Cabinet mulls cancelling acquisition of flawed fighter-jet rejected by most NATO air forces.

By Hillel Fendel, INN

A welcome decision made back in 2008 to purchase U.S.-made Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) jets no longer appears very attractive in 2016 – and Israel is considering backtracking on it.

So say Israeli government sources quoted by Middle East Newsline (MENL).

For one thing, the much-touted JSF has some inherent flaws, such as inadequate range, weapons payload and stealth capability. In addition, the Americans refuse to share the JSF source code with Israel. Israel would not be able to modify the platform to fit its needs, and would have to send damaged engines to Turkey or the U.S. for repairs.
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By Andrew Pessim, ALGEMEINER

The student body at Canada’s McGill University has failed to ratify Monday’s controversial Israel boycott vote by the general assembly of the student government.

According to the McGill Reporter, the online vote recorded 57 percent of students voting against the boycott motion and 43 percent voting in favor. This represents the fourth time since 2009 that the effort to persuade the student body to adopt an anti-Israel Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement resolution at McGill has failed.

Following the results, McGill’s Principal and Vice-Chancellor Suzanne Fortier issued a statement to the McGill community, reading, in part:
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By Mathew Continetti, NEW BEACON

President Obama is playing a cynical game. He’s consistently raised Donald Trump’s profile in an attempt to boost the mogul’s chances of winning the Republican nomination. Obama’s theory is that Trump is unelectable. And it’s true that Trump is the only candidate in the Republican field who consistently loses in general election match ups against Hillary Clinton. A Trump nomination, Democrats believe, would be the best way to hold the White House for another four years.
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www.verygoodnewsisrael.blogspot.com 

By Nadav Shragai, ISRAEL HAYOM

How many lone terrorists have carried out attacks during the ongoing “intifada of the individuals”? A hundred? A thousand? How many more will join them soon? And when we will stop calling them “lone” terrorists?

Does the fact that all of these “lone” terrorists have drawn their inspiration from the same source of organized and systematic hatred not turn them into a collective, even if there is no official guiding hand? And what can we do about the venomous poison spewed by the Palestinian Authority other than talk about it?
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Jerusalem’s mixed message regarding wharf comes as result of Egyptian opposition, despite Palestinian warnings of renewed hostilities if project does not go forward

By Avi Issacharoff, TOI

The coordinator of the Israeli government’s activities in the Palestinian territories, Maj. Gen. Yoav Mordechai, was quoted at length over the weekend saying that there have been no talks over the establishment of a seaport for Gaza. In comments quoted by the Saudi-linked news site Elaph, Mordechai said that should such negotiations take place in the future, they would be conducted only vis-à-vis the Palestinian Authority — not the Hamas rulers of Gaza.
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By Isi Leibler

The mass migration of Muslim “refugees” to Western Europe could result in one of the most significant global demographic upheavals in history.

In an outpouring of passionate emotions, European leaders have suspended reason and self-esteem.  Political correctness has reached suicidal levels. Unless the tide is reversed, this migratory movement may irreversibly undermine the western culture which was the foundation of European civilization. It is estimated that there are an additional 8 to 10 million, predominantly Muslims, from Middle East and North Africa still intending to cross into Europe.

There are already over 6 million Muslims in Germany, the bulk of whom have no intention of integrating. Last year alone, Germany absorbed a million new migrants. Contrary to widespread perception, most are not refugees and are not even from Syria, but young male Muslim migrants seeking a better life.  The Arab states, including the wealthy Gulf States, refuse to absorb them for ‘security’ reasons, although the Saudis are committed to building at least 20 new mosques in Germany.
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By Tabitha Korol

Two of the finest institutions of higher education in the United States, Columbia and Cornell, have been identified as leading the list of “most anti-Semitic,” as they continue to host Jew hatred events on campus.  By the time our students enter this new phase in their education, they have been well primed for the venomous climate, having been molded into frustrated, resentful, disrespectful, demanding, angry young adults, ill prepared for anything, unable to accept responsibility, and ripe to lash out at others. These young people have already been activatedand prepared to join any group that uses “social justice” language, whether warranted or not.

The K-12 classes provide the first toxic element.  Education is being restructured according to a radical political ideology promoted by the White House, Bill and Melinda Gates, and other supporters of a federal takeover of education. The purpose is to produce workers for a Global Economy (aka Agenda 21).  The major players are Valerie Jarrett’s mother, Barbara Taylor Bowman, a member of the Muslim Sisterhood; native-born terrorists Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn Ayers (Weather Underground) who support a radical network to defeat America; and Secretary of Education (ret.) Arne Duncan, who promoted the Common Core Standards, with its drastic, untried curriculum overhaul that has lowered school standards to ensure that no child is left behind or excels at the expense of others. This is accompanied by the disturbing data mining that profiles the children (into adulthood) and their families.
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DEBKA

Under cover of the Syrian ceasefire that went into effect Saturday, Feb. 27, and the Russian air umbrella, Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Corps finally managed to secretly install hundreds of armed Palestinian terrorists on the Syrian-Israeli border face-to-face with the IDF’s Golan positions.
This is reported exclusively by DEBKAfile’s military and intelligence sources.

