Sunday, September 07, 2014
Elliott Abrams: Everything You Know About Israeli Settlements Is Wrong
So is Israel vastly increasing the pace of settlement activity, making the establishment of a future Palestinian state less and less likely?Palestine –It’s Not Worth the Effort
The short answer, and the right answer, is no. Just as Israel was being denounced far and wide for settlement expansion, Israel's Central Bureau of Statistics released one of its regular reports on settlement activity. What it reveals is that Israel's actual settlement construction pace has reached a historical low. Only 507 housing units were approved for construction by Netanyahu's government in the first six months of 2014, a 71.9 percent decrease from the same period in 2013, with about one-third of those being built inside the major blocks that it is understood Israel will keep in any final status agreement. For a population of over 300,000 Israelis living in the West Bank, that pace of construction does not even allow for natural population growth, much less rapid expansion.
Only in 2010 did Israel build at a slower pace -- 738 units for the whole year -- and that was the year of a nine-month construction moratorium imposed by Netanyahu at the request of the United States. This partial freeze, by the way, produced no Palestinian concessions and no progress in the "peace process" whatsoever.
One of the most alarming experiences as a European is to see how our politicians and the media continue to criticize Israel but not the murderous Palestinians, whose pseudo-national aspirations garner more attention than Syrian war casualties, Chinese human rights abuses and the plight of women and girls enslaved by Islamic terrorists.Yishai Fleisher with Matti Friedman
It is strange that the Palestinians – who have no historical, cultural or legal rights to the land of Israel – are endowed with international and economic patronage by the US, the EU and the UN. How did the Palestinians and their Arabist-Islamist backers manage to achieve such a feat?
Firstly, the Palestinians have learnt that violence is rewarded. Acts of terror against Israelis have only strengthened the West’s belief that a Palestinian state is of paramount importance. The latest round of fighting in Gaza confirms this.
Secondly, the Palestinians have managed to convince most of the world that they are a landless and suffering people, whose plight is equal to that of the Jews in the 1930s and 1940s. This is has to be one of history’s biggest hoaxes. And it is a very dangerous hoax indeed. Why? Because the “Palestinian issue” has enabled Europe to reconnect with its Jew-hating past by blurring the line between anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism.
Response to Friedman’s Tablet Expose Is Only Further Evidence Of Bias
Former AP Bureau Chief Steven Gutkin’s response to Matti Friedman’s Tablet expose on bias at the Associated Press reads like one long self-serving rationalization, and does nothing to rebut Friedman’s argument.Jonah Goldberg: ISIS: A foreign legion for losers
Although Gutkin tries to portray himself as, like Friedman, a former AP employee and therefore free to say what he wants, it is Gutkin’s own credibility that is on the line. His piece, therefore, is his own self-defense, and not, as he tries to claim, free of ulterior motive. In contrast, Friedman surely burned many bridges with his piece, most likely including those with Gutkin, and there was no self-interest in his disclosures.
One of Friedman’s more explosive revelations was that AP was aware of, and consciously chose not to print, evidence of the peace offer made by Ehud Olmert to Abbas in 2008. Gutkin does not deny that that this is true, he only offers an explanation of this fact that simply does not ring true.
NBC News reports that since the release of the video showing the beheading of American journalist James Foley, some 28,000 pro-Islamic State Twitter accounts were created.Middle East Expert: 'Fight Islam Like Nazism'
There have always been isolated losers. But that isolation often inspired its own remedy. People want to belong to a community. That desire fuels assimilation and civilization.
The horrifying challenge of today, is that — thanks to the digital age and an ideology and a culture that often sees assimilation as incompatible with “multiculturalism” — the losers no longer have to stop being losers to cure their sense of isolation.
They can join a huge virtual rape gang on the Web and have their evil desires confirmed and celebrated.
And some of them, weary of puncturing their masturbatory reveries by pecking out LOL on a keyboard, have the option of hopping on a plane.
