A British taxpayers advocacy group has published a report slamming England’s continued funding of the Palestinian Authority’s Jihadist hate curriculum in PA school textbooks.

“How British taxpayers are funding hate education and violence in the Middle East,” was the title of the paper published by the TaxPayers' Alliance. “'Funding Hate Education' reveals disturbing evidence showing how British taxpayers’ money has been spent helping to fund hate education and promote violence in the Middle East,” the report states (Click here to download full report in .pdf format).

“In order for a [peace] deal to stick over the long term, it is essential that the Palestinian population fully accepts it,” said Matthew Sinclair, the author of the report and a policy analyst at the TaxPayers’ Alliance. “This is why it is particularly concerning that British aid is supporting the radicalization of the Palestinian population, particularly the children… British taxpayers’ money is supporting the radicalization of Palestinian youth and hurting our objectives in the region. This needs to, and can, change.”

According to the report, the ?47.5 million of British aid to the PA is supporting:

* Textbooks praising insurgents in Iraq, arguing for the execution of apostates and the idealization of martyrdom.
* Television broadcasts aimed at children that urge violence against non-Muslims and promote the view that Israel should not exist.

The British newspaper Express elicited a response to the report from the Department for International Development (DFID), which answered: “We don’t fund the Palestinian Authority directly and therefore don’t fund textbooks."

The TaxPayers’ Alliance fired back almost immediately: “How strange, on the 11th of July last year they put out a press release titled: ‘UK leads the way in resuming direct aid for Palestinian Authority,’” the group pointed out on its web site, reprinting the release, which boasted: “The UK has underlined its support for the Palestinian Authority with a contribution of ?3 million to allow it to begin paying off its private sector debts, Douglas Alexander, Secretary of State for International Development, announced today. A month after Hamas’s takeover of Gaza and the establishment of a new Government by President Mahmoud Abbas, today’s announcement makes the UK one of the first countries to resume direct financial assistance to the Palestinian Authority.”

“Our report raises serious issues about how the UK contributes to the long-term prospects for an end to the Israel-Palestine conflict.  It makes positive recommendations, modeled on longstanding practice in Northern Ireland, for how our aid money can encourage an end to radicalization and hate education.  The DFID should look at those recommendations instead of issuing nonsensical rebuttals.”

For more information on incitement in PA textbooks, visit the Israel-based Center For Monitoring the Impact of Peace, whose reports are widely quoted in the TaxPayers’ report.

Four Hamas terrorists gave themselves up to IDF soldiers in the Golani Brigade following an attack on the former Palestinian Authority Interior Ministry building near the Gaza town of Jabalya on Saturday.

The gunmen, who are members of the Hamas terror group, handed over their weapons and were taken for interrogation by security forces.

Sources in the defense establishment called the capture a great operational and military achievement, saying the prisoners would provide important details on Hamas’s activities. Hamas's Islamist forces generally prefer death to capture.

Some strategists have pointed out that most Hamas prisoners in Israel are expected to be released in the near future as part of a deal to win the release of IDF Cpl. Gilad Shalit, who is being held by Hamas.

The Golani Brigade was joined by IDF Tank and Engineering units in overnight operations in Jabalya, a popular launching site for terrorists firing Kassam rockets at Israel.

Two terrorists were killed and several others were wounded late Friday night in IDF air strikes and ground operations. A missile fired in an air strike in the Sajalya neighborhood of Gaza City scored a direct hit on a car carrying terrorists, Kassam rockets and other weapons. The car’s occupants were wounded in the strike.

Kassam Attacks Continue Saturday
Rocket attacks began again on the western Negev early Saturday morning with a Kassam explosion in Sderot. The rocket hit a home, causing damage but no casualties. A second rocket landed in an open area.

Within an hour, two more rockets landed in the Sha’ar HaNegev Regional Council. One exploded near an educational center and the other landed in an open area, also with no injuries or damage reported.

A fourth Kassam landed in an open field next to a western Negev kibbutz in the late afternoon. No injuries or damage reported.

IDF Eliminates Senior Terrorist in Samaria
A senior Tanzim terrorist was killed by IDF soldiers in a joint counter-terrorism operation with the General Security Service (Shin Bet) in the Samarian city of Shechem Saturday morning.

An army spokesman said 21-year-old Ahmed Muhamad Ibrahim Sanakra was an expert in producing explosives, explosive belts and ammunition. He was involved in planning and executing suicide bombings in Israel as well as recruiting suicide bombers.

