Given the unflattering outcomes of “Protective Edge”, govt spokespersons & unofficial apologists tried to put a brave face on things, to assure us that what we got was the best we could get.

By Martin Sherman, JPOST

<b>In light of upcoming UN report and PA threats to open case against Israel at ICC over Operation Protective Edge, IDF officials seek legal counseling, struggle to verify number of dead in Gaza.

Associated Press, YNET

A jittery Israeli military is gearing up for what could become its next big battle: dealing with UN investigations that could result in war-crimes allegations.

The army has beefed up its legal staff, is conducting internal investigations of its wartime actions and has prepared a detailed PR campaign of satellite photos and video clips – hoping to persuade the world that its war against Hamas was justified.

Israel may face legal ramifications for the destruction of thousands of homes in Gaza. (Photo: Reuters)

“We take our business seriously, and as such we operate within the rules and regulations under the laws of war,” said Lt. Col. Peter Lerner, a military spokesman.

Israel launched the war on July 8 with a massive aerial bombardment of Gaza in response to weeks of heavy rocket fire. It later sent in ground troops to destroy a network of tunnels used by Hamas militants. Hamas and other militant groups fired thousands of rockets and mortars into Israel.
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By Vic Rosenthal

By Shari Goodman

September 4, 2014

American Jewry: In the Dark
I recently attended an event where the featured speaker was the former ambassador to the United States, Michael Oren. He is a tall, good looking, accomplished and articulate speaker, born in the United States with degrees from Columbia and Princeton. The Jerusalem Post named him as one of the most ten influential Jews in the world.

The venue for this event was a beautiful home in Los Angeles, and the attendees were upscale Westside Jews you would expect to find at such a venue. Oren spoke for about an hour focusing on the historical and cultural aspects of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict and then calmly asked the crowd “what do you do when you have two groups of people who claim ownership to that land?” And to that end, Israel has generously given up land, only to receive in kind neither peace nor land.
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By Anav Silverman, MATZAV

For the nearly 23 years, relations between Indian and Israel have progressed rapidly, both politically, commercially, in sciences and culture and particularly in the area of agriculture since the two countries entered full diplomatic relations in 1992.

In its mission to transition to sustainable agriculture and diversity its food sources, India has been utilizing Israeli technology. Recently, an Israeli expert from the Ministry of Agriculture, Itzhak Kosto, held a two-day ‘Pomegranate Seminar’ at the Center of Excellence for Fruits at Mangeana in Sirsa, bordering Punjab, which concluded on August 27. The center is one of the 20 Indo-Israeli agriculture centers in the country that utilizes Israeli technology to solve agricultural issues. Kosto spoke about supplying fertilizers to plants through drip irrigation as well as pest and disease management, and other solutions with local farmers and scientists.
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Dan Smith
http://bit.ly/1p5CB94, August 24, 2014

An analysis of the damage assessment data collected – on the Gaza War – by the UN Office of Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (which has never been biased in Israel’s favor), confirms that Israel attacked Hamas targets in a restrained manner:

*Israel did not retaliate by rote against Hamas’ systematic attacks on civilian targets; Israel bombed areas which harbored Hamas missile launching grounds and facilities, command posts, terrorists homes and hideouts, operational bases, weapon inventory and tunnels.

*Most of the damage concentrated in very limited areas of 25 square meters of less, while most of Gaza was not damaged at all or in a very limited manner.  Less than 5% of Gaza was hit by The Israel Defense Forces.
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Bare Naked Islam July 13/13

Below is a summary of the video in Arabic that reveals an agreement made between Barack Hussein Obama and Mohamed Morsi’s Muslim Brotherhood to give 40% of Sinai to Hamas in exchange for $8 billion allegedly already paid to Morsi/Muslim Brotherhood by Obama.

No wonder Obama is asking the Egyptian Army to release Morsi:
 the-muslim-in-chief-obama-asks-egyptian-leaders-to-release-his-bff-mohamed-morsi

This is a Google translation of the story which appears in French from Poste deVeille in Canada:

h/t Susan K

Summary:
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By: Jameel@Muqata, JP

PA President Mahmoud Abbas has refused an offer by a senior Egyptian official to resettle “Palestinian refugees” in the Sinai, according to a report in the Middle East Monitor on Monday.

According to Abbas, the plan was first proposed in 1956 by Egypt, and was just put back on the the table again, in an attempt to help resolve the Arab-Israel conflict.

The idea was that the PA would receive a 618 square mile area adjacent to Gaza (the Gaza strip is 139 square miles) to resettle Arabs who claim refugee status. This would finally resolve the entire Palestinian refugee issue.

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Former Islamic Radical: We Must Undermine The Ideology ISIS Believes is a Noble, Higher Calling

Townhall

Maajid Nawaz is a former radical leader who once believed in building a Islamic caliphate through terrorism. After stint in prison, he had a change of heart and when he got out, he founded the first anti-radicalization think-tank.
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Communities that don’t build tend to wither away, said former Judea and Samaria Council head Dani Dayan – and there is no building going on.
By Yaakov Levi, INN

Former Judea and Samaria Council head Dani Dayan warned that those who opposed the designation of 4,000 dunams (988 acres) of land in Gush Etzion as state land, along with other plans such as the continued development of Jewish settlement in Jerusalem and in Judea and Samaria, are seeking to demoralize and eventually destroy the entire settlement movement.

