FactsOfIsrael.com covers the basic facts on the State of Israel and the Middle East. This includes Maps, the History of the region, Statistics, and more. We also post articles related to the Victims of Palestinian Terrorism, Anti-Semitism, Jewish History, and also a bit of Humor, News and Opinions.

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Fact 167: "In 1967, at the end of the six day war, (there were six days of fighting), previous cease-fire lines were replaced by new ones, with Judea, Samaria, Gaza, the Sinai peninsula and the Golan Heights under Israel's control. As a result, the northern villages were freed from 19 years of recurrent Syrian shelling; and the city of Jerusalem, which had been divided under Israeli and Jordanian rule since 1949, was reunified under Israel's authority"

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Note: 15 random articles are displayed below. Refresh this page to display another set of random articles.
Palestinian homicide bomber murders three Israelis (12.25.2003)


Palestinian TerrorismThe Jerusalem Post (www.jpost.com) reports that a Palestinian homicide bomber has murdered three Israelis:

At least Three people were killed and twenty wounded on Thursday after a suicide bombing at the Geha bridge on Jabotinsky street near Tel Aviv at 18:20. Two of the victims were women, and their bodies were taken to Abu Kabir Forensic Institute.

The blast took place at a busy bus stop under the Geha Bridge - a major junction just outside Tel Aviv used by commuters to reach Tel Aviv, Petah Tikva and Bnei Brak.

A Palestinian suicide bomber, a member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) blew himself up at a bus stop under the Geha Bridge. Police have closed the area and are conducting searches. A helicopter joined the search. [...]

"After three months without a terror attack within the Green Line there were many foiled attempts but the situation is still volatile and today's attack shows that on the other side there is no strategic change," Aharonishky said. Security services have thwarted 22 terror attacks in the past month alone, Israel Radio reported.


The Hamas, the PFLP, the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and Arafat's Al-Aksa Brigrades are racist murderers whose only goal is to destroy the State of Israel and kill all of her citizens. They reject peace with the "Jews" and the "Infidels" and almost daily try to blow themselves up targetting women and babies. For more information, click here; for a list of homicide bombings executed by these fanatic bastards, click here.

I copy the full article below.

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Tutorial to implement Category Icons in 'Movable Type' (07.07.2002)


AnnouncementIf you don't manage a website or a blog, please ignore this posting.

For those of you who use 'Movable Type', I have created a tutorial that will go over the steps on implementing Category icons.

After using Movable Type for a couple of months, I decided that on my index page, an image corresponding to the post's category should be shown, making it easy for the reader to automatically look for their favorite types of articles (this is similar to what is displayed on Slashdot.org).

If you are interested in the tutorial, click on the link below:

http://www.factsofisrael.com/load.php?p=/en/mt-categories-icons.php

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Information on Israel's removal of Jewish communities from Gaza Strip (08.23.2005)


NewsThe Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs (www.mfa.gov.il) has released an article describing Israel's removal of Jewish communities from Gaza Strip:

Removing the Jewish communities from the Gaza Strip and northern Samaria means:



■ 42 day-care centers, 36 kindergartens, seven elementary schools, and three high schools will be closed

■ 5,000 schoolchildren will need to find new schools

■ 38 synagogues will be dismantled

■ 166 Israeli farmers will lose their livelihoods - plus some 5,000 of their Palestinian workers

■ 48 graves in the Gush Katif Cemetery, including those of six residents murdered by terrorists, will be exhumed and moved to Israel.


Disengagement will cost Israel an estimated $2 billion - about 3.5 percent of the 2005 state budget.



■ The cost of family relocation alone is estimated to be nearly $1 billion. This will come from an annual state budget of about $59 billion.

■ In addition, the IDF will spend some $500 million to remove military bases and equipment from the Gaza Strip.

■ To cite just one example of the costs entailed, the demolition and removal of rubble from some 3,000 homes and public buildings will cost an estimated $25 million.

■ In the context of Israel’s 2005 state budget, the estimated $2b. cost of disengagement is equivalent to about half the country's annual health budget or approximately one third of the budget for education.


There's a lot of more information on the cost of moving out of Gaza. See below for details, or download the following PDF document:



Information on Israel

moving out of the Gaza Strip (1.2 Mb)


Adobe Acrobat Reader is required in order to view this document. If you do not have Acrobat Reader, click here to download it. To save a copy of the PDF document to your computer, right click on the icon above and choose "Save Target As...".

