By Caroline Glick, FPM

In an interview with Haaretz in November 2010, British novelist Martin Amis said the following about discussions of Israel in his motherland:

I live in a mildly anti-Semitic country, and Europe is mildly anti-Semitic, and they hold Israel to a higher moral standard than its neighbors. If you bring up Israel in a public meeting in England, the whole atmosphere changes. The standard left-wing person never feels more comfortable than when attacking Israel. Because they are the only foreigners you can attack. Everyone else is protected by having dark skin, or colonial history, or something. But you can attack Israel. And the atmosphere becomes very unpleasant. It is traditional, snobbish, British anti-Semitism combined with present-day circumstances.

After participating last week in a debate in London about Israeli communities beyond the 1949 armistice lines organized by the self-consciously pretentious Intelligence Squared debating society, I can now say from personal experience that Amis is correct. The public atmosphere in England regarding Israel is ugly and violent. Read more…

As Elections Near, Protesters in Jordan Increasingly Turn Anger Toward the King – Kareem Fahim
For two years, protests in Jordan demanding reform have seethed, fuelled by complaints about corruption, incompetent governing and the slow pace of change. The protests have also started to broaden, to include bolder expressions of dissatisfaction with King Abdullah II. To quiet his critics, the king is relying on a new round of parliamentary elections scheduled for Wednesday to “breathe life into our democracy.” The Jordanian Muslim Brotherhood and the protest network Hirak are boycotting the vote. (New York Times)
See also Missed Opportunities for Reform in Jordan – Editorial
The Jordanian parliamentary election scheduled for Wednesday represents another missed opportunity for the regime of King Abdullah II. The electoral system is engineered to block the two political forces most threatening to the regime: the Muslim Brotherhood and Palestinians, who outnumber Jordan’s native population. Gerrymandered districts that leave Palestinian areas underrepresented, and a limitation of party lists to 27 of the parliament’s 150 seats, ensure that local tribal leaders will once again predominate in the assembly.
The idea that autocracy can survive in a country that borders Israel and Iraq as well as Syria is a delusion. If change in Jordan does not soon come from the palace, it will come from the street. (Washington Post)

Yori Yanover, JEWISH PRESS

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at his weekly cabinet meeting.
Photo Credit: Miriam Alster/FLASH90

Benjamin Netanyahu’s main goal at this point is a government of at least between 65 and 67 seats. There’s no point in squeezing through with a coalition that would be living at the mercy of its members.
Read more…

by Daniel Pipes
The Washington Times
January 22, 2013

http://www.danielpipes.org/12473/obama-anti-zionism

Were Barack Obama re-elected, I predicted two months before the Nov. 2012 presidential vote, “the coldest treatment of Israel ever by a U.S. president will follow.” Well, election’s over and that cold treatment is firmly in place. Obama has signaled in the past two months what lies ahead by:

• Choosing three senior figures – John Kerry for State, John Brennan for the CIA, and Chuck Hagel for Defense – who range from clueless to hostile about Israel.
• Approving a huge gift of advanced weapons – 20 F-16 fighter jets and 200 M1A1 Abrams tanks – to the Islamist government in Egypt despite the fact that its president, Mohamed Morsi, has becoming increasingly despotic and calls Jews “blood-suckers, … warmongers, the descendants of apes and pigs.”
• Reiterating the patronizing 35-year old tactic relied upon by anti-Israel types to condemn Israeli policies while pretending to be concerned for the country’s welfare: “Israel doesn’t know what its own best interests are.”
• Ignoring evidence of Cairo importing Scud missile parts from North Korea.
• Rebuffing the 239 House members who called for closing the PLO office in Washington in response to the PLO’sdrive for state-observer status at the United Nations.

The three nominees – Chuck Hagel, John Kerry, John Brennan. Read more…

By Barry Rubin..The Rubin Report..

As expected, Israel has once again made Benjamin Netanyahu its prime minister. The results were not as positive for him as they might have been but are good enough to reelect him.

