By ADAM RASGON, TOI

Muslim worshipers perform prayers at the Temple Mount in Jerusalem’s Old City during the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Adha, September 12, 2016. (Sliman Khader/Flash90/File)

The Ramallah-based Palestinian leadership has lambasted the US State Department’s annual human rights report for referring to Palestinians living in East Jerusalem as “Arab residents,” saying it was “falsifying history.”

In its human rights report issued on Wednesday, the State Department referred to Palestinians residing in the parts of Jerusalem on the West Bank side of the security barrier as “Palestinians.” When alluding to all Palestinians in the city, it called them “Arab residents.”

“Any attempt at falsifying history or truth will not give legitimacy to anyone and will not change the history of the Palestinian people in Jerusalem,” Nabil Abu Rudeineh, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas’s spokesman, said on Wednesday in a statement carried by the official PA news site Wafa.

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State Department signals its frustration with European Union due to unwillingness to extend sanctions on Iran for sponsoring terrorism and developing ballistic missiles.

JERUSALEM POST STAFF MARCH 12, 2020 04:50

International Conference on Human Resource Development for Nuclear Programmes: Building and Sustaining Capacity. Strategy for Education and Training, Networking and Knowledge Management. IAEA Vienna, Austria, 16 May 2014.  (photo credit: DEAN CALMA / IAEA)

The US State Department has expressed its outrage at the European Union for refusing to set greater international coordination on maintaining the sanctions regime aimed towards pressuring Iran over its continued sponsorship of terrorism and developing ballistic missile program, according to a report released by the Washington Free Beacon.

As an apparent indication of the growing divide between the Trump Administration and their European allies on the issue of Iran, the report notes that Europe’s alleged unwillingness to take a unified approach has led to the anger of hardliners in the US. European leaders have continued to stress that new sanctions may prompt the withdrawal of Iran from the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action.
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By Jackie Salo, NY POST

A healthcare worker in a protective coverall, gloves and glasses during a COVID-19 response exercise in southeastern Ukraine.Barcroft Media via Getty Images

Coronavirus was declared a pandemic Wednesday by the World Health Organization as cases spread to at least 114 countries.

“WHO has been assessing this outbreak around the clock and we are deeply concerned both by the alarming levels of spread and severity, and by the alarming levels of inaction,” WHO Director Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told reporters, adding that it “therefore made the assessment that CVOID-19 can be characterized as a pandemic.”

The virus, which first emerged in Wuhan, China, has now reached on Wednesday more than 118,000 people, causing at least 4,291 deaths.

“In the days and weeks ahead, we expect to see the number of COVID-19 cases, the number of deaths, and the number of affected countries climb even higher,” Tedros said. Read more…

Don’t let the boundless appetite of the Joint Arab List to fix what it sees as a historic wrong fool you into allowing Israel to give up one of the few remaining rights Jews have on the Temple Mount.

By Nadav Shragai, ISRAEL HAYOM 03-11-2020

Here it is, earlier than expected. As the country celebrates Purim, the masks have come off: the Joint Arab List is demanding that when Blue and White forms a government, it put an end to Jews visiting the Temple Mount. Or as the Arab Israeli and Palestinian discourse has referred to these visits for years now: “Visit by settler extremists.”

That is how they refer to Jews who wear kippahs, who comprise the vast majority of the Jews who visit the Temple Mount in recent years.

The Joint Arab List’s appetite and audacity, it seems, knows no bounds. The list is counting its chickens before they’re hatched and is seeking to prevent one of the last remaining things the status quo allows Jews to do on the Temple Mount – visit it. This is only the beginning, but what a symbolic beginning it is. Read more…

Following the revival of the controversial E-1 plan, which would cut parts of the northern West Bank off from the south, Defense Minister Bennett hails ‘sovereignty road’ construction

By Hagar Shezaf, HAARETZ

The E-1 area near Jerusalem, February, 2020. Ohad Ziegenberg

Defense Minister Naftali Bennett announced Monday the approval of a plan to build a “separate road for Palestinians” to connect the northern and southern parts of the West Bank.

