T. Belman. I have been on the periphery of this Plan since its inception. Mike wise sent me and others a copy of this draft asking for comments. There followed a lively exchange between him and Martin Sherman. This exchange is noted for its brilliance. I will be posting it in due course. This Plan is the origin of Caroline Glick’s, The Israel Solution. I don’t think there is any daylight between them.

By Michael L. Wise                               (Original November 2003)

BACKGROUND 

The name “Filastin” and “Palaestina” is derived from the Philistines a seafaring people who surfaced around 1350 BC and disappeared after 604  BC. In AD 135, the Roman Emperor Hadrian crushed the Bar Kokhba Revolt and blotted out the name “Provincia Judea” and renamed it “Provincia Syria Palaestina”.  After the Romans, the area was controlled by the Byzantines, Umayads, Abbasids, Seljuqs, Fatimids, French Crusaders, Ayyubids and Mameluks. Palestine was ruled by the Ottoman Turks from 1517 until 1917 where its administration was attached to Damascus. Subsequently, British control of Palestine was confirmed under the 1922 Mandate for Palestine[i], unanimously adopted by the League of Nations and approved by the US Congress. The Mandate set aside all of Palestine for the Jewish people. All the inhabitants were guaranteed civil and religious rights, but national rights were reserved for the Jewish people. Britain was appointed the trustee to implement the Mandate. No Arab or Moslem leader has ever accepted Jewish sovereignty over any part of Palestine rejecting the Mandate for Palestine (1922), the Peel Commission (1937) and the UN Partition Plan[ii] (1947).
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Housing Ministry working on plans for 55,548 settlement homes — Peace Now Projects worth $85m in the works, mostly initiated by Jewish Home’s Uri Ariel, according to data collated by anti-settlement group

BY SUE SURKES , TOI.

The Housing Ministry is working on settlement construction in the West Bank and East Jerusalem valued at more than NIS 330 million ($85 million), the Peace Now organization said Monday, basing its claim on ministry documents it obtained through the Freedom of Information Act.

The vast majority of contracts were signed between March 2013 and May 2015, when Uri Ariel of the pro-settlement Jewish Home party was housing minister. He currently serves as minister of agriculture and rural development.
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MINISTRY OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS

Today’s issues: The importance of getting a flu vaccination, saving Israel’s shoreline, the danger of radicalism, and no need for an incitement law.

The Jerusalem Post discusses the ramifications of the outbreak of the H1N1 (swine) virus, and urges Israelis to heed the Health Ministry’s call to get a flu shot. The editor notes: “Mistrust of the authorities, fears about vaccine safety and side effects, and the perceptions that vaccines are only partially effective and not necessary for healthy people all contribute to keep people away from vaccination,” but warns that “getting a flu shot might mean the difference between life and death.”
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T. Belman. This bill is expected to pass notwithstanding that there is fierce opposition. The opposition is disingenuous in their attacks.

New bill, sponsored by Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked, requires groups that receive most funding from abroad to reveal sources • Opposition Leader Isaac Herzog: “This NGO law is worse than the European product-labeling law because it labels human beings.”

By Edna Adato, Gideon Allon, Mati Tuchfeld, Dan Lavie, News Agencies and Israel Hayom Staff

Israeli cabinet ministers gave preliminary approval Sunday to a bill that seeks to impose new transparency regulations on Israeli non-profit groups that receive funds from foreign governments.

The bill, sponsored by Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked, requires NGOs that receive more than 50 percent of their funding from foreign entities to detail the funding sources in all their official publications and communications with elected officials. Activists from the NGOs also will be required to wear identifying name tags when working in Israel’s Knesset, as lobbyists do.
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As the political leader of Orthodox Zionism freely admits, the existence of Jewish terrorism threatens to upend all that his community has toiled to build

By Elie Leshem, TOI

On Wednesday morning in Jerusalem, Naftali Bennett drew new battle lines. In a speech to Zionist Orthodox education leaders at a conference organized by Arutz 7, a mainstay news outlet of the settlement movement, the education minister addressed persistent rumors to the effect that the Shin Bet security service had been torturing suspected Jewish extremists.

The suspects, who the Shin Bet says firebombed the Palestinian Dawabsha family in their sleep last July, killing 18-month-old Ali and his parents, are “terrorists,” Bennett asserted, and their objective is to “dismantle the state.” Thus, he continued, the Israeli government has made the decision to treat them as terrorists, with all that the label entails.
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By Rudaw

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Commander of the Nineveh police Zanuon al-Sabawi, said at a press conference that the women have been executed in various forms.
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Southeast Anatolia is burning. And nobody can say Sultan Erdogan, a.k.a. President Tayyip, hasn’t issued one of his trademark macho warnings.

