Sima Shine, Gallia Lindenstrauss, INSS Insight No. 974, September 27, 2017

After years of disagreement between Iran and Turkey, particularly regarding the war in Syria, there are many recent signs of an increase in cooperation between Tehran and Ankara. A range of developments on the ground, including the success of Iran and Russia in ensuring the continuation of the Assad regime; cooperation between the United States and the Kurds in the fight against the Islamic State; and concern about the consequences of Kurdish ambitions for independence, as well as Turkey’s decision to send armed forces to Syria to prevent this development have spurred the need for an Iranian-Turkish rapprochement and growing cooperation with Russia. This process, which is gaining momentum, does not serve the interests of Israel, and joins a range of issues that divide Jerusalem and Ankara: Turkey’s relations with Hamas, Turkish incitement against Israel during the escalation of tension around the Temple Mount, Turkey’s weak relations with Egypt, and its stance vis-à-vis Qatar in the crisis among Sunni Arab countries.>/p>

Read more…

We are short $3000 to cover the costs of this conference.

Please DONATE what you can to put us over the top.

If you plan to donate $500 or more and want a US or Canadian tax deductible receipt, kindly advise be by email (tbelman3@gmail.com) of your intentions and I will advise where to do it.

What makes this conference special is that:

This event is a full day conference dedicated to presenting the ultimate alternate solution of the Arab/Jewish conflict including both the pros and the cons.

The beauty of the solution is that it doesn’t depend on the consent or agreement of the PA or King Abdullah.

A stellar group of speakers has been assembled, including leading journalists and academics, Knesset Members, Palestinians and a number of Arabs who are part of the Jordan Opposition Coalition and who hope to be part of the next government in Jordan.

In essence this solution takes its inspiration from the Feisal/Weizmann agreement of 1918.  It calls for Jordan to be the Arab state and Israel to the Jordan River, to be the state of the Jews. And it calls for complete normalization between the two and considerable economic cooperation.

In the past three weeks there have been serious efforts to smear Mudar Zahran and the conference as evidenced by this post.

Caroline Glick attacks Mudar Zahran. Zahran defends himself.

But we think we have put that effort to an end. Time will tell.

In any event the list of speakers has been flushed out and the registrations are coming in.

PLEASE MAKE A CONTRIBUTION TO SUPPORT THIS GREAT CONFERENCE AND SOLUTION

Moscow says while it supports Kurdish national ambitions, Iraq’s territorial integrity must be preserved

TOI

Russia warned Iraqi and Kurdish leaders on Wednesday to refrain from actions that could destabilize the Middle East following the independence referendum in Iraqi Kurdistan.

In a statement, the Russian foreign ministry said that while it supports the Kurds’ national aspirations, it prefers maintaining Iraq’s territorial integrity and any solution to the dispute should be solved within a unified Iraqi state.
Read more…

The attack came as Trump’s envoy is in the country trying to push forward the US administration’s diplomatic initiative.

BY Herb Keinon, JPOST

As envoy Jason Greenblatt’s already enormously difficult task of creating an atmosphere conducive to Israeli-Palestinian negotiations just got even more difficult on Tuesday with the terrorist attack in Har Adar that left three Israelis dead.

The attack came as Greenblatt is in the country trying to push forward the US administration’s diplomatic initiative, an initiative based not on top-down negotiating breakthroughs, but rather bottom-up improvement of the atmosphere.

And the terrorist from Beit Surik just threw a huge wrench in the works.
Read more…

Regardless who is to blame for the present refugee crisis, the time has come for the international community to treat all refugees the same.

By Rachel Avraham, JPOST

Things are deteriorating by the day in Myanmar, following the situation in Rakhine State being declared a “textbook example of ethnic cleansing.” UN medics operating in Bangladesh have documented evidence of Myanmar soldiers raping hundreds of Rohingya women. Doctors operating in Bangladesh reported that the evidence includes bite marks, beatings, signs that weapons were used to penetrate the women, and even cut genitals. In one horrific case, a Rohingya woman was gang raped by at least seven soldiers and arrived in Bangladesh “extremely weak and traumatized. She said she struggled to make it to the clinic. She had a laceration on the vagina.”

