Russian Israeli skater is world class
Elina Kuritsky looks and skates like American Sasha Cohen, only with more confidence.
Turns out it was Sasha Cohen.
Seminal Posts by Ted Belman
The conspiracy to shrink Israel (44016)
The Historical Jesus (50277)
The truth about UNRWA (25732)
Israel Should Declare Three Nos (25028)
Current Posts
- Israel faces pressure to ease entry of winter supplies into Gaza
- ‘The Collapse of the U.S. Is Accelerating’: Iran’s Regime Cheers the Result of the US Midterm Election
- SO, YOU WANT A TWO-STATE SOLUTION? I’LL TELL YOU WHAT!
- Netanyahu urges Eisenkot to negotiate unity government ‘without preconditions’
- Iran Just Hacked Into Western Countries & This Should TERRIFY You..
- Dismantle the United Nations
- INTO THE FRAY: The Arab parties as coalition partners -Past precedents and present perils
- What I Saw in Europe Shocked Me | Douglas Murray
- Amy Mek Sounds the Alarm on Organized Muslim Voting in Powerful Newsmax Interview (Watch)
- Mid Term Elections-Blame The Jews! Discussed By Meir Weinstein & Meir Jolovitz
- America’s Top Syndicated Radio Host, Dana Loesch, and American Policy Towards Israel in a Post-October 7th World
- Egypt Lists 35 European Groups, Some Tied to the Muslim Brotherhood
- Gaza Will BURN If This Gets Released!
- The Erosion of Historical Integrity: Holocaust Analogy and the Deterioration of Modern Civil Debate
- Universities Push SHARIA Finance For Student Loans While Taxpayers Cover Tab
- Syria Is Indoctrinating a New Generation of Terrorists
May 14, 2013
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Hareidi schools to teach core cirriculum
As part of deal between Deri and Piron, Shas’ education network will incorporate core curriculum, follow ministry’s guidelines.
Attila Somfalvi, Kobi Nachshoni, YNET
Shas announced Monday evening that its chairman, Aryeh Deri, and Finance Minister Yair Lapid have reached an agreement with Education Minister Shai Piron under which the finance minister will shelve his plan to cut funding the ultra-Orthodox party’s school system – including the Ma’ayan Hahinuch Hatorani network and independent Shas schools.
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The Case for Pre-Emptive War, From Goliath to the Dardanelles
Some lessons for Israel as it contemplates an attack on Iran’s nuclear program.
by Andrew Roberts
When—and it is most probably now a question of when, rather than if—Israel is forced to bomb Iran’s uranium enrichment facilities, the Israeli government will immediately face a cacophony of denunciation from the press in America and abroad; the international left; the United Nations General Assembly; 20 secretly delighted but fantastically hypocritical Arab states; some Democratic legislators in Washington, D.C.; and a large assortment of European politicians. Critics will doubtless harp on about international law and claim that no right exists for pre-emptive military action. So it would be wise for friends of Israel to mug up on their ancient and modern history to refute this claim.
The right, indeed the duty, of nations to proactively defend themselves from foes who seek their destruction with new and terrifying weaponry far pre-dates President George W. Bush and Iraq. It goes back earlier than Israel’s successful pre-emptive attacks on Iraq’s Osirak nuclear reactor in 1981 (not to mention other pre-emptive Israeli attacks like the one on the Syrian nuclear program in 2007). It even predates Israel’s 1967 pre-emption of massed Arab armies, a move that saved the Jewish state. History is replete with examples when pre-emption was successful, as well as occasions when, because pre-emption wasn’t employed, catastrophe struck. Read more…
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May 13, 2013
THE SOLDIERS OF MODERN ISRAEL (Part 1)
by Steve Kramer (www.encounteringisrael.com)
THE ARABS’ UNDECLARED WAR against the Jews had already started when Natan Alterman, the influential Israeli poet, journalist, playwright and translator, penned his most famous poem, indelibly inscribing the image of Israel’s soldiers in the Israeli psyche. Below is the conclusion of his poem, “The Silver Platter,” which was published by Davar newspaper, December 19, 1947:
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Then a nation in tears and amazement will ask: “Who are you?” And they will answer quietly, “We Are the silver platter on which the Jewish state was given.”
Thus they will say and fall back in shadows
And the rest will be told In the chronicles of Israel
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Israel’s Medical Startups Can Regrow Bones
JERUSALEM — Doctor Shai Meretzki can regrow bones.
