![](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCA5yqz7gunHDGeNJUwnCj2uuySw1KiI4nMGxbwbz_4naLi0kpmdmx0nKnLTkV48g6ZbaJnKEifF4boPfhstXp-50cpdHLT1nq8Ze6Zh7fDfab4NDRH5mbADGJP5lbzsiBcjrEyw/s400/inspiration+from+zion+banner.jpg)
![](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxd31A2jRH4hNdabIdzNY89JmtfCN8lidApFV_l-0LNz4yE8KNotrCcijDXT_rrBAmie_fW9trTqaTTbARC43gU4hNKK9gdkFjVOdQP02YToknGM4viv9s4LduF24VThsa5GDv/s320/IMG_20161031_121238.jpg)
![](http://img2.blogblog.com/img/icon18_edit_allbkg.gif)
Obama must realize that no lasting peace can be achieved in the remaining months of his presidency: there are a multitude of complex and contentious issues — most notably the status of Jerusalem, the rights of so-called Palestinian refugees, and the situation in Gaza — that must be thoroughly addressed in order to achieve a lasting peace. Our next president will undoubtedly have to wade into the Israeli-Palestinian peace process again. The new administration — with the agreement of the Senate — should have full latitude to do what it deems most appropriate. It should not be stuck with parameters bequeathed to it by a President desperate to secure a short-term foreign policy "victory" that in the long term will make a resolution of the conflict more difficult to achieve.
If Obama feels that he must intrude in an effort to break the logjam before he leaves office, he should suggest that the current Israeli government offer proposals similar to those offered in 2000- 2001 and 2008 and that this time the Palestinian leadership should accept them in face-to face negotiations. But he should take no action (or inaction) that invites U.N. involvement in the peace process — involvement that would guarantee failure for any future president's efforts to encourage a negotiated peace.
We should hear the views of both candidates on whether the U.S. should support or veto a Security Council resolution that would tie their hands were they to be elected president. It is not too late to stop President Obama from destroying any realistic prospects for peace.
My very first blog post almost exactly 10 years ago was about the just-released Iraq Study Group Report, co-authored by Lee Hamilton and James Baker. What struck me about it was how it asserted that the way to solve the problems of the Middle East in general and the impasse facing the US in Iraq in particular was to achieve a “comprehensive Arab-Israeli peace on all fronts,” by direct American involvement. It seemed to me a thunderous non-sequitur. What did Israel have to do with the ambitions of the various players in Iraq?Caroline Glick: Netanyahu’s critical foreign tour
The commission recommended that the US “engage” with Syria and Iran, who were arming and encouraging the insurgencies that were killing Iraqis and Americans. The US, it said, should use carrots as well as sticks to persuade them to stop trying to destabilize Iraq and instead become part of an international “support group” for that suffering country. And one of the major carrots was Israel.
Syria was key to the plan. Baker and Hamilton (and their then little-known associate Ben Rhodes, now a top Obama advisor) believed that if Israel would cede the Golan Heights to Syria, Syria would cooperate in enforcing the toothless UNSC resolution 1701, which called for an end to arming Hezbollah, with which Israel had just fought a vicious little war. Syria could also be convinced, they said, to stop trying to subvert the government of Lebanon, whose officials – including President Rafik Hariri – it had been systematically murdering. Syria would also help convince Hamas to recognize Israel’s right to exist (!) and to unite with the Palestinian Authority, which would rule a unified ‘Palestine’ in Judea, Samaria and Gaza. At long last, the Israeli-Arab conflict would be over, and at the same time the grateful Arabs and Iranians would allow the US to exit Iraq with honor.
The plan failed to take into account several things, including Israel’s instinct for self-preservation, Palestinian rejectionism, Iranian expansionism, the rise of Da’esh, the increased insecurity of the conservative Sunni nations over Iran’s nuclear program, the implosion of Syria, and Russia’s aggressive move into the region.
