The post Gov’t approves 2nd weekly move to reorder West Bank first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

Dozens of Israeli settlers launched a large-scale arson attack on Palestinians in the West Bank on Tuesday, targeting factories and farmland between the major cities of Nablus and Tulkarem.

According to the military, soldiers detained several Israeli settlers who participated in the attack after troops were called to the scene. The suspects were then transferred to the Israel Police, which announced that it had taken four Israeli citizens into custody for questioning.

After the arrests, the IDF said that its troops were attacked by a group of settlers in a nearby industrial zone where suspects had fled to, and that a military vehicle was vandalized.

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Source: https://www.timesofisrael.com/settlers-launch-major-west-bank-arson-attack-idf-police-arrest-four-suspects/?fbclid=IwY2xjawOB019leHRuA2FlbQIxMQBzcnRjBmFwcF9pZBAyMjIwMzkxNzg4MjAwODkyAAEe1nFjwJsNxycy74IQBQpVkztq-TgMp2rQ_IPm3GRs0yAztQ3fg1vJIgzp8zQ_aem_m6sbditDUpn0E1O-xSOgIA

The post Settlers launch major West Bank arson attack; IDF, police arrest four suspects first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

The whole media is out to get Trump. The news organizations are beside themselves, but he’s smiling the whole time. It’s about to get real, all the scoundrels who thought they’d get Trump one way or another are going down, most of them anyway. All the lawsuits, all the criminal investigations, where are they now? These men thought they’d never be out of power, I guess, and they’d never have to pay the price for their deeds. They’re not sleeping well.

Trump is hiking tariffs on many foreign countries who have been taking advantage of the U. S. It’s not like they’re not still trying, but Trump holds them to account. Fair is fair, and the other countries have been taking advantage of the U. S. for too long. They can cry their eyes out, but they can’t stand up to what the President is doing and saying. He has a team who knows what they’re doing

and time is short. 

He’s got emissaries carrying his message to all parts of the world. The United States is through being taken advantage of, and now you can bet they are going to pay. 

Nearly everyday there’s another drug boat being blown out of the water. It’s going to get hard to recruit people to guide them, with all their compatriots at the bottom of the sea. 

Trump is heading overseas to meet the new Prime Minister of Japan. It’s a woman, Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi, the first female ever to lead Japan. Then he’s heading to South Korea to meet with Xi. Wouldn’t you love to be a fly on the wall.

Israel, now that’s another story. Their government voted to annex the West Bank, but that’s not going to happen. Israel’s ruling party didn’t vote, in fact wasn’t even there. It’s a very different situation in Israel. Who can understand it? My Dad told me something interesting about Israel, and I think it still holds true. They have to have an outside enemy to fight, otherwise it’s pure chaos. 

I wish my Granddad could be here. I wonder what he’d be saying now. Thankfully, we’re in America during one of the greatest revivals we’ve ever seen. Sometimes God has other plans. 

Mark

The post Weekly Update by Mark Armstrong – October 24, 2025 first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

It was the first attack of its kind along the border with Jordan since Oct. 7, when Palestinian Islamist group Hamas carried out an assault on southern Israel, sparking the war in Gaza that has escalated throughout the region.

The attack took place in a commercial cargo area under Israeli control where Jordanian trucks offload cargo entering the West Bank, officials said. The crossing, also known as the King Hussein Bridge, lies about midway between Amman and Jerusalem just north of the Dead Sea.

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Source: https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/two-wounded-shooting-attack-near-jordan-border-israeli-authorities-say-2024-09-08/

[Disclaimer]

The post Gunman crossing from Jordan kills three Israelis at border first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

Prime Minister Bisher Khasawneh said his country would resort to “all the means in its power” to prevent Israel from implementing any transfer policy to expel Palestinians en masse from the West Bank.

The Israel-Gaza conflict has stirred long-standing fears in Jordan, home to a large population of Palestinian refugees and their descendants. Right-wing, ultra-nationalist hardliners now in the Israeli government have long espoused a Jordan-is-Palestine solution to the Israeli-Palestinian issue.

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Source: https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/jordan-says-it-beefs-up-army-presence-along-borders-with-israel-2023-11-21/

[Disclaimer]

The post Jordan says it beefs up army presence along borders with Israel first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

The Israel Defense Forces said early Monday that security forces were conducting “an extensive counterterrorism effort” in the area of Jenin, a Palestinian city in the northern West Bank where Israel has conducted a series of recent raids and home to a refugee camp of more than 10,000 people that has been framed as a center of Palestinian resistance.

