Islam is not a civilization  

By Prof. Paul Eidelberg, President, Israel-America Renaissance Institute,

We need a “politically incorrect” and radically new multidisciplanary and multinational understanding of Islam.

To speak of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam as the “three Abrahamic faiths” or as the “three religions of the Book,” or, more significantly, as the “three monotheisms,” obscures rather than illuminates. These familiar tropes, says theologian George Weigel, ought to be retired.

The eminent French scholar Alain Besançon agrees. He writes,

“The Abraham of Genesis is not the Ibrahim of the Qur’an; Moses is not Moussa. As for Jesus, he appears, as Issa, out of place and out of time, without reference to the landscape of Israel. His mother, Mary, or Mariam, identified as the sister of Aaron, gives birth to him under a palm tree. Then Issa performs several miracles, which seem to have been drawn from the apocryphal gospels, and announces the future coming of Muhammad.”

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September 6, 2016 | 6:29 am | Comments »

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How Israeli rightists propose to deal with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict – PART II  

PART I 

Seeking to inject positive content into right-wing ideology that rejects the two-state idea, Sara Haetzni-Cohen, whose family belongs to settler aristocracy, has been out seeking alternative strategies. Haetzni-Cohen talks about life as a secular woman married to a religious man, and explains why she won’t live in Kiryat Arba.

By Hilo Glazer, HAARETZ

The civilized way

In July, I accompanied Haetzni-Cohen to a conference on public diplomacy and the media organized by the Yesha Council, the umbrella governing body of the settlements. The venue was a Jerusalem hotel. Haetzni-Cohen had been invited to moderate a panel on “possible political-diplomatic blueprints for coping with the conflict.” The opening speaker was Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat, followed by a veritable who’s who of the right wing: Education Minister Bennett, Social Equality Minister Gila Gamliel (Likud), Yesha Council chairman Avi Roeh, and journalist Ben-Dror Yemini, who as usual blasted human rights groups “for spearheading a dialogue of hatred against Israel” .
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September 6, 2016 | 6:06 am | Comments »

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What’s Turkey doing in Syria?  

Originally published under the title “Ankara’s Next Move.”

By Jonathan Spyer, MEF

After its incursion into Syria, Turkey will have to decide whether to declare “Euphrates Shield” a success or to continue seeking to destroy the Kurdish-led SDF in the face of US opposition. The Turkish incursion into the north Syrian town of Jarabulus and its environs, which began on August 24, is the latest dramatic re-shuffling of the deck in a long and agonizing conflict.
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September 6, 2016 | 1:19 am | Comments »

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Naomi Ragen, “I’m voting for Donald Trump. And I’m proud of it.”  

by Naomi Ragen

Yes, I’m voting for Donald Trump. And I’m proud of it.

If anyone had told me two years ago that I’d be making that statement, I would have done a Jon Stewart eye roll and stare. What? The guy from reality TV? The “You’re fired” guy with the funny hair and New York accent? That guy?!

But things have happened in the last few years that have made me —and many pro-Israel Americans in both countries—decide that this is not only our best but our only choice.
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September 6, 2016 | 1:02 am | 7 Comments »

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How Israeli rightists propose to deal with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict – PART I  

Seeking to inject positive content into right-wing ideology that rejects the two-state idea, Sara Haetzni-Cohen, whose family belongs to settler aristocracy, has been out seeking alternative strategies. Haetzni-Cohen talks about life as a secular woman married to a religious man, and explains why she won’t live in Kiryat Arba.

By Hilo Glazer, HAARETZ

Forty years ago, attorney Elyakim Haetzni, a leader of the West Bank settlement movement, who would later serve in the Knesset in the ultranationalist Tehiya movement, established an organization that he called “The People against a Hostile Media.” Its logo was a snake wrapped around a microphone. Haetzni had long been frustrated by what he termed the “leftist media,” which in his perception dominated public opinion. The organization’s bumper stickers soon appeared on cars across the country.
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September 5, 2016 | 3:22 pm | Comments »

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Enrollment growth slows in haredi, Arab-Israeli schools  

T.Belman. This is not surprising to anyone who has been paying attention. We knew that the Arab bitrth rate had dropped dramatically and the Hareidi birthrate slightly. We also knew that the dramatically increased birthrate for Israelis was due to the large increase in secular babies.

Increases continue elsewhere, Taub Center finds.

By LIDAR GRAVÉ-LAZI, JPOST

Netanyahu greets school children.

Recent years have seen acceleration in the rate of increase in the number of pupils in state secular and state religious schools, while the rate of growth in ultra-Orthodox and Arab schools has slowed, according to a study the Taub Center for Social Policy Studies released on Monday.

There was continued growth in the number of haredi and Arab Israeli students between 2000 and 2015, yet during the second half of that period, the growth rate slowed. That slowdown coincided with a rise in the rate of increase in the state secular and state religious education streams.
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September 5, 2016 | 12:23 pm | Comments »

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In first, Germany admits PA is likely paying terrorists’ families  

T. Belman. This has been public knowledge for many years. The only reason Germany didn’t “know” is that she didn’t want to know. Most European countries are similarly “ignorant”. Tuvia Tannenboim, the author of Catch the Jew, discovered that Germany is the biggest funder of anti-Israel NGO’s operating in Judea and Samaria.

