www.verygoodnewsisrael.blogspot.com 

Read more…

By Jeff Lipkes, AMERICAN THINKER

by Jonathan Spyer, The Jerusalem Post

As the civil war over the ruins of Syria grinds on into its fifth year, the fighting seems nowhere near an end. Indeed, there is no longer a single war taking place in the country. Rather, as Syria physically divides into separate entities, so the conflict, too, further subdivides, spawning new conflicts.

There are today no less than five different conflicts taking place within the borders of the country: the contests between the Sunni Arab rebels and the Assad regime/Hezbollah/Iran (the original war which brought about the others); the Kurdish YPG’s fight against Islamic State; intermittent clashes between the Sunni Arab rebels and Islamic State; Islamic State’s own war against the Assad regime; and now also the renewed war between Turkey and the PKK, which is being played out partly on Syrian soil.

The presence of these five interlocking conflicts notwithstanding, efforts to make diplomatic progress toward some form of settlement, or at least freezing of the conflict, are under way.
Read more…

By Joseph I. Lieberman, Washington Post August 14, 2015

Joseph I. Lieberman, a member of the U.S. Senate from 1989 to 2013, is a Democrat who was elected to his last term as an independent. He is senior counsel at Kasowitz, Benson, Torres and Friedman in New York.

As debate intensifies over the nuclear agreement reached with Iran, the Obama administration has sought to deflect criticism by arguing that there is no alternative to the current framework, no matter what its flaws, and that its rejection by Congress is guaranteed to produce catastrophe — isolating the United States from its allies and destroying any prospect for a diplomatic settlement. A vote against its preferred policy, the administration has argued (not for the first time), is a vote for war.

The administration has used these same arguments before to try to stop Congress from imposing economic sanctions on Iran. Not only did the predictions of catastrophe fail to deter Congress from moving ahead but also, when the sanctions were adopted, the doomsday forecasts were proven wrong — just as the current predictions will be. And when the scare tactics failed and the vote count in Congress started to turn heavily against its position, the White House changed course — just as it can and should now.
Read more…

Florida Senator Marco Rubio blasts Obama over his weakness in dealing with Iran and Cuba, says he will undo those deals.

By Ben Ariel, INN

Florida Senator Marco Rubio, who is seeking the Republican presidential nomination, on Friday vowed to undo the nuclear deal with Iran if he is elected president.

Speaking to the Foreign Policy Initiative in New York and quoted by MSNBC, Rubio linked the White House’s diplomatic efforts in Iran to its warming of relations with Cuba, saying that President Barack Obama’s outreach to the two countries were examples of “weakness and concession.”

The deal in Iran and the normalized relations with Cuba “represent the convergence of nearly every flawed strategic, moral, and economic notion that has driven President Obama’s foreign policy,” Rubio said, according to MSNBC.
Read more…

BUSINESS INSIDER

BEIRUT (Reuters) – A Kurdish militia that has captured swathes of northern Syria from Islamic State has signed up thousands of fighters in recent months as it seeks to tighten control over newly won territory.

The People’s Protection Units (YPG), which has been fighting Islamic State with U.S.-led air support, says it now controls territory the size of Qatar and Kuwait combined.
Read more…

Habayit Hayehudi leader tells Haaretz that while he is opposed to establishment of alternative conversion system, he welcomes ‘awakening’ over need to reform Israel’s Chief Rabbinate.

By Yair Ettinger, HAARETZ

Naftali Bennett, in an initial reaction to the independent rabbinical conversion courts established by senior religious Zionist rabbis, told Haaretz that he is opposed to the establishment of an alternative system, but is “happy about the awakening.”

He said that the rabbis who established the Giur Kahalakha (Conversion According to Religious Law) network “are taking responsibility for the Jewish people and have decided not to close their eyes, and I’m happy about that. Still I’m trying to reach a situation where we preserve the state institutions.”
Read more…

Why we must stand with Bangladesh’s vilified secularist bloggers.

by Brendan O’Neill, Spiked,

Caroline B  Glick, JWR

American Jewry is being tested today as never before. The future of the community is tied up in the results of the test.

If the Jews of America are able to mount a successful, forceful and sustained opposition to President Barack Obama’s nuclear deal with Iran, which allows the world’s largest state sponsor of terrorism to become a nuclear-armed state and provides it with $150 billion up front, then the community will survive politically to fight another day.

If the communal leadership and its members fail to fight, American Jews will find themselves communally disenfranchised.
Read more…

By David M Weinberg, ISRAEL HAYOM

One year ago, after another set of ultra-Orthodox (haredi) chief rabbis was elected, I wrote in these pages that “the Chief Rabbinate’s glory is gone. Its legitimacy is shot. Its influence is on the wane. Decentralization of religious services is inevitable, and the only way to force change in the Rabbinate. … [Rabbis David] Lau and [Yitzhak] Yosef should be under intense public scrutiny and pressure from day one.”?

Indeed, that is exactly what got going this week, with the decision by a very prominent group of religious Zionist yeshiva deans and rabbis to establish their own, independent conversion court, without Chief Rabbinate imprimatur. ? Read more…

After bitter Congress campaign, weakened Democrats will press for Israel compensation as their bid to retake the White House falters.

