Enflaming the conflict
Why didn’t the Israeli government buy some of these
Boeing supertanker which emits flame retardant or water
rather than lots of these
F16 fighter-bombers which fire missiles and emit bombs or
six of these, German Dolphin-class submarines,
about which Netanyahu said
“Our submarine fleet serves as a deterrent to our enemies who seek our destruction. They need to know that Israel is capable of hitting with very great force anyone who tries to harm us. And Israel’s citizens need to know that Israel is a very strong country that is doing everything to defend them, everywhere and on every front.”
But they’re not much good at putting out fires, an actual threat, or adding anything to land wars which are the only sort the IDF has waged.
This posting also has these items:
1) Ma’an news: Israeli forces detain 16 Palestinians over suspicions of starting fires in Israel, West Bank;
2)Ynet: Rabbis call fires divine punishment, OK shooting Arab arsonists;
3) Ynet: Netanyahu vows to punish arsonists in Israel;
4) The Independent: Israel fires: Al-Qaeda linked Palestinian militant group ‘claims responsibility’ for devastating Haifa blaze, Salafist group is probably just boasting;
5) Haaretz: Israel Fire: Six Years Later, Netanyahu Needs to Ask the World for Help Once MoreYossi Verter remembers the last time;
Israeli forces detain 16 Palestinians over suspicions of starting fires in Israel, West Bank
By Ma’an news
November 25, 2016
BETHLEHEM — Israeli forces detained at least 16 Palestinians across Israel and the occupied West Bank on Thursday and Friday over suspicions of starting fires that erupted in Haifa and have continued to spread for the fourth consecutive day.
Israeli media reported on Friday that three Palestinian workers were detained in the Haifa district over suspicions of arson. The Palestinians had reportedly entered Israel without permits.
Another 11 Palestinians were detained by Israeli forces in Israel and the Jerusalem area.
Meanwhile, in the occupied West Bank district of Ramallah, Israeli forces detained a Palestinian for allegedly attempting to start a fire near the illegal Israeli settlement of Kochav Yaakov, an Israeli army spokesperson told Ma’an.
The spokesperson did not identify the Palestinian detained in Ramallah, however, locals told Ma’an that Sayel Darwish Jarabaa, 60, was detained from the Beitin village in northern Ramallah late Thursday for allegedly attempting to start a fire. Jarabaa is the father of Saji who was killed by Israeli forces two-and-a-half years ago.
Israeli media also reported a detention of a 24-year-old Palestinian from Rahat city in the Negev of southern Israel for alleged “incitement” over a Facebook post reportedly encouraging others to start fires.
Locals identified the detainee as journalist Anas Abu Daabis. According to Israeli media outlet Ynet, Daabis is the son of a senior member of the Islamic Movement in Israel.
However, Israeli media later reported that his detention came after Israeli authorities mistranslated his post, which read “what kind of ignorance and lack of awareness are we facing? Our country is on fire and the Arabs are celebrating!” Abu Daabis was referring to statements made by Palestinians insinuating that the fire was revenge for Israel’s treatment of Palestinians.
“It’s a wonder when the brain stops working and turns into an idiot,” the post added, while also referring to other Palestinians who have linked the banning of the Adhan — call to prayer — in Israel with the spread of the fires.
The Islamic movement also condemned the detention in a statement, saying that Abu Daabis used the post to condemn Palestinians celebrating the fires, and not to incite others to ignite them. They demanded his immediate release from police custody, and added that the translators should be held accountable “who obviously don’t know anything about the Arabic language.”
On Thursday, according to the Times of Israel, Israel’s ultra right Education Minister Naftali Bennett used the occasion to point blame at Palestinians for the devastating fire, saying that “only someone who this land does not belong to would be capable of setting fire to it,” implying both that Palestinians were responsible for the fires and that Palestinians do not have any attachment to the land in Israel, where some 700,000 Palestinians were displaced from during the establishment of Israel in 1948.
Meanwhile, Palestinian authorities provided support to Israel Thursday night by sending firefighting crews to help put out fires erupting across Israeli and Palestinian cities in Israel.
According to Haaretz, Russia, Turkey, Greece, Italy, Croatia, and Cyprus also sent airplanes to assist in controlling the spread of the fire in Israel.
While the fire has spread into Jerusalem and parts of the occupied West Bank, according to Israeli newspaper Haaretz, the wildfire in Haifa has been calmed, but 35 firefighting teams are expected to remain, including four from the occupied Palestinian territory.
