T. Belman. You would think that since NGO’s backing BDS in Israel receive $45 million dollars, most of it from the EU, per year, that the government of Israel would fund Zionist NGO’s or a hasbara campaign to defend Israel in like amount. Unfortunately it gives nothing.

Foreign governments are heavily involved in funding organizations directly or indirectly involved in BDS campaigns, NGO Monitor report finds • EU the largest donor, followed by Norway • Report urges legal measures to bolster transparency.

By Shlomo Cesana, ISRAEL HAYOM

The EU is the biggest donor to NGOs involved in Israeli-Palestinian conflict [Illustrative]

Foreign governments donated some 105 million shekels ($27 million) to 24 nongovernmental organizations involved in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict between 2012 and 2014, according to a new report by Jerusalem-based research institute NGO Monitor.

According to the report, which was released Monday, the donations were made by foreign governments both directly and indirectly, and “comprise roughly 60 percent of the NIS 176 million [$45 million] reported by 75 Israeli non-profit associations and corporations for the public benefit during that time.”
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By Chaim Shine, ISRAEL HAYOM

The Bolsheviks in Stalinist Russia had an old anti-Semitic saying: “Strike at the Jews and save Russia.” The bolsheviks of the Israeli media embraced a similar slogan: Strike at Prime Minster Benjamin Netanyahu and the Right and save Israel.

Since the beginning of the election campaign, Yedioth Ahronoth and Haaretz newspapers have been operating as if they were campaigners whose main objective is to topple the government and close Israel Hayom. The reason is that in just a few years, Israel Hayom has succeeded in breaking these newspapers’ monopoly over knowledge and information in Israel, causing them significant losses.
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Jewish Home party chief says economic arm-twisting ‘immoral,’ calls for European support against ‘river of terror’

By Stuart Winer, TOI

Economy Minister Naftali Bennett took European Union ambassadors and envoys to task on Monday, accusing their countries of using economic pressure to try to make Israel “commit suicide” instead of supporting the country in its struggle against a “river of terror.”

Bennett addressed the diplomats, representing 26 out of the 28 European Union countries, at a closed-door meeting in Jerusalem’s King David Hotel. An audio recording of some of his comments was leaked to Army Radio and published Tuesday.

“To single out Israel, to twist our arms economically, in the hopes that we’ll commit suicide because financially we’ll get hit if we don’t — it’s immoral from my perspective,” Bennett was heard saying in the recording. “Instead of understanding… we’re the big dam in this big river of terror.”
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By Steve Kramer, TOI

Barack Obama burst upon the American political scene in 2004, when he gave the keynote speech at the Democratic National Convention, just four months after unexpectedly being elected the junior senator from Illinois. Less than five years later, in his first inaugural speech, President Obama intoned, “We will not apologize for our way of life, nor will we waver in its defense. And for those who seek to advance their aims by inducing terror and slaughtering innocents, we say to you now that our spirit is stronger and cannot be broken — you cannot outlast us, and we will defeat you.” But did he mean it? His subsequent actions belie his words.

Obama continued, “To the Muslim world, we seek a new way forward, based on mutual interest and mutual respect. …To those who cling to power through corruption and deceit and the silencing of dissent, know that you are on the wrong side of history, but that we will extend a hand if you are willing to unclench your fist.”
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By Ted Belman

The fracas surrounding Netanyahu’s upcoming speech before Congress is all about whose views on Iran, Obama’s or Netanyahu’s, will win the day. Thus the stakes are very high both for Obama’s foreign policy initiatives and for Israel’s existence.

JPOST reports:

But reports began surfacing last week that the Obama administration is offering Iran technical concessions on its nuclear infrastructure in exchange for Iran’s use of its leverage to tamper regional turmoil.

But the warning from Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif underscored core motivations driving Western diplomats in the talks: The realignment of Tehran towards cooperation with Washington elsewhere in the region, from Syria and Iraq to Yemen and Lebanon.

That is a departure from their original goal, set explicitly at the beginning of negotiations, to dismember Iran’s nuclear program thoroughly and permanently.

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Lacking a vision of the future, Labor reinvents itself by misreading the past

By Liel Leibovitz|January 30, 2015

As the capital of the European Union goes, so goes Europe. And the details are worse than you can imagine.

By Giulio Meotti, INN

Belgium has the highest per capita number of Islamic terrorists gone to fight in Syria and Iraq than any other European country. Brussels is the capital of the holy war, as well as of the European Union.

The first European citizen to die on the battlefields of jihad was Muriel Degauque, a Belgian Catholic girl. Originally from Charleroi, she converted to Islam, changed her name to Myriam and died near Baghdad as a human bomb.