The construction of the road is meant to serve as a solution to a controversial settlement plan, known as E-1, that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu revived two weeks ago. The plan to construct 3,500 homes, has been put on hold for years largely due to international criticism as the homes would cut off the northern part of the West Bank from the southern part, making it more difficult to create a viable Palestinian state.

The new road will not pass through any Jewish settlements in the West Bank.
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Netanyahu worsens unity offer to Gantz.

By GIL HOFFMAN, JPOST    MARCH 10, 2020 22:36

Yisrael Beytenu chairman Avigdor Liberman [C] with Blue and White top ranking officials [from Left to Right] Moshe Ya’alon, party leader Benny Gantz, Yair Lapid, Gabi Ashkenazi – (photo credit: ELAD MALKA)

Blue and White leader Benny Gantz’s chances of building a coalition took a blow on Tuesday, when Gesher leader Orly Levy-Abecassis left the Labor-Gesher-Meretz alliance and announced she would not back a minority government dependent on the Joint List of Arab parties.

Levy-Abecassis said publicly during the campaign that she had no problem supporting a minority government backed by the Joint List, but revealed on Facebook Tuesday that she had said the opposite privately ahead of the race.

She also endorsed Gantz and criticized Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu throughout the campaign. But she issued fierce criticism of Gantz on Tuesday.
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by Tabitha Korol

(INTRODUCTION)  In order to continue the Islamic war against Israel and the Jews, no libel, no matter how mythical, may be abandoned.  No matter the passage of 14 centuries, his followers are mindlessly bound to suffer Mohammed’s dream of world conquest.

Fernando Alcoforado’s dissertation, “Radicalism Palestinian not justify genocide in Gaza,” was published on Academia.com despite its numerous inaccuracies.  I am not surprised.  Whether devoid of ethics or in support of a political agenda, their published material can be fallacious and unreliable.

The writer’s title alone revisits the Palestinians’ false accusations of genocide by Israelis.  Substantial documentation produced by Doctors Without Borders has shown that massacres, as in Jenin, were staged with corpses exhumed from nearby cemeteries.   We know that UNRWA’s schools teach hate and violence against Jews and Israel, Palestinian women and children are used as human shields at rocket-launching sites, and children are used to ignite and float explosive balloons and for constructing terror tunnels  – dangerous and deadly activities.  This is not genocide, but child abuse and human sacrifice, where leadership and families weaponize their children for an interminable war.  And when the children are martyred, their parents are paid handsomely by Hamas/PA. Read more…

By Denis OJALVO  Oct /20

Avigdor Liberman, Benjamin Netanyahu, Benny Gantz (Reuters/Getty)

Speaking of “Mamlachtiyut” / Patriotism Israeli style
The Israeli political discourse is rigged with petty pseudo patriotic talk and infested with a semblance of politically correct lawfare.
Thus, the system is blocked and unable to lay a coalition government.

What could be done?

When coalition agreements are made, these are respected owing to “coalition discipline”.
Those agreements allow small but ideologically committed parties to take hostage bigger mainstream parties.
Therefore, first, that hurdle should be removed before coalition talks are made.
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Gantz, Ya’alon are breaking their pre-election promise not to build coalition with anti-Zionist Arab parties.

By Yochanan Visser, INN  09/03/20 19:28

On Monday, Blue and White, the party that lost the latest Israeli election to Likud, entered into coalition negotiations with Yisrael Beyteinu, a staunchly anti-Arab party, and the Joint List of Arab parties, a coalition of anti-Israeli parties.

By entering these negotiations Blue and White effectively broke one of its most important election promises, namely that it would not build a coalition with the Arab parties but instead would form a “Jewish majority coalition” as Benny Gantz the leader of the party promised before the elections.

Hatred for Likud leader and current Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu was apparently so overwhelming that Blue and White also is willing to endanger the State of Israel, as we will see.
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MK and former Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked describes various scenarios for unity government: ‘Politicians need to come to their senses.’