Bukay argued that the world must understand the war today must not be against this or that terror group, but against extremist Islam as an ideology.The other Palestinian Voice
"Islam is an existential threat, and if in the past they declared war on the Nazis and afterwards on Communism, today they must declare war on Islam and not necessarily on terror. You're fighting an ideology here that speaks about conquering the world and killing infidels, that's a religious war by all means," argued the expert.
"IS published a map of all the next countries in line, including India, China, Africa and the Middle East," continued Bukay. "Today they are functioning in areas where there is a governmental vacuum, like Iraq and Syria, but them are also functioning in Lebanon and approaching Jordan."
Mudar Zahran, leader of the Jordanian opposition who is regularly described as "the leader of the Palestinian majority in Jordan" was forced into exile in the UK. Zahran served as Economic Specialist and Assistant Policy Coordinator at the US Embassy in Amman and also the US Embassy Baghdad. Zahran was an avid civil rights activist and he was critical of the Hashemite regime’s discriminatory policies against the Palestinians as well as the native East Bankers.The Palestinians have lost themselves
Worth noting is that Zahran comes from a very influential Palestinian family, with Zahran Street, Zahran Neighbourhood and even Zahran Palace named after them.
You have contact with civilians in Gaza. How is the situation there?
Mudar Zahran: Civilians in Gaza told me they were suffering because of the Israeli bombings, and they also confirmed that the bombings came because Hamas was fighting from door to door and from one house to another. Also, strangely Hamas is asking people not to leave their homes when they receive text messages from the IDF telling them to do so. In other words, Hamas even went on TV and its websites telling people to never leave their homes. A Gazan journalist told me Hamas would kill and shoot at anyone evacuating their homes and even there was an incident where people who ran towards the Israeli army were shot by Hamas. Hamas wants to make a point on behalf of Qatar and Iran and Jordan, and it has...very well.
The Palestinians drew strength from the sporadic shows of solidarity with them that occurred around the world during Operation Protective Edge. But it appears they also understand that given the atrocities committed by the Islamic State, and Hamas' similarities to the Islamic State, there is growing international and Arab solidarity with Israel, which dealt a blow to Hamas, unlike Western nations, like the U.S., which have failed against the evil "sisters" -- al-Qaeda, the Nusra Front and the Islamic State.The Great War – Jews and the War
In any future diplomatic agreements, it will be impossible to rely on the U.N. The fiasco in which a group of U.N. observers were seized by the Nusra Front in Syria while other "heroic" U.N. observers fled to Israel was reminiscent of past foul-ups, including the U.N.'s failure to enforce Resolution 1701, which calls for the disarmament of Hezbollah. In light of this, the European proposal for U.N. observers to oversee a shipping lane between Gaza and Cyprus seems absurd.
As Hamas prepares to rearm itself with advanced weaponry ahead of the next round of fighting in Gaza and Judea and Samaria, it appears that even the heads of the delusional peace industry in Israel are reluctant to give the Palestinians a seaport, airport, control over the border with Jordan or a "U.N. supervised" safe passage between Gaza and Judea and Samaria. Regional developments are not playing into the hands of the Palestinians, and conflicted "Palestine" is irrelevant and becoming a nuisance. The Palestinians need their own "Altalena" moment to determine who is boss.
Part 1 of a four part series outlining the reasons why I believe the Great War was the defining moment of modern Jewish history.Hurtling toward a renewed Gaza conflict?
So read the headline of Britain’s Jewish Chronicle one November morning in 1915. The biblical injunction was also accompanied by a masterly political slogan that was intended to endear the then (largely) Russian Jewish immigrant population to their British rulers. It reminded them that “England has been all she could be to Jews” and in turn, that they “will be all they can be to England.”
This popular slogan would also find it’s way into one very famous Canadian wartime poster (translated into Yiddish as well as English) featuring the Liberal politician Edwin Montagu, his cousin, Herbert Samuel, and also Rufus Issacs, the Viscount of Reading. All of them – prominent Jews in British society and some of the first practicing Jews in the cabinet – were meant to be the exemplars of Anglo-Jewish patriotism and the reasons why grateful Jewish subjects should give their flesh and blood to fight for King and country. The Jews were encouraged to serve even if it meant fighting alongside the King’s hated cousin, Tsar Nicholas II of Russia – a man whose anti-Semitic regime had forced their families to look for a better life in Britain in the first place.
