By Martin Sherman, JPOST

One out six people all over the world is a Muslim… trying to say anything in general about this huge community – 1.5 billion people – will be wrong… The vast majority of these populations are not involved with all what’s happening with violence and terror all over the world…. I don’t think there is anything essential that connects between this huge and historically important religion and all the terrorism that’s going on
– Sami Abu Shehadeh, secretary-general of Balad, Tel Aviv-Jaffa

With these words, Sami Abu Shehadeh, of the anti-Zionist Arab party Balad, commenced a debate with me on “The rise of anti-Muslim sentiment in the West,” which took place in the i24 News studios last month.

Clearly, the events in Paris on Wednesday, in which 12 people were brutally gunned down, gave the topic new and urgent relevance.

Islam is to terror as rainfall is to flooding
Read more…

Yisrael Beytenu boss, fighting for his political life, accuses would-be annexationist Naftali Bennett of risking an apartheid state

BY RAPHAEL AHREN, TOI

Avigdor Liberman dropped the A-bomb on Thursday. Israel’s hard-line, unabashedly nationalistic, settlement-residing foreign minister joined the camp of those warning that an Israeli annexation of the West Bank would lead to an apartheid state.

Avigdor Liberman, left, and John Kerry meeting in Washington on Wednesday, September 18, 2014. photo credit: Jordan Silverman/Foreign Ministry)

“What [Naftali] Bennett and his Jewish Home party are proposing is a classical bi-national state,” Liberman declared of his Orthodox-nationalist rivals during a press conference in Tel Aviv, and he didn’t mean it as a compliment. “They need to decide if they’re talking about a bi-national state between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean such as the president [Reuven Rivlin] speaks about, or whether they’re talking about an apartheid state.”

Applying sovereignty over the West Bank without granting the right to vote to everyone living there, Liberman warned Thursday, would immediately provide fodder to Israel’s critics across the globe. (In Rivlin’s conception, all residents of an expanded Israel would be given equal citizenship, drastically reducing its Jewish majority. Many in Bennett’s far-right party advocate annexing the entire West Bank, home to some 2.75 million Palestinians according to the IDF, though party chairman Bennett himself currently calls only for the annexation of Area C, covering some 60% of the West Bank where about 350,000 Jews and 80,000 Palestinians reside.) Read more…

Kill the terrorists before they reach the West

By Matthew Continetti, FREE BEACON

Argue about the limits of free speech, the definition of “true” Islam, whether terrorists are lunatics or rational, or the social and political repercussions of terrorism as much as you’d like. The truth is that such debates are irrelevant to the core security problem: There is a growing and energetic movement of radical Muslims dedicated to killing as many people they can and imposing their will on the rest.

And there is really only one way America can respond to this challenge. We need to kill them first. We need to kill them on a field of battle whose contours are determined not by the terrorists but by us. We need to kill them over there—in the Middle East—before they reach the West.

I realize that for at least the next two years what I propose is wishful thinking. American policy has reverted to a defensive condition in which Islamic terrorists set the terms of conflict. We have been here before. Until 2001, the United States treated Islamic terrorism as a matter of law enforcement. When our embassies were raided or bombed, when our barracks were destroyed, when our soldiers and sailors were murdered, when our World Trade Center was attacked, when our destroyer was damaged, we treated the assailants as members of an Arabic-speaking mafia, as criminals to be apprehended, tried, and punished.
Read more…

Change the rules in Europe and change them now.

By Mordechai Kedar, INN

The situation in Europe is intolerable. At any given moment one of the thousands of Jihadists living in Europe can be annoyed by a movie, article or caricature published in a newspaper, grab the closest Kalashnikov and spread death and destruction in editorial offices, shops, museums, schools and on the streets.

He can hurl bombs – homemade or imported – into restaurants, movie houses, theaters, railroad stations, pour oil on highways and perpetrate other terrorist acts which will not be enumerated here so as not to give him any ideas.

