NGO MONITOR

Jerusalem – In advance of the 2015 Global Forum for Combatting Antisemitism, and in response to rising levels of hatred in Europe, NGO Monitor has published a detailed report on the international, Palestinian, and Israeli NGOs (non-governmental organizations) that engage in egregious antisemitic activities and rhetoric. According to the report, despite the extensive evidence of NGO antisemitism, which contradicts claims to promote human rights and humanitarian agendas, governments continue to fund these groups with hundreds of millions of dollars, pounds, euros, and kroner.

“NGO Monitor’s research shows that by funding NGOs that engage in antisemitic activities and rhetoric, governments highlight a persistent double standard: hatred of Jews is tolerated in a way that would be unthinkable for other racial, ethnic, or religious groups.” stated Professor Gerald Steinberg, president of NGO Monitor. “Jewish and Israeli targets are often denied the right to define what constitutes discrimination against them.” Read more…

By Daniel Grynglas

The wars between Israel and its Arab neighbors were fought for many years on the battlefield between armies.  In recent decades the arena of conflict has shifted from hand-to-hand combat to a war of narratives.

Everybody agrees that the current affluence of Israel, its modern infrastructure and economy were developed by the Jews. The Palestinian Arab narrative is that as the ancient, indigenous people of Palestine they feel dispossessed and they deserve to take over Israel’s riches.

Jewish claims to their heritage in the land of Israel are supported by abundant archaeological artifacts and historical records. Meanwhile, there are no records to support the Palestinian narrative.  In history, art and literature there is no trace at all of any Muslim people referred to by anybody as “Palestinians.”
Read more…

Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked may be Israeli democracy’s last hope of overthrowing an elitist clique which enjoys all the trappings of a Middle East dictatorship – and that’s precisely why the Left are so determined to stop her.

By Ari Sofer, INN

From crude, sexist comments to outright death threats, the hysterical reaction to the appointment of Jewish Home MK Ayelet Shaked as Justice Minister has been shocking even by the low standards of the far-left.

Now, the incitement has reached such levels that Shaked will be assigned a personal security detail – a rare occurrence in Israel, where MKs and ministers can regularly be seen walking in public safely without bodyguards.

Why?

She is, we are informed, a “danger to democracy” – for wanting to curb the powers of an unelected clique which currently has the ability to veto any Knesset legislation it so chooses: the Supreme Court.
Read more…

Why Conservatives Should Give AIPAC the Pink Slip  by Daniel Horowitz.

The Washington political scene is a landscape riddled with power hungry politicians who place their self-interests over the public principles they espouse.  That is why there are so many elected officials, organizations, and pieces of legislation that are often portrayed to the public as something completely antithetical to what they are in reality.  Nowhere is this dichotomy between public perception and reality as gravely consequential as it is with AIPAC.

By Janet Levy

AIPAC is an organization that is working COUNTER to its stated mission to support Israel.  Just look at the subterfuge they pulled off on the latest bill on nuclear Iran!  (See above).

It is wrongly assumed that AIPAC is a pro-Israel organization that is deeply disturbed by the threats from a soon-to-be nuclear Iran and wants to protect Israel’s security.
Read more…

By Sohrab Armani,  COMMENTARY

As Barack Obama’s presidency stretches into its final quarter, relations between the United States and Israel have reached the breaking point. Having come into office determined to put “daylight” between Washington and Jerusalem, as the president told Jewish leaders in 2009, the Obama administration is now discarding the basic assumptions underpinning the U.S.-Israel alliance. The equities of the Arab–Israeli conflict, the nature of the Iranian threat, the region’s security architecture—all the old certainties have given way to the president’s quest for a rapprochement with the Iranian regime and a new balance of power in the Middle East.

Even as it seeks a regional order that will come at Israel’s expense, however, the White House professes a great love of the Jewish state. Those who doubt this love, administration spokesmen say, are “politicizing” the Israel issue. This raises a critical question: What does it mean to be pro-Israel in the age of Obama?
Read more…

The Canadian government has expressed “zero tolerance” for boycotters of Israel.

