ISRAEL BREAKING NEWS

A ‘Desperate’ Abbas Enjoys Brief Victory as Palestinians Take Helm of Major UN Bloc
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While it may appear that the Palestinians are slowly managing to achieve their goal of full UN membership, the likelihood of this happening remains slim.

By Israel Kasnett, JNS

Palestinian Authority (PA) leader Mahmoud Abbas is in New York City to witness the Palestinian Mission as it takes over leadership of the G77 bloc. While there, he will likely push the Palestinian agenda and lobby for full membership to the United Nations.

Were he to succeed, U.S. law prohibits funding U.N.-affiliated organizations that accept the PA as a member state, and the United States would therefore be required to cut all funding of the United Nations.

Fortunately, that won’t happen.

Last July, the Group of 77, a UN bloc that includes 134 developing countries, elected the head of the Palestinian mission, Riyad Mansour, as its next leader for 2019.

The Palestinian mission to the United Nations was granted observer status in 2012, making it eligible to join U.N. bodies such as the International Criminal Court and UNESCO.

However, because the Palestinians have the status of a non-member state at the United Nations, which would have made them ineligible for the chairmanship of the bloc without a special vote, the UN General Assembly held one last October to temporarily elevate the Palestinians’ status at the world body to resolve the issue.

While it may appear that the Palestinians are slowly managing to achieve their goal of achieving full UN membership and being upgraded from observer to member-state status, the likelihood of this happening still remains slim.

Eugene Kontorovich, head of the International Law Department at the Kohelet Policy Forum, told JNS, “They’re not going to join the UN. If they do, US statutes would require the United States completely defund the United Nations, which would be a big deal if that happens.”

Israel’s Ambassador to the United Nations Danny Danon said, “The Palestinians sign checks for terrorists and at the same time try to get into the UN. We exposed the hypocrisy of the Palestinians. They continue to pay terrorists every month and to encourage violence and incitement against Israel; therefore, they are very far from meeting the definition of a ‘peace-loving’ state. The PA continues to error in its attempt to establish facts on the ground through unilateral moves while it has not abandoned the path of terror.”

At the same time, an upgrade to full membership at the world body for the Palestinians would require support from the Security Council, where the United States holds veto power.

According to a statement by the Israeli Mission at the United Nations, Danon, in cooperation with a number of friendly nations, “led a diplomatic effort to thwart the Palestinian initiative. He also spoke with some members of the Security Council, stressing that the PA does not meet the fundamental conditions of permanent membership in the UN because of its clear policy of paying salaries to terrorists and the public incitement campaign it leads against Israel in textbook and social networks.”

“In light of the Israeli campaign that would save the need for the US to issue a veto in the Security Council,” the statement continued, “it appears that the Palestinians realize that the likelihood of the proposal passing has been significantly diminished. Accordingly, the purpose of Abu Mazen [Mahmoud Abbas] is now likely to take part in a side event the Palestinians will hold, rather than to promote the upgraded status process.”

‘He lost the relationship with the United States’
Ronni Shaked, senior correspondent and commentator on Palestinian Affairs for the Hebrew daily newspaper Yediot Achronot, as well as the Middle East and Islam Research Unit coordinator at Hebrew University’s Truman Institute, told JNS that Abbas is in a deadlock. “He is desperate, and in a terrible moment in his own history and the history of the Palestinians, especially after he lost the relationship with the United States.”

Shaked said that Abbas had a good relationship with US President Barack Obama and also with President Donald Trump in the beginning of the latter’s presidency. However, that relationship soured when Trump moved the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.

He also said that while Abbas is ready to reopen the relationship with the United States, he doesn’t want Jared Kushner to serve in the role as special adviser to the president on the Arab-Israeli conflict. Abbas wants Trump to remove him. This won’t happen because removing Kushner means changing policy.

Now, Abbas has no maneuverability, and “not just because of his relationship with Hamas, not just because no one in the Arab world is paying attention to him,” continued Shaked. “Rather, the issue is that Israel is facing elections now, and nothing will happen on the Palestinian front for at least six months after the election in April.”

“The Palestinians know what goes on in Israel, and they know that [Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu will be the next prime minister. The only thing they can do is try and do something with the US to correct the relationship,” said Shaked.

‘One of the Worst Moments’ in Abbas’s History
“Abu Mazen is not young, and there isn’t much time left for him to do anything. The most he can do is use diplomacy to use the UN and to use the European states [that] are helping him and backing him. But Europe is busy with their own refugees and [‘yellow-vest’ protest] issues, and the UN today has also undergone changes with respect to the Palestinians,” he added.

According to Shaked, the fact that the Palestinians will head the G77 bloc means absolutely nothing. “They will have no influence. It will not change the policy or attitude of the UN toward the Palestinians.

“It’s a big problem for Abu Mazen because there is now no power to help him. He is just looking for more points for himself and for the Palestinians,” he said. “His visit is not going to change anything. This is one of the worst moments in his history.”

Life-Saving ATVs Stop Terrorists Before they Attack Innocent Israelis
https://unitedwithisrael.org/a-desperate-abbas-enjoys-brief-victory-as-palestinians-take-helm-of-major-un-bloc

Islamists Barricade Dome of the Rock, Blocking Israeli Police from Entry
By Hana Levi Julian -  9 Shevat 5779 – January 14, 2019 0
Photo Credit: Miriam Alster / Flash 90
Tourists seen walking at the Dome of the Rock at the Temple Mount in Jerusalem.
Islamists barricaded the doors to Jerusalem’s Dome of the Rock in the Temple Mount compound Monday, blocking Israeli security personnel from entering the building.
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“This morning a number of local individuals on the Temple Mount closed and locked the doors of the Dome of the Rock, preventing police from entering,” Israel Police spokesperson Micky Rosenfeld told JewishPress.com.

“Police units remained at the scene outside until the doors were opened several hours later from those who had locked the doors.

“Police are looking into the incident; five people have been detained for questioning.”

According to a separate report by ABC News, security guards at the site refused to allow an Israeli police officer to enter for a routine security check because he was wearing a kipah. The guards to the site closed the doors to the “mosque” and barricaded themselves inside, said Firas Dibs, a spokesperson for the Islamic Waqf Authority who was quoted by the U.S.-based news outlet.

The director of the “mosque” sustained minor wounds, according to ABC News.

Contrary to popular misconception, the Dome of the Rock is actually not a mosque at all.

According to researchers, in the early Muslim era the Dome of the Rock was the site of worship services that were influenced by the ceremonies of the Jerusalem Temple: cleansing, incense, anointing the Foundation Stone with oil and surrounding it with curtains inspired by the divine parochet. The shrine, built around the Foundation Stone, just like the two Jewish Temples, was completed in 691 CE, by an architect named Yazid Ibn Salam, who was either Jewish himself or had Jewish aides.

There is a theory that Umayyad Caliph Abd al-Malik originally had the Dome of the Rock built as a shrine for the Jews, while Al Aqsa, the mosque on the southern end of the Temple Mount, was built for Muslims.

There is a trend where Muslims have recently begun referring to the entire Temple Mount compound, which they also call al-Haram ash-Sharif (“The Noble Compound”), as the Al Aqsa compound in order to confuse the general public and expand their claims to the ancient Jewish holy site.

Netanyahu to Iran: Get out of Syria fast, we won’t stop attacking
Published time: 15 Jan, 2019 08:21
Edited time: 15 Jan, 2019 09:01
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Netanyahu to Iran: Get out of Syria fast, we won’t stop attacking
Benjamin Netanyahu shakes hands with incoming Israeli Chief of Staff Aviv Kohavi. REUTERS / Corinna Kern
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says the IDF will continue to attack Iranians in Syria. Earlier, an Israeli commander said it conducted attacks in the country on nearly a daily basis and supplied arms to Syrian rebels.
“I'm telling you, get out of there fast. We won’t stop attacking,” the prime minister said on Tuesday morning during a ceremony, in which he appointed Aviv Kochavi as the new chief of staff of the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF).

Netanyahu also rejected statements by an Iranian official, who said Iran only sent military advisers to Syria and not regular fighting troops.

“They always lie. They are lying with that and they are lying when they say their attempt to launch a satellite into space failed,” he said.

The Israeli leader was referring to the remarks made on Monday by Iranian General Hassan Firoozabadi, who said its “military advisers” will say in Syria as long as required to defeat terrorists, and an announcement on Tuesday by Iranian Communications Minister Mohammad-Javad Azari Jahromi, who said Tehran’s attempt to place a satellite into orbit had failed.

ALSO ON RT.COM https://www.rt.com/news/448685-israel-syria-strikes-eizenkot/
‘We struck thousands of targets’: IDF chief of staff on Israel’s ‘near-daily’ strikes in Syria

https://www.timesofisrael.com/netanyahu-says-israels-ready-for-any-election-cyber-meddling-scenario-it-isnt/?utm_source=netanyahu-says-israels-ready-for-any-election-cyber-meddling-scenario-it-isnt&utm_medium=desktop-browser&utm_campaign=desktop-notifications
TOI INVESTIGATESBIDS TO INFLUENCE, MANIPULATE WILL RISE IN RUN-UP TO APRIL 9
Netanyahu says Israel’s ready for any election cyber-meddling scenario. It isn’t
Israelis’ intimate data has been widely leaked, including from ministries * Laws are outdated, unenforced * Abuse of social media is rampant * Facebook won’t respond to inquiries
By SUE SURKES and SHOSHANNA SOLOMON
Today, 9:58 am
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Main image by Miriam Alster/FLASH90, shows the counting of ballots from soldiers and absentees at the Knesset in Jerusalem, a day after the 2015 general elections, March 18, 2015.
Misinformation and malicious rumor-mongering are as ancient as elections themselves. But since allegations of Russian meddling in the 2016 US presidential elections, which saw the hacking of Democratic Party emails and the use of Facebook to manipulate information, concerns about online interference in polls have taken center stage on a global scale.

On the eve of French elections in 2017, hackers leaked large amounts of data from Emmanuel Macron’s presidential campaign. Last month, Germany became the latest target when a hacker — subsequently revealed to be a 20-year-old student “annoyed” by politicians’ comments — stole and published on the internet private data from hundreds of German politicians, including Chancellor Angela Merkel.

Freedom House, a US group that promotes freedom and democracy, reported that disinformation played an important role in elections in at least 18 countries last year.

In September, an Israeli cybersecurity firm announced that it had uncovered three Iran-run fake Hebrew and Arabic news sites targeting Israelis, as well as a score of fake social media accounts.

Freedom House, a US group that promotes freedom and democracy, reported that disinformation played an important role in elections in at least 18 countries last year

Last month, former Mossad chief Tamir Pardo told a digital conference organized by the business daily, The Marker, that the use of bots (online robots) and fake information was a global issue that Israel had to be prepared to handle.


Head of the Shin Bet security service Nadav Argaman attends the Defense and Foreign Affairs Committee meeting at the Knesset on November 6, 2018. (Hadas Parush/Flash90)
Then last Tuesday, it emerged that the head of the Shin Bet security services had told a Friends of Tel Aviv University gathering the night before that a foreign state “intended to intervene” through cyberattacks in Israel’s national elections set for April 9.

Nadav Argaman said he was talking about hackers, although he did not know which political entities the hacking would benefit.

Despite Kremlin denials, Russia — which is suspected of trying to influence the outcome of the Brexit referendum in the UK, among other world polls — is widely believed to be that state, although Israel’s military censor stepped in quickly to issue a gag order on identification.

Israel’s cyber vulnerability
In August, Prof. Karine Nahon, president of the Israel Internet Association and an associate professor at both the University of Washington in Seattle and the Interdisciplinary Center Herzliya, wrote to Justice Hanan Melcer, the current chairman of the Central Elections Committee, to warn about attempts to influence the outcome of elections in Israel.


Prof. Karine Nahon, president of the Israel Internet Association and an associate professor at  the University of Washington and the Interdisciplinary Center Herzliya, (Screenshot)
She called on him to lead a public debate on the subject together with representatives of bodies such as political parties, social media platforms and cyber companies.

“In my view, in Israel too, there are attempts — externally and internally — to manipulate and influence the public discourse and the elections,” Nahon wrote. “These attempts will increase and become more sophisticated in the run-up to Israeli elections.”

Lotem Finkelstein, who heads the threat intelligence desk at Check Point Software Technologies, told The Times of Israel that his researchers had not yet seen any election-related cyberattacks, but noted that it was still “early days.”

High-tech blogger and activist Noam Rotem said that since elections were called last month  for April 9, he had seen a small rise followed by a drop in the activity of online manipulation tools, known as sock puppets — identities used to deceive. “I think the networks are getting prepared for activity that will increase the closer we get to polling day,” he said.

In October, just before countrywide local elections took place, the national cyber directorate based in the Prime Minister’s Office revealed not only that it was working with online social media giants to prevent interference, but that thousands of fake Facebook profile accounts created to spread false information about Israeli political candidates had been taken offline at the agency’s request, along with “a lot of avatars [social media profiles] created to try to change public opinion and to manipulate information.”


