By Vic Rosenthal

At the end of the 19th century, Theodore Herzl and Max Nordau realized that Jews had no future in Europe. They understood that enlightenment and emancipation hadn’t put an end to Jew-hatred, and progressive politics wouldn’t either. Europe, they saw, gave the Jewish people two options: total assimilation or death (and later history showed that even assimilation wouldn’t save them).

The catastrophe that actually befell the Jews of Europe was more severe than Herzl had imagined in his worst nightmares. The Jewish state that he inspired ultimately came to be, as he accurately predicted, but unfortunately it happened too late to save most of the European Jews.

You can blame the British or the Arabs, and they certainly did their best to hold it back, but the main reason the state was not declared until 1948 was that so many Jews were unsure, diffident, afraid of provoking more Jew-hatred, or of the opinion that “something could be worked out” with the gentile world. For example, the influential British Jew Edwin Samuel Montagu,opposed the Balfour Declaration and was responsible for weakening its language.
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HAMODIA EDITORIAL

The anguish-filled saga of Jonathan Pollard took yet another painful turn last week, when it was revealed that the Parole Board denied Pollard’s request for parole after 29 agonizing years in prison. The members of the Parole Board, which is an arm of the U.S. Justice Department, had the opportunity to end a travesty of justice that has been going on for far too long. Instead, they compounded it, making a mockery of the American justice system.

Since Hamodia’s inception, we have been a vigorous and forceful advocate for Jonathon Pollard. On numerous occasions we have published editorials, interviews and opinion pieces calling for his release. On occasion, we have received inquiries from readers demanding to know why Jonathan never chose to apply for parole.
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THIS SHOULD APPLY TO THE ARABS AS WELL IN JUDEA AND SAMARIA.

Under a bill being considered, no call to an act of violence or terror deserves to be protected by the principle of freedom of expression.

By Revital Hovel. HAARETZ

The Justice Ministry is considering lowering the evidence criteria for incitement to violence or terror — lower than had been envisioned by former Justice Minister Tzipi Livni, who was fired last week.

Last month, Livni said she aimed to tweak the definition of incitement to violence in order to come down harder on extremists without significantly undermining freedom of expression. The requirement for an indictment would be “reasonable probability” that the call to violence would be carried out.

But according to a new memo crafted by the ministry, probability would not have to be considered — simply the call to violence.
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By Eugene Kontorovich, Washington Post December 9

Israel’s proposed constitutional legislation to confirm its status as the “nation state” of the Jewish people has not only generated controversy within Israel, where it has helped bring down the current parliamentary coalition, but has also drawn criticism from the U.S. and Europe. The draft legislation has been decried as extreme and undemocratic. (To be clear, no draft bill has been approved, only a set of compromise principles for reconciling several rather different versions; apparently, people do not have to read the bill, or know any of its provisions, to oppose it.)

These objections do not hold water. For one, ensuring Israel’s status as a Jewish nation state is a goal expressly endorsed by the same critics, when it comes to pressuring Israel into diplomatic concessions. Second, the law is far from unusual by Western standards: it actually does far less to recognize Jewish nationhood or religion than provisions common in other democratic constitutions. This post will consider the general parameters of the legislation in comparison to constitutional provisions of other Western democracies. Tomorrow, a second post will relate the law to the “two state solution.”
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75% of Israeli Jews See No Contradiction Between Israel Being Jewish and Democratic. Yet 40% of Israeli Jews believe that passing the bill would damage the interests of the State.

58% of Israeli Jews favour continuing peace talks. Yet 74% of Israeli Jews do not believe they will lead to peace.

So will the positions of Bennett and Netanyahu on these matters help or hurt them in the elections?

Israel Democracy Institute.

The Israel Democracy Institute (IDI) and Tel Aviv University are releasing the monthly Peace Index poll, which this month covers Israeli public opinion on Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations, the proposed Basic Law “Israel as the Nation State of the Jewish People,” and recent Arab-Jewish tensions.

Israeli-Palestinian Peace Negotiations
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Iranian IRGC Missile Unit Commanders: We’ve Developed 2,000-km Range Missiles And Equipped Hizbullah With 300-km Range Missiles; Fars News Agency: Israel’s Illusions About Its Natural Gas Fields Will Be Buried In The Mediterranean

By: U. Kafash, Y. Mansharof, and A. Savyon* MEMRI

Two weeks before November 24, 2014, the end date of the Joint Plan of Action between Iran and the P5+1, websites close to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) began reporting about the capabilities of the IRGC missile unit, and in particular about this unit’s capability to strike and destroy Israel. At the same time, there has been a marked increase in threats by IRGC officials on behalf of Hizbullah about the latter’s readiness to strike any point in Israel. Furthermore, the IRGC-affiliated Fars news agency is touting the capability of Hizbullah’s Iranian missiles to damage Israel’s natural gas fields in the Mediterranean Sea, as well as Israeli naval vessels.