However, while the international community is greatly disturbed by the plight of the Muslim Rohingya minority, they are devoting very little attention to that of the Rohingya Hindus in Myanmar, which is just as atrocious.
Read more…

Founder of HaYovel says agreeing with “replacement theology” is disagreeing with God.

By Benjamin Glatt, JPOST SEPTEMBER 26, 2017

Christians around the world must stop trying to proselytize Jews, said the founder of a nonprofit which brings thousands of Christian volunteers to help Jewish farmers in Judea and Samaria.

Just days before the High Holy Day of Yom Kippur, the holiest day on the Jewish calendar, Tommy Waller sent out a video saying that Christian-Jewish relations have changed, and they must continue to change.
Read more…

The state’s lawyer tells the High Court that it shouldn’t interfere in Israel’s foreign relations

By Chaim Levinson, HAARETZ

A Rohingya Muslim woman, who crossed over from Myanmar into Bangladesh, wipes her sweat as she waits to receive aid near Balukhali refugee camp, Bangladesh, September 25, 2017.Dar Yasin/AP

The state has not said that it will stop selling weapons to the military junta in Myanmar, despite recent reports and United Nations data on massacres the country’s military has perpetrated against the Rohingya minority, as well as systematic rape and expulsions.

Responding on Monday to a petition in the High Court of Justice from human-rights activists demanding an end to the arms sales, Shosh Shmueli, representing the state, said the court should not interfere in Israel’s foreign relations. That was a repetition of the preliminary response issued in March by the Defense Ministry, according to which the court had no standing in the “purely diplomatic” matter.
Read more…

Institute for Contemporary Affairs, Founded jointly with the Wechsler Family Foundation

By Lt. Col. (ret.) Michael Segall

• Today, amid Hamas’ ongoing distress, the changes in its leadership both within and outside of Gaza, and the decline in its funding and political support, the movement is seeking to warm its ties with Tehran.
• The relations between Iran and Hamas, which had already known ups and downs in the past, turned frosty when Hamas refused to support the efforts of Tehran and Hizbullah to ensure the survival of Bashar Assad’s regime.
• The election of Yahya al-Sinwar – a key figure in Hamas’ military wing – to head Hamas’ political bureau in Gaza marked a turning point in the movement’s relations with Tehran.

Read more…

Palestinian attacker shot dead after shooting attack in settlement of Har Adar near Jerusalem ? Another Israeli sustained serious injuries ? Hamas: New chapter in intifada

Yotam Berger, Amos Harel, Jack Khoury and Nir Hasson, HAARETZ

Three Israelis were killed in a shooting attack in the West Bank settlement of Har Adar, near Jerusalem, on Tuesday morning. The Palestinian attacker was shot dead. Another Israeli sustained serious injuries.  

According to the Border Police, the terrorist entered the settlement through the eastern gate with a group of Palestinian workers, and opened fire.
Read more…

HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH

GENEVA, Sept. 25, 2017 – A Hamas member turned humanitarian addressed the U.N. human rights council today and called the Palestinian Authority the “greatest enemy of the Palestinian people.” See full speech below.

“If Israel did not exist, you would have no one to blame; take responsibility for the outcome of your own actions,” said Mosab Hassan Yousef, whose father was a founding member of Hamas.

As recounted in the film The Green Prince, Yousef emerged as one of Israel’s prized informants, who disrupted lethal attacks and uncovered terror cells.
Read more…

T. Belman. The HUFF POST is a far left publication. If that is the worst they can say about the Platform of the AfD then that party doesn’t worry me. Simply put they want to preserve the Germany they know. What’s wrong with that?

