Editorial of The New York Sun | January 11, 2014

The death today of Ariel Sharon is a moment of excruciating sadness here at the Sun. We began covering him more than 30 years ago, met with him countless times in Israel, America, and Europe, and came to love him for his enormous heart, his good humor, and his capacious spirit. Our friendship endured even on those occasions, and there were some, when we disagreed. It was a part of his political genius that our world leaders could study to their advantage. Sharon just had an astonishing ability to make contact with those with whom he disagreed.

Times of Israel

ARIEL SHARON DIES AT 85; Obituary: Sharon emblemized military audacity, evolving politics; Israeli leaders mourn loss; Palestinians condemn ‘butcher’

Sharon, as both military leader and prime minister, was the man to whom the Israeli public looked in its hours of need, yearning for the protection he provided and cognizant of the consequences it sometimes entailed. As Ari Shavit wrote in a piercing profile in the New Yorker in 2006, Israelis turned to Sharon in the 1950s, during the devastating fedayun raids; as they did on Yom Kippur 1973, when even the defense minister was said to have feared the “fall of the Third Temple”; and yet again, most overwhelmingly, during the savagely bloody days of the Second Intifada.

He was defense minister during the 1982 Lebanon War and was found to bear personal responsibility for failing to prevent the Phalangist massacre of Palestinian Muslims in the refugee camps of Sabra and Shatila. Early in his career, in October 1953, he led a reprisal raid on the Jordanian village of Qibya in response to a terror attack in Israel. Forty two houses were detonated in the raid and 69 people were killed. In the field with his troops, Sharon had a reputation for pushing the license and limits of his orders to the maximum. Read more…

By James Lewis, AMERICAN THINKER

Genocidal hate propaganda is back in the world, though it’s never reported in the American and European media. To report the constant stream of hate agitation against the West and Israel would undermine the socialist-Islamist alliance that apparently has run the world since Arab oil embargo of 1973. On the web, MEMRI.org is a scholarly source of translations of daily hate agitation among the hundreds of millions of people who speak Arabic, Urdu, and Persian (Farsi). They are constantly drenched in ugly racial and cultural hatred.

One part of that hate industry is paid for by Sunni Muslims like the Saudis and the Muslim Brotherhood of Egypt. Independently, the Iranian Shi’ites run both agit-prop and influence-buying operations in Europe and the United States. In Italy the neo-fascist Five Star Movement dances to the tune played by the mullahs of Iran.
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By Martin Sherman, JPOST

Extending Jewish sovereignty over Judea-Samaria is imperative, but some proposals for this imperil Israel no less than the two-state folly.

No one has a job over there… They are shooting at each other. There are drugs. They burn cars. Enough is enough.

– a Swedish citizen, cited in The New York Times, February 26, 2011, on the impact of Muslim immigration.

Lebanonization refers to the [situation] within a single country so riven with religious and other disputes that the country becomes impossible to govern.

– A.M. Rosenthal, cited by William Safire in the New York Times, April 21, 1991.

Two apparently unrelated events occurred over the past week or so.

The one was the publication of the second issue of the political journal Sovereignty by Women in Green and the Forum for Sovereignty, which carried various proposals for alternatives to the two-state paradigm that has dominated – or rather tyrannized – the public debate on the Palestinian question for almost a quarter century.
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TOI

US Secretary of State John Kerry has threatened to discontinue all American aid to the Palestinian Authority if the current round of negotiations does not result in a peace agreement, a senior Palestinian official claimed Thursday.

Taysir Khaled, a member of the PLO Executive Committee, said that the US had implied it would stop giving financial aid to the Palestinian Authority and would not be able to prevent Israeli expansion of West Bank settlements, if a framework for a long-lasting accord was not agreed upon, Maariv reported.

By Ari Yashar, INN

Reports Friday morning indicated that Netanyahu told senior officials of his intention not to sign any framework deal that would divide Jerusalem.

Meanwhile a new poll released Friday by Maariv showed 80% of Israelis believe the US backed peace talks will not succeed. 507 Jewish and Arab citizens were polled in the survey.

A further 73% rejected a total withdrawal of Israeli troops from Judea and Samaria under the framework of any peace deal, an Israeli withdrawal Kerry’s proposals reportedly include.
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By CAROLINE GLICK

The so-called Arab Spring unleashed forces that have been dormant for a century. Like their counterparts throughout the region, Israel’s Arabic-speaking minorities are changing in profound ways. But our leaders fail to grasp the implications of what is happening.

