T. Belman. Jager is right to describe how the Obama administration spun the conflict but I think that they knew it wasn’t central. Its just another of their lies.

By Ron Jager

For the majority of the past eight years, President Obama and State Department “experts” have been treating the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as the central generator of political upheaval ravaging the Middle East without realizing just how marginal the conflict with the Palestinian Arabs has become or understanding that as far as the Sunni Arab nations of the Middle East are concerned, a Palestinian State would be just another failed Arab nation in perpetual conflict with its own people and with her neighbors.
Read more…

A Moral Imperative and Strategic Necessity

INSS Insight No. 823, May 22, 2016
By Amos Yadlin

SUMMARY
The Middle East is being reshaped by an extended process that began over five years ago, and its end-point is currently impossible to predict. Still, it can be assumed that the parties involved with the conflicts in the region in general, and in Syria in particular, seek resolutions through an attempt to reshape the power relations between them and the state structures in the area. Against this background, Israel has a fundamental interest in ensuring that Iran and Hezbollah will not be the forces that are strengthened within the framework of a new order in the Middle East.

Gone are the days in which Israel could impartially observe the developments in Syria from the sidelines. If Israel wants to help shape the nature of the surrounding region in the years to come and improve its standing in the region, it must not hesitate, as doing so could mean missing this opportunity to undermine its most bitter enemies.
Read more…

By Ted Belman

Israel also charged that direct negotiations with the Palestinians were the only way forward.

On Channel 2 Saturday, the French prime minister said that while there may be some agreements and some disagreements on certain issues, “Netanyahu must show some faith [in France and its initiative].”

WHY?
Read more…

T. Belman. They sold us the communist Muslim Obama who became president twice. They sold Americans Obamacare. They sold us the Muslim Brotherhood as a worthy partner. They sold us the non-existing Iran deal. They have rammed political correctness down our throats. They are pushing a genderless world, that Islam is a religion of peace, that ISIS has nothing to do with Islam, that Islamic terrorism does not exist, that the Syrian refugees, are refugees and are not a danger to our society, that the Arab/Israeli conflict is the cause of the ME turmoil, that it must be solved, that it is causing US soldiers to be killed etc. That settlements are an obstacle to peace. And now with the aid of our military and leftist leaders, that Israel is fascist. All with lies.

Soros-Backed Group that Helped Sell Iran Nuclear Deal Funds Media, DC Think Tanks

By Aaron Klien, BREITBART

A group that advocates a nuclear-free world and that was identified earlier this month by the White House as central in helping to market the Iran nuclear deal to the news media has funded National Public Radio since 2005, an Associated Press investigation has revealed.

Think tanks funded by the Ploughshares Fund include the Arms Control Association, Brookings Institution, and the Atlantic Council, the AP reported.

Unmentioned by the AP is that the Ploughshares Fund is financed by billionaire George Soros’ Open Society Institute.
Read more…

Shurat Hadin warns Finance Minister over banks which refuse to sever ties with the PA.

By Tova Dvorin, INN

Bank HaPoalim and Discount Bank recently announced that they would sever their ties with PA banks for fear of exposure to legal proceedings in respect of aid to finance terrorism. Palestinian banks work closely with the Palestinian Authority (PA) and the PLO, give millions of dollars each year in salaries to terrorist prisoners and their families, financial assistance to families of suicide bombers, and salary payments to government officials who work with Hamas. These activities fall under the umbrella term of “financing terrorism.”

Other banks have yet to follow suit, however – and Shurat HaDin’s Nitsana Darshan-Leitner warned Kahlon not to provide collateral of indemnity to those banks who choose to stay in touch with their PA counterparts.
Read more…

One of the reasons Netanyahu replaced Defense Minister Ya’alon was his support for General Yair Golan’s egregious comparison of developments in Israel to Nazism.

By Giulio Meotti, INN

In 2006, IDF Deputy Chief of Staff Yair Golan said it was “intolerable” that Israeli soldiers place Palestinian civilians in harm’s way instead of themselves: “In the presence of civilians we take risks upon ourselves, and rightly so. It’s unacceptable that in the name of preventing risk we would decide that now we are going to mow down an apartment building. You would kill women, children, those involved. It’s intolerable”.

This is exactly what happened for years in Israel’s southern belt: Jewish lives were put at risk so as to not harm Palestinian Arabs.

