Dr. Aaron Lerner – Take note of this important line in the item:

“Of course, some elements we may need to send to another place to fix. But in most cases, we should we able to replace them from what’s on the shelf …The important thing is that we will not send aircraft out of the country.”

Here’s the truth:

1. There are large key components of the F-35 that WE CANNOT TOUCH. We can only pull them out of the jet and replace with the spare on the shelf.
2. We are going to have very few of these spare large key components.
3. The SLIGHTEST problem in such a component that under normal circumstances might be addressed in a few minutes by an Israeli tech (replace a washer, filets, etc.) mmeans getting thatmuch closer to exhausting the stock of spare components.
4. If and when the day comes that someone in the White House wants to limit our ability to continue an operation it would be child’s play for supply delays to slash the number of combat ready jets.
5. In fact – even without malice, this set up can easily lead to a situation that most of the jets are out of service during the course of a majorconflict that drains our resources.

By: Barbara Opall-Rome, December 11, 2016

TEL AVIV — Nearly a decade of planning preceded Monday’s scheduled delivery of the first F-35Is to the Israel Air Force (IAF), but once they touch down at the stealth fighter’s desert base at Nevatim, another process will just begin, with vast implications on how Israel wields airpower near and very far from home.

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HAARETZ : New Zealand, Venezuela, Malaysia and Senegal told Egypt on Thursday that if it did not clarify by midnight whether it planned to call a vote on a draft UN Security Council resolution demanding an end to Israeli settlements, then they reserved the right to move ahead with the text, diplomats said.

This article by Anne Bayefsky originally appeared on Fox News.

Update: Egypt Delays Vote

President Obama, left, at the Kapolei Golf Club, in Kapolei, Hawaii, Dec. 21, 2016.

The UN Security Council is scheduled to vote Thursday on a scandalous and irreversible Palestinian-led resolution purporting to decide that Israeli settlements violate international law. All signs point to President Obama being a willing participant and refusing to exercise the American veto.

If adopted, the treacherous resolution will greenlight the boycott, divestment, sanctions “BDS” master plan to devastate the Israeli economy and fast-track the effort to send Israel’s Prime Minister to the International Criminal Court to stand trial for war crimes.

The Palestinians are in a hurry to capitalize on the deep-seated antipathy that President Obama has always had for Israel and its leaders, but occasionally repressed during election-cycles. Now an Obama foreign policy, with strong affinities for the UN mob, is unhinged.
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by Daniel Pipes, Commentary

Israeli-Palestinian diplomacy sadly fits the classic description of insanity: “doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” The identical assumptions – land-for-peace and the two-state solution, with the burden primarily on Israel – stay permanently in place, no matter how often they fail.

Decades of what insiders call “peace processing” has left matters worse than when they started, yet the great powers persist, sending diplomat after diplomat to Jerusalem and Ramallah, ever hoping that the next round of negotiations will lead to the elusive breakthrough.

The time is ripe for a new approach, a basic re-thinking of the problem. It draws on Israel’s successful strategy as carried out through its first 45 years. The failure of Israeli-Palestinian diplomacy since 1993 suggests this alternative approach – with a stress on Israeli toughness in pursuit of victory. This would, paradoxically perhaps, be of benefit to Palestinians and bolster American support.
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T. Belman. This is brilliant. A must read.

By Matthew Hausman

Embracing JStreet, the NIF and the Palestinian Arab narrative seem the right thing to do when you reject authentic Judaism. It has happened before.

Progressive Jews wear their partisan allegiances on their sleeves during election season, often taking positions that are so inconsistent with tradition as to cast doubt on whether their values are Jewish at all, or merely secular political dogmas.  The most fundamental priorities for those claiming loyalty to tradition should be respect for ancestral values and commitment to religious, cultural and national survival.  Instead, progressives espouse views that are hostile to Jewish continuity and often display greater affinity for left-wing anti-Semites, Islamic radicals, and revisionist narratives that deny Jewish history.  
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By Matthew M. Hausman,

Know before Whom you stand – and conduct your politics accordingly.