The officials said a “joint operations center” of militant group the Jenin Brigades within the camp was hit by the IDF and the Israel Security Agency, also known as Shin Bet.

The operational command center purportedly served as an advanced observation and reconnaissance center where accused armed terrorists would gather before and after conducting terrorist activities, the IDF said in a statement published to Telegram, adding that it is also a site where weapons and explosives were stored and was used as a coordination and communications hub.

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Source: https://www.upi.com/Top_News/World-News/2023/07/03/IDF-attacks-Jenin/7891688365276/

The post Israeli forces attack West Bank’s Jenin city first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

The United States called for Israel to ensure accountability for the settler rampage against Palestinians, condemned the terror attack at a West Bank gas station and slammed Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s announcement that he planned to build 1,000 new homes in the Eli settlement.

“Accountability and justice should be pursued with equal rigor in all cases of extremist violence,” US State Department deputy spokesperson Vedant Patel told reporters in Washington on Wednesday after a violent three days in the West Bank, sparked by an IDF arrest raid in Jenin on Monday during which five Palestinians were killed.

That was followed by a Palestinian terror attack against a gas station near the Eli settlement that claimed four Israelis’ lives on Tuesday. Settlers overnight attacked the nearby Palestinian town of Turmus Ayya setting homes and cars ablaze. One Palestinian man was killed during the violence.

“We strongly condemn yesterday’s terror attack” outside Eli, Patel said, adding that there is “no justification for terrorism.”

Overall, he said, “We are deeply concerned by the rising levels of violence in the West Bank in recent months.”

Continue reading HERE

Source: https://www.jpost.com/arab-israeli-conflict/article-747151

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Israel is plagued by an electoral system that gives disproportionate influence to small parties, which usually are needed to get to the minimum threshold of 61 Knesset members to form a government. Perhaps it wouldn’t be so unfortunate if Israel didn’t have to deal with aggression by Iran and its proxy, Hamas. As Anna Ahronheim writes in the Jerusalem Post, “Israel cannot have both security and political instability. Israel’s enemies, be it in Gaza, Lebanon, Syria, or the West Bank, are wide awake looking for an opportunity to strike.”

Israel’s behind-the-scenes wars with Iran in Syria, Lebanon and Iraq, and with Palestinian terrorists in the West Bank, are off the radar for most Americans. In the north, Israel has been conducting the “War Between the Wars” to thwart Iranian entrenchment in Syria, stop the transfer of game-changing, precision-guided weapons and drones, and target Iranian-supported missile and drone factories. These operations potentially could spin out of control with a miscalculation, causing regional instability that affects American security interests.

With the resurgence of Hamas-instigated terror operations in the West Bank, Israel has been preemptively conducting its “Break the Wave” operation to counter terrorist activity. But Hamas may see this time of Israeli political uncertainty as an opportunity to increase its attacks.

The political chaos is unfolding as President Biden plans to visit Israel in July. A few days ago, he thought he would be meeting with Prime Minister Naftali Bennett, but now he likely will be meeting with foreign minister Yair Lapid as Bennett’s replacement. There is even a possibility that Defense Minister Benny Gantz could defect from the current coalition, swallow hard and rejoin former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, with whom he had a falling out, in a new government to avoid elections. Biden has said that his mid-July trip to Saudi Arabia and Israel will be an attempt to bring “more stability and peace to the Middle East.”

Bennett comes from the Israeli right and Lapid from the center-left. The expectation is that Lapid may be more accepting of the Biden administration’s requests regarding the Palestinian Authority, the “two states for two peoples” solution, limiting settlement expansion, and America’s desire to reopen a Palestinian consulate in Jerusalem. However, the Israeli electorate has leaned right since the Second Intifada, which began in September 2000, and likely would see such concessions as a betrayal. Most Israelis view the Palestinian Authority as a corrupt, unreliable partner, with a history of fomenting anti-Semitic ideology in textbooks, mosques and media. If Lapid makes concessions, he could be savaged by Israeli media and political opponents.

The good news is that Israel’s military and security apparatus is apolitical and has decades of experience coordinating its tactical operations with the United States, even when its government has interim leadership. However, on a more significant geostrategic level, it is hard to make major decisions when you are a temporary prime minister. Israel’s moderate allies — the Gulf states, Egypt and Jordan — who are developing an American-initiated defense plan with Israel in response to Iran’s escalation, most assuredly would feel better if Israel’s political system were more stable.

