We are not in a good position when the agenda is set by Abbas. His demands become the focus of talks. Better to reiterate our own demands and I am talking territorial demands. We should demand the retention of most of Area C. We must not remain silent on our territorial demands. Ted Belman

Reuters, Jpost

CAIRO – Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas laid out his vision on Monday for the final status of Israeli-Palestinian relations ahead of peace talks due to resume in Washington for the first time in nearly three years.

Abbas said that no Israeli settlers or border forces could remain in a future Palestinian state and that Palestinians deem illegal all Jewish settlement building within the land occupied in the 1967 Six Days War.

The forceful statements appeared to challenge mediator US Secretary of State John Kerry’s hopes that the terms of the talks, scheduled to begin Monday night over dinner, be kept secret.
Read more…

By Pamela Geller. WND

Remember the sharia cop in Canada who strong-armed a rabbi into cancelling my talk at his shul? You didn’t think I was going to just let it go, did you? Inspector Ricky Veerappan of the York Regional Police force’s Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Bureau, is currently under investigation for threatening Chabad Rabbi Mendel Kaplan into canceling my speech. I will be giving testimony the second week of August.

By Salomon Benzimra

Twenty years ago, a Declaration of Principles (DoP) initiated the Oslo peace process. We have witnessed an unmitigated disaster ever since: terrorism; two “wars” in Gaza; incitement against Jews; indoctrination of Palestinian children; recrudescence of anti-Semitism under the guise of anti-Zionism in academia, the media and among NGOs, delegitimation of the State of Israel, etc.

One may wonder about the lofty Principles which triggered this mayhem. Sadly, nobody wonders. Whereas all respected professionals – engineers, architects, physicians, etc. – are accountable for their malpractice, the architects of the DoP and its ensuing Oslo Accords seem to be perpetually immune from scrutiny. The lawyers, politicians, diplomats, journalists and academics who promoted these insane policies – and continue to do so to this day – never had their day of reckoning. Read more…

Not only did Bibi release the prisoners he also agreed to accept ’67 lines plus swaps. As I said in my earlier post to fight for a little more land was not worth the isolation. Also, the cabinet has yet to vote on whether to release Arab Israeli prisoners. Ted belman

Decision to release prisoners legitimate. Israel’s increased isolation, Iranian nuclear threat left PM with no choice but to accept Palestinian demands

By Ben Yishai, YNET

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s decision to release Palestinian prisoners stems from strategic and security-related considerations. There is no doubt that the increase in the number of prisoners slated for release and the inclusion of Arab Israelis in the group constitutes a capitulation to American pressure and Palestinian obstinacy. This is why it is so hard to accept Netanyahu’s decision.

But the opposition to such a move is not merely emotional. The decision to release murderers who are citizens of the State of Israel and allow them to return to their homes causes severe damage to Israeli sovereignty and the justice system the country is so proud of. The argument can be made that a precedent has already been set and that the murderers of Israeli civilians have been released in past prisoner exchange deals, but this time it is being done while surrendering to pressure applied by the Palestinian Authority, not by a terror organization, as was the case in the past.
Read more…

I have a very close relationship to the author I expect to meet with him next week. Ted Belman

By Mudar Zahran. Jpost

Israel has enjoyed calm borders with Jordan for over four decades. While Israel’s military superiority and alert borders guards are the main reasons for that, still, the Hashemite regime in Amman has managed to keep anti-Israel forces at bay, an advantage for which Israel has given much in return to Jordan’s king and his late father.

But will this arrangement remain the same with the tsunami of the Arab Spring? The facts on the ground suggest Jordan is anything but stable. Upon the king’s return from his recent visit to the US, tribal fights broke out in Ma’an, Jordan’s largest governorate in the area. Four people were killed in cold blood on the campus of Ma’an’s university and all hell broke loose. Now Ma’an residents are claiming “independence from the Hashemite regime”; videos leaked on YouTube and even appearing in Jordanian media show raging gun battles between Jordan’s army and tribal Jordanians in the south. The last police post was declared “liberated” by Ma’an’s locals on June 24.
Read more…

By Ted Belman

PM Netanyahu made the case by saying despite the heavy price,

“not entering the (peace) process will also exact a price. Entering the process will advance Israel’s strategic interests. Any provocation on the part of the Palestinians will stop the release (of prisoners).”

The last sentence can be ignored. Are not the daily incitement and treating the terrorists as heroes, provocations?

So what are our “strategic interests”?
Read more…

By Ira Curtis, AMERICAN THINKER

Calls for a BDS (Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions) against Israel continue to be voiced among mainstream churches, mainstream media, celebrities like Alice Walker, teachers’ unions such as that in Ireland, anti-Israeli politicians, and the narrow-minded academics who are paid to be supposedly open-minded. It is refreshing to learn from recent revelations, largely ignored by mainstream media, that the boycott by Arab nations against Israel is more honored in the breech than in the observance.