Erez Tidhar, head of the Directorate’s personal protection unit, speaking at the Knesset Science and Technology committee on October 15, 2018. (Screenshot)
Erez Tidhar, head of the directorate’s personal protection unit, told the Knesset Science and Technology Committee that these were among 583 million accounts that the social media giant said it had shut down in the first quarter of last year due to their potential dissemination of “fake news.”

Tidhar indicated at the meeting that Israeli political parties were behind some of the fake Facebook profiles.

However, neither the cyber directorate nor the PMO were willing to provide any additional details and have since refused all requests by The Times of Israel for interviews.

The local elections were indeed marred by significant amounts of fake profiles and posts which government authorities were clearly ill-equipped to deal with in real time.

Those elections also highlighted the extent to which Israelis’ personal data is being widely abused.

Multiple data breaches worldwide across different industries – through accidents or hacks — have made billions of records available, Market Watch reported last year.

Sometimes, the data is obtained legally from data brokers. According to Fractl, a content marketing agency, it can also be bought on the dark web, alongside drugs, pirated content and tools for scams. On the dark web, one’s entire online identity can be bought for just $1,200.

Laws aplenty, but are they being adhered to?
Israel does not lack legislation protecting data privacy. Citizens are supposed to be protected by the Basic Law: Human Dignity and Liberty and by the Privacy Protection Act of 1981, which deals specifically with databases, setting out requirements to register, transparency, security obligations and the rights of individuals to access.

In 2006, the Justice Ministry created the Israeli Law Information and Technology Authority. More recently, in May 2017, new data security regulations were passed that exceed some of the formal data protection laws of the EU. A proposed amendment to the 1981 law has not become law yet — if and when it does, it will give the information and technology authority additional powers and will ramp up penalties for violations significantly.


Officials count the final ballots, from soldiers and absentees, a day after the general elections, March 18, 2015. (Miriam Alster/Flash90
But there appears to be a gap between legislation and adherence to the law, as well as a lack of technical expertise just where it is needed.

A case in point: In March 2017, the Information and Technology Authority sent out a form to be filled in by people interested in attending a conference on privacy. But, because the person who sent the form out to a mailing list did so by forwarding a link from someone else in the office, the authority effectively kept the same form open online for different people to fill in.

Israeli public bodies regularly share our most intimate information with the private sector

Gai Zomer, a pro-transparency activist, was one of the recipients. He started to fill in the form, saved it to complete later in the day, and then, when he reopened it, saw that someone else had filled in their details. Each time he pressed “refresh” on his computer, another mail recipients’ details appeared. In all, 239 people opened that form and could have accessed the personal data of the other 238.

Zomer said that public bodies regularly share our most intimate information with the private sector.

“It’s not out of malice but rather a lack of awareness about the potential dangers involved,” Zomer told The Times of Israel.

In one case, after receiving an unsolicited phone call that tried to interest him in an insurance policy, he discovered that the Defense Ministry had outsourced the running of a discharged soldiers’ club to a private company called Knowledge for All,  and that the latter had evidently transferred the soldiers’ data on to companies that try to generate consumer interest in particular products.

Information held about every Israeli by the Interior Ministry’s Population Registry leaked out long ago

In another instance, Zomer — who uses Freedom of Information legislation to extract data from social media companies — discovered that Facebook was carrying personal data provided by the health fund Meuhedet.

Ministerial offices limit the size of emails that can be sent to 15 MB, he went on,  with the result that clerks often transfer data via Jumbo mail, which is easily hacked.

Information held about every Israeli by the Interior Ministry’s Population Registry leaked out long ago, Zomer added. Registry details were regularly cross-referenced with other available data sets to create mailing lists for different sectors of society on different subjects. Computer disks of voter data given to each political party in the run-up to national elections were also treated in cavalier fashion, he said.

Zomer said that one of the more sophisticated ways to advertise today was to provide a database to Facebook, ask Facebook to match identities on the list with Facebook profiles — a service Facebook provides — and then send adverts to the profiles. “Nobody has any way of knowing where the initial data sets came from,” he said.

Outdated legislation
Regarding fake news and disinformation, protection mainly comes from the Elections Law (Propaganda Methods) of 1959, which was written before the advent of the internet and primarily deals with advertising on billboards, radio, planes and boats.

A bill to clamp down on fake news by compelling the authors of any paid political content, including comments, to identify themselves publicly, was blocked by the prime minister

Amendments since then have extended the law to TV, regional radio stations and published election surveys but not yet to the internet.


Former Supreme Court president Dorit Beinisch at the President’s Residence in Jerusalem, on November 21, 2017. (Hadas Parush/Flash90)
In November, a committee chaired by former Supreme Court president Dorit Beinisch and tasked with reviewing election regulations and campaigning, presented a proposal not only to extend the election propaganda law to online content but also to give the Central Elections Committee more legal teeth to prevent online manipulation.

The committee advocated clamping down on fake news by compelling the authors of any paid political content, including comments, to identify themselves publicly — a move that would apply both to the internet and to more traditional campaign materials, such as posters.

But for reasons that remain unclear, the prime minister blocked a bill that reflected the recommendations before it even got to first reading in the Knesset.

On Sunday, Supreme Court Justice Hanan Melcer was set to hold a discussion on a petition to the Central Elections Committee filed by two lawyers to nevertheless have the 1959 law extended to online propaganda.

Where are the threats coming from?
Researchers at Check Point Software Technologies have identified four groups who are motivated to disrupt democratic elections in general.


Notes with the names of the different political parties running for the 20th parliament in the Israeli general elections, seen at a polling station in Jerusalem on March 17, 2015. (Miriam Alster/FLASH90)
These are state actors seeking to delegitimize the democratic election process and undermine confidence in the democratic process and system, candidates and parties who want to influence the elections to win, so-called “hactivists” intent on influencing the vote or shaping the public debate, and hackers seeking fame and attention.

In theory, these groups could hack into the Interior Ministry’s election management systems to mess with voter information or vote tallies. That said, in October, the official who heads the ministry’s information systems wing told the Knesset Science and Technology Committee that the security of the recently upgraded election systems had been tested thoroughly.

Hackers could also bring down websites that carry essential information about polling booth locations.

Israelis still vote by hand, placing small pieces of paper with the preferred candidate or party’s name into envelopes at polling stations. Party primaries, by contrast, are now employing digital voting, which leaves them more exposed to potential dangers of hacking.


Eli Bahar of the Israel Democracy Institute. (Courtesy)
Eli Bahar, a researcher at the Israel Democracy Institute and former legal adviser to the Shin Bet security service, and Ron Shamir, a former head of the Shin Bet’s tech division, are writing a paper about cyber protection for the Israeli elections. Their review of election hacking overseas has exposed soft spots for unwarranted interference, including pre-planned denial of service attacks to shut down systems and websites at a crucial time.

Levi Lazarovitz, Labs Team Leader at CyberArk, Israel’s second-largest publicly traded cybersecurity company, said election day cyberattacks on critical infrastructure such as public transportation or electricity network systems could lead to chaos, affect voter turnout and do far more damage than a thousand bots on a mission for a foreign government.

If that’s not scary enough, consider the actions of Andrés Sepúlveda, who was caught and sentenced to ten years in a Colombian prison after rigging elections throughout Latin America. As Bloomberg Businessweek exposed, Sepúlveda worked with hackers who stole campaign strategies, installed spyware in offices of the opposition, digitally listened in on political figures, installed malware in routers to tap phones, and infuriated tens of thousands of voters in swing states by having computers call them at 3 a.m. purporting to be from a candidate Sepulveda wanted to lose; the candidate lost.

In his groundbreaking book, The Road to Unfreedom: Russia, Europe and America, Timothy Snyder distinguishes between what he calls today’s politics of inevitability and the politics of eternity, which he ascribes to leaders such as Russia’s Vladimir Putin.


Russian President Vladimir Putin (R) with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during a meeting at the Kremlin in Moscow on July 11, 2018. (AFP/ Pool/Yuri Kadobnov)
In the West, where the politics of inevitability still reign, legal institutions allow for the orderly transfer of power and the peaceful changing of leaders, and there is a promise that everyone’s future will gradually improve.

In places like Russia, “progress gives way to doom” as eternity politicians cement their own power by manufacturing crises, orchestrating outrage, exaggerating foreign threats, dividing the population, and presenting themselves as the scions of some glorious past and the only ones destined to lead the promised nation out of the morass.

Snyder casts Putin as an eternity politician, interested in sowing discord throughout the democratic world to delegitimize the democratic system of government and shore up his own dictatorial position.

Manipulating information
The 2016 US presidential elections and the work of the British firm, Cambridge Analytica, which acquired data from tens of millions of Facebook users and then developed algorithms (mathematical rules) to micro-target voters with personalized political messaging, focused the spotlight on just how much information the social media giant collects about everyone using the platform.

Digital tools allow PR companies to scan people’s political opinions more closely than ever before — by tracking their online conversations, connections and video preferences

Facebook does not only collect data about users’ likes, dislikes, clicking and viewing habits, political and religious inclinations, prejudices and friends. Its tentacles also extend into the sites of companies that advertise with it, which is why people may be bombarded with adverts for shoes after clicking on a footwear site that ostensibly has nothing to do with Facebook.

Shai Agiv of Neto Net, one of the few digital advertising companies involved with Israeli political campaigns who is willing to talk to the media, told Hadashot news recently that digital tools were allowing PR companies to scan people’s political opinions more closely than ever before by tracking their online conversations, connections and video preferences.

Blurring fact and fiction
Noam Rotem, who spends much of his spare time trying to establish connections and patterns between bots (online robots posing as real people) that suddenly appear in large numbers, told a seminar at the Open University in the central city of Ra’anana earlier this month that the key to success for politicians prepared to play dirty is to exploit and deepen existing divisions in society and empower one group at the expense of another.


Noam Rotem (Courtesy)
The candidate (let’s call him A, although he could equally be a she) must create the impression that he enjoys a broad consensus of support and must sow his ideas among the public, Rotem began.

The usual way to do this is to place an article in a newspaper, whose editors play a role in filtering out what they regard as unacceptable. But if that doesn’t work, A’s next move might be to go to a social media platform to purchase advertising. A or his PR company might also create an army of bots — which steal bios from real people and profile pictures from Google to appear like legitimate human users.

Bots amplify messages because voters are more likely to give credence to a message that has hundreds or thousands of likes — and there’s no way of knowing whether the likes are from real people or robots.

If A can place a story that is complimentary to him in some obscure local paper, the bots will publicize it online and give it disproportional weight. Facebook’s algorithms will then amplify the story further because they identify posts with lots of likes and shares and insert them into the news feeds of more people from where they can go viral.

But the more sophisticated operator will go further and set up a network.

Let’s say that A believes the country should spend massive resources on building housing on the moon. He will ensure that the bots act as enthusiastic supporters of this idea. But he will also create a fake profile for his opponent, B, who wants to increase space for housing by building islands in the sea.

If A is caught doing or saying something stupid that could affect his electoral chances, his PR people will ensure that B “says” something so outrageous that everyone forgets A’s gaffe.

A’s people will also build clusters of trolls (real people paid to post inflammatory information anonymously in swarms) to react both to A’s and B’s posts, along with armies of  automated “agitators,” who provoke and create controversy.


Illustrative image of a hacker, via Shutterstock.
A might try to affect voter turnout for B by targeting carefully chosen B supporters and telling them that as everything is corrupt, there’s no point going to the polling station at all. And he might exploit notions of “us and them,” stoking suspicions that B is outside of the consensus, supported by people who are disloyal or unacceptable in some other way.

Bots will also be marshaled to cast doubt on, attack, threaten, and ultimately silence B so that just one voice — that of A — will be heard.

On the morning of the elections, when everyone is busy, A’s camp will resort to “deep fake.” It will release a video clip featuring B in which B’s words and gestures have been manipulated so that he can be “seen and heard,” in “his own voice,” saying that in fact, the poor don’t deserve houses anyway because they are too lazy to go out to work.

B will rant and rage that the video is fake, but the media will have no time to check. By the next morning, it’s already too late: A has been declared the winner.

It was Rotem, along with Yuval Adam, who in November exposed a network of bots (Hebrew link) on Twitter that spread content in support of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

The Likud denied being involved.


President Reuven Rivlin and his wife Nechama cast their votes at a polling station in Jerusalem on March 17, 2015, in the Israeli general elections for the 20th parliament. (Miriam Alster/FLASH90)
Up to one in five social network profiles are not real
At the Science and Technology Committee meeting in October, Israel Internet Association head Karine Nahon quoted research indicating that in general — not specifically during election campaigns — 15 to 20 percent of all social network profiles are either forged (where a real person poses as another real person), fictitious (created in the names of people who do not exist), or bots.

Read: Sockpuppet nation: How fake commenters and other online ploys skew what you read

Nahon, who has written extensively about the way online platforms can distort our sense of what is real, believes that Facebook was largely responsible for the gap between the hopes of left-of-center voters in the 2015 elections and the reality of Netanyahu’s victory.

