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Wednesday, July 31, 2013

The 'phased plan' is alive and well

After the Yom Kippur War, the Arab states realized that there was no way they were going to be able to destroy Israel militarily in one fell swoop. Therefore, in 1974, the PLO adopted a new plan which is known as the 'Phased Plan.'

The plan in brief:
  1. Through the "armed struggle" (i.e., terrorism), to establish an "independent combatant national authority" over any territory that is "liberated" from Israeli rule. (Article 2)
  2. To continue the struggle against Israel, using the territory of the national authority as a base of operations. (Article 4)
  3. To provoke an all-out war in which Israel's Arab neighbors destroy it entirely ("liberate all Palestinian territory"). (Article 8)
When I read this piece by Dr. Reuven Berko, all I could think was that after 40 years, the 'phased plan' is alive and well. Oslo, as many of us believed since the beginning, is just phase 1 of the plan.

The situation is Kafkaesque: While Israeli leaders are busy preparing a deal that will provide two states for tow peoples, Ali is protesting with the people of his village just a few meters away from the land he claims for himself and his friends. He is waging his battle in and against the Israeli homefront. With Palestinian flags at his back, he defiantly flashes the Arafat-like "V" sign (all of this is Palestine) toward the abashed gazes of Beit Hanania's residents, who shamefully swallow their outrage. Ali stands proud, in all his democratic glory, while voicing nationalistic Palestinian slogans, including a few "for the Arab lands of the Negev."

Something strange is happening in the Jewish state: Abbas is declaring a "territory free of Jews" but is demanding the release of Arab-Israeli murderers, those who have killed Jews in the name of the Palestinian problem but who were never under any form of Palestinian jurisdiction. Arab citizens of Israel, protesting with Palestinian flags in their hands, are demanding state lands that never belonged to them within the 1967 borders, and Arab MKs are telling their youth to refrain from performing any type of national service. On top of all this, Palestinian leaders continue to demand a "return" of refugees, to Israel of all places, which they call a state of Apartheid, oppression and occupation, and not to the Palestinian state they are seeking to establish.
The strangest phenomenon is that in Umm al-Fahm of all places, the hotbed of hatred toward the Jews and the state, residents are rejecting any proposal that includes "freeing themselves from the occupation" and transferring, with their lands and property, to the jurisdiction of an independent Palestinian state, the same one that will be "clean of Jews."
How pathetic it is to recall that every time peace efforts have failed and it was apparent that the Palestinians, despite the generous offers they received, were neither ready "nor able" to reach an agreement and recognize the state of Israel (fill in the blank here with the unmentionable). The shocked and dumbstruck Left would gather itself and again blame the Israeli negotiators for the failure.
A Palestinian friend used an Arab allegory to tell me bluntly, "Just as you came empty handed, so you will leave." In the jails for security prisoners, the murderers know they will go free. Those who planned and carried out terrorist attacks know in advance that if they are caught, they will be released and will return to their activities. The refugees are certain they will return to Palestine, in other words to Jaffa, Acre and Haifa. Hamas, the "rejectionist organizations" and the refugees continue to demand their "return" to Palestine.
If the phased plan did not remain in effect, why would the 'Palestinians' regard the 'Israeli Arabs' as their own? And why would so many 'Israeli Arabs' seek to remain in the Jewish state (so that they can undermine it from within) rather than joining their brethren in a 'Palestinian state' should one be created?

Read the whole thing.

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Oh joy! Guess who wants to bring us 'peace and security'

Just one week after the European Union announced that they are going to ensure that Israelis who live outside the 1949 armistice lines will no longer benefit from their occasional largesse, EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton is lobbying US Secretary of State John Kerry to allow the continent that spawned Nazism to bring us 'peace and security.'
The revival of negotiations between Israelis and Palestinians "opens new doors" for developing further European Union contribution to peace and security in the region," EU Foreign Policy Chief Catherine Ashton said on Wednesday.
In a statement to the press, Ashton stated that the EU will be "fully engaged with both parties and will make every effort, together with our partners, to ensure that negotiations succeed."
...
She stated: "Both Israel and the Palestinians have a reliable friend and ally in the European Union."
...
Firmly backing the process, Ashton emphasized that she "firmly believes that a final end to this conflict is within reach."
The Europeans have done more than enough to exclude themselves from any role in the 'peace process.' There is no reason Israel should want another cheerleader in the 'Palestinians' corner. 

