Do You Think Israel's Counter-Terrorism Strategies Hold Humanitarian Standards ?

 Nadene Goldfoot                                         

Israeli security forces near Elad, Israel, on Sunday during a hunt for two Palestinians suspected of having killed three people in the town on Thursday.Credit...Gil Cohen-Magen/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images from New York Times, May 8, 2022.

JERUSALEM — Israeli security forces captured two Palestinians on Sunday who were suspected of perpetrating an ax attack that killed three Israeli Jews in the central town of Elad on Thursday night. Their arrests ended an intensive search but left Israel’s fragile government grappling with how to combat the recent surge in terrorist attacks.  So even Israel has to review its methods to cover new terrorism plots.  

Israeli soldiers raiding the home of one of the suspects on Sunday in Rumana, near Jenin in the occupied West Bank.Credit...Jaafar Ashtiyeh/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images  The police had distributed the names and photographs of the suspects on Thursday night, identifying them as Asad Al Refai, 19, and Subhi Abu Shakir, 20, both residents of the Palestinian village of Rumana, in the northern Jenin district of the occupied West Bank.The two suspects were captured unarmed on Sunday, officials said, as they hid in bushes in a woodland not far from Elad, a predominantly ultra-Orthodox town. The Israeli police, the military and the Shin Bet internal security agency announced the capture on Sunday morning, and the authorities, apparently seeking a victory image, promptly released photographs and video of the moment of the men’s arrests.                      

“Capturing the murderers is not enough,” Prime Minister Naftali Bennett of Israel said Sunday at the start of a weekly cabinet meeting, adding, “We are at the start of a new stage in the war on terrorism.”The search, involving hundreds of soldiers and police officers as well as helicopters and drones, had closed in on an area near a quarry, less than a mile from Elad.

Because Israel has had so many years to deal with terrorism, ever since the 1920s,  they have been forced to develop innovative counterterrorism strategies.  Israel is now respected as a global expert in the field, and its policies have become a model for other democracies that are also committed to upholding humanitarian standards even while they face terrorists who operate among civilians.  

They have dealt with wars and terrorism since 2000 and sought ways to defend its citizens and, at the same time, protect the lives of innocent Palestinians and Lebanese who were also victimized by those who want to destroy Israel.  It must be remembered that their enemy holds no such feelings towards their own people and have often used them as chattel, weapons to use against Israel.  

The guiding principles of Israel's policies are:

1. Humanitarian

     A. Save the lives of Israeli citizens   

    B. Protect the lives and well-being of innocent Palestinians

    C. Uphold civil and human rights with Supreme Court review of contested policies

Israel chose not to use its full military power to eliminate the terrorists in order to limit the loss of innocent Palestinian lives.  One strategy was to try to block the terrorists' ability to access Israeli population center.  There are no natural barriers between Israel and the West Bank (Judea Samaria). 

 There were man-made barriers when Jordan occupied the West Bank, but Israel removed them when it gained control of the area in the 1967 War.  For the next 33 years people traveled more freely between the 2 regions.  However, this free movement ended when the terrorist campaign erupted in 2000.  Israel had to prevent terrorists from simply walking or driving into Israeli communities to maim and murder men, women and children.  

2. Defensive

    A. Stop terrorists and dismantle their infrastructures

      1. Checkpoints:  are temporary legal and part of the Oslo Accords.  They inconvenience Palestinians and Israelis though Israel has progressively introduced improvements to ease the transit for Palestinians.  

      a. Security checks within pre-'67 Israel: All Israelis and visitors must go through metal detectors and bag/body checks when they enter public places such as malls, bus stations, museums, clubs, cafes, hotels and religious sites.

      b. Border-Crossings;  have had 26 checkpoints between Israel and Territories in Sept. 2005.  Like border crossings between countries.                            

       The fence, accommodating areas.  Fences go up when there is a need, and in this case, a case of life or death of Israelis.  If terrorism hadn't happened, there would be no fence.  

    Original wall around Jerusalem.  Many cities were walled back then.  

      c. Security checkpoints within West Bank, control movement of terrorists, built around cities known to be terrorist centers like Nablus.  As the fence went up, Israel reduced the number of checkpoints from 25 to 12 and the roadblocks from 87 to 66.  

  B. Prevent the success of terrorist missions

  C. Root out terrorist leaders and their supporters

Mossad-Intelligence Gathering:  is a defensive force.  Israel's most effective and important weapon is its intelligence operations, which allow it to monitor and preempt attacks against its citizens. 

Update 8/5/22: The IDF remains on high alert along the Gaza border and has redeployed reinforcements and called up reserves to the area. The IDF continues to maintain road closures in the border area. This comes after security forces arrested an Islamic Jihad commander, al Saadi, earlier this week in Jenin. The IDF says that it has intelligence that the Islamic Jihad terror group in Gaza is planning attacks on Israeli targets in the border area.