Nevertheless, the Barack Obama Administration adopted a modified version of the plan.
This then brings us to Netanyahu’s upcoming trips. Each state that he will visit has something to offer Israel in expanding its intelligence, cyberwarfare and economic capabilities. Australia, a major Western economy, is moving toward China as America has become less engaged in the Pacific. Israel has an acute interest in using Australia as a platform for expanding its ties to China and other Asian countries, both because of the economic advantages such ties convey and due to China’s strategic importance to Russia.
As for Singapore, Israel effectively built the Singaporean military in the 1960s and 1970s. The country remains extremely supportive of Israel. Like Australia, Singapore has close ties to China.
It has technological and other capabilities that can be extremely advantageous for Israel today.
Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan are critically important to Israel today. Their strategic proximity to Iran, and their ties to Russia, along with their ethnic composition and their natural resources make securing good relations with both critical to Israel’s ability to advance and security its strategic interests in every sphere.
Israel has tremendous assets to offer each of the four countries that Netanyahu will visit. These assets must be deployed wisely to ensure that Israel gains as much as possible from his trip and from its future ties with all of them.
Given the dramatic changes in the global power balance, and their implications for Israel, Netanyahu’s decision to fly to visit these four countries just after the US elections tells us that he gets it. At a time of regional and global turbulence and uncertainty, in the context of swiftly multiplying threats, this is no small matter. (h/t Elder of Lobby)
After years of setbacks, it seems a decade long dream to bring the first Palestinian museum on African soil to life may soon come to fruition. The final phase of completion of the eight storey Human Rights Centre and the Palestinian Museum is under way. Founder of the Kaaf Trust Dr. Anwah Nagia said now is the time to bring Cape Town and the world the first Palestinian museum and to bring South Africa the first human rights centre.Nine million refugees in 1948? Rape? 2500 children in prison? The truth is obviously not a priority for this museum. (But by saying that it includes information on the "third intifada" this "human rights museum" clearly supports terrorism against Jews.)
The centre will endeavour to bring South Africans a discourse on forced removals that have occurred and continue to occur around the world, as well as other socio-political issues that face communities.
Nagia explained that the face of the building is “keeping with a period theme” and represents all of humanity. The building will be known as the Al-Kaaf human rights centre – “the cave of knowledge.”
Two floors of the museum are dedicated to the Palestine prior to occupation; the; 14th, 15th and 16th century.
Visitors will also be presented a more contemporary discourse, inclusive of; the Belfour Declaration [sic], the Nakbah, the 1967 war, and the first, second and third intifada.
“In 1948 the United Nations declared the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which was formed as a prerequisite for the United Nations, the same year that the United Nations allowed [Zionism] and [Apartheid] South Africa to be born – the same period where almost nine million Palestinians lost 87 per cent of their land, many of whom remain in exile scattered around the world.”
The first floor will showcase the consequences of the occupation; the 8,500 prisoners, the imprisonment of 2,500 children under 16, torture, rape, and destroyed land, inclusive of the blockade of the Gaza Strip.
She knew that once she put on the explosive belt, there would be no turning back. She knew it would rip her limb from limb, reducing her to a bloody pulp. She knew it would leave her only daughter an orphan.She wants peace? Great! So do I! But what is her definition of peace?
But she also knew this: It would kill Israelis. With luck, a lot of them. And that was reason enough to do it.
Shifa al-Qudsi was a suicide bomber, or at least tried to be. A Palestinian hairdresser driven to anger, despair and hopelessness, she volunteered to carry out an attack on Israelis that would strike a blow, she thought, for her beleaguered people. “I wanted to seek revenge,” she said.
But she was arrested before she could act and today, after six years in an Israeli prison, Ms. Qudsi has transformed herself from a would-be deliverer of death into a messenger of peace. Now working with a group that brings Palestinians and Israelis together to advocate an end to the conflict between their peoples, she tries to channel the rage that took her to the brink into a nonviolent movement for change.
