His new doctrine: Downgrade ties to Israel and the Saudis while letting Iran fill the vacuum left by U.S. retreat.

By Max Boot, WSJ

Let’s connect the dots.

Data point No. 1: President Obama withdrew U.S. forces from Iraq in 2011 and is preparing to leave Afghanistan by the end of 2016, even while keeping a few more troops there this year and next than originally planned.

Point No. 2: The Obama administration keeps largely silent about Iran’s power grab in Iraq, Syria and Yemen, even going so far now as to assist Iranian forces in Tikrit, while attempting to negotiate a nuclear deal with Tehran that would allow it to maintain thousands of centrifuges.

Point No. 3: Mr. Obama berates Benjamin Netanyahu for allegedly “racist” campaign rhetoric, refuses to accept his apologies, and says the U.S. may now “re-assess options,” code words for allowing the United Nations to recognize a Palestinian state over Israeli objections.
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THE JEWISH CHRONICLE (UK), March 26, 2015

Netanyahu aides say Israel-US relationship is a write-off — and Iran, not the Palestinian issue, is to blame

Senior advisers to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu have described the relationship between the Obama administration and the Israeli government as irreparable.

The war of words between the two leaders over the last few days has focused on Mr Netanyahu’s remarks on the establishment of a Palestinian state and Israel’s Arab citizens, but officials in Jerusalem say they are convinced the real reason for the crisis is the difference of opinion on Iran.

The view among Mr Netanyahu’s advisers is that President Barack Obama is adamant that Iran must be engaged as a regional ally, and that this is leading to a US-Israel rift that will continue until at least the end of his presidency in January 2017.
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Obama revenge for Netanyahu’s Congress talk? 1987 report on Israel’s top secret nuclear program released in unprecedented move.

By Ari Yashar, Matt Wanderman, INN

In a development that has largely been missed by mainstream media, the Pentagon early last month quietly declassified a Department of Defense top-secret document detailing Israel’s nuclear program, a highly covert topic that Israel has never formally announced to avoid a regional nuclear arms race, and which the US until now has respected by remaining silent.

But by publishing the declassified document from 1987, the US reportedly breached the silent agreement to keep quiet on Israel’s nuclear powers for the first time ever, detailing the nuclear program in great depth.

The timing of the revelation is highly suspect, given that it came as tensions spiraled out of control between Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and US President Barack Obama ahead of Netanyahu’s March 3 address in Congress, in which he warned against the dangers of Iran’s nuclear program and how the deal being formed on that program leaves the Islamic regime with nuclear breakout capabilities.
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President Barack Obama is steering U.S. foreign policy toward an alliance with Iran, shunning traditional U.S. allies such as Israel, Egypt, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia. Col. Allen West speaks with Fox Business host Stuart Varney.

After promising to make Bayit Yehudi a senior partner in government, Source: Netanyahu Planning to Keep Jewish Home in the Opposition

After Bibi promises to bui9ld thousands of homes in Jerusalem, Government freezes construction of 1,500 units in Jerusalem’s Har Homa

Netanyahu tries to calm tensions with Bennett as coalition talks begin\

DEBKA

Saudi Arabia, its Gulf allies and Egypt underlined their breach with Washington over its Iran policy as two separate air operations went forward early Thursday, March 26, in Iraq and Yemen.

The US launched its first air strikes against Islamic State positions in the Iraqi city of Tikrit to help the Iranian-commanded Iraqi operation which had failed to dislodge the jihadis in two weeks of fighting, while the warplanes of Saudi Arabia and its Gulf allies joined by Egypt began bombing Yemeni cities to halt the Iran-backed Houthi rebellion.
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BY HAVIV RETTIG GUR, TOI

Coalition talks got underway Thursday in the Knesset as the Likud party made its first official bid to cobble together a coalition amid competing interests between various potential partners.

Party officials are meeting with each potential coalition partner’s negotiating team to hear their expectations and hopes for the next government.

Each party has two hours to make its initial case. Likud’s four-member team is spending as much as 11 hours Thursday hearing and challenging the other parties’ demands.
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Regavim is sponsoring a bus tour to allow you to actually see this massive illegal building in Area C and Jerusalem. In the end, there is nothing like seeing it for yourself.

Date and time: Wednesday, April 8th, Hol Hamoed Pesach, from 1:30 to 4:30 PM.

Location: Buses will depart from and return to the Inbal Hotel, Jerusalem.

Cost: 100 NIS or $25. 

An expert will accompany each bus; detailed maps will be provided, as will water.  Bring your own food.

For information: Dr. Jan Sokolovsky,  drjan43@gmail.com

To Register online by April 3,  http://www.regavim.org.il/en/events/Pesach

Saudi envoy to US says airstrikes against Houthi rebels launched to defend legitimate government of Yemen.

ALGEZEERA

Saudi Arabia and a coalition of regional allies have launched a military operation in Yemen against the Houthi rebels, who deposed the US-backed Yemeni president last month.

