Author: AFSI Staff

The IDF evacuated activists from the ruins of the former Sa-Nur community. The action came after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu failed to heed a call to allow Jews to remain at the site.

Jews in this community had ‘illegally’ entered the site in the predawn hours. This was a challenge to Netanyahu to prove he is truly a right-wing leader with the hope that he would allow them to remain rather than risk a forced evacuation. They demanded that Netanyahu agree to rebuild that community and three others in northern Samaria that Israel destroyed in 2005 as part of the Disengagement Plan.

“We call on Netanyahu to begin his fully Right [government] already today, and not to wait until after the elections,” the activists said in a statement they issued from the site. “Stop the evacuation,” Samaria Regional Council head Yossi Dagan said, in a message aimed at Netanyahu. “Allow the families to stay and resettle Sa-Nur.” Dagan himself is a Sa-Nur evacuee. “Let us return home,” he added.

Israel has just one week before the country’s March 23 election and where are we in our quest for Sovereignty? Not close at all it seems. But for the sake of our friends in Judea and Samaria, we remain steadfast in our commitment to and hopeful that Sovereignty is not far off on the horizon.

“For the Lord will not abandon His people, nor will He forsake His inheritance.” – Psalms 94:14

Source:
IDF evacuates Sa-Nur, settler challenge to Netanyahu fails, by Tovah Lazaroff. Jerusalem Post, March 16, 2021

Jerusalem Magistrate’s Court Judge Miriam Kelsey ruled that Arin Za’anini should compensate former MK Yehuda Glick for attacking him in June 2020. Glick was comforting members of the Al-Halak family whose son Iyad had been shot by police. The attacker was also sentenced to five months in prison.

Former MK Yehuda Glick said, “The court determined the amount of this compensation following a civil lawsuit I filed through attorney Haim Bleicher of the Honenu Association. It is a drop in the ocean compared to the suffering and humiliation I experienced.”

Attorney Bleicher who represented Glick said, “We welcome the judge’s decision to order the attacker to pay compensations. Let every attacker and harasser know that they would pay out of pocket for harming Jews. We hope this punishment will deter potential attackers, who will think twice before daring to carry out any attack.”

AFSI applauds Honenu for its successful defense of Yehuda Glick. Let the outcome of this case reverberate loud and clear to the enemies of Israel.

Source:
Cost of Hitting Jews: Arab Who Attacked Yehuda Glick to Serve 5 Months, Pay $18,000, by David Israel. Jewish Press, March 17, 2021

Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Corps inaugurated a new underground facility designated for missile storage, Iranian state TV reported Monday.

The report quotes IRGC commander Maj. Gen. Hossein Salami as saying that cruise and ballistic missiles would make Iran’s navy even more powerful. The TV report showed footage of dozens of missiles in an enclosed space resembling an underground corridor. It did not say where the facility was located nor how many missiles were stored there.

Since 2011, Iran has boasted maintaining underground facilities across the country as well as along its southern coast near the strategic Strait of Hormuz. Iran claims to have missiles that can travel 2,000 kilometers (1,200 miles), placing much of the Middle East, including Israel, within range.

We remain confident in the readiness and preparation of the IDF. It continues to undergo training to assess and guard against any threats to the country’s safety and Sovereignty.

Source:
Report: Iran opens new underground missile facility, By AP and ILH Staff

The majority of the Bedouin community in the south of Israel, situated within the cities of Be’er Sheva, Dimona and Arad, has been making inroads into new areas of the Negev desert over the past years.

A new Bedouin outpost recently established near Arad and facing Masada and the Dead Sea, includes 17 illegal structures.

The Regavim movement, which closely monitors illegal construction in the Negev, revealed that the illegal Bedouin construction northeast of Arad has risen by about 1,200% in recent years.

It is disturbing that illegal land grabs continue and Jewish residents in Judea and Samaria remain under Civil Administration. At what point does Sovereignty kick in and move these longstanding issues out of the past and into the modern era?

Source:
Israeli Bedouins taking over southern part of the country, by Arutz Sheva Staff. Arutz Sheva, March 15, 2021

Today’s recommended reading by Naomi Kahn of Regavim.

Now that the debate surrounding the extension of Israeli sovereignty to the Jewish communities of Judea and Samaria has abated somewhat in light of the Abraham Accords, the time may be ripe to take a closer look at the legal status of these territories.

The picture that emerges might be surprising. More than a century after the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire, the empire’s ghost continues to reign. More than 50 years after Israel’s victory in the Six Day War, more than 30 years after King Hussein of Jordan publicly relinquished all legal and administrative ties to this territory, and more than 25 years after Jordan signed a peace treaty with Israel, officially relinquishing all territorial claims, the State of Israel continues to enforce Jordanian law — despite its clearly racist and backward underpinnings.

Source:
Middle East: The Ghosts of Sovereigns Past, by Naomi Linder Kahn. Gatestone Institute, March 11, 2021

The ‘Ad Kan’ Organization published a comprehensive report last week exposing what they defined as “lies” spread by the Breaking the Silence operation after Operation Protective Edge in 2014. Breaking the Silence’s campaign, which attracted international attention, was based on a collection of 111 anonymous testimonies. As a result of these testimonies IDF officers and soldiers were investigated for possible war crimes.

Ad Kan’s report focuses on several incidents publicized by Breaking the Silence and emphasizes the incredulity of the alleged incidents. Moreover, the publication of these incidents demonstrates Breaking the Silence’s failure to carry out any fact-checking of the testimonies. Among the issues identified by Ad Kan include testimonies that contradict one another, cases where the witnesses later admitted under police interrogation that they weren’t even present at the alleged incidents, and accusations that Breaking the Silence systematically altered testimonies in order to reach their desired conclusions.

