T. Belman.  Yadlin asks rhetorically, “is there anyone who would like to go back into southern Lebanon” and implies , no one. He might have said the same about Gaza.

Before the Lebanon pullout an average of 6 soldiers per year were killed there But in the 2006 Lebanese war, Israel suffered 121 soldier casualties and 42 civilian casualties. At the previous average of 6 per year that is 30 year’s worth. Plus we are faced with 100,000 rockets and another war sooner and later. The same can be said about the consequences of disengagement from Gaza.

The real question should be if we could reverse the withdrawals and bring back to life the casualties in excess of 6 per year, would we? Probably.

Former MI chief Amos Yadlin says unilateral action preferable to status quo.

By Gili Cohen, HAARETZ | Jan. 28, 2014

The country’s leading strategic think tank recommended on Tuesday that if the diplomatic process with Palestinians fails, Israel unilaterally withdrawal from 85 percent of the West Bank – between the security barrier and the Jordan Valley.

The Institute for National Security Studies, headed by former Military Intelligence chief Amos Yadlin, urged that in such a move, Israel retain the large settlement blocs, the area known as the Ben-Gurion Airport corridor (for the purpose of thwarting potential Palestinian rocket attacks on planes), and keep military control over the Jordan Valley.

The INSS maintained that in the event of the peace talks’ failure, Israel should carry out the withdrawal plan even in the face of Palestinian opposition, while seeking out the support of the United States and major European countries such as the United Kingdom, France and Germany. Read more…

T. Belman.  I fail to see what this would achieve. We would still be occupiers. Is he intending to abandon the settlers outside our new borders or uproot them. I think the answer is that the left want to offer them compensation if they leave voluntarily.

The net result would be that we have no internal security control of the remaining areas or right to reenter. How are we better off?

That’s the unspoken message of Amos Yadlin’s appointment as Labor’s candidate for defense minister

By Evelyn Gordon

The most critical issue to be decided by the upcoming election came clear last week, yet it seems to have gone virtually unremarked. It isn’t tensions in the north, terror in Tel Aviv, Iran’s nuclear program, relations with America or any socioeconomic issue. Rather, it’s whether Israel will unilaterally withdraw from the West Bank.

There have been hints of this for a while. But the clincher was last week’s announcement by the Labor-Hatnuah joint ticket – the self-proclaimed “Zionist Camp” – that its candidate for defense minister, should it form the next government, is Amos Yadlin.
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UPDATE: OHANA WITHDREW.

JPOST

The furor over soccer legend Eli Ohana’s appointment to the Bayit Yehudi list continued late Tuesday night in a meeting between party leader Naftali Bennett and its MKs.

Bennett presented Ohana’s addition as a fait accompli, sparking outrage among the MKs.

Ohana, a former Betar Jerusalem star and coach of the National Under-19 Team, will be in the party’s top 10. Past statements supporting the Gaza disengagement, from which Ohana distanced himself this week, drew hostility from the Bayit Yehudi base.
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JPOST

PM Netanyahu decided Wednesday to fill two slots on the Likud list reserved for candidates of his choosing with women who teach at Israeli institutions of higher learning.

The 11th slot on the list will go to Dr. Anat Berko, a world-renowned terrorism expert who teaches at the Herzliya Interdisciplinary Center’s Lauder School of Government.

Netanyahu gave the 23rd spot to Dr. Limor Samimian-Darash, an assistant professor at the Federman School of Public Policy and Government at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
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Targeted vehicles were two kilometers away from the Lebanese border.

JPOST

A preliminary investigation following the Hezbollah attack on Israeli military jeeps near the border with Lebanon on Wednesday revealed that terrorists with the Lebanese Shi’ite group launched anti-tank missiles from a distance of at least four kilometers.

The military vehicles travelled on a civilian road in the village of Ghajar two kilometers away from the border when they came under a heavy Hezbollah ambush, consisting of five to six Kornet missiles, a senior army source said. He estimated that the attackers were four to five kilometers away from the vehicles.
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By Moshe Cohen, INN

The Israel Electric Company said Wednesday that it would shut off power to some communities in the Palestinian Authority this week, unless the PA paid off its enormous debt. According to IEC officials, the PA owes it over NIS 1.8 billion ($450 million).

The IEC has long tried to collect its money, with the PA adamantly refusing to pay, saying that various agreements with Israel qualify it for free electricity. The IEC has tried to sue the PA, and to collect its debts via the cash Israel transfers to the PA. Both approaches have been rebuffed by the courts.
DOES ANYONE KNOW ON WHAT BASIS?
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By Vic Rosenthal

One of the most infuriating things about the struggle to keep a sovereign Jewish state is the degree of interference in its affairs by Western governments and interests — which are, with very few exceptions, anti-Israel in practice if not in word.