These Palestinians belong to Al-Sabirin, a new terrorist organization the Iranian Guards and Hizballah are building in the refugee camps of Lebanon and the Gaza Strip. Their agents clandestinely recruited the new terrorists from among young Palestinians who fled the Yarmouk refugee camp outside Damascus and sought refuge in Lebanon. Hizballah organized their return to Syria through south Lebanon – but not before training and arming them for penetration deep inside Israel to carry out mass-casualty assaults on IDF positions, highways and civilians.
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T. Belman. Halevi is center-left. He views accord with both Isaac Herzog (Zionist Union), and Lapid (Yesh Atid) and perhaps the left wing of the Likud party and Kalanu. He rightly says that many Israelis understand that “the creation of a Palestinian state is an existential necessity for Israel, but a majority also regards a Palestinian state as an existential threat.” Nevertheless he calls for the continuation of the settlement freeze to “send a much-needed signal that Israel’s long-term interests in the territories are confined to security needs”. The right believe that we should build in or to stake our claim to Judea and Samaria rather than to simply preserve it for the Palestinians. In effect he and his fellow travellors want Israel to hold it in trust for them. The right, who don’t want a Palestinian state, want to make J&S irretrievably ours.

He believes, as does Prof Avineri, that “Israel needs to begin a long-term process of ending the occupation and saving itself as a Jewish and democratic state.” In effect they want Israel to divest itself of J&S. The right also want to end the occupation but by extending our sovereignty to include a facsimile of area C.

Faced with a new Palestinian uprising, Israelis have shelved the idea of a two-state solution—and have found surprising new allies in a disintegrating Middle East

By YOSSI KLEIN HALEVI, WSJ

One recent morning, a Palestinian teenager stabbed a security guard at the light rail station minutes from my home in Jerusalem. About an hour later, I drove past the station and was astonished to see—nothing. No increased police presence, not even police barricades. The guard had managed to shoot his attacker, and ambulances had taken both away. Commuters were waiting for the next train. As if nothing unusual had happened.
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T. Belman. Bottom line is that Israel is ready to allow such a port so long as it is managed my the PA. Discussions along these lines have been going on since 2011 at least. Israel, who recently released NIS500 million in tax receipts collected by Israel, to the PA, obviously has a plan for future relations with the PA that has not been publicly debated.

Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories rejects Hamas statements about imminent deal on construction of sea port in Gaza, saying such an agreement can only be reached with PA.

By Elior Levy, YNET

The Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT), Maj.-Gen. Yoav Mordechai, stressed on Friday that there are no negotiations with Turkey on the construction of a sea port in the Gaza Strip.

Speaking to Saudi media, Mordechai said any possible agreement on the construction of a sea port in Gaza will be reached with the Palestinian Authority and not with Hamas.
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By Ted Belman

Rachel Ehrenfeld, ACD, writes, the ceasefire “will not end the war in Syria, destroy ISIS or the al Nusra Front, or stop Iran’s and Russia’s intervention.” But more important:

And no matter how successful are the coalition forces against ISIS and al Nusra, when the jihadist ideology that motivates them is left unchallenged. Organizations come and go, but as long as radical Islamist ideology demanding submission to Sharia and the oxymoronic term “Political Islam” is accepted in the West, and groups dedicated to propagating Islam, often violently, are given preferential treatment and allowed to operate freely, jihadism will continue unabated and the lure ISIS and its ilk will continue to grow.

This is a fundamental truth the west must come to grips with. It must confront and destroy the ideology. This ideology and the Islamists who propagate it, must be identified as the enemy and destroyed.

By Ted Belman

Haaretz reports Early Results in Iran Elections: Reformists Heading for Biggest Win Since 2004, but there is nothing to celebrate.
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T. Belman. This is incomprehensible. Our “right wing government is permitting thousands of illegal Arab structures to be erected in Area C while it is enforcing a building freeze on Jewish construction. It is also permitting the construction of an illegal road through Area C to the Dead Sea. Why is our government acquiescing in this? Where is the outrage?

Op-ed: While headlines are busy discussing how much illegal construction is going on in the settlements, no one bothers to mention that the real bulk of violations occur on the Palestinian side. Not even the government.