By Pepe Escobar, Sputnik News

Violent Clashes in Northern Turkey Force Hundreds of Thousands to Evacuate Homes

Since mid-December the Turkish President has been adamant that a blitzkrieg/”cleansing” op in Southeast Anatolia will only end with Kurdish militants associated with the PKK completely “annihilated.”

An array of towns – especially Cizre, Silopi and Nusaybin – is totally under siege, encircled by tanks and armored vehicles. Ankara’s tactics include the Ministry of Education text-messaging around 3,000 teachers forcing them to return to their hometowns for “on-the-job training.”

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By Michael Welner, ALGEMEINER

President Obama recently compared, openly and unreservedly, refugees fleeing allegedly from Syria and seeking resettlement in the United States with Jewish refugees from the Holocaust.

Whether refugees from Muslim countries should be resettled in the United States is a source of lively debate and there are meritorious arguments on both sides of the issue. However, the historical inaccuracy of comparing the refugees traveling via Syria to Jewish Holocaust era refugees is stark and touches on lessons of the Holocaust that must never be forgotten:

1. Jewish refugees were not warring with anyone, and were no threat to anyone. Refugees attributed to Syria are fleeing a war within their own land in which they are on one side or another.
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T. Belman. I would like to comment on this but don’t have the facts. I think that much less is spent on these things in Arab cities than Jewish ones but the Arabs tend not to pay their real estate taxes. I agree with the goal of treating all citizens equally but insist that they all fulfill their obligations to the state, which includes paying taxes, following the law and doing national service. But also demand that the Arabs have no national rights. They much accept the fact that they are living in the Zionist Jewish state. If they accept such a state they are welcome to equality. As for spending the money on Arabs, I think it works to Israel’s advantage. It will enable the Arab citizens to increase their contribution to the GNP. The same goes to the Hareidim.

Likud ministers raise objection to the plan that does not include mixed cities; five-year plan to include development of education, transportation, employment and housing.

By Moran Azulay, Hassan Shaalan, YNET

The government decided on Sunday to postpone the approval of a five-year plan to invest NIS 15 billion in the development of Arab municipalities in the fields of education, transportation, employment and housing.

Several Likud ministers, including Culture Minister Miri Regev and Science Minister Ofir Akunis, raised objections to the plan because it does not include benefits to municipalities with mixed Jewish and Arab populations.
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ALGEMEINER

From Amnesty International:

“Some Russian air strikes appear to have directly attacked civilians or civilian objects by striking residential areas with no evident military target and even medical facilities, resulting in deaths and injuries to civilians. Such attacks may amount to war crimes,” said Philip Luther, Director of the Middle East and North Africa Programme at Amnesty International.

Compare that language with how Philip Luther described Israeli attacks on houses in a nearly parallel report issued last November:
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Security guard’s “high alert and resourcefulness prevented a major terrorist attack,” in Jerusalem, says police commander • Soldiers stop two female, knife-wielding terrorists • Sunday’s attacks follow ramming and stabbing attacks on Friday and Saturday.

A soldier was lightly wounded in a Jerusalem stabbing attack Sunday, while two other terrorist attacks were thwarted in Judea and Samaria — the latter both involved Palestinian women who tried to stab security forces.

Just before 2 p.m., two Palestinian terrorists stabbed two Israeli soldiers at the Hawara checkpoint near Nablus. The victims were lightly to moderately wounded. Both terrorists were shot and killed.
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DEBKAfile Exclusive Analysis

The Russian air strike that Friday, Dec. 25, killed Zahran Aloush, founder of the most powerful Syrian rebel group Jaysh al-Islam and his deputy, gave President Bashar Assad a big break in the Syrian war, thanks to his powerful backer, Vladimir Putin.

This grave loss will accelerate the breakup of Syrian rebel strongholds in and around Damascus. It will also hasten the evacuation under a UN-sponsored ceasefire of at least 2,000 rebels from the Damascus region. Less noticed, was the UN plan to remove at the same time several thousands ISIS fighters from the Syrian capital and transport them to their Syrian headquarters. The latter project has not been trumpeted for good reason: It implies UN recognition of ISIS as a party in the Syria war.
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The accusation of Islamophobia confuses prejudice with legitimate criticism of Islam and concerns about Islamic extremism.

