By Rick Noack, WaPo,  December 16

On Monday, German Chancellor Angela Merkel called multiculturalism, or “Multikulti” in German, a sham. Had she suddenly realized that opening the borders to refugees was a mistake, as many have suggested?

In the same speech, Merkel defended her decision to allow about 1 million refugees into the country this year by saying that it was a humanitarian necessity. She reminded Germans of other watershed moments in their history, such as the period just after World War II in 1952, when former chancellor Konrad Adenauer said Germany should “choose freedom.” In terms of dealing with the current refugee influx, Merkel repeated a statement she had made in the fall: “We can do it.”

The relatively bold statement from an extremely cautious politician has become one of the biggest moments of her chancellorship so far. But her future could be determined by her rejection of the way multiculturalism has worked in the past and the success, or failure, of her alternative approach toward assimilation. She favors assimilation projects that are state-led, demanding and supportive of refugees, with the aim of making them feel part of German society. And she wants Germany’s Christian origins and values to remain the country’s “lead culture.”
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Opposition leader: Deal “must not give Erdogan a foothold in Gaza”; Yisrael Beytenu head says “damage has already been done.”

JPOST

Opposition leader Isaac Herzog on Friday criticized as tardy an emerging deal that could lead toward normalized diplomatic ties between Israel and Turkey.

On Wednesday, incoming Mossad head Yossi Cohen, and Joseph Ciechanover, who has served as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s special envoy to Turkey for the past five years, met with Turkish Foreign Ministry director-general Feridun Sinirlioglu to draw up the terms of the agreement that would put an end to the 2010 Mavi Marmara incident that led to a tailspin in diplomatic ties between the two countries, the sources said.

“If we had reached an agreement with Turkey two years ago, Israel would have benefited more,” said the Zionist Union leader at an event hosted by Limmud FSU.
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“Bernard- Henri Lévy is precisely the kind of target that Israeli public diplomacy efforts should be focused on – far more so than any incumbent politician, especially outside the USA.”

By Martin Sherman. JPOST

You fight against jihad, yes. But do you have to add to the fight against jihad the fight with the whole Palestinians people? I don’t think so… There are a lot of moderates among the Palestinian people – there are still… some people who really want a state and to build a life in this state… It has been a big mistake not to give that a chance… and will be an increasing mistake not to give it in the future… When you have a just war to wage which is a war against Islamism, jihadism, it is not a reason to wage an unjust war at the same time. It is absurd.
– Bernard-Henri Lévy, December 2015

Last week, Israeli Educational Television aired an interview with the internationally renowned French philosopher Bernard-Henri Lévy by the well-known Kobi Meidan, on the much-acclaimed program Hotzei Yisrael (Across Israel – available on YouTube).

It turned out to be an unremarkable media event, with little to elevate it above the staple stereotype slogans we have become accustomed to in the mainstream discourse on Islam and Israel in recent decades.
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For the first time in a decade, Americans are beginning to think seriously about foreign policy; But are they too late?

By Caroline Glick, JPOST

At some point between 2006 and 2008, the American people decided to turn their backs on the world. Between the seeming futility of the war in Iraq and the financial collapse of 2008, Americans decided they’d had enough.

In Barack Obama, they found a leader who could channel their frustration. Obama’s foreign policy, based on denying the existence of radical Islam and projecting the responsibility for Islamic aggression on the US and its allies, suited their mood just fine. If America is responsible, then America can walk away. Once it is gone, so the thinking has gone, the Muslims will forget their anger and leave America alone.
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“The stipulation requiring that foreign assistance funds provided to Israel only to be used in the geographic areas which were subject to the Government of Israel’s administration prior to June 5,1967, has been the policy of every Administration since 1967.” . The State Department.

By Dan Illouz, TOI

The European Union’s call to label Israeli products coming from Judea and Samaria has received well deserved media attention and widespread criticism.

The hypocrisy of the move is well known. After all, Europe labels products coming from Western Sahara, a territory Europe itself considers occupied by Morocco since 1975 and with numerous Moroccan settlements, as “Made in Morocco”. The labelling of products coming from parts of the Jewish State might therefore hide a much deeper contempt for the Jewish people, and is reminiscent of the times in which Jews were themselves labelled with yellow stars on the European continent.
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After finally meeting suspects, lawyers tell of cruel torture, demand investigation end; ‘minor hit in sensitive organs till numb to kicks.’

By Hezki Ezra, ARUTZ SHEVA

In the last day several of the Jews arrested on vague suspicions of involvement in the lethal Duma arson were allowed to finally meet their lawyers, who were shocked at the brutal investigation the Israeli Security Agency (ISA) is submitting them to.

The lawyers revealed in a press conference on Thursday night in Jerusalem that the investigation has included severe torture, of a nature that has not been conducted in Israel before.

