Iran enriching 12 times as much uranium now Fordo restarted, nuclear head says  

Salehi says production of low-enriched uranium soaring after operations at underground site resumed;

By MEHDI FATTAHI, AMIR VAHDAT and JON GAMBRELL, TOI

TEHRAN, Iran (AP) — The head of Iran’s nuclear program told The Associated Press on Monday that the country is now producing more low-enriched uranium daily, after restarting an underground facility.

Ali Akbar Salehi of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran made the comments as Iranian President Hassan Rouhani also called on hardliners to support the country’s troubled nuclear deal, saying it could open up international arms sales for the Islamic Republic next year.

Iran has broken out of the accord’s limits since US President Donald Trump unilaterally withdrew from the accord between Tehran and world powers over a year ago.
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November 11, 2019 | 2:45 pm | Comments »

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The New Rude  

By Howard Rothberg

It is hard to tell people things they don’t want to hear. In fact, doing so, risks putting you in the group of the “new rude”. It’s a free country, but it now seems some of us are more free than others. The search for freedom, I am sorry to say, is secondary these days to the demand for equality. People don’t want to hear what George Orwell wrote: “In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act.”

This is a big problem for a cultural critic like me. People don’t want to hear complex critiques such as allegations that they are part of political correctness, moral and culture relativism or moral equivalency.

This, in essence, is what has happened to the Jewish people over history as we stand for morality and justice and responsibility. The people who want to be immoral, such as the German people from 1933 to 1945, especially hate those who stand for morality as prescribed in the Torah and Nevi’im and Commentators. Same today. I am working on this in my writing, but calling out anti-Semites still has them regarding me as “rude”. Big problem.

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November 11, 2019 | 2:23 pm | Comments »

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Britain’s deepening political nightmare  

By Melanie Phillips

So here’s how things appear to stand at this point, 34 days before the Brexit general election which is being fought principally on the issue of whether or not Britain wants to get Brexit done.

The Labour party is imploding, with Labour loyalists saying Labour voters should vote Conservative in order to save the country from the unconscionable threat of Jeremy Corbyn becoming prime minister.

The Brexit party is disintegrating, with even a number of its own former candidates backing the EU deal done by Boris Johnson. This although their leader, Nigel Farage, is correctly stating that the deal is not truly Brexit because it will trap the UK into continued ties with the EU during the expandable transition period and even after it ceases to be a member.
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November 11, 2019 | 2:13 pm | 2 Comments »

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Netanyahu: We help Jordan in many covert ways  

T. Belman. One of the reasons that the king is still ruling Jordan is because Netanyahu is protecting him.

Katz: Israel wanted joint event to mark peace anniversary, but Jordan refused
Hashemite Kingdom shot down initiative due to ‘complicated’ domestic situation, foreign minister says at Knesset conference; no Jordanians attend

Netanyahu claimed that Israel and Jordan cooperate in security aspects as well as trade, intelligence and water.

BY Arik Bender/MAARIV   NOVEMBER 11, 2019

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at a discussion on the Israeli-Jordanian relations

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at a discussion on the Israeli-Jordanian relations. (photo credit: TOVAH LAZAROFF)

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu arrived unannounced to a special discussion in the Knesset on the Israeli-Jordanian peace treaty, marking its 25th anniversary, initiated by MK Merav Michaeli.

Netanyahu claimed that “There is peace with democracies and peace with dictatorships. It is easier to make peace with democracies because their natural tendency is not to fight, whereas dictatorships require establishing deterrence first. If you don’t have deterrence, the peace will not last. Jordan knows that Israel is stronger.”
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November 11, 2019 | 2:06 pm | 1 Comment »

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Kelly and Tillerson tried to recruit Haley in efforts to undermine Trump  

During this week’s broadcast of “CBS Sunday Morning,” it was revealed that former Trump administration U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley said in her book “With All Due Respect” that then-White House Chief of Staff John Kelly and then-Secretary of State Rex Tillerson “confided in me that when they resisted the president, they weren’t being insubordinate, they were trying to save the country.”

Reading from Haley’s book, Norah O’Donnell asked, “Tillerson went on to tell me the reason he resisted the president’s decisions was because if he didn’t, people would die. Do you memorialize that conversation? It definitely happened?”
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November 11, 2019 | 2:23 am | 4 Comments »

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“Strangers,” in Israel and America  

By Victor Rosenthal

We had a guest from America in our shul this week who discussed the week’s portion, lech lecha. She focused on the question of the treatment of the ger, the person who is a non-Jew in Eretz Yisrael and (variously) a stranger, immigrant, foreign resident, convert, etc. Our speaker interpreted the word ger to mean “immigrant,” and noted that both Sarai (later, Hashem would change her name to Sarah) and Hagar were powerless immigrants. Sarai was exploited sexually by Pharaoh when she was in Egypt during a famine (well, at least he tried to exploit her), while Hagar and her son were expelled from the family in Canaan by a jealous Sarai.

