[Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News] 03/19 Links Pt1: Kerry: I Was for a Jewish State Before I Was Against it; Yaalon: US Projecting Weakness

From Ian:

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Obama Setting Israel Up to Take the Blame

Abbas’s refusal to take the steps necessary to make peace is nothing new when you consider that he and his predecessor Yasir Arafat have already turned down three Israeli offers of peace and statehood. This has been a consistent pattern for the PA. As the Washington Post’s Jackson Diehl noted on Sunday, Abbas thinks he can get away with this because the Obama administration has no intention of pressuring him or holding him accountable for Palestinian incitement, terror connections, or diplomatic intransigence.
If the president were genuinely interested in pursuing peace he would be hammering the Palestinians for their behavior and making it clear they would pay a high price for saying no to Kerry’s framework. Instead, he has given Abbas carte blanche to maintain the same obdurate stance he has taken since he took over the PA from his longtime boss Arafat.
What will this accomplish? It won’t advance the cause of peace. But it will make it easier for Israel’s critics to blame Netanyahu for the inevitable collapse of Kerry’s effort and serve to rationalize the violence and the boycotts the secretary threatened the Jewish state with. All Obama is doing is setting up Israel to take the fall for a fourth Palestinian “no” to peace.

Caroline Glick: Do Palestinians Really Want to Live Next to Israel? (Starts 1:50) (h/t Daphne Anson


J.J. Goldberg Attempts To Bully Caroline Glick- J Street Chimes In

On March 17th, J.J. Goldberg opined in The Forward that Caroline Glick's appearance at Hillel violates the National Hillel Guidelines for Campus Israel Activities due to her right-wing views on Israel. In an article titled “N.J Hillel Hosts right-wing views of Israel 1-Stater. Relax, She’s Right-Winger,” he labels Glick as a “militant one-stater” who is a “fiery right-winger.”
After labeling Glick and portraying her as extreme, Goldberg attempts to argue against her new book, The Israeli Solution: A One-State Plan for Peace in the Middle East:

Israel’s Defense Chief Says U.S. Projecting Weakness

Yaalon said that although “people know Iran cheats”, the United States and other nations chose to negotiate with Tehran on restricting activities they fear are aimed at developing atomic arms.
“Therefore, on this matter, we have to behave as though we have nobody to look out for us but ourselves,” Yaalon said, echoing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s veiled threats of unilateral military action against Iran if diplomacy fails.
“Unfortunately, when it comes to negotiating at a Persian bazaar, the Iranians are better,” said Yaalon, a former armed forces chief and a hawkish member of Netanyahu’s right-wing Likud party.

Jeffrey Goldberg: Obama Treats Netanyahu Worse Than Putin

Jeffrey Goldberg, the prominent foreign policy writer and Obama loyalist, admitted that President Obama treats Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as an “adversary” who he seeks to “destabilize,” and lamented that the president does not treat Russian dictator Vladimir Putin in a similarly hostile manner.
After recounting negative comments about Netanyahu and Israel the president recently made, Goldberg concluded, “I just wish that Obama could do that with Putin.

‘Bomb-maker’ brags about El Al blast, posts Lockerbie photos

The man investigators initially believed built the bomb that blew up Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie 25 years ago maintains a Facebook page on which he recently posted pictures of the Lockerbie bombing and promised to write about the circumstances of the attack.
Marwan Khreesat, who now lives in Jordan, was arrested but bizarrely released by German police two months before the Lockerbie bombing as part of a Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command cell found in possession of bombs designed to blow up airliners.
He writes frequent posts condemning Israel, the Palestinian Authority for dealing with Israel, the Assad regime and others. Late last year, he also castigated PFLP-GC leader Ahmad Jibril, for whom he allegedly built several bombs used to blow up airplanes in the 1970s, accusing Jibril of abandoning the Palestinian cause in siding with the Assad regime.
Last week, Khreesat posted an entry boasting about the PFLP-GC’s bombing of an El Al plane from Rome to Tel Aviv in 1972, describing the attack as “a challenge to the Israeli intelligence agents who are responsible for searching luggage and everything that goes on a plane.

The Truth About Israel's Demand To Be Recognized as the Jewish State

The Israeli demand that the Palestinians recognize Israel as the Jewish State has become a hot issue over the past week. Media outlets such as the AP, Reuters and the Christian Science Monitor have all written commentary about the history of, and the reasons for Israel's demand to be recognized as the Jewish State. Most of the facts presented have been wrong.
Despite what some commenters say, the demand that Israel be recognized as the Jewish State was not a Netanyahu invention. It actually predates the first “official” Israeli negotiations with the Palestinians during the Rabin administration in 1992.
Reversing policy the President outlined a year ago, Secretary of State Kerry said last week that Israel’s insistence the Palestinians officially recognize Israel as a Jewish state is a mistake, he added the issue should not be a critical factor in whether the current round of Israel-Palestinian peace negotiations succeed or fail.

