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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T. Belman. The protests will grow, week by week, until Abdullah is gone.

As days of protest against austerity draw hundreds, security forces show an iron fist. The crisis highlights the country’s weak political institutions. Some fear criminal and jihadist infiltrations. The political class must be renewed and economic and social reforms must be implemented.

ASIA NEWS

By Cillian Zeal, CONSERVATIVE TRIBUNE 

A federal judge in Texas has declared Obamacare to be unconstitutional — and it didn’t take long for a tweeted celebration to come from President Trump.

U.S. District Judge Reed O’Connor declared in a Friday evening decision that the end of the individual mandate meant that the rest of the Affordable Care Act was also null and void.

O’Connor, a George W. Bush appointee serving in Texas, issued a 55-page ruling on a lawsuit brought by 19 attorneys general and a governor, all Republicans. The suit was spearheaded by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton. Read more…

by Abe Haak, BESA Center Perspectives Paper No. 1,036, December 14, 2018

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: If and when the Palestinian Authority (PA) collapses, Jordan will bear the greatest brunt of the resulting humanitarian crisis. Such a collapse could be triggered by several factors, but will almost certainly lead to a mass exodus of Palestinians from Areas A and B. While Israel will probably opt for a minimalist containment approach, the government in Amman will have to choose: it can either come to the aid of the Palestinians in the territories, or it can allow them to enter Jordan for help. Israel and Jordan are both likely to favor the first option, which may then facilitate a solution to the problem of governance in the territories.

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The fact Hamas would rather starve the children of Gaza than coexist with a Jewish neighbor epitomizes the degree to which Jew-hatred is a paramount value in the contemporary Islamic World.

By Rafael Castro, INN

This argument implies that Jews are to blame for antisemitism in the Muslim World. The corollary of this position being that the onus of restoring peace to the Middle East rests on Jews.

That prior to 1948, the Muslim World tended to be somewhat less inhospitable to Jews than Europe, is correct. Nevertheless, to extrapolate from this truism that Islamic tolerance was the forerunner of modern liberal democracies’ respect of religious minorities is an insult to the Jews, Hindus, Buddhists, Zoroastrians, Alevites, Armenians, Yazidis and other religious minorities massacred in the name of Islam.
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Report claims Saudi Crown Prince planning ‘game-changing’ meeting with Israeli Prime Minister, to be hosted by Donald Trump.

Arutz Sheva Staff

The Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia, Mohammed bin Salman, is planning a “game-changing” meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, the Middle East Eye reported Thursday.

According to the London-based, Qatari-funded outlet, the sources in the Saudi kingdom claimed that the Crown Prince is “seriously considering” a “game-changing” meeting with Netanyahu, which would be hosted by President Donald Trump.
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