By Evelyn Gordon, COMMENTARY

Between Friday’s announcement that the International Criminal Court has opened a “preliminary examination into the situation in Palestine” and Sunday’s airstrike that killed six Hezbollah operatives and an Iranian general, a seemingly minor Israel-related item at the United Nations Security Council last Thursday has been largely ignored. But it shouldn’t be, because it goes to the heart of what’s wrong with the world’s handling of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict: According to both the UN and the European Union, signed Israeli-Palestinian agreements are binding on one party only – Israel.

At Thursday’s Security Council briefing, Assistant Secretary-General Jens Anders Toyberg-Frandzen slammed Israel for freezing tax transfers to the Palestinian Authority, declaring that this was “contrary to Israel’s obligations under the Paris Protocol of the Oslo Accords.” The EU’s high representative for foreign affairs, Federica Mogherini, made an identical claim 10 days earlier.
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Analysis: A helicopter and two missiles killed a group of Lebanese and Iranian terror activists in Syrian Golan Heights – and now IDF and northern residents are in suspense: Will Hezbollah respond or hold back?

By Alex Fishman, YNET

Israel-Lebanon border. ‘The operation may have succeeded, but the patient – the situation in the north – is only deteriorating’ (Archive photo: AP)

Someone threw a match into a powder keg and is now waiting to see whether it will explode or not.

This is a dangerous exercise in practical chemistry conducted on the eve of the final exam: The elections in Israel. A helicopter and two missiles killed a group of Lebanese and Iranian terror activists in the Syrian Golan Heights – and now we’re all in suspense: Will Hezbollah respond or hold back?

There are several partners in this pyromania. Hezbollah, likely with Iran’s direct help and guidance, was about to carry out a series of terror attacks against Israel on the Golan Heights in order to renew the balance of deterrence against strikes attributed to the Israel Air Force.
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DEBKA Jan 19/15

The dominant IDF assessment Monday, Jan. 19, is that Hizballah will not hold off its rejoinder for the Israeli helicopter missile strike on the Golan Sunday, which targeted an advance guard and caused the deaths of five Hizballah and six Iranian army officers. Tehran confirmed Monday that Gen. Mohammad Ali Allah Dadi was among the officers killed in the Israel attack..

Iran’s National Security Adviser Rear Adm. Ali Shamkhani responded with a pledge of punishment for the death of Gen. Allah Dadi. “The resistance will respond by force at an appropriate time and place for the “Zionist terrorist entity’s aggression,” he said.
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DEBKA

Lebanese and Western intelligence watchers of the Syrian conflict reveal that the two missiles fired Sunday, Jan. 18, by Israeli helicopters at an armed military convoy on the Syrian side of the Golan struck a group of Iranian and Hizballah officers traveling near Quneitra. Hizballah has confirmed that six people were killed, including an Iranian commander, named Abu Ali al-Tabtabani.

The Hizballah officers who died were Jihad Mughniyeh son of the Shiite terrorist movement’s military chief, whom Israel killed in 2008; and Mohammed Issa, a Hizballah commander responsible for its Syrian and Iraqi operations. Lebanese and Arab media outlets identified the other four Hizballah members killed in the raid as Mahdi al-Moussawi, Ali Fouad, Hussein Hassan and Abbas Hijazi.
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Ted Belman. In a similar vein to Graham, Canada’s FM Baird told Yaalon “I think the Palestinian Authority has made a huge mistake [by joining the body] and crossed a red line.” They are right in accusing the PA of essentially violating the Oslo Accords but they are wrong in not attacking the ICC for accepting them (a non-state) and investigating the alleged crimes. Prior to this happening, all experts agreed that it wouldn’t happen because the Court only pursues major violations and even then only if non-signatories don’t conduct a competent investigation of its own. Neither criteria is satisfied here plus the PA doesn’t represent a state. Experts always said the the ICC was a serious court and wouldn’t be politicized. The experts were wrong on all accounts. They forgot that anything goes when it comes to Israel.

Ranking US senator calls the Palestinian move a “bastardizing of the role of the ICC.”

JPOST

The Palestinians could lose annual US aid if they file a lawsuit against Israel at the International Criminal Court which they joined this month over American and Israeli protests, a senior US Republican senator said on Monday.

Lindsey Graham, part of a seven-member delegation of senators visiting Israel, Saudi Arabia and Qatar, said existing US legislation “would cut off aid to the Palestinians if they filed a complaint” against Israel.
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BREAKING/UPDATE: Hebzollah chief to deliver speech tonight swearing “painful strike” against Israel

Omri Ceren, TIP

Via Lebanese media (technically the Naharnet update stream):

Information obtained by MTV: Nasrallah will tonight deliver a speech in which he will announce that Hizbullah will retaliate against Israel with a painful strike.

