By Michael :edeen, PJ MEDIA

The real threats to us, and how to deal with them, that is. Lots of well-known former foreign policy/national security officials don’t, or feel obliged to appear “realistic” (diplospeak for “don’t do anything, keep talking”). Some former military officers do, although only up to a point.

Three duly respected policy professionals, Denis Ross (Obama’s — and plenty of others’ — Middle East guru for a few years early on), Eric Edelman (Bush’s under secretary of defense and earlier ambassador to Turkey), and Ray Takeyh of the Council on Foreign Relations (who recently published a very important story detailing the background of the Iranian occupation of the US Embassy in Tehran in ’79), tell us it’s time to get tougher with Iran:

[It’s] time to acknowledge that we need a revamped coercive strategy, one that threatens what the Islamic Republic values the most—its influence in the Middle East and its standing at home.

Read more…

APPARENTLY OBAMA IS THREATENING THEM

BY: Adam Kredo, NEW BEACON

UPDATE 4:58 P.M.: Following initial publication this report, Schumer spokeswoman Meredith Kelly told the Washington Free Beacon in an email that the senator “plans to co-sponsor Sen. Menendez’s new sanction legislation when it is introduced.”

Kelly did not respond to subsequent questions about why Schumer had not already signed on to co-sponsor the legislation, which has been public and in the works for months. Kelly did not specify if Schumer would sign onto the legislation that will be up for a vote in the Senate Banking Committee later this week, which Menendez may not back.

Sen. Mark Kirk (R., Ill.) is poised to file new Iran sanctions legislation on Monday with or without the support of key Democrats who have backed the bill in the past, including Sens. Robert Menendez (D., N.J.) and Chuck Schumer (D., N.Y.), according to sources familiar with the ongoing negotiations.
Read more…

By Jonathan S Tobin, COMMENTARY

What was an Iranian general doing hanging around on the Syrian side of the Golan Heights border with Israel? The answer is that, along with several high-ranking figures in the Hezbollah terrorist group, General Mohammed Ali Allahdadi, a reputed ballistic missiles expert, was there helping to set up a missile base from which the terror group would, with Iranian aid and instructions, strike at the State of Israel. But before he completed his mission Allahdadi was killed along with some of the Hezbollah personnel in an Israel strike on their base near the town of Quenetra. The mission nipped the Iranian scheme in the bud but it’s doubtful that anyone in the Israeli government is under the impression that the strike ended the threat of attack from Iranian forces and their auxiliaries. But the revelation of the Iranian effort near the Golan is significant because it illustrates how deeply involved Iran is in fomenting a new terror war against Israel as well as the peril presented by Western policies that would, at best, make Iran a threshold nuclear power in the years to come.
Read more…

By Herb Keinon, JPOST

Baku — Azerbaijan views Israel as a “very important” ally and strategic partner, Ali Hasanov, a senior adviser to President Ilham Aliyev, said on Monday.

Hasanov’s comments followed a meeting he had with a small Israeli delegation to Baku, led by Acre Mayor Shimon Lankry, who is building a community center in his town for the some 9,000 Azerbaijani Jews – or 20 percent of his city – who live there.

Hasanov said the ties between his country, a secular Muslim state that borders Iran to the north, and Israel will continue to develop and flourish “despite the pressures.”

“We have relations with all countries of the world according to our interests,” he said, including countries that are enemies and rivals of one another.
Read more…

Ted Belman. Contrary to what the media would have you believe, the people in attendance loved the speech. As Palin often says, she wasn’t interested in the media’s opinion of her, she was interested in the opinion of Iowans who will vote in the first Republican primary. In that she succeeded admirably.

By a Palin supporter

By now I’m sure most of you have read or heard of Byron York’s hit piece on Governor Palin’s speech in Des Moines this Saturday. (I won’t link to it because it’s gotten enough traffic as is.) I’ve learned one way you can tell if a journalist is being fair in an article is by whom they quote. Byron York quotes one Iowan by the name of Sam Clovis, who trashes Palin’s speech along with other nameless “activists”.