The mass fire ripping through Israel and the occupied Palestinian territory has seen some 60,000 residents forced to evacuate their homes, according to Haaretz.
Wildfires also spread across the occupied West Bank, from the northern district of Nablus to Hebron in the southern West Bank.
According to Israeli media outlet Ynet, the fires had initially broke out near the Paz Bridge in the northeastern part of Haifa city, causing vehicles and buildings to catch on fire, and quickly spread towards Jerusalem.
Haaretz reported that Public Security Minister Gilad Erdan announced that the fires were expected to continue until next week as a result of heavy winds.
Rabbis call fires divine punishment, OK shooting Arab arsonists
Safed’s chief rabbi explains Fri. morning that shooting Arab arsonists would have saved the country from its current wave of flames; Rabbi Elyakim Levanon says that fires won’t cease until ‘Regulation Bill’ is passed.
By Kobi Nachshoni, Ynet
November 25, 2016
Eliyahu answered a question that had been posed to him asking if Shabbat could be desecrated to stop, report or shoot Arabs trying to light fires near the questioner’s home. The reply read in part, “The prime minister described the arson as terrorism.
One of the heads of the Shin Bet called it a weapon of mass description [sic – destruction?]. It’s a miracle that people weren’t burned alive, but we don’t rely on miracles. It’s certainly permitted and required to violate Shabbat to stop the fire and the arsonists. And if necessary, also to shoot them.” Eliyahu continued, “If in Beit Me’ir, Carmiel or Haifa they had shot the arsonists, we would have been spared from this disaster. I hope that the chief of staff and the police commissioner will give clear instructions to soldiers and police officers and citizens drawn from the fact that the fires have not finishes, and it is their responsibility.”
On Thursday night, Samaria Regional Council Rabbi Elyakim Levanon did not seem to believe that shooting arsonists could quench the flames. He posited that the dry weather and the fires that have broken out across the country as a partial result are divine punishment for the intended evacuation of West Bank settlements, such as Amona. In his own publication, Rabbi Elyakim Levanon, another leading figure in Religious Zionism and on the right, wrote “Anybody with eyes and brain in his head can see how the country thirsts for water. We’re at the end of the month of November according to the Gregorian calendar, and there’s still no sign of rain… strong winds… everything is dry, flammable, burning!”
He explained, “The hand of God is doing this” because “the Israeli government is delaying the passage of the Regulation Bill.”
Levanon explained how the curse of conflagrations could be averted: “Until the shame of the threat of destroying the settlements in the Land of Israel, in Amona, in Ofra and in many other places is not removed, there will be a drought! The day that the decision is taken that can’t be gotten around with legal wrangling—that very day the rains of blessing will begin to fall.”
Netanyahu vows to punish arsonists in Israel
During a press conference providing an update on the situation in Haifa, parts of which have been ablaze all day, Prime Minister Netanyahu indicates that some of the fires may have been intentional and vows to mete out punitive measures; public security minister says arrests have already been made.
Ynet news
November 24, 2016
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu held a press conference on Thursday evening in which he suggested that many of the fires which continue to rage across multiple areas in Israel may have been the result of deliberate arson attacks.
“I want to be completely clear. Every fire caused by arson or by incitement to arson is terrorism in all respects,” Netanyahu said. “Anyone attempting to burn parts of the State of Israel will be punished,” he added as he provided an update of the situation in Haifa, much of which has been ablaze all day.
The prime minister also confirmed that the American 747 Supertanker, the largest aerial firefighting aircraft in the world that was deployed during the Carmel Forest fires in 2010, would be landing in Israel overnight Thursday.
Public Security Minister Gilad Erdan instructed the police to monitor social media in an effort to identify those inciting arson.
“We need to prepare for a new type of terror,” he said on Thursday evening. “The terrorism of arsonist, which also comes from incitement on social media networks. We will be opening a special unit of investigation into the incidents.”
Furthermore, Erdan informed the journalists that a number of arrests had already been made. Earlier in the day, Police Commissioner Roni Alsheikh said some of the cases of arson were likely to be nationalistically motivated.
The Police Commissioner has instructed the Investigations and Intelligence Division to create a special investigation unit for every single fire to be investigated and so that all efforts will be taken to bring those responsible to account if it was arson and if someone initiated it,” Erdan said.
