THIS IS AN ABSOLUTE MUST READ ARTICLE

Ever the seasoned campaigner, Netanyahu correctly grasped that the more desperate his electoral situation looked, the easier it would be for him to open the tribal floodgates – and be rewarded with a fourth term.

By Yossi Verter, HAARETZ

Ten days before the election, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu received the results of an internal Likud poll indicating that 58 percent of the respondents thought he would be the person to whom President Reuven Rivlin would give the task of forming the next government. That represented an 8 percent decrease from the results of a previous poll.

Any reasonable person would have taken this as a warning sign, cause for alarm. Netanyahu wasn’t pleased. “Not good, not good,” he said. “We have to knock it down more, to below 50 percent.”

That marginal anecdote encapsulates in its way the story of Likud’s election campaign. It shows that the person who will soon become prime minister for the fourth time understands the mentality of his voters better than anyone else. A sophisticated, experienced campaigner, he’s in a league of his own.
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Former Finance Minister begs Netanyahu not to choose Deri for Interior Minister, cites Shas chairman’s jail stint for corruption., I AGREE.

Why not consider consider negotiating with Lapid rather than Shas and UTJ?

By Benny Moshe, INN

Yesh Atid chairman and former Finance Minister Yair Lapid called on Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu not to appoint Shas chairman Aryeh Deri as a senior minister on Saturday, claiming Deri’s previous jail term for corruption charges makes him incapable of being placed in charge of a government portfolio.

“Mr. Prime Minister, you won the big election,” Lapid wrote on FacebookSaturday. “If that’s what the majority chose, this is what was meant to be now, and all of us – the Opposition and the coalition – must go back to working for the State of Israel.”
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By Charles Krauthammer, JWR, March 20, 2015

Of all the idiocies uttered in reaction to Benjamin Netanyahu’s stunning election victory, none is more ubiquitous than the idea that peace prospects are now dead because Netanyahu has declared that there will be no Palestinian state while he is Israel’s prime minister.

I have news for the lowing herds: There would be no peace and no Palestinian state if Isaac Herzog were prime minister either. Or Ehud Barak or Ehud Olmert for that matter. The latter two were (non-Likud) prime ministers who offered the Palestinians their own state — with its capital in Jerusalem and every Israeli settlement in the new Palestine uprooted — only to be rudely rejected.
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Obama failed to shift French President France from his objections to the nuclear accord

One of the many ways Bibi’s speech turned the tide.

DEBKAfile Exclusive Analysis March 21, 2015, 6:15 PM (IDT)

President Barack Obama failed to shift French President France Hollande from his objections to the nuclear accord taking shape between the US and Iran in the call he put through to the Elysée Friday night, March 30. US Secretary of State John Kerry fared no better Saturday, when he met British, French and German Foreign ministers in London for a briefing on the talks’ progress intended to line the Europeans up with the American position. He then found, according toDEBKAfile’s sources, that France was not alone; Germany too balked at parts of the deal in the making.
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By Ben Shapiro, BREITBART

On Thursday, the press announced that the Obama administration would fully consider abandoning Israel in international bodies like the United Nations.

According to reports, President Obama finally called Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to congratulate him – but the “congratulations” was actually a lecture directed at forcing Netanyahu to surrender to the terrorist Palestinian regime.

For some odd reason, many in the media and Congress reacted with surprise to Obama’s supposedly sudden turn on Israel. The media, in an attempt to defend Obama’s radicalism, pretend that Netanyahu’s comments in the late stages of his campaign prompted Obama’s anti-Israel action.
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T. Belman. The urgent business, Glick is referring to, is to break the stranglehold the leftist elite have on the Courts, the bureaucracy and the media. She wants to open up the media to all voices, to strengthen the power of the Knesset to legislate and to prevent the Court from legislating. She also wants to restrict the ability of foreign money to undermine our democracy. She wants to change the way Judges, the AG and other civil servants are appointed to make them reflect the will of the people.

By Caroline Glick, JPOST

On Tuesday the people of Israel spoke. They gave a clear mandate to the nationalist camp, led by the Likud and Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, to lead the country.

Now that the people have spoken, our leaders must consider the steps they must take, immediately upon entering office, that will enable them to advance their agenda and so meet the public’s expectations.
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By David Archibald, AMERICAN THINKER

First of all, be aware that strange things happen in the U.S. military-industrial complex that President Eisenhower warned us about.  Take the example of the M1 Abrams tank.  The U.S. Army has an inventory of 6,300-odd of these tanks, including 4,000 in storage in desert.  It doesn’t need any more, but Congress keeps voting to keep the production line going, churning out unwanted tanks.  Ironically, that means that funds aren’t available to upgrade the gas turbine engines of its existing tanks to make them more efficient.  The M1 Abrams gets half the fuel mileage of the German Leopard II tank of similar capability.

