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Thursday, January 18, 2018

From Ian:

Michael Oren: Obama saw Israel as the problem - Trump sees it as the solution
Michael Oren, a former Israeli ambassador to the US now serving as Deputy Minister in the Prime Minister`s Office, praised President Donald Trump’s recent decision to withhold some $65 million in funding for a United Nations agency which supports self-described ‘Palestinian refugees’, effectively cutting the amount of US money to the agency in half.

Earlier this month, the US froze a $125 million grant to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) – representing one-third of all US aid given to the agency every year.

On Tuesday, a State Department official said that the US had released $60 million to UNRWA, but was withholding the other $65 million, adding that the a “fundamental re-examination” of US aid to UNRWA was needed.

"There is a need to undertake a fundamental re-examination of UNRWA, both in the way it operates and the way it is funded," the official said.

On Wednesday, Oren, a former Israeli ambassador to the US, now an MK from the Kulanu party and the Deputy Ministry of the Prime Minister’s Office, spoke with Arutz Sheva about President Trump’s decision and the United Nation’s reaction.

While UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres expressed “concern” Tuesday about the American cuts to UNRWA, Oren called Trump’s move “excellent”.

“He [Guterres] is ‘very concerned – well, let him be concerned,” Oren told Arutz Sheva.

“President Trump’s decision to cut funding for UNRWA is an excellent decision, both for us and for the whole Middle East. [UNRWA] is a corrupt and bloated organization that perpetuates a refugee problem that doesn’t exist.”
Einat Wilf: 1967 | As long as the Arab world views Israel as a temporary aberration to be conquered, Israel will stand fas
Given the Arab understanding of Zionism as a temporary historical aberration whose life span is a mere few decades, it made sense for the Palestinians to repeatedly choose to suffer the daily humiliations of living under a military occupation rather than to accept the far greater humiliation of permanent Jewish sovereignty on land they considered exclusively their own. In refusing to end the military occupation by making a permanent peace with Israel, the Arab Palestinians were making a conscious choice that was based on their understanding of Arab history and Islamic ‘justice’. As Arabs and Muslims, the Palestinians were not hapless victims, but rather masters of a historical narrative, at the end of which their resistance and patience would be rewarded with victory, in the form of Zionism’s disappearance. While they might suffer in the interim period, the choice they made was for what they perceived as the far greater good – defeating Zionism and driving away the sovereign Jewish presence from their land.

How to end the occupation: stand fast, stand longer

How can a temporary 50-year military occupation of most of the West Bank by Israel come to an end, if the Muslim, Arab and Palestinian view of history is that 50 years of Israeli occupation matters significantly less than the countdown of the remaining 19 years on the crusader clock? It is necessary to demonstrate to the Muslim-Arab world that their view of history is wrong, and that rather than constituting a second crusader state, Israel is the sovereign state of an indigenous people who have come home. This can only be achieved through Jewish power and persistence over time. And given the vast numerical imbalance between Jews and Arabs, it can only be achieved if those who truly seek peace support the Jewish people in sending the message to the Arab world that the Jewish people are here to stay.

The essence of the conflict between Zionism and the Muslim Arab world is a battle over time, a race of mutual exhaustion. The question that will determine how the conflict is ultimately resolved revolves around who will give up first: will the Zionists give up on their project in the face of unrelenting violent resistance, or will the Muslim Arabs give up on their project of erasing the sovereign Jewish presence in their midst, and finally come to accept it as a part of their history, rather than an affront to it?

Only time will tell.
Caroline Glick: Palestinian Leader’s Anti-American Rant Gives Trump Cause to Cut Funding
So if Abbas isn’t planning to retire, why is he cursing Trump and his senior advisors? Why is he recycling anti-Jewish blood libels from the 12th century and announcing that the deals he signed with Israel and the peace process as a whole are dead?

The simple answer is that Abbas is acting as he is because he is certain that he can. This is how he has always acted. There is nothing new in his speech. And he doesn’t think that he will suffer any consequences for behavior.

Abbas expects President Trump to disregard his statements and continue to bankroll his terror-supporting regime in the name of “the peace process,” or “humanitarian assistance” just as Bush and Obama did.

Abbas gave his speech at start of a two-day conference of the PLO’s Central Committee, which he convened to determine a response to President Trump’s announcement on December 6 that for the first time in nearly seventy years, the U.S. recognizes that Jerusalem is Israel’s capital.

Trump’s Jerusalem declaration placed Abbas and his colleagues in a conundrum. On the one hand, his declaration had no practical implications. Trump signed a waiver delaying the transfer of the U.S. embassy in Israel to Jerusalem. No immediate plans have made to move the embassy.

Moreover, the State Department insists that there is no practical significance to Trump’s statement. Acting Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs David Satterfield told reporters the day after Trump’s announcement that his statement does not change U.S. policy barring American citizens born in Jerusalem from listing Israel as their country of birth on their official documents. Indeed, Satterfield refused to answer a question regarding whether Jerusalem is even in Israel.

On the other hand, simply by recognizing the basic fact that Jerusalem is Israel’s capital and has been Israel’s capital for nearly 70 years, Trump broke with the longstanding U.S. policy of denying observable reality in relation to Israel in order to advance “peace” between Israel and its Arab neighbors. (h/t Elder of Lobby)
Jerusalem Post Columnist Caroline Glick Joins Breitbart News
Caroline Glick, the conservative American-Israeli columnist renowned for her powerful criticisms of the Middle East peace process, has joined Breitbart News.

Glick, the long-serving senior contributing editor and chief columnist for the Jerusalem Post, is one of the world’s most widely-read commentators on Israel and international affairs. She also writes about American politics from a staunchly pro-Israel perspective.

She is the author of several books — including, most recently, The Israeli Solution: A One State Plan for Peace in the Middle East (2014), which calls for Israel to annex the West Bank.

Glick, a graduate of Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government and a veteran of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), was Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s Assistant Foreign Policy Advisor in 1997 and 1998. In 2003, she covered the Iraq War from the front lines as a journalist embedded with the U.S. Army’s 3rd Infantry Division, and was the first Israeli journalist to report from liberated Baghdad.

She is also the adjunct senior fellow for Middle Eastern Affairs at the Center for Security Policy in Washington, DC. A recipient of several major journalism awards, Glick travels around the world to advise policymakers about issues relating to global security.

Sunday, January 14, 2018

From Ian:

Thwarting Hamas terror, one tunnel at a time
This morning, the IDF completed the destruction of a Hamas terror tunnel that infiltrated Israeli territory.

This operation, led by the Southern Command, was carried out in the area of crossing to the Israeli side. The tunnel crossed the border under the Kerem Shalom Crossing, ran adjacent to the gas pipeline, and crossed into Egypt.

This is a severe breach of Israel's sovereignty, a serious threat to Israeli civilians, and a threat to the humanitarian efforts that Israel allows for the people in the Gaza Strip.

The Kerem Shalom Crossing was closed in order to maintain the safety of all those in the area of the crossing. Hamas is responsible for the consequences of the closing and chooses time after time to jeopardize the welfare of the citizens of the Gaza Strip.

The tunnel was located using the latest technological, intelligence, and operational capabilities. Since its discovery, the tunnel was monitored up until its destruction.
IDF Destroys the 3rd Hamas Terror Tunnel in 2 Months


“The extraordinary cooperation among the branches of combat engineering, intelligence, and the technological lab for tunnel detection in the Gaza Division is what creates these technological breakthroughs and significant achievements in underground detection,” said Commander of the Southern Brigade in the Gaza Division, Col. Kobi Heler.

This is the third tunnel that was destroyed in Israel in the past two months and serves as further evidence of the advanced operational, intelligence, and technological capabilities that the IDF has developed. Locating these tunnels is part of wide-scale defense efforts led by the IDF and the Southern Command.
Breaking News from the Kerem Shalom Crossing


“We are not seeking to escalate the situation, we are defending our sovereignty and our civilians against the multiple threat by Hamas. We will continue to operate in that manner. We will continue to defend our sovereignty against threats from above and below the ground. We also remain prepared for a wide variety of military scienerios against Hamas, but we do not seek to escalate the situation,” said Lt. Col. Jonathan Conricus, Head of the International Media Branch.

The IDF will continue its efforts above and below ground to thwart any attempts to harm Israeli civilians and will continue to act in order to maintain the relative quiet in the region achieved after Operation Protective Edge.
After Latest Anti-Terror Tunnel Operation, Israeli Military Hails ‘New and Groundbreaking Technology’ Used Against Subterranean Threat
The Israeli military has destroyed three cross-border Hamas terror tunnels in recent months using “new and groundbreaking technology,” Lt. Col. Jonathan Conricus — the head of the IDF Spokesperson’s Unit’s international media branch — said in a video published on social media on Sunday.

“We are happy to be able to have those capabilities,” Conricus said.

In another video posted online by the IDF following its latest anti-tunnel operation, this one in the Kerem Shalom area, Col. Kobi Heler — the commander of the Gaza Division’s Southern Brigade — said, “Hamas is accountable for all terror activities emanating from the Gaza Strip and is responsible to stop any acts above and below the ground that breach Israeli sovereignty.”

