By Caroline Glick

In mid December, US Secretary of State John Kerry gave a speech before the Brookings Institute’s Saban Forum. Kerry focused on the Palestinian conflict with Israel and sought to draw a distinction between the two-state policy model, which he supports, and the one-state policy model, which he rejects.

To justify his rejection of a policy based on Israeli sovereignty over areas beyond the 1949 armistice lines, Kerry raised a series of questions about what a one-state policy would look like.

I answered all of his questions, as well as many others, in great detail in my book The Israeli Solution: A One- State Plan for Peace in the Middle East. I will do so again here, albeit with the requisite brevity.
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By Hugh Fitzgerald, JIHAD WATCH

The multifarious geopolitical messes in the Middle East, the almost comical variety of resentments, hostilities, mutual denouncements, and hatreds in the Muslim lands that are presented to us each day on some news channel’s platter, the confusion worse compounded that overcomes us when we look at any part or aspect of the Camp of Islam — all this beggars belief, but you’d better nonetheless believe it.

You’d better believe, for example, that the Uber-Sunni Saudis, who gave rise to Al-Qaeda, who provided Al-Qaeda not just with Osama bin Laden but with a host of other members (including 11 of the 19 who went on that 9/11/2001 mission), are now dead-set on executing members of that same Al -Qaeda, and have just done so, and are also prepared to make war on the uberest-Sunnis of them all, the members of the Islamic State. And at the same time as those Saudi rulers execute, in the same galere, both those Al-Qaeda and Islamic State anti-Shi’a fanatics, they also can — and did — execute a leading Shi’a cleric in Saudi Arabia, one Nimr Al-Nimr. Those who like things kept simple, and not complicated, will be disappointed by the Muslim Middle East, where every (geopolitical) prospect teases, and only man is vile.
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DEBKA 

Review of a short and clear book aimed at the reclamation of the good name of the Jewish state.

by Rochel Sylvetsky, INN

The year 2016 seems as though it will be more of the same, only more so.

Massacres, murders and mayhem in the West, massacres, murders and chaos in Syria, kidnappings in Africa, Shiite-Sunni violence (hopefully not the bomb), stabbings and shootings in Israel – and no one, except the pro-Israel Jews are able to see that there is a straight line leading from Islam to Islamists to Islamic terror in all of the above.

The world insists on separating Israel from the rest of the terror that is trying to destroy anyone who is deemed an infidel. That has happened because years of well funded Arab propaganda laced with a good dose of hereditary anti-Semitism have convinced people that there is “a reason, a rationale,” as  US Foreign Secretary John Kerry egregiously explained after the Paris massacre, for killing Jews.
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ISLAM IS THE PROBLEM

By Guy Taylor – The Washington Times

Iran’s leaders on Tuesday revealed the existence of a previously undisclosed weapons bunker stocked with ballistic missiles, adding to President Obama’s diplomatic headaches in the region at a time when tensions between Iran and Saudi Arabia have soared to new heights.

The revelation prompted fresh hand-wringing within the Obama administration, which has awkwardly sought to avoid taking sides since the regional saber rattling ratcheted up over the weekend with Riyadh’s execution of a prominent Shiite cleric and the subsequent sacking of the Saudi Embassy in Tehran.

The weapons bunker is also the latest provocation by Iran since the much-touted signing of a nuclear deal last summer, provocations that have provided more ammunition to critics both at home and in the Middle East who say President Obama’s outreach to Tehran has done nothing to curb Iran’s aggressive policies in the region.
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Today’s issues: Anti-Semitism in Europe, adjusting Israel’s TV to the right, an armed intifada is on our doorstep, and Islamic State’s propaganda threat.