[York wasn’t alone in trashing her. A search of her name in the last 24 hours reveals a preponderance of articles which also trash her with words like, rambling, incoherent, stumbles, slips into self parody etc.]
Read more…

Al Monitor

In a normal democracy, it would be unthinkable for a political party with a projected vote count of some 9% to be left out of parliament. In Turkey, however, it is possible, because the country’s parliamentary electoral threshold, the world’s highest, stands at 10%. The latest debate sparked by the threshold involves the Kurdish-dominated People’s Democracy Party (HDP) and its chances of entering parliament in the June 7 general elections.

Turkey’s Kurdish parties have never managed to reach the 10% mark, but they won parliamentary representation at the polls in 2007 and 2011, when the parties won seats by fielding independents, a method that allowed them to get around the threshold requirement. In 2011, the Peace and Democracy Party, from which the HDP branched off, garnered only 6% of the vote but managed to get 36 candidates into parliament. In 2007, its predecessor, the Democratic Society Party, used the same method to clinch 20 seats, while receiving about 4% of the vote.
Read more…

The EU is ready to declare economic war on Israel

By Uri Savir, Al Monitor

Speaking on condition of anonymity, a senior source in the Brussels European Union foreign policy team has shared with Al-Monitor their thinking over resuming the peace process once the next Israeli government is established: “Watching the Israeli election campaign, we are dismayed by the fact that all the parties seem to ignore the central issue concerning Israel’s future — as we see it — namely, resolving the conflict with the Palestinians. Come May, Europe will not be able to ignore this anymore. We have on our hands a major strategic challenge in relation to the Arab and Muslim world. We are engaged in a fight against terror, both domestically and in the Middle East. And in this context, resolving the Palestinian predicament is of pivotal importance.”
Read more…

Mashregh News indicates response to airstrike that killed Iranian general may include assassination of Israeli leaders’ sons.

By Ari Yashar, INN

A Farsi-language Iranian news site affiliated with the Islamic regime’s Revolutionary Guards suggested that the sons of Israeli leaders are being targeted as a response to the Israeli airstrike in Syria last week, in which Iran’s General Mohammad Ali Allahdadi was killed.

The news site, Mashregh News, detailed that Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s sons Yair and Avner may be targeted, and likewise listed the sons of former prime ministers, including Ehud Olmert’s son Shaul and Ariel Sharon’s sons Gilad and Omri.
Read more…

By Sam Sokol, JPOST

Indicating displeasure with Israel’s immigration promotion and absorption strategy, the Jewish People Policy Institute last week presented Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu with its emergency plan for the absorption of 120,000 French immigrants.

According to the high profile Jerusalem think tank, which maintains close ties with the Jewish Agency and senior politicians, Israel has thus far not implemented the necessary policies to compete with the United States, Canada, and various European states in attracting highly educated and business savvy French Jews.
Read more…

By Jonathan Tobin, COMMENTARY

Lawfare is the term for the practice of employing legal proceedings to wage a kind of war on a country or cause. For the most part, the State of Israel has been on the receiving end of this effort as non-governmental organizations and others purporting to support the cause of human rights have attempted to delegitimize Israel’s right to exist and to self-defense with specious efforts to arraign before the bar of justice. But not everybody in Israel believes the best way to counter these attacks is to play defense or simply ignore it. Attorney Nitsana Darshan-Leitner founded Shurat HaDin—the Israel Law Center in 2004 to use the law to not only work for the rights of Jewish victims of terrorism but also to make the terrorists, state sponsors, and enablers in the business world pay for their crimes. For this she was rewarded with an article profiling her activities in yesterday’s New York Times that posed the question in its headline as to whether her work was “misguided,” a clear indication of the opinion of the paper’s editors. But that verdict can only be sustained if you believe those who support terrorism deserve legal impunity.
Read more…

PLAY NOW

Mark Levin takes on Islamo-Nazism and complains about the Neville Chamberlains who are in charge of France, Britain, Germany and US.

“I smell the stench of the thirties in the air.”

“Boehner should invite leaders such as Al Sisi of Egypt and Baird the FM of Canada to address Congress so the world can hear.”