Adel al-Jubair, Saudi ambassador to the US, said on Wednesday that a coalition consisting of 10 countries, including the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), had begun airstrikes at 7pm Eastern time.

“The operation is to defend and support the legitimate government of Yemen and prevent the radical Houthi movement from taking over the country,” Jubair told reporters in Washington.
Saudi Arabia said that five Muslim countries including Egypt and Pakistan wanted to participate in the Gulf-led military coalition
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T. Belman. I told Arlene Kushner that I believe that Obama, by blaming Bibi for killing prospects of peace, is in fact laying the ground work to resort to the UN. He is in effect justifying the move away from negotiations to the UN who, he expects will attempt to impose a solution on Israel

The Guardian (no friend of Israel’s to put it mildly)

A hard-hitting EU report on Jerusalem warns that the city has reached a dangerous boiling point of “polarisation and violence” not seen since the end of the second intifada in 2005.

Calling for tougher European sanctions against Israel over its continued settlement construction in the city – which it blames for exacerbating recent conflict – the leaked document paints a devastating picture of a city more divided than at any time since 1967, when Israeli forces occupied the east of the city.

The report has emerged amid strong indications that the Obama administration is also rethinking its approach to Israel and the Middle East peace process following the re-election of Binyamin Netanyahu as Israel’s prime minister.

According to reports in several US papers, this may include allowing the passage of a UN security council resolution restating the principle of a two-state solution.
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By Arlene Kushner

Before we take a look at the broader situation , I share two announcements:

This Friday, March 27th, at noon, there will be a press conference and a “Keep Iran Nuclear Free” rally, at 780 Third Avenue (between 48th & 49th Streets) in Manhattan. This is in front of the offices of the Manhattan offices of New York Senators Chuck Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand, to urge these Senators to commit to overriding President Obama’s expected veto of two important pending bills on the issue of Iran.

The Bipartisan Nuclear Weapon Free Iran Act of 2015, sponsored by Senators Kirk and Menendez, imposes new sanctions on Iran if international negotiators fail to reach a deal by June 30 on Tehran’s nuclear program.  Fourteen Senators, including Senator Schumer co-sponsored the bill.

The Bipartisan Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act of 2015, sponsored by Senators Corker, Menendez, Graham and Kaine, mandates that the president must submit the text of any agreement with Iran to Congress; prohibits the administration from suspending congressional sanctions for 60 days, during which Congress would hold hearings and review the agreement; provides for Congressional oversight; and requires assessments and certifications of Iranian compliance.

Every vote is needed.
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By Bret Stephens, WSJ

The humiliating denouement to America’s involvement in Yemen came over the weekend, when U.S. Special Forces were forced to evacuate a base from which they had operated against the local branch of al Qaeda. This is the same branch that claimed responsibility for the January attack on Charlie Hebdo and has long been considered to pose the most direct threat to Europe and the United States.

So who should Barack Obama be declaring war on in the Middle East other than the state of Israel?

There is an upside-down quality to this president’s world view. His administration is now on better terms with Iran—whose Houthi proxies, with the slogan “God is great, death to America, death to Israel, damn the Jews, power to Islam,” just deposed Yemen’s legitimate president—than it is with Israel. He claims we are winning the war against Islamic State even as the group continues to extend its reach into Libya, Yemen and Nigeria.
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By Francisco Gil-White, TOI

“Peace for Our Time,” announced a proud Neville Chamberlain after placing the Czechoslovaks in Hitler’s foaming bite, one he relaxed only to spit threats of European war and anti-Jewish genocide. “Peace in our time” promised Barack Obama in his inaugural speech of 2013. History may not repeat itself, but it does rhyme. Obama prepares already the signature that will normalize the nuclear program of terrorist Ali Khamenei, ‘Supreme Leader’ (official title) of Iran, and would-be emulator of Hitler’s crime against the Jews.

Santayana was right: lest we understand history we are doomed to repeat it. So let us interrogate this history and find the rhymes to grasp our moment: How could Chamberlain vault over public opinion to commit his diplomatic barbarities? Historians have answered this already.

“Israel should vanish from the page of time.”

–Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, founder of the Iranian Islamist State (1979)

“Israel must be wiped off the map.”

–Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, former president of Iran (2005)

“Israel… has no cure but to be annihilated.”

–Ali Khamenei, Supreme Leader of Iran (2014)

In The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich (1960) William Shirer remarked that the Times of London, “This great journal, one of the chief glories of English journalism, …play[ed]… a dubious role in the disastrous British appeasement of Hitler.” How so? By raising the Führer’s prestige every time he interrupted his violent tantrums to communicate his commitment to ‘peace,’ promised always in return for some license (to reoccupy the Rhineland, rearm Germany, absorb Austria, consume Czechoslovakia…).[1] This media barrage gave Chamberlain cover when he repeated each time—another time—that Hitler could be ‘appeased.’