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The painful concessions American Jews should make

I've featured Northwestern Law Professor Eugene Kontorovich on this blog before. In this piece from the Times of Israel, he blasts American Jewish 'leaders' (perhaps the scare quotes should include the word 'Jewish' as well) who call on Israelis to make 'painful sacrifices for peace' while they sit in their ivory towers in the US.
Aliyah would steer away from the iceberg. Adding even 150,000 American Jews would be a major boost to Israel. The creativity and success of American Jews would give a massive boost to the Israeli economy, and their very arrival would inject optimism and momentum into the society. To be sure, American Jews would not radically remake the demographic situation because of their extraordinarily low fertility rate – the lowest of any ethnic group in the U.S. – but this only emphasizes that American Jews are not well-positioned to give demographic advice.
Obviously, one might think such a suggestion is unrealistic. How can one expect 150,000 American Jews to leave their lives behind to come to Israel – even if it is in the name of peace? Sure, aliyah is a wonderful ideal, but for many people, it is just not practical – they have jobs here, kids are in schools, their lives are here. Just not practical.
Yes, moving 150,000 people is not reasonable, realistic, or practical. So American Jewish leaders should not recommend Israelis make the exact kind of “painful concessions” that they themselves are unwilling to make.
Whatever one might think of the need “painful concessions,” or the proper role of the Diaspora in Israeli affairs, on this issue in particular, American Jews have no right to call for Israelis to make painful sacrifices for peace – because they are precisely the kind of sacrifices the former have, by definition, refused to make.
At the very least, one would wonder why signatories of such letters, concerned as they are about Israel’s demographics, do not as actively promote aliyah as they do expulsion.
Read it all. For the record, Professor Kontorovich is making aliya this summer.

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They're going to discuss all the issues, but which one will come first?

Anyone want to caption the picture? Saeb is either cross-eyed or has a lazy eye....

I'm sure you'll all be shocked to hear that news of the 'talks' is leaking out despite John Kerry telling the cameras that he would be the only one to discuss them. I'm sure you'll be even more shocked to hear that while the parties have in fact agreed to discuss all the issues, there's a dispute about the order in which they will be discussed.
Speaking on the Voice of Palestine radio, senior Palestine Liberation Organization official Yasser Abed Rabbo said the Palestinians want to talk about borders first, whereas the Israelis want to talk about all the issues at the same time. He added that the demand to talk about all the issues at the same time could be seen as an attempt to thwart a deal. 
Abed Rabbo added that the Palestinian Authority had informed the Americans that Israeli settlement construction would doom the peace talks.
Israeli officials in Washington said on Tuesday that the venue for talks from now on will alternate between Jerusalem and Ramallah. A date for the next meeting has yet to be set, but once underway, the negotiations are expected to be intensive and deal with core issues. General outlines will be formulated on each issue, after which professional teams from both sides will go into the details. Palestinian sources said talks would focus first on technical issues. The borders of the future Palestinian state and security arrangements that Israel is demanding won't be discussed during the initial stage, these sources said. 
Speaking on Israel Radio on Wednesday, Finance Minister Yair Lapid, who has been briefed on the talks, said Israel's position is that the talks are about the two state solution, with land swaps. "We are talking about two states and the settlement blocs. Ariel, Gush Etzion, Maaleh Adumim are part of Israel and the Palestinians are going to have to come to terms with that," Lapid said.
It's a funny thing, but I always thought that when we talked about 'settlement blocs' we were also including the area around Modiin, and the area around Givat Zev. As it happens, the larges concentration of Haredim in Judea and Samaria is in Kiryat Sefer, near Modiin. The second largest is Beitar, which is (as far as I know) meant to be included in Gush Etzion. And the third is soon likely to be Givat Zev, which is about five minutes out of Jerusalem. You think they're going to try to expel all those Haredim?

