Keep in mind that Israel Hayom is in the tank for Bibi. When Abbas announced the signing of the applications, he was not terminating but threatening to do so on April 29. i.e. submitting the documents. I thought that there wasn’t a chance in hell that this deal would be approved in Cabinet but this article seems to say its approval is likely. What a disappointment. No one believes an extension will result in a deal and Pollard is up for parole in 2015 anyway. All it does for Israel is delay the time when the PA applies to the UN. It also eats up another 9 months of Obama’s term. With the elections being held this year in the US, Obama would have been subdued in any event. I don’t see it as worthwhile for Israel. Ted Belman

Daniel Siryoti, Shlomo Cesana, Mati Tuchfeld, Yoni Hirsch, Israel Hayom Staff and News Agencies

Chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas in Ramallah on Tuesday | Photo credit: AFP

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas on Tuesday night threw a last-minute hitch into a potential U.S.-brokered deal that would extend the Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations to early 2015.

At the end of a Palestinian Authority leadership meeting in Ramallah on Tuesday, Abbas took the unilateral step of signing 15 international treaties and conventions, resuming a campaign for further international recognition of a Palestinian state, despite a previous promise to suspend such efforts during the nine-month window of negotiations with Israel. The documents will apparently be submitted on April 29, when that window closes.
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by Sherkoh Abbas, Robert Sklaroff and Joseph Puder
inFocus Quarterly

Now that the Geneva “peace” convocation has predictably collapsed, so too has America’s paradigm for Syria that—at various times—has favored Shiites (Alawite President al-Asad) and Sunnis (al-Qaeda and the Muslim Brotherhood). As the civil war rages on, America should instead support the newborn, self-ruling non-Islamist entity—Kurdistan—as a model for a coalition Syrian government. Kurds have unsuccessfully sought freedom and self-determination since dissolution of the Ottoman Empire after World War I, the legal basis of their modern-day independence efforts. Perhaps a parallel history explains the longstanding friendship between Kurds and Jews, for the Kurdish experience (citing Sèvres) recapitulates Israel’s (citing Balfour).

Kurds Have Struggled for Independence
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Jerusalem now satisfied that Washington has the military option in mind if Iran strays, USA Today quotes U.S. chief of staff.

HAARETZ

By Stella Paul, AMERICAN THINKER

California is the lifestyle incubator of the nation. And now the trendy anti-Semitic thuggery that debuted at California’s public universities has metastasized across America, all the way to the elite halls of Vassar.

Before we discuss the fashionable pogrom that just took place on the Vassar campus where Jackie Kennedy once strolled in pearls, let’s look back at May 7, 2002. On that day, Professor Laurie Zoloth, Director of the Jewish Studies program at San Francisco State University, attended a “Peace in the Middle East” campus rally, organized by Hillel students, where they sang songs and prayed for peace in Israel. Wrote Professor Zoloth:

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By Shlomo Pyotrkovsky, Ari Yashar, INN

Protest for Jonathan Pollard’s release

A reported American offer revealed to Arutz Sheva on Tuesday, by which Jonathan Pollard would be released in exchange for over 400 Israeli-held Arab terrorists, including arch-terrorist Marwan Barghouti, was sharply denounced by Judea and Samaria’s Yesha Council.

Aside from releasing the terrorists, Israel would be obligated to a partial building freeze in Judea and Samaria, as well as parts of Jerusalem, in order to continue peace talks and secure the release of Pollard, now in his 29th year of incarceration in an American prison on charges of spying for Israel. Read more…

By Frank Gaffney, Jr, Center for Security Policy

Want to know what our Islamist enemies have in mind for America? Look at Europe.

