Glorifying Terror. The death of Mahmoud Omar Kamil

 A 17-year-old from the Palestinian village of Qabatiya  opened fire at police officers in Jerusalem’s Old City on Monday evening, using a modified submachine gun. Mahmoud Omar Kamil was neutralized after a brief chase.

The response from the local Arab community was predictable, with the teen heralded as a holy martyr, with posts urging others to follow in his footsteps.

Its often been said that "Peace will come when the Arabs will love their children more than they hate us. "   Looks like peace will remain elusive as long as violence and terror is glorified and Palestinian children are taught that martyrdom is a goal worth pursuing.

ATTACK AT YESHIVAT MERCAZ HARAV IN YERUSHALAYIM

Please contribute to ZAKA or Magen David Adom. Now more than ever.


ZAKA:
http://www.zakausa.org/

American Friends of Magen David Adom:
http://www.afmda.org/



BREAKING NEWS: Terrorist strike at Yeshivat Mercaz HaRav.
Six dead, three dozen wounded. Ambulances and Zaka are on the scene.

Please consider contributing to the Yeshiva:
http://www.mercazharav.org/contrib.htm


There was public celebration in Gaza - a feu de joie, cheering, and candies to passersby.
This attack comes one day after Condoleeza Rice "persuaded" the Palestinians to re-commit to the path of peace.

Too Good To Be True

In a previous post I wrote about the Hasbro World Monopoly contest, pointing out with no small degree of pride that not only could Jerusalem be on the board, but be there with its proper designation: Jerusalem, Israel. And thanks to the worldwide publicity from many Israel advocates, the capital city of Israel has rocketed up to #5 in the voting as of this writing (that's the North Carolina Avenue spot for those of you playing at home). And there has got to be some serious internet buzz going on in Turkish, since Istanbul has pushed past Montreal into the #1 spot.



But a very strange turn of events has taken place in the past 24 hours. First Jerusalem--and only Jerusalem--lost its country designation. This writer called Hasbro Customer Relations this morning and was told that it's a computer glitch and was not a political decision by Hasbro, and that they were working to fix it. Interesting how this computer glitch only affected ONE city.



Subsequent events put the lie to that explanation, as now ALL the cities are missing their country designations. Someone more savvy at Hasbro obviously realized that eliminating references to only the Jewish state was too obvious, so in a slick recovery move they took all the country labels away and now act as if this was the plan all along. The BBC posted this today, referring to the 1947 partition plan in which Jerusalem was to be a corpus separatum:


When approached, Hasbro, the American manufacturers of Monopoly, promised that they would not second-guess the UN, should Jerusalem be included.
In an email to the BBC, they stated: "Due to space limitations no selected city's board space will have any descriptive text aside from said city's common name."



This reeks of cowardice, presumably the result of Islamic "outrage". What comes next, changing the name of the city to "al-Quds"?



Comments may be directed to Hasbro at 888-836-7025 or via webform at http://www.hasbro.com/default.cfm?page=cs_contact

Jerusalem's Arabs Asking for Israeli Citizenship

Ynet News published a very interesting article last week, describing how hundreds of Palestinians in Jerusalem are rushing to apply for Israeli citizenship so that they won't have to experience the joys of living in an independent state of Palestine under the rule of (at best) the Fatah kleptocracy (or, of course, possibly the Islamist neo-Taliban style of government under Hamas). Obviously, they have recognized that the supposedly "evil apartheid state" of the Zionists will provide a better quality of life for them and their children.

Israel should welcome these residents as new citizens; after all, if large numbers of Arab residents of Jerusalem voluntarily request Israeli citizenship, then there is an even stronger case against relinquishing this territory to any Palestinian state. And if it is determined that this can indeed be forced on Israeli Arabs, then why can't Israel cede Umm al-Fahm and vicinity to a Palestinian state as well, given the hostility shown to the Jewish state by the Arab population of that area?

However, this also provides an opportunity to ensure that citizenship isn't just a free ride to Western-style health care, education, and social services. You want to become a citizen of Israel? Great-- first you pledge your allegiance to the Jewish state rather than its enemies. Then you do national service-- it doesn't have to be the IDF, but young Arab men and women will also have to serve their country while their fellow Jewish and Druse citizens protect them. (And yes, this writer fully supports ending exemptions for the ultra-Orthodox as well).

Privileges are valued a lot more when they are won by effort, rather than just handed out.