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Saturday, December 31, 2016

From Ian:

Alan M. Dershowitz: Britain and Australia more supportive of Israel than Obama and Kerry
When the British Prime minster and the Australians foreign minister both criticize the Obama administration for being unfair to Israel, you can be sure that something is very wrong with what President Obama and Secretary Kerry have been doing. This is what Theresa May said:
"We do not believe that it is appropriate to attack the composition of the democratically elected government of an ally. [W]e are also clear that the settlements are far from the only problem in this conflict. In particular, the people of Israel deserve to live free from the threat of terrorism, with which they have had to cope for too long."2
This is what Julie Bishop, the foreign minister of Australia, said in explaining why Australia would not have voted for the U.N. Security Council resolution:
"In voting at the UN, the [Australian] Coalition government has consistently not supported one-­‐sided resolutions targeting Israel."
And these are only the public criticisms. In private several other countries have expressed dismay at the problems caused by the last minute moves of the lame duck Obama administration.
Initially, the New York Times failed to report these important international developments, presumably because they disagree with them. Only after other media featured the British and Australian criticism did they decide to cover it. They did immediately report that the Jewish community – both in the United States and Israel – is divided between right-­‐wing Jews who oppose the Obama administration's moves and liberal Jews who support them.3 This is simply fake news: Israel is not divided over the Security Council's resolution and the Kerry speech. All Israeli leaders and the vast majority of its citizens opposed these developments.
Douglas Murray: Britain's Little Lies
This is a serious category error for a Prime Minister to make. It puts critics of a religion on the same plane as people wanted for terrorism. It blurs the line between speech and action, and mixes people who call for violence with those who do not.
Only now, a fortnight later, has the true duplicity of Theresa May's speech been exposed. For now the world has learned what diplomacy the British government was engaged in even as May was making her speech. At the same time as the Prime Minister was talking about "true friendship" in front of friends of Israel, her government was conspiring with the outgoing Obama administration to kick that friend in the back. The British government was exposed as being one of the key players intent on pushing through the anti-Israel UNSC Resolution 2334. British diplomats were revealed to have been behind the wording and rallying of allies for the resolution.
The British government, whilst saying that it remains committed to a peace deal that comes as a result of direct negotiations between the two sides, has its own preconditions for peace: a freeze on the building of what it calls "settlements." They maintain this line despite the fact that settlements have nothing to do with the Israeli-Palestinian problem. Before the June 1967 Six Day War, there were no such things as "settlements." Palestinians were trying to destroy and displace Israel anyhow. The core problem is not, and never was, "settlements," but the right of Israel (or any non-Muslim nation) to exist inside any borders in that part of the world.
If you take a stand that is based on a lie, then that stand cannot succeed. If you try to oppose anti-Semitism but pretend it is the same thing as "Islamophobia," then the structure on which you have made your stand will totter and all your aspirations will fail. If you try to make a stand based on the idea that settlement construction rather than the intransigence of the Palestinians to the existence of a Jewish state is what is holding up a peace deal, then facts will keep on intruding.
PodCast: Law Talk With Epstein, Yoo & Senik: Ep. 92: Auld Law Syne
It’s the end of the year and Professors Richard Epstein and John Yoo are in a globetrotting mood. First, what effect will the Obama Administration’s acquiescence to the UN’s anti-Israel motion have on the future of the Middle East? Then, is the White House doing enough to sanction Russia — and is President-Elect Trump taking the threat seriously enough? Then, closer to home, will President Obama’s last-minute executive actions be able to survive the Trump Administration?



Ben Shapiro: Obama's betrayal of Israel & recent anti-Israel resolution from U.N. (12-23-2016)



Breaking Down the 'Israeli Occupation' Myth
From the perspective of someone who does not understand international law or the history of the Arab-Israeli conflict, this resolution tells the story that Israelis have trampled over Palestinian lands illegally and decided to build houses on them in a fit of colonial aggression. Unfortunately for them, that is nonsensical and false. The entire argument rests upon the false premise that Israel is "occupying" Palestinian land and that Israel has no legitimate claims to the lands in question. For those who wish to understand Israel's legal rights to the land, Daniel Horowitz wrote a magnificent piece yesterday in Conservative Review outlining them under United Nations Charter Article 80, the League of Nations 1922 Mandate on Palestine, and the San Remo Conference.
That still begs the question of whether Israel is "occupying" Palestinian land in the first place. The answer is no, and that is clearly codified in how international treaties define occupation. It is important to recognize that in international law, a treaty represents the persuasive authority of an international legal question. Contrary to the "soft laws" of customary international law and jus cogens, treaties serve the same purpose and legal power as a contract between two parties. Anyone who signs an international treaty is obligated to follow the specific words dictated between all of the nation-states that helped draft and agree upon the terms.
The legal definition of "occupation" comes out of the 1907 Hague Convention, some of the first treaties governing international laws of war and war crimes. The definition of an occupation can be found in Articles 42 and 43 and can also be summarized in the following sentence: Possession of the territory of the legitimate power by the occupying power.
Here is the text of Article 42:
Territory is considered occupied when it is actually placed under the authority of the hostile army. The occupation extends only to the territory where such authority has been established and can be exercised.
Here is the text of Article 43:
The authority of the legitimate power having in fact passed into the hands of the occupant, the latter shall take all the measures in his power to restore, and ensure, as far as possible, public order and safety, while respecting, unless absolutely prevented, the laws in force in the country.
Both of these articles supplement each other in creating the legal definition of an "occupation." Avinoam Sharon, a former military lawyer for the Israel Defense Forces, encapsulated the meaning of these two articles best in a an article published by the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs:
First, the area is under the actual control of the hostile army. Second, the area was previously the sovereign territory of another state. Third, the occupier holds the area with the purpose of returning it to the prior sovereign.
Congressional Republicans push to condemn anti-settlement UN vote
Republicans in both chambers of Congress are moving quickly to condemn the United Nations for passing a Security Council resolution last week that said Israeli settlements had “no legal validity” and constitute “a flagrant violation under international law.”
Kansas Sen. Jerry Moran (R) and Florida Rep. Dennis Ross (R) both indicated that they are planning to introduce separate measures of disapproval over UNSC Resolution 2334 once Capitol Hill lawmakers reconvene next week.
More than 100 Members of Congress have issued statements opposing the resolution, according to a source familiar with the matter.
The resolution, which passed by a vote of 14-0 following a US abstention, calls for a complete end to all construction in areas Israel gained after the 1967 Six Day War, territory that includes the Old City, with the Temple Mount and Western Wall.
Furthermore, the text calls on all states “to distinguish, in their relevant dealings, between the territory of the State of Israel and the territories occupied since 1967.” Israel fears such language will lead to an uptick in boycott and sanctions efforts, and Israeli officials have warned it will provide “a tailwind for terror.”
Ex-Diplomat Martin Indyk’s Alleged ‘Repuslive Remarks’ About Israel and Jews Raise Concerns
Several Jewish organizations and leaders are expressing alarm over revelations of a series of harsh, disparaging remarks about Israelis and Jews made by a former US diplomat and mideast expert.
Martin Indyk — who served as President Bill Clinton’s ambassador to Israel and assistant secretary of state for Near East affairs, followed by a stint as the Obama administration’s envoy for Israeli-Palestinian negotiations — is being urged to clarify comments he made in a tape-recorded private conversation from 1989, in which he reportedly said Israelis are “paranoid,” “arrogant” and “think the rules of society do not apply [to them]” because “they are the goy’s rules.”
Indyk, who is Jewish himself, also reportedly applied this assessment to the character of Jews generally, saying that Jewish people “would do whatever they can to avoid paying taxes,” and believe it is justified to “find a way to ignore the law or get around it.” He added, “In my own family, my grandfather used to stay up nights to figure out how to avoid paying taxes.”
Professor Eunice G. Pollack, an historian of antisemitism and co-editor of the Encyclopedia of American Jewish History, told JNS.org that Indyk’s reported statements “echo three of the most infamous centuries-old tropes of antisemites.”
Even The Washington Post Thinks Kerry’s Israel Speech Was Nuts
The widespread condemnation of Secretary of State John Kerry’s Wednesday speech targeting Israel has now spread as far left as The Washington Post.
The Post issued an op-ed on Friday in which it stated, “The Obama administration is ending eight years of failed Middle East diplomacy exactly where it began in 2009 — with an exaggerated and misguided focus on Israeli settlement construction.”
The Post accused Kerry of railing at the continuing growth of West Bank Jewish housing “with a prolixity that Fidel Castro would have admired.”
The Post acknowledged the similarity of Kerry’s rhetoric to Barack Obama’s at the beginning of his first term, admitting that Obama’s actions catalyzed “Palestinian leaders to resist all concessions while seeking to delegitimize Israel internationally; the peace talks went nowhere even when Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu imposed a temporary construction freeze.”
The Post continued, “Mr. Kerry’s speech was, above all, a vivid demonstration of the administration’s inability to learn from its mistakes or adjust the ideological tenets that Mr. Obama brought to office.”
Prof. Miriam Elman in WaPo: Move U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem, for peace sake
Last week I was invited by an editor of The Washington Post’s Monkey Cage blog to contribute an article focusing on the issues surrounding president-elect Donald Trump’s pledge to move the U.S. embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.
The article, “Trump’s plan to move the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem could help the peace process”, was published yesterday:
In it I argue that come this spring, President Trump shouldn’t sign the waiver provision of the 1995 Jerusalem Embassy Act and should instead move to implement the law because it would “bode well for Israeli-Palestinian peace prospects.”
As I highlighted in several prior LI posts (see here and here), both presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush made campaign promises to move the embassy, only to renege once they were in office.
But in the op-ed I note that Congress never intended for the waiver to be a “crutch for procrastination”. Further, the reasons that critics of the relocation give for delaying the move yet again—that it’ll unleash a wave of extremism; spark another Palestinian uprising; or drive a wedge between the United States and Arab states or Europe—simply don’t hold up.
I explain why these doomsday predictions are especially less true now that the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) passed resolution 2334 last week. In fact, UNSCR 2334 makes it even more likely that Trump will honor his campaign promise. Here’s an excerpt:
relocating the embassy allows the Trump administration to reinforce that, unlike the Obama administration, it doesn’t consider settlements the key obstacle to peace. Trump will be particularly keen to make this distinction after the U.S. abstention on Friday’s United Nations Security Council Resolution 2334 – which effectively declares illegal all Israeli presence beyond the 1949 armistice lines, including east Jerusalem.”
Australia: US and NZ are wrong on Israel
Mr Carr’s (fmr Labour Foreign Minister) comments follow a visit to Israel last week by Bill Shorten, who met and praised Mr Netanyahu but was criticised for spending only a few hours in the Palestinian territories.
Tensions within the NSW Right, formally known as Centre Unity, are expected to increase over the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as policy committees begin to meet in February to discuss motions for the conference. Any toughening of the Right’s stand against Israel would represent a rebuke against the Opposition Leader, who enjoys the support of the faction.
Labor’s position recognises a commitment to a two-state ­solution, and notes “settlement building by Israel in the occupied territories that may undermine a two-state solution is a roadblock to peace”.
NSW Labor general secretary Kaila Murnain said the party’s position had been “unanimously ­supported” at the last conference. But that position followed months of negotiations in the NSW Right and Left and the wider party, at times including federal and state players including Deputy Opposition Leader Tanya Plibersek, frontbenchers Tony Burke, Jason Clare and Mark Dreyfus, state health spokesman Walt Secord, and Mr Carr. Those talks would make it more difficult for the party to change its policy again.
Some in the Right have raised concerns about Mr Shorten’s meetings with Israeli politicians, including Mr Netanyahu.State MP Shaoquett Moselmane, linking to a tweet from Mr Shorten’s account praising Mr Netanyahu as “a good friend of Australia”, said the Israeli leader should be tried for human rights violations.
In an email circulating among party members, a former candidate suggests the Queensland Labor Friends of Palestine and its partner body in NSW should work “to entrench the recognition of Palestine as federal Labor policy before the next federal election”. But Acting Opposition Leader Chris Bowen said Labor continued to support a two-state solution.
After Kerry Speech, Palestinian Leader Reaffirms a Jewish State Will Never Be Recognized
Yesterday Secretary of State John Kerry defended the U.S. decision to abstain from a recent U.N. resolution vote condemning Israel and designating the Western Wall in Jerusalem as non-Jewish, occupied territory. During a speech at the State Department, Kerry spent the majority of his time berating Israel for so-called settlements in the West Bank while advocating for a two-state solution. He acknowledged that in order for a two-state solution to become reality, the Palestinian government would have to recognize the basic fact that Israel, a Jewish state, has the right to exist.
Responding to Kerry's remarks, top Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) member Mustafa Barghouti again reaffirmed Palestinians will never issue this recognition. From the Jerusalem Post:
PLO Executive Committee member Mustafa Barghouti welcomed the overall message of US Secretary of State John Kerry’s speech on Wednesday, but he said the Palestinian leadership cannot accept the top US diplomat’s suggested parameters.
"Recognition of Israel as a Jewish state would deny the right of the Palestinian people who are citizens of Israel and that is totally unacceptable. Israel cannot be a Jewish and a democratic state at the same time,” Barghouti continued.