While some might find this paradoxical, the results show that Israelis have a basic consensus and yet have very different ways of expressing their political positions. This isn’t surprising given the fact that 32 parties were on the ballot.
Read more…

Thought Lapid , who always was prepared to join the Netayahu government, did take the position in support of an undivided Jerusalem. I see no obstacles to Lapid and Netayuahu getting together.

The following has been taken from the Yesh Atid campaign site.

THE AGENDA OF YESH ATID UNDER THE LEADERSHIP OF YAIR LAPID

Yesh Atid seeks to address the most pressing issues in Israel today through:

– Reforming the increasingly ineffective system of government
– Overhauling the educational system which is currently at an all-time low
– Creating a more equitable system for the enlistment of young Israelis in serving their country
– Jump starting the economy through small business assistance for the middle class
– Providing housing opportunities for IDF veterans and young couples

Read more…

Nobody called it though there were reports that he was gaining strength this week/

I am too tired to report on Lapid’s victory to night.  I’ll leave that you my readers to talk about the results.

He fails to see the situation clearly.

By Andrew C. McCarthy, NRO

I wonder if the jihadists of eastern Libya are still “heroes” to John McCain. That’s what he called them — “my heroes” — after he changed on a dime from chummy Qaddafi tent guest to rabid Qaddafi scourge.

See, the senator and his allies in the Obama-Clinton State Department had a brilliant notion: The reason the “rebels” of eastern Libya hated America so much had nothing to do with their totalitarian, incorrigibly anti-Western ideology. No, no: The problem was that we sided with Qaddafi, giving the dictator — at the insistence of, well, McCain and the State Department — foreign aid, military assistance, and international legitimacy. If we just threw Qaddafi under the bus, the rebels would surely become our grand democratic allies.
Read more…

By Ted Belman

The Royal Geographic Society hosted a debate in London on Jan 15/13 on the motion “Israel is destroying itself with its settlement policy”.

Speakers for the motion
Daniel Levy
Director for Middle East and North Africa at the European Council on Foreign Relations, and Senior Research Fellow at the New America Foundation, a former adviser in the Israeli Prime Minister’s office and member of the Israeli team negotiating with the Palestinians, and a Board member of the New Israel Fund

William Sieghart
Founder and Chairman of Forward Thinking, an NGO which works with the leadership of all parties on both sides of the divide in the Israel/Palestine conflict

Speakers against the motion
Dani Dayan
Chairman of the Yesha Council of Jewish Communities in Judea and Samaria.

Caroline Glick
Senior contributing editor, Jerusalem Post, director of the Israel Security Project, David Horowitz Freedom Center, senior adjunct fellow for Middle Eastern Affairs, Center for Security Policy

The approval of the motion was a forgone conclusion but the arguments against are worthy of note.

By David Turner, TIMES OF ISRAEL

Introduction: Whether due to the constraints of the long-term recession/Congressional Tea Party veto, or a strategic global shift to counter the perceived emerging “China Threat;” whether, as I have written in the past, America is returning to Isolationism as described in the Debka article referred to below; whatever the reason Israel will be facing new challenges and uncharted challenges in an increasingly hostile local and extended global environment. The visit by Ron Paul warned of a cut-back in American financial assistance. If a purportedly “pro-Israel” American politician is warning in cuts to financial assistance concurrent with America reducing, possibly withdrawing from the region: Is Israel attending to the warning, preparing for the change?

Whereas in his first term as president, Barack Obama opted for “leading from behind” in international military operations, he enters his second term… by expanding this step-back precept into American isolationism proper…”  Read more…

In the Energy Debate between Palin and Obama…Obama Lost

By Ben Voth

At least Until we learn to be as single-minded as the fanatics – at home and abroad –

By MELANIE PHILLIPS, DAILY MAIL

The immediate response to the Sahara atrocity must be revulsion, and deep sorrow for the families of those British and other hostages who were murdered in cold blood or killed in the rescue attempt.