The Hebrew phrase “Da Lifnei Mi Attah Omed” appears above the Ark in many synagogues and means “know before Whom you stand.”  These words come from the Talmud (Tractate Berachot 28b) and remind us that we are always in the presence of G-d and to conduct ourselves accordingly.  For Jews, this includes remembering the commandments, resisting assimilation, and safeguarding the religious and national integrity of the Jewish people.  But when community leaders and professionals express deep concern for the sensitivities of those who deny Jewish history and nationhood, one has to wonder whether they’ve forgotten before Whom they stand, or whether they ever knew in the first place.
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By MARTIN SHERMAN

The impending destruction of the Jewish community of Amona reflects failure of political will and ideo-intellectual bankruptcy of the elected government rather, than the inevitable culmination of a legal battle.

To lose our country by a scrupulous adherence to the written law, would be to lose the law itself, with life, liberty, property and all those who are enjoying them with us; thus absurdly sacrificing the ends to the means. – Thomas Jefferson, September 20, 1810

In Israel, the negative impact of the judicialization of politics on the Supreme Court’s legitimacy is already beginning to show its mark. Over the past decade, the public image of the Supreme Court as an autonomous and impartial arbiter has been increasingly eroded as political representatives of minority groups have come to realize that political arrangements and public policies agreed upon in majoritarian decision-making arenas are likely to be reviewed by an often hostile Supreme Court. As a result, the court and its judges are increasingly viewed by a considerable portion of the Israeli public as pushing forward their own political agenda… – Prof. Ran Hirschl,Towards Juristocracy: The Origins and Consequences of the New Constitutionalism, Harvard University Press, 2004.
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What is the purpose. He should be talking in private with Trump. Why is he not angling for a better deal from Trump?

(Communicated by the Prime Minister’s Media Adviser)

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, today (Thursday, 22 December 2016), released the following statement:

“Israelis deeply appreciate one of the great pillars of the US-Israel alliance: The willingness over many years of the US to stand up in the UN and veto anti-Israel resolutions.

I hope the US won’t abandon this policy; I hope it will abide by the principles set by President Obama himself in his speech in the UN in 2011: That peace will come not through UN resolutions, but only through direct negotiations between the parties.

And that’s why this proposed resolution is bad. It’s bad for Israel; it’s bad for the United States; and it’s bad for peace.”

BESA Center Perspectives Paper No. 388

By Col. (res.) Dr. Eran Lerman, December 22, 2016

Practically every ideological and strategic group in the Middle East has a stake in the raw and murderous Syrian struggle. Viewed through the prism of the regional “game of camps,” the fall of Aleppo represents a major boost for Iran and her allies, given the active (and costly) role played there by Hezbollah fighters and the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps (specifically, Qasim Suleymani). Coupled with the growing role of the IRGC-backed forces in Iraq (“al-Hashd al-Sha’bi”) and the ongoing conflict in Yemen, the victory in Aleppo is feeding Tehran’s increasingly arrogant vision about the future of the region and Israel’s assured demise.
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Shoshana Bryen, JEWISH POLICY CENTER • December 22, 2016

President-elect Trump’s choice of David Friedman as Ambassador to Israel appears to be an excellent decision. It has already brought howls of protest from people invested heavily in the Oslo and subsequent accords, the “peace process” and the concept of the United States as an “evenhanded” broker between Israelis and Palestinians. Friedman, an Oslo-skeptic, has saidhe believes that, “Notwithstanding ‘agreements’ reached at Camp David, Oslo, Wye Plantation and elsewhere, neither Yasser Arafat nor Mahmoud Abbas ever had any intentions to observe the minimal conditions required of a two-state solution.”
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Ted Belman

The UN Security Council is due to vote today on an Egyptian draft resolution that would demand that Israel “immediately and completely cease all settlement activities”.

As I have often stated, the Arab States, though they need Israel’s help have never altered there demand Israel’s agreement to the Arab Peace Initiative.

