Poof goes the Big Enchilada

By David M Weinberg, ISRAEL HAYOM

Just in case there was any doubt as to what U.S. President Barack Obama is up to, Professor Andrew Bacevich of Boston University has laid it out for us in a series of recent articles.

Obama’s nuclear deal with Iran is meant to reboot and redirect the entire vector of American Middle East policy: to retreat from Pax Americana and allow Iran to take its rightful place as a major regional power.

For decades, two tenets have informed U.S. policy in the Middle East. The first is that U.S. interests there are best served by the position of unquestioned American pre-eminence. The second is that military might holds the key to maintaining that dominant position. (In this context, Israel has been an important U.S. regional ally).
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Analysts reveal Erdogan’s Kurdish crackdown was meant to reverse elections defeat, but new poll proves it had the exact opposite effect.

By Ari Yashar, INN

Analysts revealed that Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) launched an unofficial war on Kurdish forces last month as a ploy to make up for its historic failure in June elections – but new polls on Friday show Erdogan may have shot himself in the foot ahead of snap elections.

After an Islamic State (ISIS) suicide bombing against Kurdish activists in Turkeylast month, several Kurdish militants conducted attacks on police, given thatTurkey has cooperated with ISIS. Erdogan leaped on the events by launching a two-pronged crackdown against the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), breaking off peace talks with the militant group and leaving hundreds dead, as well as a campaign against ISIS that has yet to truly materialize.
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We can expect reports such as Pew’s to “become the wave of the future in Jewish quantitative sociology,” expert tells ‘Post.’

By Sam Sokol, JPOST

There are several striking similarities between Orthodox Jews and the right wing of American Christianity, according to a report released Wednesday by the Pew Research Center.

Based on data collected during the course of the center’s 2013 study of American Jewry, the new report found that the Orthodox “more closely resemble white evangelical Protestants than they resemble other US Jews” in a number of key ways.
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15% of settlers are American, new research claims. Approximately 60,000 US Jews, out of the 170,000 in Israel, live in West Bank, study shows

JTA

Fifteen percent of West Bank settlers are American citizens. According to an Oxford University professor, approximately 60,000 American Jews live in Jewish settlements in the West Bank, Haaretz reported Thursday.

“This provides hard evidence that this constituency is strikingly over-represented, both within the settler population itself and within the total population of Jewish American immigrants in Israel,” Sara Yael Hirschhorn, the author of the forthcoming book “City on a Hilltop: Jewish-American Settlers in the Occupied Territories Since 1967,” said during a presentation at Jerusalem’s Limmud conference, Haaretz reported.
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Iran faces unprecedented water shortage, so severe that much of the country could become uninhabitable and millions forced to emigrate.

By Martin Sherman, JPOST

Our main problem [the water crisis] that threatens us, that is more dangerous than Israel, America or political fighting, is the issue of living in Iran. It is that the Iranian plateau is becoming uninhabitable

– Isa Kalantari, Iran’s Agriculture Minister (1989-98) under Ayatollahs Rafsanjani’s and Khatami’s presidencies, cited in “Iran Becoming ‘Uninhabitable,” Al-Monitor, July 9, 2013

… if Iran doesn’t radically change its water usage, 50 million people – 70 percent of Iranians – will have no choice but to leave the country

– Thomas Friedman, “For the Mideast, It’s Still 1979,” The New York Times, July 29, 2015

Iran is headed for a water shortage of epic proportions, and little is being done to reverse a decades-long trend that has reduced the country’s water supply to crisis levels… scientists warn that the already arid country runs the risk of becoming a vast desert.

– Jason Rezaian, “Iran’s water crisis the product of decades of bad planning,” TheWashington Post, July 2, 2014
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Progressivism/liberalism and its unintended but certain consequences.

By Giulio Meotti, INN

[..]All forms of collective violence have a religious dimension” Roger Scruton, the most influential English philosopher, professor at St. Andrews University, a fellow of the British Academy and the Royal Society of Literature tells me in our conversation. “Christians are vulnerable and ISIS will go on with their decimation and will not stop until the West militarily attacks the Islamic State. The West is in retreat from the world, has lost all the spiritual and cultural values on which Europe was founded. Otherwise, facing these reports of Christians killed and churches destroyed, the West would immediately intervene against ISIS. But it will be punished, even by its own European multiculturalism”.
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T. Belman. Progressive American Jews think their values are so superior to Israel’s. (Dialoguing While Drifting Apart: American Jews and Israel). They reject Israel because they believe the propaganda against it. They think they are so progressive because of their tolerance, if not embrace, of Islam and its followers, never once affording the same treatment to their fellow Jews in Israel. Of course that makes them hypocrites. For all their vaunted superiority of values, the country they helped fashion is virtually a failed society. Just look and the number of murders committed, the high levels of incarceration of her citizens, the number of homeless, the high unemployment, the poor schooling for her children, the high divorce rates, the huge number of single mothers, the extremely high cost of health care, the high number of people who are uninsured due to the cost, the high infant mortality rate (double Israel’s), the lower than Israel life expectancy, and so on, all worse than in Israel.