You don’t have to listen to it all. Just listen at least until the first two questions.

By Mark Tapson, FPM

Last week, in response to the Paris massacre at the offices of Charlie Hebdo, Carol M. Swain, an openly conservative professor of political science and law at Vanderbilt University, wrote an op-ed for The Tennessean titled, “Charlie Hebdo attacks prove critics were right about Islam.” Naturally, any critique of Islam from our leftist-dominated campuses is going to be met with frothing outrage, and Professor Swain’s article was no exception.

“What would it take to make us admit we were wrong about Islam?” the professor began. “What horrendous attack would finally convince us that Islam is not like other religions in the United States, that it poses an absolute danger to us and our children unless it is monitored better than it has been under the Obama administration?” Good questions, and ones that those of us whose eyes have long been opened to the threat of Islamic fundamentalism have been asking ever since September 11, 2001, if not before.

But the fact that such questions were being put forth by a major university professor, even a conservative one (with a very impressive résumé, no less), was notable. Swain pulled no punches:
Read more…

“The changes that the Middle East has experienced in recent years have created a set of joint interests between the two countries,”

By Ariel Zilber, JPOST

The tacit security and intelligence cooperation that has come to characterize Israel’s clandestine relationship with Saudi Arabia is likely to remain intact even as the House of Saud undergoes a transition of power following Thursday’s passing of King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz al Saud.

“The changes that the Middle East has experienced in recent years have created a set of joint interests between the two countries,” said Dr. Michal Yaari, an expert on Saudi foreign policy and a lecturer at the Open University.

Like Israel, the Saudis are loathe to accept the radical winds of change that have swept the region, particularly the tumult that has been encouraged by Iran, the House of Saud’s chief Shi’ite rival.
Read more…

T. Belman. I missed this article when it was first published. We all must ask ourselves, who is the greater threat to the west, Iran or Isis. Obama apparently has decided to align with Iran. That’s one of the reasons he is so angry that Bibi upset his apple cart by talking to Congress. Did Obama cede Yemen to Iran also. Israel’s eastern and northern front are getting worse by the day. Do we really want Isis to fall to Iran or its proxies. Saudi Arabia is even closer to Iran and Yemen than Israel is, so they must be gravely concerned. Jordan similarly. What to do?

DEBKAfile Jan 1/15

President Barack Obama’s New Year gift to Israel and the Middle East is a multibillion fund for establishing an Iraqi army as a division of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards (IRGC). Wednesday, the last day of 2014, two defense ministers, Iran’s Brig. Gen. Hossein Dehqani and Iraq’s Khallid al-Obeidi, signed a pact whereby Iran i.e. the Revolutionary Guards, will “continue to train new Iraqi military units” for replacing the army that crumbled under the onslaught launched by the Islamic State of Iraq and Levant since last June.

“We do not see any other option than cooperation and being on the same side as Iran to uproot the terrorists,” said the Iraqi general.
Read more…

By David Weinberg, ISRAEL HAYOM

Nobody should expect Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to back down from confronting U.S. President Barack Obama on the Iranian nuclear issue. Just the opposite: Now is the time for Israel to make its stand against the emerging American sellout to Iran.

Iran has clandestinely crossed every red line set by the West over the past 20 years — putting secret and underground nuclear plants online, building heavy water facilities, refining massive amounts of uranium, working on explosive triggers and warheads, developing long-range missiles, lying to international inspectors, and generally breaching all its obligations under the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty.
Read more…

By Ted Belman

Whenever Sarah does or says anything her detractors on both sides of the aisle ridicule her as a moron. But what they don’t do is take her on on the issues. Reactions to this speech were no different. I listened to the speech and tried to be objective. First she spoke to Iowans in attendance. After all Iowa is the location of the first primary vote. The later part of the speech addressed her political platform which can be summarized as “Restore the American Dream”. She was fluent, passionate and convincing.

One thing is for sure, nobody draws crowds or attention like Sarah does. My position is that if she can get the nomination she will be the next President.

I urge you to read this 2012 article, The Sarah Palin Factor Revisited.

