In the news...

One ongoing story that doesn't receive nearly enough attention in the media, is the growing world-wide threats directed against Israelis; particularly those traveling:

"Counter-Terrorism Bureau: Israelis face global threat"

The Counter-Terrorism Bureau on Monday issued a warning to Israelis staying abroad, and especially businesspeople, instructing them to remain on high alert and reject unexpected offers.

In addition, Israelis on a prolonged stay abroad were asked to break their normal routine by changing daily driving routes and regularly visited restaurants and recreation spots.

The warning said Israelis should completely avoid traveling to countries that are facing previous travel warnings. The latest to join the list was Turkey, following the flotilla raid incident.

Also see:


"High threat-level for Israelis abroad"

The National Security Council’s Counter-Terrorism Bureau issued a general advisory Thursday calling on all Israelis traveling abroad to increase alertness, citing a “concrete, high risk” of terrorist attacks.

Citing solid intelligence, the bureau explained that “threats continue to exist against Israelis abroad, particularly business people and former officials of the security apparatus who are at a high risk for kidnapping or murder.”

Israeli travelers are asked to keep on high alert, to turn down unplanned business offers and to avoid secluded areas.

The bureau believes Israelis may be the targets of revenge operations planned by terrorists.

Hizbullah is still seeking vengeance against Israel for the alleged assassination of arch-terrorist Imad Mugniyeh in 2008, it said. Teheran has also blamed Israel for the alleged assassination of a local nuclear scientist.

In other news:

The article below is actually surprising. Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas typically gives the appearance of being "moderate" and "reasonable", but now his true colors are coming out:

"Palestinian leader calls for Arab invasion of Israel"

Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas, branded a "moderate" by the international community, let his true colors show during a recent meeting with writers and journalists when he stated that he would favor a pan-Arab military offensive against the Jewish state.

The official Palestinian Authority daily newspaper Al-Hayat Al-Jadida on Tuesday wrote that when Abbas met recently with media figures at the home of the Palestinian ambassador to Jordan, he recounted that during an Arab League Summit in Libya in March he told his fellow leaders that he still preferred war against Israel, but could not do it alone.

The Arab states of the Middle East have tried at least three times to militarily destroy Israel, but each time ended up losing territory to the Jewish state.

Despite co-founding the PLO with Arafat, Abbas has long been whitewashed by an international community eager to impose its idea of peaceful conflict resolution on the region. That is why Abbas' remarks in Arabic, such as the one above, are regularly ignored by the world media and Western leaders. But Israelis warn that his views, and the influence they have an the Palestinian general public, ensure that a genuine and lasting peace is impossible to achieve.

The article below gives some more insight on Hezbollah's occupation of southern Lebanon, and the article says it all; no need for further commentary:

"Hezbollah Takes Southern Lebanon Hostage"

In a larger sense, Israel may have taken the risk to be proactive this time, after a decade of being accused of wantonly killing innocent civilians despite their unprecedented efforts to avoid doing so. These cannibalistic strategies of Hezbollah are very similar to those Hamas developed during the 2008-2009 Operation Cast Lead. Both strategies seek to maximize their own civilian casualties for the value of those deaths in demonizing Israel as killers of innocent civilians. Israel apparently hopes to dampen some of the outrage — which arises so readily from the media and diplomatic services — by pointing out this cannibalistic strategy that so cruelly sacrifices its own people in the service of its goals.

So this cruel racket of sacrificing civilians only works if the Israelis are blamed, only if the MSM provides the stage on which this death cult can accuse Israel of “more war crimes.” If the media — and the “Human Rights” NGOs and UN Human Rights Council initiatives like the Goldstone Report — highlighted these pre-meditated war crimes of Hamas and Hezbollah, then the ploy wouldn’t work. In a profound sense, it is only because the media plays the game the way these terrorist organizations dictate it that it even makes sense to maximize one’s own side’s suffering.

So let’s see what happens. Does the MSM recognize its unconscionable role in this unnecessary tragedy? Will they inform the world of these intentional war crimes against the Lebanese people? Or will they ignore this “non-story,” and then when the rockets fly and civilians die again, will they — also again — join in the chorus of accusing Israel of reckless criminal behavior? I’m personally not betting on maturity.

The American Thinker weighs in on the same topic in a thought-provoking article:

"Women and Children Die First"

In the past few months, the world has witnessed how cultures rooted in brutal, millennia-old practices treat vulnerable women and, more tragically, innocent children

Last month, Del Awar, aged seven, was taken at dusk from the yard where he was playing. Del was found "hanging in an orchard the following day."

According to those who "saw his slight body after it was cut down ... the bruises and scratches around the young boy's neck suggested his murder had been neither quick, nor easy." As punishment for the absurd crime of supposedly being a spy for Hamid Karzai's government, the Taliban, made up of men, carried out the execution. Taliban militants stood there exacting revenge: laughing, spitting, and smoking small brown cigarettes as a 7 year-old boy, garroted with a noose, strangled to death.

Reeling from the shock of the murder of a little boy in Afghanistan, the world now turns its eyes to a dank, gloomy prison in Tabriz, Iran, where an innocent woman awaits a death sentence. Islamic men grappled for a lifeboat when they strung up a tiny boy in a tree. In Iran, cowards of a similar breed prepare to mercilessly stone a "caring mother" to death.

Acquittal aside, "the adultery charge was reviewed and a death penalty handed down on the basis of 'judge's knowledge' -- a loophole that allows for subjective judicial rulings where no conclusive evidence is present." A subjective ruling without evidence is one of many shining examples of Sharia Law.

What lies ahead for Sakineh? Well, at any moment, a frightened, weary Sakineh could be dragged hysterically from her jail cell through a crowd of hostile, self-righteous men eager to witness the carnage. A hole in the ground awaits Sakineh, sort of a pre-burial burial.

Weak in the knees and trembling with fear, Sakineh will be cruelly shoved into the hole and forced to stand while dirt is slowly returned to it. The woman's frame will be trapped like an animal, her arms and legs immobilized with just her head sticking up from the hot, sandy soil.

The stones in the piles destined for Sakineh's head have been carefully selected to be large enough to inflict severe damage to a woman, but not so large as to instantly take her life. Stones large enough to remove her eyes, repeatedly fracture her skull, and crack her teeth, but small enough to ensure that her death is as slow and painful as the one Del Awar experienced struggling desperately for air against the rope in Sarwan Qala.

The bottom line:

Lest the civilized world forget, the goal of terrorism is unbridled fear coupled with excruciating pain as a precursor to unhurried, agonizing death.

One last article of interest:

"Moscow to have Iran's Bushehr reactor running by September"

Moscow and Tehran have announced that the nuclear reactor Russia is building Iran at Bushehr - its first - has completed all its test-runs and will be up and running in early September - ahead of schedule.

DEBKAfile's military sources reported several times in recent months that the Iranian reactor at Bushehr is not just a power plant but also has military applications. Chief among them is the reuse of its fuel rods to produce plutonium as atomic weapon fuel.

It would therefore seem that the concatenation of the two events - diplomacy and the launching of the Bushehr reactor - points to Russia's new emphasis on improving its relations with Iran and willingness to take its side in the forthcoming nuclear dialogue.