by Isi Leibler

Australia’s election results are good news for the Israel-Australia relationship. Labor party incumbent Kevin Rudd, who held office for less than three months following a coup against former PM Julia Gillard, lost in a landslide, bringing an end to six years of Labor Government. Rudd is a political chameleon who abandoned Australia’s long-standing pro-Israel position when he previously served as Prime Minister from 2007 to 2010.

The victorious Tony Abbott of the center-right Liberal party is an outspoken friend of the Jewish State. He has pledged to improve relations with Israel, toughen the government’s approach toward terrorist organizations and end financial support for organizations connected to the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions Campaign against Israel.
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By Steven Plaut

On January 2, 2009 in the middle of Israel’s “Cast Lead” military operation against entrenched terrorists in Gaza, a group of Israeli far leftists held a disruptive protest of solidarity with the terrorists, opposing Israel’s military operation there. It took place near the Sdeh Dov regional airport (a small airport near Tel Aviv, but from which some Israeli Air Force planes operate). The protesters wore masks and had make-pretend blood spilled on their clothes. They called their protest a “Die In.” None of the protesters was known to have participated in any Die In protests against the thousands of Hamas rockets fired from Gaza into Israel.
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Common enemy is solidifying Egyptian-Israeli security relations, trust as Egypt launches massive anti-terror operation in Sinai

The Media Line

As Egyptian troops were launching a harsh crackdown on Islamist groups in the northern Sinai Peninsula, Israeli officials were silent publicly but more than satisfied privately. Both Bedouin residents in Sinai and Egyptian officials said the crackdown was the harshest in recent years, with tanks and troops backed by Apache helicopters striking at gunmen along Egypt’s border with the Gaza Strip.

Egypt closed the Rafah border crossing on Saturday effectively trapping 1.7 million Palestinians inside Gaza. The only other exit from the enclave is the Erez border crossing that connects with Israel, which is used primarily by Palestinians who need urgent medical treatment in the Jewish state.
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AIPAC has been doing its part for US president; Israeli officials say prime minister has joined efforts, spoke with members of Congress, government officials, to persuade for support attack

By Attila Somfalvi, YNET

At an hour that US President Barack Obama is struggling to achieve a majority in Congress to support an attack on Syria, he is aided by pro-Israeli groups, at the front of which is AIPAC. Additional surprising assistance in light of the tense relations between the two, is coming from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Ynet learned Sunday.

Israeli officials close to the prime minister told Ynet he recently held talks with members of Congress, government officials and AIPAC officials, to explain the importance of American military action against the Assad regime. Incoming Ambassador to the United States Ron Dermer explained in Washington the Israeli position on the attack.
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Secure America Now

Israel’s Prime Minister and Defense Minister have publicly stated that they are prepared to meet possible spillover from the civil war in Syria, but effecting the outcome of the war is not Israel’s concern.

This position is in sharp contrast to inside the Beltway supporters of Israel, who are vigorously supporting American military intervention in Syria. They argue (in part) that military action will help Israel by sending a message to Iran that America will not stand by while Weapons of Mass Destruction are used. By implication, they argue, this will help deter Iran’s nuclear program.

Secure America Now stands with Israel’s Prime Minister when he expressed sympathy for victims in Syria, but (once again) called on the world to take serious action against Iran now. We think that this is sound advice for Israel, the United States, and the rest of world.
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Half a century of misery in Syria and Iraq have come to a head. But one people—proud, self-sufficient, and surprisingly pro-Western—has waited far too long for their place at the table of nations.

BY JONATHAN SPYER, THE TOWER

The civil war in Syria and the increasing fragility of Iraq have thrown the long-term future of these states into question. For years, they were ruled by brutal regimes that held power in the name of Arab nationalism; as a result, they failed to knit together the populations they ruled into a coherent national identity. With the decline of repressive centralized authority in Syria and Iraq, however, older nationalities and identities are reemerging. Chief among them are the Kurds. Indeed, current regional developments make Kurdish statehood a realistic possibility for the first time in living memory.
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by Steven J. Rosen, FOREIGN POLICY

http://www.meforum.org/3604/obama-syria-aipac

President Barack Obama’s decision to make Congress decide on the course of the Syrian intervention has put the pro-Israel camp just where it did not want to be: openly advocating American military involvement in the volatile Middle East. It’s a calculation based on the lesser of two evils, the greater being risking Washington’s withdrawal from leadership on global security just as Iran crosses the nuclear threshold. No one has a greater stake in a strong United States — and the credibility of America’s deterrent capability — than Israel and the Jewish people. Indeed, many of the arguments that motivate the president’s opponents on Syria could also apply in the event that a military strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities becomes necessary. Read more…