Interior Minister Aryeh Deri said at the end of the press conference that he would consider using his authority to cancel the status in Israel of anyone found to have been involved in arson attacks.
Netanyahu also offered his praise for the firefighters working around the clock to extinguish the fires. “I salute the firefighters and the pilots, both in Israel and from abroad,” he said. Currently 12 firefighting aircraft have been sent to Israel from Russia, Turkey, Cyprus, Greece, the UK, Italy and Croatia.
A Palestinian official also told Ynet that the Palestinian Authority had offered its assistance to Israel. Later, eight Palestinian firefighter vehicles escorted by the Commander of the Jenin Civil Administration made their way to Haifa to help extinguish the fires raging in the city. In 2010 the PA did provide succour in the Mount Carmel Forest fires.
Israel fires: Al-Qaeda linked Palestinian militant group ‘claims responsibility’ for devastating Haifa blaze
Militants offer no proof of ‘questionable’ claim as firefighters continue to battle flames
By Lizzie Dearden, The Independent
November 25, 2016
An al-Qaeda linked militant group has claimed responsibility for starting a devastating fire in the Israeli city of Haifa that forced tens of thousands of people to flee their homes.
Ma’sadat al-Mujahideen, a Palestinian Salafist group, has claimed to be behind several previous blazes in Israel, including the Mount Carmel forest fire that killed more than 40 people near Haifa in 2010.
There is no proof of the group’s involvement in the blaze, or others they claimed near Jerusalem in 2011 and in the American state of Nevada in the following year.
A previous statement from Ma’sadat al-Mujahideen demanded that Jewish people “return whence they came since they have no place among us”, threatening to continue arson attacks in Israel and among the country’s allies.
Terrorism monitors at the Jamestown Foundation said the group’s claims were “questionable” but that it was fixated on the use of fire as a weapon of jihad.
Ma’sadat al-Mujahideen has no known links to Hamas and has positioned itself in opposition to the Islamist group, criticising it for failing to fully implement Sharia law in Gaza, and for alleged “apostasy”.
Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli Prime Minister, has already joined politicians in categorising the devastating fires as an act of terrorism.
“Those who try to burn the state of Israel will be punished to the fullest extent,” he said during a visit to an air base where he met pilots putting out the fires.
“There are elements of terror here, of that there is no doubt.”
At least 16 people have been arrested across Israel and the West Bank on suspicion of arson after fires were started across the region near Israeli homes and settlements.
Firefighters were winning the battle to douse a blaze that spread across Haifa on Friday but more than a dozen other fires continued to burn elsewhere for the fourth day in a row.
Some of more than 60,000 evacuated people were beginning to return to their charred homes to assess the damage as police and firefighting units remained alert for flare-ups due to the dry, windy weather.
No deaths or serious injuries have been reported but dozens of people were hospitalised for smoke inhalation and hundreds of homes have been damaged.
The Palestinian Authority sent firefighters to help operations, as several countries including Russia and the US deployed planes and equipment and military reservists were sent out.
The fires come amid heightened tensions in Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories over more than a year of stabbing and car-ramming attacks by Palestinians and responding security crackdowns by Israeli forces.
The Israeli–Palestinian conflict intensifies
Palestinian attackers have killed 36 Israelis and several foreign nationals, while more than 220 Palestinians have been shot dead by Israeli security forces. Authorities say the vast majority were carrying out or planning attacks, while the UN and humanitarian groups have raised concern over excessive use of force.
New crackdowns were expected after Israel’s police chief, Roni Alsheich, said early indications pointed toward a series of “politically motivated” arson attacks.
The fires began three days ago at the Neve Shalom community near Jerusalem, where Israelis and Arabs live together in a peace cooperative.
Later, blazes erupted in the northern Israeli area of Zichron Yaakov and elsewhere near Jerusalem before the largest ones spread across Haifa, the country’s third-largest city.
Naftali Bennett, leader of the nationalist Jewish Home party, ignited further controversy by tweeting that “only those to whom the land does not belong are capable of burning it.”
As debate spread on social media, Palestinians were accusing the government of taking advantage of the tragedy to incite against them.
Additional reporting by agencies
Israel Fire: Six Years Later, Netanyahu Needs to Ask the World for Help Once More
The prime minister’s boasts that Israel would be prepared for the next mega-fire, made after the Carmel forest fire disaster, went up in smoke over the last few days.