Attorney Adi Keidar termed it “a sad day for the justice and law enforcement system. Those investigated in the Shabak (ISA) investigation room have no rights. There is no judge or justice and everything is permissible, even against the body of the detainee.”
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T. Belman. WH must reject Islamists and embrace reformers

For the past seven years, the Obama White House has opened its doors to the entire spectrum of radical Islamist groups, but a new coalition of non-Islamist Muslims has not been invited to make its case.

By Steven Emerson

Hassan Shibly, director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations in Florida, has accused the FBI of killing two men in cold blood in separate incidents.

But Obama administration officials still find him to be a suitable representative of the American Muslim community at Monday’s White House meeting on combating religious discrimination, the Investigative Project on Terrorism has learned.

Since 2008, FBI policy has barred outreach communication with CAIR officials due to documents seized by law enforcement that place the council and its founders at the heart of a Hamas support network. Eyewitness interviews recently obtained by the IPT further detail CAIR’s ties to Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood.

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By Moshe Feiglin, JEWISH LEADERSHIP

I opposed administrative detention – of both Jews and Arabs – when I was in the Knesset. I also opposed forced feeding. I believe that the continued occupation of Judea and Samaria causes Israel to consistently violate human rights, which in turn brings about the deterioration of the standard of liberty in the entire country. Israel must declare sovereignty in Judea and Samaria, thus ending the occupation in the same manner it did in the Golan Heights. All options must be opened for the Arab residents of Judea and Samaria, while safeguarding their human rights.

I have already written that it really does not interest me if those who threw the firebombs into the (Arab) home in Duma were Jews or Arabs. Whoever did it must be punished. But as of this point, it is not at all clear that the Jewish youths in administrative detention were connected whatsoever to the case.
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Ted Belman. This is long overdue. Protestants, are you listening.

BBC

The Vatican has told Catholics that they should not seek to convert Jews and stressed that the two faiths have a “unique” relationship.

It is seen as a new Vatican attempt to distance itself from centuries of Christian-Jewish tension and prejudice.

The document released on Thursday is not a doctrinal text, but a “stimulus for the future”, the Vatican says.  It builds on the “Nostra aetate” (In Our Time) document which, 50 years ago, redefined Vatican ties with Judaism.

Nostra aetate rejected the concept of collective Jewish guilt for the crucifixion of Jesus Christ.

‘Our elder brothers’

The new document is called “The Gifts and Calling of God are Irrevocable” and was written by the Vatican’s Commission for Religious Relations with Jews.

T. Belman. In There is no distinction between Islam and Islamists, I commented:

There is one Koran and thus one Islam. It has been agreed since 1300 that it is fixed and immutable. Plus the latest pronouncements abrogate the earlier ones which are more peaceful.

That is not to say that all Muslims follow each dictate of Islam. In fact there are some Islamic countries that ameliorate the harsh decrees also.

But they do not say that they are following the true Islam. They recognize that their practices depart from Islam proper.

Jihad is the heart of Islam. If you excise the heart, the patient dies.

By Amil Imani, AMERICAN THINKER

Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Dr. Zuhdi Jasser, and a host of others believe that Islam can and should be reformed. But how?

The idea of reforming Islam is not entirely new. But Islam cannot be reformed the way Christianity was. For one, Islam claims that it is the perfect eternal faith for mankind. Divisions have happened and will continue to occur in Islam. Yet reformation has not happened in nearly 1,400 years and is not going to happen. In the mind of millions of Muslims, Islam is carved in granite, just the way it is. No change. Allah’s book is sealed.
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T. Belman. So much for Israel’s threat not to deal with the EU on the peace process because of the labeling. I wonder if the latest capitulation by the US to Russia on the Assad question also involved other cooperation such as in the peace process.

I think the key issue being discussed is cutting a deal whereby Israel is permitted to build in the settlement blocs in exchange for Israel transferring part of C to the PA. I am strongly against such a deal. Oslo gives us the right to build in Area C and keep it until a deal is agreed upon. We shouldn’t have to pay for this right twice.

By Herb Keinon, JPOST

Israel  officials met with a high-level Quartet delegation this week, despite the fact that it includes an EU representative with whom Israel has said it will not meet on a bilateral basis to discuss the diplomatic process with the Palestinians.

The Quartet delegation, with representatives from the US, Russia, the EU and the UN, arrived Monday with the aim of trying to de-escalate the situation and find a way to move the diplomatic process forward.

The delegation met in the Prime Minister’s Office Monday night for a meeting the Foreign Ministry said was “long, substantive and serious” – discussing ways to stop the violence, restore security, stop incitement and look for future horizons in the diplomatic process.
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DEBKA

After two tries, US Secretary of State John Kerry finally turned President Barack Obama away from his four-year insistence that Bashar Assad must go, as a precondition for a settlement of the Syrian conflict. Tuesday, night, Dec. 15, the Secretary announced in Moscow: “The United States and our partners are not seeking so-called regime change.”