What does this mean for Hamas? The former Gaza prime minister, Ismail Haniyeh, gave a hint of the answer in a speech Friday in a partially destroyed mosque in the Shati refugee camp, where he lives. “Our conflict with the enemy was not the last,” he said, of the 50-day war.Arab League head: Abbas ready for real negotiations
According to Palestinian sources in Gaza, indeed, the Hamas military wing has made clear to the political leadership that if nothing has changed and no steps have been taken to ease the blockade of Gaza by September 25, its men will renew rocket fire at Israel — despite the fact that the Hamas political leadership opposes such a move.
It’s hard to tell if this threat by the Hamas military wing is an empty one. But given the crisis in Hamas’s dealings with Fatah, the diplomatic deadlock between the PA and Israel, and the absence of any sign of Gaza’s rehabilitation, it won’t be a major surprise if in a little more than two weeks, Hamas does indeed restart the conflict.
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas is ready for “real negotiations” with Israel on Palestinian statehood, the head of the Arab League said in an interview with London-based Arabic daily Asharq al-Awsat.Abbas warns he may end unity with Hamas over Gaza rule
“He is open to the importance of the renewal of real negotiations,” said Nabil el-Araby, according to Ynet, “and if not, then there will be another way to manage the conflict. Real negotiations demand agreement on the principles established in international resolutions, such as the ’67 borders, East Jerusalem, and security for the two sides. When there is agreement on these three issues, it will be possible to reach an agreement in a week, not in a number of months.”
El-Araby also said that the Arab League supports Abbas in whatever he asks for during a speech he is scheduled to give Sunday before member states’ foreign ministers.
His remarks came on the eve of talks in Cairo with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi and a key address to the Arab League nearly two weeks after a ceasefire ended a major 50-day confrontation with Israel in Gaza.Foreign Ministry said to propose EU force in Gaza
“We will not accept the situation with Hamas continuing as it is at the moment,” Abbas said on arrival in the Egyptian capital late Saturday, in remarks published by official Palestinian news agency WAFA.
“We won’t accept a partnership with them if the situation continues like this in Gaza, where there is a shadow government… running the territory,” he said.
“The national consensus government cannot do anything on the ground,” he charged.
But Hamas denounced his allegations as “baseless.”
“Abbas’s statements against Hamas and the resistance are unjustified,” spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri said in a statement.
“It is untrue, baseless and unfair to our people,” he said, indicating that Hamas representatives would meet “soon” with their counterparts in the rival Fatah movement to discuss fleshing out the reconciliation deal which was inked in April.
Two weeks ago, the Foreign Ministry proposed to the Israeli cabinet a plan for stationing foreign troops in the Gaza Strip to monitor rebuilding and demilitarization efforts in the wake of the war there this summer, Haaretz reported Sunday.Hamas says any international force in Gaza would be considered occupation
According to the report, the forces would be empowered to confiscate weapons and contraband materials to ensure that Hamas will not be able to rearm itself.
Israel has demanded that Hamas be disarmed if it is to ease longstanding restrictions on the Strip and entertain the prospect of a seaport and airport in Gaza. Hamas, meanwhile, has vehemently rejected demilitarization.
“Hamas will deal with any international troops as a new occupation force,” Hamas representative Ismail Radwan said. “The international parties should work toward lifting the siege and occupation instead of talking about the weapons of the resistance.”IDF credited with saving Irish troops from jihadists on Golan
Radwan said that the weapons of the “resistance are sacred and are there to defend the Palestinians.”
He claimed that Israel was trying to use an international force to obtain what it failed to achieve during Operation Protective Edge. “The Palestinians are opposed to international intervention,” he added.
IDF forces played a crucial role in helping Irish soldiers rescue UN troops from the clutches of Syrian jihadists in a fierce clash on the border with Israel last week.Arab Rock Terror Limits Jerusalem Light Rail
Senior military sources said that Irish soldiers would have been killed or taken captive if it weren’t for action taken by the IDF on August 30 during a mission to evacuate dozens of Filipino soldiers who were surrounded by a larger force of militants, the Irish Independent reported on Sunday.
