Samaria regional authority is not waiting for the Foreign Ministry to help it. It has been effectively reaching out to officials in the EU.

By Arutz Sheva

Diplomatic visit to Itamar
Samaria Regional Council

The Shomron Regional Council has decided not to wait for others to take the lead on diplomatic efforts, and has established its own Foreign Ministry Department. The Shomron Liaison Office has been effectively reaching out to elected officials in the EU and elsewhere to provide them with a balanced picture of the realities in Judea and Samaria.

Over the past months, Shomron leaders Gershon Mesika and Yossi Dagan have led a number of diplomatic delegations meeting with European officials in Brussels, Berlin, Stockholm, London and Paris. For the first time ever, leaders in those countries have had opportunities to hear directly from the leaders of the Jewish communities of Judea and Samaria (aka “the West Bank settlements”) and learn their side of the story that has drawn so much extended attention in the international political arena. Read more…

THIS IS A PROJECT FOR ISRAEL TOO

al Monitor

Turkey’s Foreign Minister, Ahmet Davutoglu (right) meets with Ukraine’s interim President Oleksandr Turchinov in Kiev, March 1, 2014. (photo by REUTERS/Anastasia Sirotkina)

INSS Insight No. 532, March 24, 2014

Pnina Sharvit Baruch, Olena Bagno-Moldavsky

From By Schams Elwazer, CNN

(CNN) — An Egyptian court sentenced at least 528 supporters of the Muslim Brotherhood to death Monday on charges related to violent riots in the southern Egyptian city of Minya last August, including the murder of a police officer, the country’s official news agency said.

The riots took place after a deadly crackdown by security forces on two large sit-ins in Cairo, where demonstrators were supporting ousted President Mohammed Morsi.
Read more…

For part I, click here.

Myth 2 Are the Bedouin Villages Historical?

In the past few years, the Bedouin of the Negev and extreme left non-government organizations (NGO’s) have repeatedly claimed that most of the Bedouin villages are “historical” and that Bedouin have inhabited these villages since before the creation of the State of Israel. Take, for example, the Joint Position Paper: Bill on Arrangement of Bedouin Settlement in the Negev, of May 2013).[4]

“About half of the Bedouin population in the Negev, around 90,000 people, lives in approximately 46 Bedouin villages, the majority of which (around 35villages) the State of Israel refuses to recognize and arrange for their planning and/or municipal administration. The majority of these villagesexisted before the birth of the State of Israel, and a number of them were established in the 1950’s, a time when the agencies of the State moved the Bedouin population from their ancestral territory under their ownership and/or control, to a smaller area in the northeastern Negev, known as the Sayag, termed a restricted area.
Read more…

By ARIEL BEN SOLOMON, JPOST

For US, Ankara has almost transitioned from ally to enemy, says expert; a big loss for Erdogan’s AK Party in upcoming local elections next Sunday could lay the way for a course correction from the opposition.

Report: In bid to save peace talks, US may free Pollard

There are many such reports out today.

While I have always argued that Pollard’s punishment was cruel and unusual punishment and that it was motivated by antisemitism, I am totally against Israel making any concessions or gestures to get him released.

Pollards case demands justice and his release. Nothing more is needed. He should be released because it is the just thing to do and not because we bought his release.

Europe 2014 might as well be Europe 1914, or 1414, as far as Jews are concerned, says an expert on antisemitism

By Moshe Cohen, INN

Anti-Semites in Europe (file)

Europe hasn’t changed all that much, at least in regards to its feelings about Jews, according to Dr. Manfred Gerstenfeld, former head of the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs.

“They don’t like to hear that,” Gersetenfeld told a Haifa audience last week. “But it’s clear that anti-Semitism is a part and parcel of the culture of Europe, not just historically, but currently.”

Gerstenfeld, a historian with an expertise in European Jewish history, along with Itay Reuveni of NGO Monitor, was discussing the issue of anti-Semitism at the Midrasha Leumit in Haifa. That Europe hates Jews even now, decades after the Holocaust, he said, as is clear from the many anti-Semitic caricatures appearing in European newspapers, the ongoing anti-Semitic attacks against Jewish institutions and individual Jews, and the onslaught of legislation against Jewish lifestyle issues, such as ritual slaughter and circumcision.
Read more…

Washington Free Beacon

In a development that is not sending shockwaves through the pro-Israel community, the “pro-Israel, pro-peace” advocacy group J Street has declared its support for the Palestinian refusal to recognize Israel as a Jewish state.
Read more…

You will recall that I posted this a few days ago. Russia threatens to change stance on Iran because of Crimea sanctions. This could be good news for Israel. The more difficult the negotiations are with Iran, the more likely the US will give Israel to go ahead to attack.

