Ramming Attack Kills Four Israelis in Jerusalem

Israelis were in mourning Monday following a truck-ramming terrorist attack in Jerusalem Sunday afternoon which killed four young soldiers and wounded several others. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visited the scene in the capital’s Armon Hanatziv neighborhood shortly after it occurred, saying that the attacker, who was killed by gunfire from soldiers and a civilian security guard, was likely motivated by the propaganda of the Islamic State (IS) terror militia.

The Islamic State (IS) terror militia released the latest edition of it’s online English-language magazine  Rumiyah over the weekend, urging its followers to set fires in Western countries to mimic the damage to Israel done by a wave of fires in November. “The whole world witnessed the devastating fires that ravaged Jewish settlements in Palestine, destroying around 700 Jewish homes,” said the article entitled “Just Terror Tactics”.

A secretly recorded conversation between a journalist for Al Jazeera pretending to be a pro-Israel activist and a junior member of the staff at Israel’s embassy in London in which the staff member spoke of a desire to “take down” anti-Israel members of Britain’s parliament prompted an official apology to the British government Sunday by Ambassador to Britain Mark Regev.

The government of the Valencia region in Spain reportedly voted recently to officially adopt a policy supporting the international effort to Boycott, Divest and Sanction (BDS) Israel. The general assembly of the semi-autonomous region, which is home to 2.5 million residents, issued a statement calling the decision “a grand success for the Palestinian cause,” adding that the assembly will “keep on fighting until Palestine is free.” Pro-Israel groups in Spain plan to challenge the vote in the courts.

The truth is that the Palestinian Authority can exist as a non-Islamist polity only if Israel protects it. The Israelis are providing West Bank Palestinians with protection from the ongoing implosion of the Muslim Arab world.

On January 15, the president of France is convening a major international conference on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict with some 70 countries expected to attend. Israel has been very firm that it will not attend and that it objects to the whole idea of this conference.