Ted Belman. This is great news.  Now if they can persuade Yishai Eli to join them it will be even better.

Also Otzma Yehudit, headed by Michael Ben-Ari, announced it will be running in the election:

Members of the party argue that Jewish Home chairman Naftali Bennett’s claim that 99.9% of Arab citizens of Israel are loyal to the state, as well as Bennett’s sitting in a coalition that froze construction in Judea and Samaria, “cause tens of thousands not to vote in the coming elections, and only a campaign by ‘Otzma Yehudit’ will cause the voices not to be thrown away.”

Bennett should commit his party to reject a freeze and woo Ben-Ari to join. I leave it to Bennett to decide if including Ben-Ari will increase their seats or lose seats. Ben-Ari has a deserved reputation of being extreme.

Meanwhile, Arab Parties to Form Joint List Within a Week

By Hezki Ezra, INN

[..] During Saturday night’s meeting in Jerusalem, the Central Committee decided that Tekuma will accept Jewish Home chairman Naftali Bennett’s proposal, according to which four spots on the Jewish Home’s Knesset list will be reserved for Tekuma members. Bennett also offered Tekuma chairman Uri Ariel a senior ministerial position in the next government.

Before Saturday night’s vote, Ariel explained why he thought it would be better for the party to join former Shas chairman Eli Yishai’s new party but said, “I will accept any decision that is reached.”
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Open Letter to the Jewish Community,

From Richard Allen, JCCWatch.org

It is wrong for the New York Jewish Community Relations Council in NYC and the UJA-Fed, the sponsors of the Israel Day Parade, to prevent simple guidelines from being enacted for participating groups to sign, stating they do not support Boycotts, Divestments and Sanctions (BDS) against Israel.

Groups that call for a boycott of Israeli companies such as SodaStream and Ahava products are honored and march with their banners in the Israel Day Parade. The group “Partners for a Progressive Israel” calls for a boycott of Israel Companies openly on their web site.
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Israel Encircled:Obama’s “Rebels”,Al Yarmouk Shuhada Brigades-Backed Up By IDF & U.S./CIA Officers-Pledged To ISIS.What Are The Knock-On Effects?

Commentary By Adina Kutnicki

MUCH has been written at this site about Obama Inc.’s support for the “rebels”, most of whom have long been connected to Al-Qaeda, Al-Nusra and Salafist offshoots, including ISIS. 

IN fact, regarding the connections – on a multiplicity of occasions – mega alarm bells blared. Most recently, the following was cited: U.S. military confirms that Obama is sabotaging fight against ISIS! As is said, them’s fighting words. Read more…

By Ron Nutter, Ph D

I wear a necklace made of silver created by a craftswoman in Carmel, IN. In my years of teaching philosophy and religion I would on occasion make a rhetorical point about Judaism and Christianity by holding up one side of the necklace, displaying the Christian Cross, and saying, “One cannot possibly understand the full meaning of this without a deep and abiding understanding of this,” whereupon I would flip my necklace and show the Star of David on the other side.

Over the years that little demonstration had greater and greater effect as I developed a course on the Shoah in which the first half of the semester was spent exploring Jewish traditions and beliefs with a guest rabbi, the anti-Jewish rhetoric of the early Church, and the anti-Jewish legislation of early Church councils and secular governments. Over time Jews were restricted in where they could live, how they might make a living, banned from owning land, ordered not to converse with Christians, prohibited from appearing in public during Christian holidays, denied education in the professions, forced to wear distinctive clothing so everyone would know them to be a Jew, and more.
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Ted Belman. Dann paints a misleading picture. While what he says is true, his analysis doesn’t go deep enough. When Sharon balked at accepting the Road Map he listed 14 reservations. Sec’y Powell pushed him to acceptance saying it was “only a process”, a road map, if you will, and not an agreement. As for the reservations he promised to “fully and seriously address” them which never happened. The parties were never ad item, of the same mind, so there was no binding agreement. Besides Israel isn’t bound by an agreement with a non-state entity. It is no treaty. Powell said the words don’t matter, steps do.

Israel can depart from the Road Map at any time without cause. There have been many violations in the past that we could use to justify abandoning it.

The Road Map lists the intentions of the parties at that time including the clause of a sovereign state that Dann quoted. It also demanded a settlement freeze including internal growth. At any time we want we can abandon the Road Map and our “intentions” listed.

Obviously Israel in negotiating a two state solution and imposing a freeze even in Jerusalem is complying with the Roadmap. To regain her independence, she need only abandon the Roadmap. Abrogation is not called for because there is no agreement to abrogate.

