Author: AFSI Staff

In a long-awaited first, the European Union canceled a grant to Palestinian NGO, Badil Resource Center for Palestinian Residency and Refugee Rights. The NGO refused to sign a clause that would obligate it to ensure that no terrorist organizations benefit from their funded programs.

Article 1.5 of Annex II of the “General conditions applicable to European Union-financed grant contracts for external actions” introduced to EU contracts with NGOs in 2019 stipulates that grant beneficiaries must ensure no funds go to groups listed as terrorist organizations. Finally, Brussels has enforced this condition.

Olga Deutsch, vice president of Jerusalem’s NGO Monitor, stated, “We hope that the EU will further examine the 25 million euros that we found it gave such groups since 2011.”

Similarly, Israel’s Finance Ministry announced Wednesday that it is cancelling a plan to grant a fuel-tax exemption to “international aid NGOs” that operate in Judea and Samaria.

Our friends at Im Tirtzu and My Israel collaborated with other pro-Israel advocacy organizations to let Knesset Finance Committee members know that several of the NGOs that would have benefited from the tax break are involved in anti-Israel activities.

AFSI applauds the EU’s important decision and commends it for not caving in to the pressure of NGOs operating as funnels for anti-Israel terror groups. We are equally pleased to see Israel taking firm action to push back against NGOs involved in anti-Israel activity. We are cautiously optimistic that this will set off a domino effect of cancelling funding to NGOs who seek to destroy Israel.

#NoFundingForTerror  #EUNixesTerrorFunding  #NGOsFeelTheSqueeze
@MyIsraelorgil  @IMTIzionism

Sources:
In first, EU nixes grant to Palestinian NGO refusing to sign anti-terror clause, by Raphael Ahren. Times of Israel- June 17, 2020

Israel Cancels Tax Break for Anti-Israel NGOs, by Yakir Benzion. United With Israel – June 17, 2020

UK investigates links between London accounting firm and Palestinian terror group, by JNS. Jewish News Syndicate. June 18, 2020

The IDF and the Israeli Defense Ministry’s Civil Administration conducted a special operation to confiscate heavy equipment used in illegal construction in quarries in Area C of Judea and Samaria.

Binyamin Regional Council chairman Yisrael Gantz said that the war against Jewish communities is a top priority for Palestinians but Judea and Samaria residents and the IDF “will always be there to fight it.”

Illegal activities by the PA in Area C have been ongoing for too long. AFSI agrees with Gantz who stated, “such an operation should be carried out more often, with a strong and stern hand. We will continue to build and expand within the Land of Israel.”

#IsraelShowsSternStrongHand  #IDFAlwaysThereToFightIt  #AreaCBelongsToIsrael

Source:
IDF confiscates heavy equipment used in illegal Area C construction, by Arutz Sheva Staff. Artuz Sheva – June 18, 2020

The Mekorot National Water Company has opened a new line to add the regions of Judea and Samaria to Israel’s national water system.

Also, a sophisticated new pumping station in the Barkan Industrial Park will be able to transfer the water further into eastern Samaria and mountain communities.

“Connecting the water infrastructure in Judea and Samaria to the national water system constitutes the application of de facto sovereignty,” said Yossi Dagan, head of the Samaria Regional Council. “We have taken another important step to be part of the State of Israel, and not a stepson. There used to be detachments and tankers; today we are going about it in a systematic way and connecting the water infrastructure of Judea and Samaria to the national water system.”

#SovereigntyInAction #JudeaSamaria #WaterInfrastrucureJudeaSamaria

Source:
Sovereignty in Action: Judea, Samaria Connected to Mekorot National Water System, by Hana Levi Julian. The Jewish Press – June 16, 2020

Jewish community leaders in Judea and Samaria sent a message to Prime Minister Netanyahu to “remember the two million voters of the right-wing bloc.”

This was in advance of Netanyahu’s meeting with Alternate Prime Minister Benny Gantz and US Ambassador to Israel David Friedman.

“We are in the midst of a historic time for the settlements, and ask the prime minister to consider the more than two million voters of the right-wing bloc who chose him in order to apply Sovereignty here in Judea, Samaria and the Jordan Valley,” the Yesha council said.

#JudeaSamaria #ApplySovereigntyNow #NoPalestinianState

Sources:
‘Netanyahu, keep the principles of the right’, by Arutz Sheva Staff. Arutz Sheva – June 14, 2020

Settlement movement faces dilemma with sovereignty plan, by i24News. Arutz Sheva – June 15, 2020

Sovereignty isn’t as scary as some would have us believe, by Yitzhak Ilan. Israel Hayom – June 11, 2020

Border Police and Civil Administration forces began demolishing six structures in Givat HaBaladim and Maoz Esther Monday morning, Israeli media reported.

