By Shoshana Bryen, AMERICAN THINKER
Portrayed mainly as a tiff between President Obama and Prime Minister Netanyahu, the U.S.-Israel divide over how to deal with Iran’s nuclear program is much more serious and dates to the 1980s. It reflects the difference in each country’s margin of error. President Obama has only widened an existing divide by suggesting Iran might be returned to the family of nations short of dismantling its nuclear program. Prime Minister Netanyahu’s planned appearance before Congress will articulate Israel’s existential concerns and try, perhaps, narrow the differences over ends, if not means.
The Washington Post, unstintingly liberal in both foreign and domestic policy, has become increasingly skeptical of President Obama’s approach. David Ignatius, Associate Editor of the Post and a columnist exceedingly well connected to the State Department, this week ran excerpts of his interview with Israel’s Minister of Security, Yuval Steinitz. Steinitz, unstintingly hard line in both foreign and domestic policy, made three primary points: Read more…
New poll by i24news contradicts recent TV polls, says Likud poised to win, while leftwing Meretz, rightwing religious Shas might not even cross election threshold.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s ruling Likud party is currently polling four seats ahead of its top rival, the center-left Zionist Union, the latest i24news poll revealed Sunday.
Infographic: i24news
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A girl displaced as a result of Boko Haram attack in the northeast region of Nigeria, rests her head on a desk at Maikohi secondary school camp for internally displaced persons (IDP) in Yola. (photo credit:REUTERS)
A Nigerian government spokesman told The Jerusalem Post on Thursday that Israel has been a crucial and loyal ally in the fight against the radical Islamic terrorist group Boko Haram.
“Israel has been a crucial and loyal ally in our fight against Boko Haram. It is a sad reality that Israel has a great deal of experience confronting terrorism,” Mike Omeri, the chief coordinating spokesman of the National Information Center, based in Abuja said. “Our Israeli partners have used that experience, and the unique expertise gained over years of fighting terror within its own borders, to assist us.” Read more…
[T. Belman. If only Israel’s high court would uphold the same maxim.]
By Michael Devolin, JIHAD WATCH
“The people’s safety is the highest law.” – Legal and political maxim
The article also notes that “Ishaq, a Pakistani national and devout Sunni Muslim, says her religious beliefs obligate her to wear a niqab.” Apparently Canadians shouldn’t really be offended by a Pakistani national, a resident alien, dictating to born and bred Canadians how we should rejigger our traditional swearing-in ceremony simply because, as a “devout Sunni Muslim,” she feels conscience-driven to cover her face while swearing allegiance to our sovereign nation. The incongruity of such an outrageous and ungrateful demand sounds so coarse in my ears.
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US and Iranian officials have plunged into a last-ditch effort to rescue their nuclear negotiations from falling into deep crisis. Some Western observers have told DEBKAfile’s Washington and Tehran sources that the talks are beyond saving.
The top-level negotiators rushed post-haste to Geneva over the weekend are: US Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz to join US Secretary of State John Kerry; and on the Iranian side, Nuclear Energy Commission Chief Ali Akbar Salehi and the president’s brother Hossein Fereydoon. They will flank Foreign Minister Mohamed Javaz Zarif.
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Organizer of Muslim Synagogue “Peace Ring” Gave “Why I Hate Jews” Speech
A lot of media outlets have fallen for the story of Muslims organizing to protect a synagogue. It’s a great media op scene, but it ignores the fact that synagogues need protection because of Muslim anti-Semitism.
There are a number of myths already circulating about it. Here’show a local described the event.
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Pm Benjamin Netanyahu criticized the international community for negotiating with Iran while taking no steps to curb its sponsorship global terrorism, as top American and Iranian diplomats attempted to hammer out a deal in Geneva.
Speaking at the weekly cabinet meeting, the prime minister said that it’s “astonishing that even after the recent IAEA report determined that Iran is continuing to hide the military components of its nuclear program, the nuclear talks are proceeding.”
