Jimmy Carter urges recognition of Hamas as legitimate ‘political actor’
(JNS.org) The United States and the European Union should recognize that the Hamas terrorist organization “is not just a military but also a political force,” former U.S. president Jimmy Carter wrote in article published by Foreign Policy magazine on Tuesday.
“Hamas cannot be wished away, nor will it cooperate in its own demise. Only by recognizing its legitimacy as a political actor—one that represents a substantial portion of the Palestinian people—can the West begin to provide the right incentives for Hamas to lay down its weapons,” Carter stated in an opinion piece co-written with former Irish president Mary Robinson.
While the authors acknowledged Hamas’s “indiscriminate targeting” of Israelis, they focused their criticism on Israel with regards to the latest conflict in Gaza.
“There is no humane or legal justification for the way the Israel Defense Forces are conducting this war,” they wrote. “Israeli bombs, missiles, and artillery have pulverized large parts of Gaza, including thousands of homes, schools, and hospitals.”
Carter has been criticized by many in the Jewish community for his 2006 book Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid, which criticizes Israel’s presence in the West Bank. Carter has also been criticized for meeting with Hamas officials and calling for an end to the blockade of Gaza.
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Operation Protective Edge cost Israel $4.3 billion
(JNS.org) Operation Protective Edge’s overall cost for Israel was estimated Tuesday to be $4.3 billion.
Defense officials have pegged the overall military expenditure at $2.3 billion, saying the Israel Defense Forces will revise its 2015 budget demands accordingly, Israel Hayom reported.
Israeli Tax Authority Director Moshe Asher, quoting preliminary assessments by Finance Ministry Chief Economist Yoel Naveh, said Tuesday that the Israeli economy had lost 0.5 percent in projected gross domestic product growth, estimated at $1.3 billion, during the month-long Gaza campaign.
The Tax Authority estimates that more than $14.6 million worth of property damage has been caused by rocket fire, and further predicted a drop of $438 million in tax revenue in 2014 because of the operation.
Israel is also expected to pay $29 million in restitution to southern communities affected by Operation Protective Edge.
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Israeli security guard wounded in Maaleh Adumim stabbing attack
(JNS.org) A Israeli security guard was stabbed by a Palestinian man at the entrance to Maaleh Adumim on Tuesday. The 60-year-old guard was moderately wounded in the incident and was taken to a nearby hospital for medical treatment, Israel Hayom reported.
According to investigators, a Palestinian man carrying a bag arrived at a checkpoint at the entrance to Maaleh Adumim, a suburb community located east of Jerusalem. The guard asked to examine the bag, at which point the man drew a knife from the bag and stabbed the guard.
The attacker then fled in the direction of a nearby Arab village. Other guards opened fire at him, but he apparently got away unscathed.
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Israel reveals arrest of leader of Hamas cell that murdered 3 teens
(JNS.org) Israel announced the arrest of Hussam Kawasme, the leader of a three-member Hamas terror cell that kidnapped and murdered Israeli teenagers Eyal Yifrach, Gilad Shaar, and Naftali Frenkel.
Kawasme was arrested more than three weeks ago, but a gag order on the development was not lifted until Tuesday night, according to reports. Israel is still searching for the two other members of Kawasme’s cell—his brother, Marwan, and Omar Abu Aysha.
The three Israeli boys were kidnapped and murdered June 12 while trying to hitchhike from a bus stop in Gush Etzion.
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Israeli priest to U.S. pastors: ‘your responsibility’ to protect Mideast Christians
(JNS.org) Israeli Christian leader Father Gabriel Nadaf told a group of 51 Evangelical pastors from the U.S. that it is “your responsibility” to help end the slaughter of Mideast Christians.
“The silence [in the West] to what is happening in the Middle East to Christians is an enormous sin,” Nadaf said.
The pastors, who hail from every U.S. state and the District of Columbia, are touring Israel as part of a three-day solidarity mission organized by Christians United for Israel (CUFI). The mission intends to show “support for the Jewish people at a time when the nations of the world have expressed unilateral condemnation for Israel’s choice to defend her citizens from terrorists’ attacks,” according to a pre-trip letter to the pastors by CUFI founder Pastor John Hagee.
Nadaf, a Greek Orthodox priest and the leader of the Israeli Christian Recruitment Forum, has been an outspoken proponent of Christian integration into Israeli society by encouraging young Christians to serve in the Israel Defense Forces. He told the U.S. pastors that Israel is the only place in the Middle East where Christians are safe, and that Israeli Christians want to “serve the country that protects us.”
Mideast Christians have come under assault throughout the region by Islamic extremists, especially in Iraq and Syria, where jihadists from the Islamic State of Iraq and Greater Syria (ISIS) terror group have forced Christians to convert, leave, or die.
As an outspoken proponent of Israeli Christians forming their own identity apart from the Jewish state’s Muslim citizens, Nadaf has received numerous death threats from Arabs, and his son was assaulted last year. Nevertheless, he said his efforts have led to a huge increase in Christian enlistment in the IDF over the past few years, with 184 Christians currently serving in the army.
“Life for Christians in Israel is excellent,” Nadaf said. “We have freedoms, democracy, and security here.”
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Too bad we can’t wish Jimmy Carter away.