Released Terrorists Reveal No Regret, Fun in Jail

____________________ ____________________

Arutz Sheva

Palestinian Media Watch (PMW) has recently translated interviews with released terrorists and their families broadcasted on official Palestinian Authority (PA) TV. The interviews reveal that the terrorists have no regrets, lived a life of ease in jail, and had easy access for familial visits.

The televised testimony contrasts sharply with PA libel claiming prisoners suffer harsh conditions and their families have a hard time seeing them. In 2010, PA government supervisor of prisoners Issa Keraka called for an international investigation of Israeli "violations" against PA prisoners. Read more

Jewish Prayer on Temple Mount Goes Mainstream

Submitted by Ira L. Jacobson

The Jewish Press

Two unrelated events Tuesday about the Temple Mount threw the spotlight on Judaism’s holiest site, which the Obama administration has been trying to avoid in its peace talk show because it knows it will spell the end of its illusory dream for a piece of peace paper. 

A seemingly harmless court decision in Jerusalem backed a lawsuit by Temple Mount activist Yehuda Glick, who won $8,500 in damages from the police for discrimination and arrest without cause. The second event was a front page article in The Washington Post entitled “At Temple Mount, Dreams of Prayer Raise Fears of Violence.” Read more 

Guess who finds Israel guilty of genocide?

The Jerusalem Post

It’s a piece of news that’s too absurd to make the news – but by ignoring it we actually miss a good illustration of the bizarre extremes to which Jew-haters will go. So here we go: “Tribunal Issues Landmark Verdict against Israel for Genocide” reads the happy headline of an article posted at the website of the “Centre for Research on Globalization,” which, for good reason, has been described as “a Canadian clubhouse for crackpots of the anti-war, 911-truth, anti-imperialist and anti-Zionist variety.”

As it happens, the founder of this outfit, a certain Michel Chossudovsky, is also a member of the “Kuala Lumpur War Crimes Commission (KLWCC)” that apparently initiated the bizarre proceedings against the State of Israel. Naturally, Chossudovsky, a retired professor of economics, complained on his website that this “important judicial process has received very little coverage in the Western media,” but – needless to say – he vowed to make up for this inexcusable neglect by providing extensive coverage of “this historic judgment against the State of Israel.” Read more

Physics and Politics in the Elusive Search for Mideast Peace

The Jewish Press

Without getting lost in the bewildering complexities of quantum theory and relativity, we should still become familiar with certain utterly basic facts about the world. We ought to recall, in this connection, that modern physics has generated thoroughly revolutionary breakthroughs in the core meanings of space and time. These breakthroughs, however, also remain oddly distant from our understanding of the wider social world, including even world politics. 

Consider, especially, the Middle East, where so much of the incessant struggle between Israel and the Arabs continues to concern space. There, at least on the surface, inter-communal conflict is substantially about land and territory. What is not so obvious is that this very same struggle is about time. Read more 

Terra incognita: Sur Bahir - Facing Jerusalem’s reality

The Jerusalem Post

In recent weeks reports of stoning, violence and other incidents have come out of Jerusalem’s southeastern neighborhoods. The most serious incident was the wounding of a two-year-old girl on Thursday, November 28. A Jewish family was driving in Armon Hanatziv, which borders the Arab neighbourhood of Sur Bahir (Tzur Bahir) when their rear car window was shattered by rocks.

Jerusalem police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld has described the attack as “nationalistically motivated,” the odd code-word used in Israel to describe attacks resulting purely from ethnic hatred.

Because a young child was wounded the police worked hard to catch the criminals, and by 2 a.m. the next morning four teenagers, aged 15 to 17, were under arrest. When they were brought to court a photographer caught one flashing the “victory” sign to reporters. Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat condemned the attacks and visited the victim. Read more

The Two-State Delusion

The Middle East Forum

Two decades after the signing of the declaration of principles (DOP) by Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) on the White House lawn, there is something unreasonable in the world's continued adherence to the Oslo paradigm, tattered and battered as it is by years of a bloody fiasco. The Palestinian Arab leadership has consistently and adamantly rejected the two-state solution since its first articulation in 1937 by the British Peel commission[1] and has, as consistently, advocated the destruction of the Jewish state. Still, it undertook a successful public relations campaign in the 1980s promoting the notion of a Palestinian state in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip—"the occupied territories."

Over the years and especially in the wake of the DOP, the Palestinian demand for statehood has gained rapid political momentum and international acceptance. A succession of Israeli prime ministers—from Shimon Peres, to Ehud Barak, Ariel Sharon, Ehud Olmert, and Binyamin Netanyahu—embraced the idea, as did U.S. presidents Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, and Barack Obama. The paradigm for a final peace includes among its primary components Israeli territorial withdrawal and Palestinian sovereignty, political separation with reconciliation, compromise, and coexistence.