By feeding voters information with which they tend to agree, Nahon said, Facebook serves to strengthen our existing beliefs rather than provide alternative views for our consideration.

Since the Cambridge Analytica scandal, Facebook has absorbed most of the flack from politicians and the media. But as Dr. Robert Epstein, senior research psychologist at the American Institute for Behavioral Research and Technology in California has pointed out, Google – which dominates 92% of the global search engine market – is also far from being an objective player as a source of reliable information.

On the basis of a search word, Google determines which websites should go at the top of the first page by using an algorithm that takes more than 200 factors into account.



The algorithm is designed and constantly reviewed and updated by Google staff. The rankings of sites are determined by the algorithm.

“We have got a couple of companies in Silicon Valley that are exercising the power to influence the opinions, beliefs, attitudes, purchases, voting preferences of 2.5 billion people around the world with no-one constraining these companies in any way; no laws, no regulations, nothing,” he told The Federalist last month. “These companies are in control of our lives and of our children’s lives and it’s very disturbing stuff.”

Google search rankings ‘help determine election results’
In an article in the UK-based New Internationalist, Epstein revealed that on the basis of his research, “search rankings have been determining the outcomes of upwards of 25% of the world’s national elections for years now, with increasing impact each year as internet penetration has increased.”

What he called the Search Engine Manipulation Effect (SEME) “has proved to be one of the most powerful and dangerous effects ever discovered in the behavioural sciences. It is powerful because of the big shifts it produces, and it is dangerous because it is virtually invisible as a source of influence…SEME works almost as a form of mass hypnosis – shifting the opinions of large numbers of people without them having any idea they are being manipulated.”


This photo from January 3, 2013, shows Google’s headquarters in Mountain View, California. (AP Photo/Marcio Jose Sanchez, File)
Epstein charged that what he described as the Search Suggestion Effect — in which Google gives you a list of possible words the second you type in a letter — “can turn a 50-50 split in undecided voters into a 90-10 split, with nobody hanging the slightest idea that they’re being manipulated. It’s about swaying the choices of the undecided voters.”

“With 90 percent of online search controlled by just one company in many countries worldwide – including most countries in Europe – a handful of executives in Mountain View, California, has more power over humankind than a small group of people has ever had before. Google’s leaders have the power not just to flip elections but to impact what more than a billion people think, do and say every day.”

The London Observer’s Carole Cadwalldr concluded that the Google search engine is “even more powerful, more insidious” than Facebook.

‘Jews are … ‘
That was after Cadwalldr absent-mindedly typed “a-r-e” and then “j-e-w-s” into Google, only to be given a choice of potential questions it thought she might want to ask: “are jews a race?”, “are jews white?”, “are jews christians?”, and finally, “are jews evil?”

Her curiosity piqued, she selected, “are jews evil,” only to be directed to a whole page of results, nine out of ten of which “confirmed” this.

The top site was headlined “Top 10 Major Reasons Why People Hate Jews.” It repeated anti-Semitic tropes and called Jews vermin.

Google’s official line is that it is “building products and programs to help people across the world engage with democratic processes, to protect elections and campaigns and to help campaigns manage their digital presence.”

At this stage, it is not clear which particular tools it will be making available in Israel.

Who’s actually responsible for protecting us?
In the wake of Shin Bet chief Argaman’s revelation about foreign hackers, Prime Minister Netanyahu told reporters, “Israel is prepared to thwart a cyber intervention, we’re prepared for any scenario and there’s no country more prepared than we are.”


Illustrative image of conceptual cyber attack code. (DaLiu/iStock by Getty images)
The Israel Democracy Institute’s Eli Bahar notes that responsibility for protecting the country from cyberattacks is divided between multiple bodies – the secretive cyber directorate in the Prime Minister’s Office, a cyber unit in the State Prosecutor’s Office, the Central Elections Committee, the Shin Bet internal security services, headed by Argaman, and the Israel Police.

Even the State Comptroller’s Office is getting in on the act. In a statement to the media last week, Joseph Shapira announced that this year, he would be following cybercrime issues during the elections, in real time.


State Comptroller Yosef Shapira attends a ceremony in Jerusalem on October 26, 2017. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)
Ironically, in other contexts, State Comptroller reports have repeatedly criticized governments over the years for trying to manage many walks of life through a proliferation of bodies that are not always coordinated. When crisis strikes, one body blames another and nobody takes responsibility.

Bahar believes there should be a single body in overall charge of the elections.

Transparency advocates such as Karine Nahon and the Israel Democracy Institute’s Dr. Tehilla Shwartz Altshuler, a board member of the National Press Council, say the Central Elections Committee, which works under the Knesset’s auspices, should fill that role.

Indeed, in a statement last week, the committee said it was devising a detailed plan of action to thwart attempts by foreign countries to meddle in the elections.

But as the committee’s spokesman Giora Pordes told The Times of Israel, it is neither responsible for policing voter manipulation online nor does it have the tools to do so.

Facebook and Israel’s elections
A source in Twitter told the Times of Israel that the company has good relations with Israeli government officials, law enforcement and NGOs, and that while it could not be an “arbiter of truth,” it was monitoring online traffic for fake accounts and for malicious bots (flagged when news suddenly spreads abnormally fast) and would be “doing more work” as Israel’s elections approach.

Worldwide, the company takes down an astonishing ten million problematic accounts each week and challenges more than half a million suspicious log ins every day, the source said.

In October, the company released to the public what it said was the entire archive of tweets and media that appeared to have come from the Russian government-linked Internet Research Agency and sources in Iran since 2016.

But it is Facebook – with a whopping 2.27 billion monthly users — that is the platform of choice for citizens of the entire globe, including Israel, but with the exception of those living in Russia and China, which have their own semi-state, semi-private networks, and Iran.

Facebook also owns the hugely popular platforms WhatsApp and Instagram.

Israeli officials have been in close touch with Facebook, which maintains an office in Tel Aviv, and which was a conduit for a large amount of election meddling traced to Russia in the 2016 US election cycle.

Facebook Israel’s head of policy and communications is Jordana Cutler. A former aide to Netanyahu, Cutler was a member of the Likud’s campaign team for the 2009 elections. Repeated requests by The Times of Israel since October to interview Cutler have been turned down

As the Times of Israel reported at the time, Justice Melcer and other senior officials from the Central Elections Committee met shortly before the municipal elections in Jerusalem for consultations with Sean Evins, who leads Facebook’s Politics and Government Outreach for Europe, the Middle East and Asia.

Read: Secretive crackdown on fake profiles shows Israel wide open to election meddling

The company is currently in the process of creating a special team to guide Israeli parties and politicians on the platform’s policies, according to a source quoted Saturday by the business daily Calcalist.

That would include warning politicians that their accounts could be blocked if they indulged in acts such as creating fake accounts, which break Facebook’s rules.


Facebook’s Head of Policy and Communications Jordana Cutler (left) and Israel Democracy Institute researcher Tehilla Shwartz Altshuler at the IDI’s Democracy in the Information Age program, January 18, 2018. (Oded Antman)
Facebook Israel’s head of policy and communications is Jordana Cutler. A former adviser and close aide to Netanyahu and Israel’s US Ambassador Ron Dermer, Cutler was a member of the Likud party’s campaign team for the 2009 national elections, before she joined the Prime Minister’s Office in 2009.

Repeated requests by The Times of Israel since October to interview Cutler have been turned down.

A statement received from Facebook last week just said, “We are working on different tools which will help us to protect the integrity of the elections and we’ll provide an update on the details in an organized fashion.”

One of Facebook’s reactions to the furor that erupted around its role in the US elections was to require all adverts dealing with national or political issues in the US (and later in the UK) to clearly carry information on who paid for them and to ensure verification of the identity and location of the person or people behind the ad.

Facebook would neither confirm nor deny rumors that it would not be introducing such a requirement prior to Israeli elections.

Facebook has also significantly stepped up policing of its platform since Cambridge Analytica obtained personal data from as many as 87 million people and used it without their permission to further political aims.


Facebook’s CEO Mark Zuckerberg arrives to meet France’s President Emmanuel Macron after the ‘Tech for Good’ Summit at the Elysee Palace in Paris on May 23, 2018. (AP Photo/Francois Mori)
Facebook now has thousands of people working on safety and security, the company’s founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg said in September, in an update on preparing for the US midterm elections in which he explained how the company deals with such content.

“We use detection technology and people on our trained teams (who focus on finding harmful content such as terrorist propaganda or fraudulent spam) to help find potentially violating content and accounts and flag them for review. Then, we review them to determine if they violate standards and take action if they do. Taking action could include removing a piece of content from Facebook, covering photos or videos that may be disturbing to some audiences with a warning, or disabling accounts,” Zuckerberg said.

The problem is that artificial intelligence detection systems do not always pick up the nuances of language, and fact checkers can be sitting in another country, with very limited time to look at each post and decide whether the content contravenes the community rules and should be taken down.

These factors were evidently responsible for accusations that Facebook employees located in Malaysia missed posts and misinformation that helped spur ethnic cleansing of the Muslim-minority Rohinga in Myanmar.

They beg the question: How will the checkers deal with Hebrew and Arabic?

The march of Big Data
Whether we can stop the march of Big Data control over our lives is an open question.

At this month’s Open University seminar in Ra’anana, panelists were divided over whether the pressure should come from civil society groups pushing back, or whether responsibility to protect citizens lay with government — not only to pass but also to ensure implementation of laws.

The democratic system of government – or at least a meaningful form of it – is very much in jeopardy at the moment; and so, for that matter, is our personal freedom

In the interim, Noam Rotem, who is not on Facebook, recommends using better protected alternatives to the tech giants – Ubuntu instead of Windows, Signal instead of WhatsApp, Diaspora or Mastodon instead of Facebook, and Firefox instead of Google Chrome.

“The bottom line,” says Dr. Robert Epstein in the New Internationalist, “is that the democratic system of government – or at least a meaningful form of it – is very much in jeopardy at the moment; and so, for that matter, is our personal freedom.

“When, through ignorance or inaction, we give up more and more of our ability to make truly free choices – giving leaders we didn’t elect and computer programs we can’t even begin to understand the power to manipulate us — we are heading down a dangerous path.”


Israelis line up to cast their votes at a polling station in Tel Aviv, for the 20th parliament, in the Israeli general elections, on March 17, 2015. (Danielle Shitrit/FLASH90)

Bassam Tawil, a Muslim Arab, is based in the Middle East.
https://unitedwithisrael.org/israel-strikes-iranian-targets-in-syria-exposes-final-hezbollah-terror-tunnel/?utm_source=pushengage&utm_medium=pushnotification&utm_campaign=pushengage
Israel Strikes Iranian Targets in Syria, Exposes Final Hezbollah Terror Tunnel

Jan 13, 2019

Netanyahu on Sunday confirmed that the IDF nailed hundreds of Iranian and Hezbollah targets in Syria, in addition to discovering a sixth and final tunnel dug by Hezbollah terrorists.

By Associated Press

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday confirmed that Israel has struck hundreds of Iranian and Hezbollah targets in Syria, including a weapons facility in a weekend airstrike, as the military announced the discovery of a sixth and final tunnel dug by the Lebanese terror group for cross-border attacks.

Speaking to the IDF Galilee Division near the Lebanese border, Netanyahu commented, “In the past 48 hours, Israel attacked an Iranian weapons warehouse at the international airport in Damascus. This reflects our consistent policy and strong determination to prevent Iran from entrenching itself militarily in Syria. If necessary, we will step up these attacks.”

He added, “At the same time, the IDF has exposed a sixth tunnel – the largest of all – that crossed into Israeli territory. This brings Operation Northern Shield to a successful close. We will continue to monitor all activity by Hezbollah, and by Iran and its proxies. We will do whatever is necessary to ensure the security of Israel.”

The statements marked a rare, public acknowledgement of Israeli attacks against Hezbollah and its patron Iran in neighboring Syria, where Israel is long believed to have targeted Iranian weapons shipments to the Lebanese Shiite group.

At his weekly Cabinet meeting, Netanyahu also publicly confirmed the strike as he thanked outgoing military chief Lt. Gen. Gadi Eisenkot for long years of service and particularly his marshaling of Israel’s campaign against Iran in recent years.

“We have operated with impressive success in thwarting Iran from establishing a military foothold in Syria, in the framework of which the military has struck hundreds of times against Iranian and Hezbollah targets,” Netanyahu said. “In the last 36 hours alone, the air force struck storage facilities with Iranian weapons at the Damascus International Airport. The bulk of recent attacks show how we are more committed than ever to act against Iran in Syria, as we promised.”

Coupled with the announcement that after Sunday’s discovery, Israel was wrapping up its operation to destroy Hezbollah’s tunnel network into Israel, the weekend strike in Syria is widely seen as Eisenkot’s “parting shot” as his four-year tenure as military chief ends. He will be replaced on Tuesday by Maj. Gen. Aviv Kochavi.

After keeping a low-profile throughout most of his term, Eisenkot gave a series on interviews over the weekend focusing on his shifting the military’s attention toward Iran directly, instead of just engaging its lesser proxies, Lebanon’s Hezbollah and Hamas in Gaza.

