Author: Micha Gefen

Micha is a government policy analyst for Israel Rising.
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Reclaiming Jerusalem’s Old City

At around 7:30 p.m. on Saturday evening (October 3, 2015), a knife-wielding Arab attacked Aharon Bennett, his wife Odel, their 2-year-old son and infant who were on their way to pray at the Western Wall in Jerusalem’s Old City. Hearing the screams of help from Odel Bennett, from his apartment window, Rabbi Nehemia Lavi, an Old City resident and IDF reserve officer, didn’t hesitate, and went downstairs from his apartment in Beit Wittenberg (HaGai Street), with his gun, to try and save those wounded by the Arab terrorist in the attack, but the terrorist stabbed him and seized his weapon. Lavi and Bennett, who were stabbed in the upper body and were unconscious when paramedics arrived at the scene, died in hospital shortly afterwards.

Now, over 7 months later, another Jewish acquisition in Jerusalem’s Old City, facilitated by the Ateret Cohanim organization has been approved by legal authorities.

“Arab terror and ongoing Arab incitement and violence, has an aim of  trying to drive Jews out of Jerusalem, to keep Jews away from the Old City, the Temple Mount and even the Kotel, and also intends to weaken the resolve of the Jewish people, especially of the families and students in and around the Old City,” says Daniel Luria, Executive Director of Ateret Cohanim. “However the Arab are mistaken on all fronts. We will not be driven out of “our Jerusalem” and such acts of violence has only strengthened our resolve, strength of conviction, faith and fortitude.”

The building will be home to 3 or 4 Jewish families and some Yeshiva students. There are today over 1000 Jewish residents, including many Yeshiva students, of the old Jewish Quarter,(renamed the Moslem Quarter) in addition to the 4000 Jewish residents of the Jewish Quarter.

The newest acquisition is only a few minutes walk from the site of the murder of Rabbi Lavi and Bennett.  Building and buying in the Old City in areas where Jews were driven out in 1929, 1936-37, and 1948 is not only a powerful and lasting response to ongoing Arab terror, it is the best way to honor the memory of the fallen residents, especially the week of Israeli Memorial Day and Independence Day.

“It’s a spectacular accomplishment and it will hopefully lead to many more in the near future,” adds Rabbi Packer head of the Heritage House. “The Arabs are ready to leave. The question is: Are the Jews ready to take possession of the Land.”

 

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Who are the Winners and Losers from an Independent Kurdistan?

Masrour Barzan  Chancellor of the Kurdistan Region Security Council said in a Washington Post Opinion piece, “It is time to acknowledge that the experiment has not worked. Iraq is a failed state, and our continued presence within it condemns us all to unending conflict and enmity.”

This veiled threat to carry out a referendum on Kurdish independence has a lot more legs to it than most pundits would believe.  The Kurdistan Regional Government has been toying with such a move for a while and the growing vacuum in Iraq has given them ample reason to move ahead with such a move.

The question is not if the Kurds will push for independence from Iraq, but when they do, who are the winners and losers from such a move.

Winners:

Russia opens up another potential partner in the chaos that is the Middle East.  Rich with oil, Kurdistan will provide Russia with a stable base of operations in one of the most contested regions in the world.

Israel will find its long term support of a non-Arab entity in the Middle East to be fruitful. For years Israel has provided intelligence, training, and economic ties to the fledgling Kurdish Autonomous Region.  It gains a forward base against Iran and direct access to an emerging oil market.

Losers:

Turkey stands to have the most to lose as they have opposed Kurdish independence from the beginning.  Turkey has more ethnic Kurds than the Kurdish region in Iraq.  An independent Kurdistan could very well inspire a full scale uprising and secession movement from Turkey’s Kurds.  This would be a disaster for Erdogan.

Iraq will suffer a blow it will not recover from.  Mosul and the other Kurdish dominated areas in Iraq’s North are potentially the most valuable.  Iraq would suffer other secessionist movements if Kurdish independence is successful.

The Sunni states will lose their leverage as Western allies due to the fact the Kurds are far more moderate and likely to generate both geopolitical and financial support.

United States policy will suffer another setback as Kurdish independence is a clear indicator that Washington’s leverage is in decline.

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Bibi Netanyahu: I was shocked

“Two weeks ago, I was shocked to hear that UNESCO adopted a decision denying any Jewish connection to the Temple Mount, our holiest site. It is hard to believe that anyone, let alone an organization tasked with preserving history, could deny this link which spans thousands of years,” Netanyahu wrote on Facebook.

“That is why today I am announcing a seminar on Jewish history for all UN personnel in Israel. I will personally host the lecture at the Prime Minister’s Office. The seminar will be given by a leading scholar of Jewish history and will be free to all UN staff and diplomats, including of countries which voted for this outrageous decision.”

Of course Bibi is right. The decision to disconnect the Nation of Israel from the history of the Temple Mount is outrageous, but no one should be shocked at UNESCO’s erasure of Jewish connection to its holiest site.  The organization has been politicizing its decisions instead of sticking to its mandate, which states it has purely educational goals.

The challenge is that Bibi’s own government restricts Jewish access to the mount, giving the impression that the State of Israel does not value its connection to the site.  Reverse that and organizations like UNESCO have far less strength to rewrite history.

 

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Trump: “They have to keep moving forward.”

…they really have to keep going.

As a follow up to yesterday’s Daily Quote, Trump is quoted today in the Daily Mail in response to settlement building as saying: “No, I don’t think it is, because I think Israel should have – they really have to keep going. They have to keep moving forward. No, I don’t think there should be a pause. Look: Missiles were launched into Israel, and Israel, I think, never was properly treated by our country. I mean, do you know what that is, how devastating that is?”

If this is an actual policy, it is seismic as it alters the United States’s policy towards Judea and Samaria since 1967.  It explains why, in many ways the industrial war complex in the USA is very scared of a Trump Presidency.  The military establishment has been playing a neo-colonialist role in the Middle East and elsewhere, by playing one side off each other. Trump seems eager to end all that.

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Trump: “Man, would that be a beauty.”

Today’s Daily Quote is from Republican front  runner and consummate deal maker, Donald Trump who was quoted as saying the following on reaching an Israeli-Palestinian Peace Deal: “I am going to try and make that deal just because – man, would that be a beauty – if you like deals. I like deals. I do deals. That would be great.”

Trump continued: “I’ve never met a person from Israel that didn’t want to make the deal. But it is just a very hard deal to make because it’s years of — of whatever. But I’d love to be able to make that deal.”

Israelis are tired of foreign governments trying to push them into a dangerous peace deal. It would be wise for Donald Trump to leave us alone.  This is one deal he won’t be able to make.