After Kerry’s first try, Obama still stuck to his guns. He said in Manilla on Nov.19 that he didn’t believe the civil war in Syria “will end while the dictator remains in power.”
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The Arabs can contest all they like but only Jews have the right to build here

By Daniel K Eisenbud, JPOST

The Jerusalem Local and Building Committee on Wednesday furthered talks over previously approved 891 additional housing units in the contested southeast Jerusalem neighborhood of Gilo, which is over the 1949 Armistice Line.

In a brief statement, a municipal official said that despite media reports that Wednesday’s meeting approved the units, the discussion was technical in nature to determine boundaries lines and other considerations, such as gas lines, for the homes.
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Energy Minister Yuval Steinitz says international community “turning a blind eye” to Iranian misconduct • Meanwhile, new report says Iran violated a Security Council resolution in October by test-firing a missile capable of delivering a nuclear warhead.

By Eli Leon, Shlomo Cesana, News Agencies and Israel Hayom Staff

 

Israel on Wednesday responded with consternation over the International Atomic Energy Agency’s decision to close its 12-year investigation into whether Iran had a secret nuclear weapons program. The decision seemingly runs counter to a report produced by the IAEA earlier this month, which strongly suggested Iran engaged in coordinated activities aimed at developing a nuclear bomb up until 2003, though it found no credible sign of weapons-related work beyond 2009.
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‘Together, we will kick out terror supporters from the Knesset,’ says Yisrael Beytenu leader who is promoting a bill to prevent Supreme Court from overturning decisions to ban candidates from running for parliament.

By Attila Somfalvi, YNET

Yisrael Beytenu leader Avigdor Lieberman launched a campaign on Wednesday morning calling to remove Joint Arab List MK Haneen Zoabi from the Knesset.

“Together, we will kick out terror supporters from the Knesset,” Lieberman said in a Facebook post.
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A poll released by the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research on Monday found that 67% of Palestinians support the current wave of stabbings.

According to the poll, only 31% oppose the attacks.

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By Ariel Ben Solomon, JPOST

The greatly hyped Saudi-led Islamic coalition against terrorism is meant more for Western ears rather than actual action on the ground against Sunni jihadist groups Islamic State and al-Qaida.

The expectation that Sunni Saudi Arabia is going to lead a 34-state coalition against fellow radical Sunni groups when it sees them as a bulwark against advancing Iranian and Shi’ite allies across the region, should not be great.
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A huge tiny minority of extremists.

By Daniel Greenfield, FPM

After Tashfeen Malik and Syed Farook killed 14 Americans in their corner of the Jihad over in San Bernardino, the media began its long laborious search for their moment of “radicalization”.

The assumption that the intersection of terrorism and Islam can only be an aberration lead to the conviction that there was some moment in time at which Malik and Farook became “radical extremists”. Initial reports pegged that moment of “radicalization” as having happened at some point during the twenty minutes after Farook left the party. When the amount of firepower and preparation made the idea of a twenty minute radicalization massacre seem silly, the media tried to stretch it back for weeks.
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By Ari Liberman, FPM

[..] Regardless of whether one agrees with Trump’s blanket Muslim ban or not – and I do not – there is no doubt that from a legal perspective, Trump is on solid footing and is empowered to enact such restrictions under federal law by virtue of Title 8 of the United States Code. 8 USC §1182(f) states in relevant part:

“Whenever the President finds that the entry of any aliens or of any class of aliens into the United States would be detrimental to the interests of the United States, he may by proclamation, and for such period as he shall deem necessary, suspend the entry of all aliens or any class of aliens as immigrants or nonimmigrants…”

There is no ambiguity in the law and it leaves no room for doubt. If the Commander in Chief recognizes or perceives a danger, he may act in a manner consistent with Trump’s December 7^thproclamation. Moreover, there is ample precedent for such action. On April 7, 1980, in response to the Iran hostage saga, Jimmy Carter issued a similar ban on the issuance of visas to Iranian nationals. [..]

T. Belman. How does Yaalon know that its “Jewish Terrorism” or how does he know who did it, if he doesn’t have enough evidence to indict. If there is not enough evidence to indict, there is not enough evidence to call it Jewish terrorism. His sole remark should be, “We don’t know who did it.”

Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon ‘ashamed’ of Duma attack for being ‘Jewish terrorism.’

By Ido Ben Porat, JPOST

Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon addressed the investigation of the Duma arson attack Tuesday, admitting that the State does not have enough evidence against the defendants to keep them detained or prosecute them.

“This is clearly a Jewish terror attack and I am ashamed of it,” Ya’alon said to Army Radio. “We know who the members of the group who carried out the attack are, but there is not enough evidence against them.”
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