Israel Electric Company to stop cutting power to Palestinian Authority in exchange for state’s promise to use NIS 300 million in Palestinian tax revenues to defray PA’s debt.

Israel also agrees to hook up Rawabi to the water grid.

By Barak Ravid, HAARETZ

This week, the IEC twice cut power to the northern West Bank for periods of up to an hour to protest the PA’s unpaid debt to the company, which totals some 1.9 billion shekels ($483 million).

Under the deal reached Thursday between the Prime Minister’s Office and the IEC, the electric company will receive 300 million shekels ($75.8 million) from the frozen PA tax revenues, equivalent to the Palestinian debt for the last three months – December, January and February.
Read more…

Two Seas Canal will help rehabilitate Dead Sea by pumping water from Red Sea, provide solutions to Jordan’s chronic water problems.

AFP, YNET

Israel’s Silvan Shalom with Jordan’s Nasser sign deal

Jordan and Israel signed a deal on Thursday to build a pipeline to link the Red Sea with the shrinking Dead Sea and combat regional water shortages. The official Petra news agency said that the agreement signed in the Jordanian capital, Amman, would set in motion the implementation of the first phase of a long-awaited project.

The Red Sea–Dead Sea Conduit also known as the Two Seas Canal will carry some 100 million metric cubes of water to the north annually, thus hopefully slowing down the process Dead Sea’s desiccation. As part of the cooperation, a joint water purification plant will be formed and Israelis, Jordanians and Palestinians will share the water.
Read more…

The first half of the speech focuses on Veteran’s Affairs. The second half deals with ISIS and Obama.

By Ted Belman

Susan Rice has been castigated for her remarks about Netanyahu’s “destructive behavior”. Here’s that WaPo has to say, Susan Rice: Netanyahu’s speech ‘destructive’

Greta Van Susteren had a great comeback.

Has President Obama’s Nation Security Adviser Susan Rice gone off the deep end? What kool aid is SHE drinking?

Rice, who as you know ridiculously went around to the 5 Sunday shows claiming Benghazi was caused by a video, just claimed to CBS Charlie Rose that Prime Minister Netanyahu’s speech to Congress next week is “destructive” to the relationship between the US and Israel. Really? PM Netanyahu is the destructive one to the relationship?

Ah…maybe she ought to look at her boss’ conduct if she wants to talk ‘destructive’ to the relationship.

Consider this..

Read more…

Ted Belman. Last night at an all party forum, it was made clear that 2014 was a record setting year for housing starts, namely 50,000. This year was not included in the Report.

By Nev Ellis, JPOST

But if State Comptroller Joseph Shapira managed to show anything with his analysis of five years of half-hearted half-measures aimed at tackling the housing crisis, it was that there is a larger problem in Israel’s political system, which prevents it from tackling even the most important issues.

The consistent political instability, the inability to create and follow long-term plans and the bureaucratic disarray that stops multiple ministries from communicating and coordinating is as much to blame as the slew of politicians listed in the report.

Despite its hype as a political bombshell, the report is irrelevant to the upcoming election in many ways; it would have been more useful before the last election. The people do not need Shapira’s report to know that home prices keep rising, not only because the Central Bureau of Statistics continues to publish the data proving it, but because they feel it in their wallets.
Read more…

Netanyahu, Olmert, Atias, Ariel, Interior Ministry, ILA on hook; Lapid gets pass for now; Housing prices skyrocket 55% in 5 yrs, some housing units take 12 yrs to build because of red tape.

By Jonah Jeremy Bob,  JPOST

State Comptroller Joseph Shapira’s report on the country’s housing crisis, issued on Wednesday, threw the political world into a whirlwind of opposing parties blaming one another in the run-up to the March 17 election.

In his characteristic understated style, which differs from his predecessor who took aim at specific politicians, Shapira’s report does not place the blame on any single individual’s shoulders.
Read more…

FRONT PAGE MAG

A new campaign has been launched by the David Horowitz Freedom Center to combat rapidly growing anti-Semitism on college campuses in the United States.  The campaign, “Jew Hatred on Campus” aims to educate the public about the anti-Semitic acts occurring throughout the nation’s colleges and universities and calls on university administrators to withdraw campus privileges from the hate groups responsible.

