EU still pushing the two state solution  

European Union’s foreign policy chief says leaders must ‘demonstrate with acts’ their commitment, says Quartet has several proposals for steps that will help ease tension.

By Barak Ravid, HAARETZ

The European Union’s Foreign Policy Chief Federica Mogherini said Tuesday in a speech before the European Parliament that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas must “demonstrate with acts” that their commitment to the two-state solution “is real and not just fake” or “just an empty slogan.”

Mogherini, who met with Netanyahu in Berlin last Thursday and with Abbas in Brussels on Monday, said that she has sought the consent of the two leaders for the Quartet representatives – the U.S., Russia, the UN and the EU – to visit the region in the next several days, in order to discuss with the sides trust-building steps to be taken on the ground.
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October 28, 2015 | 8:18 am | 3 Comments »

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Pressure is mounting to limit Israel’s construction to the settlement blocs  

Ted Belman

Prime Minister Netanyahu has often proposed that Israel be allowed to build in the settlement blocs everyone know she will keep in any settlement. No one has as of yet define what is a settlement block. For instance there is great opposition from Americans and Europeans to including Ariel as one of them.

Recently, Elliot Abrams, Dennis Ross and now MEP Lars Adaktusson have all suggested the same thing.

So in any renewed peace process I expect this to be part of the discussion. Of course it means that Israel will have to agree not to build anywhere else east of the green line.
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October 28, 2015 | 8:09 am | 9 Comments »

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Europe urged to link PA aid to cessation of incitement  

Monies from the EU should be conditional on the PA’s renouncement of hate and incitement to violence.

By MEP Lars Adaktusson, INN

MEP Lars Adaktusson is Vice Chair of the European Parliament Delegation for relations with Afghanistan and a member of the Committee on Foreign Affairs. Former Middle East correspondent for Swedish media, he is also one EIPA (Europe Israel Public Affairs) Advisory Board members.

In the European Parliament, when the name of Israel is muttered, the next two words that usually follow are “settlements” and “occupation.”

The European Union’s obsession with Jewish settlement construction in the “West Bank” has been the main drive behind all the recent initiatives spearheaded by the European External Action Service (EEAS), starting with the EU Guidelines on Israeli entities based outside the Green Line from December 2013 and continuing with the EU labelling of products coming out of the settlements and other similar measures. They are also allegedly the main reason why some of my own colleagues sitting in the parliament are calling for a suspension of the Association Agreement with Israel.
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October 28, 2015 | 6:50 am | 2 Comments »

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Poll: 58% back stripping Jerusalem Arabs’ resident status  

In light of Netanyahu’s plan, majority back removing rights, but in troubling sign 56% back PA control over half of capital.

By Yedidya Ben-Or, INN

No less than 58% of the Israeli public supports canceling the resident status and its accompanying rights for Arab residents of eastern Jerusalem, according to a new poll released Tuesday.

The poll, conducted by the Midgam Institute under Dr. Mina Tzemach’s supervision, comes after Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu suggesting stripping residency from Jerusalem Arabs this week and announced he maytake a tour of the area to consider the move.

Only 35% of the public oppose canceling the residency rights extended to Arab residents of Israel’s capital, according to the poll which was conducted for the Knesset Channel.
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October 28, 2015 | 4:32 am | 1 Comment »

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The Israel divide in the 2016 Presidential race  

by Richard Baehr, ISRAEL HAYOM

Bill Clinton in his two successful races for the White House in 1992 and 1996 won overwhelming majorities among Jewish voters, with margins not seen since the election of Lyndon B. Johnson over Barry Goldwater in 1964 or of Franklin Delano Roosevelt to his third and fourth terms in 1940 and 1944. Since 1992, the Jewish vote has slowly become more competitive between the two major parties, approaching a 2/3 versus 1/3 split between Democrats and Republicans. The 2016 presidential race is likely to offer a choice between Hillary Clinton, who does not appear to have the same tight hold over Jewish voters that her husband did, and a Republican with far stronger pro-Israel credentials.
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October 27, 2015 | 4:42 pm | 5 Comments »

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Rabin was skeptical of Oslo  

By Arlene Kushner

[..]
Yesterday the 20th anniversary of the assassination of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin was marked.

