By Roi Kais, YNET

WATCH: Egyptian Sharif Gaber’s video explains how logic ended his hate of Israel and his devotion to Islam, sending him on the run from the authorities.

Twenty-two-year-old Sharif Gaber is a typical young Egyptian in many ways but his political opinions have made him a highly controversial figure on social media – he’s a supporter of Israel and happily tells the world why.

“This video will cause me to lose friends, but honestly, it’s a message of love and not hate,” Gaber firmly wrote on his Facebook profile after his video explaining his liberal views regarding Israel went viral. “If you are bothered that I’m telling you to stop hating Israel, that’s your problem.”
Read more…

Energy Minister Yuval Steinitz responds to Arabic press reports suggesting new Iran-Russia reconfiguration in Syria will see Iranian troops deployed in Quneitra, along border with Israel

Daniel Siryoti and Israel Hayom Staff

While Iran’s and Russia’s growing involvements in the ongoing Syrian civil war are not secret, new details reported in the Arabic-language press are causing massive concern for Israel.

According to the Kuwaiti newspaper Al-Rai, Russia and Iran have agreed to deploy special military units to Syria to take active parts in the fighting there. Furthermore, the paper reported, Tehran and Moscow have re-coordinated their military operations on Syrian soil, redistributing their involvement in a way that will bring Iranian troops to Israel’s border.
Read more…

By Jeffery Herf, HNN

Anti-Semitism, the hatred of the Jews as Jews, has a history in the Arab states and in Iran. It is blatant and obvious in the declarations of the government of Iran and in the public statements of Islamist organizations such as Hamas and Hezbollah. The link between Islamism and anti-Semitism has been a continuing theme of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt since the canonical writings of Hassan al-Banna, Haj Amin al-Hussein, and Sayyid Qutb from the 1930s to 1950s. The evidence of its presence is extensive in the files of the American and British diplomatic archives. It was a theme in the liberal and left-leaning journalism of the World War II era and in the scholarship of the postwar decades.

Yet the discipline of Middle East Studies today, rather than building on this valuable scholarly legacy, shows too little interest in the topic. Or it finds anti-Semitism’s origins in the existence and policies of Zionism and the state of Israel while neglecting the presence of such antagonism in the years before Israel’s founding. In so doing, the current disinterest evinces the entry into the academy of aftereffects of the leftist ideological offensive against Israel and Zionism that achieved so much success at the United Nations from the 1960s to the 1980s and that culminated in the UN’s “Zionism is racism” resolution of November 1975.
Read more…

Legislation would not allow Obama admin to release money until terror victims paid

By Adam Kredo, New Beacon

Congress is considering new legislation that would block the Obama administration from releasing billions of dollars to the Iranian regime as was agreed to under the parameters of the recent nuclear accord, according to Rep. Patrick Meehan (R., Pa.), the lawmaker spearheading the bill.

The bill, which is expected to be brought to the House floor for a vote this week, would require Iran to first pay $43.5 billion in legal penalties awarded by U.S. courts to American victims of Iranian terrorism.

President Obama would then be in a position to either disregard the requirement under his executive authority, thereby clearing the way for Iran to immediately receive $150 billion, or force Tehran to negotiate settlements for these terror victims.
Read more…

By Michael Curtis, AMERICAN THINKER

In his testimony before the U.S. Senate on September 22, 2015, former General David H. Petraeus speaking truth to power remarked that the crises of the Middle East pose a threat not just to regional stability but also to global stability and to vital interests of the United States. This is particularly true of the morass in the vicious Syrian imbroglio into which Russia has now entered in an increased fashion in its attempt to bolster the regime of President Bashar al-Assad.

Syria no longer exists as a state and the future of the area is unpredictable. Syria has disintegrated after five years of civil war, with 350,000 people killed, millions who have fled or been displaced, and the loss to the regime of Assad of three quarters of the territory of the country. Jihadist fighters of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIS) seized the city of Palmyra, and threaten the Syrian oil fields. ISIS controls nearly half of Syrian territory. Rebels hold Deraa in the south, and Aleppo in the north of the country.
Read more…

T. Belman. The author thinks that Israel is worried that the conflict is not getting attention from the US. I think that is a good thing. The last thing we need is for Obama to push for a two-state solution with the ’67 lines as borders.

By Tovah Lazaroff, JPOST

For the first time since taking office in 2009, US President Barack Obama failed to mention the Israeli-Palestinian conflict during his annual address to the UN General Assembly in New York.

Last year, as he stood at the same podium, Obama assured the international community that as “bleak as the landscape” appeared to be in the Middle East,  America would “never give up the pursuit of peace” between Israelis and Palestinians.

