Ambassador (ret.) Yoram Ettinger, “Second Thought: a US-Israel Initiative”
“Israel Hayom”, February 13, 2015, http://bit.ly/1KSVW9h

In defiance of the anti-Israel BDS movement (Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions), diplomatic pressure, regional and global geo-political instability, continued global economic uncertainties and the overall anti-Israel talk brouhaha, Israel demonstrates a robust walk, as evidenced (and impacted) by an expanding net-immigration and a faster-than-expected economic recoveryfrom the 2014 war on Hamas terrorists in Gaza.

 According to the February 3, 2015, Economist Intelligence Unit,“the July-August war in Gaza appears to have had only a transient effect on the economy…. Private sector job creation has played a more significant role with strong expansion.  Employment in this relatively well-paid category rose by 5.2% year on year…. The fall in the unemployment rate comes despite a rise in the participation rate among the core 25-64 year age group from 75.1% in the third quarter of 2013 to 75.8% in the final quarter of 2014, and a modest increase in the share of full time employed persons…. The unemployment rate averaged 5.9% in 2014, compared with 6.3% in 2013, having fallen to a record low of 5.7% in the final quarter of 2014…. The unemployment rate in Israel compares well with the 7.2% among OECD member states….”

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Ted Belman. Allow me to remind you that Obama and Bibi differed in public on the Arab Spring. Bibi was right.

In this present disagreement, I would have expected our “friend” Obama to say something to the effect to Israel, “Don’t worry I have got your back. I have gotten Iran to commit to not trying to wipe you out.” and “I have arranged for Iran to open diplomatic relations with you.” But no such luck. Not even a pretense of Israel’s interests being protected.

Keep one more thing in mind. A la Mearsheimer and Walt, the US state Department has considered Israel a liability in their attempts to improve relations with the Arabs. They have wanted shuck the Israel albatross ever since it was created.

By Alex Markovsky

In this turbulent era, which Henry Kissinger described as one of “war of all against all,” the United States is proceeding to make a strategic choice existential to the state of Israel.

On November 24, 2013, in Geneva, Switzerland, the United States and the P5+1countries signed an interim agreement with Iran to temporarily freeze parts of the Iranian nuclear program. The Obama administration could hardly contain its euphoria. The president proclaimed that the diplomacy of the U.S. and its allies “opened up a new path toward a world that is more secure.” Secretary of State Kerry was not far behind when he said, “It will make our ally Israel safer”
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Ted Belman. But more important, can Israel, Egypt and Saudi Arabia come together in joint defense? Remember that ISIS is as much a threat to each of them as it is to all of them.

By Dore Gold, ISRAEL HAYOM

Since the middle of last year, the U.S. outreach to Iran on the nuclear issue has been accompanied by an assumption in parts of the American foreign policy establishment that the two countries were on the verge of establishing a new political partnership covering the Middle East.

Last October, The Wall Street Journal even ran an article headlined: “U.S. Iran Relations Move to Detente.” It suggested that American policy toward Iranian proxies in the Middle East, from Hezbollah to Hamas, might change as well. Dr. Vali Nasr, who advised the State Department on Iran during the Obama administration, commented that “although we see Turkey and the Arab states as our closest allies, our interests and policies are converging with Iran.”
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Ted Belman. I do not believe that Abbas agreed to these terms.
I attended a lecture last night by Khaled Abu Toameh and he said that Abbas won’t agree to a deal even if there are 10 more peace processes. PA incitement prevents it.

Peres — acting with Netanyahu’s support — was set to finalize framework with Abbas when PM changed his mind, sources say; PMO denies account

BY AVI ISSACHAROFF, TOI

In the summer of 2011, then-president Shimon Peres and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas were close to reaching a framework agreement that would have enabled Israel and the PA to restart peace negotiations, Israeli and Palestinian sources told The Times of Israel.

