Thursday, December 24, 2015

Samir Kuntar - "Murderer of Nahariyah" Dead at last

Earlier in the month of July (2015) there had been a previous report of the neutralizing of the "Murderer of Nahariyah" Samir Kuntar  by an Israeli drone attack on a vehicle  at the entrance of the Druze village of Hader, in Quneitra Province.

At that time in a previous Blog entry of mine I had my suspicions that the report which was being spred through out the Social Media were not correct. I had written; "It is NOT YET confirmed that  Samir  Kuntar from Abey Mount, Lebanon was among those killed."

According to Hezbollah's mouthpiece Al-Manar, thirty-six years after murdering the Haran family and the Israeli policeman  Eliyahu Shachar  in a vicious terror attack in Nahariya, senior Hezbollah leader Samir Kuntar was killed in an airstrike on Saturday night, which the Lebanese terror organization attributed to the Israel Air Force. Two IAF jets infiltrated Syrian airspace and launched four long-range missiles at a six-floor high building in Jaramana, on the southern outskirts of Damascus, destroying the building and causing damage to surrounding structures.

According to reports in the Arab media, eight others were killed in the attack, including Farhan al-Shaalan, another senior leader who planned terror attacks against Israelis in the Syrian Golan Heights.
"At 10:15pm on Saturday December 19, Zionist warplanes struck a residential building in Jaramana city in Damascus countryside. The Dean of liberated detainees from Israeli prisons, brother Mujahid Samir Kuntar was martyred along with several Syrian citizens in the strike," Hezbollah said in a statement.
The Syrian government released a condemnation of "the terror attack that led to the death of innocent civilians in Jaramana, including the warrior Samir Kuntar."

The Murderer of Nahariyah

In 1979, when Kuntar was 16 years old, he infiltrated Israel on a rubber boat from Lebanon along with three other terrorists from the "Palestine Liberation Front." The four came ashore in Nahariya, shot dead police officer Eliyahu Shahar and broke into the apartment of the Haran family. There, they took Danny Haran and his four-year-old daughter Einat hostage, while mother Smadar hid in a crawl space with two-year-old daughter Yael.
Father Danny and daughter Einat were taken ashore, where a firefight ensued between the terrorists and police officers who arrived at the scene. Kuntar shot Danny Haran to death, and then cruelly smashed Einat's skull with the butt of his rifle, murdering her as well.
Two-year-old Yael was accidentally smothered to death while her mother was trying to stop her from crying and revealing their hiding place.
Another police officer was killed, along with two of Kuntar's cell members, in the gunfire that ensued.

Kuntar was jailed for almost 30 years, for which he was known in Lebanon as "The Dean of Lebanese Prisoners" for being the longest-held prisoner in Israel, and was freed in a prisoner exchange between Israel and Hezbollah in 2008, for the IDF soldiers Eldad Regev and Ehud Goldwasser, whose condition was unknown and cynically withheld from Israel during the negotiations. Hezbollah kept a vision of their being alive until the very last moment when the coffins were brought to the exchange point. Both had been reported to have been captured wounded but alive.

Upon his return to Lebanon Kuntar, 53, received a hero's welcome. Syrian President Assad awarded him the country's highest medal during a trip he made to Damascus that year.

In 2014, Kuntar, who is a Druze himself, was reportedly involved in attempts to recruit the Druze in Syria - both in the Golan Heights and in other areas - for a Druze militia to fight for the Assad regime, but these efforts were unsuccessful. As a Druse, Kuntar played a central role in Hezbollah and Iran's efforts to build up terrorist infrastructure in the Golan Heights in order to launch attacks against Israel, with recent reports in the Gulf States claiming Kuntar was in charge of the "Syrian Hezbollah."

Kuntar, recently gave an interview to the Lebanese Al Mayadeen TV channel, which is affiliated with Hezbollah. There he claimed that "Israel gives a lot of aid to the anti Assad fighters but they must not be too happy about that, because some of them will pay a very high price for it."

He was asked if he is worried of an attempt on his life, and answered that he was. "Even if they assassinate me or other resistance fighters, the Syrian resistance operation continues forward,"

In deference to the previous announcement in July 2015 this time Kuntar's his step-brother from his father's second wife Shiham acknowledged his death in a "Tweet"



If indeed Samir Kuntar was "neutralized" by Israel, it would bring some slight comfort to the Schachar and Haran families.



Thursday, December 10, 2015

Judea and Shomron: What Occupied Territory?

Do pray tell what are the "Palestinian Territories"?

