Do not cry or tranquilizers, plan how to act so as to beat them at their own game.

By Rabbi Prof. Dov Fischer, INN

Dear Ms. Ranon,

I just read your account in Arutz Sheva/ Israel National News of the recent Columbia College Student Council vote to endorse BDS. As a regular op-ed contributor to Arutz Sheva and as a Columbia alumnus, I write you in this same public forum.

I graduated from Columbia in the mid-1970s. I was openly an Orthodox Jew, wore a yarmulka on my head, and I expressed conservative political views on that uniformly leftist campus. I marched for Soviet Jews and for Israel. My professors included some who hated Israel. I was assigned a dorm roommate one year who turned out to be an antisemite. I knew all the Jewish leftists and other leftists on campus who hated Israel because, like ants on a summer sidewalk where no one has cleaned off melted ice cream, they were teeming all over the place.

Ms. Ranon, I never cried. I never teared up. Rather, for the sake of Zion, I simply would not hold my peace nor be silent. Student-organized hate for Israel never caused me to have a panic attack. You mention all those kinds of reactions by Israel supporters on the night of the vote. Not in my day.
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A THIRD ELECTION WILL CHANGE NOTING

Yisrael Beytenu chief says only a broad, unity coalition can cope with security and economic challenges at hand, after PM appeals to him in last-ditch effort to avoid 3rd election

These possibly-halakhically Jewish naifs have been taught nothing about Judaism or Zionism and they actually cannot tell the difference between the aspiring murderers and the intended victims.

July, 2018

Others may be sitting shiva (mourning) over the eight Jewish self-haters who recently walked out of Birthright programs in Israel to offer support and comfort for those in the Arab Muslim world who oppose Israel. But I am fine with it.

It is long overdue for Israelis and the rest of American Jews to wake up to the calamity that Reform Judaism brought about in America.  They abandoned Torah. They abadoned Jewish tradition. They made a new religion out of the Democrat Party liberal platform with Bernie Sanders as one of their Chief Rabbis. And they have reaped exactly what they have sown.  The non-Orthodox Jews (Reform Jews, Conservative Jews) now have a 72 percent intermarriage rate. Most intermarriages are between a Jewish male and a non-Jewish female, so most of their grandchildren are not Jewish.  To be sure, the Reform grandparents are Jewish.  The Reform halves of the intermarriage are Jewish. They always will be Jewish.  But the grandchildren are not Jewish.
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Both Qatar and its adversaries are playing down a major breakthrough. A summit of the Gulf Cooperation Council in Riyadh is expected to pave the way to a possible thaw.

SETH J. FRANTZMAN, JPOST

Buildings are seen from across the water in Doha, Qatar</em

It has been more than two and a half years since several Gulf countries, led by Saudi Arabia, broke relations with Qatar. Now a thaw is emerging that could mean Riyadh and Doha begin a new chapter in relations. This would have far-reaching consequences, including in the US where think tanks and media have been co-opted into Gulf politics. But both Qatar and its adversaries are playing down a major breakthrough. A summit of the Gulf Cooperation Council in Riyadh is expected to pave the way to a possible thaw.
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An interview with the author of the definitive biography of Evil.

Mark Tapson, FPM

Several days ago, pro-sharia Palestinian-American activist Linda Sarsour appeared at the annual conference of American Muslims for Palestine in Chicago and demanded that the audience ask “those who call themselves progressive Zionists” how they can claim to oppose white supremacy in America, but then “support a state like Israel that is based on supremacy, that is built on the idea that Jews are supreme to everyone else.”

The notion that Israel was built on purported Jewish supremacism is pretty rich coming from Islamic supremacist Sarsour, particularly in light of the fact that the alarming spike in Jew-hatred throughout the West today stems largely not from a politically impotent and socially marginalized minority of white supremacists (as the mainstream media would have us believe), but from mass migration from Muslim countries, from the anti-Israel BDS movement driven by Muslim student organizations on university campuses, from the willful blindness toward Islam of multicultural elitists like Canada’s Justin Trudeau, and from the American left’s increasing embrace of Muslim politicians such as Reps. Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib and activists like Sarsour. Seventy-five years or so after Allied forces liberated the survivors of Nazi concentration camps, Jew-hatred is back with a vengeance.
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The Trump administration’s historic recognition of the settlement enterprise in Judea and Samaria is another, perhaps even the last nail in the coffin of the Palestinian state idea.

