T. Belman. Pres Rivlin told CNN that the whole world needed to work against xenophobia and discrimination. Rivlin should support these parties, not work against them.

By Melanie Phillips

The visit to Israel this week by Italian deputy prime minister Matteo Salvini has provoked criticism and dismay within the Jewish world.

Salvini, who heads Italy’s right-wing “populist” Lega party, is controversial because of his anti-immigration stance.

Israel’s President Reuven Rivlin declined to meet him, citing “scheduling issues.” Rivlin’s view of political parties such as Lega were made clear, however, when he told CNN that the whole world needed to work against xenophobia, discrimination and antisemitism.
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by Banafsheh Zand and Sophie Baron, GATEWAY

On Friday, December 14^th, the Washington Institute for Near East Policy presented a long overdue forum with Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi.

The discussion was moderated by Mehdi Khalaji, an Iranian fellow at the institute, himself a Qom-trained Shia seminarian and son of Ayatollah Mohammad Taghi Khalaji. He opened the event with a short statement, where he pointed out that the Khomeiniist Regime’s 40^th anniversary is approaching (February 11^th), and erroneously claimed that, until now, no opposition movement has seriously threatened the regime’s viability.
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Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov meets Jewish Agency head Isaac Herzog in Moscow.

By Herb Keinon, JPOST

Israeli and Russian militaries are cooperating closely again following the downing of the Russian intelligence plane off the coast of Syria in September, Russian foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told Jewish Agency head Isaac Herzog on Monday.

At the beginning of a meeting with Herzog in Moscow, Lavrov said that representatives of the IDF and Russian Army general staffs have met “several times,” that the meetings were “professional,” and that he hopes the cooperation will continue “in a way that does not endanger the lives of Russian soldiers, does not create problems for the efforts of the Syrian Arab Republic and us to fight terrorism, and in a way that ensures the security of Israel, which we believe is very important for an overall settlement.”
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By Yavuz Bedar, AHVAL

“East of Euphrates” has become the newest term in the rough and tumble between Turkey and the United States. It signals a dramatic change in the Syrian endgame. The countdown is on for the American presence in north-eastern Syria.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan announced an imminent incursion into Syria. It was apparently said in retaliation for a Pentagon announcement on the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) militia. The Pentagon has said that up to 40,000 YPG personnel would work with US troops in the battle against the Islamic State (ISIS) and other jihadist groups in the region.

Erdogan was clearly angered by the increase. He said the US-Kurdish alliance should cease immediately.
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By Kareem Fahim, WaPo

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia — The government of Saudi Arabia on Monday condemned a recent U.S. Senate resolution blaming Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman for the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, calling the Senate vote “blatant” interference in the kingdom’s internal affairs, according to a Saudi government statement.

The Senate measure, which passed unanimously on Thursday, was a sweeping condemnation of Mohammed’s policies, including his crackdown on internal dissent. And it was a rebuke of President Trump’s defense of the crown prince and Trump’s position that Khashoggi’s death should not threaten the financial and strategic ties between Saudi Arabia and the United States.
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It has always been thus. 

God said in the Bible, “And I shall protect your borders so that strangers and enemies not fill your camp and become a thorn in your side.”

By Rabbi Aryeh Spero, AMERICAN SPECTATOR

By Evelyn Gordon

It’s no secret that UNIFIL, the UN peacekeeping force in Lebanon, has never done the job it’s supposedly there to do. But this week, we learned that UNIFIL isn’t merely useless; it’s counterproductive. By the very fact of its existence, the organization deters the European Union from listing Hezbollah as a terrorist organization—something which, unlike UNIFIL, would genuinely impede Hezbollah’s operations.

This dirty little secret came out after Italian Interior Minister Matteo Salvini calledHezbollah “Islamic terrorists” during a visit to Israel on Tuesday. The Italian Defense Ministry promptly issued a press statement blasting Salvini for “embarrassing” Rome by calling a spade a spade. “These statements obviously put in a very difficult position our men who are deployed on that southern border,” the statement warned, referring to the Italian contingent of UNIFIL deployed along Lebanon’s border with Israel.

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Repairing the Ties between Europe and Israel

Fiamma Nirenstein, Editor

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By Simon Kent, BREITBART

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has lashed out at Israel and compared it to Nazi Germany, accusing the Jewish state of “trying to erase the traces of the Islamic heritage in Jerusalem for the last 50 years.”