The Oslo Accords, don’t obligate us to allow a Palestinian state nor do they restrict settlement construction. If we abrogated the Oslo Accords we would have to protect our interests in Area C by enforcing no encroachment by Arabs.

In February, I suggested “The U.S. Should Cut a Deal with Israel and End the Conflict”. In that article I covered the Roadmap. American thinker also published it and received 82 comments.

Although Abbas’s demand for statehood is an abrogation of the Oslo Agreements, thus releasing Israel from its contractual obligations, the government of Israel seems unwilling.

By Moshe Dann, JPOST

As more EU countries recognize a “State of Palestine” and PA President Mahmoud Abbas appeals for UN recognition, and the government of Israel is under pressure to acquiesce, attention has turned to prime minister Yitzhak Rabin’s speech (October 5, 1995) when, seeking Knesset approval for the Interim Agreement (known as Oslo II), he said that he envisioned an independent, autonomous “Palestinian entity, not a state.”
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By Agvi Issacharoff, TOI

[..]
Thursday underscored the scope of the hatred, not only between Dahlan and Abbas, but also between Hamas and the PA.

That the Strip’s Islamist rulers allowed Fatah members in Gaza to wave pictures of an ex-official, who in the past pursued hundreds of Hamas members, is no small matter. It is a sign of how deep the rift is between the Abbas and Hamas – and it looks like it cannot be mended.

If it seemed for a moment in May that Gaza and the West Bank were headed toward a truce, then Israeli ministers can relax: internal Palestinian reconciliation is dead. The split is back in place. The PA’s supposed Fatah-Hamas “unity” government cannot operate in any meaningful way in Gaza, and Hamas, of course, is prevented from operating in the West Bank.

Read more…

By Keith Kohl | Friday, December 19th, 2014

Oil Stimulus Money

AAA also said that 98.6 million Americans will travel 50 miles or more during the holiday season, and most of them will be driving.

For those who are flying, the cost of jet fuel is at record lows, too, offering a huge stimulus to airlines whose biggest expense is fuel.

Check out how well Southwest Airlines (NYSE: LUV) has done while oil and gas were getting crushed…

Of course, this immediate stimulus for airlines may not be passed onto customers, but shareholders have already seen the boon of low oil prices.

That being said, this hasn’t been a positive stimulus for everybody…
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If Chabad becomes more dominant, American Judaism will change

By Shmuel Rosner, Jewish Journal

I was planning to write a post about Chabad way before the stabbing in NY last week, and without even remembering that last week was the “new year” of Chasidism according to Chabad calendar. I was planning to write about Chabad following my article on why the Jews of Miami are doing so great. The article was based on a study by Prof. Ira Sheskin in which one finding stood out as remarkable: 26% of Miami Jews have “participated in Chabad activity”. That’s a lot. And it becomes even more impressive as one examines in more detail how Chabad got to this impressive percentage. Sheskin kindly shared with me some of the numbers.
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BY ANNE BAYEFSKY

United Nations HQ in New York. Photo: wiki commons.

Incitement against the Jewish state is directly related to the stabbings, raping and killing of Jews inside and outside of Israel. But doing something to stop it requires confronting a very troubling fact: the global epicenter for incitement is the “human rights” leviathan, the United Nations.

From November 24, 2014 until December 5, 2014, UN human rights headquarters in Geneva mounted a public exhibit that was pure incitement. UN-driven antisemitism that takes the form of seeking to demonize, disable and ultimately destroy the Jewish state.
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‘You can’t talk about two states and also sovereignty,’ says Danon; challenge on Netanyahu’s leadership to return party to roots.

By Shimon Cohen, Ari Yashar, INN

After Likud MK Moshe Feiglin left the race for leadership of the party, only Likud Central Committee chairperson MK Danny Danon is left facing off against Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu for control of Likud.

Speaking to Arutz Sheva, Danon said that despite the frequent controversy between himself and Netanyahu the current race is not a personal matter, but rather a conflict over which path and values Likud should pursue.

With Labor joining with Hatnua and running neck and neck with Likud according to polls, Danon was asked whether Feiglin may not have been right to withdraw from the race, citing the need for unity in the party to deal with challenges from without.
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Sources in Gaza say Hamas has started to prepare for next conflict with Israel, group said shifting war strategy in wake of Iron Dome, from long-range missiles to short-ranged mortars, coupled with multiple terror cell attacks.

By Elior Levy, YNET

Building materials intended for Hamas in Egypt (Archive photo)

Hamas has been commandeering building materials transferred into Gaza Strip for its reconstruction by Israel for the purpose of rebuilding its offensive ‘terror tunnels’, Ynet has learned from sources inside Gaza only four months after a 50-day war which saw Israel target the tunnels.

