PM faces tough election campaign but now has his party behind him, as primary voters deal a crushing blow to the ‘contractors’ who long held outsized influence

BY HAVIV RETTIG GUR, TOI

Sometime early last year, Benjamin Netanyahu realized with a start that he had lost control of the Likud party machine.

MK Danny Danon, who chairs the Likud’s Central Committee, led a dramatic uprising against Netanyahu’s control of party institutions and tried to push through changes to the Likud constitution that would have weakened Netanyahu’s control over the party — and severely limited his ability to set national policy.

The story of the “takeover” of Israel’s ruling party by its more rightist wing, of the rising influence of West Bank annexationists such as MK Moshe Feiglin and Danon, of the party’s rightward “lurch,” became a recurring theme of Netanyahu’s third government, which collapsed last month triggering early election. Read more…

College students today are facing the most serious threats to their civil liberties.

By Alexandra Zimmern, JPOST

The infamous Boycott, Divestments, and Sanctions (BDS) campaigns and “apartheid week” displays on college campuses are not the only threat to Jewish students. A much greater threat looms: the inability for students to publicly defend their beliefs. While universities claim to be havens of open debate and intellectual curiosity, they are in reality black holes of political correctness. On campus, only certain ideas are worthy of consideration and Zionism is definitely not one of them. This culture doesn’t just threaten members of the Jewish community, who are terrified to challenge those who accuse Israel of the most heinous crimes. Rather, it threatens all of us who value free speech and its ability to encourage criticism, debate, and original thought on college campuses.
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Parenting guide on how to brainwash infants into killers, raise the next generation of terrorists, uploaded to internet.

By Cynthia Blank, INN

A guide for jihadi mothers on how to raise children to become terrorists has surfaced online, the US-based Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) reported.

The handbook titled “Sister’s Role in Jihad” recommends showing children jihadiwebsites, reading jihad tales before bed, practicing sports that require good hand-eye coordination, like darts, and going on camping trips to teach the children how to survive outdoors.

Women are expected to start training children “while they are babies” as waiting longer than that “may be too late.” The guide adds: ‘Don’t underestimate the lasting effect of what those little ears and eyes take in during the first few years of life!’
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NATO ally encouraged to ‘liberate’ Jerusalem

By Leo Homann, WND

Turkish and Palestinian flags fluttered like angry birds in a crowd of thousands of people chanting “Allahu Akbar!” and “Down with Israel!”

The chants grew more exuberant as the hulking, bearded man on the speaker’s platform assured them that “God willing, we will liberate Jerusalem together.”

The speaker was Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal and his audience was Turkey’s ruling Justice and Development Party, gathered for its annual meeting Dec. 27 at a convention hall in Konya, the hometown of Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu.
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Michael Freund writing in JPOST  before the Jordanian resolution failed to pass wrote,

So just why, you might be wondering, are the Palestinians insisting on bringing the matter to a vote before December 31 if they are certain to lose? Why don’t they just wait another day or two and then come away with at least some kind of diplomatic triumph? However counterintuitive it might sound, the logical answer is that the Palestinians do not want to win. They actually wish to lose. They want to generate further disappointment and frustration on the Palestinian street, in order to ensure the continuation of the low-level intifada that has been raging for months.

Coming away from the Security Council empty-handed, without even a symbolic diplomatic achievement, will strengthen the hand of those Palestinians who call for “resistance” and terrorism against Israel. It will pour more fuel on the fire, and encourage still more attacks in Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria and elsewhere. Read more…

READ THIS VERY IMPORTANT ARTICLE TO THE END.

By Judi McLeod, CFP

The intent of Obama’s Fundamental Transformation of America and those of the Revolutionary Communist Party USA are one and the same.  Both foment for the kind of revolution that will take down America and toss it into the dust bin of history.

It’s a union made in Hell and, incredibly, the melding of this deadly duo is the quintessential spittle-flecked nutty of which most Americans and their Western allies are not even aware.

So convinced of the soon-to-come success of their joint venture, Fundamental Transformation of America chief architect Barack Obama and ‘We-can’t-breathe’ Chairman of the Revolutionary Communist Party USA, Bob Avakian, prime organizer of the current, increasingly violent anti-cop street protests,  run their underground missions far away from home base.
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DEBKAfile Exclusive Report January 1, 2015,

President Barack Obama’s New Year gift to Israel and the Middle East is a multibillion fund for establishing an Iraqi army as a division of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards (IRGC). Wednesday, the last day of 2014, two defense ministers, Iran’s Brig. Gen. Hossein Dehqani and Iraq’s Khallid al-Obeidi, signed a pact whereby Iran i.e. the Revolutionary Guards, will “continue to train new Iraqi military units” for replacing the army that crumbled under the onslaught launched by the Islamic State of Iraq and Levant since last June.