Yet twenty years on, the two parties find themselves further apart despite years of diplomatic wrangling. It is thus past time to examine and invalidate the paradigm that has taken hold in the hope that a new and less sanguinary one will take root. Read more

Minister Peretz in Landmark Visit to Turkey

Arutz Sheva

For the first time since the relations between Israel and Turkey broke down, an Israeli cabinet minister has arrived in Turkey for an official visit.

Environmental Protection Minister Amir Peretz (Hatnua) landed in Istanbul on Wednesday evening, where he will speak at a conference on Thursday, reported Channel 2 News. 

Read more

Analysis: Israeli schools teach children to value peace

Jerusalem Online

While Emirates News claims otherwise, the reality is that Israeli schools teach children to value peace and coexistence with their Arab neighbours  They are not taught to murder, to possess racial hatred or to be opposed to dialogue.

While in reality Israeli schools are a shining example of institutions that promote peace and tolerance within the Middle East, Arab propaganda is attempting to paint a very different picture from the reality.   The Jewish Press cited a study conducted by Emirates News that claimed that Israeli schools teach children to murder Arabs and not to engage in dialogue with the other side.   According to the report, Israeli kids from the beginning are “taught the art of war, implanting feelings of nationalism and hatred of Arabs… they want you to bear grudges against the Arabs in order not to tremble your hands when you press the button on the drone.” Read more

Ending academic prejudice against Israel

The Commentator

Alas, the question has to be repeated over and over again. Will the politically ignorant American academics in our midst, so eager to attack Israel, ever accept the principle that truth is transmitted by academic freedom?

Will those academics at colleges throughout the United States, usually  uninformed about the realities and complexities of the Middle East, ever learn enough to resist the relentless pressure of Palestinian groups or “Palestinian civil society” and their fallacious Palestinian narrative of victimhood?

It is disgraceful that American academic organizations, supposedly dedicated to and essentially based on free exchange of ideas, call for punishing Israeli universities, and therefore the individual scholars working there, simply because of their nationality. Boycott of an institution affects everyone connected with it. Read more

Do American Jews Live in a Cocoon?

New Republic


News of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’s late September speech before Jewish leaders in New York got me thinking about Peter Beinart’s latest piece from earlier that month in the New York Review of Books about American Jews and Israel. Beinart, formerly an editor of The New Republic, has billed this piece as the sequel to his 2010 NYRB piece which launched his crusade against the “American Jewish Establishment,” as he calls it. In the more recent piece, Beinart charges American Jewish elites as well as ordinary members of the community (he switches back and forth, making it hard to tell) with living in a self-imposed “closed intellectual space,” where voices not entirely supportive of hawkish Israeli policies are simply not heard. Read more

Morton's Hanukiya for IDF Soldiers - very touching!

Attack Thwarted at Tomb of the Patriarchs

Arutz Sheva

Alert Border Police officers foiled a stabbing on Tuesday near the Tomb of the Patriarchs (Maarat Hamachpelah) in Hevron.

The would-be attacker was a 21-year-old man from the Palestinian Authority Arab town of Tzurif, known for its animosity to Israel and the number of terrorists who came from the town, located on the road leading south from Gush Etzion to the turnoff to Beit Shemesh  or Tel Aviv.

He was arrested when officers realised he was hiding a sharpened tool behind his back. Read more

Hebrew University's Mount Scopus Campus 'a War Zone'

Arutz Sheva

Arabs from the neighbourhood of Issawiya, on Mount Scopus in Jerusalem, have stepped up their daily attacks on students studying at the adjacent Hebrew University campus and on Jews in general, a student tells Arutz Sheva.

Arutz Sheva has been reporting for years that the Arabs of Issawiya routinely harass female students at the university as they make their way from the dormitories to the campus, and that the authorities and university have been ineffective in their attempts to stop the phenomenon. Other news channels are loath to report the phenomenon out of obedience to “political correctness.” Read more

French forensic experts find Arafat did not die of poisoning, source says

The Jerusalem Post

PARIS - French forensic tests have concluded that former Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat did not die of poisoning, as had been suggested by an earlier report, a source who saw the conclusions of the report said on Tuesday.

