Already, a strong report issued by NGO Monitor explores some of the many war crimes perpetrated by Hamas, which caused most of the civilian deaths in Gaza.

By Joel Golovensky, JPOST

Israel is accused of shooting at United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) facilities in the Gaza Strip without making sufficient effort to avoid hurting innocent civilians encamped there. The Schabas-McGowan Davis report to be released on the 23rd of this month and soon to be leaked, will concentrate on proving these charges, while accusing the IDF of many more violations of international law.
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In new book, former defense minister says he, Netanyahu and Lieberman sought to strike Tehran’s nuclear facilities between 2010-2012, but that attempts were blocked by former IDF chief Ashkenazi and ministers Ya’alon, Steinitz.

Ynet

Former defense minister Ehud Barak says in a new book that Israeli plans to attack Iran’s nuclear facilities were blocked on three separate occasions between 2010-2012, first by Israel’s military chief and later by two ministers.

Channel 2 TV aired a recording of Barak’s remarks on Friday, made in an interview for a new book about him. Channel 2 said the former minister tried to prevent the broadcast but that Israel’s military censor allowed it.

In the recordings, Barak says that in 2010, he, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and then-foreign minister Avigdor Lieberman sought to bring the discussion of a possible attack against Iran to the entire cabinet, and consulted the matter with IDF chief of staff at the time, Gabi Ashkenazi.
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US president says Washington will increase military aid to Israel for development of anti-missile systems and tunnel detection technologies; in letter to Congressman, Obama insists he will respond firmly if Iran fails to meet commitments.

By Yitzhak Benhorin, YNET

US President Barack Obama has committed in writing to increase American military aid to Israel for the development of anti-missile systems, as well as to accelerate cooperation on the development of tunnel detection technologies.

“Our governments should identify ways to accelerate the ongoing collaborative research and development for tunnel detection and mapping technologies to provide Israel new capabilities to detect and destroy tunnels because they could be used to threaten Israeli civilians,” Obama said in a letter dated August 19, published in full by the New York Times on Friday, to Jerrold Nadler, a Democrat in the House of Representatives who announced that he will vote to approve the accord.
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Dismantling “settlements” is the only goal the Israeli Left really cares about & its pursuit justifies all means, however mendacious or malevolent.

By Martin Sherman, JPOST

It would be so nice if something would make sense for a change… If I had a world of my own… [n]othing would be what it is because everything would be what it isn’t. And contrary-wise; what it is it wouldn’t be, and what it wouldn’t be, it would. You see?– Alice in Alice in Wonderland (The film)

This is the final article in a trilogy I felt compelled to write in response to the hysterical and hypocritical hullabaloo that erupted earlier this month over three unrelated acts of violence – and the ensuing effort to exploit them to equate actions attributed to Jewish extremists with Arab terrorism against Israel.

Why harp on yesterday’s news?
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When Jews stand up to anti-Semites, the anti-Semites back down.

By Caroline Glick, JPOST

Perhaps we should think Spain’s Rotodom Sunsplash reggae festival organizers. They just provided us with a textbook case both of the nature of today’s anti-Semitism and of how to defeat it.

Last weekend, the festival organizers canceled their invitation to Matisyahu, the American-Jewish reggae artist, because he refused to bow to the organizers’ demand that he publicly support “Palestine.”

Matisyahu was the only known Jew in the festival line-up and the only performer asked to produce such a statement.

Rather than take this lying down, on Monday Matisyahu recounted the episode on his Facebook page, writing, “It was appalling and offensive that as the one publicly Jewish-American artist scheduled for the festival they were trying to coerce me into political statements.”
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By Daniel Pipes, ISRAEL HAYOM

Whether congressional Democrats accept or reject President Barack Obama’s Iran deal has great importance and is rightly the focus of international attention. But there’s another debate taking place over the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action that may be even more critical: the one in Iran.

Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, who makes the country’s decisions, just might reject the laboriously worked-out agreement that he helped negotiate.

On one level, that makes no sense. As a plethora of analyses have established, the Vienna deal is enormously favorable to the Islamic Republic of Iran, legitimizing its nuclear research, assuring its future nuclear weapons program, helping the economy, and boosting its aggressive international goals. These advantages would make it appear absurd for Khamenei not to accept the deal. Plus, most Iranians celebrate the accord.
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A challenge to concerned lawmakers, amid fresh revelations of the farcical holes in a deal that patently fails to thwart Iran’s nuclear weapons program

By David Horovitz, TOI

Every time you think it can’t get any worse, another gaping hole appears in the world powers’ dismal Swiss cheese of a deal on Iran’s rogue nuclear program.

From the get-go, it seemed intolerable that the negotiations with Iran did not require, as early conditions, that the regime acknowledge its previous illegal efforts toward producing a nuclear weapon. But the sad fact is Iran was not required to come clean.

