One single episode of dogged determination can overturn all gloomy forecasts and literally change the course of history.

It didn’t seem that way, but this day – April 26 – exactly 65 years ago was pivotal in yet-to-be-born Israel’s history. Its little-celebrated and hardly remembered events remain central for debunking the lies about the circumstances of the Jewish state’s inception. Its trials and tribulations tell a unique story of individual courage and defiant daring quite literally against all odds.

Arming rebels means aiding al-Qaeda-linked Jabhat al-Nusra; no-fly zone difficult to implement due to Assad’s air defenses

By BRADLEY KLAPPER and DONNA CASSATA, TOI

WASHINGTON (AP) — The White House disclosure that the Syrian government has twice used chemical weapons still leaves the Obama administration stuck with a limited choice of military options to help the rebels oust President Bashar Assad.

Arming the rebels runs smack into the reality that a military group fighting alongside them has pledged allegiance to al-Qaeda. Establishing a no-fly zone poses a significant challenge as Syria possesses an air defense system far more robust than what the US and its allies overwhelmed in Libya two years ago.

President Barack Obama had declared that the Assad regime’s use of chemical weapons in the two-year civil war would be “game changer” that would cross a “red line” for a major military response, but the White House made clear Thursday that even a quick strike wasn’t imminent. Read more…

 By Stephen Plaut

1.  For the past few weeks, Israel’s military establishment and some its politicians have been telling the world that Bashar Assad and his junta have already used poison gas against civilians in Syria. For example, Yuval Steinetz issued such a report a month ago (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/03/20/chemical-weapons-used-in-syria-israel_n_2915447.html ).  This matters because of, among other reasons, the fact that the Obama team has been saying that any use of poison gas was the ultimate “red line” for US and for allied intervention in Syria.  Read more…

By CAROLINE B. GLICK

To a degree, all of Netanyahu’s seemingly unjustifiable actions can be justified when weighed against the need to avoid a confrontation with America.

The time has come for Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu to confront US President Barack Obama.

A short summary of events from the past three days: On Tuesday morning, the head of the IDF’s Military Intelligence Analysis Division Brig. Gen. Itay Brun revealed that the Syrian government has already used “lethal chemical weapons,” against Syrian civilians and opposition forces. Brun described footage of people visibly suffering the impact of chemical agents, apparently sarin gas.
Read more…

Pamela Geller notes absence of outrage about motives of Boston jihadists

By Pamela Geller, WND

In light of the jihad bombings in Boston, and the media whitewash about their real cause that has followed this week, the question is: Has America lost her soul?

The country that was established on the premise of individual rights and freedoms has, in recent years, abandoned the morality that bound us together as a nation. We have lost our reverence for life and liberty. Our armed forces best illustrate this moral code with their honor code of no man left behind. We go to extraordinary lengths to bring back our fallen, never leaving a man (or woman) on the battlefield – so enshrined in our DNA is the exaltation of humanity.

And yet we see a disturbing trend: America did not rally, protest or demand answers when the Obama administration classified the Fort Hood jihad massacre not as terrorism, but as “workplace violence.” No one – not any politician or mainstream media figure of significance – called Obama on his cover-up of the jihad motive in the slaughter of our unarmed soldiers in Texas. Read more…

by Shoshana Bryen
American Thinker (Blog)
April 24, 2013

As a U.S. senator, Chuck Hagel went to great lengths to assure people he was not the “Senator from Israel,” and he seemed surprised when people objected to his remark, “The political reality is … that the Jewish lobby intimidates a lot of people up here.”  It was never clear who should have been offended — Jews and/or Israelis, or the colleagues Hagel implied were “intimidated” or were in fact “Senators from Israel.”