I do not remember anywhere in recorded history that there is or was such an area as the "Palestinian Territories".
I believe it is about time that when people write abut the Middle East one should learn to describe and relate the truth. It is to the everlasting disgrace through the negligence of the Israeli government and the Hasbara department of the Israeli Foreign Ministry that this LIE of “occupation” is repeated and it has been absorbed by governments abroad to give legitimization to a fairy tale known as the West Bankand "Palestine".


Let us review historical fact shall we?

When the Palestinian Mandate ended in UN Resolution 181 on November 29th 1947, there was supposed to be a Partition of the Mandated Areas between the Jews and Arabs of the "Mandated Areas". 
The Arabs, at the instigation of the leaders of seven members of the Arab League did not and still do not fully recognize the Jewish people the right to establish a "Homeland" in the "Mandated Territories" known as Israel.

Instead of the local Arab population agreeing to the "Partition" or "Division" of the League of Nations "Mandated" area there was a bloody war that ended in an "Armistice". 

Please note: an "Armistice" is defined as a:
Noun; an agreement made by opposing sides in a war to stop fighting for a certain time; a truce.
synonyms: truce, ceasefire, peace, suspension of hostilities (!!!!)

The "Armistice"in Rhodes in 1949 are a set of agreements which divided the "Mandated Territory" 9 between Israel and neighboring Egypt, Lebanon, Jordan,and Syria.The agreements ended the official hostilities of the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, and established Armistice Demarcation Lines between Israeli forces and Jordanian-Iraqi forces, also known as the "infamous" Green Line. 

It is extremely important to note that there was no Palestinian representation involved in the negotiations. (And no one has ever questioned; "Why was that?")

Few realize that in the 1948 invasion and seizure of the Mandated Area and the capture of Jerusalem by the Trans-Jordanian Legion. Jordan was in open violation of Article 2 clause 4 of the UN Charter at the time of the invasion and capture of Jerusalem.

To the detriment of the Jewish state the world governments did ABSOLUTELY nothing!! There was no UN Condemnation, no raised voices, no mass marches in the streets.

ABSOLUTELY nothing was ever done at that time by the members of the UN to prevent the ethnic cleansing of Jews from Jerusalem's centuries-old Jewish Quarter and desecration of the Jewish cemetery on the Mount of Olives. As well as many areas of Judea and Shomron which were Jewish owned lands purchased prior to 1948 such as the Etzion Block.

According to Article 2 clause 4 of the UN Charter the Mandated Area was “illegally occupied” by Jordan was therefore termed in International Law as terra nullius, or "land belonging to no one".

Israel, which according to the League of Nation Mandate was entitled to the part of the area, subsequently took that territory in the lawful exercise of self-defense in 1967 has better title to it from the prior occupying power- Jordan - of the “West Bank” and the Eastern part of Jerusalem.

With the negotiated peace treaty, between Jordan and Israel in 1995, the "Mandated Area" for the Jewish Homeland (Article 8 Mandate for Palestine) was returned and therefore the "West Bank" officially became Israeli territory as per International Law termed;
Utipossidetis juris or uti possidetis iuris (Latin for "as you possess under law") is a principle of international law that states that:
"is a principle of customary international law originally applied to decolonized territories to preserve the boundaries of colonies emerging as States."
So legally there is no need to annex since neither the Jordanians nor the "Falestinians" never claimed sovereignty

Since no country or government had claimed sovereignty over it than according to International Law “terra nullius” which is a Latin expression deriving from Roman law meaning "land belonging to no one".
"Terra Nullius" is used in international law to describe territory which has never been subject to the sovereignty of any state, or over which any prior sovereign has expressly or implicitly relinquished sovereignty. Sovereignty over territory which is terra nullius may be acquired through occupation.
Furthermore, Israel's occupation of the West Bank is fully legal under the terms of UN Resolution 242 (1967), which was carefully drafted to guarantee Israel's rights to remain there until such time as there is a;
"Termination of all claims or states of belligerency and respect for and acknowledgement of the sovereignty, territorial integrity and political independence of every State in the area and their right to live in peace within secure and recognized boundaries free from threats or acts of force."

In 1994 the so called “Green Line” is a “Cease fire line” between Israel and Jordan and was replaced by an official border along the Jordan River through a peace agreement with Jordan.

Therefore, until the “Palestinians” and the “Palestinian Authority” accepts a peace with Israel based on mutual recognition it is beyond proof that the land belongs to Israel and there is no such thing as "Palestinian Territories".