The Israel Security Agency (Shin Bet) lifted a gag  order on Tuesday and revealed it arrested two Hamas and Islamic Jihad cells in the Hevron area before they could carry out plans to murder an Israeli and use the body as a bargaining chip to gain the release of jailed terrorists.

The exposure of terrorist cells has grown at an alarming rate. Less than two days before the gag order was lifted, the IDF raided the home of a wanted terrorist near Shechem and confiscated hundreds of rounds of ammunition, IDF uniforms and protective vests, a gun and knives.

The Hamas and Islamic Jihad cells operated in the village of Bani Naim, located five miles southeast of Hevron and near Highway 60 that runs from Kiryat Arab-Hevron to the southern Hevron Hills and Arad.

The Hamas cell had targeted a nearby Jewish farm, where it planned to murder a Jew and hide the body until it could win the release of Palestinian Authority terrorists and security prisoners.

Security personnel confiscated instructions for building explosive devices, one of which already had been completed.

The Palestinian Authority has remained silent after every exposure of a terrorist cell. PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas  previously has alternately denounced terror while justifying “resistance.”

The Palestinian Authority is committed to dismantle the terrorist infrastructure, but the IDF usually carries out arrest operations.

The Jewish Press asked the IDF if the PA was involved in the recent counterterrorist actions.

“There is ongoing coordination with the Palestinian security forces. We cannot discuss specifics,” a spokeswoman answered.

Behind the vague statement, there are several possibilities.

– the PA is afraid that terrorists will turn their guns on them if it is known that the Arab security forces are cooperating with Israel;

–  the Palestinian Authority security forces are restricting their actions to hauling in criminals and giving out traffic tickets; or

– Abbas is letting his lack of condemnation of the terrorist plots as a sign of encouragement for “martyrdom,” in tandem with PA media incitement for attacks on Israelis.

Take your pick.

IDF soldiers stopped a large-scale terrorist plot in the works with the arrest of a known Hevron terrorist who Arab media claimed who was critically injured even though he was disabled and has been confined to a wheelchair.

Amjad al-Najjar, the director of the Palestinian Prisoners Society office in Hevron, “denounced the arrest raid targeting a man who is already unable  to walk without assistance,” the Bethlehem-based Ma’an news agency reported.

The terrorist, Motaz Faraj Ibedo, was reported as being unable to walk on his own since he was shot in 2011 in the abdomen, and supposedly was “permanently disabled” after a bullet allegedly ruptured internal organs.

Just to make the case even more thrilling, Ibedo claimed he was shot while in custody and cannot walk because of paralyzed left leg.

But even Maan reported  without any contradiction, that an IDF spokeswoman said he “threw objects including a gas can at soldiers” and tried to snatch a soldier’s rifle.

For someone who can’t walk, he is pretty athletic.

The Jewish Press asked the IDF exactly what happened and got a slightly different version.

First of all, Ibedo was arrested for being involved in terrorist activity – again – but nothing small-time.

He “was involved in  something very serious, not marginal, but I can’t share any more information with you because the case still is under investigation,” and IDF spokesman told the Jewish Press.

There is some other information that Maan did not report. For example, he was arrested in a hideout, not in his home.

And the “handicapped” man “threw at the soldiers everything he could get his hands on,” such as hammers, said a military spokeswoman. “I won’t say he does not have a disability, but he can walk,” a spokesman added.

For a man who supposedly cannot walk on his own, he must have had an angel helping him because he walked down the stairs from the second floor, where soldiers nabbed him, and then tried to grab a soldier’s rifle.

The soldier then shot him in the hand. The “critical” injury amounted to his losing a finger, according to the IDF. Actually, it was a critical injury for the terrorist, whose ability to kill a soldier or Israeli civilian with a rifle is now severely limited.

The spokesman noted that even if he were in a wheelchair, “That does not give him a free pass.”

For years, foreign media have gobbled up Arab media reports that Israel’s counterterrorist actions have killed the handicapped, the elderly, pregnant women and mentally ill people.