It is that same Chuck Hagel — now secretary of defense — who is in Israel to conclude details of a proposed U.S. arms package including the KC135 refueling aircraft and Osprey V22 transport aircraft.  The Osprey had not previously been released for sale abroad.  And the KC135 had been denied to Israel by the Bush administration for fear it would appear that the U.S. was encouraging Israel to consider an attack on Iran.  The Obama administration is selling it for precisely that reason.  “Iran presents a threat in its nuclear program and Israel will make the decisions that Israel must make to protect itself and defend itself,” Hagel said.
Read more…

At the Dawn of a New Age

By Michael Ordman

by Isi Leibler
April 23, 2013
http://wordfromjerusalem.com/?p=4584

Visiting New York this week, I sought to assess the broader implications of the recent “International Peace Award” bestowed on former president Jimmy Carter by Yeshiva University’s Cardozo Law School. This unsavory display of groveling by a major Jewish institution to a committed foe of the Jewish people is not merely a stain on the entire Jewish community but highlights a dramatic erosion of Jewish values and Jewish dignity.

Many consider it a wake-up call and believe that alarm bells should be ringing in the conference rooms of major Jewish organizations.
Read more…

THE FIERY SPEECH DENOUNCING THE EU YOU DON’T WANT TO MISS

by Shoshana Bryen, American Thinker

Almost lost in the terrible events in Boston is the Obama administration’s dire warning last week that the window for diplomatic success in the Middle East is closing — not on Iran’s quest for nuclear capability; not on the Syrian war; not on sectarian violence in Iraq; not on the spread of al-Qaeda in North Africa; not on the devolution of the Pakistani government or rising discontent in Jordan or the rapid downward spiral of Egyptian finances and civil liberties.  No, the diplomatic problem that engages the administration — as it has prior administrations — is the Israeli-Palestinian “two state solution.”

President Obama dragged out the old “window of opportunity” saw in a meeting with U.N. President Ban Ki Moon. And Secretary of State John Kerry told Congress that the U.S. has about two years to achieve a “two-state solution” between Israelis and Palestinians before the opportunity is lost. Read more…

By Barry Rubin, PJ MEDIAKJ

Now that the two (main at least) terrorists from the Boston Marathon attack have been killed or captured we enter a new phase, the phase in which the dominant Politically Correct (but Factually Incorrect) forces try to explain away the attack.

Can this be done? Will they really try? Well, yes. True, as one of my correspondents remarked it is much easier to obfuscate far distant Benghazi than the total shutdown and horror in the middle of a major American city. Yet the spin-masters are already at work.

The first step must be, in part, a stalling technique but it sets the pattern for what is to come. As, in the words of a Reuters story, the “Boston Marathon bombing investigation turns to motive,” the motive must be obfuscated.The Reuters piece is a good start. The article spends seven paragraphs discussing the parents claim that the two brothers were framed. This suggests that the mass media and politicians will not shrink from suggesting—perhaps I should say, gives fair hearing—to bizarre conspiracy theories and doubts.
Read more…

DANIEL K. EISENBUD, JPOST
Municipality says proposal would allow construction of 50,000 housing units in all parts of capital city, two-thirds in Jewish sector.

by Elliott Abrams, CFR

Lady Catherine Ashton, the EU’s top foreign policy official, has received a remarkable letter from the “European Eminent Persons Group on the Middle East Peace Process.” This self-selected collectivity might more accurately be called the “Formerly Eminent Persons Group,” inasmuch as the first word describing each one of its members is “Former,” but I suppose that these Formerly Eminent Persons do indeed also represent the views of Currently Eminent European Persons. The letter and its list of signatories are copied below.

The letter is important in one way: it shows that European official and elite thinking continue to blame Israel for everything related to the so-called Peace Process. To take one example, the letter states that:

We have watched with increasing disappointment over the past five years the failure of the parties to start any kind of productive discussion, and of the international community under American and/or European leadership to promote such discussion. We have also noted with frustration and deep concern the deteriorating standards of humanitarian and human rights care of the population in the Occupied Territories.

Read more…