Syrian army tears through the south to sweep Iran and Hizballah up to Israel’s Golan doorstep  

Ted Belman. Remember, Israel’s ceasefire agreement with Syria, provided for a buffer zone. Assad and his father respected this buffer zone til now. Israel must not let Hezbollah/Syria/Iran into this zone.

DEBKAfile Exclusive Report February 11, 2015, 10:39 AM (IDT)

The large-scale offensive the Syrian army launched in southern Syria Sunday, Feb. 8 – the broadest in that region in the nearly-four year conflict – heralded Act III of the Iranian-Hizballah drive for a position on Israel’s Golan border, DEBKAfile’s military sources report.

Israel curtailed Act I on Jan 18 with an air strike which killed a dozen Iranian and Hizballah officers scooping out the Golan town of Quneitra for their new base. Among them were the commander of Iranian forces in Syria, Revolutionary Guards general Mohamad Ali Allah Dadi and a senior Hizballah officer Ali al-Tabtabani.
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February 12, 2015 | 6:13 pm | 3 Comments »

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‘Net Neutrality’ is Hijacking the Information Highway  

By Judi McLeod, CFP

net neutralityQuickly and quietly”, high-handed Barack Obama and the Democrats are working on hijacking the Information Highway.

Big Government takeover of the Internet will become a fait accompli by February 26, 2015 with a Federal Communications Commission (FCC ) vote.  By the time the public becomes aware of it, the Internet will already belong to Obama.

Suffering in silence with no means of communication to others is exactly what Obama wants on his mission for his ever-expanding Fundamental Transformation of the Free West.
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February 12, 2015 | 4:06 pm | 2 Comments »

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European Anti-Semitism Starts from the Top  

By Evelyn Gordon, COMMENTARY

The Obama administration’s inexplicable denial that last month’s attack on a kosher supermarket in Paris could possibly be anti-Semitic overshadowed yesterday’s other interesting tidbit from the anti-Semitism front: German Jewish organizations are furious because a blue-ribbon panel set up by the German government to advise it on fighting anti-Semitism doesn’t include a single Jew. It’s hard to imagine that a panel on, say, prejudice against Muslims or blacks would exclude representatives of the targeted community. But the more serious concern is that a panel without Jews will ignore one of the main manifestations of modern anti-Semitism, as exemplified by another German decision just last week: a judicial ruling that there’s nothing anti-Semitic about torching a synagogue to protest Israeli actions in Gaza.
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February 12, 2015 | 3:54 pm | 5 Comments »

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Israel thwarts Hamas attempt to smuggle weapons into Gaza by sea  

By Lilach Shoval, Israel Hayom Staff and AP

The Israeli military says a boat carrying materials for making weapons was intercepted by the Israeli Navy last month en route to the Gaza Strip from the Sinai Peninsula.

The statement late Wednesday said the vessel carried material for intended for use by the Hamas military wing to build rockets and mortars.

The Shin Bet said that during the investigation the three detained men provided substantial information about smuggling between Sinai and Gaza and about Hamas’ use of fishermen and smugglers for its needs.
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February 12, 2015 | 3:34 pm | Comments »

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Syria/Iran/Hezbollah battle for control of buffer zone.  

T. Belman. It seems that both Israel and Jordan have been supporting the opposition along their borders so that the buffer zone is maintained. There is also plans for this buffer zone to extend into Lebanon.

By Roi Kas, YNET

Map depicting Syrian army's offensive

A major offensive by the Syrian army in its southern front, in cooperation with Hezbollah and Iranian elements, continued on Thursday, not far from the Golan Heights.

Mere days after the start of the operation, the Syrian Armed Forces declared on Wednesday night that they had made significant achievements in the bloody land battles.

So far, Assad’s soldiers, aided by Hassan Nasrallah’s fighters, successfully retook three towns in the strategic triangle that lies between the Damascus suburbs, Quneitra suburbs, and Daraa suburbs. These include the villages of Deir al-Adas, Al Dnaj, and Deir Makas, as seen in the map below.
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February 12, 2015 | 3:10 pm | 1 Comment »

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German Anti-Semitism Commission Fails to Include Jews  

German Jewish groups outraged as government creates a new commission on anti-Semitism without including any Jews in it.

By Ben Ariel, INN

Merkel1The government in Germany has come under criticism for creating a new commission on anti-Semitism – but failing to include in it a single Jewish person, reports The Associated Press (AP).

Julius Schoeps from the Moses Mendelssohn Center for European-Jewish Studies called it “a unique scandal” that the Interior Ministry didn’t include any Jewish scientists or community leaders on the commission it created to fight anti-Semitism and support Jewish life in Germany.