The messy Israeli democracy is hard for authoritarians to understand. To advance American policy interests, we need the Arab nations to deepen their relationships with Israel — as some have done with the Abraham Accords — as a counterweight to Iranian expansionism.

As Dan Shapiro, former U.S. ambassador to Israel, points out, U.S. officials “are used to conducting relations with Israel during political crises and election campaigns. The main principle is: Don’t interfere while Israel’s domestic political processes play out. Most normal business, particularly in security cooperation, can continue. While a minority government in Israel is fully empowered, in the case of elections, there may be some decisions a transition government in Israel cannot make.”

The Biden administration reportedly is still trying to salvage an Iran nuclear deal — a reworking of the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) forged under President Obama — and is keeping Israel abreast of the negotiations. However, Lapid’s political weakness may force him to take a tougher line with the U.S. Iran, as an enemy to the U.S., Israel and the West in general, seems in no hurry to rejoin the deal now, while U.S. sanctions against it are not fully enforced and the Iranian economy can stay afloat by selling oil to China — though competition with Russian oil exports recently has stepped up.

Without secondary sanctions levied against China, Iran can continue to play hardball and undermine U.S. regional interests. Iran interpreted the U.S. not fully enforcing its sanctions not as a conciliatory gesture but as American weakness to be exploited. Expect Lapid or any Israeli prime minister to ask the U.S. to increase sanctions if Iran continues to develop its nuclear weapons program.

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) recently sanctioned Iran because it refuses to explain uranium found in undeclared nuclear sites, and Iran has removed cameras that were monitoring its nuclear facilities. If Iran reneges on its nuclear program commitments, only snap-back sanctions, as promised in the JCPOA, could possibly pressure Iran to change its behavior. Iran knows that America has no credible military threat, making the Iranians more stubborn in negotiations.

There is broad support across the Israeli political spectrum for confronting Iran if it crosses the nuclear threshold — and it will be challenging for the Biden administration if Israel moves towards a significant military response.

American interests are also affected by Israel’s new confrontation with Russia in Syria. Until recently, Israel coordinated its air campaign against Iranian interests in Syria with Russia to avoid any Israeli-Russian conflict. Russia was working with Israel because it was in Russia’s interest to suppress Iranian entrenchment in Syria, since that could threaten Syrian stability. Last week, however, Israel bombed the Damascus Airport where Iran was transiting weapons, infuriating Russia. Taken to the worst extreme, this could escalate to an Israeli attack on Russian anti-missile systems if they were to be used against Israel, setting the region on fire. And with America’s plate full with the Russia-Ukraine war, the last thing Washington needs is a kinetic conflict between its primary ally in the Middle East and the Russian bear.

The U.S.-Israel relationship will survive this political melodrama; the two democracies have navigated through similar challenges before and continued to coordinate their joint security approach to the region. But the situation is not ideal, by far — especially if an interim Israeli prime minister must make a significant decision that affects American national security interests in the coming months.

Dr. Eric R. Mandel is the director of MEPIN, the Middle East Political Information Network. He regularly briefs members of Congress and their foreign policy aides. He is the senior security editor for the Jerusalem Report. Follow him on Twitter @MepinOrg.

Source: https://thehill.com/opinion/international/3532125-israels-government-collapses-again-so-what-now/

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(May 9, 2022 / JNS) Israel must adopt a more proactive approach if it is to deplete Hamas of its ability to incite Palestinians to terrorism, a senior security scholar has said, including a stepped-up cyber campaign to take down incitement material that is online and fueling violence against Israelis.

In recent weeks, the Israeli defense establishment has detected an unmistakable spike in Hamas’s online efforts to ignite terrorism and unrest, particularly on social-media networks. This is part of the strategy by Hamas’s leader in the Gaza Strip, Yahya Sinwar, to destabilize the West Bank and Jerusalem and inflict Israeli casualties while weakening his domestic rival, the Palestinian Authority—all without risking Hamas’s home turf of Gaza.

Ely Karmon, a senior research scholar at the International Institute for Counter-Terrorism (ICT) in Herzliya, told JNS that the time had come for an all-out offensive cyber campaign to disrupt and remove incitement to hatred and violence on Arabic social-media networks.

“The state has been doing almost nothing offensively on this front and has been waiting for the platforms, like Facebook, to act. The state should not wait; it should take this material down itself,” said Karmon.