In short, the issue isn't settlements as the U.N. and the Obama administration have claimed. The anti-semitic issue Palestinians have lies with the existence of the Jewish people. Israel and the Jewish people have a right to exist. Until this is recognized by the Palestinians, there cannot be peace.
Obama and Israel, from 2008 to 2016: A Story of Betrayal and Reversal
Will something like this be the last element in the president’s parting shots against Israel?
Making things even worse is the very strong evidence that the Obama administration worked directly with Palestinian leadership to craft and advance the recent UN Security Council resolution, despite the administration’s denials. Evidence includes: 1) discussion months in advance by political pundits that this was one of the options being discussed by the administration (how did they know this?); 2) Prime Minister Netanyahu stating unequivocally that America was behind the resolution, which he would hardly do without “rather ironclad information”; and 3) an Egyptian paper releasing transcripts of a purported meeting between Kerry and Palestinian officials from early December, planning out the strategy.
This is just part of what makes President Obama’s final actions so shameful and why Rabbi Shmuley Boteach was right to say that has Obama “demonized Israel little by little.”
So much for the man who said in 2008 that he spoke “as a true friend of Israel,” explaining, “And I know that when I visit with AIPAC, I am among friends. Good friends. Friends who share my strong commitment to make sure that the bond between the United States and Israel is unbreakable today, tomorrow and forever.”
As the old saying goes, with friends like these, who needs enemies.
Thomas Friedman, Anachronism
New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman lent his support to the controversial actions taken by the departing administration of President Barack Obama concerning the Israeli-Palestinian conflict (Dec. 29, 2016, "Bibi Makes Trump His Chump"). Friedman praises the last minute maneuvers by the President and Secretary of State John F. Kerry and castigates Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for lacking the political courage to defy his rightwing base. The facts and historical account offered by Friedman are worth examining.
1) Friedman chides Netanyahu for his unwillingness to “confront the Jewish settlers, who relentlessly push Israel deeper and deeper into the West Bank.”
So what are the facts about the territory and population of Jewish settlements in the West Bank?
The Jewish population of Judea and Samaria has increased from 275,000 at the end of 2008 to 377,000 at the end of 2015 according to figures published by Israel’s Central Bureau of Statistics. Over an eight-year period that reflects the natural growth rate of the population. The total territory that has been built upon by Jewish settlers amounts to between two and three percent of the total West Bank land area (depending upon the source) and has changed little during Prime Minister Netanyahu’s eight year tenure.
While it is true that the built-up territory does not comprise the total land area that Israel controls or would control in any agreement, nevertheless, there is no evidence that Jewish settlers are “relentlessly” expanding the territory under their control, as Friedman contends.
After Contact from CAMERA, The Washington Post Corrects on 'Green Line'
After contact from CAMERA, The Washington Post has changed inaccurate language in the online version of its Dec. 5, 2016 article “Jared Kushner's family foundation donated to West Bank settlements.”
That Post report claimed, among other things, that “The Kushner foundation gifts were mostly made to schools, including religious yeshivas, located outside the Green Line that is internationally recognized as the border of Israel proper [emphasis added].”
Yet, as CAMERA highlighted in correspondence to Post editors and staff on December 7, the Green Line is an armistice demarcation line; not an “internationally recognized border of Israel proper.”
CAMERA pointed out that the West Bank and Gaza frontiers were demarcated by the 1949 Israeli-Jordanian armistice line and the 1950 Israeli-Egyptian armistice line.U.N. Security Council Resolution 242 (adopted several months after the 1967 war), called for negotiations to reach Arab-Israeli peace—to include “recognized and secure boundaries,” since they did not then exist. U.N. Security Council Resolution 338 (1973) repeated this call. However, no agreement on a border has been reached—although several U.S. and Israeli proposals have been offered, but were met with rejection by Palestinian leaders.
Hanukkah Miracle as Ketchup Heiress with nothing to say speaks for 75 Minutes (satire)
People around here have seen a lot, but something is different this week. On Wednesday, something happened that was so profound that it very well may have been a modern Hanukkah miracle. Ketchup heiress/Navy Veteran/Dude who lost to Dubya/Diplomat John Kerry spoke for 75 minutes without actually having anything to say. With only enough relevant ideas to fill a 5 minute chat, Kerry somehow summoned enough J-Street talking points, Senate anecdotes, and Thomas Friedman clichés to make his talk last 75 minutes. Nes Gadol Haya Sham! So the Daily Freier hit the streets to find out the word. On the streets.
As the Daily Freier exited Jerusalem’s Central Bus Station, we ran into a familiar face: Alert Local Ronit S., who was on her way to the Ministry of Education to get a scuba diving certification from Cancun translated into Hebrew so she could be a dive instructor or something. We asked Ronit if she heard the speech.
“Yeah. They played it on the bus the whole way here. Seventy. Five. Minutes. It was so bad that the driver actually had to pull over to get some fresh air near Latrun. I made a bet with the guy next to me on how long it would last. He said 90 minutes, I said 70. So I won. 50 Shekels. The guy was mad and insisted that if Kerry was allowed to also speak in French that the speech would have hit 2 hours.”
The Daily Freier said goodbye to Ronit and proceeded onto the Light Rail toward the Illegally Occupied Western Wall. On the Light Rail, we saw Historian Yoni K. who went on to explain the significance of Kerry’s speech. “What Secretary Kerry did was like transporting me back in time.” explained Yoni as he looked into the distance. “It was like I was in Barack Obama’s Columbia University Dorm Room bull session circa 1983. Imagine a reality where Israel never offered the Palestinians a State in 2000, 2001, and 2008. A reality where Ehud Barak never completely withdrew from South Lebanon in a UN certified move in 2000, and Hezbollah never promptly moved in and kidnapped an Israeli patrol. In this Alternative Universe, Ariel Sharon never removed every Jew from Gaza and handed it over to the Palestinian Authority in 2005; and Hamas never evicted the PA from Gaza in 2007…. You know, for a minute while I was listening to his speech….. I thought that I was high.”
The Daily Freier jumped off the Light Rail and walked over to city hall where several children sat in a circle playing dreidel.
3 Palestinians arrested on suspicion of shooting at IDF post
Israeli security forces arrested three Palestinians Saturday suspected of firing at an army position in the northern West Bank on Friday evening.
The three, residents of the town of Yabed, west of Jenin, were taken for questioning. A car, which authorities suspect was used for the shooting, was impounded.
Two other Palestinians were arrested Saturday: one, caught with a knife near Deir Sharaf in the northern West Bank, said he had intended to carry out an attack. Another was detained near Hebron after weapon parts were found on his person.
On Friday security forces shot and wounded a Palestinian woman at the Qalandiya checkpoint in the West Bank as she tried to carry out a stabbing attack, police said. There were no other injuries.
“She approached the security forces with a knife in her hand. She did not respond to the calls of the soldiers to stop,” police said, adding that the threat was “neutralized.”
Saudi Government Investigates Baby Clothes Sold With Israeli Flag
The Saudi Commerce and Investment Ministry launched an investigation after a report that baby clothes with a print of the Israeli flag were sold at a popular mall in the capital of Riyadh.
A patron was shocked to find that the Israeli flag appeared on clothing items alongside dozens of other flags, and lodged a complaint with the ministry, which raided the store that put the “suspect” garment on display. Saudi press reported the Commerce and Investment Ministry punished the store owner “in accordance with the law” and opened an investigation into the incident.
Plaintiff Said Alqahtani said, “There’s fear that these clothes will proliferate on the market unless due vigilance is shown by business owners, who only think of profits, and the authorities tasked with monitoring products, who must ramp up the supervision and enforcement and punish all the stores selling these garments.”
He said he expects the ministry to sanction the store, adding that he is prepared to accompany ministry officials on their patrols to take the garments bearing the Israeli flag off the shelves.
The story gained traction on social media. One Twitter user who was not impressed with the war against the Israeli flag inquired “what about the cross that appears on some of the flags?” referring to the Islamic interdiction on wearing garments bearing a cross.
Israelis warned not to travel to India because of ‘concrete’ terror threat
Israel’s Counter-Terrorism Bureau issued a travel warning for India on Friday, urging Israelis not to travel to the country and cautioning those already there that Islamist groups may try to carry out terror attacks in the immediate future.
The warning is defined a “concrete basic threat,” according to Channel 2 television.
The bureau singled out Western and tourist hot-spots as being at increased risk, with the alert at its highest in southwest India, in particular in Goa and adjacent states.
The bureau recommended that travelers avoid beach parties and nightclubs with a high concentration of tourists, as well as busy markets, festivals and shopping centers.
Families with relatives traveling in the country were asked to alert their loved ones to the advisory.
“Israeli tourists in India are asked to remain alert and listen to local media and the instructions of security officials,” the warning said.
In Europe, which has seen multiple deadly terror attacks over the past two years, many cities are preparing for the possibility that Islamist radicals will also try to disrupt and spoil New Year festivities.
Hamas video shows Netanyahu dressed as a clown
Hamas' military wing and their Izz ad-Din al-Qassam brigade publicized on Saturday two video clips in honor of kidnapped and murdered Sgt. Oron Shaul's birthday.
Shaul was kidnapped and murdered during 2014's Operation Protective Edge. Hamas has not yet returned his body.
The first video, which was published four days after Shaul's birthday and the day before New Year's Eve, shows people wearing IDF uniforms sitting around a table. On the table is a cake which says "Oron is in captivity for three years."
Later, a Hebrew-language subtitle appears, which says "One more New Year away from home." Underneath it, an Arabic subtitle reads, "A new year, and the soldier Oron Shaul is far from his family."
The second video clip shows a soldier tied to a chair, with a picture of Oron Shaul glued onto the actor's face. Opposite him, the cake waits, and the soldier struggles to free himself and reach it, but to no avail. At the end of the video, Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu walks in the door, dressed as a clown. Netanyahu then walks towards the cake and puts out the candles.
"The decision is in the government's hands," reads the final subtitle in Hebrew and Arabic.
Report: Iran received $1.4 bil. before nuclear deal's implementation
The Iranian government since 2013 has received an estimated $10 billion in cash and gold due to the easing of sanctions following a preliminary nuclear deal agreement with the US and world powers, The Washington Post citing US officials reported Friday.
Included in that total is a previously unreported payment of $1.4 billion made to Tehran in the period between the deal's finalization and when it took effect.
The Islamic Republic together with world powers, known as the P5+1, signed the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action in July of 2015, which aims to halt Iran's ability to produce nuclear material for the next ten years. The agreement was officially instituted in January of 2016.
A provision in the deal permits Iran to collect over $100 billion thanks to sanctions relief imposed by the US and mostly European countries.
The Washington Post notes that the $10 billion dollars Iran has since collected was not accessible to Iran through traditional banks due to lingering restrictions. The US, according to The Post, must sign waivers among countries where Iran sells its oil, where proceeds then get transferred to a second country in the Middle East. From there, the profits are converted into hard cash or gold.
Kuwaiti Preacher and Scholar: In Order to Restore the Caliphate, We Need Someone Like Theodor Herzl
Kuwaiti preacher and scholar Tareq Al-Sweidan talked about the "crisis of backwardness" afflicting the Arab nation, comparing its rate of scientific investment to that of Israel and saying that the Arab nation lacked long-term goals and plans.
"It is a disgrace that we as a nation, or as a state, do not have a vision like McDonald's," he said, which has a 20-year vision and a 100-year goal.
Al-Sweidan was speaking at the Temara chapter of the Moroccan Monotheism and Reform Movement, which also posted the address on the Internet on November 25.
He said the conflict with the "Zionst enemy" was an "existential conflict."
"To be or not to be - it is either us or them," he said, adding that "we will destroy them.


