T. Belman. In my article The State of the Two-State Solution. originally posted on Jan 13/16, I made the point that the US, the UN and EU are coordinating their statements and actions in order to wrest control of Area C from Israel.

Mail from US Customs reveals products from Judea and Samaria are not to be labeled as being from ‘Israel,’ on pain of sanctions.

By Ari Yashar, ARUTZ SHEVA

A mail from the Cargo Systems Messaging Service of the US Customs and Border Protection dated to this Saturday, and revealed by Channel 1‘s “Mabat” show on Thursday, shows the US is now required products from Judea and Samaria to be labeled differently.

In new instructions on marking requirements sent out to American importers, goods from Judea and Samaria are not to be marked “Israel.” Those who do not comply are to be sanctioned.

“West Bank Country of Origin Marking Requirements,” reads the title of the mail, which begins by clarifying that “the purpose of this message is to provide guidance to the trade community regarding the country of origin marking requirements for goods that are manufactured in the West Bank.”
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By Ted Belman

The Two State solution (TSS) is dead but rather than bury it, the US and the EU want to embalm it, in the off chance that it can be brought to life in a decade or two. In the meantime they are doing their utmost to prevent Israel from building Jewish homes east of the armistice lines, including in Jerusalem. They do this in knowing violation of Israel’s rights.

Moshe Arens, a former Israel Ambassador to the US, Israel Defense Minister and Minister of Defense, noted in Haaretz, Israel’s version of the New York Times:
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Today’s issues: The use of chemical weapons in Syria, Ban Ki-moon’s recent statement regarding Palestinian terrorism, the religious status quo in Jerusalem, and the hunger strike of administrative detainee Mohammed al-Qiq.

Ministry of Foreign Affairs

Yediot Aharonot writes: “New reports emerging from the ground in Syria suggest that despite Assad’s assertions in 2013 that he had disposed of his chemical weapons arsenal, his regime continues to fight in the civil war using non-conventional means. Other actors in the civil war have also resorted to using chemical weapons. The Islamic State group has documented its own use of non-conventional materials in Halab. The international community is aware of the situation. But given that all red lines were crossed in Syria long ago, provided a massacre of civilians is not underway the criticisms remain relatively minimal. The number of casualties of chemical weapons still pales into comparison with the number of victims of conventional arms.”
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T. Belman. Israel has a law which criminalizes the slander of MK’s. This Bill proposes similar protection of the IDF or soldiers. As such I welcome it.

By Heski Ezra, ARUTZ SHEVA

Jewish Home Faction Leader Shuli Mualem-Refaeli is taking the fight against extremist left-wing organizations to the next level.

On Wednesday, Mualem submitted a proposed bill to the Knesset that would increase the authority of the courts to dismantle NGOs that attack Israel and basic Israeli institutions such as the IDF.

According to the proposed bill, organizations that work to slander the IDF or its soldiers while they are fulfilling their duties and assault them either physically or verbally, will be dismantled.
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T. Belman. I selected this provocative title. To deny that the Holocaust is essentially a Jewish tragedy is to deny the Holocaust.

By Dalit Halevi, ARUTZ SHEVA

The statement Canadian Prime Minister Justice Trudeau issued Wednesday in honor of International Holocaust Remembrance Day suffered from one very glaring omission.

The Holocaust is defined as the genocide of six million Jews at the hands of the Nazi regime and its collaborators, but in his statement, Trudeau did not mention the words “Jew” or “anti-Semitism” once.

Instead, the Liberal leader offered “tribute to the memory of the millions of victims murdered during the Holocaust,” adding that Canada honors “those who survived atrocities at the hands of the Nazi regime, and welcome their courageous stories of hope and perseverance.”
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By Julia Hahn, BREITBART

The announcement from Donald Trump’s campaign that the Republican frontrunner will “definitely not” partake in Thursday night’s Fox News debate has sent shock waves throughout the nation’s political scene.

At a press event Tuesday evening, Trump seemed to cite disparate treatment from the network as his reasoning for not participating. “What’s wrong over there, something’s wrong,” Trump said of the “games” Roger Ailes and the network are “playing.”
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AFP

Stockholm (AFP) – Sweden intends to expel up to 80,000 migrants who arrived in 2015 and whose application for asylum has been rejected, Interior Minister Anders Ygeman said Wednesday.

“We are talking about 60,000 people but the number could climb to 80,000,” the minister was quoted as saying by Swedish media, adding that the government had asked the police and authorities in charge of migrants to organise their expulsion.