From the get-go, it seemed intolerable that the negotiations did not require the Iranian leadership to halt its relentless incitement for the destruction of the United States and Israel. Yes, one has to negotiate with one’s enemies. But apart from being demeaning and lacking in all self-respect, it is also inefficient to negotiate with enemies who continue to seek your demise. And yet, even as the talks proceeded, and since they were concluded, the poisonous rhetoric — rhetoric with inevitable violent consequence — has continued unabated.
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T. Belman. The US missed the boat. They have had many opportunities to support Kurdish independence. Instead they forced the Iraqi Kurds to remain in Iraq and supported the MB and The Turks in Syria rather than the Kurds. What they should have done is support Kurdish independence in Syria and Iraq supply the Kurds with the necessary arms to defend themselves. In addition there are about 15 million Kurds in Turkey and another 7 million in Iran. If the US was supporting Kurdish independence in both countries that would have given the US much leverage over these countries.

By Galip Delay, HUFFINGTON POST

Visiting Kurdistan Province in Iran immediately after finalizing the nuclear deal with global powers, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said: “Iran protects Erbil and Baghdad just as it protects Iranian Kurdistan. Without Iran’s help Erbil and Baghdad would be in the hands of terrorist groups right now. Just as we protect Sanandaj we also protect Sulaimani and Duhok.”

Though headline-grabbing, such Kurd-friendly discourse among Iranian high officials has become a common feature of recent times. The Iranian president’s lines were in accordance with what other Iranian high officials have been saying since the Islamic State group (IS) began attacking the Kurdish region of Iraq. These officials have repeatedly indicated that it was Iran who helped save the Kurds and Iraqis from falling into the hands of IS.
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By David M Wienberg, ISRAEL HAYOM

In 1890, Baron Edmond de Rothschild’s new winery in Rishon Lezion took in its first harvest.

David Yudelevich, one the winery workers, described the scene in his journal: “The bell rang at 4 a.m. to wake up the army of young and old, men and women and children, armed with pruning shears. The carts overflowing with grapes began streaming into the crushing vats … and we all sang: ‘Awaken oh people of Israel. Your youth has returned to the land. Your redemption is near.'”

Who could have imagined that 125 years later, Israel would become a wine producing powerhouse, turning out well over 40 million bottles a year, with more than 60,000 dunams (15,000 acres) of land under grape cultivation across the country — in the Galilee, Golan, Samarian and Judean mountains, in the Sharon and Samson plains, and in the heights of the northern Negev.
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T. Belman. Under the guise of limiting Iran’s capabilities, Obama is doing the opposite.

White House promising to be soft on sanctions if Iran violates nuclear deal

By Adam Kredo, NEW BEACON

Two leading U.S. senators are calling on the Obama administration to release secret letters to foreign governments assuring them that they will not be legally penalized for doing business with the Iranian government, according to a copy of a letter sent Wednesday to the State Department and obtained by the Washington Free Beacon.

Sens. Mark Kirk (R., Ill.) and Marco Rubio (R., Fla.) disclosed in the letter to the State Department that U.S. lawmakers have been shown copies of several letters sent by the Obama administration to the Chinese, German, French, and British governments assuring them that companies doing business with Iran will not come under penalty.
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By Evelyn Gordon

Prof. Carlo Strenger isn’t part of the loony left; he’s one of Israel’s more thoughtful and clear-eyed left-wing commentators. So I was shocked to read the following in his latest piece in Haaretz: “Fatah seems to aim for a liberal democracy.” After all, three crucial elements of liberal democracy are regular elections, human rights and economic development, yet under the leadership of both Mahmoud Abbas and his predecessor, Yasser Arafat, the Fatah-controlled Palestinian Authority has actively undermined all three. And it says a great deal about the current state of Israel’s left that even someone like Strenger can’t bring himself to admit it.
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By Vic Rosenthal

Take up the White Man’s burden, The savage wars of peace—
Fill full the mouth of Famine And bid the sickness cease;
And when your goal is nearest The end for others sought,
Watch sloth and heathen Folly Bring all your hopes to nought. –Rudyard Kipling, 1899

The other day I was talking with friends and the discussion turned to the unique situation of Israel as a nation-state that constantly has to justify its existence. Other countries may be engaged in struggles over who will be the dictator, president or ruling party, but I can’t think of another one whose very being is controversial.
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Iran consistently threatens to annihilate the Jewish state, even though world powers insist the nuclear deal will make Israel safer.

By Tova Lazaroff, JPOST

Israel accused Iran and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad of deliberately orchestrating Thursday afternoon’s rocket attack along its northern border with Syria.

“We have credible information that the attack was carried out by the Palestinian Islamic Jihad Organization and was facilitated and directed by an Iranian operative Saeed Izaddhi, who heads the Palestinian unit in the IRGC QODS force [part of the Iranian National Guard],” Israel said in a message it delivered to the six world powers.