In a New York Times interview published Friday, Eisenkot said that Israel “has struck thousands of targets without claiming responsibility or asking for credit” as part of his showdown with Qassim Suleimani, the commander of Iran’s elite Quds Force.

Eisenkot also revealed the government approved his shift in strategy in January 2017, stepping up airstrikes in Syria. In 2018 alone, he said Israel’s air force dropped 2,000 bombs in Syria.

Operation Northern Shield
A far more visible part of his legacy has been the recent Lebanese border operation, which thwarted Hezbollah’s prime strategic investment for its next potential war.

Military spokesman Lt. Col. Jonathan Conricus said Sunday the final tunnel was the largest discovered so far, running hundreds of meters from under a Lebanese home and deep into Israeli territory. Israel launched “Operation Northern Shield” early last month to detect and destroy a vast network of Hezbollah tunnels the group hoped terrorists could use to sneak across the border and attack Israeli civilians.

Conricus said the latest tunnel originated from the Lebanese border town of Ramyeh, was 55 meters deep and ran 800 meters inside Lebanese territory and also “dozens” of meters into Israel. It included stairs, a rail system and a wide a passageway that allowed for the movement of equipment and a large number of forces.

The tunnel would be destroyed in the coming days, Conricus said, adding that while more tunnels still existed on the Lebanese side of the border, this effectively marked the end of the ambitious military operation.

“We have achieved the goal that we set out to achieve,” he said. “According to our intelligence, there are no longer any cross-border attack tunnels into Israel.”

Netanyahu also commented on the tunnels in his address to the IDF Galilee Division on Sunday, “I think that everyone understands that a very serious threat was averted here. Hezbollah’s operational plan was to use the tunnels weapon to infiltrate many fighters, between 1,000-2,000 terrorists, into the Galilee, to seize communities here. Everyone understands how the war would look if Hezbollah battalions were in the Galilee, and with the Iranian army opposite the Golan Heights. We have prevented this – and will continue to prevent it.”

The tunnels violate a cease-fire resolution that ended a devastating war between Israel and Hezbollah in 2006. Conricus said the U.N. peacekeeping mission, known as UNIFIL, was updated on the latest development.

In the wake of the tunnel discoveries, Israel has asked the international community to impose tough sanctions on Hezbollah and launch action against its state-within-a-state operation in Lebanon. The military said its forces would stay deployed along the border to monitor for any other possible underground activity, and said it holds the Lebanese government responsible for everything happening within its territory.

The Hezbollah terror group, which acts independently in Lebanon, has yet to comment on the tunnels.

In recent years, Hezbollah has been bogged down in fighting in Syria on behalf of Syrian President Bashar Assad’s government. But with that war winding down, Israeli security officials fear Hezbollah is refocusing its attention on Israel

https://www.timesofisrael.com/finding-final-hezbollah-attack-tunnel-idf-wraps-up-operation-northern-shield/?utm_source=finding-final-hezbollah-attack-tunnel-idf-wraps-up-operation-northern-shield&utm_medium=desktop-browser&utm_campaign=desktop-notifications
Finding final Hezbollah attack tunnel, IDF wraps up Operation Northern Shield
Military announces discovery of final underground passage from Lebanon, the largest one found, believed to have been part of plan to send fighters to conquer northern Israel
By JUDAH ARI GROSS
Today, 9:07 am  2
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Israeli soldiers stand around the opening of a hole that leads to a tunnel that the army says was dug by the Hezbollah terror group across the Israel-Lebanon border, near Metula, on December 19, 2018. (AP Photo/Sebastian Scheiner)Israeli soldiers stand around the opening of a hole that leads to a tunnel that the army says was dug by the Hezbollah terror group across the Israel-Lebanon border, near Metula, on December 19, 2018. (AP Photo/Sebastian Scheiner)Attack tunnel dug into Israel from southern Lebanon that the Israeli military believes Hezbollah planned to use in future wars, which was discovered in January 2019. (Israel Defense Forces)Attack tunnel dug into Israel from southern Lebanon that the Israeli military believes Hezbollah planned to use in future wars, which was discovered in January 2019. (Israel Defense Forces)Footage released by the IDF on December 28, 2018, shows fluids the army says it used to seal cross-border attack tunnels dug by Hezbollah flowing into the southern Lebanese village of Kafr Kila. (Israel Defense Forces)Footage released by the IDF on December 28, 2018, shows fluids the army says it used to seal cross-border attack tunnels dug by Hezbollah flowing into the southern Lebanese village of Kafr Kila. (Israel Defense Forces)In this photo provided by the IDF on December 26, 2018, Israeli soldiers are seen at the scene of a tunnel dug across the border from Lebanon (IDF Spokesperson)In this photo provided by the IDF on December 26, 2018, Israeli soldiers are seen at the scene of a tunnel dug across the border from Lebanon (IDF Spokesperson)Attack tunnel dug into Israel from southern Lebanon that the Israeli military believes Hezbollah planned to use in future wars, which was discovered in January 2019. (Israel Defense Forces)Attack tunnel dug into Israel from southern Lebanon that the Israeli military believes Hezbollah planned to use in future wars, which was discovered in January 2019. (Israel Defense Forces)An attack tunnel from southern Lebanon into northern Israel that Israel says was dug by the Hezbollah terror group, on December 19, 2018. (JACK GUEZ / POOL / AFP)An attack tunnel from southern Lebanon into northern Israel that Israel says was dug by the Hezbollah terror group, on December 19, 2018. (JACK GUEZ / POOL / AFP)Israeli troops prepare to destroy attack tunnels dug into Israel from southern Lebanon by the Hezbollah terror group on December 20, 2018. (Israel Defense Forces)Israeli troops prepare to destroy attack tunnels dug into Israel from southern Lebanon by the Hezbollah terror group on December 20, 2018. (Israel Defense Forces)

The Israel Defense Forces on Sunday declared that its effort to find and destroy Hezbollah cross-border attack tunnels was coming to an end, following the discovery of another such underground passage over the weekend.

“With the discover of this terror tunnel, the effort to locate the passages dug by Hezbollah that crossed the border into Israeli territory has been completed. The neutralization of this passage will be completed in the coming days,” the army said in a statement.

“According to our intelligence and our assessment of the situation there are no longer any cross-border attack tunnels from Lebanon into Israel,” army spokesperson Lt. Col. Jonathan Conricus told reporters.

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On December 4, the IDF launched Operation Northern Shield to find tunnels that it says the Iran-backed Hezbollah terrorist group had dug into northern Israel from towns in southern Lebanon.

The military confirmed discovering at least six tunnels during the month-long operation.

“In addition, the IDF is monitoring and is in possession of a number of sites where Hezbollah is digging underground infrastructure that has yet to cross into Israeli territory,” the army said.


An IDF official said the military also noted that Hezbollah had stopped digging along the northern border during the past month, since the start of Operation Northern Shield.

The army said the operation “removed the threat from the citizens of Israel.”

The sixth tunnel was found by Israeli troops on Saturday. According to the IDF, it originated in the Lebanese village of Ramyeh, where another tunnel had earlier been found.

The military said the tunnel extended some 800 meters (2,600 feet), penetrating several dozen meters into Israeli territory, and was dug at a depth of 55 meters (180 feet), making it the deepest tunnel uncovered by the IDF and likely the most valuable one to Hezbollah.

The tunnel had electricity, a rail system to move equipment and garbage, exit stairs and other aspects that made it more sophisticated than the other tunnels found, the army said.

“This was a highly advanced tunnel,” IDF Spokesperson Ronen Manelis told reporters.


Israeli troops search for attack tunnels dug into Israel from southern Lebanon that the Israeli military believes Hezbollah planned to use in future wars, in January 2019. (Israel Defense Forces)
Israel has said it believes the tunnels were meant to be used by the Shiite terrorist group as a surprise component of an opening salvo in a future war, to allow dozens or hundreds of its fighters into Israel, alongside a mass infiltration of operatives above-ground and the launching of rockets, missiles, and mortar shells at northern Israel.

The military said it notified the UN peacekeeping force UNIFIL of the new tunnel discovered over the weekend, as well as the heads of local governments in the area.

UNIFIL confirmed in mid-December that at least two tunnels crossed into Israel and were therefore in violation of the UN resolution that ended the 2006 Second Lebanon War, but did not confirm Israel’s allegations they were dug by Hezbollah. United Nations peacekeepers have stepped up patrols since the launch of the operation to ensure the frontier remains calm.


Israeli troops search for attack tunnels dug into Israel from southern Lebanon that the Israeli military believes Hezbollah planned to use in future wars, in January 2019. (Israel Defense Forces)
UN Resolution 1701 requires all armed groups besides the Lebanese military to remain north of the country’s Litani River. Despite the stipulations of the resolution, Hezbollah maintains vast forces, including an arsenal of rockets and missiles estimated at over 130,000 projectiles, in the country’s south, Israel believes.

With the end of Northern Shield, the IDF said it was moving to a defensive effort along the border to ensure that future tunnels are not dug into Israel from Lebanon.

“In addition, IDF troops and the tunnel-finding laboratory will continue serving permanently along the Lebanese border,” the army said.

The military on Sunday said it was also continuing with the construction of a border wall, which Lebanon protests.

Lebanon on Friday said it would issue a complaint at the UN Security Council over Israel’s building of the wall along their shared border.


Israeli troops search for attack tunnels dug into Israel from southern Lebanon that the Israeli military believes Hezbollah planned to use in future wars, in January 2019. (Israel Defense Forces)
Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency quoted Foreign Minister Gebran Bassil as calling the Israeli move a violation of a UN Security Council resolution that ended the 2006 war.

The report said the complaint was about a part of the wall that was being built on the edge of the Lebanese border village of Kfar Kila.

Work on the security barrier began at the start of last year, with the joint IDF-Defense Ministry Borders and Security Fence Directorate having been cleared and received funding to build 13 kilometers (8 miles) of concrete walling along the approximately 130-kilometer (80-mile) border in order to protect the 22 adjacent Israeli villages.

Eventually the plan is to construct a barrier along the entire border — a project that would cost NIS 1.7 billion ($470 million).

The concrete barrier is designed to serve two main functions: protect Israeli civilians and soldiers from sniper attacks, and prevent infiltration into Israel by Hezbollah operatives.

The Lebanese government has contested the construction of the new border wall from the onset, arguing that it violates Lebanese sovereignty in some locations. Lebanon has filed those complaints with UNIFIL, which acts as a liaison between Israel and Lebanon.

Some areas around the Israeli-Lebanese border are contested, with each country claiming the territory as its own — for instance, the strip of land known by Israel as Mount Dov and by Lebanon as Sheba’a Farms.

Agencies and Times of Israel staff contributed to this report.

https://unitedwithisrael.org/cbs-refuses-to-pull-pro-israel-interview-with-egyptian-leader/?utm_source=pushengage&utm_medium=pushnotification&utm_campaign=pushengage
CBS Refuses to Pull Pro-Israel Interview with Egyptian Leader
Israel-Egypt relations

The American network refused to shelf a “60 Minutes” interview with Egypt’s President el-Sissi set to air Sunday during which he said cooperation between Cairo and Jerusalem is closer than ever.

By: Yoni Hersch, Israel Hayom/JNS.org

CBS News rejected a request from the Egyptian government to pull an interview with the country’s President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi.

Although the network declined to say what exactly drew opposition from Cairo, the government is believed to be concerned by el-Sissi’s comments on Israel.

Asked in the interview with the “60 Minutes” program whether cooperation between Egypt and Israel was the closest it had ever been, el-Sissi responded, “That is correct. … We have a wide range of cooperation with the Israelis.”

Egypt has been fighting an insurgency in the Sinai Peninsula for several years, battling an estimated 1,000 Islamic State-affiliated terrorists that Cairo has allowed the Israelis to attack by air.

In February, Egypt launched “Comprehensive Operation Sinai 2018” in an effort to rid the peninsula of terrorists.

In recent years Israel has allowed the Egyptian military to boost its presence in the peninsula several times as part of the country’s war on terror.

Other than on security issues, Israel and Egypt maintain close diplomatic ties, as Egypt is the chief mediator between Israel and Hamas, the terrorist group that controls the Gaza Strip.

The interview, which was recorded when el-Sissi was in New York to attend a meeting of the U.N. General Assembly in late September, was set to air Sunday evening.

El-Sissi was also asked about reports from various human rights organizations that the Egyptian regime was holding some 60,000 political prisoners.

“I don’t know where they got that figure. I said there are no political prisoners in Egypt. Whenever there is a minority trying to impose their extremist ideology we have to intervene regardless of their numbers.”


https://www.timesofisrael.com/iron-dome-intercepts-rocket-fired-at-ashkelon-from-gaza-2/?
Iron Dome intercepts rocket fired at Ashkelon from Gaza
Sirens sound in the southern city, hours after IDF hits two Hamas positions in response to an explosive device that was flown into southern Israel
By JUDAH ARI GROSS and TOI STAFF
Today, 4:09 am  1
Illustrative photo of an Iron Dome Missile Defense battery firing an interceptor missile on August 9, 2018. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)
Palestinian terrorists in the Gaza Strip fired a single rocket into Israel early Monday, which was intercepted by the Iron Dome system, the army said. There were no reports of injuries.