Of course, prejudice against Muslims should be condemned. But the accusation of Islamophobia confuses prejudice with legitimate criticism of Islam and concerns about Islamic extremism.
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By Ted Belman

In the wake of 9/11, the Bush administration struggled to define the enemy and to decide how to defeat it.

Even though 15 of the 19 hijackers were Saudis and Saudis were involved in the planning and financing of the attack, President Bush allowed the Saudis to fly out of the country in the following 24 hours when all other air traffic had been shut down.

No doubt that Bush had decided to maintain good relations with the Arabs, and Saudi Arabia particularly, just as the US had done for half a century. This policy led Bush to say on Sept 17, 2011 to the Islamic world, “The face of terror is not the true faith of Islam.  That’s not what Islam is all about.  Islam is peace.  These terrorists don’t represent peace.  They represent evil and war,” in a speech as sycophantic as any President Obama has ever delivered.
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Saudi Arabia’s Muslim coalition against terror has more to do with Iran than with ISIS, and Egypt’s increasingly warm ties with Russia are a thorn in their regional side.

By Zvi Bar’el, HAARETZ

The Saudi Foreign Ministry issued an unprecedented official statement this week: It announced that three Saudi journalists don’t represent the Saudi government’s views and have no connection with any government agencies.

Jamal Khashoggi, Nawaf Obaid and Anwar Eshki are three of the country’s foremost columnists. Their work is also published in the international Arab press. But for months now, they’ve been infuriating both the Egyptian government and Egypt’s state-run media with their cutting commentary on Egypt.
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Sputnik News

“At the time of [reconaissanse] filming in the Zakho area there were 11,775 petrol tankers and semi-trucks on both sides of the Turkish-Iranian border. 4,530 of them were on Turkish territoty, 7,245 were in Iraq,” Rudsloy said. “I must note that oil extracted in Iraq, as well as Syria, comes through this check point [on Turkish-Iraqi border].”

Russian aviation has completed over 5,200 sorties in Syria since the operation began on September 30, the chief of the Russian Armed Forces said Friday.
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By Ron Jager

According to the Israel Security Agency, October 2015 saw the beginning of a wave of terrorism that has led to 620 attacks (483 in the form of firebombs) that month, compared to 223 in September. Eleven people were killed in terrorist attacks in October, and 80 were injured, 37 of them moderately or more severely (one foreign national, 18 Israeli civilians, and 18 members of the security forces). In November 2015, 10 people were killed in terrorist attacks, and 58 were injured. Among the non-fatal casualties, 22 were wounded in stabbings (including 5 in Jerusalem and 10 within Israel). 24 people were injured in vehicle attacks, and 12 in shootings. The Palestinian Arab terrorism wave continued in December.
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T. Belman. The government of Israel has finally and formally taken the position that the settlements are legal. In addition all embassies have been instructed to read this statement carefully and to spread the word. You can do it, too.

MINISTRY OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS
30 Nov 2015

Attempts to present Jewish settlement in West Bank territory (ancient Judea and Samaria) as illegal and “colonial” in nature ignores the complexity of this issue, the history of the land, and the unique legal circumstances of this case.

The Historical Context

Jewish settlement in the territory of ancient Judea and Samaria (the West Bank) is often presented as merely a modern phenomenon. In fact, Jewish presence in this territory has existed for thousands of years and was recognized as legitimate in the Mandate for Palestine adopted by the League of Nations in 1922, which provided for the establishment of a Jewish state in the Jewish people’s ancient homeland.
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By Jonah Jeremy Bob, JPOST

There actually is no exact agreement internationally about which interrogation techniques constitute torture, which are abuse but short of torture, which are just degrading- distasteful, which are necessary and which meet the “moderate physical pressure” concept.

The moderate physical pressure concept is a uniquely Israeli creation, essentially permitting aggressive interrogation in “ticking bomb” scenarios.

Generally speaking, some countries, like the United States and Israel, have taken a more permissive approach to allowing aggressive interrogations in the post-September 11, 2001 era.
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By Caroline Glick, JPOST

This past July, unknown assailants threw a firebomb into the home of the Dawabsha family in Duma. The mother, Reham, and the father, Saad, along with their 18-month-old baby Ali were killed. Four-year-old Ahmed was critically injured.

Authorities immediately alleged that the assailants were members of a Jewish terrorist organization.
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