By Evelyn Gordon, COMMENTARY

It’s pure chance that Amir Tibon’s lengthy essay on “Netanyahu vs. the Generals” appeared just 10 days after the Brexit vote, but both demonstrate the same blind spot on the part of the so-called elites. After thousands of words describing the Israeli defense establishment’s years-long, no-holds-barred war against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Tibon’s verdict, shared by everyone he interviewed, is that Netanyahu has succeeded in curbing defense officials’ power to thwart his policies. Yet Tibon seems at a loss to explain why the widely loathed Netanyahu was able to defeat the most respected institution in Israel. In fact, the reason is the same one that produced the Brexit campaign’s victory: Experts, however respected, will never be able to persuade voters to disregard the lessons of their own lived experience.
Read more…

The presumptive Democratic nominee’s supports stressed that the language calling for negotiations over a two-state solution is sufficient.

JPOST

Supporters of Democratic pesidential candidate Hillary Clinton on Saturday rejected a proposal to include a statement in the party’s platform calling for Israel’s “end to occupations and illegal settlements,” CNN reported.

During a convening of the Democratic National Committee’s draft platform committee in Orlando, Clinton’s backers said such additional language to the current language in the party’s platform would further inflame tensions and deter from future US efforts in peace talks.
Read more…

Resurgent pride in place and people may well unleash old genies in Europe. But Europe’s rationalist bureaucrats have not exactly done a bang-up job of defending Jews or Israel.

By Jonathan Rosenblum, JPOST

Political theorist Mark Lilla noted the irony that “Once upon a time, the Jews were mocked for not having a nation- state. Now they are criticized for having one,” and for their stubborn determination to defend it.

That is why the dramatic reassertion of national sovereignty in the Brexit vote is important for Israel. Nor was the British public alone. Laurent Wauquiez, former French minister for European affairs, said in the wake of the Brexit vote that “the result would have been the same in any other country in the EU. Perhaps an even greater rejection in France.”
Read more…

By Vic Rosenthal

Today I came across an article by Rabbi Baruch Efrati in which he opposes cooperation between Israelis and the Reform Movement.

So what, you say. Another Orthodox attack on the heretical reformim. Perhaps so, but here is what caught my attention:

The secular Jewish world does not want to take over the religious world from a theological point of view, but to live beside it – hence, the possibility of influencing that world, listening to its hearts’ desires, elevating its holy sparks to their heavenly source. The secular are actually non-observant Orthodox, they do not present an alternative organized religion that turns transgressions into an ideology intended to take the place of the Torah. They have not invented a made up religion but are in the midst of a process where secularism is withering and faith is blossoming, as one can see over the last few years in which there is constant strengthening of ties to Torah, baruch Hashem.

Read more…

Two amendments to a bill block sales from the U.S. aircraft giant as well as its European rival, Airbus, to the Islamic republic.

HAARETZ

The U.S. House of Representatives has approved two amendments to an appropriations bill that would ban U.S. aircraft sales to Iran, undermining a $25 billion deal in the works, the Guardian reported.

The amendments, authored by Rep. Peter Roskam (R-Illinois), block sales from U.S.-based Boeing and its European rival Airbus over concerns that Iran would use the planes for military purposes.
Read more…

by Jeff Dunetz, THE LID

For the last 48-hours the mainstream media has been going crazy calling  Donald Trump an anti-Semite because of this tweet:

Read more…

Hezbollah remains a powerful foe, but its claim to spearhead the Arab fight against Israel has been dented and its involvement in the Syrian civil war has cost it heavily.

By Jonathan Spyer, JPOST

Speaking at a gathering in southern Lebanon last month, Hezbollah deputy leader Sheikh Naim Qassem reiterated the movement’s readiness for war with Israel. At the same time, the sheikh made clear that war this summer would not take place unless Israel initiates it. In his speech, Qassem, who is considered the chief ideologue of Hezbollah, recalled the “divine victory” of the movement, which brought about Israeli withdrawal from south Lebanon in May 2000. He asserted, in a reiteration of the movement’s muqawama or “resistance” doctrine, that the 2000 withdrawal had begun the period of Israel’s decline. This period, he suggested, will end with the Jewish state’s disappearance.
Read more…