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Evolution: from Hitler to Arafat (08.29.2002)


HumorSome English Muslims do not believe in evolution, but it's a scientific theory that has been clearly proved:




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Racist bastards desecrate Jewish cemetery in France (08.10.2004)


Anti-SemitismCnn (www.cnn.com) reports that once again racist bastards have desecrated a Jewish cemetery:



France, August 2004, racist Bastards desecrate Jewish tombstones
with Nazi Swastikas and inscriptions with Adolf Hitler's name


Vandals scrawled anti-Semitic graffiti on dozens of tombstones in Lyon overnight, authorities said Tuesday, the third time a Jewish cemetery has been desecrated this year.

Swastikas and inscriptions with Adolf Hitler's name were painted on headstones in de la Mouche cemetery in this southern French city, the same burial site that was desecrated by skinheads in 1992. [...]

The vandalized graves were at the back of the cemetery, a distance from the guardian's house, and among its oldest tombs. A monument to Jewish World War II soldiers was also covered with graffiti, the French Veterans Affairs Ministry said. [...]

A recent report by the French Interior Ministry found 510 anti-Jewish acts or threats in the first six months of the year, compared with 593 for all of 2003.


I copy the full article below.

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Use the force Bibi Luke (12.05.2002)


HumorI had just finished watching "Star Wars II" when I stumbled upon a related picture on Israeli Guy. AraJar is the evil twin of JarJar, except that he's not only a bit simple minded, but he also deliberately murders women and children. Do you think that AraJar is related to AraFish?





I modified the image a bit, adding the subtitles. Like the Israeli Guy, I'm not sure I agree with the roles, but it's pretty funny.

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England, 1189, 30 Jews are killed in London (09.03.2002)


Jewish HistoryThe Jerusalem Post's feature "This day in history" reports on September 3, 1189:

Richard the Lionhearted was crowned at Westminster. He was favorably inclined towards the Jews. Unfortunately, he was influenced by Thomas, a Becket who had a fanatical hatred of them.

During his coronation (from which Jews and women were banned), Baldwin, the Archbishop of Canterbury, convinced Richard not to accept presents from Jewish dignitaries and to evict them from the palace. The crowd took it to mean that the king encouraged persecution of the Jews, and they began rioting against the Jews in London that same day.

The riots soon spread to Norwich, Dunstable and Stamford. In London 30 Jews were killed including Rabbi Jacob of Orleans, a pupil of Rabbenu Tam. Richard did his best to protect the Jews - as long as he was in England.

This day also marked the beginning of the Third Crusade in England under the patronage of King Richard. England, which had taken no real part in the first two crusades, decided to sponsor a crusade joined by France and Germany.

Its goal was to recapture Jerusalem (taken in 1187) but when Frederick Barbarossa accidentally drowned, Philip II of France gave up, and Richard succeeded only in capturing Acre. The Jews of England were the crusade's chief victims.

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CBS correspondent Bob Simon shows clear bias on Israel's security fence (12.30.2003)


Media BiasThe Jerusalem Post (www.jpost.com) has a great article on the bias shown by CBS's Bob Simon on Israel's security fence:

Veteran CBS correspondent Bob Simon's December 21, 2003 60 Minutes segment on the fence Israel is building to thwart terrorists displayed the same defects apparent in so many of his reports. It was manipulative and shaky on key factual assertions. [...]

Most emotional is a Palestinian woman, an "author and architect," who weeps while describing the anguish she feels when she witnesses "older people" subjected to the "unbearable" humiliation of passing through checkpoints necessitated by the fence. Simon commiserates: "And you never get used to it."

No civilian Israeli victims of terror, whether the bereaved, the wounded or the fearful, are given the chance to tell viewers about not getting "used to" the "unbearable" feeling of vulnerability caused by knowing predators seek entry into Israel to kill and maim them.

Why, for instance, did Simon not interview stunned young Israeli students and parents at the Yokne'am school in northern Israel, which had only two weeks earlier been the would-be target of two Islamic Jihad terrorists. The killers' intention was to explode 22 pounds of explosives among as many students as possible. Captured by the Israeli military, the men said the nearby town of Bardaleh had been chosen to cross into Israel because the security fence did not extend there.


Here's a graph that shows how Israel's new security fence is very effective:



Israel's Security Fence is working:
Palestinian mass murderers
cannot cross into Israel easily


The security fence is here to stay - it will save lives and stop many Palestinian mass murderers from executing their homicide bombings.