Several “pregnant women” were discovered in ambulances during the Oslo War, otherwise known as the Second Intifada. On closer inspection, the “pregnant women” often turned out to be terrorists with weapons and suicide belts on their way to “delivery.”

Authorities lifted a gag order Tuesday on the arrest and indictment of two Palestinian Authority terrorists, both in their 20s,  for stabbings of Jews in Samaria and in eastern Jerusalem.

One of the terrorists is student from a village in Samaria who stabbed a man at the Tapuach junction, causing moderate wounds. The attacker, Mistafa Aadel Barghouti confessed to the attack and also to involvement in attacks on soldiers as well. He said he acted alone and was not part of a terrorist cell.

The second terrorist was a member of Hamas and lives southwest of Hevron. Identified as Samer Ahmed Mahmoud Matar, he tried to murder a Jew in Jerusalem and confessed to searching for a Haredi Jew or settler as his victim.

He also considered planting a bomb on a public bus in Beit Shemesh, located 10 miles southwest of Jerusalem.

The leader of the Council of Jewish Communities in Judea and Samaria (Yesha) filed a complaint with police, charging Haaretz journalist Amira Hass with incitement by writing that Palestinian Authority Arabs have a “duty” to throw rocks at Jews.

She wrote her article after an Israeli court found a Hevron cab driver guilty of murder for throwing rocks and causing the fatal cash of a car driven by American-Israeli citizen Asher Palmer 18 months ago. Palmer and his two-year-old son were killed when he lost control of his vehicle and smashed into a guard rail near Kiryat Arba.

The rock-throwing terrorist, Wael Salaman Mohammed el-Arjeh, confessed to throwing rocks but denied he intended to murder anyone.

Hass, a Jewish journalist who has lived in Gaza and Ramallah and fully supports the Palestinian Authority, wrote, “Throwing stones is the birthright and duty of anyone subject to foreign rule. Throwing stones is an action as well as a metaphor of resistance.”

Ron Shechner, a former assistant to Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz in the Sharon government and now director of Yesha, told the Jewish Press he filed the complaint with police because Hass’ article directly incites violence against Jews.

Hours after the complaint was filed with Jerusalem police, rioting Palestinian Authority Arabs stoned dozens of cars on the highway from Jerusalem to Kiryat Arab-Hevron.

Hass sees no problem with rock-throwing, which usually is aimed at causing drivers to lose control of their vehicles and crash, as happened to Palmer.

If Hass’s car were stoned by Arab attackers, she no doubt would blame Israel, which she said is a reality of violence and whose soldiers, “bureaucrats, jurists and lawyers…protect the fruits of violence instilled in foreign occupation − resources, profits, power and privileges.”

She justified stone-throwers by stating it often “is borne of boredom, excessive hormones, mimicry, boastfulness and competition” and is a message that, “We’ve had enough of you, occupiers.”

Hass advised Palestinian Authority schools to introduce basic classes in resistance: how to build multiple “tower and stockade” villages in Area C; how to behave when army troops enter your homes; comparing different struggles against colonialism in different countries; how to use a video camera to document the violence of the regime’s representatives; methods to exhaust the military system and its representatives; a weekly day of work in the lands beyond the separation barrier;

“How to remember identifying details of soldiers who flung you handcuffed to the floor of the jeep, in order to submit a complaint; the rights of detainees and how to insist on them in real time; how to overcome fear of interrogators; and mass efforts to realize the right of movement.”

Ironically, the same advice could be written for Jewish right-wing activists.

Back in July of 2001, the Hebron Jewish community sued Ha’aretz, after Amira Hass had written that the residents of Beit Hadassah in Hevron abused the corpse of a terrorist. She wrote that the residents kicked, spat on, and danced atop the body of a dead Arab terrorist, who had just been shot and killed by soldiers shortly after he threw a grenade at them.