Sanakra was also responsible for wounding an IDF officer with an explosive device he planted in the Balata section of Shechem. In addition, he masterminded dozens of shooting attacks on IDF troops as they carried out operations in city, which is known as “terrorist central” in Palestinian Authority-controlled Judea and Samaria.

Four other wanted Tanzim terror operatives were arrested during the operation in which IDF forces killed Sanakra. Among them were Sanakra’s 20-year-old senior assistant, Yossef Atiya Namer Hanun, 21-year-old Mahmud Gamil Mahmad Huiti and 20-year-old Mahmud Hamdan A-Hadi Shtiwi – a prominent operative in Balata since his release from an Israeli prison in October 2007. 

All of the arrested operatives were involved in an attempted terror attack on Israel within the past few days.

Ezra HaLevi contributed to this report

In his first live appearance since September 2006, Hizbullah terror chief Hassan Nasrallah claimed in a speech Saturday that the IDF had left behind body parts of its soldiers on the field in the Second Lebanon War.

“I tell the Israelis, we have the heads of your soldiers, we have hands, we have legs… there is even a near-complete body, a half or three-quarters of a body from head to chest to the torso,” he claimed.

The IDF spokesman’s office said in a statement that Nasrallah’s claims “constitute a cruel and cynical move by an organization that flagrantly tramples the most fundamental ethical codes, shows no respect for human rights or the international conventions that govern these matters.

“Even more so, his speech demonstrates that the Hezbollah terrorist organization violates the values that are sacred to all religions including Islam. We call upon all those with the most basic common sense to view him as cowardly and to condemn him,” said the statement.

The families of IDF reservists Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev, whose kidnapping by Hizbullah terrorists in July 2006 set off the war, both stated that Nasrallah’s remarks were not relevant to their loved ones.

“By our estimation, Nasrallah did not address the abducted soldiers,” said Regev’s brother Ayal. “It’s all part of the psychological war he is carrying out.”

Goldwasser’s wife Karnit had a similar reaction. “From our perspective, he hasn’t said anything,” she said.

Neither soldier has been seen or heard from since their abduction. Representatives of various governments and agencies, including the International Red Cross, have been barred from visiting them, in violation of the Geneva Convention.

The Hizbullah chief terrorist’s speech included some sabre-rattling about the group’s readiness to fight Israeli forces again. “I announce that our forces are on full alert to confront any possible war against Lebanon,” he declared. “If Israel carries out any new aggression against us, we promise to retaliate in a war that will change the whole map of the region.”

Nasrallah’s speech at a rally celebrating the Shi’ite Ashoura festival in southern Beirut was his first live appearance. The Hizbullah chief went into hiding a few weeks after the end of the war in fear of being assassinated by the IDF, which has threatened to kill him. His speeches have been delivered via video link and television.

In his speech, Nasrallah made a point of including US President George W. Bush, who completed what he called a “satanic” eight-day tour of the region last week, as a target. Hizbullah has been funded, trained and equipped by Iran.

“Bush wants to convince our rulers and people that Iran is the enemy, that Iran poses a danger and a threat and that Israel is a brother, a beloved friend and neighbor for whom we must extend our hand in peace,” he said. “The entire (Arab) nation is called upon to reply to Bush’s trip by staying committed to the choice of (armed) resistance and supporting resistance groups everywhere.”

 Israeli security officials noted that Saturday was the second time Nasrallah has made such a statement in the recent past, adding that the Hizbullah leader is under pressure to close a deal on a prisoner swap for Lebanese prisoners in Israeli jails.

The government acknowledged Sunday morning that body parts of IDF soldiers were left on the battlefield during the 2006 Second Lebanon War, but said it would not negotiate with Hizbullah terrorists or release prisoners in return for them.

The statement came in response to taunts Saturday by Hizbullah arch terrorist chief Hassan Nasrallah in his first live appearance before a crowd of tens of thousands in celebration of an Islamic holiday in a Beirut neighborhood.

“I tell the Israelis, we have the heads of your soldiers, we have hands, we have legs… there is even a near-complete body, a half or three-quarters of a body from head to chest to the torso,” he claimed in remarks aimed at families of the fallen soldiers.

The claim touches on an extremely sensitive point in Jewish law which requires burial of every available part of a Jewish body, including the blood, in respect for the receptacle that formerly hosted a holy soul. The ZAKA organization sends volunteers to the site of every fatality, including those of the most difficult combat or terrorist situations to recover the body parts and as much of the blood as possible in order to perform this commandment.