Israel reportedly guided the Irish soldiers in their charge to save the trapped members of the United Nations Disengagement Observer Force, helping them to steer away from concentrations of militant units who would have been able to outgun the Irish force. There were also unconfirmed reports that the IDF fired directly at militant positions during the operation.
The constant terrorism of rock throwing in Arab neighborhoods of Jerusalem is becoming an increasing threat, not only for Jews who happen to pass near such neighborhoods but for residents of all parts of the capital city.'Moderate' Rouhani Says Hamas 'Victory' is Thanks to Iran
CityPass, the company operating Jerusalem's light rail system, announced Sunday morning that "due to continued and repeated rock throwing that inflicts damage to the trains, this morning we only have 16 operable trains out of a total of 23."
"What that means is that fewer than needed trains are active on the line, and the frequency (of trains) throughout the line will be harmed," added CityPass, noting on the long-term effects of the rock terror that has decommissioned nearly half of the trains.
CityPass has been complaining for a while that their train cars have been turned into a target for Arab terrorism, a fact which prevents smooth transportation service to residents of the capital.
"Moderate" Iranian President Hassan Rouhani has bragged of his regime's role in aiding Hamas's terror war against Israel, even as Iran is locked in a final round of negotiations with world powers over its nuclear program.Palestinian Authority steps up crackdown against Hamas activists in the West Bank
Speaking to the Arabic-language news source Al Meyadeen, Rouhani claimed the "victory" of Gaza in Operation Protective Edge was only possible thanks to Iranian aid, reports Channel 10.
Rouhani has been presented to the world as a "moderate" following his predecessor Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, but many have warned that his "charm offensive" has been even more dangerous given the cover it provides for Iran's ongoing nuclear program and human rights abuses.
Palestinian Authority security agencies in the West Bank on Saturday stepped up their crackdown on Hamas activists.WaPo’s Undisputed Correction
Hamas said that more than 40 of its members and supporters have been rounded up by the PA since the end of Operation protective Edge.
Another 30 Hamas activists were also summoned for interrogation, Hamas said.
On Saturday, Hamas representative Hussam Badran condemned the PA clampdown and called on all those who have been summoned for interrogation not to report.
Badran said that the crackdown was “unjustified” and constituted a “blow to the blood of Palestinian martyrs and unity."
The Washington Post published a correction to a mistake they made in an article…PreOccupied Territory: Survey: 91% Of Syrians Prefer Being Killed By Israel Over Assad (satire)
CORRECTIONS A Sept. 5 A-section article about Jordan agreeing to buy natural gas from Israel incorrectly referred to Israel’s occupation of “Palestinian lands” in the West Bank. The Israel-occupied territories are disputed lands that Palestinians wants for a future Palestinian state.While obviously I would have preferred if WaPo had used the more historically accurate name “Judea and Samaria”, and we can discuss whether or not Israel can actually occupy its own homeland, or territory designated to it in prior international agreements, the fact that WaPo correctly pointed out that legally the territory is at worst disputed and not “Palestinian lands”, is to be applauded.
Damascus, September 7 – In what experts are calling a sea change in Middle East politics, a new study demonstrates that the overwhelming majority of Syrian civilians would prefer to die at the hands of Israel than in an attack by Assad’s forces.Supporting Terror: EU States Buying Islamic State Oil
A poll last week of nearly 7,000 Syrians found that 91%, or more than nine tenths, of respondents had a more favorable view of being killed by Israeli forces than by loyalist Syrian troops, with the most common explanation of the preference that Israel was less likely to use chemical weapons, barrel bombs, and summary execution of all combat-age males in a given area. Respondents also expressed confidence that the women and girls of the family and community would be less likely to be raped by Israeli soldiers than by either Assad’s soldiers or the various armed groups fighting his regime.
