BY DAVID P. GOLDMAN (SPENGLER), ASIA TIMES

“If ISIS doesn’t liberate Palestine, who will?,” asks Iran Press TV columnist andHezbollah  supporter Franklin Lamb in the lead item in today’s Eurasia Review.

ISIS is offering oppressed and desperate populations in this region both hope and fantasy for escaping their deepening misery. The dream is to escape abject poverty and indignity by any means necessary, and joining ISIS or other like-minded cash-flush groups, which seem to appear out of thin air these days, is the most promising way to do it… ISIS representatives in the camps are pledging to destroy the Zionist occupation and boast about opening up Palestine to Full Return within two years.
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by Frank Gaffney, Jr. and Fred Fleitz, JPOST

The Iran nuclear talks have missed the June 30 deadline imposed by US President Barack Obama for a final agreement, but the US negotiators are hoping a deal can be struck by July 7. This is an important date because under the Corker-Cardin bill (the Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act of 2015), if an agreement is sent to Congress by July 9, the House and Senate will have only 30 days to review it. If submitted after July 9, however, legislators will have 60 days.

We believe the Obama administration has made unacceptable concessions to Iran in the nuclear talks and, as a result, that any agreement produced by these talks will be a very bad deal.
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by Jonathan Schanzer

As some see it, what’s happening now in the Mideast provides the best excuse the Israelis have had in a long time to just sit back and let their worst enemies rub each other out. Senior Israeli officials now view Hamas, the terror group that lobbed thousands of rockets at Israel last summer, as a potential bulwark against supporters of the Islamic State (Daesh in Arabic) in the Gaza Strip. This was the gist of a June 19 opinion piece by Efraim Halevi, former director of Israel’s Mossad intelligence agency, in the popular daily Yediot Ahronot. Reports suggest that Israel is now even mulling a truce with Hamas, with one intended consequence being that the group would devote its energies to defeating Daesh.

True, it is likely that both of Israel’s foes could be badly bloodied. And that’s probably a positive. This was the Western calculus during the Iran-Iraq war (1980-88). As Henry Kissinger reportedly quipped, “It’s a pity they both can’t lose.” But when the guns fell silent, neither country was defeated. And both emerged committed and able to destabilize the Middle East and threaten American interests.
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Haredi startup to win million-dollar prize at ‘world’s premier haredi business conference,’ smashing stereotypes and helping entrepreneurs.

By Ari Soffer, INN

By David Gross, INN

[..] Yet I was disappointed that the panacea that some people prescribed was to take aim at the legislative moves to bring more transparency and corporate governance to NGOs that function here in Israel. Let us take one of the bills that is making its way through the Knesset under the sponsorship of MK Bezalel Smotrich: All NGOs that receive funding from foreign governments will be considered by the law as lobbyists and as such will have to adjust their activities accordingly.

Now, this might dismay those who work for Btselem, Breaking the Silence and other similar groups, whose reliance on foreign governments is well-documented. Whether serving as advisors to the Goldstone or Schabas-Davis Reports, making baseless and unverified accusations against the IDF and other activities that only seek to besmirch the reputation of Israel, especially abroad, one wonders why anyone would think that it would be reasonable for such groups to retain charitable status.
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T. Belman. What is not mentioned in this article is whether selling the boycotted goods to alternate markets has been taken into account. Plus the $40 Billion is a worst case scenario. I think it is scare-mongering.

TOI

Israel’s economy could lose up to NIS 40 billion ($10.5 billion) per year and thousands of people could lose their jobs if the country is subject to a full international boycott, according to a Finance Ministry report unveiled last week after a two-year battle.

The six-page report, completed in mid-2013, warns damage from an international boycott could range from approximately half a billion shekels ($130 million) per year and up to 500 people losing their jobs, to NIS 40 billion and 36,500 firings, depending on the scope of the boycott and its rate of adoption around the world.
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Intelligence officer: Islamic State in league with Hamas to create Gaza smuggling route

Why an ISIS Gaza might help end terrorism.

By Daniel Greenfield, FPM

Long after the PLO had outlived its role as an even halfway plausible peace partner; Israel was forced to keep the terrorist group on life support as a bulwark against Hamas.

PLO leaders posture about having the UN declare a state, but not only would that state instantly be more bankrupt than ten Greek economies piled on top of each other, but its collection of terrorists who are great at running drugs and shaking down West Bank storekeepers for protection money would last all of 5 seconds in a grudge match with Hamas.
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By Herb Keinon, JPOST

With Greece’s future crowded in great uncertainty, Greek Foreign Minister Nikos Kotzias spoke in Jerusalem on Monday of developing an axis of security and stability among Israel, Greece, and Cyprus inside what he called a regional “triangle of destabilization.”