Speaking to Arutz Sheva, Dayan said that the bureaucratic snafu that was holding up development of plans in Jerusalem and in Judea and Samaria was choking off the life-force of these communities. “For months the government committees and the Housing Ministry have not issued any tenders for construction. It’s true that development plans made in the past are now bearing fruit, but without new tenders construction will soon dry up,” he said.
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JPOST

Kerry says killers of journalists James Foley and Steve Sotloff will be held accountable ‘no matter how long it takes.’

WASHINGTON – The US seeks to destroy the metastasizing Islamic State, President Barack Obama said from Eastern Europe on Wednesday, reacting angrily to the murder of a second American citizen at its hands in two weeks.
The killers of journalists James Foley and Steven Sotloff taking refuge in Syria will be held accountable, “no matter how long it takes,” US Secretary of State John Kerry echoed from Washington, calling Sotloff’s murder an act of evil.
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New Poll: 60% Pal. Arabs Reject Accepting Existence of Israel

ZOA

New York, September 3, 2014: A recent poll has shown that a large majority of Palestinian Arabs — 60% — reject permanently accepting Israel’s existence and instead suggest their leaders “work toward reclaiming all of historic Palestine, from the river to the sea.” The poll, conducted throughout the Palestinian Authority (PA) territories, commissioned by the Washington Institute for Near East Policy and conducted during June 15-17, showed that 55% of Palestinian Arabs in Judea/Samaria and 68% in Gaza rejected statehood alongside Israel, supporting instead Palestinian statehood in place of Israel.
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Shurat Hadin alleges that Mashaal is “liable for Hamas’s war crime of execution without due process”; request uses Hamas leader’s Jordanian citizenship against him, since Jordan is member of ICC.

JPOST

Khaled Mashaal
Hamas chief Khaled Mashaal holds a press conference in the Qatari capital Doha on July 23, rejecting a cease-fire in the Gaza battles.. (photo credit:AFP)

The Shurat Hadin civil rights group announced on Wednesday that it has formally requested that the International Criminal Court prosecutor open an investigation into alleged war crimes committed by Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal during Operation Protective Edge.

The original basis of the request, filed late Tuesday, was using Mashaal’s Jordanian citizenship against him since Jordan, unlike Israel and “Palestine,” has been a member of the ICC since April 11, 2002 and recognizes its jurisdiction over its citizens.
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Canadian military supplies reach Kurds as emergency aid is sent to northern Iraq

Australia could bolster role in Iraq

Dutch government to transport weapons and munition to Kurds

Germany is giving Support for Kurds

By Robert K. Vincent

Writing in the Wall Street Journal on June 17, Bret Stephens, in his column entitled, “The Pace of Obama’s Disasters”, made a strange comment in passing in his otherwise excellent appraisal of the Obama administration’s foreign policy failures, which read as follows:

“…Yet when it comes to leadership, we have our very own Clement Attlee at the top, eager to subtract the burdens of international responsibility so he can get on with the only thing that really animates him, which is building social democracy at home.”[Emphasis added.]

This is a common sentiment among many commentators today: Obama ‘doesn’t care about foreign policy’. However, a closer look at his presidency would reveal quite the opposite. Obama cares more about foreign policy than anything else, so long as it relates to Israel. This focus of his on Israel, moreover, is hardly benign; here too, it is quite the opposite. Indeed, this writer would submit that Obama’s intention to weaken our ally, Israel, is the central feature of his presidency.
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MOSAIC PUBLISHED A MAJOR ARTICLE ON THIS TOPIC WHICH THEY DESCRIBE AS FOLLOWS.

Iran is Israel’s main adversary in the Middle East – supporting Hamas and Islamic Jihad, backing Hizballah and trying to build nuclear weapons • But Iran is not as strong as it seems, and it has problems with many disaffected and large minorities • Iran has been meddling in our backyard for long enough, it’s time to hit back • Nicholas Saidel explains how we can do it

READ IT

Jerusalem and Washington blindsided each other during the Gaza war, and their dysfunctional ties now threaten Israel’s sought-after diplomatic and psychological victory over Hamas

by Isi Leibler

From the outset of Operation Protective Edge, Jewish renegades have been increasingly propelled into the limelight. One example was a recent letter published as an advertisement in The New York Times, signed by 300 descendants of Holocaust survivors from all over the world. It condemned the Israeli “massacre of Palestinians in Gaza” which amounted to the “genocide of Palestinian people.” It also decried the “extreme racist dehumanization of Palestinians in Israeli society, which has reached a fever pitch” and called for boycotting, divesting from, and sanctioning the Jewish state.

This initiative typifies the efforts by small groups of fanatical Jewish deviants scattered throughout the world who seek to demonize Israel. It is not a new phenomenon in Jewish history, originating from the early days of the Diaspora. It reached a critical level during the Middle Ages when Jews were regarded as pariahs and the Church held them accountable for all the woes facing mankind, including plagues, droughts and other natural disasters.

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