By Caroline Glick

OC Central Command Maj.-Gen. Nitzan Alon has done it again. You may recall that Alon was the “senior military official,” who as commander of the Judea and Samaria Division blamed the massacre of the Fogel family in March 2011 on undefined acts of vandalism in Arab villages allegedly carried out by Israelis.

He also told The New York Times that he disagreed with Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s view that Hamas’s takeover of Gaza following Israel’s withdrawal demonstrated that a unilateral withdrawal from Judea and Samaria would be reckless in the extreme.

Over the past four months Alon has been criticized for his refusal to take actions to end the massive proliferation of terror attacks against Jews in Judea and Samaria. For months Alon ordered IDF soldiers to stand down as Palestinians hurled rocks and firebombs at them and at civilians. He set rules of engagement that are so restrictive that soldiers are better off running away from Palestinian mobs than defending themselves and Israeli civilians.
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By MARTIN SHERMAN, JPOST

Into the fray: Through their unelected positions of influence and authority, civil society elites shape the political discourse and hence the perceived constraints on decision-makers.

Nissim Mishal: To what extent… did the police investigations, the fear of the investigations, [state attorney] Edna Arbel in the background, and his [Ariel Sharon’s] fear of being indicted, influence this historic decision regarding the disengagement?

Ofer Shelah: Decisive influence! The people closest to Sharon told us absolutely that if not for the police interrogations, the decision [to quit Gaza] would not have been made.

– an exchange on a prime time TV talk-show, Channel 2, June 15, 2005.
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By JPOST.COM STAFF

Finance Minister Yair Lapid (Yesh Atid) came out in support of a two-state solution, while his coalition partner Economy and Trade Minister Naftali Bennett (Bayit Yehudi) rejected it completely and urged for “coexistence” between Israelis and Palestinians, in interviews they gave separately to the Washington Post this week. (Bennett interview)(Lapid interview)

“For me, there’s no other game in town but the two-state solution. The Palestinians must have their own country, and the Israelis must understand that the Palestinians should have their own country,” Lapid told the Post.

Dubbing the two-state solution an “honest divorce” between Israel and the Palestinians, Lapid vowed to “push for this as hard as [he] can.”
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By David Isaac, Shmuel Katz Blog

Since former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger served at the highest levels of government in the 1970s, he has portrayed himself as one with the Jewish community, accepting awards from the Anti-Defamation League and bestowing awards on behalf of Jewish organizations like the United Jewish Appeal. 

However, what has been coming out over the years in dribs and drabs paints a different picture, one of a man who, and this is putting it charitably, has a conflicted attitude about Israel and his fellow Jews.

Two years ago, declassified White House transcripts revealed former U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger blaming Israel for exacerbating problems in the Middle East. His remarks no doubt shook those American Jews who admired Kissinger as a ‘native son’ who made good, rising to startling prominence in America’s halls of power.
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Ambassador (ret.) Yoram Ettinger, “Second Thought: a US-Israel Initiative”
“Israel Hayom”, June 22, 2013, bit.ly/12gm5rq 
The most critical, clear and present dangers to US’ national security, homeland security and economy, are Iran’s nuclearization, Islamic terrorism, the explosive impact of the seismic Arab Street, the potential disruption of the supply and price of imported-oil and the declining US posture of deterrence.

The most clear and present policy to alleviate these threats would  be US energy independence, ending dependence on unpredictable Arab oil producers, bolstering the US posture of deterrence, accelerating economic growth, improving the trade balance, reducing the budget deficit, lowering energy cost, expanding employment and availing more funds toward infrastructures, education, the elderly, Medicare and human services in general .   
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by Jonathan Schanzer, The Atlantic
The Palestinian terrorist group Hamas is feuding with its former patron, Iran. Along with Hezbollah and Russia, Iran has stood squarely behind the Bashar al-Assad regime in Syria while it slaughtered tens of thousands of Syrians over the last two years. Despite its own rather gruesome history of violence, the carnage was too much for Hamas. The group’s external leadership deserted their longtime headquarters in Damascus last year and abandoned the Iranian “Axis of Resistance” in the process.

This apparently did not sit well with Iran’s clerical regime. News reports indicate that Iran has drastically reduced its financial assistance to Hamas, which was said to be over $100 million a year, in recent months. While Hamas officials deny these reports, and Iran almost certainly continues to provide weaponry to the Palestinian faction, the relationship is unquestionably strained. Read more…

By Prof. Stephen Plaut, University of Haifa – Israel
June 20, 2013

1. The big “event” this week was the “celebration” of the 90th birthday of Shimon Peres. Bill Clinton pulled up his britches to attend and lots of Hollywood stars are attending, perhaps the one getting the most press being Barbara Streisand. Robert de Niro is here, although in the past he made disgusting anti-Israel statements.

