Terrorists storm military-run school, killing over 100 children; Taliban calls attack revenge for gov’t targeting their families; military says 4 gunmen killed, search ongoing.

AP

A top Pakistani official said that 126 people have been killed in a Taliban attack on a military-run school in the northwestern city of Peshawar.

Pervez Khattak, the chief minister of the province where the attack occurred, says that roughly the same number of students have been wounded.

Bahramand Khan, director of information for the Chief Minister’s Secretariat, said more than 100 of the dead were school children.

Taliban gunmen stormed the school in the northwestern Pakistani city of Peshawar on Tuesday, officials said, in the highest-profile militant attack to hit the troubled region in months. Read more…

By Fred Maroun, TOI

If I were Israeli in 1948 when Israel declared itself independent, how would I have felt about the Arab refusal to create an Arab state next to a Jewish state, and their threat to destroy us?

During the war of independence, would I have been a good soldier as my cherished Jerusalem was under siege, my fledgling state was encircled, and one percent of my fellow citizens were killed?

Would I have been a good farmer, teacher, entrepreneur, engineer, or pilot as my country was relentlessly attacked until 1967 when we surprised the world by handily beating much larger enemies?

Would I have left Israel in 1973 when my nation was almost lost and my people threatened with massacre yet again under another combined Arab attack?
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By Gerald Steinberg, ME Quarterly

In May 2014, Zochrot—a radical Israeli nongovernmental organization (NGO)—was the focus of widespread mainstream media coverage featuring its iNakba mobile application (app). Articles on the app and Zochrot were published in The New York Times, The Washington Post, Haaretz, The Christian Science Monitor, Time Magazine, and several prominent blogs. Most, including The New York Times, promoted Zochrot’s agenda while others, such as The Washington Post, included some criticism.

Designed and promoted as a vehicle for drawing attention—particularly among journalists—to the Palestinian narrative of the 1948 war, iNakba features an interactive map and photos of pre-1948 Arab villages and encourages the “right of return” narrative through crowd sourcing. As stated by The New York Times, “Perhaps the app’s greatest promise is its social component—users can upload photos and videos, or ‘follow’ villages to virtually recreate lost communities.”[1] Small wonder that the release of the app was timed to coincide with Israel’s sixty-sixth Independence Day (May 15) and the Nakba (catastrophe) as Palestinians and Arabs call this event.
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Ted Belman. I would have no difficulty trading the triangle with its 300,000 Arabs for an equal amount of land in J&S. Trouble is that our Supreme Court would nix it because the Arabs would lose their citizenship and would not be allowed back into Israel. Furthermore the PA wouldn’t accept it. I think Liberman knows this but he is trying to make a point.

Liberman man another point that I totally agree with.

“We must also act. We cannot sit idly by only saying that we oppose this.”

“The lack of an Israeli initiative deteriorates our position in the international arena, will harm our relations with our friends in the West and will not allow us to stand up for the things that matter to us,”

Foreign Minister Avigdor Liberman urges Israel to be proactive in fighting international pressure, forge ties with ‘moderate’ Arab world.

By Tova Dvorin, INN

Foreign Minister Avigdor Liberman criticized the UN Security Council’s pressure on Israel Tuesday, noting that the Palestinian Authority’s (PA) demands to force Israel to withdraw from Judea and Samaria within a strict two-year timeline is part of “a political attack” on the Jewish state, fomented by the EU.

“Even the European Parliament [itself] will vote tomorrow to recognize [the PA as] a ‘Palestinian state’ in Luxembourg,” Liberman said. “In addition, the Luxembourg Court of Justice will petition to remove Hamas from the EU’s blacklist of terrorist organizations and the Geneva Conference will convene to sign the Geneva Convention – another step designed by Palestinians to condemn Israel and present it as aggressive and a violator of human rights.”

“All these moves, joining other similar moves, some of which have already been made and others which will be carried out, are part of a planned organized and designed to force Israel to ‘face facts,'” he continued. “This is a political attack we must deal with it in a smart and determined manner.”
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Ted Belman. Moshe Dayan gave the keys to the Temple Mount to the Wakf without receiving anything in return. So legally, Israel is not bound by that decision and can change the locks, so to speak. It is unconscionable that Jews are not permitted to pray there. We are not asking to pray in the mosque itself or even in the perimeter surrounding it but the temple mount was built by Jews some 600 years before it was conquered by Muslims. And the Jews have come back to claim what is theirs.