As one of its first initiatives, Jew Hatred on Campus has compiled a list of the 10 U.S. campuses having the worst anti-Semitic activity in 2014.  Universities included in the top 10 played host to numerous incidents of anti-Jewish acts, such as Israeli Apartheid Week (a week-long event that demonizes the Jewish state); interrupting university activities by staging mock “checkpoints” on campus; campus speakers that call for the destruction of the Jewish state; and verbal or physical harassment and violence against Jewish and pro-Israel students.  These anti-Semitic incidents occur on university property, often with the support of university funds, despite the fact that such behavior is explicitly forbidden under campus codes of conduct. Read more…

New study recommends university administrators take anti-Jewish activity as seriously as other forms of ethnic/racial bias, and that Jewish groups focus more resources on the subject

NEW YORK – A study of American Jewish university students has found that a majority experienced or witnessed at least one anti-Semitic incident during a single year.

The study’s organizers say that they are surprised and alarmed that 54 percent reported experiencing or witnessing an incident that the respondent defined as anti-Semitic.

Anti-Semitic experiences were reported across an unusually wide swath of students. The study found only slight variation in anti-Semitic experiences across different regions of the U.S., “which strongly suggests that anti-Semitism is a nationwide problem,” according to the report.
Read more…

JPOST

Iran is running a secret uanium enrichment site, an exiled opposition group said on Wednesday, AFP reported.

Alireza Jafarzadeh, deputy director of the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), said that there is a site hidden north east of Tehran.

“Despite the Iranian regime’s claims that all of its enrichment activities are transparent … it has in fact been engaged in research and development with advanced centrifuges at a secret nuclear site called Lavizan-3,” he said.

He reportedly showed reporters satellite images corresponding to his claims.

“Since 2008, the Iranian regime has secretly engaged in research and uranium enrichment with advanced… centrifuge machines at this site,” Jafarzadeh said.

T. Belman. This alliance between the GOP establishment, including Bush Sr and Bush Jr, and the hateful MB, reminds one of the alliance between many Americans and the Nazis in the thirties and forties.

The Roots Of U.S. Domestic Muslim Brotherhood Problem And The Reasons Why The Republican Establishment Avoid It

by Ben Barrack, SHOEBAT

Muslim Brotherhood Logo

This is the third article in a series. Part two can be read here.

The details about why someone very high up in the George W. Bush administration intentionally snatched defeat from the jaws of victory barely six months after 9/11 are not entirely known. What is known is that someone high up in the administration made that call and no fewer than two Muslim American leaders aggressively lobbied for that defeat – Talat Othman and Khaled Saffuri. The outcome – regardless of causation – appeared to be in line with their efforts.

Why?

CONTINUE

Read more…

Pres Obama is wrong about Islam and ISIS.

A Muslim convert to Christianity forthrightly explains the truth behind Islam.

There is no “radical” or “moderate” only Islam.

https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=881491725194515

By Phillip Bump, WaPo

Gallup’s annual World Affairs survey shows that only 48 percent of those identifying as Democrats sympathize more with Israelis in tensions in the Mideast than with Palestinians. In contrast, 83 percent of Republicans side with Israelis. The figure for all Americans is 62 percent.

As that graph of the trend by party shows, that summary masks some nuance. That 48 percent of Democrats is actually up significantly since the mid-1990s — as is the figure for Republicans.
Read more…

By David P. Goldman, PJ MEDIA (Spengler)

The world now anticipates that the US will reach a strategic agreement with Iran. Russia and China are responding by offering their own deals to Tehran. A possible game-changer is Russia’s offer of the Antey-2500 air defense system to Iran. After canceling the planned delivery of the older, shorter-range S-300 system in 2010, Russia has now escalated drastically by proposing to sell Iran a much more effective system. Western air forces have never engaged the Russian system, so we don’t know how exactly good it is. No-one I know in the military wants to find out; by Western estimates, the Russian systems are extremely good. It is possible that Russia’s unwelcome intervention might make Iran effectively impregnable from attack by Israel. The Antey-2500 can take down missiles as well as airplanes.
Read more…

Bayit Yehudi Housing Minister Uri Ariel is holding treasury hostage with his budgetary demands, refusing to approve IDF transfer to new Negev bases unless excess settlement expenditure gets okay.

By Nahum Barnea, YNET

The Housing Ministry has prepared a nice going-away gift for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on the eve of his trip to Washington – plans to build more than 48,000 new housing units in the West Bank, and another 15,000 or so in East Jerusalem.

The building beyond the Green Line has been incorporated into the ministry’s construction plans for other regions of the country – a total of around 279,000 new housing units. The list of communities and the number of housing units came to light during the course of discussions over the past few days between Housing Ministry and treasury officials, on the backdrop of the Housing Ministry’s demand for significant budgetary supplements.
Read more…

JEWSNEWS

UNITED NATIONS (AP) — The U.N. General Assembly overwhelmingly approved an Arab-backed resolution Tuesday calling on Israel to renounce possession of nuclear weapons and put its nuclear facilities under international oversight.

