By Seth J. Frantzman, DEFENSE NEWS February 18

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, left, shakes hands with his Israeli counterpart Benjamin Netanyahu in Jerusalem on July 5, 2017. Modi arrived in Israel for what he called a “groundbreaking” first-ever visit by an Indian premier, with growing ties between the two countries including billion of dollars in defense deals. (Thomas Coex/AFP via Getty Images)

JERUSALEM — Israel and India are deepening defense industry ties as Israeli companies seek long-term partnerships through India’s efforts to encourage products to be locally produced under joint ventures.

Earlier this month, Israel Aerospace Industries and India’s Bharat Electronics Limited signed a memorandum of understanding to establish a new center for technical and maintenance support for India’s air defense systems. In addition, IAI on Feb. 5 signed a strategic collaboration memorandum with Indian firms Hindustan Aeronautics Limited and Dynamatic Technologies Limited to work on UAVs that will be made in India.
Read more…

T. Belman. Hauser and Hendel are former Likud MKs

Benny Gantz expected to encounter opposition from MKs Hauser and Hendel to move for minority gov’t with outside support from Joint List.

Arutz Sheva Staff, 08/03/20

Hauser and Hendel,  Noam Revkin Fenton/Flash90

According to a report on Kan Reshet Bet, senior officials in Blue and White acknowledge in internal talks that the party will have difficulty obtaining the majority needed to form a minority government that relies on the support of the Joint List.

The difficulty Blue and White Chair Benny Gantz is expected to encounter lies in opposition to the move from MKs Yoaz Hendel and Zvika Hauser of his party.

The two, reports Kan, are expected to face heavy pressure over the next few days to support the process.
Read more…

T. Belman.  I have come to the same conclusion. Yamina will always lose out to Likud. So why not amalgamate with Likud and hold primaries.  That way the people who have decidedly Zionist views will do better in the primaries. Thus they will have more influence in the expanded Likud than Yamina hopes to have in a right wing coalition.

MK Ayelet Shaked says left-wing majority includes MKs who want to erase Israel’s Jewish identity, calls on leftist parties to join right.

By Yoni Kempinski, INN

MK Ayelet Shaked (Yamina) on Saturday evening spoke to Arutz Sheva about the center-left’s attempt to pass a law banning Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu from being tasked with forming a government.

“This legislation is anti-democracy,” she said. “It is unthinkable that the people of Israel went to elections when they knew that the law allowed a prime minister to continue serving even with indictments, and suddenly a new law should be passed. I believe that this won’t happen, no lawyer will think that this can be passed to apply to the current Knesset.”

Shaked also noted that any government which doesn’t include the right-wing parties must include the Joint Arab List. “They have a majority of 62 MKs together with MKs who don’t believe in Israel as a Jewish and democratic state. There are some among them who explicitly support terrorism, such as MK Heba Yazbak. There are some among them who think that Israel needs to erase its Jewish identity. The hatred that three Chiefs of Staff have has made them go insane, if they want to form a government with the Joint Arab List.” Read more…

New study shows sea level rise has been slow and a constant, pre-dating industrialization. By Thomas Lifson AMERICAN THINKER

By Timothy Birdnow, AMERICAN THINKER

Tide and time wait for no man, or so they say. But that isn’t really true if you are a rich progressive, or one of those who finagle a fine living off the stupidity of naive guilt-riddled Westerners.

Take the rising tide. For years the climate alarmists have been claiming that low-lying atolls like those in the Maldives would disappear, swallowed by the sea in a manner reminiscent of Atlantis. Global warming is causing sea level rise, they claim,  and places like the Seychelles or Kiribati or the Maldives were doomed, doomed, doomed!

Reasonable people pointed out that the sea levels have been rising for ten thousand years and there has been no major increase in the rate of sea level rise (which is 0.118 ± 0.016  inches per year), but this entreaty fell on deaf ears.
Read more…

By Robert Curry, AMERICAN THINKER

There is a constant stream of books and articles telling us, often strenuously and at great length, that the American Founders got the ideas they used for the Founding from the British philosopher John Locke.  The Founders would be puzzled by this ongoing effort.  They knew different.