But this is a tale about the F-35.  It has been said that the story of the F-35 begins in 1942 in the Battle of Guadalcanal.  The U.S. Marines, doing the ground fighting, were upset that the other services weren’t providing enough air cover.  The pounding they got from the lack of air cover is part of their institutional memory.  So when the U.S. Defense Department decided to build a 5^th-generation stealth fighter to replace the F-16, the U.S. Marines insisted that this include a short take-off and vertical landing (STOVL) variant.  The trade-offs necessary to effect this fatally compromised the whole project so that none of the variants do their job adequately.  Specifically, the requirement to have a lift fan 1.27 meters in diameter on the centerline of the aircraft behind the pilot resulted in two bomb bays instead of just one on the centerline.  This made the aircraft wider, draggy, slower, and less maneuverable.  In short, the F-35 can’t turn, can’t climb, can’t run.
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Ambassador (ret.) Yoram Ettinger, “Second Thought: a US-Israel Initiative”
“Israel Hayom,” March 20, 2015,

Israel’s March 17, 2015 general election shed light on the increasingly local – rather than national/regional – order of priorities of the 1.7 million Israeli Arabs; the intensifying Israelization/localization of their self-determination; the widening cultural/ideological gap between Israeli Arabs and the Arabs of Judea, Samaria and Gaza; the deep fragmentation within Israeli Arabs (despite the current Joint Arab Slate); their growing appreciation of Israel’s civil liberties and expanded trust in Israel’s political system; and the gap between the worldview of a growing number of Israeli Arabs on the one hand and most Arab Knesset Members on the other hand.

According to a February, 17, 2015 public opinion survey, conducted by Tel Aviv University’s researcher Arik Rudnitzky, a project manager at the Konrad Adenauer Program for Jewish-Arab Cooperation, the top priorities of Israeli Arabs are employment, education, healthcare, neighborhood crime and women’s rights (43%), ahead of enhancing the status of the Arab community in Israel (28.1%) and the Israel-Palestinian conflict/negotiation (19%).

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By Guy Taylor – The Washington Times – Thursday, March 19, 2015

Bipartisan resistance to the Obama administration’s push for a nuclear deal with Iran surged on Capitol Hill on Thursday, even as details emerged about a potential agreement that would allow Tehran to retain up to 6,000 uranium enrichment centrifuges while getting immediate relief from international economic sanctions.

Administration witnesses got an earful from representatives of both parties over the administration’s handling of nuclear negotiations involving the U.S., Iran and other world powers that could be reaching a climax in Geneva this week. Many lawmakers say the White House is flagrantly icing Congress out of the deal.

A bipartisan letter signed by 360 House members warned President Obama on Thursday that Iran can’t get “permanent sanctions relief” unless Congress approves it.

THIS IS BRILLIANT. I AGREE WITH EVERY WORD.

By David Weinberg, ISRAEL HAYOM

[..]
So it’s time for Israel to re-articulate its thinking about the process of achieving Israeli-Palestinian peace. Netanyahu should capitalize on his sweeping victory to reset the diplomatic table by outlining a pragmatic process that Israel can participate in, and to draw clear Israeli red lines as to acceptable contours of a solution.

Doing so is especially urgent since Israel is already facing a renewed international campaign for West Bank withdrawals. The Obama administration is not-so-subtly threatening to throw its support behind a new United Nations Security Council resolution recognizing Palestinian independence and demanding rapid withdrawal to the 1967 lines (with some itsy-bitsy possible land swaps mentioned as a sop to Israel).
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Rebuking Obama rapprochement, Petraeus warns Iran is taking control in Iraq, and is an enemy of the US and its allies.

By Ari Yashar, INN

At a time when US President Barack Obama’s administration has shown a softening stance vis-a-vis Iran, even considering an alliance against Islamic State (ISIS) terrorists in Iraq and Syria, former CIA head Gen. David Petraeus warned Iran is a greater danger than ISIS in Iraq.

In an interview conducted in Iraq and posted by the Washington Post on Friday, Petraeus, who led US troops during the 2007-2008 surge in Iraq, spoke about the challenges facing the war-torn country.

Speaking at the annual Sulaimani Forum of Iraqi leaders in northern Iraq’s Kurdistan region, the general acknowledged that aside from Iraqi factionalism and sectarianism leading to disaster, the US had made many mistakes in the country as well.
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Senator Tom Cotton (R), Arkansas is a rising star.

“After graduating from Harvard in three years, Cotton returned to Claremont to pursue a master’s degree, but abandoned it after a year, finding academic life “too sedentary.” Instead, he enrolled in Harvard Law School. On September 11, 2001, he had just begun his final year. He wanted to serve his country, but first, he had student loans to pay off. Three years later, with the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan intensifying, Cotton left the Washington law firm where he was working to join the Army. He did not want to be a military lawyer; he wanted to fight. He became an infantry officer. He was sent to Iraq.”

He is very tall and very young (37).

