Earlier this week, the United Nations Human Rights Council issued a report on companies it blacklisted due to their business ties to Israel’s “settlements” in Judea and Samaria.

As expected, Israel’s condemnation was swift. President Reuven Rivlin stated, “Boycotting Israeli companies does not advance the cause of peace and does not build confidence between the sides. We call on our friends around the world to speak out against this shameful initiative which reminds of dark periods in our history.”

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said, “Whoever boycotts us will be boycotted. The UN Human Rights Council is a biased body that is devoid of influence. Instead of the organization dealing with human rights, it only tries to disparage Israel. We strongly reject this contemptible effort.”

An emergency meeting of Barkan Industrial Area representatives was held this morning, together with Samaria Regional Council Chairman Yossi Dagan and with the participation of MK Eli Cohen, Minister of Economy.

Decided on were a list of steps to be taken by the Samaria Regional Council together with the industrialists to combat the UN decision and to assist the factories. Among the many steps to take, they voted to file a class action against the UN in accordance with the BDS Law.

AFSI reminds everyone that the UN Human Rights Council is made up of many member nations who are among the worst offenders of human rights abuses in their own countries.

Sources:
Israel Denounces ‘Shameful’ UN Report on Companies Active in West Bank Settlements, by Algemeiner Staff and Agencies. The Algemeiner – February 12, 2020

Samaria council to file class action suit against leaders of UN Human Rights Council, by Arutz Sheva Staff. Arutz Sheva – February 13, 2020

More agricultural theft and destruction in the Gush Etzion area, this time in the Migdal Oz plantations. Tzvika Klein, the cherry orchard owner who absorbed the destruction, tells of the incident and says local Muslims are responsible for the act. “Jews don’t come there and our neighbors are Arabs,” he says.

“We’re there every day. Because of the bad weather we didn’t get there for two days. When we arrived this morning we saw the damage: About 30 young cherry trees uprooted and a computer panel with a solar cell that charges the irrigation center batteries was stolen. In the process, they also damaged electrical wires and broke a cabinet.”

Source:
Agricultural warfare again hits Gush Etzion, by Shimon Cohen in Arutz Sheva. February 11, 2020

Today we are a little more than one week from President Donald Trump’s presentation of his Vision for Peace.

In that week, people have proclaimed him and his team anything and everything from the Messiah to Judas. The truth is he and his team are neither. President Donald Trump, Jared Kushner and Ambassador David Friedman are loyal patriots to the United States and the greatest friends Israel has ever had in the White House.

Let’s remember where we were as recently as December 2016. We were abandoned at the UN and were dictated the terms of a UN/EU style peace plan from then Secretary of State John Kerry. That was certainly a low point in international relations for our great state of Israel.

Read the full letter in Israel Hayom, February 6, 2020 HERE

Someone in the Palestinian Authority should get President Mahmoud Abbas a map — because he seems to be lost and confused. You’d think he’d respond to President Trump’s “Peace to Prosperity” plan by traveling to Jerusalem or Washington to negotiate ­directly with Israel. Instead, he’s coming to the Big Apple.

On Tuesday, he will speak before the UN Security Council and seek a vote condemning the American plan. This isn’t the first time Abbas has taken a very wrong turn.

Editor’s note: A late breaking Arutz Sheva report today states: PA withdraws request for UN vote on US Mideast plan: diplomats

Source:
Mahmoud Abbas makes noise at UN again rather than try to negotiate peace, by Danny Danon. New York Post – February 9, 2020

In what was the third terrorist attack in less than 24 hours, an Israeli soldier was lightly wounded in the Binyamin region following a drive-by shooting.

The soldier was manning a guard post in a junction in the area, not far from Jerusalem, when he was hit. According to first responders, the Israel Defense Forces member was treated at the scene and was fully conscious.

The attack comes just hours after a similar incident in the Old City of Jerusalem. A Border Police officer sustained mild injuries on Thursday in that attack, which took place not far from the Temple Mount. Other troops stationed at the scene engaged the terrorist, who was shot dead.

The incident followed another terrorist attack in the capital, in which 12 soldiers were wounded, one seriously, in a ramming attack that took place shortly before 2 am on Jerusalem’s David Remez Street.

It’s been a little over a week since The White House announced its “peace deal” and in that time frame continued violence has been carried out against Israel. Israel must take every measure to protect and secure its citizens, its borders and its country.