In rare move, Spanish town votes to reverse BDS resolution it passed this year
In a rare move, a Spanish municipality voted to nullify a resolution it had passed earlier this year endorsing the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement against Israel.
Santa Eulalia, a town on the island of Ibiza 300 miles southeast of Madrid, last week nullified in a vote the pro-BDS resolution it passed in the summer following legal action initiated against the municipality over the earlier vote, ACOM, the Spanish pro-Israel organization, told JTA on Friday.
More than a dozen such BDS resolutions have been reversed over the past two years in Spain, where over 50 municipalities have endorsed BDS – more than anywhere else in Europe. But in most of the cases, the reversals came after courts ruled BDS discriminatory or local governments issued decrees against such boycotts, according to ACOM President Angel Mas.
“It is rare for a municipality council to cancel in a vote a resolution that it had passed only months before,” he said.
The center-right Popular Party, which opposes boycott initiatives against Israel, called the second vote amid pressure from senior politicians and because of concerns that ACOM’s legal action against the resolution at Santa Eulalia would end in a nullification, Mas said. Such a reversal by vote has occurred only “once or twice” before in Spain, he said.
During town hall debates about the resolution, Popular Party representatives argued it would be unfair to focus on the democratic nation of Israel at a time when hundreds of thousands of Syrians have died in a brutal civil war among rebels, Islamists and forces loyal to the country’s dictator, Bashar Assad, Mas said.
Your College Application Is Missing The Essay On How You Will Badly Disguise Your Antisemitism As Anti-Zionism by Audrey McAuliffe, High School Guidance Counselor (satire)
Alex, I see you’ve filled out all of the proper forms for your college applications, and arranged for your SAT and SAT-II scores to be sent to the institutions of your choice. But there’s still one thing missing: the required essay on how you intend to portray your thinly-veiled antisemitism as mere anti-Zionism.
Most colleges and universities make that essay mandatory, Alex. I know you might be uncomfortable committing to a specific course of action that you can lay out in such an essay, but college admissions offices take these things very seriously. Admission grows more and more competitive every year at the schools you’ve chosen, and you’re going to need every point in your favor if you’re to sway the admissions committee in your favor. You can’t be seen as someone who takes the easy way out, or who has hesitation about using anti-Jewish slurs at a protest against some imagined Israeli offense.
You don’t even have to follow through on the plan you present. The committee just wants to see you know how to organize your thoughts and express them in a coherent fashion. It’s less about how you intend to choose which Jews to harass and threaten, and more about using your writing prowess to demonstrate you’ve given this topic the requisite consideration. No one at these colleges is going to monitor your adherence to such a plan and place you on probation for failing to stick to it. Not at the places you’ve applied, anyway; Oberlin and the University of California system aren’t your concern right now.
Arizona Family's Menorah On Front Lawn Turned Into Swastika
A Chandler, Arizona family celebrating Hanukkah by erecting a 7-foot-tall menorah made of PVC pipe painted gold on their front lawn got a shock on Friday morning; someone had broken apart the menorah and restructured it as a giant swastika.
When Naomi and Seth Ellis, who had spent $100 for PVC pipe, nine solar-powered lights and gold paint, awakened Friday morning to see the swastika. Naomi Ellis said she had to explain to her three young sons, ages 9, 7, and 5, why someone had committed the act of hate: “We talk a lot about the importance of equality and tolerance, loving everybody no matter what. I had to tell them that not everybody feels that way. Some people are ignorant, and this is what they do.”
She said her 9-year-old son was in tears; adding, “They know about the Holocaust. They know about Nazis,” but she also said they had never seen a swastika before. She continued, “This is the real reality that we live in: People hate us for no reason or want us to feel scared for who we are. That’s not something I wanted to have to tell them.”
As The Washington Post reported, “Seth Ellis, who works in construction, got up Friday morning at 4 a.m. as usual, and saw that while the family was sleeping, the menorah’s joints had been unscrewed and locked back in place in the spidery directions of a swastika. The vandal or vandals had taken some of the pieces entirely. The Ellises called the police.”
Anti-Semitic rants of Muslim activists who won PM's praise: Members of taxpayer-funded anti-extremism group post conspiracy theories blaming Israel for US massacre
Members of an ‘anti-extremism group’ which won praise from the Prime Minister have been found to have made homophobic and anti-Semitic comments.
Odara is a Muslim women’s group claiming to promote integration. It has received more than £150,000 of taxpayers’ money from counter-terrorism programme – Prevent.
Last year, then home secretary Theresa May said she was ‘proud’ to support the group ‘working to stand up against the extremists who seek to divide us’.
But leader and co-founder of the organisation, Aysha Iqbal, and outreach worker, Tasmiyah Bint Naeem had posted a series of messages on their Facebook accounts which suggested they had extreme views themselves.
Miss Iqbal posted conspiracy theories claiming a series of mass shootings, including the US Sandy Hook massacre, were committed by Israel. Alongside a video entitled, ‘Israel did Sandy Hook, Newtown CT School Massacres says Michael Harris’, she wrote: ‘Truth be told.’
Miss Bint Naeem made homophobic comments on the social media site, saying she would not ‘be in the company of those that are gay’.
Greek company scraps Auschwitz ‘escape room’ game following complaints
An entertainment company in Greece canceled a game in which players use clues to escape from a room themed around the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp.
The Rubicon agency, which is located in the northern Athens suburb of Galatsi, in recent weeks advertised the Auschwitz “escape room” on social media. Jews and non-Jews complained it was disrespectful to Holocaust victims, the left-leaning news site Protagon reported Tuesday.
“In frozen Poland, the walls of the crematorium of the infamous Nazi concentration camp for prisoners, primarily of Jewish origin, still reek of burnt human flesh, they say,” a promotional text for the game read. “Take on the role of a prisoner still looking for signs of life from loved ones, dare to stay in the shadow of the historic crematorium, discover the big secret and escape before you, too, turn into ashes.”
Reached by Protagon, a spokesman of the firm responsible for the game said it had been scrapped and that the decision to create it did not take into account “that this could cause offense.”
Escape room games feature a space, often with a dramatic theme, in which a group of players is locked in until they find a way out based on a series of clues, riddles or puzzles.
Israel, China Inaugurate Joint Robotics Institute
The Sino-Israeli Robotics Institute (SIRI) was inaugurated in mid-December when a delegation of nine Israeli companies — led by Ariel University Prof. Zvi Shiller, chair of the Israeli Robotics Association, and Technion Prof. Moshe Shoham, founder of Mazor Robotics and a world leader in medical robotics — participated in the second Sino-Israeli Robotics Innovation Conference in Guangzhou, China.
Intended as “home base” for Israeli robotics companies entering the Chinese market, SIRI is located at the Guangzhou International Robotics Center (ROBOHUB), a government-supported, 4,800-square-meter robotics incubator and demonstration center including a large exhibition and demo area, innovation lab, training center, and corporate offices.
“This is an exciting time for the Israeli robotics industry,” Shiller said. “We are committed to establishing a true partnership with SIRI and ROBOHUB, and we look forward to broadening this strategic cooperation, which will serve as a fast track for transforming ideas into products and for moving products into the Chinese market.”
The conference attracted some 100 robotics companies from Guangdong Province, more than 40 of which held B2B meetings with the Israeli companies.
‘Virtual breathalyzer’ lets you check if you’re over the limit
A researcher at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev has invented a “virtual breathalyzer” that can be used through smart devices such as phones and watches.
A statement from the university said the readings of the virtual breathalyzer — which works by measuring changes in a person’s gait when they have consumed alcohol — detected intoxication levels with 100 percent accuracy when crosschecked with a police monitor.
“Alcohol distinctly affects movement, gait and balance in ways that can be detected by the built-in motion sensors on devices people carry around with them all the time,” said Ben Nassi, a post-graduate student from the university’s Department of Software and Information Systems Engineering and the device’s developer. “Our system simply takes a baseline reading while walking from the car to the bar and another one on the way back to compare and identify movements that indicate drunkenness.”
Applications based on Nassi’s model for measuring intoxication could be used to alert others, or even a connected car, and prevent users from driving under the influence, the university said.



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Haider Alwaty, a former dean at Sultan Qaboos University in Oman, responded to the stories of American Jews dancing with Bahraini officials with this tweet:

I am afraid that the day will come when publicizing the crimes of the Zionists or supporting the Resistance (code name for Hamas or Hezbollah and the like) or condemning normalization (with Israel) will be considered a crime that will be punished by investigation, jail or arrest.
Let's arrest that man!
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Farouq Guwayda, an Egyptian poet, claims that Jews asked Anwar Sadat to edit the Koran to take out all the antisemitic parts and all the parts that talk about jihad.

He gave no evidence for this bizarre accusation.

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An Egyptian newscaster slammed Turkish officials for attending a Chanukah ceremony in Istanbul. He said that Erdogan is a "Senile Sultan" and that Erdogan, the Muslim Brotherhood, and the Jews are like lovers that nobody can separate one from the other.  He added that nobody should say that Erdogan can solve the Palestinian problem, it is only Egypt that can do that.



(h/t Ibn Boutros)




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Some interesting new talent out there.







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Friday, December 30, 2016

From Ian:

Do Palestinians Want Peace? Here Are 5 Facts That Say No.
In Secretary of State and Professional Asshat™ John Kerry’s execrable speech on the Arab-Israeli conflict on Wednesday, the man whose face is a living rockslide declared that the true obstacle to peace was Israel building bathrooms in Efrat and East Jerusalem. Kerry repeatedly maintained that Palestinians want peace with Israel. That’s eminently untrue, and it’s been untrue for the entirety of the so-called peace process and long before.
Here are five demonstrations that the “Palestinians want peace” notion is an outright lie, and that Palestinians actually prefer a continued conflict that maintains the possibility of the full-scale destruction of the Jewish State.
1. Palestinian Response To Kerry Speech. Hilariously, just after Kerry ripped into Israel in unprecedented fashion and declared that if Israel stopped all settlement building and moved to reverse settlements, as well as splitting Jerusalem, Palestinians would embrace peace, the Palestinians openly scoffed at him. Palestinian Foreign Minister Riad Malki immediately stated that Kerry had not proposed anything new, and refused recognition of Israel as a Jewish state. So much for Kerry’s proposed peace deal.
2. Palestinians Have Repeatedly Refused Kerry’s Deal. In 2000, far-left Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak offered over 90 percent of Judea and Samaria, all of the Gaza Strip, a land-link between the two, Palestinian control over the mosques on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, as well as cash for Palestinian refugees. Arafat ran away from the table. Even useful idiot Thomas Friedman stated about Arafat, “He came with no compromise ideas of his own on Jerusalem. He simply absorbed Mr. Barak’s proposals and repeated Palestinian mantras about recovering all of East Jerusalem.” Just months later, Arafat launched an Intifada. In 2008, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert offered nearly 94 percent of Judea and Samaria, plus another six percent of Israeli territory, a link to the Gaza Strip, withdrawal from East Jerusalem’s Arab neighborhoods, and placement of the Old City under international control. Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas walked away from the table.
UN vote legitimizes Arab myth about Israel
The UN resolution legitimizes the Arab myth that Jews (and Christians) have no historical connection to the Holy Land, and that the 430,000 Israelis living in the West Bank and the 200,000 Israelis living in East Jerusalem are illegal occupiers. At one time, the Palestinian Authority went so far as to claim that the Jews, and implicitly Jesus, had never lived in the Holy Land. Yasser Arafat, the late Palestinian leader, said that the events depicted in the Old and New Testament took place in Yemen. This contortion of history was necessary to validate the claim that Jews are mere “occupiers” and not legitimate inhabitants of the so called “occupied territory.”
However, we should remember that what is referred to as the “occupied territory” is land that was historically occupied by Jews since biblical times. Going back to the first census taken in 1820, Jews always constituted a majority of the population in Jerusalem. The Old Quarter of Jerusalem, now a part of the “occupied territory,” was and is almost entirely occupied by Jews and houses the Western Wall — a remnant of King Solomon’s Temple sacred to the Jews.
History teaches that the Jordanian army were the illegal occupiers of that ancient city during the 1947 war for Israeli independence. The conquering Jordanian army immediately burned down all of the synagogues, forbade the Jews to pray at the Western Wall, and used the sacred tombstones from the Jewish cemetery as urinals. The UN, which created the State of Israel, said nothing during that occupation nor did it condemn those atrocities. The UN did not raise its voice when, on three occasions, Arab nations — without provocation — invaded Israel. The UN also remains silent in the wake of ongoing persecution of Jews and Christians, as well as the desecration of their faiths, in many Arab nations.
UN Wants To Label Any Business Doing Business With Israel, Also Begin Growing Small Mustaches
For those who are ignorant of exactly how the Nazi regime of the 1930’s started targeting Jews even before its “Final Solution” was implemented, the United Nations is showing exactly how the process of isolating Jews before destroying them starts.
Last Friday, the UN General Assembly’s Budget Committee approved a budget that included spending $138,700 for a "database" of all companies that conduct business - directly or indirectly - relating to Israeli "settlements" territories that Arabs claim is theirs. Israel tried proposing a deletion of the funding for the blacklist, but the Committee voted against Israel, 151 to 6. The six countries supporting Israel were Australia, Canada, Guatemala Israel, Palau and the United States, but the Obama Administration, as usual, was acting duplicitously, as it voted against the blacklist but then later voted for the UN budget as a whole anyway. Six countries abstained: Cameroon, Côte d'Ivoire, Central African Republic, Georgia, Honduras and Ghana.
The idea of a boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) blacklist originated last March 24, when the UN Human Rights Council resolved to create such a list, although the funding was not in place. But not only was the idea proposed eight months ago, the December budget states the $138,700 will be used "to pay for one staff member to create the database over a period of 8 months and present a report" to the Human Rights Council in March 2017. Thus the UN backdated approval of an expenditure for something it was already doing.