Warning sirens blared in the southern city of Ashkelon and the nearby Hof Ashkelon region after 3 a.m. The Israel Defense Forces said it identified a single launch from Gaza.

Residents reported hearing loud explosions, apparently from the Iron Dome interception.

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The launch came hours after the Israeli Air Force struck several Hamas positions in the eastern Gaza Strip in response to an explosive device that was flown into southern Israel earlier in the day, the army said.

On Sunday morning, a bomb was flown into Israel using a large cluster of balloons and a model drone. The explosive device landed in a carrot field in the Sdot Negev region of southern Israel shortly before noon.

A police bomb disposal robot carries away a drone-shaped device from the Gaza Strip, borne by dozens of helium balloons, which landed in a carrot field in southern Israel on January 6 ,2019. (Israel Police)
In retaliation for the cross-border attack from Gaza, Israeli military helicopters attacked two observation posts east of Khan Younis that are controlled by the coastal enclave’s Hamas rulers, the army said.

“IDF attack helicopters struck two military positions belonging to the Hamas terrorist group in the Gaza Strip in response to the balloon-borne explosive device, which was launched by a model drone,” the military said.

In addition to the posts near Khan Younis, Palestinian media reported that the IDF had attacked targets near Jabalia, in northern Gaza, and in the Zeitoun area of Gaza City, in the central Strip. The IDF refused to comment on those reports.

The military did not say who it believed flew the bomb into southern Israel, but said it held Hamas responsible as the rulers of Gaza.

“The IDF will continue to act in defense of the citizens of Israel and against terrorism from the Strip,” the army said.

The name of a Gazan engineering college was printed on the side of the model drone.

Police said the explosive device attached to the model drone and the balloons exploded as a bomb disposal robot examined it. The drone lookalike was then carried away.

“No injuries were caused; the investigation continues,” police said.

It was not immediately clear how the device made it across the border without being shot down by the IDF.

The police reiterated calls to Israelis to contact law enforcement if they see suspicious objects.
The discovery came after a week-long lull in airborne arson attempts from  Gaza.

Gaza protesters have launched hundreds of incendiary kites and balloons into Israel over the past nine months, sparking fires that have destroyed forests, burned crops, and killed livestock. Thousands of acres of land have been burned, causing millions of shekels in damages, according to Israeli officials. Some balloons have also carried improvised explosive devices.

https://israelunwired.com/pat-condell-warns-of-progressives-taking-away-the-first-amendment/
Pat Condell warns of Progressives taking away the first amendment
By Phil Schneider -  January 6, 2019 1890 0
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Progressives today have more power and influence than almost any other time in recent history. Under the guise of liberalism, the thought police attitude has become a prevalent attitude among tens of millions of college age youth and recent graduates.
Yes, things have spun out of control, and something needs to be done about it.

Liberals vs. Progressives
In the last century, the liberal perspective has brought many important advances to the Western world. From the progress of women to the openness to minorities, the liberal perspective has brought many blessings. Racism has become a horrible stain on our not-so-far-away past.  But we’ve come a long way. There is no question that we should all celebrate the accomplishments of liberalism. This despite some of the more radical elements of liberalism that have brought some negative progress too.

Close-Mindedness of Progressives
However, the new norms among many progressives are actually the polar opposite to liberalism.  The liberal point of view is much more about freedom and live and let live attitudes.  But the norms of so many progressives are all about silencing the opposition.  The prevailing attitude among so many today is one of taking severe offense at attitudes that smack of any sort of absolute truth.

It must be said.  Progressive attitudes are all about shutting mouths – not about opening hearts.  It is based on a rejection of any form of higher authority – God – in our lives.  The only thing that truly matters is feelings.  Sorry if this hurts your feelings – but that is patently absurd.

That creates anarchy and a dictatorship of the insulted and offended.  If you think that this is an exaggeration, look up the name James Damore.

Home   >    Israel News   >    Israel Election 2019
Opinion The Decline and Fall of Putin's Favorite Israeli Politician
Avigdor Lieberman, the bellicose former coalition kingmaker, known for his fulsome praise for Putin, hoped his dramatic resignation as defense minister a month ago would reap him electoral dividends. But his brand of Russian-speaking special-interest politics is going out of style

Evan Gottesman  Jan 03, 2019 2:57 PM
comments     Zen
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The most chilling kindergarten graduation you will ever see
By Leah Rosenberg -  June 26, 2018 20343 0
https://israelunwired.com/the-most-chilling-kindergarten-graduation-you-will-ever-see/
The most chilling kindergarten graduation you will ever see
By Leah Rosenberg -  June 26, 2018 20343 0

Peace is impossible now with our Arab neighbors in Gaza, Judea and Samaria because of what you are about to see at this kindergarten graduation ceremony.

Israeli Hostage Scenario at Gaza Kindergarten Graduation
Video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P_sx_WxZvqg&ab_channel=WorldJewishCongress 40 seconds


“Palestinian” Arab Society is Sick
People don’t like believing us when we say that the “palestinian” Arab society is a death cult. They literally worship death and martyrdom. They teach their kindergarten kids to want to kill Jews!

It’s hard for people in the West to believe this. How could this be? It goes against all the basic tenets of humanity. We are educated to believe that all parents want the best for their children. To keep them away from danger. Why would parents want to be trained in kindergarten to murder Jews? And be motivated to die trying to become a martyr, a shahid?

Kindergarten Graduation
The scenes in this video are obscene. This is a kindergarten graduation for goodness sake!

Children should be having fun. Laughing. Singing songs. Enacting a terror attack to kill Jews and kidnap them? This is a sick society. What types of parents are excited to see their kids enact killing and kidnapping people at their kindergarten graduation? Nobody who lives and grows up in a normal society.

Which is exactly the point. The “palestinian” Arab society is not normal. It is sick and disgusting.

No peace is possible until we accept this basic premise and deal with it.

It is impossible to make peace with people who teach that to kidnap and kill is holy.  They receive this with their mother’s milk. The truth is that simple. Sad, but true.
Peace is impossible now with our Arab neighbors in Gaza, Judea and Samaria because of what you are about to see at this kindergarten graduation ceremony.


“Palestinian” Arab Society is Sick
People don’t like believing us when we say that the “palestinian” Arab society is a death cult. They literally worship death and martyrdom. They teach their kindergarten kids to want to kill Jews!

It’s hard for people in the West to believe this. How could this be? It goes against all the basic tenets of humanity. We are educated to believe that all parents want the best for their children. To keep them away from danger. Why would parents want to be trained in kindergarten to murder Jews? And be motivated to die trying to become a martyr, a shahid?

Kindergarten Graduation
The scenes in this video are obscene. This is a kindergarten graduation for goodness sake!

Children should be having fun. Laughing. Singing songs. Enacting a terror attack to kill Jews and kidnap them? This is a sick society. What types of parents are excited to see their kids enact killing and kidnapping people at their kindergarten graduation? Nobody who lives and grows up in a normal society.

Which is exactly the point. The “palestinian” Arab society is not normal. It is sick and disgusting.

No peace is possible until we accept this basic premise and deal with it.

It is impossible to make peace with people who teach that to kidnap and kill is holy.  They receive this with their mother’s milk. The truth is that simple. Sad, but true.

WATCH: IDF Vows to Prevent Hezbollah Underwater Incursions
Jan 2, 2019
https://unitedwithisrael.org/watch-idf-vows-to-prevent-hezbollah-underwater-incursions/?utm_source=pushengage&utm_medium=pushnotification&utm_campaign=pushengage
Operation Northern Shield
Palestinian terror
When the time comes, Hezbollah fighters will be ready to penetrate the Galilee, “and they can do it by sea,” the terror group’s leader Hassan Nasrallah declared.

The IDF constantly prepares for all kinds terrorist attacks, including land and sea infiltrations. In December, the army launched Operation Northern Shield after exposing a Hezbollah attack tunnel running from Lebanon into Israel. Most recently, the IDF destroyed a fifth tunnel.

Thanks to the counterterrorism measures implemented by the navy, civilians can continue to enjoy underwater activities such as at Rosh Hanikra, which borders Lebanon, despite threats by Hezbollah to penetrate northern Israel.

Israel's Maritime Efforts to Stop Hezbollah Incursions
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NZT9AabiPsI&ab_channel=i24NEWS


Amazing News From Israel To Start The New Year
By ONE FOR ISRAEL (Messianic Jews In Israel)
 https://www.oneforisrael.org/bible-based-teaching-from-israel/news/amazing-news-from-israel-to-start-the-new-year/
2019 kicked off with a lot of incredibly good news from Israel! A new dawn – even a new era – is breaking.

A very interesting season in the Israeli media
“Jesus was a classic Jew… the greatest Jew of all time… The very least he deserves from Israel is a city square named after him” wrote one impassioned Israeli journalist.1 There have been a plethora of articles and videos in the Israeli media, looking very favorably on the subject of Jesus and his story. This is indicative of a new era in Israeli attitudes towards Jesus. An entire documentary was devoted to exploring “Christianity in Israel”. A secular Jewish man and a religious Jewish woman interviewed believers from different backgrounds, including a priest who was born in a Jewish family and insisted that he is still Jewish. They found it bewildering but intriguing. At the end, they called Jesus their brother, and called for more appreciation of the Christian community living in the Holy Land.

I’ll be honest with you, we’re all a bit shocked by all this positivity!

Another article talked of “yet another sign that the centuries of bad blood between Jews and Christians is finally giving way to warmer relations.”2 Still another wrote at length about the virtues of Jesus as an important but overlooked Jewish historical figure, saying, “This land is the cradle of Christianity, and… Jesus was our flesh and blood, a Jewish superstar, the most influential Jew of all time.” Whether it’s in the main stream media or in personal conversations, we are noticing a significant shift in attitudes towards Jesus. This is fantastic news!

Onwards and upwards – Israel is booming
As we enter 2019, the nation continues to grow in numbers and success, with many Jewish people coming to the land, high life expectancy, and high birth rates. According to the Israeli Central Bureau of Statistics, the population grew by 2% to almost 9 million in total (74.3% of whom are Jewish and 20.9% Arab). 185,000 babies were born last year, and 28,000 came back to the land of their forefathers, making aliyah from all over the world.

Also in the news, the world has been blessed by Israeli innovations in conservation, medicine, agriculture and technology. Israelis have offered their expertise in crisis areas around the world, such as when Thai children got trapped in a cave, assisting with processing trauma after shootings and terror attacks, and also providing medical care for Syrian victims of the war over the border. The Israeli army has been working in partnership with believers in the “Good Neighbor” initiative to take care of the injured fleeing Syrian violence. A representative from the IDF has been profoundly impacted by these believers who are ready to lay down their lives to help the Syrians, just as the Israeli soldiers have been doing each night. But the believers had no weapons – only their Bibles. 

And at last, after many years of campaigning, a law was finally passed to prohibit paying for prostitution. There are many flaws in Israeli society, but we are seeing great breakthroughs and victories like this one. We praise God with the Jerusalem Institute of Justice who have been fighting on behalf of those trapped in sexual exploitation, and pray that it will lead to liberation for many.

The number of people visiting Israel in 2018 has broken all all tourism records
Since 2006, the number of tourists has more than doubled from 1.8 million to 4 million according to the Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The top five nationalities of the tourists who came were British, German, Russian, French, and over one million came from the US. I’m sure our guests had a great time, and it’s also very good news for us. Israel is often portrayed in a bad light in the international media, either as terrifyingly dangerous (it’s not) or as an evil, genocidal apartheid state (definitely not!). The more people who come to see the truth for themselves, the better.

And by the way, if you’ve never been, do come! It’s an amazing and rich country, as many are discovering. ONE FOR ISRAEL offers tours where you can focus either on studying the Bible or serving the people; either way, you’ll see the sights and have a wonderful experience.

=> ONE FOR ISRAEL service trips

=> ONE FOR ISRAEL study tours

The Body of Messiah is growing in numbers and maturity
As our study found a couple of years ago, there are at least 30,000 Messianic believers that we know of attending congregations, but we know that there are many more besides under the radar. Our estimate is that there might be another 20,000 or so who do not attend any congregation, either because there isn’t one in their area, or as a result of the profound family and social implications that come with declaring faith in Jesus. Many are teenagers who are not allowed to attend a congregation, and might not even dare to ask permission.

Numbers that we do know for certain are how many times our evangelistic videos have been viewed (some 90 million times!) and even our Hebrew language videos have been seen over 25 million times – that’s more than three times the population of Israel! Many have come to faith though them, having been persuaded by the truth and seeing through the false arguments of the Rabbis against Jesus. The pressing need now is for good discipleship.

This year we are building a 30 session discipleship course that can be used all around the country, and continuing to train Jewish and Arab Israeli believers in their faith here at our Bible College. We are praise God for the increase in numbers, but we also want to see growth in maturity in the body of Messiah, and deeper knowledge of God and his word.

