Syrian Mortars Land in Israel
November 8, 2012 14:22 by Pesach Benson
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Today’s Top Stories
1. An assortment of takes on what the US election results mean for Israel, the Mideast, and Iran. Among those weighing in are the Jerusalem Post, Nick Kristof, AP, The Independent, Asharq al-Awsat and more AP. Chris McGreal salivates at Obama’s leverage on Bibi, but Peter Beinart doesn’t expect revenge.
2. Three Syrian mortars landed in Israel as rebels and government forces fought near the border. YNet reports no Israelis injured:
Two of the shells landed near the border fence, while a third one landed in the Golan Heights community of Alonei HaBashan.
3. LA Times: The filmmaker behind “Innocence of Muslims” was sentenced to a year in prison. Mark Basseley Youssef, a.k.a. Nakoula Basseley Nakoula, a.k.a. Sam Bacile, used bogus names to set up fraudulent bank accounts. More than 70 people were killed in riots associated with the film.
Yet prosecutors and the judge emphasized Wednesday that the film’s message was irrelevant to Youssef’s probation violation case and prison sentence.
Israel and the Palestinians
• A voice of sanity from Abu Dhabi. A staff-ed in The National praised Mahmoud Abbas for backtracking on the “right” of return:
His comment struck many observers as the diplomatic equivalent of waving a white flag. A failure of leadership, some Palestinians claimed. Traitor, others called him. Yet no one, as far as we can tell, has yet offered a more appropriate label for the comment: realistic.
Mr Abbas no doubt underestimated, astonishing though this seems, the passions Palestinians hold for their ancestral homeland. But if the Palestinians’ goal is an independent state – a position they will soon be advocating again at the UN – then the only way forward will be through hard, painful compromise.
• When you think about it, the PA’s statehood push does offer Israel some silver linings. Among the strategic benefits Elliott Abrams explains:
First, once “Palestine” has become a UN member state it is far harder to argue that the “one-state solution” remains viable. Legally, the Palestinians will have moved definitively away from that outcome.
Unfortunately, nobody told Rachel Shabi, who peddles bi-nationalism at The Guardian today:
It’s only when freed from the dead weight of a two-state paradigm that a just, dignified and peaceful solution has the chance to flourish.
Hamas is pushing a three-state solution, but thinking about that has to make Shabi’s head hurt.
Stephen Miller
3:49 pm
Nov 08, 2012
There is constant talk about the right of return of the Palestinians. What about all of the Jews who were either kicked out or were forced to leave their homes in Arab countries. What have they received for that and what if they wanted to move back to their “other homeland”?
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Frank Adam
3:54 pm
Nov 08, 2012
It seems now the best policy about any project emerging from the White House is to ask awkward questions about how to implement and enforce it, especially how to stop non-state Arab parties disrupting its provisions.
Meanwhile if Rachel Shabi is so fond of a one state solution she can stay in UK which is its own sort of one state solution to her prospects and ambitions to live comfortably.
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Erik
4:12 pm
Nov 08, 2012
No mortars landed in Israel. Unless, of course, somebody threw them over the fence.
A mortar is the weapon used to fire the projectile, or round, known as a mortar bomb.
As often as Ynet reports on military affairs, they should get the terminology right.
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Shirley
5:10 pm
Nov 08, 2012
Where are you from Erik, >?
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Erik
8:17 pm
Nov 08, 2012
Originally, San Francisco.
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emes
5:48 pm
Nov 08, 2012
Natan Sharansky, you “lecture the arab world about human rights?” it might help if they were human in the first place! – Natan, you share a page here with a situation that Syrian rockets are finding their way into Israel – in fact the whole world is in receipt of terror, attrocities, wickedness and every negative analogy sourcing back to the arab populous and on top of that they bay for our extermination. It is sheer vanity to think that they will acknowledge and change their views on their own lifestyle, desire to take over the world and “kill all infidels,” to appease a “lecturing Jew.” – Natan, take up golf, it is more gratifying!
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Dany
7:15 pm
Nov 08, 2012
When Ishmael was forced to leave, with his mother, by his father on orders from Sarah he was directed to Arabia and there he was to father many nations (tribes). His successors did not understand or did not accept the limited Arabian peninsula for their existence, so they invented Islam and shoved it down the throat of many a people around that peninsula. For about 12 centuries they have conquered many lands and after defeating the local populations they made those lands Arab countries and converted the inhabitants to Islam or to corpses.
That was a many states solution.
The history is repeating itself, a one state solution, a two states solution, a three states solution, a …… states solution, your guess is as good as mine.
This time they are trying to duplicate that feat first in the promised land for the Hebrews known today as Jews, then Europe, then South America, then…. then…. then…. simply the whole world.
Their only mistake is they started in the worst place possible, I s r a e l. They G-d’s promise to Abraham, Isaac, Jacob (also named Israel), Moses, Joshua, etc… etc…
the rest is known to Him only, B”H.
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Dany
7:19 pm
Nov 08, 2012
They FORGOT G-d’s promise to Abraham, Isaac, Jacob (also named Israel), Moses, Joshua, etc… etc…
the word “forgot” was forgotten, sorry
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