I think the best commentary is the 14 questions for Shimon Peres piece posed by David Bedein. It follows:

I myself, still think that the two most amazing facts about Shimon Peres are these:

1. That he managed to spend so many years over the past decades in Israeli political life while at the same time pursuing his acting career and playing the Montgomery Burns character on “The Simpsons” TV show; and …
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By Ted Belman

The President’s Conference 2013 is over. The opening session I attended featured Pres Bill Clinton. He was as charming as ever and the audience swooned over him.. There is no question that he is very much loved in Israel.

The audience was mostly under 40 and mostly all peaceniks. Everytime any speaker mention peace and platitudes associated with it they clapped to show there approval. The speakers and the audience for the most part were focused on working toward peace. No one raised the idea that peace would be fleeting if obtained or questioned the Arab demands. It was like they were all prepared to give the Palestinians what they wanted and no one considered our right to the land. One speaker mentioned the classic definition of insanity in another context and it met with their approval, They obviously didn’t see the irony in their position.

I attended many panels during the last two days. But there were many panels I didn’t attend as attendees had to choose between 5 panels for each time slot of which there were at least 4. The presenters in all the panels and the plenary sessions were world class. As such their intelligence shone forth and they were very articulate. I particularly was impressed with David Axelrod, the man who got Obama elected two times and Rahm Emanual who served as his Chief of Staff for the first term.
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The economic impact of turmoil could end the Erdogan era

By Daniel Pipes, Washington Times

Rebellion has shaken Turkey since May 31. Is it comparable to the Arab upheavals that overthrew four rulers since 2011, to Iran’s Green Movement of 2009 that led to an apparent reformer being elected president last week, or perhaps to Occupy Wall Street, which had negligible consequences?

The unrest marks a deeply important development with permanent implications. Turkey has become a more open and liberal country in which leaders face democratic constraints as never before. How much it changes Turkey depends primarily on the economy.

China-like material growth has been the main achievement of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and the party he heads, the AKP. Personal income has more than doubled in the decade that he has been in power, changing the face of the country. As a visitor to Turkey since 1972, I have seen the impact of this growth in almost every area of life, from what people eat to their sense of Turkish identity.
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By David P. Goldman (Spengler)

Cross-posted from Asia Times Online.
Syria and Egypt are dying. They were dying before the Syrian civil war broke out and before the Muslim Brotherhood took power in Cairo. Syria has an insoluble civil war and Egypt has an insoluble crisis because they are dying. They are dying because they chose not to do what China did: move the better part of a billion people from rural backwardness to a modern urban economy within a generation. Mexico would have died as well, without the option to send its rural poor – fully one-fifth of its population – to the United States.

It was obvious to anyone who troubled to examine the data that Egypt could not maintain a bottomless pit in its balance of payments, created by a 50% dependency on imported food, not to mention an energy bill fed by subsidies that consumed a quarter of the national budget. It was obvious to Israeli analysts that the Syrian regime’s belated attempt to modernize its agricultural sector would create a crisis as hundreds of thousands of displaced farmers gathered in slums on the outskirts of its cities. These facts were in evidence early in 2011 when Hosni Mubarak fell and the Syrian rebellion broke out. Paul Rivlin of Israel’s Moshe Dayan Center published a devastating profile of Syria’s economic failure in April 2011. [1] Read more…

Why doesn’t the Israeli government stand up for the rights of Jews to holy sites?

Giulio Meotti, INN

Mention any biblical and historic site of the Jewish people. You won’t find one preserved and protected by the Israeli establishment.

Not only is the Temple Mount no longer “in our hands”, but its easier substitute, the Western Wall, has also been conceded by Israel’s government to a group of femminists and cultural extremists.

Judaism’s holiest place on earth today is the site of the most severe religious persecution of the Jews. Israeli governments have failed to stand up to wanton Palestinian acts of desecration. It’s the greatest crime of all – a religious and cultural crime of historic proportions.
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I am attending the President’s Conference today and tomorrow, so will only be posting in the evening.