“You [Israel] will not be able to wipe them out,” Erdogan said Friday at the second “Conference of the Association of Parliamentarians for Al-Quds [Jerusalem],” in Istanbul.

“Today, the Palestinians are subjected to pressures, violence and intimidation policies no less grave than the oppression done to the Jews during WWII,” the president said, according to an online transcript of his speech.
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Celebrated evangelical pastor Franklin Graham reacted strongly to a recent Islamic terror attack in Strasbourg, France, warning that radical Islam continues to be a major global threat.

By Franklin Graham, BREITBART

In a two-part tweet Saturday, Rev. Graham, the son of the prominent Christian leader Billy Graham, reminded citizens that Islamic extremism has not ceased to be a menace to the world and that, contrary to popular opinion, the Muslim idea of God is very different from the God worshiped by Christians.

By Maj. Gen. (ret.) Yaakov Amidror, ISRAEL HAYOM

Operation Northern Shield, encompassing the IDF’s efforts to uncover and destroy Hezbollah attack tunnels crossing under the Israel-Lebanon border, has been made possible by technological advancements and accurate intelligence gathering. The operation followed a detailed plan outlined by operational officials, and if the plan is implemented as presented, it will undoubtedly achieve the desired effect. The desired being  neutralizing the big surprise that Hezbollah was preparing ahead of its next confrontation with Israel – attack tunnels that would allow it to strike at Israel’s home front.

Hezbollah’s aim was two-fold: to seize Israeli vantage points and stir panic inside Israel, thereby compelling the Israeli military force fighting Hezbollah’s complex attack to turn back. And no less importantly, they sought to take over an Israeli community and abduct as many civilians as possible. Thus, at the end of the war, Israel’s failure would continue to resonate for a long time after the fighting itself ends, because the hostage negotiations would take a long time and would bring Israel to its knees.
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By Michael Derfler

Dennis Prager has a video called, “Left or Liberal” in which he gives six examples of differences between leftist and liberal positions on important socio-economic issues. Although the distinctions are correct, Mr. Prager does not suggest a common theme, or root cause for these distinctions. The motivation behind these different positions fits the distinction cited on Israpundit  (and updated here https://www.dennispragerismistaken.com/).

The leftist position is motivated by the fundamental assumption that in general, people are morally and intellectually incompetent; therefore society should not be free, but managed by an elite group of people. The liberal (and conservative) position is that people are morally and intellectually competent and therefore they should be free.[1] Let’s see how the idea that leftists see people as morally incompetent fits Mr. Prager’s six examples. The examples are: western civilization, nationalism, the USA, capitalism, free speech, and race.

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By Rabbi Neil Cooper, of Temple Beth El

[Editor’s note: With the kind permission of Rabbi Neil Cooper of Temple Beth Hillel Beth El, we publish a letter he wrote to his congregation about the recent upsurge of open anti-Semitism.]

Over the past several weeks, we have seen a resurgence of antisemitism.  Here are a few examples from the news.

At a packed Jerusalem event, Robert Yisrael Aumann shares his life story and dissects the conflict using game theory

By AMANDA BORSCHEL-DAN, TOI

In April 1938, two Jewish boys in Frankfurt, Germany, discussed the arrest of their community’s rabbi in the month following the annexation of Austria. Along with only 1 percent of German citizens, their rabbi voted against the April 10 single-question referendum: “Do you approve of the reunification of Austria with the German reich accomplished on 13 March 1938 and do you vote for the list of our Führer, Adolf Hitler?”

In a Times of Israel Presents evening of personal anecdotes and academic explanations produced in partnership with Beit Avi Chai on Wednesday, Nobel Prize mathematician Robert Yisrael Aumann told the packed Jerusalem theater that he and his older brother had agreed that it was proper that the rabbi had been arrested and taken to a concentration camp.
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By Apolo Villalobos, AMERICAN THINKER

When Donald Trump was running for office, he raised the issue of fraudulent votes. As with everything else Trump has said, it was instantly attacked and ridiculed by the media. Since then, the idea has been dismissed by MSM journalists who have insisted that there have not been any cases of illegal voting.

Recently, though, the novel possibility of fraudulent votes in favor of a Republican candidate has made the MSM do a 180^o while reiterating that such things have never happened favoring Democratic candidates. As with many other topics, MSM journalists have blatantly lied. Here are a few recent instances of illegal voting:
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