The proposed measure was announced as Europe struggles to deal with a crisis that has seen tens of thousands of migrants arrive on Greek beaches, with the passengers — mostly fleeing conflict in Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan — undeterred by cold wintry conditions.
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Snopes has declared that the story on the UPS planes is bogus. I don’t quarrel with this as I have been able to find any mainstream account of it. But the reference to 680,000 green cards being issued to Muslims is well documented.

Breitbart’s Donald Trump ‘Definitely Not’ Doing Fox News Debate had 40,000 comments.

Dan Friedman. Shrewd: Trump evades the trap set for him by Fox News. Now wily and ballsy are two words we need to add to the list of Donald Trump’s talents. And hysterical and sleazy are two words we need to apply to pretend Republicans and the MSM, which now includes Fox. But you already knew that, I’m sure.

Google and Fox TV Invite Anti-Trump, Hitler-Citing, Muslim Advocate to Join Next GOP TV-Debate

by NEIL MUNRO, BREITBART

Fox News and Google have invited three YouTube personalities to ask questions at the Jan. 28 GOP debate — including a Muslim advocate who describes Donald Trump as a bigot and who visually portrayed him as being in agreement with national socialist Adolf Hitler.

“We have a presidential candidate whose loudest message reeks of hatred and Islamophobia… turning on the news now is scary, and oftentimes, humiliating,” the Muslim woman, Nabela Noor, says in a December YouTube video.
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By Nadav Shragai, ISRAEL HAYOM

Yes, we can add fortifications; we can surround ourselves with more fences and metal detectors; we can add more concrete blocks to stop ramming attacks; we can build another wall, another watchtower, add more barbed wire. Yes, we can add another line of defense. But it would be only a matter of time before the other side, inundated with inciting rhetoric and hate, outsmarts these measures and hits us where it hurts.

It turns out terrorism, even in its most primitive form, is no less creative that the defensive actions we take. We shut many doors only to see it breach its way through the windows. We paved bypass roads to avoid driving through Palestinian towns, but the terrorists overcome this obstacle. While defense measures are not meaningless, they can only do so much.
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T. Belman. The Left argues it stifles free speech. Regev argues that all countries criminalize subversion as does Israel. This bill doesn’t deal with subversion. It merely says don’t expect Israel to fund subversive activities or subversive speech.

Opposition MKs slam culture minister’s proposal to allow withholding of state funds from cultural institutions deemed subversive; Regev: proposal based on existing legislation.

By Moran Azulay, Roi Yanovsky and Ran Boker, YNET

Culture Minister Miri Regev (Likud) on Wednesday presented before a Knesset committee her new “cultural loyalty” bill, drawing criticism from several MKs.

The bill seeks to deny state funding to artists and cultural institutions who denigrate the state flag or state symbols; incite to racism, violence or terrorism; support armed struggle and terrorism against Israel; mark Independence Day as a day of mourning; or deny Israel’s existence as a Jewish and democratic state. Regev said that her proposal is based on previous Knesset legislation.
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Defense minister urges Ankara to join anti-Islamic State alliance, slams presence of Hamas offices on Turkish soil

TOI STAFF

Turkey has permitted the Islamic State to send trained terrorists into Europe and funded the group by buying its oil, Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon said Tuesday, urging the country to join an alliance against terrorism.

Ankara “allowed the jihadists to move from Europe to Syria and Iraq and back home as part of the Daesh terror infrastructure in Europe,” the defense minister said, referring to Islamic State by its Arabic acronym. Turkey “still hosts the Hamas external [sic] terror headquarters in Istanbul,” Ya’alon said during a press conference in Athens.
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Snow doesn’t seem to deter the small local community of Subbotnik Jews from faithfully trudging to their modest synagogue, where they continue to turn their hearts and their hopes toward Zion.

By Michael Freund, JPOST

Last week, amid subfreezing temperatures in a Ukrainian city founded by Cossacks, I saw living proof that the Jewish spark can truly burn brightly even under the most unlikely circumstances.

Indeed, while the snow in Krivoi Rog may be kneedeep, blocking roads and turning thoroughfares into slippery escapades, that doesn’t seem to deter the small local community of Subbotnik Jews from faithfully trudging to their modest synagogue, where they continue to turn their hearts and their hopes toward Zion.
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NEW YORK, January 26, 2016 — Morton A. Klein,, president of The Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) released the following statement:

The European Union (EU) (with the Obama administration’s support) and the Palestinian Authority (PA) are once again waging perverse diplomatic warfare to attempt to deny the fact that Israel has the strongest legal right to areas over the 1949 Armistice lines, including the Jewish towns and communities in Judea/Samaria (misleadingly so-called “settlements”), the eastern portion of Jerusalem (the old city, also called the City of David after the Jewish King David who ruled there), and the Golan Heights.