The Ambassador for the European Union (EU) in Iraq, Jana Hybaskova, admitted last week that several EU member states have bought oil from the Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS) terrorist organization that has been brutally conquering large portions of Iraq and Syria.Islamic State Executes Female Doctors and Politicians
Hybaskova made the revelation at the European Parliament Foreign Affairs Committee, but refused to divulge the names of the countries despite being asked numerous times, reports the Turkish Daily Sabah.
The brutal Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS) terrorist organization has continued its bloody string of executions, this time finding fit to shoot two female doctors to death after they refused to treat members of the terror group.Henry Kissinger Says Iran a ‘Bigger Problem Than ISIS’
According to reports six people, including three women, were executed in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul by IS terrorists on Saturday publicly and without trial.
Witnesses told AFP that the terrorists broke into the homes of the two female doctors who refused to treat members of their group, as well as the home of a female candidate that ran unsuccessfully in parliamentary elections for the US-backed Iraqi government, shooting all three and taking their bodies with them.
On why he views Iran as a "bigger problem than ISIS"Kissinger calls for ‘all-out attack’ on Islamic State
There has come into being a kind of a Shia belt from Tehran through Baghdad to Beirut. And this gives Iran the opportunity to reconstruct the ancient Persian Empire — this time under the Shia label — in the rebuilding of the Middle East that will inevitably have to take place when the new international borders [are] drawn. Because the borders of the settlement of 1919-'20 are essentially collapsing.
That gives Iran a very powerful level from a strategic point of view. I consider Iran a bigger problem than ISIS. ISIS is a group of adventurers with a very aggressive ideology. But they have to conquer more and more territory before they can became a strategic, permanent reality. I think a conflict with ISIS — important as it is — is more manageable than a confrontation with Iran.
In an interview with the Sunday Times, the 91-year-old ex-diplomat also addressed his role in the emigration of Soviet Jewry, and maintained he was unaware of President Nixon’s alleged anti-Semitism.Tehran arrests suspected nuclear plant saboteur
On the Islamic State, Kissinger castigated the US’s limited strikes and the ongoing discussion on whether to increase the attacks, and said: “There can’t be any debate any more about fighting them.”
“We should launch an all-out attack on them,” he said, in reference to the jihadists, whom he referred to as “an insult to our values and to our society.” However, while calling for a “very significant retaliation,” Kissinger added that such an operation should be “of limited duration as a punitive measure.”
Kissinger said the US strikes ought to be “very substantial — on most known targets — and I would not make any distinction between Syria and Iraq.”
Iranian authorities have arrested a Ukrainian national suspected of sabotage at the country’s sole nuclear power plant, an Iranian newspaper reported on Sunday.It’s ‘business as usual’ as some of Israel’s friends in Europe increase trade with Iran
The report in the Hamshahri daily said the “Ukrainian expert” was affiliated with a Russian contractor that works in Iran’s Bushehr nuclear power plant, which went online in 2011 with Russian aid.
The report did not elaborate on the timing or nature of the alleged sabotage. Iran has long accused the United States, Israel and European countries of working to sabotage its nuclear program.
Germany and the Czech Republic – key allies of Israel in the European Union– have boosted economic ties with Iran. The Czech government is slated to send 20 companies to Tehran on Saturday to jump-start business contacts.Middle Sackville school vandalized with racist graffiti
Increased commerce with the Islamic Republic, particularly from such strong supporters of Israel, sends a powerful message of “business as usual.”
While Foreign Minister Lubomír Zaorálek couched his country’s revival of business relations in cautious terms, saying that Iran has to reach an agreement to end its alleged nuclear weapons program, the initiative suggests an unsettling intensification of Czech-Iran relations.
RCMP are investigating after racist and anti-Semitic graffiti appeared on a Middle Sackville elementary school overnight.UN Counter-Anti-Semitism Confab to Be Livestreamed Monday
A racist word and a swastika were discovered spray-painted on the main school building and three portables at Harry R. Hamilton Elementary School on Friday morning. The words “Halifax East Coast” and “Sackvill (sic) Nova Scotia” were also spray-painted.
A custodian found the graffiti just before 7 a.m. and the school principal reported it to police.