...“I don’t feel bad that I made that decision,” she said of her brush with death. “But now I reject suicide attacks. God decides when we will live and when we will die. Now my jihad is to send out a message to the world. The world must know the Palestinians’ land is occupied. We are people who want peace, just peace.”
If viewed warily by the Israeli authorities, Ms. Qudsi is not accepted by everyone at home either. Palestinian attackers are celebrated in the West Bank as martyrs, and their families receive compensation from the Palestinian Authority. Cooperation with Israelis, even like-minded ones, is often deemed betrayal.No, that is not what normalization means. The specific BDS definition of normalization is "[the] means to participate in any project or initiative or activity, local or international, specifically designed for gathering (either directly or indirectly) Palestinians (and/or Arabs) and Israelis, whether individuals or institutions; that does not explicitly aim to expose and resist the occupation and all forms of discrimination and oppression against the Palestinian people.”
“The Palestinian people have lost hope and don’t believe that peace with the Israelis will ever be achieved,” said Mahmoud Mubarak, president of the Jalazoun refugee camp council. “Many Palestinians consider the participation in joint projects with Israelis as normalization.”
Normalization refers to making the current situation better rather than seeking to overturn it altogether.
Omar Barghouti, a founder of the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement, called B.D.S., which targets Israel internationally, said the ostensible neutrality of groups like Combatants for Peace actually cemented the occupation.So Ms. Qudsi's insistence that she, and Palestinians altogether, want "peace" is an obvious lie. She says that even Combatants for Peace is against normalization, agreeing that Israel is uniquely evil and Israelis must be shunned unless they spend 100% of their time supporting Palestinians who consider talking to normal Israelis as forbidden.
“Joining normalization groups like Combatants for Peace is certainly not the answer; it aggravates the problem,” he added. “Normalizing Israeli apartheid only entrenches it.”
In an interview in a cafe one morning this fall, Ms. Qudsi denied enabling the occupation. “I’m against normalization. We are all against normalization, even this group,” she said. “There’s a huge difference.”
The Balfour Declaration, published on 2 November 1917, was a letter addressed by Foreign Secretary Arthur James Balfour that proclaimed Britain would support the establishment of “a national home for the Jewish people”. This declaration paved the way for Israel to be reborn as a nation.
In September 2016, the Palestinian Leader Mahmoud Abbas told the UN General Assembly that Britain should apologise for the Balfour Declaration. To attack Israel’s very existence is at its root anti-Semitic. And in October 2016, anti-Israel activists launched a campaign to pressure the UK Government to apologise.
#IAmBalfour is a year-long petition, starting on the 99th Anniversary of the Balfour Declaration, which provides YOU with an opportunity to declare solidarity with Britain’s 100 year support of Israel, seeks to raise awareness and urges the British Government to uphold its commitment to Israel and the Jewish people – without apology.
Sign the #IAmBalfour Declaration
We have just witnessed the shameful spectacle of a Jew-hating event hosted by the House of Lords and chaired by the notorious anti-Semite Baroness Jenny Tonge, who co-organised the event with the Palestine Return Centre. During the session, Israel was compared to Islamic State and Jews were blamed for pushing Hitler over the edge and bringing the Holocaust on themselves. Baroness Tonge appeared to enjoy the sessions. Her only concern was that someone might overhear them. There may be “Zionist ears in the room,” she warned her audience.
Baroness Tonge is no stranger to anti-Semitism and anti-Zionist paranoia. A purveyor of the modern-day blood libel, she accused the Israel Defense Forces’ medical team in Haiti in 2010 of harvesting organs. Two years later, she appeared at an Israeli Apartheid Week event and called for an end to the Jewish state, which she described as an “aircraft carrier.” She has also expressed support for Arab suicide bombers and has repeatedly railed against the so-called pro-Israeli lobby, which “has got its grips on the western world, its financial grips.”