The speaker correctly noted that in multiple places the Torah calls for Jews to treat gerim well. For example, Leviticus 19.33-34 says
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November 11, 2019 | 1:50 am | 2 Comments »

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Netanyahu said to ask Shas to ease stance on religious issues in coalition talks  

T. Belman.  Finally, this is the only thing that will work.

Reported request of ultra-Orthodox party apparently aimed at paving way for Liberman to join right-wing government led by incumbent PM

TOI

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has reportedly asked the head of the ultra-Orthodox Shas party to show more flexibility on issues of religion and state to potentially open the door for the secularist Yisrael Beytenu party to join a government of right-wing and religious factions.

This was the first time Netanyahu made such a request of his ultra-Orthodox allies, Channel 12 news reported Saturday.

The TV channel did not say how Shas chief Aryeh Deri responded, nor whether Netanyahu made a similar request of the ultra-Orthodox United Torah Judaism party. Read more…

November 10, 2019 | 5:04 pm | 14 Comments »

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I am the Anonymous Whistleblower  

There is so much corruption in US politics. So much more and worse than candidate Donald Trump ever imagined when he campaigned on a promise to “drain the swamp.”  The corruption is so pervasive and runs so deep that perhaps it cannot be drained.

By Rabbi Prof. Dov Fischer, INN

The Jewish holidays season recently has ended. It begins with Rosh Hashanah, which Jewish tradition sets as the New Year of all humanity . . . runs through the Jewish Day of Atonement, Yom Kippur, the anniversary of G-d forgiving the sin of the Golden Calf after Moses alighted Mount Sinai the second time and prayed forty days for forgiveness (Sh’mot/Exodus 34) . . . continues into the week-long celebration of the Sukkot festival (Vayikra/Leviticus 23: 33-43) . . . and culminates with the holidays of Sh’mini Atzeret and Simchat Torah when Jews celebrate the spiritual joy of having publicly read and studied the Pentateuch, the Five Books of Moses, during the prior twelve months — and then begin the annual cycle anew with Breishit/Genesis 1 by publicly reading the Torah all over again, starting with “In the Beginning, G-d created the heavens and the earth.”

Because I am a congregational rabbi, I mostly have to go “off the grid” on most other matters every year during a two-month period that begins from two or three weeks before Rosh Hashanah (preparing divrei Torah sermons, coordinating membership drives, overseeing our shul’s High Holidays hotel program, brushing up on shofar sounding) and that continues two weeks or so after Simchat Torah, as I promptly must catch up frantically on six weeks of secular matters that necesarily have taken a back seat all that time.
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November 10, 2019 | 2:56 pm | 10 Comments »

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Lapid: ‘The Jews are done being silent, the Jews are done being afraid’  

MK Yair Lapid speaks in Paris, sends a message to anti-Semites around the world.

By Hezki Baruch, INN

MK Yair Lapid, one of the leaders of the Blue and White party, spoke at the ELNET conference in Paris and sent a message to anti-Semites around the world.

At the start of his remarks, Lapid quoted the late Israeli author Ephraim Kishon, who said, “The State of Israel was not established so that anti-Semitism will stop. It was established so we could tell the anti-Semites to shove it.”

Lapid continued, “The great anti-Semitic project, over the years, is to convince the world that anti-Semitism is the result of something the Jews have done. That anti-Semitism is a result, and there is a reason to justify it. Anti-Semitism never acknowledges what it really is: xenophobia.” Read more…

November 10, 2019 | 5:54 am | Comments »

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Leninthink – SHOCKING  

T. Belman. I have updated this post to include the whole article.  It is over 5000 words long but must be read.  I have made bold all the remarkable statements. Truly an eye-opener.

by 

Image result for lenin

On the pernicious legacy of Vladimir Lenin.

Editors’ note: The following is an edited version of remarks delivered at The New Criterion’s inaugural Circle Lecture on September 25, 2019.

Lenin was more severe.

—Vyacheslav Molotov, the only senior official to work for both Lenin and Stalin, when asked to compare them.

Lenin “in general” loved people but . . . his love looked far ahead, through the mists of hatred.

—Maxim Gorky
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November 10, 2019 | 12:46 am | 10 Comments »

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Opinion Israeli Right’s New Bank – the Jewish National Fund  

T. Belman.  This article reeks of Haaretz.  I crossed out a few words.  I couldn’t find a fairer article.

The organization faces calls to investigate suspicions that tens of millions of dollars earmarked for Jerusalem have wound up being used to buy land and other property in occupied territory in Judea and Samaria.

By Raviv Drucker, HAARETZ

A few years ago, a strange thing happened. The rotten organization called KKL-Jewish National Fund agreed, under massive public pressure, to address criticism from the state comptroller.

