A plan for developing Sinai will be launched once the Peninsula is ‘terrorist-free’

Ahram Online,

Spokesman for the Egyptian Armed Forces, Ahmed Ali, says there will be more military operations against “terrorist” strongholds in Sinai, adding there is no timeframe for army action in the Peninsula.

“Starting from 7 August we launched a military operation that aims at abolishing terrorist and criminal groups in Sinai, implementing security, stability and enforcing the law,” Ali said during a press conference on Sunday.

Ali, who pointed out that attacks by “terrorist groups” have escalated following the ousting of Islamist president Mohamed Morsi, went on to add that operations will not cease until Sinai is completely free of “factions threatening national security.”
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IN OTHER WORDS, NETANYAHU WANTED THE CHEMICAL WEAPONS GONE MORE THAT HE WANTED ASSAD GONE. HE WANTED LEAST FOR THE “REBELS’ TO WIN THE WAR AND TO END UP WITH THE CHEMICAL WEAPONS. TED BELMAN

Report: Wall Street Journal says during Sept. 11 phone conversation, Israeli premier told US secretary of state Russia wasn’t bluffing and that diplomatic solution to Syrian chemical weapons crisis was possible

Ynet

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu urged US Secretary of State John Kerry last week to try to reach an agreement with Russia to seize Syria’s chemical weapons arsenal as an alternative to an American strike on the Assad regime, the Wall Street Journal reported Monday.

According to the newspaper, on Sept. 11 Kerry called Netanyahu, who said he believed Russia wasn’t bluffing and that a diplomatic solution to the Syrian crisis was possible. Israel shared US concerns that strikes against the regime in Damascus could strengthen rebels linked to al-Qaeda and allow them to take control of President Bashar Assad’s chemical weapons arsenals, WSJ reported.
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JPOST

The High Court on Monday struck down the State of Israel’s entire new policy regarding African migrants, which allows the country to hold the migrants for up to three years without trial.

With an unanimous ruling, the nine-judge court panel has given the state 90 days to free the more than 2,000 migrants held in the Saharonim detention center in the Negev, and decide whether their status is that of asylum seekers or illegal immigrants to be deported.

The bombshell ruling leaves significant uncertainty as to how the state will comply both with the court’s order and its stated objectives to use all legal means to minimize and “voluntarily” deport the more than 55,000 migrants currently in Israel, most of whom are from Eritrea and Sudan.
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Welcome to WordPress.

By PETER WERTHEIM, JERUSALEM REPORT

The misuse of international law as a tool of political condemnation is especially unhelpful right now.

For David Kretzmer, “The chickens come home to roost” (August 26), mere legal opinions can harden into established norms in the field of international law if large numbers of eminent lawyers support those opinions, even if other equally eminent lawyers do not. Further, Kretzmer suggests that black-letter norms are also established when a large majority of states repeatedly pronounce certain activities of another state to be illegal, even if the said majority behave in much the same way or worse in analogous situations. Fortunately for Israel, and common sense, binding rules of international law are not made that way.

The hazards of adopting a ‘black and white’ moralistic approach to questions of international law – especially in connection with the Israel- Palestinian conflict – were laid bare by Prof. Michael Curtis of Rutgers University in a groundbreaking article in 1991. To paraphrase Curtis, dogmatic generalisations about the legality or illegality of Israel’s West Bank settlements belong in the realm of polemics, not serious legal analysis.
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SHE COULD BE THE NEXT PRESIDENT, G-D FORBID

By Clarice Feldman, AMERICAN THINKER

Unconfirmed report in Lebanese newspaper echoes claims by Syrian rebels that Assad is hiding his WMD stocks to evade inspectors

By TIMES OF ISRAEL STAFF September 15, 2013, 

The 700 Club produced a series of videos titled Made in Israel. One video for each of the following:

1. agriculture,

2. water,

3. medical,

4. environment and

5. technology.

In the spirit of Tikkun Olam Israel shares her knowledge and innovations with the world.

To watch the videos makes an Israeli incredibly proud of his country and its people. Any young Jew living in the diaspora can’t help but be attracted to Israel as the best place to live and work.

Go HERE to see all the videos.

The Jewish State in its true light.

Neither McCain nor Paul get it right

By Andrew C. McCarthy, NRO

Senators Rand Paul (left) and John McCain.

By MARTIN SHERMAN, JPOST

The present abysmal political realities reflect failure of “Right”-wing philanthropists to identify organizations and activities that can effectively advance their world view.

Philanthropy is not working as well as it should, and almost everyone knows it. The causes that receive the most donations are not necessarily the ones that make the greatest impact. Personal whims and preferences of donors determine where dollars flow more than proven effectiveness. – Eric Friedman, “Why Philanthropy Needs Reinventing,” Philanthropy Journal, August 26, 2013

Yom Kippur is the time for inner reflection. So here is something to reflect on.

