The Amona evacuation of 2006. More than 200 people were injured (Photo: Amit Shabi)

Brig. Gen. (res.) Meir Bokovza, Maj. Gen. (res.) Yisrael Yitzhak and former Police Commissioner Moshe Karadi recount the traumatic evacuation of the Amona outpost in 2006, hoping it won’t end the same way this time around. ‘Decision makers must understand that everyone who comes there will be prepared to fight.’

More than 10 years have passed since that night in early February 2006, but when Brig. Gen. (res.) Meir Bokovza starts recounting the great drama that took place in the outpost he was sent to evacuate, he gets all tense and excited as if it all happened a week ago.
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VALERIE VOLCOVICI AND TIMOTHY GARDNER, REUTERS

Donald Trump will pick an ardent opponent of President Barack Obama’s measures to curb climate change as head of the Environmental Protection Agency, a Trump transition team source said on Wednesday, a choice that enraged green activists and cheered the oil industry.

Trump’s choice, Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt, fits neatly with the Republican president-elect’s promise to cut back the EPA and free up drilling and coal mining, and signals the likely rollback of much of Obama’s environmental agenda.
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Lockheed Martin Israel CE Joshua Shani tells “Globes” about Israel’s newest fighter aircraft.

GLOBES

Of the 33 F-35 stealth fighter planes purchased by Israel, the first two will be delivered in three weeks, landing at Nevatim Air Base in southern Israel. Another round of purchases of this advanced, expensive, and controversial fighter is already around the corner. A decision is likely in the coming weeks, with the security cabinet being asked to approve the Ministry of Defense plan to buy 17 more planes.

The first 33 planes were purchased in two series: the first for $2.75 billion and the second for $2.82 billion, including infrastructure, parts, and training simulators.
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Einat Wilf, THE TOWER

Israel has one glaring problem: lousy timing. Most of Israel’s apparent problems, certainly the ones its critics claim it has, emerge from Israel’s repeated inability to be synchronized with prevailing global moods. But patience has its rewards—over time, as challenges facing Israel turn out to be global rather than local, Israel’s failings appear so much less so, if at all.

Consider, as an appetizer, the minor but remarkably annoying issue of airport security. During the 1990s, when I was working on projects in Israel for a global consulting firm, senior partners of the firm would arrive in Israel for a two- to three-day stay to oversee the projects. They would invariably arrive angry. Fuming, really. “What is this crazy security you have at your airports? How dare they look in my bag? How do you ever expect to be part of the global economy if you carry on this way?” The Israelis among us would bow our heads in shame, apologize profusely and mumble something about necessity and terrorism.
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Many Israelis had hoped that President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi would take ground-breaking steps toward normalization; It still has not happened.

By Zvi Mazel. JPOST

President Sadat made history by coming to Jerusalem, and the peace agreement followed two years later. Much is made in Israel of the strong security cooperation between the two countries regarding the fight against Islamic terrorism in northern Sinai. Egypt is far more discreet on the subject.

The “cold peace,” a term coined during the Mubarak years to describe the relations between the two neighboring countries, shows no sign of thawing in spite of a few gestures of goodwill lately. There is once more an Egyptian ambassador in Israel after four years and the embassy of Israel has reopened in Cairo – albeit on the grounds of the residence of the ambassador. Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry made a high profile visit to Israel; furthermore, speaking to high school’s students in Egypt, he stated that Israel’s fight to defend itself could not be construed as terrorism.
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T. Belman. As I understood it, Israel’s planes are no match for the Russian planes and certainly not for the S-300 and S-400 missile/radar systems that Russia has deployed in Syria. Therefore this attack and the one last week could only have been carried out with Russian complicity. Am I wrong?

Important military airport, installations near Damascus reportedly bombed; several Hezbollah fighters killed, sources say

BY DOV LIEBER, TOI

Israeli airstrikes hit an important Syrian regime military airport in Damascus, the pro-Hezbollah Lebanese news network Al Mayadeen claimed Wednesday.

According to the report, the planes struck the Mezzeh Military Airport, located in a suburb of Damascus, around 4 a.m..

Other Arabic media, including al Jazeera and al Arabiya, confirmed that a large explosion had occurred at the airport. Some reports say the fire was caused because a weapons depot exploded.
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By Isi Leibler, JPOST

American Jews will be marginalized and be perceived as the extension of a Democratic Party which is drifting increasingly further away from its traditional pro-Israel policy.

Through out the two thousand of Jews living in the Diaspora, there has been no precedent for the behavior of major liberal mainstream sectors of the American Jewish community. They are undermining themselves and provoking massive waves of resentment from Americans, many of whom were favorably disposed toward them.

