Efrat, which is the second largest settlement in the Gush Etzion bloc, could quickly grow to the size of a city in the next decade.

By Tova Lazaroff, JPOST

A half a million people live in the Gush Etzion settlement bloc within the next decade, Construction and Housing Minister Yoav Galant estimated as he visited the region on Tuesday.

He made the statement during a conversation he had with Efrat Local Council head Oded Revivi, whose settlement of over 8,000 people is in the midst of building 1,100 new homes.

Revivi’s spokesman described the meeting and explained that Efrat itself was likely to grow by 60 percent in the coming years.
Read more…

By Moshe Dann, INN

As a matter of procedure, Israel’s High Court of Justice does not examine or evaluate evidence and does not decide issues of land ownership. They rely on what government offices tell them.

Israel’s legal and political system is rigged. The fix is in, and Amona is the current victim. There are more communities on the list.

The pending destruction of Amona led by a handful of unelected, unaccountable, and biased IDF officers and officials of the State compromises Israel’s basic principles. Amona, therefore, is a test-case of Israeli democracy.
Read more…

By Milo, BREITBART

The madman has actually done it. God-Emperor Daddy — known to the rest of you as Republican presidential candidate Donald J Trump — has just outflanked Hillary Clinton on the Left and announced what can only be described as an ultra-progressive immigration policy.

I don’t mean progressive as it has come to be used, of course — nannying, language-policing, Muslim-pandering. I mean it’s a policy that could actually make things better for minorities.

Trump’s plan is to introduce a screening process for prospective immigrants to the U.S., testing their ideological commitment to western values like women’s rights, gay rights, and religious pluralism. It’s a brilliant plan. I’m especially inclined to say it’s brilliant becauseit may have been partly inspired by me.
Read more…

By Robert J Smith, AMERICAN THINKER

Elections aren’t about finalities, they’re about processes. They may be about departures. Case in point, the 2016 presidential contests, which feature Hillary and The Donald. If Trump wins, the process of the November election might start a departure in more than politics. It could be historic. It won’t be good, however, for the global elites inhabiting New York, DC, Boston, and San Francisco — or wherever else ivory towers, mahogany-paneled offices, pricey secured buildings, and gated communities are found. Trump’s election would have reverberations overseas, too, in London, Paris, Berlin — yes, wherever else ivory towers, et al, are found.

A Hillary victory means there won’t be a departure; merely a doubling-down by the elite, as they act with renewed zest to secure their interests — versus the national welfare. The Great Imposition — a war waged on average Americans — will continue with awful consequences.
Read more…

Institute for Contemporary Affairs  Vol. 16, No. 13
Founded jointly with the Wechsler Family Foundation

By Alan Baker

Israel is inundated with one-sided international resolutions, declarations, “peace plans,” and advice from governments, international organizations, leaders, pundits, and elements within the Jewish, Christian and Muslim communities.

Most of the above rest on widely-held, false and mistaken assumptions regarding Israel, its leaders, government, policies, and positions held by the vast majority of the Israeli public.
Read more…

by Danielle Berrin JEWISH JOURNAL

Natalie Portman and Amir Tessler play mother and son in her adaptation of Amos Oz’s “A Tale Of Love and Darkness.” Photo by Ran Mendelson/Focus World 

A security detail opens the doors to the Beverly Wilshire’s Royal Suite, where Natalie Portman looks up from the middle of a grand, high-ceilinged hallway. She is huddling with one of her handlers, but their conversation doesn’t register above a whisper, as if secrets are being exchanged. The setting is pointedly opulent — a large, corner apartment on the hotel’s eighth floor, with grand, sun-drenched spaces — but the mood is staged, ceremonial, as if a play is about to begin.
Read more…

To defeat Islamic terrorism, we must also speak out forcefully against a hateful ideology that provides the breeding ground for violence and terrorism to grow.

The fight will not be limited to ISIS. We will decimate Al Qaeda, and we will seek to starve funding for Iran-backed Hamas and Hezbollah. 

We will work side-by-side with our friends in the Middle East, including our greatest ally, Israel.

Just as we won the Cold War, in part, by exposing the evils of communism and the virtues of free markets, so too must we take on the ideology of Radical Islam.

we should only admit into this country those who share our values and respect our people

STARTS AT 29 MINUTES.