We've only just begun. What could go wrong?

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Livni: Coalition members have 'collective responsibility' to blindly support 'peace process'

Justice Minister Tzipi Livni, whose party has six of the 68 seats in the coalition, is insisting that the other members of the coalition have a 'collective responsibility' to blindly support the 'peace process.'
Livni, speaking to Army Radio, appeared to be directing her comments at Bayit Yehudi Leader Naftali Bennett and former foreign minister and Israel Beytenu chief Avigdor Liberman's after they inferred Israel's negotiating partner Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas is an anti-Semite.
"I know that there are partners in the coalition that are not interested in a two state solution, but they have a collective responsibility and as long as they are part of the coalition they must support negotiations," Bennett said after Abbas said that no Israeli settlers or border forces could remain in a future Palestinian state and that Palestinians deem illegal all Jewish settlement building within the land occupied in the 1967 Six Days War.
“The president of the Palestinian Authority said he doesn’t want to see any Israelis on his land. Bad things happen when good people are silent. Good people need to act,” Bennett said yesterday.
Isn't it amazing how Livni (and the Americans) are giving the racist Abu Mazen a pass? Can you imagine what the reaction would be if an Israeli politician said that we don't want Ethiopians in Tel Aviv or if an American politician said that they don't want blacks in Greenwich, Connecticut (one of the richest cities in the US)? And rightfully so. So why does Abu Mazen get a pass?

Livni's bigger problem is that most of the Likud does not support the 'peace process' and has long since moved on from a 'two-state solution.'
Likud MK Miri Regev told Israel Radio on Wednesday that there was not majority support in her faction for the idea of a two state solution.
I will tell you where I see this going, and it's not a good place. Livni will come back with a 'deal' that no Israeli can accept. Netanyahu won't even be able to get it through the cabinet, let alone the Knesset (although he'll try). And then we'll have an explosion.

What could go wrong?

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Some 'Palestinian' terrorists might not want to leave their Israeli prisons

It's happened before in Israel's 5-star hotels prisons.

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Martin Indyk, shameless opportunist

Noah Pollak tries to figure out what, if anything, Martin Indyk believes.
The single most astonishing example of Indyk’s opportunism is the settlement freeze that Obama demanded of Israel as a precondition for talks, today widely acknowledged – including by Obama and Indyk – as having been counterproductive. In 2009, Indyk endorsed Obama’s demand for the freeze as the only way to get the Palestinians into talks:
There's one Israeli action that may help move things forward, and Obama was not shy in bringing it up at the press conference: Israel's Road Map obligation to stop settlements. A real settlements freeze, and the dismantlement of unauthorised settlement outposts (another Road Map obligation), would give Palestinians renewed hope in negotiations…if Netanyahu were willing to fulfil that commitment, Obama might be able to persuade the Saudis and other Gulf Arabs to reciprocate by normalising relations with Israel. 
In an April 2010 op-ed for the New York Times, shortly after Obama used an ill-timed settlement announcement during Vice President Biden’s visit to Israel as casus belli for open political warfare on Netanyahu, Indyk castigated the prime minister for his failure to immediately submit to Obama’s demand for a freeze on Jewish construction in East Jerusalem:
Netanyahu explained that his presence at the summit would have prompted some leaders to focus attention on Israel’s nuclear program. But one suspects the real reason for his conspicuous absence was that he does not have an answer to President Obama’s demand that he freeze new building announcements in East Jerusalem for a few months to give peace negotiations with the Palestinians a chance to take off. 
At no point during the period in which the administration made an obsession out of settlements did Indyk go on record uttering a word of caution or criticism about such an approach. Yet today, he is full of wise criticism. In his 2012 book Bending History, his criticism of Obama on these issues is scathing. Obama’s approach – the approach Indyk fully endorsed when it mattered – “created a deeply problematic context for the showdown that Obama sought over Israeli settlement activity.” The large number of Israelis living in settlements, Indyk noted, “render[s] a total freeze unrealistic.” He continues: “In demanding a complete settlements freeze, Obama failed to make any distinction, thereby implying that building in east Jerusalem had to cease, too, and inadvertently encouraging the Palestinians to insist on that.” Indyk titled an entire section of the book “The Settlements Freeze Fiasco,” concluding that “Seven months of U.S. diplomatic effort had been wasted and Obama’s credibility damaged for no good purpose.” 
In a 2012 interview in Israel, he elaborated further: “[Obama] put Abu Mazen in an impossible position: he couldn’t have agreed for less than what Obama had demanded. Obama, Abu Mazen complained, put me on a high horse. I have no way to get off it.”
After years of encouraging Obama to treat Netanyahu harshly and pressure Israel for concessions when such advice was exactly what Obama wanted to hear, Indyk criticized Obama for doing exactly what he had recommended – only, of course, after it was safe to do so.
Martin Indyk doesn't seem to believe in anything, except his own career.It's a shame that Kerry and Obama have decided to advance it. Read the whole thing.