Two days before September 11, two Tunisians recruited in Belgium managed to kill the Afghan commander Massoud, enemy of al Qaeda and the Taliban.
And the terror cell of Madrid’s 2004 bombings came from the town of Maaseik.
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ZOA Criticizes Reform Judaism’s Jacobs, AIPAC, AJC, ADL, J St., and Other Jewish Groups For Not Supporting Israeli PM Speaking to Congress on Iran

NEW YORK, February 9, 2015 — ZOA President Morton A. Klein released the following statement:  “The ZOA has criticized Rabbi Rick Jacobs, president of the Union for Reform Judaism, for pressuring Israeli PM Netanyahu to cancel his critically important speech on Iran to a joint session of Congress.  Jacobs said it was ‘ill advised’ for Netanyahu to speak.  ADL’s Foxman and J St. have also demanded Netanyahu cancel. The ZOA also criticized the American Jewish Committee, and  AIPAC and others  for their deafening silence on the issue. Moreover the Jewish Daily Forward reported that  ‘in private conversations, AIPAC has been trying to distance itself from the debate.’

Ted Belman. There is no mention of the other pillar in Obama’s foreign policy namely his embrace of the Muslim Brother. I think it had its genesis in another study which suggested that the secular dictators should be replaced. Three down, Mubarak, Hussein and Qaddafi. Assad to go. Can anyone remember the study?

by David P Goldman, PJ Media

Over at Mosaic Magazine, former Bush aideMichael Doran claims that the Obama administration has had a secret strategy to engage Iran from the time it took office.

He’s right, but he neglects to mention that George W. Bush and his national security advisor, Condoleezza Rice, adopted the same strategy from the same source in November 2006, after the Republicans got crushed in congressional elections. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld got a pink slip, Vice President Dick Cheney got benched, and “realist” Robert Gates–the co-chairman of the 2004 Council on Foreign Relations task force that advocated a deal with Iran–took over at Defense. Michael Doran reports all of this, all, that is, except Gates’ central role in the plan. That would place a good deal of the blame at Bush’s doorstep.
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While Israeli media portrays Bennett’s statement as racist, a key Arab local leader says he is absolutely right.

By Gil Ronen, INN

Israel’s leftist media attempted to portray statements Sunday by Jewish Home Chairman Naftali Bennett about the high rate of crime in the Arab sector as racist – but Bennett received unexpected support Monday from an Arab leader.

Sakhnin Mayor Mazen Ghanaim, the Head of the High Monitoring Committee of Arabs in Israel, said that he, too, demands that police take action against crime in the Arab sector.

“The current situation is unbearable,” Ghanaim said, according to the NRG news site. “Seventeen people from the Arab sector have been killed since the beginning of the year from illegal weapons. We are seeing thefts, torching of vehicles and widespread crime in the Arab cities. I am not talking about a feeling that the authorities have given up on enforcement in the Arab cities. I regret to say that I am talking about facts.”
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Mr. James Carver Member of the European Parliament EU Committee on Foreign Affairs writes to the EU

Dear Sir / Madam,

Re: Illegal and Environmentally Damaging Activities by the EU in the West Bank

I am writing you following some very disturbing findings that have come to our attention. According to a well-documented investigation by the NGO Regavim, the European Union is actively involved in illegal building that is taking place in the Adumim area in the West Bank. According to the findings of the investigation, the EU has financed and been actively involved in the establishment of more than 400 illegal structures within the Adumim area, between 2012 and 2014.

Among them, Regavim has identified 181 residential structures and 232 service structures (located separately from the residential structures). All the structures bear the name and flag of the EU and EU official agents have been photographed participating in overseeing the construction, so the active involvement of the EU can hardly be denied. Official EU documents quoted in the report also corroborate the same. The English version of the report documenting the findings of the investigation is attached hereto.
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i24NEWS

New government adopts more friendly policy toward Israel

Established a few months ago, the conservative-progressive minority government in Norway has been working towards repairing ties with Israel and enhancing collaboration in a number of fields. The previous left-wing administration had a longstanding record of anti-Israel sentiment and had called for a boycott of Israeli products.

For the first time in over a decade, the Norwegian prime minister is set to make a visit to Israel. The new policy put in place by Erna Solberg, Norway’s Prime Minister and Conservative Party Leader, will see improved diplomatic relations between the two countries, Norwegian and Israeli officials said. After the passing of former Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, Solberg was one of the first world leaders to send their condolences.
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By Lahav Harkov, JPOST

Bayit Yehudi had a bad week. Its poll numbers have been in free-fall since the debacle that took place over two weeks ago, when party leader Naftali Bennett appointed soccer legend Eli Ohana to the party’s list and Ohana dropped out three days later amid vocal disgruntlement from party MKs and members. They hit a nadir on Saturday night, when Channel 1’s poll gave them only 11 seats, a steep drop from a high of 18 – coincidentally from the same pollster, Teleseker – since the election was announced in December.