By Chemi Shalev, HAARETZ

Benjamin Netanyahu’s go-for-broke onslaught in Congress against the Iran nuclear deal has been described as a lose-lose situation that would leave Israel worse off, no matter what happens. One of the most oft-asked questions in recent weeks in Jerusalem and Washington, therefore, is this: “What is he thinking?” According to several sources who are privy to Netanyahu’s most recent discussions with American interlocutors, and based on what they have heard and how they interpret the prime minister’s words, the answer is this:

Netanyahu is under no illusion about the ultimate outcome of the campaign. He accepts the prognosis that there won’t be enough Democratic votes in Congress to override a presidential veto. He is getting used to the idea that the Iran nuclear deal, which he has described as a “stunning mistake,”  is already a fait accompli.
Read more…

T. Belman.  As always, Carter couldn’t be more wrong about who is to blame.  In a nutshell, the Security Council, by passing R 242, gave Israel the right to remain in Judea and Samaria until she had an agreement on borders. The PA/PLO accepted this resolution as a condition precedent to the Oslo Accords. The Accords are an agreed constitution for the territories as to their governance. until such time as the parties have agreed on borders and other final status issues. Thus the Palestinians have agreed to negotiate all matters.

They have no rights beyond R242 and the Oslo Accords. The TSS is dead because the PA, the EU, Carter and Obama didn’t want to accept these limitations  or constraints.

Also, neither the Resolution or the Oslo Accords promised them a state and certainly didn’t promise them a state on the ’67 lines. And neither prohibited the settlements.

Former President says there is “zero chance” for the two-state solution, places the blame on Prime Minister Netanyahu.

By Ben Ariel, INN

Former President Jimmy Carter, who on Wednesday revealed he is suffering from cancer, on Thursday painted a bleak picture of the prospects for peace between Israel and the Palestinian Authority (PA) – and placed the blame for the deadlock on Israel.
Read more…

By Salomon Benzimra, AMERICAN THINKER

The U.S. Congress is presently reviewing the Joint Comprehensive Plan Of Action, a deal concluded on July 14, 2015, by Iran and the main world powers. It is likely Congress will reject the deal next month and it may or may not be able to later override the inevitable presidential veto.

The central issue is whether Iran will or will not be allowed to become a nuclear power.  But other matters of considerable importance seem to have been kept away from the limelight: the impact of the JCPOA on the role and credibility of the United Nations.
Read more…

Hysterical attempts to equate ideological driven crimes by fringe Jewish extremists with Arab Muslim terrorism is substantively wrong and strategically detrimental

By Martin Sherman, JPOST

I despair of the Israeli politicians and commentators who have been falling over themselves to condemn “Jewish terrorism’.’ Whilst I understand their need to distance themselves from these criminals, all they have achieved is to add “Jewish terrorism” to the lexicon of the Muslim supremacists’ arsenal. Within one short week, the world has come to believe in Jewish terrorism. It is a spectacular own goal – Robert Brynin, talkback to my column last week

From a strictly Jewish point of view, it is always good to conduct soul-searching and to not always compare one’s moral behavior with the absence of morality of others. But… one cannot simply ignore certain questions:… Why does the killing of a Palestinian baby, (allegedly) by Jews, provoke reactions on a much larger scale than the much more numerous murders of Jewish children? Yes, we must react vigorously and unambiguously against a serious act, but without ransacking our own dignity – Shraga Blum, “Duma village: Between morality and self-flagellation,” i24-Opinion, August 6
Read more…

T. Belman. In 2006, when Iran was supporting insurgents who were killing Americans, people were demanding that the US attack Iran. Francisco Gil White argued that the US wont attack Iran, because, it had been supporting Iran since the revolution. The Iran Deal proves him right. This article amplifies it.

By Sohrab Ahmari, COMMENTARY MAGAZINE

Iran’s Ayatollah Khomeini bangs his fists on the table. “Gentlemen, gentlemen!” he says. “If we do nothing else this week, we must conceive at least one terrorist act that will show all the world that the United States, the Great Satan, is but a paper tiger, a weak nation of weak people, a people ripe for destruction!” He is chairing a gathering of the infamous, among them Yasir Arafat, Muammar Gaddafi, and Mikhail Gorbachev. In the background, the man serving tea to the assemblage suddenly doffs his garb to reveal he is Frank Drebin of Police Squad. Drebin then delivers a well-deserved whupping to the whole lot of international thugs, Khomeini very much included.
Read more…

T. Belman.  This is a great article. I have been saying this for a few weeks now, namely, the deal is so bad we must understand why it is being entered.  The only thing missing is a review of US/Iran relations since the Shah. You will see that the US policy was to nurture Iran, believe it or not.

by Alexander H. Joffe, The Times of Israel

Unless the US Congress votes in opposition, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) deal with Iran with go through. What really happened and why did it happen the way it did?

What happened is gradually becoming clear. It is revealed daily just how horrendous the deal really is. On every point — enrichment, centrifuges, stocks of fissile material, inspections, sanctions on the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps members and businesses, “snapback,” etc. — the Obama administration caved completely.

Concessions on ballistic missiles and arms sales were thrown in at the last minute; the administration lied about it all, while Iran touted its victories and American capitulation. All this went on amidst a background of Iranian chants of “death to Israel” and “death to America,” which entered not at all into American calculations.
Read more…

T. Belman. I question this thesis. Israel had no reason to believe that the US was going to allow Iran to get the bomb, not because of Israel’s interests but because of America’s interest. The US always stood for non-proliferation. So we didn’t have to avoid confrontation on the “peace” process.

By Sarah Stern, ISRAEL HAYOM

In 1994, while sitting on the patio of a friend’s home, I interviewed a rather distinguished and well-known Israeli news anchor. I asked him why I, an American citizen with nothing more than the Internet, seemed to be more aware than the average Israeli of the constant and steady stream of incitement emanating directly from the Palestinian Authority and Yasser Arafat on down, and their continuous violations of the Oslo Accords. I asked further why the Israeli media wasn’t paying more attention to this issue.

His face took on an ashen hue and his eyes became solemn.
Read more…