Virtually every country there has found itself under siege from Muslims seeking to impose the supremacist Islamic doctrine they call shariah on everyone else. The preeminent organization promoting this agenda is the Muslim Brotherhood, now banned as a terrorist group in its home country of Egypt, but prospering in the United Kingdom and elsewhere in what has been known as the Free World. In fact, as Egyptian courts hand down death sentences to those engaged with the Brotherhood’s violent efforts to overthrow the government there, ours is opening the door to asylum for those who have only engaged in “limited” material support for terrorism.
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(Washington, D.C., April 1, 2014)—B’nai B’rith International has issued the following statement:

B’nai Brith International condemns the U.N. Human Rights Council (UNHRC) for the five anti-Israel resolutions passed on March 28 as the council closed its 25th session. The council continues to discredit itself with these latest resolutions, as no other country—including unsurpassed human rights abusers Iran, North Korea and Syria—was subjected to multiple condemnatory motions or ?to a near-total lack of foreign support.

Of the 42 resolutions the council passed dealing with a broad spectrum of human rights issues, 10 dealt with reprimanding specific countries and five of those were aimed at Israel. The United States showed principled leadership as the only country to vote against the anti-Israel resolutions, while European members of the council voted in favor of all but one such motion. Germany, Italy, the United Kingdom, France, the Czech Republic, Romania, Austria, Estonia and Ireland all voted for the anti-Israel resolutions. These countries did so despite the appropriate abstention by most of them from anti-Israel criticism falling under “Item 7,” the only standing component of the council agenda dedicated to scrutinizing a single country, Israel.
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[My sentiments exactly.]

By David Weinberg, ISRAEL HAYOM

You would almost think it an April Fool’s joke. The U.S. is going to release Jonathan Pollard to give Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu political cover for proliferate, undeserved, and inexplicable Israeli concessions to the Palestinians. Reportedly, these concessions would include the release of hundreds more Palestinian prisoners, and some sort of building freeze in Judea and Samaria.

The Palestinians are then going to agree to hold back on attacking Israel too harshly in international forums and continue the indirect negotiations with Israel through Secretary of State John Kerry.
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By Shmuley Boteach, ALGEMEINER

The Jerusalem Post reported that the Obama administration is considering releasing Jonathan Pollard in an effort to save the Israeli-Arab peace talks. But why has the Jewish community left this man to languish in jail for nearly three decades when similar spying offenses carried sentences that were four to seven years? When Pollard plead guilty in 1987 for spying for Israel, he became the only person in history to receive a life sentence for spying on behalf of an American ally.
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By Anne Bayefsky, HRV

President Obama’s hemorrhaging foreign policy is creating an increasingly embarrassing mess at the United Nations. A four-week session of the U.N.’s top human rights body, the Human Rights Council, ended in Geneva on March 28, 2014, with a series of humiliating defeats for the president’s calling card of indiscriminate engagement.

Joining, and legitimizing, a U.N. Human Rights Council with no human rights conditions for membership was one of President Obama’s first foreign policy moves. Hence, the United States was elected to the council in 2009, re-elected in 2013, and currently sits alongside such human rights luminaries as Russia, China and Saudi Arabia.
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By Ted Belman

I recently posted J Street’s hypocrisy must be exposed by Allan Dershowitz. I also posted Lies, Damn Lies, and J Street by Janet Tassel. She tells of the movie The J Street Challenge which Charles Jacob recently helped produce.

This movie is intended to be shown on campuses all across the US. It was introduced last week to an audience of 600 people in Philadelphia. Charles Jacobs and Alan Dershowitz were on the panel to discuss it. One of the people in attendance, who is a Christian, wrote to Jacobs, to complain about Dershowitz’s participation and sent me a co-copy.
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Thundering ruling shakes country, Judge also convicts former Jerusalem Mayor Uri Lupolianski, former Bank Hapoalim Chairman Dan Dankner, Olmert’s former chief-of-staff Shula Zaken and 10 out of 13 individual defendants.

JPOST

Completing nearly two years of what may be looked back on as the trial of the century, the Tel Aviv District Court on Monday convicted former prime minister Ehud Olmert on charges of bribery.