There are various factors that indicate the potential for a major explosion:

1. The enormous number – tens of millions – of Muslims in Europe, a large number to take into account even if only a small fraction of them turn radical. Look at it this way: if, of the fifty million Muslims in Europe, only one in a thousand becomes a Jihadist, that means there are still fifty thousand Jihadists like the ones who turned Paris into an urban battleground last week.
Read more…

“The Palestinians have discovered that the UN is the gift that keeps on giving,”

By Elad Benari, INN

Israel’s Ambassador to the United Nations, Ron Prosor, warned the world body on Thursday that it was encouraging the Palestinian Authority (PA) to run away from peace negotiations.

Speaking to the UN Security Council, Ambassador Prosor said the PA sees the UN as its “personal vending machine” and stressed that it is the PA which continuously refuses to engage in peace talks with Israel.

“In 1967, eight Arab heads of state attended a summit in Khartoum to formulate the policies of the Arab states in conflict with Israel. They emerged with their famous three ‘no’s’ – no negotiations, no recognition of Israel, and no peace. Even when it seemed impossible, Israel continued to strive for peace,” said Prosor.
Read more…

NO WEAPON FORMED AGAINST YOU, ISRAEL, SHALL PROSPER’

By Stan Goodenough, International Christian Zionist Center

For 25 years now, I have watched a weapon being developed whose purpose is to destroy the Jewish state. This weapon has been shaped and maneuvered and pushed ahead with until today it stands on the brink of production.

Virtually the whole world supports – and many nations have lent a willing hand to assist in – the manufacture of this weapon, even though its raison d’être to ensure Israel’s eradication has been openly and clearly declared. More than this, we can all testify to the fact that Israel’s very acquiescence under unrelenting international pressure along the stages of production of this weapon has increased the threat to Jewish life and in fact led to a terrifying number of deaths of Jews (and Arabs too).

The weapon is the State of Palestine – one of the components the world is determined will comprise the Two State Solution.

I feel to write a brief but direct letter in the face of resistance that will almost certainly come from some quarters to the ‘Australia Initiative’ that has now gone out to raise up Christians – beginning in Australia and going around the world, to stand strongly and unequivocally with Israel’s right to her land.
Read more…

by Jonathan Spyer, PJ Media, January 12, 2015

IRAN CAN BUILD NUCLEAR PLANTS BUT ISRAEL CAN’T BUILD SETTLEMENTS

OMRI CEREN, TIP:On Tuesday Rouhani announced that Iran is building two new reactors. Yesterday the announcement hit the news cycle here in town. This morning the WFB published the State Dept’s response. The full article is pasted below. Key line:

“We are aware of the announcement and are reviewing the details,” said the official, who was not authorized to speak on record. However, “in general, the construction of light water nuclear reactors is not prohibited by U.N. Security Council resolutions, nor does it violate the JPOA,” the official said.

Remember that the Iranians accomplish a number of things when they bolster their nuclear infrastructure. Substantively, they inch closer to a bomb (or in the case of new reactors, they give themselves excuses to inch toward a bomb: they’re already saying they need more enrichment capacity for their reactors).

Diplomatically, new infrastructure gives the Iranians more leverage in negotiations. The more they have, the more they have to bargain with. The JPOA was supposed to freeze the Iranian program to prevent them from improving their position as talks proceeded. It failed. Instead the Iranians spent the last year building up their nuclear program – and their leverage – across all areas:
Read more…

WEEKLY QUOTES from ISRANET Daily Briefing

By Arlene Kushner

Read more…

Kulanu leader has recently portrayed himself as the real, moderate Likud, but in an interview with Haaretz he outlines a hawkish agenda.

By Ilan LIor, HAARETZ

Moshe Kahlon, who set up the Kulanu party for the upcoming elections, said on Wednesday that he sees no possibility of reaching a peace agreement with the Palestinians in the foreseeable future. The former Likud communications minister also said he is in favor of continued construction in the settlements.

In recent campaign speeches, however, Kahlon said he represents the real, moderate Likud.

“At the moment we have no partner and there’s nobody to talk to on the other side,” Kahlon said in an interview to Haaretz Wednesday.

“A courageous leader must stand up and recognize Israel as a Jewish state and agree to a united Jerusalem and large settlement blocs (in the West Bank),” he said. “They must renounce the refugees’ issue and understand that there’s no return to the 1967 borders. The Kulanu party will support any arrangement that strengthens Israel’s security.”
Read more…

Belman to Gordon: I am glad you wrote this article and was more than happy to post it.

