Nasrallah Denies Hezbollah Using Beirut Port to Smuggle in Iranian Weapons

Algemeiner Staff

The Port of Beirut. Photo: Reuters / Mohamed Azakir.

Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah denied on Friday an Israeli claim that his organization was smuggling Iranian weapons into Lebanon via the Port of Beirut.

Earlier this week, Israeli UN envoy Danny Danon revealed evidence to the Security Council showing how Iran was using civilian transport routes to supply its Lebanon-based Shi’a proxy.

On Friday, Nasrallah called Danon’s presentation “baseless,” asserting it was meant to “lay the groundwork for Israel to take over operations at seaports and airports and achieve what it was unable to do in the Second Lebanon War.”

In response, the IDF’s Arabic-language spokesperson, Avichay Adraee, said, “Nasrallah is under great pressure due to economic distress and talk in Lebanon that he is using civilian infrastructure in Lebanon for military purposes. Now he has chosen to deny the charge about the use of the Port of Beirut to bring in equipment for his missile project.”

“The residents of Lebanon know very well that Nasrallah is lying,” he added. “When we assign blame, it is based on facts, as we’ve proven in the past, regarding the tunnels [under the Israel-Lebanon border] and the Beirut Airport. It will be the same this time.”

PALESTINIAN TERRORIST FACTIONS APPLAUD WEST BANK TERROR ATTACK

KHALED ABU TOAMEH

PALESTINIAN HAMAS SUPPORTERS in Gaza celebrate the Ariel terrorist attack, earlier this week. (photo credit: MOHAMMED SALEM/ REUTERS)

Several Palestinian factions on Thursday welcomed the murder of off-duty soldier Dvir Sorek in the Gush Etzion area, while the Palestinian Authority expressed fear that Israel would use the terror attack to intensify its security measures against Palestinians in the West Bank.

The factions and many Palestinian activists urged Palestinians living in villages in the Gush Etzion area to immediately delete footage or remove private security cameras so as to prevent the IDF from identifying the terrorists.

In separate statements, the Palestinian factions praised the “heroic operation” and said it was a “natural response to Israeli crimes.”

Islamic Jihad spokesman Daoud Shehab described the murder as “heroic” and “bold” and said it carried an important message to Israel because of its policy of holding Palestinians in administrative detention. 

“This operation is a natural response to the crimes of the occupation, the latest of which was the demolition of houses in Wadi al-Hummus,” he said, referring to the recent demolition by the IDF of illegal buildings near the east Jerusalem neighborhood of Sur Baher.

“The operation,” he added, “affirms that al settlers and occupation soldiers are legitimate targets for the Palestinian resistance.” He also praised the terrorists who carried out the attack and expressed hope that there would be more “heroic operations” against settlers and soldiers.

In a statement welcoming the murder of 19-year-old Sorek, Hamas also praised it as a “heroic operation.”

Hamas said that the attack came was a “practical response” to recent talk about Israeli intentions to annex parts of the West bank.

Hamas claimed that the off-duty soldier had “graduated” from a military college that advocates the ‘killing of Palestinians and seizure of their land.”

Hamas called on the Palestinian Authority and its security forces to immediately halt security coordination with the IDF in the West Bank and to “side the with the Palestinians in defending their land.”

Senior Hamas official Izzat al-Risheq praised the murder and accused Israel of “committing crimes and acts of terrorism against the Palestinian people.” He said that such attacks send a message that the “occupation is on its way to ending.”

Hamas spokesman Hazem Qassem also linked the murder to the recent demolitions in Wadi al-Hummus. “The Gush Etzion operation is a natural response to the crimes of the occupation, including the recent Wadi al-Hummus crime,” he said.

The PLO’s Popular Front of the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) and Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine (DFLP) were also quick to publish statements praising the murder of Sorek.

“We praise the [Gush] Etzion operation, which is a natural response to the presence of the occupation,” the PFLP said. “This operation proves that the resistance is the most effective way to fight the settlers and Zionist soldiers, who are not safe on any part of the land of Palestine.”

The DFLP said that the terror attack was a “legitimate right of our people in response to the crimes of the occupation.” The group warned that Israel’s “stepped up measures” won’t deter the Palestinians from pursuing the “resistance in all forms and means.”

A PA official in Ramallah pointed out that the murder of Sorek came on the eve of the Muslim feast of Eid al-Adha. He said he did not rule out the possibility that a Hamas cell was behind the attack.

“Our major concern now is that Israel would use the killing to escalate its security measures against our people, especially ahead of Eid al-Adha, which starts on Sunday,” the official said. “Whoever carried out this attack also acted against the interests of our people.”

Another PA official said that the Palestinian security forces were conducting their own investigation into the terror attack. The official refused to say whether the Palestinian security forces were helping the Israeli authorities lay their hands on those behind the attack.