Over ten people were arrested during the demolition, according to legal aid organization Honenu.

Five family homes, two synagogues and eight additional structures were destroyed by security forces. All are located near the Jewish community of Kochav Hashahar in Area C in the Binyamin Regional Council. Adjacent to these structures are many illegal Arab buildings which remain untouched.

#SovereigntyNow #AreaCBelongsToIsrael

Source:
Illegal outposts in Area C demolished after being rebuilt multiple times, by Jerusalem Post Staff. Jerusalem Post – June 15, 2020

Palestinian leadership has been working overtime recently – holding meetings with foreign ambassadors and diplomats and providing statements and interviews to Palestinian and foreign media outlets.

At the height of this on Monday, Palestinian factions organized a demonstration in Manara Square in Ramallah against Israel’s plans to (“annex”) apply Israeli civil law to its lawful land. Reality may be settling in. Barely 200 people showed up.

Stated one photographer at the scene, “There isn’t even one picture to take.” The truth is that the Arabs in Judea and Samaria “would prefer Israeli rule to PA rule.”

Never ending hatred of Israel and the decades long attempts to delegitimize the Jewish Nation State are now taking a toll on the very people the PA is supposed to work in the best interests of. “The crisis of confidence between the leadership and the public has deepened so much that the public can no longer back its leadership. The masses will not take to the streets over annexation, but would over the economic crisis.”

#PACrisisOfConfidence #FailedPALeaders #PAStrugglesToRallySupport

Source:
Palestinian Leadership Struggling to Rally Public Against Israeli Annexation, by Jack Khoury. Haaretz – June 11, 2020

What do Palestinian Arabs really think of Israeli sovereignty?, by Rafael Levi. Arutz Sheva – June 11, 2020

The enemies of Israel have found new ways to gain traction for their “cause.”

Like we saw in prior months with the corona virus outbreak, blaming Israel and the Jews has surfaced during the riots in America.

A disinformation operation mimicking the Arutz Sheva website, apparently intended to portray Israel interfering in global affairs, has again posted a false article. This one claims Israel is dispatching a 50-member Israeli security team to the United States “to support American forces to control George Floyd protests.”

Anti-Israel activists increasingly seek to blame the Jewish state for US police brutality. Steven L. Pomerantz, the architect of one of the most successful exchange programs between American and Israeli law enforcement personnel said that such charges were untrue and anti-Semitic.

Pomerantz sees the attacks on exchange programs as an “opportunistic” move on the part of “individuals and organizations hostile to Israel and involved in the larger BDS movement.”

#NoToBDS #NoToAntiSemitism

Sources:
More disinformation: Arutz Sheva impostor seeks to portray Israel as interfering in global affairs, by Mordechai Sones. Arutz Sheva – June 11, 2020

Accusations That Israel to Blame for US Police Brutality Are Untrue and Antisemitic, Expert Says, by Benjamin Kerstein. Algemeiner – June 10, 2020

American For A Safe Israel warns: ‘Sovereignty should not be contingent on a dangerous political compromise.’

As Israel approaches the 1 July trigger date for activating sovereign rights over Judea-Samaria, a veteran American pro-Israel group is expressing grave concerns about Israel’s predicament. “Sovereignty should not be contingent on a dangerous political compromise,” American for a Safe Israel (AFSI) cautioned yesterday.

AFSI leaders said that “Trump’s 70/30 could be dangerous”, referring to the Trump peace plan which favors applying Israeli law to only 30% of Judea, Samaria and the Jordan Valley, while eventually and conditionally giving over 70% of the territory to a new Palestinian Arab state.

The organization praised the Trump administration’s frequent “principled statements” on the historic territorial rights of the Jewish people but said these statements entirely contradicted the peace plan. “If the Jewish people have historic rights over 100% of the territory, why set aside 70% for the Arab Palestinians? What is the source of this dissonance?” AFSI leaders charged.

AFSI, which opposes the two-state outcome, also warned that the benchmarks indicated in the deal could be changed or overlooked by future key decision makers, resulting in a hostile and irreversible Palestinian Arab state which would threaten Israel from close range.

In Israel, the Trump administration’s counterparts also continued to voice concerns about the Trump peace plan. On the issue of a Palestinian state, Prime Minister Netanyahu conceded, in talks with Judea-Samaria local leaders that “he understood the opposition to that portion of the Trump plan”. Daniella Weiss, formerly one of Israel’s few female mayors, told Israel’s Knesset Channel today that she strongly favored activation of sovereignty — over all parts of Judea-Samaria. However, she said, she opposed the Trump Plan whose key objective is “establishing a Palestinian state in the heart of the land of Israel”.