Arutz Sheva staff,

Erel Segal and Judy Shalom Nir Mozes interviewed MK and former Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked (Yamina) on Tuesday on 103 FM, asking for her take on the current political impasse.

Shaked asserted her belief that there are many realistic scenarios in which a government can be formed, but she specifically ruled out the option of a minority government supported by the Joint Arab List from the outside.

“In my opinion, the feasibility of establishing such a government is close to zero,” she said, adding her belief that “the very fact that they are seeking to form such a government is a sign of their moral bankruptcy. Most of the MKs of the Joint Arab List don’t believe that Israel should be a Jewish and democratic state.” Read more…

By Martin Sherman

This week, Israeli politics plumbed appalling new lows with reports that, Blue& White, which, as the major rival to PM Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud, emerged as the second largest party in last week’s Knesset elections, was actively planning to violate its solemn pledges to the voters, made only days previously.

In a breathtaking display of unprincipled cynicism, Blue &Whites leadership, which comprises three former commanders of the IDF, appears poised to renege on its explicit campaign pledges. Thus, despite repeated—and seemingly resolute—vows that they would not seek to establish a coalition dependent on the anti-Zionist Joint List, a motley amalgam of Communists, Islamists and radical Arab nationalists, Blue & White is doing precisely that! Read more…

–Says He Would Now Reconsider His 2012 Vote For Him

By LifeZette, POLITICAL INSIDER | March 9, 2020 4:11 PM

Top Democratic lawyer and legal expert Alan Dershowitz just spoke out to slam Barack Obama, saying that he was “conned” by the former president.

In a new interview with Ben Shapiro that aired yesterday, Dershowitz accused Obama of betraying Israel and lying to him personally. He explained that Obama had promised him in a private meeting that he would defend Israel vigorously, but he proceeded to do the exact opposite.

“I think President Obama, for whom I voted twice, and would now reconsider my second vote for him, he conned me,” Dershowitz said, according to The Blaze. “He called me into the Oval Office and he said ‘I have Israel’s back’ and I didn’t realize what he meant is to put a target on it and stab them.”

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Gantz, Liberman vow to ‘get Israel out of the mud’

By GIL HOFFMAN, JEREMY SHARON, JPOST  MARCH 10, 2020 01:58

MK Ayman Odeh, the leader of Hadash-Ta’al Party, and Benny gantz, head of the Blue and White Party.

Blue and White leader Benny Gantz’s chances of forming a government took a hit on Monday, when Blue and White MKs Tzvi Hauser and Yoaz Hendel ruled out backing a minority government backed from outside the coalition by the Joint List of Arab parties.

MKs Gabi Ashkenazi and Chili Tropper also oppose a minority government but have not joined Hauser and Hendel’s rebellion. Without Hendel and Hauser, Gantz’s majority over Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s right-wing bloc would fall to 60-58 and make Gantz reliant on the three MKs of Balad, the most extreme Arab party in the Knesset, whose past MKs have been convicted of aiding terrorist groups.

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By Noah Manskar and Thornton McEnery, NY POST

March 9, 2020 | 8:24am |

US stocks continued to plunge Monday after a brief trading halt, with the Dow off more than 2,000 points as an oil-price war roiled global markets already panicked by the coronavirus epidemic.

The S&P 500 index sank 7 percent after the opening bell, triggering the first of three New York Stock Exchange “circuit breakers” that halted trading for 15 minutes at 9:35 a.m. The index pared the losses after trading reopened to 5.9 percent as of 9:58 a.m., but was on track for its worst single-day drop since the financial crisis.

The nascent oil conflict between the Saudis and Russia gave investors a second crisis to grapple with on top of the coronavirus fears that dominated last week’s volatile trading.
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Gantz insists that only he calls shot in party, after report that right-wingers opposed to Joint List partnership facing being booted, says he and Liberman agreed to work together

By Jacob Magid, TOI today, 5:23 pm

Head of the Blue and White party Benny Gantz (R) and Yisrael Beytenu leader Avigdor Liberman speak to the press after their meeting in Ramat Gan on March 9, 2020. (Tomer Neuberg/Flash90)

Blue and White chairman Benny Gantz and Yisrael Beytenu head Avigdor Liberman said Monday they would work together to form a government, as they wrapped up a meeting amid rampant speculation that their two parties were working to form a minority government reliant on outside support from the majority-Arab Joint List.

