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Senior Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh landed in Moscow for meetings with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and other “leaders and officials.” The top terrorist traveled to the Russian capital with a delegation that included Hamas military leader Saleh al-Arouri, the US-designated terror group announced.
“This visit, which comes at the invitation of the Russian Foreign Ministry, will last for several days and aims to discuss prospects for bilateral relations to serve the Palestinian cause,” a spokesman for Haniyeh said.
The Lavrov-Haniyeh summit comes amid the cooling of ties between Russia and Israel due to the Jewish state’s stance against the invasion of Ukraine. Tensions have also mounted over Israeli strikes in Syrian airspace, controlled partly by the Russian Armed Forces.
Two antisemitic war criminals: Hamas’ Haniyeh and Russia’s FM Lavrov meet in Moscow today. pic.twitter.com/8nDO0VjaV7
— Adam Milstein (@AdamMilstein) September 11, 2022
Hamas representatives already visited the Kremlin in May, following violence around Al-Aqsa Mosque on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem.
FM Lavrov angered Israelis that same month by declaring that Adolf Hitler had “Jewish blood,” adding that “the biggest antisemites are the Jews themselves.” The next day, Moscow’s Foreign Ministry claimed that “Israel supports the neo-Nazis in Ukraine.”
In July, Russian President Vladimir Putin chose the Islamic Republic of Iran as the destination for his first trip beyond the former Soviet Union since launching his assault on Ukraine in February. Notably, Iran is the largest provider of money and arms to Hamas’ so-called military wing, the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades. Additionally, it funds Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) and the PFLP.
During Putin’s stay in Tehran, an official Twitter account linked to Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei lauded the Russian president for his “recent stances against the Zionists.”
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Senior Palestinian Authority (PA) officials over the weekend accused Israel of “playing with fire” by carrying out counterterrorism operations in the West Bank. According to PA sources cited in local media, this could spark a “third intifada,” or terror uprising, against the Jewish state.
The IDF stepped up its operations in Judea and Samaria after a wave of Palestinian attacks killed 19 people, mostly Israelis, earlier this year. As part of Operation Break the Wave, Israel carried out near-nightly incursions into PA-administered towns and cities, which it said prevented “hundreds of attacks.”
In response to reports that Israel was pressuring Ramallah to rein in terrorist organizations like Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad, in accordance with its obligations under the Oslo Accords, the Palestinians said PA security forces would not act as Jerusalem’s “security agent.”
For his part, Palestine Liberation Organization Executive Committee member Ahmed Majdalani commented that the relationship between Israel and the Palestinians has “returned to its natural aspect — between an occupier and an occupied people engaged in a struggle to confront the occupation.”
Meanwhile, amid the fragile security situation in the West Bank, the US State Department warned that the Palestinian Authority failed to meet fiscal transparency requirements. In a report, Washington noted that the PA refused to provide complete data within a reasonable period.
The State Department also stated that the PA’s audit institution lacked independence, that its statements were not publicly available within a reasonable period, and that audits did not cover the entire annual budget.
As HonestReporting has repeatedly outlined, Palestinian law requires that seven percent of the PA’s annual budget be paid to a “Martyrs Fund” that rewards killed or imprisoned Palestinian terrorists and their families. In 2018, Congress passed the Taylor Force Act, which significantly restricts US aid to the PA until it ends its “Pay-for-Slay” program.
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Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) head Ronen Bar warned that his organization has determined that Israel’s political instability and internal discord may have inspired Palestinian terror groups and individuals to commit attacks.
“The prevailing feeling among our adversaries is that our historical advantage, our national resilience, is fading,” Bar said during a conference at Herzliya’s Reichman University, calling the “deep rift that is developing within Israeli society” the country’s “most complex” challenge.
He added: “From the intelligence that we have read, from the interrogations of attackers we have conducted, and also from many years of familiarity with our adversaries, wherever they are, we can say today without a shadow of a doubt that the political instability, the growing internal strife… are an encouragement to the axis of evil, to the terror organizations and individual attackers.”
In the first eight months of 2022, the Shin Bet foiled hundreds of “significant” Palestinian terror attacks. “We foiled 312 significant terrorist attacks, stabbings, shootings, suicide attacks, and have made 2,110 arrests,” Bar revealed on Sunday.
Commenting on regional issues, the Shin Bet chief told attendees at the World Summit on Counter-Terrorism that Iran is “not only a nuclear problem — it is the fundamental problem of the Middle East.”
“We can only imagine the future scope of influence if a nuclear agreement is signed and the Iranian coffers are enriched … some of which will be designated, apparently, for the purposes of terrorism and strengthening organizations like [Hezbollah in Lebanon and Islamic Jihad in Gaza],” Bar cautioned.
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Members of Parliament, Jewish leaders, and public figures from the United Kingdom signed a letter denouncing the British Broadcasting Cooperation’s lack of impartiality in covering Jews and Israel and calling on its Director-General to fire a pundit who has expressed support for terrorism.
In the missive to Tim Davie, the signatories — including former Conservatives leader Lord Michael Howard, former BBC governor Baroness Ruth Deech, the former Labour minister responsible for the World Service, Lord David Triesman, and Lord Alex Carlile, the UK government’s former terror czar — criticized the BBC’s insistence on using Abdel Bari Atwan as a commentator.
Atwan regularly appears as a guest on the BBC’s Arabic channel.
On March 29, BBC Trending presenter Rania Attar highlighted a Twitter post by Atwan while speaking about the terror attack in the Israeli city of Hadera, which killed two and injured 12. HonestReporting revealed that his on-air tweet referred to the ISIS attack as the “Hadera operation” and suggested it had “exposed those [Arab leaders] who did not mention Palestine.” Atwan was referring to the four Arab foreign ministers who had attended a summit in Israel.
The tweet furthermore linked to a March 28 video in which Atwan expressed joy over the killing of Israelis. In the recording, he said: “I am gloating because the ones who ruined their celebration [the summit] and completely changed the direction of the compass’ needle were Ayman and Ibrahim Aghbariya [who carried out the attack in Hadera], two young men from the areas occupied in 1948 [Israel].”
Numerous community groups, including the Board of Deputies, the Jewish Leadership Council, the Community Security Trust, the National Jewish Assembly, and the Campaign Against Antisemitism came out in support of the initiative. The Chief Rabbi was “watching with concern,” local media reported.
The 36 public figures moreover demanded that the public broadcaster “urgently take cogent and coherent steps” to reverse a tendency to “depart from its own impartiality guidelines on the Israel-Palestine [sic] conflict” and seriously address its “contentious reporting” on the Oxford Street Hanukkah attack.
The BBC did not immediately comment on the allegations.
Recommended Reading
- Israelis in London Bid Farewell to Queen Elizabeth II (Eldad Beck, Israel Hayom)
- Israeli Security Forces Arrest 12 Terror Suspects in West Bank Raids, Military Says (Elisha Ben Kimon, Ynetnews)
- Another Intifada Is Just Around the Corner (Eyal Zisser, Jewish News Syndicate)
- Will a Third Intifada Follow a New Iran Nuclear Agreement? (Eric R Mandel, Jerusalem Post)
- Shira Haas to Join Next ‘Captain America’ Film as Israeli Superhero Sabra (Times of Israel)
Featured Image: UN Geneva
