Bruce's MidEast Soundbites

Embraceing Hamas...Indirectly; Hamas Hides Behind Fatah

2012-01-31T20:32:00.002-05:00

Hamas and the Washington establishment -Caroline Glick

After Hamas won the Palestinian elections in January 2006, Turkey was the first country to invite Hamas's terror master Khaled Mashal to Ankara. Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan's move provoked criticism from the Bush administration. But Erdogan just shrugged it off. And he was right to do so. By 2006, then secretary of state Condoleezza Rice had come to view Erdogan as the US's indispensable ally in the Muslim world. As she saw it, he was proof that Islamist parties could be democratic and moderate.

The fact that Erdogan embraced Hamas could not get in the way of Rice's optimistic assessment. So, too, the fact that Erdogan embarked on a systematic campaign to stifle press freedom, curb judicial independence and imprison his political critics in the media and the military could not move Rice from her view that Erdogan personified her belief that moderate jihadists exist and ought to be embraced by the US.

Rice's starry-eyed view of Erdogan set the stage of US President Barack Obama's even stronger embrace of the increasingly tyrannical Turkish Islamist. Since Obama took office, not only has Ankara stepped up its support of Hamas, and ended even the pretense of a continued strategic alliance with Israel that it maintained during the Bush years. Turkey began serving as Iran's chief diplomatic protector while vastly expanding its own strategic and economic ties with Tehran.

In the face of Turkey's openly anti-American behavior and actions, Obama clings to Erdogan even more strongly than Rice did. Obama reportedly views Erdogan as his most trusted foreign adviser. According to the media, Obama speaks with Erdogan more often than he speaks to any other foreign leader. In a recent interview with Time magazine, Obama listed Erdogan as one of the key foreign leaders with whom he has formed a friendship based on trust.

Over the past few weeks, Turkey has emerged as Hamas's largest financier. During an official visit in Turkey, Hamas's terror master in Gaza Ismail Haniyeh received a hero's welcome. Erdogan pledged to finance the jihadist movement to the tune of $300 million per year.

To understand how Washington acts as Hamas's protector, it is necessary to consider the nature of the Palestinian-Israeli peace process.

Since its inception in 1993, the peace process has been predicated on Israeli concessions to the Palestinians. To the extent that Israel makes concessions, the peace process is seen as advancing. To the extent that Israel fails to make concessions, the peace process is seen as collapsing. True, at certain times, the Bush administration blamed the Palestinians for the failure of the peace process, but the blame owed to the fact that Palestinian terrorism made Israel less amenable to concession making.

Palestinian terrorism was not in and of itself blamed for the demise of the peace process. Rather it was perceived as the means through which Israel avoided making more concessions. And at certain times, the US supported Israel's avoidance of concession making.

Since Israeli concessions to the Palestinians are the only tangible component of the peace process, the US, as the chief sponsor of the peace process, requires the Palestinian Authority — run by Fatah — to be accepted as a credible repository for Israeli concessions regardless of its actual nature. Consequently, despite Fatah's two unity deals with Hamas, its sponsorship of terrorism, its incitement of terrorism, its refusal to accept Israel's right to exist, its adoption of negotiating positions that presuppose Israel's demise, and its conduct of political warfare against Israel, neither the Bush administration nor the Obama administration ever showed the slightest willingness to consider ending their support for the PA.

If Israel has no peace partner, then it can't make concessions. And if it can't make concessions, there is no peace process. And that is something that neither the Bush administration nor the Obama administration was willing to countenance.

It is true that under Obama the US has become far more hostile towards Israel than it was under Bush. The most important distinction between the two is that whereas George W. Bush sought to broker a compromise deal between the two sides, Obama has adopted Fatah's negotiating positions against Israel. As a consequence of Obama's actions, the peace process has been derailed completely. Fatah has no reason to compromise since the US will blame Israel no matter what. And Israel has no reason to make concessions since the US will deem them insufficient.

[T]his week Fatah-controlled PA TV aired a sequence venerating the murderers of the Fogel family. Udi and Ruth Fogel and their children Yoav, Elad and Hadas were brutally murdered in their home last March.

Fatah's glorification of their murderers is yet further proof that the foundations of the peace process are false. Peace cannot be based on appeasing societies that uphold mass murderers as role models. It can only be based on empowering free societies to defeat societies that embrace murder, terror and in the case of Hamas, genocide.
[Jewish World Review]
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Flexing Its Muscles, Egypt Detains American

2012-01-27T07:21:00.000-05:00

Detained in Egypt

Son of U.S. Transportation Secretary Barred from Leaving Egypt -Leila Fadel

Sam LaHood [pictured], director of the Egyptian program of the International Republican Institute (IRI) and the son of Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood, said he was prevented from leaving Egypt at Cairo airport along with at least five other Americans working for pro-democracy groups.

IRI was one of three U.S.-based nonprofit groups in Cairo that were raided and shut down on Dec. 29 by Egyptian authorities, who accused the groups of using foreign funds to support unrest in Egypt.

"To have a strategic U.S. ally issue bans against American citizens is deeply troubling," said Scott Mastic, IRI's regional director for the Middle East and North Africa.

This weekend, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton raised the issue in a call with Egypt's foreign minister. President Obama also brought up the rights of NGOs specifically in a phone call last week.

In private, State Department officials have told Egypt that its actions are jeopardizing U.S. aid to Egypt's military.
(Washington Post)
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Obama's State of the Union: What it says about his relationship with Israel

2012-01-27T06:56:00.000-05:00

Candidate Obama at Jerusalem's Western Wall.
President Obama has not returned to Israel.

Obama’s State of the Union Speech -Barry Rubin

“Our iron-clad commitment to Israel’s security has meant the closest military cooperation between our two countries in history.”

This is a carefully constructed sentence which I find makes me even more suspicious about Obama’s commitment toward Israel. Why? Because it is true that the bilateral military cooperation is as good as it has ever been. But all other areas of relations are terrible.

This sentence tells me that Obama understands that and wants to accentuate the positive without doing anything to improve the negative. He thinks U.S.-Israel relations are good enough and will not—even if, or especially if, elected to a second term.

Another point to notice is Obama’s failure to mention–much less highlight–the Israel-Palestinian “peace process.” They’ve given up on that one, at least for 2012.
[PJ Media]
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Beware Woman with Gun

2012-01-27T06:18:00.000-05:00

Video: The Work of an IDF Weapons Instructor

Behind every good soldier is in an exceptional instructor. Cpl. Daniella Stepanoe, an IDF weapons instructor, talks about training soldiers and shows off her skills.
(Israel Defense Forces)*

Narrator Defends 'The Third Jihad' Against Attacks from the NYTimes

2012-01-26T21:59:00.002-05:00

The New York Times has created quite a stir.

The film The Third Jihad exposes radical Islamist influences in the United States. The film can be viewed for free online...highly recommended.

Will Iran's Nuke Program Survive?

2012-01-25T00:08:00.001-05:00

Struggle over Nuke Program -Greg Sheridan

•In Jerusalem, Washington and Tehran, three different clocks are running. Maintaining a real degree of uncertainty about what it might do is central to the Israeli government's strategy. The most senior Israelis believe they do have a military option against Iran. It's not a perfect option but they believe that even today they could severely degrade Iran's nuclear program with aerial strikes.

•But the Israeli military option is running out. First, the Iranians are attempting to immunize their program from aerial strike by moving as much of it as possible deep underground and by creating so many facilities they become too numerous to bomb.

•Second, there will come a point at which the Iranians have developed so much nuclear expertise in depth that even if their physical facilities were damaged they could quickly reconstitute these and press ahead to weapons.

•Some Americans believe if the Israelis strike Iran, the U.S. will pay the political costs anyway, so it would be better for the Americans to do the job and do it properly. Their clock is a bit different from the one the Israelis hear. Because of their vastly superior firepower, the Americans could strike Iran later, more devastatingly and more sustainably.

•If by the end of this year Iran has not negotiated the abandonment of its nuclear weapons program, if sanctions have not comprehensively crippled its economy and if its nuclear program has not been degraded by Israeli or U.S. air strikes, then it becomes overwhelmingly likely that Iran has survived the Western bluff and will in due course acquire nuclear weapons.
(The Australian)
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UPDATE:

Will Israel Attack Iran? -Ronen Bergman

After speaking with many senior Israeli leaders and chiefs of the military and the intelligence, I have come to believe that Israel will indeed strike Iran in 2012.

Perhaps in the small and ever-diminishing window that is left, the United States will choose to intervene after all, but here, from the Israeli perspective, there is not much hope for that. Instead there is that peculiar Israeli mixture of fear — rooted in the sense that Israel is dependent on the tacit support of other nations to survive — and tenacity, the fierce conviction, right or wrong, that only the Israelis can ultimately defend themselves.
[New York Times]
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US Weakened in MidEast

2012-01-24T06:20:00.000-05:00

America lost most in 'Arab Spring' -Caroline Glick

To understand the depth and breadth of America's losses, consider that on January 25, 2011, most
Arab states were US allies to a greater or lesser degree. Mubarak was a strategic ally. [Yemen's] Saleh was willing to collaborate with the US in combating al- Qaida and other jihadist forces in his country. Gaddafi was a neutered former enemy who had posed no threat to the US since 2004. Iraq was a protectorate. Jordan and Morocco were stable US clients.

One year later, the elements of the US's alliance structure have either been destroyed or seriously weakened. US allies like Saudi Arabia, which have yet to be seriously threatened by the revolutionary violence, no longer trust the US. As the recently revealed nuclear cooperation between the Saudis and the Chinese makes clear, the Saudis are looking to other global powers to replace the US as their superpower protector.

Perhaps the most amazing aspect to the US's spectacular loss of influence and power in the Arab world is that most of its strategic collapse has been due to its own actions. In Egypt and Libya the US intervened prominently to bring down a US ally and a dictator who constituted no threat to its interests. Indeed, it went to war to bring Gaddafi down.

Moreover, the US acted to bring about their fall at the same time it knew that they would be replaced by forces inimical to American national security interests. In Egypt, it was clear that the Muslim Brotherhood would emerge as the strongest political force in the country. In Libya, it was clear at the outset of the NATO campaign against Gaddafi that al-Qaida was prominently represented in the antiregime coalition. And shortly after Gaddafi was overthrown, al-Qaida forces raised their flag over Benghazi's courthouse.

US actions from Yemen to Bahrain and beyond have followed a similar pattern.

In sharp contrast to his active interventionism against US-allied regimes, President Barack Obama has prominently refused to intervene in Syria, where the fate of a US foe hangs in the balance.

Obama has sat back as Turkey has fashioned a Syrian opposition dominated by the Muslim Brotherhood, and the Arab League has intervened in a manner that increases the prospect that Syria will descend into chaos in the event that the Assad regime is overthrown.

Obama continues to speak grandly about his vision for the Middle East and his dedication to America's regional allies. And his supporters in the media continue to applaud his great success in foreign policy. But outside of their echo chamber, he and the country he leads are looked upon with increasing contempt and disgust throughout the Arab world.

Obama's behavior since last January 25 has made clear to US friend and foe alike that under Obama, the US is more likely to attack you if you display weakness towards it than if you adopt a confrontational posture against it. As Assad survives to kill another day; as Iran expands its spheres of influence and gallops towards the nuclear bomb; as al- Qaida and its allies rise from the Gulf of Aden to the Suez Canal; and as Mubarak continues to be wheeled into the courtroom on a stretcher, the US's rapid fall from regional power is everywhere in evidence.
[Jewish World Review]
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The New Face of Egypt

2012-01-23T06:28:00.000-05:00

Two youngsters sport headbands reading "Muslim Brotherhood," a group which supports world domination through an Islamist caliphate. Aren't they cute?

Middle East Miscalculation -Mortimer B. Zuckerman

•The euphoria of the "Arab Spring," the instant transition from dictatorship to democracy, is seen for what it is: an illusion. In mid-December, violent Islamic Salafist extremists burned down Cairo's famous scientific Institute d'Egypte, which housed 200,000 original and rare books, maps, archaeological objects, and nature studies from Egypt and the Middle East, the result of generations of work by researchers.

•We had long shared with the Egyptian military understandings on national security, ours with an eye to maintaining peace in the region. That relationship is now pretty much lost.

•Americans, in their perennial innocence, have demanded that the generals turn over power to the civilians whomever they may be, just as they did to the Persian shah, just as they did after Israel's pullout from Gaza when they hadn't a clue about the danger posed by Hamas. Our ingenuous attitude has been tantamount to handing over Egypt on a silver platter to the Muslim Brotherhood and the Salafists.

•[Egypt's] new foreign policy will include opening the blockaded border with Gaza, ending normal relations with Israel, and opening them with Hamas and Iran in such a way as to alter the balance of power in the region against U.S. interests. Indeed, one of the few things that unites the political parties in Egypt is an anti-Western foreign policy.

•As Robert Satloff, the executive director of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, has put it, "The Brotherhood is not, as some suggest, simply an Egyptian version of the March of Dimes - that is, a social welfare organization whose goals are fundamentally humanitarian." It is a "profoundly political organization" that seeks to reorder Egyptian society along Islamist lines and "transform Egypt into a very different place."
(U.S. News)
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How the U.S. Should Handle the Islamist Rise in Egypt -Robert Satloff & Eric Trager

From an American perspective, the situation in Egypt is a nightmare, with the Muslim Brotherhood's Freedom and Justice Party and the even more fundamentalist Nour Party winning about two-thirds of the seats in Egypt's next parliament. While both parties have paid lip service to respecting Egypt's international obligations, American leaders cannot ignore the fact that the security partnership Washington had with Cairo for more than 30 years is in serious jeopardy.

Some have sugar-coated the Islamists' ascendance by arguing that the responsibility of governance will moderate them. Experience suggests otherwise.

Washington has assets to preserve its equities in Egypt. At $1.2 billion, U.S. military assistance is essentially the procurement budget for the Egyptian armed forces. Direct U.S. economic support is $250 million and America has a substantial voice in international financial institutions to which Egypt almost surely will turn for help.

In the coming period, when Egypt's Islamist politicians will test just how far the U.S. will bend to accommodate a new political reality, the U.S. should be willing to use all these tools to advance its interests.

Washington's message should be that U.S. support is conditional on Egyptian cooperation in maintaining peace with Israel and preserving political pluralism and religious and minority rights.
Mr. Satloff is executive director of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, where Mr. Trager is a fellow.
(Wall Street Journal)
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Irony: Liberals Sweep the Streets for Islamists

2012-01-22T08:42:00.000-05:00

Western pundits and governments said it would not happen. They believed that that liberals, who led the street revolts that swept Mubarek from power, represented the popular view. But, as the video above illustrates, election results are clear. Liberals make up only 7% of the Egyptian electorate. The street revolt cleared a path for Islamist ascendancy. This cannot be good. If Egypt was a real democracy I could be more optimistic, as democracies are, in the long run, self correcting. But I strongly suspect that we've seen the last displays of democracy in Egypt, as a dictator [Mubarek] was replaced with a group of jihadi dictators. Minority rights will continue to deteriorate: watch the fate of Coptic Christians in Egypt for a taste of the future. [B]

Powerful Video

2012-01-20T07:47:00.000-05:00

United Against Nuclear Iran [UANI] just released this parody of Fiat endorser Jennifer Lopez's "My World" Fiat commercial. UANI is leading a campaign against auto manufacturer Fiat for doing business with Iran.

Obama & Ahmad

2012-01-20T07:11:00.000-05:00

Can Obama Get Away With Iran Inaction? -Jonathan Tobin

President Obama has been assuring the public since before he was elected in 2008 that he would never allow Iran to acquire nuclear weapons. But the question facing the White House this year is whether a failure to make good on that pledge will be more damaging to his chances of re-election than a spike in oil prices.

That’s the dilemma Obama has been grappling with since Congress passed a bill over his objections last month that mandated a complete ban on all transactions with entities that did business with Iran’s Central Bank. Sanctions on the bank are the lever by which an international embargo on the sale of Iranian oil is made possible. But as American diplomats are laying the groundwork for such an embargo, the administration is also sending out signals that indicate it is less than enthusiastic about dealing with the possible economic fallout of the one tactic that might stop the Iranians short of war.

According to the New York Times, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner has already told Congress he thought the bank measure interfered with the administration’s “carefully phased” approach to sanctions on Iran. Having demanded and gotten a waiver inserted into the bill that would allow the president to put off the sanctions indefinitely, there is now a very real chance Obama will decide the sanctions are not worth the trouble. With the president’s favorability numbers already low, the White House may believe the impact of a major increase in the price of gas and the consequent economic distress may be more politically toxic than actions that can be interpreted as acquiescing to a nuclear Iran.

But with diplomacy offering no hope and since the administration has made it clear it will not support the use of force against Iran and opposes Israel doing so on its own, punting on an oil embargo will be seen as an indication Obama is not prepared to do anything to stop Tehran.

[F]or Obama to refuse to use the one economic lever he has at his disposal to avert an existential threat to Israel as well as to the entire Middle East would certainly cost him heavily among Jews as well as non-Jewish friends of Israel.

Essentially, Obama has until late June to decide whether or not to use the waiver. While we must expect the administration would attempt to explain its use as part of a long-range strategy against Iran, the consequences of doing so could be greater than just some lost votes. If the United States chooses not to push tough sanctions against Iran, then Israel may decide it must take matters into its own hands. [T]he president has acted at times as if he was more afraid of Israel attacking Iranian nuclear sites than he was of the ayatollah gaining control of a bomb.

Even worse for the president is the possibility that further delay will result in an Iranian announcement of nuclear capability on Obama’s watch.

But if Obama is left with no good choices about Iran he has only himself to blame. Having wasted his first three years in office on a foolish policy of “engagement” with and feckless diplomatic initiatives that accomplished nothing, the fact that he has painted himself into a corner on this issue during an election year is entirely his own doing.
[Commentary]
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Murder in Texas: Did Iran Do It?

2012-01-19T06:54:00.000-05:00

A short video highlighting the Texas murder of Gelareh Bagherzadeh earlier this week.
Did Iranian operatives do it?

Red Lines for Iran

2012-01-17T06:38:00.000-05:00

No-kidding red lines: US response may be bluster, but Israel's won't be
-Frank J. Gaffney Jr

Don't do it." That is the message American officials, from President Obama on down, are delivering to their Israeli counterparts in the hope of dissuading the Jewish state from taking a fateful step: attacking Iran to prevent the mullahs' imminent acquisition of nuclear weapons.

This week, the nation's top military officer, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Martin E. Dempsey, will visit Israel to convey the same message in person. [T]he general will deliver an insistent warning that Israel must give sanctions more time to work and refrain from acting unilaterally.

Such warnings have become shriller as evidence accumulates that Israel is getting ready to move beyond what is widely believed to be a series of successful - but insufficient - covert actions against the Iranian nuclear program, missile forces and associated personnel.

Some U.S. officials reportedly think the Israelis are just posturing. As one put it, they are playing out a "hold me back" gambit - perhaps hoping the Americans will do the job themselves or at least hoping to be rewarded for their restraint.

Others point, however, to evidence that the Israelis are concealing key military movements from our intelligence assets as an indicator that they are going for it and want to keep us from interfering. At a minimum, Jerusalem would have to worry that an American administration that is holding secret negotiations with Tehran in Turkey at the level of Deputy Secretary of State William J. Burns would seek to curry favor with the mullahs by compromising any information it obtains about Israel's intentions.

The difference between the American and Israeli red lines is that the Israelis actually may take seriously the breaching of theirs. Presumably, that would be because the government of Israel has drawn them so as to define existential threats to the state, not simply as a matter of rhetorical posturing intended mostly for domestic political consumption.