But on Monday, during his 43 minute speech to the UNGA, the president was suddenly silent on the matter, awakening Israeli fears that his attention will be elsewhere in the last year-and-a-half of his presidency.
Read more…

Israel plans to increase its use of administrative detention against rioters on the Temple Mount, as Muslim violence continues apace.

By Yaakov Levi, INN

Among the steps Israel plans to take to curb Arab violence on the Temple Mount is increasing its use of administrative detention against rioters.

According to a report on Channel Two Monday, security officials have determined that the main body of rioters consists of 30 to 50 “professionals” who spend many hours on the Temple Mount, organizing riots and unrest, and inciting children and teenagers to throw stones and firebombs at police.

Until now, officials have relied mostly on restraining orders to distance rioters from the site. However, although they cannot enter the Temple Mount compound, they can infiltrate the area and exacerbate tensions among Arabs, setting off more riots. If they are locked up, officials hope that the rioters will no longer be able to incite riots.
Read more…

Senior Republican Aide: ‘It’s hard to see what we gain’ from working with AIPAC

BY: Alana Goodman . NEW BEACON

When Rep. Peter Roskam, the staunchly pro-Israel Republican from Illinois, was preparing to introduce a motion to delay the Iran deal vote earlier this month, there was one group that he did not call—the American Israel Public Affairs Committee.

His failure to inform the influential lobbying group was not an accident. Republicans on the Hill have grown increasingly disillusioned with AIPAC in recent years. And after the group’s latest unsuccessful lobbying campaign against the Iran deal, it is no longer viewed as the de facto leader on Iranian legislative strategy.

“Their clout with Republicans started going south after the [Chuck] Hagel confirmation,” said one senior GOP adviser. “This is just an exclamation point on something Republicans have already been feeling.”
Read more…

The district court ruling affirming Meir Ettinger’s detention until at least February did little to clarify the confusing legal melee.

By Johah Jeremy Bob, JPOST

When Jews like Meir Ettinger and two others are put in administrative detention, the normal divisions between the sides debating the controversial practice get tossed out the window.

Suddenly, some on the Right who support administrative detention of Palestinian suspected terrorists, and some on the Left who oppose that detention, switch sides or at least start making arguments they do not usually make.

Currently, some on the Right are slamming the government for illegally abusing the rights of Ettinger and others by denying them the presumption of innocent until proven guilty and denying them a trial where they could challenge the allegations against them (and a few like Itamar Ben Gvir, Ettinger’s lawyer, have advocated scrapping detention even for Palestinians.) Some on the Left are happy they have been detained and some are mad that the government has not publicly solved the Duma arson attack on Palestinians (departing from that, notably the Association for Civil Rights in Israel has opposed the detention.) Many got even angrier when Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon said he knew who perpetrated the Duma attack, but could not bring them to trial, while detaining Ettinger and the others.
Read more…

By ERIC SCHMITT and SOMINI SENGUPTA, NYT

WASHINGTON — Nearly 30,000 foreign recruits have now poured into Syria, many to join the Islamic State, a doubling of volunteers in just the past 12 months and stark evidence that an international effort to tighten borders, share intelligence and enforce antiterrorism laws is not diminishing the ranks of new militant fighters.

Among those who have entered or tried to enter the conflict in Iraq or Syria are more than 250 Americans, up from about 100 a year ago, according to intelligence and law enforcement officials.

President Obama will take stock of the international campaign to counter the Islamic State at the United Nations on Tuesday, a public accounting that comes as American intelligence analysts have been preparing a confidential assessment that concludes that nearly 30,000 foreign fighters have traveled to Iraq and Syria from more than 100 countries since 2011. A year ago, the same officials estimated that flow to be about 15,000 combatants from 80 countries, mostly to join the Islamic State.
Read more…

T. Belman. YNET says “Renewed violence from Al-Aqsa Mosque comes on final day of Muslim holiday Eid al-Adha, likely fueled by reports that right-wing Jews plan to enter Temple Mount.” This suggests that right wing Jews are the cause of the riots. Nonsense. What is going on is a turf war. The Arab leadership are determined to bar Jews from the Temple Mount. They start the violence and the government appeases them and further restricts Jews from entering. Israel policy should be that non violent Jews or Arabs should be permitted on the TM and any side that uses violence should be barred.

Israel has changed the issue to one of the rules of engagement. This is unsatisfactory. The policy should be to bar Arabs or Jews from the TM when members of their respective groups cause violence. Thus each side will be held responsible to restrain their violent members. This is not collective punishment. It is a condition precedent to being allowed on the TM. With such a policy there would be no need for amending the rules of engagement. An alternative would be to have different visiting hours for each group.

The Israel High Court has said that Jews have the right to pray there but allowed the government to prevent Jews from doing so in the interests of peace and stability. Thus the police should likewise be allowed to prevent the Muslims from praying there in the same interests.