The coalition today is, allegedly, one of the most hawkish in many years. Yet it has not only declared its willingness to engage in negotiations on what is, arguably, one of the most dovish policy proposals ever considered by an Israeli government, but has agreed to unprecedented concessionary gestures to facilitate the commencement of these negotiations.
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Forty years on, Golda Meir’s post-Yom Kippur War testimony made public •

Golda Meir

Two months after the Yom Kippur War, when the country was still shell shocked by the surprise attack and the sense of terrible failure, a government commission of inquiry was appointed to investigate the preparations for the war and the measures taken to stave off the enemy during the first days of the war. Read more…

Algmeiner

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will make his eighth appearance at the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies, opening the center’s 20th anniversary international conference on Sunday, October 6, with an address on “The State of Israel’s Challenges,” host Bar-Ilan University said on Tuesday, confirming a report in Israeli daily Ma’ariv last month.

Subtitled “2020 Vision: Israel’s Perils and Prospects,” Ma’ariv said in August that Netanyahu’s speech would not be routine, and would cover issues that the prime minister “attaches great importance to, and the contents of it will have a significant impact on government policy regarding the Palestinian issue in the coming years.”
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American officials say US, Israeli intelligence agencies still believe they know where most of Assad regime’s chemical weapons are located, but with less confidence

YNET

A secretive Syrian military unit at the center of the Assad regime’schemical weapons program has been moving stocks of poison gases and munitions to as many as 50 sites to make them harder for the US to track, The Wall Street Journal reported Friday, citing American and Middle Eastern officials. 

The American newspaper quoted officials as saying the movements of chemical weapons by Syria’s elite Unit 450 could complicate any US bombing campaign in Syria over its alleged chemical attacks,. It also raises questions about implementation of a Russian proposal that calls for the regime to surrender control of its stockpile, they said. Read more…

BY CAROLINE GLICK

Twenty years ago today, Israel’s so-called peace process with the PLO was officially ushered in at the White House Rose Garden.

A year or so later, when the death toll of Israeli victims of the massive terror offensive that the PLO organized shortly afterwards reached what then seemed unbearable heights, a popular call went out to “Put the Oslo Criminals on Trial.”

Needless to say, with Shimon Peres, the architect and godfather of the so-called peace process now serving as the President of Israel, nothing ever came of the call.

The demand for an accounting was not unprecedented. There was no reason, on the face of things for those who made it to be perceived as anything other than reasonably enraged, and responsible citizens insisting that those responsible for the largest, most destructive strategic error Israel has ever made pay a personal price for their actions.
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[ISRAEL SHOULDN’T GIVE AN INCH. IT SHOULD STOP NEGOTIATING AND KNOCK ON CHINA’S DOOR. TO NEGOTIATE SHOWS WEAKNESS. TED BELMAN]

BY ANDREW RETTMAN, EU OBSERVER

BRUSSELS – EU and Israeli negotiators in Brussels on Thursday (12 September) failed to agree on new funding rules, but identified “options” on making them easier for Israel to swallow.

The talks, involving dozens of officials and diplomats from both sides, centred on Israel’s participation in Horizon 2020.

The EU’s €80 billion science scheme runs from 1 January 2014 for seven years.

But Israel has said it will not take part under new rules, published in July, which oblige its firms and institutions to sign documents saying EU money will not fund activity on occupied land.
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The Telegraph UK published Meet the Settlers in an attempt to explore who the settlers are and what motivates them. It is very long and detailed and well worth the time to read it all.

Having said that, let me tell you some of what’s wrong with it.

There are many factual errors such as publishing that there are 2.7 million Arabs in J&S rather than the real figure of 1.6 million.

It supports the notion that

1.)  settlers are encroaching on Arab land rather than the other way around,

2.)  settlers are destroying Arab crops rather than the other way around,

3.)  settler violence against Arabs is significant,. Arab violence hardly mentioned

4.)  settlers are befouling the land with untreated sewage etc.  No mention of Arabs doing likewise.

It does an adequate job of describing what motivates the settlers but it makes it seem that they are all religious driven by religious zeal only. No mention of secular settlers, nationalism, our legal right to the land, our requirements for defense etc.

Judge for yourself.

The Battle of Syria 
The war that began in 2001 continues. So does the one that began in 1979.

By Clifford D. May 

Taliban fighters in Afghanistan. 

Twelve years ago today, we were staring at smoking rubble in downtown Manhattan and at the Pentagon, counting the dead, wondering who had committed this atrocity and why, fearful of what they might do next, uncertain how to proceed. How far have we come since then? Read more…