In the information campaign sphere, he said, Israel has made a lackluster effort to deflate false Hamas claims that the Al-Aqsa mosque is in danger. “No one is showing footage from inside the mosque on how rioters prepare to attack security forces and what they’re entering the mosque with. No one is showing what the Waqf (the Jordanian Islamic trust in charge of the Temple Mount site) is telling worshippers. It is time for this material to come out,” Karmon said.

He proposed that the Strategic Affairs and Public Diplomacy Ministry take on this project in a focused manner.

On the military front, Karmon said that if Israel did opt for targeted assassinations of Hamas leaders, then it would also have no choice to but launch a significant military offensive designed to target and eliminate Hamas’s leadership.

“The timing is critical because if this government falls before making this decision, a transitional government will take over and then a new government will have to be formed, and the window of opportunity for ordering preparations for such a maneuver will be gone,” he noted.

A return to targeted killings of Hamas leaders clearly means war, said Karmon, adding that “Sinwar is just the symbol because he is the one now talking; he is the commander. Others will come after him. It has to be a succession of targeted killings to reinstall deterrence, and those from the leadership who survive would need to go into the deepest tunnels. They wouldn’t have time to appear in demonstrations or on television.”

Targeted killings played a key role in ending the Second Intifada (2000-05), pointed out Karmon, noting the assassinations of the late Hamas leaders Ahmed Yassin and Abdel Aziz al-Rantisi in March and April 2004. Several other Hamas and Palestinian Islamic senior members were killed by Israel during this time as well.

“Clearly, this will lead to conflict with Hamas. This is not something that has to happen today. But Israel will have to put an end to Hamas’s military wing in the near future,” he argued. “As long as this does not happen, we will remain trapped in this cycle of operations and rocket fire every three to four years, and there will be no chance for a diplomatic process with the Palestinian Authority to develop. Israel is allowing the P.A. to grow weaker.”

Ordering such a maneuver, said Karmon, would result in a fundamental strategic change—meaning that the idea of ordering a targeted assassination of only Sinwar would only be the start of such a transformation if the government ever chose such an option.

‘Calling for more and more violence’

In the meantime, Israel has limited its actions against Hamas to the civilian-economic sphere, sealing the Erez Border Crossing between Israel and Gaza, and preventing 12,000 Palestinian workers from access to work in Israel, thereby applying pressure to the Islamist regime in Gaza as a response to its incitement.

In the West Bank and in Israel, security forces are working around the clock to try and disrupt the wave of terrorism.

The joint command room opened in Nahshonim, a kibbutz in central Israel near Elad, inhabited by the Israel Police, the Israel Defense Forces and the Shin Bet intelligence agency led to the capture of As’ad Yousef As’ad al-Rifa’i, 19, and Subhi Emad Subhi Abu Shqeir, 20, from the Palestinian village of Rumana near Jenin, after a 60-hour manhunt that followed their deadly ax rampage through the city, claiming three lives.

At the height of the search, 800 members of the security forces from various units took part under police command. Units included the Maglan and Egoz special military forces, as well as the Miroul Unit, which specializes in tracking down people based on conducting field analysis.

Drones and radars were deployed throughout regions where security chiefs estimated the terrorists were hiding, feeding the command room with intelligence.

“All of this was done with the understanding that the terrorists were between Elad and Rosh HaAyin,” a military official said on Sunday. Police also obtained forensic evidence, helping the search efforts.

“This is an area with many caves and canals—all could be used as hideouts. We pinpointed the area between Route 400 and then up to the security barrier as the polygon we understood they were hiding in,” said the source.

“The initial capture was conducted by a combined team featuring Maglan, Miroul and the Shin Bet. They saw that a bush looked different, and when they got closer, in line with intelligence, they saw that the bush was moving in a breathing pattern. They then called out for the terrorists to surrender,” said the source.

The terrorists crossed into Israel on Independence Day, May 5, through the security barrier before entering the vehicle of one of their victims, Oren Ben Yiftah, riding with him to Elad and killing him. The IDF Central Command Chief, Maj. Gen. Yehuda Fox, and the commander of the Judea and Samaria Division, Brig. Gen. Avi Bluth, have distributed lessons learned to 11 brigade commanders who are actively protecting the area.

Security forces are continuously monitoring incitement directed at Palestinians and Israeli Arabs in mixed cities, the source added, warning that the material online is “calling for more and more violence.”