Consider the Christian community.

Father Gabriel Nadaf, a Greek Orthodox priest from Nazareth, has become the symbol of this new period. Nadaf is the spiritual leader of an Israeli Christian movement calling for Israeli Christian youth to serve in the IDF. He is responsible for the 300 percent rise in Christian Arab enlistment in the IDF in the past year.
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A Palestinian state? A destructive element in the community of nations

By Fresno Zionism

…In deciding whether establishing a new state here is a good idea, it makes sense to think about what the character of that state will be. And there is no doubt that ‘Palestine’ will be an aggressor and a locus of terrorism. A criminal culture will produce a criminal state. How could the embodiment of the philosophy of Yasser Arafat be anything else?

The Palestinian people deserve an end to occupation and the daily indignities that come with it. Palestinians deserve to move and travel freely, and to feel secure in their communities. Like people everywhere, Palestinians deserve a future of hope — that their rights will be respected, that tomorrow will be better than today and that they can give their children a life of dignity and opportunity. Put simply, Palestinians deserve a state of their own. — Barack Obama, March 21, 2013

Not surprisingly, I disagree. Palestinians do not deserve a state.
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By Dovid Efune, Algemeiner

In the ongoing peace talks between Israel and the Palestinian Authority, moments of truth appear to be fast arriving. If Prime Minister Netanyahu stands by his promise to take decisions about ceding territory to a national referendum, millions of Israelis will personally be called on to decide how the Jewish state’s borders will look for their children and grandchildren.

Listening to John Kerry make the case for Israeli territorial concessions, one thing strikes me in particular. The specific incentives he articulates for Israel are mostly “sticks.” Absent are any “carrots” of substance.

Kerry makes no distinction between “peace”, and the specific “peace process” that he is promoting. He speaks of the virtues of peace, but who doesn’t wasn’t peace? It is his specific formula for reaching that hallowed destination that remains suspect.
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http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/176148#.Us_PQZuIrIU

Aron Katzov, spokesman of the Samarian community, tells how Jews were attacked far away from Kusra, IDF destruction led to attack.

By Yoni Kempinski, Ari Yashar, INN

Aron Katzov, spokesman of the Samarian community Esh Kodesh, spoke to Arutz Sheva Friday about the attempted lynching of 25 Jewish residents of the region by Arab residents of Kusra this Tuesday. His testimony reveals how IDF action was partially responsible for bringing about the attack.

Katzov reports that despite claims to the contrary in the media, which relied on Arab sources saying the Jews had entered Kusra to carry out “price tag” vandalism, the Jews were in fact touring the hills far from the Arab village when they were attacked.
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The hope was for a final agreement in 9 months, then it became a more modest framework agreement, and now only for a framework to continue talks about an agreement;

By Herb Keinon, JPOST

Diplomats give a lot of speeches to a lot of different audiences, so it is only natural they repeat the same lines and antidotes, and reiterate the same themes.

One antidote and theme that US Secretary of State John Kerry repeated over the summer as he was struggling to get the Israelis and Palestinians back to the negotiations, and even just after he succeeded in doing so, was that the start of talks is often the most difficult part.

“[Quartet envoy] Tony Blair is fond of saying that the hardest part is the launch, and the reason is both sides want to understand what the parameters are…how will you negotiate, and what will be negotiated about. Once you get to that, then you can begin to really dig in and get to the hard work,” he said on June 30, just as he was leaving Israel after shuttling between the sides trying to get them to finally move back into direct negotiations.
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by Alexander H. Joffe, ME FORUM

The disconnect between the past and the present in the Middle East is growing fast. Consider the anachronism called the Arab League.

In December, after an “emergency meeting” called by Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas, Arab League Secretary-General Nabil Elaraby declared that “not one” Israeli soldier could remain in the territory of Palestine. An Arab League report condemning American support for “Israeli security expansionist demands” was also cited in Middle Eastern news sources but made little impression in the West.

The statement made little impression on US Secretary of State John Kerry who was “grateful that the Arab League as a whole and Saudi Arabia individually will be significantly involved in helping build support for this effort.” He also promised to update “our Arab League partners.”
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Caroline B. Glick, JWR:

On Sunday, Issa Karaka, the Palestinian Authority’s minister for jailed terrorists, announced that in the next round of terrorist releases, Israel will release not only Palestinian terrorist murderers, but Israeli Arabs who murdered Israeli Jews in terrorist attacks.

