Ted Belman. With Liberman now siding with Herzog/Livni, they represent about 33 seats. Add to this 10 from the Arabs and 6 from Meretz and 9 from Lapid they total totalling 57.  4 to go.  Therefore, it is up to Kahlon whether the right or left will form the government.

Liberman in closed meeting urges regional peace agreement to avoid EU sanctions, says ‘we will have to evacuate settlements.’

By Ari Yashar, INN

Foreign Minister Avigdor Liberman’s Yisrael Beytenu party may have run on a joint ticket with Likud in the last elections, but in a closed meeting on Tuesday he sharply attacked Prime Minister and Likud head Binyamin Netanyahu’s political management.

According to Liberman, Israel needs a peace agreement including the evacuation of Jewish communities because Netanyahu’s policy of placing supreme emphasis on maintaining the status quo has “failed,” reports Haaretz, which received recordings from the meeting at Tel AvivUniversity.
Read more…

Judas Maccabeus’ death would mark the end of the Maccabean revolt against the Greeks – and the start of the extremely unstable Hasmonean dynasty.

By Elon Gilad, HAARETZ

As Judas Maccabeus lay dead on the battlefield in Elasa, the Maccabean revolt that Jews everywhere mark on Hanukkah was over. It was 160 BCE.

The death of Judas, also known as Judah the Maccabee, could have been the end of his clan, the Hasmoneans. Actually it would mark the beginning of a dynasty that would rule the Jewish people for over a century, during a time of extreme upheaval.

Upon the death of their father Mattathias the Hasmonean, Judas, one of five brothers, assumed leadership of the Hasmonean clan and in 167 BCE, led the Jewish common people into revolt against their Greek overlords, the Seleucids – and against the Hellenized Jewish elite. A military genius, Judas beat back the Greek armies, recaptured Jerusalem and rededicated the Temple. But he was ultimately defeated in 160 BCE by the Seleucids (whose empire encompassed today’s Syria and Lebanon, and parts of Israel, Iraq and Turkey), and was killed. His brother Eleazar had been killed in an earlier battle. Read more…

By Jerry Gordan, NER

“No Hatred, No  violence, No Koran”  sign at Pegida rally in Germany, Source: Al Jazeera Yermi Brenner

Geert Wilders, leader of the Freedom Party (PVV) in the Netherlands is being investigated for the second time in five years by Dutch prosecutors for  alleged hate speech during  his March 2014 local election campaign rally statement of “fewer Moroccans”.  This comes while his ratings in Dutch polls has rocketed him to the top with fully 30 seats in the Hague parliament, if snap elections were held.  That is more than the combined seats currently held by the ruling Rutte coalition of the PvdA and VVD parties.  Note  this remark: “The short message of PVV-leader Geert Wilders to the Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte: ‘The revolution in The Netherlands has started now, Mark.”
  Read more…

By Jerry Gordon, NER

Last week in the aftermath of the Islamikaze Jihad  at Sydney’s Lindt Cafe, Raphael Israeli , Retired Hebrew University Professor of Islamic  and East Asian History, was interviewed in Israel  by radio personality Tali Lipkin-Shahak.  It was the subject of an op-ed published this past weekend in Israel Hayom (IH), “Time to Wake Up” by Dror Eydar. Eydar Lipkin-Shahak initially cited Israeli for his prescience in 2007, when he lectured on Islam sponsored by an Australian Jewish organization, only, to be asked to leave for expressing his views.  As Eydar noted in his Israel Hayom op ed,

In February 2007, Professor Raphael Israeli — an international expert on Islam and professor at Hebrew University — was interviewed by an Australian newspaper. In the interview, Israeli warned that the Muslim minority living in the continent posed a real threat to the Australians. His studies suggest that life can become unbearable when the Muslim population of a Western country reaches critical mass (in one study he even attached a number to this idea of critical mass: 10 percent of the general population). It is a rule of thumb, he said, and if it applies everywhere, it certainly applies in Australia.

