While declaring his movement has ‘unconditional love’ for Israel, Rick Jacobs protests a long list of its domestic, religious and diplomatic blights

BY REBECCA SHIMONI STOIL, TOI

The head of America’s Reform movement on Thursday called on members of the US’s largest Jewish denomination to support Israel and combat boycott and divestment movements, while simultaneously criticizing Jerusalem’s West Bank policy and castigating a long list of the current government positions.

Speaking before a gathering of the Union for Reform Judaism in Orlando, Florida, President Rabbi Rick Jacobs said “Israel’s safety and security must remain a primary concern for our movement.” He noted that the Reform movement fielded the largest North American delegation at last month’s World Zionist Congress in Jerusalem, and said that “our unconditional love for the Jewish state was a badge of pride for us.”
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T. Belman. I see no benefit to Israel retaining these lands as part of Jerusalem. Of course these people work in Jerusalem and will have to be allowed in through check points to work. A barrier must be constructed separating the parts we don’t want from the parts we do want.

It was originally thought that these Arabs would opt for citizenship and thus cement our hold on all the annexed parts. But it didn’t work out this way. I doubt if the leaders at the time envisioned our present reality, they would never have annexed.

This will free us up to build anywhere else in remaining lands annexed to Jerusalem and will remove the uncertainly in planning for infrastructure.

Op-ed: It’s time to fix the tragic mistake made in 1967 and remove most of the 28 Palestinian villages from Jerusalem’s municipal area, thereby returning 200,000- 250,000 of the city’s Palestinian residents to the West Bank.

By Haim Ramon, YNET

Politicians from most Zionist parties swear nearly every day that “Jerusalem is united. The city joined together will never be divided.”

In their foolishness, ignorance and political fear, they are ignoring – knowingly or unknowingly – the known truth: The vast majority of what are called today “the East Jerusalem neighborhoods” were never part of the city in any historical era, so there is no justification for them being part of Israel’s capital today.

The 28 villages were annexed to Jerusalem in a strange process after the Six-Day War. With the thrust of a loss of judgment, the Palestinians became one-quarter of “greater” Jerusalem’s residents. It was, undoubtedly, one of the most foolish acts in the history of Zionism, and we have been paying a heavy, bloody price for it. Israel’s capital today has more Palestinians than Zionist Jews.
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T. Belman. In all probability the increased aid will be tied to a commitment by Netanyahu to adhere to the two-state solution, the one being pushed by Obama.

Obama’s senior advisers says he will discuss with Netanyahu steps to make progress on peace talks.

By Ben Ariel, INN

President Barack Obama is expected to encourage Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu to take steps to prevent Israel and the Palestinians from moving toward a “one-state solution” during their meeting at the White House next Monday, the president’s senior advisers said at a press briefing Thursday night, according to Haaretz.

The president’s senior adviser on the Middle East, Rob Malley, said at the briefing that Obama reached the conclusion that in his time left in office the Israelis and the Palestinians will not be able to reach a peace treaty and it’s doubtful that they will be able to resume direct talks on a permanent agreement.
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What is at hand is less a clash of weapons and more a clash of wit & will; the side that will prevail is the side whose political vision is sharpest and whose national resolve is strongest.

By Martin Sherman, JPOST

Yom Kippur war
A soldier waves an Israeli flag on the Golan front during the Yom Kippur war.. (photo credit:IDF SPOKESPERSON’S UNIT,JERUSALEM REPORT ARCHIVES)

I find it quite unfortunate, that very few in the general public… understand the situation we are in; for even if we destroy every current enemy militarily, the existential threat through attrition will not diminish. Likewise, the tools necessary for opposing (and hopefully reversing) that threat are different [from] what Israelis are used to… A country that offers no safety to its citizens inside its own borders, a people that have no conviction in holding onto their own ancestral lands, cannot possibly claim to have a certain future.

– Facebook comment, from “Citizen Morgan,” on last week’s column.

This insightful observation by “Citizen Morgan” encapsulates quite succinctly much of what I laid out in last week’s column.
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T. Belman. Shavit argues that when Israel insists on the settlement enterprise it angers Obama and 80% of young American Jews who worship Obama. Furthermore he argues when Israel allows the orthodox to exclude the Reform, Conservative and Reconstruction movements, she is further alienating Jews aligned with them.

In other words, he argues that Israel should not stick to her guns literally or figuratively but rather should adopt policies that liberal Jews can identify with.

Not for a second would I change the settlement enterprise but I am open to discussion about making a little room for the other movements.

Unconsciously and unintentionally, the right has become a serious threat to the future of Diaspora Jewry.