“The fact that they [the terrorists] entered is a failure of the IDF. We are in charge and were not able to protect in a hermetic way the 430-kilometer [barrier] area. We are debriefing continuously to learn how to do this better,” said the source.

Looking ahead, the military is set to upgrade the security barrier through a range of means, he added, stating that some of the work is already underway.

“We are all of the time balancing between civilian policy to allow civilian life to flourish and for stability, together with security and counter-terrorism operations. In the last month, 19 people have been killed, and the government decided to upgrade the security steps,” he said.

Security forces have also launched a new campaign to prevent Palestinians without work permits from entering Israel, and where possible, to provide more permits to those who pass security screening.

Source: https://www.jns.org/israel-must-wage-all-out-cyber-campaign-targeting-hamas-insists-counter-terrorism-pro/

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Abbas addressed the UN General Assembly via video-link from Ramallah [Getty]

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas on Friday said that Israel “had one year ahead to end the occupation” of the West Bank.

Abbas made this statement in a speech addressing the UN General Assembly, adding that if the occupation doesn’t end, “we will head to the International Court of Justice, to have a decision on the legitimacy of the occupation on the borders of 1967”.

Speaking via video-link from Ramallah, Abbas hinted that he could withdraw recognition of Israel.

“If the occupation continues, what does our recognition of Israel within its 1967 borders mean?” he said.

Abbas also strongly condemned the Israeli government’s stated policy of not negotiating with his Palestinian Authority, which has limited self-rule in the West Bank. Last week, Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennet said that he won’t meet the Palestinian president.

Abbas accused Israel of “evading a political solution”, warning that “undermining the two-state solution will open the doors for alternatives that will be imposed by facts on the ground, including the return to the Resolution 181 partition plan of 1947”.

He added that Israel’s practices of “ethnic cleansing and annexation”  will “consecrate the reality of a single racist state”, saying that the international community “has failed to hold Israel accountable, allowing it to “behave as a state above the law”.

Israel has constructed hundreds of illegal settlements in the West Bank, where approximately 600,000 Israelis live.

Dialogue with the US

The Palestinian president criticized “the states who give money and weapons to Israel, who uses them to kill Palestinians”. His remarks came one day after the US Congress approved $1 billion in funding for Israel’s Iron Dome system.

However, Abbas also referred to “our constructive dialogue with the American administration to restore US-Palestinian relations”. On Tuesday, US President Joe Biden told the UN General Assembly that he supports the creation of a Palestinian state, saying that it is “the best way” to ensure Israel’s future. Biden, however, added that “we are still a long way from that goal at this moment”.

In addition, Abbas called on UN General Secretary Antonio Guterres to organize an international peace conference “under the auspices of the international quartet only”, as well as to “activiate the UN resolutions concerning international protection for the Palestinian people”.

Abbas referred to the UNGA emergency meeting resolution of June 2018 that requested the UN Secretary General to present “recommendations for an international protection mechanism for Palestinians”.

The international quartet on the Middle East is made up of four countries and organizations involved in mediating the Israeli-Palestinian peace process – the United States, the European Union, the UN, and Russia.

Elections and reconciliation with Hamas

Concerning internal Palestinian politics, Abbas said that municipal elections will be organized in the Palestinian territories “in the coming months”.

He also referred to the presidential and legislative elections, which were planned for last May before Abbas called them off in April. He insisted that “we did not cancel the elections, but we postponed them until we have a guarantee that we can hold them in Jerusalem”.

Palestinians last went to the polls in 2006, when Hamas won Palestinian legislative elections.  Abbas’s official term as Palestinian president ended in 2009, but no presidential elections have been held since then.

In 2007, Hamas took control of the Gaza Strip following a deadly conflict with Abbas’s Fatah movement. Abbas said that he was “working to form a national unity government” with Hamas which would “help to begin the reconstruction of the Gaza Strip”.

The besieged Gaza Strip is still suffering the effects of 14 years of crippling Israeli blockade and four wars which have happened since 2008.

The 85- year-old Palestinian president said during his speech that “I’ve struggled all my life for peace, and I have followed the legal and peaceful ways, but I have found no partner for peace in Israel.

“We thank the international community for helping the Palestinian people build their institutions and economy, but the time has come to take steps that could put an end to occupation,” he added.

Source: https://english.alaraby.co.uk/news/abbas-gives-israel-one-year-end-occupation-west-bank

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