At a meeting in New Delhi on Sunday with Indian Minister of External Affairs Sushma Swaraj, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said, “But even where I am here in India, I think of you, IDF soldiers, and of the splendid work that you did yesterday in eliminating another tunnel. We are systematically eliminating the tunnel infrastructure of Hamas and Islamic Jihad; they should not try us.”
For 38 Terrifying Minutes, Hawaii Experienced Israeli Life under Rocket Threat
For thirty-eight terrifying minutes on Saturday, Hawaii residents unfortunately experienced a sampling of life in Israel during recent wars here when Hawaiians received a mistaken emergency alert notification warning of a “ballistic missile threat inbound to Hawaii.”

Gov. David Ige said the false alarm was a human error caused when the wrong button was pushed during a shift change at the state emergency management agency. The warning was issued amid heightened tensions between the U.S. and North Korea, and some in Hawaii may have feared an incoming nuclear attack. The mistake was reportedly corrected 38 minutes later by a second message confirming the false alarm.

The error is unacceptable and warrants the “full investigation” promised by the chairman of the U.S. Federal Communications Commission.

While Israelis have not contended with nuclear missile attacks, the entire country lives under rocket threat and has experienced sustained rocket attacks punctuated by alerts that leave only seconds to find shelter.

The scenes that unfolded in Hawaii, with people reportedly left “crying and screaming,” could have taken place in Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, Haifa or Sderot. At this point, however, most Israelis, especially those living along the Gaza wire, have become so accustomed to rocket alerts that there seems to be a lot less panic.

The rocket risk here underscores the strategic threat posed to the Jewish state by territorial withdrawals, and the projectile threat must be taken into consideration when foreign diplomats call for Israel to create a Palestinian state in the West Bank and eastern sections of Jerusalem.

Thursday, January 11, 2018

From Ian:

CAMERA Op-Ed: An Overlooked Legacy of Arab Rejectionism
It is deceptively easy to reduce the history of the Arab-Israeli conflict to a series of dates. The 50thanniversary of the June 1967 Six-Day War and the recent centennialof the Balfour Declaration occasioned considerable—if often flawed—media coverage and discussion by policymakers. Yet another—often-underreported—anniversary is perhaps more telling and highlights a long-running theme that was on full display after President Trump's Dec. 6, 2017 speech recognizing Jerusalem as Israel's capital: Arab rejection of any Jewish state in the Jewish people's ancestral homeland.

Nov. 29, 2017 marked the 70thanniversary of Arab states rejecting U.N. Resolution 181. The non-binding recommendation advised the partition of Mandate Palestine into two states, one Arab and one Jewish. The Zionist leadership in Mandate Palestine accepted the resolution. Arab nations, including Egypt, Syria, Iraq and Saudi Arabia, denounced it and promised bloodshed if it were passed.

Threatening to shed Jewish blood a mere two years after the end of World War II and the Holocaust was hardly a winning strategy and Resolution 181passed, with support from the United States, the Soviet Union, and others.

Yet, by promising to defy the implementation of the partition plan by force, the Arab leaders voided its very terms, which noted that any “attempt to alter by force the settlement envisaged by this resolution” a “threat to the peace.” This hardly dissuaded the Arab states from unsuccessfully seeking to destroy the fledgling Jewish state in Israel's 1948 War of Independence. In this conflict—and those that preceded it—a man named Amin al-Husseini assisted them.

Although Western press outlets seldom mention him today, al-Husseini should be considered one of the seminal figures of the 20thcentury.Revered as a founding “pioneer” by current-Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas, al-Husseini loomed over Middle Eastern politics for decades, reshaping much of it in his image.
Brit woman attacked by Palestinian terrorists demands probe as UK aid ‘used on prisoners'
International development committee chairman Stephen Twigg has confirmed that he intends to raise the proposal with MPs after he receiving a letter from a British woman who was butchered and left for dead by Palestinian terrorists.

Kay Wilson sent the letter, supported by 130 campaigners, after she discovered that the Palestinian Authority is using British taxpayers’ money to pay her attackers in prison who also killed her American friend Kristine Luken.

The two murderers have received £9,000 each according to reports.

The row highlights how British aid money is being wasted on corrupt regimes supporting the Daily Express campaign to end the £13 billion international development budget and spend it on British priorities including the NHS.

More than 70,000 people have signed an Express petition

Mr Twigg told the Express: “I received Kay Wilson's letter and I take its contents very seriously.”

He said not give a response on behalf of the committee until it had been discussed.

However, he went on: “As a committee we generally undertake two major inquiries at a time.

“However we do have other opportunities to raise issues with Department for International Development (Dfid) ministers and I will discuss with other committee members how best to do so in this case.”

In her letter, supported by 130 campaigners, Ms Wilson accuses the Dfid committee of ignoring the issue and ministers of misleading parliament about payments.

She described how she and her friend were held for 30 minutes at knifepoint then gagged and bound before being butchered with machetes.

IsraellyCool: WATCH: Netanyahu (Politely) Roasts Foreign Press
Israel’s Government Press Office held its regular reception for foreign correspondents in Israel. As we know, there are way more foreign correspondents in Israel than almost anywhere else in the world (especially considering how small this country is).

The quiet fireworks are in the first 6 minutes of Bibi Netanyahu speaking:

Off the top he highlights US Ambassador Friedman for his exceptionally strong tweet following Saturday’s heinous murder of Rabbi Raziel Shevach, a 35-year-old father of six, rabbi & Magen David Adom medic. Here’s Friedman’s tweet:

Statements from the official representative of the US Government and State Department don’t come more unequivocal than this. No calls for restraint, no “both sides”, just condemnation of evil terrorists and the people who support and send them. I didn’t notice particularly abundant coverage of just how different that tweet is from ambassadors of previous Administrations.

Immediately after this (at 2 mins) he lists three stories he directly challenges the foreign media for under covering or even ignoring. He asks for a show of hands for who covered each point. He gets a few on point 1, precisely none on point 2 and I suspect they were all nervously looking at their shoes on point 3.

1. Payments by Abbas’s Palestinian Authority direct to terrorists and their famlies.
2. Massive extra investment in Arab citizens of Israel for education, health and opportunities.
3. Did the journalists’ outlets call the Iranian Rouhani government “moderate” even as it is shooting peaceful protestors in the streets and dumping them in torture prisons?


Evelyn Gordon: The U.S. Must Show Iranians That They Can’t Have It All
Iran’s decision to spend most of its sanctions relief on guns rather than butter meant ordinary Iranians saw little improvement in their own situation. Until recently, however, the regime could mollify public anxieties by stalling for time. The money is going to keep pouring in, they’d note, and soon there will be enough for everyone.

But President Trump’s decertification of the nuclear deal in October upended this calculus. European companies became more reluctant to do business with Iran, fearing loss of access to the much more important American market. And new American sanctions on Iran became a real possibility.

Consequently, the continued influx of money was no longer guaranteed. The billions Suleimani spent on his military adventures weren’t necessarily going to be replaced by a flood of European investment, and surging economic growth might once again be crimped by new sanctions. Ordinary Iranians were suddenly back in the pre-nuclear deal world, where the regime’s bad behavior had real economic costs.

In this sense, the media debate over whether the protests were “economic” or “political” was ludicrous. They were both because the protesters understood that their economic woes stemmed from their government’s political choices. That’s why they chanted slogans like “Forget about Palestine, forget about Gaza, think about us” and “Leave Syria alone, think about us instead.”

They also understood that those political choices were a product of the regime’s very nature, which is why they chanted slogans like “Death to the Dictator” and “Death to the Islamic Republic.” The nuclear deal was the Islamic Republic’s best shot at reconciling its desire to export Shi’ite revolution with its need to satisfy its people’s desire for a decent quality of life. If that doesn’t work, the regime clearly doesn’t have any solution to this dilemma and never will.

But if protests are ever to grow to the point that they actually threaten the regime, many more Iranians–especially the middle-class Tehranis who sat this round out–must come to understand this. And easing economic pressure on Iran would send the exact opposite message: that the world actually will let the Islamic Republic have its cake and eat it, too.

Friday, January 05, 2018

From Ian:

Rabbi Abraham Cooper: Trump's bold moves just might jolt the Palestinians to finally negotiate with Israel
President Trump has sent a loud and clear message to leaders of the Palestinian Authority: Stop treating the United States like a giant ATM, withdrawing billions of dollars in aid without engaging in peace negotiations with Israel and being willing to make mutual compromises.

Has this message upset Palestinian leaders and their supporters? Absolutely.

But maybe – just maybe – President Trump’s bold and unconventional message will act like a shock treatment and jumpstart new talks between Palestinians and Israelis. If this happens – and it is far from certain – the president’s departure from past policies could go down as an historic turning point in what seems like a never-ending and frozen “peace process.”

The State Department reports that America has provided more than $5.2 billion from the U.S. Agency for International Development to the Palestinians since 1994, including $290 million in 2016.

In addition, the U.S. has provided billions more to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine (UNRWA), which has aided Palestinian “refugees” in several countries in the Middle East since 1949. This aid includes $355 million from American taxpayers in 2016 alone. America also provided an additional $55 million to Palestinians in 2016 for law enforcement.