Don’t curse the darkness, light a match!
We are very much looking forward to what’s in store in 2019. Instead of trying to guess what the future holds and how good or bad this year might be, we are determined to shine as much light as we can!

There’s so much to praise God for and we want to be thankful at all times, noticing the good all around us each day. It’s also up to each one of us to do what we can, in the power of the Holy Spirit, to build the kingdom of God – no matter what others around us might be doing. The darkness is certainly getting darker in many respects around the world, but that just makes the light shine all the more clearly. We want to make as much impact as we can to prepare the way of the coming King.

Arise, shine, for your light has come!
The glory of Adonai has risen on you.
For behold, darkness covers the earth,
and deep darkness the peoples.
But Adonai will arise upon you,
and His glory will appear over you.
(Isaiah 60:1-2)

Israel’s Record-Breaking 2018

Tourists pose for a picture in the Ella Valley, south of Jerusalem. (Credit: Nati Shohat/Flash90)
https://www.breakingisraelnews.com/119576/israels-record-breaking-2018/amp/
To all lovers of Zion, Israel is a remarkable country, with many friends to be sure, but also a cluster of enemies who view it as the embodiment of all things evil. So, to be able to see Israel’s record-breaking year in black and white statistics is a comfort.

It has been expected since early December, but Israel officially welcomed its four millionth tourist over the weekend – marking an unprecedented number of tourists who came to Israel in 2018.

According to statistics published in The Jerusalem Post, “Jerusalem leads the nation as the most sought after tourist destination, 40% of tourists coming in are landing on return visits and the majority of them are Christians [61%] followed by Jewish tourists [22%].” This represents an 11-percent increase over the 2017 tourism figure. Israel’s eternal capital has also been defined as the top global tourist destination, according to Euromonitor.


In yet another blow to the boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement, which seeks to encourage companies and individuals from doing business or visiting Israel and includes pressuring performing artists and sports teams to boycott the country, 2018 also witnessed a record-breaking year in terms of exports. The 2018 figure was $110 billion, which represented an 8-percent increase over the 2017 total. Earlier in the year, S&P raised Israel’s credit rating to -AA, the highest the country has ever had. According to Ynet, “the raised rating is a very significant achievement for the Israeli economy and indicates confidence in the ability of the economy to grow and the government’s ability to maintain a responsible fiscal policy.”

Also in the economic sphere, Israel enjoyed a bumper year in mergers and acquisitions. Deals totaling $21.6 billion represented a 77-percent increase over the 2017 figure. This massive increase, did not even include exceptional deals of in excess of $15 billion, therefore excluding the huge acquisitions of Mobileye by Intel and of Actavis by Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd.

We cannot know what 2019 has in store for Israel, but 2018 has been remarkable for such a small country – both in population size and geographical area – to make such sustained gains in a wide array of fields.

Breakthrough for those trapped in prostitution
According to JIJ, there are some 14,000 women, men and children who are viciously exploited every day in Israel’s sex industry. But New Year’s Eve brought some very good news: the Israeli government passed a law making it a criminal offense to pay for prostitution, and supporting rehabilitation measures. The first time someone is caught, they will be fined 2,000 shekels ($534). The second time, that amount is doubled, but a third time can lead to a penalty of 75,300 NIS. Instead of criminalizing the sex workers, the law puts the penalty on those who exploit them.1
The YNet news agency reported that, “The justice minister can advocate an alternative to paying the fine, such as attending a workshop in order to raise awareness of the harm caused those trapped in a cycle of prostitution and to educate on the subject in order to prevent a repeat offense.”2
Aliza Lavie, who heads the subcommittee on the fight against prostitution and trafficking in women, described the breakthrough as:
“An emotional moment, that will help define the State of Israel as a society, as who we are and what our values are.”

Lavie, Knesset Member for the Yesh Atid (‘there is a future’) party, continued by saying, “Israel joins a list of countries who have made it clear that prostitution is an unacceptable norm, with disastrous consequences. The law rights a wrong that has been going on for too many years, and will help reduce the demand for prostitution that is the driving force behind this industry, through rehabilitation and reintegration into society of women and girls trapped in prostitution.”

Freedom for the captives
Join us in praying these powerful words from Isaiah, fulfilled in our Messiah, over those living in bondage here in Israel:

The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me,
    because the Lord has anointed me
to bring good news to the poor;
    he has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted,
to proclaim liberty to the captives,
    and the opening of the prison to those who are bound;
 to proclaim the year of the Lord‘s favor,
    and the day of vengeance of our God;
    to comfort all who mourn;
 to grant to those who mourn in Zion—
    to give them a beautiful headdress instead of ashes,
the oil of gladness instead of mourning,
    the garment of praise instead of a faint spirit;
that they may be called oaks of righteousness,
    the planting of the Lord, that he may be glorified.

Isaiah 61:1-3

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1. YNet, Israel Bans Prostitution, Backs Rehabilitation for Sex Workers, Sahar Hai, 31/12/2018
2. Haaretz, Israel Passes a Law Banning the Buying of Sex, Jonathan Lis, 1/1/2019

Photo by Chester Wade on Unsplash

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ONE FOR ISRAEL (Messianic Jews In Israel)
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HomeVideos & ArticlesNewsHide and Seek: Archaeological Discoveries of 2018 Shed Light on the Bible

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Hide And Seek: Archaeological Discoveries Of 2018 Shed Light On The Bible
By ONE FOR ISRAEL (Messianic Jews In Israel)
 60
Just as 2018 was drawing to a close, an unsuspecting woman in Beit She’an, Israel, was taking a stroll after a particularly heavy downpour. Suddenly, she noticed some ancient sculptures (which later turned out to be from the late Roman period) sticking out of the mud, revealed after more than one and a half thousand years by the rain.1

Like a game of hide and seek, it’s almost comedic how often priceless archaeological treasures pop up in this ancient land! And very often they bring a message or insight of some kind.

Here’s a review of some of the most exciting archaeological findings from 2018:

Pilate’s ring
The day after the Prime Minister of Pakistan declared that there is no historical evidence for Jesus,2 archaeologists from Hebrew University revealed that the ring of Pontius Pilate had been discovered near Bethlehem! This timely discovery adds further credence to the already substantial historical and archaeological evidence for Jesus, and what the New Testament has written about him. And what remarkable timing! The ring itself was found some 50 years ago along with many other artifacts, but only now have experts managed to decipher the name on the ring:

“The famous name on it was discerned after a thorough cleansing, when it was photographed with the use of a special camera at the Israel Antiquities Authority labs. The inscription on what was apparently a stamping ring included a picture of a wine vessel surrounded by Greek writing translated as saying “Pilatus.’”3 

The name was very rare, the ring belonged to a man of high status who was in the cavalry, and the dating fits. They are confident that it did indeed belong to the Pontius Pilate of the New Testament. Did God orchestrate events to reveal this ring right after that ludicrous statement denying historical evidence for Jesus? We shouldn’t be surprised!

Seals of Hezekiah and Isaiah
Two important seals were discovered this year in Jerusalem, bearing the names of two important men: one was King Hezekiah, and the other was Isaiah. The seal of King Hezekiah was discovered close to Hezekiah’s tunnel in the City of David, and the other was found earlier in the year with what appeared to be the name of Isaiah the Prophet. However, the seal was missing a piece and it is not clear whether it in fact was Isaiah the Prophet or another Isaiah. However, we can say for sure that Isaiah was not only a contemporary of Hezekiah, but according to the Bible, the two men knew each other, met together, and Isaiah gave Hezekiah counsel. The discovery caused people to reflect on Isaiah and his prophecies, with one mainstream news source explaining why Isaiah 53 is seen as a prophecy about Jesus!

Temple tax silver shekel “beka” weight
A weight to measure silver for the temple tax was found this year.4 Exodus 38:25-26 tells us that God required half shekel temple tax due from each member of the community, regardless of whether they were rich or poor: “

The silver from those numbered from the congregation was 100 talents and 1,775 shekels, according to the Sanctuary shekel—that is, a beka, or half a shekel per head, according to the shekel of the Sanctuary, for everyone who was recorded, from 20 years old and upward, for 603,550 men.” 
Refuting Rabbinic Objections to Christianity & Messianic Prophecies Kindle Edition

The tiny weight (5.5 grams / 0.2 ounces) was inscribed with the Hebrew letters spelling beka and was discovered in archaeological excavations near Robinson’s arch, where the temple once stood. This silver half shekel tax is significant for a number of reasons.

Silver represents redemption of a life (consider the lives of Joseph and Jesus were exchanged for silver coins). We can also see the significance in the Tabernacle where the bases upon which the poles rest are all made of silver. The poles are made of wood, overlaid in gold, and resting in silver. This is like us as corruptible humanity (wood), wrapped in God’s holiness (gold), and resting in the redemption that Jesus bought for us (silver).

Even though rich and poor paying the same amount might go against our sense of fair play, it speaks volumes about the equal value of each life before God. We were all redeemed for the same price: The blood of Yeshua the Messiah.

Oldest known inscription of Jerusalem
An ancient column, dated to 100 BC, was found, with the word Jerusalem inscribed in Hebrew. This exciting discovery is the oldest known example with the name “Jerusalem” fully spelled out in this manner. The artifact proves that Jewish people were indeed in the land at that time, and that there were Hebrew speakers living and working in Jerusalem. Along with an ancient Roman pillar found in 2016 marked with the word “Judea”, it’s getting harder and harder to say that the Jewish people have no connection to the land. They very evidently do, and archaeological discoveries are proving it again and again.

Figurine from time of ancient Israel

Photograph by Gaby Laron (The Hebrew University of Jerusalem)
The perfectly preserved head of an ancient but tiny figurine from the ninth century BC was found earlier this year. “We’re guessing [it’s] probably a king, but we have no way of proving that,” said Robert Mullins, Ph.D., lead archaeologist at Abel Beth Maacah and chair and professor in Azusa Pacific’s Department of Biblical and Religious Studies.5 According to Mullins, radiocarbon dating suggests the sculpture was made some time between 902-806 B.C. “Given that the head was found in a city that sat on the border of three different ancient kingdoms, we do not know whether it depicts the likes of King Ahab of Israel, King Hazael of Aram-Damascus, or King Ethbaal of Tyre, rulers known from the Bible and other sources. The head represents a royal enigma.” The hunt will go on to find the identity of the mystery king from the days of ancient Israel!

Who knows what we’ll dig up in 2019?

https://www.haaretz.com/middle-east-news/syria/damage-revealed-satellite-image-shows-site-of-reported-israeli-strike-in-syria-1.6786401?utm_source=Push_Notification&utm_medium=web_push&utm_campaign=General
Iranian Target Near Damascus 'Completely Destroyed by Israeli Strike,' Satellite Images Reveal
An Israeli security official confirmed to AP that Israel carried out the overnight airstrike in Syria, saying a series of Iranian targets were hit

Yaniv Kubovich   SendSend me email alerts
Dec 27, 2018 1:23 PM
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Israeli official confirms aircraft struck Iranian targets in Syria
Israel's extensive Syria strike signals: Business as usual despite Trump and Putin
Syria says Israel struck in Damascus; 'Unlikely Hezbollah members targeted'
Russia: Israel's 'provocative' Syria strike directly endangered two civilian flights
An Israeli satellite imaging firm, ImageSat International, has released images showing the damage from a reported Israeli strike on Iranian targets near Damascus Tuesday.

An Israeli security official confirmed Wednesday to the Associated Press that Israel carried out the overnight airstrike in Syria, saying a series of Iranian targets were hit.

Satellite photos of the strike on Iranian targets in Syria, December 25, 2018.
Satellite photos of the strike on Iranian targets in Syria, December 25, 2018.ImageSat International ISI
Satellite photos of the strike on Iranian targets in Syria, December 25, 2018.
Satellite photos of the strike on Iranian targets in Syria, December 25, 2018.ImageSat International ISI
The official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the airstrike hit Iranian storage and logistic targets being used to transfer weapons to the Hezbollah militant group. The official said Israel also took out a Syrian anti-aircraft battery near Damascus that fired at the Israeli warplanes.

>> Israel's extensive Syria strike signals: Business as usual despite Trump and Putin | Analysis

Israeli aircrafts struck an arms depot west of Syria's capital city of Damascus from Lebanese airspace, Syrian state media reported Tuesday. According to reports, three Syrian soldiers were wounded in the attack which targeted Hezbollah depots. 

A report in the American weekly Newsweek said several senior Hezbollah officials were wounded in the alleged attack.

Citing a Department of Defense source familiar with the details of the attack via senior Israeli representatives, the report said Israeli aircrafts struck a few minutes after the officials had gotten on board a plane to Iran.

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On Wednesday, Russia criticized the airstrikes, saying they had endangered civilian flights.