Locke’s Two Treatises of Government appeared in 1690.  The articles by Hamilton, Madison, and Jay that became The Federalist began appearing in American newspapers in 1787.  Quite a lot had happened during that intervening century.  The greatest development of all during that time was the onset of the American Enlightenment, that explosion of human genius that gave America and the world the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and The Federalist.  The Founders carried out a revolution in thinking about the meaning and possibilities of human life unlike anything the world had ever known before — and by 1776, they were only getting started.  Thomas Jefferson later called The Federalist “the best commentary on the principles of government, which ever was written.”  He was right about that.  The distance in thought between Locke’s Two Treatises and The Federalist is simply enormous.

Even the Declaration boldly declares its distance from Locke’s thinking, though we are told unceasingly that it is a Lockean document.  Those who say the Declaration is Lockean tell us that if we have a question about the Declaration, all we need to do is consult Locke’s political philosophy.  Okay, then, here’s a question about the Declaration: why “unalienable”?  It is, after all, a somewhat odd word.  It is familiar to us only because it is there in that sentence we all know:
Read more…

The Most-Watched Election Town Hall In Cable News History

T. Belman.  Will the left plus the Joint list actually come together to pass the proposed legislation to prevent Netanyahu from forming a government?  Will the Court uphold the legislation?

This is why Likud is petitioning for a recount.  They want to buy time.

In the past I strongly recommended that Netanyahu be ousted as I couldn’t see how he could get a block of 61 seats.  I argued that with Bibi gone there would be a number of potential partners for Likud and so there are including Liberman.

Lieberman knows he has to do something to break the deadlock, or he will be blamed for compelling a fourth round of national voting. But what does he actually stand for?

by Rabbi Dov Fischer, ISRAEL HAYOM

It seems increasingly clear, for those who read between the lines of Avigdor Lieberman’s words, that he and his Yisrael Beytenu party will leave the religious wars for another day if only he can oust Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu now. He wants him out more than anything else in the world, and he may yet get his putsch.

Through three consecutive elections now, Lieberman has held the balance of power in his hands.  The Likud-Religious bloc has emerged serially with 60 seats, 55, and now 58.  In each case the center-left alliance Blue-and-White has emerged with allies on the Left with approximately 40 seats. The Arab coalition of four anti-Zionist parties under the rubric of their “Joint List” keeps emerging with more seats: the first time 4, the second time 13, and this time 15. Meanwhile, Lieberman keeps getting 5-8 seats.

Read more…

What would a peace agreement in Syria look like? How can the involved parties come up with a deal that would satisfy them all?

by Jason Shvili, ISRAEL HAYOM

In the last few weeks, the war in Syria has transformed into a full-blown international military conflict with Syria now effectively at war with Turkey, despite a ceasefire that was announced on Thursday.

Syrian and Turkish forces have exchanged fire with each other, leading to casualties on both sides. Meanwhile, the Russians continue to give military support to Syrian President Bashar Assad, using its air force to bomb the last rebel stronghold of Idlib.

At the same time, Turkey’s air force and ground troops support the rebels in trying to withstand Assad’s military offensive in Idlib.

Also of great importance is Iran’s ongoing efforts to entrench itself inside Syrian territory and Israel’s efforts to prevent this entrenchment from happening. In the midst of all this is a reignited refugee crisis as civilians try to escape the carnage in Idlib and Turkey opens the floodgates for these refugees, allowing them to attempt to reach Europe.
Read more…

The Blue and White leader may be set to finally pry the Likud head from the prime minister’s chair — and lose the premiership in the process

By HAVIV RETTIG GUR, TOI

Blue and White party leader MK Benny Gantz at an election rally in Ramat Gan on February 25, 2020. (Miriam Alster/Flash90)

The Yisrael Beytenu party announced on Thursday that it would support a law barring Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu from forming the next government because he is under indictment, in a move that may well have shifted the Knesset math decisively in favor of the legislation.

“At the faction meeting that just ended, it was decided to move forward with the promotion of two laws,” the secular, right-wing party said in a statement. “The first law will limit the tenure of a prime minister to two terms. The second law will prevent an MK facing indictment from forming a government.”