Schoeps announced that his center, in cooperation with the American Jewish Committee (AJC) and the Amadeu Antonio Foundation against anti-Semitism and racism, would create an alternative commission that would stress the Jewish perspective and include both Jewish and non-Jewish experts.
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February 12, 2015 | 2:44 pm | 1 Comment »

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Netanyahu Must Absolutely Make that Speech  

Not to worry about whether Obama will hate Bibi even more and be even more mixed on Israel. There is no “more” that he can hate Bibi, and Obama cannot be worse to Israel than he is because, for reasons beyond his control, he is as bad as he can be.

By Rabbi Prof. Dov Fisher, INN

Bibi absolutely must make that speech. I do not know whether it will do any good, whether it will change anything. But he must make that speech to Congress.

We now have a President in the United States who has absolutely no comprehension as to how to deal with tyrants, dictators, bullies, and thugs. Worse — much worse than that — is that this President does not know what he does not know. He believes he is a genius, the smartest person in the room. He surrounds himself with sycophants who tell him that he is the smartest person in the room. Yes, history will clear it all up, recording him among the five least competent or qualified of all American presidents. Possibly the least of all.
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February 12, 2015 | 12:53 pm | 9 Comments »

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Rouhani: You Can’t Stabilize the Middle East Without Us  

Iran’s president suggests that reaching a nuclear deal with his country could have an effect on all the issues troubling the Middle East.

By Elad Bernari, INN

Iran’s president, Hassan Rouhani, said Wednesday that the world needs Iran’s help to stabilize a troubled Middle East, AFP reported, in remarks pointing to the wider ramifications of a deal over Tehran’s disputed nuclear program.

In a live televised speech marking the anniversary of the 1979 Islamic revolution, Rouhani implicitly linked ongoing nuclear talks with world powers to resolvingbloody conflicts in Iraq and Syria.

“If there is going to be peace and stability in the region, and terrorism is to be uprooted, there is no other way than with the presence of the Islamic Republic of Iran,” he claimed.
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February 12, 2015 | 8:00 am | 1 Comment »

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Obama will agree to anything and ignore everything  

By Arlene Kushner

In case you still had doubts about Obama’s positions regarding jihadi terrorism, I provide here just one more instance that makes it clear how eager he is to deny what is in front of all our faces.

Two days ago, in the course of an interview with Matthew Yglesias of Vox.com, the president referred to the Islamic jihadis who shot up the kosher store in Paris after the Charlie Hebdo attack as “vicious zealots” who “randomly” shot “a bunch of folks in a deli in Paris.”

The “vicious zealots” are not identified as Islamists.  (They never are so identified by Obama, are they?)  As he sees it, the choice of a kosher deli was just a coincidence.  And the shooting victims were merely “a bunch of folks,” and not Jews, specifically.

Mind blowing, really.
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February 12, 2015 | 6:38 am | Comments »

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Austrian prosecutor: Call to kill Jews is legal criticism of Israel  

Court rules that Austrian hair stylist’s anti-Semitic Facebook posts are a legitimate way to criticize Israel.

Anti-semitism

Berlin. Facebook postings from a Turkish man showing Adolf Hitler, with a statement praising the death of Jews, are a legitimate expression of criticizing the Jewish state, the spokesman for the prosecutor office in the city of Linz, Philip Christl, said on Tuesday.

“I could have annihilated all the Jews in the world, but I left some of them alive so you will know why I was killing them…,” Ibrahim B. wrote on his Facebook page in December.
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February 12, 2015 | 6:09 am | 2 Comments »

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Uncovered: U.K. intel encouraged Arab armies to invade Israel in 1948  

Intelligence obtained by the French secret services in the Middle East sheds new light on Britain’s role in the Arab-Israeli War of Independence.

By Meir Zamir | HAARETZ

British Prime Minister Clement Attlee and Foreign Minister Ernest Bevin.
British Prime Minister Clement Attlee and Foreign Minister Ernest Bevin.

September 11, 1947. On the eve of the Arab League’s political committee meeting to decide on the Arab response to the United Nations Special Committee on Palestine (UNSCOP) report [supporting the end of the British mandate and partitioning the land between Jews and Arabs], the Lebanese newspaper L’Orient published an article. “Bloc Oriental et extension de la Ligue” argued that, like the Greater Syria plan [that aimed to unite Syria, Lebanon, Jordan and Palestine], the Oriental Bloc – a French term for Britain’s planned regional defense pact – hung over the independence of Arab countries and the Arab League like the Sword of Damocles, and that its authors were one and the same: [Iraqi Prime Minister] Nuri al-Sa’id and [Jordanian] King Abdullah.
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February 12, 2015 | 5:49 am | 11 Comments »

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FOUND! Obama’s boots on the ground in Israel, Canada and Egypt  

By Judi McLeod, CFP

With no laws on their books to prevent it from happening, top Barack Hussein Obama campaign aides are masterminding anti Israel President Benjamin Netanyahu and anti Canada Prime Minister Stephen Harper 2015 election campaigns.

