The US should be fighting for disarmament, period.  It is despicable that she is demanding an Israeli concession for so doing.  Ted Belman

Israel reportedly gives up on demand that Hamas, other terror groups in Gaza disarm

Israel and the US have already coordinated and agreed on the details of a future agreement for a long-term ceasefire with Hamas, and a gradual lifting of the blockade on the Gaza Strip, Ynet reported early Tuesday.

US Secretary of State John Kerry is reportedly expected in Israel next week to support the Israeli government headed by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the report indicated, citing diplomatic sources.

The sources told Ynet that the agreement between Israel and the US on the terms of a deal with Hamas was reached secretly and entails Israel opening the land crossings into Gaza, followed by sea access, not objecting to the payment of salaries to Hamas men in Gaza, and facilitating the reconstruction of Gaza with international aid.

The US, according to the report, will support Israel’s demand to prevent the rearmament of Hamas and other terror groups in Gaza, and will help Israel promote this goal in the international sphere. Israel reportedly gave up on the demand that terror groups in Gaza disarm. Read more…

Last week I spoke in Toronto. Miroslav who runs the excellent blogwrath.com covered the talk and even videod it. Here is his article.

Last week I had the chance to see a live presentation by Ted Belman in Toronto. He is known for publishing Israpundit – one of the best blogs that cover the issues of Israel and the conflicts in the Middle East. Originally from Toronto, after moving to Israel, he dedicated his time to maintaining that website.

Opinionated and outspoken, he avoids clichés and political correctness to tackle problems that many others are not willing to talk about. For example, a main point of his lecture was to debunk the myth that the USA since the very beginning has been fierce protector and defender of the “Zionist Entity.”
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Bruce Thornton, FPM

The war against jihadism has been chronically misunderstood because of our failure to acknowledge the religious motives of Muslim jihadists. This failure began in 1979 with the Iranian revolution. Trapped in our Western secularist paradigms, we interpreted the uprising against the Shah as an anti-colonial revolt against a “brutal” autocrat propped up by the West for its own exploitative economic and geostrategic purposes. The aim of the revolution, the argument went, was to create a government more sympathetic to national sovereignty and Western pluralistic government. However, it soon became clear with the political triumph of the Ayatollah Khomeini that the revolution was in the main a religious one, inspired in part by anger at the Shah’s secularization, modernization, and liberalization policies. As Khomeini said in 1962, the Shah’s regime was “fundamentally opposed to Islam itself and the existence of a religious class.”
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By Hillel Fendel, INN

This is a really smart move. Once again Israel and its partners are preempting the international community lead by the US. And they are setting the parameters to their liking. But even the international community is saying Gaza reconstruction aid conditioned on lifting of blockade. Ted Belman

By Amit Kotler, YNET NEWS

Finance Minister Yair Lapid called on Monday for a regional conference held prior to the international conference on the rehabilitation of Gaza, that would set a condition that “there is no rehabilitation without some sort of demilitarization.”

In an exclusive interview with Ynetnews, the finance minister presented his diplomatic initiative for the disarmament of Gaza and the transfer of control of the Strip to the Palestinian Authority.
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The resuscitation attempts inside moving tanks, the ceaseless shooting, the burnt aroma in the air – four paramedics, the only women who served in Gaza for a long period of time, tell of days filled with pain and pride.

Anat Meidan, Yedioth Ahronoth

The four female paramedics that saved lives during Operation Protective Edge (Photo: Gadi Kablo, Yedioth Aharnoth)

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On that terrible night, just days after cancelling her vacation abroad and returning to Israel, Staff Sergeant Yonat Daskal lay on the sand of Gaza and looked skyward. The 10 wounded soldiers who she had treated over the last few hours had all finally been evacuated to different hospitals within Israel.

“I looked up at the stars and tried to understand what had happened to me,” she said. “I told myself that today is Friday and I should have been with my family for Kiddush, or even in Mexico, but instead I’m in Gaza, in the reserves, and maybe that’s what was supposed to happen. Maybe I needed to be there to give my abilities to the wounded, guys from my battalion, 18-year-old soldiers who shouldn’t be in my care. What have they had time to do in their life?”
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Cairo’s terms would give Hamas international legitimacy and the capacity to rearm (bad for Israel), no significant gains (bad for Hamas), and an enhanced role for Abbas (bad for both)

By AVI ISSACHAROFF, TOI, August 17, 2014, 12:49 pm

A Palestinian woman uses a piece of rebar she found amid the rubble, for support as she walks past destroyed homes in a street in Beit Hanoun, northern Gaza Strip, on August 12, 2014. (photo credit: AFP/ROBERTO SCHMIDT)

As talks resume in Cairo Sunday morning, the chances that the negotiations will yield a long-lasting ceasefire, according to both Israel and the Palestinians, are low, maybe even faint. One of the main difficulties is the problematic nature of the Egyptian proposal – for Hamas, and to a lesser extent for Israel.
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DEBKA  August 17, 2014, 9:24 AM (IDT)

A three-way bloc fronted the talks for a durable truce in Gaza when they resumed in Cairo Sunday, Aug. 17.