Nevertheless I don’t agree with everything in it.

I take the position that there is no conflict between the two in most instances, but if I had to choose which was more important I would choose the Jewish character.

I can think of instances where there is a conflict such as JNF land that was purchased with Jewish money for Jews. Because these lands are administered by the Israel Land Authority the courts say that the lands must be made available to both. I say, nothing doing.

Furthermore, when the High Court considers legislation using the measuring stick of “dignity” as the only criteria, it often rules against particularistic legislation. It is important that another value be considered and that is the desire to preserve the Jewish nature of the state. Some argue, like Joel Golovensky that these values should be given equal weight. I disagree, so does Caroline Glick. The courts are predisposed to giving more weight to the value of “dignity”. I on the other hand want being a Jewish state to be the supreme value.

The proportion of Jews who value both equally has plunged, due to years of being told it’s either-or

By Evelyn Gordon

The 2014 edition of the Israeli Democracy Index, released last week, offers both encouraging and disturbing findings. The latter include a dramatic drop over the last five years, from 48.1% to 24.5%, in the proportion of Jews who accord equal weight to Israel’s Jewish and democratic characters. Though the figure has declined steadily since 2010, last year was the first time “both equally” failed to win a plurality. In fact, it dropped to last place, behind both those who prioritize Israel’s Jewish character (38.9%) and those who prioritize its democratic character (33.5%).

In part, this is because the Israel Democracy Institute’s researchers deliberately worded the question to minimize the number of people choosing “both equally.” The question asked was, “Israel is defined as both a Jewish and a democratic state. Which part of this definition is more important to you personally?” Thus respondents weren’t given the option of “both equally”; they were instructed to choose either Jewish or democratic, and were recorded as valuing both traits equally only if they volunteered that view despite it not being listed. Had “both equally” been offered as an option, more people would certainly have chosen it.
Read more…

By Yaacov Lappin, JPOST

The IDF must be preparer for three principal security scenarios in the near future, former national security adviser Maj.- Gen. (res.) Yaakov Amidror has said, naming them as a large-scale ground war against Hezbollah in Lebanon, attrition against Hamas in Gaza, and the possibility of a military operation in Iran.

The military must prepare for these challenges while providing ongoing security, Amidror, a senior researcher at the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies, said in a report published on the center’s website.

The feat “will be neither easy nor cheap,” he added.
Read more…

JANET LEVY: James Corbett is a 9/11 Truther who is featured regularly on the KGB-controlled RT and Global Research. He has a marked anti-Western, anti-Semitic bias and appeared recently with Sibel Edmunds and Lew Rockwell (who works for Ron Paul and consorted with David Duke until he was publicly outed).

A Canadian security analyst wrote: “I suggest that you look at Mr Corbett’s bio, at http://www.corbettreport.com/about/.

by James Corbett
corbettreport.com
November 19, 2014

CENTRAL ASIA AND THE CAUCASUS

Central Asia is a vast expanse of the map whose defining characteristic is its ability to defy characterization. Stretching from the shores of the Caspian Sea in the west to the border of China in the east, and from Iran and Pakistan’s doorstep in the south to Russia’s in the north, it encompasses everything from the snow-capped slopes of Victory Peak in Kyrgyzstan to the remarkable “door to hell” in Turkmenistan’s Karakum Desert to the sprawling grasslands of the Kazakh Steppe. Settled by migrants from the Persian, Turkic, Chinese and Slavic civilizations, its inhabitants speak Kyrgyz, Kazakh, Russian, Tajik, Uzbek and Turkmen and include Muslims, Christians, Jews, Hindus and Buddhists.

The much smaller Caucasus region, a narrow land bridge sandwiched between the Black and Caspian seas, is equally diverse. The region contains over 50 ethnic groups and is home to three local language families and several dozen languages, from the obscure Bohtan Neo-Aramaictongue with less than 500 native speakers to the more widely spoken Azerbaijani and Armenian languages.
Read more…

BY JEFF STEIN, NEWSWEEK

A COMMENTARY Editorial

I. The jihadist siege of a kosher grocery store in eastern Paris on January 9 was not the beginning of a new threat to French Jews and the Jews of Europe. Rather, it was the culmination of a decade of crisis. And it will not be the end.

