The Barzilai Hospital in Ashkelon announced Sunday morning that an Israeli Bedouin doctor who was doing his internship at the medical center is the same person who security sources said joined the Islamic State ISIS group of barbaric killers and was killed in fighting in August.

The doctor was identified as Alkian Othman, age 26, from the Bedouin city of Hura, located approximately 10 miles north of Be’er Sheva. His brother was arrested last April for helping him on his journey.

Barzilai officials searched for its resident doctor-turned-terrorist after he disappeared and discovered that he changed professions. Instead of saving lives, he preferred to end lives, and his case, it was his own.

Othman, who studied medicine in Jordan, was supposed to begin working in Israel’s Soroka Medical Center in May but suddenly disappeared.

“Security forces contacted us and searched for him,” Barzilai Hospital said in a statement on Sunday. “Then, we were informed that he chose to join ISIS.”

So much for a bright future.

He had plenty of other companions from Israel.

More than 30 Israeli Druze, Bedouin and Arabs, all of them with Israeli citizenship, have been enlisted in the ranks of ISIS after leaving the country for a “vacation” in Turkey and then moving to Syria.

“My son went to Syria last January, and we did not know what his intentions were,” said the father of Ahmed Havashi, from northern Israel, who also was killed in battle. “I told him this is not our religion; this is not the message of Islam,” the bereaved father added.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon will visit communities battered by Hamas missiles and meet with relatives of victims after his visit to Gaza, his press secretary told The Jewish Press Tuesday evening.

An earlier story entitled “Ban Ki-Moon Skips Sderot on Way to ‘Stand with the People of Gaza’ was based on official United Nations press releases that Ban said he will “listen directly to the people of Gaza.” A visit to southern Israel was not mentioned.

The omission of any reference to his itinerary in southern Israel was an “unfortunate error” that will be investigated, his press secretary Stefan Dujarric said.

Fresh from a visit to Libya, another hotspot where the United Nations has been a colossal failure, Ban’s speech at the “Donors Conference” in Cairo to make Hamas safe from the world marked another step towards the international body’s becoming an instrument for insanity.

It turns out, according to Ban, the “root causes” of the war are not Hamas’ stated aim of destroying Israel. “We must not lose sight of the root causes of the recent hostilities: a restrictive occupation that has lasted almost half a century, the continued denial of Palestinian rights, and the lack of tangible progress in peace negotiations,” Ban said.

It’s all because of the “occupation,” meaning the Israeli presence in Judea and Samaria following the Jordanian army’s retreat in 1967 after joining half a dozen other Arab countries that tried and failed to annihilate Israel.

It’s because of the “occupation” – not the occupation by Jordan of Judea and Samaria after it and the Arab world refused to accept the U.N. recognition of Israel and the partition plan that would have left Israel a defenseless nation and without Jerusalem.

It’s because of the “occupation” when Israel took over Gaza from Egypt, which was happy to get rid of it in the war and allow Israel to breathe life into that had been a hapless and hopeless society.

It’s because of the occupation – but not the occupation of the political vacuum by Yasser Arafat, who led the destruction of the Arab economy and religious and social freedoms.

Not only is the “occupation” the reason that Hamas attacked Israel again and again and again.

One of the root causes also is the “denial of Palestinian rights,” rights they never had under Jordanian and Egyptian role. Ban did not refer to other rights, such as free speech, a fair trial and the freedom to be a Christian. It would be too much to suggest that Jews be free to be Jews because that is what the Hamas attacks were about.

Ban says otherwise.

The war was because of “the lack of tangible progress in peace negotiations,” the euphemism for creating a Palestinian Authority state according to its own definitions, including ridding the United Nations of the burden of “refugees,” who would flood Israel to rid the world of a Jewish nation.

Ban is to meet with Israeli leaders Monday. The earlier Jewish Press article, based on U.N. press releases, stated that “Ban will reserve for Arabs in Gaza the privilege of talking with him.”

“I believe it is important to be on the ground,” he told journalists in Cairo. “That is why I am announcing today that I will visit Gaza on Tuesday to listen directly to the people of Gaza, survey the situation for myself.”

The official UN News Center removed any doubt that the United Nations is a front for the United Anti-Israel Nations.

Press Secretary Dujarric phoned The Jewish Press to correct the official press releases’ omissions and said, Ban “will go to Kibbutz HaShlosha near and will meet with inhabitants of the kibbutz and with families impacted by the rockets and relatives of people who lost loved ones, and he will meet with them privately.”