What follows is an exchange of emails on the subject.
Read more…

By Michael Goodwin, NY POST

How dare Israel be more concerned with the existential threat of Iranian nukes than with Obama’s feelings? And what do members of Congress think they are, a separate branch of government or something?

Thou shall not cross Dear Leader.

With their gutter sniping failing to stop Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s planned March speech before Congress, White House aides are unloading their full arsenal of bile.

“He spat in our face publicly, and that’s no way to behave,” one Obama aide told an Israeli newspaper. “Netanyahu ought to remember that President Obama has a year and a half left to his presidency, and that there will be a price.”

It is pointless to say petty threats do not become the Oval Office. Trying to instruct this White House on manners recalls what Mark Twain said about trying to teach a pig to sing: It wastes your time and annoys the pig.

Still, the fury is telling. It reminds, as if we could forget, that everything is always about Obama.
Read more…

WorldTribune

LONDON — The United States pressed Argentina to end its investigation of Iranian complicity in the 1994 bombing of a Jewish center in which nearly 100 people were killed.

Western diplomatic sources said the administration of President Barack Obama urged Argentina on several occasions to either stop or limit the investigation into the bombing of the Argentine-Israeli Mutual Association in Buenos Aires. The sources said the U.S. appeals marked one of the demands by Iran for a reconciliation with Washington.

“Argentina had hard evidence against at least one Iranian leader, which prevented him from traveling abroad,” a source said.
Read more…

Ted Belman. The emphatic statement “THERE IS NO DIPLOMATIC SOLUTION” was coined by me and placed just under the Israpundit banner at least 10 years ago. It was meant to counter the mantra of the Left, namely, “There is no Military solution”. Its nice to see that left-of-center YNET has published this article.

The time has come for Israel to throw off the constraints of adhering to politically correct policies that are clearly detrimental to its continued existence and start fighting for its survival.

By Yoel Meltzer, YNET

With Israeli elections quickly approaching, it’s a near certainty based upon historical precedents that we’ll soon be hearing assorted domestic and international voices emphasizing the need to restart negotiations with the Arabs as soon as the next government is formed.

Still further and based upon a 20-year old broken record that never seems to stop, we’ll once again be told that in the face of the growing uncertainty in the region a breakthrough in the talks with the Arabs is vital for the continued existence of the Jewish state.
Read more…

TED BELMAN. Wallace and Smith are way off base. Why should Obama not be challenged on his views here? He backed “engagement” for 6 years and undermined sanctions which were working. He took great pains to restrain Israel and Israel went along. The issue here is whether to strengthen sanctions.  This is the purview of Congress and not the Presidency. Netanyahu would be derelict if he did not appeal to them. To say otherwise is to tie his hands.

It is not about following protocol, it has been breached many times and perhaps doesn’t apply in this case.  It is not about electioneering, though it may have affect on the Israeli elections, but it is unclear if it will be good for Likud. On the other hand, there is nothing wrong with Netanyahu using his popularity in the US to affect his popularity in Israel. The left in Israel castigates Netanyahu for destroying his relationship with Obama, though to my mind Obama is at fault, and uses this as an election issue.  Netanyahu is right to stand up to him rather than grovel like the left does. Also there is nothing wrong with Netanyahu appealing to the American people for support and using this as an election issue. AND DON’T FORGET, THIS IS ABOUT STOPPING IRAN FROM GETTING TO THE THRESHOLD OF ACQUIRING NUCLEAR WEAPONS. DO NOT LET THE CRITICS DEFLECT YOU FROM THIS ISSUE.

Conservative outlet’s anchors say relationship with US will suffer, after New York Times, American officials slam timing of prime minister’s Congress address.

Yitzhak Benhorin, YNET

The criticism of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, over his intention to address the US Congress two weeks before the Israeli elections, has not stopped at water’s edge. And while the criticism from President Barack Obama’s administration and the editorial board of the New York Times was expected, this weekend the Likud leader was targeted by a network he once counted among his supporters – Fox News.

During a conversation between anchor Chris Wallace and presenter Shepard Smith, the two agreed that Netanyahu’s strategy an example of “dicey politics”.
Read more…