By Yifat Erlich, YNET

The headlines declared that construction of 1,800 new housing units in the settlements was initiated in 2015, but a closer look at the biased and incomplete report published last week by the Peace Now movement could be titled as follows: “Under the Right, a sharp decrease in settlement construction initiations.” It’s fun, inventing different headlines for the same data.
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T. Belman. On the other hand read Marco Rubio: Our issue is not with Islam.

“The story you just told me is wrong. It’s immoral. We should not be doing that to people,” Rubio said. “The bottom line is there are millions of patriotic Muslim Americans.”

Rubio told the audience that patriotic Muslims had died defending the country in the Armed forces, separating them from the dangerous radical Islamists that were threatening America.

By Ruthie Blum, ISRAEL HAYOM

During Thursday night’s CNN-hosted Republican debate in Houston, Texas, candidate Marco Rubio finally took on leading contender Donald Trump, face-to-face, about Israel. Referring to Trump’s statements that he would be a “neutral broker” between Israel and the Palestinians, Rubio argued, “The Palestinians are not a real estate deal, Donald.”

“A deal is a deal,” Trump replied.

“A deal is not a deal when you’re dealing with terrorists,” Rubio said.
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MERIA

BY ABDELMAHDI ALSOUDI, THE RUBIN CENTER

The events of the Arab Spring have led to new political realities in the Arab world and paved the way for the Muslim Brotherhood to form short-lived governments in Tunisia and Egypt. Encouraged by these developments, the Brotherhood in Jordan played a leading role in the uprising there, adopted extreme positions, and boycotted the 2010 and 2013 parliamentary elections.

The movement today is in open confrontation with the Jordanian regime and suffers from internal division and conflict. The disastrous outcome of the Arab Spring for Syria, Libya, and Yemen, as well as the banning of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE has weakened the movement’s political influence in the region, especially in Jordan. Its political future in Jordan now depends on government policy and the unfolding of internal crisis within the movement. This article argues that the Arab Spring has had a serious negative impact on the Brotherhood both in Jordan and in the region and that serious efforts would be required to restore its previous political role and influence.

CONTINUE

T. Belman. It is clear that Israel does not want the PA to collapse and is therefor not demanding reciprocity or the end of incitement or  the payment of the electricity bill. The fact that Israel is doing so while the PA is inciting the murder of Jews is beyond belief. Israel is also coordinating her policies with the Obama administration.

Israel is clearly not wanting a show down.

Finance Minister Kahlon decides to take series of measures to help improve the PA’s economic situation in an effort to create hope on the Palestinian street that would mitigate the wave of violence.

By Nahum Barnea, YNET

Israel has decided to take a series of steps meant to help improve the economic situation of the Palestinian Authority, including the transfer of NIS 500 million in withheld tax money.

Finance Minister Moshe Kahlon, after consulting with Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon, has also decided to issue thousands of additional work permits for Palestinians to work in Israel, as well as reduce commissions Israel charges from the Palestinians.
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This is not the time for an academic discussion of morality and ethics.

By Dr. Mordechai Kedar, ARUTZ SHEVA

An acrimonious argument is going on in Israel over the explosive issue of whether the public is allowed to take the law into its own hands if confronted with a terrorist who has just stabbed a Jew. There is no argument over the permissibility of killing a terrorist before he has attacked anyone if that seems the only way to prevent him from carrying out his plans. The dilemma is over whether it is permissible to kill a terrorist after he has knifed someone. Here, too, there is no argument about killing him if he is capable of continuing on his rampage; in that case, everyone agrees that he must be eliminated forthwith.
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by Efraim Inbar, BESA Center Perspectives

The US, under President Barack Obama, has signaled its intent to reduce its presence in the Middle East. The US fought two unsuccessful wars in the region – a frustrating lesson about the limits of its power. At the same time, US dependency upon Middle Eastern energy has been reduced thanks to domestic progress in fracking technology. Moreover, Washington has decided to “pivot” to China, an emerging global challenger, and also to cut defense expenditures, leaving fewer military assets available for projecting power in the Middle East. (For a while during President Obama’s tenure, the US had no aircraft carriers in the eastern Mediterranean or in the Gulf at all, an unprecedented situation.) In addition, the American campaign against ISIS has been extremely limited, and has met with little success.
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By Caroline B Glick, JPOST

After his back to back victories in the New Hampshire and South Carolina primaries and the Nevada caucuses, going into next week’s Super Tuesday contests in 12 states, Republican presidential hopeful Donald Trump looks increasingly unbeatable.

What accounts for the billionaire populist’s success? And if Trump does become the next US president, what sort of leader will the former reality television star be? Trump is popular because he has a rare ability to channel the deep-seated frustrations that much of the American public harbors toward its political and cultural elites.
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