The likelihood for such action can only have grown as a result of the contempt with which Mr. Obama has treated Israel, our most important regional ally. Dissing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is one thing. Allowing our own red lines to be flouted with impunity signals that Israel is on its own and must proceed accordingly.

If we are going to stop the nightmare of a messianic regime armed with nuclear missiles, somebody had better do it soon - and with something more effective than sanctions. America should take the lead. However, if the Obama administration won't, it should get out of the Israelis' way.
[Jewish World Review]
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Iran Threatens Neighbors

2012-01-16T11:31:00.002-05:00

Iran Warns Gulf Oil States Not to Increase Exports -Farhad Pouladi

Iran has starkly warned Gulf states not to make up for any shortfall in oil exports under new U.S. and EU sanctions.

If they compensate for a looming EU ban on Iranian imports, "we would not consider these actions to be friendly," Iran's representative to OPEC, Mohammad Ali Khatibi, said. "They will be held responsible for what happens," he said, adding ominously: "One cannot predict the consequences."
(AFP)
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Peace Process Dead

2012-01-12T06:35:00.000-05:00

Territorial Compromise Loses Ground in Arab Spring -Greg Sheridan

There is not the slightest chance of a settlement to the Israeli-Palestinian dispute any time soon.

Western politicians who address the issue ever more urgently are not only mistaken analytically, but may well be making things worse.

Spending time in Israel, it is impossible to reconcile the evidence of your eyes with the accepted international narrative about Israel. In the international media, Israel is presented as militarist and oppressive. In fact, it is the only pluralist democracy in the Middle East, the only nation where women's rights and gay rights are protected.

With the unfolding of the Arab Spring, elections have greatly strengthened Islamists and Islamist extremists. These newly empowered forces would fatally undermine any serious Palestinian compromise with Israel. Naturally Hamas is fantastically empowered by the way the Arab Spring is unfolding.

Israel won't make a peace deal unless it believes a Palestinian government can govern its territory effectively and prevent attacks on Israel from Palestinian territory. That is inconceivable today and all the trends of the Arab Spring make it ever more unlikely.
(The Australian)
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Another Iranian Nuke Scientist Bites the Dust

2012-01-11T07:39:00.000-05:00

Possible Israeli hit

Nuclear Scientist Killed in Tehran Blast

An Iranian university professor and nuclear scientist was killed in a terrorist bomb blast in Tehran.

A magnetic bomb was planted by a motorcyclist under the car of Mostafa Ahmadi Roshan, a professor at Tehran's technical university. Ahmadi Roshan supervised a department at the Natanz uranium enrichment facility.
(Fars-Iran)
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UPDATES:

U.S. Condemns Bomb Attack on Iran Nuclear Scientist -Scott Shane

Like the drone strikes that the Obama administration has embraced as a core tactic against al-Qaeda, the multifaceted covert campaign against Iran has appeared to offer an alternative to war. The CIA, according to current and former officials, has repeatedly tried to derail Iran's uranium enrichment program by covert means, including introducing sabotaged parts into Iran's supply chain.

A former senior Israeli security official noted that Iran carried out many assassinations of enemies, mostly Iranian opposition figures, and had been recently accused of plotting to kill the Saudi ambassador to the U.S. in Washington. "In Arabic, there's a proverb: If you are shooting, don't complain about being shot," he said.
(New York Times)

Iran's Atomic Scientists Plagued by "Virtual Defection" -Dan Williams

The daylight killings of atomic technicians such as Roshan obviously deplete Iran's pool of nuclear experts. It also provokes panic in surviving colleagues, said an Israel official, generating a phenomenon that Mossad veterans dub "virtual defection."

"It's not that we've been seeing mass resignations, but rather a sense of spreading paranoia given the degree to which their security has been compromised," said the official, who has extensive Iran expertise. "It means they have to take more precautions, including, perhaps, being a little less keen to stand out for excellence in their nuclear work. That slows things down."

"I think several players, not only Israel, are active (in Iran)," former Mossad deputy director Ilan Mizrahi said. "It's not only countries, it is movements. You have the Iranian opposition, which is very strong. They have their own capabilities inside Iran."
(Reuters)

Sending a Message to Iran -Amir Oren

It doesn't matter whether the assassinations of Iran's nuclear scientists are "made in Israel" or the work of unknown assailants who simply share a common enemy with Israel in the form of a fanatic Islamic regime in Tehran. The working assumption is that Israel knows who is active in Iran's nuclear project, knows where and when to find them and how to eliminate them. Every Iranian nuclear scientist will know he's in the crosshairs. This is not a wide assault on the Iranian regime, just on its nuclear arm.
(Ha'aretz)

Delaying Tactics -Yaakov Katz

It is likely that nuclear scientist Mostafa Roshan's assassins believed his elimination would have a significant impact on Iran's nuclear program. It is possible that Roshan was one of the members of the "weapons group," scientists that will ultimately be tasked with building Iran's first nuclear weapon.
(Jerusalem Post)
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ANOTHER UPDATE:

Who's Really Killing Those Nuclear Scientists? -Michael Ledeen

•Several Iranian officials and scientists involved in the nuclear project have been blown up in the last two years, but a closer look at the Iranian victims raises questions.

•The first was an academic with no apparent connection to the nuclear project, a political activist who supported the Green Movement. The second was a theoretical physicist. On the very same day, another physicist was attacked, a regime supporter and a member of the Revolutionary Guards who was an active participant in the nuclear program. The news stories spoke of a bomb, but the photographs of the crime scene don't show evidence of an explosion (they do show some bullet holes in his car). He wasn't killed. Shortly after the event, he was promoted to head the nuclear program.

•The fourth case was a university student gunned down in front of his house. He wasn't a nuclear anything, he was studying electrical engineering. There is an Iranian nuclear physicist with a similar name, but that man was out of the country. The latest victim was a chemist, not a physicist, and his main connection to the nuclear program was administrative: he worked in the purchasing office for the Natanz operation.

•There's a lot of killing in Iran, and the overwhelming majority of murders are carried out by the regime, and the victims are Iranian citizens from all walks of life. From this standpoint, the regime is the most likely perpetrator.

•Scads of writers are quite sure that the Jews did it. But the rush to judgment smacks of political passion rather than cool analysis. And I'm struck by the uncritical expertise that would have us believe the Jews can do anything, even operate at will in the center of their most formidable enemy's capital city. That one's right out of the old anti-Semitic scrolls: whenever anything happens that upsets you, just blame the Jews. They can do anything, anywhere. If only it were true.
(PJ Media)
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Ancient Kosher Seal Discovered

2012-01-11T06:29:00.000-05:00

Archaeologists Find 1,500-Year-Old Kosher Bread Stamp

A 1,500-year-old ceramic stamp with the image of the seven-branched Temple Menorah has been discovered at Israel Antiquities Authority excavations east of Acre.

It is thought the stamp was used to mark baked goods, and is known as a "bread stamp."

"The Temple Menorah, being a Jewish symbol par excellence, indicates the stamps belonged to Jews, unlike Christian bread stamps with the cross pattern which were much more common in the Byzantine period," said Gilad Jaffe and Dr. Danny Syon, the directors of the excavation.
(Ha'aretz)
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Atomic Threats

2012-01-11T06:25:00.000-05:00

Ahmadinejad & Chavez laugh it up

Chavez and Ahmadinejad Joke about attacking US

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Hugo Chavez mocked the U.S. and joked about directing 'a big atomic bomb' at Washington as they met in Caracas today.

The president of Iran was visiting his Venezuelan counterpart in an attempt to rally support for his government in the face of tightening sanctions from the West.

His meeting with Mr Chavez came on the day that Iran sentenced a man to death for allegedly spying on the country for the U.S., and claimed to have arrested several more American spies.

Mr Ahmadinejad is in Venezuela at the start of his tour of Latin American countries ruled by left-wing governments sympathetic to Iran's virulently anti-western regime.

Both men hugged, beamed, held hands and showered each other with praise, making macabre jokes which appeared to threaten the U.S., the principal enemy of both leaders.

Mr Chavez said that he was hiding a bomb under a grassy knoll before the steps of the presidential palace, saying: 'That hill will open up and a big atomic bomb will come out.' As the two men laughed, he added: 'The imperialist spokesmen say Ahmadinejad and I are going into the basement now to set our sights on Washington and launch cannons and missiles...'
[Daily Mail]
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Jordan to Happily Host Hamas

2012-01-11T06:05:00.000-05:00

A new home for this terrorist...thank you King Abdullah of Jordan

Jordan Allows Hamas to Take Up Residence -Karl Vick

In what looks like further evidence of diminishing American influence in the Middle East, the country that summarily ejected Hamas a dozen years ago is opening its doors to senior leaders of the group Washington and Israel regard first and foremost as a terrorist organization.

Jordan kicked out Hamas way back in 1999 under pressure from the United States.

The Palestinian organization had been anchored in Amman, but was forced to move its headquarters to Syria, where it officially remains. Life in Damascus has gotten mighty uncomfortable over the last year, however.

Quietly, senior Hamas officials began moving their families out of Syria months ago, and despite routine denials, the organization has been looking for a new home for its headquarters, too.

Amman, the Jordanian capital, already provides a place for the leader of the other major Palestinian faction to rest his head. Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, who leads the secular Fatah party, regularly sleeps in Amman while traveling in and out of the adjoining West Bank, which has no working airport.

Khaled Mashaal [pictured above], who was nearly killed by Israeli agents in a botched 1997 assassination attempt in Amman, will be among those setting up housekeeping in the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, roughly half of whose residents are Palestinians who made their way across the Jordan either in 1948, in 1967, or in the steady flow of “soft immigration” that has gone on since.
[Time Magazine/Global Spin Blog]
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The End of Land for Peace

2012-01-06T07:14:00.000-05:00

The "land for peace" formula was begun by [right to left] Begin, Carter & Sadat at Camp David. It may soon to be declared dead.

The land-for-peace hoax -Caroline Glick

[I]f the Obama administration, or whatever administration is in power when Egypt abrogates the treaty, does not issue a demand that the new Egyptian government give Sinai back to Israel, and stand behind it, and if the EU does not support the demand, the entire concept of land-for-peace will be exposed as a hoax.

Indeed the land-for-peace formula will be exposed as a twofold fiction. First, it is based on the false proposition that the peace process is a two-way street. Israel gives land, the Arabs give peace. But the inevitable death of the Egyptian-Israeli peace accord under an Egyptian jihadist regime makes clear that the land-for-peace formula is a one-way street. Israeli land giveaways are permanent. Arab commitments to peace can be revoked at any time.

Then there are the supposedly iron-clad US and European security guarantees that accompany signed treaties. All the American and European promises to Israel - that they will stand by the Jewish state when it takes risks for peace - will be exposed as worthless lies. No one will insist that the Egyptians honor their bargain.

As it has become more apparent that the Muslim Brotherhood and Salafist parties will hold an absolute majority in Egypt's democratically elected parliament, Western governments and media outlets have insistently argued that these anti-Western, and anti-Jewish, movements have become moderate and pragmatic. Leading the charge to make the case has been the Obama administration. Its senior officials have eagerly embraced the Muslim Brotherhood. Indeed, the spiritual head of the Muslim Brotherhood Yusuf Qaradawi is reportedly mediating negotiations between the US and the Taliban.

Both the Muslim Brotherhood and the Salafists are happy to cater to the propaganda needs of Western journalists and politicians and pretend that they are willing to continue to uphold the peace treaty with Israel. But even as they make conditional statements to eager Americans and Europeans, they consistently tell their own people that they seek the destruction of Israel and the abrogation of the peace deal between Egypt and Israel.

[In] Cairo this week, the Muslim Brotherhood and the Salafists secured their absolute control over Egypt's parliament. Specifically, our leaders should note the absence of any voices demanding that Egypt respect the peace treaty with Israel or return Sinai.

The time has come for Israel to admit the truth. Land-for-peace is a confidence game and we are the mark.
[Jerusalem Post]
*

Obama Screws Moderate Muslims with Embrace of Islamist Brotherhood

2012-01-04T06:16:00.000-05:00

The Brotherhood's logo

Overtures to Muslim Brotherhood Reverse Longtime Policy -David D. Kirkpatrick

    With the Muslim Brotherhood pulling within reach of an outright majority in Egypt's new parliament, the Obama administration has begun to reverse decades of mistrust and hostility toward an organization once viewed as irreconcilably opposed to U.S. interests. The reversal also reflects the administration's growing acceptance of the Brotherhood's repeated assurances that its lawmakers want to build a modern democracy that will respect individual freedoms, free markets and international commitments, including Egypt's treaty with Israel.

    At the same time it underscores Washington's increasing frustration with Egypt's military rulers, who have sought to carve out permanent political powers for themselves and used deadly force against protesters seeking an end to their rule. (New York Times)

Israel Questions U.S. Stance on Muslim Brotherhood - Shlomo Cesana

    The U.S. needs to face up to the threat presented by the rise of the Muslim Brotherhood across the Middle East, Israel's National Security Council concluded during a strategic discussion several days ago.

    The council, responsible for providing the prime minister with strategic assessments, said it was concerned about the Muslim Brotherhood's pronouncements, repeated this week, that call the Israeli-Egyptian peace treaty into question. The Brotherhood's second-in-command, Dr. Rashad Bayumi, said that the Muslim Brotherhood, which is set to dominate Egypt's new parliament, will never recognize Israel and will even work to amend the Egypt-Israel peace treaty.

    In its assessment, the council, headed by Major General Yaakov Amidror, concluded that Israel needed to accept the fact that the Muslim Brotherhood would eventually assume power in most Arab countries, with Egypt first and foremost. The council believes that the Muslim Brotherhood is not just a religious and cultural force, but also a reincarnation of the totalitarian fascist movements seen in Europe over the past century.
(Israel Hayom)
*

UPDATE:

Muslim Brotherhood Will Not Honor Peace Treaty with Israel -Daniel Siryoti & Eli Leon

The deputy head of the Muslim Brotherhood's Freedom and Justice Party, Essam Arian, told Al-Hayat Saturday in an interview: "We never promised that we would honor the peace treaty with Israel. The treaty is not sacred and we can and should make changes in it."

His remarks denied those made by U.S. State Department Spokeswoman Victoria Nuland that the Islamist group made guarantees to the U.S. that it would continue to respect Egypt's peace treaty with Israel.
(Israel Hayom)
*

Mutant Terror Threat

2012-01-02T06:56:00.000-05:00

The Mutating Al-Qaeda Threat -Mitchell D. Silber

    Ten years ago last month, "shoe bomber" Richard Reid boarded an American Airlines flight bound for Miami from Paris, intending to kill himself and all of the other passengers by detonating an explosive device he had concealed in his shoes.

    What was unknown at the time is that Reid was not supposed to act alone. Saajid Badat - like Reid a British citizen - was supposed to ignite his own pair of explosive shoes on a different trans-Atlantic flight, but he dropped out in the plot's final stages.

    A careful dissection of 16 of the most important "al-Qaeda" plots launched against the West since 1993 reveals a consistent trend.

    They used men who radicalized to violence in Western cities such as Hamburg, Montreal, London and New York, who showed up on al-Qaeda's doorstep on their own initiative and then were trained, turned around and launched back at the West by al-Qaeda.

    Whether it was the Madrid transit-system attacks of 2004, the bombings in London on July 7, 2005, or the New York City subway plot of September 2009, the bombers lived in the great cities of the West, were radicalized in the West and turned to violence in the West.
The writer is director of intelligence analysis for the New York Police Department.
(Washington Times)
*

Twitter for Terror

2012-01-02T06:55:00.000-05:00

Is Twitter Aiding Hizbullah? -Kevin Flower

    Nitsana Darshan-Leitner, director of the Shurat HaDin Israel Law Center, sent a letter to Twitter asserting that the company is violating U.S. law by allowing groups such as Hizbullah and al-Qaeda affiliate al-Shabaab to use its popular online network.

    "Please be advised that (doing so) is illegal and will expose Twitter Inc. and its officers to both criminal prosecution and civil liability to American citizens and others victimized" by Hizbullah, al-Shabaab and other foreign terrorist entities.

    Hizbullah and al-Shabaab are officially designated as terrorist organizations under U.S. law. A 2010 Supreme Court case - Holder v. Humanitarian Law Project - upheld a key provision of the Patriot Act prohibiting material support to groups designated as terrorist outfits.
(CNN)
*

Ahmadinejad's "Tour of Tyrants"

2012-01-02T06:31:00.000-05:00

Iran Seeking to Expand Influence in Latin America -Joby Warrick

Iran is quietly seeking to expand its ties with Latin America in what U.S. officials and regional experts say is an effort to circumvent economic sanctions and gain access to much-needed markets and raw materials. The new diplomatic offensive includes a swing through Venezuela, Ecuador, Cuba and Nicaragua this month by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Fla.), chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said she was disturbed by Ahmadinejad's plans for what she called a "tour of tyrants," saying it would bring "the Iranian threat closer to our shores."
(Washington Post)

Iran Is Feeling the Heat of Sanctions -Peter Jones

The overwhelming bulk of Iran's oil exports flow through the Strait of Hormuz. Oil is virtually Iran's only export and the only thing keeping up its moribund economy. It is inconceivable that Iran would shut down the strait, unless the regime faced its own demise. Anything less than that, and Iran would never cut off the strait, whatever its rhetoric.

This verbal jousting on the part of the Iranians demonstrates that they are feeling the heat of sanctions.
The writer is an associate professor in the Graduate School of Public and International Affairs at the University of Ottawa.
(Ottawa Citizen-Canada)

Tehran's Hollow Hormuz Strait Threat -Michael Rubin

While the threat from a resurgent Iran is real, its bluster about closing the Strait of Hormuz is more diversion than danger. The waterway may be an economic chokehold, but it is also a vital passage for Iran's survival. Any Iranian challenge to the strait would be suicide.

When the Iranian government mined the Persian Gulf in 1988, damaging a U.S. guided missile frigate, President Ronald Reagan launched Operation Preying Mantis, simultaneously attacking two Iranian oil platforms. In the surrounding firefight, Iran lost a frigate, a gunboat, three speedboats and, temporarily, two oil platforms. The U.S. lost one helicopter, the casualty of a crash rather than battle damage.
The writer is a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute.
(New York Daily News)
*

Iran's Currency Hits Record Low after Latest U.S. Sanctions -Thomas Erdbrink

Iran's currency declined by 12% against foreign currencies after President Obama signed a bill that places the Islamic republic's central bank under unilateral sanctions. The rial has lost 35% of its value since September. The slide of the rial is a huge blow to Iran's leaders, who have been claiming that the sanctions aren't hurting the country. Housing prices have risen 20 percent in the past few weeks, the semiofficial Mehr News Agency reported. Private companies and importers say they are in deep trouble.
(Washington Post)
*

VideoBite: Happy New Year from Israel

2012-01-02T06:27:00.000-05:00

Happy 2012 from Israel's IDF soldiers

Bible Comes to Life

2011-12-26T08:03:00.005-05:00

2000 year old clay seal discovered in Jerusalem

Ancient seal found in Jerusalem linked to ritual -Matti Friedman

A rare clay seal found under Jerusalem's Old City appears to be linked to religious rituals practiced at the Jewish Temple 2,000 years ago, Israeli archaeologists said Sunday.

The coin-sized seal found near the Jewish holy site at the Western Wall bears two Aramaic words meaning "pure for God."

Archaeologist Ronny Reich of Haifa University said it dates from between the 1st century B.C. to 70 A.D. — the year Roman forces put down a Jewish revolt and destroyed the second of the two biblical temples in Jerusalem.

The find marks the first discovery of a written seal from that period of Jerusalem's history, and appeared to be a unique physical artifact from ritual practice in the Temple, said Reich, co-director of the excavation.