Obama's 'Pro-Israel' Presidency Is Fake News
Take for instance this gem from the Huffington Post. Actual headline: “How It’s ‘Absolutely’ Possible For Steve Bannon To Be Pro-Israel And Anti-Semitic”. Never mind the fact that the Huffington Post has no evidence.
Self-satire news outlet Salon chimed in with, “Jewish Americans are worried about the rise in anti-Semitism after this election cycle.”
Fake news isn’t a new phenomenon. In fact, for the mainstream news media, it’s practically a business model. The media’s propagation of fake news vis-à-vis the notion that Barack Obama and his administration are remotely pro-Israel dates back to his initial run for office.
Obama’s close ties to former Jimmy Carter adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski – who in an interview with Salon, accused Israeli Jews of “buying Congress’s influence” – were effectively ignored. Obama is on record (in 2007) praising Brzezinski as “someone I have learned an immense amount from.”
The Los Angeles Times to this day refuses to release a 2003 tape of Barack Obama praising virulent anti-Semite and Palestinian-terrorism apologist Rashid Khalidi – whom the LA Times instead referred to as “a harsh critic of Israel”, and the New York Times dubs, “a passionate defender of Palestinian rights.”
Prof. Phyllis Chesler: Op-ed: The NYTimes does it again!
The New York Times has done it again! Just when I think they couldn’t possibly be any worse—they have the power to surprise and disgust me anew.
Six days ago, 14 nations on the UN Security Council (with America’s abstention), voted in Resolution 2334--and we know that Obama was behind this resolution, just stay tuned for “iron clad” evidence.
Yesterday, Obama’s Secretary of State, John Kerry, delivered his shameless lecture in which, as Israel’s “friend,” he demanded that it commit suicide by appeasing terrorism even further in the pointless, fruitless process known as the “two state solution.”
And today—the New York Times devotes five articles—yes, five separate articles, to further buttress and defend Kerry’s vision.
Under a bold headline: Kerry Says Israel Keeps Sabotaging Peace Prospects, we find two articles; both are front page right hand “lead” articles. David E. Sanger (Kerry Rebukes Israel, Calling Settlements a Threat to Peace) spends 1,612 words “voicing frustration at Netanyahu.”
Right next to him, Peter Baker (In John Kerry's Mideast Speech, a Clash of Policies and Personalities), spends 1,320 words claiming that the “two state solution nears the end of its shelf life.” Both articles continue on page A10 and take up the entire page. The pull quotes read: “A bluntness rarely heard from U.S. diplomat about a close ally,” and “Kerry plays for history, while Netanyahu and Trump play for time.”
This is not straight news reporting. This is an editorial. Really, it is rank propaganda.
Joel B. Pollak: Israel Almost Never Benefits from Compromise
The painful lesson that Israelis — including those in the “peace” camp — have learned is that compromise leads to war. Now, President Barack Obama has taught them a new lesson: namely, that they cannot trust the guarantees on which compromises are made. When Israel pulled out of Gaza, President George W. Bush acknowledged that some settlement blocs in the West Bank would remain in place in a peace deal. The recent UN Security Council resolution that Obama allowed to pass breaks that promise and implies even the Jewish presence in the Old City of Jerusalem is a “flagrant” violation of international law.
The burden must on the Palestinians, not the Israelis, to show they can compromise. Kerry followed the Palestinian narrative in suggesting that the West Bank — 22% of the area of Palestine under the British Mandate — was a kind of compromise. In reality, the only “compromises” the Palestinians have made are those they have been forced to accept — temporarily, in their view — after their wars against Israel have gone awry. Official Palestinian ideology still rejects the Jewish right to statehood.
Obama and Kerry’s latest moves to pressure and isolate Israel will only encourage Palestinians to continue to reject the peace process and to make maximalist demands. White House Deputy National Security Advisor Ben Rhodes claims that Obama had “tried everything” before turning to the UN Security Council to force Israel to compromise. But that is a lie. Obama never applied real pressure to the Palestinian Authority, and kept aid flowing to the Palestinians when Congress wanted it to stop. The administration claims that the UN Security Council resolution also criticized Palestinians — but it only condemned terror in the abstract. It did not blame the Palestinians, and gave them no reason to compromise. A new approach is long overdue.
You are the racist, actually, not me
I am an Orthodox Jewish settler raising seven children in the West Bank. I’m also an American citizen and I voted for Donald Trump. Yeah, I’m that lady. I opened a local business here, and I did so on purpose — to respond to BDS anti-settler activities by encouraging Jewish West Bank residents to work in the West Bank and keep their own businesses local in the West Bank. I believe in annexation and I do not support a two-state solution.
And that makes me a peace-loving, Palestinian-respecting individual. I’m not the racist. You are.
You, my liberal, anti-settler, anti-Trump friends who hate my views — if not me (yet) — are the racists. I have spent a lot of time particularly in the past three months being told by US Democratic voters and UN supporters what a monstrous racist group of people we are, those people “like me.”
I’ve finally had enough. I’ve invited so many of you to engage and hear from real people instead of judging, and you show no interest. Apparently, it’s preferable to let television and the New York Times inform your views on my little corner of the world.
Shaun Ley’s multiple Middle East mangles on BBC Radio 4
An item in the December 28th edition of the BBC Radio 4 programme ‘The World Tonight’ related to the speech given by the outgoing US Secretary of State John Kerry on the same day. Throughout that item (from 07:59 here), host Shaun Ley promoted several inaccuracies.
Ley told listeners that:
“Last week President Obama authorised a change of tactics towards Israel. The US opted not to deploy its veto on a Security Council resolution condemning building by Jewish settlers on what had been Palestinian land until the Six Day War.
Prior to the Six Day War Judea & Samaria and parts of Jerusalem came under Jordanian occupation following that country’s attack on the newly declared Israeli state in 1948. That occupation was not recognised by the international community. Before the Jordanian invasion, the same areas were administered by Britain under the terms of the League of Nations Mandate for Palestine. Prior to British conquest during the First World War, the areas were controlled by the Ottoman Empire for some 500 years. Nevertheless, Ley promoted the totally inaccurate claim that Judea & Samaria and parts of Jerusalem were “Palestinian land” until 1967.
BBC News amplifies PLO’s interpretation of the two-state solution
Notably, that BBC portrayal of the two-state solution promotes and amplifies the Palestinian interpretation of it as meaning a Palestinian state on all of the territory occupied by Jordan and Egypt between 1948 and 1967.
Further, the BBC told its audiences that various international bodies and countries are ‘committed’ to that concept when in fact the UN, the EU, Russia and the US in their ‘Quartet’ capacity support “an agreement that […] resolves all permanent status issues as previously defined by the parties; and fulfils the aspirations of both parties for independent homelands through two States for two peoples”. Those “permanent status issues” defined in the Oslo Accords of course include borders and Jerusalem.
Noteworthy too is the fact that the BBC’s portrayal of the two-state solution does not include the all-important phrase “two states for two peoples” – a definition which would require Palestinian recognition of Israel as the Jewish state.
HRC Responds to Anti-Israel Letter in Penticton News
Today, HRC Executive Director Mike Fegelman responded to an anti-Israel letter in the Penticton News. Here’s the letter in full which was published today:
Frank Martens recent letter (Penticton Western News, Dec. 23, Thinking of others) is a perfect example of how when baseless accusations are left unanswered, they risk becoming accepted as conventional wisdom.
Since time immemorial, the root cause of the conflict between Israelis and Arabs has been the fundamental rejection of the Jewish State’s right to exist and to exercise self-determination. Had Palestinian Arabs agreed to the 1947 Partition Plan, dividing the land into two states, a Jewish and an Arab state, with Jerusalem under international supervision, the conflict wouldn’t exist today. But instead, Palestinians continued their previous rejectionist dictum by adopting the notorious Khartoum Resolution of 1967: no peace with Israel, no negotiations with Israel and no recognition of Israel.
Most egregiously, Marten’s presenting Jews as foreigners or colonizers of their own ancestral and biblical homeland is tantamount to historical revisionism. In reality, when the British Mandate over Palestine expired on May 14, 1948, the Jewish People’s Council proudly declared the establishment of the State of Israel. Immediately after, five Arab armies (Egypt, Syria, Transjordan, Lebanon and Iraq) invaded Israel in a war of annihilation. As Azzam Pasha, Secretary-General of the Arab League said at the time: “It will be a war of annihilation. It will be a momentous massacre in history that will be talked about like the massacres of the Mongols or the Crusades.” Though Israel won this war, it lost almost 1 per cent of its population as over 6,000 Israelis were killed in the costliest of all of Israel’s wars – all of which were initiated by Arab nations with genocidal intent.
The “Nakba” narrative referred to by Martens seeks to paint Palestinians as perpetual victims and to portray Israel’s creation as an original sin requiring of rectification. Accordingly, present-day Palestinian aspirations have continually been defined as a conquest to replace and conquer the Jewish state.
Netanyahu, again opposing Kerry, says Palestinian issue ‘relatively marginal’ in Mideast
Nearly a week after 14 nations, including four permanent members of the UN Security Council, voted in favor of a resolution demanding Israel stop settlement activity in territory claimed by the Palestinians for a future state, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared Thursday that the Palestinian issue was relatively “marginal.”
Speaking at a graduation ceremony for Israeli Air Force pilots in the Hatzerim air force base a day after US Secretary of State John Kerry warned that Israel’s settlement enterprise was killing any chance of peace, Netanyahu said that “with all due respect to those who talk about the heart of the conflict in the Middle East,” the greatest and most genuine catastrophe affecting the region was “the scope of the destruction of [neighboring] states and cities, the mass slaughter of innocents, the endless flow of refugees to other continents” — a reference to the raging civil war in Syria — and not “our conflict with the Palestinians, which is a relatively marginal issue.”
The real issue, Netanyahu argued, is “the collapse of whole nations, of whole states in civil wars, and in the wars of radical Islam over the future of the Arab and Muslim world.”
“In just a few months in Syria, in Yemen and in [South] Sudan, more people were killed than in a hundred years of conflict [with] the Palestinians…[and these killings] have nothing to do with us,” he said, adding that “our hearts are with the innocent civilians suffering the evils of war.”
Argentina's ex-president suspected of cover up for Iran after 85 killed at Jewish center
An Argentine appeals court on Thursday revived a case accusing former President Christina Fernandez of trying to cover up Iran's alleged role in the bombing of a Buenos Aires Jewish center in 1994.
The prosecutor who first brought the allegation, Alberto Nisman, died mysteriously in January 2015, and a judge later threw the case out for lack of evidence. But that ruling was revoked on Thursday, opening Fernandez to prosecution.
"The evidence does not allow for a clear dismissal of the possible commission of illicit acts," the country's official CIJ Judicial Information Center said in a statement. "The accusations must be weighed in advance of dismissal."
Argentine courts have accused Iran of sponsoring the attack, which killed 85 people at the AMIA Jewish community center.
6.58 million each: Palestinians claim they’ll be as numerous as Jews in ‘historic Palestine’ in 2017
An Israel Central Bureau of Statistics report published in September found that Jews make up close to three-quarters of the Israeli population at 6.4 million residents, while Israel’s almost 1.8 million Arabs make up one-fifth of the population, which totals 8.58 million. Those of other backgrounds, including non-Arab Christians and those not categorized as members of a religious group by the Population, Immigration and Border Authority, make up less than 5% of the population, at 380,000 people.
A November report from the ICBS found that fertility rates of Jewish and Arab women were identical for the first time in Israeli history in 2015.
Jewish and Arab women had given birth to an average of 3.13 children as of last year, the report said.
In 2000, the fertility rate among the country’s Arab population stood at 4.3 children per woman, while the fertility rate of Jewish women was 2.6. Since then the gap has narrowed as the Arab rate dropped off and the Jewish rate steadily increased.
According to the PCBS report, the average fertility rate for Palestinians in the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza in the period 2011-2013 was 4.1 children per woman.
Canadian MP: As PM, I will move Canadian embassy to Jerusalem
Following the passage of the recent anti-Israel resolution at the UN Security Council and subsequent condemnation by US Secretary of State John Kerry of Jewish settlement in Judea and Samaria and eastern Jerusalem as being illegal, candidate for the leadership of the Conservative Party of Canada Kellie Leitch vowed to move the Canadian Embassy to Jerusalem if elected as Prime Minister.
“In the wake of the recent UN vote and the comments of John Kerry, Canada must demonstrate its support for Israel. As Prime Minister, I will move the Canadian embassy in Israel to Jerusalem”, Leitch posted on her official Facebook page.
In an earlier post, Leitch had said: “The Conservative Party of Canada stands for democracy and with Israel. As leader I will protect and strengthen the special bond between our people.”
Stormy debate erupts over bill to ban Breaking the Silence from schools
A stormy debate broke out in the Knesset’s Educational Committee Wednesday morning over a proposed bill to ban all groups “that work to damage the IDF” from entering any academic institutions, with one government lawmaker branding an opponent of the measure a “traitor.”
The bill, which was proposed on Tuesday by Education Minister Naftali Bennett, is primarily directed at the Breaking the Silence organization, but gives the education minister the power to ban any group deemed hostile to the IDF from entering schools.
Founded in 2004 by a group of veteran Israeli army combatants, Breaking the Silence collects reports, usually anonymously, about alleged abuses by soldiers in the West Bank. It has often locked horns with the Israeli political and military brass and critics have denounced its reports as dishonest, inaccurate, and part of an advocacy campaign intended to harm Israel’s image overseas.
