The Red-Dead Sea Project signed in Washington is a multi-billion dollar excuse for a political project that might not have any necessity if Israel were to start using one of its new resources – water.

By: Tzvi Ben-Gedalyahu, JP

The first part of a mammoth “Two Seas” pipeline will bring to the Dead Sea only a small fraction of what it is loses every year, while full use of desalinated water could free the same amount from the dam at the Kinneret.

Politicians were falling all over themselves Monday to celebrate the signing in Washington of the agreement for what once was a pipe dream of a pipeline to pump water from the Red Sea to the Dead Seam, with the New Age of Peace involving Israel, Jordan and the Palestinian Authority.

“This is a historic measure, which realizes a dream of many years. We have here politically important strategic cooperation between that Israel, Jordan, and the Palestinian Authority,” said Minister National Infrastructures Silvan Shalom.
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Why Israel is boycotted

By Dror Eydar, ISRAEL HAYOM

1. What lies at the root of the European boycott of Israel? What lies at the root of the anti-Israel statements that various cultural icons are constantly making — statements that camouflage anti-Semitic sentiment? What lies behind the false and malicious comparison of Israel to South Africa’s apartheid regime?

The attempts to boycott Israel or mark its products, interfere in its ancient geography or mark it as racist, fascist or Nazi are the current political expression of Israel’s ancient characterization as “a nation that dwells alone.” The return to Zion is the Jewish nation’s return to history, to life as a sovereign people in its ancient homeland. Calls for boycott were made even before the establishment of the state. While these calls came from the extremist factions at the time, they moved toward the center as the years went by, particularly after 1967. That was when we came back to the cradle of our nationhood, to the historical places most closely connected with our identity. Most important, we came back to Jerusalem, which is also linked with the identity of the world’s nations. The fight against Israel — which is a fight against history’s law of the return to Zion — is evidence of how hard it is for Israel’s opponents to deal with the Jews’ return to life after having been in a state of living death for so long.
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The University of Haifa finds a Pariah, or, Academic Bolshevism in Red Haifa

By Steven Plaut

Haaretz reports that the University of Haifa has decided not to grant an honorary doctoral degree to Nobel Prize winning economist Robert Aumann because the University disapproves of Aumann’s political opinions. He is decidedly non-Left.

The story in Hebrew appears here:

A few months ago the same University of Haifa had no problem granting an honorary PhD degree to Shulamit Aloni, and has granted similar degrees to other far leftists.

Prof. Aumann won the Nobel Prize in 2005 for his path-breaking research in game theory and strategy.
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For years, the world has regarded Judea and Samaria as Palestinian territory illegally occupied by Israel • But now a group of hundreds of jurists from Israel and abroad is fighting back in the battle for the historical and legal truth. [THIS HAS BEEN MY MANTRA FOR A DECADE. TED BELMAN]

Nadav Shragai, ISRAEL HAYOM

If international legitimacy for the settlement enterprise were a horse, one could say that it’s been long out of the barn. Those roaming the halls of power worldwide — from the White House in the era of Barack Obama and John Kerry to the United Nations — have for years regarded the territories of Judea and Samaria as Palestinian territory that is currently under occupation.

The hostile attitude toward the settlement enterprise is a natural, direct derivative of this premise. If we were to make a gross generalization, the world has adopted the Palestinian narrative as it relates to the legal status of the territories. Even those who negotiate on behalf of the State of Israel, men and women who officially adhere to the party line that Judea and Samaria, the cradle of Jewish civilization and peoplehood, is not occupied territory, have long ceased to make this statement publicly, just as they haven’t even bothered to make use of a long list of legal and historical arguments that support this position.
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Jewish Virtual Library

On November 22, 1967, the UN Security Council unanimously adopted Resolution 242, establishing the principles that were to guide the negotiations for an Arab-Israeli peace settlement. This resolution was a tortuously negotiated compromise between competing proposals. By examining what was discarded as well as the language that appears, it is possible to discern the Security Council’s intent.

The first point addressed by the resolution is the “inadmissability of the acquisition of territory by war.” Some people read 242 as though it ends here and the case for requiring a total Israeli withdrawal from the territories is proven. On the contrary, this clause does no such thing, because the reference clearly applies only to an offensive war. If not, the resolution would provide an incentive for aggression. If one country attacks another, and the defender repels the attack and acquires territory in the process, the former interpretation would require the defender to return the land it took. Thus, aggressors would have little to lose because they would be insured against the main consequence of defeat.