The resolution, adopted in a 161-5 vote, noted that Israel is the only Middle Eastern country that is not party to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons. It called on Israel to “accede to that treaty without further delay, not to develop, produce test or otherwise acquire nuclear weapons, to renounce possession of nuclear weapons” and put its nuclear facilities under the safeguard of the U.N.’s International Atomic Energy Agency.
Read more…

Read this: EXPOSÉ: Qatar’s takeover of Europe 

Ted Belman. Two weeks ago I wrote, Qatar is more active than you know. Meotti’s article adds greatly to the picture. Qatar is the richest country in the world per capita and only has 1.87 million people. It is totally in bed with Obama and the MB. Probably Turkey should be added to the bed. While Saudi Arabia focuses on the US, Qatar focuses on North Africa and the ME and on Europe.

The biggest problem is that Qatar is dedicated to the destruction of Israel and the Jewish people. This is ignored by Obama who has formed a grand alliance with them.

Qatar funding, providing refuge to terror groups and allies

By Adam Kredo, FREE BEACON

Congress is warning that billions of dollars in U.S. arms sales to Qatar could be enabling the Arab country’s support for leading terrorist organizations and allies, according to a letter to the administration being circulated on Capitol Hill.

Qatar, long one of America’s top Arab military allies in the Middle East, has been funding and providing refuge to an increasing number of terrorist groups and allies in recent years, including most recently the Islamic State (IS).
Read more…

By Matthew Vadum, FPM

A federal jury in Manhattan found the Palestinian Authority and its terrorist arm civilly liable yesterday for six terrorist attacks a decade ago that left 33 dead and more than 450 injured.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he expected the “international community to continue to punish those who support terrorism, just as the U.S. federal court has done, and to back the countries that are fighting terrorism.”

“Today as well we remember the families that lost their loved ones; our heart is with them and there is no justice that can console them.”
Read more…

By Gallia Lindenstrauss, INSS

Introduction

A telegram from the US embassy in Azerbaijan that was published in Wikileaks claimed that the President of Azerbaijan, Ilham Aliyev, compared Israel-Azerbaijan relations to an iceberg, with most of the relations being below the surface and only the edge visible.1

Moreover, the strategic relations between the two countries, as long as they do not prompt the actors for adventurist policies, are consistent with the interests of the US and the West. It can even be asserted that Azerbaijan is the Muslim country with which Israel currently enjoys the closest relations. This might seem surprising, given that Azerbaijan has a common border with Iran and that most of its population is Shiite (although it has a strong secular tradition).

Nevertheless, after more than two decades of diplomatic relations, it appears that relations are at a peak.
Read more…

Even his former adviser agrees that the president’s Iran policy is collapsing. Can anything be done, or is it too late?

By Michael Doran, MOSAIC

I’ve been stunned by the reception of “Obama’s Secret Iran Strategy.” In this, the era of the 140-character tweet, I’d assumed that a 9,500-word article would have scant appeal beyond a professional audience. Yet, to date, it has attracted 220,000 unique visitors; journalists from several different countries have called to interview me; I’ve done my share of talk radio; and senior political figures, including presidential hopefuls, have expressed their appreciation.

What accounts for the essay’s reach? Timing is certainly one factor. The Iranian nuclear question is coming to a head—dramatically so. But above all I believe that, for many readers, the essay proved useful in solving the enigma of Barack Obama. In his foreign policy, the president has displayed a mix of initiative and passivity that has confounded efforts at categorization. The framework constructed in “Obama’s Secret Iran Strategy” may have helped make sense of a bundle of apparent contradictions; at least I hope so. Read more…

By: John Guandolo

This is the third in a 4-part series on The Political Left’s Marriage to the Islamic Jihad

The truth always offends those who do not have it.

In the Sharia (Islamic Law), “Slander” is defined as follows:  “To mention anything concerning a person (Muslim) that he would dislike (Um Dat al Salik, Islamic Sacred Law, r2.2).”   The Quran, the Hadith, and a consensus of the Muslim scholars all agree that anyone who insults the Prophet and/or Islam must be killed (e.g. Surah 9:12, Hadith – Abu Dawud and al-Nasa’i, from Ibn-‘Abbas).  The punishment for Slander in Islam is death.

Currently, the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) – the largest international body in the world second only to the UN, made up of all 57 Islamic nations on the planet – is officially calling for “deterrent punishments” (Section VII, para 3) for anyone who offends Islam, and continues to petition the United Nations for such action.  This campaign is called “Islamophobia.”
Read more…