The plaintiffs cited an announcement by the IDF spokesman at the time asserting that the Jewish residents did not abuse the body in any manner. The Hebron residents demanded an apology, which Ha’aretz did not provide. They then sued the paper for 250 thousand shekels (about $70 thousand), and Ha’aretz did not even submit a defense. So Judge Shalev Gertel awarded the full sum to the Hebron community, plus 20 thousand shekels (about $5,500) for legal expenses.

Yori Yanover contributed to this report.

Israeli soldiers killed a Palestinian Authority terrorist late Wednesday night after he and another terrorist firebombed an IDF checkpoint they were manning in a “pillbox” watch tower in Samaria.

The two terrorists attacked the IDF post, near the Jewish community of Einav, and soldiers shot back, killing one of the terrorists. The second terrorist was lightly wounded and was treated at a PA hospital in Tulkarm, approximately 10 miles east of Netanya.

The attack, a major escalation in Palestinian Authority terror, followed a long day of riots, firebomb and rock-throwing attacks on soldiers and motorists, especially on the north-south highway connecting Jerusalem with Kiryat Arab-Hevron. One soldier was slightly wounded by a rock and several cars sustained damage.

Tension and violence have grown since the death on Tuesday of jailed Palestinian Authority terrorist Maysara Abu Hamdiyeh, who was suffering from throat cancer that had quickly spread and became terminal. The Palestinian Authority accused Israel of “murdering” him by not treating him properly and immediately set the stage for an escalation in terror by shutting down schools before noon on Wednesday as a sign of mourning.

Grieving for “martyrs” usually is accompanied by comforting them with riots, rock throwing at Jews, launching rockets on civilians in southern Israel and – Wednesday night – firebombing one of those “degrading” IDF checkpoints where soldiers are on the lookout for terrorists ready to blow up Israelis in urban centers.

The terrorists who threw a firebomb at the IDF at Einav and was killed was a high-school age student, identified as Amar Nasar.

More of the same is expected on Thursday, when Hamdiyeh, who was convicted and jailed for planning a suicide bombing, will be buried in Hevron.

The escalation of terror is the “welcome mat” for U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry when he visits Ramallah and Jerusalem next week.

Hours before the Palestinian Authority terrorist attack on the IDF checkpoint, U.S. State Department spokesman Victoria Nuland told reporters at the daily briefing, with a straight face, that “nobody wants to see violence of any kind, either by demonstrators or by security services in response to peaceful demonstration.”

It is not quite clear what “peaceful demonstration” she was talking about since virtually all of them are accompanied by firebombing and rock-throwing, the latter which Haaretz’s Amira Hass wrote on Wednesday is the “right and duty” of PA Arabs trying to get rid of the “foreign occupier.”

Kerry will be talking about Turkey and Syria as well as his beloved “peace process,” which, unlike Israel, is all the Palestinian Authority is interested in.

One of Nuland’s choice comments in her briefing with reporters on Wednesday was a reference to “the remarks that the President made when he was on his trip, that both sides are going to have to help create an environment for peace.”

The question of what creates an environment of peace was not lost on reporters covering the State Dept. but was a bit too much for Nuland to handle.

One journalist, referring to Kassam rocket fire on Sderot Wednesday morning, asked, “Exchange of fire has resumed between Hamas and Israel. Do you think that November ceasefire has gone?”

Nuland acted as if the rocket attacks never happened, saying, “I’ve seen these reports. I’m not in a position to evaluate them one way or the other. But as you know, we considered that November ceasefire to be absolutely fundamental for everybody involved. So we’ll have to see what happens now.”

What has happened since she finished her media briefing was more rock and firebomb attacks on civilians and soldiers.

The Palestinian Authority strategy for years has been to win concessions from Israel piece by piece to create situation in Judea and Samaria similar to that in Gush Katif before the 2005 expulsion. The idea it to make life so unbearable for Jews that the IDF has no choice but to defend them – and that means killing the enemy – or surrendering the land and moving the checkpoints back to the “Auschwitz borders,” the term used by former Israeli Ambassador to the United Nations Abba Eban to describe the 1949 Temporary Armistice Lines that existed until the Six-Day War in 1967.