The term “refugees” includes children, grandchildren and great grandchildren of people who left Israel when the nation became independent 70 years ago.

The president tweeted Tuesday: “… we pay the Palestinians HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS OF DOLLARS a year and get no appreciation or respect. They don’t even want to negotiate a long overdue peace treaty with Israel…. But with the Palestinians no longer willing to talk peace, why should we make any of these massive future payments to them?”

President Trump’s tweet comes on the heels of his announcement last month that the U.S. recognizes Jerusalem as Israel’s capital – and our United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley’s threat to make deep cuts to America’s financial contributions to the world body.
Fight against incitement
As Palestinian leaders call for more violence and Palestinians burn American flags alongside effigies of U.S. President Donald Trump on the streets, the prospects for peace appear more distant than ever.

But Palestinian terrorism did not begin with Trump's Dec. 6 declaration recognizing Jerusalem as the official capital of Israel. It has been ongoing since the 1920s and it is fueled by violent indoctrination spread by the Palestinian leadership. It is only via incitement and indoctrination that innocent Palestinian children grow up to become terrorists.

More must be done to prevent the Palestinian children of today from becoming the terrorists of tomorrow.

The only way to stop young, impressionable Palestinian children from supporting terrorism in the future is to ensure that UNRWA schools no longer indoctrinate children into supporting terrorism.

Recently, the Center for Near East Policy Research published a comprehensive study on Palestinian school textbooks. The study argues that indoctrination continues to be a systematic problem in the Palestinian Authority school system.
Sexual Harassment East and West
"I say that when a girl walks about like that, it is a patriotic duty to sexually harass her and a national duty to rape her." — Nabih Wahsh, Islamist lawyer, on Egypt's al-Assema TV, October 19, 2017.

The Iranian Revolution of 1979 sparked off increasingly revolutionary movements across the Islamic world, and in the process saw women in many countries denied the freedoms they had started to acquire under earlier regimes. The veil returned widely, notably in Turkey, following the growing power of authoritarian and fundamentalist President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, with women's rights being increasingly denied.

We urgently need to drop our unwillingness to contrast Western and Islamic values -- whether regarding violence, treatment of religious minorities, anti-Semitism, or treatment of women. There are also growing numbers of Muslims, as we are seeing today in Iran, who find wider Islamic attitudes abhorrent and work hard, mostly against the odds, to bring their faith closer to modern values.

Sunday, December 24, 2017

From Ian:

Saudi Arabia bars Israelis from chess tournament
Israeli chess players on Sunday were denied the visas necessary for them to participate in an international tournament in Saudi Arabia next week, crushing hopes that they could make history by being the first representatives of the Jewish state to take part in such an event hosted by the kingdom.

Seven Israeli players had filed requests for visas to participate in the games to be held in Riyadh on December 26-30 as part of the world rapid and blitz chess championships.

Last month, the World Chess Federation (FIDE), which runs the tournament, said that it was “making a huge effort to assure that all players get their visas.”

But on Sunday that international body announced that its efforts were for naught.

Moshe Shalev, the interim head of the Israel Chess Federation, told The Times of Israel that the players had not been granted visas and said his group was discussing taking legal action.

“We are thinking about suing the World Chess Federation,” he said.
Prof. Phyllis Chesler: Europe's betrayal
I am reliving the Evian Conference, held in 1938. No European country was willing to take the Jews.

Eighty years later, on December 21, 2017, twenty six European countries voted to condemn the United States’ decision to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital. Six abstained. No European country dared to stand with the United States, with Israel, or with reality.

Austria and Germany—Hitler’s home base—voted to condemn the United States’ decision to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.

Germany—whose shame about the Nazi genocide of six million assimilated, productive, and non-violent Jews led Merkel’s Germany tp embrace millions of non-assimilated, non-productive, and very violent Muslim refugees—and why?

Partly to redeem their own soiled reputation and, more diabolically, to continue their traditional Jew-hatred by allowing Muslim refugees to harass, beat, torture, and murder Jews—and by consistently voting for Palestinian terrorists over a peaceful and democratic Israel.

Germany—on whose soil Israeli athletes were murdered in cold blood at the Olympics and whose police could not stop the Palestinian killing spree or apprehend the perpetrators.

Austria and Germany were not the only European countries who voted to condemn the vote on moving the American Embassy to Israel’s capital city, Jerusalem.

Israeli experts weigh in on Obama-Hezbollah revelation
In fact, while much of the probe has centered on the potential illegality of Obama's intervention, investigators are scrutinizing the former chief executive’s reasons for interfering to Hezbollah’s benefit: namely, to examine the assumptions and, more generally, the worldview that shaped his policy toward the organization and, by extension, Iran.

To that end, Politico cited statements made by John Brennan, who would become Obama's top counterterrorism adviser and then CIA director. As early as 2010, just one year after Obama assumed office, Brennan confirmed that the administration was looking for ways to build up “moderate elements” within the "very interesting" Hezbollah group which was no longer considered a "purely terrorist organization."

Obama loyalists see in this interpretation a reasonable justification for the former president’s actions as a path to engaging Tehran diplomatically rather than militarily. Critics not only see no reasonable indication to have believed Hezbollah was malleable, and in fact, saw the terrorist group’s militancy as intractable. This is supported by the now infamous comments by top Obama aide Ben Rhodes who bragged in an interview of manipulating an uninformed media and populace to ratify the Iranian nuclear agreement. Indeed, it is being reported that the core of the Obama team has been activated to de-toxify the alleged Obama actions vis-à-vis Hezbollah.

Those who rejected the agreement have been strengthened during the ensuing years, as Shiite Tehran continues to foment unrest in Syria, Iraq, Yemen and beyond, arguing that by all indicators—and citing its blatant development of missile delivery systems capable of supporting nuclear weapons and flouting of United Nations Security Council resolutions—the Islamic Republic remains committed to exporting its revolutionary ideology while competing with Sunni Saudi Arabia for regional dominance.

And while proponents of the accord contend that Tehran is abiding by it, opponents continue to warn that the devil is in the existence of "sunset clauses" that will expire after 12 more years, effectively giving Iran a green-light to resume enriching uranium. At that point, the country will have pocketed all of the benefits of sanctions relief and reinforced its so-called "Shiite Crescent," a land corridor stretching through Iraq, Syria and Lebanon and into the Mediterranean.

According to Efraim Kam, a Senior Research Fellow at Israel's Institute for National Security Studies, Iran's unwillingness to change course was predictable. "Obama saw the nuclear deal as a way to get Tehran to modify its strategy," he explained to The Media Line. "In the administration's view it was a jumping off point to more cooperation and dialogue.

"However," Kam highlighted, "even before the accord was concluded Iranian Supreme Leader Khamenei made clear that he was not going to alter his calculus. He left no doubt that coordination would not be extended to other areas and never changed his mind for one minute."

Monday, December 18, 2017

From Ian:

Obama said to have derailed campaign against Hezbollah to clinch Iran nuke deal
In order to help solidify the 2015 Iran nuclear accord, the Obama administration covertly derailed a campaign by the US Drug Enforcement Administration that targeted the Iranian-backed Hezbollah terrorist group, according to an investigative report by Politico.

The specific campaign, called Project Cassandra, was launched in 2008 to monitor Hezbollah’s weapons and drug trafficking practices, which included funneling cocaine into the United States.

Along with drug-trafficking, the Lebanon-based terrorist group was also engaging in money laundering and other criminal activities — from which it made some $1 billion annually.

When investigators — after amassing substantial evidence — sought approval for prosecution from the US Department of Justice and US Department of Treasury, those two agencies were unresponsive, the Politico report said.

“This was a policy decision, it was a systematic decision,” said David Asher, an analyst for the US Department of Defense specializing in illicit finance who helped set up and run Project Cassandra. “They serially ripped apart this entire effort that was very well supported and resourced, and it was done from the top down.”

Asher added that Obama officials obstructed efforts to apprehend top Hezbollah operatives, including one of Syrian President Bashar Assad’s foremost weapons suppliers.
Daily Freier: Iran Names its Newest Ballistic Missile in Honor of Ben Rhodes (satire)
The Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps was giddy with anticipation today as they waited for Iran’s Supreme Leader to unveil their newest weapon system to the public. As crowds waited at the bi-weekly “Death to America/Death to Israel Military Parade and Children’s Puppet Show”, the Ayatollah Khameini removed a giant tarp to reveal Iran’s newest missile: the “Ben Rhodes”. Named in honor of the most clever former aspiring novelist to ever serve as a National Security Advisor to Barack Obama, the “Ben Rhodes” is an impressive weapon indeed. The Ayatollah Khameini explained the reasoning behind the name to the press.

“In our culture, it is important to show gratitude. So it only seemed fair to name this great missile after the man who helped make it all possible. Of course, he had some help. So honestly, coming up with just one name was a bit tough.” Khameini then shared a fascinating tidbit of inside information. “You know, at first we voted to name the missile after John Kerry, but then we voted against it.”