Not that that makes him special; the medical technology to do it has been available for years. But Meretzki can take excess body fat, extract mesenchymal stem cells from it, and grow custom-made bone, outside the patient’s body. It even comes complete with the patient’s own blood vessels, and once grafted, it will grow the patient’s own bone marrow.
That is what’s unique, and it all started when Meretzki was studying biotechnology and chemical engineering at Technion Institute of Technology in Haifa, Israel, about 15 years ago. What if it were possible, he thought, to grow cells in three dimensions rather than the traditional two-dimension method?
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Two Religious Girls Box-Kick Their Way to World Champions (video)
The IDF gets a new weapon next year. Meet Baltimore-born Nili Block and Mumbai convert Sarah Avraham, both of them religious and the new world champs in Thailand-style kick-boxing.
Two religious teenagers, one a convert from India and the other born in Baltimore, have won the world championship in Thailand-style kick-boxing for their weight class.
Officially known as Muay Thai, the combat sport is known as “the art of eight weapons” because of the use of fists, elbows, knees, shins and feet.
One might expect that world champs in the kick-boxing sport would be huge gorillas from the Amazon, but two winners in the girls’ championships held in Thailand recently are none other than two religious girls from Israel.
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Double Standards at University of California
By Thomas Lifson, AMERICAN THINKER
A troubling double standard appears to exist when it comes harassment at the publicly funded University of California. The University has taken strong action against harassment, physical assault, terrorization and targeting individuals on the basis of their ethnic origin or religion — except when the person under assault is Jewish, and the perpetrator is a member of an antisemitic or jihadi front group. Then UC administrators have no time to answer emails pleading for protection.
President Yudoff and the UC chancellors treat accusations of harassment of women as a violation of state law. Harassment of black students is vigorously condemned, as it should be: “We will not tolerate racism in any form, and we will not hesitate to act to eradicate it whenever and wherever it arises.” In 2010, the university saw no free speech impediments to shutting down a student TV station and revoking its university funding because a racial slur was uttered. When Berkeley Republicans held a “diversity bake sale” they were threatened with loss of funding.
Republicans are too dangerous to be allowed free speech, but anti-Jewish groups? No problem with abuse there. Read more…
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Revealed: Netanyahu’s secret talks with the Palestinians
This dialogue and the language Bibi uses in talking of negotiations, and the freeze and other concessions Bibi has agreed to, have convinced me that he is ready to start negotiations on Palestinian terms and to make an Olmert-like offer. Ted Belman
More than two years ago, the Times of Israel reports here for the first time, top PLO official Yasser Abed Rabbo held a series of meetings with the PM’s peace envoy, Yitzhak Molcho, and ultimately met at length with Netanyahu himself, to discuss new negotiations. The prime minister seemed ready to restart talks on the basis of pre-1967 lines, but then discontinued the contacts
RAMALLAH — Israel and the Palestinian Authority tried to conduct backchannel negotiations, or at least initiate them, in late 2010 and early 2011 in a series of secret meetings between the prime minister’s envoy, attorney Yitzhak Molcho, and the head of PLO Executive Committee, Yasser Abed Rabbo. Abed Rabbo revealed these contacts in an interview with this correspondent here last week. Read more…
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War or referendum
Livni and Liberman were also against referendum. Too bad. I don’t trust the politicians to decide. It is imperative that the people have the last say. Ted Belman
Op-ed: For some reason, Lapid prefers that a pile of politicians decide where Israel’s permanent borders should be set
Yair Lapid now knows that he can’t please all of the people all of the time. That’s what happens when decision-making replaces storytelling. That’s what happens when an unaccountable columnist becomes a scrutinized finance minister that needs to submit a prioritized budget. In a budget that called for cuts, Lapid had the choice of confronting corrupt union leaders or humiliating unemployed housewives and hard working middle class. He chose the latter, leaving the brunt of the new budget to be borne by ‘Riki Cohen’ and people of her social standing.
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Partition plan for Jerusalem
‘E. J’lem building plan delayed for political sensitivity’
Tenders to build 1,500 units in the Ramat Shlomo neighborhood of east Jerusalem have been delayed by at least three weeks, despite Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s announcement last week that there was no change in policy on settlement building in the area, Army Radio reported Monday.
Op-ed: News of construction freeze in Jerusalem received with apathy by even the most hardline Likudniks
Hagai Segal, YNET NEWS
The prime minister gave Jerusalem an odd gift on its holiday: A construction freeze. On the 46th anniversary of the city’s liberation by a Labor government, a Likud government is freezing it. Levi Eshkol liberated, Benjamin Netanyahu is freezing. He hardly built any homes in Jerusalem during his previous term, and now he is not building any at all. The new housing minister revealed this week that he is not being authorized to add even one apartment to the capital. The prime minister summoned him a few days ago and handed him a freezing order for all construction beyond the Green Line.