Kerry: I Was for a Jewish State Before I Was Against it

Secretary Kerry is hardly alone in his eagerness to ignore the increasing dangers of this Jew hatred. He, like most members of polite Washington society, is devoted to, and an acolyte of the lavishly funded Middle East peace industry whose objective seems to be less “peace” per se, than making sure the “peace process” it feeds off can keep functioning. That can’t happen if new deals can’t be reached.
But to ask that Israel accept proclamations long since buried under an avalanche of anti-Jewish incitement is to ask Israel to ignore the militant Islamic fundamentalist revival that has transformed and destabilised the entire Arab and Muslim worlds. It is to ask Israel to ignore the rise and status of groups like Hamas, whose self-defined purpose is built upon its promise to annihilate the Jews as per Koranic command. It is to ask that Israel acquiesce in its own destruction.
To clear minds, the adamant Palestinian refusal to even consider recognising Israel as a Jewish state can only mean one thing. Palestinians demand their own state not as a means to end the conflict with Israel, but as means to continue that conflict to end Israel.

Deputy defense minister threatens to resign if government frees Palestinian prisoners

Deputy defense minister Danny Danon threatened Wednesday to leave his post by the end of the month if the fourth round of Palestinian prisoner releases takes place - as planned - on March 28.
Danon sent the threat to Netanyahu and revealed it in a meeting with mothers of terror victims in the Knesset.
"I believe that by working together, we can stop the unnecessary release of terrorists and prevent it," Danon told the mothers. "There is no reason to release these murderers. If there will be a fourth round, I won't sit in the government anymore."

Livni: Terrorist Release Depends on Abbas

Justice Minister Tzipi Livni, Israel’s chief negotiator with the Palestinian Authority (PA), said on Tuesday that PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas’s behavior will determine whether Israel goes through with the release of the fourth batch of terrorists that it agreed to release.
Livni, who spoke at a conference and was quoted by AFP, made the comments after a senior diplomatic source said earlier Tuesday that if it turns out that talks with PA have reached a dead end, Israel will reconsider the terrorist release.
She said that Abbas would have to show he is serious about negotiating peace in order for the terrorist release to go ahead.

Concerns mount over Israeli visa rejections

Another federal lawmaker on Monday joined the growing chorus of criticism over a dramatic increase in State Department refusals of Israeli visa applications.
Rep. Grace Meng (D-N.Y.) sent a letter to Secretary of State John Kerry requesting detailed information about the rejection rate for U.S. visa applications filed by Israeli nationals between the ages of 21 and 27.
Her inquiry follows a near 400 percent spike in Israeli visa refusals in recent years.
The concern centers on young Israelis planning to travel in the United States after the completion of their compulsory military service but before they complete their educations. (h/t Jewess)

Israel threatens Syria after border bombing

In a sharply worded statement, Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon confirmed that Israeli warplanes had bombed “several targets associated with the Syrian army and defense establishment that aided and abetted yesterday’s terror attack,” and issued a pointed warning to Syrian President Bashar Assad, whom he blamed for the attack.
“We won’t tolerate any breach of our sovereignty or attacks against our soldiers and civilians,” he said. “We will react with might and resolve against anyone who acts against us, no matter where and when, as we demonstrated last night. Anyone who tries to attack us will be signing their own death sentence.”
The defense minister went on to declare that if the Syrian president “will continue to cooperate with terror elements that aspire to harm the State of Israel, we will continue to exact from him a heavy price in a manner that will make him regret his actions.”

Syrian army: Israeli airstrikes killed 1 soldier

Israeli air raids on Syria on Wednesday killed one soldier and injured seven, Syria’s army said, warning that the strikes endangered regional security and stability.
The army command in a statement said the strikes targeted military bases in the Quneitra region “leading to the martyrdom of one soldier and the wounding of seven others.”

Crime pays ‑ for Palestinian terrorists

The more serious the crime the more money the criminal receives after going to prison.
Absurd? Yes. True? Yes again.
When a Palestinian Arab terrorist murders an Israeli or an American in Israel, they can wind up receiving a generous salary, in excess of $40,000 a year, for their crime. And if you are a US taxpayer, you are footing part of the tab.
As chairman of House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Terrorism, Nonproliferation and Trade, I recently held a hearing on “Threats to Israel: Terrorist Funding and Trade Boycotts.”
One of the expert witnesses who testified before the committee was Edwin Black, an investigative reporter and New York Times bestselling author. In his detailed and heavily documented account Black explains how this morally outrageous system works.