It’s a huge news story virtually ignored by mainstream media and one that thus far keeps the people whom it will most impact, the citizens of two sovereign nations, in the dark:
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February 11, 2015 | 10:17 pm | 2 Comments »

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Revisiting the Arab Peace Initiative  

T. Belman. In addition to the misconceptions about the API listed here, there are more. If you read it very carefully, Israel must do a number of things including agreeing to a 100% withdrawal, before the Arabs will consider normalizing. Secondly, according to a subsequent clarification that they issued, they rejected any solution that involves “resettling of the Palestinians outside of their homes.” meaning in Israel.

By Uri Heitner, ISRAEL HAYOM

In a new campaign, around 170 former high-ranking Israeli security officials are calling on Israelis to vote in the upcoming Knesset elections for parties that would commit to adopting the Arab Peace Initiative. I have great respect for these ex-officials, who dedicated large parts of their lives to defending Israel’s security, but history has shown that having such a background is not a guarantee of political wisdom. The security establishment has failed the country many times, particularly regarding our understanding of our enemies and our adherence to false concepts.
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February 11, 2015 | 7:01 pm | 4 Comments »

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Netanyahu Purges the Bias out of the Israel Prize Committees  

By Steven Plaut

The big headline in pre-election Israel this week has been the uncharacteristic decision by the Netanyahu government to exercise its powers to govern. Specifically, much too little and much too late, Netanyahu has decided to challenge the leftist hegemony over the awards of the “Israel Prize.” The leftist media in Israel are aghast. Labor and Meretz politicians are filing official complaints with the State Comptroller.
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February 11, 2015 | 2:00 pm | 1 Comment »

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OBAMA REFUSES TO CALL TERRORISTS, MUSLIMS AND VICTIMS, JEWS  

The president’s refusal to acknowledge the anti-Semitic nature of this crime is of a piece with his administration’s refusal to acknowledge the radical Islamic nature of our enemies.

WH Spends 7 Minutes Defending Obama Downplaying Terrorism, Calling Kosher Deli Attack ‘Random’

Obama’s Party Line: Radical Islam Denial

According to President Obama and his spokesmen, last month’s slaughter at a kosher supermarket in Paris – in which a radical Islamist terrorist murdered four people, all of them Jews – was not necessarily an act of anti-Semitic terrorism.
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February 11, 2015 | 1:44 pm | 1 Comment »

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Deja Vu: Netanyahu’s Congressional Speech Follows in Rabin’s Footsteps  

By Rafael Medoff

JNS.org – The supposedly unprecedented step taken by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in his plan to speak directly before Congress about the Iranian nuclear threat on March 3, rather than working exclusively with the White House on the issue, actually has an interesting precedent—established in 1975 by none other than Yitzhak Rabin and America’s Democratic Party.

That spring, Secretary of State Henry A. Kissinger undertook a round of shuttle diplomacy aimed at reaching a peace agreement between Israel and Egypt. The negotiations quickly ran into trouble, when Egypt refused to offer anything more than a brief a period of “non-belligerency” in exchange for an Israeli retreat from strategic mountain passes and oil fields in the Sinai desert.
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February 11, 2015 | 8:46 am | 19 Comments »

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Israel and Egypt forewarned of synchronized ISIS-Sinai assaults in both countries  

DEBKA

Intelligence gathered by Egypt and Israel attest to the former Ansar Bait al-Maqdis – now reborn as the Islamic State’s operational arm in Sinai – being well into advanced preparations for a large-scale terrorist offensive targeting Israel forces manning the Egyptian frontier, along with a string of Egyptian targets across Sinai up to and including the Suez Canal and Cairo.

According to DEBKAfile’s counter-terrorism sources, the Islamist group was so elated by the outcome of its multiple attacks on Jan. 29, which left at least 40 Egyptian soldiers dead and more than 100 injured in Sinai and Suez towns, that it is determined to keep going.
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February 11, 2015 | 8:14 am | 1 Comment »

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Lapid calls to nationalize ‘corrupt’ KKL-JNF  

Yesh Atid’s Platform

By NIV ELIS, SHARON UDASIN, JPOST

yair lapid jnf

Yesh Atid leader Yair Lapid on Tuesday called for nationalizing Keren Kayemeth LeIsrael-Jewish National Fund, saying the body was corrupt and an impediment to lowering the cost of housing.

“The symbol of KKL-JNF used to be the little blue box,” he said. “Today, the symbol of KKL-JNF is corruption and the money that is transferred in the shadows from place to place without reporting to anyone, and the strange appointments, like the co-chairman and dozens of members of the board of directors and emissaries across the world.”
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February 11, 2015 | 7:49 am | 3 Comments »

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