In conversations in various European capitals and in Amman over the course of a year, the two reached far-reaching informal understandings, with the knowledge and support of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

But according to numerous Israeli and Palestinian sources, on July 28 of that year, right before an important meeting between Peres and Abbas in which the president was due to present the PM’s formal authorization of the understandings, Netanyahu backtracked and pulled his support for the initiative.
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Analysis: While Assad and Iran-backed Hezbollah forces are indeed advancing towards the Israeli-Syrian border, their inability to defeat the rebels is preventing them from reaching their next goal – opening a front against Israel from Syria.

By Ron Ben Yishai, YNET

The onslaught being led by Syrian President Bashar Assad together with Hezbollah and Iranian forces south of Damascus, in the direction of Israel’s border, is intended to relieve some of the rebel pressure on his embattled capital city. For years, Assad has tried to uproot rebel strongholds and prevent the different Islamist rebel factions from uniting, especially the Nusra Front, which has planted itself firmly in the city of Daraa near the border between Jordan and the Syrian Golan Heights.

As of now, Assad’s army has failed at every one of its objectives: uprooting rebels from the suburbs of Damascus, cutting rebel supply lines and hitting the rebel strongholds in the Golan Heights hard. The Syrian army has tried – unsuccessfully – to take over the main road connecting Damascus and Daraa as well as the Syrian side of the Golan Heights no less than three times.rf
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By Martin Sherman, JPOST

Iran has exploited… turmoil to pursue positions of power within other countries beyond the control of national authorities, such as in Lebanon and Iraq, and while developing a nuclear program of potentially global consequence… Nuclear talks with Iran began as an international effort, buttressed by six UN resolutions, to deny Iran the capability to develop a military nuclear option. They are now an essentially bilateral negotiation over the scope of that capability… The impact of this approach will be to move from preventing proliferation to managing it
– Henry Kissinger, before the US Senate Committee on Armed Services, January 29, 2015

Israel has no foreign policy, only domestic policy
– Henry Kissinger

These citations from the doyen of American strategic diplomacy – one from a statement delivered last month, the other, a remark made decades ago – capture the essence of the brouhaha that has erupted over the invitation extended to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu by Speaker of the US House of Representatives John Boehner to address a joint session of Congress on March 3.
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By de-judaizing the victims, who were targets only because they were Jews, Obama denied the uniqueness of the threat jihadist Islam and its adherents pose to Jews.

By Carolione Glick,  JPOST

Swastika spraypainted on a wall at a Jewish fraternity house near UC Davis. (photo credit:YOUTUBE SCREENSHOT)

This week, apropos of seemingly nothing, in an interview with Mathew Yglesias from the Vox.com website, Obama was asked about terrorism. In his answer the president said the terrorism threat is overrated. And that was far from the most disturbing statement he made.

Moving from the general to the specific, Obama referred to the jihadists who committed last month’s massacres in Paris as “a bunch of violent vicious zealots,” who “randomly shot a bunch of folks in a deli in Paris.”

In other words, Ahmedy Coulibaly, the terrorist at Hyper Cacher, the kosher supermarket he targeted, was just some zealot. The Jews he murdered while they were shopping for Shabbat were just “a bunch of folks in a deli,” presumably shot down while ordering their turkey and cheese sandwiches.
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Ted Belman. Be careful when reading reports. The Iran axis wants you to believe that all forces challenging Assad are Jihadists. But that is not true. Apparently the Free Syrian Army is still in the game and want more support from the west. So the question is, is Israel getting in bed with Jihadists or the FSA when supporting forces fighting Syria? Does Israel want to be surrounded by Sunni Islamists or Shiite Islamists lead by Iran. I think Israel’s interests lie with supporting the Sunnis, including ISIS, because they represent a force that can destabilize Iran. The problem is that they can also destabilize Egypt and Saudi Arabia. So its very complicated. Remember the law of unintended consequences.

By ARIEL BEN SOLOMON, JPOST

Syrian rebels whose forces are fighting against a new offensive in the South by the axis of the Syrian Army, Hezbollah, and Iran, is calling on Israel to attack their positions.

An Israeli Druse who is in frequent contact with the Syrian opposition said that the warning came to alert the IDF, before the axis is able to take the Syrian Golan that borders Israel.
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Former Deputy Interior Minister Kirschenbaum claims Yisrael Beytenu, Yesh Atid and Kulanu planned to form a united bloc against Netanyahu.