On November 24, IRGC commander Ali Jafari said at a conference at Shahid Modares University: “Today, the entire area of the occupied territories [Israel] is within range of the missiles of the resistance — meaning the fall of the Zionist regime. Of course, the matter does not end here, and certainly the final liberation [of Palestine] will come about.”[1]
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The story of Israel’s most recent finance minister is a depressing one, where a politician pursued popularity instead of doing what was needed.

By Nehemia Shtrasler, HAARETZ

Finance Minister Yair Lapid as the treasury presented its 2015 draft budget, September 28, 2014.Photo by Emil Salman

The Finance Ministry’s farewell ceremony for MK Yair Lapid was interesting. The head of Yesh Atid outlined an impressive plan to bring down the cost of living, a plan with everything: “Reducing tariffs, doing away with quotas, reforming imports, increasing competition, dismantling of economic concentration…”

Lapid claimed the plan was “multiphased” and that it would have been set out soon, but when Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pushed up the election, everything went down the drain, so we will not be able to enjoy its sweet fruits.
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HAARETZ

A leading London synagogue has cancelled a talk by an Israeli academic who said earlier this year that the only way to deter terrorists is by raping their female relatives.

Dr. Mordechai Kedar, of Bar-Ilan University, was due to speak at the Finchley United Synagogue on Monday night as part of a speaking tour in the United Kingdom organized by the local Zionist Federation, the Jewish Chronicle reported.

Finchley congregants were notified that Kedar’s appearance had been cancelled, but no explanation was given.
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DEBKAfile Special Report

High-ranking American military sources revealed Monday, Dec. 8, that Israel’s air strikes near Damascus the day before wiped out newly-arrived Russian hardware including missiles that were dispatched post haste to help Syria and Hizballah frustrate a US plan for a no-fly zone over northern Syria.

The advanced weapons were sent over, as DEBKAfile reported exclusively Sunday, after Russian President Vladimir Putin learned that the Obama administration and the Erdogan government were close to a final draft on a joint effort to activate a no-fly zone that would bar Syrian air force traffic over northern Syria.

The Kremlin has repeatedly warned – of late in strong messages through back channels – that the establishment of a no-fly or buffer zone in any part of Syria would be treated as direct American intervention in the Syria war and result in Russian military intervention for defending the Assad regime.
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See also: REPORT: Islamists taking over British public schools…

Settlement produce is being banned all over Britain
By Geulio Meotti, INN

Leicester city council is controlled by Britain’s main opposition party, Labor. Leicester is also the UK’s 10th largest city. That is why what happened there a few days ago will have serious consequences all over England and Europe.

Leicester just became in fact the first Western city to ban Israeli goods from its territory and jurisdiction. Even the Nazis, in their initial boycott of Jews, didn’t go so far as to cleanse a city of any Jewish goods.

A couple of years ago, a provincial council near Glasgow, West Dunbartonshire, banned Israeli books from local libraries. Recently, MP George Galloway has called for the British city of Bradford to become an “Israel-free zone”.
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By Alan Dershowitz, NEWSMAX March 2014

When President Barack Obama warned of “international fallout” if Israel fails to embrace the latest U.S. Middle East peace proposal, Newsmax asked noted author and Harvard Law professor Alan Dershowitz to comment on the growing talk of a European boycott against Israel.

Why are so many of the grandchildren of Nazis and Nazi collaborators who brought us the Holocaust once again declaring war on the Jews?

Why have we seen such an increase in anti-Semitism and irrationally virulent anti-Zionism in western Europe?

To answer these questions, a myth must first be exposed. That myth is the one perpetrated by the French, the Dutch, the Norwegians, the Swiss, the Belgians, the Austrians, and many other western Europeans: namely that the Holocaust was solely the work of German Nazis aided perhaps by some Polish, Ukrainian, Latvian, Lithuanian, and Estonian collaborators.
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Vilification of Israel is unjustified

White House, State Department reportedly met in secret to strategize about imposing sanctions on Israel

By Adam Kredo, FREE BEACON  DEC 5/14

Members of Congress are demanding that President Obama come clean about controversial reports that he is considering leveling sanctions on Israel, according to a letter sent Friday afternoon by lawmakers to the White House.

The Obama administration has found itself engulfed in controversy since reports emerged Thursday that the White House and State Department had met in secret to strategize about imposing sanctions on Israel for its continued building of houses in contested Jerusalem neighborhoods.

State Department and White House officials have continued to dodge questions from reporters on the matter, maintaining that they will neither confirm nor deny the reports.

The administration’s evasive position has prompted outrage among pro-Israel leaders and prompted Congress to demand that Obama start answering questions about the delicate issue.
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DEBKAfile Special Report

Israel’s air strikes near Damascus international air port and the Syrian-Lebanese border Sunday, Dec. 7, are depicted by Middle East military and intelligence sources as Israel’s first overt military clash with Russia in the course of the more than three-year Syrian war. Those sources assert that the strikes demolished components of Russian SA-25 or other types of top-line anti air missile systems that Moscow had destined for Syria and the Lebanese Hizballah terrorist group.