“We do not see any other option than cooperation and being on the same side as Iran to uproot the terrorists,” said the Iraqi general.
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A bombshell has fallen within the ranks, turning military commanders and lawyers against each other on a possibly unprecedented level.

By Yonah Jeremy Bob, JPOST

The army is at war with itself.

A bombshell has fallen within the ranks, turning military commanders and lawyers against each other on a possibly unprecedented level over whether the IDF legal division, the Office of the Military Advocate-General, should criminally investigate IDF commanders and soldiers over certain incidents from last summer’s Gaza war.

And though innumerable factors will decide whether the International Criminal Court initiates war crimes indictments against military personnel, the outcome of the internal IDF war may determine the country’s fate in what may be the largest battle for legitimacy Israel has ever faced.
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Decade-long campaign by European government-funded groups, Human Rights Watch, and Amnesty

NGO Monitor

Jerusalem –  The decision by the Palestinian Authority to sign the Rome Statute, a step towards joining the International Criminal Court (ICC), follows more than a decade of intense lobbying and propaganda campaigns by NGOs (non-governmental organizations). These groups promote legal warfare, or “lawfare,” against Israel, according to Jerusalem-based research institute NGO Monitor.

Detailed research by NGO Monitor documents the role of NGO superpowers such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, as well as European-funded NGOs Palestinian Center for Human Rights, Al Haq, Diakonia, and FIDH, in lobbying for such a move. Read more…

THIS LEFT WINGER GETS IT

There seems to be little reason to be optimistic when it comes to solving the conflict, but stopping the lies might be a start.

By Hayley Pearce, JPOST

It is not going to be popular among left-wingers, but Naftali Bennett as prime minister could be a good thing for Israel.

We have to face facts; he might win March’s elections. He made a funny campaign video and he apparently “stands for good things” according to a right-wing friend of mine. He unites the secular Right and Religious Zionists, he’s not afraid of international pressure (which many Israelis are also opposed to) and he’s definitely the new, relatable right-wing poster boy.

On the down side, Bennett is unapologetically right wing. He intends to outright deny Palestinians a state and instead to annex even more of the contested West Bank land, Area C, to Israel. Sometimes, watching him speak makes me grimace – he once even said, “I’ve killed lots of Arabs in my life and there’s no problem with that.” That’s unforgivable, no matter what the context. He’s quite awful, but his opinions are in line with much of the Israeli public and that is crucial. Why might he be a good thing, in terms of the conflict?
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Intelligence Min Steinitz was more cautious. Steinitz said if the resolution is accepted in the Security Council, “we will need to seriously weigh the dissolution of the Palestinian Authority.” Though the resolution didn’t pass, Israel should cut the PA off at the knees for trying.

By David Rubin, INN

Deputy Environmental Protection Minister Ofir Akunis (Likud) has a lot to say about what Israel’s response should be to the Palestinian Authority’s hostile diplomatic moves at the United Nations (UN) and at the International Criminal Court (ICC). Akunis, a close ally of Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu in the Likud, recently remarked that “we have to take off the kid gloves.” The response to the moves, according to Akunis, is that “we need to apply sovereignty on Judea and Samaria. Their unilateral move needs to be hit by a clear response – applying sovereignty and pushing settlement.”
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Residents in an uproar as Arabs, claiming ownership without proof, allowed to plow near Esh Kodesh; Ya’alon ‘is winking at the left.’

By Ido Ben-Porat, Ari Yashar, INN

Arab farmers in the Shiloh Bloc of Samaria, where Arab assailants have in the past caused massive damage to Jewish agriculture, prepared to arrive Wednesday to plow adjacent to the Jewish communities of Esh Kodesh and the Yeshuv Hada’at Farms, under the permission of the IDF.

The plowing was given permission by the IDF’s Civil Administration which manages Judea and Samaria given that the region has yet to be annexed, and apparently was given after the Arab farmers turned to the High Court claimingownership to the land.

However, the High Court has yet to discuss the case and there is no evidence backing up the ownership claims – that hasn’t stopped extremist leftist groups from influencing decision makers to allow the entrance to farmland adjacent to Jewish houses. Read more…

T. Belman. I asked Gov Pence at this event the question that illicited the answer in the title. I asked, “A growing number of Israelis want to abandon the negotiations for a two state solution because they do not believe they will lead to a deal acceptable to Israel. Were Israel to do so, would the US back us or resist us?” I was not happy with his answer as I really was asking what this or the next administration would probably do and not what he thought they should do.

By Herb Keinon, JPOST

America should not aspire to be an “honest broker” in the Middle East, but rather communicate to the world that while it wants an honest and fair solution to the conflict, “we are on the side of Israel,” Indiana Governor and possible 2016 Republican presidential candidate Mike Pence said in Jerusalem on Tuesday.

