T. Belman. Just yesterday I exchanged some emails with a cousin who was alive during the holocaust, as I was, and who was very familiar with the holocaust and Jewish refugees. He has always been a tikkun olam Jew. From experience I know how unproductive and frustrating to both of us our exchanges have been.

He took great pride in how the Jewish community in Canada and the US were welcoming the Syrian refugees. I wanted to barf. Instead, I sent him an article about how Jewish refugees and Syrian refugees are not comparable. He didn’t even refute the article and preferred to talk about other issues. I replied:

Do not think the Arabs only hate Israel. They hate Jews whether they, the Syrians, come from Syria, Jordan or anywhere else in the ME.

These “Syrian refugees” likewise hate the Jews and represent a threat to them. Liberal Jews are misguided to welcome them because they hate you and all your niceness won’t change that. They will push for Sharia law and for all kinds of accommodation. They will make Canada more antisemitic over time and anti-Israel.

By Hugh Fitzgerald, Jihad Watch

Last week, outside the Public Library in Cambridge, Massachusetts, a personable, presentable, sweet-faced young Muslimah, one Mona Haydar, stood for several hours with her husband Sebastian (a convert to Islam), offering donuts and coffee to passersby under two big signs that read “Ask A Muslim” and “Talk To A Muslim.”
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By Jonathan Chait, NY MAGAZINE

A few weeks ago, Ted Cruz committed a shocking act of heresy against the Republican Party Establishment. “If you look at President Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton and, for that matter, some of the more aggressive Washington neocons,” he told Bloomberg News, “they have consistently misperceived the threat of radical Islamic terrorism and have advocated military adventurism that has had the effect of benefiting radical Islamic terrorists.”
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by Ron Kampeas, JTA

Ted Cruz wants to make sure you understand: “Republican” and “neoconservative” are no longer synonymous.

The Texas senator, inching up to second place behind front-runner Donald Trump in the polls just weeks before the Iowa caucuses, has launched a broadside against the “crazy” movement that not so long ago was inextricable from establishment GOP foreign policy.
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By Lee Smith, ME FORUM

The obsessive international preoccupation with ISIS notwithstanding, Iranian expansionism poses a far greater threat to U.S. interests and regional allies than the self-proclaimed Islamic State.

Tehran boasts control of four Arab capitals (Baghdad, Damascus, Beirut, and Sana) as well as a number of powerful Shiite militias (from Hezbollah, to the Houthis, to various Iraqi groups), and has warmed relations with Moscow following the latter’s military intervention in the Syrian civil war.
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T. Belman. ISIS should be contained and not defeated or replaced by sunnis who are more mainstream. Just as Iraq under Hussein was a bulwark against Iranian expansionism, so must a newly created sunni state consisting of sunni Syria and sunni Iraq be created. US policy is to keep both states intact. Chances of the US succeeding, I think are nil. If they kept Iraq whole, Iran would be in charge, not the US.

By Ariel Ben Solomon, JPOST

The Western backed war against the Sunni Islamic State is setting the stage for the rise of an Iran-led Shi’ite crescent across the region.

From contiguous territory stretching from Afghanistan to Iran and through Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon, Shi’ite influence would increase.

Just as the US-led coalition war against Iraq in 2003 toppled the Sunni power and removed an obstacle for Iran to spread its influence in the overwhelmingly Shi’ite country, the removal of Islamic State would give Iran the upper hand against its Sunni enemies.
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T. Belman. I guess the good news is that the PMO did not rebut the other parts of Peace Now Report.

PM’s office says any construction plans for E1 that were promoted during Uri Ariel’s time in office are irrelevant now.

By Nitsan Keidar, INN

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s office distanced itself on Tuesday night from reports that Minister Uri Ariel, in his previous role as Housing Minister, had planned construction of homes in the E1 area which connects Jerusalem to Ma’aleh Adumim.

On Monday, the Peace Now organization said that the housing ministry was seeking to build 55,548 units in Judea and Samaria, of which more than 8,300 homes would be in E1.
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By Elise Cooper, AMERICAN THINKER

Doomed To Succeed, by Dennis Ross, is an extraordinary book for anyone who wants to understand how U.S. presidents from Truman through Obama have reacted toward Israel, their policies, and the reasoning behind them. Dennis Ross has been a direct participant in shaping U.S. policy toward the Middle East, and Israel specifically, for nearly thirty years, participating in two Republican and two Democratic administrations. This book is not a history of Arab-Israeli peace efforts but rather a discussion of the evolution of Israeli-American diplomatic relations. American Thinker spoke to Ambassador Ross about his book and the current issues involving U.S./Israeli relations.

