Israel says will seize West Bank land; demolishes EU structures - By Maayan Lubell -
http://news.yahoo.com/israel-confirms-plans-seize-west-bank-land-101044942.html
Israel confirmed on Thursday it was planning to appropriate a large tract of fertile land in the occupied West Bank, close to Jordan, a move likely to exacerbate tensions with Western allies and already drawing international condemnation.
In an email sent to Reuters, COGAT, a unit of Israel's Defence Ministry, said the political decision to seize the territory had been taken and "the lands are in the final stages of being declared state lands".
The appropriation, covers 154 hectares (380 acres) in the Jordan Valley close to Jericho, an area where Israel already has many settlement farms built on land Palestinians seek for a state. It is the largest land seizure since August 2014.
U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon denounced the move and Palestinian officials said they would push for a resolution at the United Nations against Israel's settlement policies.
"Settlement activities are a violation of international law and run counter to the public pronouncements of the government of Israel supporting a two-state solution to the conflict," Ban said in a statement.
The land, in an area fully under Israeli civilian and military control and already used by Jewish settlers to farm dates, is situated near the northern tip of the Dead Sea.
Palestinian officials denounced the seizure.
"Israel is stealing land specially in the Jordan Valley under the pretext it wants to annex it," Hanan Ashrawi, a senior member of the Palestine Liberation Organization, told Reuters. "This should be a reason for a real and effective intervention by the international community to end such a flagrant and grave aggression which kills all chances of peace."
The United States, whose ambassador angered Israel this week with criticism of its West Bank policy, said it was strongly opposed to any moves that accelerate settlement expansion.
"We believe they're fundamentally incompatible with a two-state solution and call into question, frankly, the Israeli government's commitment to a two-state solution," Deputy State Department spokesman Mark Toner said on Wednesday.
In a development likely to further upset Europe, Israeli forces demolished six structures in the West Bank funded by the EU's humanitarian arm. The structures were dwellings and latrines for Bedouins living in an area known as E1 - a particularly sensitive zone between Jerusalem and the Dead Sea.
Israel has not built settlements in E1, with construction considered a "red line" by the United States and the EU. It could potentially split the West Bank, cutting Palestinians off from East Jerusalem, which they seek for their capital.
"This is the third time they demolished my house and every time I rebuilt it, this time also I will rebuild it and I am not leaving here. If we leave they will turn the place into a closed military zone," said Saleem Jahaleen, whose home was razed.
RISING TENSION
Israeli officals did not respond to requests for comment on the demolitions. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said last week the EU was building illegally in the area.
"They're building without authorization, against the accepted rules, and there's a clear attempt to create political realities," he told the foreign media.
Netanyahu was scheduled to address the World Economic Forum in Davos on Thursday. He met U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry there but it was not clear if the issue was raised.
The Palestinians want to establish an independent state in the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem, areas Israel captured in the 1967 Middle East War.
There are now about 550,000 Jewish settlers living in the West Bank and East Jerusalem combined, according to Israeli government and think-tank statistics. About 350,000 Palestinians live in East Jerusalem and 2.7 million in West Bank.
Israel is hoping that in any final agreement with the Palestinians it will be able to keep large settlement blocs including in the Jordan Valley, both for security and agricultural purposes. The Palestinians are adamantly opposed.
The last round of peace talks broke down in April 2014 and Israeli-Palestinian violence has surged in recent months.
Since the start of October, Palestinian stabbings, car-rammings and shootings have killed 25 Israelis and a U.S. citizen. In the same period, at least 148 Palestinians have been killed, 94 of whom Israel has described as assailants.
Israeli Interior Minister Aryeh Deri said on Thursday he had revoked the residency rights of four Jerusalem Palestinians involved in two fatal attacks on Israelis, one in September and one in October, a spokeswoman said.
The measure, described as rare, was meant to deter others from carrying out attacks, Deri said in a statement.
Amid 'copycat intifada,' fears of a suicide bombing fad - By Avi Issacharoff -
http://www.timesofisrael.com/amid-copycat-intifada-fears-of-a-suicide-bombing-fad/
With Hamas determined to weaken the Palestinian Authority, the Kalashnikov or explosive belt may supersede the knife as a symbol
The fatal attack in Otniel on Sunday night, like Monday morning's attempted murder in Tekoa, emphasizes just how far Israel and the Palestinians still are from the end of this "intifada of lone wolves."
That said, it is clear that over recent weeks there has been a decline in the number of stabbing and car ramming attacks, along with riots and even Friday protests.
Only three months ago, those thousands-strong protests had the potential to set the whole West Bank ablaze. But in more recent days, only a few hundred people have been participating in the rallies, partly because of the Palestinian Authority's more energetic efforts to quell them. And yet, despite the relative slowdown, this week's attacks show that the wave of violence is not coming to an end.
The limited "success" of the stabbing attacks and the absence of any change in the situation on the ground should have led to a lowering of motivation to carry out attacks, and it is certainly possible that there has been such a decline among some young people.
The problem, however, demonstrated clearly by the events of the last three days, is that there are still enough young people with the will to go out and kill Jews, and potentially die in the process, and apparently their reasons for doing so will not change in the foreseeable future.
The most recent attacks also illustrate the copycat effect in the current intifada. In other words, the motivation does not stem only from nationalist or religious factors; it comes, more than anything else, from social influences: The "success" of one terrorist in the Otniel attack on Sunday provided inspiration to another young Palestinian from Bethlehem to carry out a similar attack hours later.