During the debate, Likud MK Amir Ohana labeled Breaking the Silence as one of the leading organizations in “the industry of lies against the State of Israel and the soldiers of the Israel Defense Forces,” while adding that “we need to put an end” to the group’s “poison,” according to minutes of the meeting on the committee’s website.
Egypt Is Expanding Its Military Capabilities. Should Israel Be Worried?
Shortly after being appointed defense minister by Egypt’s then-president Mohammed Morsi, Mohammed Abdel Fattah el-Sisi launched a large-scale rearmament program, which included the purchase of submarines from Germany and the implementation of previous arms deals with the U.S. After overthrowing Morsi in a coup, Sisi has continued to rearm, striking deals to procure helicopters, ships, aircraft, and more from France and Russia with the financial assistance of the Gulf states. Yet, note Yiftah S. Shapir and Kashish Parpiani, Egypt hardly needs such arms. It is already well-supplied by the U.S., and its major threats come from insurgents in the Sinai and guerrillas in Libya and Sudan, all of whom can be combatted without so extensive an arsenal. Shapir and Parpiani suggest an alternative explanation:
[T]he large arms acquisitions should be seen in the broader context of Sisi’s doctrine and vision for Egypt, in place from the moment he assumed power. This vision sees Egypt resuming its former position as a regional power in the Middle East, with the capacity to project its power throughout the eastern Mediterranean, the Middle East, and Africa. . . .
The mere possibility of sending a landing force armed with battle tanks and accompanied by attack helicopters to [Yemen] or even as far away as Iran should give Egypt a strong say in the region. Egypt achieved this capability [through its recent purchases], with a great deal of financial aid from the Gulf states—Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Kuwait. Thus this process should be seen in part in the context of the Saudi-led coalition against Iran. . . .
Stabbing foiled at West Bank checkpoint, assailant wounded
Security forces shot and wounded a Palestinian woman on Friday at the Qalandiya checkpoint in the West Bank as she tried to carry out a stabbing attack, police said. There were no other injuries.
“She approached the security forces with a knife in her hand. She did not respond to the calls of the soldiers to stop,” police said, adding that the threat was “neutralized.”
Soldiers fired at her legs when she refused to stop.
She was “lightly” wounded and arrested, police said.
There have been a series of attempted stabbings at the Qalandiya checkpoint, a major crossing point between Jerusalem and the Qalandiya refugee camp north of the capital.
Lebanon Forms Unity Government With Hezbollah
Lebanon’s parliament on Wednesday voted overwhelmingly to approve a national unity government, which includes representatives of the Iran-backed terrorist group Hezbollah.
Lawmakers voted 87 in favor, four against and one abstention, to approve Prime Minister Sa’ad Hariri’s cabinet. He had presented the 30-member cabinet earlier this month, having been asked to form a government by President Michel Aoun, who was elected several weeks previously.
Under long-standing agreements, Lebanon’s positions of power are divided to reflect the country’s complex ethnic mix – the president must be a Maronite Christian, its Prime Minister a Sunni Muslim and parliament’s speaker a Shi’ite Muslim.
Hariri’s government also incorporates a wide cross-section of Lebanon’s political and ethnic spectrum, including two members of Hezbollah, the Shi’ite group classified a terror organisation by the United States. Hezbollah’s military wing appears on the European Union and British list of terror organisations.
On taking office earlier this month, Hariri pledged to “preserve our country from the negative consequences of the Syrian crisis.” Hezbollah is a staunch ally of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and continues to fight alongside his forces in Syria’s bloody civil war.
Satellite Pics Suggest Iran, North Korea Cooperating on Nuclear Research
The discovery of a working North Korean missile site that was previously thought to be inactive may suggest that the country is cooperating with Iran on ballistic missile and nuclear technology, Voice of America reported Wednesday.
Satellite images taken and analyzed by the intelligence firm Strategic Sentinel discovered a missile silo in Geumchang-ri, a mountainous area in North Pyongan province, where American intelligence believed that the country was conducting nuclear weapons research in the late 1990s.
According to Strategic Sentinel, the missile silo has dimensions very similar to one known to exist in Tabriz, Iran.
“If this Iranian site is housing missiles and the North Korean site that we have uncovered is the exact same dimension, then it’s quite possible that the site that we have uncovered is housing missiles as well,” explained Strategic Sentinel founder Ryan Barenklau. He also suggested that the two countries could be collaborating on nuclear research.
Iran’s Western partners risk blood on their hands
One of the major questions for policymakers following Donald Trump’s election as U.S. president is what to do about Iran? This is a puzzle not just in Washington but in Europe, too.
Since the conclusion of nuclear negotiations with the Islamic Republic, European countries have signed hundreds of memoranda of understanding and declarations of intent, and have engaged in negotiations for contracts in practically every field of economic activity: banking, finance, oil and gas, transportation, infrastructure, engineering, even dual-use technologies that could see both civilian and military applications.
Italy has led the way. Following former Prime Minister Matteo Renzi’s example, government ministers have announced dozens of initiatives and programs with their Iranian counterparts. These initiatives involve not only trade but also defense. The Italian Navy, for example, has carried out joint anti-piracy exercises with Iran.
The nuclear deal has represented the best opportunity for all those who have vested interests in Iran’s supposedly lucrative market to promote a misleading depiction of the country’s ruling regime. According to this deeply flawed narrative — seemingly taken for granted by most European institutions and member states — President Hassan Rouhani’s Iran has suddenly stopped being a major threat to international and regional stability. The truth could not be more different.
Iranian Revolutionary Guards Spokesman: Settlements Will Spark War That Will Lead to Israel’s Destruction
Ongoing Israeli settlement construction will spark a war that will lead to the Jewish state’s “complete destruction,” an Iranian military official said on Thursday, the Tehran regime-aligned Tasnim news agency reported.
A day after US Secretary of State John Kerry assailed Israel’s settlement policies and less than week after the UN Security Council passed an anti-settlement resolution, General Ramezan Sharif — a spokesman for the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps — stated that further settlement building would “definitely provoke a reaction.”
Sharif — according to Tasnim — also called the US abstention from last Friday’s Security Council vote a “sign that Washington has come to realize the course of events and continued settlement construction will result in the collapse of the Zionist regime of Israel.”
Iranian regime officials often issue exterminationist threats against Israel and predict the country’s demise.
PreOccupiedTerritory: Saudi Arabia Bans Women From Using Google Drive (satire)
New restrictions on women and driving are scheduled to come into effect on Sunday, the most important of which involves a prohibition on women’s use of the online document management utility known as Google Drive.
A spokesman for the Ministry of Transport announced this week that new behaviors on the information superhighway have made it necessary to reformulate age-old laws barring females from getting behind the wheel of a motor vehicle. As such, he explained, the new regulations aim to keep women away from controlling devices using the term “drive.” The restrictions are part of a larger set of limits on female behavior that seek to maintain the kingdom’s moral character and traditional values.
Speaking to reporters at a press conference, Prince Ali Hassan ibn Klaud laid out the revamped regulations, which assign penalties to women for using Google Drive. Under the new rules, men in charge of women – i.e. husbands, brothers, fathers, or other legal guardians – can also face fines for allowing such depravity to occur under their watch.
“New technology calls for new types of enforcement and monitoring,” noted the prince. “It may have taken regulations a while to catch up with the pace of change, but we are doing what we can. For a brief period in the 1980’s a proposal was debated in the ministry regarding women’s access to drives of various sorts – both hard and soft drives, as I recall – but women’s use of computers was so limited back then that it hardly seemed a worthwhile pursuit to regulate it. Things have changed, however, and we must maintain the modesty and dignity of the Saudi woman.”
Two menorahs vandalized in Brooklyn
Two menorahs have been vandalized on Brooklyn playgrounds during Hanukkah.
One in the Prospect Heights neighborhood was twisted and knocked off its base, according to the news website DNAinfo. In adjoining Park Slope, a menorah had a branch torn off and its wiring ripped out and cut.
Rabbi Mendy Hecht of the Chabad of Park Slope, who set up the menorahs, discovered the vandalism Tuesday when he came to add candles and the menorahs were not there. Subsequently he was told by the New York City Parks Department that they had been removed.
“Taken out of its place, torn apart, broken … That’s something more than I’ve ever experienced,” Hecht said, according to DNAinfo.
The Parks Department said the agency is working with the New York Police Department to monitor the situation.
Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams denounced the acts, as did the Anti-Defamation League.
Immigration from Russia, Brazil increases in 2016
Some 27,000 people made aliyah in 2016, compared with 31,000 the previous year, the Immigrant Absorption Ministry and the Jewish Agency for Israel said on Thursday.
Despite the overall drop, the number of olim from Russia and Brazil increased, with 7,000 arriving from Russia in 2016, up from 6,600 in 2015, and 760 arriving from Brazil, up from 497 in 2015.
Immigration dropped from Ukraine (5,500 in 2016 compared with 7,221 in 2015), France (5,000 in 2016 compared with 7,900 in 2015) and the United States (2,900 in 2016 compared with 3,070 in 2015). Some 650 olim came from the United Kingdom, 620 from Belarus, and 272 from South Africa in 2016.
The figures show that most olim tend to be young, with more than 5,000 of the olim in 2016 ages 17 or younger, 9,500 ages 18 to 35, and 3,000 ages 36 to 45. Some 4,600 olim were 46 to 65 and slightly over 3,000 were 66 or older.
Some 11% of the olim this year settled in Tel Aviv, 10% in Jerusalem, 9% in Netanya, and 8% in Haifa.
IDF launches programs to encourage Bedouin, Christians to enlist
The Israel Defense Forces has stepped up efforts to encourage Bedouin and Christian teens to volunteer for army service, offering a range of varied options in a bid to entice them to join up.
Bedouin and Arab Christians, like all Arab citizens of Israel, are exempt from compulsory military service, but an estimated half of those eligible choose to sign up for the IDF.
In the past few months the army sent letters to Bedouin youth approaching enlistment age inviting them to volunteer and laying out their options, Haaretz reported on Thursday.
“Today, more than ever, the IDF allows you to serve meaningfully in a variety of roles and positions that contribute to the IDF and to you personally,” the letter read.
Some 80 Bedouin have already signed up this year for a special two-year army program, which is shorter than the 30 months that Jewish men usually serve. In addition to their army training, the course gives recruits the opportunity to earn a truck-driving license in an attempt to make volunteering more attractive.
This Breathalyzer Claims To Detect Lung Cancer And 17 Different Diseases
Scientists have developed experimental breath analyzers, but most of these devices only focused on a single type of disease, such as cancer.
Researchers from the Israel Institute of Technology have created a device that can identify 17 different diseases, including lung cancer or Parkinson’s disease.
The researchers developed an array of nanoscale sensors to detect the components in breath samples from more than 1,400 patients who were either healthy or had one of 17 different diseases, such as kidney cancer, Parkinson’s disease, pulmonary hypertension and other diseases. Each sample was then passed through the breathalyzer, which could detect the types of chemicals and in what quantities.
As the researchers report in the journal ACS Nano, the data from the breathalyzer could detect if a person is suffering from diseases almost nine out of ten times. Each of the diseases, whether its kidney cancer or multiple sclerosis, had its own “breath point.” (h/t Alexi)
Wiesenthal Center’s Marvin Hier to deliver prayer at Trump inauguration
Rabbi Marvin Hier, the dean and founder of the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles, will offer a prayer at President-elect Donald Trump’s inauguration.
Hier reportedly will offer readings, recite an original prayer and give Trump and incoming Vice President Mike Pence each a benediction at the Jan. 20 ceremony.
“Since the first inaugural ceremony, our leaders have paid tribute to the blessings of liberty that have been bestowed upon our country and its people,” Tom Barrack, the chairman of the Presidential Inaugural Committee, said in a statement issued Wednesday announcing the six faith leaders who will participate in the inauguration. “I am pleased to announce that a diverse set of faith leaders will offer readings and prayers at the swearing-in of President-elect Trump and honor the vital role religious faith plays in our multicultural, vibrant nation.”
IsraellyCool: Actor Mark Pellegrino Takes To Twitter To Defend Israel While Holidaying Here
My buddy Mark Pellegrino is currently in Israel as part of the latest group of celebrities brought here by America’s Voices in Israel.
As I’ve posted before, he’s a huge mensch and one of the most articulate celebrities I know on this issue.
Case in point: check out is tweets from Israel: he’s here visiting and taking in the sites and sounds, yet also makes sure to defend Israel from unfair criticism.
Ancient Jerusalem gets virtual restoration in new mobile app
Australia-based Lithodomos VR, which focuses on "bringing the ancient world to life using virtual reality" has recently released a new mobile application that allows users to experience the Jerusalem that existed some 2,000 years ago, before the Second Temple was destroyed.
According to a Jewish Business News, the new app lets visitors to Jerusalem's landmarks, such as the Western Wall, to see what is before them not just as it is today, but as it appeared to the contemporaries of the Roman empire.
"Imagine if when looking up at the Temple you could see how it once looked when the Second Temple -- as it was fully renovated by Herod -- stood in all of its glory," Thursday's report said, "and this is fitting at Hanukkah time as the holiday is a celebration of how the Second Temple was rededicated by the Maccabees after they defeated the Greeks and established Jewish home rule in Israel for the first time in the more than four centuries since the First Temple was destroyed by the Babylonians."
Lithodomos VR's app is called Ancient Jerusalem and is compatible with devices that run Android. It is the company's first mobile application.