The 11-seat showing was somewhat of an outlier, as the party averaged 13 seats in last week’s polls, but it enough to drive everyone on the Bayit Yehudi campaign, from MKs to advisers to activists, crazy.
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Pundits are telling the Zionist Camp to take the battle to the prime minister more, but they’re ignoring both history and the modern reality.

By Roger Alpher, HAARETZ

It’s very easy to oust Benjamin Netanyahu from the Prime Minister’s Office. All you need to do is vote for a party that aspires to replace him, or that has announced it will refuse to sit in a government with him. That’s it. That’s all. Very simple. And yet it won’t happen.

Our disappointed pundits have explanations. They believe that if Zionist Camp leaders Isaac Herzog and Tzipi Livni would only wage a more aggressive campaign against Netanyahu, the public would be convinced of the necessity of getting rid of him. They identify weak spots and advise Netanyahu’s rivals to focus on them. To give it to him.
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T. Belman. When the overthrow was announced, I wondered why the US didn’t stop it. Apparently the Sunnis are now their enemies and the Shiites their friends.

DEBKAfile Exclusive Analysis

The strings of the pro-Iranian Houthi rebels’ coup which toppled the Yemeni government in Sanaa were pulled from Tehran and Washington. US intelligence and shared US-Iranian support helped the Houthis reach their goal, which is confined for now to parts of central Yemen and all of the North.

Friday, Feb. 6, the rebels dissolved parliament and seized power in the country of 24 million. They propose to rule by a revolutionary council. President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi and his cabinet who were forced to resign last month are under house arrest.

DEBKAfile’s Saudi intelligence sources reveal that the dominant figure of the uprising was none other than Ali Abdullah Saleh, president of Yemen from 1990 until he was ousted in 2012.
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By HERB KEINON, SAM SOKOL, JPOST

Despite continuing and mounting opposition to his plans to address the US Congress on March 3, including from American Jewish organizational leaders, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is “determined to go” and make the case against an Iranian nuclear deal, a senior government official said Sunday.

The official’s comments came amid speculation that Netanyahu might, at the last minute, find a reason to put off the trip to Washington until after the March 17 elections and avoid exacerbating tensions with the Obama administration.
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Read the week-end Hebrew oped that has gone viral in Israel.

By Kalman Liebeskind, INN

I have never voted Likud, but over the past two weeks, I have been gradually becoming aware of the fact that, for the first time ever, that is what is going to happen. Something deep inside me is telling me that this is the proper thing to do for anyone who is not willing to allow the Israeli mainstream media to succeed in stealing an election by dishonorable means. The ballot that says “Machal” ( the Likud acronym) on it, at this point in time, is the proper protest ballot, a small but important contribution that an ordinary citizen can offer to strengthen Israel’s democracy.

If one of the ways to judge if a state is democratic is by whether its press is worthy of the name, the last few weeks have shown that we have nothing in common with a democratic state. That is because what has been done here by a long roster of journalists and media sources, who cannot abide the thought that Binyamin Netanyahu might win the elections again, is a travesty against democracy. Hysteria, frenzy, there is no other way to define what is happening on screen, on the radio waves, on the Facebook and Twitter pages of just about every leading mainstream Israeli journalist.
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T. Belman. Whenever I read that the EU or the US did something favourable to Israel, I always wonder what promise was extracted from Israel in payment.

By Herb Keinon, JPOST

A Palestinian flag flutters in front of the Jerusalem neighborhood of Har Homa. (photo credit:REUTERS)

The Mid East Quartet principals met in Munich for the first time in a year on Sunday and came out against unilateral Palestinian efforts to get the international community to impose a solution on Israel.

Without mentioning the recent Palestinian efforts specifically, including the failed effort at the end of December to pass a UN Security Council resolution that would have called for a full Israeli withdrawal to the 1967 lines within three years, a statement issued at the end of the meeting said that sustainable peace requires negotiations.
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Naftali Bennett responds harshly to Yaakov Peri’s claim that Ayelet Shaked is too inexperienced for Minister of Internal Security.

By Hezki Ezra, INN

Jewish Home Chairman Naftali Bennett attacked former Science Minister Yaakov Peri (Yesh Atid) Sunday over his comments about Jewish Home MK Ayelet Shaked.

In an interview Sunday morning, Peri addressed the claim that Jewish Home was demanding the internal security portfolio for Shaked.

“The lady is inexperienced. These are things that require more judgment,” Peri said.

In addition to serving in the 19th Knesset as a minister for Yesh Atid, Peri is also a former Shin Bet chief.

Bennett responded angrily to Peri’s criticism, writing on Facebook, “Peri, you’ve convinced me. I will do everything to ensure Ayelet Shaked will be the next Minister of Internal Security.”
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