By Melanie Phillips

British Jews who care about this sort of thing have had the disturbing experience of observing not one but three examples of public, home-grown anti-Jewish bigotry over the past few days.

First off the block was the former labour Foreign Secretary Jack Straw, who in an article in the Independent repeated not only his inexplicable belief that his idol, Iran’s President Rouhani, was ushering in a new world order of peace and harmony, but also that the benighted Israelis were buying up Washington in order to frustrate this nirvana (I paraphrase, but you get the general idea).
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Egypt’s General Sisi Calls for Rise of ‘Modern’ Islam

By Raymond Ibrahim, ALGEMEINER

According to Egyptian media, during his recent speech at the Department of Moral Affairs for the Armed Forces, General Abdul Fateh al-Sisi – the man who ousted former President Morsi and his Muslim Brotherhood in response to the June Revolution and who is seen as the nation’s de facto ruler – declared that “Religious discourse is the greatest battle and challenge facing the Egyptian people, and pointed to the need for a new vision and a modern, comprehensive understanding of the religion of Islam—rather than relying on a discourse that has not changed for 800 years.”
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WHO’S NEW IN THE WHITE  HOUSE?

Arif Alikhan
Assistant Secretary for Policy Development for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security

Mohammed Elibiary
Homeland Security Adviser
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As Europe turns conservative, Israel receives more support. Ted Belman

Country with record of enmity towards Israel is now assuming more balanced policy in region, enhancing cooperation in various fields such as energy, television. Norway’s prime minister is expected to make first visit to Israel this year

By Eldad Beck, YNET NEWS

BERLIN – The new Norwegian government, which so far was considered one of the most hostile administrations facing Israel, is working towards bracing the ties between the two countries and enhancing mutual cooperation in an array of fields.

The conservative-progressive minority government, which was established some three months ago, included an article in its elections platform that states that the government will change its Middle East policy and implement a more balanced course of action. This is in stark opposition to previous leftist administrations, whose policy was clearly pro-Arab.
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It seems Jewish Democratic senators will choose President Obama’s agenda every time over Israel’s survival, and are even willing in the process to throw the Jewish state under the bus

Shoula Romano Horing, YNET NEWS

It is a sad moment in history when the president of the dictatorial Iranian Islamic regime’s characterization of the recently signed nuclear deal sounds more credible and believable than that of President Obama, the leader of the free world. While on January 12, Obama hailed the deal which implemented the nuclear agreement made between Iran and six world powers last November as a great diplomatic breakthrough, which “marks the first time in a decade” that Iran agreed to “halt progress in its nuclear program” and even “roll back” some it, President Rohani described it last Sunday as representing the “surrender” of the Western powers to Iran’s demands. Read more…

As pro bono attorneys for Jonathan Pollard since 2000, we never cease to be amazed at how those who are hostile to Pollard feel compelled to make up facts

By GIL HOFFMAN, JPOST

Bayit Yehudi leader says alliance with the Right in Likud would make it impossible for PM to make concessions to the Palestinians.

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu will not have enough support to pass concessions to the Palestinians in the Knesset, according to a plan hatched by Bayit Yehudi leader Naftali Bennett.

Bennett intends to draft the support of enough MKs to block Netanyahu from adopting any of the proposals that are expected to be presented later this month by US Secretary of State John Kerry. He is obtaining the support of MKs in Likud Beytenu to prevent Netanyahu from replacing Bayit Yehudi in the coalition with Labor and Kadima.

“An alliance with the Right in Likud is an important mutual interest,” Bennett revealed in closed conversations.
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American president expresses doubts about his three most significant Middle East interventions, but believes any progress is positive, even as Israeli forces try to torpedo talks

Yitzhak Benhorin, YNET NEWS

Well-schooled, no doubt, in the experiences of his predecessors in trying to bring about a peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinians, US President Barack Obama apparently has a conservative outlook when it comes to his own success.

In a far-ranging interview with the New Yorker’s editor David Remnick published Sunday, Obama expressed doubts about that and his other two major US initiatives in the Middle East – concerning the Iraniannuclear program and the Syrian civil war. According to Remnick, Obama believes that the probability of reaching an agreement on all three is less than 50 percent.
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There is no question that Israel has opened a new chapter in her public diplomacy. She is now taking the offense. Here Ya’alon is back on the attack after the recent “spat”. Bibi has taken on, in strong terms, the hypocrisy of the EU. Amb Prosser has castigated the UN and so on. Ted Belman

Ya’alon: US and Europe ‘don’t understand’ Middle East

Times of Israel

American and European policies in the Middle East are misguided, Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon said over the weekend, asserting that electronic security measures proposed by Washington for the Jordan Valley, as part of a peace framework, are no substitute for Israeli boots on the ground.