Whereas in the past, the Temple Mount and its Al-Aqsa Mosque provided the reason for the attacks, the significant drivers today are revenge and the desire to belong socially to one community or another, to be "cool."
While in Israel or other Western democracies, young people listen to a particular rock band or are fans of certain TV programs, the carrying out of an attack turns some young Palestinian perpetrators into "heroes of the moment" among some in their social circles.
This can also explain the fact that nearly a third of the attacks are concentrated in the Hebron area, where ties to clan, family, friends, mosque or village play a significant role in the way youngsters are inspired to go out and attack. In other words, it isn't only about Facebook or social networks; it's about incitement that's often spread by word of mouth, between members of a mosque or school, between neighbors and, above all, within a family. The death of one of them will almost always bring in its wake another attempted attack by a relative or a friend.
Until now, these copycat attacks have mostly been relegated to stabbings and car rammings. But should Hamas go through with its reported decision to renew suicide bombings and ramp up the number of shootings, all it may take is one especially devastating mass-casualty attack for the knife to be replaced by a Kalashnikov rifle or an explosive belt as the symbol of the struggle.
Hamas knows that only one successful suicide attack within the Green Line is all it will take to sever the last tattered remnants of the ties between the Palestinian Authority and Israel, including security coordination.
Such an attack would bring severe Israeli punitive steps against the authority, weakening it even more, while catapulting the already popular Hamas to a more prominent position in the West Bank.
Palestinian militia discussed for East Jerusalem to help bar terror and block ISIS influence - http://www.debka.com/article/25175/Palestinian-militia-discussed-for-E-Jerusalem-to-help-bar-terror-and-block-ISIS-influence-
Israeli and Palestinian security officers are exploring the possible formation of a new Palestinian militia to take charge of enforcing law and order in the Arab districts of Jerusalem and halting the anti-Israel terrorist attacks emanating from those districts.
debkafile's intelligence sources disclose that the dialogue is led by senior Israeli Shin Bet and police officials and the Palestinian General Intelligence (Mukhabarat) chief Maj. Gen. Majid Faraj.
Our sources cannot confirm that Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu or other top officials, such as Public Security Minister Gilead Erdan, are fully in the picture, but it will certainly have been brought to their notice.
Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas is kept up to date.
The plan was first broached in top Israeli police circles, who first asked the Shin Bet and IDF if they had any objections to the creation of a special local Palestinian force or militia, whose members would serve under the orders of the Israeli Police, with a status similar to that of Jerusalem Arab permanent residents, who serve in the local police force.
The new militia would undertake responsibility for maintaining order and security in the Palestinian districts of East Jerusalem, and a commitment to prevent the continuation of terror attacks from the districts under their authority.
This plan gained rapid momentum in recent days over concerns on both sides over the rapidity with which the Islamic Sate was gaining adherents in Palestinian communities.
IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Gady Eisenkott disclosed this week that an estimated 14-16 percent of Palestinians support ISIS - the highest proportion in the Arab world, where the average is no more than 5-6 percent.
In a little-noticed incident on Dec. 3, 2015, a Palestinian General Intelligence officer called Mazen Aribe, 37, suddenly turned his official rifle on Israeli soldiers. After he injured two, their comrades shot him dead.
Investigators of the incident later confirmed that it bore the hallmarks of an ISIS attack.
Aribe, who happened to be the nephew of the senior Palestinian peace negotiator Saeb Erekat, was a highly respected intelligence officer and a loyal supporter of his boss, the a/m Maj. Gen. Faraj. His sudden turn to violence against Israeli troops set off alarm bells in the Palestinian intelligence services as well as the Shin Bet and Israeli police.
The progress of the talks for establishing the new force, since named the "Palestinian Popular Police for East Jerusalem," can be measured by Israel's consent to extend "a measure of autonomy" for certain administrative municipal appointments for its areas of control, provided their work is fully coordinated with Israeli government and municipal authorities.
The discussions cover the Palestinian-populated districts of North Jerusalem - Shoafat, Hizme and Beit Hanina - and the two big refugee camps at Shoafat and Anata. Many of the recent terrorist attacks against Israelis were perpetrated in the last four months by dwellers of these sections of Jerusalem.
The Old City and the Palestinian villages of Issawiya, A-Tur and Jabal Mukabar have not been covered in the bilateral security discussions.
Gen. Faraj is the live wire promoting the initiative. He is motivated most of all by the opportunity for his agency to gain a foothold in East Jerusalem. For decades, Israel has consistently blocked Palestinian attempts to establish their ruling bodies in its capital.
While the two negotiating parties formally agree to the new militia coming under Israel's security services, its da-to-day operations will effectively be subject to Faraj's intelligence agency.
In recent interviews, Faraj has made a point of stressing that cooperation between Israel's army and Shin Bet and Palestinian security forces remains solid and must continue, notwithstanding the current wave of Palestinian terror.
He also claims that his officers have thwarted 200 terrorist attacks and their detention of 100 would-be terrorists with large arms caches, had foiled several more.
Faraj is clearly doing his utmost to bring to Israel's attention the efficacy of the forces under his command and, by the same token, how valuable the new militia would be as a security, anti-terror asset for the city.
debkafile's counterterrorism sources note that the realization of the new Palestinian Police Force project - if it does get the green light in Jerusalem - would crown the four-month Palestinian knife intifada with a huge achievement, which has long proved elusive - the Palestinians would plant their first security footholds in the Arab neighborhoods of Israel's capital. This would no doubt also provoke a flaming controversy on Israel's political scene.
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