By Prof. Eyal Zisser, ISRAEL HAYOM

Some in Israel sought to question the motives and significance of US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s declaration that Israeli settlements in Judea and Samaria do not violate international law. But the fact remains that the United States – the top world power holding the key to any move in the international arena, and certainly the Middle East, has pulled the rug from under the Palestinians’ prolonged attempt to force Israel to accept the Palestinian claim to withdraw to the 1967 lines and allow the establishment of a Palestinian state.

Much like with its decision to recognize Jerusalem as the Israeli capital, the American administration did not seek to impose or create a reality, but rather to acknowledge existing reality on the ground, in other words, that the Israeli settlement enterprise had long crossed the point of no return. The fact that Pompeo’s statement was barely contested by the “usual suspects” – the Palestinians, Arab states and some European countries – only goes to show that many in the world have already accepted the fact that the two-state solution is questionable and may have even become defunct.
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DEBKA

The air strike of Saturday night, Dec. 7, was the fourth this week in a campaign for breaking up the Iranian Al Qods strategic hub which houses Iraqi Shiite militias outside Abu Kamal near the Iraqi border. The strikes aim not only to stem the flow of arms convoys from Iraq, but to level its buildings in order to put the facility permanently out of commission.

DEBKAfile’s military sources report the campaign’s intensity is being gradually notched up. The latest bombardment was therefore the heaviest. The damage caused was excessive and the casualty count ran into dozens, according to Western military and intelligence estimates – mostly Iraqi Shiite militiamen but also Iranian Al Qods officers. Read more…

Instead of passing the mantle to Gantz after 4-6 months, why not do the same with his potential rivals within the Likud? Why not agree to a similar deal, but internally?

By David Rubin, INN

The solution to the coalition crisis afflicting all of Israel is not a disunity government with Benny Gantz and his three partners in Blue and White. Instead, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu should be reaching out to his potential opponents within the Likud. With them, he should make the consummate deal.

The latest Likud offer to Gantz, although rejected, was quite generous. In a bold concession to enable a broad coalition, Netanyahu agreed to only serve in his current position for 4-6 months, then to hand over the baton to Gantz for two years, with an equal distribution of cabinet seats. Netanyahu could then focus on his trial and refuting the charges against him.
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By Alan Hertz

Allen Z. Hertz was senior advisor in the Privy Council Office serving Canada’s Prime Minister and the federal cabinet. He formerly worked in Canada’s Foreign Affairs Department and earlier taught history and law at universities in New York, Montreal, Toronto and Hong Kong. He studied European history and languages at McGill University (B.A.) and then East European and Ottoman history at Columbia University (M.A., Ph.D.). He also has international law degrees from Cambridge University (LL.B.) and the University of Toronto (LL.M.).

While campaigning in Israel in 1799 did Napoleon write one or more proclamations to the Jews? In our own century, historians are evenly divided. But, the deeper story is not simply whether he did so while in Israel, but also his earlier proclamations to the Jews, similarly issued as propaganda to destroy the Ottoman Empire. Thus, a neglected Ottoman-Turkish source says there was already in the Muslim year 1212 (1797-1798) a revolutionary proclamation inviting Jews to “establish a Jewish government in Jerusalem”. 

Based on April 1799 reports from Constantinople, at least seventeen European newspapers in May 1799 described a Napoleon proclamation inviting Jews to return to Jerusalem. This astonishing news was universally believed in 1799. Napoleon’s evocation of aboriginal restoration echoed for decades in relation to an age-old People that for millennia always kept demographic and cultural ties to the Holy Land. There is also much to suggest that Napoleon perhaps wrote the 1798 “Letter from a Jew to His Brothers” calling on world Jewry to organize itself in order to ask France to negotiate with Turkey, so that the Jews could return to their native land. Finally, first revealed in 1940 was a 1799 German-language translation of an alleged Napoleon letter recognizing the hereditary right of the “Israelites” to “Palestine.”