Very few artifacts linked to the Temples have been discovered so far.

Archaeologists say the seal was likely used by Temple officials approving an object for ritual use — oil, perhaps, or an animal intended for sacrifice. Materials used by Temple priests had to meet stringent purity guidelines stipulated in detail in the Jewish legal text known as the Mishna, which also mention the use of seals as tokens by pilgrims.
[Associated Press]
HatTip: LarryH

Teach Your Children Well

2011-12-22T17:49:00.003-05:00

UNESCO Funds Palestinian Magazine Glorifying Hitler -Jordana Horn

The Simon Wiesenthal Center asked UNESCO's director-general to suspend its sponsorship of a Palestinian children's magazine that applauded Hitler for murdering Jews.

According to Palestinian Media Watch, the educational magazine Zayafuna published an essay by a teenage Palestinian girl who wrote about meeting Adolf Hitler in a dream.

Hitler tells her that he killed the Jews "so you would all know that they are a nation who spreads destruction all over the world."
(Jerusalem Post)

PA Leader Abbas Meets Woman Who Aided 2001 Killing of Israeli Teen

Israel is furious at Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas for meeting in Turkey with Amna Muna, a Palestinian woman who infamously lured an Israeli teen to the West Bank in 2001, where he was murdered by Palestinians.

Muna was serving a life sentence until she was released in October in a swap for captured Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit.

Israeli government spokesman Mark Regev said, "the Palestinian leadership seems to be putting murderers up on a pedestal."
(AP-Washington Post)
*

Fayyad Sinking along with Palestinian Future

2011-12-18T09:30:00.000-05:00

The End of Fayyadism -Jonathan Schanzer

PA Prime Minister Salaam Fayyad [pictured], perhaps the only Palestinian leader who earnestly sought to usher in an era of good governance, is now under siege from political rivals. President Mahmoud Abbas has orchestrated a series of trials against the prime minister's top officials to discredit Fayyad. These cases are not designed to rid Palestine of corruption. Rather, by ousting ministers and hobbling Fayyad, Abbas creates an opportunity to replace them with figures more to his liking.

According to officials who work with them, the two figureheads of the Palestinians are barely on speaking terms. Fayyad has become a glorified accountant, leveraging his strong relationship with international donors to collect checks that ensure his government can continue to pay salaries - while Abbas pursues a provocative foreign policy that endangers those sources of funding. Fayyad opposed angling for international recognition of Palestinian statehood at the UN - a finger in Washington's eye.

Washington still pays lip service to the potential of Fayyad's reform agenda, but the White House knows the prime minister's days are numbered. The end of Fayyadism means the end of an era that offered hope for political reform for the Palestinians.
(Foreign Policy) *

Newt, Golda Meir & The Question of Palestine

2011-12-12T06:37:00.000-05:00

Why Newt Gingrich Is Right on Palestine -Benyamin Korn

What do Golda Meir [pictured], lifelong socialist and prime minister of Israel, and Newt Gingrich, lifelong conservative and current presidential candidate, have in common? The courage to tell the truth about ”Palestine.”

Gingrich stirred up a hornet’s nest last week when he remarked that “The Palestinians are an invented people.” Golda made the same point when she told the London Sunday Times on June 15, 1969 that “There is no such thing as a Palestinian people.”

What could have possessed the Prime Minister of Israel and the former Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives to say such a thing? Simple: an appreciation of history.

Gingrich has a Ph.D. in the subject. Golda lived it.
[The Algemeiner]

The Year the Arabs Discovered Palestine -Daniel Pipes, PhD

Palestinian identity goes back, not to antiquity, but precisely to 1920. No "Palestinian Arab people" existed at the start of 1920 but by December it took shape in a form recognizably similar to today's.

Until the late nineteenth century, residents living in the region between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean identified themselves primarily in terms of religion: Moslems felt far stronger bonds with remote co-religionists than with nearby Christians and Jews.

Then came the ideology of nationalism from Europe; its ideal of a government that embodies the spirit of its people was alien but appealing to Middle Easterners. How to apply this ideal, though? Who constitutes a nation and where must the boundaries be? These questions stimulated huge debates.

Some said the residents of the Levant are a nation; others said Eastern Arabic speakers; or all Arabic speakers; or all Moslems.

But no one suggested "Palestinians," and for good reason. Palestine, then a secular way of saying Eretz Yisra'el or Terra Sancta, embodied a purely Jewish and Christian concept, one utterly foreign to Moslems, even repugnant to them.

[T]he fact that this [Palestinian] identity is of such recent and expedient origins suggests that the Palestinian primacy is superficially rooted and that it could eventually come to an end, perhaps as quickly as it got started.
[Jewish World Review]

Gingrich and the ‘Invented People’ -Jonathan Tobin

Was Gingrich right? Yes, of course, he is right.

There was no Palestinian Arab state or political entity under the Ottoman Empire or any previous ruler of this region. Indeed, prior to the 20th century, there is no evidence of there ever having been a consciousness on the part of the inhabitants of having a separate political identity that was distinct from the rest of the Arabs of the region.

It is a fallacy to claim, as some do, that Zionism is as much a modern invention as Palestinian identity.

The only people to call themselves "Palestinians" prior to the creation of the state of Israel were the Jews who were the first, and up until that time, the only group to conceive of the land as being the home of a separate people or national identity. That was no accident since the land now called Israel or Palestine was sacred only to one people. For centuries, it was an Arab backwater, but it has been the object of prayers for two millennia for the Jews who not only never ceased to hope for the restoration of their sovereignty but also, as is rarely mentioned, never entirely left its soil. Zionism was merely a new name for an ancient though still living people's belief about their homeland and their destiny.

By contrast, Palestinian nationalism is, as Gingrich rightly said, a 20th century invention. It arose and flourished purely as a reaction to Zionism, a factor that has fatally complicated the quest for peace as Palestinian identity seems to be predicated more on a desire to extinguish the Jewish state and to delegitimize the Jewish presence than it is on the re-creation of an Arab political culture that is specific to this locality.

That said, it must be conceded that even if the Palestinians did invent themselves in the last 100 years, it is pointless to deny they do exist now. Millions consider themselves to be part of a distinct Palestinian people with a common history and destiny. The United States and Israel both understand that their desire for self-rule must be accommodated so long as it does not infringe on the rights and security of Israel.

The catch is that the Palestinians seem unable to accept the idea of the legitimacy of a Jewish state no matter where its borders would be drawn. And that is where their "invented" history comes in. Since the Palestinians only arrived on the world stage as a result of their revulsion at the notion of Jewish sovereignty over any part of the country, it is difficult, if not impossible for them to come to terms with a peace that would imply Israel's permanence.

The role of the United States in this mess is not so much to point out the myths about Palestinian history, though myths they are, as to impress upon the Arabs and their supporters that they must abandon their rejection of Zionism.

As for Gingrich's judgment in saying what he did, it must be said it was refreshing to hear a major American political figure state the truth about the history of the Palestinians and to say the myths they have created have been in service to one goal only: the destruction of Israel. Doing so will not fuel anti-American terrorism as much as it will disabuse the Palestinians of the idea they have long cherished that sooner or later, the United States will abandon Israel.

Nevertheless, it must also be pointed out that if he is elected president, Gingrich will have to deal with the Palestinians and the Arab world. Being upfront about America's closeness with Israel and that there will be an end to Obama's practice of treating the Jewish state and those that desire its destruction as being morally equivalent is fine. But it remains to be seen whether Gingrich has the ability to be more than an accurate student of the history of the Middle East. It is fair to say as president, he will have to be more guarded in his statements and even fairer to express skepticism about his ability to do so.
[Jewish World Review]
*

Iran Policy Conflict

2011-12-11T12:20:00.001-05:00

Congress Rebuffs Administration Pleas to Ease Iran Sanctions

Republicans and Democrats are pressing ahead with sanctions that would target foreign banks that do business with Iran's Central Bank. Tough sanctions are the most viable option short of a military strike on Iran. The sanctions measure sponsored by Sens. Mark Kirk, R-Ill., and Bob Menendez, D-N.J., was added to a broader defense bill now the subject of closed-door negotiations.
(AP-Washington Post)

Sending the Wrong Signals to Iran -Editorial

Iran has been showing signs of increasing nervousness about the possibility that its nuclear program will come under attack by Israel or the U.S. From the West's point of view, this alarm is good: The more Iran worries about a military attack, the more likely it is to scale back its nuclear activity. The only occasion in which Tehran froze its weaponization program came immediately after the U.S. invasion of Iraq, when it feared it might be the next American target.

What doesn't make sense is a public spelling out of reasons against military action - like that delivered by Defense Secretary Leon Panetta last Friday. Alarmed Iranian leaders could well conclude that they have no reason for concern after all.

The administration is resisting pressure from allies such as France and from Congress to sanction the Iranian central bank. The administration's stance resembles Mr. Panetta's message. In effect, it is signaling that it is determined to prevent an Iranian nuclear weapon - unless it means taking military or diplomatic risks, or paying an economic price.
(Washington Post)

The Importance of Sanctioning Iran's Central Bank -Ilan Berman

The Administration worries about the potential impact of such a designation on global oil prices. However, countries like Saudi Arabia have already indicated their willingness to ramp up oil output in order to offset any commodity price increases that would occur if and when Iranian oil goes offline. And if Washington makes judicious use of the U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve to mitigate price spikes in the global energy market, the effects on domestic consumers are likely to be more minimal still.
(Forbes)
*

Hebron: Holy City, Holy Mess, Holy Sheikh

2011-12-11T12:03:00.001-05:00

Sheikh Jabari [center], a true Muslim moderate, shown here meeting in his tent with Jewish representatives in Hebron

The Future of Hebron's Jewish Past -Melanie Phillips

Hebron has become a synonym in the West for oppression of the Palestinians, but it is in fact those Jewish residents who are hanging on by their fingernails to a minimal right of access to one of Judaism's holiest sites - the Cave of Machpelah, where Abraham and the patriarchs and matriarchs are said to be buried.

It is also grotesque to call the Jewish residents "settlers" as if they are colonizing land with which they have no connection. Jews have lived in Hebron for thousands of years but have been repeatedly driven out, as in the 1929 pogrom when Arabs slaughtered 67 adults and children.

The restored Jewish presence in a town of 130,000 Arabs is a mere 90 Jewish families, restricted to an area comprising some 5% of the town.

Far from the impression that Arab Hebron is wretched and impoverished, it is highly prosperous, delivering around one third of the West Bank's entire GDP.

Friendly relations have been established between local rabbis and the remarkable Sheikh Jabari [pictured], leader of Hebron's largest clan, who some years ago prevented the planned torching of a nearby synagogue. Sheikh Jabari has publicly acknowledged the right of Jews to live in Hebron.

The PA is trying to ethnically cleanse the Jews again from Hebron, while Sheikh Jabari is supporting the rights of the Jewish people to their own heritage.
(Jewish Chronicle-UK)
*

VideoBite: Refugees

2011-12-09T14:26:00.001-05:00

A new video featureing Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon

Egyptian Election Confounds Some

2011-12-07T06:23:00.000-05:00

Islamists' Election Victory in Egypt Leaves Western Predictions in Shambles -Tony Blankley

Just a few months ago leading experts were overwhelmingly predicting that all those great secular, liberal, college-educated kids with their iPhones in Tahrir Square represented the new Egypt and would bring all their wonderful values to the revolution. It was primarily those who have been writing about radical Islamic politics (and, of course, the Israelis, who can't afford to get it wrong on Muslim political habits) who warned that this was all going to end in the rise in Egypt of radical Islamist, anti-Israeli, anti-Semitic, anti-Christian, anti-American, anti-Western governance.

In the first round of elections, the grand total for all the parties that are considered part of the liberal-secular bloc - the makers of the glorious Arab Spring democracy - was 13%.
(Washington Times)
*

Egypt's Sham Election -Daniel Pipes & Cynthia Farahat

What about Western policy?

[I]nstantly cease all economic aid to Cairo. It is unacceptable that Western taxpayers pay, even indirectly, for Islamizing Egypt. Resume funding only when the government allows secular Muslims, liberals, and Copts, among others, freely to express and organize themselves.

[O]ppose both the Muslim Brotherhood and the Salafis. Less extreme or more, Islamists of every description are our worst enemies.
[National Review Online]
*

Israel on the Islamist Surge in Egypt: Told You So -Karl Vick

Inspiring as much of the world found events in Tunisia, Tahrir Square and elsewhere, Israelis harbored deep wariness from the start. Some flat-out said Arabs can't govern themselves. Others broke down the elements of Western democracies -- universal education, civil society, rule of law -- and concluded that elections are not the only thing that matter.

"Who says that protests against dictatorship necessarily lead to democracy?" asked Gabriel Ben-Dor, a political scientist at Haifa University, at a recent conference at Bar-Ilan University. "Democracy is not what emerged from the revolution against the Tsars of Russia 100 years ago, nor has democracy emerged in many CIS states that threw off the Communist yoke. Thus there is no rational, logical or historical basis for assuming that democracy will result from the revolutions underway today in the Arab world."
[Time Magazine]
*

Egypt: We've Heard What the Majority Thinks -Barry Rubin

Let's figure out what the voting in Egypt means. Basically, nationalism has collapsed completely. Liberalism is weak. Moderate Muslims are few. Radical Islamism is the only game in town. Many Western journalists insist that the Egyptian people don't want an Islamist state. Of course they do! We are seeing the democratic election of a dictatorship.

By the time the election is finished, there should be an easy two-thirds majority for an Islamist constitution.
(PJ Media)
*

Obama Continues Assault on Israel: Hillary Spits Fire

2011-12-06T18:01:00.001-05:00

An ally no more -Caroline Glick

Rather than warn Egypt that it will face severe consequences if it completes its Islamist transformation, the Obama administration has turned its guns on the first country that will pay a price for Egypt's Islamic revolution: Israel.

State Hillary Clinton hammered Israel, the only real ally the US has left in the Middle East.

The same Secretary of State that has heralded negotiations with the violent, fanatical misogynists of the Taliban; who has extolled Saudi Arabia where women are given ten lashes for driving, and whose State Department trained female-hating Muslim Brotherhood operatives in the lead-up to the current elections in Egypt accused Israel of repressing women's rights. The only state in the region where women are given full rights and legal protections became the focus of Clinton's righteous feminist wrath.

In the IDF, as in the rest of the country, religious coercion is forbidden. [One interpretation of] Jewish law prohibits men from listening to women's voices in song. And recently, when a group of religious soldiers were presented with an IDF band that featured female vocalists, keeping faith with their [ultra] Orthodox observance, they walked out of the auditorium. The vocalists were not barred from singing. They were not mistreated. They were simply not listened to.

And as far as Clinton is concerned, this is proof that women in Israel are under attack. Barred by law from forcing their soldiers from spurning their religious obligations, IDF commanders were guilty of crimes against democracy for allowing the troops to exit the hall.

In attacking Israel in the way she did, Clinton showed that she holds Israel to a unique standard of behavior. Whereas fellow Western democracies are within their rights when they undertake initiatives like banning Islamic headdresses from the public square, Israel is a criminal state for affording Jewish soldiers freedom of religion. Whereas the Taliban, who enslave women and girls in the most unspeakable fashion are worthy interlocutors, and the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood, which supports universal female genital mutilation is moderate, Israel is an enemy of democracy for seeking to preserve the government's ability to adopt policies that advance the country's interests.

Clinton's assault on Israeli democracy and society came a day after Panetta attacked Israel's handling of its strategic challenges.

Under President Obama, the US government has become hostile to Israel's national rights and strategic imperatives.
[Jewish World Review]
*

Female Soldiers in More Positions in the IDF

Women make up 33% of the IDF. 51% of IDF officers are females serving as both career soldiers and reservists. Women make up 3% of combat soldiers and 15% of technical personnel. Today, almost every single position in the IDF is open for female soldiers including combat, field instruction, intelligence and more. Combat positions include artillery, field intelligence, Home Front Command, and search and rescue.

The Karakal infantry battalion was created to enable female IDF soldiers to serve in a combat position alongside males. The K9 unit, Oketz, also drafts females as elite combat soldiers.
(Israel Defense Forces)
*

UPDATES:

Israel Furious at Hillary Clinton's Concern for Israeli Democracy -Phoebe Greenwood

Israeli government ministers have reacted with fury to comments made by Hillary Clinton expressing her concern for the state of democracy in Israel.

An official within the Israeli Foreign Ministry asked, "Does she deal with the same urgency to the social problems in states other than Israel? There is capital punishment in America; this is not the practice in Israel. America's hard-line Mormons practice polygamy....We could make many more comparisons which would point out just how ridiculous her criticisms are."
(Telegraph-UK)

Israeli Officials "Disappointed" by Clinton's Remarks -Herb Keinon

Israeli officials expressed "disappointment" during recent conversations with U.S. Jewish leaders at Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's comments about threats to Israeli democracy. She was reported to have likened efforts in the haredi sector to have separate seating on buses for males and females to Rosa Parks, the black civil rights icon. "A comparison between the issue of Orthodox Jews and what happened to Rosa Parks is simply beyond the pale," the officials said. They noted that haredi buses with separate seating for men and women travel daily in New York, but that no one is saying that poses a threat to U.S. democracy.

"Is there a law in Israel, like in France, preventing women from wearing a burka?" the officials asked. "Is there a law here, like in Switzerland, banning the construction of minarets on mosques? Is there really a threat to Israeli democracy?"
(Jerusalem Post)
*

Hillary, Israel Is Not Iran -Gilad Erdan

Hillary, our dear friend. A few days ago, you expressed your deep concern about harm to the status of women in Israel, which you said reminds you of the events in Iran.

By the way, in our country, a woman serves as the president of the Supreme Court, a woman is the head of the opposition, a woman serves as a major-general in the army...
If you are concerned about the status of women in Israel, I'm certain you are much more concerned about the status of women in other countries friendly to the U.S., such as Saudi Arabia, where women cannot drive; or in Arab countries such as Egypt or Qatar, where men can marry several women and divorce them without any reason, leaving them without any rights, without custody for their children and without alimony; or in Muslim countries such as Indonesia or Pakistan, where women are executed on charges of adultery. But, somehow, I do not recall that you have expressed your concern about it or have taken any steps to stop it.

We get a little offended when we are the targets of moralistic preachings on this subject. Israel is not Iran or Saudi Arabia.
The writer is Israel's Minister of Environmental Protection.
(Jerusalem Post)
*

VideoBite: Arab-Israeli conflict thru the eyes of Facebook

2011-12-06T06:28:00.000-05:00

Hasbara Fellowships, a pro-Israel campus group, posted this video describing the Arab-Israeli conflict taking place within a social network

Tobin: "Obama hostile to the Jewish state"

2011-12-05T12:05:00.001-05:00

An Administration Ready to Blame Israel -Jonathan Tobin

The ground is fast sinking beneath the feet of President Obama's Jewish defenders. While the president is trying to raise money from Jewish donors by patting himself on the back as Israel's greatest friend in the White House, the Secretary of Defense has now made it clear that he sees the Jewish state as responsible for the isolation it faces.

Equally as egregious is the fact that Howard Gutman, Obama's ambassador to Belgium, told an audience this week he thinks Israel's policy toward the Palestinians is responsible for the creation of a new kind of anti-Semitism that he believes is understandable on some level.

Panetta's speech at the Brooking Institution and Gutman's comments to a conference held by the European Jewish Union were obviously not coordinated, but they combine to give us a clear view of the distorted mindset of administration officials. This is an administration that sees Israel as a source of trouble, not an ally. Combined with the sorry history of three years of Obama's picking fights with Jerusalem, the positions of both Panetta and Gutman give the lie to the notion this is an administration friends of Israel can trust.