Because of his association with Oslo, Rabin has been seen over the years as someone who enthusiastically embraced “the two-state solution.”  Or, I might better put it, came to be seen thus, as his memory was co-opted by those eager to promote that “solution.”  To this day, there are those who promote this distorted vision of Rabin as rationale for pursuing negotiations.

The reality is far more complex.

On October 5, 1995, Rabin brought to the Knesset the Interim Agreement for ratification.  Note the following that he proposed (emphasis added):
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October 27, 2015 | 4:05 pm | 1 Comment »

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When do we stop ignoring the information war?  

By Vic Rosenthal

Despite the vicious and brutal nature of the violent uprising that is under way in Israel now, the rest of the world is either silent or approving. The implication seems to be “they are getting what they deserved.” How did this happen?

This was written by an Israeli graduate student studying at Oxford:

When conversations regarding Israel do ensue, they deal with the disproportionate use of power during the 2014 war in Gaza, the high death toll among Palestinians (statistics which many British students with whom I have spoken can quote), the violent behavior of settlers towards Palestinians documented in videos that have gone viral in the UK as elsewhere, the checkpoints, the economic ruin of the Gaza strip and the continued refusal of Israel to recognize Palestinian independence. There are students who can recite without difficulty Prime Minister Netanyahu’s comment on Israel’s election day about the need to counter ‘droves’ of Arab Israelis on their way to vote. …
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October 27, 2015 | 11:31 am | 13 Comments »

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THE DEATH OF EUROPE  

How the Mohammed retirement plan will kill Europe.

Daniel Greenfield

European leaders talk about two things these days; preserving European values by taking in Muslim migrants and integrating Muslim migrants into Europe by getting them to adopt European values.

It does not occur to them that their plan to save European values depends on killing European values.
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October 27, 2015 | 11:06 am | 3 Comments »

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Illinois: Two Muslim truck drivers awarded $240,000 for refusing to deliver alcohol  

By Pamela Geller
Geller3This is exactly the pattern that I meticulously document in my must read primer, Stop the Islamization of America.

Anywhere Western mores and Islamic mores conflict, it is American mores that must give way. Islamic supremacism in  action.

Two Muslims had refused to deliver alcohol for their employer, saying it was against their religious values as practicing Muslims. They were rightly fired.

Obama’s EEOC sued Star Transport for rightfully terminating two Muslims who refused to do their job. They refuse to transport their cargo, which was alcohol. If these Muslim truck drivers don’t want to deliver alcohol, then they shouldn’t have taken a job in which part of their duties would be to deliver alcohol. It’s that simple.

Going up against the US government is an enormous undertaking. Star Transport lost, but it is unlikely they will pay. They are bankrupt now.
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October 27, 2015 | 10:14 am | 2 Comments »

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The free world has lost its leader  

By DAN HANNAN, WASHINGTON EXAMINER

harper1The free world has lost its leader. In the absence of a vigorous American foreign policy, Canada’s Stephen Harper supplied his own. For the better part of a decade, he energetically championed Western interests. He was serious about fighting terrorism, keen on free trade and prepared to deploy proportionate force in defense of freedom.

His defeat in last week’s Canadian general election will be felt far beyond that sparse, chilly country. When other Western leaders fretted about Israel’s 2006 Lebanon war, he gave his full backing to the Jewish state. When others dithered over Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, he led international condemnation. Obliged to meet Vladimir Putin at a summit meeting, he was admirably curt: “I guess I’ll shake your hand, but I have only one thing to say to you: Get out of Ukraine.”
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October 27, 2015 | 7:44 am | 5 Comments »

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Abbas: ‘We Welcome Every Drop of Blood Spilled in Jerusalem’  

Palestinian leaders have created a culture of death that is motivating the latest violent terrorism.