RCMP Cpl. Greg Church said police have no suspects or witnesses to the act of vandalism, which likely occurred between 11 p.m. on Thursday and 7 a.m. on Friday.
Largely in response to an Arutz Sheva report on a counter-anti-Semitism event hosted by the Permanent Mission of Palau to the UN, organizers say that there has been a surge of over 500 RSVPs for the event. The organizer of the historic event, Ms. Ugoji Eze, CEO/President of the Eng Aja Eze Foundation, proudly remarked, “It looks like it’s going to be a packed house, and the ECOSOC room is the best room in the house, as it should be for such a vitally important and timely subject.”Israeli-born SuperDerivatives fetches $350 million
The event will also be live-streamed at http://webtv.un.org. The exact live-stream address will be published on Arutz Sheva’s security analyst Mark Langfan’s Arutz Sheva blog on September 8, 2014, Monday morning.
In addition to the host – Dr. Caleb Otto, UN Ambassador of Palau – Israeli Ambassador to the UN, Ron Prosor, will also be addressing the event. Numerous other ambassadors from the UN will be in attendance, and the German UN Ambassador has requested to speak as well.
The charismatic and courageous Brigitte Gabriel will be the first keynote speaker, and will be followed by Mark Langfan, who will show a Powerpoint presentation of the risks Israel faces in the Middle East and Israel’s strategic value to stability and peace in the region. A link to the graphics will be posted on Mark’s Arutz Sheva blog as well.
US-based financial clearinghouse network IntercontinentalExchange (ICE) announced Friday that it was buying SuperDerivatives, whose options and derivative trading platform is used by banks and financial institutions around the world. The company, which was founded in Israel in 2000, has offices in eight cities around the world, and does most of its back-office and development work in Tel Aviv.Israeli company says it can produce experimental Ebola drug
According to reports, ICE is acquiring SuperDerivatives for about $350 million. The company has around 250 employees in Israel.
ICE owns and operates 23 marketplaces in the US, Canada and Europe, among them the New York Stock Exchange and Euronext. Headquartered in Atlanta, ICE has offices in New York, London, Chicago, Houston, Winnipeg, Amsterdam, Calgary, Washington, D.C., San Francisco and Singapore.
Protalix, an Israeli biopharmaceutical company located outside of the northern city of Carmiel, said Saturday that it has the resources to produce the experimental Ebola vaccine, ZMapp, which has recently run out.Terrorism Convicts To Be Sentenced To Moderate YouTube Comments (satire)
In an interview with Channel 2, Protalix’s Dr. Yossi Shaaltiel, the executive vice president of research and development said: “Today our production capacity exceeds our needs, and we would certainly be happy to have the company producing the Ebola drug have us produce the drug for them. We would know how to do it effectively, in large quantities, and in a relatively short period of time.”
Shaaltiel said the company is more proficient in the genetic engineering of tobacco plants — from which the ZMapp medication is drawn — than any other plant. The TV report maintained that the facilities in northern Israel were more advanced, and better equipped than the greenhouses in the US where production of the ZMapp drug takes place.
Israel’s High Court of Justice approved a draft law intended to impose harsher penalties on defendants convicted of terrorist activity, a bill that would condemn them to moderating the insipid, ignorant, spammy, or downright incomprehensible comments that appear with almost every video on You Tube.
By agreement with Google, which owns the video sharing website, the Knesset is expected to pass a law this week that will increase the penalty for terrorists found guilty of murder or attempted murder from life imprisonment to up to seven hours of YouTube moderation per day. Earlier drafts of the law called for even more hours, but cabinet members asked to review some of the comments that would require moderation deemed that amount cruel and unusual punishment.
As one of the busiest sites on the internet, YouTube attracts hundreds of thousands of comments each day, and Google has embarked on an effort to improve the quality of the experience for users. The default setting for comments is invisible, meaning the viewer must manually elect to read the comments. That has spared myriad users the unpleasantness of having to see the full extent of other people’s stupidity and meanness on display, but the company sensed that too many curious users were still being exposed to the dregs of humanity in typed form.
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