The Ayatollah then went on to explain the rigorous testing that the missile went through, to include tests in a specially constructed Echo Chamber. “This missile took a lot of work. But it’s funny how everything worked out in the end: the Iran Deal, our unfrozen assets, America “Leading from Behind”. Yes it is all quite funny. But not as funny as Ben Rhodes being named to the Board of the Holocaust Museum in Washington.”
Trump Doctrine: 'Israel is not the cause of problems in the Middle East'
U.S. President Trump poised to unveil "America First" national security strategy Monday • Strategy argues the threats from radical terrorists and Iran are proving that Israeli-Palestinian conflict is not the "prime irritant" preventing regional peace.
Prioritizing national sovereignty over alliances, U.S. President Donald Trump is poised to outline a new national security strategy that envisions nations in a perpetual state of competition, reverses Obama-era warnings on climate change, and de-emphasizes multinational agreements that have dominated U.S. foreign policy since the Cold War.

The Republican president, who ran on a platform of "America First," will detail his plan Monday, one that, if fully implemented, could sharply alter the United States' relationships with the rest of the world.

The plan, according to senior administration officials who offered a preview Sunday, is to focus on four main themes: protecting the homeland and way of life; promoting American prosperity; demonstrating peace through strength; and advancing American influence in an ever-competitive world.

Trump's doctrine holds that nation states are in perpetual competition and that the U.S. must fight on all fronts to protect and defend its sovereignty from friend and foe alike. While the administration often says that "America First" does not mean "America Alone," the national security strategy to be presented by Trump will make clear that the United States will stand up for itself even if that means acting unilaterally or alienating others on issues like trade, climate change and immigration, according to people familiar with the strategy.
PreOccupiedTerritory: US Declares Palestinians No Longer Have Role In Mideast Peace (satire)
Trump administration officials voiced their frustration with the continued refusal of Palestinians representatives to play a constructive role in negotiations with Israel over a final status agreement Monday, and announced they no longer see a role Palestinians can play in fostering a peaceful resolution to the century-old conflict.

White House spokesman Hugh Gottabee-Kidding used the daily press briefing to inform reporters that the administration is now considering alternatives to the Palestinians in the role they have performed hitherto, and have assembled a list of what Gottabee-Kidding called seven “strong” candidates.

“Unfortunately, over the last quarter-century since Israelis and Palestinians started negotiations, we’ve been consistently let down by the credibility of the Palestinian role in the process,” he stated. “As such, we no longer see Palestinian participation as a positive element in the dynamic of the talks. We sat down this past week to hammer out possible others who could step in to play the role in a constructive fashion, and we have already conducted preliminary inquiries with each of those parties.”

Gottabee-Kidding stressed that until a firm agreement is reached with the Palestinians’ replacement, he cannot divulge the identities of the candidates. “I will say that, obviously, functioning nations with peace agreements in place with Israel have already demonstrated the capacity to play a constructive role, and it would be remiss of us not to include them in the roster.” Egypt and Jordan concluded peace agreements with Israel in 1978 and 1994, respectively.

Analysts warn that rushing into the replacement process could jeopardize the talks, which have been on hold since 2014. “We wouldn’t want to disturb the status quo,” explained Bob Zyerunkel of Scholars and Humanists Analyzing the Middle East (SHAME), a think tank. There’s been a sort of stability in things for more than three years at this point, and it might be dangerous to upset that. Any replacement candidate would have to commit to a certain way of doing things. There’s an entire industry built around these negotiations, and it wouldn’t do to compromise that.”

Thursday, December 14, 2017

From Ian:

Evelyn Gordon: The Mainstream Media’s Misdirection on Jerusalem
Mainstream media outlets like to complain about “fake news” emanating from sources other than themselves, but the mainstream media itself has taken fake news to new heights in its recent coverage of Jerusalem. Leading media outlets have asserted, inter alia, that Jews never cared about Jerusalem until a few decades ago, that Jews didn’t live in East Jerusalem before 1967, and that Jordan protected freedom of worship in the city.

Exhibit A is the New York Times’ mind-boggling backgrounder on Jerusalem, which “informs” readers that Jews didn’t really care about the city until “hard-line religious nationalism” came into vogue a few decades ago. To produce this flat-out lie, the reporters omit crucial facts, downplay those they can’t omit and rely heavily on Arabs–who have made a fetish of denying Jewish links to Jerusalem for decades–to tell their readers what Jews think (though, naturally, they also found some Jews to echo these claims). Thus, for instance, they paraphrase historian Issam Nasser as saying, “The early Israeli state was hesitant to focus too much on Jerusalem,” while Prof. Rashid Khalidi asserts that post-1967, “Jerusalem became the center of a cultlike devotion that had not really existed previously.”

To support this idea, the reporters omit almost any fact that might contradict it. Readers are never told, for instance, that Israel’s founding fathers–the ones who ostensibly had little interest in Jerusalem–fought some of the bloodiest battles of the War of Independence in an effort to save the city from its Arab besiegers.They even took the extraordinary step, after repeated failures to open the road to Jerusalem militarily, of building an entirely new road through very difficult terrain to relieve the siege.

Readers also aren’t told that Israel’s first prime minister, David Ben-Gurion, repeatedly stressed Jerusalem’s importance, declaring it “the heart of the State of Israel,” which “Israelis will give their lives” to keep, because for Israel, “there has always been and always will be one capital only.” And they’re certainly never told that the devotion to Jerusalem Khalidi deems of such recent vintage actually dates back 3,000 years, to the First Temple, and that throughout two millennia of exile, Jews prayed facing Jerusalem and begged God to restore them to their holy city.

But on the rare occasions when the reporters can’t omit an inconvenient fact, they shout, like the Wizard of Oz, “Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain!” Thus, the Times’ reporters do concede the pesky fact that Israel’s founding fathers–those same people who ostensibly didn’t care about Jerusalem–relocated Israel’s capital to the city the moment it was safe to do so, a few months after the war ended, and even codified this decision in legislation. But the information is hidden in a parenthetical aside: Jerusalem’s “western half became part of the new state of Israel (and its capital, under an Israeli law passed in 1950).”

Unfortunately, this backgrounder was no aberration. Just a few days later, a Times editorial asserted that “East Jerusalem was exclusively Arab in 1967, but Israel has steadily built settlements there, placing some 200,000 of its citizens among the Arab population and complicating any possible peace agreement.” You’d never know from reading this that east Jerusalem was “exclusively Arab” in 1967 only because Jordan had ethnically cleansed every last Jew from the area 19 years earlier. Prior to this ethnic cleansing, Jews had not only lived there almost continuously for 3,000 years but constituted an absolute majority of the city’s residents for the past century. Still, one can understand the paper’s dilemma. It might be difficult to explain to readers why the Times, which normally condemns ethnic cleansing, suddenly condones it when the victims are Jews; much better to simply conceal the fact that it ever happened.
CAMERA: To the Editor: Re “Does Mr. Trump Want Mideast Peace?” (editorial, Dec. 6):
In making the case against President Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, you say, “East Jerusalem was exclusively Arab in 1967.” The language risks severely misleading readers, as it suggests that this ethnic “exclusivity” was an intrinsic and even desirable part of the area’s character before 1967.

But eastern Jerusalem was empty of Jews for a mere 19 years. When Jordan’s Arab Legion conquered the Old City, its Jewish Quarter and surrounding neighborhoods, it forced out every Jewish man, woman and child. Before that, Jews were a large and integral part of what is now called East Jerusalem, and at times were the majority population.

The situation between 1948 and 1967 was not the norm, but an aberrant blip on the timeline of Judaism’s holiest city and a result of ethnic cleansing.
Dr. Mordechai Kedar: Trump, Jerusalem, Arabs, Muslims
Arafat's followers know that if they succeed in moving Jerusalem outside the borders of Israel, a large number of Jews are going to lose all hope and leave Israel for the countries from which they or their parents came. This will mean the beginning of the end for the Zionist enterprise, because there is no Zionism without Zion. That's why they expend so much energy on Jerusalem, taking advantage of the fact that if most countries do not recognize Jerusalem as the capital city of Israel, Jerusalem becomes the weak link in the chain holding Israel together.

Arafat attempted to frighten the Israeli with the slogan: "A million shaheeds will march on Jerusalem," meaning that millions are willing to jput their lives on the line in order to free the city from the clutches of the Zionists. This mantra has been internalized in Islamic society and can be heard at anti-Israel demonstrations all over the world.

In comes Trump and recognizes Jerusalem as Israel's capital city, giving the Palestinian nationalist narrative a hard blow and Israel a kind of insurance policy. This maddens all the Arabs who flourished on the dream of destroying Israel during the golden Oslo Agreement years, because it has now becme clear that a very powerful nation, the USA, does not see itself a partner in that dream and is even willing to act against it.

The Arabs , in general, and particularly the Palestiinians, can already picture the dominos falling. The Czech Republic, Hungary and other important states plan to move their embassies from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, recognizing the city as Israel's capital. They noticed that in April of this year, eight months ago, even Russian President Vladimir Putin declared his recognition of Western Jerusalem as Israel's capital city. There was no outcry, verbal or otherwise, in response to Putin's declaration, for one simple reason: The Arabs are deathly afraid of Putin, after he made crystal clear to what lengths he is willing to go during the war in Syria, and they carefully refrain from reacting to his statements or decisions.