Here is the full transcript of Donald Trump’s August 15th speech, via the campaign’s website.
Read more…

By Mike Lumish

I was going to name this piece “The Death of American Politics” but American politics has been dying since it was born.

That is, American politics has been so partisan and so toxic for so long that it has become virtually impossible to separate fair assessments of truth from media-driven propagandistic bullshit which, today, almost always favors the Democratic Party.

The gang rape of Donald Trump makes for an interesting case in point.

It no longer matters much what Donald Trump says because even if he says “boo” the media will clobber him on behalf of the Clinton campaign, which is to say, on behalf of the dysfunctional Democratic Party status-quo.
Read more…

By Nathan Nabhan, JEWISH CHRONICLE

Very recently, filmmaker Ami Horowitz documented how Portland State University students reacted when being asked to pledge money to purchase explosives to bomb Israeli schools, hospitals and synagogues. Far from recoiling in shock and horror or immediately placing calls to Homeland
Security, the students reacted in a different way: They happily signed on, many of the open-minded academicians punctuating their support for the idea with fist-bumps and high-fives.

The film ran on nationwide television on Fox a few weeks ago, and for those who wish to dismiss this as hardly indicative of what left-leaning leaders think, the “Get the Jew!” emails exposed on Wikileaks a few days ago directed at Bernie Sanders, and the “Free Palestine!” placards displayed throughout the delegations at the Democratic National Convention should cause any American — Jewish or gentile — to be extremely concerned.
Read more…

By Noah Beck, ALGEMEINER

Muslims and Arabs who openly identify as Zionists are growing in number – powered by the freer flow of information and ideas made possible by social media and the search for answers in the wake of the Arab Spring and Islamist terror.

A new Facebook page for Arab supporters of Israel has attracted about 20,000 followers. The page, which shares content in English, Arabic, and Hebrew, was founded by a religious Jewish woman and an Arab man. It posts examples of Israel treating Arabs and Muslims with kindness and shares surprising Arab support for Israel from across the Middle East, including Tunisians who created an Israeli flag after being unable to buy one, and who have faced threats for their views.
Read more…

After retaking Manbij from the “Islamic State,” the Syrian Democratic Forces look to advance west to unite Kurdish-controlled areas. The force has been enshrined as the US partner on the ground.

DW

Thousands of civilians started to pour back into the northern Syrian city of Manbij on Saturday, a day after the US-backed Syrian Defense Forces (SDF) recaptured the strategic transit point.

The sight of grateful civilians welcoming the SDF as liberators set a new tone in the fight against “Islamic State” (IS).

The Arab and Kurdish umbrella group liberated Manbij after a nearly two months of fighting that brought them over the Euphrates and deep into IS-controlled territory. The strategy was to cut off the Sunni extremist group’s supply lines running from the Turkish border to IS’s self-declared capital in Raqqa.
Read more…

Dr. Robert Wolfe, INN

In recent weeks I have seen a number of articles, all of which contend that now that everyone sees that there is no chance of a two state solution at present, the time has come for a discussion of alternative ways of resolving the Arab-Israeli conflict. And no doubt this is true, but I find it significant that the authors of these articles do not themselves put forward any alternatives.

It seems clear to me that the reason for their reticence on this score is the same as the reason for the general disillusionment with the two state solution, namely the wave of stabbings, shootings, car rammings and stone throwings that has been unleashed against Israelis by the Palestinian leadership during the past six months. The only realistic alternative to a two state solution is a one state solution, but a one state solution implies at least some possibility of Jews and Muslims living together in peace. What has been happening during the past six months seems to rule out this possibility, hence the reluctance of critics of the two state mirage to put forward an alternative of their own.
Read more…

The Jewish State in its true light.—

By Rachel Ehrenfeld, ACD

The news that the Israeli government charged Mohammed el-Halabi, the Gaza director of World Vision, a major international evangelical Christian aid organization, with funneling millions to fortify Hamas government’s terrorist capabilities  has reportedly “shocked” the organization. But the reason for this “shock” is not the evidence of his diverting 60% of the charity’s Gaza budget to further Hamas terrorism. The organization was “shocked” because the Israelis, after years of complaining and warning, are bringing him to justice. World Vision did not even pretend to be embarrassed by el-Halabi’s use of $50 million not to help the needy in Gaza, but to pay Hamas members, buy weapons and transfer  “building supplies intended to support farming projects… to Hamas for constructing tunnels and military installations.” Instead, World Vision’s spokesperson protested the “huge gap” between “what we know,” and the Israeli charges. Read more…

In anticipation of Israel’s new, advanced F-35 “Adir” fighter jets, the Defense Ministry published a report of what went into the deal.