By Yossi Verter, Haaretz premium
November 26, 2016
Six years after the disaster that was the Mount Carmel forest fire of 2010, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is still scrounging around for firefighting planes. Boasts made in the past that Israel would be prepared to deal effectively with large fires went up in flames over the last two days. Netanyahu rushed to blame terrorists, moving into his comfort zone.
Israel is well versed in woes and suffering. Its flesh is scarred by bloody wars, intifadas, terror waves and barbaric attacks that have killed and maimed hundreds and even thousands of people. The forces of nature, however, spared its residents until the Carmel fire six years ago, which took the lives of 44 people. The government proved empty-handed and powerless. Apart from a tired fleet of outdated and creaking fire trucks and heaps of courage and devotion shown by firefighters, it had nothing to offer.
Sophisticated air force jets that can reach Iran, drop bunker busting bombs and return home were no help. They can’t drop water or fire retardants on burning hotspots. Israel needed the assistance of many countries – from Cyprus, Greece and Turkey to Italy, Switzerland and Germany, and even Russia and the United States, all of which sent an urgent aerial train of firefighting planes, led by that famous supertanker.
That traumatic event exposed the dimensions of the shortcomings that had persisted for many years, as well as the helplessness and incapability of one of the most modern countries in the world in fighting a fire that suddenly flared up in a forest full of dry wood and soil, following a prolonged dry period.
The government bore the brunt of the blame. Netanyahu promised to draw conclusions. He promised and delivered. Reforms were carried out in the firefighting service, budgets were increased and the service was transferred from the Ministry of Interior to the Ministry of Public Security. A squadron of firefighting planes was set up and warehouses were supplied with retardants, to the accompaniment of many bells and whistles.
Two years after the disaster, a memorial service for the victims was held, and Netanyahu got up to speak, after being presented as “the first person to realize the magnitude of that event, mobilizing all the services in Israel and around the world to help put out the fire.”
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Zikhron Ya’akov, a town 35 kilometres south of Haifa and at the southern end of the Carmel mountain range. Photo November 22, 2016 by Emil Salman
Six years have passed since that fire. The boasting and arrogant commitment that Israel would from here on be prepared to contend effectively with large fires went up in flames over the last two days. Yet again the same tune was heard: Netanyahu was “the first to identify,” getting on the phone to scrounge around for planes from across the globe, including that mythic supertanker (if only attorney Dan Shimron were the representative of the company producing those planes).
Again we had the tours of the afflicted areas, with a novel feature in which our leaders were shown wearing trendy Uniqlo jackets. For a minute one might have thought that the Uniqlos were the new supertanker.
This time Netanyahu laid the blame on terrorism. He’ll always have that option. Even before investigators and general security service (Shin Bet) personnel issued one unequivocal finding regarding the source of the fire, Netanyahu ruled that it was “arson and incitement” that had caused the fires. He promised that law enforcement authorities would lay their hands on the perpetrators. Thus he navigated the discourse towards his comfort zone.
Former Deputy Director of the Shin Bet Yisrael Hasson (currently Chairman of the Israel Antiquities Authority) quickly followed suit, using his former authoritative standing to announce that “this terrorism is similar to using weapons of mass destruction.” Good morning to you, sir. A million and a half years after prehistoric man discovered fire and its destructive force the head of the Israel Antiquities Authority has also made its acquaintance.
Assuming that Netanyahu is right and hostile elements started the fires, wasn’t this tool of terrorism of concern to Mr Security, who is surrounded by one of the best intelligence services in the world? If so, why did he make do with the purchase of only 14 firefighting planes and not, say, 140? Is that what’s important now? Talking about the identity of those who lit the fires? The government’s role is to extinguish the fire which led to an unprecedented evacuation in Haifa and to take care of the tens of thousands of evacuees.
It doesn’t matter now how many supertankers could have been bought for the price of a quarter of a German submarine. How many such planes could have been purchased with the funds allocated in the 2017-2018 budget to ultra-orthodox yeshivot (seminaries)? How many modern firefighting trucks could one have been added to firefighting service with the money that will soon be invested in establishing alternative outposts for settlers removed from Amona, Ofra and many other illegal outposts in the West Bank? It doesn’t matter.
When the fires are extinguished we will go back to our usual ritual, playing the blame game, placing responsibility or shaking it off, leading to a prolonged festival of statements including “reinforcement,” “augmentation” and “unprecedented investment.” It will end with a ceremony that will laud and extol the prime minister.