The United States has been the home of the largest Jewish community in the Diaspora over the past half-century and was regarded by many Jews as the “goldene medina.” Traditional antisemitism is at an all-time low with the exception of the current anti-Israeli agitation initiated at campuses by Muslims and far-left radicals. Many Jews have become affluent and powerful, and Jews in general are highly respected by most Americans.
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Obama

• I will have the most transparent administration in history.  
• The stimulus will fund shovel-ready jobs.  
• I am focused like a laser on creating jobs.  
• The IRS is not targeting anyone.  
• It was a spontaneous riot about a movie.  

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T. Belman. This is an enormous threat to our liberty. The establishment and the MSM are threatened as never before with the rise of social media which is controlling the message and thus undermining their power. They are are desperate.  They have created a new category to be banned.  News called fake news where they alone decide what is fake. Essentially it is any truth they don’t like the public to know. At the same time they suppress the telling of truth by any part of the establishment, when that truth is at odds with the message they want to deliver.

George Orwell’s 1984 is upon us.

By Liam Deacon, BREITBART

The unelected executive arm of the European Union (EU) is threatening to escalate from “non-legislative” action if Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube do not censor what it considers “illegal” online speech within 24 hours.

In May of this year, the U.S. tech giants signed a “code of conduct”, promising to work with the Commission and national law enforcement to “criminalize” and “sanction” “individual perpetrators” as well as committing to “promoting independent counter-narratives” that the EU favours.
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T. Belman. Jared Kushner is the owner of the Observer. An anti-Trumper sent me a screed, Trump’s son-in-law just published a plan to shut down protests and it’s absolutely horrifying, by Tom Cahill, in which Kushner was attacked for publishing this Op-Ed. Cahill also worried about Kushner’s role in the Trump administration. I found nothing wrong in the Observer’s Op-ED.

Robert Creamer-type operations—like coordinated nation-wide protests—require money

By Austin Bay, THE OBSERVER

It’s time for the FBI to conduct a detailed investigation into the violence and political thuggery that continue to mar the presidential election’s aftermath. A thorough probe of the protests—to include possible ties to organizations demanding vote recounts—will give the Bureau’s integrity-challenged director, James Comey, a chance to sandblast his sullied badge.

Director Comey must also include “elector intimidation” on his post-election investigation list. Reports that members of the Electoral College are being harassed and threatened by angry, vicious (and likely Democratic Party) malcontents require Comey’s quick and systematic attention.
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Draft legislation passes preliminary reading after article that would have overturned the impending eviction of Amona outpost in Samaria is excluded • Left decries “annexation” • Human rights group: Palestinians won’t even be able to object to land grab.

By Gideon Allon, Mati Tuchfeld, Efrat Forsher and Yair Altman, ISRAEL HAYOM

Residents of Amona will be evicted, but other settlements will receive legal standing if the bill passes

The controversial outpost regulation bill passed its preliminary Knesset reading Monday, following an impassioned debate. The legislation proposal seeks to “regulate Israeli settlement in Judea and Samaria and allow it to continue to take root and develop,” by allowing the government to retroactively grant some contested outpost the necessary permits.

Earlier Monday, the Ministerial Committee on Legislation held a special meeting to approve a new draft of the bill, excluding its original Article 7, which referred specifically to the Samaria outpost of Amona, in which it is facing a court-ordered eviction on Dec. 25. The committee approved the bill over the objection of Attorney General Avichai Mendelblit, who opposes any version of the bill, arguing that it is unconstitutional.

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By Peter Skjurkiss, AMERICAN THINKER

The United States is importing people with a religious and cultural propensity to commit horrific acts of hatred and revenge against Western Civilization. This is madness rooted in politics.

On November 28, Abdul Razak Ali Artan, a Somali-born Muslim inspired by ISIS, went on a rampage at Ohio State University. He injured 11 when he rammed his car into a group of students with murderous intent and then immediately went on a knife attack before campus security shot him dead.

No soon had this fanatic’s body reached room temperature then Stephanie Clemons Thompson, employed as something called an “assistant director of resident life a Ohio State,” started calling for sympathy and compassion for Artan and lamented that he was taken out so quickly. In her Facebook posing, Thompson refers to Artan as a “BUCKEYE, a member of our family.”
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Education Minister Naftali Bennett(Jewish Home) shocked that journalists recorded army officers, convinced Regulation Package the best move

By Ido ben Porat, INN

[..]
Bennett related that he had held meetings with leading Religious Zionist rabbis in order to update them about the details of the ‘Regulation Package’ in Judea and Samaria. “We have scored a historic achievement which we have not had since the beginning of the establishment of communities in Judea and Samaria. In one fell swoop 500,000 residents of Judea and Samaria will be called local residents from the moment the law passes and this will have implications for everything – their ability to build, receive mortgages, on building a special room for Yehuda HaYisraeli in Ofra and on the automatic dismissal of hundreds of superfluous Peace Now petitions to the High Court.
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Lindsey Graham tells the ‘Post’ that Netanyahu offended him by signing military aid package with Obama.