Read more…

Jerry Gordon, NER:

Gal Luft nails it. The ruling of Dr. Gilo of Israel’s Anti-Trust Authority at the behest of Labor Party stalwarts like Shelli Yacimovitch and the duet of Herzog – Livini  virtually destroys any capability to complete development of the Leviathan field, honor agreements in the region for delivering gas and scuppers the Geo-politically important Eastern Mediterranean pipeline connecting it via Cyprus, Greece and Italy to the EU. This was a torpedo aimed at sinking Bibi in the March 2017 snap election.

You could see this train wreck coming in the failure  of the Noble-Delek consortium to complete the Aussie Woodside Pty. minority ownership in Leviathan in May 2014 – see:Woodside Terminates Leviathan Deal – WSJ.  Noble Energy’s NYSE listing plummeting 3.8% it is demanding an immediate hearing of this pussilanimous ruling of Dr. Gilo. The TASE was similarly rattled.
Read more…

A CONSUMMATION DEVOUTLY TO BE WISHED

Palestinian chief negotiator Saeb Erekat on Tuesday urged the United States to refrain from blocking a Palestinian drive for statehood.

By KHALED ABU TOAMEH, JPOST

PA President Mahmoud Abbas threatened on Tuesday to sever all ties with Israel if the statehood resolution presented to the UN Security Council last week did not receive approval.

Speaking to reporters in the Algeria, Abbas said the Palestinians were “determined to restore their rights, including the right of return for refugees and the release of all Palestinians from Israeli prison.”

He added, “We won’t surrender to the occupation’s policy of dominance and repression. The Palestinian cause is the key to peace and war in the Middle East and the basis for maintaining security and peace.”

Abbas repeated his threat to dissolve the PA if the latest statehood bid at the Security Council failed.
Read more…

Antitrust authority tells Delek, Noble Energy that it will recommend court dismantle Leviathan partnership deal, force firms to allow entry of new player into market.

Tomer Ganon, Calcalist

The commissioner of Israel’s antitrust authority announced Tuesday morning that he will recommend to the courts to break up the partnership developing the Leviathan gas field, the largest offshore find in over a decade.

Tamar gas field in Mediterranean Sea (Photo: Albatross Aerial Photography)

Prof. David Gila’s decision to retreat from an agreement formulated last March with the companies developing Leviathan leaves the court with two options – to force each partner to separately sell their stake or to allow some of the partners, namely Yitzhak Tshuva’s Delek Group and Texas-based Noble Energy, to sell their stake to a third-party who can become a new player in the market, to compete with the existing Tamar development.
Read more…

Uri Ariel’s Tekuma faction weakened, radical rabbis ditching party for Shas renegade Eli Yishai’s.

By Chaim Levinson, HAARETZ

The decision of Tekuma’s Central Committee to join with Habayit Hayehudi in the upcoming elections has not decided the political battle that the latter’s chairman, Naftali Bennett, and the former’s, Uri Ariel, have been waging for the past two years.

While the disagreement is supposedly about Tekuma’s representation in the elections, the actual issue is much deeper. Bennett wants to erase Tekuma and integrate it into Habayit Hayehudi, which would entrench his autocracy over the religious Zionist party in preparation for a future bid for the premiership. Ariel wants to continue doing what he has been doing for years, with impressive political skill: using a platform of 60,000 national-Zionist Haredim as a base for political power.

Using this platform, he extracts more and more funds for the most pampered sector in the country: the hesder yeshivas, the small, religiously observant groups that establish new communities, the religious academies and so on. Tekuma has never run on its own in Knesset elections, and even after the current round it is alive and kicking, and will continue to be a political force.
Read more…

By Ted Belman

Yesterday I was interviewed on the Zelda Young Show broadcasting out of Toronto (a weekly gig for me) and I was asked to comment on the elections. I expressed the opinion that the Left is greatly concerned with Israel’s growing isolation and with potential rupture with our relationship with the US. They are willing to accept ’67 lines plus swaps as borders as a result.

The right on the other hand is adamantly opposed to such borders and is unwilling to cede Judea and Samaria for many reasons, not the least of which is security. They are ready to take the heat as the lesser danger.

Contrary to the polls I have read lately showing about 15-17 seats for Bayit Yehudi, they say that they are polling in the low to mid twenties.