It was a bombshell. A great deal divides the anti-Netanyahu coalition — on nearly every issue, Blue and White is closer to Likud than to the Arab-majority parties of the Joint List. But all are temporarily united by the specific and narrow conviction that Netanyahu’s time in power should come to a close. Read more…

By Jared Peterson, AMERICAN THINKER

As Americans remain riveted to the corona virus and the nauseating vicissitudes of the Democrats’ battle to choose a presidential nominee — a choice now apparently winnowed down to the Marxist or the moron — this writer’s thoughts once again are drawn to events in Europe. The critical situation now unfolding day by day on the Greek-Turkish border may at first seem of minor concern to America, but in fact it’s a critical part of the overall struggle by patriots on both sides of the Atlantic to preserve Western Civilization.

The same forces working here to dissolve American civilization through mass migration and deliberately inculcated cultural self-loathing are busy in Europe pursuing the same goal by identical means. And the same traditional, patriotic segment of the population, guilty of the crime of loving their civilization and wanting to preserve it, resists cultural dissolution in both Europe and America. The commonality of the struggle is striking.

European patriots, however, face worse odds. Their governments are more ruthless in condemning patriotism and love of country (who knew those feelings made one a Nazi?), and Europeans’ history of submission to authority, and consequent ingrained passivity, make them less inclined to risk social condemnation to save themselves.
Read more…

by Bradley Martin, WASH EXAMINER

Iranian Intelligence Minister Mahmoud Alavi once boasted about an unnamed “lobby group” operating in Washington D.C. that is devoted to the “[Islamic] revolution and the supreme leader,” according to the Washington Free Beacon. This organization, widely believed to be the National Iranian American Council, just carried out an unprecedented lobbying blitz targeting U.S. lawmakers.

The National Iranian American Council (NIAC), a nonprofit civic action group which spreads regime propaganda in the United States, continues to manipulate American foreign policy through aggressive lobbying and pressure campaigns.

Mark Hemingway of RealClearInvestigations recently wrote a scathing report on how the Washington D.C-based group has worked in public and behind the scenes to shape the American response to conflict with Iran. The veteran journalist revealed how, during the most serious anti-regime protests in Iran since the Islamic Revolution, NIAC endorsed a letter from 17 members of Congress to Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin calling on the White House to halt Iranian sanctions. Hemingway also cited the “No War with Iran Strategy Call,” a public teleconference convened to drum up opposition to military deterrence against Iran just a day after it launched ballistic missiles at U.S. armed forces stationed in Iraq. Hosted by NIAC and a coalition of left-wing anti-war groups, the call included remarks from Democratic presidential candidates Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren. Read more…

By Victor Rosenthal

Nothing seems to me more obviously true than the statement that a strong, thriving Jewish state is essential to the survival of the Jewish people.

But apparently many self-identifying American Jews either don’t agree, or even if they do, there are other issues that they see as more important than the continued presence of the Jews in history. And some would even welcome our disappearance as a people.

A recent poll showed that most American Jewish voters “prioritized domestic policy issues over Israel when asked which issues are most important to them in selecting a candidate.” In practical terms, that means that they are prepared to vote for candidates who have expressed policy positions hostile to the Jewish state, because the alternative (Trump) is unacceptable to them. This even includes the execrable Bernie Sanders, who not only has taken the most extreme anti-Israel stance of any of the major candidates, but who has surrounded himself with a phalanx of misozionist* and arguably antisemitic surrogates and advisers.
Read more…

Israel’s High Court created the problem that drove tens of thousands of voters into Benjamin Netanyahu’s arms. The result could be a government willing to enact legal reforms that the court bitterly opposes.

By Evelyn Gordon

Though Israel’s final March 2 election results still aren’t in, one thing is clear: Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu did significantly better than he did in September, and his bloc is close to having enough seats to form a new government. That’s a far cry from saying he’ll actually be able to form one. But if he does, the legal system will be hoist with its own petard—namely, repeated court rulings that, in defiance of the actual law, barred lame-duck governments from doing almost anything of importance.