By Stephen Plaut

For years we have been relaying reports about the assault against freedom of speech by Israel’s anti-democratic Left. We have also been reporting on the many incidents in which the Israeli judicial system operates out of political bias to suppress freedom of speech. In Israel a dual justice system is allowed to operate – one for leftists and the other for everyone else. But I doubt that any of those previous reports could have prepared anyone for the perfidious ruling by Judge Raphael Yaakobi in Jerusalem court this past week. Not only did Yaakobi defend the naked defamation of a Zionist student group by far-leftist anti-democratic radicals. The judge went beyond that and for all intents and purposes proclaimed Zionism a form of fascism.
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Special report: Libya has plunged unnoticed into its worst political and economic crisis since the defeat of Gaddafi

By Patrick Cockburn, The Independent (UK)

A little under two years ago, Philip Hammond, the Defence Secretary, urged British businessmen to begin “packing their suitcases” and to fly to Libya to share in the reconstruction of the country and exploit an anticipated boom in natural resources.

Yet now Libya has almost entirely stopped producing oil as the government loses control of much of the country to militia fighters.

Mutinying security men have taken over oil ports on the Mediterranean and are seeking to sell crude oil on the black market. Ali Zeidan, Libya’s Prime Minister, has threatened to “bomb from the air and the sea” any oil tanker trying to pick up the illicit oil from the oil terminal guards, who are mostly former rebels who overthrew Muammar Gaddafi and have been on strike over low pay and alleged government corruption since July.
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By Dave Swindel, PJ MEDIA

[..]
PJ columnist Ion Mihai Pacepa is a unique figure of 20th century history and he has performed the greatest, most profound of literary accomplishments: his 1987 memoir Red Horizons resulted in the execution of his former boss, the tyrant Nicolae Ceau?escu, and his accomplice wife by the liberated people of Romania. Pacepa is the former head of Romania’s communist espionage division. He was present with Ceau?escu at many of the most consequential meetings of the Soviet bloc. In 1978, after being tasked with arranging a murder, Pacepa chose to defect to the United States. He is the highest-ranking Soviet official to defect.

Since then Pacepa has established himself as the most valuable voice in understanding the effect of Soviet espionage as well as disinformation, the subject of his newest book.
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The Problem with Stealth

By Ben Cohen, AMERICAN THINKER

By Geoffrey Hunt, AMERICAN THINKER

Gilbert & Sullivan’s HMS Pinafore relentlessly ridicules the First Lord of the Admiralty. Their comic opera foretells our modern-day hero — Barack Obama, the feckless bumbling Commander-In-Chief. Both pretenders arrived at their stations under identical circumstances:

I am the monarch of the sea…
The ruler of the Queen’s Navee,…
When at anchor here I ride,
My bosom swells with pride,
And I snap my fingers at a foeman’s taunts;
But when the breezes blow,
I generally go below…

Of legal knowledge I acquired such a grip
That they took me into the partnership.
And that junior partnership, I ween,
Was the only ship that I ever had seen.
But that kind of ship so suited me,
That now I am the Ruler of the Queen’s Navee!

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The EU over-reached and it knows it. Israel told them where to get off and now they are back and trying to retract. Ted Belman

TIMES OF ISRAEL

The European Union will dispatch a team to Israel this week in an effort to assuage concerns over its funding ban on Israeli institutions operating over the pre-1967 lines, the body’s foreign policy chief announced Saturday.

In a news conference with visiting US Secretary of State John Kerry, Catherine Ashton said that the EU would not be rescinding the new directive, which last month prompted the Israeli government to declare it would sever a string of joint projects with the European body. Read more…

Labor Party, six years in power, concedes defeat to Tony Abbott’s Liberal Party-led coalition

TIMES OF ISRAEL

Tony Abbott, their leader will be Prime Minister. He is a very big friend of Israel and is not shy about saying so.