If the Palestinian Authority can get to that point, it would take only one or two missiles on Tel Aviv to push the checkpoints back to the Mediterranean Sea.

Hundreds of Palestinian Authority security prisoners rioted while terrorists out of jail attacks Israelis with rocks and firebombs Tuesday following the death of a cancer-stricken terrorist serving a life sentence for helping to plan a suicide bombing.

The Palestinian Authority officially blamed Israel for the “brutal” death of Maysara Abu Hamdiyeh, 64, who died after being transferred from his Negev prison cell to Be’er Sheva’s Soroka Medical Center late last month for medical care.

Six prison guards and three prisoners were injured during riots, and Arabs in Abu Hamdiyeh’s home city of Hevron went on a rampage, throwing rocks and hurling firebombs at police and soldiers.

Abu Hamdiyeh was sentenced to life in 2002 for organizing a Fatah suicide attack at the Kafit coffee shop in Jerusalem, where approximately 50 people were spared death or injury when the bomber’s explosive charge failed to detonate.

“The Palestinian presidency holds the government of Netanyahu responsible for the martyrdom of prisoner Abu Hamdiyeh today in the prisons of the Israeli occupation,” according to PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas’s spokesman Nabil Abu Rudeina.

Just to make certain there is no doubt concerning the gravity of Israel’s supposed guilt, the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) called it a “premeditated crime against humanity.”

Palestinian Authority Minister for Prisoner Affairs Issa Qaraqe charged Israel with causing his death, which he said “is a brutal crime…especially that the prison administration knew that he was suffering from cancer and they didn’t release him and medically neglected him.”

An Israeli prisoner spokeswoman said that Abu Hamdiyeh was diagnosed in February with esophagus cancer, which was not diagnosed as terminal until last week. She added that the Prisons Service “appealed to the release committee to secure his early release, a process which had been started but not yet concluded.”

The cancer-stricken terrorist recently complained to lawyers that he was only receiving pain killers and was not treated for his condition while in jail.

Hamas called for a new intifada against Israel, but the call was unnecessary considering the violent reaction to Abu Hamdiyeh’s death. The Bethlehem-based Ma’an news agency noted that he was the 207th Palestinian Authority prisoner to die in jail, an implication that Israel is to be blamed for deaths of terrorists, even those who suffer from cancer.

Other jailed Palestinian Authority terrorists are risking their lives through hunger strikes, and one of them, Samer al-Issawi, is being cared for in an Israeli hospital, where he reportedly is in critical condition. He had been freed from jail in the swap of kidnapped soldier Gilad Shalit in return for 1,000 terrorists but was re-arrested for violating terms of the agreement.

If he dies, Israel also will be blamed for his starving himself to death.

Over the past few days I’ve seen numerous articles, effectively open letters to Obama, suggesting courses of action while here in Israel. I believe it much more important, not to advise the President, rather to speak to Israeli leaders, those now holding the reins of power in our country.

Most groups that I guide here in Hebron visit, among other places, the museum in Beit Hadassah. This site allows people to receive, over a few minutes, a comprehensive education about the history of Jewish Hebron, over hundreds of years.

One of the most emotional places in the museum is the memorial room, dedicated to the memory of 67 Jews slaughtered in Hebron during the riots in August, 1929. In words and photos, people can understand, in a relatively short period of time, the background to the atrocities committed by their next door neighbors, and the subsequent consequences.

A day prior to the beginning of the massacre, Thursday, August 22, a group of Jews belonging to the Hagana, the Jewish defense organization, visited Hebron and met with the Jewish community leaders. They offered them weapons, saying that Mufti Haj Amin El Husseini was inciting and trouble was about to erupt. Hebron’s Jews refused to take the weapons, explaining that this would only act as a provocation, that they’d already met with the city’s Arab leadership, who promised to protect them. As a result, when, the next day, the rioting commenced, they had no means of protection. The results are history.