Gaza was blockaded by Israel and Egypt for years before the summer’s Operation Protective Edge, which ended in August, partly because terrorists were using materials to build fortifications and tunnels under the border. Only in mid-October did Israel allow new materials to begin entering the Strip and their oversight was a key point in the ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas.
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Eli E. Hertz, Myths and Facts

Europe seeks to play the role of neutral mediator in the Arab-Israeli conflict. Yet for a host of reasons – most of them self-serving – Europe has demonstrated a clear pro-Arab bias, including insensitivity to Israel ’s security needs. And it excuses Arab terrorism that no civilized nation would ever tolerate if faced with similar attacks.

An informed brief according to international law which constitutes an important, scholarly exposition of Israel’s situation in the face of the PA demand for statehood.

By Louis Rene Beres, INN

Many legal and practical problems are associated with the impending Palestinian “final demand” for statehood. Jurisprudentially, even if an expanding number of European states should jump on the “Palestine” bandwagon, and agree uniformly to recognize this 23rd Arab state, these actions would still have no authoritative legal effect. This isbecause, inter alia, the governing treaty on statehood – the Convention on the Rights and Duties of States (1934) stipulates a number of explicit criteria that always must be satisfied, irrespective of recognition.[i]

There are other substantial problems with the contrived Palestinian end-run around international law. In principle, declarations of support for Palestinian “self-determination”[ii] might not be unreasonable per se if the Palestinian side were authentically committed to a “Two-State Solution.”[iii] Yet, both Fatah and Hamas, even as they periodically war on each other, somehow manage to agree on at least one overriding point. This is their unchanging annihilatory mantra: (1) Israel represents an abomination in the Dar al-Islam (the world of Islam), purely on irremediable religious grounds, and: (2) Israel is nothing more than “Occupied Palestine.”
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Down with the Hellenists

by Steven Shamrak

The name of Jewish holiday, Hanukkah, is derived from a Hebrew word – meaning “to dedicate.” It used to be a minor Jewish festival with no Biblical source.

The Chanukah story permeates Israel. It is not just the story of the miracle of the oil, or the reclamation and restoration of the Temple. It is the story of Jewish victory over oppressors, of defending our homeland against those who seek to delegitimize our connection to it and destroy our nation. It is a narrative that all Jews, Israelis and Zionists, can relate to very strongly, as it is a story that has played out many times throughout our history.

Hanukkah is one of the quintessentially Zionist holidays. It is a holiday of freedom, celebrating the victory of the Maccabees over the Syrians. It reaffirms the centrality of Israel and of Jerusalem in Jewish cultural life. Without love of Israel and Jewish national existence, Hanukkah has no real meaning.
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THIS IS SHAMEFUL TO THE POINT OF BEING HILARIOUS

Wherever you look in the Middle East, there is mayhem, some of it bloody and some of it economic or political.

By Mordechai Kedar, INN

The prevailing atmosphere of the last few days when it comes to the Middle East is of a situation that is spinning out of control in all manner of unconnected spheres.

The Palestinian Autonomy is rushing ahead to gain recognition of its statehood in the Security Council, the European Parliament, the International Court and many other international institutions, in a step that is a clear and blatant violation of the Oslo Accords that created the Authority itself. Israel has not as yet reacted seriously to these Palestinian steps, and it has now emerged that Minister Livni, who was given the responsibility for negotiations with the Palestinian Authority (PA) is ideologically and politically in the camp of the architects of Oslo.

Someone in Israel fell asleep while on duty guarding the lands that the League of Nations granted the Jewish people as far back as the 1920 San Remo Conference.
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Why my sisters can’t think straight about Israel

By Phyllis Chesler, TABLET

These days, Israel is far too dangerous a word to pronounce in a Western intellectual or social setting. Say it—and you risk uncivil argument.

For example, it’s ten months after Sept. 11, and I am having dinner with a friend and colleague of many years. We are talking up the usual storm, laughing a lot, enjoying each other’s company when one of us uses the word: “Israel.” My friend, an independent and sophisticated thinker stops talking. Suddenly, the air becomes thin. She takes a deep breath. Her tone is no longer light; it has become dark, coarse, mocking.

“Israel?! It deserves exactly what it’s getting. And more. And don’t think America doesn’t deserve what it’s getting too.”
Read more…

DEBKAfile Exclusive Report December 17, 2014, 6:07 PM (IDT)

Legislators who Fund UNRWA Confronted with Reality of… UNRWA Education for War

David Bedien is the leading researcher and critic of UNRWA. Israel Behind the News is his newsletter.

I send out his latest newsletter because of its enormous importance but for some reason the links didn’t work.

Please visit his site and see what is so important.