However, Ban’s speech in Cairo and the official U.N. News Center hardly mentioned Hamas attacks on Israel.

“During the recent 51-day conflict, dozens of schools, hospitals and clinics were destroyed or damaged in Gaza. UN facilities sheltering women and children were hit, resulting in many casualties. Eleven staff members of the UN were killed in the course of the conflict,” the U.N. News Center stated.

No mention was made of Israeli casualties, No mention was made of damage in Israel. No mention was made that Israel did not raise a finger at Gaza until Hamas attacked.

The United Nations continues to act as a propaganda organ for the Palestinian Authority, which now officially includes Hamas, and the “unfortunate error” only highlights its agenda.

“Given that 70 percent of Gazans are refugees, we have a huge responsibility to rebuild homes and improve the situation in the refugee camps,” said UNRWA spokesperson Chris Gunness speaking with UN radio from Jerusalem this afternoon.

The Al Qaeda-linked Jabhat al-Nusra (Al Nusra Front) terror group in Syria is reconciling with the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS).

The two groups have been at odds for most of the past year. However, last week’s U.S.-led air strikes in northern and eastern Syria have prompted Jabhat al-Nusra to renew its ties with ISIS, declaring the strikes a “war on Islam” in an audio statement released this past weekend.

Scores of al-Nusra members were killed in the first wave of U.S.-led air strikes, leading the group to vow retaliation for the attacks. The two terror groups are now holding war councils together, according to a senior source quoted by Britain’s London-based newspaper, The Guardian.

A spokesperson for the group told the paper that 73 members had defected to ISIS on Friday alone. More are planning to do the same this week. “We are in a long war,” al-Nusra spokesperson Abu Firas al-Suri said in a statement posted on social networking sites. “This war will not end in months or years; this war could last for decades.”

U.S. President Barack Obama admitted the intelligence community had underestimated the situation in both Iraq and Syria.

In an interview on “60 Minutes” broadcast on the CBS network, Obama said, “Over the past couple of years, during the chaos of the Syrian civil war, where essentially you have huge swaths of the country that are completely ungoverned, they were able to reconstitute themselves. And so this became ground zero for jihadists around the world.”

That ‘ground zero’ is barely a fired mortar shell away from Israel’s northern border with Syria. “Spillover” from the Syrian civil war raging between government troops and rebel forces has resulted in shell fire landing not only in Israeli territory but also in Lebanon, Iraq, Jordan and Turkey.

Of more concern is the fact that Jabhat al-Nusra controls the Quneitra border crossing — the sole crossing between Israel and Syria — and that ISIS now controls the border crosssings between Iraq and Syria, and the Iraqi side of the crossing with Jordan.

Israeli military officials are monitoring the situation closely.

Twelve Jordanian parliamentarians have cancelled a planned visit to Gaza on security grounds.

The lawmakers traveled last week to Cairo, expecting to enter Gaza via the Rafah border crossing in a “solidarity” move following this summer’s Operation Protective Edge. Also on the agenda were planned meetings with leaders of Hamas and other terrorist groups.

On Saturday, however, they announced they were turning around and heading back to Jordan without having visited Gaza.

“The Egyptian authorities have informed us that the security situation in Sinai is very dangerous, especially the area between Rafah and Al-Arish, which makes it difficult for us to reach the border with the Gaza Strip,” said Jordanian delegation head Yehya Al-Saud. He added that the Egyptian government asked the group to postpone its visit out of concern for “the safety of its members,” saying they “wouldn’t be able to guarantee our safety.”

A second delegate, Khamis Attiyeh, said “We are all very sad because of the cancellation of our visit due to the situation.”

One Palestinian Authority Arab was killed and two others were wounded Saturday in clashes with Egyptian soldiers near Rafah, according to Arab sources. A group of Gazans emerged from a smuggling tunnel on the Egyptian side of the border with Gaza, according to the report. Egyptian officers opened fire after the group ignored calls to surrender, and instead attempted to re-enter the tunnel and escape back into Gaza. Egyptian security has been on high alert after receiving intelligence about planned attacks through the tunnels.

Last week six Egyptian police officers were killed and two more were wounded last week when a roadside bomb exploded in northern Sinai on the road between Rafah and the provincial capital, El Arish. Ansar Beit al-Maqdis, a terror group linked to Al Qaeda, has taken responsibility for similar past attacks, claiming it is avenging the blood of Islamists killed and detained in the government’s crackdown on the Muslim Brotherhood organization.

