Yoram Ettinger in ISRAEL HAYOM, takes the inflated Kerry down a few pegs by pointing out how wrong he has been in the past particularly in his embrace of Assad and recommendation that we give back the Golan. He then reminds Kerry of the reality which Kerry wishes to ignore.

Kerry is preoccupied with pressuring Israel, notwithstanding the transformation of the Arab Spring delusion into a reality of an Arab Tsunami, highlighting the 1,400-year-old intra-Muslim and intra-Arab uncertainty, unpredictability, unreliability, instability, fragmentation, violent intolerance and absence of Arab democracy and civil liberties. This reality requires a higher Israeli threshold of security. U.S. pressure comes despite the clear and present danger of a nuclearized apocalyptic Iran, and Islamic terrorism, to Jordan and the pro-U.S. oil-producing Gulf states, as well as the U.S. mainland; despite the transformation of Iraq into an Iranian-dominated global center of Islamic terrorism; regardless of Turkey’s support of the transnational, terrorist Moslem Brotherhood; and in defiance of the inherently provisional and fragile nature of Arab regimes, policies and agreements, which are frequently signed on ice and not carved in stone.

He ends by writing:
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U.S. officials believe members of Hezbollah, the militant group backed by Iran, are smuggling advanced guided-missile systems into Lebanon from Syria piece by piece to evade a secretive Israeli air campaign designed to stop them.

The moves illustrate how both Hezbollah and Israel are using Syria’s civil war as cover for what increasingly is seen as a complex and high-stakes race to prepare for another potential conflict—their own—in… that could alter the region’s military balance.
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By Tova Dvorin, INN

BY CAROLINE GLICK, FPM

The New York Times just delivered a mortal blow to the Obama administration and its Middle East policy.

When Jews become the Jewish State’s biggest enemy.

By PAMELA GELLER, JPOST

Stockholm Syndrome reared its head last Friday, when an academic who identifies herself as Jewish published op-ed in the Los Angeles Times explaining why she voted for the American Studies Association’s boycott of Israeli universities, about which I wrote recently in the Jerusalem Post.

The Times piece said that the writer had just returned from a trip to Israel and “Palestine” sponsored by Interfaith Peace-Builders, a group that subtly propagandizes for the Palestinian jihad. She was easily taken in. “Palestinian students of all ages,” she claimed, “endure harassment at military checkpoints, frequent school closures, unprovoked arrests, imprisonment and sometimes death at the hands of trigger-happy soldiers.”
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By Ari Yashar, INN

While Palestinian Authority (PA) TV has often been caught inciting violence and hatred of Jews, a recent broadcast by a European Union (EU) funded NGO has brought the defamation of Jews to new lows.

In an episode of the program Sights of Jerusalem broadcast October 18 on official PA TV, Jews are dehumanized as “crows” and “rats,” and further called “foreigners” in Jerusalem, the 3,000 year old Jewish capital.
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By Ted Belman

Kerry is back in town and he is carrying a big stick.

According to DEBKA he is threatening Israel with a European economic boycott.

“Sources in the Israeli prime minister’s office said the pressure the US was bringing to bear on Israel for concessions was unfair, especially the threat of a European boycott, and disproportionately greater that US demands of the Palestinians.”

Meanwhile PLO Secretary-General Yasser Abed Rabbo said “No Palestinian state will be created without Jerusalem and the Jordan Valley.” Thus the PA is at odds with the Israel right that will not cede Jerusalem nor the Jordan valley.

Unfortunately Netanyahu is trying to have it both ways. He hasn’t rejected Kerry’s framework outright but has indicated that there are parts of it he can accept.
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Op-ed: Israeli-Palestinian conflict can be solved when West Bank’s Arab residents regain their Jordanian citizenship

By Guy Bechor, YNET NEWS

Famous British diplomat and author Harold Nicolson (1886-1968) believed there were two types of negotiators: Warriors and shopkeepers. Warriors use negotiations to improve their position ahead of the next stage of the conflict, while shopkeepers try to reach an agreement which will satisfy everyone. Warriors are here to take, shopkeepers – to give. Warriors see an agreement as a temporary stage, shopkeepers hope to end the conflict through it.