At the same time, two Blue and White MKs opposed to the formation of a government backed by the Joint List were told to toe the line or face expulsion from the party.

“We’ve just concluded a good meeting, where we discussed questions of fundamental principle and determined that we will work together to assemble a government that will pull Israel out of the political deadlock and avert a fourth round of elections,” Gantz told reporters at the Kfar Maccabiah hotel in Ramat Gan on Monday afternoon, with Liberman standing alongside him. “We’ll continue to discuss the details, formulate our common objectives, and move forward.”

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T. Belman. Liberman just opened the door to join the right bloc.  Its up to Shas and UTJ to accept. He also didn’t commit to Blue and White to join a minority government that depended on the support of the joint list. So he is up for grabs.  He also has come out about being against a fourth election.  He obviously didn’t repeat that he won’t sit with Bibi as PM.  Bibi may have other alternatives but Liberman isn’t asking a lot. Its in Bibi’s interest to get the religious parties to accept this limitation on their power. It would also strengthen the Right Bloc for future electioNs with Liberman on board.

“Yisrael Beytenu’s threshold conditions for joining the next coalition” include civil marriages and conversions by municipal rabbis.

Arutz Sheva Staff, 08/03/20 

Yisrael Beytenu Chair MK Avigdor Liberman wrote a new message on his Facebook account this morning titled: “Yisrael Beytenu’s threshold conditions for joining the next coalition.”

In his post, Liberman laid out five issues the implementation of which he said was the condition for his party to join the next coalition.

Liberman’s first condition is “A minimum income of 70% of the minimum wage in the economy for all pensioners living from income support and old age pension.”
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T. Belman. That’s not what was promised to Israel. Israel just had to complete the mapping with the US and then Trump would approve. It appears the deal has changed. Before it was an inducement for Israel to freeze development for 4 years. Now it no longer serves that purpose.  Instead its a penalty to be imposed on the PA for not coming to the negotiating table.

Now Trump gave no one a chance to prevent US recognition of the Golan as part of Israel or Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.  In this case, there is no obligation for Trump to give them another chance.  They certainly haven’t earned such a chance. So why is it important that  Trump give them another chance.  Who cares what people will say. This is not a borderline case. We have had 25 years of their intransigence and murder.

“Nobody can say we didn’t give the Palestinians a chance to go back to the table. If they want to talk, we are ready.”

By Aaron Reich, JPOST

Despite a refusal by the Palestinians to be involved in any negotiations and a lack of government in Israel, US President Donald Trump’s administration will push forward with the “Deal of the Century” peace plan, including giving White House approval to Israeli annexation, senior presidential adviser Jared Kushner told US senators in a closed-room meeting last Wednesday, Channel 13’s diplomatic correspondent reported through Axios.

The news comes just following Israel’s third election within a year, which has seen the country still divided as no clear winner has emerged from the political deadlock.

Despite this, it seems the Trump administration feels both Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his chief political rival, Blue and White leader Benny Gantz, will both support the annexation.
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T. Belman. Both Israel and the US did not ratify the Rome Statute in order not to be signator to it. Nevertheless both are now the target of investigations while the real perpatrators are left alone.

By BENNY AVNI, NY SUN | March 6, 2020

An international prosecutor, Fatou Bensuda, was advised Thursday by a panel at Hague that she should go ahead and investigate alleged war crimes committed by Americans in Afghanistan. It’s a shocking development.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo called the International Criminal Court panel’s ruling “a truly breathtaking action by an unaccountable political institution masquerading as a legal body.” It is, but what to do?

In a little noticed address to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee last week, Senator Ted Cruz urged an American push at the United Nations Security Council to ban ICC investigations against Israelis, Americans, or citizens of any other non-member of the Hague-based court.
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