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Shame: 'Palestinian' flag on display at Knesset

The Israeli flag would never willingly be flown by the 'Palestinians' in Ramallah, and that's one reason why the 'Palestinian' flag ought not to be flown at the Knesset. But it was.
It was not the first time a Palestinian flag flew at the Knesset. In July 1999, then-Knesset speaker Avraham Burg hosted his Palestinian counterpart Ahmed Qurei, and there were Palestinian flags all over the parliament.

The caucus's chairman, Labor MK Hilik Bar, said that just like he got 30 of the 120 MKs to come to meet the Palestinian delegation at the Knesset, when the group comes to Ramallah, he expects one fourth of the Palestinian parliament to greet them. It will be up to One Voice, a pro-peace lobby at the parliaments in Jerusalem and Ramallah to work on the Palestinian turn-out.

Besides Madani and Zananiri, the Palestinian delegation included Prisoners Affairs Minister Ashraf Al-Ajami, Palestinian Center for Dissemination of Democracy and Community Development in East Jerusalem director Walid Salem, and Abdallah Abdallah, a former deputy foreign minister who chairs the Political Committee of the Palestinian Legislative Council.

The Knesset members included Shas MK Yitzhak Cohen and ministers Yael German and Amir Peretz from coalition parties Yesh Atid and Hatnua but no legislators came from Likud Beytenu or Bayit Yehudi. Speaking in Hebrew, Al-Ajami called upon the MKs in the caucus to persuade Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu to keep the nascent diplomatic process going until an agreement is reached that would create a Palestinian state.

"There has to be pressure from the Knesset and the Israeli public on the government to go all the way," Al-Ajami said. "Abbas is taking huge risk by going to peace talks. I don't want to talk about a last chance for peace, but we're both in trouble if it fails."
I want to see what happens when and if they go to Ramallah.  I'd bet on zero turnout from the 'Palestinian parliament' and a riot if the Israelis actually show up. And no flag.

Remember 1993-2000 when we taught our kids about peace and empathizing with 'the other' and they taught their kids to murder Jews? 

What could go wrong?

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Obama adds a founding father

Yes, Obama really did compare Ho Chi Minh to Thomas Jefferson.
WND.com reports: When President Obama said Ho Chi Minh – the North Vietnamese communist revolutionary who led the war effort against the U.S. that cost almost 60,000 American lives – was a fan of the U.S. Constitution and Thomas Jefferson, he was echoing what an influential new book calls one of the most deadly communist disinformation campaigns in American history.



During a White House meeting with Vietnam’s President Truong Tan Sang last Thursday, Obama said he and Sang “discussed the fact that Ho Chi Minh was actually inspired by the U.S. Declaration of Independence and Constitution, and the words of Thomas Jefferson.”

