas Inbari
  On Oct. 31, a Palestinian security services officer wounded three IDF soldiers at a checkpoint. The Palestinian Authority encourages incitement against cooperation with Israel. Palestinian security forces are portrayed in Palestinian social media and by Fatah as traitors. It is only natural that these uniformed men try to regain their lost honor through terrorist attacks. (Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs)
• Palestinian Stabbing Attack Thwarted at Cave of the Patriarchs in Hebron
  Israeli Border Police officers at the Cave of the Patriarchs in Hebron found two knives in the possession of a Palestinian woman on Tuesday. According to initial investigations, the woman planned to carry out a stabbing attack. (Jerusalem Post)

• UNESCO Decision on Jerusalem's Temple Mount Distorts History - Editorial
  Jerusalem's Temple Mount is so named for the two Jewish temples that stood on the site for almost nine centuries - the first built by King Solomon nearly 3,000 years ago, the second destroyed by the Roman legions under Titus in 70 CE. One needn't be a Bible scholar or a historian to know that the cultural, religious, and emotional bonds that link the Jews to Jerusalem are unparalleled. For millennia, Jerusalem and the Temple Mount have been central to Jewish self-awareness - and thus to Christianity as well, since the Temple figures prominently in the Gospels' account of the life of Jesus.
      UNESCO's tendentious semantics play into an ongoing propaganda campaign by the Palestinian Authority to "de-Judaize" the identity of Jerusalem, the foremost Jewish city on earth. Jerusalem's holy sites have never been safer, or open to more people, than in the 49 years since it was reunified under Israeli administration. (Boston Globe)
• Post-Caliphate: The Future of the Salafi-Jihadi Movement - Bruce Hoffman and Matthew Levitt
  Bruce Hoffman: Osama bin Laden was confident that his death would produce thousands more Osamas, and in light of the ongoing global foreign fighter phenomenon, his threat has been realized. Al-Qaeda has been waiting on IS to do much of its work until the time comes to rise again. Reunification between the two groups remains a possibility, given their relatively small ideological differences. Their existing divides are rooted in a clash of egos more than anything else.
      Matthew Levitt: After the caliphate dissolves, IS operatives will reorganize as insurgents in Anbar, Diyala, and other core areas. In addition, some operatives may head to the group's "provinces." Most importantly, as long as Syria remains an open sore, IS can continue to exist there and use the conflict as a recruiting beacon. More broadly, Islamist radicalization is in hyper drive, and many of the factors that are stimulating it will not be diminished with the fall of IS.
      Bruce Hoffman directs the Center for Security Studies at Georgetown University. Matthew Levitt is former deputy assistant secretary for intelligence and analysis at the U.S. Treasury Department. This is from their address at the Washington Institute on Oct. 27. (Washington Institute for Near East Policy)
• Abbas Is Too Weak to Make Peace - Khaled Abu Toameh
  Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas' surprise meeting in Qatar with Hamas leaders Ismail Haniyeh and Khaled Mashaal last week coincided with an unprecedented wave of armed clashes between PA security forces and gunmen in a number of Palestinian refugee camps in the West Bank. Palestinians say the confrontations are the worst in many years and pose a serious and open challenge to Abbas.
      Some PA officials have privately criticized Abbas for failing to realize the degree to which his Fatah faction represents a threat to him. They expressed surprise that he has not yet abandoned his globe-trotting and remained in Ramallah to tackle what they call the "Camp Intifada" against him. If Abbas is unable to make peace inside his own Fatah faction, how will he ever be able to end the dispute with Hamas?
      Israel currently faces two Palestinian camps: one (Hamas) that does not want to make peace with Israel because it believes Israel ought not to exist, and the second (Fatah) that cannot make peace with Israel because it is too weak to do so. (Gatestone Institute)

The Graying of Israel-Arab Relations - Ira Sharkansky (San Diego Jewish World)

• Israel's relations with its neighbors have evolved over the course of 70 years to something that is far more subtle and nuanced than what is expressed by intense nationalists or by overseas friends and antagonists, each with their favorite solution.
• We should start from the realization that peace is not on our doorstep, no matter what we do. There is no chance that Israel will remove substantial numbers from the 800,000 or so Jews living over the lines of 1967, or that a Palestinian leadership will ratchet down significantly from demands dating to 1947, 1967, or the last meeting between Israel and Palestinian leaders.
• Yet we're getting along with our near neighbors. There are casualties, but nothing like what was experienced in the past, and even further from what other neighbors are doing to one another across the Middle East.
• Living near Muslims has exposed us in recent years to a rate of casualties less than that of traffic accidents. We seek to limit the casualties, but should not expect to eliminate them entirely.
• Among the guidelines that operate for military and governmental professionals and politicians who reach the crucial offices are not to overreact to violence with excessive force in ways that make things worse, yet to react with impressive force when appropriate.
• The purpose of occasional Israeli outbursts of significant violence is to counter upticks in the violence against us, and to remind the waverers among Israeli Arabs and Palestinians about what can happen to them yet again if they lose control over their nationalist sentiments.
  
  The writer is professor emeritus of political science at Hebrew University.