Arab nations, mainly the oil-rich majority-Sunni countries of the Gulf Cooperation Council GCC), have become increasingly aware that the danger to them and to their existence comes not from Israel, but from Iran, with its aggressive Shia leadership and nuclear threat, and from Islamist extremists becoming more prominent in a number of countries. Indeed, the very existence of the GCC stems from initial appreciation of that threat. It was founded in May 1981 by six countries (Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, United Arab Emirates [UAE], and Saudi Arabia) in the context of concern about the Shia Islamist extremists coming to power in Iran and by the Iran-Iraq War.
Read more…

Daniel Siryoti, ISRAEL HAYOM

The Egyptian military began staging an offensive over the weekend to clean out the terrorist networks in the Sinai Peninsula.

The goal of the operation, dubbed “Desert Storm,” is to clear out the more than 50 terrorist compounds located mostly in the northern and central parts of the peninsula.

Some 3,000 soldiers and more than two armored battalions, including dozens of tanks and at least 10 attack helicopters, which had been moved into the peninsula in recent months, received the green light on Friday to commence the attack.
Read more…

America is doing its utmost to give the Palestinians what they want. Obama has agreed that only direct negotiations will solve the problems at the samr time Obama and the EU have prejudged the outcome and are forcing Israel to accept their dictates. So much for the right to negotiate. Ted Belman

JPOST

By Mark Langfan, INN

Some Israeli ministers are in shock at the European Union (EU) diktat attempting to impose the 1949 ceasefire line, also known as the  pre-1967 lines, as the proposed Israeli/Palestinian Authority border. The ministers, including Prime Minister Netanyahu, protest that the EU is “undermining” the Kerry Mission.

I posit that these complaining ministers are deluded; I believe Obama co-planned the EU diktat.  The EU diktat and the Kerry mission are the right and left hand of Obama and the EU’s  strategy announced by Obama on 19 May 2011:”The borders of Israel and Palestine should be based on the 1967 lines with mutually agreed swaps, so that secure and recognized borders are established for both states. The Palestinian people must have the right to govern themselves, and reach their potential in a sovereign and contiguous state.”
Read more…

DEBKAfile Exclusive Analysis July 28, 2013,

Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s willingness to “do everything” to avoid giving the Palestinians a pretext for not turning up for their first encounter with Israeli negotiators in Washington Tuesday, July 30, bodes ill for Israel’s bargaining position right from the start. So too does his proposal to include jailed Israeli Arabs among the 104 Palestinian prisoners to be released. Several threats from Ramallah not to make the Tuesday date had their effect.

Netanyahu sent an open letter to the Israeli people Saturday night, July 27, explaining his “incredibly difficult decision” to free the 104 prisoners as a gesture ahead of the renewal of peace talks. “Sometimes prime ministers are forced to make decisions that go against public opinion – when the issue is important to the country,” he wrote.
Read more…

The Government should not support a prisoner’s release for these reasons:
1 – 85% of Israelis are against it.
2 – no inducement to the Palestinians should be given to them just to enter negotiations. Either they want to negotiate or they don’t.
3 – intransigence shouldn’t be rewarded.
4 – If they have to be induced to negotiate, what good can possible come of the negotiations.
Ted Belman

Prof. Louis R. Beres: Do Not Release Terrorists!

In a MUST READ incisive article sent to Arutz Sheva, internationally acclaimed professor of  Political Science and International Law, Professor Louis René Beres, explains why the release of the terrorists with blood on their hands is a grave breach of international law, in addition to being an instance of Credo quia absurdum “I believe because it isabsurd.”

JPOST

The government is expected to vote Sunday on a process to allow for the release of 104 Palestinian prisoners as a goodwill gesture during what Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu said would be at least a nine-month negotiation period with the Palestinians.
Read more…

Bush wrote in his ’04 letter, 

First, the United States remains committed to my vision and to its implementation as described in the roadmap. The United States will do its utmost to prevent any attempt by anyone to impose any other plan.

The importance of the first sentence is that Bush made reference to his vision speech in which he said,

This means that the Israeli occupation that began in 1967 will be ended through a settlement negotiated between the parties, based on UN resolutions 242 and 338, with Israeli withdrawal to secure and recognize borders.

Though this speech was made one year after the launch of the Roadmap, he didn’t mention the Saudi Plan as the basis for settlement. The Saudi Initiative called for ’67 lines.

The fact that he added “and to its implementation as described in the Roadmap.” does not change that.

The second sentence is also important. Sharon was worried that the international community would try to impose a solution or plan. Bush was thus assuring him that he wouldn’t allow it to happen. In his other pronouncements in this letter he said things like “it was unrealistic to expect” which has no legal import whatever. But here his operative words are “committed” and “The US will do its utmost”.

I believe that the main reason that Obama wanted to deny the Bush letter as binding was because of these two sentences though his conversation focused on the settlement blocks.