Elyakim Haetzni, YNET

Danny Danon declared that Netanyahu is not serious when he speaks of the two-state solution, meaning the prime minister is not rejecting his own principles and rightist promises. Netanyahu lost the elections, and barely managed to remain in power thanks to a losers’ alliance with Lieberman, who also feared a downfall.

Let us examine Netanyahu’s options. If he tries to please his new followers from the Left and enter into negotiations on a two-state solution, Habayit Hayehudi will leave the government. If he tries to replace Bennett’s party with Shas, Yesh Atid will quit. If Labor’s Yachimovich is asked to join the coalition, she will demand such a price that will split Likud and leave Netanyahu without a home. Unlike Sharon, the current PM will not be adopted by the Left.
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by Nathaniel Sugarman, American Thinker
http://www.legal-project.org/4119/eu-challenges-the-un-and-oic-on-press-freedom

The European Parliament (EP) in Strasbourg passed two resolutions Thursday, each detailing a set of recommendations to protect the rights of journalists to speak and print freely.

“The EU, as a community of values, should aspire to lead in ensuring the free word, whether blogged or spoken, and information, whether researched or photographed, are protected. Journalists and a free, pluralist media, are essential for democracies and checks on power. Freedom of speech and freedom after speech are at the core of open and free societies,” said Marietje Schaake (ALDE, NL), rapporteur for press and media freedom in the world. The EP is the directly elected parliament of the European Union. Read more…

By Gerald Steinberg, CJN

The greatest threat to Israel is not from Iran and its allies. Although these challenges are escalating, we have enough capabilities and experience to deter or defeat them.

Instead, the main danger is from westerners who exploit the language of democracy and human rights to wage a dirty political war aimed at wiping Israel off the map. This war is conducted in the United Nations, the media, universities, anti-Israel churches and, recently, in social media such as Wikipedia, Facebook, and Twitter.

The vicious nature of this assault and the banal thinking of its leading generals were exposed recently in a Facebook forum known as the “Vulture Club,” described as a “close-knit, but informal brotherhood” active in war zones that comes to life “when the blood is flowing.” Chatting among themselves, journalists from leading media platforms, such as the Associated Press and Agence France-Presse, repeated clichés on the manipulative power of the (Israeli and Jewish) “lobby.”
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TOI

MOSCOW (AP) — Russia’s foreign minister said Tuesday that Iran is willing to halt its 20-percent enrichment of uranium, which has been a key concession sought in international negotiations over Iran’s nuclear program.

That is the highest level of enrichment acknowledged by Iran and one that experts say could be turned into warhead grade in a matter of months.

In an interview with the Kuwaiti news agency KUNA that was released by the Foreign Ministry on Tuesday, Sergey Lavrov said that “for the first time in many years” there are encouraging signs in international efforts to resolve the Iranian nuclear dispute.

He said Iran has confirmed that it is ready to halt production of uranium enriched to 20 percent. He did not give details, but said the sextet of international negotiators should make “substantial reciprocal steps.”
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In response to Bennett’s recent remarks on the two state solution, Netanyahu said: “I will seek a demilitarized Palestinian state”

Dan Margalit’s writes about The high price of words

While Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has taken a position that has minimized the damage caused by statements against the two-state solution uttered by several government ministers and deputy ministers, the problem is becoming worse, both in the domestic and international arenas.

Netanyahu’s position is clear. First, there must be negotiations. If an understanding is reached with the Palestinians, Netanyahu will then conduct a democratic battle to get his coalition members and the Israeli public to support the two-state solution, which rightist ministers in Likud-Beytenu and Habayit Hayehudi currently oppose.
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Philippe Assouline’s Blog

Native Activist Fed Up with Anti-Israel BS Exploiting his Cause.

Ryan Bellerose has penned another epic piece of moral clarity. Not one to mince words, Bellerose, a Metis activist from Western Canada, has written a devastating op-ed in the Toronto Sun (and syndicated in 4 other Sun papers) taking the Palestinian propaganda machine to task for dishonestly using the native rights cause.

Money quote:

though Palestinian propagandists love to characterize Zionism (that is, Jewish nationalism) and the re-establishment of Israel in 1948 as colonial enterprises, it is the Jews who are aboriginal to the Holy Land. Alone among other nations, Jews’ language, history, culture and folklore were born and forged in the Holy Land. There is no statute of limitations on being indigenous. Accordingly, to claim the Jews are colonizers in the Holy Land delegitimizes all indigenous peoples because such attempts trivialize the unbreakable, maternal ties to the land that make us, like the Jews, indigenous.

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