“Not only are they continuing, there is an increased effort to reach a nuclear agreement in the coming days and weeks,” Netanyahu said. The deadline for the six world powers and Iran to reach a political agreement about Tehran’s unsanctioned nuclear program is March 31.
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Blair also said “Israel doesn’t understand how much the regional reality has changed.” If Israel doesn’t understand, nobody does.
On Sunday, Tony Blair was in the Gaza Strip, his first visit there since 2009. It was a surprise visit – his guards deliberated up until the last moment whether to allow him to join the convoy.
He started his visit at a checkpoint in the Hamas-run territory. He avoided meeting the Hamas prime minister Ismail Haniyeh, but met three members of the Government of National Consensus established last year in an attempt to end years of infighting between Hamas and the Palestinian Authority – the ministers for Labor, Justice and Welfare.
The convoy took the western road, through Beit Lahia and the Shata refugee camp. They took him to Saja’iyya to see the destruction from Operation Protective Edge last summer; they took him to an UNRWA school to see how Gazans who lost their homes are now living.
The highlight of the visit was a meeting with 90 businesspeople – old and young. They received him extremely warmly, and he flashed them his million-dollar smile. And at the end, they all stood in line for a selfie with him.
Read more…
By Janet Levy, AMERICAN THINKER
Riots, restrictions on speech and religion, and the takeover of politics and law enforcement are just a few of the unwelcome changes that can be expected in non-Muslim societies as Muslim immigrants increase in number, according to Dr. Peter Hammond. A Christian missionary based in South Africa and author of 40 books, Hammond delineates how Muslims change societies in his book, Slavery, Terrorism and Islam. Citing examples of countries worldwide, Hammond outlines typical activities that occur as the Muslim percentage of the total population increases. It is a warning bell about the gradual, step-by-step changes that can be expected in other countries still undergoing significant Muslim immigration.
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By: Nathan Lewin, JEWISH PRESS
President Franklin Delano Roosevelt
I was seven years old in 1943 and becoming comfortable in the United States, where my parents and I had arrived as refugees from Poland, via Japan, in 1941.
Almost from the moment we hit the blessed shores of America, my father, Rabbi Dr. Isaac Lewin, z”l, worked day and night with the Va’ad Le-Hatzala to rescue the Jews trapped in Poland and the rest of Europe. They included my grandfather, Rabbi Aaron Lewin, z”l,the revered rabbi of Rzeszow who had twice been elected to the Polish parliament, and who had – unknown to my father – already been murdered by Ukrainians in Lvov in June 1941. Read more…
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Can’t join us for this informative event? Stay tuned to Voice of Israel for the latest coverage of Israel Elections 2015.
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ISTANBUL, TURKEY – French President Francois Hollande’s hosting this month of the leading members of the Syrian Kurdish group, Democratic Union Party (PYD), is regarded as further evidence Turkey is becoming increasingly isolated and outmaneuvered by its Kurdish rivals.
Fresh from defeating Islamic State forces in the Syrian Kurdish city of Kobani, leading members from PYD and its military wing were invited by Hollande to the Elysee Palace.
Despite the fact that Ankara considers the PYD a terrorist organization, Paris made little effort to keep the meeting discreet, issuing photos of the French president talking with the Kurdish leaders, some of whom were dressed in military fatigues.
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Obama says that we are not fighting a war on Islam. What he leaves out is that under his administration the United States is fighting in a civil war that is taking place within Islam.
It’s not a conflict between the proverbial moderate Muslim and the raging fanatic. That was an outdated Bush era notion. Instead Obama has brought us into a fight between Muslim governments and Muslim terrorists, not on the side of the governments we were allied with, but on the side of the terrorists.
It’s why Egypt is shopping for French planes and Russian nukes. Yemen’s government was run out of town by Obama’s new Iranian friends in a proxy war with Saudi Arabia. And the Saudis are dumping oil.