It is the same Yair Golan who compared Israel to Nazi Germany on Holocaust Day: “It is scary to see horrifying developments that took place in Europe begin to unfold here,” he said. He was backed by the outgoing Defense Minister Bogie Ya’alon to Prime Minister Netanyahu’s dismay.
Read more…

DEBKAfile Exclusive Analysis May 21, 2016,

The unprecedented political and personal attacks on Friday night by opponents and former allies of Prime Minister Netanyahu and Defense Minister-designate Avigdor Lieberman, who used every possible media platform to warn that “the fascists are coming,” is more indicative of their personal and political situation than the domestic political reality of the State of Israel.
Read more…

T. Belman.  My friend Francisco Gil-White, does a good job of shedding light on what is going on in Syria and Iraq including who ISIS is. But I beat him to the punch 3 years ago in my article Why is Obama in Bed with the Muslim Brotherhood?. I urge you to read it.

Teenage Muslim girls are laying waste to ISIS jihadists in northern Syria. A made-for-Hollywood moment, ignored by the media. And our Western ‘leaders’ hang them out to dry.

By Francisco Gil-White, HIR

Picture this. Emancipated Muslim girls. And women. With guns. Training in the hills. Crawling in the brush. Fighting door to door. Fighting together with supportive, democratic, egalitarian Muslim men. Fighting to defend their rights and freedoms. Pushing ISIS back. Making ISIS run! Setting the Syrians free, one town at a time. Hailing the Syrians, Muslims and others, to their banner: freedom and democracy. Inspiring Westerners to come and fight the forces of darkness.
Read more…

by Shoshana Bryen, JEWISH POLICY CENTER May 16, 2016

T. Belman. This so-called aid is not aid at all. It is what US agrees to pay in exchange for a multitude of benefits that Israel gives  the US in exchange. How can a joint research programe of any kind where the US is entitled to the make use of the end result be called aid. Israel spends a fortune on human intelligence which is shared with the US. Of course the US must share the expense.  The US can’t achieve the same human intelligence if they did it on their own even at double the expense.. The US defense budget includes billions to keep troops in South Korea and Germany among other places year after year. It is spared this expense in the Middle East because Israel is there. Without Israel there, the US would have to station one aircraft carrier there, at a minimum, to achieve half the benefit. The list of benefits the US purchases with this paltry sum vastly exceeds the cost.

It is time that this “aid” be included in the US Defense Budget where it rightly belongs.

Amb. Yoram Ettinger makes the same point, but in a more detailed analysis, in US investment in – not foreign aid to – Israel

On top of $700 million more annually, Jerusalem said to seek separate funding for surface-to-air programs

TOI  STAFF (May 4/16)

Negotiations over a new US security aid package to Israel have hit a snag, and the two sides are in disagreement not only over the size of the annual increase but also over a request from the Jewish state that a separate sub-package for missile defense be enshrined in the deal, Reuters reported Tuesday.
Read more…

T. Belman. I would not be satisfied with anything they would agree to. Neither would the Palestinians. My guess is that Netanyahu has been trying to negotiate a better deal now for quite some time but to no avail. Even if they agree that the refugees can only go back to Palestine, the deal should be rejected. It is not in Israel’s interest to have 2 million “refugees come back to what would be Palestine. thereby doubling their population.

Saudi Arabia, the Gulf states, Jordan and Egypt reportedly prepared to change their attitude towards Israel in exchange for peace with PA.

By Ben Ariel, INN

Arab countries including Saudi Arabia, the Gulf states, Jordan and Egypt, are prepared to discuss with Israel changes to the Saudi peace initiative in order to resume peace talks between Israel and the Palestinian Authority (PA), Channel 10 News revealed on Friday.
Read more…

T. Belman. Seven years later, Israel is still standing and the pressure is still there.

By Ted Belman (Mar 29/09)

As the Netanyahu government nears completion, everyone is piling on the pressure to succumb to Palestinian demands. The EU made it clear again, if Israel rejects the two-state solution, it won’t be business as usual between Israel and the EU.

Yesterday the NY Times, the publisher of the antisemitic Oliphant cartoon, editorialized,

It will not be that hard to judge by his deeds, and relatively soon, whether Mr. Netanyahu is serious about seeking peace with the Palestinians. His government is expected to win parliamentary approval next week.

After that, we suggest that he start with freezing further settlement construction and expansion in the West Bank, as Israel has so often promised but failed to do. He should lift roadblocks between Palestinian cities and towns that are not needed for security. In East Jerusalem, he should stop the humiliating eviction of Palestinians. And in Gaza, he must expand exceptions to the blockade to allow the import of cement and reconstruction materials.