The left and the establishment (is there any difference) want to absolutely reject that model and support a multicultural model which includes deference to Muslims. I am fine with that, they are entitled to promote their agenda and policies. But so is the AfD.  But the left wants to shut any such policies down and wants to smear them and delegitimate them. They don’t want to debate with them.

By Jack Sommers, HUFF POST

It was a remarkable rise for a party that was founded just four years ago.

But the party’s rhetoric is further right than many other eurosceptic parties.
Read more…

By Ben Lynfield, JPOST

One might think that as a people struggling for statehood and demanding recognition of their own right to self-determination, Palestinians would have backed the Kurds as they held their historic referendum on statehood Monday.

Indeed, the veteran Palestinian journalist and columnist for The Jordan Times, Daoud Kuttab, expressed this sentiment in an interview from Amman with The Jerusalem Post.

“The referendum is a very risky move. But as a concept, the right of a people to have the right to self-determination is something we as Palestinians have been fighting for, and we certainly can’t oppose it for anyone else,” he said on Monday.
Read more…

Turkish leader says his country could halt Iraqi Kurdistan’s oil exports over independence vote, which he calls ‘matter of survival’

TOI

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan threatened a military intervention in Iraq in response to the Iraqi Kurdish region’s referendum on independence from Baghdad.

Erdogan, speaking at a conference in the Turkish capital of Ankara as Iraqi Kurds voted in their region on Monday, said that Kurdish independence was unacceptable to his country and that this was a “matter of survival.”

Read more…

By Alon Tal, JPOST

Israelis live in the most crowded country in the developed world. But few understand the cumulative price they pay now that quantity of life has begun to degrade quality of life.

On August 14, the Israel National Economic Council issued a seemingly banal, technical publication called “Regional Population Scenarios for the State of Israel During the Years 2015-2040.” The local press paid little attention to the report even though its findings should have troubled anyone who cares about the Land of Israel and the future of the Third Jewish Commonwealth. Distilled to its essence, the report’s three main findings are: Israel’s population is set to expand by 5 million people over the next 23 years; the number of elderly citizens will double; and the percentage of Haredi (ultra-Orthodox) Israelis will increase from 11% to 20%.

Read more…

“After years of reform promises there is apparently still little room for tolerance in the country’s schools.”

By Ben Lynfield, JPOST

Saudi Arabian secondary school pupils are taught that the day of resurrection will not come until Muslims kill Jews, Human Rights Watch found during a recent review of textbooks that also revealed hateful and disparaging references to Christians, Shi’ites and Sufism.

“As early as first grade, students in Saudi schools are being taught hatred toward all those perceived to be of a different faith or school of thought. The lessons in hate are reinforced with each following year,” Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East director for Human Rights Watch, said in a press release last week. The New York-based group reviewed 45 Saudi textbooks and student work books produced by the Education Ministry for the primary, middle and secondary education levels.
Read more…

Migron expellees say plan to approve new homes for them after Succot ‘too little, too late.’

By Nitsan Keidar, INN

Shai Alon, head of the Beit El Council, responded to the report on Arutz Sheva that thousands of housing units planned for Israeli towns across Judea and Samaria will be approved next month following the Sukkot holiday.

The meeting of the Supreme Planning Council was scheduled to convene this week, Alon said, but was postponed due the White House’s efforts to jump-start negotiations with the Palestinian Authority.

“We all expect the marketing of the 300 housing units to be approved,” Alon said. “The land is ready, there are already appeals from young couples who want to live in the council. Everything is ready and we are waiting only for the approval of these housing units.”
Read more…

State presents position late, hearing on Arab outpost demolition postponed. Court: ‘With better planning, State could have met timetable.’

By Mordechai Sones, INN

The hearing on the petition filed by the Jerusalem Belt Forum (Forum Otef Yerushalayim) to evacuate the illegal Arab outpost Khan al-Ahmar and an Italian-built school next to Kfar Adumim was postponed today after having been postponed six months ago.

The postponement was accepted by the High Court despite the fact that the Court only recently allowed a postponement until September 19, 2017.
Read more…