Offering high-tech and security know-how in return for diplomatic support, Netanyahu was welcomed like a superpower chief

BY RAPHAEL AHREN, TOI

DIS ABABA, Ethiopia — A life-size stuffed lion greets visitors to the National Palace in Addis Ababa, lying on a red carpet adorned with Stars of David. Always aware of a good frame, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu did not pass up on the opportunity to have his photograph taken with the lion on the sidelines of his meeting with Ethiopian Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn Thursday morning.
Read more…

By David M Weinberg, ISRAEL HAYOM

I have just returned from 10 days in Washington, where I encountered administration officials, think tank analysts and Jewish community lobbyists who are profoundly misreading Israel and misunderstanding the changed Middle East.

Most of them think that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is without a grand plan and is just playing petty politics to survive. I tried to explain to them how wrong they were and to articulate a coherent Israeli strategic worldview.

To begin with, I found that senior Obama administration defense officials have convinced themselves that the Israeli security establishment has come around to a benign view of the Western nuclear accord with Iran. Netanyahu is an outlier in his continued negativity toward the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, they told me; he is isolated from his own military-intelligence establishment in this regard, they asserted with self-congratulatory smirks on their faces.
Read more…

By Yoram Ettinger, ISRAEL HAYOM

The long-term trends of US-Israel relations do not hinge solely/mostly on US presidents, as has been documented since Israel’s establishment in 1948, and especially since the early 1980s, when – in spite of systematic presidential pressure on Israel – bilateral industrial, commercial, scientific, technological, agricultural, homeland security and defense cooperation have surged beyond expectations.

For instance, President Truman pressured Prime Minister Ben Gurion to end the “occupation” of West Jerusalem and parts of the Negev and Galilee; President Johnson pressured Prime Minister Eshkol to refrain from preempting the concerted Arab attack, reuniting Jerusalem and building in “occupied areas”; President Nixon pressured Prime Minister Golda Meir to end “occupation” and refrain from building in East Jerusalem; President Carter pressured Prime Minister Begin to focus on withdrawal from Judea & Samaria, rather than on peace with Egypt; President Reagan pressured Prime Minister Begin to rescind the application of Israeli law to the Golan Heights and end the hot-pursuit of the PLO in Lebanon; President Bush pressured Prime Minister Shamir to recognize the PLO and refrain from construction in Judea & Samaria.
Read more…

THE ISRAEL PROJECT

Lawmakers and experts assembled at a Capitol Hill hearing on Wednesday expressed outrage over the Palestinian Authority’s policy of financially rewarding terrorist attacks against Israelis.The PA provides paychecks for Palestinian terrorists who are imprisoned in Israel, as well as money for their families and the families of those killed while committing acts of terror, thereby providing a strong financial incentive for individuals to perpetrate acts of violence against Israelis.
Read more…

By Ron Jager

Denial is defined as a psychological defense mechanism, and was postulated by psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud, in which a person is faced with a fact that is too uncomfortable to accept and rejects it instead, insisting that it is not true despite what may be overwhelming evidence.
One would think that by now, after the Boston Marathon, after Fort Hood, after San Bernardino, after Orlando, after Paris, after Belgium, after 120 years of Islamic terror against the Jewish State, President Obama’s denial and refusal to call a spade a spade – namely that radical Islam is the number one generator of terror throughout the world — would end. But it hasn’t, Obama continues to live in a world of denial.
Read more…

The president’s abdication from leadership has unnerved America’s allies and made the world a more dangerous place.

By Kenneth R. Weinstein, HUDSON INSTITUTE, WSJ

As the initial shock of Great Britain’s vote to withdraw from the EU recedes, another withdrawal has been taking place. This withdrawal, albeit more gradual and undertaken with greater stealth, has far deeper consequences. It is the exit of the United States from global leadership and the alliance structure that it built and nurtured over nearly seven decades.

This “Amexit” is not simply defined by the Obama administration’s retreat from Afghanistan and Iraq, or its unwillingness to enforce the “red line” in Syria, to arm Ukraine, or to confront Chinese and North Korean aggressions. Nor is it only America’s diminished engagement with longstanding allies.
Read more…

Does AIPAC intend to remain a pro-Israel organization? Or will it opt to become a softer version of J Street and work to hollow out Republican support for Israel.