The Palestinian Authority comes to the negotiations as clear warriors. It is interested in going back in time, fixing the past of 1948, expelling 700,000 Jews from Judea and Samaria and replacing them with one or two million Palestinians from Syria, Lebanon and the Arab world. These will be the most dangerous Salafis in the region. Israel wants to end the conflict, but the PA wants to strengthen itself in order to intensify the conflict. Its goal is to go on with the plan to destroy Israel in stages.
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The author and the NYT are know for their bias in favour of the Palestinian position and for their support for the Obama administration. They often distort and misrepresent facts. In this case the author tries to make the point that who or what Israel is about is for Israel to decide and she doesn’t need the PA to agree. That would be true normally but since the PA denys the Jewish narrative in order to make claims on what is now Israel, it is imperative that they now abandon such claims by recognizing Israel as a Jewish State. Put it another way, Israel is entitled to demand an end of conflict agreement which of necessity requires such recognition. Ted Belman

Sticking Point in Peace Talks

By JODI RUDOREN, NYT

JERUSALEM — As Middle East peace talks churn on, Israel has catapulted to the fore an issue that may be even more intractable than old ones like security and settlements: a demand that the Palestinians recognize Israel as a Jewish state.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has made such recognition the pillar of his public statements in recent weeks, calling it “the real key to peace,” “the minimal requirement” and “an essential condition.” Israeli, American and Palestinian officials all say it has become a core issue in the negotiations that started last summer.
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By David Lev, INN

It’s not just Israel that is worried about Hamas terrorism. The Palestinian Authority, itself run by the Fatah terror group, is concerned that Hamas, which controls Gaza, will try to further its influence in PA-controlled areas of Judea and Samaria. A PA report quoted by Israel Radio said that such a development would be bad for Israel, as well as for the PA.

Hamas already has a high level of influence in many PA cities and towns in Judea and Samaria, and Hamas candidates have in the past won key elections in towns and campuses at PA universities. According to the new report, Hamas will in the coming year begin carving out more extensive spheres of influence.
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by Jerry Gordon, NEW ENGLISH REVIEW  (January 2014)

Tayyip [Erdogan] Resign!!

Since  December 17, 2013, police in Ankara, Istanbul and other cities in Turkey have arrested more than  52 persons in a wide-ranging corruption probe. Those arrested include some prominent persons and sons of AKP cabinet ministers on charges of bribery, illicit gold trading and payoffs on tenders for construction deals. The state-run Andalou News Agency cited the range of arrests and detentions, the outgrowth of a two year investigation:

Sixteen people, including the sons of two ministers, have been charged in connection with a sweeping corruption investigation targeting allies of the Prime Minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

Suleyman Aslan, the general manager of state-owned Halkbank, was also formally arrested and charged alongside Baris Guler, the son of the Interior Minister, and Kaan Caglayan, the son of the Economy Minister, Turkey’s state-run news agency reported. The son of a third minister, a construction magnate,was freed from custody pending trial.

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Bibi is trying to make a deal and is apparently willing to accept ’67 lines plus swaps. Yaalon is leading the Likud opposition to such a deal.

By Dan Margalit, ISRAEL HAYOM

The U.S. has yet to issue a detailed blueprint for the Israeli-Palestinian agreement. At this stage it is still raw and flexible, and could undergo major changes. This is how the touted deployment of U.S. early warning systems to prevent any surprise attack through the Jordan Valley became the deployment of Israeli soldiers along the Jordan River, and then became international forces to be stationed there. Are more changes coming?