By Ari Shavit, HAARETZ

DURHAM, North Carolina — The common assumption is that the Israeli left represents the democratic foundation of our lives, while the Israeli right represents the Jewish foundation. That’s inaccurate. Often the left is not a democratic left; it has a hard time respecting the sovereign decision of the majority and tries to aggressively impose its will on the majority. At the same time, the right isn’t always a Jewish right. Its absolute devotion to the Land of Israel leads it to alienate large parts of the people of Israel and to endanger the State of Israel.

But in recent years the relationship between the Israeli right and the Jewish people has reached a state of crisis. Unconsciously and unintentionally, the right has become a serious threat to the future of Diaspora Jewry.
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By Dave Majumdar, THE NATIONAL INTEREST

The United States has built many great fighters over the years. The P-51 Mustang, the F4U Corsair, F-86 Sabre, F-15 Eagle, F-16 Fighting Falcon and the F-22 are among the best warplanes this country has ever produced. This article is not about those machines.

There have been plenty of times when American ingenuity has fallen flat on its face. This article is about the dregs of U.S. warplane designs—the worst of the worst. But from each of these failures, we can learn something and make sure it never happens again. It’s only a failure of you don’t learn something from it.
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T. Belman.  The only status quo that the Muslims want to maintain is the one in which Jews are subjugated like on the Temple Mount.

By Daniel Greenfield, SULTAN KNISH

The Secretary of State of the United States traveled to the Muslim country of Jordan to assure its Foreign Minister that Jews would not be praying any more at the holiest site in Judaism.

Israel is often accused of apartheid and segregation, but here was the Secretary of State championing both, as long as it was Muslim segregation aimed at Jews. The Temple Mount “Status Quo” worriedly talked about by Kerry and the media as the answer to the recent Muslim stabbing spree is no different than the Muslim ban on Jews entering the Cave of the Patriarchs, where Abraham, Isaac and Jacob are buried, past the seventh step. It rewards Muslim violence by upholding Muslim segregationist racism.
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By Arlene Kushner

Item one:

In late September, Reuters conveyed Iranian media reports establishing that the Iranians recently took their own environmental samples at their Parchin military facility, where they conducted tests relevant to the detonation of nuclear warheads, in lieu of having IAEA inspectors take the samples

Item two:

In mid-October, Omri Ceren of TIP wrote, “Iranian media reported that Tehran recently tested a new precision-guided long-range ballistic missile, the Emad (show below), which is capable of carrying a nuclear warhead. The test is a black-letter violation of United Nations Security Council resolution (UNSCR) 2231, in which ‘Iran is called upon not to undertake any activity related to ballistic missiles designed to be capable of delivering nuclear weapons, including launches using such ballistic missile technology’ for the next eight years.” Read more…

By Shoshana Bryen, AMERICAN THINKER

[..]
ISIS? ISIS claimed first to have shot the plane down and later (after it became clear that it probably hadn’t actually been shot down) claimed responsibility instead for “destroying” it without specifying how. ISIS by itself is a fairly long shot; it is known to be operating in Sinai, but not in the southern part near Sharm el-Sheikh.

Posit, then, cooperation between ISIS and Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood, two Sunni jihadist organizations operating both in Egypt and in Syria. While ISIS’s prime target would be Russia, the Brotherhood’s would be Egypt.
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New Economy Ministry statistics show that 49 percent of hareidi-religious males are working at regular jobs.

By Hana Levi Julian, JP

In a new report, Israel’s Economy Ministry has released statistics showing that 49 percent of hareidi-religious men are now bona fide members of the working world, according to the Hebrew-languageKikar Shabbat website.

The finding is a quantum leap up from statistics of ten years ago, when only a third of the same population (33 percent of hareidi-religious males) had regular jobs.
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While ‘absolute’ certainty in God on decline among Americans, 36% of Jews polled say religion ‘very important’ to them

TOI

American Jews appear to be growing steadily more religious, faster than most other communities in the United States, according to a new Pew poll published Tuesday.

The survey, conducted in 2014, studied American perspectives on religions across the country’s various sects and communities and compared them to a similar study in 2007. It found that overall, the proportion of Americans who say they are “absolutely certain” God exists has dropped sharply from 71 percent to less than two-thirds.

Pew released the findings, based in part on a 2014 telephone survey of more than 35,000 people, as religious leaders are grappling with the shifting makeup of American religious life.
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By Daniel Pipes, ISRAEL HAYOM

Like other observers of Turkish politics, I was stunned on Nov. 1 when the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) was reported to have increased its share of the national vote since the last round of elections in June 2015 by 9% and its share of parliamentary seats by 11%.

The polls had consistently shown the four major parties winning about the same number of seats as in June. This made intuitive sense; they represent mutually hostile outlooks (Islamist, leftist, Kurdish, nationalist), making substantial movement between them in under five months highly unlikely. That about one in nine voters switched parties defies reason.