- See more at: http://thepeoplescube.com/peoples-blog/obama-ho-chi-minh-comment-echoes-kgb-disinformation-t11477.html#sthash.fOvQbQNi.dpuf
WND.com reports: When President Obama said Ho Chi Minh – the North Vietnamese communist revolutionary who led the war effort against the U.S. that cost almost 60,000 American lives – was a fan of the U.S. Constitution and Thomas Jefferson, he was echoing what an influential new book calls one of the most deadly communist disinformation campaigns in American history.

During a White House meeting with Vietnam’s President Truong Tan Sang last Thursday, Obama said he and Sang “discussed the fact that Ho Chi Minh was actually inspired by the U.S. Declaration of Independence and Constitution, and the words of Thomas Jefferson.”
More here
WND.com reports: When President Obama said Ho Chi Minh – the North Vietnamese communist revolutionary who led the war effort against the U.S. that cost almost 60,000 American lives – was a fan of the U.S. Constitution and Thomas Jefferson, he was echoing what an influential new book calls one of the most deadly communist disinformation campaigns in American history.



During a White House meeting with Vietnam’s President Truong Tan Sang last Thursday, Obama said he and Sang “discussed the fact that Ho Chi Minh was actually inspired by the U.S. Declaration of Independence and Constitution, and the words of Thomas Jefferson.”

- See more at: http://thepeoplescube.com/peoples-blog/obama-ho-chi-minh-comment-echoes-kgb-disinformation-t11477.html#sthash.fOvQbQNi.dpuf
WND.com reports: When President Obama said Ho Chi Minh – the North Vietnamese communist revolutionary who led the war effort against the U.S. that cost almost 60,000 American lives – was a fan of the U.S. Constitution and Thomas Jefferson, he was echoing what an influential new book calls one of the most deadly communist disinformation campaigns in American history.



During a White House meeting with Vietnam’s President Truong Tan Sang last Thursday, Obama said he and Sang “discussed the fact that Ho Chi Minh was actually inspired by the U.S. Declaration of Independence and Constitution, and the words of Thomas Jefferson.”

- See more at: http://thepeoplescube.com/peoples-blog/obama-ho-chi-minh-comment-echoes-kgb-disinformation-t11477.html#sthash.fOvQbQNi.dpuf

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When the 'peace talks' inevitably fail, who will be blamed

Like most of the legacy media, the Washington Post is already preparing to blame the 'settlements' for the inevitable failure of the current 'peace talks' between Israel and the 'Palestinians.'
In the past five years, the population of Jewish settlements in the West Bank has grown by about 20 percent, and pro-settler politicians have become major players in Israel’s government.
Here in the West Bank, which Palestinians claim as a basis of their future state, settlers have built museums, a full-fledged university, archaeological parks, shopping malls, heritage sites and wine bars. The impossible-to-miss message: These settlements are here to stay.