DEBKAfile’s intelligence sources report exclusively that Egyptian President Abdel Fatteh El-Sisi, Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas have lined up in a solid phalanx against the Islamist Hams-Islamic Jihad alliance.

Their lineup, backed from the wings by Saudi King Abdullah and Russian President Vladimir Putin, set itself five objectives:

1.  To confront Hamas with a solid political-security front which is beyond its power to break.

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If the Cairo talks do fail, Israel is likely to unilaterally declare an end to the military operation and the introduction of a de facto cease-fire.

By Barak Ravid, HAARETZ
Aug. 17, 2014 | 2:53 AM

Senior Israeli officials have said that should the Egyptian efforts to forge a long-term cease-fire between Israel and Hamas fail, Western powers will likely try to push for a UN Security Council resolution that would call for an end to the fighting in the Gaza Strip.

An Israeli delegation was expected to return to Cairo Sunday morning for what seemed to be a last-ditch effort to reach an agreement. The talks were expected to continue through Monday night, when the five-day cease-fire is scheduled to end.

Israel’s inner cabinet met for two and a half hours Friday morning to discuss the draft of the Egyptian proposal, which was given to the Israeli and Palestinian teams in Cairo. Senior figures said after the session that judging by the content of the discussion, the chances of reaching an agreement with Hamas and the other Palestinian organizations by Monday were slim, owing to the significant gaps between the parties. Read more…

By MATTHEW FOLDI, JPOST

I hadn’t expected to end my official childhood getting assaulted by terror supporters outside the White House.

Terror wing of ‘moderate’ Abbas’s Fatah displays massive arsenal in Gaza video after taking part in Hamas war, vows to increase attacks.

By Dalit Halevy, Ari Yashar, INN

By Victor Davis Hanson, MERCURY NEWS

LIMASSOL, Cyprus — Cyprus is a beautiful island. But it has never recovered from the Turkish invasion of 1974. Turkish troops still control nearly 40 percent of the island — the most fertile and formerly the richest portion.

Some 200,000 Greek refugees never returned home after being expelled from their homes and farms in Northern Cyprus.

The capital of Nicosia remains divided. A 112-mile demilitarized “green line” runs right through the city across the entire island.

Thousands of settlers from Anatolia were shipped in by the Turkish government to occupy former Greek villages and to change Cypriot demography — in the same manner the occupying Ottoman Empire once did in the 16th century. Not a single nation recognizes the legitimacy of the Turkish Cypriot state. In contrast, Greek Cyprus is a member of the European Union.
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When all you seek is calm, while your adversary is committed to your total annihilation, what is a reasonable compromise? That he only annihilate half of you?

By Martin Sherman, JPOST

Screenshot via YouTube.
It’s medieval times, thanks to the Harper Government’s new citizenship bill—and not the fun one where guys in costumes beat each other up, either. This one involves exile.

Bill C-24 promises to shred the passports of Canadians who the Minister of Immigration deems terrorists—and deport them to countries they may have never seen before.

“It’s so wrong it isn’t funny,” says immigration lawyer Barbara Jackman. “Exile and banishment—those went out in the Middle Ages.” Read more…

By Barak Ravid, HAARETZ

[..] The administration refrained from any public response at the time, but it sent harsh messages to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office via diplomatic channels. A few days later, however, when Israeli shells hit a UN school where hundreds of Palestinian civilians had sought refuge, the administration issued harsh denunciations of Israel of a kind that hadn’t been heard from Washington in years.

That “Black Friday” in Rafah brought the administration’s frustration over Israeli tactics in Gaza, and over its inability to influence its closest ally, to a boiling point. The White House’s decision to delay a transfer of Hellfire missiles to Israel, as revealed by the Wall Street Journal on Thursday, shows that the Americans subsequently decided to move from talk to action in their effort to restrain Israel’s use of force in Gaza and the resultant civilian casualties. Read more…

Deal reportedly reached to see calm in Gaza extended based on two-pronged formula: Ceasefire in return for rehabilitation of Gaza and redevelopment in return for demilitarization; meanwhile, Israeli Cabinet convenes, Islamic Jihad says: War has ended.

Elior Levy, Roi Kais, YNET

Palestinian officials expressed optimism Friday regarding current diplomatic attempts to reach a long-term ceasefire in Gaza, as Israel’s Cabinet convened, presumably to discuss the looming deal.

DEBKA
August 15, 2014, 12:09 PM (IDT)

After a month of fighting and at the onset of another surreal ceasefire, DEBKAfile offers some clues to those readers who, understandably, find themselves a bit baffled about the status of the war in Gaza and where Israel stands. Here’s a brief guide to the goings-on:

Is there a ceasefire?

Senior Fatah and Egyptian officials said late Wednesday, Aug. 14, that negotiators in Cairo had agreed to a five-day truce, extending the previous 72-hour ceasefire. But neither Hamas nor Israeli officials themselves have formally acknowledged this deal, nor do they seem inclined to do so. In short, no, there is no truce.
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Israeli official confirms US nixed arms shipment

WSJ report of frayed relations between Washington and Jerusalem, including combative Obama-Netanyahu phone call