Upon conclusion of this explanation, I express two thoughts to my audience: First, in 1967, during the Six Day War, Israel did not conquer and occupy a foreign city when arriving in Hebron. Rather, they had come home. And second: We must be able to protect ourselves. Not only on an individual basis; rather on a national level. When Israel puts its security in the hands of others, the only thing we receive in return are dead Jews. Oslo left Israeli security with Arafat. The result: some 2,000 people killed by Arab terror. Israel abandoned Gaza to the Arabs and have paid a price of some 13,000 rockets and missiles shot into Israel from the land we gave them.

These are the same two thoughts which Israeli leaders must recite to themselves, as well as to their guests, in the coming days. Israel is our homeland. Hebron is the heart of Israel. Beit El is the path via which the Patriarch Abraham toured our land, and was literally a stairway to Heaven. Shilo was home to our most sacred sanctuary for hundreds of years. And of course, Jerusalem is our eternal capital.

Israel is facing a seemingly lethal threat from Iran. Syrian weapons of mass destruction may fall into the hands of Hizballah and Hamas. We cannot and must not allow responsibility for our security to be in the hands of anyone else but ourselves. Not at any time.

While speaking of ‘settlements’ in Judea and Samaria, while discussing Jerusalem and the other holy cities in our Land, our leaders can pose simple questions to Obama and Kerry: ‘Would you, in return for a peace accord with Al-Qaeda, give them Boston or Philadelphia?” “Would you grant them total autonomy or sovereignty in a section of Washington D.C.?”

And while discussing Syria’s chemical weapons, and Iran’s nuclear weapons program, “would you allow Canada to decide if and when the United States should attack and destroy North Korea’s nuclear weapons’ facilities?

Rafael Medoff, in an op-ed piece titled, Obama, FDR and Zionism in today’s Jerusalem Post, basically expresses the bottom line: 

By 1942, FDR was so averse to being seen as pro- Zionist that he rejected even a request to permit the Palestine (Jewish) Symphony Orchestra to name one of its theaters the “Roosevelt Amphitheatre… [We] asked the President about refugees, the White Paper, etc. What he proposed to do about these things. [We] made a number of suggestions to him as to what [we] thought he ought to do and the answer to all of these suggestions was ‘No’… David Niles, a close adviser to FDR, once remarked that if Roosevelt had lived (and thus Harry Truman remained vice president), he probably would not have supported the creation of Israel, and as a result the Jewish state might never have been established.

This was the ‘almighty FDR,’ who, in 1933 said:

The German authorities are treating the Jews shamefully and the Jews in this country are greatly excited. But this is also not a governmental affair. We can do nothing except for American citizens who happen to be made victims.

And what about the ‘almighty BHO’. How will he be quoted fifty or sixty years from now? “I really was very sorry, but there wasn’t anything we could do, it was too late…”

An autopsy, where a Palestinian Authority doctor and legal team were present, determined Sunday night that there were no signs of abuse or violence on the body of prisoner Arafat Jaradat, whose death a prison on Saturday set off a day of rage Sunday.

The Institute of Forensic Medicine at Abu Kabir also said there were no signs of disease but that it could not yet determine the cause of death. Israeli officials said he died of a heart attack.

Palestinian Authority Prisoners Ministry lawyer Kameel Sabbagh insisted that Jaradat was tortured by Israeli interrogators. He told the Bethlehem-based Ma’an news agency that at the prisoner’s most recent hearing last Thursday,  the prisoner complained of “serious pains in his back and other parts of his body because he was being beaten up and hanged for many long hours while he was being investigated.”

Jaradat’s family said there were signs of blood on his body, which was transferred Sunday night to Hevron for burial on Monday, and the Israeli army is on high alert for a repeat  of Sunday’s rock-throwing riots that lightly injured at least two soldiers in the Hevron area and damaged Israeli cars.