Daniella Weiss’s son-in-law and his parents were killed in their home by terrorists during the Second Intifada in 2002. Weiss’s daughter miraculously survived the attack by hiding under the kitchen table, holding a baby.

On Israel’s predicament on whether to undertake to “negotiate on the basis of” a plan which explicitly calls for a Palestinian Arab state, AFSI urged Israel to “act solely on the basis of its own interests”.

Americans for a Safe Israel was founded soon after the Six-Day War, seeking to stress Israel’s “historic, religious, and legal rights to reclaim Judea and Samaria” and regarding a territorially defensible Israel as “essential to U.S. security interests”. AFSI recently cancelled their Spring 2020 mission to Israel due to the coronavirus crisis. AIPAC, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, also just cancelled its 2021 policy conference.

#SovereigntyAllOverJudeaAndSamaria #ApplyFullSovereignty #NOPalestinianState
#JudeaSamaria

URGENT FUNDRAISER FOR  CAMPAIGN YES TO SOVEREIGNTY, NO TO PALESTINIAN STATE ~Nadia Matar and Yehudit Katsover. For US tax deductible donations in US dollars: https://www.mightycause.com/story/Ribo

Source:
AFSI: Trump Plan benchmarks may be overlooked, by Arutz Sheva Staff. Arutz Sheva – June 9, 2020

US President Donald Trump, Vice President Mike Pence, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Ambassador to Israel David Friedman speak frequently of the historic rights of the Jewish people in its land, and, consequently, the legality of the Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria.

These principled statements absolutely contradict the framework of the “Deal of the Century,” which the Trump administration is advocating enthusiastically. This framework is nothing more than a compromise on the basis of which the territory will be partitioned, G-d forbid, with Israeli law applying to only 30% of Judea, Samaria and the Jordan Valley, while the remaining 70% designated for the establishment of a Palestinian state (in the unlikely event that it complies with the benchmarks indicated in the deal. One must also take into account that the benchmarks could be changed or overlooked by future key decision makers).

If, as the Americans themselves say, the Jewish people have historic rights over 100% of the territory, why set aside 70% for the Arab Palestinians? What is the source of this dissonance between the principled pronouncements and the implementation of the program?

The Sovereignty Movement stated that “We must apply Sovereignty in all of Judea and Samaria unrelated to the “Deal of the Century.” To recognize the right of Arab terrorists who stole the land from its rightful owners is a fatal blow to morality and justice. This recognition continues to inflame them with hope that they will gain more through terrorism, until we are forced to the Mediterranean and beyond, to the countries of the Diaspora.

We hope that Israel will act solely on the basis of its own interests. Sovereignty should not be contingent on a dangerous political compromise.

#SovereigntyAllOverJudeaAndSamaria #ApplyFullSovereignty #NOPalestinianState
#JudeaSamaria

Sources:
Yes to sovereignty, unrelated to the ‘Deal of the Century’ – opinion, by Yehudit Katsover, Nadia Matar. Jerusalem Post – June 8, 2020

Report: 25 Israeli towns left out of sovereignty plan, by Arutz Sheva Staff. Arutz Sheva – June 8, 2020

Efrat Mayor Revivi: Negotiations with US over sovereignty are not over, by Nitzan Kedar. Arutz Sheva – June 8, 2020

Netanyahu vows all settlements will be annexed July 1, but other lands may wait, by Jacob Magid. Times of Israel – June 8, 2020

Multiple drones reportedly belonging to the Israeli Air Force (IAF) carried out a new series of airstrikes against Iranian-backed militias in the area of Deir Ez-Zur in eastern Syria over the weekend.

The London-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) reported that a total of 8 airstrikes targeted the Afghan Liwa Fatemiyoun militia, which was transferred to Syria on orders of the late Qassem Soleimani.

The attack, which killed 12 Afghan militia members took place just before midnight on Sunday evening and destroyed recent fortifications and Iranian weapon deliveries to the bases of Liwa Fatemiyoun in the Deir Ez-Zur Province.

Tens of thousands of Iranian-linked militiamen have been integrated into the Syrian army. Many of them are now stationed near the Israeli border and disguise themselves as Syrian soldiers using Syrian army vehicles in an attempt to avoid Israeli strikes.

#IsraeliAirForce #ProtectIsraeliBorder

Sources:
ANALYSIS: Despite Israeli strikes, Iranian forces massing on Syrian border, by Yochanan Visser. Arutz Sheva. June 7, 2020

Iranian Forces Amass on Israeli Border – Report, by Adam Eliyahu Berkowitz. Breaking Israel News – June 8, 2020