Families of the two IDF reservists who were kidnapped in the Hizbullah attack that sparked the war, Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev, said they would not respond to what they said were remarks irrelevant to their loved ones.

Ministers at the weekly Sunday morning cabinet meeting noted, as did Regev's brother Ayal, that "Nasrallah is deliberately trying to play on our nerves" and reiterated a call for the assassination of the Hizbullah terror leader. Nasrallah went into hiding almost immediately after the war ended, fearing Israel's announced intentions to kill him.
Interior Minister Meir Sheetrit said bluntly, "We should not be intimidated by him, nor should we surrender to him. We should eliminate him."

Housing Minister Ze'ev Boim echoed Sheetrit's fiery remarks, adding that Nasrallah was "a sewer." Religious Affairs Minister Yitzchak Cohen, of Shas said Nasrallah's jeers "brought Adolf Hitler and others like him to mind."

Cohen also echoed a point voiced by the security establishment, that Saturday's speech was the second time in recent weeks that Nasrallah had made similar remarks. "The mere fact that this vicious and insane man crawled out of his hole is worrying," added Cohen. "He may be trying to entice us to fall into a trap that would serve his agenda."

Security sources said, however, that the taunts indicated that Nasrallah is under pressure to close a prisoner swap deal with Jerusalem over Lebanese prisoners held in Israeli jails. The sources did not disclose the source of the pressure.

The government said the IDF had accounted for the bodies of all 119 soldiers who were killed in the war, but said small body parts might not have been found during evacuations carried out under fire from the enemy. All the families of the fallen soldiers were completely updated on the condition of the bodies, which were buried according to Jewish law.

Military officials agreed with a statement by Goldwasser's wife Karnit that Nasrallah did not appear to be referring to the captives.

With the University lecturers’ strike over, approximately 120,000 students returned to Israeli universities Sunday after a three-month-long strike.

Senior lecturers reached an agreement with the Finance Ministry over the weekend regarding their salaries. Education Minister Yuli Tamir said Saturday that students would not face a tuition increase.

The first semester will begin now and last until April and the second will last until August. Summer vacation will be cancelled this year.

Sunday will mark the beginning of the first semester courses in all subjects taught by senior lecturers, but final exams in courses taught by junior lecturers, who did not go on strike, will be held now as well. 

Bar Ilan University officials announced Sunday that the school would not hold classes on Sunday as other universities plan to do, but rather would wait until Monday. Officials explained that the administration plans to prepare a revised schedule before students return. Tests will be held as planned, they said.

The Final Agreement:
* A 24.2 raise in three payments over the next two years.
* The raise consists of 14 percent to compensate for salary erosion plus the 4.7 percent granted all public sector employees, in addition to a raise of 5.5 percent.
* Lecturers agreed not to strike again before 2010.

Lecturers say the result of the strike was that the Finance Ministry agreed to pay them three times as much as originally offered.

Junior faculty members are now considering a strike. The Coordinating Forum of Junior Academic Staff Associations has dispatched an urgent letter to the Committee of University Presidents demanding negotiations be opened regarding their work conditions.

Students hailed a victory as well, after threatening to strike if implementation of recommendations from the Shochat Committee were made a condition in the agreement reached with senior lecturers. The recommendations, and particularly the proposal to raise tuition, were not mentioned in the final agreement.

The annual Herzliya Conference begins Sunday. The first session will be held in the Knesset. Activists and social organizations see a dangerous precedent.

The privately-funded conference, which handpicks politicians and policy-makers to address the issues of the day, was the venue at which former Prime Minister Ariel Sharon first unveiled his Unilateral Disengagement plan, which involved withdrawing the IDF from Gaza and destroying 25 Jewish towns in Gaza and northern Samaria.

Participants in this year’s conference will discuss the status of Jerusalem, a recent "patriotism survey" and the upcoming Winograd Committee report, among other things.  The conference will continue Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday in Herzliya.

Social organizations, left-wing youth groups, and some Members of Knesset plan to protest outside the Knesset building during the conference Sunday.  MK Shelly Yechimovich (Labor) said she plans to protest, explaining that she opposes a privately-funded conference being hosted at the Knesset. A privately-funded event in the Knesset, she said, poses “a danger to parliamentary democracy.”