By Ido Ben Porat and Elad Benari, INN

Former Deputy Interior Minister Faina Kirschenbaum, who was forced to resign from the Knesset due to suspicions of her involvement in the corruption scandal involving senior members of the Yisrael Beytenu party, on Thursday revealed a secret plot that was hatched to unseat Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu.

The details, revealed in a report on Channel 2 News, were exposed by Kirschenbaum during a private conversation.

“Before this scandal, the polls predicted that we would get between 16 and 18 seats and we agreed on a centrist bloc with [Moshe] Kahlon and Yesh Atid, ” she said, adding, “To this bloc, assuming that Netanyahu would have resigned, we would have added the Likud and formed a large national bloc that could have solved a lot of problems and led a lot of moves.”
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By Ted Belman

Israel has no obligation to deal only with Obama. She has every right to speak to the American people through their representatives in Congress. The latter is called public diplomacy as opposed to private diplomacy. Throughout the Mandate period, Weizmann and Ben Gurion were only prepared for private diplomacy. Not Jabotinsky. He favoured public diplomacy. He wanted to take the issue to the British people and so he did when he could.

Lt Col Howard, an intelligence expert, with whom I communicate, sent me this email he sent to Rob Eshman, Editor of the Jewish Journal:

After filing my posts commenting on articles that appeared in the Jewish Journal with the appropriate office in the US Defense Department, I was informed that a review of the Jewish Journal online at the Pentagon indicated that my posts had not been published in the Jewish Journal. If that is correct then the Jewish Journal misinformed me that my posts would be and had been published. Therefore, in order to reach your readers I plan to distribute my posts to journalists, Jewish leaders, distributors of several widely read blogs and members of the general public.
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Ted Belman. Remember, Israel’s ceasefire agreement with Syria, provided for a buffer zone. Assad and his father respected this buffer zone til now. Israel must not let Hezbollah/Syria/Iran into this zone.

DEBKAfile Exclusive Report February 11, 2015, 10:39 AM (IDT)

The large-scale offensive the Syrian army launched in southern Syria Sunday, Feb. 8 – the broadest in that region in the nearly-four year conflict – heralded Act III of the Iranian-Hizballah drive for a position on Israel’s Golan border, DEBKAfile’s military sources report.

Israel curtailed Act I on Jan 18 with an air strike which killed a dozen Iranian and Hizballah officers scooping out the Golan town of Quneitra for their new base. Among them were the commander of Iranian forces in Syria, Revolutionary Guards general Mohamad Ali Allah Dadi and a senior Hizballah officer Ali al-Tabtabani.
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By Judi McLeod, CFP

Quickly and quietly”, high-handed Barack Obama and the Democrats are working on hijacking the Information Highway.

Big Government takeover of the Internet will become a fait accompli by February 26, 2015 with a Federal Communications Commission (FCC ) vote.  By the time the public becomes aware of it, the Internet will already belong to Obama.

Suffering in silence with no means of communication to others is exactly what Obama wants on his mission for his ever-expanding Fundamental Transformation of the Free West.
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By Evelyn Gordon, COMMENTARY

The Obama administration’s inexplicable denial that last month’s attack on a kosher supermarket in Paris could possibly be anti-Semitic overshadowed yesterday’s other interesting tidbit from the anti-Semitism front: German Jewish organizations are furious because a blue-ribbon panel set up by the German government to advise it on fighting anti-Semitism doesn’t include a single Jew. It’s hard to imagine that a panel on, say, prejudice against Muslims or blacks would exclude representatives of the targeted community. But the more serious concern is that a panel without Jews will ignore one of the main manifestations of modern anti-Semitism, as exemplified by another German decision just last week: a judicial ruling that there’s nothing anti-Semitic about torching a synagogue to protest Israeli actions in Gaza.
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WHY?

By Lilach Shoval, Israel Hayom Staff and AP

The Israeli military says a boat carrying materials for making weapons was intercepted by the Israeli Navy last month en route to the Gaza Strip from the Sinai Peninsula.