Baroness Tonge represents everything that is wrong with left-wing liberalism in Britain. Arrogant, elitist, self-righteous, smugly comfortable, she is completely out of touch with the lower middle and working classes (she is, after all, a Baroness in the House of Lords). She is also one of those ‘anti-racist anti-Semites’ who sees racism everywhere except when it presents itself as Jew-hatred. Baroness Tonge, like many left-wing liberals, believes that history is on their side when it comes to multiculturalism, the demise of national borders and the annihilation of Israel.
In a word, she is despicable.
Fear is linked to a term on the lips of many who observe what is happening: persecution of Christians. There is no doubt that some Christians have been killed because their Muslim extremist executors see them as infidels, polytheists or Western spies. However, as the Justice and Peace Commission of the Assembly of Catholic Ordinaries in the Holy Land pointed out:Even worse, the document tries to lump the Jews together with (some) Muslims as persecutors of Christians:
In the name of truth, we must point out that Christians are not the only victims of this violence and savagery. Secular Muslims, all those defined as “heretic”, “schismatic” or simply “non-conformist” are being attacked and murdered in the prevailing chaos. In areas where Sunni extremists dominate, Shiites are being slaughtered. In areas where Shiite extremists dominate, Sunnis are being killed. Yes, the Christians are at times targeted precisely because they are Christians, having a different set of beliefs and unprotected. However they fall victim alongside many others who are suffering and dying in these times of death and destruction. They are driven from their homes alongside many others and together they become refugees, in total destitution.
It is also clear that the term “persecution” when it is used uniquely to describe Christian suffering in the contemporary Middle East, is often being manipulated within the context of a particular political agenda whose aim is to sow prejudice and hatred, setting Christians against Muslims.
Hundreds of thousands of Christians have left behind their homelands not only in Iraq and Syria, but also in Egypt, Palestine, Israel and elsewhere, and immigrated to the West, to the New World, to more welcoming Arab countries like Jordan and Lebanon, in the wake of the collapse of a known political order.Christians are more comfortable in Lebanon or Jordan than in Israel? Hundreds of thousands of Christians have fled Lebanon in the past 50 years, and the percentage of Christians in Jordan has plummeted from 20% in 1930 to 4% today.
Three Israeli soldiers were wounded, one seriously, in a shooting attack by a Palestinian police officer at a checkpoint outside the West Bank city of Ramallah on Monday, according to officials.PMW: PA official defends naming school after mastermind of Munich Olympics massacre
According to the Israel Defense Forces, the gunmen approached the Focus checkpoint, near the Jewish settlement of Beit El, and opened fire with an AK-47 assault rifle at the troops stationed there, the army said.
“The force responded [to the attack] with return fire at the terrorist,” the army said.
The assailant was shot and killed by Israeli forces, an IDF spokesperson said.
The gunman was named as Muhammad Turkman, a police officer, by the official Palestinian Authority news outlet al-Hayat al-Jadida.
The soldiers were all approximately 20 years old and sustained “penetrating wounds” — meaning gunshot injuries — to the extremities, according to the Magen David Adom ambulance service.
Following Palestinian Media Watch's report on a new Palestinian Authority school named after Salah Khalaf, one of the planners of the murders of the 11 Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympics in 1972, District Governor of Tulkarem Issam Abu Bakr, who is a PA official, defended the naming of the school after the terrorist.
After the Israeli Prime Minister's Arabic spokesman Ofir Gendelman responded to PMW's report and tweeted about the naming of the "Martyr Salah Khalaf School," the PA official replied with praise for the terrorist and others like him, stating that Palestinians will never forget them:
"The occupation is deluded if it thinks that the Palestinian people can change its culture and forget its leaders, Martyrs Yasser Arafat, Khalil Al-Wazir (Abu Jihad), Salah Khalaf, and a great number of the fighters who sacrificed their blood for the freedom, independence, and establishment of the independent Palestinian state whose capital is Jerusalem." [Ma'an, independent PA news agency, Oct. 26, 2016]
Fatah also glorified the Munich Olympics massacre this week, honoring Muhammad Daoud Oudeh, another of the planners of the terror attack, boasting that they "executed" the Israeli athletes "in the heart of Germany":
Posted text: "Picture of Muhammad Daoud 'Abu Daoud,' one of the leaders of Fatah's Black September organization and the main planner of the Munich operation that executed the Israeli Olympic delegation in 1972 in the heart of Germany."