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This is a parody of "Black Beatles" but alas I am not familiar with the original even though it has 240 million views on YouTube.








We have lots of ideas, but we need more resources to be even more effective. Please donate today to help get the message out and to help defend Israel.
From Ian:

Caroline Glick: Obama and Israel, strike and counter-strike
UN Security Council Resolution 2334 was the first prong of outgoing President Barack Obama’s lame duck campaign against Israel.
US Secretary of State John Kerry’s speech on Wednesday was the second.
On January 15, stage 3 will commence in Paris.
At France’s lame duck President François Hollande’s international conference, the foreign ministers of some 50 states are expected to adopt as their own Kerry’s anti-Israel principles.
The next day it will be Obama’s turn. Obama can be expected to use the occasion of Martin Luther King Jr. Day to present the Palestinian war to annihilate Israel as a natural progression from the American Civil Rights movement that King led 50 years ago.
Finally, sometime between January 17 and 19, Obama intends for the Security Council to reconvene and follow the gang at the Paris conference by adopting Kerry’s positions as a Security Council resolution. That follow-on resolution may also recognize “Palestine” and grant it full membership in the UN.
True, Kerry said the administration will not put forward another Security Council resolution.
But as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu explained in his response to Kerry’s address, there is ample reason to suspect that France or Sweden, or both, will put forth such a resolution. Since the draft will simply be a restatement of Kerry’s speech, Obama will not veto it.

Evelyn Gordon: The UN Vote Mocks the Law
Fast forward to the 1993 Oslo Accord, under which Israel voluntarily gave parts of the West Bank and Gaza to the Palestinians, and you still won’t find any sanctification of the 1949 armistice line. The accord explicitly lists “Jerusalem” and “settlements” as “issues that will be negotiated in the permanent status negotiations,” meaning Israel did not concede its claim to either east Jerusalem or any of the territory on which the settlements sit. This document was formally witnessed by the United States and Russia–two of the countries that blithely voted to abrogate its terms last week.
The 1995 Interim Agreement transferred additional territory to the Palestinians, but once again designated Jerusalem and the settlements as issues to be negotiated in final-status talks, thereby preserving Israel’s claims to them. This agreement also added several other witnesses, including Egypt and the European Union. Egypt is currently a Security Council member, as are three EU countries: France, Spain and Britain (which voted to leave the EU but hasn’t yet done so). So we’re now up to six Security Council members that voted last week to abrogate agreements they witnessed.
Not coincidentally, Resolution 2334 also treats Israel in a way no other UN member has ever been treated. As Eugene Kontorovich and Penny Grunseid wrote three months ago, the UN has never deemed any other state an “occupying power”–not Turkey in northern Cyprus, not Russia in Georgia or Crimea, not Armenia in Azerbaijan, etc. Yet those countries actually are occupying other countries’ territory. Israel, in contrast, is “occupying” territory that never belonged to any other country (no state of “Palestine” ever existed at any point in human history) and to which it has the strongest claim under international law.
In short, Resolution 2334 violates previous League of Nations and Security Council decisions; it violates signed agreements witnessed by the very states that voted for it; it violates a fundamental principle of all law by setting one standard for Israel and another for the rest of the world. As such, there’s only one possible way for anyone who actually cares about “international law” to treat it–as having “no legal validity” whatsoever.
Alan Dershowitz: Kerry's Speech Will Make Peace Harder
The primary barrier to the two-state solution remains the Palestinian unwillingness to accept the U.N. resolution of 1947 calling for two states for two peoples -- the Jewish people and the Arab people. This means explicit recognition by Palestinians to accept Israel as the nation state of the Jewish people. Kerry did not sufficiently address this issue.
The most important point Kerry made is that the Obama administration will not unilaterally recognize a Palestinian state, without an agreement between Israel and the Palestinians. He also implied that U.S. will not push for any additional Security Council resolution. Kerry's speech is therefore just that: a speech with little substance and no importance. It will be quickly forgotten along with the many other one-sided condemnations of Israel that litter the historical record.
Kerry would have done a real service to peace if he had pressed the Palestinian leadership to come to the negotiation table as hard as he pressed the Israeli leadership to end settlement expansions. But his one-sided presentation did not move the peace process forward. Let us hope it does not set it back too far. What a missed opportunity -- a tragedy that could have been easily averted by a more balanced approach both at the Security Council and the Kerry speech.
I hope the Trump administration will understand, and act on, the reality that the real barrier to peace is the unwillingness of the Palestinian authority to sit down and negotiate with Israel, with each side making



Maajid Nawaz: Why Did Obama Pander to the UN’s Stunning Anti-Israel Bias?
We who have been pro-Palestine have become our own worst enemies. When new thinking on any issue is instantly labeled treacherous, only inward looking violently inbred and dogmatic ideologies such as jihadism can thrive. All the more reason why creative thinking on this issue among Arabs, Muslims, and the left is so important.
I know that in writing these words I will inevitably be charged with being pro-settlements and much more. This tends to be the default reaction of those who love to deal only in absolutes—a right wing trait, no?
In truth, I believe Israeli settlements to be illegal under international law, built on occupied land, and that Netanyahu has been uncooperative while in office, and that a two-state solution is not only still possible, but is the only viable option for solving this conflict. Yet still I maintain that Resolution 2334 was an amateur, emotional move by liberal dogmatists that will only aid the Israeli right.
There is nothing unique about the Israel conflict deserving such disproportionate attention. Baluchistan, Kurdistan, Cyprus, Kashmir, and Taiwan are but a few other disputed territories not fetishized like Palestine is at the UN and in our media. All of these disputes involve deep religious, historic, and political meaning for their respective parties.
Only the overwhelming narcissism of our Abrahamic faiths - including those among us who define themselves against them—would deem the religious and historic significance of the “Holy Lands” to mean anything more than other lost holy lands for Buddhists in Tibet, or Sikhs in Khalistan, which was lost to Pakistan a year before Israel’s creation. Only by releasing the “exceptional status” pressure from this conflict, by stripping it of its religious hyperbole, by removing it from the spotlight, by simply placing it on a par with every and any other conflict in the world—tragic but not unique—do we stand a better chance of solving it, because the stakes are lowered and the frothing prophets of doom, with their Armageddon pathology, are taken out of the equation. Let us call this “Israeli unexceptionalism.”
I remain unaware of a single Middle East pundit not tied to Obama’s State department who holds that the outgoing president has done a good job in the Middle East. Obama cut a deal with Iran and conditionally lifted sanctions, while the Iranians, Hezbollah and Russian President Vladimir Putin aided Syrian President Bashar al-Assad as he used crude chemical bombs and massively destructive weapons against his own people. And just as Obama’s inaction allowed others to act in Syria, his inaction at the UN set the tone once again, this time reaffirming the notion that Israel is the region’s biggest problem. That is despicable. It is inexcusable. And I could remain silent no more.
Kerry’s Delusions and Friendship
Eight years of the administration’s efforts to tilt the diplomatic playing field in the direction of the Palestinians did nothing to encourage them to make peace, despite Israel’s willingness to negotiate and to give up territory. But rather than acknowledge failure, Kerry prefers to blame it all on Netanyahu and the Israelis for having the temerity to point out that his tunnel vision about settlements and unwillingness to see the Palestinians clearly doomed his efforts.
A UN resolution that treats East Jerusalem as stolen Palestinian territory makes a two-state deal involving territorial swaps impossible since there is now nothing for Israel to negotiate but its surrender. By sanctioning a Palestinian end-run around negotiations, the White House has effectively ended the peace process Kerry purports to care so much about.
A wiser and less arrogant man would have pondered what has happened in the 16 years since Clinton’s speech and understood that events since then have shown that territorial withdrawal and stopping settlements are not the answer to the puzzle. Kerry’s delusional pronouncements about the process have the effect of treating an Israel that refuses to bow to his demands as unworthy of support or respect.
It remains to be seen what the Trump administration will do to repair some of the damage that Obama and Kerry have done to the cause of peace and the encouragement they have given to those who seek to harm Israel. Kerry may be sincere about wanting peace for Israel, but he has demonstrated that sincerity is an overrated virtue.

Charles Krauthammer: Obama’s final, most shameful, legacy moment
People don’t quite understand the damage done to Israel by the U.S. abstention that permitted passage of a U.N. Security Council resolution condemning Israel over settlements. The administration pretends this is nothing but a restatement of long-standing U.S. opposition to settlements.
Nonsense. For the past 35 years, every administration, including a reelection-seeking Obama himself in 2011, has protected Israel with the U.S. veto because such a Security Council resolution gives immense legal ammunition to every boycotter, anti-Semite and zealous European prosecutor to penalize and punish Israelis.
It’s the third category of “settlement” that is the most contentious and that Security Council Resolution 2334 explicitly condemns: East Jerusalem. This is not just scandalous; it’s absurd. America acquiesces to a declaration that, as a matter of international law, the Jewish state has no claim on the Western Wall, the Temple Mount, indeed the entire Jewish Quarter of Jerusalem. They belong to Palestine.
The Temple Mount is the most sacred site in all of Judaism. That it should be declared foreign to the Jewish people is as if the Security Council declared Mecca and Medina to be territory to which Islam has no claim. Such is the Orwellian universe Israel inhabits.
At the very least, Obama should have insisted that any reference to East Jerusalem be dropped from the resolution or face a U.S. veto. Why did he not? It’s incomprehensible — except as a parting shot of personal revenge on Benjamin Netanyahu. Or perhaps as a revelation of a deep-seated antipathy to Israel that simply awaited a safe political interval for public expression.
Another legacy moment for Barack Obama. And his most shameful.
National Review Editorial: John Kerry’s Indefensible Swipe at Israel
The Obama administration loves to boast of its “values,” and today’s speech was no exception. Yet the “values” advanced in the administration’s recent actions are abhorrent. It has perverted international law, rewarded Palestinian violence, endorsed ethnic cleansing, and applied U.N.-created double standards that leave Israel as the most persecuted and most condemned state in U.N. history.
In his speech, Kerry acknowledged that the Obama administration’s policies have a short shelf life. The Trump administration has signaled that it intends to make welcome changes in American policy towards Israel, beginning with moving the American embassy to the nation’s actual capital. It has already condemned the Security Council resolution and will make no move to enforce it against Israel. The resolution’s effects, however, will live on beyond the Obama administration’s dismal time in office, and its legacy is likely to be violent.
Palestinians have learned once again that terrorism has its rewards. Israel has been reminded once again that its friends can be fickle. And no one believes that true peace is any closer than it was in the days before the administration’s betrayal. The Obama administration is leaving office as it entered, arrogant and willfully ignorant, refusing to see the plain truth of the Middle East — that Israel cannot make peace with “partners” that long for its death.
Israeli Ambassador: Settlements Not Root Of Conflict | Morning Joe | MSNBC


Cruz RIPS APART Kerry
Cruz took aim at Kerry's ridiculous assertion that "Israel can either be Jewish or democratic, it cannot be both," calling it “an inanity that passes as profound only in Ivory Tower faculty lounges.”
Then the rubber met the road: “There are roughly 50 majority-Muslim countries in the world. There is one -- only one -- Jewish state. And yet, for Kerry and Obama, that is too much.”
Cruz exhorted, “All Americans who understand the value of the U.S.-Israel alliance must immediately and unequivocally reject their false and dangerous narrative, and reassert our fundamental commitment to Israel's security. Thankfully, Congress and the incoming administration can and I hope will take decisive action to intercept the administration’s final and desperate Hail Mary, and that should begin with eliminating U.S. funding to the U.N., unless and until this disgraceful resolution is reversed.”
Rep. Gohmert Pushes Bill To Defund UN In Wake Of Anti-Israel Attacks
When asked whether the UN would realistically ever reconsider the resolution, Gohmert answered forcefully: "Fine. They don't need our help to be anti-Semitic.”
Slamming the Obama administration as a complicit partner in the campaign to demonize Israel, the Texas Congressman argued that the White House “bullies over victims" and fails to condemn legitimate evil actors, like the Islamic Republic of Iran.
Israel is "the only place Muslims have complete freedom in the Middle East,” the conservative lawmaker asserted.
Gohmert joins a growing chorus of voices in Congress calling for an American withdrawal from the United Nations.
This anti-UN sentiment is shared by President-elect Donald Trump, who has strongly signaled that he will pull back resources and participation from the UN on the day of his inauguration.