By Yaakov Katz, JPOST

Whether Israel likes it or not, the United States Senate will aggressively promote legislation next month aimed at cutting funding to two key allies of the Jewish state – the Palestinian Authority and Egypt, Sen. Lindsey Graham told The Jerusalem Post.

A longtime and vocal supporter of Israel, former US presidential candidate Graham told the Post that as chairman of the Senate’s Foreign Operations Subcommittee, he will work to cut US aid to the PA for continuing to pay stipends to imprisoned Palestinian terrorists and to Egypt for its recent legislative crackdown on NGOs.
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Woe to the journalist or correspondent who haphazardly uses the term “private Palestinian land” without being up-front and honest about the complex nature of the land in question.

By Ari Briggs, JPOST

It shouln’t have surprised anyone to hear Zionist Union leader Isaac Herzog state forcefully on a radio program recently that anyone inhabiting “private Palestinian land” should be removed.

Just as use of the term “West Bank,” a term invented by the Jordanians in 1950 to justify their occupation, is used to undermine the historical fact that Judea and Samaria have always been clearly accepted and understood to be the cradle of Jewish history and civilization, the use of the term “private Palestinian land” is an abuse of the facts and does huge damage to Israel’s credibility and standing.
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The Trump adviser talks about the winning campaign and says the political attacks against him and Breitbart News are ‘just nonsense.’

By KIMBERLEY A. STRASSEL, WSJ NOV 18/16

It’s hard to think of Steve Bannon as a low-profile guy. He has garnered about as many headlines over the past week as Donald Trump—no small feat. He is the executive chairman of the hard-right Breitbart News, among the most aggressive voices online, its website an attack machine against Democrats and “establishment” conservatives. President-elect Trump chose Mr. Bannon this week as his chief strategist and senior counselor, a slot usually filed by someone eager to play a presidential surrogate on TV.

Yet Mr. Bannon—who joined the Trump campaign in mid-August to propel its thunderbolt victory—professes no interest in being the story. “It’s not important to be known,” he says in a telephone interview Thursday night, among his first public comments since the election. “It was Lao Tzu who said that with the best leaders, when the work is accomplished, the people will say ‘We have done this ourselves.’ That’s how I’ve led.”
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T. Belman.  Many would be satisfied with half measures, i.e., stop Iran from getting the bomb. But to have a US administration dedicated to undoing the Iranian revolution where it all began, is beyond our wildest dreams.

With Mattis and Flynn at his side, Trump intends to bring down the Iranian regime as a first step toward securing an unconditional victory in the war against radical Islam.

By Caroline Glick, JPOST

In the US and around the World, people are anxiously awaiting US President-elect Donald Trump’s announcement of his choice to serve as secretary of state. There is no doubt that Trump’s choice for the position will tell us a great deal about the direction his foreign policy is likely to take.

But the fact is that we already have sufficient information to understand what his greatest focus will be.

Trump’s announcement last week that he has selected Marine General James Mattis to serve as his defense secretary is a key piece of the puzzle.
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DEBKAfile

The failure of the US-backed Iraqi army offensive to liberate Mosul – nine weeks after it began – could no longer be denied when a delegation of ISIS chiefs arrived there Sunday, Dec. 4, traveling unhindered from Raqqa, Syria.

DEBKAfile’s military and intelligence sources report that they arrived to discuss how to synchronize the operations of the two jihadist strongholds, after the Islamist leaders occupying Mosul changed course about leaving the city and decided to stay put.
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By Tyler O’neil, PJ MEDIA

A five-year study of growing and shrinking churches in Canada revealed that theology is critical for church survival, and even for attracting younger people. Beliefs based on a literal interpretation of the Bible, the importance of converting people to Christianity, and the bodily resurrection of Jesus Christ are strongest in growing churches, and weakest in churches on the decline.

“If we are talking solely about what belief system is more likely to lead to numerical growth among Protestant churches, the evidence suggests conservative Protestant theology is the clear winner,” David Haskell, lead researcher in the study “Theology Matters: Comparing the Traits of Growing and Declining Mainline Protestant Church Attendees and Clergy,” told Britain’s The Guardian. This declaration is powerful, but the numbers are even more striking.
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