He is the person who assembled 47 Senators to sign the letter to Iran recently, warning it that the Senate has the last word on the deal.

And now he has made a speech in which he pledges that the Senate will do its utmost to prevent the Obama administration or any other institution, be it the UN or the ICC, from harming Israel.

GO HERE TO WATCH THE VIDEO.

Mark Levin to Obama: “Let’s Have A National Discussion About The Anti-Semitism That Reeks From Your Administration”

MARK LEVIN: He doesn’t like Congress. He’s got his pen and his phone. And when Congress doesn’t do what he says he’s off doing his best Benito Mussolini. He doesn’t like Netanyahu. Netanyahu just won in a landslide; Obama’s never won in a landslide. The American people rose up in November and told Obama how they are disgusted with his programs and his policies. And what did he do? He turned around and spat in our faces. And he does the same in 2010 when they lose the House of Representatives. Read more…

By Evelyn Gordon, COMMENTARY

Nowadays, it’s become virtually accepted wisdom that Israel is becoming increasingly right-wing, and that this shift constitutes a major obstacle to peace. No less a figure than Bill Clinton made this claim at a Clinton Global Initiative conference in 2010. A 2011 study by the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies similarly declared, “Today Israel’s Jewish population is more nationalistic, religiously conservative, and hawkish on foreign policy and security affairs than that of even a generation ago, and it would be unrecognizable to Israel’s founders.” A popular corollary of this thesis is that Israel, as it moves rightward, is becoming less democratic, less respectful of civil rights, and less tolerant of minorities.

Both halves of this thesis are wrong. In fact, Israeli politics have shifted sharply to the left; ideas once confined to the far-left fringe are now mainstream. And civil rights, democracy, and treatment of minorities have all been improving.
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By Martin Sherman, JPOST

With respect to the people’s choice, if this is in fact its choice, I do not accept it … If that is the choice of the people, the people should be changed
– Labor leader Yitzhak Ben-Aharon, on hearing the results of 1977 election in which, for the first time ever, the Labor Party was ousted from power by the Likud, after almost three decades of political hegemony

The unthinkable has been avoided – narrowly. Had the election gone the way many had expected, the country would have had a prime minster who, in his own words, believes that “the term ‘Jewish state’ is totally misguided.”

Indeed, against all odds
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As March 31 deadline nears for nuclear agreement, Tehran wants U.N. sanctions lifted right away; U.S., Europeans say ‘no way.’

By Laurence Norman And Jay Solomon, WALL STREET JOURNAL, March 19, 2015 7:27 p.m. ET

LAUSANNE, Switzerland—When international sanctions on Iran would be lifted has emerged as one of the largest remaining stumbling blocks to an agreement to constrain Tehran’s nuclear program by a March 31 deadline, according to U.S., European and Iranian officials.

Tehran’s negotiators in Switzerland, according to these diplomats, have hardened their position that United Nations sanctions on their country be repealed at the front end of any deal reached this month with the U.S. and other global powers.

The U.S. and its European allies are demanding the U.N.’s sanctions be suspended or terminated in a phased time-frame over years.
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“If America does not stand with Israel, who would we stand with?” Rubio said.

T. Belman. Obama is making a big mistake. The more he beats up on Israel, the more the Senate will challenge him on Iran.

ISRAEL HAYOM

One of the first and most important tasks facing the next government will be to deflate the real estate price bubble. This is a mega-bubble that has only grown, and we are familiar with the consequences. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu talked about this issue in the final days of the election campaign. He admitted it needed to be dealt with and promised to do so.

The correct way to dismantle a bomb is slowly and cautiously. So the goal should be to lower housing prices gradually to a reasonable level. A sharp decline could produce shock waves in the economy that would undermine the stability of the financial system and send the economy into a recession. We saw what happened in the U.S. in 2008 when the real estate price bubble burst. The economy of the entire world ground to a halt.

Still, the high prices must be taken care of. We are cruising in the outer reaches of the atmosphere and the air is thin. A young couple who want to purchase an apartment must have hundreds of thousands of shekels in equity just to get a mortgage.
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In NBC interview, prime minister insists he still supports creation of Palestinian state, says that he is not a racist

BY REBECCA SHIMONI STOIL, TOI, March 19, 2015, 7:02 pm 19

WASHINGTON – Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday walked back statements made during campaigning rejecting the possibility of a two-state solution, telling NBC’s Andrea Mitchell, “I don’t want a one-state solution. I want a sustainable, peaceful two-state solution.”

Netanyahu’s first post-elections interview was delivered to the US news source, indicating a focus on calming tensions with Washington, which have risen steeply following a sharp right turn by Netanyahu in the final days of his campaign.

“I haven’t changed my policy,” Netanyahu insisted. “I never retracted my speech at Bar-Ilan University six years ago calling for a demilitarized Palestinian state that recognizes a Jewish state.”
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