In reading this book, people will learn how different presidents have viewed the relationship with Israel. For example, JFK was the first president to sell arms and talk about the special relationship, Eisenhower and LBJ were preoccupied with other events such as the Cold War and Vietnam, and that the reason Nixon supplied Israel with arms on the eighth day of the Yom Kippur War was because no ceasefire was accepted, the Russians were resupplying Egypt and Syria, and he did not want it to be seen in the context as Soviet arms defeating U.S. arms.
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T. Belman. Many thought it was unrealistic to suggest allowing 2 million Palestinians to immigrate to the West. Yet here we are 9 months later and the West is well on its way to accepting 2 million Muslim migrants. But if America wanted they could back an autonomy plan in Area A and B or a federation of these areas with Jordan.

The problem has always been that the US has tried to give the Arabs what they want which requires them to ignore reality, Israel’s rights and history as the Arabs do.

By Ted Belman (American Thinker published this article on April 2/15 and received 250 comments.)

Dennis Ross and David Makovsky in Israel’s Drive Toward Self-Destruction, argue that Netanyahu must offer up hope to Palestinians or face a revived de-legitimization movement. They’re certainly right to point out that the delegitimation movement will grow, but they are wrong to suggest that the answer is for Israel to offer hope to the Palestinians. How facile is that? They argue that what Israel needs to do is begin capitulating even before the negotiations commence, let alone, conclude. They want Israel to give up its bargaining chips for nothing in return.

The Palestinians don’t hope to be given a state, they hope to destroy a state, namely Israel.

It’s not Israel that needs to prove its bona fides, it’s the Palestinians that need to.
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By Kevin Madigan, BOSTON GLOBE

POPE FRANCIS RECENTLY declared that attacks not just on Jews but on the State of Israel are equally anti-Semitic. In a late-October address to commemorate the 50th anniversary of Nostra Aetate, the Vatican II decree that transformed relations between Jews and Catholics, the pontiff concluded: “The State of Israel has every right to exist in safety and prosperity.” Largely lost in the coverage of his remarks was any historical perspective on the degree to which Francis decisively overturned statements made by influential Catholic theologians, and by popes, on Zionism in the 19th and 20th centuries.
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The 49-second clip, which is titled “Nazi Propaganda returns in Palestinian incitement,” shows anti-Semitic cartoons that were used in Europe to foment anti-Jewish animus.

Produced by Ministry for Foreign Affairs

T. Belman. According to Savir, who is a strong leftist, Netanyahu is against a Palestinian state and is working toward a binational apartheid state. I do not believe that Netanyahu wants either a binational state or an apartheid state or a binational aparthied state.

He wants to grant autonomy to a Palestine entity just as Menachem Begin wanted to do.

By Uri Savir, AL MONITOR

A two-state Israeli-Palestinian solution seems further away today than ever. Yet, the Israeli prime minister’s office doesn’t take this for granted and has developed a multipronged strategy as insurance.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu continues to place roadblocks in the path of any political process designed to bring about a two-state solution, according to a senior European Union official in Brussels who visits the region on a regular basis and spoke to Al-Monitor on condition of anonymity.
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Has the Shin Bet used pressure when a threat existed, but was general or far off in the future, or to solve a past crime, but not to prevent a future crime?

By Jonah Jeremy Bob, JPOST

Tick, tock. Tick tock,

That sound or concept should get any detainee nervous as they may be part of a “ticking bomb” scenario permitting the Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) to give them much rougher treatment.

Why? In 1999, the High Court of Justice prohibited the Shin Bet from torturing detainees.
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T. Belman. I have been on the periphery of this Plan since its inception. Mike wise sent me and others a copy of this draft asking for comments. There followed a lively exchange between him and Martin Sherman. This exchange is noted for its brilliance. I will be posting it in due course. This Plan is the origin of Caroline Glick’s, The Israel Solution. I don’t think there is any daylight between them.

By Michael L. Wise                               (Original November 2003)

BACKGROUND 

The name “Filastin” and “Palaestina” is derived from the Philistines a seafaring people who surfaced around 1350 BC and disappeared after 604  BC. In AD 135, the Roman Emperor Hadrian crushed the Bar Kokhba Revolt and blotted out the name “Provincia Judea” and renamed it “Provincia Syria Palaestina”.  After the Romans, the area was controlled by the Byzantines, Umayads, Abbasids, Seljuqs, Fatimids, French Crusaders, Ayyubids and Mameluks. Palestine was ruled by the Ottoman Turks from 1517 until 1917 where its administration was attached to Damascus. Subsequently, British control of Palestine was confirmed under the 1922 Mandate for Palestine[i], unanimously adopted by the League of Nations and approved by the US Congress. The Mandate set aside all of Palestine for the Jewish people. All the inhabitants were guaranteed civil and religious rights, but national rights were reserved for the Jewish people. Britain was appointed the trustee to implement the Mandate. No Arab or Moslem leader has ever accepted Jewish sovereignty over any part of Palestine rejecting the Mandate for Palestine (1922), the Peel Commission (1937) and the UN Partition Plan[ii] (1947).
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Housing Ministry working on plans for 55,548 settlement homes — Peace Now Projects worth $85m in the works, mostly initiated by Jewish Home’s Uri Ariel, according to data collated by anti-settlement group

BY SUE SURKES , TOI.