Conclusions:
For both religious and nationalistic reasons, the Arabs and Muslims are incapable of accepting Israel as the Jewish State.

The question we are forced to ask ourselves is whether we in Israel, Jews and Christians, are going to recognize the Muslim and Arab problem , but tell them in no uncertain terms that "Jerusalem belongs to the Jews and you are going to have to learn to live with it" or are going to give in to the Arab and Muslim dreamers who are incapable of accepting a reality in which the Jewish religions is alive and well.

Tuesday, November 28, 2017

From Ian:

Caroline Glick: The State Department drops the ball
Over the weekend, The New York Times published its latest broadside against US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson for what the newspaper referred to as his “culling” of senior State Department officials and his failure to date to either nominate or appoint senior personnel to open positions.

But if the State Department’s extraordinary about face on the PLO’s mission in Washington is an indication of what passes for US diplomacy these days, then perhaps Tillerson should just shut down operations at Foggy Bottom. The US would be better off without representation by its diplomats.

Last week, in accordance with US law, Tillerson notified the PLO’s Washington envoy Husam Zomlot that the PLO’s mission in Washington has to close within 90 days because it has breached the legal terms governing its operations.

Specifically, Tillerson explained, PLO chief and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas breached US law when he called for the International Criminal Court to indict and prosecute Israeli nationals during his speech before the UN General Assembly in September.

Tillerson explained that under US law, the only way to keep the PLO mission in Washington open is if US President Donald Trump certifies in the next 90 days that its representatives are engaged in “direct and meaningful negotiations” with Israel.

The PLO didn’t respond to Tillerson with quiet diplomacy. It didn’t make an attempt to appease Congress or the State Department by for instance agreeing to end its campaign to get Israelis charged with war crimes at the ICC. It didn’t put an abrupt end to its financial support for terrorism and terrorists. It didn’t stop inciting Palestinians to hate Israel and seek its destruction. It didn’t disavow its efforts to form a unity government with Hamas and its terrorist regime in Gaza.

It didn’t join Saudi Arabia and Egypt in their efforts to fight Iranian power and influence in the region. It didn’t end its efforts to have Israeli companies blacklisted by the UN Human Rights Committee or scale back its leadership of the international boycott movement against Israel.

The PLO certainly didn’t begin “direct and meaningful negotiations” with Israel.
Melanie Phillips: Reformist noises coming out of Saudi Arabia, what all this might mean for the Arab-Israel conflict
Please join me here as I discuss with Avi Abelow of Israel Video Network the significance of the continuing reformist noises coming out of Saudi Arabia, what all this might mean for the Arab-Israel conflict and the row over the remarks made by Israeli deputy foreign minister Tzipi Hotovely about American Jews.


Friday, November 24, 2017

From Ian:

At least 235 dead in Sinai bombing, shooting terror attack
At least 235 people were killed and more than 120 wounded in a bombing and shooting attack against worshipers at a mosque in the northern Sinai after Friday prayers.

Egypt's government has declared three days of mourning in response to the attack that struck the Al-Rawdah mosque in Bir al-Abed west of El-Arish.

Reuters reports that witnesses saw terrorists enter the mosque to kill worshipers during Friday prayers, when mosques see the largest attendance. The attack began around noon time. They also attempted to prevent rescue services from reaching the area.

"They were shooting at people as they left the mosque," a local resident whose relatives were at the scene told Reuters. "They were shooting at the ambulances too."

No group claimed responsibility for the assault but it was the deadliest yet in the region where for three years Egyptian security forces have battled an Islamic State insurgency that has killed hundreds of police and soldiers.

Photos posted online by a Twitter account that publishes news from Sinai showed the wounded being transported in the back of pickup trucks to hospital. It said the attack also targeted a kindergarten. Photos from inside the mosque showed at least thirty bodies laying on the floor.

Egyptian President Abdel Fatah al-Sisi has summoned a meeting of security officials to address the incident.
After mosque massacre, Israel says it ‘stands shoulder-to-shoulder with Egypt’
Israeli ministers on Friday expressed solidarity with Egypt following a deadly terror attack in a north Sinai mosque that claimed at least 200 lives, with one calling for “a regional front” against jihadists.

They also used the attack as a platform to attack Iran.

On Twitter, Transportation and Intelligence Minister Yisrael Katz (Likud) offered “condolences to the families of the dozens of people murdered in the terror attack on a mosque in Sinai” and said the Jewish state “stands shoulder to shoulder with Egypt and other countries in region and the international arena in the war against radical Islamic terror.”

In a Hebrew tweet, he also said “Radical Islam is striking indiscriminately and murdering Muslims as well. It’s time to form a regional front against Iran’s Shiite terrorism and Islamic State’s Sunni terror.”

Education Minister Naftali Bennett (Jewish Home) offered condolences and said: “The murderous terror attack is testimony to the fact that a new world order is being created around us, in which the distinction is between terror supporters like Iran and [IS] and supporters of humanity.
Egyptian army strikes vehicles of terrorists behind Sinai attack — report
An unconfirmed report in Sky News Arabia Friday said Egyptian military forces destroyed two vehicles carrying terrorists involved in an attack on a mosque in northern Sinai, in which at least 235 people were killed.

An unnamed army source told the TV station that unmanned drones had attacked two cars in a desert area called al-Risha, killing 15 jihadists. He added that the hunt for other perpetrators was ongoing.

There was no official word from Egypt’s military on the matter.

Armed attackers killed at least 235 worshipers in a bomb and gun assault on the packed mosque, state media reported, the country’s deadliest attack in recent memory.

A bomb explosion ripped through the Rawda mosque frequented by Sufis roughly 40 kilometers west of the North Sinai capital of el-Arish, before gunmen opened fire on those gathered for weekly Friday prayers, officials said.

Witnesses said the assailants had surrounded the mosque with all-terrain vehicles then planted a bomb outside.

The gunmen then mowed down the panicked worshippers as they attempted to flee and used the congregants’ vehicles they had set alight to block routes to the mosque.
Tel Aviv City Hall lights up in solidarity with Egypt
The facade of the Tel Aviv-Yafo municipality building wore red, white, black and golden hues on Friday night as it was lit up in solidarity with Egypt, which suffered a mass casualty terror attack on Friday.

The municipality building, situated in Tel Aviv's Rabin Square, donned the colors of the Egyptian flag in an official expression of Israel's support of its southern neighbor, as Egypt continues to reel from the attack that claimed the lives of at least 235 worshipers at a mosque in the northern Sinai after Friday prayers.

The mayor of Tel Aviv, Ron Huldai, expressed his condolences to Israel's southern neighbors in Egypt.

"A horrific attack in Egypt. We send our condolences to our friends across the border and light the Municipality building in their honor," wrote Huldai on Twitter.

Tuesday, November 21, 2017

From Ian:

Palestinians freeze all US contacts over threat to shutter PLO office in DC
The Palestinians have frozen all contacts with the United States after it decided to close their representative office in Washington, officials said on Tuesday.

“In practice by closing the office they are freezing all meetings and we are making that official,” Palestinian Foreign Minister Riyad al-Malki told AFP.

A spokesman for the Palestine Liberation Organization confirmed that it had received instructions from Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas “regarding closing down all communication lines with the Americans.”

The Palestinian move comes as the Trump administration seeks to broker the long-out-of-reach Israeli-Palestinian peace deal.

Speaking in the Spanish Parliament today, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas said the Palestinians were “committed to a historic peace deal [with Israel] under the auspices of President Trump.”
Caroline Glick: Holding the PLO accountable
Is the PLO’s long vacation from accountability coming to an end? How about the State Department’s? In 1987 the US State Department placed the PLO on its list of foreign terrorist organizations. The PLO was removed from the list in 1994, following the initiation of its peace process with Israel in 1993.

As part of the Clinton administration’s efforts to conclude a long-term peace deal between the PLO and Israel, in 1994 then president Bill Clinton signed an executive order waiving enforcement of laws that barred the PLO and its front groups from operating in the US. His move enabled the PLO to open a mission in Washington.

In 2010, then president Barack Obama upgraded the mission’s status to the level of “Delegation General.” The move was seen as a signal that the Obama administration supported moves by the PLO to initiate recognition of the “State of Palestine” by European governments and international bodies.

Whereas Obama’s PLO upgrade was legally dubious, the PLO’s campaign to get recognized as a state breached both of its agreements with Israel and the terms under which the US recognized it and permitted it to operate missions on US soil.
Palestinians: If You Do Not Give Us Everything, We Cannot Trust You
The Palestinians are once again angry -- this time because the Trump administration does not seem to have endorsed their position regarding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The Palestinians are also angry because they believe that the Trump administration does not want to force Israel to comply with all their demands.

Here is how the Palestinians see it: If you are not with us, then you must be against us. If you do not accept all our demands, then you must be our enemy and we cannot trust you to play the role of an "honest" broker in the conflict with Israel.

