By: Daniel Greenfield, FPM

Next month Americans will experience the fifteenth anniversary of the time that the President of the United States shook his finger at the country and informed it, “I did not have sexual relations with that woman, Miss Lewinsky. I never told anybody to lie, not a single time; never.”

Bill Clinton was lying. But the lie was more significant than the thing that he was lying about.

When the lie came crashing down, Clinton and his defenders deconstructed the English language, questioning the meaning of every word in his sentence rather than admit that the lie was a lie.

Given a choice between telling the truth or challenging the definitions of such words as “sex” and “is”, they decided to burn their dictionary.
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T. Belman: I disagree with this article in that the only options it lists are based on rebuilding Gaza. Remember INSS is a left of center think tank associated with Tel Aviv University. The only solution to Gaza is to resettle the homeless in other countries. Once done the refugees living there by UNRWA’s definition should be resettled elsewhere. Then the rest should be resettled and Israel should annex Gaza. End of problem.

INSS, Insight No. 641

Over three months have passed since the end of Operation Protective Edge and over a month has passed since the donor nations met in Cairo and committed themselves to infuse $5.4 billion into the reconstruction of the Gaza Strip. However, any substantive reconstruction work has yet to begin, and thus the homeless in Gaza are still without a roof over their heads, while the wintry weather exacerbates the hardships. Moreover, Egypt has toughened its policy on the Rafah crossing, which is closed most of the time and has expanded its security zone along the border between the Sinai Peninsula and the Gaza Strip in order to uncover and destroy any smuggling tunnels. Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas’ refusal to transfer salaries and budgets that the Hamas apparatus in Gaza needs to function has aggravated Hamas’ difficulties and worsened the conditions for Gazans.
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Caroline Glick lets loose

By Vic Rosenthal

Yasser Arafat waves the second Oslo agreement as Shimon Peres looks on

A lot of you liked yesterday’s post, probably because you have had more than enough of the dangerous nonsense that has become the conventional wisdom about Israel in the West. Western politicians and journalists have adopted the Arab narrative, which portrays Israel as the cause of its conflicts and its creation as a kind of original sin. Needless to say, the only acceptable ‘cure’ is to slice up and emasculate Israel so that it can more easily be gobbled up.

It’s easy to say that they are bribed and blackmailed by our enemies, afraid of or pandering to their Muslim populations, or indoctrinated by left-wing academics. All of these things are true, but there is another reason that so many in Europe and the US have adopted an ahistorical, counterfactual and immoral story as gospel.
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DO NOT BYPASS THIS VERY PERCEPTIVE ARTICLE. TRUST ME.

BY: Aaron MacLean, FREE BEACON

[..]
This ability to travel from west to east Jerusalem is something in which Israelis take great pride, as between the end of Israel’s war of independence and 1967 the low ground marked the heavily militarized ‘green line’ between Israel and territory controlled by Jordan. The Six Day War ended that. The situation since has been a source of continuing grief, not only for Palestinians, but for fashionable academics, journalists, and politicians all over the world, who deplore the state of Israel for its success, and believe that its pretensions to a pluralist liberal-democracy conceal a nationalist and colonialist reality that the world would be better off without.

In recent weeks such people have felt vindicated by a proposal from the Israeli right to pass into law a “Jewish nationhood” bill. The bill—various drafts of which would define Israel as “the nation-state of the Jewish people,” drop Arabic as an official language, and enshrine Jewish law as some sort of “inspiration” for other Israeli laws—gives the lie, in the left-wing view, to the notion that Israel is a true liberal-democracy.
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Retiring congresswoman talks with Free Beacon about national security, spending fights, and her 2016 plans

BY: Daniel Wiser, FREE BEACON

Rep. Michele Bachmann (R., Minn.) knew the White House Christmas party this week would be her last chance as a member of Congress to speak directly to President Obama. She didn’t waste the opportunity.

Despite the objections of her family members, who didn’t want to be embarrassed, Bachmann said she wanted to give some “substantive comments” to the president. She waited until pictures were taken and her family walked off the stage.

“I turned to the president and I said, something to the effect of, ‘Mr. President, you need to bomb the Iranian nuclear facilities, because if you don’t, Iran will have a nuclear weapon on your watch and the course of world history will change,’” she told the Washington Free Beacon.

“And he got his condescending smile on his face and laughed at me and said, ‘Well Michele, it’s just not that easy.’ And I said to him, ‘No, Mr. President, you’re the president, it will happen on your watch, and you’ll have to answer to the world for this.’ And that was it and then I left. Merry Christmas,” she said with a laugh.
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By Ted Belman

I am currently reading The Israel Test by George Gilder, which postulates that antisemitism is based on envy. It is a fabulous read and highly recommend it.

Jews do well in free markets where freedom reigns. Marxism and all forms of socialism penalizes them for succeeding where others fail.

I don’t mean this to be a review of the book but I mention it because of a certain event that it discusses.