That the secretary of defense would choose to blast Israel in this manner just as Obama is starting to crank up his re-election campaign speaks to the cognitive dissonance many Jewish Democrats are experiencing. For Panetta to claim Israel is responsible for its own isolation just as Obama boasted of his friendship for the Jewish state shows either a lack of coordination between the Pentagon and the White House or a desire on the president's part to signal the Arab world he is prepared to put the screws to the Israelis as soon as the election is concluded.

As for Panetta's assertions, while sandwiched between some of the usual boilerplate rhetoric about supporting the alliance, they made it clear that Washington views the hardening of anti-Israel positions on the part of Turkey, Egypt and the Palestinian Authority as Israel's fault. Even more, he made it plain that the administration's belief is this rising tide of anti-Israel hate can only be dealt with by a new round of concessions on Israel's part to the Palestinians.

Israel's peace treaty with Egypt is now endangered by the victory of Islamists. Their former ally Turkey is now aligning itself with Hamas terrorists. The Palestinian Authority is about to conclude a unity pact with Hamas that will end its experiment with good government and expand the reach of the Gaza-based terrorists. These events are not the fault of Israel, but are the result of the embrace of Islamism and extremism by a Muslim world that seems to be sinking into the abyss of extremism.

But the administration looks at this and says it is the fault of the Israelis who have spent the last 18 years trying to make peace, to no avail. Rather than drawing conclusions from the Palestinians' rejection of peace and the bloodthirsty hatred for Jews at the heart of the siege of the Jewish state, Panetta believes the time is ripe for Israel to weaken its defenses and hand over more territory that may become another safe haven for terrorists, as Gaza has proved to be.

The secretary's remarks were a not-so-subtle hint that pressuring Israel is still Obama's priority. That key officials of this administration could hold onto a belief in a peace process even the so-called moderates of the Palestinian Authority have rejected speaks volumes not so much about their naivete as it does the grip of ideology on their thinking.

While the White House sought to distance itself from Gutman's remarks, his views give those of us who have wondered about the source of the animus for Israel in this administration new insights about the advice Obama has been getting.

Taken together, these two speeches paint a portrait of a government that is at its heart hostile to the Jewish state. Only a blind partisan would think such an administration could be trusted to deal fairly with Israel once the constraints of Obama's re-election efforts are removed.
[Jewish World Review]
*

Cartoon that leaves you Speechless

2011-12-05T11:49:00.001-05:00

May G-d protect the Christian communities in Egypt, Lebanon, Syria and beyond

Boycott Backfires!

2011-12-04T14:55:00.001-05:00

Boycott Leads to Increased Sales for Israeli Shoemaker -Sharona Schwartz

An effort by pro-Palestinian activists to convince Canadian shoppers to boycott the Israeli comfort shoe store Naot in Montreal has unleashed a boomerang effect resulting in a surge in sales.

Furthermore, for 20 years the company has employed hundreds of Palestinian workers.
(The Blaze-Ynet News)*

Dem Senator Lashes out at Obama's Iran policy: VideoBite

2011-12-02T12:39:00.001-05:00

While this video is longer than I usually post, this is stunning.
Democrat Senator Robert Menendez (NJ) lashes out at Obama's Iran policy

UPDATES:

Senate Votes Unanimously to Sanction Iran Central Bank -Siobhan Hughes

The U.S. Senate on Thursday voted 100-0 to adopt economic sanctions against Iran's central bank similar to those announced by the UK to block Iran's entire banking sector from the UK financial system. The vote came in spite of warnings from the Obama administration that the sanctions would alienate allies and drive up oil prices.

Lawmakers say the Obama administration needs to show a greater sense of urgency in the wake of reports from the UN nuclear agency that Iran has been developing technologies needed to produce a nuclear weapon. Lawmakers also point to U.S. allegations that Iran was plotting to assassinate the Saudi Arabian ambassador in Washington.
(Dow Jones-Wall Street Journal)
*

Administration Tries to Water Down Iran Sanctions -Josh Rogin

President Obama's administration is working behind the scenes to water down congressional language that would impose crippling sanctions on the Central Bank of Iran (CBI). The administration sent to Congress this week a list of requested changes to the sanctions language found in the Senate's version of the defense authorization bill, which was passed last week. Those sanctions, which would punish any bank that does business with the CBI, were part of an amendment authored by Sens. Mark Kirk (R-IL) and Robert Menendez (D-NJ) that passed over the administration's objections by a vote of 100 to 0.

The administration wants to delay the implementation of sanctions not related to oil purchases from 60 to 180 days, and wants to water down the severity of sanctions measures if and when they are put into effect.
(Foreign Policy)
*

ANOTHER UPDATE:

House-Senate Panel Agrees on New Sanctions on Iran

Leaders of a U.S. House and Senate negotiating panel said they had agreed to compromise legislation imposing new sanctions that target Iran's central bank, despite Obama administration misgivings over the measure. Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin (D-Mich.) said the bill was probably "96 percent" the same as legislation that passed the Senate last week. It would penalize foreign financial institutions that do business with Iran's central bank, the main conduit for its oil revenues.
(Reuters)
*

Obama's Chutzpah

2011-12-02T11:13:00.001-05:00

Last night, at a campaign fund-raising event in New York City with Jewish donors, President Obama had this to say about his record regarding Israel:

"I try not to pat myself too much on the back, but this administration has done more in terms of the security of the state of Israel than any previous administration. Whether it's making sure that our intelligence cooperation is effective, to making sure that we're able to construct something like an Iron Dome ...we have been consistent in insisting that we don't compromise when it comes to Israel’s security."

[But] a Democratic pro-Israel insider [wrote the following in an email]:

"Making the conscious choice to distance us from Israel, and blaming them for the failure to make progress toward peace, while putting no blame on the Palestinians whatsoever, has badly undermined Israel's position in the region, in the international community, and in the peace process, while emboldening their enemies."

"Not to mention that by walking away from written agreements we made with Israel, and denying the sheer existence of others, let alone threatening the entire bilateral relationship in a fit of presidential pique, this White House had badly damaged the trust that underpins the relationship."

"How can Israel count on the security relationship he is so anxious to tout if the president can so casually walk away from American understandings? Sort of undercuts his claims, don't you think?"

[The Weekly Standard]

Cartoon Bites

2011-12-01T12:23:00.001-05:00

A cartoon pointing to the Divine nature of Israel's struggle with the world

Israeli Dance Group Kicked Out of "Multicultural" Festival

2011-12-01T12:16:00.001-05:00

Israeli Dance Troupe Axed in Australia -Livia Albeck-Ripka

A multicultural folk dance festival supported by the government of Victoria has dropped an Israeli dance troupe from its program after the group refused to change its name.

Members of the Machol Israeli Dancing Club were bewildered when all references to Israel in the program were deleted, while no changes were made to Chinese, Hungarian, Armenian, Ukrainian and Irish groups.

When the troupe approached festival coordinator Marta Balan to clarify the anomaly, she said their style of dance was Jewish rather than Israeli, adding that she would not be held responsible for the "consequences" if the troupe insisted on having "Israeli" in their name.

The troupe has submitted complaints to the Victorian Equal Opportunity and Human Rights Commission and the Victorian Multicultural Commission which funded the event.
(Australian Jewish News)
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Not So Grateful

2011-11-30T23:19:00.001-05:00

Israelis Save Drowning Iranians in Thailand -Reuven Weiss

Shimshon Machani, 60, a former seaman and Tel Aviv lifeguard, and his son, Nimrod, 27, opened a surfboat business for local tourists in Koh Samui, Thailand.

Last week, as the father-son team went out on their daily rowing course, "On the way back, the weather changed all at once. The winds got stronger and the waves grew tall," Shimshon explained.

Suddenly, they noticed two swimmers crying out for help. "Their kayak had overturned in the storm and was swept away, they were left alone in the water," said Shimshon. "They didn't have much of a chance."

"When we reached them they were already at the point of exhaustion," Nimrod noted. "We loaded them on to the surf boat and kept rowing towards the shore, a kilometer away," battling against the winds and the waves.

"When they came around and started talking among themselves, I noticed they were speaking in Persian. I was born in Iran and speak the language. I told them in Persian: 'Don't be scared, you're in good hands'," Shimshon recalls.

When they reached the shore and "we told them we're Israelis, they just got up and fled," Nimrod noted.
(Ynet News)*

Iran Heats Up Israeli Border

2011-11-29T07:20:00.001-05:00

Four Hezbollah missles rained on Northern Israel overnight, possibly an answer to leaks related to a potential Israeli attack on Iran's nuclear facilities. Hasn't the UN has done a fine job of making sure Hezbollah doesn't rearm? Don't be surprised when you see headlines that read "Israel Hits Lebanon," ignoring the order of events.

Sabotage Plagues Iran: Go Israel

2011-11-28T06:29:00.000-05:00

Mysterious Explosions Pose Dilemma for Iranian Leaders -Thomas Erdbrink

A massive blast at a missile base operated by Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps nearly two weeks ago was the latest in a series of mysterious incidents involving explosions at natural gas transport facilities, oil refineries and military bases - blasts that have caused dozens of deaths and damage to key infrastructure in the past two years.

Iranian officials said the Nov. 12 blast at the missile base was an "accident," and they ruled out any sabotage by the U.S. and its regional allies. But suspicions have been raised by a fivefold increase in explosions at refineries and gas pipelines since 2010.

At least 17 gas pipeline explosions have been reported since last year. At the same time, nearly a dozen major explosions have damaged refineries since 2010. Four key gas pipelines exploded simultaneously in different locations in Qom Province in April.
(Washington Post)
*

UPDATE:

A Second Iranian Nuclear Facility Has Exploded -Sheera Frankel

An Iranian nuclear facility has been hit by a huge explosion, the second such blast in a month, prompting speculation that Tehran's military and atomic sites are under attack. Satellite imagery seen by The Times confirmed that a blast that rocked the city of Isfahan on Monday struck the uranium enrichment facility there, despite denials by Tehran. The images clearly showed billowing smoke and destruction. Israeli intelligence officials told The Times that there was "no doubt" that the blast struck the nuclear facilities at Isfahan and that it was "no accident."

Maj.-Gen. (res.) Giora Eiland, Israel's former director of national security, told Army Radio that the Isfahan blast was no accident. "There aren't many coincidences, and when there are so many events there is probably some sort of guiding hand, though perhaps it's the hand of God," he said.
(Times-UK-The Australian)
*

VideoBite: Bob Dylan Meets Arab Spring

2011-11-25T13:48:00.001-05:00

A new bold video spoofing the "Arab Spring" to Bob Dylan's classic tune

Palestinians Pretend Bus Access is Civil Rights Issue

2011-11-25T06:20:00.000-05:00

Recent bus protest


What really matters...19 murdered in this bus attack

Bus Security Is for Self-Defense, Not Inequality -Editorial

Six Palestinians arrested on West Bank buses used by Israelis sought to claim they were acting like the Freedom Riders in the American South in the early 1960s. But this ignores just one minor detail:The black victims of segregation and racism in the American South did not plant bombs on the buses they tried to integrate, did not throw bombs at those buses, did not shoot women and children on those buses, and did not steer those buses off the highway into ravines, killing the buses' passengers.

Palestinians suffer from separate bus lines due to the violent, deliberate, massive, sustained attacks by Palestinians on Israeli buses. We wish it were different.Separate Israeli buses in Palestinian areas are a means of self-defense, not inequality.

Let the Palestinians affirm not only non-violent action on buses, but also lay down their rockets fired into Israel from Gaza and their knives from the West Bank used to butcher Israelis sleeping in their beds.

Then we can talk about equal access to buses.
(Intermountain Jewish News)

Not-So-Easy Riders -Liat Collins

Six Palestinian activists tried to revive memories of the American "freedom riders" of the 1960s, followed by a crowd of some 50 journalists.The protesters pointed out that they cannot travel freely from Ramallah to Jerusalem without the correct permits, or an Israeli identity card.

Jews, of course - no matter what papers they are carrying - cannot travel on a Palestinian-owned bus to Nablus, or Shechem as it's been known in Hebrew ever since the Bible put it on the map. That, apparently, is not considered discrimination.
(Jerusalem Post)
*

Egypt's Path to Islamism

2011-11-24T15:40:00.001-05:00

Egypt the Middle East Fulcrum -Yisrael Ne'eman

[T]he Muslim Brotherhood is the best organized most popular force in Egypt and yes, the Middle East today. The slogan "Islam is the Answer" will be increasingly heard throughout the region even if it is not being pushed at the moment. As the Facebook and Twitter liberal generation are ushered out one can expect a good few decades if not two generations of Islamic control in one form or another. The last several days of massive protests still finds liberals and secularists among the demonstrators but their presence and influence will dwindle. There are those like the Nobel Prize winning liberal and presidential candidate Mohammed ElBaradei who are calling for a national unity government to replace the military regime, but this can only be a temporary measure.

The military is accused of trying to force a legal framework whereby they would continue to hold power and reserve the right to intervene politically if they deem it necessary, something akin to the Ataturk legacy in Turkey until very recently. This is certainly an immediate cause but not necessarily the focus of all anger. Barely mentioned and much less discussed is the army insistence on guaranteeing minority (Christian Copts) and individual rights (women and non-conformists). Now pit that against Muslim Brotherhood demands for Sharia law, even should it not be immediate. Let's be honest, if the military was advocating Sharia law while asserting its right to intervene in civilian matters liberals and secularists might take to the streets but there would not be tens of thousands of Islamists demanding "democracy" and an end to military intervention. Paradoxically some of the liberals are staying away, correctly understanding their future liberties are being defended more by the military than anyone else. Others are playing the democracy game, one which would work very well in Europe or America and are joining the demonstrators.

In the face of rising anarchy, a turning inwards towards Islam appears the only answer. The Islamists are calling on the demonstrators to honor the people's will and move towards next week's elections. The idea is that in a step by step process the military will be sidelined and the Brotherhood can consolidate power.

What Western pro-democracy observers are forgetting is that democracy is not the tyranny of the majority but rather rule by the majority and equal rights for all including minority groups, women and specific groups and/or individuals with a different political, economic or social perspective. What we are seeing is popular anger against the military, yet to demand civilianization of the regime does not necessarily mean one supports democracy as an ideal. If holding elections is the way to gain power, so be it, but the results cannot be foretold as leading to democracy. The Muslim Brotherhood will not hold pro-democracy demonstrations, but rather demand elections to attain power. Should they not win power legally one can expect them to undermine the elected regime until they will succeed.

Egypt may very well go the way of the Iranian revolution although by a different route, a more anarchical one.

Egyptian elections are of no great importance and will only be seen as a technical detail in the long run. The Muslim Brotherhood, the most cohesive grass roots organization can be expected to take power in the not too distant future. One can expect a form of Islamized military at their side when a new Egyptian state solidifies. Egypt's better educated more secular classes will be marginalized or forced to conform. And of course the Middle East will be heavily influenced by what happens in Egypt, the fulcrum of the Arab world.
[Mideast: On Target]
*

Islamotopia: The Muslim Brotherhood's Idea of Democracy -Uriya Shavit

•Democracy without the Muslim Brotherhood is impossible, but so is democracy under its leadership. There is no doubt that the Brotherhood enjoys broad support in every Arab country that has undergone democratic revolutions or uprisings in the last year. Elections in which the movement is not allowed to participate will therefore lack popular legitimacy.

•The inevitable result of its electoral victory, however, will be the formation of a theocracy. It will not permit the scientific and technological revolution of which Arab societies are in such dire need. Thus, the Muslim Brotherhood must be permitted to run in elections, but not gain power.

•How can the West deal with the very tangible threat that Arab societies will be taken over by Islamist movements? If it confronts them, it will only confirm the Brotherhood's claim that the West conspires to undermine the religious identity of the Muslim world and seize control of it.

•However convoluted the knot may be, Western decision-makers must not ignore the astonishing truth revealed during the previous year: Forces within Arab society yearn for genuine democracy, and understand that the Western form of government embodies a formula for human success and political stability.

•The West must make plain what it holds to be the essence of democracy, why the political ideas of the Muslim Brotherhood are incompatible with it, and, thus, why it cannot offer economic or diplomatic support to Arab states that follow the path of political Islam.

•The West needs to explain, to all who are willing to listen, that the conflict is not between the secular and the religious, the West and the East, the Christians and the Muslims. It is, quite simply, a clash between freedom and tyranny.
The writer teaches Islamic history and theology at Tel Aviv University.
(Azure-Shalem Center)
*

Obama Throws Softball at Iran

2011-11-23T00:23:00.001-05:00

Bank Markazi, Iran's Central Bank, gets a pass from President Obama

Obama refuses to enact stiff economic punishments against Iran -Paul Richter

The Obama administration slapped Iran with a new round of sanctions for its alleged nuclear and terrorist activities, but stopped short of the tough economic punishments favored by many in Congress.

In an announcement coordinated with Britain and Canada, U.S. officials said they are imposing new punishments aimed at Iran's petrochemical sector and organizations involved in the country's nuclear program or terrorism, such as the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps and its elite Quds Force. The most damaging new step will be to identify Iran as a source of "primary money laundering concern." Officials hope the designation will prompt many international companies to break off business with Iran for fear of damaging their own reputations.

Yet while the administration added another layer to the many existing punishments aimed at isolating Tehran's economy from the world, officials stopped short of imposing full sanctions on the Iranian central bank.

[Jewish World Review]
*

UPDATES:

EU Reaches Deal on New Iran Sanctions

EU governments are expected to discuss proposals by France and Britain for further sanctions, such as targeting the Iranian central bank. France also wants to target the oil industry.
(Reuters)
*

More Half-Measures on Iran -Editorial

On Monday the administration unveiled another series of half-steps against Iran for plotting to assassinate the Saudi ambassador in Washington and for refusing to freeze its nuclear program.

Sanctions were toughened on Iran's oil industry, but there was no move to block its exports. The Iranian banking system was designated "a primary money laundering concern," but the administration declined to directly sanction the central bank.

At the forefront of the Western effort to pressure Tehran is French President Nicolas Sarkozy, who issued a statement calling on "willing countries" to "immediately freeze the assets of Iran's central bank" and suspend purchases of Iranian oil.

Sanctions that stop Iran from exporting oil and importing gasoline could deal a decisive blow to Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei's dictatorship.

By holding back on such measures, the Obama administration merely makes it more likely that drastic action, such as a military attack, eventually will be taken by Israel, or forced on the U.S.
(Washington Post)
*

Only Threat of Military Action Will Stop Iran -Michael Eisenstadt

The recent plot to assassinate the Saudi ambassador in Washington should be a wake-up call. It indicates that 30 years of Iranian terrorist attacks on American interests, without a U.S. military response, has convinced Tehran that it can continue to act with impunity - even on U.S. soil. Unless Washington alters Tehran's risk calculus, the U.S. may be targeted again.

Advocates of containment frequently gloss over the fact that to work, it must be backed up with a credible threat of force; that the costs of a nuclear deterrence failure in a proliferated Middle East may be measured in millions of lives lost; and that the likelihood of a nuclear deterrence failure is not trivial, given the propensity of an embattled and increasingly insular and hard-line regime in Tehran to miscalculate and overreach.

Paradoxically, to succeed diplomatically and to deter, the U.S. needs to be ready to use force in response to further acts of terrorism by Iran, or to an attempt by Iran to build a bomb. For the threat of force to work, however, it has to be credible, and it has to dramatically alter Iran's risk calculus. Right now, neither condition is present.

The writer is a senior fellow and director of the military and security studies program at The Washington Institute for Near East Policy.