PA Wants to Drill for Oil in Judea and Samaria

The cash-strapped Palestinian Authority (PA) is looking for oil in Judea and Samaria, but in areas under Israeli control.
According to the PA-based WAFA news agency, Mohammad Mustafa, the Deputy Prime Minister for Economic Affairs, announced on Tuesday that the PA is requesting proposals from interested firms to explore and develop oil in the region.
The license area extends over 432 square kilometers, from north of Qalqilya to the west of Ramallah.

Hamas calls Egypt blockade a 'crime against humanity'

The closures, that Egypt says were introduced because of security concerns, have cut off imports of medicine and aid to the impoverished coastal enclave and prevented travel by thousands of Gazans and patients seeking treatment abroad.
Usually open for four to six days per month, the Rafah crossing has now been shut to normal passenger traffic for 40 straight days - although Egyptian authorities have opened it twice in that period for pilgrims to Mecca.
"Egyptian authorities' insistence on closing the Rafah crossing and tightening the blockade of Gaza ... is a crime against humanity by every criteria and a crime against the Palestinian people," said Fawzi Barhoum, a spokesman for the Islamist movement which rules Gaza.

Syrian Embassy in Washington Closed, Diplomats Expelled

The United States closed the Syrian Embassy in Washington, D.C., on Tuesday, Israel Hayom reports. Diplomats and consulates stationed there were asked to leave the country.
U.S. Special Envoy for Syria Daniel Rubenstein blamed embattled Syrian President Bashar Assad, whose regime has now entered the fourth year of a civil protest turned violent rebellion that has claimed the lives of over 140,000.

Jordanian killer of seven Israeli girls hospitalized

A Jordanian soldier jailed for life for the murder of seven Israeli schoolgirls was hospitalized on the fifth day of a hunger strike Wednesday after his health deteriorated, police said.
“Ahmad Dakamseh is currently being hospitalized after his health deteriorated because he had been refusing to eat or take medicine since Friday,” a statement said.

Leading Iranian ayatollah: Islamic messiah ‘will behead Western leaders’

A leading ayatollah of Iran’s Islamic regime is promising that Western leaders will be executed by the Islamic messiah, the state-owned media outlet Mehr news reported Saturday.
“When Imam Zaman ['Mahdi,' the last Shiite Imam] comes, he will behead the Western leaders,” warned Ayatollah Mohammad Emami Kashani, the interim Friday prayer leader of Tehran and a member of the Assembly of Experts, the body that chooses the supreme leader. “However, Imam will not harm the oppressed nations,” he said.

395 House Members to Obama: Iran Must Be Transparent About Nuclear Program

A new letter to President Barack Obama signed by 395 members of the U.S. House of Representatives stresses that a permanent nuclear deal with Iran “should include stringent transparency measures to guarantee that Iran cannot develop an undetectable nuclear weapons breakout capability.”
The Islamic Republic “must fully and verifiably implement its Safeguards Agreement with the International Atomic Energy Agency, ratify and implement the Additional Protocol, answer pending IAEA questions, and comply with the transparency measures requested by the Director General of the IAEA, as well as with any additional verification and monitoring measures necessary to ensure Iran is abiding by the terms of any agreement,” said the letter, which was initiated by House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) and House Democratic Whip Steny Hoyer (D-MD).

83 US Senators Sign Letter Articulating ‘Core Principles’ for Final Iran Nuclear Deal

A new letter to President Barack Obama signed by 83 of 100 U.S. senators outlines “core principles” that the senators believe must be part of a final deal on Iran’s nuclear program.
The senators wrote that any agreement “must dismantle Iran’s nuclear weapons program and prevent it from ever having a uranium or plutonium path to a nuclear bomb.” Iran “has no inherent right to enrichment under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty,” and also has “no reason to have an enrichment facility like Fordow,” which is located underground, they wrote.
A nuclear deal should force Iran to give up its heavy water reactor at Arak, and make the country “fully explain the questionable activities in which it engaged at Parchin and other facilities,” according to the senators.

VIDEO: Blonde Woman 'Molested' On Egyptian Campus

Arabic news sources are reporting a 'viral video' published yesterday which purports to show a young blonde girl being 'harassed' and even 'molested' on a university campus in Cairo, Egypt.
The video (below) shows a girl with peroxide blonde hair wearing a pink top, marching through the university. She reportedly attracted the attention of dozens of male students who can be heard shouting and wolf-whistling in the clip.

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Posted By Ian to Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News at 3/19/2014 12:00:00 PM