Read more…

By Amos Harel, HAARETZ

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has never felt comfortable with the army. When the cameras are rolling, it’s clear there’s something forced and artificial about his encounters with soldiers. It’s not his natural element; he has been suspicious of generals since, when he was prime minister two decades ago, he clashed with the Israel Defense Forces chief at the time, Amnon Lipkin-Shahak.
Read more…

The left uses same arguments, the same falsehoods and is leading to the same level of danger for both issues

By Mark Langfan, INN

Much has been made out of Obama’s National Security flunky Ben Rhodes’ fictional imaginary advocacy for Obama’s Iran Nuclear Bomb deal.  No one should be under any delusion that Rhodes’ Iran Nuclear fictional lies were not approved by Barack Obama.  But no one should think that Ben Rhodes had to work very hard to conjure up the Iranian nuke fabrications that almost all the American Jews and the mainstream media were ready to swallow whole..

The reason?  It’s simple. Obama’s Iranian Nuclear Bomb Deal “Big Lies” were ripped straight out of the 2-State Solution “Big Lies” that American Jews and the mainstream media have been swallowing whole for decades.  In fact, the Israeli Left’s “Big-Lies” on the Two-State Solution laid the necessary foundation for the success of Obama’s “Iran-Nuke Deal.”
Read more…

By Manfred Gerstenfeld, INN

Manfred Gerstenfeld interviews Freddy Eytan

“Prior to his election, François Hollande, President of France, had not developed close ties with the Jewish community, in contrast with the two previous right wing presidents Nicolas Sarkozy and Jacques Chirac. As far as Israel is concerned, Hollande follows a basic policy line similar to that of previous socialist leaders such as Leon Blum and François Mitterrand. Their guiding principle is support for the existence of a Jewish state in secure and recognized borders. At the same time, the Palestinian people should have self-determination in a state alongside Israel.”

Freddy Eytan is a journalist and former diplomat. He was Israel’s ambassador to Mauritania and also served in Israel’s embassies in Paris and Brussels. He is an expert on France’s Middle East policy and has published twenty books, among them Sarkozy, the Jewish World and Israel, published in French in 2009 by the Alphée publishing house in Paris.

Read more…

By Jonathan Tobin, COMMENTARY

They never learn, do they? Though it almost never works, American leaders have been trying to intervene in Israeli politics for decades. Presidents and secretaries of state always think that if they put the right amount of pressure on Jerusalem or push various politicians to do what they want, somehow it will result in an Israeli government that will be more willing to do the bidding of the White House and the State Department. According to Haaretz, that was the behind-the-scenes story of the coalition negotiations between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Zionist Union leader Isaac Herzog during the last week. The goal was to transform Israel’s government from a narrow right-wing coalition into a centrist unity government with Herzog as foreign minister. Reportedly, the impetus for the talks was an effort by Secretary of State John Kerry, diplomatic Quartet representative Tony Blair, and Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi to push Herzog into Netanyahu’s arms.
Read more…

By Dr. Martin Sherman, ISRAEL HAYOM

by Vic Rosenthal, ABU YEHUDA

I had the good fortune to meet Tuvia Tenenbom, author of Catch the Jew and I Sleep in Hitler’s Room the other night.

He’s writing a book about America. I haven’t read it since he hasn’t written it yet, but I think I can safely say that it is going to be a painful experience, because what he found isn’t pretty. To compress it into a single sentence, the American experiment of creating unity from diversity is crashing and burning.

One thing he noted was a recent explosion of hatred against Israel and Jews, coming from both the left and the right. I think he’s quite right.
Read more…

By Moshe Feiglin, JEWISH LEADERSHIP

The best thing that has resulted from the political storm churning through Israel is the ouster of current Defense Minister Bogy Ya’alon. That was not Netanyahu’s original intent. He wanted to bring the Left into the government, and it is a good thing that Labor MK Shelly Yehimovitz prevented that from happening. My assessment is that the new government will not be qualitatively different from its predecessor and except for a change of style, it will be more of the same. But all of that is behind us now. The most important thing is that Ya’alon was ousted. We can only hope that it is not too late.
Read more…

On issue after issue, from taxes to bathrooms to what it means to be an American, the cleavages in American society continue to expand.

By Caroline B. Glick, JPOST

Its no secret that American society and its political parties are in the midst of a period of profound instability. The presidential primaries revealed once again the vast ideological divide separating conservatives and liberals. They also revealed the yawning gap between primary voters in both parties and the parties’ leadership.

On issue after issue, from taxes to bathrooms to what it means to be an American, the cleavages in American society continue to expand.

Yet, to date, through the storm, one certainty has remained. American support for Israel has stood the test of the times.
Read more…