...
[T]he growth of the settlements presents a particularly thorny challenge. About 340,000 to 360,000 people live in Jewish settlements in the West Bank, according to Israeli government data. An additional 300,000 Jews live in East Jerusalem, which Palestinians claim as their future capital.
Although there are still rugged encampments of tents and trailers on isolated hilltops, manned by youths with extreme views, many of the settlements in the West Bank have taken on the air of middle-class permanence: comfortable villas of white stone and red-tile roofs, landscaped with olive trees and date palms. They are the kind of gated communities that look more Southern California than Holy Land.
“Settlement life is a great life,” said Veronica Gareleck, who moved with her husband and family to the Ofra settlement. She tends to guests who want to sample some Psagot chardonnay at the Binyamin Regional Council’s visitor center — a 15-minute drive and only one checkpoint north of Jerusalem.
...
As he enters negotiations, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu must work within a coalition government that contains many pro-settler politicians.
Economy Minister Naftali Bennett, the third most powerful member of Netanyahu’s coalition, was formerly the director general of the Yesha Council, an umbrella organization of Jewish settlement councils.
“As negotiations get underway, we will insist on continuing construction in Jerusalem and the West Bank,” Bennett said at an event in the Shiloh settlement this month. “History has taught us that building produces life, while dismantling settlements produces terror.”
Indeed, unlike the last time that the Obama administration launched Middle East peace talks — a short-lived effort in 2010 — there is no settlement freeze this time around.
Kerry announced Monday that veteran diplomat Martin Indyk will run the talks for the United States. Indyk, who will take a leave from the Brookings Institution, maintains deep contacts in the region, particularly among Israeli officials.
In his 2009 memoir of the Clinton-era efforts to win a peace deal, “Innocent Abroad,” Indyk wrote that “future presidents need to insist that during final status negotiations all settlement activity be frozen, including in the settlement blocs, unless it is done in agreement with the Palestinians.”
But most Israelis don't see the 'settlements' as the fundamental issue. Seth Mandel argues that Prime Minister Netanyahu, who was apparently given a choice of releasing terrorists, agreeing to negotiate based on the 1949 armistice lines or imposing a 'settlement freeze,' should have imposed the 'settlement freeze' because it's the easiest of the three choices to undo when negotiations collapse. He also argues that Netanyahu should not have to have met any preconditions at all.
It’s difficult to argue that freeing murderers is preferable to freezing settlement building–and I don’t intend to argue it. Indeed, a simple comparison between the Israeli public’s response to the previous settlement freeze and its viscerally aggrieved reaction to the prisoner release makes clear which is the more painful concession to Israeli society.
But it should at least put in stark relief how silly and counterproductive it is to have such preconditions in the first place. It’s fair enough to criticize a prime minister for choosing the worst among three terrible choices. But what does it say about the peace process, and the American diplomatic role in these discussions, that Israel was forced to choose between three terrible options in the first place?
Freezing settlements as a precondition would be unjustifiable this time around on its own; it only seems reasonable in light of the possibility of freeing child murderers instead. But a settlement freeze has been tried before, and the talks still went nowhere. Employing it as a precondition yet again would be a cartoonishly impractical suggestion. It would also predicate the negotiations on a false premise by elevating settlements as a primary obstacle to peace. What do Western negotiators think will be the result of talks based on a lie?
That we even have to ask the question is dispiriting enough. That Netanyahu would be forced by American pressure to choose between freeing murderers or basing negotiations on a lie that delegitimizes the status of Jews, most of whom are on land that would be part of Israel in any final deal, reflects terribly on Secretary of State John Kerry and the administration he represents. And it only encourages stories like today’s Washington Post feature that distort the reality of settlements and undermine the chances for true peace.
Benny Weinthal argues that there is a much more fundamental problem: Israel does not have a partner for peace.
Coinciding with Kerry’s efforts to jumpstart the negotiating process, Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas laid out part of his vision for a future Palestinian state, before a group of mainly Egyptian journalists in Cairo:.“In a final resolution, we would not see the presence of a single Israeli — civilian or soldier — on our lands,”the Palestinian leader said.
If Benjamin Netanyahu declared that the Jewish state plans to evict a minority religious group from its territories, there would be no shortage of outrage from the European Union and violence would likely emerge from pro-Palestinian quarters.  
Meanwhile, Abbas gets a free pass for bigotry.  
The incorrigibly reactionary view of Abbas’s is hardly surprising. It is worth recalling the remarks of Maen Rashid Areikat, the Palestinian envoy to the United States, back in 2011 in Washington. Commenting about the presence of Jews in the disputed territories, he said, “Well, I personally still believe that as a first step we need to be totally separated . . .”
... 
The persecution of Christians in the West Bank has intensified under the rule of the Palestinian Authority, too. Dexter Van Zile, an expert on Christians in the Middle East, brought the case of the Bethlehem pastor Reverend Naim Khoury and the First Baptist Church to the fore; the Palestinian government ruled that the church lacks the religious authority to operate.
In short, Israel simply does not have a meaningful negotiating partner. Palestinian society is divided between the undemocratic, scandalously corrupt Palestinian Authority and the Muslim Brotherhood and Iranian-backed Hamas organization in Gaza.
Of course 'Palestinian' bigotry against anyone for any reason other than the fact that they are Jewish would not prevent a deal. But when you combine that bigotry with the undemocratic nature of 'Palestinian' society and the fact that a 'Palestinian state' would be sitting on the outskirts of Israel's major cities, one has to wonder why we are starting these 'negotiations' at all.