The ‘Ad Kan’ Organization stated, “We hope that instead of mistakenly entrusting Breaking the Silence, soldiers will report any incidents to the proper authorities within the IDF so that they can be investigated, and the truth can be uncovered. Breaking the Silence took advantage of the naivete of soldiers in order to carry out an international campaign to besmirch Israel. While the damage has been done, we expect Breaking the Silence to remove the false testimonies from their publications and hope that the Courts will rule in favor of the soldiers who were harmed and well-known in by Breaking the Silence’s lies”.

As revealed in our article below, and well known in the Pro-Israel community, Breaking the Silence is one of the NGOs being funded by private grants, from Europe and elsewhere.

Sources:
Ad Kan report exposes “Breaking the Silence’s lies”, by Arutz Sheva Staff. Arutz Sheva, March 9, 2021

Breaking the Silence (Shovrim Shtika), by NGO Monitor. August 19, 2020

According to an NGO Monitor report issued on Monday, between 2017 and 2019, 35 anti-Israel NGOs received a total of NIS 319,466,917 ($95.7 million) in donations. It states that 58% ($55.5 million) came from foreign governments through direct and indirect funding, and 42% ($40.1 million) from private donors.

Given the central role played by politicized NGOs in the public human rights discourse, transparency in NGO funding is required in order to support an informed debate. The group’s analysis presents all grants reported by the 35 Israeli NGOs receiving foreign government funding and involved in political advocacy, according to their annual financial reports for 2017-2019, which are the latest available. The data are listed according to the amount of the grant, the identity of the donor, and the source of the grant (private, governmental, or non-transparent / unclear).

The old adage, “follow the money,” certainly – disturbingly – rings true in this case. It’s mind boggling to see how much money the detractors of Israel are willing to spend in order to fuel their active campaigns to delegitimize the State of Israel.

Sources:
Israeli Anti-Zionist NGOs Received More than $50 Million from Foreign Governments, by David Israel. Jewish Press, March 9, 2021

Analysis of NIS 320 million in grants to Israeli NGOs, annual reports 2017-2019, by NGO Monitor. March 8, 2021

Pro-Israel Christian activists Joshua and Luke visited Palestinian Arab villages in Judea and Samaria to ‘bust’ left-wing myths on the Arab-Israeli conflict.

Source:
Watch: We entered a Palestinian village to bust some myths, by Arutz Sheva Staff. Arutz Sheva, March 11, 2021

The Regavim Movement filed a petition Tuesday) in the Jerusalem District Court, against the Jerusalem Municipality, which has been concealing the existence of an underground tunnel dug by the Church of the Dormition, one of the largest and most recognizable Catholic churches in Jerusalem. The Dormition, located just outside the Zion Gate, on the highest point in ancient Jerusalem, is included in the historic preservation compound known as “The Sovev Homot [Jerusalem Ramparts] National Park.”

As a result of Regavim’s legal pressure over the past two years, the Jerusalem Municipality was forced to measure and document the tunnel, which encroaches on public property in an area dense with archaeological remains. Since the completion of the mapping project, the municipality has ignored Regavim’s continued requests for documentation of the tunnel and law enforcement at the site.

Mount Zion, one of the gateways to the Old City of Jerusalem, is well known for its unparalleled historic and archaeological importance to the three monotheistic faiths. The section of the mountain that is protected by the “Sovev Homot (Ancient Jerusalem Ramparts) National Park” contains numerous archaeological sites, including the site identified as King David’s tomb, the Hasmonean-era city walls, and the First Temple-era city wall.

For years, the existence of the tunnel was nothing more than a rumor shared among local residents and Jewish institutions active on Mount Zion, until Regavim sent an official request to the Jerusalem Municipality in 2019 for confirmation of its existence and precise details of the tunnel’s location, in order to determine the extent to which it encroaches on public land as well as the extent to which priceless antiquities may have been harmed by the unsupervised digging.

“When the details began to come into focus, we demanded over and over that the Jerusalem Municipality publicize the documentation of its findings, as required by the Freedom of Information Law. We further demanded that oversight, inspection and law enforcement procedures be taken immediately, to restore the site to its previous condition either by sealing off or demolishing the tunnel,” said Attorneys Avi Segal and Yael Cinnamon of the Regavim Movement. “We filed this petition only when our repeated requests to the Jerusalem Municipality were not answered.”

Sources:
Regavim Report March 10 2021

Who’s powering illegal construction in Area C?, by Naomi Kahn. Jewish News Syndicate, March 9, 2021

The IDF has nearly completed construction of an underground concrete wall between Israel and the Gaza Strip. Building this wall is part of the effort to prevent terrorists from crossing into Israel via cross-border tunnels.

The concrete wall is just one component in the 60 km.-long barrier, which also includes a fence above the ground, advanced sensors both above and underground, and cutting-edge technologies meant to tackle the tunnel threat and stop terrorist infiltration. To date, almost 95% of the barrier has been completed, and will be operational in the near future.

Hamas is believed to have a complex underground tunnel system throughout the Gaza Strip, which will be used to attack Israeli soldiers in a future ground battle inside the Strip. As a result, the IDF is preparing its soldiers for a combination of above-ground and below-ground warfare.

AFSI applauds the amazing IDF as it nears completion of this vital security measure. Always protecting Israel. Always ready to defend and secure Israel – and her Sovereignty – through whatever means necessary. We are in awe at the lengths Israel goes to in order to defend herself. It is a travesty that a country that works so hard at defense can still be the one accused of war crimes against a known terrorist entity.

Source:
IDF completes underground wall as Israel readies for Hamas war, by Udi Shaham. Jerusalem Post, March 4, 2021