Source:
Israeli soldier hurt in third terrorist attack on Thursday, by Efrat Forsher. Israel Hayom – February 6, 2020

The leaders of the Judea and Samaria councils set up a protest tent on Tuesday outside the Prime Minister’s Office in Jerusalem, demanding that sovereignty be applied in Judea and Samaria and the Jordan Valley before the Knesset elections.

“We are here out of great concern,” Samaria Council Head Yossi Dagan told Arutz Sheva. “We came to strengthen the PM, but warn against missing a historic opportunity, it would be a serious mistake.”

Source:
‘Without sovereignty, right-wing government is in danger’, by Hezki Baruch. Arutz Sheva – February 4, 2020

Less than 24 hours after the European Union’s Foreign Minister, Josep Borell, declared that “steps towards annexation [of the Jordan Valley and other parts of the West Bank], if implemented, could not pass unchallenged,” European threats have been turned into action.

On Tuesday, the European Union announced a special grant of 6 million euros to illegal outposts established by the Palestinian Authority as strategic tools for territorial annexation in Area C.

“The absurd claim that Beit El, Hebron, the Tabernacle of Shiloh, the Hasmonean palaces, the Herodion, the aqueduct system built to supply water to the Holy Temple in Jerusalem and a host of other world-heritage treasures that cover the landscape of ‘Area C’ were ever Palestinian holdings that have been “occupied” by the Jewish State is a thin disguise for old-fashioned European antisemitism,” said Meir Deutsch, Director General of Regavim.

“It is deeply rooted antisemitism that motivates the European Union to support the illegal Palestinian takeover of thousands of dunams of land and the construction of tens of thousands of illegal structures in Area C. It is antisemitism that emboldens the Europeans to violate Israeli law, to violate international law, and to violate the Oslo Accords. The funding provided to the Palestinians by the Europeans has one purpose only: To seize control of territory that is under the sole jurisdiction of the State of Israel.”

The European Union repeatedly turns a blind that serves to justify terrorists and their illegal activities while it continues its campaign of anti-Israel destruction. We think its high time the EU was held accountable.

Source:
EU issues special grant to illegal PA outposts, by Arutz Sheva Staff. Arutz Sheva – February 5, 2020

The IAF struck Hamas targets in the Gaza Strip overnight Sunday after rockets and explosive balloons were launched throughout the day toward Israel.

On Saturday night, sirens warning of an incoming rocket were activated in Nahal Oz and Alumim in the Sha’ar Hanegev region while Blue and White leader Benny Gantz and members of his party were visiting the area. The rocket fell harmlessly.

The targets hit by the IAF in retaliation included underground infrastructure for Hamas’s military arm Beit Lahiya in the northern Gaza Strip.

Source:
After relative calm with Gaza, four days of rocket fire towards Israel, by Anna Ahronheim, Jerusalem Post Staff. Jerusalem Post – February 3, 2020

Americans For A Safe Israel/AFSI welcomes the invitation of the Trump Plan to declare Sovereignty over all existing Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria and has high hopes that this will be done with minimal delay.

The Peace Plan is a Non-Starter

by Helen Freedman

It’s only because President Trump is leading the way in shaping and proposing a peace plan for the Arabs and Israelis that we are giving any credence to this plan. In the past, every plan was turned down by Yasser Arafat and Mahmoud Abbas and so we came to believe they would always inadvertently help us in the end. Slamming doors, walking out on negotiations on the part of the Arabs was guaranteed to help Israel. Even today, President Trump does not have faith in the PA. PA President Mahmoud Abbas would not even talk to President Trump on the telephone, and PA Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh denounced the plan, saying that it gives Israel sovereignty over land the PA claims as its own. Trump’s reaction to this is “They probably won’t want it initially, but I think in the end they will…It’s very good for them…Without them we won’t do the deal and that’s OK.”

It’s very OK because the biblical promise of a Jewish homeland means that all of Israel belongs to the Jewish people. The hilltops of the Shomron/Samaria, the Judean hills, Gaza, Hebron, the Gallilee, the Negev, the Golan, and the Jordan Valley, were always part of Israel and must remain in Israeli hands. Sovereignty has become a leading movement in Israel, led by two dynamo women, Nadia Matar and Yehudit Katsover. They have instilled in the people of Israel the facts that ALL of Israel makes up the nation state and NONE of it can be given away. The Six Day War of 1967 brought all of Israel under Israeli control. “Settlers” were encouraged to settle the lands of Judea and Samaria which had been under Jordanian control. Today there are over 350,000 Jews living in flourishing communities like Kedumim, Shilo, Bet-El, Itamar, Efrat, Elon Moreh, and more. Businesses are flourishing. Prize winning wineries, farms, cattle herding and more are part of every day life. What have the Arabs to show for their efforts?