ISRAEL FOREIGN MINISTRY

The Jerusalem Post notes the first anniversary of the double terrorist attack that targeted the offices of the Charlie Hebdo magazine and the Hyper Cacher, and points out that in Europe, Jews are still being killed because they are Jews. The editor asserts that “European nations currently lack systematic methods of collecting data on anti-Semitism,” and declares: “Europeans have a moral obligation to take violent anti-Semitism seriously. An important first step should be to develop systematic methods for measuring the phenomenon.”
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Or does Trump need protecting from Muslims?

By Daniel Greenfield, FPM

After an Islamic terror attack, Americans are told that they’re foolish and fearful to worry about the type of Islamic terrorism that just filled a local morgue with bodies. Instead of focusing on the families of the dead, the media coverage sharply pivots to a million stories about Muslims who claim to be terrified of a “backlash” from Americans and must be protected from the threat of this imaginary backlash.
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Why would you refuse to condemn those who murder in your name?
By Dennis Prager, FPM

Last week, an opinion piece appeared in The Washington Post that tells you much of what you need to know about the moral fabric and intellectual depth of the ACLU and much of the left.

Written by Rana Elmir, deputy director of the Michigan chapter of the ACLU, the title says it all: “Stop asking me to condemn terrorists just because I’m Muslim.”

Here is how her column begins:

“As an American Muslim, I am consistently and aggressively asked — by media figures, religious leaders, politicians and Internet trolls — to condemn terrorism to prove my patriotism.

“I emphatically refuse.”

Even putting aside her refusal as a Muslim to condemn the greatest organized evil in the world, her misleading rhetoric is revealed by another aspect of the opening sentence.
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By Bernard-Henri Levy, ALGEMEINER

Iran is no paragon of democracy.

And when its leaders denounce the “criminal workings” of the “vile” Saudi regime and its links to terrorism, the pot is calling the kettle black.

Yet what occurred this past weekend in Saudi Arabia is worrisome for several reasons.

Executing 47 people in a single day, first of all, is a strange way to begin the year. Except if the goal is to beat the kingdom’s record of 153 in 2015 (and 87 the year before), in which case they have made a good start.
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THIS ARTICLE IS SPOT ON
By Lauri B, Regan, AMERICAN THINKER

In his masterpiece, Common Sense, Thomas Paine observed:

Men who look upon themselves born to reign, and others to obey, soon grow insolent; selected from the rest of mankind their minds are early poisoned by importance; and the world they act in differs so materially from the world at large, that they have but little opportunity of knowing its true interests, and when they succeed to the government are frequently the most ignorant and unfit of any throughout the dominions.

Paine may have been discussing the British monarch circa 1776, but his insight is equally applicable to Obama and Co., who reign like kings while exhibiting ignorance and incompetence. This is particularly surprising, given that many liberal policymakers, including Obama, are highly educated, and therefore presumably adept at critical thinking and analysis. But after seven years of Obama leading the Democratic Party in insane notions of transforming the country, it is clear that rational thought and common sense are skill sets greatly lacking among liberal elites.
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MINISTRY OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS

Today’s issues: The Sunni-Shi’ite divide, the Wild West comes to Tel Aviv, a wakeup call for the public, and the real danger to Europe.

The Jerusalem Post comments on the conflagration between Sunni and Shi’ite Moslems in the Middle East, and argues that the strongly held belief that it is advantageous when one’s enemies are at war with one another is not a valid contention in this case. The author contends that it is “absurd it is to talk of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as the catalyst of all that goes wrong in the Middle East,” and asserts: “It is the Sunni-Shi’ite divide, more than any other factor, that is driving unrest in the region, and clashes between Shi’ites and Sunnis are not an Israeli interest.”
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By Ayelet Shaked, TOI

In 1914, Robert Frost published his poem “Mending Wall,” where he coined the maxim, “Good fences make good neighbors.” Those were the days of World War I, and it was perceived at that time that the best way to safeguard international relations and world peace was to clearly demarcate the physical borders between countries.