(U.S. News)
*

Tobin: President Obama can stop Hamas Deal

2011-11-21T18:29:00.001-05:00

Obama Must Act to Stop Hamas-Fatah Deal -Jonathan Tobin

President Obama may be fed up with Israel, but the Palestinian Authority appears to be about to take one step closer to effectively ending all hope for peace in the foreseeable future.

PA leader Mahmoud Abbas has agreed to a key concession that will solidify the Hamas-Fatah unity pact. The result will guarantee a strong Hamas role in the new Palestinian government that will ensure it will be impossible for the PA to agree to any deal with Israel...

It should also be understood that allowing Hamas to get a foothold in the PA has implications for the region as well as the peace process. Hamas is an Iranian ally. A victory for them undermines moderate Arabs everywhere.

The unity pact also demonstrates the bankruptcy of President Obama's Middle East diplomacy. By focusing almost exclusively on trying to badger Netanyahu into concessions on the 1967 borders and settlements, Obama has only reinforced Palestinian intransigence and set the stage for Hamas to gain ground.

But it is not too late for the president to start using the considerable leverage he still holds over Abbas. Were Obama to tell Abbas that he will lose every penny of the hundreds of millions of dollars he gets from the U.S. annually and that Washington will work to cut off every other avenue of aid, that would get the PA's attention. Only by cracking down hard on the PA now is there any hope for averting a deal that will expand the influence of Iran's Islamist terrorist auxiliaries.
[Jewish World Review]
*

VideoBite: High Contrast

2011-11-20T17:03:00.001-05:00

An excellent video contrasting Israeli & Palestinian positions

Taking Iran's Nuke Card Away

2011-11-20T10:31:00.003-05:00

U.S. Air Force Acquires Giant Bunker-Busting Bombs -W.J. Hennigan

Boeing has delivered the first batch of 30,000-pound bombs, each nearly five tons heavier than anything else in the military's arsenal, to the U.S. Air Force to pulverize underground enemy hide-outs. The weapon's explosive power is 10 times greater than its bunker-buster predecessors.

The military disclosed delivery of the new bombs less than a week after a UN agency warned that Iran was secretly working to develop a nuclear weapon in hidden nuclear complexes buried under mountains.
(Los Angeles Times)
*

Israel: It's Possible to Stop Iran's Nuclear Project -Herb Keinon

Tehran's fingerprints can be seen in every area of conflict in the region, Strategic Affairs Minister Moshe Ya'alon told the Institute for National Security Studies at Tel Aviv University on Thursday. "The significance of an Iran with nuclear weapons capability is that it could create nuclear chaos in the Middle East, and lead to the use of the nuclear umbrella to encourage terrorism and irredentism, and the transfer of a dirty bomb to Manhattan and Europe," he said.

"One way or another Iran has to be prevented from acquiring a military nuclear capability," he said. "The challenge is not only on our doorstep, it is before the whole free world, led by the U.S.""Our assessment is that it is possible to stop the military nuclear project in Iran if all will cooperate and the Iranians will be faced with the following dilemma: nuclear weapons or survival."
(Jerusalem Post)
*

A Credible Military Threat to Iran -Eli Lake (Daily Beast)

As Iran methodically built its nuclear program, Israel has been assembling a multibillion-dollar array of high-tech weapons that would allow it to jam, blind, and deafen Tehran's defenses in the case of a pre-emptive aerial strike.

A U.S. intelligence assessment this summer concluded that any Israeli attack on hardened nuclear sites in Iran would likely include electronic warfare against Iran's electric grid, Internet, cellphone network, and emergency frequencies for firemen and police officers. Israel has developed a weapon capable of mimicking a maintenance cellphone signal that commands a cell network to "sleep," effectively stopping transmissions. In a 2007 attack on a Syrian nuclear site, Israeli planes "spoofed" the country's air-defense radars, at first making it appear that no jets were in the sky and then in an instant making the radar believe the sky was filled with hundreds of planes.

Israel also likely would exploit a vulnerability that U.S. officials detected two years ago in Iran's big-city electric grids, which are connected to the Internet and therefore vulnerable to a Stuxnet-style cyberattack, officials say. The likely delivery method for the electronic elements of this attack would be an unmanned aerial vehicle.

If past practice is any guide, the Israelis would not likely strike at the same moment that their officials are discussing the prospect in the press. In other words, if Israel is openly discussing a military strike, it is unlikely to be imminent.But if Israel goes radio silent - like it did when it attacked a nuclear site in Iraq in 1981 - that may be an early warning sign that a strike is nearing.

In 2007, the Israelis presented what they considered to be rock-solid evidence that Syria was building a covert nuclear facility at al-Kibar. They asked President Bush to bomb the facility, according to the new memoir from Condoleezza Rice."The president decided against a strike and suggested a diplomatic course to the Israeli prime minister," she wrote. "Ehud Olmert thanked us for our input but rejected our advice, and the Israelis then expertly did the job themselves."

One American close to the current prime minister said, "When Netanyahu came into office, the understanding was they will not make the same mistake that Olmert made and ask for something the president might say no to. Better to ask forgiveness than to ask permission."
[Daily Beast]

Covert Shadow War with Iran

2011-11-17T18:59:00.001-05:00

Iran says missile base blast was not caused by Israeli intelligence -Saeed Kamali Dehghan

Iran has insisted that an explosion that killed the architect of its missile programme was not carried out by Israel or the US, despite widespread reports that it was the work of the Israeli secret service, the Mossad.

On Saturday a huge blast at the Alghadir missile base at Bid Ganeh, 30 miles to the west of Tehran, killed 17 of the country's elite revolutionary guards, including Major General Hassan Tehrani Moghaddam, a senior commander described as the pioneer of the regime's missile programme.

A senior Iranian military official denied reports that Israel was linked to the blast.

Firouzabadi said that the explosion has disrupted the production of "a very important product" but the base would resume working soon, without elaborating on the nature of what the base had been making. It is believed that the Alghadir base is a depot for Iran's Shahab-3 missiles, which have a range of 1,200 miles, making them capable of reaching Israel.

After the incident Iran was quick to state publicly that an accident caused the explosion, saying that it happened while ammunitions were being moved. But anonymous sources with close ties to Tel Aviv and Tehran have since spoken to the press alleging that the Mossad was behind it.

Iran regularly points the finger at Israel and the US as the source of internal disputes but this time Tehran leaders are adamant that their enemies are innocent.

In recent years Iran's nuclear programme has experienced a series of dramatic setbacks by the assassination of its scientists and a computer worm believed to have been designed to sabotage the country's enrichment of uranium.

These incidents, seen as part of a covert war against Iran led by Israel, aimed at halting its nuclear activities, have given weight to speculation that Saturday's blast could also be part of a shadow war over Iran's nuclear programme, but this time with the aim of halting the regime's missile progress.

Many analysts believe that Israel and its allies have opted for a covert war instead of a costly military strike, which is believed to be difficult to achieve.

Time magazine reported on Sunday that the Mossad carried out the blast through sabotage, citing western intelligence sources. An Iranian source with close ties to the clerical establishment told the Guardian that Israel was responsible.

If an Israeli link to the blast turns out to be true, the Iranian government would be hugely embarrassed by the extent of the enemy's access to its most sensitive activities.
[The Guardian - UK]
*

Will Obama Support Iranian Dissidents?

2011-11-15T20:35:00.001-05:00

Ahmadinejad does not look worried

Iran Activists Join Anti-Nuclear Push -Farnaz Fassihi

A group of Iranian dissidents for the first time openly called on their government to suspend uranium enrichment, in an open letter published Monday that adds to the momentum of the international effort to convince Tehran to abandon its nuclear weapons program. "The current deadlock over Iran's nuclear ambitions and empty power play will set the stage for war and the people of Iran will have to pay the price," said the letter signed by 175 expatriate dissidents and publicized by a student activist website inside Iran.
(Wall Street Journal)
*

Musicians flock to Israel

2011-11-15T20:31:00.001-05:00

A video highlighting the top musicians planning concerts in Israel

The Sarkozy-Obama Incident: Glick vs. Rubin

2011-11-14T14:26:00.001-05:00

With friends like these -Caroline B. Glick

The slurs against Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu voiced by French President Nicolas Sarkozy and US President Barack Obama after last week's G-20 summit were revealing as well as repugnant.

Thinking no one other than Obama could hear him, Sarkozy attacked Netanyahu saying, "I can't stand to see him anymore, he's a liar."

Obama responded by whining, "You're fed up with him, but me, I have to deal with him every day."

These statements are interesting both for what they say about the two presidents' characters and for what they say about the way that Israel is perceived by the West more generally.

To understand why this is the case it is necessary to first ask, when has Netanyahu ever lied to Sarkozy and Obama?

This week the UN's International Atomic Energy Agency's report about Iran's nuclear weapons program made clear that Israel — Netanyahu included — has been telling the truth about Iran and its nuclear ambitions all along. In contrast, world leaders have been lying and burying their heads in the sand.

Since Iran's nuclear weapons program was first revealed to the public in 2004, Israel has provided in-depth intelligence information proving Iran's malign intentions to the likes of Sarkozy, Obama and the UN. And for seven years, the US government — Obama included — has claimed that it lacked definitive proof of Iran's intentions.

Obama wasted the first two years of his administration attempting to charm the Iranians out of their nuclear weapons program. He stubbornly ignored the piles of evidence presented to him by Israel that Iran was not interested in cutting a deal.

So if Netanyahu never lied about Iran, what might these two major world leaders think he lies about? Could it be they don't like the way he is managing their beloved "peace process" with the Palestinians?

Only when Netanyahu embraced the false claims of Obama and Sarkozy that it is possible to reach a peace deal with the Palestinians based on the establishment of an independent Palestinian state west of the Jordan River, could it be said that he made false statements.

[T]he Palestinians — not Israel — have been lying all along. They pocketed Israel's territorial concessions and refused to make peace. So why do Sarkozy and Obama hate Netanyahu? Why is he "a liar?" Why don't they pour out their venom on Abbas, who really does lie to them on a regular basis?

The answer is because they prefer to blame Israel than acknowledge that their positive assessments of the Palestinians are nothing more than fantasy.

Scarcely a day goes by when some foreign leader, commentator or activist doesn't say that being pro-Israel doesn't mean being pro-Israeli government. [L]ike Sarkozy's and Obama's vile gossip about Netanyahu, those who make a distinction between the Israeli people and the Israeli government ignore two important facts.

First, Israel is a democracy. Its governments reflect the will of the Israeli people and therefore, are inseparable from the people. If you harbor contempt for Israel's elected leaders, then by definition you harbor contempt for the Israeli public. And this makes you anti-Israel.

The second fact these statements ignore is that Israel is the US's and Europe's stalwart ally.

Sarkozy's and Obama's nasty exchange about Netanyahu, reflect[s] a wider anti-Israel climate.

Outside the Jewish world, Sarkozy's and Obama's hateful, false statements about their ally provoked no outrage. Indeed, it took the media three days to even report their conversation. This indicates that Obama and Sarkozy aren't alone in holding Israel to a double standard. Like Obama and Sarkozy, the media blame Israel for failing to make their peace fantasies come true.

And that is the real message of the Obama-Sarkozy exchange last week. Through it we learn that blaming the Jews and the Jewish state for their enemies' behavior is what passes for polite conversation among Western elites today.
[Jewish World Review]
*

Why Did Sarkozy and Obama ‘Dis’ Bibi? -Barry Rubin

During a conversation when they thought nobody was listening French President Nicolas Sarkozy and U.S. President Barack Obama said nasty things about Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. A lot of the analysis about what this tells us I think is rather misleading.

Regarding Sarkozy, French-Israel relations have been good and there have not been major problems with Sarkozy. On one hand, Sarkozy has been far friendlier to Israel than his Gaullist and Socialist predecessors. True, he is surrounded by some hostile advisors, including the career staff at the Foreign Ministry, but on the other hand there is a defense and counterterrorism establishment that admires Israel.

Indeed, Sarkozy helped kill the Palestinian unilateral independence effort in the UN Security Council, a major service to Israel. Yet France voted in favor of the Palesstinian entry into the UNESCO organization.

Why suddenly has Sarkozy turned against Netanyahu? I can’t prove it but I think there is evidence for the following scenario. Sarkozy decided that he was going to broker a major deal at the UN, showing that France was a leading great power in the world. So he went to Netanyahu with a proposal: Israel would accept unilateral independence for Palestine and Sarkozy would get Israel something from the Palestinians (perhaps recognition of a Jewish state?).

Netanyahu played along a bit but, of course, knew that Sarkozy wouldn’t get anything from the Palestinian Authority. Sarkozy’s idea — like that of virtually all the well-intentioned or bad-intentioned, naive or cynical, friendly or hostile to Israel busybodies who think they are going to make peace — just didn’t make real sense.
The deal fell through — it was doomed from the start since the Palestinian Authority wouldn’t compromise — and, of course, he blamed Israel and not the Palestinians. Hence his fury that Netanyahu was a “liar.”

As for Obama, some have explained his remark about frustrations in dealing with Netanyahu every day as just going along with Sarkozy. Others claimed Obama’s remark was justified. This latter point is absurd. The truth is that Netanyahu has done everything Obama has asked while the PA has done nothing at all. If only there was a U.S. president who talked that way. But there’s more, apparently, to be gained by bashing Israel and coddling the PA in words.

Remember, U.S. policy has taken virtually no material action against Israel in terms of bilateral relations. The hostility is all words. Better nasty words and okay actions than the other way around.

If I make the mistake of talking in front of a microphone that I think is “off,” I might get caught complaining that we have to deal with Obama every day.
[PJ Media]
*

Shaping MidEast Policy

2011-11-08T17:58:00.003-05:00

Friendless in the Middle East -Daniel Pipes

The Arab upheavals of 2011 have inspired wildly inconsistent Western responses.

Such ad hockery reflects something deeper than incompetence: the difficulty of devising a constructive policy toward a region where, other than in a few outliers (Cyprus, Israel, and Iran), populations are predominantly hostile to the West. Friends are few, powerless, and with dim prospects of taking control. Democracy therefore translates into hostile relations with unfriendly governments.

[G]iven a free choice, a majority of Middle Easterners vote for Islamists. Dynamic, culturally authentic, and ostensibly democratic, Islamists constitute the only Muslim political movement of consequence.

But Islamism is the third totalitarian ideology (following Fascism and Communism). It preposterously proposes a medieval code to deal with the challenges of modern life. Retrograde and aggressive, it denigrates non-Muslims, oppresses women, and justifies force to spread Muslim rule. Middle Eastern democracy threatens not just the West's security but also its civilization.

That explains why Western leaders (with the brief exception of George W. Bush) shy away from promoting democracy in the Muslim Middle East.

Greedy and cruel tyrants, however, present two problems to the West. By focusing on personal priorities to the detriment of national interests, they lay the groundwork for further problems, from terrorism to separatism to revolution; and by repressing their subjects, they offend the sensibilities of Westerners. How can those who promote freedom, individualism, and the rule of law condone oppression?

Then, last December, a butterfly flapped its wings in the small Tunisian town of Sidi Bouzid (population: 40,000), when a policewoman slapped a fruit vendor. The response toppled three tyrants in eleven months, with two more in serious jeopardy.

Summing up the West's policy dilemma vis-à-vis the Middle East:

Democracy pleases us but brings hostile elements to power.
Tyranny betrays our principles but leaves pliable rulers in power.

As interest conflicts with principle, consistency goes out the window. Little wonder policy is a mess.

Policy guidelines are needed; here follows my suggested triad:

1. Aim to improve the behavior of tyrants whose lack of ideology or ambition makes them pliable. They will take the easiest road, so join together to pressure them to open up.

2. Always oppose Islamists, whether Al-Qaeda types as in Yemen or the suave and "moderate" ones in Tunisia. They represent the enemy. When tempted otherwise, ask yourself whether cooperation with "moderate" Nazis in the 1930s would have been a good idea.

3. Help the liberal, secular, and modern elements, those who in the first place stirred up the upheavals of 2011. Assist them eventually to come to power, so that they can salvage the politically sick Middle East from its predicament and move it in a democratic and free direction.
[National Review Online]
*

Eyewitness: Israel Under Fire

2011-11-08T17:36:00.000-05:00


Islamic Jihad readies a Grad Missile, special delivery

A collection of exploded rockets in Sderot, Israel

Suddenly You See a Rocket Flying Toward You -Hagit Riterman

    600,000 Israelis live in the Beersheba metropolitan area. Last Monday evening I was driving into Beersheba, listening to a song on the radio. Through the window I noticed a young girl running fast and looking scared, not sure where she was going. Suddenly I saw that all the cars ahead of me had stopped in the middle of the street. Their occupants were getting out and running. I understood - the air raid sirens.

I ran with the others to take shelter between two buildings. There were women there hugging the concrete walls. Some were crouched down, and one was shaking. Other sat on the ground.

    Then someone shouted, "Look up!" and I saw them in the sky. Two bright lights, like balls of fire with tails, almost white, flying in an arch in the sky, coming from afar. I thought they were about to land next to us, but the Grad rockets continued to fly and passed over our heads.

    We heard explosions...

    [L]ater [we] learned that the Iron Dome missile defense system succeeded in shooting down the two rockets that were aimed at the center of the city.

    When I saw the two rockets flying in the air, heading towards us, seconds before they passed overhead, I understood so well the fear that people here are now living with. We're not soldiers in wartime, we're the civilian population. And in the middle of an ordinary day, during a routine drive down the street, suddenly you see a rocket flying in your direction.
(Makor Rishon-Hebrew, 4Nov11)

Obama Drops Ball on Iran

2011-11-07T06:05:00.000-05:00

U.S. Backs Away from Sanctions on Iran Central Bank -Paul Richter

Despite weeks of tough warnings, the Obama administration has backed away from its calls to impose new and potentially crippling economic sanctions against Iran in retaliation for an alleged plot to kill Saudi Arabia's ambassador on U.S. soil, according to diplomats and American officials.
(Los Angeles Times)

Iran at Threshold of Nuclear Capability -Joby Warrick

Intelligence provided to UN nuclear officials shows that Iran's government has mastered the critical steps needed to build a nuclear weapon, receiving assistance from foreign scientists to overcome key technical hurdles, according to Western diplomats and nuclear experts briefed on the findings.

The new disclosures fill out the contours of an apparent secret research program that was more ambitious, more organized and more successful than commonly suspected.
(Washington Post)

Behind Anti-Iran Rhetoric, Fears of Nuclear Gains -Joby Warrick

A new spike in anti-Iran rhetoric and military threats by Western powers is being fueled by fears that Iran is edging closer to the nuclear "breakout" point, when it acquires all the skills and parts needed to quickly build an atomic bomb if it chooses to, Western diplomats and nuclear experts said.
(Washington Post)

America's Deadly Dynamics with Iran -David E. Sanger

To admit that Iran may ultimately get a weapon is to admit failure; both George W. Bush and Barack Obama vowed they would never let Iran achieve nuclear arms capability, much less a bomb.

No one expects the UN's revelations about "possible military dimensions" of the nuclear program to prompt more action against Iran. Most governments have had access to this evidence for a while.

For all the talk about how "all options are on the table," Washington says a military strike isn't worth the risk of war; the Israelis say there may be no other choice. The Iranians are digging their plants deeper underground, and enriching uranium at purities that will make it easier to race for a bomb.

When Barack Obama was sworn into office, they had enough fuel on hand to produce a single weapon; today, by the IAEA's own inventory, they have enough for at least four.
(New York Times)

UPDATE:
Obama Should Highlight Iran's Human Rights Abuses -Sarah Morgan & Andrew Apostolou

Washington will only neutralize Iran by exploiting the regime's main vulnerability: its false claim to legitimacy. The ayatollahs' hold on power is inherently unstable because they have no popular mandate. Since staging a rigged election in 2009 to keep Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in power, they have relied on repression and brutality to silence opposition, jailing journalists, torturing detainees, and executing critics.

