A few months ago I wrote The US should cut a deal with Israel and end the conflict and I wasn’t joking but knew it wouldn’t be.

What the US should be doing instead of forcing Israel to meet the PA terms, is to reach an agreement with Israel on refugees, borders, security and Jerusalem. Then the US would recognize such borders and get the EU to do likewise and Israel would withdraw to such borders. Thus the occupation would be ended and there would be no conflict between them and Israel.

But Arad’s deal is way off the mark. Ted Belman

Arad: In lieu of accord with the Palestinians, Israel should negotiate with the Quartet

By HERB KEINON

Arad described Netanyahu’s acceptance of the formula of land exchanges and borders based on the pre-1967 lines – even if Israel would add reservations to the notion – as a “major qualitative and quantitative change” in the prime minister’s position.

In exchange for “unilateral redeployment” in W. Bank, Israel could demand from Quartet a quid pro quo that should include no boycotts, other incentives.

If the Palestinians are unable or unwilling to take the steps needed to conclude an accord with Jerusalem, Israel should try to negotiate an interim agreement with the Quartet, former National Security Council head Uzi Arad said on Tuesday.
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DEBKAfile Exclusive Report, May 13, 2014,

Nine Syrian rebel militias were advancing on the main Syrian Golan town Quneitra (pop: 20,000) Tuesday, May 13, to wrest it from the Syrian army, thereby removing one of its last points of access to the Israeli border. They have dubbed their offensive “Levant of the Prophet.

Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon and senior commanders visited the Golan Tuesday, May 13, to survey the rebel offensive. For the third day running, Israel has kept the Quneitra crossing into the Syrian sector closed as a military zone. The off-limits area includes parts of the enclave’s Rtes 98 and 91 and Kibbutz Ei Zivan.
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ONLY 54 PERCENT OF RESPONDENTS HAVE HEARD OF THE HOLOCAUST

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Rabbi warns that rumored deal to hand King David’s Tomb to the Vatican can have deep religious consequences.

By Benny Toker and Tova Dvorin, INN

Statue of King David, King David’s Tomb

Rabbi Simcha HaCohen Kook, Rabbi of Rehovot and member of the Chief Rabbinate of Israel, warned that the government relinquishing David’s Tomb to the Vatican would be a “national disgrace.”

“Twenty years ago they wanted to do something similar, to give the burial place of King David away – and again today,” the Rabbi stated to Arutz Sheva Wednesday.

“Imagine if another nation did something similar [by giving away an ancient heritage or religious site – ed.] – there would be an outcry,” he continued. “Now when Jews do it, the world is silent. We are tumbling down a deep abyss.”
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By Palash Ghosh, INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS TIMES, March 17/14

Saudi Arabia was once a haven for Muslim Brotherhood leaders who fled persecution in Egypt, Syria, Jordan and Iraq. Now the Saudis are pouring money into Sisi’s regime in order to destroy them.

Dr. Mordechai Kedar, INN

Hamas…is caught between the hammer of Sisi…and the anvil of Saudi Arabia and the Gulf Emirates. This is one of the main factors behind Hamas’ search for ways to go back to cooperating with the PLO.

When the revolt against Mubarak broke out towards the end of January 2011, it was expected that the Muslim Brotherhood would gain control of Egypt. The Saudis did not hesitate to express their opposition to this possible outcome. In June 2012, when Muslim Brotherhood candidate Muhammed Morsi became the president of Egypt, he tried to calm the Saudis, but to no avail, and they supported General Sisi when he deposed Morsi in July 2013.
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By Ted Belman

I should not be surprised anymore when reading Haaretz, but I am.  It continues to undermine Israel at every turn and runs cover for the Palestinians.

Here are some of today’s headlines:

Don’t deny prisoners the right  to hope.  Guess what that is about.  How perverse. Israel should bring back the death penalty.

Empowering dissenting US Jews.  In other words, shilling for J Street.

Palestinians to U.S., EU: Add Israeli hate crimes to terror lists. See what the left has wrought. Livni and others on the left have equated price tag attacks with terrorism. In doing so they have given voice to the Palestinians to claim the same thing.
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Opponents of free speech have chalked up many campus victories lately as ideological conformity marches on.

By Ruth Wisse, WSJ

There was a time when people looking for intellectual debate turned away from politics to the university. Political backrooms bred slogans and bagmen; universities fostered educated discussion. But when students in the 1960s began occupying university property like the thugs of regimes America was fighting abroad, the venues gradually reversed. Open debate is now protected only in the polity: In universities, muggers prevail.

Assaults on intellectual and political freedom have been making headlines. Pressure from faculty egged on by Muslim groups induced Brandeis University last month not to grant Ayaan Hirsi Ali, the proponent of women’s rights under Islam, an intended honorary degree at its convocation. This was a replay of 1994, when Brandeis faculty demanded that trustees rescind their decision to award an honorary degree to Jeane Kirkpatrick, former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. In each case, a faculty cabal joined by (let us charitably say) ignorant students promoted the value of repression over the values of America’s liberal democracy.
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By Abraham H. Miller, AMERICAN THINKER

Over the past two weeks, Israeli National Security Adviser Yossi Cohen sent letters to the White House and European leaders outlining the deceptive Palestinian strategy to exploit the peace talks for short-run, tangible benefits with no intention of achieving peace.

