Israel’s National Security Council Counter-Terrorism Bureau, which works in tandem with the country’s two major intelligence branches, the Shin Bet and the Mossad, has issued an ominous warning to both Israeli and Diaspora Jews who might be considering traveling around the globe during the upcoming Rosh Hashana and Sukkoth holiday seasons.
The Counter-Terrorism Bureau claims, “The travel warnings are based on solid and reliable information and reflect tangible threats. They are liable to constitute pretexts for terrorist attacks against Israeli & Jewish targets abroad.”
Then the Counter-Terrorism Bureau goes on to list the regions where there are culpable threats to all Jews. Some are obvious (Arab nations and unstable Third World countries) but others should give us all pause to reflect upon the kind of world we live in today. “Recent terrorist attacks by Islamic extremists over the past year in Belgium, Canada, Australia, France and Denmark raise concerns over additional attacks against Western targets, including Israeli and Jewish targets, by veterans of the fighting in Syria and Iraq who are affiliated with Global Jihad (including Islamic State) and by local and regional elements inspired by the terrorist organizations. The global terrorist campaign by Iran and Hezbollah continues to threaten Israeli and Jewish targets around the world, especially tourists and Jewish symbols (rabbis, community leaders, Chabad houses),” the Counter-Terrorism Bureau claimed.
As a point of fact, global jihadists and Hezbollah agents are active and also operating across Latin American countries and yes, even within the USA. There have been numerous stories in both the American and Israeli news media focusing on the active recruitment of young immigrant Americans in Minnesota, Michigan and Texas, as well as Moslem immigrants living in Paraguay, Venezuela and Brazil, by global jihadists such as al-Qaeda, Islamic State and Hezbollah.
It makes no difference that al-Qaeda/Islamic State, which are affiliated with Sunni Islam and Hezbollah, which is aligned with Iran’s Shiite brand of Islam, despise each other. When it comes to killing Jews and Israelis they are aligned in a common cause.
And based on the information from the Counter-Terrorism Bureau, whose “TOP SECRET” elements are only shared with the FBI, CIA, England’s MI5, Canada’s CSIS and a few others, Jews and Israelis need to look over their shoulders when conducting business, traveling or just walking across the street to pray in a synagogue in major cities such as Toronto, London, Paris, Brussels, Melbourne, Copenhagen and yes, even in New York, home to the largest Jewish population outside of Israel. In recent years, the NYPD (N.Y. Police Department) has increased its visible and below the radar security presence at synagogues and other vital Jewish installations across the metropolitan area, including Israeli government offices.
This is the world we live in today, 2015, only 70 years after the murder of 6,000,000 Jews in the Holocaust.
Two days after Rosh Hashana, the U.S. government will be voting to give Iran $150 billion dollars in 9 months time, which will undoubtedly fund its global terror activities, and destabilize the moderate Arab regimes in the Middle East.
Only 70 years after the mass murder of half of the Jewish people, our “ally”, the USA, will be enabling terrorists to continue to murder Jews around the world.
Only 70 years after the Holocaust, the six great powers of the world are agreeing to give Iran, a country that has vowed to destroy Israel, the ability to do Hitler’s job much more efficiently; to kill 6,000,000 million Jews in an instant, instead of 5 years.
Since August 2001, when a Palestinian suicide bomber blew up the crowded Sbarro restaurant, as innocent civilians were enjoying a meal and good conversation, in the heart of Jerusalem, OneFamily has been on the front-lines of providing life-saving and life-changing physical and fiscal support to thousands upon thousands of victims of terrorism and war. It is both a revolutionary and evolutionary organization that constantly responds to the on-going and changing needs of those who have been directly and indirectly affected by the specter of terrorism. Not a day goes by without an incident of terrorism in Israel. OneFamily’s staff of dedicated volunteers know only too well of targeted holiday terrorism in Israel, highlighted by the Park Hotel Passover seder massacre in Netanya on March 27, 2002 and the recent murder of high-ranking police officer, Baruch Mizrachi, by a Palestinian terrorist as he was driving with his wife and children on April 14, 2014, on his way to a Passover Seder. To this day, OneFamily continues to provide support to the victims of both wanton murders.
Yes, we Jews are a “stiff-necked” people who are imbued with a survivalist instinct. But that doesn’t mean we should EVER accept the fact that we can be systematically targeted by murderers whether we are walking the streets of Paris, New York or Jerusalem, or when we are on our way to celebrate the New Year with our loved ones.
September 1939 and September 2011 were ‘global wake-up’ calls to rise up against tyranny and terrorism, which engulfed Jews and non-Jews alike.
In1939 the world failed to believe that Hitler meant what he said.
In 2015, the world is making exactly the same mistake.
When we need Eli Weisel the most, to stand as a living reminder of the destruction that was, he has tragically taken ill and cannot bear witness to the past!
This holiday season, we need to remind our Allies, amongst the nations of the world, that the old adage is still true.
“Those who do not remember the past, are condemned to repeat it”.
(George Santayana)
Mr. Belzberg is Chairman of OneFamily in Jerusalem, Israel, an organization that rebuilds, rehabilitates and reintegrates INTO SOCIETY thousands of victims of terror & war in Israel
http://www.onefamilytogether.org/