According to a report in the Palestinian al Quds news paper in Jerusalem, Islamist Jihad told Egyptian moderators that they demand to see proof that al Saadi was unharmed by his Israeli captors as well as a resolution of the 144 day hunger strike of another member of the Islamic Jihad held in prison in Israel. The terror group also said that they were not interested in a violent conflict but reserved the right to respond to the "the crimes perpetrated by the enemy occupiers."   This, coming from the people who beheaded Daniel Pearl.  

Resource:

Israel 101 magazine of 2010, by Stand with Us.  p. 28-29, 

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/08/world/middleeast/israel-suspects-arrested-attack.html

TALIBAN: Who and What They Are in Afghanistan and Pakistan

Nadene Goldfoot                                         

Pashtun Warrior

The Taliban are people made up of a lot of Pashtuns of Pakistan.  Taliban are fighting against the people of Pakistan and Afghanisan, even often against their own Pashtuns.  Why do they attack their own people?

                                                                         

Taliban gunmen in Central Kandahar-Herat Highway,
Afghanistan in 2001
Banaras Khan/AFP/Getty Images

"The Taliban (Pashto: طالبان‬‎ ṭālibān "students") or Taleban, who refer to themselves as the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (IEA), are a Sunni Islamic fundamentalist political movement in Afghanistan currently waging war (an insurgency, or jihad) within that country."  Pashtos are our newly discovered people whose ancestors were of the northern Tribes of Israel, the LOST TEN TRIBES OF ISRAEL.   We are getting to know them and they us.  A group has become Israeli citizens, and others have visited.  These are not of the Taliban, so not all Pashtos belong to the Taliban reactive group of rebellion.  In fact, many Pashtos have been suffering for some time now from the Russian and American "Help" in the political scene of Afghanistan and Pakistan.  

                                                 

Pashtuns who visited Jerusalem who knew their ancestors had been
from the northern part of Israel, taken by the Assyrians in 721 BCE
Some live in Israel already.  Originally, the northern part is Samaria.
Fata's Arabs live there today in Judea-Samaria.

This war is not only reacting against their country's political system which has been inept, but their religious environment as well. The Taliban wants to institute  "a strict interpretation of Sharia, or Islamic law".  They held 3/4 of Afghanistan from 1996 to 2001 and enforced Sharia law.  

Pashtuns of eastern and southern Afghanistan were raised under traditional Islamic schools.  They took the power away from the warlords of Afghanistan.  

"The Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan was established in 1996 and the Afghan capital was transferred to Kandahar. It held control of most of the country until being overthrown after the American-led invasion of Afghanistan in December 2001 following the September 11 attacks."

Affects after an attack on a school in Pakistan by Taliban. 

                                                                        

Malala Yousafzai-She almost died after being shot.

Osama bin Laden
 Founder of the pan-Islamic militant organization al-Qaeda. He was a Saudi Arabian until 1994, a member of the wealthy bin Laden family, and an ethnic Yemeni Kindite.
He hid out in Pakistan where the Americans found and killed him.
Americans believed the Pakistani government knew he was there. 

"The Taliban have been condemned internationally for the harsh enforcement of their interpretation of Islamic Sharia law, which has resulted in the brutal treatment of many Afghans, especially women."  They have a terrible reputation having shot the Pashto girl who tried to bring education to herself and others, and of course Osama bin Laden."  

Politically, Malala's father is affiliated with the Awami National Party (ANP), a left-wing Pashtun nationalist party in Pakistan whose origins are linked with the Khudai Khidmatgar (aka Red Shirts), which was a secular Pashtun non-violent movement against the British Raj.

" Pakistan states that it dropped all support for the group after the September 11 attacks. In 2001, reportedly 2,500 Arabs under command of Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden fought for the Taliban."

May2018, Pakistan worked on their Constitution.  

• 24-27 May - The twenty-fifth amendment to the Constitution of Pakistan was approved by the Parliament of Pakistan and the Provincial Assembly of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP), giving way to the merger of the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) into the Province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP).  It'a a different Fatah group than in Judea-Samaria, thank goodness.  

                                                                       

Afghanistan and Pakistan, It's Neighbor
Can you find Israel?  It's here, the tiniest place.  

         

In 2012, Ahmed Rashid, born in Rawalpindi, Pakistan in 1948, wrote that the war in Afghanistan would go on but Pakistan had become the most  fragile place in the world, a very unstable country and most vulnerable to terrorist violence, political change, or economic collapse.  It could have become a failed state.  They had a powerful army but a corrupt and run down but a bureaucratic  judiciary and police force.  They had no good leadership for their 185 million people. 