ARUTZ SHEVA

The Ministry of Defense, continuing its countdown to the December 2016 arrival of Israel’s first F-35s, last week completed its semi-annual data summary.

In the framework of the industry cooperation agreement signed in 2010 by the Defense Ministry’s Procurement Department and the plane’s manufacturers led by primary contractor Lockheed Martin,

3.8 billion NIS ($993 million) worth of reciprocal procurement transactions have thus far been signed. Since December 2015, new deals amounting to 835 million NIS have been signed, marking a 28% jump in reciprocal procurement.
Read more…

By Daniel Greenfield

The core strategic problem we face is two conflicts with two ideologies that operate subversively until they are in power. That is, instead of stating their agenda openly, Islam and the left operate as false fronts maintaining a friendly moderate image while pursuing a far more radical agenda.

The distinction between moderates and radicals is at the heart of the debate about Islamic terrorism. Much as it used to be at the heart of the debate about Communism and its fellow travelers. Everyone will concede that there are indeed radicals, if only ISIS and Stalin. What they will deny is the extent of the complicity and, more significantly, the fact that the radicals were pursuing the same ends as the moderates, an Islamic Caliphate or a Communist dictatorship, only more rapidly and ruthlessly.
Read more…

By Howard Teich, LONG ISLAND JEWISH NEWSPAPERS

First Lady Michele Obama, in her first-night Convention speech, delivered the thought that should make us all recognize the significance of having our Jewish people in Judea and Samaria, as she said, “I wake up every morning in a house that was built by slaves. And I watch my daughters – two beautiful, intelligent black young women – play with the dog on the White House lawn.”

I say the same, in another place, and in another way, and with another timeframe. I wake up every morning knowing that my people were slaves in Ancient Egypt, and were led to the Land of Palestine, to have it as their home. Though exiled for 2,000 years, and suffering innumerable untold travesties including the Holocaust where six million were killed, we never gave up hope and determination, we prayed, and today my Jewish people are back in our homeland, the Land of Israel including Judea and Samaria and the undivided, eternal City of Jerusalem.
Read more…

T. Belman. This “commitment ” is not near as clear as the State Department makes it out to be. First of all “intentions” can change. Secondly any commitments given by Netanyahu to Obama in 2009 were made under duress and therefore aren’t binding. Thirdly, its absurd for the US to want to freeze the status quo in 1967. Fourthly, what Israel proposes is done under the watchful eye of the Court. Finally, I find it offensive that the US could dictate to Israel on these matters.

Americans view plan to move outpost to West Bank land abandoned by Palestinians as diverging from Netanyahu’s commitment to Obama that Israel would not appropriate Palestinian lands for settlements.

By Barak Ravid, HAARETZ

Washington opposes Israel’s plan for the West Bank outpost of Amona that would have the settlement’s homes moved to land that apparently belongs to Palestinians who abandoned the site in 1967.

A senior U.S. official noted that Washington had recently approached the Israeli government to strongly protest the matter.

The official noted that the administration had held a series of discussions with Israelis at working and senior levels on Amona. The Americans view the plan as diverging from commitments by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to President Barack Obama that Israel would not appropriate Palestinian land in the West Bank to establish new settlements or expand existing ones.
Political sources told Haaretz that no decision had been made on Amona, adding that the plan referred to did not involve the expropriation of land.
Read more…

By Ben Caspit, AL MONITOR

Over the past few weeks, reports have reached Israel that the new Canadian government is planning to renew its support for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency. The UNRWA helps Palestinian refugees throughout the Middle East, with special emphasis on those in the refugee camps of the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Under Prime Minister Stephen Harper, who was particularly supportive of Israel, the Canadians suspended their support for UNRWA. Jerusalem has now learned that Canada is about to restore its financial aid to the UN agency, if cautiously, by helping to fund special projects rather than providing regular support for the organization at large.
Read more…