Last week, unconfirmed reports once again suggested that the Trump administration has been working on a comprehensive plan for peace in the Middle East. The full details of the plan remain unknown at this time.

However, what is certain -- according to the reports -- is that the plan does not meet all of the Palestinians' demands. In fact, no peace plan -- by Americans or any other party -- would be able to provide the Palestinians with everything for which they are asking.

Monday, November 13, 2017

From Ian:

Daniel Pipes: Why Palestinian delusions persist
In 1974, 2nd Lt. Hiroo Onoda of the Imperial Japanese Army was still fighting for his emperor, hiding in a Philippine jungle. He had rejected many attempts to inform him of Japan's surrender 29 years earlier. During those many years, he senselessly murdered about one Filipino and injured three others each year. Only a concerted effort by his former commander finally convinced Onoda that the emperor had accepted defeat in 1945 and therefore he too must lay down arms.

The Palestinians of the West Bank and Gaza are Onoda writ large. They formally acknowledged defeat by Israel 24 years ago, when Yasser Arafat stood on the White House lawn and recognized "the right of the State of Israel to exist in peace and security." Trouble was, Arafat himself did not sincerely offer this act of surrender and most Palestinians rejected it.

Accordingly, the war continues, with Palestinians emulating that grizzled, vicious Japanese soldier: They, too, battle on for a failed cause, murder senselessly, and ignore repeated calls to surrender. Just as Onoda insisted on believing in a divine emperor, Palestinians inhabit a fantasy world in which, for example, Jesus was a Palestinian, Jerusalem was always exclusively Islamic, and Israel is the new Crusader state on the verge of collapse. (In this spirit, Iranian dictator Ali Khamenei has helpfully provided the precise date of Sep. 9, 2040, when Israel will vaporize, and his acolytes built a large doomsday clock to count down the days.) Some imagine Israel already gone, with nearly every Arabic map of "Palestine" showing it replacing the Jewish state.

How do Palestinians ignore reality and persist in these illusions? Due to three main factors: Islamic doctrine, international succor, and the wariness of the Israeli security services. (The Israeli Left was once a major factor but it barely counts anymore.)
PMW: Fatah official: Israel has a "fascist governmental plan, typical of Nazism"
In 2013, the Palestinian Football Association (PFA), headed by Secretary of the Fatah Central Committee Jibril Rajoub, launched an unfounded attack against the Israeli Football Association (IFA) in FIFA. The PFA claimed that the IFA is in breach of FIFA's statutes since six of its registered clubs play in what the PFA refers to as "its territory."

On Oct. 27, 2017, FIFA's Council rejected Rajoub and PFA's claim, deciding
[To] "refrain from imposing any sanctions or other measures on either the Israel FA or the Palestinian FA, as well as from requesting any other FIFA body to do so. The matter is declared closed..." [FIFA Council statement, Oct. 27, 2017]

While not acting on Rajoub's complaint, FIFA's council also said it would not act against the PFA. The basis for acting against the PFA was Palestinian Media Watch's complaint to FIFA's Disciplinary Committee which provided evidence that the PFA and Rajoub were inciting terror, glorifying terrorists, and promoting racism and Antisemitism.

In response, Rajoub continues to use denigratory and discriminatory language, saying Israel has a "fascist governmental plan... that is typical of Nazism," in breach of section 58 of FIFA's Disciplinary Code. Two days after FIFA's decision, Rajoub said:

"This is a blatant violation when they [Israelis] organize an official [football] league on lands that are not Israeli lands. Even the Israel [Football] Association did not dare to claim: "These lands belong to us." The one [Israel] who brings in politics and makes sport political is the one who works according to a fascist governmental plan, a government that is typical of Nazism. We have rights, and we will continue to demand them at the FIFA court in accordance with all the laws and regulations, and also the laws of Switzerland where FIFA is located."
[Official PA TV News, Oct. 29, 2017]

PMW will be submitting another complaint to FIFA against Rajoub's new breach of FIFA's Disciplinary Code.
New Palestinian Authority textbooks teach “martyrdom as a life goal”
For years we’ve been covering incitement on the part of the Palestinian Authority (PA) and its failure to prepare Palestinian society for a resolution of the conflict via non-violent means.

The PA is viewed by the West as the ‘moderate’ Palestinian body and Israel’s supposed ‘partner for peace’, but as we’ve repeatedly highlighted, its officials routinely demonize Israel and glorify terrorists as national heroes. Young people are exposed to this radicalization, as schools and educational programs justify and condone the use of violence.

The sad reality is that a whole generation of Palestinian children is learning in schools and playing in sports fields and arenas named after mass murders.

Now a new study by the Institute for Monitoring Peace and Cultural Tolerance in School Education (IMPACT-se) documents how kids in Palestinian Authority-controlled areas are being further indoctrinated to hate through their schoolbooks.

Like earlier textbooks that were used to teach “over one million impressionable children”, the IMPACT-se report finds that the new textbooks—recently released as part of the PA’s first full reform of the educational curriculum since 2000—are still promoting the demonization of Israel.

But the IMPACT-se assessment also finds that the radicalization is pervasive across this new curriculum—to an even greater extent than before.

Basically, Palestinian children are being groomed to commit to jihad war and to sacrifice themselves to martyrdom.

Wednesday, November 08, 2017

  • Wednesday, November 08, 2017
From Ian:

In recording, John Kerry says Israeli government doesn’t want peace
Former US secretary of state John Kerry blamed the Israeli government’s resistance to the establishment of a Palestinian state for harming the prospects of a peace deal, while warning Israel could face a future violent Palestinian uprising if there was no progress in peace talks.

In recordings published Tuesday by Channel 10, America’s former top diplomat can be heard praising the Palestinian Authority’s commitment to nonviolence following a wave of terror attacks beginning in the fall of 2015, which he said has been ignored by Israelis due to right-wing configuration of the current government.

“The Palestinians have done an extraordinary job of remaining committed to nonviolence. And in fact when the [knife] intifada took place they delivered non-violence in the West Bank,” Kerry is heard saying in the recording.

“This is overlooked by the general [Israeli] population because it is not a topic of discussion. Why? Because the majority of the cabinet currently in the current Israeli government has publicly declared they are not ever for a Palestinian state,” he adds.

Channel 10 said the recording was made at a conference in Dubai in the past year attended by Middle East leaders and Israel’s Joint (Arab) List chief Ayman Odeh. The television channel also said opposition leader Isaac Herzog (Zionist Union) addressed the conference by video.

It was not clear if Kerry was aware he was being recorded or if the segments released were his full remarks.
IsraellyCool: Recordings Demonstrate the Dangerous Ignorance of John Kerry
Recordings just released by Israel’s Channel 10 reveal that Former US Secretary of State John Kerry really had no John “F*cking” Kerry of a clue about anything.
It is actually scary just out of touch with reality he was, and presumably still is.
For instance:

He praised the PA for their supposed commitment to nonviolence, despite the fact they continue to incite violence and pay the families of terrorists to this day

Compared palestinian ‘resistance’ to civil rights movements
  • Kerry warned in the recording that frustrations among Palestinians could boil over into violence and that the current status quo cannot last.
  • “If you see 40,000 kids marching up to the wall everyday with signs saying ‘give us are rights,’ I mean, I don’t think Palestine is going to be immune forever to the civil rights movements that have swept other nations in the world,” he says.
Criticized Israel’s leadership (not the palestinian leadership) as being ones not wanting peace

  • Despite this, Kerry said Israel is ignoring the threat posed by the diplomatic stalemate. “That is not leadership,” says Kerry.
  • “If you don’t have leaders who don’t want to make peace, if the equation doesn’t change, I’ll be amazed if within the next 10 years if we don’t see some young [Palestinian] leader come along who says we have tried non-violence for the last 30 years and look, it hasn’t gotten us anything,” he says.



Evelyn Gordon: Why Israel Threatened Military Action to Save an Enemy
For many, it is assumed that Israel is a racist state that considers its Arab minority second-class citizens. I wonder, then, how they explain what happened last Friday?

For the third time in the last two years, Israel threatened military action to stop an attack by extremist Syrian rebels on the Syrian Druze village of Khader. It did so despite the fact that Syrian Druze have sided with the Assad regime in that war, meaning they’re aligned with Israel’s arch-enemies, Iran and Hezbollah; despite the fact that Khader itself has been the source of several anti-Israel terror attacks; and despite the fact that such intervention risks entangling Israel in Syria’s civil war, something it has hitherto tried hard to avoid–and all just because it was asked to do so by its own Druze minority, which was worried about its coreligionists across the border.

To most Israelis, it seems both obvious and unremarkable that Israel should accede to this request. But in fact, though Israel has always considered itself obligated as a Jewish state to try to protect Jews anywhere, it’s not at all obvious that it would consider itself equally obligated to try to protect Druze beyond its borders. Threatening cross-border military action on behalf of foreign nationals aligned with your worst enemies, simply because they’re the coreligionists of one of your own ethnic minorities, isn’t an obvious step for any country. And it’s especially not obvious for a country accused of considering said minorities to be second-class citizens.