The Israeli official said, however, that Israel alerted Russia about the airstrikes ahead of time


Yaniv Kubovich

Haaretz Correspondent

Netanyahu: Israel Will Not Be Deterred From Acting In Syria, or Anywhere Else
https://unitedwithisrael.org/netanyahu-israel-will-not-be-deterred-from-acting-in-syria-or-anywhere-else/?We will act against [Iran] vigorously and continuously,” Netanyahu said less than 24 hours after a series of aerial strikes on targets in Syria, including Iranian munitions warehouses.

By: TPS

Israel will not accept Iran’s military entrenchment in Syria which is directed against it, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reiterated Wednesday afternoon as he spoke at the the IAF pilots’ course graduation ceremony at Hatzerim Air Force Base in the Negev.

“I have said that we will not be deterred from doing what is necessary. Therefore, we are called upon and we act,” Netanyahu said.

The prime minister added that U.S. President Donald Trump’s recent decision to withdraw American soldiers from Syria would not change Israel’s policy.

“We are standing steadfast on our red lines in Syria and everywhere else,” he said.

Turning to Operation Northern Shield, Israel’s exposure and demolishing of Hezbollah attack tunnels crossing the border from Lebanon, Netanyahu said the IDF was “eliminating Hezbollah’s terrorist tunnels one after the other.

“They think they can produce weapons of destruction against us, but we can overcome them with stratagems, daring and determination,” he said.

Israel, Netanyahu continued was developing “special capabilities that no other country in the Middle East has, and I tell you that some of them, no other country in the world has.”

Those special capabilities he said included weapons systems, defensive systems and offensive missiles that can reach “any target anywhere.

“In the history of the Middle East, there has never been aerial activity such as this. Aircraft ascend and descend, take off and land, and reach arenas both near and far, very far,” Netanyahu said.

Palestinians to Christians in Gaza: No Holidays for You!
Dec 25, 2018
Hamas continues to oppress Christians living under its rule, while Israel works to facilitate their right to religious freedom. 
https://unitedwithisrael.org/palestinians-to-christians-in-gaza-no-holidays-for-you/?
By: United with Israel Staff

Islamic terrorists in the Gaza Strip have warned local Christians against celebrating their end-of-the-year holidays.

The Popular Resistance Committees, a coalition of armed Palestinian terror groups, published a flyer featuring a burning Christmas tree and threats in Arabic forbidding the Christian celebrations, according to The Jerusalem Post.

The flyer from the Al-Nasser Salah al-Deen Brigades features a verse from the Quran, warning Muslims “not to go the way of the Jews and the Christians” because “indeed God is not for the evil people.”

The terror organization cautioned that it is “absolutely forbidden” to celebrate the holidays in any capacity, and the Jerusalem Post cited a  Gaza government source as saying that the flyer was aimed at both Muslims and Christians living in Gaza.

Hamas, the Islamic terror group that rules the Strip, has in previous years issued notices to restaurants and hotels, banning establishments from throwing New Year’s Eve celebrations.

Before Hamas took over Gaza in 2007, the Christian population in the coastal enclave was over 3,000. Today, just 1,000 Christians remain, most of them Orthodox.

Christians and their property have occasionally come under attack since Hamas seized power.

Christians in Israel Celebrate Freely
While the Christian population is shrinking under Palestinian rule, it is steadily growing in Israel, the only country in the Middle East that safeguards Christians and enables them to practice their faith freely and safely.

Israeli authorities have worked to facilitate Palestinian celebrations, easing security restrictions in honor of the season’s holidays.

In Israel, Christian pilgrims and locals held mass celebrations on Monday night at various locations throughout Israel to celebrate the holidays.

Netanyahu on U.S. Syria Pullout: Israel Will Expand Military Action Against Iran if Needed
Prime minister says Trump's decision will not affect Israel's policy ■ Remarks come after army chief says development is 'significant,' but shouldn't be overblown
https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/netanyahu-on-u-s-syria-pullout-israel-will-expand-military-action-if-needed-1.6768750
Dec 23, 2018 1:36 PM
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visits Israeli soldiers in the north, December 11, 2018.Gil Eliahu
Thank you, Trump, for getting out of Syria
Turkey sending military vehicles, weaponry to Syrian border
After Mattis quits, Israel loses an island of sanity in the roiling Trump administration
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Sunday that the American military withdrawal from Syria will not affect Israel's policy toward the war-torn country.

"The decision to withdraw 2,000 U.S. troops from Syria will not change our consistent policy: We will continue to act against Iran's attempts to entrench itself militarily in Syria, and to the extent necessary, we will even expand our actions there." Netanyahu said at the start of the weekly cabinet meeting. 

In an abrupt policy shift, Trump announced on Wednesday that Washington would withdraw the roughly 2,000 U.S. troops from Syria, upending a pillar of American policy in the Middle East and alarming U.S. allies.


>> Read more: Trump capitulated, shocking Bolton and Erdogan: How Syria withdrawal call unfolded ■ U.S. exit from Syria could redraw map of Middle East's blocs ■ Trump just betrayed the Kurds, America's best defense against ISIS

"I would like to reassure those who are concerned. Our cooperation with the US will continue in full and finds expression in many areas: Operations, intelligence and many other security spheres," Netanyahu said.

Israeli army Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Gadi Eisenkot also commented on U.S. President Donald Trump's decision Sunday, saying it is "significant," but should not be overblown. 

The decision was followed on Thursday by the surprise departure of U.S. Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis, who in a resignation letter to Trump laid bare the growing divide between the two over foreign policy.

https://israelunwired.com/the-flashmob-in-ben-gurion-airport/
Imagine stepping off a plane at Ben Gurion Airport in Israel. You get your luggage, and as you walk through the airport to leave.  And then, you experience the most awesome flash-mob performance EVER!

Ben Gurion Airport
You might think of top notch security when you think about Ben Gurion Airport. That’s probably what comes to mind for most people. When you enter and leave the airport, there is security that you know and don’t know about.

So you can imagine how surprised the airport goers were when they were confronted with such a professional and entertaining flashmob!

Birthright
150 dancers, singers, and musicians from the Jerusalem Academy of Music and Dance took part in this flashmob. They did it to welcome participants of the Birthright program. Birthright has many different programs, and this one had participants who have never stepped foot in Israel. What a welcome this was!

Birthright Israel arranged the flashmob. Aside from welcoming the Birthright participants, they organized the performance for Israel’s 70th birthday as well as Birthright Israel’s 18th anniversary.

What’s even more magnificent is the amount of Jews greeted by this flashmob – over 2,000 Jews from all over the world!

Flashmobs in Israel
It’s not uncommon to have flashmobs in Israel. Israelis love to have fun – anytime and anywhere. Even in an airport! Sometimes, the flashmob will be on the Jerusalem light rail and involve people singing hatikvah. Other times, it might not even be considered a flashmob. But Israelis will just randomly dance together in the streets without knowing each other! Whatever it is, it’s beautiful to see Jewish people coming together to put smiles on the faces of all those watching.

In Starkest Warning Yet, EU States Say Trump's Mideast Peace Plan Risks 'Being Condemned to Failure'
Eight EU member states say ahead of the plan's publication that any proposal must take into account 'internationally agreed parameters' – namely, a two-state solution
https://www.haaretz.com/world-news/europe/.premium-eu-states-warn-trump-s-mideast-plan-risks-being-condemned-to-failure-1.6761536
Noa Landau Dec 19, 2018 6:38 AM
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Eight European Union member states issued on Tuesday their starkest warning ahead of the publication of U.S. President Donald Trump's long-awaited Middle East peace plan.


Analysis U.S. Withdrawal From Syria Shows Washington Is an Ally, but Only to a Point
Not only will Iran and Syria portray Trump's decision as a resounding victory – the pullout will also be viewed as a stab in the back of the Kurdish minority
Zvi Bar'el Dec 20, 2018 9:19 AM
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Reports concerning President Trump’s intention to withdraw U.S. forces from Syria should come as no surprise, at least for one reason. Trump usually changes policies like one changes socks, and there was no...
https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-washington-is-an-ally-but-only-to-a-point-1.6763815?utm_source=Push_Notification&utm_medium=web_push&utm_campaign=General

Opinion Young American Jews Would Engage More With Israel if Birthright Stopped Lying About the Occupation
Showing the truth won’t alienate Birthright trip participants from Israel. But offering a sanitized, whitewashed Israel patronizes young Jews’ curiosity and intelligence – and sets them up for dissonance and disengagement

Jacob Levkowicz  Dec 19, 2018 1:32 PM
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I have been a Birthright participant and trip leader and an on-campus Israel advocacy professional, and I'll never forget the first time I visited the West Bank.
https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-u-s-jews-would-engage-more-on-israel-if-birthright-didn-t-lie-about-the-occupation-1.6762336

Israeli Army Probing Death of Two Palestinian Teens in Gaza Warning Missile Strike
The two, aged 15 and 16, were killed in July during a so-called 'roof knocking' attack – when Israel fires small missiles shells onto roofs of buildings ahead of a wider strike
Yaniv Kubovich   SendSend me email alerts
Dec 19, 2018 12:29 PM
https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/israel-probing-death-of-two-palestinian-teens-in-gaza-warning-missile-strike-1.6762293
Luai Kahil and Amir al-Nimrah
U.S. adopts Israeli tactic employed in Gaza war in fight against ISIS
UN report finds: Israel's 'roof-knock' warning no way to prevent civilian casualties
ICC prosecutor: Significant progress toward decision about investigating Israeli actions in Gaza, West Bank
The Israeli military is investigating the death of two Palestinian teens during an Israeli strike in the Gaza Strip last July, Haaretz has learned.
The two, 15-year-old Amir al-Nimrah and 16-year-old Luai Kahil, were killed while sitting on a rooftop at the Shati refugee camp in the northern Gaza Strip on July 14, as Israel and Hamas were locked in a flare-up.
The two teens were killed in what Israel calls "roof tapping" or "roof knocking" – firing small missiles at a roof of a building, creating a small explosion to warn the residents of an impending wider attack. Israel has also used this tactic in other campaigns in Gaza, such as Operation Cast Lead in December 2008 and January 2009 as well as Operation Pillar of Defense in 2012.
The probe was launched following an investigation carried out by the human rights organization B’Tselem and the Forensic Architecture London-based research group. A video published by the two organizations combines aerial photographs and photos published by the Israeli army on the day of the attack.   
skip - B’Tselem and Forensic Architecture findings
B’Tselem and Forensic Architecture findings - דלג
On the day of the attack, the IDF Spokesperson said that the structure at the refugee camp "served as the Palestinian national library, a huge abandoned building near Nasser Street." The IDF added that the building's five stories were "meant for the use of Gaza residents, for public and government services [or] housing," but that it had been converted to a Hamas training compound."  The building, the army added, serves as a training ground "for urban warfare… and for survival in tunnels – thanks to an attack tunnel that was dug under it."

Asked again for comment, the army spokesman's office issued a statement on Wednesday in which it acknowledged that, following the attack, there were reports that the two teens had been killed. "An investigation showed that, at the time of the [missile] fire, no people were spotted on the roof of the building. The findings of the investigation are currently being examined by the Military Advocate General's office."
Before the attack, various steps were taken to minimize possible harm to civilians, including the roof tapping the statement said. "Contrary to what had been claimed, the [army] probe was carried out immediately following the event and not as the result of new information being received."
The roof-tapping tactic had been discontinued for several years because crowds of Palestinians would gather on the rooftops to try to prevent the demolitions of buildings.
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צבא ההגנה לישראל

@idfonline
 כוחותינו תקפו באמצעות מטוסי קרב בניין רב קומות במחנה הפליטים שאטי בצפון הרצועה ששימש כמתקן אימונים ללוחמה בשטח בנוי של ארגון הטרור חמאס. מנהרה זו היא חלק מרשת מנהרות תת קרקעיות שחפר ארגון הטרור חמאס ברחבי רצועת עזה

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3:48 PM - Jul 14, 2018
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Footage of an Israel Air Force jet firing a missile at he building
After the 2014 conflict, a group of U.S. military experts from the Pentagon arrived in Israel to learn about the operation and the IDF's attempts to minimize civilian casualties.

A UN Human Rights Council commission of inquiry's report on 2014's Operation Protective Edge concluded that while the method "may have been effective" in minimizing civilian casualties in specific instances, "'roof-knocks' cannot be considered an effective warning given the confusion they often cause to building residents and the short time allowed to evacuate before the actual strike."

Israelis Sending Bible, Israeli Flag to the Moon
 https://unitedwithisrael.org/israelis-sending-bible-israeli-flag-to-the-moon/?utm_source=pushengage&utm_medium=pushnotification&utm_campaign=pushengage

Israel’s Beresheet, the first non-governmental craft in the world to go to the moon, is sending a time capsule containing Israeli national symbols and cultural artifacts into space.

By: United with Israel Staff

The Israeli SpaceIL group and Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) presented on Monday a time capsule that will travel to the moon with the first Israeli spacecraft.

The time capsule consists of three discs, each containing hundreds of digital files, which will launch from Cape Canaveral, Florida, in February.

The files traveling to the moon include Israeli national symbols, like Israel’s Declaration of Independence, the Bible, Israel’s national anthem “Hatikvah” and the Israeli flag.