This makes his support of the ’67 lines all the more egregious. Ted Belman

By Herb Keinon, JPOST

Any US guarantee to the Palestinians that the upcoming negotiations with Israel will be based on the pre-1967 lines would be a violation of written US commitments given to then-prime minister Ariel Sharon, former Foreign Ministry legal adviser Alan Baker wrote in a letter sent this week to Secretary of State John Kerry.

Baker wrote the letter on behalf of the Legal Forum for Israel, along with another attorney with the group, Yossi Fuchs. The forum, formerly called the Legal Forum for the Land of Israel, was set up in the wake of the Gaza withdrawal to promote the rights of the evacuees. Read more…

By MARTIN SHERMAN, JPOST

In its recent decision to impose sanctions on Israeli activity across the pre-1967 lines, EU bureaucracy is merely acting as a pawn, albeit neither unwitting nor unwilling, for malicious domestic forces within Israel.

It is indeed not a simple matter for me as an Israeli citizen to call on foreign governments…faith-based organizations, unions and citizens to suspend cooperation with Israel. I am convinced that outside pressure is the only answer. I consequently have decided to support the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement that was launched by Palestinian activists.

– Neve Gordon, “Boycott Israel,” Los Angeles Times, August 20, 2009

It’s difficult and painful, almost impossibly so, for an Israeli to call for such a boycott…The change won’t come from within. Change will only come from the outside. The call for an economic boycott has become a patriotic requirement.

– Gideon Levy, “The Israeli patriot’s final refuge: boycott,” Haaretz, July 16, 2013
Read more…

Dr. Aaron Lerner, IMRA Date 23 July 2013

The survey was conducted by Maagar – Interdisciplinary Research and Consulting Institute Ltd., managed by Professor Yitzhak Katz.

The survey was commissioned by The Orly & Guy Morning Program – Channel 10
TV and conducted by telephone on 22 July of a sample of 503 respondents, constituting a representative sample of Israel’s adult population (aged 18 and over – including Israeli Arabs). Statistical error +/- 4.5 percentage points.

Are you for or against Israel entering negotiations with the Palestinians in
the wake of the visit of US Secretary of State John Kerry to the region?

Total:For 59% Against 31% Other replies 10%
Jews: For 49% Against 41% Other 10%

Read more…

[Although this article is four days old I didn’t want you to miss it.]

By Zalman Shoval, Israel Hayom, July 22/13,

Just as in a B movie, the (artificial) tension only broke at the very last minute. U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry announced that he had reached an agreement with Israel and the Palestinian Authority, which would serve as a basis for resuming peace talks. American pressure on PA President Mahmoud Abbas, with a little help from the Arab League, did its job, and Kerry went back to Washington satisfied. Still, Kerry is no doubt aware that he still has to overcome, if not the seven gates of hell, then at least a Palestinian steeplechase.
Read more…

No one else that I have read mentions this interim deal. Quite a shocker. Abbas has always been against a provisional state with temporary borders. Perhaps we are not talking here about such a state. Furthermore, I can’t believe that Bibi yielded on ’67 lines. We will see how this turns out. Ted Belman

DEBKAfile Exclusive Report July 19, 2013, 11:45 PM

After substantially lowering his expectations, US Secretary of State John Kerry was able to save his mission to restart peace negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians with only moments to spare before his sixth round of shuttle diplomacy crashed. Friday night, July 19, Kerry announced in Amman that “initial talks would resume in Washington very soon.”

In this exclusive report, DEBKAfile discloses for the first time details of the formula for which Kerry obtained the consent of Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and, after an unscheduled side trip Friday to Ramallah, of Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas as well.
Read more…

THIS WEEK the EU took three steps that together prove Europe’s ill-intentions toward the Jewish state.

By Caroline Glick

First, last Friday the EU announced it is imposing economic sanctions on Israel. The sanctions deny EU funds to Israeli entities with an address beyond the 1949 Armistice Lines. They also deny EU funds to Israeli entities countrywide that carry out activities beyond the 1949 Armistice Lines.

The areas beyond the 1949 Armistice Lines delineated by the EU directive include the Gaza Strip, which Israel abandoned eight years ago; the Golan Heights, which has been under Israeli sovereignty since 1981; eastern, northern and southern Jerusalem, which have been under Israeli sovereignty since 1967; and Judea and Samaria, over which Israel has shared governance with the PLO since 1994 in accordance with signed agreements witnessed by EU representatives.
Read more…

Without warning, I started passing urine with blood and blood clots.  Very painfull.  Lots of blood clots.

I don’t want to see another catheter again. They used it to irrigate my bladder in order to clean out the clots. The irrigation went on 24 hours a day. The clots kept coming until the operation.  The passing of the clots is extremely painful.

The took me to the operating room yesterday and gave me a spinal.  What an experience that was. You end up totally disconnected with your lower body so they can do their will. They put in a camera with other attachments to clean out the remaining blood and blood clots.  Then they looked for where the blood was coming (my prostate) and then cauterized the spot.

Every thing seems OK now.  So back to work.

By the way, that sure was a busy week newswise.

I won’t be posting for the next 3-4 days.

Shabbat shalom

Ted Belman