This Egyptian sponsored resolution is another example of how intransigent they are even though they need us desperately.

By Raphael Aren, TOI

[After discussing the various resolution which are coming up in the UNSC]

Even if an anti-settlement resolution passed, what difference would it make?

In the internal Israeli debate over what could happen at the Security Council in Obama’s last days, very little attention has been given to the question of how much impact an approved resolution would actually have. The answer is quite simple: Not much.

“It won’t change anything immediately,” said Aeyal Gross, a professor of international law at Tel Aviv University, even though — as opposed to decisions taken by the General Assembly — countries are obligated to act according to Security Council resolutions. It is possible that a first resolution might pave the way for another one, which at some point could lead to additional resolutions under Chapter VII of the UN Charter, which deals with “threat[s] to the peace, breach of the peace, or act[s] of aggression.”
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By Dr Mitchell Bard, TOI

The first semester of 2016-17 has been another phenomenal one for Jewish students across the country. While fear mongers have been scaring parents with exaggerated claims about how dangerous it is for Jewish students on campus, the truth is campuses across the country are beehives of pro-Israel activity that has gone unnoticed because it does not fit the narrative of Jews cowering in fear in their dorm rooms. In fact, more students are engaged in pro-Israel activity today than ever before.

While once a handful of pro-Israel groups such as Hillel, AIPAC and various uncoordinated Israel action committees operated on campus, today a multiplicity of organizations engage students from different perspectives. These organizations include (forgive me for any I’ve inadvertently left out): Hillel, AIPAC, AICE, StandWithUs, the David Project, AEPi, Hasbara Fellowships, ZOA, JNF, ADL, the Israel on Campus Coalition, Students Supporting Israel, Chabad, the Israeli American Council, The Maccabee Task Force, and Christians United for Israel.
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T. Belman. The NYT makes a big deal of Tillerson changing his tune. I see not problem at all. Its a matter of a risk/reward calculation. He decided to accept the risk in order to sign a $500 billion contract.

By NEIL MacFARQUHAR and ANDREW E. KRAMER, NYT, DEC. 20, 2016

MOSCOW — As a member of the U.S.-Russia Business Council and chief executive of Exxon Mobil, Rex W. Tillerson frequently voiced doubts about Russia’s investment climate, saying as late as 2008 that Russia “must improve the functioning of its judicial system and its judiciary. There is no respect for the rule of law in Russia today.”

This past February, however, Mr. Tillerson, President-elect Donald J. Trump’s choice to be the next secretary of state, was sounding a very different theme, telling students at the University of Texas that he has “a very close relationship” with President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia.
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By Selwyn Duke, AMERICAN THINKER

“Islam is not the problem,” proclaims the Left. And if you say otherwise, you’re a “racist,” even though “Muslim” is not a race. Yet a fact remains: virtually all the world’s terrorists today claim Islamic motivations. So if Islam (belief) is not the problem, are we then left with a genetic explanation for this violence? Is there something inherent in the groups generally embracing Islam — Arabs, Persians, Indonesians, Punjabis, etc. — that would account for it? And, hey, I’m just asking; it’s the liberals who profess ideas suggesting this possibility.

Consider: When analyzing WWII and Germany, few claim the problem was Germans, but Nazism. When looking at 1917 Russia, we don’t say the problem was Russians, but Marxism. So fill in the blank: when evaluating the Muslim world and its violence, do we assume the problem is the people or _____?
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T. Belman. Neither renegotiation or sanctions will result in a better deal. The US should not talk. It should do. It must prevent the hegemonic ambitions of the Iranian regime. The best way to do this is cut a deal with Russia if possible or arrange for a massive Sunni Army to gain control of the remaining areas of Syria and Iraq. Perhaps the Gulf States care enough to prevent the expansion of Iran to finance the deployment of a 100,000 strong Egyptian Army to Syria.