With a thundering ruling that will shake the country, Judge David Rozen also convicted former Jerusalem Mayor Uri Lupolianski, former Bank Hapoalim Chairman Dan Dankner, Olmert’s former chief-of-staff Shula Zaken and, in total, 10 out of 13 individual defendants (3 defendants are corporations.)
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Israel is committed to buying this plane in a controversial deal. The purchase has been criticized because the plane is far too expensive and this was so even before these problems. Ted Belman

By Adam Kredo, FREE BEACON

An F-35B fighter jet / AP 

A major delay in the shipment of new F-35fighter jets is expected to diminish U.S. “warfighting capabilities” across the globe and force the Pentagon to significantly boost funding for the plane at a time when military leaders say they cannot afford to, according to a new government report.
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I am surprised that the use of that term required an apology. Hereafter I will stop using it. Algemeiner reports on this apology:

Disgraced former New York congressman and mayoral candidate Anthony Weiner on Saturday went up against a Jewish BuzzFeed honcho who said he sees no problem with using the term “occupied territories” when describing disputed areas under Israel’s control.

BuzzFeed editor-in-chief, Ben Smith, tweeted on Saturday, “I don’t think ‘occupied territories’ is actually a disputed term. Yikes.” Weiner, who is also Jewish, retorted, tweeting, “yeah it is. Is Gaza ‘occupied’ since Israel withdrew?”

The exchange came in response to New Jersey Governor Chris Christie’s controversial use of the term, and the uproar that followed, in a speech he gave Saturday.

The phrase is rejected by Israel and the Jewish state’s supporters who see it as representing the Arab position in the ongoing Israeli-Arab conflict.

Who knew that Weiner was so knowledgeable.

By KENNETH P. VOGEL, POLITICO

LAS VEGAS – New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie apologized to Sheldon Adelson in a meeting Saturday for stepping on a fault line in Middle East politics during a speech he gave earlier in the day, according to a source familiar with the conversation.

Invoking a 2012 trip he and his family took to Israel, Christie recalled in the speech: “I took a helicopter ride from the occupied territories across and just felt personally how extraordinary that was to understand, the military risk that Israel faces every day.”
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by Daniel Pipes

Raymond Ibrahiim appearing on CBN.

Raymond Ibrahim’s recent piece for CBN, “Why ‘Moderate Islam’ is an Oxymoron,” has prompted questions because it contradicts my views and yet (because he is a fellow at the Middle East Forum) it appears on MEForum.org and was sent to the MEF mailing list.

In reply, some comments on the content of his article and the propriety of its appearing with Middle East Forum sponsorship:
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It seems that Israel is willing to release extra prisoners, perhaps up to 400 for an extension of negotiations. But why would this be considered “benefit to Israel”. Such a large number suggests to me that there is an attempt to include the recognition of Israel as a Jewish state or the state of the Jewish people. This would be considered a benefit. Furthermore Kerry’s proposal just offers the Palestinians a suburb of the eastern part of Jerusalem as opposed to East Jerusalem.  Ted Belman

HAARETZ

Prime minister says no deal will be made until it’s clear what Israel’s getting in return; earlier, Israel offered to release additional prisoners in exchange for an extension of the peace talks deadline.

Any deal with the Palestinians to extend peace negotiations that involves additional Israeli gestures like releasing prisoners will be subject to cabinet approval, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told Likud ministers Sunday morning.
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The prime minister’s clout on the national level is in inverse proportion to his poor grip on his party, which holds its 

In the past two weeks, Benjamin Netanyahu put on a nose plug, took an anti-nausea pill and dived deep into the murky waters of Likud party politics, which he abhors. A titanic battle has been underway for months between the prime minister and the chairman of the Likud convention, MK Danny Danon, over the agenda of the convention next Monday.

Seemingly, the brawl is purely procedural: over what the delegates will discuss and who bears the authority to convene party institutions. But in Likud, procedure is everything. And if there is anything Netanyahu, in his many years as party leader, has learned and internalized, it’s that whoever controls the procedure, decides the outcome.
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When I posted this yesterday, US issues scathing attack against UNHRC for singling out Israel , I was surprises that the US would do such a thing.  I wondered whether  it was part of a deal to get Israel to be more “flexible” on the peace process.

I didn’t have to wait even a day for the answer.. ‘Israel offers to free 400 more prisoners if Abbas extends talks’.

Bennett says it won’t happen.  Will the government fall? wait and see.

If there is any truth to this offer, it tells me that Israel is not prepared to face the world’s animosity without some help from the US.