What could go wrong?

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Think tank: Iran to have 'undetected' nuclear capability by mid-2014

A report issued by the Institute for Science and International Security (ISIS) on Tuesday warns that Iran will achieve a "critical capability" to produce sufficient weapon-grade uranium by mid-2014, without being detected, simply by carrying out its current plan to use centrifuges at its declared Natanz and Fordow nuclear facilities. ISIS recommended that the IAEA increase inspections, but suggests that is unlikely to help. According to ISIS, if the US and/or Israel don't act before Iran becomes nuclear capable, Iran will have one or more nuclear weapons.
If the United States and Israel hesitate to strike out of fear of facing international opposition, the ISIS warned, "Iran could have time to make enough weapon-grade uranium for one or more nuclear weapons."
According to the report, breakout times at critical capability would be "so short" that there would not be enough time to organize an international diplomatic or military response.
"IAEA inaction or caution could make an international response all but impossible before Iran has produced enough weapon-grade uranium for one or more nuclear weapons," the ISIS report stated.
...
According to the ISIS, there are reasons to conclude the Iran could now be building a new centrifuge plant, "based primarily on Iranian officials’ past statements."
A new plant could produce sufficient weapon-grade uranium relatively quickly if the centrifuges worked well, the ISIS reported.
"The immediate priority must be limiting the number and type of Iran’s centrifuges at Natanz, Fordow, or a site not yet finished," the ISIS stated, calling on the P5+1 negotiators to achieve the suggested conditions and prevent the progression of the Iranian nuclear program.
But don't hold your breath waiting for Obama to do something. It's going to be up to Netanyahu to act. What could go wrong?

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Indyk: Hard to believe parties can reach agreement

Martin Indyk's moment of candor in January 2012 may yet come back to haunt him.

Indyk was named this week as the Obama administration's representative to the 'peace talks' between Israel and the 'Palestinians.' But in January 2012, Indyk told Army Radio that 'it's hard to believe' that the parties can reach an agreement.
Asked in January 2012 by Army Radio’s Ido Benbaji whether he was optimistic about the talks, Indyk said he was not “particularly optimistic, because I think that the heart of the matter is that the maximum concessions that this government of Israel would be prepared to make fall far short of the minimum requirements for a Palestinian state that Abu Mazen [Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas] will insist on.”
“It may be possible to keep the talks going, which is a good thing,” Indyk added. “But I find it very hard to believe they will reach an agreement.”
He was right; those talks fell apart a few months after they started.
Benbaji asked the State Department in a written query whether Indyk “changed his views of the matter prior to his new appointment.”
He received a written response Tuesday stating that Indyk said himself he was “proud to serve” US President Barack Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry as the special envoy to the talks, and that “he admires their commitment to test the possibilities of peace.”
The statement, which danced around the question whether Indyk had indeed changed his mind regarding the prospect of reaching an agreements, said that the US understood that the challenges will “require some tough choices,” and added that “both sides have shown a recent willingness to make some very difficult decisions in the face of domestic political opposition.”
The response did not spell out what exactly those “difficult decisions” were.
So the Obama game plan is to keep the talks going so that they can pretend that there's progress? That makes a lot more sense than actually believing the pipe dream that a deal that could pass a referendum will be reached in nine months.

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Awesome video: Spy drone can see what you're wearing from 17,500 feet high - and that's not all

A new camera developed by the Pentagon's research arm was highlighted in a recent special on PBS' "Nova" in an episode called "Rise of the Drones." It's a camera system so detailed it can discern specific movements and even what a subject is wearing.

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency's (DARPA's) Autonomous Real-Time Ground Ubiquitous Surveillance Imaging System (ARGUS) has 1.8 billion pixels (1.8 gigapixels), making it the world' highest resolution camera. The sensors on the camera are so precise, PBS stated it is the equivalent to the capabilities of 100 Predator drones in a medium city.