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By Drew MacKenzie, NEWSMAX

Conservative commentator Norman Podhoretz has urged Israel to make a pre-emptive strike against Iran.

In an editorial in the Wall Street Journal, Podhoretz claims that the result of a nuclear war between the two nations would be “far worse than any imaginable consequences of an Israeli conventional strike today.”

Podhoretz said that by attacking now Israel has the opportunity “to put at least a temporary halt, and conceivably even a permanent one, to the relentless Iranian quest for the bomb.”
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Claude Anet on the Consequences for Jews Living Amongst a “Fanatical and Hostile” Persian Shiite Population, Circa 1905

December 13th, 2013 by Andrew Bostom

Jean Schopfer, nom de plume Claude Anet (May 28, 1868—January 9, 1931),  was a tennis player who reached two singles finals at the Amateur French Championships, winning in 1892 and losing in 1893. Schopfer/ Anet’s Through Persia in a Motor-Car, published in English translation during 1907, chronicled his ~1905 first hand observations of the chronic plight of Iran’s Jews under Iran’s Qajar dynasty Shiite theocracy, despite the alleged “Constitutional movement” era reforms. Notice the continued application of Shiite Islam’s heinous “najas” or impurity regulations, based upon the perceived physical (as well as spiritual) “contamination” of the non-Muslim infidel Jews. Read more…

A few years ago I posted a powerful video in which Yedida Freilich beautifully sang powerful words in defense of Israel. She was so impressive that within 24 hours I was contacted by the producers of a new Broadway show. They wanted to fly her to New York for an audition. She has done three videos that I am aware of. Her father and brother, Gabby and Yuval, wrote the lyrics and music.

Two more great videos by them.
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Every day Pollard remains in prison is an attack on the freedom and security of the American Jewish community.

By Martin Sherman, JPOST

I ask you to imagine what a two-state solution will mean for Israel, Palestine, Jordan and the region. Imagine what it would mean for trade and for tourism – what it would mean for developing technology and talent, and for future generations of Israeli and Palestinian children. Imagine Israel and its neighbors as an economic powerhouse in the region. – John Kerry, US secretary of state, Saban Forum, December 7.

Enough is enough. At some stage there must be a limit to the verbal garbage – I resist the strong temptation to employ a somewhat coarser epithet – that one can be subjected to before giving vent to pent-up exasperation and outrage. A spade is still a spade.

Of late, this limit has been breached with increasing frequency – particularly when the matter of the “Palestinian issue” is broached.

As the clock runs out on the viability of the so-called “two-state-solution,” efforts to sustain it have become increasingly desperate, bizarre and disingenuous.
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By ARIEL BEN SOLOMON JPOST

Former Likud Minister Bennie Begin announced the government decision to suspend the government backed Beduin resettlement bill on Thursday, pleasing opponents on the Left and Right.

“We did our best, but sometimes you have to accept reality,” said Begin at a press conference at city hall in Tel Aviv.

“Right- and left-wing activists, Jews and Arabs, have tried to take advantage of Beduin desperation to inflame the atmosphere to boiling point for their own political gain,” Begin said.

Begin said that Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu accepted his recommendation to remove the bill from consideration. Netanyahu responded to the announcement by thanking Begin for his efforts.
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By Ted Belman

America today is the same America that:

1. Stopped Jewish immigration in the twenties.

2. Turned anti-Semitic in the depression

3. Allowed its citizens to finance the Nazi war machine.

4. Banned Jewish refugees from entering the US during the Holocaust.

5. Refused to bomb the railways transporting Jews to extermination centers.

6. Refused to bomb the extermination camps.

Refused entry of a boatload of Jewish children during the holocaust Read more…

By Joel Himelfarb, Newsmax

Iran has developed a terrorist infrastructure in the Western Hemisphere to target local Jews and gain the capability of attacking the United States, according to Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Yaalon.

Yaalon warned that Tehran, which works closely with the Lebanese Shiite jihadist group Hezbollah, uses diplomatic cover to conceal its efforts to foment terror in Latin America, the Times of Israel reported.

“The Iranians use diplomatic mail [pouches] in order to transport bombs and weapons, and we know that there are states in South America, like Cuba, Venezuela, Nicaragua, and Bolivia, where the Iranian have terror bases, both in the embassies and among the local Shiite Muslim populations,” Yaalon said.
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This link was sent to me by Janet Ellen Levy who wrote:

Why NOW and why DEMOCRATS?  