Funders include philanthropist Ronald Lauder, the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung (“a non-profit organization with its roots in the German and International Social Democracy”), the Ministries of Defense and Foreign Affairs, the Jewish National Fund, the Abraham Fund Initiatives (“a social change organization working to promote Jewish-Arab coexistence, cooperation and equality”), the American Jewish Committee, the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, United States Embassy Tel Aviv - Office of Public Affairs, Raytheon (“an industry leader in defense and government electronics, space, information technology, business aviation and special mission aircrafts”) and Lockheed Martin.

Conference founder Uzi Arad of the Herzliya Interdisciplinary Center dismissed protesters' concerns, pointing out that several such events take place at the Knesset every year.

Of all the policy conferences, however – Sderot, Caesaria, the Jerusalem Conference and others – this is the first to be hosted by the Knesset, with the Prime Minister’s speech aired live as a sort of state of the union address.

This year’s Herzliya Conference will hold discussions on the following topics:
* Beyond Bali: Climate Change and National Security
* The Challenge of Radical Islam
* Negotiating the Final Status Agreement
* Assessing Iran's Nuclear Intentions and Capabilities
* Can a Nuclear Iran be Prevented?
* Can a Nuclear Iran be Deterred?
* The Sunni-Shiite Rift – Origins and Strategic Implications
* The Next 60 Years: Goals and Directions for Israel and the Jewish People
* Reforming Education and Higher Learning
* Arab Israelis and National Service
* Israel-Diaspora Relations
* Jewish Secularism in the 21st Century
* Trends in the Connection of the Diaspora's Young Generation to Israel
* Government Responsibility for Jewish-Arab Equality and Integration

Prime Minister Ehud Olmert will deliver his Herzliya address at the closing dinner, 8 PM Wednesday night.

Live broadcasts with English translation of most sessions can be viewed by clicking here.

The Besheva newspaper's annual Jerusalem Conference will take place February 19-20. Click here for this year’s program.

Three teenaged girls continue to be held in prison - despite a ruling by a District Court judge implying that the police should have released them this past Friday.

District Court Justice Noam Solberg ruled last Wednesday, regarding one of seven incarcerated girls, that whether or not the police succeed in identifying her, she must be freed by Friday at noon.  Judge Solberg hinted that it is up to the police to identify them, and that it is not the girls' obligation to identify themselves.
 
As a result, the police entered the homes of several of the girls on Thursday night and confiscated their photos.  Consequently, the next day, four of the girls were released. (A baby sister was born to one of them just a few hours later.)  The police claim, however, that they were unable to identify the other three girls - and they therefore remain in prison.

In protest of this apparent violation of the spirit of the law by the authorities, yet another demonstration was held outside the N'vei Tirtzah women's prison on Saturday night.  The girls have been held in the maximum-security prison in Ramle because they refused to identify themselves or otherwise cooperate with the legal system that they say wishes to prevent Jews from living in Judea and Samaria.

The girls' parents and the Honenu civil-rights organization demand that Justice Solberg's ruling be carried out in full. They say that police and the Prison Service are ignoring the ruling merely because Justice Solberg himself is a "settler," i.e., a resident of Judea and Samaria.  "There is no other explanation for the fact that the authorities refuse to accept the ruling of a District Court judge," Honenu said in a statement, "and prefer to cruelly harass young girls and their parents."

The girls were arrested over three weeks ago while participating in the attempt to build a Jewish outpost in Givat HaOr, just outside the entrance to Beit El in Binyamin, north of Jerusalem.

One of the girls in question is no longer a minor, having recently turned 18, and has been in prison for some two months.  She was arrested on similar charges of trying to assert Jews' rights to live in the Biblical areas of Judea and Samaria.

Some 50 people took part in the Saturday night protest, including some of the girls who had been freed from prison the day before.  One protestor was arrested, but was released an hour later. 

Atty. Adi Keidar, head of Honenu's legal department, criticized the legal system and especially the police for keeping the young girls in jail.  "On Friday," Keidar said, "a legal hearing was held in their case without them being represented at all. This is another aspect of the case that is reminiscent of dark regimes."

Keidar said he does not know when another hearing will be held for the three girls who remain in prison.

MK Aryeh Eldad (National Union) congratulated the freed girls for their "moral victory against the wickedness of the police and the government... Fourteen-year-old girls demonstrated to the public what civil disobedience is and how it can be used to change immoral and anti-Zionist decisions that are destructive for Israel."

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