The Obama Administration has recently expressed its anger that Israel’s PM Netanyahu wants to ‘interfere in its affairs’ by accepting an invitation to speak to Congress on the subject of Iran. But interference in Israel’s affairs by Western governments is widespread and, unlike Netanyahu’s proposed speech, mostly hidden.   Read more…

PLUS: Roundup of regional chatter – Iran, Lebanon, Israel, Palestinians

By Omri Ceren, TIP

It’s been a few hours, so we’re now entering that news cycle gray zone between “what happened” and “what does it mean,” without having definite answers on either.

“What happened”: Israel’s top security figures – PM Netanyahu, DM Ya’alon, and IDF Chief of Staff Gantz – have reportedly wrapped up their meetings in Israel’s military headquarters, the Kirya, for now. Israel has confirmed that 2 soldiers were killed, and at least 7 more were injured (some severely). Hezbollah’s initial attack appears to have involved firing a fourth generation Kornet anti-tank missile against the Israeli jeep, with additional chaos and cover provided by an IED and mortar fire. Hezbollah media outlets are triumphantly running screencaps of the Israeli vehicle on fire, which they scraped from Israeli TV. There are reports that Hezbollah chief Nasrallah will make a speech before the week is out, though similar reports over the last few weeks have proven false.
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By Sharona Schwartz, THE BLAZE

A former Obama campaign strategist is working in Israel as an adviser to a group determined to unseat Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in the upcoming Israeli elections.

Former Obama campaign strategist Jeremy Bird is consulting for an Israeli group that wants to unseat Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

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Anyone who watches this video will recognize that Sarah Palin is a serious contender and should be taken seriously.

But cheap oil and sanctions will.

by Mark Dubowitz and Jonathan Schanzer, The National Interest

As President Obama made clear in his State of Union address on Tuesday, U.S. officials are reasonably confident that they have Iran just where they want it. They say the Iranian economy is reeling from a 60 percent drop in the price of oil, Tehran’s most valuable asset, which accounts for about 50 percent of its government budget.

The White House and its allies, in an ongoing effort to prevent Congress from passing new Iran sanctions, are now using this drop in oil to their advantage. They argue that oil markets are inflicting serious economic pain on the Islamic Republic, and that this should be enough to convince Iran to reach a nuclear deal.

It’s a compelling story, and useful to an administration that has threatened to veto new Senate legislation that would impose additional sanctions on Iran if no deal is reached by the White House’s self-imposed deadline of June 2015. The problem is that the story doesn’t hold up.
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T. Belman. SPLC would never say the same about Islam or even what is called radical Islam but should and then some.

Evangelical political operative planned 9-day freebie trip for national committee members, on behalf of the conservative Christian AFA group which blasts Muslims, gays. SPLC rights group staffer: Our issue is not with the trip, but with the ‘heinous beliefs’ of those sponsoring it.

By Debra Nussbaum Cohen, HAARETZ

NEW YORK – Some 60 members of the Republican National Committee, including its chairman, are heading to Israel at the end of the month on a trip fully paid for by an organization described as a “hate group” by the Southern Poverty Law Center.

The trip is being organized by the American Renewal Project, an endeavor housed in and financed by the American Family Association, a conservative Christian group in Tupelo, Mississippi. The AFA is described as a “hate group” and “extremist group” by the SPLC, an Alabama-based civil rights nonprofit, because of statements it made that are deemed anti-LGBTQ, anti-Latino and anti-black, and which suggest that the United States is a country for Christians only.
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The right-winger chooses a former Labor Party activist to replace a candidate close to the rabbis, soon after tapping a former soccer star.

By Chaim Levinson, HAARETZ

Habayit Hayehudi leader Naftali Bennett has tapped a right-wing author for the 15th spot on his party’s ticket, demoting another woman whom he considers too conservative, political sources told Haaretz.
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Monarch tied to anti-Semitic Muslim clerics, funding of jihad

BY: Adam Kredo, NEW BEACON

King Salman, Saudi Arabia’s newly crowned monarch, has a controversial history of helping to fund radical terror groups and has maintained ties with several anti-Semitic Muslim clerics known for advocating radical positions, according to reports and regional experts.

Salman, previously the country’s defense minister and deputy prime minister, was crowned king last week after his half-brother King Abdullah died at the age of 90.