It wasn’t just the Times.
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The Palestinians continue to prefer not to establish a state if it involves recognition of Israel as the nation-state of the Jewish people.

By Yossi Kuperwasser, HAARETZ

“Zionism began as a foreign entity and will end as a foreign entity,” Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas wrote in the concluding chapter of the 2011 edition of his book “Zionism: the Beginning and the End,” which appears on his website.

The book, which was first published in 1977, goes on to say that Zionism initially appeared to be a decree of fate, but now fate has determined its end. “The Palestinians and the Jews will see to it that it is eliminated so that we can later live as we lived before it, in a wide open homeland full of good for everyone, spreading … goodness, affection and equality over everyone.”

Nevertheless, many people are of the opinion that the conflict with the Palestinians centers around the question of continued Israeli control over territories captured in 1967. They choose to ignore the fact that from the standpoint of the vast majority of Palestinians, the conflict is over the very existence of a nation-state for the Jewish people.
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MEMRI Daily: March 25, 2015

• Lebanese MP: We Must Liberate Arab Countries From The Iranian Occupation

• Sunni And Shi’ite Commentators Clash On TV Over Military Campaign In Tikrit

Special Dispatch No. 6005

Lebanese MP: We Must Liberate Arab Countries From The Iranian Occupation

In light of Iran’s increasing physical presence and influence in Arab countries, particularly in Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, and Yemen, there has been a proliferation of voices in the anti-Iranian Arab camp arguing that the Iranian presence in those four countries constitutes occupation and that action must be taken to prevent Iran from occupying additional countries.

As evidence, the speakers pointed to a recent statement by Ali Younesi, advisor to Iranian President Hassan Rohani, who said that Iran is an empire and Iraq is its capital (see MEMRI Special Dispatch No. 5991, Advisor To Iranian President Rohani: Iran Is An Empire, Iraq Is Our Capital; We Will Defend All The Peoples Of The Region; Iranian Islam Is Pure Islam – Devoid Of Arabism, Racism, Nationalism, March 9, 2015).
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Despite a stacked deck, Israel is girding itself and is well-prepared for a showdown in the International Criminal Court.

By Gedalyah Reback, INN

The Palestinian Authority is far more confident than it was just a few short weeks ago about its diplomatic offensive. With tensions at a purportedly unprecedented level between Jerusalem and Washington, Mahmoud Abbas might think he will get a silent or even overt go-ahead from the United States to pursue its recognition campaign. But the gambit to join the International Criminal Court (ICC) might be the PA’s Achilles’ heel.

“The ICC is a special situation because the US itself doesn’t believe in the court and doesn’t want the court to determine Palestinian statehood,” says Nitsana Darshan-Leitner, Director of Shurat HaDin – Israel Law Center. “They don’t want to strengthen the court.”

The Palestinians’ major threat diplomatically is bringing Israel to court with charges of war crimes. In order to join the court, ‘Palestine’ has to first be recognized as a state. But the ends do not justify the means for the United States, which itself has also avoided joining the court to avoid public prosecution – and scrutiny – for its own military operations around the world.
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The Academic Friends of Israel 

Please sign the petition opposing the ‘Antisemitic’ Israel conference at Southampton University

Southampton University, one of 24 members of the British Russell Group of Institutions which have distinguished themselves as research-led universities of international quality  is to hold a conference on the 17-19 April 2015 questioning both the legal and moral right of the state of Israel to exist.

The conference “International Law and the State of Israel: Legitimacy, Responsibility and Exceptionalism” is described by the organisers as “the first of its kind and constitutes a ground-breaking historical event … it is unique because it concerns the legitimacy in international law of the Jewish State of Israel.”
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By Moshe Phillips and Benjamin Korn,, ALGEMEINER

Why is the Obama Administration reportedly threatening to support a United Nations resolution calling on Israel to retreat to the pre-1967 armistice lines?

This would be President Obama’s way of punishing Israel’s voters for choosing a government that is not to Obama’s liking – and would be intended to intimidate Israel and its supporters to give in to Arab territorial demands.

The White House must think we have very short memories. Recall this headline from the New York Times from 2011: “Obama Sees ’67 Borders as Starting Point for Peace Deal.”
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JPOST

Bayit Yahudi joined Yisrael Beytenu’s years-long call to adopt a law under which ministers would stop serving as MKs.

The “Norwegian Law,” based on the model of the Scandinavian country’s government, requires each minister to be replaced in the legislature by a candidate from his or her party’s ballot. If the minister is fired or resigns, he or she would reclaim a place in the Knesset and the substitute would no longer be a lawmaker.

Yisrael Beytenu has been calling for the “Norwegian Law” to be instated since the party’s inception, and six months ago changed its regulations to require all of the party’s ministers, except for its chairman, to resign from the Knesset.

“We’re happy Bayit Yehudi is joining our initiative,” said Yisrael Beytenu’s spokesman Tal Nahum.
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