If you'd like more information on Israel's security fence, click here (use the menus at the top, found the link on LGF).

Also, click here to download a good PowerPoint presentation on the fence (to save the presentation to your computer, right click on the link and choose "Save As..."; the total size is 1.92 Mb; if needed you can dowload a free PowerPoint viewer here).

I copy the full article below.

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Publicite pour le Ministere de Tourisme Palestinien (French) (09.06.2002)


HumorLe site Israel Info a une page d'humour qui contient une publicite pour le Ministere de tourisme Palestinien:



Publicite pour le Ministere de
Tourisme Palestinien


Bien que l'Etat de Palestine n'existe pas (lisez l'histoire et Palestine), cette image est bien drole. Cliquez sur l'image pour une version plus large.

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Human Rights Watch group considers the Palestinian homicide/suicide bombings war crimes and crimes against humanity (11.14.2002)


OpinionHaaretz (www.haaretzdaily.com) has published an article by Amnon Rubinstein that describes how strange and sad it is that it took almost 2 years for "Human Rights" organizations to declare that Palestinian homicide/suicide bombers are committing war crimes and crimes against humanity:

Surprise, surprise! The Human Rights Watch organization condemns the suicide attacks, considers them war crimes and crimes against humanity, and comes out against the Palestinian Authority and its leader for not preventing such offenses. Amnesty International has also condemned the suicide attacks in the past, but has not said a word against the PA.

According to Kenneth Roth, executive director of Human Rights Watch, "those who carry out suicide bombings are not martyrs, they're war criminals. So are the people who help plan such attacks."

This is a big surprise indeed; but what is actually so surprising here? Can there be any doubt that someone who commits suicide, or someone who sends young people to commit suicide in order to murder civilians, is committing a crime against humanity? Is there any doubt that this is a double and triple crime - the crime of inciting young men and women to commit suicide, the crime of murder and the crime of praise after the act?

The surprise stems from the difference between the behavior of Human Rights Watch and that of similar organizations that have distorted the concept of human rights in two senses: First, they did not distinguish between a primary right and a secondary one. A person has a right to life, as well as a right not to have his letters opened. Both rights are important, but they are not equally important. The right to life precedes all else; since without it, there are no other rights.

This elementary distinction has been forgotten, such that many reports focusing on human rights - including those from the UN Human Rights Commission - make no distinction between the primary and the secondary, between countries in which human life has no value, and countries that do not strictly enforce all the eavesdropping laws. A large number of these organizations suffer from a total conceptual confusion, which has been intensified by the modern viewpoint that there are no absolute truths, there is no hierarchy of values, and everything is relative.


Mr. Rubinstein is right on. Two weeks ago I was in Mexico and I did some Scuba diving. My dive master was Yngve, a nice guy from Sweeden. After our talks turned to politics, I was amazed at how he considered the "use of force" (his words) by Bin-Laden, the Palestinian Islamic Jihad and other terrorist murderers just a "cultural difference". For him, the fact that Arab/Muslim societies are incapable today of accepting and embrassing gay rights, women rights, Democracy and freedom, was just a "cultural difference".

It is wrong to deliberately murder women and children, I don't care how "culturally different" you are. One last note: the Human Rights Watch spokesman, Kenneth Roth, that condemned Arafat and his thugs for the senseless murders of the last two years is an American. It will take a bit longer for the European leftist morons to understand that deliberately killing 4 and 5 year olds in their beds is wrong, even if the kids are Jewish Israeli.

I got the link from Imshin. I copy the full article below, it's well worth the read.

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Palestinian patients treated in Israeli hospitals cheer when Jewish victims of terror are brought in (08.21.2002)


OpinionThe Weekly Standard (www.weeklystandard.com) has a good article written by the comedian Larry Miller who visited Israel last week.

I was in two other hospitals recently, just a week ago, in Israel. It was part of my trip, to meet some victims of the terror bombings and their families. As an aside to this, you might like to hear something good and something not so good. [...]

All right, back to the story. As I said, I went to two places to meet the terror victims. One was in Tel Aviv. I met an emergency room doctor, a woman, whose husband was killed a year ago in a bombing. She has two children. Had. Now she has one. She was on duty, weeks ago, in the middle of the night (Don't they call that the graveyard shift?), the night a disco was bombed. Maybe you heard about it. The victims were brought to her hospital. To her. Her daughter was one of them. Now the mother is a patient. "It was good of you to let her tell you her story," the head of the place told me. "It's therapeutic." Good of me? What do you say to that? "I'm glad I could help so much. Gotta go now. Soon I'll be back in the hotel room."