Two decades later, around the time of World War II, the concept of sovereignty had changed to include more than merely defending a country’s territory. The understanding that foreign governments were able to have a serious effect on a country’s internal decision-making led the United States to enact the Foreign Agents Registration Act in 1938, which requires non-diplomats representing foreign interests to register with the U.S. Department of Justice.
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By Dr. Ephraim Herrera, ISRAEL HAYOM

British Prime Minister David Cameron recently wrote that “aspects of the Muslim Brotherhood’s ideology and activities … run counter to British values of democracy, the rule of law, individual liberty, equality and the mutual respect and tolerance of different faiths and beliefs.”

He described the movement as fertile ground for growing violence and, based on research he commissioned, determined that membership in the Muslim Brotherhood should be considered a possible indicator of extremism.
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T. Belman. He offers nothing new here. Netanyahu has long attempted to get the West’s approval for building in the blocs. Secondly, why should the West make this deal because we have accepted a freeze over all the land. Probably Obama has made it clear, if we build then we can forget about the US veto at the Security Council.

By Tovah Lazaroff, JPOST

Israel should build in the West Bank settlement blocs except for the “controversial” area of E1, Yesh Atid leader Yair Lapid told The Jerusalem Post on Monday as he put forward a plan to separate from the Palestinians.

“Let’s unfreeze the places we can unfreeze,” Lapid said on the sidelines of the second regional business conference in the West Bank city of Ma’aleh Adumim.

He referenced what many on the Israeli Right believe is a de facto settlement freeze by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government, which in the last year has approved very few new Jewish building plans in Judea and Samaria.
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By Matt Barber, CFP

“When the sacred months are over slay the idolaters wherever you find them. Arrest them, besiege them, and lie in ambush everywhere for them.” – The Quran, Surah 9:5

When it comes to the global scourge of orthodox Islam, the Western world, which Islamistsexpressly seek to “destroy from within,” is an upside-down realm wherein objective facts, logic and reason must yield to multiculturalist make-believe, “progressive” propaganda and political correctness run amok.

Faithful Muslims want to kill you, and faithless progressives seem all too happy to help them along. Look at the ongoing Muslim invasion of Europe. This progressive paradise, a burgeoning multicultural dystopia, is beginning to look an awful lot like hell on earth.
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MINISTRY OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS

Today’s issues: Deepening the divide, Netanyahu’s racist discourse, enlightened and benighted, and defeating Jewish terrorism.

The Jerusalem Post criticizes PM Netanyahu’s speech at the site of the attack on Tel Aviv’s Dizengoff Street, and asserts: “Instead of expressing negative generalizations about more than 20 percent of the Israeli population, Netanyahu could have focused on more positive themes.” The editor points out that Arab Israelis are full-fledged citizens of Israel and the vast majority are law-abiding, and states that the abominable act, which is hardly representative of the Arab population, “could have been an opportunity for the prime minister to emphasis what Jewish and Arab Israelis have in common. Unfortunately, Netanya hu used it as an opportunity to deepen the divide.”
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Jewish Home chair condemns Netanyahu’s criticism of Arab sector after Tel Aviv shooting, says ‘the state has failed the Arabs.’

INSS Insight No. 783, January 3, 2016

After months of an air-land military effort by the Russian-Iranian coalition in Syria, the integrated attack has been halted. The main goal of Iran’s intervention in the fighting in Syria is a strengthened Shiite Iran-Iraq-Syria-Hezbollah axis, built on the Alawite regime with its pro-Iranian orientation. For its part, Russia has other interests, and its preferred goal is a settlement that will give it a foothold and facilitate its influence in the Middle East, while putting an end to Western dominance in the region. Yet regardless of various points of contention, and despite the efforts of the Western powers and Sunni Arab countries to puncture the Russian-led coalition, the pro-Assad partnership is still a long way from dissolution. Iran has no option for an exit from the game in Syria, and will therefore prefer continued cooperation with Russia, even if it sometimes leaves a sour taste. Read more…