The statement late Wednesday said the vessel carried material for intended for use by the Hamas military wing to build rockets and mortars.

The Shin Bet said that during the investigation the three detained men provided substantial information about smuggling between Sinai and Gaza and about Hamas’ use of fishermen and smugglers for its needs.
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T. Belman. It seems that both Israel and Jordan have been supporting the opposition along their borders so that the buffer zone is maintained. There is also plans for this buffer zone to extend into Lebanon.

By Roi Kas, YNET

A major offensive by the Syrian army in its southern front, in cooperation with Hezbollah and Iranian elements, continued on Thursday, not far from the Golan Heights.

Mere days after the start of the operation, the Syrian Armed Forces declared on Wednesday night that they had made significant achievements in the bloody land battles.

So far, Assad’s soldiers, aided by Hassan Nasrallah’s fighters, successfully retook three towns in the strategic triangle that lies between the Damascus suburbs, Quneitra suburbs, and Daraa suburbs. These include the villages of Deir al-Adas, Al Dnaj, and Deir Makas, as seen in the map below.
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German Jewish groups outraged as government creates a new commission on anti-Semitism without including any Jews in it.

By Ben Ariel, INN

The government in Germany has come under criticism for creating a new commission on anti-Semitism – but failing to include in it a single Jewish person, reports The Associated Press (AP).

Julius Schoeps from the Moses Mendelssohn Center for European-Jewish Studies called it “a unique scandal” that the Interior Ministry didn’t include any Jewish scientists or community leaders on the commission it created to fight anti-Semitism and support Jewish life in Germany.

Schoeps announced that his center, in cooperation with the American Jewish Committee (AJC) and the Amadeu Antonio Foundation against anti-Semitism and racism, would create an alternative commission that would stress the Jewish perspective and include both Jewish and non-Jewish experts.
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Not to worry about whether Obama will hate Bibi even more and be even more mixed on Israel. There is no “more” that he can hate Bibi, and Obama cannot be worse to Israel than he is because, for reasons beyond his control, he is as bad as he can be.

By Rabbi Prof. Dov Fisher, INN

Bibi absolutely must make that speech. I do not know whether it will do any good, whether it will change anything. But he must make that speech to Congress.

We now have a President in the United States who has absolutely no comprehension as to how to deal with tyrants, dictators, bullies, and thugs. Worse — much worse than that — is that this President does not know what he does not know. He believes he is a genius, the smartest person in the room. He surrounds himself with sycophants who tell him that he is the smartest person in the room. Yes, history will clear it all up, recording him among the five least competent or qualified of all American presidents. Possibly the least of all.
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Iran’s president suggests that reaching a nuclear deal with his country could have an effect on all the issues troubling the Middle East.

By Elad Bernari, INN

Iran’s president, Hassan Rouhani, said Wednesday that the world needs Iran’s help to stabilize a troubled Middle East, AFP reported, in remarks pointing to the wider ramifications of a deal over Tehran’s disputed nuclear program.

In a live televised speech marking the anniversary of the 1979 Islamic revolution, Rouhani implicitly linked ongoing nuclear talks with world powers to resolvingbloody conflicts in Iraq and Syria.

“If there is going to be peace and stability in the region, and terrorism is to be uprooted, there is no other way than with the presence of the Islamic Republic of Iran,” he claimed.
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By Arlene Kushner

In case you still had doubts about Obama’s positions regarding jihadi terrorism, I provide here just one more instance that makes it clear how eager he is to deny what is in front of all our faces.

Two days ago, in the course of an interview with Matthew Yglesias of Vox.com, the president referred to the Islamic jihadis who shot up the kosher store in Paris after the Charlie Hebdo attack as “vicious zealots” who “randomly” shot “a bunch of folks in a deli in Paris.”

The “vicious zealots” are not identified as Islamists.  (They never are so identified by Obama, are they?)  As he sees it, the choice of a kosher deli was just a coincidence.  And the shooting victims were merely “a bunch of folks,” and not Jews, specifically.

Mind blowing, really.
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