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Nadav Snir

TRUMP HAS TAINTED ISRAEL ON THE LEFT, DEMOCRATS AREN’T OFF THE HOOK

DANIELLA GREENBAUM DAVIS / JTA

After Trump, American Jews will need to face the reality that for progressives, Trump’s support of Israel will count as a strike against the Jewish state.

US President Donald Trump meets with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in New York, US, September 18, 2017.. (photo credit: REUTERS)

NEW YORK — Despite his questionable record with the American Jewish community, it’s hard to argue that President Trump has been anything but fantastic when it comes to Israel. He’s gone further than erasing the daylight that President Obama inserted into the U.S.-Israel relationship: The Trump administration has treated Israel as a strategic partner, a friend and a fellow adult in the room, not a child who needs a scolding every once in a while. 

But the Trump presidency will come to an end — one day soon, I hope. And when it does, American Jews will need to face the reality that for progressives, Trump’s support of Israel will count as a strike against the Jewish state. In the minds of most progressives, everything the president touches becomes toxic, politically infeasible and morally repugnant. Everyone should be concerned — pro-Israel Americans especially so.

But making Israel a partisan issue is dangerous. And the only people who can keep Trump from forever tainting Israel in the minds of Americans who despise him are the moderate Democrats, who have been woefully underwhelming in their approach.

Writing in The New York Times about the Democratic party’s recent abhorrent embrace of the “ambulance-chasing, antisemitic, anti-white race hustler” Reverend Al Sharpton, Brown Professor Glenn Loury argues that “Democrats seem unable to do two things at once: condemn Mr. Trump and refuse to defend ideas and people that are not worthy of being defended.”

The reverse is true as well: Anything Trump supports, no matter how warranted that support may be, they feel compelled to rally against it. So where does that leave progressives and Israel? 

It would be incorrect to say that one can’t be a progressive and support Israel — there are plenty of progressives who do. It would be equally incorrect to argue that progressives who despise the Jewish state do so only because of Trump’s policies; progressive hate toward Israel is not new and not getting better.

But recently, some progressive members of the Democratic Party have crossed over the line of mere sharp criticism of Israel, and have veered into territory that is outright antisemitic.

For Democrats who want to distance themselves from rhetoric that blatantly attacks a minority community — and yes, Jews are a tiny minority — silence should not be the answer. And yet, silence — if not outright and explicit support — has largely been the response of mainstream Democrats to both the anti-Israel and often antisemitic attacks by the freshman members of Congress who have dubbed themselves The Squad.

Representatives Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib, in particular, have been especially vocal about their support for the anti-Semitic Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement. The purpose of the BDS movement is to delegitimize and finally to destroy the Jewish State of Israel, and the fact that this isn’t universally recognized as an antisemitic aim reflects horribly on mainstream pro-Israel Democrats. 

Still, it is possible to be a BDS supporter without actually being an antisemite. All that is required is a little ignorance. 

The typical BDS-supporting student is not an antisemite, but rather a young adult eager to prove his or her progressive bona fides by involving him or herself in the perennially en vogue pro-Palestinian cause. If you speak to most of these students, you’ll quickly come to the conclusion that they know nothing about the BDS movement’s founding, founders or even what the movement’s goals really are. 

America’s elected representatives, however, are not entitled to the same level of ignorance. 

There are some Democrats have been unequivocal in their reproach of the BDS movement. Rep. Ted Deutch. D-Fla., recently said that “boycotts have been previously used as tools for social justice in this very country,” but that “BDS doesn’t seek social justice. It seeks a world in which the state of Israel doesn’t exist.” 

But this fact seems to have been lost on Rep. Ocasio-Cortez, who recently became a cosponsor of Omar’s pro-BDS resolution and expressed her belief that “the same way me criticizing Trump doesn’t make me anti-American, criticizing the occupation doesn’t make you anti-Israel, frankly. It doesn’t make you against the existence of a nation.” But even the most superficial investigation into the BDS movement reveals that it is no mere (or kosher) criticism of Israel, but rather an attempt to rid the world of its only Jewish state.

Ocasio-Cortez and her squad are getting away with this wordplay because their colleagues are letting them. That an overwhelming majority of Democrats voted for a nonbinding House resolution condemning BDS is not enough. If a group of Democratic members of Congress got up tomorrow morning and launched a similar attack on any other minority group in this country, then the rest of the Democratic Party would not stop until it became abundantly clear that the core of the party thought those initial Dems were radical, racist extremists whose unethical behavior was putting the entire party to shame.

American Jews, unfortunately, are becoming all too aware that we are not afforded that same kind of unabashed, unequivocal support. In a year that’s shown us just how vulnerable we are in this country, that silence is painfully loud.

