Philanthropies always advance their values in gift giving. Look at George Soros. He would never support Women in Green. Yet Haaretz takes umbrage when the shoe is on the other foot. Ted Belman

In mobilizing philanthropy for right-leaning organizations only, the Israel Summit denied the vast spectrum of Jewish groups equal access to funding.>

In some respects, the Israel Summit, organized by the Center for Entrepreneurial Jewish Philanthropy, addressed real concerns. Major American gifts to Jewish federations and the Israeli government – which play crucial roles in Israel’s philanthropic backbone – are declining, according to a paper by Hebrew University’s Center for the Study of Philanthropy in Israel. Instead, major gifts are generally given to major organizations like Taglit-Birthright Israel and Hasbara Fellowships. Indeed, large, right-leaning groups were well represented at this event.
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In interview with Haaretz, the controversial Texas Republican lambasts the president’s ‘appeasement’ of Iran and Vladimir Putin, tears his Israel policies to shreds and even has an unkind word for AIPAC.

Navy commandos board ship in early morning operation, encounter no resistance; vessel carried missiles with 200km range

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Things can Only get Better

By GIL TROY, JPOST

The far-left betrayal, whereby anti-Zionism has become The Trendiest Hatred, burdens the many liberals who attend.

As 14,000 Israel-lovers convened Sunday in Washington for AIPAC’s annual policy conference, critics rejoiced that the Big Bad Jewish Lobby was on the ropes, while still claiming the only reason the US supports Israel is AIPAC.

In exaggerating AIPAC’s power while minimizing it, the clashing caricatures rest on subtleties only bigots can believe. Yet, attending my second policy conference, as an invited speaker, not a member, I am again struck by what I called last year the sweetness of AIPAC.
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by Isi Leibler
March 4, 2014

Anti-Zionist charades from the far-left-wing American Jewish community are now a daily occurrence. We witness the manipulations of the reprehensible BDS movement, J Street’s efforts to encourage the US Administration to pressure Israel, and the frequent hosting by universities of radical, anti-Israel speakers. As disturbing as these developments have been, we have tended to discount them as the workings of the radical left. Read more…

By Mazal Mualem, al Monitor

Last week, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu interviewed candidates for the position of his political adviser. It was part of a comprehensive program to rehabilitate Netanyahu’s image in his own Likud party. Netanyahu wants to regain control over the mechanisms of the ruling party, control that he has lost over the past few years. He is looking for an energetic young candidate to run between the party’s branch offices and make the right political connections on his behalf. Most of all, the prime minister hopes that his new political adviser will help him to avoid any more embarrassments like the ones he suffered in his most recent battles within the party’s institutions.

Over the past few days, Netanyahu’s schedule has been devoted largely to his summit with US President Barack Obama at the White House. Nevertheless, as part of his rehabilitation program, Netanyahu also cleared some time on his busy schedule to meet with senior Likud activists for the first time since the last elections in January 2013. These are mostly confidantes of senior ministers from the Likud, whose support Netanyahu is eager to get.
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Sarah Palin on Facebook. 20,000 Likes

I find this stunning – scary, sad, and stunning. On the eve of Netanyahu’s visit, President Obama announces to the world that he shall tell Israel’s prime minister what to do; he’ll lay blame for regional unrest on Israel and command they adopt an Obama-sanctioned “peace plan” that requires Israel to concede even more land and authority. Truly stunning.

Also Sarah Palin in a recent interview by Sean Hannity characterized Obama as one who wears “mom jeans”. Did the folks ever love that put down.

“Look, people are looking at Putin as one who wrestles bears and drills for oil,” she said. “They look at our president as one who wears mom jeans and equivocates and bloviates.”

“Anyone who carries the common sense gene would know that Putin doesn’t change his stripes,” she said. “He hearkens back to the era of the czars and he wants that Russian empire to grow again.”

She also pointed out that Putin’s power is derived from Russia’s abundance of energy and Europe’s dependence on it. The US, she said could become much more powerful had she fully exploited her energy sources. She could export energy to Europe thereby undercutting Putin’s leverage.

If He Believes It, It Must Be So

Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann says Jewish organizations prefer Obama’s future over Israel’s.

By Gil Ronen

Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann Bachmann has accused American Jews of having “sold out Israel” by voting for President Obama in 2008 and 2012.

“The Jewish community gave him their votes, their support, their financial support,” Bachmann told Tony Perkins on the Family Research Center’s radio channel, “and as recently as last week, 48 Jewish donors who are big contributors to the president wrote a letter…to the Democrat [sic] senators in the U.S. Senate to tell them to not advance sanctions against Iran.”
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WSJ

Gone are the days when the American president was capable of articulating the American interest.

Vladimir Putin seized Ukraine’s Crimean peninsula on Thursday, and Barack Obamadelivered a short statement about it on Friday. The former tells us nothing we didn’t know already about Russia’s strongman. The latter tells us everything we need to know about a weak president’s feckless foreign policy.

Let’s take a look at what Mr. Obama had to say:

“I also spoke several days ago with President Putin, and my administration has been in daily contact with Russian officials.”

OK, but why? What’s the point of talking if you won’t even make use of what’s said?
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Netanyahu’s AIPAC speech – predictable and conventional

YNET NEWS

The prime minister’s speech was without passion, just like the speaker himself, telling the audience exactly what they wanted to hear.