As is their wont, they obliterate the presence of any other religion on territory conquered by them. Now that Israel has conquered it back she should wipe out their presence just as they do to others. But Israel doesn’t do that. Jews are too liberal. But maybe they could learn from the Muslims. By giving respect to the Muslims, she is sowing the seeds of her own destruction. That’s why Sherman and Feiglin, and Kahane before them, want them removed from Israel. By allowing them to dictate to us, we are accepting dhimmi status in our own lands.

If Israel does not do something about freedom of prayer on the Mount, its survival is at stake.

By Giulio Meotti, INN

Arab spokesmen, unlike their Israeli counterparts, are not ashamed to be “intransigent” or to cherish territory.

Arab spokesmen, unlike most of their Jewish counterparts, are not ashamed to make the Temple Mount the center of their new war against Israel.

Arab spokesmen care so much about the site that they can claim that Abraham wasn’t a Jew, that Jews never had a Temple in Jerusalem, that Jews in Biblical Israel are “the descendants of monkeys and pigs”.

Arab spokesmen were so skillful and able to manipulate history that today the UN, Europe, America and the chattering classes, which have no religion at all, are all reinforcing the Arab claim that any who died on the Temple Mount were martyred defenders of holy places, mowed down by savage, unprovoked “Israeli settlers”.
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By Victor Davis Hanson, NRO

Barack Obama will end his tenure with the ruin of Hope and Change. The implosion was brought about not by the marginalization of Hope and Change, but by the power of the U.S. government to reify the slogan in a way we have not seen since the 1930s.

Survey the wreckage.

The hope-and-change therapeutic approach to foreign relations ended logically with historic cuts in defense, lectures about American culpability, pink lines and the end of Syria, farcical Iranian talks, in Libya the short trip from “leading from behind” to Benghazi, the self-induced suicide of Iraq, the empowerment of Putin, a pivot to Asia that invited ridicule, and the charade of a war against ISIS.
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MEMRI

The Middle East Media Research Institute

Yousuf Al-Kuwailit, who writes the editorials of the Saudi government daily Al-Rai, opined in a December 7, 2014 editorial that, despite the tension that has ostensibly prevailed between the U.S. and Iran ever since the Islamic Revolution, in practice there is secret cooperation between them. As part of this cooperation, he said, Iraq has become nothing but an arena for assuring the interests of these two countries, and Iran has been granted freedom of action in Syria and Lebanon.
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Palestinians planned to infiltrate Israel by obtaining medical permit for female suspect and dress her as pregnant woman

BY LAZAR BERMAN , TOI

Weapons uncovered by a joint Shin Bet, Police, and IDF sweep in October and November 2014 of a West Bank cell planning to use a female suicide bomber in Tel Aviv

Palestinian terror cell planning a suicide bombing in Tel Aviv and other attacks was thwarted over the last several months, the Shin Bet security service said Monday.

Five suspects hailing from Jenin and the village Attil in the Tulkarem area of the West Bank planned to infiltrate into Israel by acquiring a permit for the female member of their group to receive medical care in Israel.

She was then to dress as a pregnant Jewish woman and detonate an explosive belt in Tel Aviv, the Shin Bet said in a statement.
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By Ted Belman

We all have heard that Netanyahu was under great pressure to impose a long term freeze on construction east of the greenline and even in Jerusalem. I have commented that Bennett went along with this because there was no hullabalu. It seemed to me that the freeze should have been enough to bring the government down.

NoW MK Orly Struck who is part of the Tekuma / National Union faction of Bayit Yahudi, said Jewish Home Turning into Likud B. In discussing the possible split, she confirmed that:

A point of disagreement is the building freeze in Judea and Samaria: “There was a decision by the faction to protest in front of [Prime Minister Binyamin] Netanyahu and walk out of votes in the plenum as long as there was a freeze in Judea and Samaria.” This, she added, was meant to drive home to Netanyahu that for the Jewish Home, a freeze is a red line. The decision was dragged out until in the end the disagreement led to open conflict between Minister [Uri} Ariel and Bennett.”

But that was not the only thing that is contentious.
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Ted Belman. Feiglin is quite right that when Bibi accepted the two-state solution, we lost the justice of our cause. But that is not all we lost, we lost the right to build in Area C. When Bibi accepted the 10 month freeze, I bet he didn’t know that he would be forced to continue it and apply it to Jerusalem as well.