By: Tzvi Ben-Gedalyahu, JP

Israel is the only country targeted by BDS.

The pro-Israel Canadian government may be planning to include boycotts of Israel as a hate crime, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) reported Monday.

It said that such a move would target organizations such as the United Church of Canada, Canadian Quakers, campus protest groups and labor unions. It also would raise legal questions under Canada’s Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
Read more…

Institute for Contemporary Affairs, JCPA
Founded jointly with the Wechsler Family Foundation, Vol. 15, No. 14     May 11, 2015  

By Lazar Berman, JCPA

• The Kurdish peshmerga forces have proven willing and able to stand up to the Islamic State (formerly ISIS) on the battlefield in northern Iraq. Several Western countries, realizing that the Kurdistan Region, the most stable and secure region of Iraq, could fall to IS unless they stepped in, increased military aid to the peshmerga after the city of Mosul fell in the summer of 2014.

• The peshmerga are primarily stocked with light arms, many of which were captured from Saddam Hussein’s forces during the wars in 1991 and 2003. AK-47s and Soviet machine guns make up the preponderance of their light weaponry. Soviet-era howitzers, small mortars, old Soviet T-54/55 tanks make up most of their heavier weapons.

Read more…

Today, Bodyguards assigned to incoming justice minister Shaked after threats made on her life

The reason Netanyahu would love to kick Bayit Yehudi out of the government is that they challenge his fundamental policies. He wants to protect the Court’s power and wants to stay in a holding pattern regarding construction in Jerusalem and J&S whereas Bennett wants aggressive action on these fronts. Kaluna, UTJ and Shas are quite happy with Netanyahu’s policies in this regard.

By George Friedman of Stratfor.com

In recent weeks, we have been focusing on Greece, Germany, Ukraine and Russia. All are still burning issues. But in every case, readers have called my attention to what they see as an underlying and even defining dimension of all these issues — if not right now, then soon. That dimension is declining population and the impact it will have on all of these countries. The argument was made that declining populations will generate crises in these and other countries, undermining their economies and national power. Sometimes we need to pause and move away from immediate crises to broader issues. Let me start with some thoughts from my book The Next 100 Years.

Reasons for the Population Decline
Read more…

V. Sharpe. This is another superlative article by the ever prescient Mark Steyn.

He points to the nauseating dhimmitude behavior expressed by so many in the media, including even Fox News, towards Pamela Geller’s exposure of the double standards displayed towards free speech, especially when it comes to criticism of Islam and the weapons it uses against the West and Judeo-Christian civilization: jihad and sharia law.

I have written about the growing poisonous and pernicious influence within western society of what can be called the unholy trinity of political correctness, multiculturalism and diversity.

This debilitating belief is rotting the very fabric of society and western culture. It is the enemy within the gates working in concert with the external enemy: Islamic triumphalism.

by Mark Steyn

As we mentioned a week ago, I’m none too well at the moment, and it so happens my preferred position in which to write causes me severe pain – which is presumably some kind of not so subtle literary criticism from the Almighty. But I’m back, more or less, with lots to catch up on. There were two big elections in recent days, with dramatic results: in Alberta, the Tories were wiped out; in Scotland, the Labour Party was slaughtered; in England, the Liberals were crushed. Strange times.
Read more…

By Prof. Eyal Zisser, ISRAEL HAYOM

In Damascus and Beirut last week, Syrian President Bashar Assad and Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah proclaimed the launch of the “Qalamoun Mountains campaign,” aimed at restoring control of the strategic range on the Syrian-Lebanese border. The two leaders admitted to a recent string of defeats, but took solace in the fact that in any war of existence, such as the one they are currently waging, there are ups and downs.