Benjamin Netanyahu delivered one of his weakest speeches Tuesday at AIPAC. He said exactly what his audience wanted to hear about Iran, the boycotts against Israel and Israel’s moral superiority compared to other countries in the region – but he failed to shed new light on any of these topics. The prime minister repeated Israel’s basic, well-known demands on three of its political topics and nothing beyond that. Even worse than that – his speech was without passion, just like the speaker himself.
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What follows is a press release from Mort Klein’s PR person.

The ZOA “In Person” Election Process Is Required By Law. ZOA’s Process is Fair and Fraud-Free:

New York State law and ZOA’s Constitution require delegates to be present at the convention to vote. Distance voting by electronic means or email would be invalid under the applicable New York State law and ZOA’s Constitution, and is thus impossible. The opponent knows full well that in person voting is the only lawful process.

In addition, electronic voting is highly subject to fraud. Dead people don’t show up at conventions – but they do somehow miraculously manage to vote by email. Delegates cannot vote twice at a convention, but they can manage to do so electronically. Software used for electronic voting can be manipulated. Email voting also lacks secrecy and does not protect voters’ security. There is no assurance as to how the opponent will use his “surveymonkey” straw poll.
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by Alexander H. Joffe, The Times of Israel

Bloomberg columnist Jeffrey Goldberg’s interview with President Obama on the eve of his meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu is highly significant, verging on a turning point in US-Israeli relations.

Several points emerge from the interview. First is the implied threat that if current peace negotiations with the Palestinians fail, the US will be unable – read unwilling – to defend Israel. Moreover, it is up to the Palestinians to judge: “If Palestinians come to believe that the possibility of a contiguous sovereign Palestinian state is no longer within reach, then our ability to manage the international fallout is going to be limited.”
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By CAROLINE B. GLICK
03/03/2014

The Zionist Organization of America is not the biggest American Jewish organization, but it is the most important.

The Zionist Organization of America is not the biggest American Jewish organization. It is not the most powerful American Jewish organization.

And it is not the most high-profile American Jewish organization. But it is the most important American Jewish organization.

Under the leadership of its president Morton Klein, the ZOA emerged over the past two decades as the only Jewish organization in the US that refuses to budge on its principles no matter how much pressure is applied.
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Fresno Zionism

Israel’s Prime Minister Netanyahu will be meeting with President Obama tomorrow. In a long interview with Jeffrey Goldberg, the President revealed — or at least presented the public face of — his thinking on the Palestinian question, Iran, Syria and other Mideast issues.

If what he told Goldberg truly reflects his thinking, it is profoundly depressing, because his remarks display both ignorance and prejudice. And the timing, when Bibi is already on his way, is ugly.

Ignorance:
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Malaysia Threatens Time Magazine for Reporting Persecution of Non-Muslims

AMMONNEWS – In the aftermath of the Arab Spring, the conventional wisdom that what is taking place in Egypt has far-reaching echoes across the region is proving to be true. Jordan is no exception.

After the Egyptian army’s removal of Mohammed Morsi from office, and the subsequent clampdown on the Muslim Brotherhood there, the increasingly strained relationship between the Jordanian government and Jordan’s Muslim Brotherhood has entered a new phase, predominantly characterised by criticism, anxiety and mutual distrust.

Emboldened by events in Egypt, the Jordanian government has recently arrested and put on trial many active members of the Muslim Brotherhood, and stepped up its antagonistic rhetoric and policies against the organisation and its prominent figures.
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In interview with Jeffrey Goldberg for Bloomberg, Obama says he will ask the prime minister on Monday: “If not now, when? And if not you, then who?”

If Netanyahu “does not believe that a peace deal with the Palestinians is the right thing to do for Israel”, Obama said, “then he needs to articulate an alternative approach (and) It’s hard to come up with one that’s plausible.”

The door has openned. Sovereignty is not only plausible, its doable. Ted Belman

Ynetnews

The American ability to protect Israel against global isolation is waning, US President Barack Obama said in an interview published Sunday, in particular if the Palestinians decide that there is no chance for them to achieve statehood.

“If Palestinians come to believe that the possibility of a contiguous sovereign Palestinian state is no longer within reach, then our ability to manage the international fallout is going to be limited,” Obama told Jeffrey Goldberg on Thursday in an hour-long Oval Office meeting.
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Sunday, 02 Mar 2014 03:37 PM
By Jeffrey Goldberg, NEWSMAX

When Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visits the White House Monday, President Barack Obama will tell him that his country could face a bleak future — one of international isolation and demographic disaster — if he refuses to endorse a U.S.-drafted framework agreement for peace with the Palestinians. Obama will warn Netanyahu that time is running out for Israel as a Jewish-majority democracy. And the president will make the case that Netanyahu, alone among Israelis, has the strength and political credibility to lead his people away from the precipice.

In an hourlong interview Thursday in the Oval Office, Obama, borrowing from the Jewish sage Rabbi Hillel, told me that his message to Netanyahu will be this: “If not now, when? And if not you, Mr. Prime Minister, then who?” He then took a sharper tone, saying that if Netanyahu “does not believe that a peace deal with the Palestinians is the right thing to do for Israel, then he needs to articulate an alternative approach.” He added, “It’s hard to come up with one that’s plausible.”
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