By  Tzipi Hotovely, WALL STREET JOURNAL       Oct. 18, 2015

The latest surge of Palestinian terror attacks against Israelis has come in the immediate wake of explicit calls by the Palestinian leadership to “spill blood.” This well-orchestrated campaign of violence follows many years in which Palestinian children have been taught to idolize the murder of Jews as a sacred value and to regard their own death in this “jihad” as the pinnacle of their aspirations.

Such violence has deep roots. It goes back to the rampages at the behest of Haj Amin al-Husseini, a Muslim activist and at one point grand mufti of Jerusalem, in the 1920s, ’30s and ’40s. It continued with the fedayeenPalestinian militants in the 1950s and ’60s, and evolved into the terrorism of the Palestine Liberation Organization and Fatah under Yasser Arafat and now Mahmoud Abbas. Anyone who claims that Palestinian terror against Jews dates only to 1967, or is a response to Israeli settlements, should become more informed of the conflict’s history.
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October 27, 2015 | 6:18 am | 8 Comments »

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Reject a Palestinian state  

BY DANIEL DORON, WEEKLY STANDARD

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu recently noted that with the Middle East in chaos, it may not be a good time to establish another rogue state, Palestine, which would likely be taken over by Iran’s proxy, Hamas, which would then launch a bloody war against Israel. The Prime Minister’s declaration was greeted with alarm among the commentariat, because the belief that establishing a Palestinian state will lead to peace has become an article of faith immune to fact or reason.

The Palestinian Authority is utterly dysfunctional. It’s a clan-based coalition made up of murderous political mafias. It deprives the Palestinians of even the most elementary rights, robs them of billions in aid from the U.S. and Europe, keeps most of them in penury and misery, oppresses women, gays and lesbians, and all who aren’t Muslims. It foments rage against Israel by incessant incitement that calls on even small children to kill Jews everywhere. Is granting it statehood really the path to peace?
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October 27, 2015 | 4:29 am | Comments »

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10 things about the latest wave of jihad  

By Yishai Fleisher, ISRAEL HAYOM

The current state of affairs in Israel is full of lessons and truths. The sooner we learn them, the sooner we can stop the attacks.

  1. We can stop feeling guilty.

A few good things have come out of the recent wave of terror in the streets of Israel. The first is that the facade that jihadis are somehow struggling for self-determination, social justice, or any other noble idea has been unmasked. It is clear to us now that, unlike what we’ve been urged to believe for the last 30 years, jihadis don’t want peace. They want to annihilate Jews, Judaism, and the State of Israel. This is great news. Because once the pretense is dropped, we stop falling for it and begin unloading the guilty feeling that we are at fault for everything. We drop the idea, for example, that building in Jerusalem or Judea is causing this war. Those few voices who still try to blame the victims sound delusional and their ideas are being debunked. At the same time, there is a realization that within Israel is a hostile minority that simply does not accept the legitimacy of a Jewish state. Clarity is forming, and it will lead to victory.
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October 26, 2015 | 7:15 pm | 2 Comments »

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Russia overrides Middle East cyber waves  

DEBKAfile Exclusive Report October 26, 2015,


The distance as the crow flies between Russia’s Syrian air base Al-Hmeineem near Latakia and its Iraqi host facility at Al Taqaddum Air base is 824 km (445 nautical miles). From the Latakia base to Israel, the distance is just 288 km or 155 nautical miles, a hop and a skip in aerial terms. Syria’s ruler Bashar Assad first let Moscow in with the use of a base where 30 fighter and bombing jets are now parked. Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi followed suit Saturday, Oct. 24 by granting the Russian Air force the use of a facility 74 km from Baghdad.
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October 26, 2015 | 2:17 pm | 4 Comments »

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Comprehensive Maariv/Panels Poll on Oct 16  

Jeremy’s Knesset Insider

Panels conducted a poll that was published by Maariv on October 16th 2015.

Jewish Israeli Questions:

How pleased are you with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s conduct of dealing with the current terror wave?