To his credit, Netanyahu did not attend the Jerusalem Day ceremonies this year, so we were spared the traditional dissonance between his tough talk and lack of action. Praising a united Jerusalem while dividing it is extremely hypocritical. Netanyahu is forbidding Jews from building in Pisgat Ze’ev but does nothing to prevent Arabs from building in Shufat, Beit Hanina and the Temple Mount. has run out of land reserves in its western part long ago. It is no coincidence that the most talked about building project in Jerusalem over the past decade has been the Holyland apartment complex. Despite its immense size, the project did not solve the housing shortage in the city or thwart the threats of withdrawal it faces. Read more…
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Israel must clamp down on violence
‘They Beat Me like I was a Drum’
Arab Breaks Chair on Elderly Jew’s Head
Incidents of such attacks are steadily increasing. Many people have been injured by rocks thrown by Arabs, even killed.
Bennett is pushing for a law change that would allow more aggressive defense.
This is a serious matter. The only reason there is order in society is because citizens voluntarily follow the law. The moment they don’t the system breaks down and there is anarchy.
It is imperative that Israel show much less tolerance to violent protestsw, lest the tipping point be reached.
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French court postpones verdict in al-Dura libel trial
Muhammad Al-Dura: The boy who wasn’t really killed
Defense Minister formed secret investigative committee that concluded Al-Dura had not been hurt and the video was staged.
Media analyst Philippe Karsenty was sued by France 2 after he accused network of staging footage in iconic Second Intifada shootingIt is good to see that the GOI is finally backing Karsenty in this case. It took them long enough. Ted Belman
By TIMES OF ISRAEL STAFF April 3, 2013,
The verdict in the libel case against French media analyst and critic Philippe Karsenty, sued by France 2 for accusing the network’s Jerusalem bureau chief Charles Enderlin of fabricating parts of a segment showing the reported death of 12-year-old Mohammed al-Dura from IDF fire in Gaza in September 2000, has been postponed to May 22.
The Paris Court of Appeal was expected to rule on the case on Wednesday but decided to postpone the verdict to study the matter further.
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May 12, 2013
If You Think America Should Go to War in Syria You Haven’t Been Paying Attention
By Barry Rubin
“You should be careful what you wish for, as the reasons for war get confused. One person can be very clear in their motives, but others can have different agendas.” –Dougray Scott
I am amazed at the current U.S. debate over Syria. Those urging intervention may be driven by humanitarian good intentions, to end the fighting and ease suffering. But whatever they are proposing–no-fly zones, safe havens, direct supply of weapons to rebels, etc—have they actually considered how four highly visible, recent precedents turned out?
Afghanistan: There is no question but that after September 11, 2001, the United States had to invade Afghanistan, destroy the al-Qaida infrastructure there, and overthrow its Taliban partner. Yet today, twelve years later U.S. troops are still in Afghanistan! The delusion of rebuilding that country has predictably failed. About 2200 Americans have died, many of them killed by Afghan “allies.” The Afghan government is not exactly “grateful.” The Taliban is still strong. Again, that war was necessary but how worthwhile was it and how expensive and difficult has it been for the United States to extricate itself. Even after 4 and one-half years of Barack Obama U.S. soldiers are still there. Read more…
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The Holocaust List 2012 has finally opened up to public
Sixty Minutes program on this incredible list. Gripping.
List found. This story was aired on CBS on “60 MINUTES” ** about a long-secret German archive that houses a treasure trove of information on 17.5 million victims of the Holocaust.
The archive, located in the German town of Bad Arolsen, is massive (there are 16 miles of shelving containing 50 million pages of documents) and until recently, was off-limits to the public.
But after the German government agreed earlier this year to open the archives, CBS News’ Scott Pelley traveled there with three Jewish survivors who were able to see their own Holocaust records. It’s an incredibly moving piece, all the more poignant in the wake of the meeting of Holocaust deniers in Iran and the denial speeches in the UN.
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Help fight antisemitism on campus
By Ted Belman.
I received an email today asking me to come to the defense of Tammi Rossman Benjamin who I met when she visited Israel over a year ago. Tammi is leading the fight against antisemitism on campus and is being vilified for it like Pamela Geller is vilified.:
- I believe you are aware of the heroic work Tammi is doing to combat anti-Semitism at the University of California. The source of this anti-Semitism are various Moslem student groups. Now they have started a vicious campaign against Tammi.