Why the new Commander-in-Chief has few good options for rebuilding the Middle East order that Obama negotiated away

By Lee Smith, TABLET

Forget China and underwater drones, forget Russian hacks and leaks, because it’s all a sideshow: America’s big-ticket foreign-policy issue is still the Iran deal. Donald Trump has promised to rip it up on day one of his presidency, but that’s not going to happen because it means the freshly minted commander-in-chief may have America poised for conflict with the leading state sponsor of terror before the band even starts to warm up for the inaugural ball next month at the newly opened Trump International Hotel.
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Why hasn’t the administration done anything about Syria, and won’t? Because the Iran Deal.

By Tony Badran, TABLET First published Sept 24/16

America’s settled policy of standing by while half a million Syrians have been killed, millions have become refugees, and large swaths of their country have been reduced to rubble is not a simple “mistake,” as critics like Nicholas D. Kristof and Roger Cohen have lately claimed. Nor is it the product of any deeper-seated American impotence or of Vladimir Putin’s more recent aggressions. Rather, it is a byproduct of America’s overriding desire to clinch a nuclear deal with Iran, which was meant to allow America to permanently remove itself from a war footing with that country and to shed its old allies and entanglements in the Middle East, which might also draw us into war. By allowing Iran and its allies to kill Syrians with impunity, America could demonstrate the corresponding firmness of its resolve to let Iran protect what President Barack Obama called its “equities” in Syria, which are every bit as important to Iran as pallets of cash.
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By Prof. Eyal Zisser, ISRAEL HAYOM

The assassination of the Russian ambassador in Ankara, horrifying as it was, has sparked concerns over the possible consequences for regional stability.

Some experts warned of an escalation in hostilities and deterioration of Russian-Turkish relations, even to the point of war between the two, citing the example of the assassination of Austro-Hungarian Royal Prince Ferdinand in June 1914 in Sarajevo, which led to World War I.

The sense of upheaval over the Russian ambassador’s murder, however, appears to have mostly stemmed from the fact that it was broadcast live, as if it were a reality TV show.
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By Barbara Diamond, TOI

Most of what I have written over the past year regarding the recent US Presidential election has come to fruition. That having been said, I am not a political oracle, but simply a fascinated observer of the process. Reading between the lines of political behavior and actions is often more interesting and valid than taking it all at face value.

For some time, I have been making a prediction privately which I have been loath to put into print as it is just a bit provocative. Who would want that!?
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Founder of Belgian People’s Party tells Arutz Sheva wave of populism sweeping across West is a boon for Israel.

By Yoni Kempinski, INN

While the left has decried the rising tide of populism across the United States and Europe, claiming it is tied to racism, xenophobia, and anti-Semitism, the leader of one of the new wave of populist parties says the political revolutions reshaping the West are not connected to racism – and are a boon for Israel.

Speaking to Arutz Sheva at the 2nd Jerusalem Leaders Summit, Mischaël Modrikamen, founder of the Belgian People’s Party, discussed the nature of the populist wave and its implications for the Jewish state.

“[There is] a clear distinction between the right-wing, neo-Nazi, fascist movements – and they are – if you look at the [Greek party] Golden Dawn, or the [Hungarian] Jobbik [party]… they are fascist, racist, and anti-Semitic,” said Modrikamen.
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By: Barbara Opall-Rome, DEFENSE NEWS

Two Israeli F-35 “Adirs” fly in formation and display the US and Israeli flags after receiving fuel from a Tennessee Air National Guard KC-135, Dec, 6, 2016.Photo Credit: 1st Lt. Erik D. Anthony/US Air Force

TEL AVIV – About 30 Lockheed Martin specialists and three US Air Force representatives will remain in Israel indefinitely to help the Israel Air Force (IAF) operate and maintain its newest acquisition, the F-35I Adir.

The Lockheed Martin team, two USAF F-35 pilots and one USAF aircrew instructor are co-located at the IAF’s Nevatim base in the Negev desert, home of the 140th Golden Eagles Squadron, which received its first pair of Adir (Awesome/Mighty) Dec. 12.
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