Remember Michael Milken. He revolutionized the financial market by financing junk bonds. He believed that the financier could charge a high enough interest so that it could cover his losses providing he diversified. The establishment came down on him and forced him to cop a plea on some minor offenses for which he spent two years in jail. He was simply too successful for the enviers.

Oh and by the way, the companies that Milken financed are now worth over one trillion dollars.

SEE ALSO: Call in Congress to Sanction Turkey, Qatar for Terror Support

“Ambassador Indyk, who is funded by Qatar, needs to be reminded that he is not the British High Commissioner of Mandate times.

By Benjamin Korn and Moshe Phillips, INN

During an old controversy involving Martin Indyk, then the U.S. ambassador to Israel, one Israeli political official invoked a particularly nasty historical analogy. Indyk reportedly had been contacting individual Israel cabinet ministers to demand they support making more concessions to the Arabs. “Ambassador Indyk needs to be reminded that he is not the British High Commissioner,” said the chairman of the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee.

Not many Israelis today remember when a foreign power ruled Eretz Yisrael through the proclamations of an absolute dictator, nor how oppressive it was to live under his rule. But prior to Israel’s independence in1948, Jews living in the Holy Land could not shape their own fate. Outside powers–in this case, the British ruling authorities–called the shots with their High Commissioner deciding what was best for the Jews.
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VIDEO Caroline was white hot.

By Tovah Lazaroff, JPOST

Europe should address the Jewish state standard to Israel when judging its actions compared to other Middle Eastern nations, Danish Ambassador Jesper Vahr said on Thursday, causing sparks to fly at the Jerusalem Post Diplomatic Conference in the capital.

“Israel should insist that we discriminate, that we apply double standards, this is because you are one of us,” Vahr said during a panel discussion on relations between Israel and Europe.

Israelis sometimes ask why Europe applies a different standard to its neighboring countries, such as Syria, Vahr said. “Those are not the standards that you are being judged by. It is not the standards that Israel would want to be judged by,” he said.
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A dispassionate look at the sequence of events shows that the Obama administration has generated an unprecedented crisis in US-Israeli relations.

By Aaron Klein, JPOST

Nurtured on Alinsky-style, ACORN-esque tactics of organizing revolution under the banner of “social change,” Barack Obama, as a young community organizer in Chicago in the 1980s understood early on the importance of a crisis and how to ride the waves of an emergency to effect the fundamental transformation of society.

As the nation’s chief executive, President Obama has demonstrated a particular specialty in the use and perpetuation of crises to push through policies that the public otherwise might not willingly accept, including the wildly unpopular healthcare law, immigration reform, and the first-term “stimulus” legislation. It is therefore unsurprising to detect the international export of the Obama’s “crisis” game plan to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
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Naftali Bennett gave a spirited performance at the recent Saban Forum, but was far more convincing on what should not be done, than on what should be done.

By Martin Sherman, JPOST

You know, I just think you live in another reality. It’s what Steve Jobs called distorted reality thinking.
– Martin Indyk to Naftali Bennett, at the 2014 Saban Forum.

How many missiles need to fall on Ashkelon until you’ll wake up? How many? How many people need to die in our country until you wake up from this illusion?
– Naftali Bennett to Martin Indyk, at the 2014 Saban Forum.

Last weekend, the 11th annual Saban Forum convened in Washington, with its usual bevy of high-profile participants, to discuss the developments in the Middle East, Israel-US relations and the Arab-Israeli conflict.

Hardly hospitable milieu

Funded by Democratic benefactor Haim Saban, and hosted by the liberal-leaning Brookings Institution, the tenor of the Forum is usually left-wing on Mideast affairs, with a strong bent in favor of the two-state principle and the land-for-peace doctrine.
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By Vic Rosenthal

To whom it may concern in Europe and the US:

We are tired of hearing that withdrawal from Judea and Samaria will bring peace. We know and you know that it would bring another Gaza. So stop saying it.

We are tired of hearing that land beyond the Green Line is ‘Palestinian land’. The Green Line is simply an armistice line that has no political significance. You know this too.

We are tired of hearing about the “Palestinian people.” They are no different from the Arabs of Syria or Egypt, from which most of their ancestors migrated in the last 150 years or so. There is no Palestinian language or religion, and until very recently they considered themselves simply ‘Arabs’. Their culture is almost entirely defined by their opposition to the Jewish state.
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By Jonathan S. Tobin, COMMENTARY

But UNRWA doesn’t resettle anyone. Its purpose is not to solve the Palestinian refugee problem but to perpetuate it.

The result of this policy was not merely to render all efforts to make peace between Israel and the Arab world impossible; it also ensured that the Palestinians would live in misery in increasing numbers and growing squalor.