[Official Fatah Facebook page, Oct. 24, 2016, emphasis added]
An American led coalition is fighting Islamic State (ISIS) in its Iraqi stronghold of Mosul. This is very similar to Israel's battles against the terror group Hamas. So why does CNN report on Israel so differently? Why the double standard?
For decades, Israel has slaughtered Palestinians with impunity, always protected by the U.S. government and its veto at the UN Security Council. But the latest bloody assault on Gaza has prompted more open talk about Israeli war crimes - and U.S. complicity, says Marjorie Cohn.This daily demonization of Israel clearly didn't bother Podesta, and in fact there are lots of similar missives in his email box.
Hi All - I thought you might find this of interest: the Israel on Campus Coalition held a recent call regarding polling that they conducted this past semester. I'll send a fuller sum later, but there was one statistic that I think you would appreciate:
* Once informed about Hillary Clinton's letter opposing BDS, the favorable/unfavorable views held by students regarding pro-BDS arguments shifted 11 points in the right direction.
Just a reflection that she remains a trusted source to students on these issues, and I'm glad to see she is out there conveying this viewpoint.
Adams, who was born on October 30, 1735, in Braintree, Massachusetts, grew up in a household based on Puritan values. The Puritans believed themselves to be like the Israelite's fleeing Egypt, wandering into the vast and unknown wilderness and reaching the promised land of the New World.
As their guide, they used the Bible, adopting biblical customs, established biblical codes, such as observance of the Sabbath, and gave their children Hebrew names.
Note that Adams, like most people throughout history, naturally thought of Jews as a nation, not merely a religion.I will insist the Hebrews have [contributed] more to civilize men than any other nation. If I was an atheist and believed in blind eternal fate, I should still believe that fate had ordained the Jews to be the most essential instrument for civilizing the nations ...
They are the most glorious nation that ever inhabited this Earth. The Romans and their empire were but a bubble in comparison to the Jews. They have given religion to three-quarters of the globe and have influenced the affairs of mankind more and more happily than any other nation, ancient or modern.
M. M. Noah Esq.
March 15th. 1819
Dear Sir,
I have to thank you for another valuable publication your travels in “Europe
Africa” which though I cannot see well enough to read. I can hear as well
ever & accordingly have heard read two thirds of it & shall in course hear all
the rest. It is a magazine of ancient & modern learning of judicious observa-
tions & ingenious reflections. I have been so pleased with it that I wish you
had continued your travels-into Syria. Judea & Jerusalem. I should attend
more to your remarks upon those interesting countries than to those of any
traveller I have yet read. If I were to let my imagination loose I should wish
you had been a member of Napoleons Institute at Cairo nay farther I
could find it in my heart to wish that you had been at the head of a hundred
thousand Israelites indeed as well disciplined as a French Army-& marching
with them into Judea & making a conquest of that country & restoring your
nation to the dominion of it. For I really wish the Jews again in Judea an
independent nation. For I believe the most enlightened men of it have
participated in the ameliorations of the philosophy of the age, once restored
to an independent government & no longer persecuted they would soon wear
away some of the asperities & peculiarities of their character & possibly in
time become liberal Unitarian Christians for your Jehovah is our Jehovah
your God of Abraham Isaac & Jacob is our God. I am Sir with respect
esteem your obliged humble servant.