By Jonathan S. Tobin, COMENTARY

The Obama administration may be acting as if its rift with Russia won’t affect the attempt to broker a nuclear deal with Iran. It can hope against hope that Russia will forget its quarrel with the Americans and maintain solidarity with the U.S. and the European Union in the Iran talks and continue as if nothing has changed. But there’s little doubt that the open hostility between Washington and Moscow has reduced the already slim chances for a satisfactory P5+1 agreement with Iran. Since the diplomatic option that the president has defended so vigorously in recent months depends entirely on Russian cooperation including the enforcement of sanctions that Putin never really supported, the aftermath of the Crimea conflict has left the administration with little diplomatic leverage.

If so, where does that leave Israel?
Read more…

This is obviously the end of the Kerry peace process. The sooner that Abbas does his worst at the UN or the ICC the better. I hate when Israel acts in fear of him doing so. Ted Belman

By KHALED ABU TOAMEH, JPOST

Speaking at an emergency meeting of the Fatah Central Committee in Ramallah, Abbas briefed officials on his meetings in the US; PA spokesman reiterates Palestinian refusal of recognizing as Israel as a Jewish state.

The Palestinians won’t accept anything less than a full sovereign state with east Jerusalem as its capital, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas said Saturday.

Abbas also stressed that the Palestinians won’t make any concessions on their rights “regardless of the pressure and threats.”
Read more…

Libya’s guns free-for-all fuels region’s turmoil
With impotent central government in Tripoli, arms trafficking in North African country spirals out of control

BY MAGGIE MICHAEL, TOI

TRIPOLI, Libya (AP) — At the heart of the Libyan capital, the open-air Fish Market was once a place where residents went to buy everything from meat and seafood to clothes and pets. Now it’s Tripoli’s biggest arms market, with tables displaying pistols and assault rifles. Ask a vendor, and he can pull out bigger machine guns to sell for thousands of dollars.

Libya, where hundreds of militias hold sway and the central government is virtually powerless, is awash in millions of weapons with no control over their trafficking. The arms free-for-all fuels not only Libya’s instability but also stokes conflicts around the region as guns are smuggled through the country’s wide-open borders to militants fighting in insurgencies and wars stretching from Syria to West Africa. Read more…

At a time when almost all politics seems polarized, there is a strange consensus around a failed policy, Caroline Glick writes in The Israeli Solution: A One-State Plan for Peace in the Middle East.

The Israel Defense Force vet and Jerusalem Post columnist talks with National Review Online’s Kathryn Jean Lopez.

At a time when almost all politics seems polarized, there is a strange consensus around a failed policy, Caroline Glick writes in The Israeli Solution: A One-State Plan for Peace in the Middle East. The Israel Defense Force vet and Jerusalem Post columnist talks with National Review Online’s Kathryn Jean Lopez.

KATHRYN JEAN LOPEZ: What’s your plea to readers disinclined to read The Israeli Solution, perhaps offended by the very suggestion of a one-state solution? Read more…

Dexter Van Zile, ALGEMEINER

Anti-Israel graffiti on the Israeli security wall in Bethlehem. The wall comes under heavy criticism from those who claim it cuts off Palestinian communities from one another. From March 10-14, the Bethlehem Bible College and Holy Land Trust host the anti-Israel “Christ at the Checkpoint” conference. Photo: Garry Walsh via Wikimedia Commons.

Last week, approximately 600 Christians descended on Bethlehem to attend the 2014 Christ at the Checkpoint Conference organized by Bethlehem Bible College. The organizers and presenters of this conference say that they want to promote peace between Israel and the Palestinians, but they just cannot stop themselves from engaging in an ugly propaganda war against the Jewish state.

In other words, they cannot refrain from lying about Israel, repeatedly and shamelessly.

Three times during the conference, attendees were told that Israel has constructed a security barrier that completely surrounds the city of Bethlehem. Two people called it a wall and a third described it as a wall and fences.
Read more…

He only said out loud what everyone is thinking

Att’y Steven M. Goldberg

The politically correct set in the United States State Department became enraged and almost hysterical when Defense Minister Moshe “Bougie” Ya’alon decided to “give them hell”.

That is, Ya’alon told the truth, and they “thought it was hell”.

Specifically, Ya’alon correctly pointed out that, as a result of American passivity, Russia has taken military action against the Ukraine, China has become more aggressive in southeast Asia, and Iran is continuing to march towards obtaining nuclear weapons capability.   Read more…

Myth 1: Are the Bedouin “Indigenous”?

Anyone watching portions of the PM’s AIPAC address might have been excused for thinking Bibi had morphed into Peres. But worse, much worse, was still to come.