Last night I attending a parlour meeting at which Danny Danon was the speaker. Upon hearing his remarks, I was very depressed. Evidently Likud is very split ideologically. The policies they followed in the last 6 years are policies insisted upon by the left wing in their party including Netanyahu. These policies include “quiet for quiet”, pursuit of the two-state solution and acceptance of a building freeze in J&S and even in Jerusalem.
Read more…

By Jeff Barak, JPOST

Hat tip to Naftali Bennett for funniest video yet of the 2015 elections. For those who haven’t seen it, the Bayit Yehudi leader dresses up as a Tel Aviv hipster who, in between reading Haaretz, walks around apologizing to everyone in sight: the waitress who spills his coffee, the driver who rear-ends him, etc. No matter who’s at fault, the Tel Aviv hipster takes the blame on himself.

In his video, Bennett acts the part of the Tel Aviv hipster perfectly – and that’s exactly why he’s so dangerous. In the past, the National Religious Party, the progenitor of Bayit Yehudi, was a party of gray, middle-aged men for whom the word “cool” only had meteorological connotations. Voting for the national-religious camp was like wearing socks with sandals: you had to be seriously out of touch with modern-day Israel to consider casting your vote for them.
Read more…

By Lahav Harkov, JPOST

With less than a month until the January 14 Bayit Yehudi primary, the party’s candidates are courting English-speaking voters, who make up 5 percent to 7% percent of its membership.

There were 3,000,-4,000 Anglo members out of about 57,000 ahead of the party’s online membership drive, which began last week and ends on December 29.

More than 10,000 people joined Bayit Yehudi in the past week, making it the second-largest party after the Likud, which has some 99,000 members.

More of the English-speaking members made aliya from the US than from anywhere else and a plurality of them live in the 02 area code, meaning Jerusalem and the surrounding area.
Read more…

Death penalty ban lifted in aftermath of massacre in Peshawar, paving way for hundreds to be hanged

TIMES OF ISRAEL

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — Pakistan plans to execute around 500 militants in coming weeks, officials said Monday, after the government lifted a moratorium on the death penalty in terror cases following a Taliban school massacre.

Six militants have been hanged since Friday amid rising public anger over Tuesday’s slaughter in the northwestern city of Peshawar, which left 149 people dead including 133 children.

After the deadliest terror attack in Pakistani history, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif ended the six-year moratorium on the death penalty, reinstating it for terrorism-related cases.
Read more…

Lt. Col. (ret.) Michael Segall, JCPA

• Even as it engages in nuclear negotiations, Iran continues to arm and train Hizbullah, Hamas, and Palestinian Islamic Jihad.

• Central to the Iranian effort are rockets and missiles (surface-to-surface), as well as UAVs and advanced anti-aircraft weapons, mainly for Hizbullah, intended to constrict the Israeli Air Force’s maneuvering room in Lebanon.

• According to Supreme Leader Khamenei, “All Palestinian areas have to become armed.. We looked at our main goal and we offered help. We managed to strengthen the fists of our Palestinian brothers in Gaza and by Allah’s favor we will continue to do that. I announced that the West Bank should be armed like Gaza and be prepared for defense.”

Read more…

By BY DEREK M. KWAIT, New Voices

Holly Bicerano, a student at Boston University and the former Campus Outreach Co-Coordinator for Open Hillel, made waves in the Jewish world after publishing an op-ed in the Times of Israel called “Standing athwart lies,” explaining why she decided to leave the organization. Chief among her complaints are that, far from promoting true open dialogue and inclusiveness in Jewish spaces, one the organization’s main goals is to foster support for the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel; that Open Hillel is, ironically, no less guilty than Hillel itself in muzzling voices it does not like; and that it formed an “anti-normalization committee.” New Voices editor Derek Kwait approached Holly shortly after she published her op-ed to find out more..

You mentioned the nasty language some in the movement had for Dr. Elie Wiesel as being what first made you question the Open Hillel movement. Can you go into a little more detail about what happened from there until you published the op-ed?