Then we went to Hadassah Hospital, in Jerusalem. This is the hospital where they brought the victims of the bombing at Hebrew University. I met a woman who had been having lunch that day, in the Frank Sinatra Commissary (really) with her daughter, a student. An "A" student, the mother told me. It wasn't possible for the daughter to tell me, since they were still trying to put her back together. At this writing she's still alive, thank God. Just. An "A" student, the mother kept saying. She was the lucky one, whatever that means. Hey, what's that on the table? Oh, it's a cup with the nails they took out of me. Some are still inside. They can't take them out yet. Oh. Okay. Gotta go. Wait, go in there, here's someone else, the brother of someone else, the fiancee of someone else, the father of someone else. Thank you for letting them tell their stories. Yes, I know, it's therapeutic.

Downstairs, before we left, the head of the hospital, an Israeli named Audrey, was showing me the children's waiting room. I couldn't help but notice, all around, an Arab woman with her son, an Arab family over there checking in, Arab children playing with the toys while waiting. The doctor saw the look on my face and laughed. "Oh, yes, we treat everyone." I guess I was astonished. She just shrugged. "We're Jews. This is how we live. It's also for the future. They're not going anywhere, and we're not going anywhere. There will eventually be peace. There has to be." When? A month? A year? A hundred years? More? She didn't know. I had to say it. You're incredible. You take everyone, you treat everyone, no one goes first, no one goes last, you just go in order of who needs help. That's, like, Mother Teresa stuff. "We're not saints, we're just doing our jobs. It's not easy, I admit. And it gets hard when they cheer when the bodies are brought in." I looked at her. What did you say? She sighed. "Yes, it gets hard when they cheer." This was one of the times during my trip when I held up my hands and said, "Stop. Wait." I turned and walked away to breathe deeply for a minute. I wonder if they've restocked that mini-bar. Yeah, probably. It's a good hotel.

I didn't meet one Jew the whole trip who didn't think there would be peace, not one. "We can work it out. We have to. They're not going anywhere. Neither are we."

Of course, it gets hard when they cheer.


I copy the full article below.

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Brazil: Fifth time World Champs! (06.30.2002)


NewsBrazil has beaten Germany 2 - 0 to win the 2002 World Cup of Soccer! This is the fitfh time Brazil has won it, making Germany a far away second with three wins.



Brazilian team captain Cafu holds aloft the World Cup
at the end of the final match between Brazil and Germany


Brazil won all of her seven games in the World Cup, scored 18 goals, and two of her players, Ronaldo (8 goals) and Rivaldo (5 goals) are the top scorers of the tournament.

I know this has nothing to do with Israel and the Middle East, but David Melle, the guy who created FactsOfIsrael.com was born in Brazil and he had to post a message of support and happiness! Congratulations Brazil!

I copy below an article from CNN that says it all. I'm going to go celebrate now.

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United Nations ignores the deliberate murder of Israeli children by Arafat's Palestinian terrorists (12.28.2002)


OpinionThe Globe and Mail (www.globeandmail.com) has a good article on how low the United Nations can get:

This year's General Assembly, which ended on Friday, marked a new low in United Nations bias against Jews and the Jewish state. The three resolutions passed in its final days are a disturbing commentary.

On Wednesday, the General Assembly adopted a resolution on Palestinian children. This brings the number of resolutions on the human rights of children to three: one on the rights of the child, one on the "girl child," and one on Palestinian children -- the only children in the world subject to the specific concern of a General Assembly resolution.

With its automatic majority on the Palestinian side of the Arab-Israeli conflict, the General Assembly is able to generate large numbers of resolutions critical only of Israel. The resolution focusing only on Palestinian children, however, is a historic first, and it increases the number of General Assembly resolutions directed annually at Israel to 20. Human-rights situations in the rest of the world drew only six country-specific resolutions this year. There were no resolutions on human rights in such countries as Syria, Saudi Arabia or China.