Iran and Qatar are the regional powers Obama is closest to. What these two countries have in common, is that despite their mutual hostility, they are both international state sponsors of Islamic terrorism. Read more…
DEBKAfile’s exclusive military and intelligence sources have discovered a large-scale Iranian airlift is in progress for bringing thousands of Shiite fighters to the Syrian Mediterranean port of Latakia to reinforce the Syrian army forces falling back from the key city of Aleppo. Some of the flights are taking off from Baghdad airport. The Syrian rebels in heavy fighting Thursday and Friday, Feb. 19-20 repulsed a Hizballah-backed Syrian army offensive to recapture the town and took scores of Hizballah fighters prisoner.
The incoming reinforcements are being transferred directly to the Aleppo battle-front in an effort to stabilize it and reverse the Syrian army’s retreat.
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By Gary L. Bauer, AMERICAN VALUES
New polling confirms, once again, that American voters stand with Israel and want a tough stand against Iran’s nuclear ambitions. Here are the key findings:
Now let me remind you of these facts: Read more…
Bayit Yehudi Chairman Naftali Bennett has a canned answer for when he’s asked which ministry he wants: It depends on how many seats his party gets.
When pushed further, he says that all three senior ministries – defense, finance and foreign – are important, and he has a “clear vision” for what he could do in all of them.
Despite his politically expedient responses, the current economy minister couldn’t hide the fire in his eyes when he talked about defense issues Thursday, in his Tel Aviv office. His passion for and emphasis on security matters was apparent, backing up what sources in his inner circle have been saying for months: Naftali Bennett wants to be the next defense minister.
Bennett called for “a deep change” in the defense establishment’s approach, starting with making sure that battles take place mostly in enemy territory and military operations are short, as opposed to last summer’s 50-day Operation Protective Edge.
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Muslim mayor of Rotterdam says Europe has no place for extremists who are not willing to live within the bounds of its norms.
LOVE US OR LEAVE US
The Muslim mayor of Rotterdam, the Netherlands, said this week that Europe has no place for extremists who are not willing to live within the bounds of its norms.
Speaking to CNN’s Michael Holmes on Wednesday, the mayor, Moroccan-born Ahmed Aboutaleb suggested that those Muslims who don’t embrace values should leave Europe.
“You are not forced to be with us, it’s a choice,” he said. “Work with us together to construct a ‘we society.'”
“But if you want to stand out of the ‘we community,’ you threaten us, you go to Yemen to learn how to use a Kalashnikov and to come back to threaten the society, well you are not part of my ‘we society,’ you better leave,” added Aboutaleb. Read more…
Fifty-one percent of the respondents polled in the survey indicated that Binyamin Netanyahu was the candidate most suited to be prime minister. 28% stated that Isaac “Buji” Herzog is most suited… – Channel 2 poll, February 16
Israel’s democracy is under assault… The greatest danger to Israeli democracy emanates from those masquerading as its champions. – From “Distorting democracy,” The Jerusalem Post, July 28, 2011
Over the last few weeks, Israeli democracy has been under brutal and sustained attack in a desperate effort to subvert the will of the people.
Coup attempt by media not military
What we are witnessing is, in effect, little less than an attempt at a bloodless coup d’état – conducted, not by the military, but by the messianic, indeed manic, mainstream media, buttressed by affiliated like-minded civil society elites, in a frenzied effort to impose their minority worldview on the nation. Read more…
If Netanyahu’s speech is a success, Obama’s foreign policy will be indefensible.
Officially, the election on March 17 is among Israelis. Depending on how we vote, either Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu will remain in office and form the next government led by his Likud party, or Isaac Herzog and Tzipi Livni will form a government.
But unofficially, a far greater electoral drama is unfolding. The choice is not between Netanyahu and Herzog/Livni. It is between Netanyahu and US President Barack Obama.
As the White House sees it, if Herzog/Livni form the next government, then Jerusalem will dance to Obama’s tune. If Netanyahu is reelected, then the entire edifice of Obama’s Middle East policy may topple and fall.
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