The new era of deadly anti-Semitism in France began with the January 2006 murder of 23-year-old Ilan Halimi. Shortly after a Shabbat meal with his mother, he was lured to a Paris slum, where he was ambushed by a gang. They held him captive for 24 days, during which time he was beaten, stabbed, burned with acid, mutilated, lit on fire, and tortured to death. Halimi’s murderers were African and North African Muslim immigrants with ties to Islamic extremists. They called themselves the Gang of Barbarians. And they chose Halimi because he was a Jew.

France’s 5 million Muslims account for 10 to 12 percent of the country’s total population. It is the largest Muslim population in Europe; it is also the most problematic. Several factors contribute to this reality.
Read more…

Obama phoned Netanyahu yesterday to assure him that the U.S. continues to seek a comprehensive agreement that prevents the Islamic Republic “from acquiring a nuclear weapon and verifiably assures the international community of the exclusively peaceful nature of its nuclear program.”

According to the statement, Obama stressed the U.S.’ commitment to Israel’s security and the importance of close cooperation with Jerusalem on the issue. Congress doesn’t trust him and nor should Israel.

By Daniel Wiser, THE BEACON

Sen. Tom Cotton (R., Ark.) warned the Obama administration on Tuesday that Congress will hold a vote on any final deal on Iran’s nuclear program—and, if unable to prevent the president from lifting sanctions on Iran, would work with the next administration to re-impose them.

Cotton said lawmakers aim to soon bring legislation to the floor that would impose additional sanctions on the regime in Tehran if the current negotiations collapse. The bill would likely include language authored by Sens. Mark Kirk (R., Ill.) and Robert Menendez (D., N.J.) that targets Iran’s oil, gas, and banking sectors and requires the administration to certify that the regime is not sponsoring terrorist attacks against U.S. forces.
Read more…

By Carol Brown, AMERICAN THINKER

Obama is a shill for Islam. Hardly a day goes by when he, or someone in his administration, doesn’t do something that proves it. Some days, the garbage spews so fast it’s difficult to keep up. Just this week alone, the cow manure that was dumped on the American public (and the entire world) came fast and furious and without shame.

There was the predictable refusal to name the enemy, even after the jihad attacks in France. Obama’s determination to avoid taking this most basic step has become a dangerous obsession.

Islam has been at war with the rest of the world for 1400 years. And here we are in the 21^st century going backwards; the President of the United States refuses to name the enemy. We can’t even get to square one.
Read more…

By Ed Lasky, AMERICAN  THINKER

The spread of Islam apparently trumps the First Amendment in the view of President Obama.

By now, most of America should realize that Barack Obama has a special mission in life to shield Islam from criticism.

But pressuring the media should be a step too far considering the President takes an oath to defend the Constitution and thus the most important of amendments: free speech.

But, according to the president’s press secretary, Barack Obama has no such desire when it comes to criticism of Islam.
Read more…

Michael Ordman, Good News Israel

Last week, Ben Gurion University researchers made an “accidental” discovery, when testing an experimental anti-inflammatory drug, that could signify a breakthrough in the treatment of deadly infections.  My immediate thought was how “lucky” the BGU scientists were – but in reality, the discovery followed the proscribed use of methodical testing procedures and meticulously careful observations.  Here are some further recent cases of where Israelis definitely do not rely on “luck” when it comes to vital innovations and activities.

Traditional cancer chemotherapies depend on the laws of chance in that sufficient numbers of cancer cells will be destroyed alongside the (unwanted) death of normal, healthy cells.  Several Israeli companies, however, are working on removing this random, “splatter-gun” approach. One of these, Quiet Therapeutics, has developed the “GAGomer,” a new class of nano-particle that specifically targets tumors and blood cancers.  Another Israeli biotech, Compugen, has announced positive initial experimental results for two Antibody-Drug Conjugate (ADC) treatments.  ADC therapy uses antibodies to target proteins present at high levels in cancer cells, releasing a toxic payload to kill the cells.

Read more…