The civil war in Syria has produced more than 3.2 million refugees creating an intolerable burden for neighboring countries. With so many languishing in camps, the refugees are beginning to voice frustration with their plight with some seeking to flee camps in Jordan, Lebanon, and Turkey and head to Europe as illegal immigrants. Stepping into the breach is the United Nations High Commission on Refugees. It is seeking to extract pledges from Western nations to accept some of the Syrians for resettlement. Its initial goal is to have these nations permanently take in at least 130,000 Syrians in the next two years. But what is missing from accounts of this effort is the obvious contrast with the other famous refugees in the region, the Palestinians. Unlike the Syrians they won’t be resettled.
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By Ted Belman

The first afternoon panel at the JPOST Conference consisted of ambassadors from Italy, Denmark and Germany together with the Israeli Ambassador to the EU and last but not least Caroline Glick. It dealt with European/Israel relationship.

It started slow but ended white hot. The Danish Ambassador put his foot in it when he said that Israel should welcome the application of a double standard toward Israel. Caroline Glick tore him apart accusing Europe of antisemitism “since the time of Jesus” and hypocrisy. Glick said Europe has “obsessive, compulsive need to pick at Jewish state.” She really let loose and electrified the panel and the audience. You must watch it. The German Ambassador was undiplomatic . He attacked Europe and supported Israel in so many ways. His remarks must also viewed.
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By Ted Belman

The Jerusalem Post Diplomatic Conference is taking place today. All talks are being streamed and will no doubt be available to watch later. The link to the streaming is on their site.

This morning I watched talks by Yair Lapid, Interior Min Gilad Erdan of Likud and Nir Barkat.

Lapid’s presentation skills are excellent. He started out by attacking Netanyahu for having no plan to ensure Israel’s security or to acheive peace. He, on the other hand, did. He came out against the peace process with the Palestinians because they are afraid to compromise. Instead he want first a regional conference with Jordan, Egypt and the Arab countries to determine a path forward. He believes that Egypt should be part of the Gaza solution and Egypt should be part of the Judea/Samaria solution. This would be followed up with an international conference and so on.
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Republicans Wallop U.S. Over Nuclear Deal as Tehran Violates U.N. Sanctions
State Department pushes back on Foreign Policy magazine report implying United States silent on Iran’s efforts to equip nuclear facility with the potential to produce plutonium.

UPDATE By Omri Ceren, TIP

The US has been regularly (!) going go the United Nations with concerns over Iran’s efforts to illicitly procure equipment of their atomic program. Now Congress wants to know why those efforts don’t count as JPOA violations:

At the heart of the dispute between congressional critics of Iran and the State Department is that a landmark November 2013 interim nuclear deal between Iran and the so-called P5+1… does not specifically prohibit Tehran from engaging in a range of activities that have been banned by the U.N. Security Council… that means that the Obama administration can correctly maintain that Iran is in compliance with the pact even while Tehran continues to flout long-standing Security Council resolutions… the State Department found itself in the awkward position of having to defend Tehran’s record of compliance with the interim pact.

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By Arlene Kushner

It seems there is always something to contend with, a “crisis du jour,” so to speak.  I am moved to address this current “crisis” – which is really small potatoes – because the PA and the world at large are already building it into something that it is not.  As you may be exposed to distorted versions of the occurrence, I want to share the facts as I have been able to acquire them:

Zaid Abu Ein, a Palestinian Arab who was formerly a minister, today led a protest march of some 300 Palestinian Arabs in the Arab village of village of Turmus Ayya – near Shilo, in the Binyamin region of Samaria.  What they were protesting was the presence of the nearby Jewish village of Adei Ad.  There had been considerable tensions between the residents of the two villages, and this demonstration was less than peaceful: According to reports there was rioting, and the IDF used a relatively small amount of tear gas to settle things down.   Read more…

Preacher At Al-Aqsa Mosque In Jerusalem Tells Jews: ‘We Shall Slaughter You Without Mercy’ and ‘I Say To [You] Loud And Clear: The Time For Your Slaughter Has Come’; Says Koran Depicted Jews ‘In The Most Abominable Images,’ Allah Turned The Jews ‘Into Apes And Pigs’; Calls To ‘Hasten The Establishment Of The State Of The Islamic Caliphate’

MEMRI has the details.

Arutz Sheva reports:

The United States on Wednesday responded to Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon’s statement that a building freeze in Judea and Samaria was due to pressure from the Obama administration.

Speaking to reporters in Washington, State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said that objection to “settlements” was longstanding and would not change after President Barack Obama leaves office in 2017.

“Our policy has been consistent for quite some time,” Psaki told reporters,according to The Associated Press (AP).

Psaki is right but misses the point. Only under Obama was sufficient pressure applied to force Israel to comply. Israel never was forced to freeze construction by any past administrations.

By Ted Belman

The Central Committee of the Likud supported Netanyahu’s resolution updating the date for the primaries and giving him two freebies to the list. It means Netanyahu can ensure that his strongest supporters are on the list who might otherwise not be there.

The vote was 1567 to 835.

This means that Saar may not even challenge him for the leadership.