JORDAN CLOSES AARON’S TOMB AFTER JEWS SEEN PRAYING AT SITE

TZVI JOFFRE

The decision to close the site was made after Israeli tourists were filmed performing “Jewish rituals” at the site.

Aaron’s Tomb . (photo credit: WIKIMEDIA COMMONS / JONEIKIFI)

Aaron’s Tomb in Jordan was closed by the nation’s Ministry of Awqaf Islamic Affairs and Antiquities on Thursday after the “illegal entry” of Jews to site without the knowledge of the ministry, according to Arab media.

The decision to close the site was made after Israeli tourists were filmed performing “Jewish rituals” at the site, according to the Turkish Anadolu Agency. It was also decided all visitors would have to obtain approval from the Awqaf in the Ma’an Governorate before entering.

A video circulated in local news websites purportedly showed about 500 Israeli tourists performing the rituals in the area. The site, located on a mountain in the area of Petra, is believed to be the grave of the biblical High Priest Aaron, Moses’s brother.

Thursday night was the first of the Hebrew month of Av, which is also the anniversary of Aaron’s death.

In an interview with Ynet, tour guide Roni Ayalon, who was with the group of tourists described being subjected to humiliating treatment by Jordanian authorities.

“They just stripped down all of us,” he said. “They took off the women’s head scarves. All the boys’ yarmulkes were taken off. They took off everyone’s shirts to see if they had tzitzit (religious fringes) under their clothes and took [the tzitzit] off them. They confiscated any religious symbols they found on us.”

“If there was this kind of humiliation of an Arab on our side who wanted to enter Jerusalem and they would dare to tell him to take off his shirt or confiscate his Koran, there would be a world war,” stated Ayalon. “All the Arabs would jump up. But they can do whatever they want to us.

At the Temple Mount, in Jerusalem where the Al-Aqsa Mosque and the Dome of the Rock are located, visits by religious Jews are monitored by Waqf guards and Israeli police and all Jewish prayer, including silent prayer, is forbidden on the Temple Mount, according to the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs. The Waqf is an arm of the Jordanian Ministry of Sacred Properties and administers the site. No sacred Jewish objects, such as prayer books or a prayer shawl, may be brought onto the mount, according to Tourist Israel.

“None of us came to make a mess,” claimed the tour guide. “There was one boy who had a Bar Mitzvah and at Aaron’s Tomb we made a little celebration for him. When the police saw that we were singing, he quieted us and say that it’s forbidden for us to sing.”

Purported photos of Jewish tourists at the site which circulated through Jordanian media showed them praying with a Torah scroll. “I don’t know who read from a Torah scroll,” said Ayalon, according to Ynet. “Our groups acted according to the book. We tried to act in a subdued manner and without opposition, but their behavior was awful.”

According to Ayalon, the group was forbidden from praying while traveling in Jordan, even in their hotel room.

The Awqaf ministry strongly condemned the entry of the tourists and added that an investigation will be opened to find out what happened and who was responsible for allowing them into the site, according to the official Jordan News Agency.

Former Jordanian tourism minister Maha al-Khatib stated that the Israeli ambassador in Jordan filed a complaint against measures taken to limit the actions of Israeli tourists, including the requirement for a guide during tours and a prohibition against wearing religious clothing, according to Al Mayadeen. Khatib also accused tourists of attempting to smuggle in religious clothing.

The former tourism minister also accused Israeli tourists, who she called “the most miserable tourists who make trouble,” of attempting to bury items at various sites in Jordan to “confirm” their claims of their history in the area.

“There is a Zionist scheme to claim ownership of any part of our Arab homeland, especially in archaeological sites,” said Khatib.

“They want to convince the world that any place they went through even for two nights in the old days is their right, but we are not allowed to mention the history of our existence,” said Khatib, according to the Shebab news agency.

Khatib also rejected normalization with Israel and warned against “the continuation of the Zionist plan which aims to gnaw at our homeland,” according to Al Mayadeen. She pointed out that Israelis “forcibly took the right to visit Jordanian territory in the peace treaty, while we are deprived of visiting Palestine.”

Last year in July, Jordanian police reportedly confiscated prayer shawls and tefillin from a group of some 20 haredi men who traveled to the country to visit Aaron’s grave.

Members of the group told Walla News that Jordanian police arrived at the hotel they were staying near Petra and searched their rooms for religious items, confiscating several sets of tefillin and prayer shawls from some members of the group.

Rabbi Menashe Zlikah, a member of the group, told the Kol Hai radio station that Jordanian Police had forbidden them from praying anywhere in Jordan, including the hotel, and told them that anyone who prayed would be arrested.

The men were advised by the Foreign Ministry and Israeli consul in Jordan to keep a low profile and return to Israel as quickly as possible.

Jeremy Sharon contributed to this report.