Russian transport planes are said to have shipped these consignments in the last few days to the military section of Damascus international airport. It was pointed out that the Israeli air strikes occurred less than 24 hours after Deputy Russian Foreign Minister Mikhail Bogdanov, the Kremlin’s point man for the Syrian war, met with Hizballah leader Hassan Nasrallah Saturday in Beirut. The Russians for the first time insisted on widely circulating photos of the two officials shaking hands.
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I recently posted an article by Mordechai Kedar about the work of Tsafrir Ronen titled the Killing Tsafrir Ronen again.

My friend Jerry Gordon who used to blog with me on Israpundit and now blogs at the New English Review, wrote a touching piece in memory of Tszfrir Ronen. I might add that Tszfrir was also a friend of mine.  I worked with him on creating his television channel and on the One State Plan that he developed with another friend Michael Wise. In 2008 I published Hadrian’s Curse: The Secret All The Arabs Know (Part I) by him.

Analysis: Did the IAF strike in Syria in response to public declaration by Iranian Revolutionary Guard on transfer of advanced missiles to Hezbollah?

Ron Ben-Yishai, YNET

The strikes in Syria on Sunday afternoon, which have been attributed to the Israeli Air Force, were likely intended to prevent the transfer of advanced weaponry from Iran to Hezbollah. The Iranian Revolutionary Guard continues to play with fire by equipping Hezbollah with arms that have the capability to cause widespread losses and destruction in Israel.

The appraisal is based on the fact that the targets were in two distant areas – one near the international airport in Damascus and the other in Dimas, west of the capital, mere miles from the border with Lebanon.
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Ted Belman: The reason that the US is so adamant in opposition to the settlements is that they are an obstacle to the ’67 lines plus swaps formula which is the only formula that the the US can envision. Perhaps they are right. But from Israel’s point of view, no deal is better than a bad deal. Unfortunately Netanyahu’s “pillars of peace” makes no territorial claim and is content with a long term security presence.

Netanyahu  enumerated three “pillars of peace”: one, genuine mutual recognition; two, an end to all Palestinian claims, including the right of return; and three, a long-term Israeli security presence.

By Herb Keinon, JPOST

VIDEO

The two-state solution is the only path to peace, US Secretary of State John Kerry said Sunday in Washington, less than 24 hours after Economy Minister Naftali Bennett dismissed that as unrealistic.

Kerry, who spoke at the Brookings Institution’s Saban Forum immediately after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s taped message, said the two-state solution is the only path to peace “for the simple reason that there is no one-state alternative that is viable or can preserve Israel’s status as a Jewish state and as a democracy.”

At the conference, Bennett – possibly a major player in the next government – defended his plan for Israel to annex 60 percent of the West Bank and grant the Palestinians in the other 40% enhanced autonomy, economic opportunities and infrastructure, adding that the idea of a solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict was an illusion.
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By Joel Pollack, BREITBART

Members of Israel’s secular elite–including renowned authors and former diplomats–have signed a letter that encourages European parliaments to recognize a Palestinian state. The letter, which was reportedly sent to the Belgian parliament on Sunday, comes after deadly Palestinian terror attacks, incitement by Palestinian leaders, and the collapse of the Palestinian unity government. It is self-deluded–and treasonous in effect, if not intent.

There is no other way to describe a gesture that is so callously indifferent to the lives of innocent fellow citizens, even if some of the signatories are among those who have sacrificed the most for Israel’s security in the past.
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Knesset committee is told that Arab illegal construction is 16 times that of Jews, per person.

By Gil Ronen

The Subcommittee for Judea and Samaria of the Knesset’s Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee hosted on Sunday the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT), Major General Yoav Mordechai, for a discussion of illegal construction in Judea and Samaria.

According to information presented to the committee, about 550 illegal structures were built by Arabs in Areas C in the course of 2014, as opposed to 150 illegal structures built by Jews. Bearing in mind that the Arab population in Areas C is smaller than the Jewish one – about 90,000 Arabs compared with about 400,000 Jews – the rate of illegal construction in the Arab sector is 16 times that in the Jewish sector.
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T. Belman: The left worships democracy and constantly holds the right to account if it deviates from it. In the past I have questioned democracy as the be all and the end all. It is common knowledge that democracy will be the end of democracy. By that I mean democracy results in give-aways to the detriment of the state. This article analyses how democracy gave way to entitlements, political correctness, multriculturalism and Islam. Well worth thinking about.

By Enza Ferreri, AMERICAN THINKER

I’m not sure how conservative Americans will view the recently-published book Democracy as a Neocon Trick by Alexander Boot.

It’s an unusual work: whereas critics of America are generally on the political Left while those on the Right defend it, this is a criticism of the U.S. from a non-Leftist viewpoint, indeed from a traditional, conservative, Christian, pre-Enlightenment viewpoint.

I don’t agree with everything the author says about America, but he’s such a brilliant philosopher in so many respects that whatever he writes is worth exploring.

Born in Soviet Russia, Alexander Boot emigrated to the USA in 1973 and then to Britain in 1988.
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