While Abdullah served as a close U.S. ally and was considered a reformer by many, Saudi Arabia has long been criticized by human rights activists for its treatment of women and its enforcement of a strict interpretation of Islamic law.
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Ben-Ari has made clear that he would not join any coalition unless firm ideological red lines were set, such as not releasing terrorists, not freezing construction, not holding negotiations with the Palestinian Authority (PA), and not letting Hamas survive another operation – all of which the outgoing coalition did.

Where does Bennett stand on these red lines? Remember Bennett is concerned with broadening the appeal of Bayit Yehudi, rather than narrowing its appeal.

Most recent polls have put Yachad just under the electoral threshold, while Otzma is not polling more than two seats and will definitely fail to enter the Knesset if it does not join with Yachad.

By By Ido Ben-Porat, Ari Yashar, INN

After weeks of tension and public calls for former MK Dr. Michael Ben-Ari’s Otzma Yehudit and MK Eli Yishai’s Yachad – Ha’am Itanu to run on a technical bloc joint list, negotiations have fallen through after Yishai’s party made surprising last minute demands on Ben-Ari.

The two parties were in zero hour talks on Tuesday night ahead of a Thursday deadline to submit a joint list, when Yishai made an odd offer giving nationalist activist Baruch Marzel the fourth spot instead of Ben-Ari, who would get the sixth spot.

But that apparently isn’t what caused the talks to break down – instead, it was that Yishai and his associates MK Yoni Chetboun and Rabbi Moshe Hager demanded that Otzma Yehudit members obligate themselves, and announce to the media, that they will permanently not ascend to the Temple Mount, the holiest site in Judaism. Read more…

by Tarek Fatah, The Toronto Sun
January 27, 2015

http://www.meforum.org/4995/shame-and-scandal-in-saudi-arabia

^{Originally published under the title “Shame and scandal in Saudi Arabia.”}

There is a disgraceful spectacle unfolding in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, in which some of the leading lights of the West are playing the role of medieval court jesters, singing platitudes to tyrants in a demonstration of subservience that shames the rest of us.

Ostensibly, the American, British, French and other European leaders travelled to the medieval monstrosity we call Saudi Arabia to offer condolences to the family of the late King Abdullah.

But the reality is different. They are there because the Saudis have money and oil.

On one hand the West claims it is fighting to destroy Islamic State (ISIS), yet it strengthens its ties with the very people who have spent an estimated $100 billion to spread Wahhabism, the foundational Islamist creed of ISIS, the Muslim Brotherhood, al-Qaida, Boko Haram and the Taliban.
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Omri Ceren of TIP wrote to me to advise:

The White House has been exerting pressure on Senate Democrats to stay frozen on the sidelines. Instead 10 of them committed to voting on pressure in roughly 8 weeks, which is at most a couple weeks after even the best-case scenario for pressure advocates (the calendar was already filled up through February with Keystone, DHS/immigration, etc). The bill will now proceed to markup in Banking on Thursday, and the letter signatories indicate that it will come out of committee with bipartisan support.

It’s easy to see why the Kirk-Menendez side is claiming a modest victory and pointing to the letter as positive momentum.

Senate Democrats give Obama an Iran deadline
By Kristina Wong – 01/27/15 01:56 PM EST

Ten Senate Democrats warned the White House in a letter Tuesday that they will support legislation imposing new sanctions on Iran if a framework to roll back the country’s nuclear program isn’t reached within two months.
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See also: The media’s denigration derby vs. Netanyahu
by Michael Freund

THOMAS ROSE, BREITBART

Just days after the Obama White House accused House Speaker John Boehner of “breaking protocol” by inviting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to address a joint session of Congress, a team of up to five Obama campaign operatives has reportedly arrived in Israel to lead a campaign to defeat the Israeli Prime Minister in upcoming national elections scheduled for March 17.

The anti-Netanyahu, left wing Israeli newspaper Haaretz reports a group called “One Voice,” reportedly funded by American donors, is paying for the Obama campaign team. That group is reportedly being led by Obama’s 2012 field director Jeremy Bird.

As Jerusalem Post columnist and putative Knesset candidate Caroline Glick reported on her Facebook page, “Obama won’t meet Benjamin Netanyahu in Washington when he addresses the Joint Houses of Congress in March because of Netanyahu’s visit’s proximity to the Israeli elections. And Obama, of course believes in protocol and propriety which is why he won’t get involved.” And yet, Glick adds, “He’s just sending his 2012 field campaign manager to Israel to run a campaign to defeat Netanyahu.”
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