By Ted Belman

http://www.jpost.com/Arab-Israeli-Conflict/Israelis-Palestinians-increasingly-negative-about-two-state-solution-385687

According to the findings, following the summer’s conflict, 50 percent of Israelis and 38% of Palestinians support a permanent settlement package along the Clinton parameters and the Geneva Initiative, which includes a divided Jerusalem and territorial swaps for a final border agreement. However, these findings represent a drop in support for a package deal – down from 54% among Israelis and 46% of Palestinians in December of 2013.

The survey was conducted by the Harry S. Truman Research Institute for the Advancement of Peace at the Hebrew University and the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research in Ramallah, with the support of the Konrad Adenauer Stiftung in Ramallah and Jerusalem.

I don’t believe it even if you remove Israeli Arabs from the sample making the number of Jews who support it, even lower.

The reason it was rejected is because they know what the problem is and who is causing it. The last thing they want to do is to deal with it.

See also: France’s Anti-Semitic Nightmare

An increase in Muslim immigration, however, is a disaster for any struggle against anti-Semitism, as Jew hatred is highest among French Muslims. Many arrive in France from North African and other Islamic countries already possessing a strong hatred for Jews.

By Pamela Geller, Atlas Shrugged

Campaign to vote for MKs who support sovereignty in Judea-Samaria, call on MKs to make it their campaign cornerstone.

By Ari Yashar, INN

As Israeli voters become inundated with campaign slogans and political parties bashing each other to steal the limelight ahead of the March 17 Knesset elections, a new campaign has been launched, calling on Israelis to vote for “sovereignty.”

The campaign, an initiative of Women In Green (WIG), has seen large signs sprout up around the country reading “Choosing Sovereignty” and calling for voters to choose parties and candidates who support an implementation of Israeli sovereignty in Judea and Samaria.

“Voting for candidates who support Israeli sovereignty in Judea and Samaria,” read the signs, posted on notice boards, hitchhiking stations and other public places. Read more…

The Arab collective has given kidnapping its overwhelming support.”

By Dr Phillip Brodie, INN June 27/14

It is over two weeks since three Jewish boys were kidnapped.

[..]
Several days ago, the media reported that the Palestinian Authority (PA) charges Israel of terrorizing ‘a captive population’ by searching the area house by house. This follows an angry condemnation of the Israel Defence Force (IDF) from the PA’s Mahmoud Abbas (“Abbas Lashes Out at Netanyahu Over Hamas Crackdown”, Arutz Sheva, June 22, 2014).

Hanan Ashrawi, a PLO official, made the accusation. She said that the Israeli operation ‘is a reign of terror directed against a captive Palestinian population. This is not a systematic search for three abducted boys but collective punishment’ [my emphasis].

“Collective punishment’ is a war crime. It is prohibited by the 1949 Fourth Geneva Convention.
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Netanyahu accused of misusing funds to promote self, but election committee head says ombudsman overstepped authority

TOI Staff

Likud comptroller disqualified Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu from running for the party’s leadership primary next week, in a move that could imperil the prime minister’s chances of competing for another term. However, the party’s Election Committee chairman said the comptroller had no authority to take the step.

Comptroller Shai Galili cited Netanyahu’s alleged misuse of party funds and other property to advance his candidacy in disqualifying him from the primary.

Netanyahu’s attorney, however, insisted that Galili had overstepped his authority in disqualifying Netanyahu, likely setting up a legal battle that could delay primaries.
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By Ted Belman

Liberman is fearful that the EU will impose sanctions on Israel just as it has on Russia.

EU sanctions against Russia over Ukraine crisis

In response to the illegal annexation of Crimea and deliberate destabilisation of a neighbouring sovereign country, the EU has imposed restrictive measures against the Russian Federation.

Is there any reason why they wouldn’t do the same to Israel?

The sanctions and the precipitous drop in oil prices have necessitated government actions.
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Prof. Paul Eidelberg

As Israel approaches the March 2015 Knesset elections, the Correct Political Analysis Syndrome continues to afflict even the best political analysts.

Correct Politically Correct Analysis has been available to Israeli politicians for a long time, certainly about the implacable hostility of Palestinian Authority. Enough to quote Golda Meir’s biography, My Life (1975):

I have never doubted for an instant that the true aim of the Arab states has always been, and still is, the total destruction of the State of Israel, or that even if we had gone back far beyond the 1967 lines to some miniature enclave, they would not still have tried to eradicate it and us…. It is our duty to realize this truth; it is our duty to make it clear to all men of good will who tend to ignore it.  We need to [face] this truth in all its gravity, so that we may continue to mobilize from among ourselves and the Jewish people all the resources necessary to overcome our enemies …   Read more…

Ted Belman. With Liberman now siding with Herzog/Livni, they represent about 33 seats. Add to this 10 from the Arabs and 6 from Meretz and 9 from Lapid they total totalling 57.  4 to go.  Therefore, it is up to Kahlon whether the right or left will form the government.

Liberman in closed meeting urges regional peace agreement to avoid EU sanctions, says ‘we will have to evacuate settlements.’