His comments come days after his scathing critique of US Secretary of State John Kerry, and US-led efforts to negotiate an Israeli-Palestinian accord, made international headlines and set off a rare vocal spat with the US.
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Pitchfork Patriots

With the issuance of the bipartisan investigation report on Benghazi, a raging Judge Jeanine Pirro confronts Hillary Clinton, head-on, for Clinton’s duplicity and negligence as Secretary of State.
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By David Shamah, TOI,  January 19, 2014,

The developing world is a natural market for tech solutions, and the Pears Challenge is preparing entrepreneurs to succeed there.

David Shamah January 19, 2014, The developing world is a natural market for tech solutions, and the Pears Challenge is preparing entrepreneurs to succeed there,

If you still think of Africa as a backwater where people live in squalor, you’re behind the times, according to Dr. Aliza Belman Inbal. “Africa today is a lot different from it was even a decade ago,” said Inbal, director of the Pears Program for Innovation and International Development at Tel Aviv University. “Technology has reached even the most remote villages, with solar energy systems providing electricity in many places where the electrical grid hasn’t been installed, and cellphones being used for everything from Internet surfing to banking.” Read more…

TOI

Israeli arms giant Rafael Advanced Defense Systems Ltd. is to unveil a new laser defense system at a conference in Singapore in February, Rafael said on its website.

The new system, Iron Beam, is a high-energy, laser-based defensive system designed to knock mortar rounds, artillery shells and other projectiles out of the sky, according to a report Saturday on the industry website Israel Defense (Hebrew).

Iron Beam is designed to complement the Iron Dome missile defense system by focusing on smaller projectiles and “pinpoint defense,” the report noted.
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FOX NEWS

A United Nations agency pulled an exhibit on the Jewish people’s “3,500-year relationship” to the land of Israel, after the Arab League lodged a last-minute protest, according to a report.

The exhibit, entitled “People, Book, Land – The 3,500 Year Relationship of the Jewish People and the Land of Israel,” was created jointly by the Jewish human rights group the Simon Wiesenthal Center and the United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization, and was scheduled to open Jan. 20 at UNESCO’s Paris headquarters. But less than a week before it was to open, UNESCO informed the SWC is was canceling it because the Arab League had claimed the exhibit “could create potential obstacles related to the peace process in the Middle East,” the U.S.-based Jewish newspaper The Algemeinerreported.
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By Pamela Geller, Breitbart

The National Council of Canadian Muslims (NCCM), the Canadian branch of the Hamas-tied Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), has written to Steven Harper, the Prime Minister of Canada, demanding that Rabbi Daniel Korobkin be removed from the PM’s delegation to Israel because the Rabbi attended and spoke briefly at my September talk in Canada.

Their letter charged that both Robert Spencer, who also spoke at that September event, and I “have a lengthy and clear record of promoting anti-Muslim sentiments and demonization.” In support of this, they listed a number of statements (wrenched from explanatory context, of course) that are demonstrably true and abundantly established by every day’s headlines. Do they think Harper, a strong defender of Israel, is so stupid as to be blind to the reality of Islamic jihad?
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Tom Wilson. Commentary Magazine..

If diplomacy is war by other means, in recent days the Europeans have been taking to the diplomatic warpath amidst an increasingly strident attitude toward Israel and its policies on Jewish communities over the 1949 armistice lines. The European position on Israel’s settlements has often been tagged as hypocritical and replete with double standards, but in recent days the European reaction to announcements of new homes for Jews living over the green line, including in eastern parts of Jerusalem, has been so disproportionate as to appear almost unhinged.

On Thursday, Israeli diplomats in London, Paris, Rome, and Madrid were all hauled in by government officials to be subjected to protest and rebuke at the news that the Israeli government had issued housing permits for 600 new homes in Jerusalem and 800 in the settlement blocks, which under just about any conceivable re-drawing of the borders would remain part of Israel.
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The actual real truth about Palestine (and West Bank)

By HERB KEINON/KHALED ABU TOAMEH, JPOST

US Secretary of State John Kerry will present a framework paper that will serve as a basis for further negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians by the end of the month, Palestinian sources said on Saturday.

Although officials in the Prime Minister’s Office would not confirm this, Deputy Defense Minister Danny Danon told Israel Radio the same thing on Saturday.

Danon further said that Kerry would return to the region in two days, and that efforts were being made to hold a summit meeting between Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas under Jordanian sponsorship.

The Palestinian sources told the London-based Al-Hayat newspaper that the Kerry document consisted of “general ideas that are elastic and fuzzy.”
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Video of My January 8th Briefing at the Senate Office Building, 

January 18th, 2014 by Andrew Bostom