In the past month several people have been beheaded in the Sinai Peninsula. The victims were murdered for allegedly collaborating with Israel. They were killed by Ansar Beit al-Maqdis terrorists.

Israel’s National Security Council Counter-Terrorism Bureau on Monday warned people traveling for the High Holidays of concern over attacks “against Israeli and Jewish targets around the world, especially in Western Europe, by global jihad elements, including ISIS.”

The warning comes less than a week that the U.S. State Dept. still was living in the past with its updated warning that visitors to Israel should buy gas masks. Perhaps U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry is afraid that strong winds from the west will blow in to Israel the smell from Foggy Bottom.

Washington routinely inflates every Arab riot in eastern Jerusalem into a full-fledged intifada, but media hype notwithstanding, virtually every tourist spot place in Israel is safer than the streets of Washington.

The Israel agency noted, “There is at this time an increasing potential threat as a result of the recent Operation Protective Edge during which there were many demonstrations at Israeli embassies and consulates around the world. There has also been an increase in anti-Semitic incidents. These trends are likely to continue during the holiday period….

“The global terrorist campaign by Iran and Hezbollah continues to threaten Israeli and Jewish targets around the world, especially ‘soft’ targets, i.e. tourists and Jewish symbols,” such as rabbis, community leaders and Chabad houses.

Officials there is a “concrete threat” regarding travel to Egypt and Jordan, both of which have peace treaties with Israel, as well as the Gulf States, southern Thailand, Chechnua, some parts of northern India and the Sinai Peninsula..

It also is ill-advised to travel to Azerbaijan, Kenya, Morocco, Nigeria, Oman and Turkey.

Israel has named Einat Schlein to represent the Jewish State in Jordan. She will be the first female ambassador to serve in the post in an Arab country. The appointment is one that could potentially cause complications due to cross-cultural issues regarding gender relations, although of all the Arab nations, Jordan is the most Westernized.

Schlein began her diplomatic career in Amman, and also served at the Israeli embassy in Washington DC. She currently heads a division at the Center for Political Research, an intelligence and analysis-based branch of the foreign ministry.

National borders as we know them here in the Middle East are pretty modern. And like in Europe* there have been many changes over the past couple of hundred years. Pretty much all of the present countries, barring one, has some historic basis. Egypt and Israel (as a Jewish country) probably have the longest documented history, although there was a long gap in time, about two thousand years when there wasn’t a Jewish State.

One Middle East country has absolutely no basis in history and is ruled by colonizers/occupiers placed by European powers in the mid-twentieth century. That’s Jordan. According to Wikipedia:

With the Great Arab Revolt in 1916 and the consequent British invasion, the area came under Occupied Enemy Territory Administration in 1917 and with the British mandate of Transjordan in early 1920s, it became the Emirate of Transjordan under the Hashemite Emir. In 1946, independent Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan was formed and shortly admitted to the United Nations and the Arab League. In 1948, Jordan fought with the newly born state of Israel over lands of former Mandatory Palestine, effectively gaining control of the West Bank and annexing it with its Palestinian population. (italics mine)**

For many centuries, European powers played god with lands and continents that were administered either as city states or tribal areas. Any place that hadn’t been christianized was subject to European colonization.

Over the decades of Jordan’s existance it has periodically been threatened by the same Arab terrorists who want to destroy Israel. They very rightfully see the Hashemites as invaders and colonizers/occupiers.

Jordan

Jordan reiterates firm stance against terrorism Jeddah, Sept. 11 (Petra) – Jordan reiterated on Thursday its firm stance against terrorism and affirmed the need to eradicate it from its roots. Minister of Foreign Affairs and Expatriate Affairs Nasser Judeh told a joint US-Arab ministerial meeting in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia that the Middle East is facing serious challenges to the regional security and stability…Jordan, the foreign minister said, believes that the Islamic State poses a direct threat to its national security, calling for closer international efforts to uproot this terrorist organization before it is too late. “Terrorism is a threat to the region and the whole world,” Judeh said…

The Jordanian Government knows well that the Islamic State is directly connected to Hamas and all the other terrorists plaguing our region.

*old joke about the Polish-Russian border change

“I’m so glad that we’re under Polish rule again.” “Why?” “I can’t stand those freezing Russian winters.”

**The truth is that the United Nations had allocated the West Bank sic as another new Arab country, but Jordan invaded it and occupied it until it lost it to Israel in the 1967 Six Days War.