DEBKAfile Special Report September 7, 2013,

The reports coming out of Washington in the last 24 hours indicate that US President Barack Obama has resolved not just to degrade Syria’s chemical capabilities but also to take down Bashar Assad’s air force, destroy his air bases and knock out his ground-to-ground ballistic missiles, using giant B-52 bombers and B-2 stealth bombers. Some of the bombers will fly in directly from the US; others from the Al Udeid base in Qatar. F-22 Raptor fighter-bombers are also scheduled to take part in the US air offensive.
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Did the Whitehouse help plan the chemical attack

Atlas Shrugs

Yossef Bodansky’s sources reveal that on August 13 and 14, there was a high-level meeting in Turkey that included the al-Qaeda Syrian rebels, along with U.S., Turkish, and Qatari officials, in which the Obama regime planned a bombing campaign after a “war-changing” moment that was set to occur within days. This “war changing” moment, of course turned out to be the gassing of 1429 people, including hundreds of children, to be blamed on Bashar al-Assad. (thanks to John)

There is a growing volume of new evidence from numerous sources in the Middle East — mostly affiliated with the Syrian opposition and its sponsors and supporters — which makes a very strong case, based on solid circumstantial evidence, that the August 21, 2013, chemical strike in the Damascus suburbs was indeed a pre-meditated provocation by the Syrian opposition.

The extent of US foreknowledge of this provocation needs further investigation because available data puts the “horror” of the Barack Obama White House in a different and disturbing light.
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McCain Is ‘Unalterably Opposed’ . . . Gee, That Sounds Familiar

As it happens, I just recently purchased, The Envoy, by Kershaw which I just finished reading. It is a very factual and riveting history of the heroics and fate of Raoul Wallenberg, the Swedish diplomat who personally saved 100,000 Jews from destruction. Their descendants now number one million. I also bought A Race Against Death, about the valiant efforts of Peter Bergson to save the Jews, by David S Wyman and Raphael Medoff, the author of this article. Reading about these two heroes was long overdue for me. These books can be purchased for about $5 from Amazon but shipping to Israel is not available. Ted Belman

By Raphael Medoff, Algemeiner

JNS.org – As the final minutes of Rosh Hashanah ticked away, 13-year-old Leo Goldberger was hiding, along with his parents and three brothers, in the thick brush along the shore of Dragor, a small fishing village south of Copenhagen. The year was 1943, and the Goldbergers, like thousands of other Danish Jews, were desperately trying to escape an imminent Nazi roundup.

“Finally, after what seemed like an excruciatingly long wait, we saw our signal offshore,” Goldberger later recalled. His family “strode straight into the ocean and waded through three or four feet of icy water until we were hauled aboard a fishing boat” and covered themselves “with smelly canvases.” Shivering and frightened, but grateful, the Goldberger family soon found itself in the safety and freedom of neighboring Sweden.
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I know that Israelis are in favour of the US striking Assad along with McCain, Graham, Boehner, Cantor and others in the US, but what about Israpundit’s informed readers. My preference is for the US to stay out of it.  Israel is better off having as neighbour, an Iranian backed Syria than a melange of Islamists headed by the MB in tandem with Erdogan.  The US and the EU is more likely to support Israel if we are confronted with the former rather than the latter.  Ted Belman

AIPAC to mount major lobbying blitz for Obama’s Syria strike plan

EU sides with Russia’s Putin, urges against US ‘military solution’ in Syria

Syrian War Suck-Up The ADL Ignores It’s Mission (Again) To Beat The War Drums For Obama

By Jeff Dunetz

If the IRS really wanted to go after charitable organizations that are blatantly political they would go after the ADL, but then that will never happen because the ADL is a huge supporter of progressive politics and President Obama. But ever since Abe Foxman has taken over the group has abandoned its mission to fight anti-Semitism and all forms of bigotry, and is using its donated tax-free funds to concentrate on a political agenda.

Today they released a statement supporting Obama’s ramp up to war in Syria: Read more…