The ultra left-wing Haaretz newspaper has given up on defeating Netanyahu. “Game Over. Center-left is a fragmented mess.”
By Tzvi Ben Gedalyahu

The intellectually bankrupt center-left finally has owned up to its disintegration six weeks before the election. Even the ultra left-wing Haaretz lamented Monday, “Game Over. The center-left bloc is a fragmented mess, while the right-wing bloc has never looked so hale and hearty.”

It published a Dialog poll that apparently was a knock-out punch for the left but revealed no surprises for readers of Arutz Sheva, which has reported ever since the demise of the Olmert government that the Israeli public is moving away from the “center left” and towards the nationalist and religious camps.

If elections were held today, according to the latest poll, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu will enjoy the support of 71 Knesset Members:

39 from the Likud and Yisrael Beyteinu combined party list;
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By Ruthie Blum, Israel Hayom.

At the Globes Conference in Tel Aviv on Sunday, economics wasn’t the only topic discussed by the politicians invited to speak at the podium. With Knesset elections a mere five weeks away, any opportunity to raise the issue of the “peace process” is seized with gusto. And money matters, like everything else, can be tied to Israel’s relations with the Palestinians.

Because this conference was held following a significant weekend, during which Qatar-based Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal arrived in Gaza, it was inevitable that defense and foreign policy would upstage fiscal concerns.

But need it have been an occasion for a burlesque performance on the part of the usual suspects?
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By Daniel Greenfield

There is no better outcome that the Democrats could have hoped for than the demographic despair that has overtaken some sections of the conservative movement. While the Republican establishment prepares to accept Obama as the new FDR, the grass roots feels alienated and willing to write off the whole country.

Demographics is a serious issue, but it’s not a done deal either. Countries are not static. America was created because a large number of Europeans moved to a place that had formerly been populated by the descendants of Siberian refugees crossing over the Bering Strait. I have often said that demographics kind is destiny, but it’s a mathematical destiny. Change the numbers and you change the destiny.
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Every thing here is true. What we don’t know is whether Israeli concessions can be cancelled in the event Hamas violates the cease fire. Perhaps these concessions were demanded by Cairo/Obama in exchange for their agreement to stop the smuggling. We also don’t know whether Part of the consideration flowing to Israel has to do with Syria and/or Iran. We also don’t know whether any commitments were given by either side having to do with the peace process. Assuming no other concessions then this ceasefire stands or falls on whether the smuggling is in fact stopped.

DEBKA and BESA both reported that the deal behind the ceasefire is to induce Hamas to shift from Iran to the Sunnis. Why is that good for Israel? Will it happen. Ted Belman

DEBKA

[..] However, it is beginning to emerge that Hamas was won over to halt its long missile blitz on southern Israel by three Israeli concessions: The IDF gave up its 300-500-meter wide security belt inside Gaza, established as a safeguard against continuous Palestinian attempts to carry out cross-border terrorist attacks and kidnap Israeli soldiers; a promise to eschew targeted assassinations of terrorist leaders on the understanding that their resumption would end the ceasefire; and the widening of the stretch of Mediterranean water accessible to Palestinian fishermen.
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By Daniel Greenfield,

Empires leave behind a mess when they leave. And that mess acts as the building blocks of a new empire. One empire falls and another rises in its place. It’s an old story and it is what we are seeing in the Middle East.

The Islamist resurgence was fed by the collapse of two world powers, the USSR and the US. The fall of the Soviet Union robbed the Arab Socialist dictatorships of their support. The last of these, Syria, is now under siege, by Sunni Islamist militias after becoming an Iranian Shiite puppet.

Egypt’s Sadat had made the move to the American camp early enough to avoid the fate of Syria or Iraq, but instead his successor, Mubarak, encountered the fate of the Shah of Iran. With the fall of Egypt, Syria is the last major Arab Socialist holdout, and if it falls, then the Middle East will have shifted decisively into the Salafi column.
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By P. David Hornik, FPM

…our people have witnessed, and continue to witness, an unprecedented intensification of military assaults, the blockade, settlement activities and ethnic cleansing, particularly in Occupied East Jerusalem, and mass arrests, attacks by settlers and other practices by which this Israeli occupation is becoming synonymous with an apartheid system of colonial occupation, which institutionalizes the plague of racism and entrenches hatred and incitement.

What permits the Israeli government to blatantly continue with its aggressive policies and the perpetration of war crimes stems from its conviction that it is above the law and that it has immunity from accountability and consequences….

Thus Palestinian Authority president Mahmoud Abbas characterized Israel in speaking to the UN General Assembly on November 29, part of his successful bid for the West Bank and Gaza to be recognized by that body as a “state.” His words were consistent with incendiary calumnies heaped on Israel throughout the Arab world and in much of the Muslim world.
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By BARRY RUBIN, JPOST

By essentially unilaterally declaring the existence of an Arab Palestine, the world has abrogated the Oslo accords.

The Palestinian leadership, abetted by many Western governments, has now torn up every agreement it made with Israel. Once the efforts of two decades of negotiations – including irrevocable Israeli compromises in giving the Palestinian Authority control over territory, its own armed forces, dismantling settlements and permitting billions of dollars of foreign aid to the Palestinians – were destroyed, the world decided to focus the blame on Israel for approving the construction of 3,000 apartments.
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