T. Belman. US policy prolongs the conflict. They could easily agree to this but they don’t. Similarly they could force the windup of UNRWA by cutting off the flow of money, but they don’t. They could demand that the PA stop incitement by cutting off the flow of money but they don’t.

By Barak Ravid, HAARETZ

Washington rejects Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s suggestion to U.S. President Barack Obama at the White House on Monday to discuss the possibility of U.S. recognition of Israeli rule over the Golan Heights, a senior White House official said.

In making the suggestion, Netanyahu pointed to Syria’s growing destabilization from civil war. But the White House official said the U.S. position, which objects to Israel annexing the Golan Heights, remains unchanged, adding that Netanyahu’s proposal was unjustified and could even harm U.S.-backed Syrian opposition forces.
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Statistics published by the Shin Bet show the increase in terror throughout the last month. Ten Israelis and one foreign citizen paid with their lives, while 80 were injured. Jews carried out four attacks.

Yoav Zitun, YNET

Eleven people were killed and 80 wounded during a bloody month that also saw 609 attacks carried out, according to data on the wave of terror published by the Shin Bet on Wednesday.

According to the statistics, which cover the month of October, the deadly terror attacks took place in Jerusalem, the West Bank and areas inside the Green Line. Among the dead were 10 Israelis and one foreign citizen.

Among the wounded, 26 were Israelis (18 civilians and 18 members of security forces) who were moderately injured or worse.
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According to unconfirmed reports by opposition groups, target was a weapons shipment intended for Hezbollah

TIMES OF ISRAEL 9:00 pm

Israel has reportedly carried out an airstrike near the airport in the Syrian capital Damascus, according to Israel’s Channel 2 TV, which cited Syrian media reports.

The reports are unconfirmed at this time but according to Syrian opposition groups, the target was a weapons shipments likely intended for Lebanese terror group Hezbollah, Israeli Channel 10 said.
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T. Belman. For about 1500 years, Europe hounded Jews telling them what they could and could not do. Eventually it brought on the holocaust. They obviously can’t break the habit. The fact that trying to force Israel back to the Auschwitz borders will bring on a second Holocaust is of no moment to them.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says European Union’s move to label products from Judea and Samaria is “highly discriminatory,” could undermine EU-Israel relations • 36 U.S. senators protest, saying plan could “promote a de facto boycott of Israel.”

Shlomo Cesana, Mati Tuchfeld, Edna Adato, News Agencies and Israel Hayom Staff

EU has approved new labeling guidelines for Israeli settlement products | Photo credit: Reuters

The European Union’s executive on Wednesday approved new guidelines for labeling products manufactured in Judea and Samaria differently than those produced in other parts of Israel, a decision it says is technical but which many in Israel say is unacceptable discrimination.

The European Commission “adopted this morning the Interpretative Notice on indication of origin of goods from the territories occupied by Israel since June 1967,” said an EU official.
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DON’T MISS SHMUELY BOTEACH WHO FOLLOWS UP AFTER HIM.

Bloody Battle for Israel at Oxford University

Rabbi Shmuley and Dennis Prager Face Ferocious Anti-Israel Advocacy at the Oxford Union Debating Society

By Rabbi Shmuley Boteach, THE OBSERVER, • 11/28/14

Oxford, England, 5 am – I’m trying to get two hours sleep tonight prior to my flight back to America, but cannot. I am supercharged from tonight’s debate at the Oxford Union on Israel versus Hamas. It was easily the most hard-fought debate on Israel I have ever participated in. It was ferocious, exhilarating, vicious, electrifying, and disturbing.
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JEWISH PRESS

During a meeting between Israeli Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked (Bayit Yehudi) and her British counterpart, Michael Gove (Conservatives), this week, Shaked said that she hopes in the future Israeli Supreme Court justices won’t be able to overturn law, in order to maintain the “delicate balance between the branches of government and the sovereignty of the legislature,” NRG reported.