By Caroline B. Glick, JPOST

Later this month, Republicans and Democrats will hold their respective conventions. Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton will officially become the presidential nominees.

Ahead of the conventions, both parties selected delegates to draft their platforms. The Democratic platform committee convened late last month.

As soon as the delegates to the Democratic platform committee were named, it was clear that the party’s support for Israel would come under assault.
Read more…

By Baraq Araz, TOI

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu inspects an honor guard in Nairobi, Kenya, on July 5, 2016 (Kobi Gideon / GPO).

As a proud Israeli who loves speaking of and for my country, it’s utterly refreshing to arrive in a place where, at the mention of my nationality, I am met with smiles, and welcomed warmly. This is no dream — it’s my experience in Africa.

Over the past two and a half years, I have been engaging in business development as the chief of staff of a private holdings and investment group currently in its fourth decade of operations there (and whose managing partner also serves as Rwanda’s honorary consul in Israel). In over 30 months, I have travelled around the continent more times than I can recall, having visited about a dozen countries and having met with public officials and business leaders from about a dozen more. This is the reality I am met with, each and every single time. Indeed it is a stark contrast from my preceding eight-year military service, most of which I served as a spokesman (including that of IDF operations in the West Bank, no less), constantly facing criticism and derision.
Read more…

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu: American position on settlement construction is unacceptable • “We are ready at all times to hold direct negotiations without preconditions with our neighbors,” Netanyahu says.

Israel Hayom Staff

Construction in Jerusalem [Archive] | Photo credit: Yonatan Sindel

A day after a U.S. State Department spokesman criticized Israeli construction in Judea and Samaria and east Jerusalem, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu fired back on Tuesday, calling the U.S. position “unacceptable.”

Speaking at a joint press conference with Rwandan President Paul Kagame in Kigali, Netanyahu said, “We are familiar with the American position. It is not new. It is also not acceptable to us.
Read more…

A center-left separatist insurgency, based in northern Iraq, has taken to fighting Iran’s Revolutionary Guard.

THE DAILY BEAST

In an unprecedented escalation in the last two decades, Iranian Kurdish rebels have broke a unilateral ceasefire with a series of attacks against the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps in the mountainous Kurdish cities in northwestern Iran.

A series of ongoing attacks by Kurdish rebels from the Kurdistan Democratic Party in Iran (KDPI) on the Revolutionary Guard, dozens from both sides have been killed. (Exact numbers are difficult to come by given competing claims.)
Read more…

By Lea Speyer, ALGEMEINER

America’s credibility in the Middle East has been destroyed since the signing of the Iran nuclear deal a year ago, a former US ambassador to Iraq and Turkey asserted on Tuesday.

In his analysis, titled, “The JCPOA’s Regional Impact: Sinking Confidence in the U.S. Balancing Role,” James F. Jeffrey — the Philip Solondz Distinguished Fellow at the DC-based think tank the Washington Institute for Near East Policy — wrote that the nuclear deal has emboldened Tehran and “even enabled Iran’s hegemonic quest.” As a result, he claimed, regional powers — such as Saudi Arabia, the Gulf States, Turkey and Israel — now perceive US leadership as “weak,” posing heightened risks of “descent into greater chaos.”
Read more…

By EVELYN GORDON, COMMENTARY

On Monday, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon predictably assailed Israel’s announced decision to build 800 new apartments in Ma’aleh Adumim and eastern Jerusalem. He noted that just four days earlier, the Middle East Quartet (i.e. the U.S., EU, UN and Russia) had issued a report deeming settlement construction an obstacle to peace. What Ban didn’t mention is that just a few days before that report came out, a leading Israeli leftist expert on the settlements published a comprehensive rebuttal of this claim, providing facts and figures showing that the settlements effectively aren’t growing at all.

This juxtaposition begs an obvious question: If the world is going to accuse Israel of “massive settlement construction” that “threatens the two-state solution” when even leading leftists admit this is a lie, why should Israel continue to pay the very real price exacted by freezing settlement construction?
Read more…