Pence, speaking at a town hall meeting sponsored by Republicans Abroad Israel, said the US can “deal honestly with people on all sides of the equation” while making clear what “side of the table” it is on.

Afterward, in a brief interview with The Jerusalem Post, Pence dismissed the oft heard claims that under Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu US-Israeli relations reached an all-time low.
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By Rabbi Berel Wein, INN

What can one say about Europe? I imagine that if one wants to be bitterly truthful then one could easily say that Hitler has in effect triumphed. He branded the Jews as the root of all troubles and proclaimed that the “final” and only solution to the “Jewish problem” was to eradicate all Jews from the face of the earth.

And as we all know, he followed through on his genocidal program. A great deal of Europe, its leaders, intellectuals and common folk, willfully and almost gleefully cooperated in this genocide. Many did so actively while many more Europeans did so passively.
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ALGEMEINER

Despite being attacked because of his father’s support for IDF recruitment among Arab Christians, the son of Father Gabriel Nadaf says a month into basic training that “I’m not afraid,” Israel’s Channel 2 News reported on Tuesday.

“I did not have to enlist, I volunteered for the army because I live in this country and I want to contribute. For years I knew what I wanted to do,” he said.

And not only that. 18-year-old Jubran Nadaf, who recently completed a basic training course for radio technicians and will soon begin his duties, hopes to continue on to officer training later in his service.
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Resolution fails to achieve required 9-vote majority; 8 countries vote in favor, 2 oppose, 5 abstain; no US veto needed.

By Ben Ariel, INN

Jordan’s envoy to the United Nations said Tuesday night that her country would continue to pressure the international community to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict despite the Palestinian Authority’s (PA) resolution being defeated at the Security Council.

The United States’ envoy said that the resolution was not a constructive step nor was it a replacement for negotiations.

Both envoys spoke after the PA’s resolution calling for Israel to withdraw from Judea and Samaria by 2017 was defeated in the Security Council.
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NO SURPRISE HERE

US president says he isn’t ruling out possibility of reopening an embassy in Tehran, but cautions ties must be restored in stages

By Pillar Taleggi, TOI

President Barack Obama said that Iran has the potential to become a “very successful regional power” if Tehran agrees to a comprehensive deal restricting its controversial nuclear program, in a year-end interview with National Public Radio.

Obama said that the ongoing nuclear talks with Iran are an opportunity for the Islamic Republic to “get right with the world.” NPR posted a transcript of the interview on its website Monday.
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By Shimon Cohen and Tova Dvorin, INN

The corruption investigation into Foreign Minister Avigdor Liberman’s Yisrael Beytenu party and the drama surrounding Shas Chairman Aryeh Deri could see many voters move their allegiances to Jewish Home, Deputy Education Minister Avi Wortzman (Jewish Home) stated Tuesday.

Wortzman, in a special interview with Arutz Sheva, stated that his party has already begun to benefit from an exodus from Yisrael Beytenu – not due to the political storm, but due to Liberman’s move leftward.

“The transition of voters [to Jewish Home] has started before this, when Liberman began saying things in political situations that gave a nod and a wink to the Center, such as seeing Route 6 as the border of a Palestinian state – things the nationalist camp would never agree to,” Wortzman stated. “Most Yisrael Beytenu voters would not subscribe to this and as a result may move to vote for us instead.”  Read more…

DEBKAfile Exclusive Analysis December 29, 2014, 5:50 PM (IDT)

The highly-personalized campaigns for Israel’s March 17 general election are by and large lackluster while exhausting the electorate’s patience with patently drummed up scandals. On the traditional issues, no party leader can promise to alter the Obama administration’s views on Jerusalem, or break down Palestinian Authority resistance to a negotiated peace.

Opposition efforts to prioritize social disparities, in place of the familiar security concerns or the Palestinian issue, fall flat, whereas chronic faultfinding over the soured relations with Washington has faded from op-ed pages and interviews since President Obama hitched his Middle East policy to the Iranian cart.
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For United Synagogue Youth’s leaders, being more inclusive does not equal being less religiously observant.

By Rabbi Dan Dorsch, HAARETZ

ecently, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency wire service ran an article about the United Synagogue Youth’s annual international convention, under the headline “USY drops ban on interdating.”

Unfortunately, this headline, which was widely circulated among Jewish news outlets, failed to capture the real issue that emerged from the confab. A more apt headline would have been “Jewish teens in 21st century Diaspora cast vote in favor of Shabbat observance.”

The Conservative youth movement’s teenage board members, who convened in Atlanta, Georgia, last week, used positive language to reframe the traditional requirements for those elected to the board.
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