The draft version of the resolution on Palestinian children was adopted on Nov. 15 by the General Assembly's Third Committee (which deals with social, cultural and humanitarian affairs), in the same week that a Palestinian gunman broke into a home on an Israeli kibbutz and shot to death two children -- Noam, 4, and Matan, 5 -- while their mother, Revital Ohayon, tried to hide them under her body. The al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, linked to Yasser Arafat's Fatah movement, claimed responsibility.

In the past two years, Palestinian terrorists have repeatedly targeted Israeli children. On April 27, gunmen broke into a home west of Hebron, found five-year-old Danielle Shefi hiding under her parents' bed and shot her in the head. On May 9, 2001, Israeli students Kobi Mandell, 13, and Yossi Ish-Ran, 14, were stoned to death and their bodies mutilated in a cave south of Jerusalem. Palestinian suicide bombers have directed attacks at places where children gather, such as buses, discos and pizza parlours.

More than 100 Israeli children have been murdered and 900 wounded or maimed in the past two years alone. The General Assembly resolution, however, neither expressed concern nor made any mention of Israeli children.


The UN makes me sick. I copy the full article below.

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French Arab Muslims attack Jews in Paris (03.24.2003)


Anti-SemitismNewsmax (www.newsmax.com) reports that French Arab Muslims, pro-Iraqi and pro-Palestinian "peace" protesters, attacked a group of Jews in Paris, France:

Somebody said, 'There are Jews,'" said Duprat, "and a few seconds later, individual groups of Arabs left the march to follow the anti-Jewish call. They chased and hit the Jewish students and pushed down an older woman who tried to intervene. [...]

The assault was videotaped by Digipresse, a small French news agency, but France's two state television stations, France 2 and France 3, refused to broadcast it on their evening news shows.


You may watch the video below. Here's a partial translation from this article on Yahoo France describing what the Muslim and French "peace" protesters were saying and doing:

About a dozen Arab Muslims start pushing everyone around. They carry metal pipes and wear their "keffiehs" around their faces. They run from the back of the crowd and seem very angry. Their shrieks sound horrible to us and are something we thought we'd never hear again in public in Paris:

"There are Jews there!" [...]

Two hundred meters away, the gang turns into Saint-Claude street while other protesters, carrying the Palestinian flag, violently attack someone on the ground. A courageous Canadian man and a few women try to help the man on the ground. He gets up in a haze. He's 14-years-old and his face is completely bloody. His only sin: to be Jewish. [...]

On top of a car, a young Arab Muslim excites the crowd with a megaphone:

"We, the Muslims, we the Arabs, we can proudly walk in the street. They (the Jews) are forced to hide! The Coran says: whatever pain you have received, you can inflict. But patience is a virtue. Let's wait, the wheel will turn (see video).


Even if you don't speak French, watch the video below (5.5 Mb) - you can feel the intolerance, hate and violence coming from the French and Muslim "peace" protesters (thanks to SL for the link to the video).

I also copy the full Newsmax article and the rest of the article from Yahoo France (in French) below.

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20,000 lb gorilla, the "Palestinian Islamic Jihad", blocks roadmap to peace (05.18.2003)


NewsThe U.S. Department of State has published the full text to the "Roadmap" to peace between the State of Israel and the Palestinians.

The following is a performance-based and goal-driven roadmap, with clear phases, timelines, target dates, and benchmarks aiming at progress through reciprocal steps by the two parties in the political, security, economic, humanitarian, and institution-building fields, under the auspices of the Quartet [the United States, European Union, United Nations, and Russia]. The destination is a final and comprehensive settlement of the Israel-Palestinian conflict by 2005, as presented in President Bush’s speech of 24 June, and welcomed by the EU, Russia and the UN in the 16 July and 17 September Quartet Ministerial statements.

A two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict will only be achieved through an end to violence and terrorism, when the Palestinian people have a leadership acting decisively against terror and willing and able to build a practicing democracy based on tolerance and liberty [...]


So far the Palestinian Islamic Jiihad, Hamas and Arafat's thugs from the Al-Aksa brigades have rejected the "Roadmap to peace" and have continued murdering Israeli women and children. They also call for the destruction of Israel and for the genocide of her Jewish citizens.

Some have said that the Israeli/Palestinian conflict is like a "20,000 lb gorilla" in the room. Yes, there is a gorilla, but it's not the in the room. This gorilla is called the Palestinian Islamic Jihad and it's sitting on the roadmap, blocking any progress to peace. That's what no one mentions.

I copy the full text of the roadmap below - found this link on the excellent LGF.

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