Speaking alongside Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu before their meeting, Kotzias said that, “We are living inside a triangle of destabilization,” which he said begins “at the top” with Ukraine, and extends on one side to Libya, and on the other through Iraq and Syria.

“We have to create inside this triangle a security and stability framework, and the relations between Israel, Cyprus and Greece are very important,” he said. “I call it the stabilization line in this area.”
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T. Belman. Israel asked Germany to work for a softer resolution that it would vote for. In other words, Israel wanted Germany and India and others to trade their yes vote for a softer resolution.

Germany’s readiness to participate in anti-Israel demonization taking place in the UN and similar venues is a growing source of friction.

By Benjamin Weinthal, JPOST

In a full year of celebrations marking 50 years of German-Israel diplomatic relations, diplomatic niceties were absent at last week’s UNHRC Gaza report vote in Geneva, where the Merkel administration condemned Israel for its military methods during Operation Protective Edge.

Asked by The Jerusalem Post on Monday why Germany voted against Israel, a spokeswoman for the Foreign Ministry wrote, “Germany led intensive negotiations with EU states in the United Nations Human Rights Council over the draft of the resolution. Thereby important changes of the content of the resolution could be reached, for example, a restriction of the follow-ups to the report of the fact-finding commission.”
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Jewish Cognitive Infirmity

By Charles Jacobs, AMERICAN THINKER

Many of my Christian friends are baffled by what they see as Jewish political ineptitude. How is it, they ask, that the Jews, admired as talented practitioners in so many fields, seem quite – they recoil at using the word — “stupid” when it comes to defending Israel?

My Christian friends are baffled by the ineffectual Jewish response to rhetorical attacks on the world’s only Jewish state. Instead of pointing out how unfair, untrue, out of context, and hypocritical these criticisms — and those who make them — are, many Jews act as though these attacks are nothing but legitimate criticisms, and then try to respond as though to reasonable objections to some aspect of Israeli behavior. “How dumb can they be,” ask my Christian friends.
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By Michael Rubin, COMMENTARY

European officials and European civil society often like to think of themselves as the pinnacle of human rights and morality. In reality, Europe has become a moral vacuum and, once again, a breeding ground for casual hate, racism, and anti-Semitism. This has become clear not only through the example of sophisticated elites like former Irish President Mary Robinson, British Labor politician Jeremy Corbyn, or Daniel Bernard, the late French ambassador to the United Kingdom, but also in the increasing European obsession with stable, democratic Israel, while countries surrounding Israel degenerate into anarchy, generate millions of refugees, promote genocide, and incite and sponsor terrorism.
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DEBKAfile JUly 6/15

An immense stretch of Sinai desert populated by half a million people is under siege, as the Egyptian army fights off a major offensive by the Islamic State’s Egyptian affiliate, the Sinai Province, against its positions in northern Sinai. The battle, which Monday, July 6, went into its sixth day, is being fought in an area bounded by the northern town of Sheikh Zuwaid, Rafah on the Gaza border, and up to Kerem Shalom and Nitzana on the Israeli border to the south.

DEBKAfile’s military sources report a news blackout on the ongoing warfare except for Egyptian army handouts.
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Analysis: Officials in Cairo and in Jerusalem voiced the same mantra over the weekend: It’s not ISIS, it’s Hamas which is insisting on rocking Egypt. But for how long can Israel rely solely on Egypt to keep the triangle of terror off its fence?

By Smadar Perry, YNET

There are two ways to look at the image and conduct of General Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, the president of Egypt: He is either a nervous dictator who takes the law into his hands, silences people, throws his rivals in jail and sentences them to death by mere words, or a patriotic leader who has come to turn over a new leaf, stabilize the complicated security situation, create economic solutions and restore the trust of the world and of some 100 million Egyptian residents.
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The 20 Parliamentarians signed a foundation document reaffirming Israel as a Jewish state with Jerusalem as its capital.

By GIL HOFFMAN, JPOST

Costa Rico has announced an official Israel Allies Caucus in its parliament last week, becoming the 33rd country in the world to do so, officials present at the event said Sunday.

The caucus was facilitated by The Israel Allies Foundation, an organization dedicated to promoting communication between parliamentarians and legislators around the world who share the belief that the State of Israel has the right to exist in peace within secure borders.

“The establishment of the caucus demonstrates Costa Rica’s profound support for Israel and the importance it places in its bilateral relationship with the Jewish state,” said the foundation’s Latin American coordinator, Leopoldo Martinez.
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US Jewish leader says valid to criticize American Jewry, comes out against ‘character assassination’ of Oren.