By Ari Yashar, INN

Foreign Minister Avigdor Liberman’s Yisrael Beytenu party may have run on a joint ticket with Likud in the last elections, but in a closed meeting on Tuesday he sharply attacked Prime Minister and Likud head Binyamin Netanyahu’s political management.

According to Liberman, Israel needs a peace agreement including the evacuation of Jewish communities because Netanyahu’s policy of placing supreme emphasis on maintaining the status quo has “failed,” reports Haaretz, which received recordings from the meeting at Tel AvivUniversity.
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Judas Maccabeus’ death would mark the end of the Maccabean revolt against the Greeks – and the start of the extremely unstable Hasmonean dynasty.

By Elon Gilad, HAARETZ

As Judas Maccabeus lay dead on the battlefield in Elasa, the Maccabean revolt that Jews everywhere mark on Hanukkah was over. It was 160 BCE.

The death of Judas, also known as Judah the Maccabee, could have been the end of his clan, the Hasmoneans. Actually it would mark the beginning of a dynasty that would rule the Jewish people for over a century, during a time of extreme upheaval.

Upon the death of their father Mattathias the Hasmonean, Judas, one of five brothers, assumed leadership of the Hasmonean clan and in 167 BCE, led the Jewish common people into revolt against their Greek overlords, the Seleucids – and against the Hellenized Jewish elite. A military genius, Judas beat back the Greek armies, recaptured Jerusalem and rededicated the Temple. But he was ultimately defeated in 160 BCE by the Seleucids (whose empire encompassed today’s Syria and Lebanon, and parts of Israel, Iraq and Turkey), and was killed. His brother Eleazar had been killed in an earlier battle. Read more…

By Jerry Gordan, NER

“No Hatred, No  violence, No Koran”  sign at Pegida rally in Germany, Source: Al Jazeera Yermi Brenner

Geert Wilders, leader of the Freedom Party (PVV) in the Netherlands is being investigated for the second time in five years by Dutch prosecutors for  alleged hate speech during  his March 2014 local election campaign rally statement of “fewer Moroccans”.  This comes while his ratings in Dutch polls has rocketed him to the top with fully 30 seats in the Hague parliament, if snap elections were held.  That is more than the combined seats currently held by the ruling Rutte coalition of the PvdA and VVD parties.  Note  this remark: “The short message of PVV-leader Geert Wilders to the Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte: ‘The revolution in The Netherlands has started now, Mark.”
  Read more…

By Jerry Gordon, NER

Last week in the aftermath of the Islamikaze Jihad  at Sydney’s Lindt Cafe, Raphael Israeli , Retired Hebrew University Professor of Islamic  and East Asian History, was interviewed in Israel  by radio personality Tali Lipkin-Shahak.  It was the subject of an op-ed published this past weekend in Israel Hayom (IH), “Time to Wake Up” by Dror Eydar. Eydar Lipkin-Shahak initially cited Israeli for his prescience in 2007, when he lectured on Islam sponsored by an Australian Jewish organization, only, to be asked to leave for expressing his views.  As Eydar noted in his Israel Hayom op ed,

In February 2007, Professor Raphael Israeli — an international expert on Islam and professor at Hebrew University — was interviewed by an Australian newspaper. In the interview, Israeli warned that the Muslim minority living in the continent posed a real threat to the Australians. His studies suggest that life can become unbearable when the Muslim population of a Western country reaches critical mass (in one study he even attached a number to this idea of critical mass: 10 percent of the general population). It is a rule of thumb, he said, and if it applies everywhere, it certainly applies in Australia.

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Jerry Gordon, NER:

Gal Luft nails it. The ruling of Dr. Gilo of Israel’s Anti-Trust Authority at the behest of Labor Party stalwarts like Shelli Yacimovitch and the duet of Herzog – Livini  virtually destroys any capability to complete development of the Leviathan field, honor agreements in the region for delivering gas and scuppers the Geo-politically important Eastern Mediterranean pipeline connecting it via Cyprus, Greece and Italy to the EU. This was a torpedo aimed at sinking Bibi in the March 2017 snap election.

You could see this train wreck coming in the failure  of the Noble-Delek consortium to complete the Aussie Woodside Pty. minority ownership in Leviathan in May 2014 – see:Woodside Terminates Leviathan Deal – WSJ.  Noble Energy’s NYSE listing plummeting 3.8% it is demanding an immediate hearing of this pussilanimous ruling of Dr. Gilo. The TASE was similarly rattled.
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A CONSUMMATION DEVOUTLY TO BE WISHED

Palestinian chief negotiator Saeb Erekat on Tuesday urged the United States to refrain from blocking a Palestinian drive for statehood.

By KHALED ABU TOAMEH, JPOST

PA President Mahmoud Abbas threatened on Tuesday to sever all ties with Israel if the statehood resolution presented to the UN Security Council last week did not receive approval.

Speaking to reporters in the Algeria, Abbas said the Palestinians were “determined to restore their rights, including the right of return for refugees and the release of all Palestinians from Israeli prison.”