He has to say something after the Israeli strike, which is shaping up to be a strategic setback and PR nightmare for Hezbollah. Last week Nasrallah threatened to invade Golan-adjacent Israeli territory; then Hezbollah and Iran moved some of their top Syria guys into the theater for what Hezbollah is now describing as “field reconnaissance”; then the Israelis reportedly intercepted the convoy.

The entire thing has the feel of incompetent bluster coupled with reckless provocation. Lebanese officials and civilians are likely to be furious, in the aftermath of that incompetence and recklessness, Hezbollah overcorrects by dragging Lebanon into another war with Israel.

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By Claude Kandioti, ISRAEL HAYOM

After the attacks at Charlie Hebdo and a Parisian kosher supermarket two weeks ago and the large police operation in Belgium on Thursday, it appears that politicians have finally realized the gravity of the threat that has grown within Europe in recent years. In the end, a decision was made in Belgium to take appropriate action, but the question remains: it is too late now? Are we battling symptoms rather than the root problem?

Belgian newspapers carried a clear message: “We are at war.” Every editorial praised the lightning-fast operation by the Belgian special forces that raided 10 different targets in a single night and thwarted a planned attack that would have targeted police forces. There is a direct threat on our comfortable way of life, and it is no longer just to Jews, who have warned governments for years. The special forces’ preventative action, which ended with two terrorists killed and one wounded in a shoot-out, woke Belgium up from its daydream.
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Peter Beinart on Being an Israel Critic While Remaining a Member of the Tribe

Voice of Israel, 15 JANUARY 2015

Where the government decides which utterances are allowed

By Judge Andrew P. Napolitano,JWR

The photos of 40 of the world’s government leaders marching arm-in-arm along a Paris boulevard on Sunday with the president of the United States not among them was a provocative image that has fomented much debate. The march was, of course, in direct response to the murderous attacks on workers at the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo by a pair of brothers named Kouachi, and on shoppers at a Paris kosher supermarket by one of the brothers’ comrades.The debate has been about whether President Obama should have been at the march. The march was billed as a defense of freedom of speech in the West, yet it hardly could have been held in a less free–speech-friendly Western environment, and the debate over Mr. Obama’s absence misses the point.

In the post-World War II era, French governments have adopted a policy advanced upon them nearly 100 years ago by Woodrow Wilson. He pioneered the modern idea that countries’ constitutions don’t limit governments; they unleash them. Thus, even though the French Constitution guarantees freedom of speech, French governments treat speech as a gift from the government, not as a natural right of all persons, as our Constitution does.
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In joint press conference with UK’s Cameron, US president says Europe must not ‘simply respond with hammer’ to terror attacks; both leaders urge US Congress to avoid new Iran sanctions.

Europe must do more to better integrate its Muslim communities, and not “simply respond with a hammer,” US President Barack Obama said Friday in the wake of last week’s terror attacks in France.

“Our biggest advantage, major, is that our Muslim populations – they feel themselves to be Americans,” Obama told a joint press conference with British Prime Minister David Cameron.

“There are parts of Europe in which that’s not the case. And that’s probably the greatest danger that Europe faces… it’s important for Europe not to simply respond with a hammer and law enforcement and military approaches to these problems.”

Obama and British Prime Minister David Cameron pledged a joint effort Friday to fight domestic terrorism following deadly attacks in France. They also strongly urged the US Congress to hold off on implementing new sanctions on Iran in the midst of nuclear talks.
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JPOST

MICHAEL OREN SET OUT HIS POSITION IN A SHORT BUT IMPORTANT INTERVIEW WHICH MAY BE FOUND HERE.

Michael Oren, Israel’s former ambassador to the United States who is running as the diplomatic voice in Moshe Kahlon’s Koolanu party in the March elections, unveiled his approach to the Palestinian problem on Wednesday.

“We all want the same thing, we want an Israel that is strong, an Israel that is democratic, an Israel that is Jewish, we want an Israel that is economically prosperous. Peace is the means for achieving that goal. Peace is not an end in itself,” he told a group of young professionals in Jaffa Wednesday night, which The Jerusalem Post recorded exclusively for its weekly Frontlines Podcast.

Oren argued that in the absence of a Palestinian leader willing or able to negotiate a deal with Israel, it is up to Israel to take the initiative.
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It’s difficult to overstate the potential importance of the Egyptian president’s New Year speech on Islam – and equally important to avoid overly optimistic expectations as to its practical impact.