John AdamsLike most British and American proto-Zionists, the desire for Jews to return to Zion was based on the idea that this would be a precursor to them being converted en masse to Christianity. Nevertheless, the desire by many prominent Christians for Jews to return to their homeland cannot be denied, and was a major reason why Zionism was politically successful.
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas has failed to resolve his stand-off with Egypt or Hamas, according to senior officials who spoke to Middle East Eye.Which is exactly what I wrote on Friday.
The officials told MEE the recent meeting between Abbas and top Hamas leaders in Doha made no progress toward ending the long-running split between the two camps.
Dr Khalil al-Hayeh, a member of Hamas's political bureau, said that Abbas “clung to his old positions and showed no flexibility in the meeting".
The relationship between President Abbas and Egypt's leader has deteriorated in the last couple of months, with Abbas decrying what he has called “Egyptian intervention in Palestinian affairs".Dahlan does seem to be an important if missing player in all of this drama.
Egypt has reportedly led efforts to press Abbas to bring exiled Fatah leader Mohammed Dahlan backed into Palestinian politics.
When Abbas rejected the efforts, Egyptian intelligence held a conference in Cairo discussing the relationship between Egypt and the Palestinian cause, which one Palestinian official said was an attempt by Egyptian intelligence to put more pressure on Abbas.
The official said Egyptian intelligence officers made phone calls to Palestinian study centers in Ramallah and tried to persuade them to participate in the conference in Cairo.
“That was a stark intervention in our affairs,” said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
Dahlan enjoys the regional support of the United Arab Emirates, Egypt and Jordan. UAE leaders have also tried to persuade Saudi Arabia that Dahlan is a strong potential successor to octagenarian Abbas.
Abbas plans to hold a Fatah party convention by the end of November, which he is expected to use to block Dahlan's return.
These meetings took place after Abbas met the previous week with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Qatari Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al Thani.
Erdogan and Sheikh Tamim are considered strong patrons of the Muslim Brotherhood, the great rival of Egypt and its president, Abdel Fattah el-Sissi.
So what — or, rather, who — has led Abbas straight into the arms of the Muslim Brotherhood, and maybe even into those of Hamas, just days after a high-ranking Hamas official in Gaza called him a traitor?
The answer is simple: Mohammad Dahlan. This former high-ranking Fatah official, who has been challenging Abbas for several years, succeeded this week in areas where even Hamas has failed. He managed to get Cairo on his side in the fight against Abbas and proved how weak and shaky Abbas’s status is in the Arab world.
In addition, Dahlan organized a series of demonstrations in the West Bank against the Palestinian Authority and Abbas — to which hundreds of Fatah activists showed up. So Abbas, who has taken some hard hits in recent weeks (including for attending the funeral of Shimon Peres, in case anyone forgot), caught on to the conspiracy being wrought against him in Cairo, Abu Dhabi (where Dahlan lives), and even Saudi Arabia (which recently cut back its aid to the PA). So Abbas decided to approach the patrons of the Muslim Brotherhood and perhaps bring about a reconciliation with Hamas — mainly with the leadership of the group’s political wing abroad.
Why approach Hamas leaders in Qatar and not in Gaza?
One reason is that the high-ranking members of Hamas in Gaza seem to be collaborating with Dahlan, of all people. This means that the conventional division into various camps (pragmatic Sunnis, the Muslim Brotherhood, Shiites, jihadist Sunnis) created in recent years is once again melting before our eyes. The new Middle East transformed long ago into a juicy and tragic political-diplomatic soap opera, and we cannot predict where the plot of its next episode is headed.Yet in the end...nothing happens.
Buy EoZ's book, PROTOCOLS: EXPOSING MODERN ANTISEMITISM
If you want real peace, don't insist on a divided Jerusalem, @USAmbIsrael
The Apartheid charge, the Abraham Accords and the "right side of history"
With Palestinians, there is no need to exaggerate: they really support murdering random Jews
Great news for Yom HaShoah! There are no antisemites!