- Tammi is fighting the fight all of us (who are not in the IDF) should be fighting on behalf of the Jewish people. The harassment, anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism Tammi is fighting contains in it an insidious danger, and that is to drive Jews away from a sense of connection with Israel.
- We have just seen how Stephen Hawkings a world reknown scientist folded like a bridge chair in the face of Arab pressure. Imagine the pressure on Tammi
- I urge you to both publicize her plight and to urge your readers to do as Tammi is asking, which is to send e-mails on her behalf to various UC officials, most importantly, President Yudof. You have acquired a crew of characters who comment on IsraPundit. Perhaps with this matter they can be convinced to act and not just pontificate.
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Very Good News Israel
http://www.verygoodnewsisrael.blogspot.com
The Jewish State in its true light.
In the 12th May 2012 edition of Israel’s good news, the highlights include:
· Israeli experts are helping Boston residents recover from trauma.
· There are now school education facilities in all Israeli hospital children’s units.
· Israeli doctors are caring for an abandoned disabled Gaza toddler.
· The Israeli army is clearing old landmines laid by the Jordanian army near Bethlehem.
· Israeli software can measure the different emotions in speech.
· Sony is investing millions to help develop Israeli medical devices.
· Depeche Mode entertained 35,000 fans in Tel Aviv.
· Archaeologists have found a door key lost near Jerusalem at the time of the Second Temple. Read more…
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Successes and Failures of the BDS Campaign
A concerted and well-organized campaign calling for “Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions” (BDS) against the State of Israel has been in effect for several years. In spite of its constant use of belligerent, violent, and deceitful tactics, the BDS movement has very little to show in the way of success regarding sanctions or divestment. However, the cultural boycott is a different story.
In the academic sphere, while low-level bodies have declared their intention to divest from companies invested in Israel, higher-level and managerial bodies usually reject the idea. This same dynamic is manifested in boycott and divestment attempts by religious bodies.
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Serbia – An important and reliable ally for Israel
I hardly followed the Balkan wars and simply accepted the western condemnation of Serbia for its “genocide” against the Muslims in its province, Kosovo. That is until Felix Quigley, and his friends clued me in. This was in 2006. After a year and a half of being tutored I reversed my beliefs. The Serbs were getting the same treatment as the Israelis get. Both had to contend with a campaign of lies and demonization. Do a search for “Kosovo” on Israpundit. Ted Belman
By Michael Freund, The Jerusalem Post
Tomislav Nikolic, the president of Serbia, began an official state visit to Israel Monday, marking the first time that he has traveled to Jerusalem since his election triumph last year.
Normally, the only excitement generated by a visiting head of state is some rowdier honking of Israelis’ car horns, as drivers find themselves trapped in a series of capricious and unforgiving traffic jams. But Nikolic’s three-day stopover is far more than just another diplomatic social call. Serbia is an important friend and ally of the Jewish State and the Serbian leader’s visit underlines just how close relations have become between the two countries. Israelis and world Jewry should welcome this turn of events and seek additional ways to broaden and deepen the relationship still further.
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Netanyahu’s negotiating tactics need revision
By Ted Belman
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas’ precondition for starting negotiations is that Israel accept the pre-1967 armistice lines as the basis for those negotiations. Of course, east Jerusalem, including the entire Old City, is on the Arab side. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu rightly rejects this and insists on negotiations without preconditions. And he doesn’t tire of assuring Israelis that he will not jeopardize their security.
Abbas recently demanded that Netanyahu present a map of Palestine; Netanyahu declined. Three years earlier, the White House also pressed Netanyahu for a map, without success. Netanyahu gave as his reasons: the need for an understanding on security issues such as Palestinian demilitarization and an Israeli military presence on the Jordan River, and the need for an end-of-conflict agreement before dealing with the border issue. Read more…
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May 11, 2013
Peace? From the Palestinian Standpoint, There is a Past, No Future
by Lital Shemesh
I participated in the Dialogue for Peace Project for young Israelis and Palestinians who are politically involved in various frameworks. The project’s objective was to identify tomorrow’s leaders and bring them closer today, with the aim of bringing peace at some future time.
The project involved meetings every few weeks and a concluding seminar in Turkey.
On the third day of the seminar after we had become acquainted, had removed barriers, and split helpings of rachat Lukum [a halva-like almond Arab delicacy] as though there was never a partition wall between us, we began to touch upon many subjects which were painful for both sides. The Palestinians spoke of roadblocks and the IDF soldiers in the territories, while the Israeli side spoke of constant fear, murderous terrorist attacks, and rockets from Gaza.
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