Wednesday Part 1

From Ian:

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Obama in Israel: the wrong apology

As displayed in the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, as Hitler prepared to attack Poland without provocation in 1939, he dismissed objections by saying “Who, after all, speaks today of the annihilation of the Armenians?” setting the stage for the Holocaust. Ronald Reagan recognized this threat in 1981 when he said, “like the genocide of the Armenians before it, and the genocide of the Cambodians, which followed it — and like too many other persecutions of too many other people — the lessons of the Holocaust must never be forgotten.”
More than 20 countries and 42 U.S. states already have recognized the events of 1915 as genocide. As Obama seeks to shape his Middle East policy and consider his legacy over the next four years, he should consider the promises he made as a young candidate and recognize a massacre that never should be forgotten.

Barry Rubin: Why “Progress” Toward Israel-Palestinian “Peace” Is More Likely to Bring Regional Instability

Secretary of State John Kerry has in his head every what-should-be-discredited cliché about the Middle East firmly ensconced in his head. Of course, he is not alone. I just briefed a European diplomat who came up with the exact formulation I’m going to deal with in a moment. What is disconcerting—though long familiar—is that Western policymakers hold so many ideas that are totally out of touch with reality.

Why #OpIsrael Was an #OpFail
Hackers threatened to ‘wipe Israel off the Internet.’ That so did not happen. Eli Lake talks to the hackers who launched the counter-offensive.

It was supposed to be a debilitating assault on Israel’s Internet. On Sunday—timed to coincide with Holocaust Remembrance Day—hackers affiliated with the collective, Anonymous, launched #OpIsrael, an attack that promised to “wipe Israel off the internet.”
A message purporting to be from Anonymous on the anti-secrecy website, Cryptome, threatened to expose the coordinates of “special buildings” in Israel so the next time Hamas fired missiles they “wouldn’t land in desert or ocean.”

U.S. Government Files Motion to Dismiss Lawsuit that Claims it Helps Fund Palestinian Terror

The 24 Americans now living in Israel who are the plaintiffs in the case filed the lawsuit in the United States District Court for Washington, DC in November claiming that the State Department had ignored congressional safeguards and transparency requirements which govern financial assistance to the PA.

PMW: Fatah calls suicide bomber "Bride of Palestine"

17 year-old Ayyat Al-Akhras became the youngest female Palestinian suicide bomber, when she killed 3 and wounded 28 Israelis in a suicide bombing near a Jerusalem supermarket on March 29, 2002. On the 11th anniversary of the attack, Fatah chose to glorify her as a hero for Palestinians, calling her the "Bride of Palestine" on Fatah's Facebook page.

CAMERA: LA Times, Gaza Kitchen Cooking Up Falsehoods

In an enthusiastic Los Angeles Times review of The Gaza Kitchen: A Palestinian Culinary Journey, Carol J. Williams, together with the cookbook authors Laila Haddad and Maggie Schmitt, take the opportunity to brew up a number of false charges against Israel ("For Gaza cooks, it's two parts rice, one part defiance"). In the introduction to her interview with Haddad and Schmitt, Williams writes:

UN panel: Libyan weapons spread at alarming rate

Libyan weapons are spreading at “an alarming rate” to new territory in west Africa and the eastern Mediterranean including Syria and the Gaza Strip where they are fueling conflicts and increasing the arsenals of armed groups and terrorists, a UN panel said.

Egypt's Christian pope blasts Islamist president

Pope Tawadros II says recent attack on St. Mark Cathedral in central Cairo 'breaching all the red lines'; claims Morsi promised to protect it
Tawadros also warned that the state was "collapsing" and described Sunday's attack on the St. Mark Cathedral in central Cairo, which serves as the Coptic papal seat, as "breaching all the red lines."
He said Morsi had promised him in a telephone conversation to do everything to protect the cathedral, "but in reality he did not."

In Pictures: Savage Islamic Attack on St. Mark Cathedral Allowed by Egyptian Forces
Egyptian satirist leads choir in song

Youssef, known as Egypt’s Jon Stewart, could be seen on his “El-Bernameg,” or “The Program,” conducting a 20 person-strong choir in a song titled “My Qatar, my Qatar,” in which they ostensibly thank the oil-rich Gulf state for pouring money into the impoverished Egyptian economy.

Egypt’s revolutionary cleric suspended over sermon

Religious Endowments Ministry investigating the ‘preacher of the revolution’ for criticizing Morsi, Muslim Brotherhood

Syrian Rebels Sought Intel on Israel

Israeli Arab who fought with ‘Global Jihad’ says rebels wanted intel on Israel. Security experts warn of ‘dangerous phenomenon.'

Iranian Military Chief Vows to Defend North Korea from US

The Iranian commitment to stand with North Korea is another move in an escalating exchange of verbal hostilities - considered by many to be mostly posturing - and military maneuvers that North Korea, South Korea and the U.S. have engaged in over the past several