By highlighting these crimes on the world stage and actively supporting Iran's dissidents, the United States can place a new, more effective kind of pressure on Tehran and support the movement for democratic change from within.
(Foreign Affairs)
*

Target: "Tel Aviv"

2011-11-02T06:11:00.000-04:00

Hizbullah Discusses Operational Plan for War with Israel
-General Dr. Shimon Shapira

According to a source close to Hizbullah, the group's leader, Hasan Nasrallah [pictured], has told his field commanders that in the next military conflict with Israel, Hizbullah will hit Tel Aviv with missiles at the outset of the war, while also dispatching forces to conquer the Galilee.

The operational plan was formulated in tandem with senior Iranian strategic experts and will include a force of 5,000 fighters who have recently trained in Iran, tasked with taking over northern Israeli towns including Nahariya, Shlomi, and Carmiel.

It was said that Hizbullah had equipped itself with "smart" Iranian anti-tank missiles that can disrupt the defensive systems of Israel's Merkava tanks.

Nasrallah's recent escalation of public statements stems from heightened fear in Hizbullah that an Israeli and/or American attack on Iran is drawing nearer. As a strategic arm of Iran, Hizbullah sees itself as Iran's first line of defense against Israel.(Institute for Contemporary Affairs-Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs)
*

With Shalit Deal Complete, Rockets Resume from Gaza

2011-10-31T06:21:00.000-04:00

Gaza Rocket Fire Kills Israeli Man in Ashkelon

Palestinians in Gaza fired at least 27 rockets at Israel.
Moshe Ami, 56, a father of four, was killed in Ashkelon. Two rockets landed outside Beersheba. Schools were closed in towns within 40 km of Gaza, including Beersheba, Ashkelon and Kiryat Malachi.
(Ynet News)

UPDATE:

Rockets Still Flying from the Real Palestinian State -Jonathan S. Tobin

While UNESCO has voted to admit Palestine as a member state, the actual Palestinian state in Gaza gave the world another reminder of what such statehood actually means when it showered southern Israel with a barrage of missiles, murdering one Israeli. Palestinian independence in Gaza has only meant one thing: the right of terrorists to shoot at Jews with impunity.
(Commentary)

Painting a Lie: Sympathizing with Terrorists

2011-10-30T14:59:00.000-04:00

A video decrying the media's equating Sgt. Shalit and Palestinian terrorists

Krauthammer: cosmic justice for Gaddafi

2011-10-30T01:19:00.001-04:00

Libyan ‘crossfire’ -Charles Krauthammer

Libyan crossfire. That’s when a pistol is applied to the head and a bullet crosses from one temple to the other.

That’s apparently what happened to Moammar Gaddafi after he was captured by Libyan rebels — died in a “crossfire,” explains Libya’s new government. This has greatly agitated ACLU types, morally unemployed ever since a Democratic administration declared Guantanamo humane. The indignation has spread to human rights groups and Western governments, deeply concerned about the manner of Gaddafi’s demise.

Let’s begin at the beginning. Early in the revolution, Gaddafi could have had due process. Indeed, he could have had something better: asylum (in Nicaragua, for example) with a free pass for his crimes. If he stepped down, thereby avoiding the subsequent civil war that killed thousands of his countrymen, he could have enjoyed a nice, fat retirement, like that of Idi Amin in Saudi Arabia.

Like Amin, Gaddafi would not have deserved a single day of untroubled repose. Such an outcome would itself have been a gross violation of justice, as he’d have gone unpunished for his uncountable crimes. But it would have spared his country much bloodshed and suffering.

Gaddafi chose to fight to the death. He got what he chose.

That fateful decision to fight — and kill — is the prism through which to judge the cruel treatment Gaddafi received in his last hours. It is his refusal to forgo those final crimes, those final shellings of civilians, those final executions of prisoners that justifies his rotten death.

He could have taken a de facto amnesty for all his previous crimes, from Pan Am 103 to the 1996 massacre of 1,200 inmates at Tripoli’s Abu Salim prison. To reject that option and proceed to create an entirely new catalogue of crimes — for that, there is no forgiveness. For that, you are sentenced to die by “crossfire.”

So he was killed by his captors. Big deal. So was Mussolini. [He] should have suffered far more, far longer. He inflicted unimaginable suffering upon thousands. What did he suffer? Perhaps an hour of torment and a shot through the head. By any standard of cosmic justice, that’s mercy.

Moreover, Gaddafi’s sorry end has one major virtue: deterrence. You are a murderous dictator with a rebellion on your hands. You have a choice. Relinquish power and spare your country further agony, and you can then live out your days like Amin — or like a more contemporary Saudi guest, Tunisia’s Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali. Otherwise, you die like Gaddafi, dragged from a stinking sewer pipe, abused, taunted and shot.

It’s not pretty. But it’s a precedent. One that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, for example, might contemplate. Continue to fight and kill, and expect thereafter no belated offers of asylum...

Call it the Gaddafi Rule: Give it up and go, or one day find death by “Libyan crossfire.” Followed by a Libyan state funeral. That’s when you lie on public view for four days, half-naked in a meat locker.
[Washington Post]
*

Israel Bashing is Racism

2011-10-30T01:00:00.001-04:00

The real racism -Martin Sherman

[T]he real racism that permeates the discourse on the Israel-Palestinian conflict [is]:

• The perverse portrayal of every coercive measure undertaken by the IDF to protect the lives of Jews against those striving to kill them, merely because they are Jews, as racially motivated, disproportionate violence.

• The disingenuous depiction of the inconvenience caused to Palestinians by these measures as a more heinous evil than the Jewish deaths they are designed to prevent.

• The attitude that shedding Jewish blood is more acceptable than the measures required to prevent it, an element that appears to be becoming increasingly internalized into the discourse on the Israel-Palestinian conflict.

Israel needs to once again convey, unapologetically, to the world the rationale for its founding: Jews will no longer die meekly.
[Jerusalem Post]
[Hat Tip: MartyP]
*

Glossary of MidEast Terms: News Spoof

2011-10-30T00:36:00.000-04:00

Guide for the Perplexed -Dr. Yasser Dasmabebi

A glossary of the most pertinent terms and expressions connected to the politics of the Middle East:

Aggression: Killing people who are trying to kill you.

Apartheid: The political/social system of the one and only country in the Middle East that integrates Jews, Beduins, Arabs, whites, blacks, Muslems, Ethiopians, Russians, Christians, Greek Orthodox, Russian Orthodox, Bahai, et al.

Arab Emir: Military dictator.

Arab King: Military dictator.

Arab President: Military dictator.

Arab Prime Minister: Military dictator.

Arab Spring: Replacement of one dictatorship with another, with the help of Western money and media cheerleading.

Bias: An expression of support for the existence of Israel.

Caliphate: The unification of lands ruled in the name of Islam, ruled by a Caliph. (See “Arab King,” “Arab President,” etc. above.)

Compromise: To give something palpable, such as land, in return for a promise not to keep on trying to annihilate you.

Developing Country: A country that is not developing.

Disproportionate Response: Winning.

Father of the Palestinian People: An Egyptian man, raised by his uncle, Hitler’s buddy, and one of the world’s most successful kleptocrats. (See “PLO” below.)

History: Having nothing whatsoever to do with what has actually happened, but rather being what has come to be called “narrative,” i.e., “storytelling.” For one example, allusions to the “Ancient Nation of Palestine"...

Jihad: The inner spiritual struggle for self-purification or the bloody military struggle for world domination depending on to which journalist and in what language one is speaking.

Moderate Palestinian Leader: Former KGB operative, Holocaust denier, and financier of Munich Olympic massacre.

PLO: Organization created in 1964 to end the 1967 occupation.

Refugee: Someone who has refused to take refuge, or who has not been allowed to take refuge.

War Crime: Retaliation and defense. Any action whose intent is victory.
[Front Page Magazine]
*

Unusual Video Montage of Israel

2011-10-28T06:44:00.000-04:00

This Isreal an "impressionistic" video highlighting virtually every aspect of Israeli life

Video: "This IsReal" - A Road Trip Across Israel -Matthew Brown

Israel is a small country, but it has a spark in almost everything that people do or say about it. I decided that I wanted to find the beauty of the people and places, neglecting the tension for once. I wanted to prove that there are so many beautiful people in that country, of all religions, cultures, regions. It was not hard to do, actually.

My favorite part to shoot was the scene where all the people are frozen still in time. It was actually that everyone was standing still in a moment of silence for the Holocaust victims. I found one of the busiest intersections in Tel Aviv and stood in the middle of everyone. I think it was worth it to show the world how beautiful and eerie this amazing moment is.
(Atlantic Monthly)

Smiling Saudi Cleric Offers 100K for Kidnapping Israeli Soldiers

2011-10-26T18:25:00.000-04:00

Saudi Cleric: Kidnap Israeli Soldier - Get $100,000 -Roee Nahmias

Top Saudi cleric Dr. Awad al-Qarni [pictured] is offering a $100,000 reward to anyone who kidnaps Israeli soldiers. "I declare to the world that any Palestinian who will jail an Israeli soldier and exchange him for prisoners will be rewarded with a $100,000 prize," he wrote on his Facebook page.

The post has already received more than 1,000 likes and extensive coverage in Hamas-affiliated newspapers in Gaza.
(Ynet News)
*

Pipes cautions Obama

2011-10-26T07:38:00.001-04:00

Obama's Misplaced Mideast Optimism: foreign-policy "successes" won't endure
-Daniel Pipes, PhD

Confidently commenting on the execution of Libya's long-time dictator, Barack Obama stated that "the death of Mu'ammar al-Qaddafi showed that our role in protecting the Libyan people, and helping them break free from a tyrant, was the right thing to do." About his own decision to pull all U.S. troops from Iraq in two months' time, Obama asserted that "In Iraq, we've succeeded in our strategy to end the war." He then drew triumphalist conclusions from these developments, bragging that they show "The tide of war is receding" and "we've renewed American leadership in the world."

But the Middle East teaches caution; much will probably go wrong in Libya and Iraq. Obama, I predict, will rue his rash boasts.

In Iraq, Obama's claim about ending the war reminds one of George W. Bush's much-ridiculed "Mission Accomplished" speech of May 1, 2003, when he prematurely announced that "In the Battle of Iraq, the United States and our allies have prevailed" just as the real war had just begun. With U.S. forces now pulling out, Tehran can begin in earnest to take over the country and turn it into a satrapy (the ancient Persian word for a subordinate polity).

Despite American warnings, Tehran already interferes in Iraq's politics, sponsors militias, supports terrorism, and has sent its own forces into the country – and is preparing to do more. As Max Boot writes, the withdrawal of American troops means that the "risks of a catastrophic failure in Iraq now rise appreciably..."

If Iranian efforts succeed quickly, they might do significant damage to Obama's electoral prospects a year from now. "Who lost Iraq?" could become a potent Republican battle cry. That [candidate] Obama declared American efforts to stabilize Iraq a "complete failure" sets him up to take the blame for that very failure.

Even if Iraq holds until the U.S. elections in 2012, I predict that in 5-10 years the American effort in Iraq (and, similarly, in Afghanistan), with all those expenditures and lives lost, will have been for naught. When future analysts seek what went wrong, they might well focus on Obama's clueless statements.
[National Review Online]
*

Tech Solution to Dog Poop

2011-10-24T06:53:00.000-04:00

The problem

The solution, "AshPoopie"

A welcome scoop for dog owners -Abigail Klein Leichman

One Israeli who got fined for failing to pick up the droppings decided to contact Prof. Oded Shoseyov of the Hebrew University, a renowned biotech inventor, for a better solution. And Shoseyov rose to the challenge.

His novel idea is AshPoopie, a pooper-scooper with a critical difference: After it gathers the droppings, it turns them into odorless, sterile ash within seconds. All the dog-walker has to do is push a button to release an activation capsule from the cartridge inside the unit.

Recently, AshPoopie earned patents in Europe and the United States. Ramat Gan-based Paulee CleanTec, the company founded to develop this and related products, is working with engineers to finalize the design ahead of a 2012 US launch.

Apparently, American retailers can't wait to start stocking the product. "Where have you been all this time?" was the reaction most often heard by executives of the privately funded company when they introduced AshPoopie in September at SuperZoo 2011, the major US pet products exhibition in Las Vegas.

The easy-to-carry device contains special tablets that drop into the collection chamber via a button. Within 10 seconds, the feces is transformed into a small amount of odorless sterile ash that can be deposited harmlessly anywhere, even on plants.

The cost of AshPoopie hasn't yet been determined, but Hibel expects it to be relatively inexpensive. A monthly supply of capsules will cost $10 to $20, depending on the size of the dog.

Paulee CleanTec is already looking to the future of the invention, planning to apply it to cat litter boxes and human waste treatment systems.

The same technology has potential for transforming the unpleasant world of portable chemical johns and airplane, boat and train toilets into an odor-free and environmentally beneficial system.
[Israel21C]
*

The Abuse of Palestinians...by their Arab brethren

2011-10-24T06:28:00.000-04:00

A new video highlighting Palestinian abuse at the hands of their Arab brethren

Gaddafi Dies Like a Rat

2011-10-23T02:27:00.000-04:00

Qaddafi's Ignominious End -Daniel Pipes, PhD

Mu'ammar al-Qaddafi, Libya's leader since 1969, is defunct, gunned down in his home town of Sirte.

How fitting that he called the rebels against him "rats," yet his final moments were spent in a reeking drainage pipe under a highway, just like a rat, like his fellow Arab despot Saddam Hussein. Indeed, he is the sixth tyrant on the lam in the past decade to be captured or executed; that leaves only Mullah Omar, the former Taliban leader, on the loose, hiding like a common criminal.

Looking ahead, I nervously wish the Libyans well, hoping that the NATO-enabled overthrow of a brutal eccentric does not lead to the empowerment of brutal Islamist ideologues who do even more damage to Libya and beyond.
[National Review Online]
*

Abbas, ever the moderate, greets terrorists as heros

2011-10-19T06:06:00.000-04:00

Abbas Greets Palestinian Prisoners: You Are Freedom Fighters

Palestinian prisoners freed in a prisoner exchange crossed into the West Bank and Gaza, where large crowds and dignitaries greeted them in ecstatic celebration.

In the West Bank, released prisoners were taken to the grave of Yasser Arafat, where Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas told them: "You are freedom fighters and holy warriors for the sake of God and the homeland."
(Ha'aretz)
*

Palestinians Chant: "The People Want a New Shalit"

Hundreds of Palestinians gathered in the West Bank to celebrate the release of prisoners, chanting: "The people want a new Shalit," Israel Channel 2 TV reported.

"I think that straight away there will be two or three more Shalits," said Muhammed Isawiyeh, a relative of a prisoner. "There are still 5,000 Palestinian prisoners in jail."
(Jerusalem Post)
*

Reflections on Shalit-Terror Deal

2011-10-18T17:59:00.001-04:00

Doing Business with Terrorists -Daniel Pipes, PhD [pictured]

That Gilad Schalit has been released after five years of captivity by Hamas brings joy to anyone who watches the Israeli soldier's reunion with his parents and the ecstatic welcome he received by his countrymen. It also reminds one of the Israel Defense Forces' noble purpose in doing all it can to stand by its men.

But joy is tempered by bitter realities...

Leaders who place the concerns of one individual over the interests of the country betray their mandate and poison its future. Israeli politicians have been making these lopsided swaps since 1982, releasing over ten thousand Palestinians serving prison sentences for terrorist or other hostile actions. Each time they do, they forsake principle and common sense for short-term benefits.

Shame on them.
[National Review Online]
*

Gilad Shalit's Release: A Heavy Hearted Celebration -Rabbi Avi Weiss [pictured]

Gilad Shalit has come home. Is this a time for euphoria or upset?

The head tells us that this is a terrible deal.

The lopsided exchange may lead to more terrorism, more Israeli deaths. Nadav Shragi, in a report by the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs analyzed the aftermath of the exchange in 2004 of hundreds of Palestinian prisoners for an Israeli soldier held captive. According to Shragi, "those freed in the deal murdered 35 Israelis" by 2007. And of course, the lopsided exchange may inspire more hostage takings, more kidnappings, more ransoms to be paid.

But, the heart -- the heart feels differently. Today, Gilad Shalit is not just a soldier. Today, Gilad is not only the son of Aviva and Noam, he is everyone's son. He is everyone's brother. The exchange is not only an exchange of over a thousand terrorists for one soldier, it is an exchange of a thousand for Gilad-- the symbol of every soldier.

So which is it? Is the release of Gilad a time of sadness, or joy? Is it a time of upset, or elation? Is it the time to mourn with the mind or celebrate with the heart.

Ecclesiastes writes: "everything has its season...a time to weep and a time to laugh...a time to wail and a time to dance,...a time to rent garments and a time to mend." Ecclesiastes seems to be saying that there are distinct times for each of these emotions.

Yehuda Amichai, the great Israeli poet, understands it differently. He writes: "Ecclesiastes was wrong about that...A person needs to love and hate at the same moment. To laugh and cry with the same eyes..."

Jewish Law marks this phenomenon when it asks that at the height of our greatest joy, at a wedding itself, that we break a glass to remember the shattered Temples, the shattered human temples, that need fixing.
[Huffington Post]

A mother’s pain -Sherri Mandell [pictured]

Why is it that terror victims are seemingly the only ones against the prisoner exchange? While other Israelis are rejoicing, we are in despair.

Arnold and Frimet Roth circulated a petition against the release of Ahlam Tamimi, an accomplice in their daughter Malki’s murder at the Sbarro pizza shop.

Why are so many of us against the exchange? Because we know the suffering that these murderers leave in their wake. Yes, I want Gilad Schalit released. But not at any price. Not at the price we have experienced.

My son Koby Mandell and his friend Yosef Ish Ran were murdered by terrorists 10 years ago when they were 13 and 14 years old. They had been hiking in the wadi near our home when they were set upon by a Palestinian mob and stoned to death. It was a brutal, vicious murder.

Most people don’t understand the continuing devastation of grief: the pain that doesn’t diminish with time.

Cheapening our loved ones’ deaths only enhances the pain. If Israel is willing to free our loved ones’ murderers, then the rest of the world can look on and assume that the terrorists are really freedom fighters or militants. If Palestinians were murdering Jews in cold blood without justification, surely the Israeli government wouldn’t release them.

No sane government would.

When we were sitting shiva for Koby, a general in the army told us: “We will bring the killers to justice.” I believed him. I took his words to heart. Today I am thankful my son’s killers have not been found. So are my children. Of course, I don’t want the terrorists to kill again. But if they were to be released in this prisoner exchange, I don’t think I could bear it.

We have been betrayed. To pardon terrorists mocks our love and our pain.
The writer is the mother of Koby Mandell, who was stoned to death near his home in Tekoa in 2001.
[Jerusalem Post]
*

Will the World Ask Why Palestinians Celebrate Murder? -Jonathan S. Tobin [pictured]

Mass rallies and celebrations are being planned in Ramallah to celebrate the freedom of those who were convicted of mass murders.
What ought to be discussed is the upside-down ethos of Palestinian political culture in which the spilling of Jewish blood grants the killer not only absolution but also heroic status. Rather than ask why Israel is willing to trade so many terrorists for one soldier, the world should be asking why the Palestinians are cheering the release of sociopaths.
(Commentary)
*

Israel's Deals with the Devils -Robert H. Mnookin [pictured]

What explains Israel's decision to release 1,000 Palestinian prisoners in exchange for a single Israeli corporal kidnapped by Hamas in a cross-border raid in 2006 and held hostage in Gaza?