To understand why, it’s first necessary to understand how Netanyahu’s bloc gained three to four seats since September, all of which went to his own Likud party. Granted, many Israelis either don’t believe the indictments against him or don’t consider them serious enough to justify ousting someone they consider an excellent prime minister, but all those people also voted for him in September.
Read more…

The bloc ridiculed as the “immunity bloc” is turning out to be the most moral thing in politics in years. The left-wing bloc, in contrast, is looking like a collective coming apart at the seams.

by Dr. Eithan Orkibi, ISRAEL HAYOM

There are some things that are so clear from a moral and practical perspective, that there’s really no need to write about them. And there are other things that are so clear from a moral and practical perspective that a whole industry of pundits and tweeters go on and on about them, and for a simple reason: they apparently are moral and practical indeed. I’m speaking of course of the panic over “defectors” that is frightening the Center-Left and rallying its best rhetorical canons for a psychological offensive against those pondering the possibility of crossing the lines and to give Likud the seats necessary to form a government.

Apparently, justifiably so. Ideological defection can be seen as a betrayal. But in this specific context of never-ending elections, the attempt to threaten the defectors with shaming is an insult to politics and morality.

Read more…

By Andrea Widburg, AMERICAN THINKER

The specter of Americans voting for an open socialist is frightening. We’re way past 1972, when Americans rejected a hard-left candidate. Since then, leftists acquired a stranglehold on education, creating a generation of young people who think socialism is cool. Bernie could have won.

Bernie’s probable departure shouldn’t cause us to ignore that Joe Biden is a terrible candidate. He’s usually wrong, famously dishonest, almost as hard-left now in his policies as Bernie himself, corrupt, and showing signs of severe mental degradation.

(Regarding the incipient senility, Dorothy Parker’s cruel question when the famously taciturn Calvin Coolidge died comes to mind: “How can they tell?” The same can be said of Joe’s mental decay.)

Read more…

Yamina gained seven seats in last September’s election, but just six in Monday’s ballot.

By Jeremy Sharon, JPOST MARCH 4, 2020

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Naftali Bennett tour Mount Avital in the Golan Heights (photo credit: HAIM ZACH/GPO)

The election this week which once again failed to produce a clear outcome, proved to be yet another blow to the consolidated political power of the religious-Zionist community as represented by its sectoral party.

Having slipped from eight seats in 2015 to six in the April 2019 election after Naftali Bennett’s New Right party failed to cross the electoral threshold, the united Yamina party gained seven seats in the September election, but just six in Monday’s ballot.

What has happened to the current incarnation of the religious-Zionist political party which in the past enjoyed much greater power than it does today, despite the fact that the population of the sector continues to grow in relation to the rest of the general public.
Read more…

The survey, released Friday by the Jewish Electorate Institute, found that two-thirds of Jewish voters said they would choose any Democratic candidate over President Donald Trump.

By LAURA E. ADKINS/JTA

Democratic presidential candidates (L-R) former New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg, former South Bend, Indiana Mayor Pete Buttigieg, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), former Vice President Joe Biden, Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), and Tom Steyer arrive on stage for the Democratic (photo credit: SCOTT OLSON/GETTY IMAGES/JTA)

No matter who is running on the Democratic presidential ticket in 2020, he or she is likely to get the Jewish vote by a wide margin, according to a new survey.

The survey, released Friday by the Jewish Electorate Institute, found that two-thirds of Jewish voters said they would choose any Democratic candidate over President Donald Trump. Read more…

Likud and Labor mayors met to discuss possible cooperation.

By Hezki Baruch, INN

Amir Peretz, Photo by Tomer Neuberg/Flash90

Likud and Labor municipality leaders called on Prime Minister Netanyahu to form a right-wing government alongside Amir Peretz’s Labor party.

Leaders of the Likud and Labor factions convened at the Center for Local Government. Maaleh Adumim mayor Benny Kashriel and Yokneam mayor Shimon Alfasi, called on Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu to form a coalition of the right-wing bloc with the Labor Party.

“The order of the hour is the establishment of a broad government in collaboration with the Labor Party, based on common grounds and a social economic outline that will address various issues and social agendas of the Labor and Likud parties for strengthening of the State of Israel,” the two stated in a letter addressed to the prime minister.

Read more…