On Tuesday, Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat declared that the Jordan Valley is Palestinian territory. He effectively stated the opposite of what Jordan’s King Abdullah said the other day. The Hashemite monarch indicated that he would not like to see the area handed over to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. In fact, having the Palestinians security forces control the area is probably be his least preferred option.
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“Occupation”- Definition: job, profession, line of work, career, calling, walk of life.

By Michael Ordman

Israeli Arab citizens would find themselves in Palestinian state under land swap proposal to enable annexation of settlement blocs

Umm El-Fahm, December 31, 2011. (photo credit: Moshe Shai/Flash90)

Israel has raised the idea of transferring parts of the territory in “the triangle” southeast of Haifa — along with the hundreds of thousands of Israeli-Arab citizens who live there — to a future Palestinian state in return for annexing West Bank territory including settlement blocs, Maariv reported on Wednesday.

The idea is not central to the formal talks being brokered by US Secretary of State John Kerry, who is due back in Israel on Thursday pushing a “framework” peace agreement. But it has been discussed “at the highest levels” between Israel and the US, the report said.

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By Ted Belman

For the first time PM says peace deal must take into account Israel’s ‘settlement interests’

“Peace will come only when our security interests and, yes, also our settlement interests, will be ensured,”

He usually only stresses our security interests. Is this significant?

State Department deputy spokeswoman Marie Harf referring during a press conference on Monday to reports that Kerry would push forward a “framework agreement,” said the US was working on a “framework for negotiations” that “would serve as guidelines for the permanent- status negotiation and would address all the core issues.”
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By Ted Belman

Dr. Eli Schussheim, Chairman of Efrat Organization says ‘C’tee Robs From the Sick to Fund Abortions’

He attacked the recent decision by the Health Basket Committee to include funding for free abortions in the provided health care basket, even without proof of any medical problem in the fetus.

“They are stealing 16 million shekels ($4.6 million) from sick people whose medicine saves and improves lives, and giving the money instead as a prize to 6,000 negligent women who didn’t prevent the pregnancy they didn’t want,” accuses Schussheim.
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By Ted Belman

So said Sarah Palin when asked about unfavourable polls.

Hebrew U survey finds most Israelis and Palestinians support two-state solution

According to the findings, 54% of Israelis and 46% of Palestinians support a permanent- settlement package along the lines of the Clinton parameters proposed on December 23, 2000, which included a divided Jerusalem, a Palestinian state in the entirety of Judea, Samaria and the Gaza Strip except for several large blocs of settlements, and a demilitarized Palestinian state. These findings represent an increase in Palestinian support, up from 43%, and a decrease in Israeli support, down from 56%, for such a deal compared to that reported by a similar poll in December 2012.
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By EVELYN GORDON

What a strategy of confrontation would look like in practice on the Iranian and Palestinian issues.

By Matthew Hausman, New English Review

Have you heard the one about the old Jewish lady from Brooklyn who wants to visit a Hindu holy man in Nepal? Her friends tell her she’s crazy, but she saves her money, flies to Nepal and makes the arduous trip up the mountain anyway. When she arrives she’s told by a disciple that her audience will last only a minute and that she must limit her conversation to six words. Not easily intimidated, she insists on seeing the great master immediately. After being ushered into his chamber, she looks him straight in the eye and says the six words that most accurately convey her thoughts.

“Sheldon, it’s your mother. Come home!”
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Rabbi Shmuely Boteach

Perhaps it’s only fitting that we should end 2013 with the dumbest Jewish debate of the year, namely whether Swarthmore College’s Hillel should be allowed to have an open policy of bringing anti-Zionists and other Israel haters to lecture under its banner. Firstly, Swarthmore’s announcement of their “Open Hillel” policy is wildly hypocritical. Really? You’re that open to free speech? Then why only on Israel? Jesus is arguably the most famous Jew who ever lived. Allow Christian evangelists to lecture to the Hillel students as well, not to mention anti-Jewish conspiracy theorists who espouse Jewish dominance of the media and finance to advocate their positions as well.
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