It is possible that $1.6 Billion people [Muslims] should want to kill the rest of the world’s inhabitants – that is 7 billion – so that they themselves may live? Impossible!” – Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, Al-Azhar, January 1

“O ye who believe! Fight those of the disbelievers who are near to you, and let them find harshness in you, and know that Allah is with those who keep their duty.” – Koran, Sura 9:123

“Violence… occurs between Muslims, on the one hand, and Orthodox Serbs in the Balkans, Jews in Israel, Hindus in India, Buddhists in Burma and Catholics in the Philippines. Islam has bloody borders.” – Samuel Huntington, “The Clash of Civilizations?” Foreign Affairs, 1993
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ICC prosecutor opens a preliminary probe into possible war crimes committed by Israel. Netanyahu: This decision is scandalous.

By Elad Benari, INN

AFP reports.

The prosecutor, Fatou Bensouda, said her office would conduct its “analysis in full independence and impartiality”.

Her decision comes after the Palestinian Authority (PA) formally joined the ICC earlier this month allowing it to lodge war crimes and crimes against humanity complaints against Israel as of April.

At the same time, the PA also recognized the ICC’s jurisdiction retroactively, to cover the period during last summer’s war in Gaza.

“A preliminary examination is not an investigation but a process of examining theinformation available in order to reach a fully informed determination on whether there is a reasonable basis to proceed with a (full) investigation,” Bensouda was quoted as having said.

Depending on her findings, Bensouda will decide at a later stage whether to launch or quash the investigation, based on the initial probe, the report added.
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Ted Belman: Victor Sharp wrote to me,

This article was written last Summer after my visit to Israel and my tour of Area C with Women in Green. I thought you might like to read it in case you did not see it the first time it was published in Arutz Sheva.

I have updated it and it needs to see the light of day again, especially in view of the potential of French and European Aliyah and the deplorable statement by Livni, Herzog and the Left that they will petition against French Aliyah living in Yehuda and Shomron.

By VICTOR SHARPE

“Then said Satan: This besieged one, how shall I overcome him?
He has courage and ability, he has weapons and imagination.

“So he said: I shall not take his strength, nor muzzle nor bridle him.
Nor soften nor weaken his hands, only one thing I shall do;

“I shall dull his brain and he will forget that he is in the right.”

So wrote the Israeli poet, Natan Alterman, in his poem,Gone like a Dream. He was expressing his deep anxiety over the weakening resolve of Jews in Israel and in the Diaspora to support the reconstituted Jewish state.
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Yoram EttingerJanuary 16, 2015

In 539 BCE, Babylonian King Belshazzar ignored the writing on the wall – as interpreted by the Prophet Daniel – and was, therefore, annihilated by the Persians (Book of Daniel, Chapter 5).

In 2015, Western civilizations must read the writing on the wall, desist from ambiguity, denial and political correctness and embrace clarity, realism and political incorrectness, in order to survive and overcome the clear and present lethal threat of Islamic takeover, which gathers momentum via demographic, political and terroristic means.

While medical ambiguity, and the failure to diagnose lethal disease, cause personal misfortune, policy-making ambiguity and denial could trigger national and international calamities.

History proves that Western ambiguity and the refusal to identify enemies – due to ignorance, gullibility, oversimplification, appeasement, delusion and wishful thinking – have taken root, yielding major strategic setbacks and painful economic and human loss.  When it comes to reading the writing on the wall, Western eyesight has been far from 20:20, dominated by modern day Belshazzars, ignoring modern day Prophet Daniels.
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Ted Belman. I received a Press Release informing me of this visit and inviting me to the offices of the Voice of Israel where these young kids from both South Africa and Israel were being interviewed and hosted for lunch. I decided to go and brought along with me Jan Sokolovsky who was also a tennis fan and who had a close connection to South African tennis because her late husband was involved with it before he made aliya.

What a happening place it was. Ruthie Blum was also visiting. I hooked up with some of the stars of VOI like, Dan Diker, Yishai Fleisher, John Hastings and Jeremy Gimpel. I highly recommend that you visit VOI and tune into their broadcasts live or through podcasts.

ISRAEL TENNIS CENTER

For the ITC, the New Year began with a historic moment as a team of children and their coach from Soweto, South Africa traveled to Israel for 10 days of training with ITC junior players at our ITC centers throughout Israel. It is part of a unique Children to Children Tennis Diplomacy Exchange Program just launched by the ITC that will create lasting friendships and ambassadors for Israel around the world.
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Valls words were uplifting; But it is hard to see how they change the basic reality that the Jews of France face.

By Caroline Glick, JPOST

Protesters gather at Place de la Republique

January 16 is the nine-year anniversary of the beginning of the Ilan Halimi disaster.

On January 16, 2006, Sorour Arbabzadeh, the seductress from the Muslim anti-Jewish kidnapping gang led by Youssouf Fofana, entered the cellphone store where Halimi worked and set the honey trap.

Four days later, Halimi met Arbabzadeh for a drink at a working class bar and agreed to walk her home. She walked him straight into an ambush. Her comrades beat him, bound him and threw him into the trunk of their car.
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