Edgar Davidson: Breaking news: Israel issues photofit images of those planning new terrorist campaign
This is actually not a joke. The anti-Israel UN resolution - and subsequent speech by Kerry have not only rewarded the Palestinians' past terror campaigns and intransigence but have also provided legitimization for what comes next - a new intifada.
The fact that the UK played a leading role in the UN resolution might be a surprise to those who were duped by Theresa May's relatively warm words towards Israel in a speech last month, but not to anybody who has followed this blog over the last few years. In fact, if you actually listen to her speech she brags about banning 'Islamophobic bloggers' from entering the UK, whereas a major motivation for their ban was that they were 'too pro-Israel'

David Horovitz: The only thing he didn’t say was ‘apartheid’
About half an hour into John Kerry’s valedictory lecture from the State Department on Wednesday evening, Israel’s most popular television station, Channel 2, stopped broadcasting it live and switched to other programming. The country’s two other main TV stations, Channels 1 and 10, had already electronically left the building. Given that Kerry’s anti-settlement and anti-occupation address was primarily directed at the Israeli public, the ratings-conscious schedulers’ impatient transition to other material rather encapsulates the climate in which the secretary’s extensive remarks were being received here.
In 1999, Israelis threw out first-term prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, after three largely terror-free years, because many of them believed that an opportunity existed for dramatic progress toward a peace accord with the Palestinians, and that Netanyahu, far from seizing it, was standing in the way. They elected, in his stead, the ex-IDF chief of staff Ehud Barak, who quickly journeyed to Camp David. There, under president Bill Clinton’s informed aegis, a very serious effort to forge a permanent deal was doomed by PLO leader Yasser Arafat’s intransigence, as Clinton would acknowledge in his memoirs, and specifically by Arafat’s refusal to legitimate Jewish statehood.
Many in the Israel of 2016 would share some of the arguments they largely didn’t hear Kerry deliver on Wednesday evening. Many recognize the dangers of being permanently intertwined with millions of hostile Palestinians, and fear that the expansion especially of those settlements and outposts that lie to the east of the security barrier increases that risk, and thus puts a two-state solution in danger, threatening Israel’s Jewish character, or its democracy, or both. Kerry’s was a fiery critique, indeed, marked by the allegation that the settlement movement is driving the agenda of the Israeli government, and that Netanyahu has been allowing some of the most extreme voices to draw Israel closer to the Zionist nightmare of a single bi-national state between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River. Just about the only charge Kerry didn’t lob, this time, was apartheid.
Washington Times Editorial: Throwing Israel to the U.N.’s wolves
Resolution 2334 demands nothing of Palestinians. Its definition of “occupied territory” is extreme, including even the Jewish Quarter of Jerusalem’s Old City. Conquered in 1949 by Jordan’s Arab Legion, it was then “cleansed” of Jews. Synagogues and cemeteries were destroyed. Jewish holy places were desecrated. The U.N., of course, did nothing.
Look at the map: Across North Africa and the Middle East, from Morocco to Pakistan, there is only one state not ruled by Muslims, only one in which minorities — ethnic, religious, sexual — are guaranteed basic human rights. The dream of PIJ, Hamas, the Islamic State, the Islamic Republic of Iran and other Islamic revolutionaries is to destroy that exceptional state, to incorporate it into a new empire — an empire that, over time, is to expand well beyond the region.
Mr. Obama has now encouraged that dream. That will be his legacy. And he still has a few weeks left to do more damage. I wouldn’t put it past him.
The day before the U.N. vote, President-elect Trump stated what President Obama once claimed to believe, that “peace between the Israelis and the Palestinians will only come through direct negotiations between the parties, and not through the imposition of terms by the United Nations.” After the vote, he added: “As to the U.N., things will be different after Jan. 20th.”
His nominee for ambassador, David Friedman, has proposed moving the U.S. embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. That would be an appropriate response to this latest provocation.
Among the additional measures Mr. Trump will consider: dramatically reducing American funding for the U.N. Like other transnational progressives, Mr. Obama regards the U.N. as a proto-global government. Mr. Trump, an anti-globalist, does not.
It will be useful for him to emphasize that so long as he’s in the White House, America’s sovereignty will not be surrendered to transnational organizations, America’s tax dollars will not be squandered on transnational organizations, America’s enemies will not be rewarded and America’s allies will be abused no longer.
Eli Lake: Kerry Yearns for Peace in a Vanished Middle East
Nobody believes this anymore. Today the Middle East is coming unglued. Syria is no longer much of a state at all. Wars rage in Iraq, Libya and Yemen. Iran is meddling. Russia has entered the region for the first time since the 1970s. The jihadist Islamic State has suffered setbacks, but it still has its caliphate in Raqqa. These conflicts are complex, but they have nothing to do with settlements in the West Bank.
So why are Kerry and his boss, President Barack Obama, following the old playbook? They say they are driven by a desire to preserve the prospect of peace when the two sides come to their senses. The main threat to a two-state solution, they say, is the expansion of settlements. The Jewish state is gobbling up land that is supposed to be preserved for the Palestinians. Israel's Knesset is on the verge of legalizing what were once illegal outposts.
"If more and more settlers are moving into the middle of Palestinian areas, it’s going to be just that much harder to separate, that much harder to imagine transferring sovereignty, and that is exactly the outcome that some are purposefully accelerating," Kerry said.
This is true. But Israel has dismantled settlements before. It did so in 2005 in Gaza. At the time, the George W. Bush administration committed in return to acknowledge that some of the population centers in and around Jerusalem would remain in Israel if a two-state solution could be reached.
Obama, as I wrote earlier this week, abandoned this promise in his first year in office. The U.N. Security Council resolution that the U.S. allowed to pass on Friday says that all of East Jerusalem is now occupied territory. Why would Israel trust the U.S. to keep its commitments going forward after Obama discarded those made by his predecessor?
This will be Donald Trump's problem in less than a month. For now, it's worth marveling at the spectacle of Kerry's dire warnings about the survival of a peace process disconnected from the wars raging all around it.
UN Vote on Settlements Can’t Hide Palestinian Collapse
President Obama’s decision not to block a UN Security Council resolution declaring Israeli settlements on the West Bank illegal can be read many ways. In part, it’s an Obama counter-strike against President-elect Trump’s unconventional moves aimed at sidelining Obama before the Inauguration. In part, it’s payback from the White House against a Netanyahu government that the White House feels has frustrated its quest for peace in the Middle East. In part, it’s a principled statement of sincere belief by a large group in the White House, representing many in the Democratic Party, reflecting the deep convictions of many American liberals and, especially, of American liberal Jews, about right and wrong in the modern Middle East. If American Jews were to hold a referendum on settlement policy, it is likely that the “no” side would win; American Jews are far more liberal than their counterparts in Israel, and the gap between the two communities is growing rather than shrinking over time.
Many Palestinians and many of their sympathizers would like to see this vote as a landmark victory for the Palestinian cause in a long campaign to isolate Israel diplomatically and to delegitimize it morally in the eyes of the world. The vote is certainly a propaganda victory for the Palestinian cause, but it does nothing to help the Palestinians in practical terms. Indeed, a sober look at the situation suggests that the Palestinians have not been this weak, this divided or this helpless in many decades. Almost everywhere one looks around the world, the net effect of the policies of the Obama presidency has been to undermine the movements and the values that the President hoped to support; the cause of the Palestinians and the quest for the two state solution are no exceptions to the rule.
Palestinians have been organizing to fight Zionism for well over 100 years; during all that time the fundamental problems of the Palestinians have come from the weakness of Palestinian political leadership and the lack of capacity of Palestinian institutions. During the Mandate period when Palestine was under British rule, the Jews organized a proto-state and a political leadership that was able to make the numerically smaller Jewish community much more effective and powerful on the ground than their Palestinian Arab rivals. The Palestinian Arabs were cursed by family and clan divisions, and perhaps most of all by the incompetent leadership of the Grand Mufti Amin al-Husseini, and were politically divided, militarily impotent and diplomatically inept in the most critical hours of their history.
Isi Leibler: Candidly Speaking: Responding to Obama’s malicious betrayal of Israel
The resolution, passed during the week that Aleppo was conquered by President Assad in the midst of brutal torture and massacres of thousands of innocent civilians, highlights the duplicity and hypocrisy of the United Nations, a body dominated by anti-Israel and rogue states, with democracies groveling in an effort to appease the dominant Muslim nations.
It will serve as an instrument for Israel’s adversaries to further promote boycott, divestment and sanctions, and the International Criminal Court will be encouraged to define Israel as a criminal state.
It officially nullifies the disastrous Oslo Accords, negates Security Council Resolution 242 and repudiates the concept of defensible borders. It paves the way for criminalizing all settlers, including those in the major blocs that will always remain part of Israel, and even Jews resident in Jewish neighborhoods of east Jerusalem. It actually defines the Old City of Jerusalem and the Kotel (Western Wall) as occupied Palestinian territory.
In this context the Palestinians will demand that any negotiations accept these bizarre territorial definitions as opening benchmarks – a status that no Israeli government would ever contemplate accepting. The UN resolution has effectively negated the concept of direct negotiations, thus ensuring that a peaceful solution to the conflict is more remote than ever.
In this poisonous anti-Israel international climate, we should not be influenced by the prophets of doom in our midst.
We are more powerful today than ever before and in the course of our history we have successfully overcome far greater threats to our existence than the United Nations. Now is a time for us to display unity and strength.
In strong attack on Israel, German foreign minister says settlements jeopardize peace
German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier, a staunch proponent of the Iran nuclear deal, has slammed Israel in a series of tweets and statements since last Friday’s Security Council resolution condemning Jewish settlements in Judea and Samaria.
In a statement issued to Germany’s largest circulation daily, Bild, after the UN resolution, the Foreign Ministry claimed that “a democratic Israel is only achievable through a two-state-solution.”
The statement prompted the editor-in-chief of Bild’s digital outlet, veteran journalist Julian Reichelt, to express astonishment at the harsh wording.
In response to Reichelt’s criticism, Chancellor Angela Merkel’s spokesman Steffan Seibert wrote on his Twitter feed: “Israel is a Jewish democratic state.”
Statement: President Zionist Federation of New Zealand.
As we end 2016 and celebrate the festival Chanukah, our very own Foreign Minister Murray McCully at the final meeting of the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) of the year, of the very last UNSC meeting which New Zealand would be a non-permanent member of, finally got the opportunity to achieve what he has been trying to do since New Zealand was elected to a 2-year term at the UNSC. To get a resolution condemning Israel and trying to force a UN imposed settlement upon her.
New Zealand and Foreign Minister McCully should hang their heads in shame. They have bought into a false narrative, an antisemitic one, that tries to delegitimise the Jewish connection to Jerusalem.
McCully has taken the opportunity of lame-duck President Obama, who has used New Zealand and McCully to score a personal vendetta against Prime Minister Netanyahu. In doing so, McCully has helped Obama to seek his vengeance not just against PM Netanyahu, but against the whole of Israel and the Jewish people.
This resolution (full text with commentary available here) is without doubt a biased resolution. It not only rewards the Arab Palestinians with their strategy of continued violence, with continual refusal of all offers of Statehood and peace as long as Israel remains in the equation, but it also adds to the recent UNICEF resolution of ignoring historical Jewish ties to Jerusalem and the Old City. It makes any Jew living in the Jewish Quarter of the Old City an illegal settler. It makes any Jew living and studying at the Hebrew University an illegal settler. It makes all Jewish citizens living in areas that have long been internationally accepted as becoming part of Israel in any peace accord an illegal settler. Illegal that is in the eyes on the United Nations and the anti-Israel lobby!
Are you a Kiwi? Condemn NZ’s involvement with biased UNSC resolution 2334 against Israel
Are you a New Zealand citizen or resident disgusted with the latest resolution in the Security Council? Now is the time to add your voice. Sign the petition to be delivered to Prime Minister of New Zealand, Bill English.
The letter below has been signed by 27 organisations and 858 individuals (see http://ift.tt/2ilBCI0. Add your voice here.
Dear Prime Minister,
Re New Zealand’s vote on UNSC resolution 2334
1. We, the undersigned are New Zealand citizens and residents, Jewish and non- Jewish, with a spectrum of political views, who write to express our condemnation of United Nations Security Council resolution 2334 (“Resolution”), and particularly the New Zealand Government’s involvement in it.
2. We note at the outset that our dismay at the Resolution does not express a view on the matter of all such Jewish settlements outside of the 1949 armistice lines.
Christians, Jews protest New Zealand sponsorship of UN resolution on Israel
Dozens of Christian supporters of Israel protested outside the New Zealand parliament over the country’s sponsorship of a UN resolution criticizing Israeli settlements.
The 71 protesters traveled 13 hours to the capital Wellington from the city of Hastings in reaction to New Zealand sponsoring UN Security Council Resolution 2334, which passed last Friday.
Prior to the demonstration, the Flaxmere Christian Fellowship Church Hastings and 11,685 supporters signed a petition to parliament entitled “For the Protection of Zion.”
The petition called on New Zealand’s government to cease pressuring Israel to give up its “rightful and God-given land and to recognize Israel’s right to sovereignty over the entire Land of Israel.”
The Jewish state “should pay no attention to this anti- Semitic, anti-Israel, unjust and evil resolution,” Pastor Nigel Woodley said. Neither New Zealand nor the international community, he added, has the right “to impose on Israel restrictions as to where they can and cannot live within their historical homeland.”
PLO Executive Cmte Member: Accepting Idea of a Jewish State Means We 'Become Zionists,' 'Cannot Accept' That
On Thursday’s broadcast of CNN’s “New Day,” PLO Executive Committee Member and head of the PLO’s Department of Culture and Information Dr. Hanan Ashrawi stated that accused the Israelis of demanding that “we have all to become Zionists suddenly, and we have to accept the idea of the Jewish state,” and added, “We cannot accept a religion for any state.”
After Ashrawi said, “We have recognized the State of Israel, in 1993 –,” host Poppy Harlow cut in that they hadn’t recognized Israel as a Jewish state,
Ashrawi responded, “Now, that’s a new precondition. Before the condition was, that the Palestinians have to recognize Israel, and have to recognize Israel’s right to exist and so on. Now when they destroy the peace process and all the talks, they introduced another precondition, is that we have all to become Zionists suddenly, and we have to accept the idea of the Jewish state, when we are desperately struggling to have, as I said the other day, an inclusive, democratic, tolerant Palestinian state. We cannot accept a religion for any state. We cannot talk about Jewish states or Islamic states or Christian states. Otherwise, you will end up having to deal with the Islamic state. We personally believe that there is no license to discriminate against any group, any ethnicity, any religion, or to give them any additional value because of their ethnicity and religion. So if you want equality, and if you want a state to be an equal among other states, then you recognize the democratic state, and that should be enough. We recognize Israel. If they want us to take that back, we will. But we’re not going to take it back just because they want us to become Zionists suddenly.”
Ashrawi also accused the Israelis of not valuing Palestinian lives and waging “state terrorism…against a captive civilian population.”
EXCLUSIVE - Palestinian Official: We've Talked With White House About More UN Action On Israel
The Palestinian Authority has been in contact with the Obama administration and European countries about the possibility of taking more UN action on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict before President Obama leaves office next month, a senior PA official told Breitbart Jerusalem.
The official said the UN action could come in the form of declarations by UN bodies, including the General Assembly; UN sessions on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict; or even another United Nations Security Council (UNSC) resolution. He said any further UNSC resolution would depend on the support of the U.S. and European countries after the upcoming Paris Mideast summit slated for January 15.
He said the UN action would seek to set the parameters of a future Palestinian state with a clear timeline for negotiations. If the action comes in the form of a resolution at a UN body, it could call for an infrastructure to establish mechanisms to enforce last week’s UNSC resolution, which demanded a complete halt to Israeli construction in the West Bank and eastern Jerusalem and declared those territories occupied Palestinian lands.
The PA official said the proposals set forth at the Paris Mideast conference will likely serve as the basis for upcoming UN action.
John Bolton: ‘The Two-State Solution Is Dead’
Former United Nations Ambassador John Bolton told Breitbart News Daily SiriusXM host Raheem Kassam on Thursday, “Just as a matter of empirical reality, the two-state solution is dead. That’s about the only thing John Kerry came close to getting right yesterday.”
Bolton was discussing out-going Secretary of State John Kerry’s anti-Israel speech delivered Wednesday, as reported by Breitbart News:
Lame-duck Secretary of State John Kerry blasted the Israeli government at the State Department on Wednesday, and attempted to defend the Obama administration’s decision to let an anti-Israel resolution pass at the UN Security Council last week.
Kerry delivered his remarks in the midst of a diplomatic fight with Israel, in which President Barack Obama stands accused of working with Palestinians secretly to undermine Israeli security, overturning decades of American foreign policy precedent in the process.
British PM Theresa May Condemns Kerry's Speech
Despite the strong pro-Arabist tilt in the British government, which not only voted for the vicious UN Security resolution targeting Israel but worked hard to get it passed, British Prime Minister Theresa May found US Secretary of State John Kerry’s Wednesday speech too much to stomach.
A spokesman for May stated, “We do not believe that the way to negotiate peace is by focusing on only one issue, in this case the construction of settlements, when clearly the conflict between the Israelis and Palestinians is so deeply complex. And we do not believe that it is appropriate to attack the composition of the democratically-elected government of an ally. The government believes that negotiations will only succeed when they are conducted between the two parties, supported by the international community.”
The spokesman added, “The British government continues to believe that the only way to a lasting peace in the Middle East is through a two-state solution. We continue to believe that the construction of settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territories is illegal, which is why we supported UN Security Council Resolution 2334 last week. But we are also clear that the settlements are far from the only problem in this conflict. In particular, the people of Israel deserve to live free from the threat of terrorism, with which they have had to cope for too long.”
The unwillingness of the British government and other governments to acknowledge the legality of Israeli settlements is despicable, but May’s statement, coming after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu lambasted ambassadors from the countries of the nations supporting the resolution, including the deputy ambassador from Great Britain, is likely due more to the fact that she wants business ties with Israel’s robust economy to stay intact.
Australian PM condemns ‘one-sided’ UN settlement resolution
Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull broke with much of the international community on Friday, attacking last week’s United Nations Security Council Resolution as “one-sided” and “deeply unsettling.”
Turnbull, speaking at a menorah-lighting ceremony at Sydney’s Central Synagogue, said that “Australia stands with Israel. We support Israel, the only democracy in the Middle East,” The Australian Jewish News reported.
Turnbull’s comments come after his foreign minister said Thursday Australia would likely have voted against United Nations Security Council Resolution 2334, which condemned Israeli settlements.
The resolution determined that Israel’s establishment of settlements anywhere outside the pre-1967 lines “has no legal validity and constitutes a flagrant violation under international law.” The resolution did not distinguish between the West Bank and East Jerusalem.
On Thursday, the British government, which voted for the resolution, criticized US Secretary of State John Kerry’s subsequent speech for focusing on Israeli settlements and commenting negatively on the makeup of the Israeli cabinet. A spokesman for Prime Minister Theresa May said it was inappropriate of Kerry to attack the makeup of the democratically elected Israeli government. “We do not … believe that the way to negotiate peace is by focusing on only one issue, in this case the construction of settlements, when clearly the conflict between the Israelis and Palestinians is so deeply complex,” the spokesman said. “And we do not believe that it is appropriate to attack the composition of the democratically elected government of an ally.” The British government, the spokesman added, “believes that negotiations will only succeed when they are conducted between the two parties supported by the international community.”
Former Porn Star SLAMS Kerry Over Israel Speech
Former adult-film star Jenna Jameson had some choice words for Secretary of State John Kerry after his abysmal speech on Wednesday in which he rebuked Israel, decrying their settlements as a threat to peace.
Jameson, a convert to Judaism, tweeted to her nearly 700,000 followers:
And she wasn't done yet:
As for Kerry's "Happy #Hanukkah" Tweet, Jameson wasn't having any of it:

