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IDF: Jenin forces not fighting terror www.jpost.com /servlet/Satellite?cid=1212659734963&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull Hours after US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice arrived in Jerusalem on Sunday, top defense officials and IDF officers slammed a recently-launched US initiative, under which Palestinian soldiers have deployed in Nablus and Jenin. According to the officials, terrorist activity has increased in Ramallah since some 600 Palestinian soldiers were allowed to deploy in the West Bank city last month. On Sunday morning, a 20-kilogram explosive device detonated next to an Israeli military force operating in the city without causing any casualties. Sources in the IDF Central Command said that the large bomb was set off by an advanced detonation system. "The PA forces in the city are not combating the terrorists," one source said. "They are taking action to enforce law and order but they are doing nothing about terror which has grown in the past month since they deployed in Jenin." The 600 PA soldiers, who underwent training by US defense contractors in Jordan, deployed in Jenin in May Israel gave its consent for the deployment in March ahead of a meeting between Defense Minister Ehud Barak, Rice and Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Salaam Fayad. Barak at the time approved the deployment as part of Israeli efforts to bolster Fayad and PA President Mahmoud Abbas. Another defense official said that even those terror suspects that were arrested by the PA forces were usually released days or even hours later. "There is no effective judicial system in the city," the official said. A top officer in the Central Command also warned that weapons the US was providing to the PA forces were finding their way to Hamas and Islamic Jihad terrorists in Jenin as well as in Nablus, where 3,000 PA policemen and soldiers have deployed over the past year. In addition, terrorists have infiltrated the PA police and military ranks, he said. The training of the force in Jenin and Nablus has been overseen by Lt.-Gen. Keith Dayton, the US Security Coordinator to Israel and the PA. Dayton has overseen the deployment in Nablus up close and was also involved in the recent deployment of PA forces in Jenin.
Condoleezza Rice and Jerusalem: Two distinct issues exist: the issue of Jerusalem and the issue of the Holy Places. Cambridge Professor Sir Elihu Lauterpacht, Judge ad hoc of the International Court of Justice and a renowned editor of International Law Reports concluded: "Not only are the two problems separate; they are also quite distinct in nature from one another. So far as the Holy Places are concerned, the question is for the most part one of assuring respect for the existing interests of the three religions and of providing the necessary guarantees of freedom of access, worship, and religious administration [E.H., as mandated in Article 13 and 14 of the "Mandate for Palestine"]. "As far as the City of Jerusalem itself is concerned, the question is one of establishing an effective administration of the City which can protect the rights of the various elements of its permanent population - Christian, Arab and Jewish - and ensure the governmental stability and physical security which are essential requirements for the city of the Holy Places." Israel reunited Jerusalem as one city in 1967, after Jordan joined the Egyptian and Syrian war offensive and shelled the Jewish part of Jerusalem. Israeli leaders vowed the city would never again be divided. Despite the disgraceful treatment of the Jewish Quarter and the Mount of Olives under the Jordanians and despite the Arabs' violation of their pledges to make all holy sites accessible to Jews and Christians, one of the first acts Israel undertook after reuniting the city was to guarantee and safeguard the rights of all citizens of Jerusalem. This included not only free access to holy sites for all faiths but also represented an unprecedented act of religious tolerance. Israel granted Muslim and Christian religious authorities responsibility for managing their respective holy sites - including Muslim administration of Judaism's holiest site, the Temple Mount. Eventually, however, the Waqf, which holds administrative responsibility over the Temple Mount, violated the trust with which it was invested to respect and protect the holiness of the Temple Mount for both Muslims and Jews. Palestinian terrorism has targeted Jerusalem particularly in an attempt to regain control of the city from Israel. The result is that they have turned Jerusalem, literally the City of Peace, into a bloody battleground and have thus forfeited their claim to share in the city's destiny. Secretary Rice's positions on Jewish settlements in Judea and Samaria including Jerusalem defies international law and make Palestinian Arabs believe that terror works. The outcome of consistent Arab aggression was best described by Professor, Judge Schwebel, a former President of the International Court of Justice: "As between Israel, acting defensively in 1948 and 1967, on the one hand, and her Arab neighbors, acting aggressively in 1948 and 1967, on the other, Israel has better title in the territory of what was Palestine, including the whole of Jerusalem." [italics by author] " . . . no legal right shall spring from a wrong." Jerusalem - the spiritual, political, and historical capital of the Jewish people - has served, and still serves, as the political capital of only one nation - the one belonging to the Jewish people.
Inbal Hotel Apologizes for Flying PLO Flag
The flag was flown for two days at the end of May, when the hotel hosted the International Security Forum, chaired by Public Security Minister Avi Dichter of Kadima. Government representatives from various countries, as well as from the Palestinian Authority, took part, and flags of each participating country - or "political entity," in the case of the PA - waved proudly in the breeze of the hotel. News of the enemy flag adorning the popular Jerusalem hotel spread quickly after Arutz-7 blogger Yisrael Medad published a letter by Yonatan Adler informing of the Inbal-PLO flag display. Various grassroots organizations quickly took up the gauntlet, and letters by citizens expressing extreme concern began arriving at the Inbal Hotel. By last week, Inbal's General Manager Rodney Sanders had answered at least a few of them. His first letters expressed regret that the letter-writers were offended, but by the end of last week, at least one writer received a straight-out apology. Sanders wrote, "I, too, felt uncomfortable when asked, even by the Israeli government, to fly the colors of the Palestinian Authority at the hotel . . . We were instructed by the Israel Ministry of Public Security and the organizing committee to fly the flags of all those participating in the conference, including that of the Palestinian Authority." Sanders explained that Minister Dichter "chose the Inbal Jerusalem Hotel to be the venue for the International Security Forum, a conference on 'Challenges to Homeland Security,' of which MK Avi Dicter was the chairman. US Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertkoff and a dozen other internal security ministers from Europe and beyond were invited and Minister Dicter also invited the Palestinian Minister of Interior." "While not meaning to add to anybody's distress," Sanders continued, "I think it important for me to mention that other prominent hotels are often asked by the Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs to host Israel-Palestinian negotiating sessions. Sometimes this also involves flags." *Apology *"I would like to apologize for placing the flag on the building," Sanders then wrote, adding, "I have now since learnt how sensitive this issue is to the feelings of our nation and our people, but I believe I had no choice but to follow the request of the Ministry." *Response *Susie Dym, spokesperson of the Cities of Israel grassroots organization, commented afterwards, "Our activists feel that the people of the Inbal Hotel must be proud Israelis with a strong backbone. If the manager of the hotel had acted so, Minister Dichter of Kadima would have learned how to straighten the national back, and the peace negotiations would have gained greatly from this. We will not respect a hotel that does not know how to respect itself and its country
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