The message was authorized by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and sent out by the Foreign Ministry.
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Ex-FM criticizes IDF retaliation to rocket fire, saying strikes on infrastructure mean ‘they hit empty space pretending to do something.’

By Ido Ben-Porat, INN

Former Foreign Minister and Yisrael Beytenu chairman MK Avigdor Liberman on Friday criticized the IDF retaliation to four rockets fired from Syria the day before, saying the response was weak.

“When you hear that they tried to attack infrastructure, usually that means sand or empty areas to sell the same bulls*** to the people of Israel that they did something,” Liberman told Army Radio.

It should be noted that when Israelis use the English term “bulls***,” they do not perceive it as containing a crass element, only as meaning “nonsense.”
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Hezbollah has so far been unable to stop Islamic State from closing in on its strongholds and tens of thousands of missiles.

By Mordechai Kedar, INN

[..]
Up until this week, Lebanon was the only country whose border crossings were still in Assad’s hands.

That ended when advance forces of Islamic State infiltrated westward to the area south of Homs this week, surrounded al-Qusayr and overran Hezbollah positions guarding the Jussiah crossing that joins Homs with northern Lebanon. Hezbollah lost tens of fighters in the short battle that took place in an area where it did not expect to be attacked.

Islamic State chalked up several gains: it isolated Damascus, cutting it off from the Allawite coastal area, surrounded the cities of al-Qusayr and Homs, gained control of an important border crossing and surprised the Hezbollah in what it sees as a strategic victory, as Hezbollah will now have to transfer fighters from Syria back to Lebanon in order to protect the country and its Shiites.
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DEBKA Aug 17

Al Qods commander Gen. Qassem Soleimani, acting on the orders of Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, this week set up a new Iranian command to fight Israel, DEBKAfile reports exclusively from its military and intelligence sources.

It has been dubbed the Eastern Command of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards.The Al Qods Brigades, which are the external terrorist arm of the Guards, are organized according to sectors, with commands for Hizballah, the Palestinians, Syria, Iraq and the Gulf.

Their newest sector is the Eastern Command which, our sources report has been assigned as its first task to start handing out weapons, including missiles, to any Palestinian West Bank group willing to receive them. Tehran’s object is to transform the West Bank into a territory hostile to Israel on the model of southern Lebanon which is ruled by the armed Hizballah and the Gaza Strip under the Hamas and Islamic Jihad terrorists.
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Israel has given terrorists the ultimate weapon.

By Moshe Feiglin, INN

How did one hunger-striking terrorist defeat an entire nation?

The minute Israel began negotiating with him, Mohammed Allan became the winner.

It doesn’t matter if he is sent overseas or not, my bet is that this won’t happen anyway and that in some way or another he will simply go free. He is the winner – that’s clear enough.
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By George Jonas, NATIONAL POST

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton listens as the Syrian ambassador to the United Nations speak at a Security Council meeting on the crisis in Syria Tuesday.

On Tuesday, Republican contender Jeb Bush accused his Democratic rival Hillary Clinton of having “stood by” during the rise of ISIL in Iraq, while she was acting as U.S. President Barack Obama’s secretary of state.

“Like the president himself,” Bush said in a speech in Atlanta, “(Clinton) had opposed the surge, then joined in claiming credit for its success, then stood by as that hard-won victory by American and allied forces was thrown away.”
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Israeli state-of-the-art modular cover system decreases evaporation of reservoirs and saves precious water while preserving quality.

These aren’t ordinary plastic balls. They do much more than shade the water. Photo courtesy NeoTop Water Systems the world.

It has also sparked a tidal wave of interest in NeoTop Water Systems, an Israeli startup that has scientifically proven that its patented spheres – designed to be job-specific as opposed to the balls California has so far deployed — decrease evaporation of reservoirs, save precious water and reduce growth of algae to preserve a healthy ecosystem.
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T. Belman. I was born and raised in Canada and accordingly I am familiar with the Canadian Jewish Community. Canada and Australia were both colonies of Great Britain. Canada started receiving Jewish immigrants in the mid twenties after the US shut the door on them. In any event I enjoyed reading this insider’s view of the Australian Jewish community which mirrors the Canadian one.

By Isi Leibler, ISRAEL HAYOM

I have just returned from Down Under, Australia, the country that nurtured me prior to my aliyah. It remains one of the most delightful countries in the world, providing an unparalleled quality of life. Indeed, Australians remain so laid back that many even now still tend to begin their daily newspapers directly at the sports pages. Its 120,000 Jews comprise a model Diaspora Jewish community.

The purpose of my visit was to celebrate the marriage of a grandson to the charming granddaughter of the late Sir Zelman Cowan, a former governor general who was recognized as a great Australian as well as being a proud Jew and passionate Zionist.
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