YNET

RAMALLAH – US President Barack Obama said Thursday he was not giving up on stalled peace talks in the Mideast but that continued Israeli settlement-building in West Bank is not helping the cause.

Still, Obama suggested that Palestinians should not make it a condition to resuming peace negotiations with Israel. He says there’s no point to negotiations if the expectation is that everything must be figured out in advance.

[At least he didn’t say settlements were illegal or illegitimate]
“We do not consider continued settlement activity to be constructive, to be appropriate, to be something that can advance the cause of peace,” Obama said. But, he added, “the politics there are complex and I recognize that is not an issue that’s going to be solved immediately, it’s not going to be solved overnight.”
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Shalom.

President Peres, Prime Minister Netanyahu, and most of all, to the people of Israel, thank you for this incredibly warm welcome. This is my third visit to Israel so let me just say tov lihiyot shuv ba’aretz.

I’m so honored to be here as you prepare to celebrate the 65th anniversary of a free and independent State of Israel. Yet I know that in stepping foot on this land, I walk with you on the historic homeland of the Jewish people.

More than 3,000 years ago, the Jewish people lived here, tended the land here, prayed to God here. And after centuries of exile and persecution, unparalleled in the history of man, the founding of the Jewish State of Israel was a rebirth, a redemption unlike any in history.
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By CAROLINE B. GLICK, JPOST

In contrast to the high expectations the White House cultivated in pre-Cairo visit statements, Obama has downplayed his visit to Israel.

Why is US President Barack Obama coming to Israel today? In 2008, then president George W. Bush came to celebrate Israel’s 60th Independence Day, and to reject Israeli requests for assistance in destroying Iran’s nuclear installations.

In 1996, then-president Bill Clinton came to Israel to help then-prime minister Shimon Peres’s electoral campaign against Likud leader Binyamin Netanyahu.

It is possible that Obama is coming here in order to build up pro-Israel bonafides. But why would he bother? Obama won his reelection bid with the support of the overwhelming majority of American Jews. Their support vindicated his hostility toward Israel in his first term. He has nothing to prove.
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CNN poll reveals that while nearly 50% believe Israel is an ally, 66% think peace between Israel and Arab nations is nothing more than a pipe dream

YNET

US President Barack Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will try to use the Presidential visit to show the strong ties between the countries and end negotiation deadlock but according to a new poll, their efforts may be wasted.

Results of a poll carried out by CNN on Wednesday revealed that while nearly half of the American public believes that Israel is the US’ true ally, a majority of Americans think peace is not on the horizon. Poll respondents were divided over whether Washington should support Israel were it to carry out a military strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities.
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By Joseph Puder, FPM

Last week Jerusalem witnessed the convergence of 80 Christian leaders from 20 countries and five continents. They came to Israel to express their solidarity with the Jewish state and its Jewish people. The occasion was the fourth bi-annual leadership forum of Christians for Israel; a non-denominational Christian organization that was established in the Netherlands in the 1970s and has grown in numbers to the hundreds of thousands. Issuing “A call to repentance, a word of hope,” their statement declared that God has not terminated his everlasting covenant with Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and their descendants, and that the Church has definitely not replaced Israel as God’s covenant people. “The return of the Jewish people to the land is a wonderful sign of hope – it proves that God is faithful to His word, and that He is preparing all things for the coming of the Messiah and the establishment of God’s kingdom on earth.”
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Dr. Mordechai Kedar

The way it looks now, it seems that the regime of al-Assad will not last more than a number of days or weeks. A coalition of Sunni jihad organizations will succeed in toppling the government of an Arab state despite the state having used every weapon in its arsenal – including scud missiles – in order to survive.

During the past two years all of the red lines have been crossed in Syria , and both sides are sunk deep in this dirty, ugly struggle, which is fought with no moral or legal constraints.  Tens of thousands of citizens, women, children and elderly, have been brutally murdered , hundreds of thousands of houses and apartments have been rendered uninhabitable; infrastructures of the country are collapsing; the economy is paralized and the organizational framework of the state is falling apart.
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By Ted Belman

“The law changes the balance between Israel’s “democratic” and “Jewish” nature, and makes it clear that of the two principles, the definition of the state’s Jewish nature is the more important one.

This is very important. Now when the SC of Israel has to decide on an issue it stresses equality in its decision. Thus the Israel Land Authority cannot favour Jewish buyers even though the money which bought the land in the first place intended the purchase as being for Jews alone. The new law, should it pass gives priority to promoting Jewish rights at the expense of equality rights. I am all for it. Israel was created for Jews not for anybody who happens to live there.

Haaretz

The Likud and Habayit Hayehudi parties agreed in their coalition agreement to advance a controversial Basic Law subverting Israel’s democratic identity to its identity as the state of the Jewish people.

Former MK Avi Dichter, then a member of Kadima, submitted two versions of the bill during the previous Knesset’s term. The first would have removed the Arabic language as an official language in Israel, granting it instead a “special status.” The second softened this clause.

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Sarah Palin is all about liberty. She took this pose at the end of her speech at CPAC. BRILLIANT.

SHE STARTS AT 2:30 MINUTES. NOTICE SHE IS WEARING A MOGAN DAVID.

The following is a guest submission by Ron Devito