Thus, the fact that Israel has repeatedly taken action to protect the Syrian Druze says a lot about the true state of anti-Arab “racism” in the country. But to understand exactly what it says, it’s first necessary to understand the difference between Israeli Druze and other Arab Israelis.

Thursday, November 02, 2017

From Ian:

David Collier: Gilad Atzmon, solidarity in Reading and RISC – the anti-Israel hosts
Last week, Gilad Atzmon gave a talk at the Reading International Solidarity Centre (RISC).

This blog isn’t about free speech. You want a racist book? You want to subscribe to a white supremacist magazine that hates Jews, blacks and gays? Then go ahead, nobody is stopping you. But you shouldn’t expect the National Lottery fund to subsidise the product. The public purse can be legitimately discerning about where it provides funding. That is not an argument over free speech.

Which is why publicly funded Reading International Solidarity Centre were so outrageously ‘off the mark’ when they allowed this event to go ahead.

Gilad Atzmon the idiot
Gilad Atzmon is an idiot with a highly exaggerated sense of his own intelligence. Just as any functioning computer, Gilad Atzmon operates with the data he has to play with. If some founding pieces, have been contaminated, then the final output is likely to be an incoherent mess. Thus, Gilad Atzmon remains oblivious to the fact that his basic reasoning is badly flawed and his conclusions are askew. A consensus opinion held even by many of those who ‘hate’ Israel. Gilad Atzmon has been outed as an antisemite by many in the anti-Israel camp.

The event in Reading highlighted all this perfectly. In effect, you have to be unbelievably stupid or an antisemite yourself, not to see the antisemite in Gilad Atzmon. There is a working processor churning away behind Gilad Atzmon’s ideology. He correctly identifies some serious problems in society – discussing identity politics, political correctness, automation, and the related scary cliff we face over the possibility of a growing disenfranchised ‘underclass’. Gilad Atzmon’s problem is an infected operating system. Gilad Atzmon has a virus called antisemitism.
Grilli: Antisemitism is always cruel
Whether it’s the “blood libels” of early modern Europe, Germany in the 1930s, Charlottesville, Virginia in 2017, or even Occupy Wall Street, any person of good will should be able to detect the pattern: Jews are the canary in the coal mine. In a society with a large population of Jews, when things start to go wrong, that’s where we unfortunately point fingers. In American culture, it is certainly a disgrace on the right.

The work William F. Buckley Jr. did to rid the conservative movement of the John Birchers seems to have lost some of its power as the tiki-torch wielding Jacobins of Charlottesville rose together as to speak with one voice, chanting, “Jews will not replace us.” This would be enough of an embarrassment but it only gained steam when President Trump gave one of the more mealy mouthed denunciations when addressing the horror that took place in Charlottesville, which resulted in the death of an innocent woman. It seems, however, that this issue has gone under reported on the left, for it is certainly a problem on the political left as well.

When Harvard Law professor emeritus Alan Dershowitz went to the University of California, Berkeley recently to discuss the liberal case for Israel, the student newspaper, the Daily Californian, ran a cartoon that could have easily sprung from the mind of Joseph Goebbels. The cartoon depicted Dershowitz as all anti-Semites depict Jews: ugly, exaggerated features, while he propped up the murder of Palestinians by an IDF soldier.

This blatant anti-Semitism would no doubt be explained away in terms of anti-Zionism, not anti-Semitism. It is convenient how often the two intersect. The same conspiratorial language is often used and, as one can see here, the same horrifying stereotypes are often employed. In Charlottesville, hundreds of people felt comfortable enough in their anti-Semitism to march in one of the nation’s most prominent college towns. In Berkeley, the editorial board at the newspaper of one of the better respected universities in the country, felt comfortable enough to print an anti-Semitic cartoon. The comfort of both of these groups of people is quite disturbing.
The Plame Truth About Anti-Semitism in America
Having encountered only scattered social media reaction to like-minded tweets in the past, Plame’s initial reaction to angry responses on Twitter was to double down, insisting that “many neocon hawks ARE Jewish” and admonishing her followers to “read the entire article,” which she called “provocative, but thoughtful.”

Only when the backlash began to draw mainstream media inquiries did Plame begin to backtrack, first by implausibly feigning ignorance of both the article (claiming only to have skimmed it) and of UNZ.com, then with a more full-throated apology and letter of resignation from the board of Ploughshares Fund.

What’s astonishing about this affair is that Plame wasn’t drunk or distressed in any way (unless she found the Jewish holiday of Rosh Hashanah distressing), nor was she caught unawares on a hot mic. Her grotesque expressions of bigotry were premeditated, public and purposed, however clumsily, to advance a political agenda. And they were largely ignored until they reached the threshold of Zyklon B metaphors and forcing Jews to display outward identification.

Even then the reaction among liberal commentators was apologetic and circumspect.

The Washington Post columnist Molly Roberts bemoaned Plame’s “casual, careless anti-Semitism” not because it is deeply unsettling to Jews or encourages the worst instincts in the rest of us, but because it undermines critiques of Israel “that might otherwise hold merit” and does a “disservice to those who want to have a wider discussion about Israel’s influence” in Washington. Liberals tend to view rampant anti-Semitism in universities and other bastions of the far left in much the same way — if they acknowledge it at all.

The truth about anti-Semitism in America is that we are further away from dispelling it than we are other forms of bigotry. Those who peddle overtly racist dogma do not sit on the boards of reputable NGOs, do not land lucrative speaking gigs and certainly do not get admonished in The Washington Post for carelessly undermining more legitimate criticism of African-Americans. Liberals for whom Plame was, and will likely remain, a cause célèbre should ponder why the equivalent cannot be said of anti-Semites.

Saturday, October 14, 2017

From Ian:

Why There Is No Peace in the Middle East
Peace is not possible in the Middle East because values and goals other than peace are more important to Middle Easterners. Most important to Middle Easterners are loyalty to kin, clan, and cult, and the honour that is won by such loyalty.

There was no group and no loyalty above the tribe or tribal confederation until the rise of Islam. With Islam, a new, higher, more encompassing level of loyalty was defined. All people were divided between Muslims and infidels, and the world was divided between the Dar al-Islam, the land of believers and peace, and Dar al-harb, the land of unbelievers and war. Following the tribal ideology of loyalty, Muslims should unite against infidels, and would receive not only honour, but heavenly rewards.

Honour is gained in victory. Losing is regarded as deeply humiliating. Only the prospects of a future victory and the regaining of honour drives people forward. An example is the Arab-Israel conflict, in the course of which the despised Jews repeatedly defeated the armies of Arab states. This was not so much a material disaster for the Arabs, as it was a cultural one in which honor was lost. The only way to regain honor is to defeat and destroy Israel, the explicit goal of the Palestinians: "from the [Jordan] river to the [Mediterranean] sea." This why no agreement over land or boundaries will bring peace: peace does not restore honor.

We in the West, unlike Middle Easterners, love "victims." But what if Middle Easterners are victims of the limitations and shortcomings of their own culture? (h/t Elder of Lobby)
Melanie Phillips: Modernity starts here, if only the world realized it
So it begins once more. In the synagogues this week, it’s Groundhog Day. Jews go back to the opening of the Five Books of Moses and start the narrative all over again.

The secular world looks on with indifference, bemusement or contempt. Among unbelievers, it is an article of faith that reason, science and modernity are in one box and religion, superstition and obscurantism in another.

Ah yes; the rational, factual, grounded secular world. The one that is currently disinviting speakers and violently attacking universities on the grounds of upholding freedom and equality. The one that is spewing unhinged lies and paranoid distortions at Israel and the Jewish people. The one that appears to be spinning off its axis into utter madness.

The reason for this is something the secular world cannot bring itself to grasp.

For in setting out to destroy the biblical basis of western civilization, the secular world is in the process of destroying reason itself. This is is how it works.

IsraellyCool: Hello, Refugees! Book Review
Tuvia’s travels reveal a number of interesting things. For a start, while Germany has perhaps allowed in the most refugees, Germany does not really have a good game plan after they have arrived. The refugees lived in squalid conditions, often with different enemy factions living right near each other. Night-time knife hilarity ensues.

Then there’s the question as to why Germany has let in the most refugees. Invariably, the answer is the same – and it rhymes with Madolf Mitler. Germany is trying to shed its past as the Dr Evil of nations, and is doing so to the extent that they are now the kindest people in the world! Or so Tuvia is told. The people telling him this also invariably add something along the lines of “unlike those inhumane Israelis who mistreat the poor palestinians.”

Yep, Tuvia encounters antisemitism among his Germans, but also among not an insignificant amount of the refugees he meets. Perhaps this is the glue that can make this marriage work!

Another interesting finding: the Right-wing Germans he meets, much reviled by the liberals, are actually not against bringing in refugees. They just want to make sure the refugees are really fleeing persecution, and not the economic refugees just wanting a better life (which often seems to include wanting to marry a beautiful blonde German girl).

Once again, Tuvia Tenenbom has delivered with an entertaining and provocative read that gets beyond mainstream media narratives.