But this welcome turn of events was soon thwarted by Ministers Yariv Levin and Ze’ev Elkin, the ideological right wing of the Likud. And for good reason: Though it took them decades to realize it, the right finally figured out that it had a handy bank that was flush with cash, devoid of restraints and practically free of outside oversight: KKL-JNF. Why not use this bank for things the government would never agree to fund?
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November 9, 2019 | 8:04 pm | 2 Comments »

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The Crisis Today in America Lies In Attacks on the Constitution Itself  

By JENNIFER BRACERAS, Special to the Sun | 

Many commentators are breathlessly reporting that America is on the brink of a constitutional crisis. They’re right, but not in the sense that they imagine.

Political scientists and law professors define a “constitutional crisis” as a standoff between government actors where the constitution or other governing law provides no answer. Some analysts see such a crisis in President Trump’s refusal to cooperate with the House of Representatives’ impeachment inquiry. The House, though, has the constitutional authority to impeach a president simply for refusing to cooperate. The real problem for those who wish to see the president removed from office is that the House may not have the political fortitude to do that. Even if the House does impeach, the Senate is unlikely to convict.
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November 9, 2019 | 11:34 am | Comments »

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Illiberal Liberalism and the Onslaught on Western Values  

By Melanie Phillips

In the never-ending uproar over U.S. President Donald Trump, his administration’s recent move to lift a ban on traditional Christian adoption agencies went relatively unremarked.

Under President Barack Obama, child-welfare agencies were refused federal grants if they wouldn’t place children for adoption with same-sex couples. Last week, the White House reversed that ruling on the grounds that such agencies would no longer be forced “to choose between helping children and their faith.”

This followed a notable speech last month at the University of Notre Dame law school by U.S. Attorney General William Barr, in which he discussed his Catholic faith and passionately denounced secular intolerance.

The Trump adoption reform was condemned by human rights campaigners as “horrific,” “unconscionable” and “discriminatory” against LGBTQ people.
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November 9, 2019 | 10:25 am | 1 Comment »

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Who and What is the Muslim Brotherhood  

Because the MB is financed largely by Turkey, which has also been funding its terrorist operations, the Trump Administration correctly cancelled Turkey’s participation in the F35 fighter jet program, but has not curbed Turkey’s mosque financing in the U.S., Latin America, and Europe. The MB’s other major funder, Qatar, has also been infiltrating and subverting American universities. The Trump administration has discussed designating the MB as a foreign terror organization, but has done nothing yet.

November 9, 2019 | 9:16 am | 1 Comment »

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For UNRWA, the party is over  

Donor countries could live with 70 years of fostering hatred and incitement against Israel, but they cannot stand for the UN agency for Palestinian refugees to be tainted by corruption allegations.

By Ron Prosser, ISRAEL HAYOM

When I heard that United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East Commissioner Pierre Krahenbuhl resigned, I was shocked. After all, the UN does not have the best track record when it comes to investigating corruption allegations against its own agencies, let alone when it comes to the UNRWA, which until recently had airtight immunity from criticism.

For 70 years, UNRWA has been something of a separate entity in the UN, one dedicated solely to the issue of Palestinian “refugees,” alongside the agency that handles all other refugees – the UNHCR. But unlike the former UNRWA never even tried to solve the refugee problem and seemed dedicated to perpetuating it.

Case in point: When UNRWA was founded in 1949, there were around 700,000 Palestinian refugees in the world. Today, their number stands at 5.7 million.
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November 9, 2019 | 9:10 am | Comments »

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The ‘endless war’ is inevitable – and winnable  

To defeat the Islamist, Communist and Socialist threats to the United States, we must adopt the Cold War model, according to which war is a marathon, not a sprint.

By Ken Abromowitz, ISRAEL HAYOM

People and organizations within and beyond Washington, DC, public policy circles, including US President Donald Trump, have expressed grave concern at the possibility that the United States is engaged in “endless wars.”

Practically since the birth of the United States of America, various ideologies have waged war against us. For the Islamists (Muslim supremacists), this was but a continuation of their – at that time – uninterrupted 1,200-year war against non-Muslims everywhere, and Muslims whose version of the faith they didn’t agree with.

It wasn’t until President Thomas Jefferson decided to stand up to the endless, unprovoked, savage assaults against US trade vessels by the Barbary pirates that violent jihadist acts against us stopped – for a while.
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November 9, 2019 | 8:38 am | 1 Comment »

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Is Iran winning or losing?  

The anti-regime protests in Lebanon, Iraq, and Iran are a dramatic development for Tehran. The less stable its neighbors, the more difficult it is for Iran to set the Revolutionary Guards against Israel.

by  Caroline B. Glick, ISRAEL HAYOM

There’s an old Jewish joke where a young man walks up to his grandfather and asks him how he’s doing.

The grandfather answers, “In a word, good.”

“And in two words?” the grandson presses.

“Not good,” his grandfather replies.
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November 9, 2019 | 8:33 am | Comments »

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