Terrorism and educating the young and old to hate Jews and Israel are the main themes of Arab life. Tragically, the EU and the UN work together with the PA to fund them and to support their claims to Israel’s land. After the signing of the hateful Oslo accords of 1993, with Bill Clinton overseeing the travesty and pushing Arafat, along with Rabin and Peres, to accept the idea of the “two-state solution,” Israel became the oppressor in the “occupied territories” and the “poor Palestinians” were left to their evil devices. Israel was seen as the Goliath, while the PA was the weak David. Truth was turned on its head. The PA leadership was only interested in pocketing the profits that came to them, and promoting the religious battle between the Jews and the Muslims. Terrorist groups like Hamas and Hezbollah, surrogates of Iran, took control in Gaza and in Lebanon, threatening Israel’s northern cities. Illegal takeover of land by Bedouin Arabs, supported by the EU, have taken over areas around Jerusalem in the Adumim region. Illegal Arab building is rampant even in Jerusalem.

The regional threat of a nuclear Iran is a menace to Israel. Khameni, Iran’s Ayatollah Khameni has called Israel a “cancerous tumor that must be destroyed.” Former Iranian president Rafsanjani, boasts that an atomic bomb would destroy Israel, and “just produce minor damages in the Muslim world.” Israel is not alone in its concerns about Iran. America is wrestling with the problem of a nuclear Iran as are the Middle Eastern countries. It would be a dangerous error to strengthen our enemies, offering what President Trump calls the “deal of the century” which will be “overly good to them.”

We know the PA leaders will reject the plan. We’re thrilled with that, because then there will be no threat to Israel’s sovereignty. We are grateful to President Trump for all the positive things he has already done for Israel. Once the PA rejection is official, let’s hope the “deal” will be torn up and that will be the end of the “negotiations.” Israel must be recognized as an intact, sovereign Jewish state, fulfilling its biblical promise.

Trump’s Peace Plan: Key Points

“We are not here to lecture—we are not here to tell other people how to live, what to do, who to be, or how to worship. Instead, we are here to offer partnership – based on shared interests and values – to pursue a better future for us all.” ~President Donald J. Trump

Please note that Trump’s long-awaited peace plan calls for a two-state solution – a component of the plan that Americans For A Safe Israel/AFSI does not endorse.

Here are a few key acknowledgements the 181 page plan makes that you should know:

• The territory that Israel is being asked to transfer is “territory to which Israel has asserted valid legal and historical claims, and which are part of the ancestral homeland of the Jewish people.”
• Under UN Security Council Resolution 242, Israel is not legally bound to provide the Palestinians with 100% of pre-1967 territory. and that Israel has already withdrawn from 88% of the territory Israel captured in 1967.
• Israel will not have to uproot any Jewish communities in Judea-Samaria where 450,000 Jews live.
• Jordan Valley will be under Israeli sovereignty.
• Israel will retain sovereignty over territorial waters.
• Full demilitarization of Gaza, Hamas, PIJ (Palestinian Islamic Jihad), and other militias and terror groups; and placing a body acceptable to Israel in control of Gaza. This is required prior to Israeli implementation of peace agreement obligations.
• The Jewish people’s right to pray on the Temple Mount.
• “Jerusalem will remain the sovereign capital of the State of Israel” and should remain an undivided city. It was stated at the press conference the Palestinians will have a capital in the part of eastern Jerusalem that is on the other side of the security fence. We do not endorse this point.
• “The embassy of the United States to the State of Israel will remain in Jerusalem.”
• Full demilitarization of any Palestinian State and Gaza.
• Calls for Palestinians to “demonstrate both a clear intention and a sustained capacity to fight terrorism,” to be determined by Israel.
• The Plan calls for all Israeli captives and remains be returned to Israel.

DOWNLOAD THE FULL PLAN HERE

Source
President Donald J. Trump’s Vision for Peace, Prosperity, and a Brighter Future for Israel and the Palestinian People. Official White House Statement – January 28, 2020

Israeli security forces uncovered a Hamas intelligence-gathering network inside of Israel, the Shin Bet internal security agency revealed Monday.

The network, which was operated by Hamas terrorists inside of the Gaza Strip, included Israeli Arab citizens from central Israel.

The Shin Bet internal security agency discovered and dismantled the spy network three and a half weeks ago, according to an indictment filed Monday.

Source:
Hamas spy operation uncovered in Israel used Gazans with Israeli mothers, by Arutz Sheva Staff. Arutz Sheva – January 27, 2020