Bennett when in conversation with Indyk said “we’re inconsistent. You can’t say that you favor a Palestinian state and then build communities there.”

Dear Friends,

It is no coincidence that I have chosen the Bar Ilan University as the venue at which to present my political platform.

In all the officers’ training courses that I completed, one rule was highlighted: If you lose direction while navigating, return to the point at which you lost your way and from there, start again.

Here, in this place, where PM Netanyahu made his famous Bar Ilan speech, we lost our political and diplomatic direction.

Here, in this place, the National Camp accepted the principle of two-states for two peoples, as it were – in the very heart of our Land.
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The US-Hanukkah-Israel connection

By Yoram Ettinger, ISRAEL HAYOM

The legacy of Hanukkah has been an integral element of the American ethos; a cornerstone in the foundation of the covenant — established by the Pilgrims in the 17th century — between the American people and the vision of the reconstructed Jewish state in the land of Israel.

“Where are today’s Maccabees?” was the December 2013 title of an article by Ambassador Hank Cooper, former director of the Pentagon’s Strategic Defense Initiative: “All Americans should remember our common love of liberty, the heritage that has set the West apart. … We need modern Maccabees to preserve that heritage of liberty for our posterity.” Cooper highlighted the impact of the Hanukkah/Maccabee spirit on the Founding Fathers, such as George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, Ben Franklin and Patrick Henry.
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By Zvi November

 MEMRI, the Middle East Media Research Institute that scrutinizes the Arab and Iranian media on a daily basis hosted its latest information meeting at the Yad Ben Zvi center in Jerusalem on December 11, 2014.   Two speakers, Gal Berger (Israel radio’s Palestinian affairs correspondent) and Shalom Harrari (a former Israeli army officer and Arab military power analyst who took part in some of the post Oslo accords negotiations with the Palestinians about fifteen years ago) were the two speakers who related to the current Palestinian offensive; terror attacks, demonstrations and diplomatic initiatives whose aim is to further delegitimize and isolate Israel.  Some of the main points that emerged are as follows:

1)       The Arab/Palestinian one-sided narrative claims that Jews are alien to the Middle East and have stolen Palestinian land.  Israel therefore has no right to exist.  Arabs/Palestinians must fight the Jews and drive them out of the country.  Three frightening video clips of spokesmen enunciating this inflexible (no compromises, no peace) position were shown along with a selection of Jew-hate cartoons from Palestinian Websites.  Read more…

Ted Belman. I am half way through The Israel Test. George Gilder the author says innovation creates wealth.  The Jews are by far the best innovators and free societies always benefit from their innovations.  One hundred years ago they dominated Europe and Europe prospered. The few Jews that survived went to America and America Prospered. Now its Israel’s turn.  It took a while because of the socialist mentality in Israel.  But with the influx of Jewish brains from Russia and with liberating her economy in order to put them to work, Israel took off like a rocket and is still climbing. When Israel asked the US to guarantee their bonds, the US demanded economic liberalization. This liberalization permitted Israel to become a financial center which he evisages will become the financial center of the ME.

By David Goldman, PJ MEDIA

We have heard over and over again that America is still the world’s fountain of innovation, the home of fracking and Facebook. The two “F’s” of American innovation are about to become one: The collapse of oil prices portends a collapse of the shale boom. High-yield energy bond yields have soared from 5% to 12% in the past few months, and investors are fighting to get to the door. Most unconventional oil and gas projects are unprofitable at $60 a barrel, and that’s where oil will trade for the next year or two.

Facebook is a clever gimmick, but it doesn’t do much for productivity.
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By Elder of Ziyon

An amazing story from Arutz-7:(condensed version)

Among the many new Knesset hopefuls looking to run on the staunchly nationalist [Jewish Home] party’s Knesset list is a somewhat surprising face: Anett Haskia identifies as proudly Zionist, pro-“settlements”… and a Muslim Arab.

Haskia realizes that her chances of running as a Jewish Home MK this time round are relatively slim; party members who wish to stand in the primaries have to have been members for at two and a half years, while Haskia herself is only now in the process of joining.