Preface

A. “The Great Nation” and the self-determination of Peoples
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Five soldiers linked to Iranian forces in Syria killed in airstrikes near Iraqi border, monitor group says.

Airstrike (archive image)

Air strikes by unidentified warplanes have killed five pro-Iran fighters in Syria’s eastern province of Deir Ezzor near the Iraqi border, a Britain-based war monitor said on Sunday.

The strikes late Saturday targeted “positions of Iranian forces and allied militias” on the edge of the town of Albukamal, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said Sunday afternoon.

“Five non-Syrian fighters were killed,” Observatory chief Rami Abdel Rahman told AFP, without being able to provide their nationalities.
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MK Gideon Sa’ar explains why Netanyahu’s initiative to hold direct elections is impractical. “A spin that has no chance.”

Insisting he did raise annexing Jordan Valley with secretary, PM says it’s time to ‘regularize all communities in Judea and Samaria, those in the blocs and those outside them’

By RAOUL WOOTLIFF

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the conference of the Israeli newspaper Makor Rishon at the International Convention Center in Jerusalem, December 8, 2019. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu insisted on Sunday that he did discuss the possible annexation of the Jordan Valley and other parts of the West Bank with US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo during a meeting they held last week, despite a denial of the claim by the US State Department a day earlier.

“I want American recognition of our sovereignty in the Jordan Valley. This is important,” Netanyahu said at a conference organized by the Makor Rishon newspaper, saying that Israel has currently has a “great opportunity” to achieve it, along with securing an Israeli-US mutual defense pact.

“It is time to apply Israeli sovereignty in the Jordan Valley and to regularize all communities in Judea and Samaria, those in the blocs and those outside them. They will be part of the State of Israel,” he vowed, using a Biblical term for the West Bank in reference to the so-called settlement blocs that many believe will be retained in any peace agreement with the Palestinians.
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By Rabbi Spero, Conference of Jewish Affairs

Today’s murderous rampage against our soldiers at Naval Air Station Pensacola was perpetrated by a foreign national from one of the Islamic countries in the Middle East. Unfortunately, this is not a surprise; for this has happened repeatedly now on numerous military bases here: Fort Hood; Little Rock, Arkansas; Tennessee; and recruitment centers; and let’s not forget 9/11 itself. The killings come from the same
source and ideology.

Certain law enforcement officials, so as not to frighten the public or because they wish to be politically correct, are too often &quot;searching&quot; for the motive behind the terrorism. Will we be told yet again that the perpetrator was “mentally disturbed” or “an angry person?” Be it terrorism or “mentally disturbed”, the effect is the same: dead Americans. Perhaps we should review our open door from those countries sending us so many “angry” people. Read more…

Yisrael Katz told Italy’s Corriere della Sera: ‘If it were the last possible way to stop this, we would act militarily’

DPA, HAARETZ

Israel would be ready to bomb Iran to stop its nuclear weapon capabilities, Israeli Foreign Minister Yisrael Katz said in a Saturday interview.

“Is bombing Iran an option that Israel is considering?” Katz was asked by Italy’s Corriere della Sera newspaper.

“Yes, it is an option. We will not allow Iran to produce or obtain nuclear weapons. If it were the last possible way to stop this, we would act militarily,” Katz replied.
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T. Belman. There is only one solution namely to make Jordan the Palestinian state. This can be done by making Mudar Zahran the ruler of Jordan.  It won’t be long now.

By Alex Grobman, JEWISH LINK

In light of passage of House Resolution 360 supporting a two state solution, you might be interested in one of a number of articles I have written on the myth of a two-state solution.AG

From the time of the British Mandate in Palestine (September 29, 1922 to November 29, 1947) to the present, numerous British, American and European government commissions and official emissaries have come to the region to investigate the underlying causes of the Palestinian Arab/Israeli dispute. Academics and journalists have added their own analyses.
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