Accompanying the letters is a 65-page internal Palestinian document from Chief Negotiator Saeb Erekat to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas recommending that the Palestinians do an end run and move forward to join fifteen international organizations. The foundation and impetus for the current round of talks ensued from an agreement that the Palestinians would not go ahead on this front.

Erekat also recommended that the talks not extend beyond Kerry’s deadline, guaranteeing their demise.
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By Ted Belman

In his first term in office, President Obama targeted Israel’s settlement activity with a vengeance, like no one before him did. He continued American policy of calling them “illegitimate” whatever that means, rather than illegal which the which was the term of choice put forward by the UN and the EU representatives. But he went further and forced PM Netanyahu to agree to a nine month construction freeze to enable negotiations to take place. This wasn’t enough to induce Abbas to enter negotiations until the last weeks of the freeze.  Ultimately all his efforts to bring about a settlement failed. It was generally accepted that his insistence on making the freezing of settlement construction the centerpiece of his efforts was largely to blame for their failure.

It should be noted that there is no legal precedent declaring them illegal but opinions to this effect, abound. On the other hand, the legality of Israeli communities beyond the 1949 armistice lines has been affirmed by international-law experts Eugene Rostow, Stephen Schwebel, Julius Stone, and others.
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By: Ruthie Blum, ISRAEL HAYOM

On Wednesday, U.S. President Barack Obama received an “Ambassador for Humanity” award from movie director Steven Spielberg, the founder of the University of Southern California Shoah Foundation.

“Standing up to anti-Semitism is not simply about protecting one community or one religious group,” Obama said in his acceptance speech at the gala, which was held in honor of the 20th anniversary of the Holocaust museum that Spielberg established after making the film “Schindler’s List.”

The president also urged Americans to “speak out against the rhetoric that threatens the existence of the Jewish homeland,” and assured that he would “sustain America’s unshakable commitment to Israel’s security.”
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I support Bennett’s Plan instead of the TSS or the OSS a la Glick and Wise or Sherman’s Plan (compensated emigration). But Bennett should not be so quick to give citizenship to Arabs living in Area C. Instead he should adopt the policy of compensated emigration. We can always annex A and B in the decades following. Ted Belman

By DAN ILLOUZ, JPOST

The recent failure of negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians let us see first-hand how the various politicians react to this failure.

Justice Minister Tzipi Livni blamed the Right (and was then echoed by US Secretary of State John Kerry in this finger pointing, with the State Department even quoting her). Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu was cautious and conservative, keeping the door open to renewed negotiations. Israel’s far Right simply celebrated the failure.

However, Bennett’s reaction was the most fascinating: the leader of Bayit Yehudi saw this failure as a window of opportunity to push forward his alternative solution to the conflict. Instead of just commenting on what just happened, he decided to lead.
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Newsweek’s articles only point out hypocrisy and ignorance in a US intelligence community that harbors a vindictive attitude towards Israel.

By Ron Ben Yishai, YNET NEWS

The second Newsweek article on Israel’s alleged spying efforts in the US, titled “Israel’s Aggressive Spying in the US Mostly Hushed Up”, embarrasses its author and sources almost more than the original piece published last Tuesday.

It serves as additional proof to what anyone who has ever worked in Washington DC and with the White House knows – American analysis of events pertaining to foreigners is at times distorted or even downright mistaken.

US security and intelligence officials have a tendency to judge the actions of others as if they were undertaken by the Americans, resulting in the pot calling the kettle black.
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May 10th, 2014

By Nicola Nasser*, The Peoples Voice

Israel has carved economic inroads into Asia deep enough to compromise the traditional Asian political support for Arabs. If this trend continues, the growing economic Israeli-Asian relations could in no time translate into political ties that would neutralize Asia in the Arab-Israeli conflict.

Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu’s official visit to Japan from May 11-15 is not an historic breakthrough per se in bilateral relations that date back to 1952.
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By Caroline B. Glick, JPOST

To be clear, J Street is to Zionism what Jews for Jesus are to Judaism. 

Yom Ha’atzma’ut, Israeli Independence Day, is a joyous holiday. In Israel, every year, from Eilat to Metulla, from Tel Aviv to the Jordan Valley, everyone across every spectrum – secular, religious; rich, poor; left, Right, Ashkenazi, Sephardi – is out celebrating.

The reconstitution of the Jewish state, and its growth within three generations from a third world economic and military basket case into a prosperous and powerful country, is among the most astounding success story in human history. Certainly it is the greatest story of Jewish success since Joshua led a nation of former slaves in conquering and settling the land of Israel some 3,500 years ago.

And today, three generations after the enslavement and genocide of European Jewry and the expulsion of the Jews from Islamic lands, the Jewish people in the Land of Israel have built arguably the most dynamic society in the world.

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