The treatment of the issue of inviting Dr. Wiesel to the conference served as a wake-up call for me. But the issue was dropped when I found out that Dr. Wiesel would not be able to make it. At the conference, I moderated the BDS panel with Dr. Sa’ed Atshan of Tufts University and Ms. Rebecca Vilkomerson of Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP). During the panel, Dr. Atshan proclaimed that all Zionists are racists. While he is entitled to say what he wants, I do not think that welcoming someone like him to berate the Jewish community would benefit us.
Read more…

by Asaf Romirowsky and Alexander H. Joffe, The National Interest

One definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. By any measurement, Western policy towards United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), the internationally funded agency for Palestinian “refugees,” meets that definition. One example is the newly released 2015 State Department Framework for Cooperation Between UNRWA and the U.S.

This exercise in repetition occurred in the wake of a war that again exposed UNRWA’s unsavory and illegal activities, from being “shocked” that its schools were used to store Hamas’ rockets and rote condemnations of Israel, to its employees cheering the murder of Israelis. The framework nevertheless represents the American commitment to prolong the existence of UNRWA, established almost exactly 65 years ago.
Read more…

By Martin Sherman, JPOST

Something is rotten in the state of Denmark. – William Shakespeare, Hamlet, Act 1, Scene 4,

Israel should insist that we discriminate [against it], that we apply double standards [to it], this is because you are one of us. – Jesper Vahr, Danish ambassador to Israel, at The Jerusalem Post Diplomatic Conference on December 12

The difference between stupidity and genius is that genius has its limits. – Albert Einstein

Last Thursday, the Jerusalem Post Diplomatic Conference took place in the capital with an impressive lineup of prominent public figures – including the present and the previous presidents and the US ambassador.

The real fireworks, however, took place in the panel discussion dealing with relations between the EU and Israel. Read more…

As long as Israel acknowledges that the Palestinian Arabs’ national claims to statehood in Judea-Samaria are authentic and legitimate, Israel can never be secure externally, or internally.

By Martin Sherman, JPOST

ARAB YOUTHS try to prevent a tear gas canister from emitting more gas during a confrontation with police in the capital’s Abu Tor neighborhood. (photo credit:REUTERS)

The Arabs… will not flinch from the war of liberation… This is a fight for the homeland – it is either us or the Israelis. There is no middle road. The Jews of Palestine will have to leave…We shall destroy Israel and its inhabitants and as for the survivors – if there are any – the boats are ready to deport them.

– Ahmad Shukeiri, Yasser Arafat’s predecessor as PLO chairman, few days prior to the Six Day War

Claims of historical or religious ties of Jews with Palestine are incompatible with the facts of history and the true conception of what constitutes statehood. Judaism, being a religion, is not an independent nationality. Nor do Jews constitute a single nation with an identity of its own; they are citizens of the states to which they belong.

– The Palestinian National Charter Read more…

DEBKAfile Exclusive Report

December 21, 2014, 1:39 PM (IDT)

Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi and top Qatari envoys went through the motions of formalizing the Saudi-brokered reconciliation between them, when they met in Cairo Saturday, Dec. 20.

The Saudis hailed the first meeting between Sisi and Qatari officials, since the Egyptian ruler took office last summer, as the turning of a new page between the two Arab states. And Shekh Mohammad bin Abdel Rahman al Thani, the Qatar Emir’s special envoy, expressed support for “a leading role for Egypt in the Arab and Muslim worlds.

These steps were in keeping with the policy adopted by the Gulf Cooperation Council summit of late November in Doha to end the dispute between the GCC and Qatar and “contribute to Egyptian security and stability.”
Read more…

“OK, here’s my idea for how we can stick it to Bibi…”

By Vic Rosenthal

As you may remember, Shimon Peres and Yossi Beilin carried on pre-Oslo agreement negotiations with the PLO behind the backs of Prime Ministers Shamir and Rabin, and then presented the deal as afait accompli to Rabin. One doesn’t know how Rabin felt about it in his heart (although the look on his face when he shook hands with Arafat on the White House lawn might give us a clue), but publicly he had no choice but to embrace the initiative and do his best to minimize the damage. Read more…