He added, “We won’t surrender to the occupation’s policy of dominance and repression. The Palestinian cause is the key to peace and war in the Middle East and the basis for maintaining security and peace.”

Abbas repeated his threat to dissolve the PA if the latest statehood bid at the Security Council failed.
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Antitrust authority tells Delek, Noble Energy that it will recommend court dismantle Leviathan partnership deal, force firms to allow entry of new player into market.

Tomer Ganon, Calcalist

The commissioner of Israel’s antitrust authority announced Tuesday morning that he will recommend to the courts to break up the partnership developing the Leviathan gas field, the largest offshore find in over a decade.

Tamar gas field in Mediterranean Sea (Photo: Albatross Aerial Photography)

Prof. David Gila’s decision to retreat from an agreement formulated last March with the companies developing Leviathan leaves the court with two options – to force each partner to separately sell their stake or to allow some of the partners, namely Yitzhak Tshuva’s Delek Group and Texas-based Noble Energy, to sell their stake to a third-party who can become a new player in the market, to compete with the existing Tamar development.
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Uri Ariel’s Tekuma faction weakened, radical rabbis ditching party for Shas renegade Eli Yishai’s.

By Chaim Levinson, HAARETZ

The decision of Tekuma’s Central Committee to join with Habayit Hayehudi in the upcoming elections has not decided the political battle that the latter’s chairman, Naftali Bennett, and the former’s, Uri Ariel, have been waging for the past two years.

While the disagreement is supposedly about Tekuma’s representation in the elections, the actual issue is much deeper. Bennett wants to erase Tekuma and integrate it into Habayit Hayehudi, which would entrench his autocracy over the religious Zionist party in preparation for a future bid for the premiership. Ariel wants to continue doing what he has been doing for years, with impressive political skill: using a platform of 60,000 national-Zionist Haredim as a base for political power.

Using this platform, he extracts more and more funds for the most pampered sector in the country: the hesder yeshivas, the small, religiously observant groups that establish new communities, the religious academies and so on. Tekuma has never run on its own in Knesset elections, and even after the current round it is alive and kicking, and will continue to be a political force.
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By Ted Belman

Yesterday I was interviewed on the Zelda Young Show broadcasting out of Toronto (a weekly gig for me) and I was asked to comment on the elections. I expressed the opinion that the Left is greatly concerned with Israel’s growing isolation and with potential rupture with our relationship with the US. They are willing to accept ’67 lines plus swaps as borders as a result.

The right on the other hand is adamantly opposed to such borders and is unwilling to cede Judea and Samaria for many reasons, not the least of which is security. They are ready to take the heat as the lesser danger.

Contrary to the polls I have read lately showing about 15-17 seats for Bayit Yehudi, they say that they are polling in the low to mid twenties.

Last night I attending a parlour meeting at which Danny Danon was the speaker. Upon hearing his remarks, I was very depressed. Evidently Likud is very split ideologically. The policies they followed in the last 6 years are policies insisted upon by the left wing in their party including Netanyahu. These policies include “quiet for quiet”, pursuit of the two-state solution and acceptance of a building freeze in J&S and even in Jerusalem.
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By Jeff Barak, JPOST

Hat tip to Naftali Bennett for funniest video yet of the 2015 elections. For those who haven’t seen it, the Bayit Yehudi leader dresses up as a Tel Aviv hipster who, in between reading Haaretz, walks around apologizing to everyone in sight: the waitress who spills his coffee, the driver who rear-ends him, etc. No matter who’s at fault, the Tel Aviv hipster takes the blame on himself.

In his video, Bennett acts the part of the Tel Aviv hipster perfectly – and that’s exactly why he’s so dangerous. In the past, the National Religious Party, the progenitor of Bayit Yehudi, was a party of gray, middle-aged men for whom the word “cool” only had meteorological connotations. Voting for the national-religious camp was like wearing socks with sandals: you had to be seriously out of touch with modern-day Israel to consider casting your vote for them.
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By Lahav Harkov, JPOST

With less than a month until the January 14 Bayit Yehudi primary, the party’s candidates are courting English-speaking voters, who make up 5 percent to 7% percent of its membership.

There were 3,000,-4,000 Anglo members out of about 57,000 ahead of the party’s online membership drive, which began last week and ends on December 29.

More than 10,000 people joined Bayit Yehudi in the past week, making it the second-largest party after the Likud, which has some 99,000 members.

More of the English-speaking members made aliya from the US than from anywhere else and a plurality of them live in the 02 area code, meaning Jerusalem and the surrounding area.
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Death penalty ban lifted in aftermath of massacre in Peshawar, paving way for hundreds to be hanged

TIMES OF ISRAEL

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — Pakistan plans to execute around 500 militants in coming weeks, officials said Monday, after the government lifted a moratorium on the death penalty in terror cases following a Taliban school massacre.

Six militants have been hanged since Friday amid rising public anger over Tuesday’s slaughter in the northwestern city of Peshawar, which left 149 people dead including 133 children.

After the deadliest terror attack in Pakistani history, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif ended the six-year moratorium on the death penalty, reinstating it for terrorism-related cases.
Read more…