By HERB KEINON, JASON SHALTIEL, JPOST

France is having second thoughts about submitting a Mideast resolution to the UN Security Council that would lock in the parameters of an Israeli-Palestinian two-state solution, Malcolm Hoenlein said on Sunday.

Hoenlein, the head of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, said at a briefing to The Jerusalem Post editorial staff on Sunday that he was not sure the French will go ahead with their plans to submit a resolution as they will be hesitant to submit a draft resolution if they feel the US will veto it, or if the Palestinians will not be satisfied with a “watered down” resolution the Americans might be willing to let pass.
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TIP: FP article is as brutal an evaluation as you’re likely to read of the administration’s all-out PR campaign against skeptics of its Iran diplomacy. The PR strategy is an extension of the administration playing Iran’s lawyer whenever the Iranians violate their obligations: in addition to spinning away the message, administration spokespeople have become somewhat notorious for going after the messengers. Adults in Washington have taken notice:

James Jeffrey, a career diplomat and former ambassador during the Obama administration, said he has been put off by what he considers the highhanded tone and contradictory explanations from the White House. “It’s this arrogant, you-just-don’t-know attitude that is taken by the administration,” Jeffrey told Foreign Policy. In their zeal to defend what has already been agreed under an April framework accord, U.S. officials have sometimes gone out of their way to defend Iran, insisting Tehran is abiding by its promises, Jeffrey said… David Albright, a physicist who leads the Institute for Science and International Security and who has been tracking Iran’s nuclear program for years, said he has been unfairly labeled by the administration as an opponent of an accord. He complained that a “war room” mentality has taken hold inside the White House and warned against taking a black-and-white view of the tentative deal emerging from the talks in Vienna.

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By Vic Rosenthal

John Kerry in Vienna:

It’s now time to see whether or not we are able to close an agreement … But I want to be absolutely clear with everybody, we are not yet where we need to be on several of the most difficult issues. …

This negotiation could go either way. If hard choices get made in the next couple of days and made quickly, we could get an agreement this week. But if they are not made, we will not.

Either Mr. Kerry is in the grips of a historic self-delusion, or he thinks we are remarkably stupid.
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T. Belman. After the first Gaza war I wrote Don’t Muddy the Waters:

I am totally against involving the courts to impose restrictions on the IDF which result in a price being paid. This is the business of the military and not the courts. When the High Court had to decide on the fence location it used the rule of proportionality to balance the interests of Israel’s security against the inconvenience to the Arabs. How do you give the nod to inconvenience over security?

The Rules of Engagement in Israel have every commander thinking twice about taking action, even at the risk of his own and his soldiers’ lives.

By Gil Solomon, INN

Have you ever wondered why Israel has the most complicated rules of engagement imposed on its military, rules that would never see the light of day in any country on this planet? Now that the IDF and right wing politicians found it necessary topublicly back an IDF commander’s shooting (after firing warning shots in the air) of an Arab youth who threw large rocks at his vehicle several days ago, shattering the window in a planned attack, the question has arisen once again.

Israel’s Rules of Engagement require IAF cockpit operations be watched in real time by a military lawyer with the power to call off a strike at the last second if need be for whatever reason he sees fit. Rules of Engagement ensure every conflict ends prematurely or inconclusively, never with the crushing defeat and unconditional surrender of the enemy, while the media constantly follow the IDF in its sphere of operations wherever that may be.
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New survey by Frank Luntz shows almost half of Democratic ‘opinion elites’ think Israel is racist, barely half believe it wants peace, and three quarters feel it has too much influence on US policy

By David Horowitz, TOI

Three quarters of highly educated, high income, publicly active US Democrats — the so-called “opinion elites” — believe Israel has too much influence on US foreign policy, almost half of them consider Israel to be a racist country, and fewer than half of them believe that Israel wants peace with its neighbors. These are among the findings of a new survey carried out by US political consultant Frank Luntz.
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By JPOST.COM STAFF, 07/05/2015

At weekly cabinet meeting, prime minister says that deal emerging with Iran is worse than deal that led to North Korea obtaining an arsenal of nuclear weapons.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday expressed alarm at the emerging nuclear deal between western powers and Iran currently taking place in Vienna.

Speaking at the opening of the weekly cabinet meeting, Netanyahu said that “what’s coming out of the nuclear talks in Vienna is not a breakthrough, it’s a breakdown.”

Netanyahu said that the world powers were conceding more and more with each passing day.
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