They reject Israel because of their progressive values vs Isdrael’s perceived reactionary values, not realizing that Israel is more progressive than they are. For instance, Tel Aviv Declared World’s Best Gay Travel Destination. Israel scrupelouly maintains separation of religion and state. There are 15 different religious courts in Israel all entitled to set any rules they want for marriage.

And now we have two more surveys that place Israel well above America, namely, as a place to raise a family and a place to find happiness. This reality contributes to Israeli Jews having more babies than American Jews by a margin of 2 to 1.

And this is so even though Israel has to contend with so many threats to her existence, daily.

JPOST

Israel came in fourth place out of 41 countries included in the 2015 InterNations Family Life Index released on Tuesday.

Also Israel ranked 11th happiest country in the world

InterNations, an organization dedicated to assisting ex-patriots acclimate to their new country, released their annual Family Life Index which “ranks countries according to their results in subcategories such as availability of childcare and education, costs of childcare and education, quality of education, family well-being, as well as childcare and education options,” according to their website.
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By Moshe Feiglin, MAHIGUT YEHUDIT

From the recordings of former Defense Minister Ehud Barak, we can conclude that Israel’s security chiefs – all of them – IDF, Mossad, Shabak – represent a strategic threat to Israel’s security.

On the eve of the Six Day War, Israel was facing an existential threat. PM Eshkol and his cabinet deliberated. The security apparatus had planned a scheme that was wild by any measure – to send Israel’s entire air force – in total radio silence – to fly tree-height on a long flanking trajectory that would use every bit of the planes’ fuel – and to attack the Egyptian Air Force from Cairo and not Tel Aviv. Then, the planes were to return, fuel up and start the war.
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By PAMELA GELLER

It’s not just Canada. It’s everywhere. In America, voices of freedom are prohibited from speaking at college campuses. Mainstream media outlets blacklist those who oppose jihad terror. Curt Schilling gets fired from ESPN for a tweet against Islamic extremism.

Years ago I said “truth is the new hate speech.” I was right, and now it is becoming law.
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She was born and educated in a haredi community, and felt she was different ever since she was young. After refusing an arranged marriage, ‘Raheli’ decided to come out and tell her parents about her orientation. Today she lives with a woman and even plans to marry her.

By Yael Gazith, YNET

About seven years ago I began anonymously publishing stories on an online forum for gay writers. The combination of the site’s obscurity and its blessed anonymity created a safe space in the complicated reality of life in the closet. Together we coped with dilemmas and hardships, and the feeling of solidarity made us feel less alone.

After a few months we decided to leave the walls of the internet and scheduled a meeting in public. The meeting itself was not particularly exciting and I have forgotten it. Most of the forum members did not surprise me or change what I thought about them, until she arrived. She apologized for being late and introduced herself humorously straight away.
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The statistic includes only the Old City area – which means the full numbers are much worse.

By Orli Harari, INN

Firebomb attack in Jerusalem

Jerusalem is under a full-blown massive terror onslaught – or “intifada,” as Arabs call it – official statistics prove. The statistics were compiled by the Ministry of Construction and Housing, which operates a security service in the area known as the “Old City Basin.” The area includes the Old City quarters inside the city’s ancient walls, as well as the Mount of Olives, the Silwan (Shiloah) neigborhood and the City of David.

The numbers for June and July indicate an average of close to ten terror attacks per day in this part of the city.
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T. Belman. A few weeks ago, I wrote Right-wing Zionism and progressive Jewish liberalism are irreconcilable in which I made the same point. Also read the comments.

Why the average American Jew still supports Obama.

By Dr Chaim Charles Cohen, INN

The American and Israeli Social Value Gap

A ‘funny thing’ is happening with regard to Congressional consideration of the Iran nuclear accord. A majority of rank-and-file Americans seem to oppose the accord, while a majority of rank-and-file Jews support Pres. Obama’s agreement. How did we arrive at this disturbing junction in Jewish history in which non-Jewish Americans are more ‘pro-Israel’ than Jewish Americans? The answer, put forth in this article, is very simple. American Jews, particularly those under 45, are increasingly enraptured by liberal social values, and, as a consequence, enraptured by Pres. Obama. And their allegiance to liberalism takes precedence over an ethnic based identification with Israel. And ‘to make things worse’ in the eyes of American Jewish liberals, Israeli society is increasingly embodying a set of traditional-religious, nationalistic social values that it rejects. This makes a positive identification with Israel even more difficult. Thus, Jewish support for Obama forcefully illustrates the more general phenomenon of a growing social value gap, and thus distancing, between American Jewish and Israeli society. And it is disturbingly unclear when, and how, this social value gap will ever be closed.
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The Democrats are becoming a party of atom bomb spies.