The time capsule also includes cultural objects and materials, such as paintings collected from the public over the years for sending to the moon, dictionaries in 27 languages and encyclopedias as an indication of knowledge accumulated by humanity, Israeli songs, books of art and science and Israeli literature, information about Israeli scientific and technological discoveries and developments that influenced the world, and photos Israel’s landscapes and of leading figures in Israeli culture.

The time capsule, along with the spacecraft, will remain on the Moon indefinitely, even after completing Israel’s first lunar mission. With no plans to return to Earth, the spacecraft and information within the time capsule’s disks could possibly be found and distributed by future generations.

In February, the spacecraft, recently named Beresheet (the Hebrew word for Genesis), will launch alongside other satellites as a secondary payload on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket. The precise launch date remains undetermined, as SpaceIL awaits final confirmation from the launch company.

‘Another Step on Our Way to the Moon’
“This is another step on our way to the moon,” said Ido Anteby, CEO of SpaceIL. “Inserting the disks into the spacecraft, which is a real time capsule, indicates the spacecraft’s readiness to blast off from the launch site in a few weeks.”

SpaceIL’s crews and IAI have completed testing of the spacecraft and its systems, and are preparing for the “beginning of the amazing and complex journey that exemplifies innovation, creativity and courage,” he added.

Yonatan Winetraub, one of three SpaceIL founders, said, as he inserted the time capsule into a spacecraft that “this is a very emotional moment. We do not know how long the spacecraft and the time capsule will remain on the moon. It is very possible that future generations will find this information and want to learn more about this historic moment.”

Opher Doron, IAI’s Space Division General Manager, noted the pride in being the first non-governmental entity in the world to go to the moon.

The spacecraft successfully completed a series of recent tests to examine the integration 




Saudi-Israel Backchannel Takes Hit After Officials Dismissed Over Khashoggi Murder, Report Says
Two of MBS' close aides allegedly led covert efforts to improve ties between Jerusalem and Riyadh, but sources tell WSJ their involvement in killing of dissident journalist 'dampened appetite for risky foreign policy endeavors'
https://www.haaretz.com/middle-east-news/report-saudi-israel-backchannel-takes-hit-after-officials-dismissed-over-khashoggi-1.6761067
Haaretz   SendSend me email alerts
Dec 18, 2018 7:23 PM
File photo: Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman upon his arrival at Algiers International Airport, December 2, 2018.Ryad Kramdi/AFP
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Efforts to improve the relationship between Israel and Saudi Arabia have been seriously hindered after Riyadh fired two Saudi officials leading the project over suspected involvement in the murder of dissident Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, The Wall Street Journal reported on Tuesday.

One of the officials, former media adviser to the court Saud al-Qahtani, issued directives to the Saudi press with the goal of improving Israel's image. The two countries have no diplomatic ties and anti-Israel sentiments are widespread in the kingdom.

The other official, also a former close aide to Prince Mohammed bin Salman and a subordinate of al-Qahtani, reportedly made several secret trips to Israel to look into employing Israeli surveillance technology, sources familiar with the matter told the Journal. The alleged visits would make former deputy intelligence chief Ahmed al-Assiri the most senior Saudi official to ever set foot in Israel.


>> Is Saudi Arabia repaying Trump for Khashoggi by attacking Linda Sarsour? | Analysis ■ On Fox News, Kushner ignores the CIA and glosses over Saudi crown prince's connections to Khashoggi murder

A protester wearing a mask depicting Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman holds up his hands, painted with fake blood, at a vigil for murdered Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi outside Saudi Arabia's consulate in Istanbul. Oct. 25, 2018
A protester wearing a Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman mask holds up his hands, painted with fake blood, at a vigil for murdered Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, Istanbul. Oct. 25, 2018Emrah Gurel,AP
Al-Qahtani, however, "was the key player in all of this," the report quoted a Saudi official as saying. The former court adviser sought out spyware made by Israeli firm NSO Group and its Luxembourg-based affiliate, Q Cyber Technology, which signed a $55-million deal to sell cyber surveillance tools to Riyadh, the report says.

A Haaretz investigation revealed in October that NSO negotiated the sale of advanced cyber-attack capabilities with Saudi Arabia, a deal that The Washington Post says was authorized by the Israeli government. NSO said in response that "the company develops products that are sold only to authorized government entities."
A month after Haaretz revealed the sale, NSO found itself targeted by a lawsuit launched by Montreal-based Saudi activist Omar Abdulaziz, who claims that the firm's software was used to hack his cellphone in order to track conversations with Khashoggi. 

According to the Journal, Mossad Director Yossi Cohen held several meetings with Saudi officials over the past year. One of these meetings, facilitated by the U.S., brought together Egyptian, Jordanian and Palestinians intelligence officers in June. Sources also said Israel, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates now "regularly share intelligence of shared threats," including matters related to Iran.

The Saudi government has also facilitated business between the two countries, according to the report. People familiar with the process told WSJ special waivers have been issued to Israeli businessmen, so that they may visit the country without using their Israeli passports.


The mission to forge closer ties between Saudi Arabia and Israel, which the Journal calls "a secretive U.S.-backed initiative," has also been impeded by the Saudi crown prince's own alleged role in the murder.

Citing people familiar with the situation, the report says that the international outcry following the killing hampered the prince's "room to maneuver among prospective rivals and dampened appetite for risky foreign policy endeavors such as the outreach to Israel."

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said last week that while the murder of Khashoggi in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul is "horrific," it does not outweigh the strategic importance of Saudi Arabia.

File photo: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during weekly cabinet meeting at the Prime Minister's office in Jerusalem, December 16, 2018.
File photo: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during weekly cabinet meeting at the Prime Minister's office in Jerusalem, December 16, 2018.Abir Sultan/AFP
"What happened in Istanbul is nothing short of horrific. But it’s balanced by the importance of Saudi Arabia and the role it plays in the Middle East," Netanyahu told foreign reporters at an event in Jerusalem.

"Because if Saudi Arabia would be destabilized, the world, not the Middle East, will be destabilized," Netanyahu said.

Netanyahu's response was similar to comments made by U.S. President Donald Trump during an interview to Reuters. "I really hope that people aren't going to suggest that we should not take hundreds of billions of dollars that they're going to siphon off to Russia and to China, primarily those two, instead of giving it to us," he said, while discussing the murder of Khashoggi.

"You're talking about hundreds of thousands of jobs. You're talking about huge military and other contracts. I hope that's not going to be a recommendation," he concluded.

Turkey accused the United States late November of trying to turn a blind eye to the murder of Khashoggi, and dismissed comments from Trump on the issue as "comic".

Turkey’s Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said: "This is a humanitarian issue. It concerns a murder. It is not possible to say 'our trade will increase, let's cover this up, let’s ignore it.'"

Hamas Celebrates 31 Years of Terror, Hate, and Destruction
 Hamas celebrated the mass carnage and terrorism it has conducted against Israeli citizens since its inception, vowing to carry on its war against the Jewish State until it is eliminated.
https://unitedwithisrael.org/hamas-celebrates-31-years-of-terror-hate-and-destruction/?utm_source=pushengage&utm_medium=pushnotification&utm_campaign=pushengage

By: United with Israel Staff
Thousands of Hamas members and supporters participated on Sunday in a rally organized by the Palestinian terror organization in Gaza to commemorate the 31st anniversary of its establishment, one of a series of events and rallies to celebrate the occasion.

Hamas was founded in 1987, soon after the First Intifada broke out, as an offshoot of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood.

Hamas terrorists in military fatigues paraded alongside children with rockets and heavy machine guns during the rally.

“Hamas is teaching a new generation of Palestinian children to hate their neighbors,” the IDF stated.

The Islamist group claimed that a large turnout reflects widespread support despite domestic and external challenges.

Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh praised a recent series of deadly attacks against Israel in Judea and Samaria. He said such attacks are “a response” to the anticipated American peace proposal that Palestinians believe will favor Israel.

Hamas has “fought off the US projects represented by the “Deal of the Century” that poses serious and strategic threats to the Palestinian cause and the regional interests,” the terror group stated. “The US-adopted project was planned to legitimize the Israeli occupation at the expense of the national rights and interests of the Palestinian people.”

Haniyeh also called on Palestinian Authority (PA) head Mahmoud Abbas to meet in Gaza or Cairo to end a decade of bloody inter-Palestinian feuding.

“Hamas reiterates a full rejection of all forms of normalization with the Israeli occupation, under whatever pretexts that may be adopted. Normalization is an awful crime and a stab in the back of the Palestinian people,” Hamas stated.

Israel’s Foreign Ministry responded by tweeting that “31 years since this terror organization was formed, Hamas continues to rob Palestinians of their future and Gaza of its’ resources, sowing death, hatred and destruction for both Israelis and Palestinians.”
 סרטון מוטמע

Israel Defense Forces

@IDF
 #Hamas is celebrating its 31st birthday so we made them a little gift...

4,139
17:57 - 16 בדצמ׳ 2018
3,283 אנשים מדברים על זה
מידע ופרטיות בנוגע למודעות טוויטר
For its 28th anniversary, Hamas published a special file which included a recounting of its “successes” against Israel: the firing of 16,377 rockets at Israel, 86 suicide bombings that murdered hundreds, 36 stabbing attacks, over 500 infiltration attacks, over 250 sniper attacks, over 80 attacks on Israeli armored targets and 26 abductions of live or dead Israelis since its inception in 1987.

The numbers have since grown.
AP contributed to this report.

https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/israeli-army-says-fourth-hezbollah-attack-tunnel-found-crossing-from-lebanon-1.6746693?utm_source=Push_Notification&utm_medium=web_push&utm_campaign=General
Israeli Army Says Fourth Hezbollah Attack Tunnel Found Crossing From Lebanon
The tunnel no longer constitutes a threat but has been rigged with explosives, says military spokesman
Yaniv Kubovich   SendSend me email alerts
Dec 16, 2018 10:04 AM
Israeli soldiers examining a third Hezbollah cross-border attack tunnel discovered on December 11, 2018.IDF Spokesperson's Unit
U.S. rejects Israel’s request for sanctions on Lebanon over Hezbollah tunnels
Lebanon: U.S. informed us Israel has no aggressive intention
Netanyahu and Nasrallah, the Middle East’s two messianic leaders
The Israeli army said on Sunday that over the weekend it found a Hezbollah attack tunnel crossing from Lebanon into Israel, the fourth discovered in recent weeks.

Israeli army spokesman added that though the tunnel no longer constitutes a threat, it has been rigged with explosives.

He warned that whoever enters it from the Lebanese side is risking their life, amd accused Lebanon of violating UN Security Council resolution 1701, which ended the 2006 Second Lebanon War, and the sovereignty of Israel.

>> From Lebanon to Iraq: Iran’s new, hybrid threat to Israel | Analysis ■ Israeli Operation Against Hezbollah Tunnels Enters Its Explosive Stage | Analysis

The discovery of a third tunnel crossing into Israeli territory was announced on Tuesday by the Israeli army, a week after Israel launched Operation Northern Shield, aimed at destroying cross-border tunnels constructed by Hezbollah.

Lebanese president said last week that Israel's operation to destroy Hezbollah attack won't endanger the calm along the frontier. Michel Aoun, a Hezbollah ally, said that Lebanon takes the tunnel issue "seriously" and is prepared to "take measures to remove causes of disagreement" after receiving full report on the situation.


Aoun added that the U.S. has informed Lebanon that Israel has "no aggressive intentions," and also noted that his country too has "no aggressive intentions."
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said after the revelation of the third tunnel: "Hezbollah thought it was digging uninterrupted. We knew about it and planned it [to launch Operation Northern Shield] and it didn't leak. We're carrying out exactly what we planned, but we are also prepared for setbacks."

The premier spoke after holding a security assessment in the Northern Command along with IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Gadi Eisenkot and other senior commanders. Netanyahu, who is the acting defense minister following the resignation of Avigdor Lieberman, received a security briefing on the current progress in the operation to destroy the tunnels.

https://www.haaretz.com/middle-east-news/.premium-israel-eyes-set-on-iraq-where-iran-is-deploying-missiles-capable-of-striking-israel-1.6744552?utm_source=Push_Notification&utm_medium=web_push&utm_campaign=General
Analysis From Lebanon to Iraq: Iran’s New, Hybrid Threat to Israel
The pro-Assad axis saw great strategic success in 2018 – but Tehran has also suffered failures ■ The state of the Israeli army's ground forces is a divisive issue Netanyahu will have to address
Amos Harel Dec 16, 2018 1:32 PM
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Israel says fourth Hezbollah attack tunnel found crossing from Lebanon Operation enters explosive stage



Analysis As Attacks Rise, Abbas' Weakness and Israeli Elections Talk May Hurt War on Terror
Israel's right-wing claims only a mixture of deterrence and retribution can restore security, but most security officials have long opposed such steps
https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-israel-s-collective-punishment-could-exacerbate-conflict-with-palestinians-1.6746270?utm_source=Push_Notification&utm_medium=web_push&utm_campaign=General