There is a long line of psychological research showing that, in making decisions, human beings will incur far greater costs to save one identifiable being from immediate peril than to enact safety measures that might save many more statistical lives. While no expense will be spared to save an identifiable miner trapped in a coal mine, there is often great political reluctance to spend an equal amount on mine safety. Such a response is entirely human, but it is not rational.
The writer is chair of Harvard University's Program on Negotiation. His most recent book is Bargaining with the Devil: When to Negotiate, When to Fight (2010).
(Wall Street Journal Europe)
*

Gilad Shalit free [updated with dramatic photos & videos]

2011-10-18T07:23:00.000-04:00

Gilad Shalit being greeted by IDF officers immediately following his release

Gilad Shalit calls his family

Gilad emerges looking dapper in IDF uniform

Saluting Netanyahu

One of his first family embraces

Gilad flanked by father Noam Shalit and Netanyahu & Barak

Israeli Arab supporters of Gilad welcome him home

Welcome at the Shalit home

This shot is my favorite

Media Bias Slideshow

2011-10-18T06:35:00.000-04:00

Defending Israel Against Claims of Excessive Force

View more presentations from HonestReporting

An informative slideshow on Media Bias against Israel, by Honest Reporting

Blood Soaked Deal

2011-10-17T14:53:00.002-04:00

A short video highlighting the murderous crowd being freed for IDF soldier Gilad Shalit

Iranian Plot Imitates Art

2011-10-16T22:05:00.003-04:00

Joe Smiga's book was published well before this past week's Iranian terror plot was unveiled by the Obama administration. This gripping novel seems to predict the Iranian plot and serves as a warning of things to come.

Manssor Arbabsiar, the Iranian-American at the center of the plot

U.S. Disrupts Iranian-Backed Plot to Kill Saudi Ambassador -Brian Bennett

Members of an elite Iranian security force planned to detonate a bomb at a busy Washington, D.C., restaurant, killing Adel Al-Jubeir, the Saudi Arabian ambassador to the U.S. and possibly over one hundred bystanders, according to court documents filed in the Southern District of New York on Tuesday. The plot was infiltrated by a Drug Enforcement Agency informant posing as a member of a Mexican drug cartel. The plotters planned to pay a member of the Zetas cartel $1.5 million to carry out the attack.

An Iranian-American, Manssor Arbabsiar, 56, has been arrested in the case and confessed to the charges. An Iran-based member of the secret Quds Force unit of the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, Gholam Shakuri, was also charged but is not in custody.
(Los Angeles Times)

Iran's Terror Plot a Sobering Wake-Up Call -Editorial

The Department of Justice has charged that "factions of the Iranian government" plotted to assassinate Saudi Arabia's ambassador to the U.S. by blowing him up inside a Washington, D.C., restaurant. Had it succeeded, this would have constituted an act of terror by the Islamic Republic of Iran on U.S. soil, and arguably an act of war.
(Wall Street Journal)

Is Exposure of a Direct Iranian Plot to Launch Terror Attacks in Washington DC A Turning Point?
-Barry Rubin

What’s most important here is not the innate sensationalism of this dramatic story, but its political implications. An Iranian official -- perhaps two according to the indictment -- is directly linked with a plan to stage terrorist attacks on American soil in which Americans would certainly have been killed or injured.

This amounts to an act of war.
[Pajamas Media]
*

Bloody Deal: 1000+ Terrorists to be Freed for Gilad Shalit

2011-10-16T21:45:00.000-04:00

Israel to Exchange 1,000 Palestinian Prisoners for One Israeli Soldier
-Ethan Bronner

Israel and Hamas announced an agreement to exchange more than 1,000 Palestinian prisoners for an Israeli soldier held captive in Gaza for five years - Staff Sgt. Gilad Shalit. In Damascus, Khaled Meshal, the political leader of Hamas, called the deal "a national accomplishment" for the Palestinians, who he said hoped to "cleanse the land, and liberate Jerusalem." Thousands poured into the streets in Gaza and the West Bank in celebration.
(New York Times)

Israel Approves Agreement for Release of Gilad Shalit

The Israeli Cabinet approved the agreement for the release of Gilad Shalit by a vote of 26 to 3. Prime Minister Netanyahu told the Cabinet: "I believe that we have reached the best deal we could have at this time, when storms are sweeping the Middle East. I do not know if in the near future we would have been able to reach a better deal or any deal at all." "I am happy that I succeeded in fulfilling the Jewish decree of redeeming captives....The Nation of Israel is a unique people. We are all mutually responsible for each other."
(Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs)

Anatomy of a Deal -Ron Ben-Yishai

The fate of the talks was in the hands of Egypt's military rulers. Israeli officials were gravely concerned that this regime could lose its ability to serve as mediator within a few months and come under the Muslim Brotherhood's influence. This is the "window of opportunity" officials in Jerusalem spoke of. This window could have been closed, given further upheaval in the Arab world.
(Ynet News)

Hamas Boosted, Fatah Weakened by Deal -Yaakov Lappin

Hamas will be significantly boosted by the Shalit deal. Hamas has been able to force Jerusalem to negotiate with it as an equal partner, and has achieved the release of a large number of terrorists - some of whom were sentenced to life terms for personally murdering Israeli civilians.

This is bad news for the Fatah government in Ramallah. Fatah's grip on power in the West Bank is likely more shaky than meets the eye. The Shalit deal will be used by Hamas to claim that it is the most effective representative of the Palestinians. Images of freed Palestinian prisoners will likely convince many Palestinians that Hamas is right.
(Jerusalem Post)

Hamas Steals Abbas Thunder with Prisoner Deal -Tom Perry

Hamas has jumped back into the Middle East spotlight with a prisoner swap deal with Israel that will score points over President Abbas and steal some of the thunder he generated by pushing for Palestinian statehood at the UN. "Hamas proves again that it has cards and they can pull them out at the speed of light," said Zakaria al-Qaq, a Palestinian political commentator. "It's about scoring goals. It isn't a matter of elections, it's about credibility."

Talal Okal, a Gaza-based commentator, said: "This has restored the shine to Hamas." "The Hamas movement is sending a message: that negotiations are not worth it, and its method, resistance, is the one that produces results."
(Reuters)

Strategic Notes on the Gilad Shalit Prisoner Exchange -Barry Rubin

Hamas did a politically clever thing by demanding that half of the named prisoners be non-Hamas people. The goal is to make Hamas more popular among Fatah supporters and on the West Bank.
[Pajamas Media]

A Victory for Israeli Solidarity -Ari Shavit

There are many good reasons to oppose the deal for the release of kidnapped soldier Gilad Shalit. The deal is a surrender by Israel to terror. It will empower extremists, spur Hamas on and weaken the PA. It will increase the risk of Israeli soldiers being kidnapped in the future. The deal will strengthen the feeling that sensitivity to human life is Israel's Achilles' heel. The deal that saves the life of Gilad Shalit could cost the lives of many Israelis whose names and faces we do not yet know.

Yet, there is one decisive reason to support the deal: Israeli solidarity. Israel's main asset in human and security terms is the sense of mutual responsibility that its citizens and soldiers feel toward one another. Rightly or not, Shalit has become a symbol of mutual responsibility and his release will be the realization of Israeli solidarity. Only with time will we know what the proper balance was between what was correct and what was dangerous in the deal to release Shalit.
(Ha'aretz)

Israel Had No Choice But to Save Shalit -Jonathan S. Tobin

The Shalit deal will undoubtedly come back to haunt Israel, letting 1,000 Palestinians, including convicted mass murderers, go free. Objectively viewed, the decision makes no sense because the only winner here is Hamas, whose prestige will soar.

But all that pales in comparison to the overwhelming sentiment among Israelis that Shalit cannot be allowed to rot in captivity if there is a chance he might be ransomed. Israelis will rue the price of that ransom, but also take some perverse satisfaction in the fact they value the life of one Jew as being worth that of 1,000 Arab terrorists and killers.
(Commentary)
*

The Reasons for Hamas' "Flexibility" on Shalit Swap -Herb Keinon

At Tuesday's cabinet meeting, the ministers were presented with three reasons for Hamas' "flexibility."

The weakened position of Syria, where Hamas has its headquarters, means it needed to start worrying about where it can move. Finding another host country, according to assessments in Jerusalem, might be more complicated as long as it continued to hold Shalit.

The cabinet was also told that the changes in Egypt have had a huge impact on Hamas, giving the Egyptians a degree of leverage over the organization that President Hosni Mubarak never had. Egypt pressed Hamas to moderate its position, and Hamas responded.

Finally, the cabinet was told that Israel's recent stiffening of the prison conditions for security prisoners also had an impact.
(Jerusalem Post)
*

A pact signed in Jewish blood -Caroline Glick

It is a statistical certainty that the release of 1,027 terrorists for Schalit will lead to the murder of untold numbers of Israelis. It has happened every single time that these blood ransoms have been paid. It will happen now.

Untold numbers of Israelis who are now sitting in their succas and celebrating Jewish freedom, who are driving in their cars, who are standing on line at the bank, who are sitting in their nursery school classrooms painting pictures of Torah scrolls for Simhat Torah will be killed for being Jewish while in Israel because Netanyahu has made this deal. The unrelenting pain of their families, left to cope with their absence, will be unimaginable.

This is a simple fact and it is beyond dispute.

It is also beyond dispute that untold numbers of IDF soldiers and officers will be abducted and held hostage. Soldiers now training for war or scrubbing the floors of their barracks, or sitting at a pub with their friends on holiday leave will one day find themselves in a dungeon in Gaza or Sinai or Lebanon undergoing unspeakable mental and physical torture for years. Their families will suffer inhuman agony.

The only thing we don't know about these future victims is their names. But we know what will become of them as surely as we know that night follows day.

Netanyahu has proven once again that taking IDF soldiers hostage is a sure bet for our Palestinian neighbors. In his public statement on the Schalit deal, Netanyahu invoked the Jewish tradition of pidyon shevuim, or the redemption of captives. But the Talmudic writ is not unconditional. The rabbinic sages were very clear. The ransom to be paid cannot involve the murder of other Jews.

This deal - like its predecessors - is not in line with Jewish tradition. It stands in opposition to Jewish tradition. Even in our darkest hours of powerlessness in the ghettos and the pales of exile, our leaders did not agree to pay for a life with other life. Judaism has always rejected human sacrifice.
[Jerusalem Post]
*

UPDATE:

Who Are the Palestinian Prisoners Set for Release in Shalit Deal?
-Chaim Levinson, Yaniv Kubovich, & Revital Hovel

The list released by the Israel Prison Service of the Palestinian prisoners set to be released in exchange for abducted soldier Gilad Shalit include more than 280 Palestinians serving life sentences. More than 100 are serving multiple life sentences for high-casualty suicide bombings they were convicted of helping to plan and implement. Included for release is Nasser Yataima, who was sentenced to 29 life sentences for the 2002 bombing of a Netanya hotel on Passover.
(Ha'aretz)
*

Palestinians Rachet Up Anti-US Rhetoric

2011-10-10T14:57:00.003-04:00

Tawfik Tirawi

Fatah Official: U.S. Is #1 Palestinian Enemy -Khaled Abu Toameh

The U.S. is the number one enemy of the Palestinians because it supports Israeli "oppression," Tawfik Tirawi [pictured], a senior member of the Fatah Central Committee, said.

Tirawi, former commander of the PA General Intelligence Force in the West Bank, also said Fatah has not abandoned the armed struggle option against Israel. "Fatah hasn't thrown the rifle aside,"
(Jerusalem Post)
*

Egyptian Christians Under Attack

2011-10-10T06:39:00.000-04:00

Egypt: Destroying Churches, One at a Time -Raymond Ibrahim

What clearer sign that Egypt is turning rabidly Islamist than the fact that hardly a week goes by without a church being destroyed, or without protesting Christians being attacked and slaughtered by the military?

The latest chaos in Egypt—where the military opened fire on unarmed protesters, and ran armored vehicles over them— killing 35 and injuring over 300, with the count still rising --originated in Edfu, a onetime tourist destination renowned for its pharaonic antiquities, but now known as the latest region to see a church destroyed by a Muslim mob.

This destruction, which spurred the unrest in Egypt, is itself eye-opening as to the situation in Egypt. To sum it up, St. George Coptic church, built nearly a century ago, was so dilapidated that the local council and governor of Aswan approved renovating it, and signed off on the design.

It was not long before local Muslims began complaining and making various demands, including that the church be devoid of crosses and bells—even though the permit had approved them—citing that "the Cross irritates Muslims and their children."

Coptic leaders had no choice but to acquiesce...Acquiescence breeds more demands: Muslim leaders next insisted that the very dome of the church be removed—so that the building might not even resemble a church—and that it be referred to as a "hospitality home." Stating that removing the dome would, most likely collapse the church, the bishop refused.

The cries of "Allahu Akbar!" began: Muslims threatened to raze the church and build a mosque in its place; Copts were "forbidden to leave their homes or buy food until they remove the dome of St. George's Church;" many starved for weeks.

Then, after Friday prayers on Sept. 31, some three thousand Muslims rampaged through the church, torched it, and demolished the dome; flames from the wreckage burned nearby Coptic homes, which were further ransacked by rioting Muslims.

According to witnesses, security forces, which were present during the Edfu attack, "stood there watching."

Aware that they are untouchable, at least when it comes to making infidel Christians miserable, anti-Christian Muslims have a simple strategy: destroy churches, even if one at a time, safe in the knowledge that not only will they never be prosecuted, but also that Egypt's military and security apparatus will punish the infidel victims should they dare to protest.
[Hudson New York]
*

No Arab Spring, Says U.S. Intelligence Analyst -Barcin Yinanc

"The Arab spring did not happen. No regime fell except Libya and that's because of NATO," says George Friedman, head of the global intelligence firm STRATFOR Institute.

"In Egypt, one general is replaced by four generals. In Syria, Bashar al–Assad is still in power. There is tremendous excitement but...very little outcome."
(Hurriyet-Turkey)

Christians Fear Islamist Pressure in Egypt -Maggie Michael

On her first day to school, 15-year-old Christian student Ferial Habib was stopped at the doorstep of her new high school with clear instructions: either put on a headscarf or no school this year. The move by administrators to force a Christian student to don a headscarf was unprecedented. In the past weeks, riots have broken out at two churches in southern Egypt, prompted by Muslim crowds angered by church construction.
(AP)

Egypt Wants 78 Prisoners in Exchange for Israeli-American "Spy"" -Roee Nahmias

Egypt wants Israel to free 78 Egyptian prisoners in exchange for Ilan Grapel, an Israeli-American national accused of spying and held by Cairo since June. The demand was presented during U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta's visit to Cairo, according to al-Ahram, a newspaper associated with the Egyptian government.
(Ynet News)
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The Golden Gate was not just a sleazy motel in Brooklyn

2011-10-07T06:40:00.000-04:00

The somewhat sleazy Golden Gate Motor Inn, now out of business

The original Golden Gate was not a lodging

Photos: The Golden Gate of Jerusalem -Lenny Ben-David

The Library of Congress has recently digitalized a collection of over 10,000 photographs taken in Jerusalem between 1881 and the 1940s. They include photos of the Golden Gate (Sha'ar Harachamim, Gate of Mercy) of Jerusalem's Old City wall. If the gate were opened, it would lead directly onto the Temple Mount.

Unlike most of Jerusalem's other gates, the Golden Gate was originally built at least a millennium before Suleiman the Magnificent rebuilt the walls of Jerusalem in 1540. Indeed, some archeologists believe that the original gate, dating back to Herod's construction or even Nehemiah's period (440 BCE), still exists beneath the current gate. Perhaps because of the great religious significance of the gate to Jews and Christians as the Messiah's route into Jerusalem, it is believed Suleiman sealed the gate and permitted the construction of a Muslim cemetery in front of the gate.

The theory of an ancient gate received support in 1969 when archeological student James Fleming was inspecting the current gate. Suddenly the rain-soaked ground beneath him opened and he found himself in a pit of bones looking at the top of another gate eight feet beneath the surface. Fleming photographed his discovery. When he returned the next day, the tomb had been sealed with a cement slab by the Islamic custodians of the cemetery.
(Jerusalem Post)
*

Bravo David Letterman

2011-10-07T06:20:00.000-04:00

David Letterman gets it exactly right -Adam Turner

Kudos to American television comedian David Letterman!

On June 5, 2011, Letterman smiled and drew his finger across his own throat on his CBS program "Late Show with David Letterman" to celebrate the U.S. military's reported killing of Ilyas Kashmiri, an Islamist terrorist who was a senior al-Qaeda leader.

Kashmiri reportedly was one of the leading organizers of the deadly November 2008 Mumbai attacks in India, which killed 164 innocent people and wounded at least 308. He was also recently indicted in U.S. federal court for conspiring with other terrorists to plan a Mumbai-style attack in Denmark, directed at the newspaper Jyllands-Posten, the newspaper that had published the infamous Mohammed cartoons. For good measure, Letterman also insulted Osama bin Laden during the same broadcast.

Letterman's understandable sentiment provoked a serious reaction from a group of radical Islamists. These Islamists — who themselves frequently express their joy at the murder of Americans — took offense at Letterman celebrating the killings of two mass murderers. In a posting on the Islamist web forum Shumukh al-Islam, they called for Letterman's murder, and encouraged the killer to cut off Letterman's offending tongue. The posting also mistakenly labeled Letterman a "Jew," which to millions of Islamists is the ultimate insult.

To his immense credit, David Letterman did not back down.

He and CBS tightened security at the Manhattan theater where they tape the "Late Show," and Letterman increased his own security. Then, rather than buckle under, he made light of the threat in a subsequent appearance on his show. Among other things, he thanked his audience, saying: "You people are more than an audience tonight. You're more like a human shield." He even drew up one of his famous "Top Ten" Lists for the occasion.

David Letterman should be saluted for his courage. He did everything exactly right. Even while taking prudent protective precautions, he refused to apologize for his free speech, or to censor himself. He even went a step further, by returning to the sensitive topic and actually making fun of those who would harm him. Considering how comically challenged Islamists can be, and how bloodthirsty, this took extraordinary courage.

Hopefully, this is the start of a new trend. The past is littered with examples of Westerners — including other comedians — who shied away from expressing their opinions, or apologized in the aftermath, out of fear of Islamist threats.
[The Daily Caller]
*

Battlefield London: England's Sharia Problem

2011-10-04T07:54:00.000-04:00

A poignant video highlighting radical Muslim moves to spread sharia law

Bold Jew Returns to Libya: VideoBite

2011-10-04T06:19:00.000-04:00

An interesing video about a brave gentleman who is attempting to renovate a synagogue in Libya

US Rewards Turkey

2011-10-03T10:01:00.000-04:00

U.S. to Give Super Cobra Helicopters to Turkey

U.S. Ambassador in Ankara Francis Ricciardone said that the U.S will give three Super Cobra helicopters to Turkey to replace the helicopters it lost during its campaign against the PKK.
(Hurriyet-Turkey)

Why Is Obama Rewarding Turkey? -Michael Rubin

During the last few months, Turkey has acted far more as an adversary than as an ally. Maintenance of military relations through NATO does not mean the U.S. should supply Turkey with weaponry it might share with Iran or use against American allies.

Turkey's change is ideological; it is not a country the U.S. can co-opt. No more cutting edge weaponry for Turkey.
(Commentary)
*

Bingo: Another al-Qaeda Leader Falls

2011-10-03T09:47:00.001-04:00

Gotcha! Video highlighting a successful CIA drone strike

Obama Administration Maintains Pro-Israel Stance for Less Than a Week

2011-10-03T00:13:00.000-04:00

Clinton: Gilo Construction Counter-Productive to Peace -Melanie Lidman

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said: "We believe that [the] announcement by the government of Israel approving the construction of housing units in east Jerusalem is counter-productive to our efforts to resume direct negotiations between the parties."
(Jerusalem Post)
*

Administration Refights the Battle of Gilo -Jonathan S. Tobin

Those who believed the Obama administration's attitude toward Israel has changed for the better got a rude wakeup call when Washington condemned the start of a housing project in Jerusalem.