"The results of the analyses allow us to conclude that the death was not the result of poisoning," the source told Reuters, quoting from conclusions of a report by French forensic experts handed over to Arafat's widow Suha. Read more

Financing the Flames - How Western NGOs Undermine Israel

The Jewish Policy Center

Americans tend to think of a 501(c)(3) tax exemption as the "Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval" from the U.S. Government, indicating that the organization does work of which the government approves. Not necessarily.

In Financing the Flames, Edwin Black reveals his meticulous research on "human rights" organizations that use charitable funds for distinctly non-charitable purposes. Incitement, promotion of boycotts, lobbying, and the delegitimization of the IDF and the state of Israel among both Israelis and the international community are their common characteristics. B'Tselem and the New Israel Fund (NIF) are thoroughly dissected financially and ideologically; NIF's open political lobbying in the U.S. is particularly well documented and should call its tax-exempt status into question.

At bottom, these organizations are part of a broader effort to undermine Israel. The most fascinating types of cases inFinancing the Flames are frequently reported without elaboration in the Western press: the uprooting of "Palestinian" olive trees and the apparent abuse of Palestinian women and children, both by the IDF. Read more

Israel fears Obama is leading region towards catastrophe

Ynet News

The Israeli political-security establishment is increasingly concerned at what seems to be an American desire to reach a deal with Iran regardless of the price. To make matters worse, even those who oppose publically clashing with the Americans say that de facto, contact between the policy makers in Obama's White House and Jerusalem has been effectively cut off.

There are of course formal communications between Washington and Israeli leaders, but Israeli officials believe that in the situation born out of the post-Geneva agreement, Israel has pretty much lost its ability to influence Obama regarding Iran and other international issues. Read more

Concerns about Europe and Israel

The Jerusalem Post

This is a reaction to Lars Faaborg-Andersen, European Union ambassador-designate to Israel and his op-ed in The Jerusalem Post (November 14, 2013) about EU-Israel relations.

I was impressed by EU Ambassador Lars Faaborg-Andersen’s clear and to the point article published in The Jerusalem Post on the EU-Israel relations He emphasized the very positive historical, economic and political links between the EU and Israel for more than 60 years.

The Jewish people indeed have a long European history with many ups and downs. 
Read more

Israeli army fires into Syria after gunmen shoot at IDF soldiers on Golan Heights

Haaretz

The Israeli army fired into Syria on Monday after its troops were shot at on the Golan Heights, the military said.

"Gunfire was opened from Syria toward IDF soldiers in the central Golan Heights. The force retaliated toward the threat and a hit was confirmed," a military statement said.

There were no Israeli casualties in the incident.

An Israeli military source said that the brief exchange of fire happened near the Quneitra border crossing and that the Israeli troops said they were fired on by a Syrian soldier. Read more

Israeli Arab pleads guilty to Tel Aviv bombing

YNet News

An Israeli Arab pleaded guilty on Monday to planting a bomb on a Tel Aviv bus a year ago, during Operation Pillar of Defense, an Israeli court said Monday.

The bomb detonated as the bus was driving near the Israeli defense ministry, wounding around 30 people.

The Tel Aviv District court accepted a plea deal from Mohammed Mafarja, 19, and convicted him of attempted murder, attempting to assist the enemy and assault, the ruling said. 
Read more

Despite EU settlement guidelines || Dutch government's new business initiative includes Israeli companies in Judea and Samaria

Please forgive Haaretz for still refers to Judea and Samaria as "the west bank", which is nothing more than a geographical description, and not a name. - Michelle

Haaretz

At least five Israeli companies with ties to the settlements and Israeli rule in the West Bank are registered as participants for the launch event of the Netherlands-Israel Cooperation Forum, which will take place in Herzliya next week. The names of the companies appear on the website of the Dutch embassy in Tel Aviv. The participation of these companies contradicts the guidelines set forth by the European Union with regards to cooperation with Israeli companies active in the West Bank, and also runs counter to Holland’s policy of discouraging Dutch firms from having business contacts beyond the Green Line.

A representative from the Netherlands’ Socialist Party is expected to raise the issue today in parliament, and ask that the Dutch government explicitly exclude the “settlements economy” from the economic cooperation agreement with Israel. The wording of the agreement defining the activity of the forum has not yet been finalised, and the outcome is expected to be an important test of the applicability of the EU guidelines, and of the political will behind the Dutch government’s declarations. 

Read more

Israelis distrust Iran deal but overwhelmingly value alliance with US

The Times of Israel

huge majority of Israelis believe the US-brokered nuclear deal between Western powers and Iran, which has been at the crux of an ongoing diplomatic spat between Israel and the US, will fail to prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons.

At the same time, a huge majority of Israelis from across the political spectrum say the US is Israel’s most dependable and important ally. Read more