Berlin vows to investigate Ramallah’s system of monthly ‘salaries’ for Palestinians held in Israeli prisons for terror-related offenses

BY RAPHAEL AHREN, TOI

Illustrative photo of security prisoners in an Israeli prison (photo credit: Moshe Shai/Flash90)

The German government has for the first time admitted that the Palestinian Authority likely grants financial support to terrorists and their families, and vowed to further investigate the matter.

Following repeated queries by an opposition lawmaker, the Foreign Ministry in Berlin last week also acknowledged that funds for so-called “martyrs” and Palestinian prisoners sitting in Israeli jails for security-related offenses come not only from the Palestine Liberation Organization but partially from the PA’s own budget.
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September 5, 2016 | 12:07 pm | 2 Comments »

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Polls Show Donald Trump Gains from High Third-Party Support  

By John Pudner, BREITBART

Donald Trump gets a crucial two-point bounce when third-party presidential candidates combine for more than 10 percent in multiple polls, according to a Breitbart News analysis.
Those two points could provide the critical margin to Ohio, Florida, Virginia, and North Carolina.

The 10-percent threshold was reached five times in the 20th Century (1912, 1924, 1948, 1968, and 1992). Ross Perot got 19 percent in 1992 and 8.4 percent in 1996. John Anderson got 6.6 percent in 1980 against Ronald Reagan, and libertarian Ed Clark got 11.7 percent in Alaska in the 1980 election.
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September 5, 2016 | 8:30 am | 3 Comments »

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America’s desperately wrong foreign policy  

By BARRY SHAW

If you want to study the weakness of American foreign policy under the Obama-Clinton-Kerry Administration, just look at the Turkish-Kurdish-Syrian triangle.

America’s formal position is that it opposes the Assad regime, that it looks on Turkey as a close ally, and that it arms the Kurds in their fight against ISIS.

ISIS is considered a potentially major threat within America and must be eliminated. The Kurds have been the bravest, boldest fighters against Islamic State. Yet, recently Vice President Biden, during a visit to Turkey, demanded that the Kurds return back over the river from Syria into Iraq. The Kurds were the first and only force that took on ISIS in Iraq on behalf of the slaughtered Yezidi people. They were the first to win significant victories and drove much of ISIS back into Syria where they pursued them.
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September 5, 2016 | 8:15 am | 2 Comments »

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Facts on Israel – a new resource  

Lee Bender sent me this email:

I am a fellow pro-Israel traveler: co-President of ZOA-Philadelphia, co-author of the book, “Pressing Israel: Media Bias Exposed From A-Z “ (Pavilion Press, 2012). My co-author, Jerome S Verlin, and I have now launched a new website, www.factsonisrael.com, in which we promote truth, combat pejorative terms and expose media bias. If you can promote it- it is a labor of love for us- that would be great.
Thanks. You are doing fantastic work.
-Lee Bender, Lsb23@cornell.edu

P R E S S R E L E A S E – FactsOnIsrael.com, Inc.

Philadelphia, PA, 6/28/16: The homeland right of no people on earth is more misunderstood than that of the Jewish people to their homeland of Israel. This is partly because the mainstream media has adopted the PA narrative, but also in part because well-meaning supporters of Israel ourselves unthinkingly repeat the anti-Israel narrative. The PA has done its utmost to delegitimate the existence of Israel by disseminating a false narrative. It has convinced the world that Judea and Samaria belongs to the Arabs and always has. They have branded Israel an occupier, a thief, as nazis, as an Apartheid nation and so on. Unfortunately, most of the world agrees with them including most liberal Jews. Both of these practices contribute greatly to the widespread bias against Israel.
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September 5, 2016 | 6:37 am | Comments »

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Report: Israel Must Become a Maritime Power  

WORLD JEWISH DAILY

A new report out of Israel bluntly lays out Israel’s future task in the tumultuous Middle East: Become a maritime power.

The report grew out of a commission of politically and philosophically diverse experts of former Israeli and American navy admirals and other policymakers, according to a lengthy analysis in the Times of Israel.

The upshot of the report calls on Israel to take a greater role in securing the Eastern Mediterranean. It warns that in order to have security, Israel must turn to the sea–not just to the land and air.
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September 5, 2016 | 4:16 am | 1 Comment »

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U.S., others agreed ‘secret’ exemptions for Iran after nuclear deal: think tank  

By Jonathan Landay, REUTERS

The United States and its negotiating partners agreed “in secret” to allow Iran to evade some restrictions in last year’s landmark nuclear agreement in order to meet the deadline for it to start getting relief from economic sanctions, according to a think tank report published on Thursday.