“But I’m still hoping for a Hanukkah miracle,” she quips, and thinks there is an outside chance that Bennett – who as part of the new party rules can unilaterally select every fifth seat on the party list – could see in her precisely the kind of candidate to simultaneously reach out to new pools of support, while still remaining committed to the party’s ideology.
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By Sarah Palin

America Asks: “Whose Side Are You On”; Necessarily Directing This At Our President

In debauched minds it is fine for our young, once potentially unifying President to boast, “I’m pretty good at killing” while speaking of his own secret kill list, but all hell breaks loose if America’s expert and experienced CIA keeps known terrorists up at night for questioning, plays annoying music to get the evil ones’ attention, and considers whatever else necessary to keep us safe. (Yuck it up much, Nobel Peacenik President?) From the cozy confines of the White House he blusters a willingness to assassinate whomever he chooses, no need for judicial balance or seasoned military brass strategy – in fact the Community Organizer canned nearly 200 of our top military officials. And leftist response to their leader’s suspiciously opaque drone game plan? Crickets.
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This appeared as a Letter to the Editor in the European Edition of The New York Times

By Eitan Chitayat, TOI

 A dreary, cloth patch sewn in the shape of a Star of David that every Jew was forced to wear in Nazi Germany along with every country the Germans conquered; every country allied with Germany ; every culture looking to expose the hated Jew.

The guilty Jew. The filthy Jew. The stealing Jew. The disgusting Jew. The less-than-human Jew. The Jew that can only do wrong – for that is, of course, all we do.

The yellow star was forced on us. Rammed down our throats. It stood for dishonor and was associated with anti-semitism as you probably know. It was to be a badge of shame like Hawthorne’s Scarlet letter. But 6 million times worse.

Today? Shame, can take a hike. Give me a yellow star. Find one and give it to me, quick.

I want to wear a yellow star above my left breast where each and every Holocaust victim was forced to don one. I want to walk around with a yellow star on every solitary piece of clothing I own. On my American Apparel V-neck, my Nike sweatshirt, Ralph Lauren sweater, my Champion hoodie, my Diesel button-down, H&M jacket, Adidas jersey and Gap blazer. I’ll wear it at the beach on my bare chest if I have to.
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By Ted Belman

An epic battle took place a week ago in Washington at the Saban Forum on the Middle East, Israel-US relations and the Arab-Israeli conflict.  You probably never learned about it because American media virtually ignored it.

The battle occurred in a conversation between Martin Indyk, and Naftali Bennett.

Bennett is the Chairman of Jewish Home Party which was part of Israel’s governing coalition until it was ended a couple of days later. He served as Minister of Economy and Minister of Religious Services, Jerusalem and Diaspora Affairs. Prior to starting his career in politics in 2006 he co-founded a technology company and sold his interest to an American company for $145 million. He is adamantly opposed to the two state solution and a very strong proponent of the settler movement.
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Ted Belman: As we know, MK Ariel is thinking of leaving Jewish Home and joining MK Eli Yishai in a new right wing party John Brent one of my readers suggested that Jewish Home should welcome Yishai into their fold. I think attempts are underway to make this happen. If they are successful, Bennett could be prime minister in 5 months.
By the way, Report: Michael Oren running with Kahlon’s Kulanu party and Bennett: Former settler leader Dani Dayan joining Bayit Yehudi

Jewish Home MKs call on Tekuma members to remain in the party and accept chairman Naftali Bennett’s proposal to join without primaries.

By Orly Harari and Cynthia Blank, INN

Amidst speculation of a split, Jewish Home Knesset members issued a letter Saturday night to three members of Tekuma calling on their members to remain united with Jewish Home and not form a new party.

The letter was titled: “Do not divide the Religious Zionist movement – accept the proposal of Party Chairman Naftali Bennett.”

“Religious Zionism finds itself today on the brink of a historic decision,” Jewish Home members wrote in the letter. “The coming elections may bring Jewish Home unprecedented influence.”
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By Ted Belman

The world is totally committed to the two-state solution. European country after country is passing non-binding resolutions to recognize Palestine in principle.

The parameters of the deal which have been set in stone, notwithstanding that all issues are to be decided by negotiations, are the ’67 lines plus swaps and the division of Jerusalem. Never mind that such a deal is not good enough for the Arabs.  Hamas rejects it outright. Mahmoud Abbas, as President of the PA, is still clamoring for the so called right of return and is unwilling to recognize Israel as the home of the Jews while at the same time insisting that “Palestine” be yudenrein.

The EU has already put a boycott on goods from Judea and Samaria and is drafting legislation imposing sanctions on Israel. It is even rumored that the US is contemplating doing the same. That’s ironic considering that both want to ease sanctions on Iran.
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