Yes Prime Minister On the Arabs and Israel
Yes Minister is a multi-award winning satirical British sitcom written by Antony Jay and Jonathan Lynn that was first transmitted by BBC television and radio between 1980 and 1984, split over three seven-episode series. The sequel, Yes, Prime Minister, ran from 1986 to 1988. In total this made 38 episodes, all but one of which lasts for half an hour.


John Kerry's Israel Speech Elicits a Shrug in the Arab World
The Palestinian issue today is not as central as it once was in the wider Arab consciousness. While most Arab states remain unlikely to recognize Israel any time soon, the Arab Spring uprisings and the violence that followed in Egypt, Syria, Yemen and Libya have left heads of state and their populations more focused on domestic concerns. And the rising influence of Iran has created new regional worries for Persian Gulf states like Saudi Arabia, which now share a strategic interest with Israel in checking Iranian power.
"Arab countries have sociopolitical problems that trump the Palestinian cause," said Ziad A. Akl, a senior researcher at the Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies in Cairo, noting that few Arab governments have done much for the Palestinians over the last decade. Now, he said, "a lot of Arab nations have interests with Israel, and it is part of their national security equation. They have realized that Israel is a fact that they have to live with."
The region's population is also skewed young, and younger Arabs feel less loyalty to the Palestinians than their elders, said Bassel Salloukh, a professor of political science at the Lebanese American University in Beirut. "There are generations of Arabs who have no idea what Palestine symbolizes."
Levin DESTROYS Kerry Over Anti-Israel Speech
On Wednesday, radio giant Mark Levin disemboweled Secretary of State for his categorically heinous and dishonest attack on Israel in his Wednesday speech. Levin noted how Kerry cherry-picked facts, never bothered to mention when speaking of history that Palestinian Arabs collaborated with Nazis, and most importantly, refused to mention the 5,000 year-old connection Jews have with the land of Israel. He also noted that Barack Obama has been infatuated with the destruction of Israel even before his presidency.
Levin wrote:
John Kerry just delivered the most outrageous speech of any top American official in modern times. As if a special pleader for the Palestinians, his speech was an exposition in propaganda. He distorted history, cherry-picked facts, selectively used quotes by other political figures, gave a completely dishonest portrayal of Israeli society and policies, omitted endless examples of Israeli restraint in the face of endless examples of Palestinian terrorism and threats of war by surrounding regimes, and on and on. Not once did he bother to provide the full pre-1967 history of the region, including the Palestinian involvement with the Nazis; moreover, not a word about the PLO, the 1967 war, the 1973 war, etc.
Andrea Mitchell Fawns Over Kerry, Fears Trump Could 'Undo' His 'Hard Work' on Israel
Of course we could never expect mainstream media to provide any pushback over John Kerry's (to refer to him as a Secretary of State, at this point, is just further insult to the office) shameful, anti-Israel screed delivered Wednesday.
Instead, NBC News correspondent and Hillary Clinton-sycophant Andrea Mitchell fawned over Kerry during an exclusive follow-up interview. According to Newsbusters, which provides the video clip below, Mitchell "gushed over how Kerry’s 70-minute-plus remarks were 'unusual' representing 'an important moment'" despite President-elect Donald Trump's disapproval of the current administration's stance.
"How difficult is it for you to operate in this atmosphere where the President-elect is communicating directly with Prime Minister Netanyahu?" Mitchell asked of Kerry before fretting that Trump had too much influence over Egypt's president.
"But also that is an impact because he had a direct impact. He called Egypt's president. As a result of his call, of Prime Minister Netanyahu's call, Egypt pulled down the resolution. That is part of the reason you were then accused of orchestrating other sponsors of it," Mitchell added.
Peter Beinart: 'Frankly a Racist Claim' To Say 'Palestinians Would Inevitable Kill Jews in the West Bank'
On Thursday’s broadcast of CNN’s “New Day,” CNN Contributor and The Atlantic Contributing Editor Peter Beinart argued that it is “frankly a racist claim” to say that “Palestinians would inevitably kill Jews in the West Bank,” in response to an argument made by former CIA Director Amb. James Woolsey.
During the segment, Woolsey said that “Israeli Arabs — that is, Muslim, usually, as citizens of Israel, about one-sixth of the Israeli population, can go to bed at night without fear that someone’s going to bash in their front door and kill them. … That sort of life is not possible for a Jew living in the West Bank, governed by the Palestinians. They will be killed. And if you even sell property to an Israeli, you’ll get killed.”
Beinart later responded, “The claim that Palestinians would inevitably kill Jews in the West Bank, I have Jewish friends, Israelis who live in the West Bank. It’s frankly a racist claim to suggest that Palestinians would inherently kill Jews.
He added that “some Palestinians commit terrorism and many don’t.”
Fatah Official Abbas Zaki: "Anyone Who Bears Arms for Palestine Is Sacred to Us"
Speaking at a Hamas rally held in Ramallah on the 29th anniversary of the organization's inception, Fatah Central Committee member Abbas Zaki said that "we are working to cooperate and reach a true partnership in politics, and to stand side by side, in the same trench, against our common enemy - Israel." Zaki saluted the Al-Qassam Brigades, as well as the fighters and martyrs of all factions, and addressed the leaders of Hamas, Fatah, and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, saying: "Let us embark on 2017 with the internal Palestinian conflict behind us." His address was broadcast by the Al-Jazeera network on December 17.





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