The report, which was released by the Washington-based Institute for Science and International Security, is based on information provided by several officials of governments involved in the negotiations. The group’s president David Albright, a former U.N. weapons inspector and co-author of the report, declined to identify the officials, and Reuters could not independently verify the report’s assertions.
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September 4, 2016 | 4:22 pm | Comments »

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Was Israel’s satellite sabotaged on US rocket pad?  

DEBKA

A day after Israel’s Amos-6 communications satellite was lost in a highly unusual explosion/fast fire of the SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket and its Amos 6 satellite payload at Cape Canaveral, some Israel aerospace industry experts are beginning to suspect sabotage. They are keeping their suspicions to themselves pending an investigation in which NASA ad the US Air Force will be taking part.

An explosion or fire occurring during a standard pre-launch static test prior to the engine igniting may be unique. These Israeli experts can’t recall any space satellite disasters happening at that particular stage.
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September 4, 2016 | 1:33 pm | 2 Comments »

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JEWS CHOOSE TRUMP  

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For all of you who signed on to the website, Jews Choose Trump, we need your help.

I am Dori Parker, the executive director of Jews Choose Trump. And I am Carol Greenwald, chair of Jews for Trump. Here is the contact information for those states in which we have state chairs:

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September 4, 2016 | 12:04 pm | 3 Comments »

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The Oslo Disaster  

By Prof. Efraim Karsh, BESA,

Nobel-Arafat-Peres-Rabin
Mideast Security and Policy Studies No. 123

Prof. Efraim Karsh, the incoming director of the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies, skewers the Oslo diplomatic process as “the starkest strategic blunder in Israel’s history” and as “one of the worst calamities ever to have afflicted Israelis and Palestinians.”

“Twenty three years after its euphoric launch on the White House lawn,” Karsh writes in this comprehensive study, “the Oslo ‘peace process’ has substantially worsened the position of both parties and made the prospects for peace and reconciliation ever more remote.”
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September 4, 2016 | 11:37 am | Comments »

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Islam is not a civilization  

By Prof. Paul Eidelberg, President, Israel-America Renaissance Institute,

We need a politically incorrect and radically new multi-disciplinary and multinational understanding of Islam.

To speak of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam as the “three Abrahamic faiths” or as the “three religions of the Book,” or, more significantly, as the “three monotheisms,” obscures rather than illuminates. These familiar tropes, says theologian George Weigel, ought to be retired.

The eminent French scholar Alain Besançon agrees. He writes,

“The Abraham of Genesis is not the Ibrahim of the Qur’an; Moses is not Moussa. As for Jesus, he appears, as Issa, out of place and out of time, without reference to the landscape of Israel. His mother, Mary, or Mariam, identified as the sister of Aaron, gives birth to him under a palm tree. Then Issa performs several miracles, which seem to have been drawn from the apocryphal gospels, and announces the future coming of Muhammad.”

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September 4, 2016 | 8:22 am | Comments »

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MUSLIM TERRORISTS AND JEWISH ANTI-SEMITES AGAINST TRUMP  

Moderate Saudi businessmen who fund terror warn of Trump’s “extremism.”

By Daniel Greenfield, FPM

“I was often the ‘designated yeller.’”

That’s how Hillary Clinton described her relationship with the Israeli prime minister. Yelling and cursing was her particular specialty.

One marathon Hillary yelling session allegedly lasted 45 minutes. Afterward the Israeli ambassador said that relations between the United States and Israel had reached their lowest point.

Her favorite name for Netanyahu was, “F____ Bibi.”

But it wasn’t just about her hatred of any particular Israeli leader. The same year that Hillary was yelling herself hoarse at a man who had fought terrorists on the battlefield, she addressed the American Task Force on Palestine, a leading terror lobby, and blasted Israel and praised Islamic terrorists.
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September 3, 2016 | 4:50 pm | 1 Comment »

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SERVING MUSLIM INTERESTS WITH AMERICAN FOREIGN POLICY  

By Joseph Klein, FPM

A Hillary Clinton presidency would likely continue along the pro-Islamist foreign policy arc that both her husband’s administration and the Obama administration have developed.

President Bill Clinton committed U.S. military resources to help Muslims during the so-called “humanitarian” intervention in Bosnia. However, he chose to turn a blind eye to the genocide that swamped Rwanda during his administration. As G. Murphy Donovan wrote in his American Thinker article “How the Clintons Gave American Foreign Policy its Muslim Tilt,” “Muslim lives matter, Black Africans, not so much.” Noting that “it was Muslim unrest that precipitated Serb pushback, civil war, and the eventual collapse of Yugoslavia,” Donovan added, “Bosnians are, for the most part, Muslims with a bloody fascist pedigree.”

Nevertheless, with no strategic U.S. national interest at stake, Bill Clinton tilted American foreign policy in favor of the Muslim side in the Bosnia conflict. We are now reaping the lethal consequences of that tilt. Donovan points out in his article that, on a per capita basis, Bosnia Herzegovina is the leading source of ISIS volunteers in all of Europe.
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September 3, 2016 | 4:43 pm | 2 Comments »

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