T. Belman. The right to invoke “pressure” depends on whether the event can be classified as “terrorism”. It seems to me that a court hearing is required for making such determination and interested parties should be heard from.

JEWISH PRESS

Attorney General Yehuda Weinstein confirmed in “a concrete and personal” manner an order to torture the detainees in the Duma case, Ha’aretz reported Thursday, citing “sources close to the investigation.” The same sources said Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu did not know about the approval and only received a report about the torture after the fact.

The sources said that Weinstein had given his approval to use torture in interrogating the suspects three weeks ago, after Police had informed him their investigation was stuck in the mud. According to the same sources, except for one suspect, a minor, who gave only partial information to informants, the rest of the suspects remain silent in their interrogations. Under these circumstances, the attorney general decided to allow the Shabak to use “special measures.”
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To draw any equivalence between Arab, Jewish “terror” is like claiming that a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier and a rubber dinghy are equivalent because they can both be classed “sailing vessels.”

By Martin Sherman. JPOST

The houses burned [in Duma] aren’t in the outskirts of the town where it is easy to make a getaway. – Amira Hass, Haaretz, July 31

What a complete mess. The Dawabsha family deserves justice, justice requires the correct people [be] punished for this horrific crime…Israel has a justice system that requires evidence to bring charges. No charges have been brought despite a month of intense interrogations and detentions. Politicians have made [a] mockery of our judicial system. – Talkbacker @Zionista, in response to “Judge rejects police appeal against release of Duma suspect,” The Jerusalem Post, December 29

Without decisive proof of commission of a crime, there is no crime. That is the overriding ethical principle of justice in a democracy… – Sever Plocker, Yediot Aharonot, December 30 Read more…

To advance its diplomatic opening to Iran, the administration spied on both law-abiding US citizens and on US lawmakers.

By Caroline Glick, JPOST

It is far from clear why senior Obama administration officials told The Wall Street Journal that under President Barack Obama, the National Security Agency has been aggressively spying not only on Israeli officials but on US citizens and lawmakers who communicate with Israeli officials. Perhaps they were trying to make Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu look like a fool.

After all, the article concludes that the NSA intercepts of these communications “revealed one surprise.”

“Mr. Netanyahu and some of his allies voiced confidence they could win enough votes” in Congress to scuttle Obama’s nuclear deal with Iran.

Ha ha. What dummies.
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Joint Chiefs passed US intel to Assad

Israel Matzav

It’s come to this: The Obama administration – and in particular the CIA – knowingly armed Islamic State terrorists in Syria. Okay, take it with a grain of salt. It came from Seymour Hersh.

Barack Obama’s repeated insistence that Bashar al-Assad must leave office – and that there are ‘moderate’ rebel groups in Syria capable of defeating him – has in recent years provoked quiet dissent, and even overt opposition, among some of the most senior officers on the Pentagon’s Joint Staff. Their criticism has focused on what they see as the administration’s fixation on Assad’s primary ally, Vladimir Putin. In their view, Obama is captive to Cold War thinking about Russia and China, and hasn’t adjusted his stance on Syria to the fact both countries share Washington’s anxiety about the spread of terrorism in and beyond Syria; like Washington, they believe that Islamic State must be stopped.

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MK Motti Yogev dismisses left’s criticism of a new civics textbook, stresses that the government will promote Israel’s Jewish roots.

By Benny Toker, INN

MK Motti Yogev (Jewish Home) is unfazed by the left’s criticism of a new civics textbook that was recently approved.

The book was written by, among others, Dr. Assaf Malach who is head of the professional committee on civics, and was approved by Education Minister Naftali Bennett. Many of the political left have claimed the book includes “right-wing values”.

Speaking with Arutz Sheva on Thursday, Yogev rejected recent criticism by the chairman of the Civics Committee, who claimed that ministers or CEOs cannot intervene in the curriculum.
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ISIS is planning to massacre thousands of civilians in public places around the world in 2016 as it desperately seeks to draw the west into a titanic “final battle”.

By Jason Taylor, DAILY EXPRESS

ISIS is plotting to lure western governments into a ‘final battle’ in the Middle East

Today’s issues: Olmert’s fate, Israel Police have realized what’s undermining Israel’s social order, Israel is losing its mind, and the danger of partial no-go zones.

MINISTRY FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS

Hassidic Alt-Rock band ‘Bullet Proof Stockings’ sets out to inspire women from all walks of life to rock out to the beat of their own drum!

By Raphael Poch, INN

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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