The AKP’s huge increase gave it back the parliamentary majority it had lost in the June 2015 elections, promising President Recep Tayyip Erdogan a semi-legal path to the dictatorial powers to which he aspires.
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NGO MONITOR

Jerusalem – “The European Union’s decision to label Israeli-made products from beyond the Green Line is another act in the ongoing NGO campaign to delegitimize Israel,” Professor Gerald Steinberg of NGO Monitor said. “This strategy is also the driving force of BDS (boycott, divestment and sanctions) campaigns, and it is led by EU-funded NGOs that are detrimental a peaceful, negotiated solution.”

For years, the EU has given money earmarked for humanitarian aid and peace-building to political groups that abuse human rights to promote their own agendas. These organizations have lobbied hard for the EU to adopt their ideas, with the rhetoric of “consumer choice” masking what is clearly an anti-Israel measure.
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Cruz leads effort to sanction the group

By Adam Kredo, NEW BEACON

Lawmakers in both houses of Congress filed legislation on Tuesday that would formally designate the Muslim Brotherhood a sanctioned terrorist organization, according to an advance copy of the legislation obtained by the Washington Free Beacon.

The legislation outlines the Brotherhood’s long history of sponsoring terrorism and outlines congressional support for it to be designated a global terrorist outfit. The bill also would force Secretary of State John Kerry to explain why the Obama administration has been hesitant to label the Brotherhood a terrorist group.
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By Lahav Harkov, JPOST

New Bill creates a seperate, easier-to-prosecute crime of incitement to terrorism, as opposed to general incitement to violence, passed its first reading in the Knesset on Monday.

The penal code currently establishes that incitement to violence or terrorism, which carries a five-year prison sentence, is when someone publicizes a call to an act of violence or terrorism, or praises, sympathizes with or encourages such acts, and the statements have a real chance of causing someone to behave violently or commit an act of terrorism.
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He was all about making accusations and was not interested in allowing her to answer.

Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked (Jewish Home) gave the Arab MK’s a piece of her mind in a sarcastic Knesset speech this week regarding the minimum punishment law for rock throwing. Shades of Mark Antony?

By Ayet Shaked, INN

The Joint Arab List claims that the government is taking advantage of the security situation to pass racist laws that trample democratic principles and freedoms.

As I look at you, my fellow Knesset members of the Joint Arab List Party, and listen to what you are saying, I absolutely understand where your sincereconcern for Israeli democracy is coming from.

For example, take the head of your party list, MK Aimen Odeh, who was recently asked in an interview to explain why he doesn’t call on the Arabs to cease their terrorist activities. Odeh answered – and I quote – “I cannot sit in my house in the Carmel [mountain range near Haifa] and tell the Palestinian people how to conduct their struggle.”
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DEBKA

Syrian media reported an Israeli air force attack Sunday, Nov. 1, after two sorties Friday night against Syrian army and Hizballah bases in the Qalamoun Mountains on the Lebanese border. The IDF declined to confirm or deny these reports. Syrian sources described a large number of Israeli airplanes as bombing a Hizballah unit based in the village of El Ain in northern Lebanon and the arms depot of the 155^th Brigade of the Syrian army at Al-Katifa to the east.

The two targets are 70 km apart. So these air strikes must have targeted two key points along the Iranian arms supply route to Hizballah.
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By Matthew Vadum, CFP

The preeminent funder of border-busting campaigns in the U.S. and overseas now openly admits his efforts in Europe are aimed at destroying national borders on that continent.

The unusually frank statement from frequent coup kingpin George Soros comes after Hungary’s prime minister accused him of helping to orchestrate the ongoing invasion of the landlocked nation and the rest of Europe by illegal aliens. Soros is arguably the biggest mass migration-promoting coyote on the planet. He is also an admitted Nazi collaborator, described by David Horowitz as a “deracinated Jew,” who arguesthat Muslims are treated so badly in the West that they are the new Jews. Soros doesn’t care that these migrants and Syrian war refugees are largely Muslim men and that intelligence agencies fear that many of the new arrivals have connections to Islamic terrorism.
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By Ng Weng Hoong, CJN

The groundbreaking first visit to Israel by an Indian president Oct. 13 to 15 hardly featured in the global media, which were more focused on a potential third intifadah uprising, the growing U.S.-Russia proxy war in Syria, and the Iranian parliament’s approval of Tehran’s nuclear deal with six global powers.

Nevertheless, President Pranab Mukherjee’s historic entry into Jerusalem from the Palestinian territories and his stirring speeches to underline New Delhi’s pro-Israel shift could have a more lasting impact on the Middle East as it adds India, together with China, to Israel’s increasing security, political and economic pivot toward Asia.

Mukherjee’s opening speech powerfully and unequivocally laid out India’s support for Israel as he condemned “the growing menace of terrorism and extremism” amid the outbreak of Palestinian stabbings of Israelis.

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