Condemnation of the Algerian authorities for the loss of those hostages’ lives, in what has been termed a ‘bungled’ operation against the Islamist terrorists who stormed the Algerian gas complex, is nevertheless inappropriate.

The Prime Minister yesterday struck a more supportive note than his earlier reported fury that the Algerians had gone in with all guns blazing without even informing the UK government.astermind: Militant militia leader Moktar Belmoktar was behind the hostage crisis in which three Britons lost their lives
Read more…

It’s personal, not business

By Nadav Shragai, ISRAEL HAYOM

Almost everything became personal in this election cycle. Instead of talking about issues, we talked about people. Instead of a serious investigation of actual topics of relevance, ambiguity dominated the debate arena. Ideology, if such a thing still exists, was pushed aside. Slogans about “governance,” “strength,” “Jewish identity” and “social agenda” floated through the air, but no real debate on issues took place. The “issues” vanished and only the “personal” remained. Judgment or clarification of values, on any essential or factual level, did not happen at all.

This stands in sharp contrast to the recent elections we witnessed in the United States. There too a personal struggle took place, but at the same time, there was also a real discussion of the issues, particularly in the debates between President Barack Obama and his opponent Mitt Romney. Here in Israel, however, even the mere appearance of a discussion and clarification of disputed issues does not exist. Here, the struggle is more a horse race, judged according to polls, pollsters and media consultants.
Read more…

By: Yori Yanover, JEWISH PRESS

National religious Israeli voters like yours truly have three choices this coming Tuesday:

Vote for Likud-Beitenu and strengthen the hand of Benjamin Netanyahu, whose party list includes at least six national-religious candidates in realistic spots. The polls are giving them between 32 and 38 seats.

Vote for Jewish Home, so that it would be large enough for Netanyahu to be forced to include it in his coalition government and necessarily stick to pro-settlement, anti-Palestinian state policies. The polls are giving them between 12 and 16 seats.
Read more…

By Diana West, American Thinker

What might a “conservative” foreign policy look like?

In the post-9/11 era, it’s fair to say we have mainly followed a “neoconservative” foreign policy. This policy has been based on the rock-solid belief that there exist universal values that all peoples everywhere share and indeed yearn for if they don’t already enjoy them. Our neoconservative foreign policy, then – our war-fighting policy, too – has been a matter of spreading such universal values.

This has been a disaster. Think of nation-building in Iraq and Afghanistan — policies predicated on this denial of the existence of cultural difference. Certainly in this decade since 9/11 we should have learned that cultures, the West and Islam, namely, are different and that such universalism is a fantasy. The West enshrines the liberty of the individual, while Islam, like other totalitarian systems, enforces a collective will. Still, to this day, we don’t permit this simple reality to be discussed let alone reflected in any meaningful policy way.
Read more…

By Ted Belman

I am happy to say that I am now out of the hospital after having my aortic heart valve replaced.

Fifteen years ago, in Canada, my doctor preformed a triple bypass for me which required open heart surgery. For the uninitiated, this means that the doctors had to saw through my sternum (breast bone) to separate both sides of my rib cage. Once done they separated both sides about four inches by the use of a very strong separater. This enables the doctors to do their thing inside by rib cage. This creates havoc on ones rib cage that takes months to recover from. When I woke up in the recovery room after this operation, I felt like I had been run over by a truck.
Read more…

by David Turner, Times of Israel

Two days ago, on 11 January, defense secretary Panetta, accompanied by General Dempsey, JCS chairman gave a press conference in the DOD press room. Mostly devoted to Afghanistan and the budget the question ofAmerica’s role in the Syria conflict was raised minutes before the conclusion.

SEC. PANETTA:  Well, I mean, look, we — we’re not working on options that involve boots on the ground.  You know, with — you know, I think you — you always have to keep the possibility that, if there is a peaceful transition and international organizations get involved, that they might ask for assistance in that situation.  But in a hostile situation, we’re not planning for that.

Read more…