By 2050 it is estimated that there will be 275 million in Pakistan.  It has an agricultural economy and could barely support its population in 2012.  1/3 of the population then lacked drinking water, 77 million had unreliable food sources, and 1/2 the school-aged children didn't attend school.  Literacy rate was 52% in 1947 and only 57% in 2012.  1/2 the population don't bother looking for jobs that do not exist.  37% of the population are under age 15.  Young men face little promise and are ready for jihad.  

                                                      

Pashtun Freedom Fighters-Taliban?

Since 2005  the Taliban is ready to topple the government, defeat the army and have their country become an Islamic extremist state.  Isn't that what ISIS is all about?  The Pakistani Taliban in 2012 held land of the NW with other extremist groups joining them in destabilizing major cities like Karachi and control land of the S. Punjab.   

The Afghan and Pakistani Taliban are mostly tribal PASHTUNS!  

Afghanistan in 2012 had 12 million Pashtuns.

Pakistan has 30 million.  They are the manpower fighting the Americans in Afghanistan and the army in Pakistan.  

                                                      

Taliban terrorists
Some do not say they are of the 10 tribes of Jacob
Not all Pashtuns think they are from them 

Intolerance towards other religions grows.  Christians and Hindus, who had lived peacefully with the Muslim Sunnis are fleeing for their life because of atrocities against them.  Shias, Ahmaedis, Ismailis, etc are being targeted.  

What has been happening in their country?  Little revenue collection, no new industries or trading partners, no jobs, inflation, a collapsing economy meaning their money is becoming more worthless, shortages of gas, electricity and water so that what industry they have are starting to close down.  They'd have their own Arab Spring but the fear is that it would destabilize the existing regime leading to a bloody revolution led by the Taliban.  

In 2011, only 6% of Afghans had electricity.  Kabul, the largest city  had a 20-megawatt power line from Uzbekistan which gave  their 4 million people in January 2009 partial full time electricity.Obama's Richard Holbrooke had died in December 2010 had started a new program in the economy and agriculture but needed more time and better security.  President Karzai had lost the trust of the people.  

                                                      

Pashtos 

Barack Obama, president of the USA whose time was up in 2016, promised much but did little except take out Osama bin Laden.  Obama took office in 2009 and there were 32,000 USA troops in Afghanistan.  By 2014,  all 49 countries with troops in these 2 countries planned on leaving with their 150,000 US and NATO forces.   Afghanistan had been fighting since 1978.  They want a peace settlement but not for sharing power with the Taliban.  The urban elite don't want the USA to leave like the Soviets did in 1989.  

Now the problem is in stabilizing Afghanistan and Pakistan and making sure that Al-Qaeda gets no piece of the pie, and they could come into the picture again with the extremists.  

The US-NATO plan  is to make peace with the Taliban, have Afghan government running well and the Afghan army keep the security, governance and development working properly.  

2013: Residents of Pakistan's ethnic Pashtun region of North Waziristan accused government troops on Monday of killing dozens of civilians during a military operation against Taliban insurgents.

                                                    

Khan was born to an upper-middle class
Pashtun family in Lahore, Punjab, Pakistan.Lahore is the capital city of the Pakistani province of Punjab, and is the country’s second-most populous city after Karachi. The city is located in the north-eastern end of Pakistan's Punjab province. Lahore is one of Pakistan's wealthiest cities with an estimated GDP of $127 billion as of 2017. He's also exceedingly wealthy.  

Imran Ahmed Khan Niazi HI PP is a Pakistani politician and former cricketer who is the 22nd and current Prime Minister of Pakistan since August 18, 2018. Prior to entering politics, Khan was a cricketer and philanthropist. He is also the chairman of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf.   On 25 April 1996, Khan founded the political party, Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI).   Imran is also a Pashtun.

Khan's father belonged to the Niazi Pashtun tribe, who were long settled in Mianwali in northwestern Punjab. The Niazis had come to the subcontinent with invading Pashtun tribes during the fifteenth century. Imran identifies Haibat Khan Niazi as a paternal ancestor, a sixteenth century military general of Sher Shah Suri and later governor of Punjab. His paternal family hail from the Shermankhel sub-clan of the Niazis. The Niazis mainly speak Saraiki and are based in Mianwali and surrounding areas, where family and tribal networks are strong and where, according to Khan, "even third cousins know each other."

" Khan is generally described as a nationalist and a populist. Khan's proclaimed political platform and declarations include: Islamic values, to which he rededicated himself in the 1990s; liberal economics, with the promise of deregulating the economy and creating a welfare state; decreased bureaucracy and the implementation of anti-corruption laws, to create and ensure a clean government; the establishment of an independent judiciary; overhaul of the country's police system; and an anti-militant vision for a democratic Pakistan."            