Incidentally, I attended a Q&A with Tuvia Tenenbom earlier this week. You can view it yourself below; in it, Tuvia expands on some of the topics I have addressed in this review, in his inimitable style.
Tuvia Tenenbom: Refugees & Anti-Semitism in the US - Moderated by Melanie Phillips




Sunday, October 08, 2017

From Ian:

An insane society
Violent husband Nimr Mahmoud Ahmed Jamal, who murdered three people in Har Adar two weeks ago, was the latest in a long line of depressive, mentally ill, or "whacked out" Palestinian terrorists for whom the killing of Jews blotted out the label "crazy" that Palestinian society had previously stuck on them.

By killing, Jamal, like dozens of other troubled murderers, resituated himself in his society as normative, and even bought himself a ticket into the Palestinian hall of fame as a shahid [martyr] for the price of the three people he killed two weeks ago.

The more mentally ill Palestinians carry out lethal terrorist attacks, the more people get used to categorizing their bloodfests as a separate genre of attack, which presents a problem. Even more than this approach goes easy on the attackers from the "new" group, it goes easy on Palestinian society, which embraces them.

A healthy, sane society keeps the deranged at a distance and cares for the troubled. But in Palestinian society, murdering Jews gives even the mentally ill and those in the midst of various emotional crises a place of honor in its ethno-religious pantheon.

In Palestinian society, the murder of Jews allows even the most delusional and problematic marginalized characters under the perverted canopy of the institution of martyrdom.
PMW: Fatah glorifies murderer of 3 Israelis
Since a Palestinian terrorist murdered 3 Israelis last month, Fatah, which is headed by Mahmoud Abbas, has repeatedly emphasized his status as hero. Palestinian Media Watch reported that only a few hours after the murders, Fatah celebrated the morning scented with the fragrance of the Martyrs.

Subsequently, Fatah has issued and distributed a poster glorifying murderer Nimr Mahmoud Ahmed Al-Jamal who shot and murdered an Israeli border police officer and two security guards and wounded another Israeli at the entrance to Har Adar, northwest of Jerusalem, on Sept. 26, 2017.

In a PA TV News broadcast, the murderer's children and others were seen holding the Fatah issued poster which displays a large picture of terrorist murderer Nimr Al-Jamal, together with pictures Mahmoud Abbas and Yasser Arafat, with the text:

"With all honor and pride, The Fatah Movement, Jerusalem district, Beit Surik branch, mourns the death of its heroic Martyr Nimr Mahmoud Ahmed Al-Jamal." [Official PA TV News, Sept. 29, 2017]

The poster also featured the Fatah logo that includes a grenade, crossed rifles, and the PA map of "Palestine" that presents all of Israel as "Palestine" together with the PA areas.
David Collier: In Edinburgh they are still promoting SPSC antisemitism
This highlights the difficulty of the fight we are in. Whilst we are mainly passive, these ‘haters’ are aggressive. Single actors in a variety of settings become ‘enablers’. In unions, on councils, in schools. Intersectionality drives their strategy and in every setting where just one single member of the group has been tainted, the poison is spreading.

In this example someone who shared hard-core antisemitic material was a speaker at an event held by a group known for hard-core antisemitism. Yet such poison is still allowed to spread inside a school setting, just two months after the groups antisemitism had been laid bare.

This isn’t an exception. In February, my report into antisemitism inside the England & Wales PSC threw light onto the activities of Tapash Abu Shaim. A PSC activist who had helped run the PSC stall at the 2016 Labour Party Conference. Despite this receiving national coverage, despite complaints to the Labour party. Nothing changed. As I reported from the 2017 conference last week, Tapash was there, back at the PSC stall. Once again my own research is being shared, but if people are looking to groups like the PSC or SPSC, or even Political parties like Labour, to ‘self cleanse’, they misunderstand the depth of the problem.

On every council, in almost every school, in every community centre. Wider society is not dealing with toxic groups the way that it should because of individual sympathisers who have become activists. It takes just one member of the group to have ‘fallen into the trap’ of believing that antisemitism cannot exist where a humanitarian flag is waved. Where that happens, hard-core antisemitism is promoted and allowed to spread. When left unchallenged this turns each environment into a hostile environment that sees Jews as the problem. Because of this, society is not dealing with Jew hate in the same way it does other forms of racism. We have a real fight on our hands. We cannot stop, we cannot relax. Not for a second.

Saturday, October 07, 2017

From Ian:

Caroline Glick: In this round of reconciliation talks, Hamas is the great victor
In other words, the PA will now be responsible for keeping the lights on and picking up the garbage.

And Hamas will be free to concentrate on preparing for and initiating its next terror war against Israel. It can dig tunnels. It can build missiles. It can expand its operational ties with Hezbollah, Islamic State, Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps and Fatah.

In the wake of Hamas’s leadership’s meetings in Tehran, Sinwar told reporters that Hamas is now moving full speed ahead toward doing all of these things. Sinwar said that Hamas is “developing our military strength in order to liberate Palestine.” He added, “Every day we build missiles and continue military training.”

Thousands of people, he said, are working “day and night” to prepare Hamas’s next terror war against Israel. And indeed, two weeks ago, two Hamas terrorists were killed when the tunnels they were digging collapsed on them.

Tuesday’s surrender ceremonies tell us two things.

First, the notion that Fatah is even remotely interested in defeating Hamas is complete nonsense. For 10 years since its forces were humiliated and routed in Gaza, Fatah has faithfully funded and defended Hamas. Abbas’s only concern is staying in charge of his Israeli-protected fiefdom in Ramallah. To this end, he will finance – with US and EU taxpayer monies – and defend another 10 Hamas wars with Israel.

The second lesson we learn from Hamas’s victory is that we need to curb our enthusiasm for Sisi and his regime in Egypt, and for his backers in the UAE. Sisi’s decision to facilitate and mediate Hamas’s newest victory over Fatah shows that his alliance with Israel is tactical and limited in scope. His decision to side with Israel against Hamas during Operation Protective Edge three years ago may not repeat itself in the next war.

Nitsana Darshan-Leitner: Follow Israel’s example: We must wage financial warfare against terrorists
The United States and nations around the world battle ISIS and other terrorist groups with special forces and other ground combat troops, pilots of manned aircraft and drones, police, explosives experts, intelligence agents and informers. But to win the fight we also need financial experts who can deprive terrorists of money they require to wage war against us.

Israel – a favorite target of terrorists for decades – has developed a highly effective financial warfare template to hit terrorists in their wallets. The U.S. has already used this template to fight ISIS and other terrorist groups – and now European nations should follow.
Harpoon

Money is the common denominator behind everything that ISIS and other terrorist groups do and threaten to do. Without the cash to fund fighters and leaders, there would be no global jihad against the West. Islamic fundamentalism and despair might inspire terror, but money fuels it.

Israel came to terms with this reality years ago, during the last intifada from 2000 to 2005, when a seemingly endless wave of Palestinian suicide bombers attacked the country’s towns and cities. The Israeli military and security services waged relentless efforts to end the bloodshed, and elite counterterrorist units launched daring raids to kill and capture key terrorists – but the bombings continued.

Israeli leaders realized they needed a new approach – something that could provide short-term benefits and change the long-term paradigm. So Israel shifted its focus to the money that financed everything from bomb-building factories to the cash bonuses issued to the families of suicide bombers.

The Jewish state formed a multiagency task force codenamed Harpoon to wage financial warfare against its enemies. The Harpoon unit followed the terrorist money from its source – whether it was cash raised by charities in the U.S., or multimillion-dollar transfers from Iran, the Gulf States and Saudi Arabia.

Harpoon expanded its operational reach in 2002. Following the money wasn’t enough. The cash and the accounts had to be taken from the terrorists or destroyed.
Caroline Glick: Trump and Obama’s third term
The problem is that substantively, there is no real difference between the two administrations – not in the Middle East and not anywhere.

Take Iran’s nuclear program for example.

In accordance with the US Nuclear Agreement Review Act (2015), on October 15, Trump is obligated to make his quarterly report to Congress certifying or decertifying Iranian compliance with the terms of the nuclear deal it concluded with Obama two years ago.

The issue of whether or not to certify Iranian compliance has been the beginning, middle and end of all US policy discussions on Iran’s nuclear program since Trump entered office.

Despite Trump’s stated opposition to the deal, his top advisers Defense Secretary James Mattis and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson have pressured him into twice certifying Iranian compliance.

On the face of it, the debate about Iranian compliance ought to be about competing interpretations of Iran’s behavior. In practice, though, facts play little role in the discourse.

The Iranians announced as soon as the deal was concluded that they would not permit UN inspectors to enter any nuclear site they define as a “military installation.”

This hollowed out the entire inspections regime.

After all, if Iran can bar inspectors from its nuclear installations, there is no way for inspectors to know if Iran’s nuclear operations accord with or breach of the restrictions it agreed to in the agreement.

In other words, neither Obama nor Trump has had any way to credibly certify Iranian compliance, because the US has no idea what Iran is doing.

And everyone knows this.

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This blog may be a labor of love for me, but it takes a lot of effort, time and money. For over 14 years and 30,000 articles I have been providing accurate, original news that would have remained unnoticed. I've written hundreds of scoops and sometimes my reporting ends up making a real difference. I appreciate any donations you can give to keep this blog going.

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