67% Not pleased, 28% Pleased, 5% Don’t know

How pleased are you with the Government’s conduct of dealing with the current terror wave?

63% Not pleased, 28% Pleased, 9% Don’t know

How has your political opinion changed following the terror wave?

64% No change, 30% Moved more to the right, 3% Moved more to the left
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October 26, 2015 | 9:08 am | 8 Comments »

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Cheap Oil Puts the House of Saud at Risk  

by David P. Goldman, Asia Times
http://www.meforum.org/5582/saudis-cheap-oil

Saudi Arabia spends money like there’s no tomorrow. A new report from the International Monetary Fundsuggests that there might not be a tomorrow for the House of Saud. Without massive spending cuts, the Kingdom will exhaust its monetary reserves in five years at current oil prices, the IMF reckons. Saudi Arabia is a rich country full of poor people, and the House of Saud has bought a lot of legitimacy by subsidizing its subjects. The dynasty might not survive the sort of austerity measures that the IMF insists are necessary to keep the Kingdom from running out of reserves by 2020. Egypt, now dependent on Saudi subsidies, also is at risk.
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October 26, 2015 | 8:29 am | 1 Comment »

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Israel should have zero tolerance for incitement  

Incitement is the root cause of terrorism. Israel should have zero tolerance for it

By Moshe Dann, INN

Since Hamas has admitted its role, the answer is obvious.  But others are major contributors, especially PA incitement, the PLO’s Fatah, its armed wing, terrorist groups like Islamic Jihad, Al Aksa Martyrs Brigade, Hamas’ Israeli branch, the Islamic Movement, the Muslim Brotherhood, and the Wakf (the Islamic Authority).  They have created a culture of Jew-hatred supported by the Arab world. It’s called Jihad. This isn’t new, but two critical factors have been overlooked.

There are two important explanations for the outbreak of Arab terrorism.

First, the connection with prisoner exchanges – just as occurred previously.
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October 26, 2015 | 8:22 am | 4 Comments »

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Netanyahu’s Words on Hitler Mark an Important Point For Our World of Today  

By SETH LIPSKY, New York Post

Prime Minister Netanyahu did something important last week — he reminded the world that the Arab war against Israel is a continuation of the Nazis’ war against the Jews.

What an uproar greeted Mr. Netanyahu’s remarks. He made them Wednesday, when he suggested that it was the World War II-era mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin al-Husseini, who planted in Hitler’s mind the idea of exterminating the Jews.

The prime minister was referring to an infamous meeting between the Mufti and Adolf Hitler in November 1941, two months before the Nazi ghouls gathered at a lakeside villa at Wannsee to plan the Final Solution.
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October 25, 2015 | 6:16 pm | 3 Comments »

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Very Good News Israel  

In the 25th Oct 2015 edition of Israel’s good news, the highlights include:
 
·         Israel’s medical achievements.
·         An Israeli smartphone app can help reduce your blood pressure.
·         The first ever visit to Israel by an Indian Head of State.
·         NASA signs agreement to increase space ties with Israel.
·         New flights will connect Silicon Valley to the Startup Nation.
·         US star Jerry Seinfeld is to perform in Israel.
·         Israeli yachtsmen saved 11 Syrian and Iraqi migrants from drowning.

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October 25, 2015 | 1:37 pm | 2 Comments »

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Inside the Fraying U.S.-Israel Ties during the lead up to Iran Deal  

By Adam Entopus, WSJ

The U.S. closely monitored Israel’s military bases and eavesdropped on secret communications in 2012, fearing its longtime ally might try to carry out a strike on Fordow, Iran’s most heavily fortified nuclear facility.

Nerves frayed at the White House after senior officials learned Israeli aircraft had flown in and out of Iran in what some believed was a dry run for a commando raid on the site. Worried that Israel might ignite a regional war, the White House sent a second aircraft carrier to the region and readied attack aircraft, a senior U.S. official said, “in case all hell broke loose.”
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October 25, 2015 | 11:29 am | 3 Comments »

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