In the 1980s and the 1990s, under then Chief Justice Aharon Barak, the Israeli Supreme Court established its role as a protector of human rights, intervening to secure freedom of speech and the freedom to demonstrate, reduce military censorship, limit use of certain military methods and promote equality between various sectors of the population. During his time as President of the Supreme Court, Barak advanced a judicial activist approach, whereby the court was not required to limit itself to judicial interpretation, but rather usurped the right to fill the gaps in the law through judicial legislation. This approach was highly controversial and was met with much opposition, including by some politicians. Israeli legal commentator Ze’ev Segal wrote in 2004, “Barak sees the Supreme Court as a [force for societal change], far beyond the primary role as a decisor in disputes. The Supreme Court under his leadership is fulfilling a central role in the shaping of Israeli law, not much less than [the role of] the Knesset.”
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JEWISH PRESS

(JNi.media) Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked (Bayit Yehudi) said she was pleased with a court ruling on a modified government plan dealing with illegal migrants from Africa and said that “Israel’s hands used to be tied when it came to solving the difficult problem of infiltration. Today we’ve reached a breakthrough that will allow for the State of Israel to act openly in passing infiltrators to third countries.”

The Be’er Sheva District Court on Sunday rejected a petition filed by refugee rights groups, against the arrangement that allows indefinite confinement in the Saharonim detention center for individuals “who refuse to leave to a third country,” NRG reported. Judge Rachel Barkai ruled that “after its revisions, the new outline regarding procedures for monitoring and supervising the implementation of the arrangements by third countries stand the test of integrity and is free from defects and flaws.”
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Ladies and Gentlemen,

I’m delighted to be here today with you, the leaders of Jewish communities across North America. You work tirelessly to strengthen Jewish identity and you work tirelessly to support the State of Israel. You are Israel’s partners, you are my partners in building the Jewish future.

Now, this past year has not been simple. Great issues were debated. Passions ran high and the stakes were even higher. But we must always remember two simple truths. The first one is that no matter what disagreements there are between Israel and the United States, Israel has no better friend than America and America has no better friend than Israel.
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In an interview, Roger Helmer, leader of UKIP, Britain’s far-right political party, and his deputy, Paul Nuttall, reaffirm support for Israel, suspicion of Muslims.

By Anshel Pfeffer, HAARETZ

Roger Helmer, the leader of the United Kingdom Independence Party in the European Parliament kept smiling throughout the interview. But the question of why UKIP is widely seen in Britain as a “white men’s party” obviously irritated him. He took a postcard-size business card from his blazer pocket and said “I wasn’t going to do this but let me introduce you to my PA (personal assistant).” He pointed to the picture on one side of the card, featuring himself and party leader Nigel Farage flanked by two young women. “She works for me, she’s Italian, she works for me she’s English but she’s black.” It was the classic “some of my best friends” maneuver but Helmer didn’t seem aware. Asides from that faux pas, throughout the interview, he presented, along with his colleague, UKIP deputy leader Paul Nuttall a very polished presentation.
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T. Belman. Just yesterday Netanyahu repeated that the root cause of the conflict was the refusal by the PA to recognize the Jewish state of Israel.This article contains links to the two great speeches defending Zionism, one by Chaim Herzog and the other by Sen Daniel Patrick Moynihan.

By Ted Belman (Originally published in Dec 2007))

Post Annapolis, the Palestinian Authority made it crystal clear that it will never recognize Israel as a “Jewish state”. Furthermore, it made it crystal clear that it will not compromise on Jerusalem making it a capital offense to do so. Yet negotiations continue. Either Olmert doesn’t believe the PA or what is more likely, he will still cut a deal where Israel is denied that recognition and will divide Jerusalem according to Arab demands.

Do not think for a moment that these entrenched Arab positions are negotiable. They aren’t and never have been.

Ever since Theodor Herzl wrote The Jewish State in 1896, the Arabs, with one exception, Faisal ibn Hussein, have opposed it.
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THE NETANYAHU BOMBSHELL:
Founder of Palestinian movement instigated the Holocaust

By Francisco Gil-White, HISTORICAL INVESTIGATIVE RESEARCH

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, in a speech to the World Zionist Congress, stated that Hajj Amin al Husseini, the founding father of the Palestinian movement, had convinced the Nazis to exterminate the European Jews. There followed numerous ‘outraged’ reactions by ‘authorities’ of all sorts. We examine here these reactions, and what they mean.

Did Hajj Amin al Husseini, father of the Palestinian movement, convince the Nazis to create death camps to murder every last living Jew? In a recent speech, Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu said ‘yes.’ Is he right? In my previous piece I argued that the historical documentation supports Netanyahu’s claim [1]; here, I am interested in the media controversy.
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DEBKAfile Special Report

After the Islamic State succeeded in downing a Russian airliner that took off from Sharm El-Sheikh on October 31, causing the deaths of all 224 passengers and crew, the terrorist organization Monday, Nov. 9, put a US military target in its crosshairs. A captain in the Jordanian police opened fire in the cafeteria of the Special Operations Training Center outside the Jordanian capital, Amman, where American instructors train Iraqi troops to fight ISIS. Two trainers from the US and one from South Africa were initially reported killed and another six wounded, including two more Americans and four Jordanians.