Specifically:
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By Ted Belman

Now that Isaac Herzog, Head of Zionist Union, presented his plan for unilateral separation and for retaining control of Judea and Samaria, Yair Lapid, Head of  Yesh Atid, is making his move.

After claiming that the next election will center on Netanyahu or him for Prime Minister, he position himself to the right of Herzog, claiming the center.

“I come from a home with the legacy of the nationalist camp,” he said, noting that his father, former minister Yosef “Tommy” Lapid, was a follower of former prime minister Menachem Begin. “I am enthusiastically in favor of annexing the Golan. My principle says maximum Jews on maximum land with maximum security and with minimum Palestinians.”

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T. Belman. My long time readers will know that I unabashedly supported Sara Palin. This article brought back many memories. The author was a senior adviser to the McCain Ticket and no particular fan of Palin’s. All the more interesting that she recognizes her strong suit as has Trump. When Palin was governor she had a 87% approval rating, the highest in the nation by far. She accomplished this by working across the aisle and producing important legislation. Her public appeal was based on her fearless attacks on the establishment and the media. Trump is merely catching the wave that she built. If you look at many of his policies though ill defined, he is again building on what she identified.

Trump went all in and hired Michael Glassner, her campaign manager, who ran her aborted campaign for the Republican nomination in 2012. No doubt this time around, she will be repeatedly stumping for Trump as she put if. She will bring in the conservative base even though Trump is a New York liberal.

By NICOLLE WALLACE, NYT

DONALD J. TRUMP has made a shrewd bet. For the first time since he descended an escalator in Trump Tower last June to announce that this time, he really was running for president, he ceded control of his campaign message. He handed the Trump-bedecked podium over to Sarah Palin.

Mr. Trump’s bet: When the politician most fluent in American rage roars, the movement she gave voice to in the fall of 2008 will roar back today.
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T. Belman. I would have added that India abstained for the first time in an anti-Israel UN resolution. So notwithstanding the great relations, she is not yet ready to vote “no”.

By SUZANNE D. RUTLAND, JPOST

“One day India may discover that her one-sided orientation in the Middle East is neither moral nor expedient.

She may yet adopt a truly independent policy between the Arab states and Israel; only then will she be able to become a factor working for peace in the area which Indians call ‘West Africa.” – Dr. S. Levenberg, January 4, 1957, Jewish Observer and ME Review, p.14 Despite the optimism of this hope expressed by Jewish Agency representative Dr. S. Levenberg, it took 35 years before it was realized.
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T. Belman. This is a life and death issue to Israel. Why is Canada interfering. If a true friend, Canada would be sending a supportive message rather than a tough message. Canada said:

“As a steadfast ally and friend to Israel, Canada calls for all efforts to be made to reduce violence and incitement and to help build the conditions for a return to the negotiating table,”

That message should have been addressed to the PA, not Israel so far as violence and incitement are concerned. Everyone has abandoned the negotiating track except Canada. That was a worthless message that Canada didn’t need to send.

In all probability Canada is coordinating with the US and the EU regarding how to pressure Israel whereas the Harper government ran contrary to the prevailing winds.

Canada to send ‘tough message’ on violence to ally Israel

REUTERS/JPOST

Federal government said on Monday it was delivering a “tough message” to Israel as a good friend after expressing concern about Israeli-Palestinian violence, Israeli settlements and unilateral Palestinian moves.
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By Ted Belman

Amb Shapiro refused to apologize for his remarks or change a word in them, but he did manage an apology of sorts for its timing.

The offending words were:

“oo many attacks on Palestinians lack a vigorous investigation or response by Israeli authorities; too much vigilantism goes unchecked; and at times there seem to be two standards of adherence to the rule of law: one for Israelis and another for Palestinians.””

Today, he issued “regrets”, not apologies:

“There were just one or two lines that caused disagreement, but if this, God forbid, hurt the Meir family or anyone else mourning Dafna’s death, may her memory be a blessing, then of course I regret it.””

But he couldn’t stop there and said:

“We encourage Israel to continue all investigations of different violent incidents, because it’s very important to show commitment to the rule of law.”

He should shove his condescension and holier than thou attitude and constant preaching where the sun don’t shine. Israel doesn’t need the lawless Obama Administration to tell her the importance of the rule of law.