As late as last week, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu was said to have completely rejected the Palestinian demand. But in response to Karaka’s statement, Netanyahu’s spokesman said only that the release of Israeli Arab terrorists would be subject to the approval of the government. In other words, Karaka was probably telling the truth.

The question is what has changed? What happened over the past week that forced Netanyahu to cave? The obvious answer is that US Secretary of State John Kerry came to Jerusalem, again. And he forced Netanyahu’s hand, again.
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by Reviewed by Shoshana Bryen
inFOCUS Quarterly
January 9, 2014

It takes a certain chutzpah to write a book that announces something will—or won’t—happen, and that if it does or does not happen the world will look considerably different than it does today—or not. This is not like predicting snow for Thursday. But Ilan Berman’s Implosion: The End of Russia and What it Means for America is up to the challenge. Berman reads economic, demographic and military trends to determine whether Russia will undergo its second major transformation in less than 100 years. Or not.

Either way, the trends provide a blueprint for policy makers who want to maximize American national interests in Russia, Eurasia and the Pacific. Part of the blueprint is translated directly from the Russian. The last 75 pages of this slim volume consist of “The Foundations of Russian Federation Policy in the Arctic Until 2020 and Beyond,” and the “National Security Strategy of the Russian Federation to 2020.” Both are windows into current Russian thinking, particularly regarding the Arctic, which is covered in some detail in the body of the book.
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Also read the Comprehensive and authoritative update

By Dr. Aaron Lerner – The Jerusalem Post – June 20, 2000

I would like to share some shocking information that recently came to my attention regarding the Pollard Affair. This new information not only makes the already-powerful arguments for Pollard’s immediate release just that much stronger. It also raises serious questions about US-Israel relations and provides further evidence of Israel’s own role in undermining Pollard’s position.

I recently obtained a copy of the May 26, 1987 Eban Commission Report on the Pollard Affair that was prepared by a subcommittee of the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee of the Knesset.

I was astounded to find the following passage under the heading “The Decision to Cooperate with the US.”
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By Bret Stephens, WSJ

An American secretary of state was once awarded a Nobel Peace Prize for outlawing war. In describing how 62 countries came to sign (and 85 U.S. senators to ratify) the 1928 Kellogg-Briand Pact, the Scottish historian D.W. Brogan observed: “The United States, which had abolished the evils of drink by the Eighteenth Amendment, invited the world to abolish war by taking the pledge. The world, not quite daring to believe or doubt, obeyed.”

John Kerry hasn’t yet captured Frank B. Kellogg’s crown. But he’s trying.

Mr. Kerry announced last week that he’d like to see Iran participate “from the sidelines” in the talks, scheduled to begin in Geneva later this month, to end the Syrian civil war. He’s working overtime on a “framework” agreement for Israeli-Palestinian peace. And then there’s the nuclear deal to finalize with Iran.
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by Jonathan Spyer
The Tower
January 2014

http://www.meforum.org/3713/gulf-states-american-support

An increasing body of evidence has begun pointing to a major shift in American foreign policy in the Middle East. Over the course of the Obama Administration’s tenure, amid the turmoil of the Arab spring, the United States has shown itself unwilling to defend some of its traditional allies (such as the military in Egypt), or to stand by its own threats and red lines (such as punishing the Syrian regime for using chemical weapons); in many cases willing to cede significant influence to other outside powers (such as Russia); and to attempt to reach a nuclear agreement with Iran that is far more conciliatory to Iranian demands than had been the previous policy (such as allowing for uranium enrichment). Read more…

By Michael Curtis, AMERICAN THINKER

For many years it has been obvious that the European Union (EU) does not wear Israel in its heart’s core or enfold it in its arms. If its members have not totally subscribed to the Palestinian Narrative of Victimhood, they have been sufficiently swayed to impose a partial boycott against Israel. The EU in June 2013 published “guidelines” for its member nations saying that it would not confer grants, scholarships, prizes, or financial loans on Israeli entities operating outside the so-called Green Line (the 1949 armistice lines), including east Jerusalem and the Golan Heights. Any Israeli entity seeking funding from the EU must submit a declaration that it has no direct or indirect links to the West Bank.
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