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FEBRUARY 18, 2021 | The Jewish Home
final day will be centered around defending Israel’s airspace.” In an unusual move, the drill included all of the IAF’s operational arms and saw heavy fighter jet and helicopter traffic above the skies in northern Israel. The military commonly refrains from conducting force-wide drills due to monetary constraints. The surprise drill came on the same day in which Israeli warplanes conducted a series of airstrikes in southern Syria. According to Arab media reports, the targets included an Iranian weapons warehouse in Damascus International Airport along with arms depots in the suburb of AlKisweh. While refraining from taking responsibility for the air assault, IDF officers told the media that the exercise proved that the air force is capable of operating in multiple fronts simultaneously. “One of the main aspects that differentiate between war and training is unpredictability,” said Lieutenant Colonel “O.” “The element of surprise is expressed in the ability to adapt plans to a changing reality. It also reflects the way in which we deal with the mental-psychological challenges of uncertainty.”
PA Destroys Jewish Site Israelis on both sides of the political spectrum were outraged after the Palestinian Authority destroyed part of Joshua’s Altar in Samaria. Located on Mount Ebal in Samaria, the archaeological site is believed to be the altar built by the Yehoshua after conquering the Land of Israel. Discovered in 1980 by archaeologist Dr. Adam Zertal, it is considered one of the most significant finds ever unearthed in modern-day Israel. Last week, the Palestinian Authority destroyed part of the altar’s retaining wall to make way for an illegal road it constructed to link Nablus with the village of Asira-A-Ashamaliya. The 3,500-yearold relic was used as gravel to pave the road, causing significant and irreversible damage to the site. Media reports exposing the extent of the damage caused an uproar in Israel, with politicians and government ministers calling on the IDF to safeguard Jewish historical sites. In a letter to Defense Minister Benny Gantz, President Reuven
Rivlin called it a “moral imperative” for the IDF to investigate how Palestinian laborers were able to destroy such a significant archaeological find. “The reports of damage to the altar site...concern me deeply, and I am writing to you to thoroughly investigate the case in order to ensure no further such damage is done to heritage sites,” Rivlin wrote. “Our land has a bounty of holy sites of immense religious, historic, and archaeological value. These sites, including the altar of Joshua...are heritage sites of incalculable national and universal value.” Former Defense Minister and Yamina leader Naftali Bennett compared the damage to the effort by ISIS to deliberately destroy cultural artifacts in areas under its control. “Imagine if ISIS would try to take apart the Statue of Liberty or the Eiffel Tower, what an uproar across the world we’d hear,” Bennett said in a video he shot at the ruined altar. Bennett went on to call the destruction “a barbaric act that we have heard only from ISIS or from radical Islamists that want to take away ancient sites of other people.” Studies have dated the altar as far back as the 13th century BCE and have found that its dimensions correspond to the measurements described in the Talmud. The altar is located in PA-controlled Area B West Bank, making it difficult for Israeli authorities to excavate the site. While Israelis are allowed to visit the site, visits must be coordinated with the IDF and remain infrequent.
Biden to Shutter Gitmo
most dangerous prisoners captured during the War on Terror, including senior al-Qaeda and ISIS commanders. There are currently only 40 people behind bars in the prison, down from a high of 680 in 2003, but the detention center remains a hot button issue. In a statement, National Security Council spokeswoman Emily Horne said that the process of closing the facility will likely take years. Shuttering the site needs to overcome significant legal and political obstacles and would require a mixture of legislation and Executive Orders. “We are undertaking an NSC process to assess the current state of play that the Biden administration has inherited from the previous administration, in line with our broader goal of closing Guantanamo,” she said. “There will be a robust interagency process to move forward on this, but we need to have the right people seated to do this important work.” Horne added that the NSC has already begun preparatory work with the Departments of Defense, State and Justice. Nicknamed “Gitmo,” the facility has been controversial for years and became a divisive partisan issue between Republicans and Democrats. While conservatives see the prison as necessary to combatting terrorism throughout the world, liberals argue that it is a stain on America’s human rights record. In 2008, then-President Obama issued an Executive Order mandating Gitmo’s immediate closure. The Order was never carried out due to bureaucratic infighting amongst the national security apparatus and was rescinded by Donald Trump in 2018. “I am asking Congress to ensure that, in the fight against ISIS and al-Qaeda, we continue to have all necessary power to detain terrorists wherever we chase them down, wherever we find them. And in many cases for them, it will now be Guantánamo Bay,” Trump said at the time.
Storm Knocks Out Power in Texas President Joe Biden will launch a review that aims to close the Guantanamo Bay detention facility in Cuba by the time he leaves office. The prison is home to some of the
At least 24 people died as an icy winter storm hit the South, leaving millions of people without power and shutting down air travel and lo-
