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Wednesday, June 19, 2013

6/19 Links Part 2: Alan Baker on Preconditions, Rocket Attack and The Lost Music of the Holocaust

From Ian:

The Religious War in the Middle East
Given the ongoing chaos in the Middle East and the collapse of the artificial Arab states based on the Sykes-Picot Agreement, the proposal of U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry for the creation of a new Palestinian state and a joint Palestinian, Jordanian and Israeli policing mechanism in the Jordan Valley seems like a pipe dream. That sort of suggestion, disconnected from reality, clearly indicates a dangerous lack of awareness concerning the Middle East past, present and future, a kind of Lawrence of Arabia optimism and romanticism which allows him to ignore the emergence of the increasing militant Islamic aggression toward Israel and the West. All that is left is to hope that somewhere in Washington people are really paying attention and preparing to deploy for the real, first priority inevitable battle against Iran and its satellites, with their capabilities dramatically to influence world peace.
Alan Baker: Preconditions have no basis in law or fact
Nowhere in the history of the peace process negotiations is there any commitment to the “1967 borders.”
The opposite is in fact the case. All the agreements between Israel and the PLO, as well as the peace treaties with Egypt and Jordan, base themselves in their preambular paragraphs on the call by the international community, in UN Security Council resolution 242 of 1967, for “secure and recognized boundaries.”
Together with Egypt and Jordan, in their respective peace treaties with Israel, the Palestinian leadership in all its agreements with Israel has repeatedly committed and agreed to this formula, which basically means that the pre-1967 military Armistice Demarcation Lines – never intended to become borders – as well as any other pre-1949 lines, would be replaced by agreed-upon borders answering the Security Council criteria of being secure and recognized.
Blair: Israel's security is also security for Western world
Israel's security is also our security, in the whole of the Western world," Quartet Middle East envoy Tony Blair said on Wednesday.
Speaking at the President's Conference opening plenary panel with President Shimon Peres and Rahman Emanuel, Blair said that it is worth trying to solve Israeli Palestinian conflict, as it is important for Israel's security as well as the security of the "whole of the Western world."
Clinton Admits 'No Perfect Solutions' in Israel-PA Conflict
Former President Bill Clinton told participants at Israel’s Fifth annual Presidential Conference in Jerusalem on Wednesday, "There are no perfect solutions to the Israel-Palestine conflict."
PA Terror Rocket Attack Explodes in Gaza
An early morning attack intended for southern Israel following President Shimon Peres’s birthday bash fizzled with at least one – and possibly two -- of the rockets intended to kill Jewish civilians exploding instead inside Gaza. A total of three rockets were fired overnight, security officials said.
The third rocket reportedly landed on the Israeli side of the border in an open area, but no property damage was reported, and no one was physically injured, according to Israel state radio.
IDF Nabs PA Police who Murdered Young Jew at Holy Site
Israeli soldiers have arrested three Palestinian Authority police officers-turned-terrorists, who shot to death a young Jewish father as he returned from praying at the tomb of the Biblical Patriarch Joseph in Samaria (Shomron).
Arab media outlets reported the arrests in May, but the news was only officially confirmed by Israeli sources Wednesday after the removal of a gag order.
'Machsom Watch Shares IDF Weakness with the Enemy'
The Samaria Residents’ Council has filed a police complaint against the group.
Machsom Watch sends activists to watch IDF soldiers at checkpoints in Judea and Samaria. The group has been accused of harassing soldiers and of valuing convenience for Arab residents of Judea and Samaria over preventing terrorism. In one incident, Machsom Watch activists told soldiers to release an Arab teen who turned out to be an armed terrorist.
Jews Attacked in Jerusalem Say ‘This Will End in Murder!’
The two men stopped to call police, and immediately were set upon by dozens of Arab youth and men who began hitting them mercilessly.
The Jews managed to flee to a nearby junction, where their attackers gave up on pursuing them.
IDF general: Palestinians aiding US peace drive
The Palestinian administration in the West Bank has tried to help the latest US peacemaking drive by quietly cutting off funds for grassroots campaigners against Israel's occupation of the territory, a senior Israeli general said on Tuesday.
Spanish Gov't Funding Anti-Israel NGOs, Finds New Report
The report finds that between 2009 and 2011, approximately €15 million in Spanish government and regional funds were transferred to political advocacy NGOs promoting the boycott-divestment-sanctions (BDS) campaigns. Of these, €5 million were transferred to Israeli and Palestinian Authority-based NGOs, and €10 million were transferred to Spanish NGOs.
Among the groups that received the funding were, according to NGO Monitor: The radical Popular Struggle Coordination Committee whose "resistance" activities often become violent confrontations.
ADL: Alice Walker ‘unabashedly infected with anti-Semitism’
The book, which was published two months ago, features 12 essays in a section titled “On Palestine,” making up a quarter of the book, that are “rife with comparisons of Israelis to Nazis, denigrations of Judaism and Jews, and statements suggesting that Israel should cease to exist as a Jewish state,” the ADL said in a statement. “Walker’s book also attempts to justify terrorism against Israeli civilians, claiming that the ‘oppressed’ Palestinians should not be blamed for carrying out suicide bombings.”
On the road to recovering Spain’s Jewish roots
A conference titled “Zamora Jewish Life: History and Re-encounters,” will take place in early July, organized by Jesus Jambrina of Viterbo University in La Crosse, Wisconsin.
Jambrina, who created the documentary Zamora Sefardi, believes the city may have been the greatest center of Jewish learning in Spain as the time of the expulsion decree drew near.
'Lost Music' of Holocaust Comes Alive Once Again
Nicholas Biniaz-Harris is a young American classical pianist who is more at home performing Bach, Beethoven and Rachmaninoff than the obscure works of Nazi concentration camp inmates.
But as the grandson of a Holocaust survivor, the 17-year-old Washingtonian felt a special attachment to the variations on a Polish patriotic theme that Leon Kaczmarek put together in Dachau during World War II.
El Al Tests Anti-Missile Defense System for Passenger Aircraft (VIDEO)
According to the website Defense-Update.com: “The system comprises a fiber-laser based DIRCM housed in a sealed turret for maximized reliability. A missile warning system provides the initial detection of incoming threats. When a threatening missile is detected, the warning is passed to the DIRCM that then directs a thermal tracker to acquire and track the threat. A powerful laser beam is then fired accurately at the missile causing it to be deflected away from the aircraft.”
Israel made Marvell more ‘marvelous,’ says co-founder
You’d be hard-pressed to find a bigger fan of Israel in the high-tech world than Weili Dai, co-founder of Marvell Technologies. With good reason: Israel has helped make the company she runs with her husband Sehat Sutardja and brother in-law, Pantas Sutardja, into one of the most important tech companies in the world. “No matter what device you open up, you are bound to find Marvell chips,” she told the Times of Israel in an interview — and the technology for many of those chips was developed in Israel.