Daniel Greenfield, FPM

Senator Markey has announced his support for the Iran deal that will let the terrorist regime inspect its own Parchin nuclear weapons research site, conduct uranium enrichment, build advanced centrifuges, buy ballistic missiles, fund terrorism and have a near zero breakout time to a nuclear bomb.

There was no surprise there.

Markey had topped the list of candidates supported by the Iran Lobby. And the Iranian American Political Action Committee (IAPAC) had maxed out its contributions to his campaign.

After more fake suspense, Al Franken, another IAPAC backed politician who also benefited from Iran Lobby money, came out for the nuke sellout.
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Obama’s desire for a viable Iranian nuclear weapons program is now crystal clear.

By Caroline Glick, FPM

Under President Barack Obama, the US has implemented policies toward Iran that are catastrophic for Israel specifically, for US Middle East allies more generally and for US national security itself.

Consider, first, the known details of the soon-to-be- concluded nuclear deal.

In an article published by The New York Times this week, Prof. Alan Kuperman explained that Obama’s central justification for the agreement – that it will lengthen Iran’s breakout time to the bomb from the current two months to 12 months – is a lie.

Based on nothing more than the number of centrifuges Iran will be allowed to possess and the amount of enriched uranium necessary to make a nuclear bomb, Kuperman demonstrated that far from prolonging Iran’s nuclear breakout time by 10 months, the deal will only prolong its breakout time by one month. In other words, the deal is worthless.
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T, Belman. The fact that Iran keeps calling for Israel’s destruction and P5+1 still makes a deal with them, can only be interpreted that the West is condonning such actions. No other interpretation is viable. Get ready for a major war this fall.

Adviser to parliamentary speaker rejects British foreign secretary’s suggestion that Rouhani indicating ‘more nuanced approach’ to Jewish state

TOI

A senior Iranian official on Tuesday said Israel “should be annihilated,” and that the thawing relations with the West would not translate into a shift in Tehran’s position concerning the Jewish state.

Hussein Sheikholeslam, a foreign affairs adviser to parliament speaker Ali Larijani, told Iranian media that contrary to remarks by British Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond, “Our positions against the usurper Zionist regime have not changed at all; Israel should be annihilated and this is our ultimate slogan.”
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Jerome R. Corsi, WND

Corsi, NEW YORK – Amid debate over President Obama’s nuclear deal with Iran, two retired military officers contend their accumulation of evidence from open and intelligence sources shows Tehran already has a nuclear-weapons capability.

Retired U.S. Army Maj. Gen. Paul Vallely and U.S. Air Force Lt. Col. Dennis B. Haney assert that since 1979, a cabal of nations has aided and abetted Iran in its efforts to develop a robust nuclear program under the guise of generating a nuclear-energy system.

And they believe the White House is fully aware.
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By Isi Leibler, ISRAEL HAYOM

Clearly, Obama’s long-term strategy from the outset was to create a realignment in the Middle East through a U.S. engagement with the most dangerous Islamic rogue state and thus abandon Israel, the only genuinely democratic ally in the region.

The U.S.-Israel tensions that have escalated over the Iranian issue during the past month have led to waves of criticism of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Yet in reality, Netanyahu has proven to be an impressive statesman. His address to the joint meeting of Congress, though initially harshly condemned, was far from being a disaster and served to establish the parameters of the debate. His widely disseminated statements articulating the case against the Iranian “deal” resonated widely among the American public, and he is due much of the credit for persuading the majority of Americans to oppose the disastrous capitulation to Iran.

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By RICHARD BAEHR, ISRAEL HAYOM

One by one, U.S. Senate Democrats are announcing that after much deliberation ??(translated as arm twisting by President Barack Obama), they have decided to support the ?Iran deal, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, despite serious misgivings. Each of the senators wants you to ?know that they were personally wrestling with this decision for weeks, talking to ?experts (provided by the Obama administration for the most part), reading the ?agreement carefully, weighing and balancing risk versus reward. Each Senate ?Democrat joining the charade of moving from indecision to decision, whether ?Claire McCaskill of Missouri or Kirsten Gillibrand of New York or Harry Reid of ?Nevada, makes sure to add that they want to do everything to protect our ally ?Israel, and will support other steps as necessary to remain vigilant on that front. ?Some of the deal supporters call for more military aid in the future for Israel, ?others for selling bunker buster bombs to Israel in case Iran violates the ?agreement in obvious ways that even the Obama administration can not hide.

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By Cliff Kincaid, CFP

[..]

“But Roger Morgan, the author of a book on hedge fund operator and billionaire George Soros, wonders how greedy Soros has been, and whether the media will bother to take a look. He notes that the hedge fund operator’s net worth rose from about $9 billion before President Obama took office to over $24 billion today.

How did this happen? Was he just a good investor? Did he have inside information? Was he the beneficiary of crony capitalism? Why don’t the investigative reporters get busy on this story?”