Gilo is no settlement. Built on the southern border of the city, it was established more than 40 years ago and is the home of approximately 40,000 residents of Israel's capital. Up until Barack Obama took office, it was not the subject of much comment by any previous administration. By seeking to force Israel to cease building houses in existing Jewish neighborhoods in Jerusalem, Obama has legitimized Palestinian demands for not only a re-division of the city but also their desire to evict more than 200,000 Jews.

During the second intifada, Gilo was under constant murderous sniper fire from the nearby Arab village of Beit Jala. Despite murderous attacks for many months, the Jews of Gilo stood their ground. Gilo became one of many symbols of the courage of the Israeli people and their determination to hold onto Jerusalem.

Building in Gilo - or any other part of Jerusalem - would have no effect on the creation of a Palestinian state if a peace deal should ever be signed. The only way homes in Gilo could be construed as an obstacle to peace is if the vision of peace being pursued is one in which every Jew is thrown out of Jerusalem.

Despite the hopeful signs about a rapprochement between the administration and Israel during the debate in the UN, the president is still holding on to dangerous misconceptions about Jerusalem.
(Commentary)
*

UPDATES:

Panetta's Pointless Warning to Israel -Jonathan S. Tobin

Defense Secretary Leon Panetta warned Israel that its increasing isolation in the region means it must take "risks for peace." But this is not likely to make much of an impression with the Israeli people for the simple reason that Israel has been taking risks for peace for 18 years. After the 1993 Oslo Accords, the peace offers that both Yasser Arafat and Mahmoud Abbas rejected, and the withdrawal from Gaza that turned that area into a terrorist state, Israel has taken terrible risks for which it has gotten little reward.
(Commentary)
*

Jerusalem Mayor Defends Housing Plan -Tani Goldstein

Last week the Jerusalem Planning Committee approved the construction of 1,100 apartments in the Gilo neighborhood, a move that drew widespread criticism from abroad. Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat stressed the importance of ongoing construction in the city "as the only solution to the housing crisis." "The Gilo construction critics expect that we will discriminate against Jews and only allow Arabs to build....When I talk to U.S. government officials, it appears they are not aware that we approve construction both for Arabs and Jews."

"We build for Arabs in east Jerusalem, including legalization of unregulated housing. In the neighborhood of Arnona, we recently authorized 1,000 apartments for Jews and 1,500 for Arabs. So what do they want? That we freeze construction for everyone? For Arabs too? And leave the natural growth issue unanswered? Or only ban Jewish construction?"
(Ynet News)
*

Coptics Flee Arab Spring

2011-10-03T00:02:00.000-04:00

Coptic Church in Cairo, Egypt

Report: 93,000 Egyptian Christians Left Egypt since March -Emad Khalil

Nearly 93,000 Coptic Christians have left Egypt since March, a report by the Coptic Egyptian Federation of Human Rights has said.

Naguib Gabriel, the head of the NGO, attributed the Coptic emigration to hardline Salafi groups seeking to apply Islamic law, to attacks on Coptic churches, and the government's failure to bring attackers to justice.

He said Copts have emigrated to America, Australia, Canada, the Netherlands, Italy, England, Austria, Germany and France.
(Al-Masry Al-Youm-Egypt)
*

Happy Rosh HaShanah

2011-09-28T12:18:00.001-04:00

A Matisyahu song, molded by Latma into a relevant New Year video message

Campus Verdict on the Cutting Edge of Free Speech

2011-09-26T06:41:00.000-04:00

Though they should be, these students are not bowing their heads in shame.
Four of the ten disruptive Muslim students pray together near courtroom.

Jury Finds Muslim Students Guilty of Disrupting Speech
-Lauren Williams, Nicole Santa Cruz & Mike Anton

A Santa Ana, California jury found 10 Muslim students guilty of disrupting a speech by Israeli Ambassador Michael Oren at UC Irvine last year. The students were placed on three years of informal probation, and ordered to perform 56 hours of community service.

"History requires us to draw a line in the sand against this sort of organized thuggery," said District Attorney Tony Rackauckas, who called the students' disruptions "censorship by a few."

Erwin Chemerinsky, dean of the UC Irvine School of Law not[ed] that speech used to squelch another's First Amendment right is not constitutionally protected.
(Los Angeles Times)
*

Squaring off at the UN Part 2

2011-09-26T06:25:00.000-04:00

No Moral Equivalence Between Abbas and Netanyahu -Jonathan S. Tobin

The media is treating the dueling speeches Friday at the UN General Assembly by Palestinian Authority head Mahmoud Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as morally equivalent. But, to put it bluntly, Abbas lied, and Netanyahu told the truth. Abbas claimed the Palestinians came to the UN armed only with "hopes and dreams." But as Netanyahu later replied, the Palestinians had come with "hopes, dreams - and 10,000 missiles and Grad rockets supplied by Iran."

This UN circus initiated by the Palestinian leader is nothing more than a charade intended to bolster his standing at home and to avoid the necessity of engaging in U.S.-sponsored peace talks with Israel.
(Commentary)

Israel Extends Its Hand in Peace -Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addressed the UN General Assembly on September 23:

•"Israel has extended its hand in peace from the moment it was established 63 years ago....I extend it to the people of Egypt and Jordan, with renewed friendship for neighbors with whom we have made peace. I extend it to the people of Turkey, with respect and good will....I extend it to the people of Syria, Lebanon and Iran, with awe at the courage of those fighting brutal repression. But most especially, I extend my hand to the Palestinian people, with whom we seek a just and lasting peace."

•"The truth is that Israel wants peace with a Palestinian state, but the Palestinians want a state without peace."

•"The world around Israel is definitely becoming more dangerous. Militant Islam has already taken over Lebanon and Gaza. It's determined to tear apart the peace treaties between Israel and Egypt and between Israel and Jordan. It's poisoned many Arab minds against Jews and Israel, against America and the West. It opposes not the policies of Israel but the existence of Israel."

•"We withdrew from Lebanon in 2000 and from every square inch of Gaza in 2005. That didn't calm the militant Islamic storm that threatens us. It only brought the storm closer and made it stronger....When Israel left Lebanon and Gaza, the moderates didn't defeat the radicals, the moderates were devoured by the radicals."

•"Israelis are prepared to have a Palestinian state in the West Bank, but we're not prepared to have another Gaza there. And that's why we need to have real security arrangements, which the Palestinians simply refuse to negotiate with us."
(Prime Minister's Office)
*

UPDATES:

Abbas Strikes Out -Elliott Abrams

The Abbas speech was a nasty piece of work filled with harshly worded denunciations. His reference to the "Holy Land" as the home of Jesus Christ and the place from which Mohammed ascended to heaven excluded all references to Jews and Jewish history.

Abbas' UN ploy may work for him in terms of his own domestic politics - for a while, anyway. Instead of being the man who lost Gaza, he may briefly be the man who "bravely" took the statehood issue to the UN. But he did not take the Palestinians one step closer to peace.
(National Review)
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Squaring off at the UN General Assembly, with Videos

2011-09-25T01:59:00.002-04:00

Reflections on the UN General Assembly Circus

2011-09-23T14:21:00.002-04:00

Israel's path to victory -Caroline B. Glick

By Thursday, it appeared that the most likely outcome of the [Palestinian] statehood bid will not be a quick US veto in the Security Council, but rather something much worse for Israel. Talk had already begun of a long drawn out period of deliberation at the Security Council which could last weeks or months or even longer.

The idea is that during that time, the US and the Europeans will place massive pressure on Israel to make more concessions to the Palestinians in order to restart stillborn negotiations. And the specter of a Security Council endorsement of Palestinian statehood will loom over Israel's head the entire time like the Sword of Damocles.
[Jewish World Review]

Netanyahu Readies for Showdown with Abbas at UN -Tovah Lazaroff

An Israeli official said countries have begun to realize that approving the UN membership bid of a state that is in the midst of a conflict sets a dangerous precedent for negotiated solutions in any conflict worldwide.
(Jerusalem Post)

A Losing Battle -Aaron David Miller

The gaps on the core issues, particularly Jerusalem and refugees, have been unbridgeable for more than a decade now. The current PA lacks a monopoly over the forces of violence, political strategy, resources, even people. And no Israeli government will be willing to make a deal with a partner that doesn't control and silence all of the guns of Palestine.
[Foreign Policy]

Palestinian State Is Wishful Thinking -Jordan Sekulow & Brett Joshpe

[T]he Palestinians lack the stability of a state. Of the PA's $4 billion annual budget, more than $500 million comes directly from the U.S. European countries also provide hundreds of millions of dollars, and nearly half of the remaining budget requires Israeli assistance.
Jordan Sekulow is the executive director of the American Center for Law and Justice. Brett Joshpe is a lawyer with the ACLJ.
(Washington Times)

Without Guarantees of Peace, Palestinian State Is a Bad Idea -Editorial

Israel encompasses about one-tenth of 1 percent of the Middle East – leaving the remaining 99.9 percent to Arabs. And yet, Arabs carry on as if Israel was about to crowd all of them into the Mediterranean.

When Israel was established in 1948, the notion of "Palestinianism" was more than a little fuzzy. As Arab Christian writer Joseph Farah notes, "There is no language known as Palestinian. There is no distinct Palestinian culture. There has never been a land known as Palestine governed by Palestinians. Palestinians are Arabs, indistinguishable from Jordanians, Syrians, Lebanese, Iraqis, etc."

How is it that the world, and the United Nations, has managed to ignore all the rockets that Palestinians have rained down on Israel's civilian society all these years? Not to mention all the suicide bombers. Now the reward is to be statehood? The truth is, there would be a Palestine already today if Palestinians had been more concerned with peaceful coexistence and statehood and their own well-being and less bent on killing Jews and trying to win the PR war.
(Augusta Chronicle)

Showdown in the Middle East -David Warren

The habit of throwing money at international whiners has become the preferred method of keeping peace in the world.

Let us take Palestine for our example. Neither the West Bank nor Gaza now needs an economy. Rather than face down the root problem of violence, the "international community" opted to buy the Palestinians off.

In the course of the last two decades, extraordinary amounts have been delivered to the West Bank, then Gaza, in a slew of bilateral and multilateral programs, mostly from the U.S., Canada, Europe, and Israel. So much that the food markets of Palestine are well-stocked, and there are many examples of conspicuous affluence. This hardly means everyone is thriving, however, for much of this money is corruptly appropriated.

The reduction of tensions in the West Bank can be attributed entirely to Israeli security measures, in combination with the PA's simply desisting from direct sponsorship of violence, as a tactical measure to collect the aid. In other words, money buys love only temporarily. On both sides of the Atlantic, the strategy remains: "How much must we pay to buy you off this time?"

The alternative, tough-love option being: "What if we cut you off?"
(Ottawa Citizen-Canada)
*

Protests follow Ahmadinejad to the UN

2011-09-22T21:54:00.000-04:00

Creative protests target Ahmadinejad and The Warwick Hotel

Angry at Abbas, Obama delivers the first real Pro-Israel Speech of his Presidency

2011-09-22T16:03:00.000-04:00

President Obama at the UN

Obama Tells Israelis What They've Been Waiting to Hear -Herb Keinon

It took some 34 months, but on Wednesday at the UN Israel finally heard the speech it wanted to hear from President Obama.

This was a dose of empathy and understanding Obama had not articulated strongly in the past. Obama did not jettison his desire to see a Palestinian state, he just gave articulate expression to the truth that it will only come about through talks. He acknowledged that there were no shortcuts, and even spoke of the need for the Palestinians to compromise as well.
(Jerusalem Post)

An Impassioned Pro-Israel Obama Speech at the UN -Jeffrey Goldberg

Obama and his administration are pissed-off about UN hypocrisy on Israel, and are also angry at the disrespect shown them by Mahmoud Abbas. In other words, it's Abbas' turn to feel Obama's wrath today. Netanyahu is off the hot seat for the moment.
(Atlantic Monthly)

Abbas Is Having the Time of His Life -Chemi Shalev

Statesmen and diplomats from around the globe are falling over themselves in a last-ditch effort to dissuade Mahmoud Abbas from pursuing his bid for UN recognition of Palestinian statehood and he is enjoying every minute.

Members of the Middle East Quartet are frantically exchanging fresh formulas that might find favor with Abbas. The rather uncharismatic Abbas has suddenly been cast as a Caesar who gazes at the arena below him before turning his thumbs down, as the Arabs and Palestinians ecstatically cheer him on.
(Ha'aretz)

Palestinians Refused Statehood in the Past Because It's Not Their Real Goal
-Jeff Jacoby

Were Palestinian statehood Abbas' real goal, he could have delivered it to his people three years ago. In 2008, then-Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert proposed the creation of a sovereign Palestinian state on territory equal (after land swaps) to 100% of the West Bank and Gaza, with free passage between the two plus a capital in the Arab section of Jerusalem. Yet Abbas turned down the Israeli offer. And he has refused ever since even to engage in negotiations.

For the better part of a century, Arab leaders of Palestine have consistently said no when presented with the chance to build a state of their own - in 1937, 1947, 1967 and 2000.

There is no shortage of stateless peoples yearning for a homeland - Kurds or Tamils or Tibetans - whose longstanding quests for a nation-state the world ignores. They must be baffled by the Palestinians' refusal to take yes for an answer.
(Boston Globe)
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Ahmadinejad in Manhattan, New York

2011-09-21T18:04:00.000-04:00

A brief news video about Iran's Ahmadinejad, who just arrived in New York City for the United Nations Circus

VideoBite: Biting Abbas as he goes to UN

2011-09-20T06:11:00.000-04:00

A powerful video released to coincide with media circus surrounding the Palestinian bid for UN recognition

UN "Circus" begins...who is to blame?

2011-09-19T06:45:00.000-04:00

The UN Disaster is Obama's Fault -Jonathan Tobin

For many liberal pundits, the blame for the circus that will unfold this week at the UN with the start of a debate over Palestinian statehood is to be assigned to Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu whom they wrongly claim has obstructed peace talks. Others are inclined, with more justice, to put the onus for the problem on Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas whose pursuit of UN recognition of statehood without first making peace with Israel is seen as both futile and counter-productive to the end that he claims to seek.

But the lion's share of the blame ought to fall on President Obama. Though peace talks were stalled when he took office in January 2009, the deterioration of a relatively stable standoff into the volatile situation that exists today is due in no small measure to the blunders that the president's team has committed over the past 32 months. Though friends of Israel will rightly give Obama credit for sticking to his word and vetoing the Palestinian resolution, the diplomatic disaster that is about to be played out is the fruit of his own misjudgments.

Obama was convinced the problem had more to do with his predecessor's closeness with Israel than the realities of Palestinian politics. So instead of waiting for the Palestinians to come to their senses, Obama plunged ahead with a new strategy that distanced the United States from Israel in a futile effort to entice its foes to come back to the negotiations that they had abandoned months earlier.

The president's decision to ask Israel to make unilateral concessions to bribe Abbas to talk as well as his inexplicable decision to pick fights with the newly elected Netanyahu over the status of Jerusalem only persuaded the Palestinians that they need only sit back and watch while America battered its Jewish ally. Rather than working on the Palestinians to take yes for an answer and accept a state that would recognize the legitimacy of the Jewish state next door and conclusively end the conflict, Obama's actions encouraged Abbas to believe that he did not have to make concessions. Every demand from Obama on Israel was taken up by the Palestinians and put forward as a non-negotiable condition for the resumption of talks. Yet even when the Israelis gave in on some points and accepted a settlement freeze, the Palestinians still refused to negotiate.

Obama's determination to distance himself from Israel upset the precarious balance that made an accord at least a theoretical possibility. Though the Palestinians claim they are going to the UN because the peace process failed the truth is what they are doing is an effort to evade negotiations. Obama's weakening of Israel had the effect of undermining America's own diplomatic standing leaving the Palestinians thinking they could ignore Washington's interests. Their UN gambit is a crude maneuver aimed at clipping America's influence in the region.

[This] must be understood as a profound defeat for American diplomacy that was only made possible by the hubris of Barack Obama.
[Jewish World Review]
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Tumult Prompts Worries in Washington -Steven Lee Myers

The bold vow by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to seek full membership at the UN amounted to a public rebuff of feverish American diplomacy.

"The region has come unglued," said Robert Malley, a senior analyst in Washington for the International Crisis Group. "And all the tools the United States has marshaled in the past are no longer as effective."
(New York Times)
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Showdown at the United Nations -Lee Smith

The UN "is a perfect venue for making Israel look like David going up against Goliath," says Martin Kramer, the Wexler-Fromer fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy and senior fellow at the Shalem Center in Jerusalem.

While Middle Eastern and European media typically portray Israel as the bully, the optics at the UN, with virtually everyone lined up against the Jewish state, are going to be rather different. "The Europeans," says Kramer, "are going to be left feeling a little dirty for ganging up on Israel."

Some are wondering if the UN bid may at last provoke a Palestinian version of the Arab Spring. Doubtful, says Kramer. "If there was going to be a Palestinian Arab Spring, it would've happened already. But the Arab Spring has shown that the other Arabs are not all free with only the Palestinians waiting to be liberated. Rather, the Palestinians are arguably better off than lots of others around the region. What irks the Palestinian leadership is that it hasn't been in the spotlight for a while."
(Weekly Standard)
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The New Islamist Alliance?

2011-09-19T06:32:00.000-04:00

Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu [right] with Prime Minister Erdogan

Turkey Predicts Alliance With Egypt as Regional Anchors -Anthony Shadid

A newly assertive Turkey offered on Sunday a vision of a starkly realigned Middle East, where the country’s former allies in Syria and Israel fall into deeper isolation, and a burgeoning alliance with Egypt underpins a new order in a region roiled by revolt and revolution.

The portrait was described by Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu of Turkey in an hourlong interview before he was to leave for the United Nations, where a contentious debate was expected this week over a Palestinian bid for recognition as a state. Viewed by many as the architect of a foreign policy that has made Turkey one of the most relevant players in the Muslim world, Mr. Davutoglu pointed to that issue and others to describe a region in the midst of a transformation. Turkey, he said, was “right at the center of everything”...[and] could create a new axis of power at a time when American influence in the Middle East seems to be diminishing.
[New York Times]
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Jordan Protest is a Dud

2011-09-18T01:33:00.002-04:00

Note the empty parking lot behind protest.
The protest exposes a severe rift in Jordan, which sports a populous that is about half Palestinian and half Jordanian "East Bankers"

Low Turnout for Anti-Israel Rally in Jordan -Isabel Kershner

Efforts to organize a million-person march on the Israeli Embassy in Amman, Jordan's capital, concluded with about 200 pro-Palestinian protesters cordoned off by nearly as many Jordanian police and security officers in a vacant lot about a mile away from the diplomatic mission. The turnout was clearly a disappointment to many of the participants, who demanded the closing of the embassy, the expulsion of the ambassador and the annulment of the 1994 Israeli-Jordanian peace treaty.

This is a time of rising tension between Jordanians of Palestinian origin and the original Jordanians known as East Bankers. Across the road from Thursday's rally, patriotic music blared from the house of an East Banker family who had placed loudspeakers on the front porch, often drowning out the chants of the protesters. "They are not real Jordanians," said the head of the family, Jaafar Abu Hashish. "They are not against Israel, they are against Jordan," he said.
(New York Times)
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