The Housing Ministry is working on settlement construction in the West Bank and East Jerusalem valued at more than NIS 330 million ($85 million), the Peace Now organization said Monday, basing its claim on ministry documents it obtained through the Freedom of Information Act.

The vast majority of contracts were signed between March 2013 and May 2015, when Uri Ariel of the pro-settlement Jewish Home party was housing minister. He currently serves as minister of agriculture and rural development.
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MINISTRY OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS

Today’s issues: The importance of getting a flu vaccination, saving Israel’s shoreline, the danger of radicalism, and no need for an incitement law.

The Jerusalem Post discusses the ramifications of the outbreak of the H1N1 (swine) virus, and urges Israelis to heed the Health Ministry’s call to get a flu shot. The editor notes: “Mistrust of the authorities, fears about vaccine safety and side effects, and the perceptions that vaccines are only partially effective and not necessary for healthy people all contribute to keep people away from vaccination,” but warns that “getting a flu shot might mean the difference between life and death.”
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T. Belman. This bill is expected to pass notwithstanding that there is fierce opposition. The opposition is disingenuous in their attacks.

New bill, sponsored by Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked, requires groups that receive most funding from abroad to reveal sources • Opposition Leader Isaac Herzog: “This NGO law is worse than the European product-labeling law because it labels human beings.”

By Edna Adato, Gideon Allon, Mati Tuchfeld, Dan Lavie, News Agencies and Israel Hayom Staff

Israeli cabinet ministers gave preliminary approval Sunday to a bill that seeks to impose new transparency regulations on Israeli non-profit groups that receive funds from foreign governments.

The bill, sponsored by Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked, requires NGOs that receive more than 50 percent of their funding from foreign entities to detail the funding sources in all their official publications and communications with elected officials. Activists from the NGOs also will be required to wear identifying name tags when working in Israel’s Knesset, as lobbyists do.
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As the political leader of Orthodox Zionism freely admits, the existence of Jewish terrorism threatens to upend all that his community has toiled to build

By Elie Leshem, TOI

On Wednesday morning in Jerusalem, Naftali Bennett drew new battle lines. In a speech to Zionist Orthodox education leaders at a conference organized by Arutz 7, a mainstay news outlet of the settlement movement, the education minister addressed persistent rumors to the effect that the Shin Bet security service had been torturing suspected Jewish extremists.

The suspects, who the Shin Bet says firebombed the Palestinian Dawabsha family in their sleep last July, killing 18-month-old Ali and his parents, are “terrorists,” Bennett asserted, and their objective is to “dismantle the state.” Thus, he continued, the Israeli government has made the decision to treat them as terrorists, with all that the label entails.
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By Rudaw

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Commander of the Nineveh police Zanuon al-Sabawi, said at a press conference that the women have been executed in various forms.
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Southeast Anatolia is burning. And nobody can say Sultan Erdogan, a.k.a. President Tayyip, hasn’t issued one of his trademark macho warnings.

By Pepe Escobar, Sputnik News

Violent Clashes in Northern Turkey Force Hundreds of Thousands to Evacuate Homes

Since mid-December the Turkish President has been adamant that a blitzkrieg/”cleansing” op in Southeast Anatolia will only end with Kurdish militants associated with the PKK completely “annihilated.”

An array of towns – especially Cizre, Silopi and Nusaybin – is totally under siege, encircled by tanks and armored vehicles. Ankara’s tactics include the Ministry of Education text-messaging around 3,000 teachers forcing them to return to their hometowns for “on-the-job training.”

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By Michael Welner, ALGEMEINER

President Obama recently compared, openly and unreservedly, refugees fleeing allegedly from Syria and seeking resettlement in the United States with Jewish refugees from the Holocaust.

Whether refugees from Muslim countries should be resettled in the United States is a source of lively debate and there are meritorious arguments on both sides of the issue. However, the historical inaccuracy of comparing the refugees traveling via Syria to Jewish Holocaust era refugees is stark and touches on lessons of the Holocaust that must never be forgotten:

1. Jewish refugees were not warring with anyone, and were no threat to anyone. Refugees attributed to Syria are fleeing a war within their own land in which they are on one side or another.
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