I’ll tell you.  At this point in time, Saudi Arabia is viewed as an adversary opposed to U.S. policy in the region.  Additionally, the Saudis have the temerity to be working with Israel to stop Iran’s development of nuclear weapons!  According to the plan, the Jewish State was supposed to graciously self-destruct in a Second Holocaust in time to welcome the Mahdi.

International Business Times

Since terrorists attacked the United States on Sept. 11, 2001, victims’ loved ones, injured survivors, and members of the media have all tried without much success to discover the true nature of the relationship between the 19 hijackers – 15 of them Saudi nationals – and the Saudi Arabian government. Many news organizations reported that some of the terrorists were linked to the Saudi royals and that they even may have received financial support from them as well as from several mysterious, moneyed Saudi men living in San Diego.

Obama’s Back Dated & Forged Selective Service Form Hits Washington Times in Full Page Ad – Freedom Outpost

Someone has finally decided to put out Barack Obama’s forged documents in a mainstream paper. On Monday, CDR Charles Kerchner (Retired) took out a full page ad in the Washington Times to make people aware of the fraudulent documents of Barack Hussein Obama, specifically his back dated and forged selective service form.

Kerchner’s ad appeared on page 5 of the Washington Times National Weekly and included a large copy of Barack Obama’s Selective Service form, along with various URLs to other pertinent information on the various forgeries of Obama’s documents.
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By DANIEL TAUBER, JPOST

If Britain continued her White Paper policy of minimal to no Jewish immigration and ultimate autonomy for an Arab-majority Palestine, the last chance Jewry had to reconstitute itself might be lost forever. Netanyahu addresses ambassadors in Jerusalem

As World War II drew to a close and the fate of European Jewry became clear, the Irgun Zvai Leumi, the military wing of the decimated Revisionist-Zionist movement, believed that Jewry could no longer wait for a British about-face on Jewish statehood.

If Britain continued her White Paper policy of minimal to no Jewish immigration and ultimate autonomy for an Arab-majority Palestine, the last chance Jewry had to reconstitute itself might be lost forever.

So in February 1944, the Irgun declared a “revolt” against British rule in Palestine.
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By Seth Franzman, JPOST

Straining the Kinneret’s already over-taxed water table, to rehabilitate the Dead Sea is like robbing Peter to pay Paul

This bothers me a lot. The vast majority of the participants, I would venture to say, are on the left. Their focus will be towards achieving peace and security and not our rights. The views of the right will not be represented. Ted Belman

By HERB KEINON, JPOST

About 100 of the country’s top academics, businessmen and former IDF officers are currently involved in an ambitious new project to develop something Israel has never had before: a grand strategy.

While Israel has excelled over the years in finding short-term solutions to problems, long-term strategic thinking has been sparse.

According to explanatory material about the new forum – called Israel’s Grand Strategy Forum – not since David Ben-Gurion drew up 18 points in October 1953 has a grand strategy laying out where Israel wants to go, and how to get there, been devised.
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Arabic-language daily reveals content of US security suggestions for Israel-PA. Document proposes radar posts in mountains, IDF in Jordan Valley, joint patrols of border crossings

Kerry to the Palestinians: Releasing more terrorists will be delayed
Following the Palestinians stubborn refusal to accept an American outline for security arrangements in the Jordan Valley, the US Secretary of State announced that the third phase of releasing Palestinian terrorists from Israeli prisons, which was supposed to take place at the end of the month, will be delayed.

Elior Levy, YNET

The US security outline for any proposed peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinian Authority will include a 15-year interim agreement, Israeli military presence in the JordanValley, and radar posts on West Bank mountains, the pan-Arab newspaper Al-Hayat reported Tuesday.

The report noted the US administration shared its security proposals with PA President Mahmoud Abbas. Agreements on this issue will lead to a presentation of an outline for an interim political agreement as early as next month.
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DEBKAfile

The three Iranian-occupied islands claimed by UAE

Two landmark events in the Persian Gulf this week attested to Tehran’s confidence that it has escaped the threat of a military clash with the US and Israel over its nuclear program – certainly in the Persian Gulf. By the same token, Iran is no longer threatening to block the Straits of Hormuz to Gulf oil exports in reprisal for this attack. Read more…