A Jordanian government spokesman said later Monday that the number of fatalities had risen to eight, without specifying how many foreigners.

The gunman did not survive. He was variously reported to have committee suicide after the assault or killed by Jordanian troops.
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By Jeff Dunetz

Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, wrote an op-ed for the liberal Jewish newspaper theForward. In the piece she pledges her continued friendship with the State of Israel, and to Israeli Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. That pledge should raise the eyebrows of any fair-minded observer.

If one looks at Hillary Clinton’s public history one finds a lifetime of anti-Israel positions. But wait some might say, Hillary was a big supporter of Israel when she was in the U.S. Senate. Indeed, she was. With the possible exception of the time from her first campaign New York’s Senate seat in 2000 to her resignation from the Senate to become Secretary of State in January 2009– except for the time she needed New York’s Jewish voting bloc, Hillary Clinton has never been pro-Israel. And when she held the position of Secretary of State, she helped Barack Obama craft his anti-Israel positions.
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BREITBART

Frank Gaffney, the President of the Center for Security Policy, appeared on Breitbart News Daily on Monday to discuss Sen. Ted Cruz’s (R-TX) bill that seeks to designate the Muslim Brotherhood (MB) as a terrorist organization. Gaffney also urged Republican nominees go on the record about Sharia-finance and Sharia law as a whole during Tuesday’s Republican presidential debate.

The bill “lays out the case” the add the MB on the State Department’s list of terrorist organizations, said Gaffney, who served as acting Assistant Secretary of Defense under President Ronald Reagan.
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By Bret Stephens, WSJ

In the history of political clichés, has there ever been one quite so misjudged as the line—some version of which is attributed either to Israel’s martyred Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin or fabled Defense Minister Moshe Dayan—that “you make peace with your enemies, not with your friends”?

OK, “give peace a chance” and “nation building at home” are worse. But the Rabin-Dayan line is an expression of the higher mindlessness that passes for wisdom among people who think they are smart. After Monday’s make-nice session between President Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, it’s time for a reconsideration.
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By Steve Apfel, AMERICAN THINKER

If there ever was a real line between news and opinion, it stopped being real in 1967. That was the year Israel licked belligerent Arab powers and took whole chunks of territory off them. The West marveled, but not for long. Humanity’s implanted fixation with the “Jewish problem” boiled up from an after-Holocaust slumber like a bubbling sea beast. Millennial antipathies were back at full strength. The media packed them into a narrative that conditions voting blocs and electorates down to this day. What the media passes off as hard news is an aggravated protest over Palestinian rights and Israeli wrongs. Anchors and editors slave away at a narrative garbled by animosity. None bother to hide it anymore. The narrative may have convinced audiences, but even more, opinion formers have convinced themselves that juggernaut Jews make life intolerable for underdog Palestinians who only want sovereignty. A brittle hysteria has settled on the media in every free country.A brittle hysteria has settled on the media in free countries, imparting an aura of menace.
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by Anne Bayefsky, National Review.

Much ink has been spilled blaming the state of U.S.–Israel relations on the poor personal rapport between President Obama and Prime Minister Netanyahu. The fact is that huggable Barney the Purple Dinosaur could have been Israel’s elected leader, and the relations would have been equally hostile.

For seven decades from the moment of Israel’s birth — through five wars, one campaign, eight operations, two “uprisings,” and years of terrorism — Palestinian Arabs have done everything possible to avoid living peacefully side by side with a Jewish state.

This isn’t ancient history. It’s today.
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by Vic Rosenthal

As I write this, PM Netanyahu is in Washington, preparing for his scheduled meeting with President Obama today. The Washington Post reports that

The leaders plan to discuss how to counter Iranian aid to Hezbollah and Hamas; the Russian and Iranian efforts to prop up Syrian President Bashar ­al-Assad; and steps that might demonstrate Netanyahu’s commitment to a two-state solution even in the absence of negotiations with the Palestinian Authority.

The most tangible piece of the agenda, however, is a 10-year memorandum of understanding on military cooperation between the two countries that would budget aid and lock in a plan for new weaponry to deal with what the administration agrees is a “dangerous neighborhood.”

Most media sources also say that the PM and president want to improve their reportedly poor personal relationship.
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