                                                     

Mike Pompeo in this USA Delegation in Pakistan in September 2018

That's a big order of great promises for a state that hasn't had any 

of it.  We're all hoping he can pull it all off, like he did by winning in Cricket.

Like all countries today, things are happening in Pakistan.

23 November, 2018.

                                                       

USAs President Trump
with his own fencing problem
wanting Mexico to pay for the USA's
and not getting the dollars for it from his own government

 Pakistan is pushing for the completion of a fence along its disputed border with Afghanistan -- and it wants the U.S. to help pay for it. FEBRUARY 9, 2018

Pakistan is betting that a pair of nine-foot chain-link fences topped with barbed wire will stop incursions by Islamist terrorists from Afghanistan, which opposes Islamabad's plans for a barrier along the disputed frontier. FEBRUARY 2018

• 
  
• Pakistani police repelled an armed attack on the Chinese consulate in Karachi, suffering two casualties
•                                       LAST YEARS
• A suicide bombing in Orazkai District, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa killed 33
•   Sounds like a terrorist attack to me.  Which group?  Taliban, Al Qaeda 2017, 

Pakistan and Afghanistan plan to use Google Maps to help settle a border dispute that led to deadly clashes last week, officials from both sides said Monday. 2017

At least six persons were killed and four others injured on Friday in twin roadside bomb blasts targeting the son of a peace committee chief in the restive northwest Pakistan. 2014

  

Resource: Book:  Pakistan On The Brink:the future of America, Pakistan, and Afghanistan by Ahmed Rashid, Pakistani journalist.  

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ahmed_Rashid

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taliban

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osama_bin_Laden

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imran_Khan

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Family_of_Imran_Khan

https://www.ndtv.com/topic/pakistan-afghanistan-border
https://jewishbubba.blogspot.com/2016/01/afghanistan-and-taliban-terrorists.html
https://jewishbubba.blogspot.com/2016/01/taliban-terrorists-in-pakistan-joining.html
https://jewishbubba.blogspot.com/2014/06/how-taliban-differs-from-al-qaeda.html

English Lesson for English Speakers: INVASION

Nadene Goldfoot                                           

Hondurans defying threats, preparing to cross....

Let's take the sentence, We are going to be invaded.   What is the definition of invasion?
                                                                 
INVASION: 
 The act of invading; 
Incursion of an army  for conquest or plunder
The incoming or spread  of something, usually hurtful
                                                    

Hondurans US Bound in Migrant Caravan

Let's look at the noun, ARMY.  What is an army? 

ARMY
A large organized body of men armed and trained for war, especially on land. 
a unit capable of independent action and consisting, usually, of a headquarters, , 2 or more corps, and auxillary troops,
The complete military organization of a nation for land warfare
A great multitude
 A body of persons organized to advance a cause. 
                                     

Chaos erupted as caravan reached Mexico 

What is a caravan?  
A company of travelers on a journey through desert or hostile regions.
A train of pack animals.
A group of vehicles traveling together in a file
A covered vehicle as: 
       A  vehicle equipped as traveling living quarters. 
       Trailer

English often uses a duplicity of meanings to a word.  It all depends on how it's used in a sentence.  
                                               

This can be referring to a grasshopper invasion of farmland. 
                      
               Below, illegals climbing  over USA border fence.

It can also be referring to thousands of foreigners streaming over one's borders uninvited.  
                                                       

Honduran caravan in Mexican city at break time

Those whose city is on the receiving end of the invasion may come to quickly think the reason is harmful to their own citizens with the garbage created, the sanitary conditions that are being destroyed, and the general destruction caused by thousands of feet coming through.                                    
                                                  

5,000 Honduran migrants on road to USA
from Cuidad, Mexico 

New rules in the USA come as a shock to a community that has come to accept illegal immigrants' entrance as the norm.  Now they are expected to wait on the other side while their petition for entrance is being checked over.  No more catch and release.  It wasn't working.  
                                               

It all brings to mind that Moses traveled with 601,730 from Egypt to Canaan and that trip took him 40 years.  It wasn't that far away, but he needed the time to let the old folks die off and enter with new minds that were not slaves anymore.  He embarked on this venture at the age of 80 and lived till 120, dying as he reached his goal-only to find that he was not to enter the land with them.  I can imagine how the population must have felt  as they went through. We are sweating the vision of 6,000, which is a large number.   
                                                      

One good thing Moses had that these people didn't;  manna to eat.  They had their own (freeze-dried) or ?  loaf of food from G-d to eat every day.  
                                                     

They had their problems to face in walking when they reached the Red Sea, too.  
                                                     

Only the Amaleks showed no compassion and attacked the people
and they had to fight back.                                                   

Moses brought us the 10 Commandments, not stopping there,
with  613 total added to our education.  

It was worth it, though.  

Reference:  Webster's Seventh New Collegiate Dictionary