By Elior Levy, Yael Freidson, YNET

Israeli police and border patrol troops employed riot control measures on the Temple Mount Sunday morning where masked Palestinian youth threw rocks and shot firecrackers at security forces just ahead of the holiday of Sukkot.
Read more…

By Ted Belman

JPOST just published an article which was originally posted by the leftwing, in my opinion, Jewish Telegraphic Agency (JTA).

It postulates that Trump, Carson have Republican Jewish establishment worried and reason being:

“It’s a disorienting experience for longtime Republican Jewish donors and activists, who have made inroads into the party’s establishment over the last two decades, and who have been at the forefront of advocacy for tolerance and pluralism within the party.

“The tone of what they’re saying, we get painted as a party of intolerance,” said Zeidman, who practices law in the Houston area and backs Bush’s candidacy.”

Read more…

The power to appoint is the power to govern. Without the power to appoint public servants, governments cannot develop patronage networks.

Gal Hirsch, Former IDF Brig.-Gen. Gal Hirsch is seen leaving the Prime Minister’s Office on Tuesday..

By Caroline Glick, JPOST

On Wednesday night Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu touched on the most critical threat to Israeli democracy. Following Public Security Minister Gilad Erdan’s announcement that he was canceling Brig.-Gen. (res.) Gal Hirsch’s appointment as inspector-general of the police due to Attorney-General Yehuda Weinstein’s refusal to approve it in a timely manner, Netanyahu said, “Our appointments process is harsh, prolonged, harmful, and without a doubt worthy of review.”

The power to appoint is the power to govern.
Read more…

The morning after the creation of a Palestinian State. If not the Russians, the Iranians.

 By Mark Langfan, INN

In the time it would take an Israeli tourist to finish an Israeli breakfast, Russia deployed close to a thousand Russian special operations soldiers to Syria.  No UN resolution. No discussion.  No nothing.  “President” Assad, the genocidal mass-murderer of hundreds of thousands of Sunnis, merely “invited” the Russians to come, and they came.

The Russians  came with mobile anti-aircraft missilebatteries, various Russian special forces and nuclear submarines armed with enough nuclear bombs on the one submarine to incinerate the practically the entire world. If ever a terrorist Palestinian state is formed in the “West Bank”, any Palestinian terrorist president can, and will, just as easily invite the Russians into their new country within a day.  Before Israel, or anyone will know it, Russians and their anti-aircraft missile batteries will line the Green Line. The moment that happens, start saying Kaddish for Israel.
Read more…

In the long-term absence of peace with the Palestinians, better to cease pursuing the unattainable and adopt policies that can strengthen the country at home and abroad

By Evelyn Gordon

Note: After Mosaic published my essay “The Two-State Solution Is in Stalemate. Here’s What Israel Can Do to Prevail in early September, the magazine invited two people to respond to it, Elliott Abrams and Amnon Lord. The piece below is my response to their responses.

T. Belman. Evelyn Gordon is a very important right wing journalist. After discussing the reality of the present impasse, she recommended a different strategy. I didn’t agree with everything she suggested but I appreciated that she started the conversation in that long but important essay.

Many thanks to Elliott Abrams and Amnon Lord for their thoughtful responses to my essay.  Drawing on his own extensive experience, Abrams aptly highlights how the endless pursuit of an unattainable Israel-Palestinian agreement entails costs for the United States as well as for Israel, and also how the chaos currently sweeping the Middle East underlines the importance of preserving the region’s one remaining island of stability—and the folly of embarking on yet another destabilizing grand experiment. Lord, for his part, correctly emphasizes the need to maintain Israeli morale and “the national sense of justice and self-confidence,” a crucial addition to my own list of what Israel must do on the home front. He also reminds us of the hopeful significance of Israel’s burgeoning relations with both Asia and “moderate” Arab states.
Read more…

Benny Gantz believes better accord could have been reached, but praises diplomacy’s success in preventing war, delaying bomb for 10-15 years

BY REBECCA SHIMONI STOIL , TOI

WASHINGTON — Former IDF chief of staff Benny Gantz said Friday he was not more concerned about Israel’s security following the signing of the nuclear accord between Tehran and world powers, adding that he saw the benefits of the deal which he said had prevented war. The deal, he said, was a case of the “cup half-full.”

“I refuse to get hysterical” about the nuclear deal, he told a gathering of policymakers and analysts in Washington DC Friday morning, in likely reference to official Israel’s excoriation of the agreement.
Read more…

On Islam, Ben Carson Is Right and Charles Krauthammer Is Wrong

By Andrew C. McCarthy

McCarthy explains what each said and why he agreed with Carson.

So do I.