Reports from the Qalamoun region itself, however, reveal that in the meantime Hezbollah fighters and the Syrian soldiers are sustaining considerable losses on the battlefield. There have also been reports of widespread panic among the Syrian leadership and preparations to abandon the capital.
Read more…

‘Derekh Chaim’ is the first haredi yeshiva to incorporate IDF service – and hopes to raise Israel’s next generation of cyber-warriors.

By Hillel Fendel, INN

 A first-of-its-kind haredi-religious yeshiva has officially been accepted into the ranks of the IDF’s hesder movement. Named Derekh Chaim (Path of Life), it combines not only Torah studies and military service, as in all hesder yeshivot, but also technological studies, with an emphasis on cyber-warfare.

Derekh Chaim was initiated by none other than the Defense Ministry’s Security-Sociological Wing and the IDF’s Manpower and Chief Rabbinate Departments, for the purpose of enabling young haredi men the opportunity for “meaningful IDF service.”
Read more…

By Diane Bederman, TOI

What propels Christian Zionists? Why do they love Israel so much? CBS reporter Bob Simon, in a 1992 “60 Minutes” program found the answer: Because the return of the Jews to their ancient homeland is seen by Evangelicals as a precondition for the Second Coming of Christ.

Somehow I don’t see the Jews as the winners from all this love. The Jews have given their blood in more wars since 1948 than I care to remember in order to keep this Jewish homeland Jewish, yet they aren’t the principle winners in this vision.
Read more…

by Daniel Pipes, Washington Times,  May 8, 2015

A ranking Iranian political figure, Issa Kalantari, recently warned that past mistakes leave Iran with water supplies so insufficient that up to 70 percent, or 55 million out of 78 million Iranians, would be forced to abandon their native country for parts unknown.

Many facts buttress Kalantari’s apocalyptic prediction: Once lauded in poetry, Lake Urmia, the Middle East’s largest lake, has lost 95 percent of its water since 1996, going from 31 billion cubic meters to 1.5 billion. What the Seine is to Paris, the Zayanderud was to Isfahan – except the latter went bone-dry in 2010. Over two-thirds of Iran’s cities and towns are “on the verge of a water crisis” that could result in drinking water shortages; already, thousands of villages depend on water tankers. Unprecedented dust storms disrupt economic activity and damage health.
Read more…

JPOST

US President Barack Obama has told associates that he intends to veto the French proposal for a UN Security Council resolution mandating the creation of a Palestinian state and an Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank within two years, Channel 10 is reporting on Friday.

By David Daoud, ALGEMEINER

IDF soldiers from various units who fought in last summer’s war between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip called a recent report by NGO Breaking the Silence a “total lie.”

The soldiers spoke to Israel’s Channel 2 to tell their side of the story, and to counter the testimonies compiled by Breaking the Silence.

One soldier called the report “a wicked story” and a “stab in the back.”
Read more…

By Martin Sherman, JPOST

The United States remains committed to a two-state solution… that can bring lasting peace and stability to both peoples. A two-state solution is the only way for Israel to ensure its future as a Jewish and democratic state. And it is the best path forward for Israel’s security, for Palestinian aspirations, and for regional stability. – Samantha Powers, US ambassador to the UN, April 21

If the new Israeli government is seen as stepping back from its commitment to a two-state solution – that makes our jobs in the international arena a lot tougher because our ability to push back on efforts to internationalize the conflict…
has depended on our insistence that the best course is in achieving a two-state solution. – Wendy Sherman, US under-secretary of state, April 27
Read more…

By Caroline Glick, JPOST

The notion that a rape victim deserved to be raped because she was wearing a tight outfit lights up all our red lights.

This is the case first and foremost because it absolves the rapist of responsibility for his crime.

Then too, attempts to blame a rape victim for her victimization infuriate us because they are substantively untrue. If men are more likely to rape women in tight clothing then rape should be all but non-existent in traditional Islamic societies. Yet the opposite is the case. Rape and sexual abuse are endemic to such societies. According to the UN, a whopping 99.3 percent of Egyptian women report having suffered sexual abuse.
Read more…