In the clip from PBS, it is said this is the first time the government has allowed information to be shared about these capabilities.

"It is important for the public to know that some of these capabilities exist," Yiannis Antonaides with contractor BAE Systems said in the clip, but noted the sensor itself cannot be revealed. "Because we are not allowed to expose some of the pieces that make up this sensor, so you get to look a pretty plastic curtains."

The technology allows the user to open up a specific windows of interest in the camera's view while still keeping up an image of the larger picture (sort of like split screen). Antonaides explained that the colored boxes in the image show that the sensor recognized moving objects. "You can see individuals crossing the street. You can see individuals walking in parking lots. There's actually enough resolution to see the people waving their arms or walking around or what kind of clothes they wear," he said. PBS noted that ARGUS can actually see much more details than just attire. It can see objects as small as six inches.

At 2:23 in the clip, Antonaides points out that from 17,500 feet, a white object in the field of view is a bird flying. PBS pointed out that DARPA put a time crunch on creating the camera, which lead Antonaides to look into technology that you probably have in your purse or pocket at this very moment. Taking similar imaging systems used in smartphones and putting 368 together, is essentially how Antonaides and other engineers at BAE Systems created ARGUS. It is this "mosaic" of cameras that allows the system to zoom in on specific sections in extreme detail. As for data, the system stores up to 1 million terabytes a day. Putting this into perspective, PBS notes this is equal to 5,000 hours of HD footage.

"You can go back and say 'I would like to know what happened at this particular location three days, two hours, four minutes ago' and it would actually show you what happened as if you were watching it live," Antonaides said.

It is still classified information whether ARGUS has been used in the field yet.

"If we had our choice, we would like ARGUS to be over the same area 24 hours a day, seven days a week. That's not very achievable with manned platforms. This is where UAVs come in and they're absolutely the perfect platform," Antonaides said.

Let's go to the videotape.



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The best Catherine Ashton image evah!

Heh.

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How small is Israel?

This should give you some perspective (Hat Tip: Jack W).

Now, consider that Israel is surrounded on three sides by (mostly Islamist) enemies and on the fourth by the Mediterranean Sea....

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Israeli policewoman who was at Camp Koby called to duty at demo against terrorist release

This is an amazing story by Sherri Mandell, the mother of Koby Mandell HY"D (May God Avenge his blood, pictured).
As we chanted, based on a slogan my sister recommended on Facebook that day: Release will not bring peace.
We also chanted: Murderers belong in jail. Like the ones who were set free in a previous release though they had murdered Rachel Weiss, a young mother, and her three children on a bus as well as the soldier who tried to protect them.
We chanted: We want justice. We chanted: Wake up Israel.
I held a sign that said: I’m glad that my son’s murderers have not been found. And I am. I wouldn’t be able to bear their release.
All was going well. The media came to take our photo and interviewed some of the participants. Passing motorists honked their horns in support.
And then two young women approached us, one dressed in green, a border guard, the other in dark blue, a regular policewoman.
“Who is in charge?” they asked.
To my surprise, I answered, “me.” This was the first demonstration I’d ever organized.
“Do you have a permit?” she asked. I could see her gun in the holster on her hip.
“No,” I said. My daughter Eliana, who had researched the rules of demonstrations, said: “But we’re not 50 people. You only need a permit if you’re more than fifty.”
They conferred.
Then the policewoman looked at me. She took off her sunglasses. She had long eyelashes with a thick coat of dark black mascara.
“I know you,” she said. “Aren’t you from the Koby Mandell Foundation?”
“Yes,” I said. “How do you know?”
She smiled shyly.
I asked her, “Were you a counselor at Camp Koby?”
“No,” she said. “I was…”
I waited.
“I was a camper.”
I couldn’t believe it: “Was somebody killed in your family?” I asked.
“No,” she said. “I was in a terrorist attack.”
Read the whole thing

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Tuesday, July 30, 2013

Only in the twilight zone called the United Nations

Only at the UN.... Iran is in line to chair the UN committee that deals with nuclear disarmament.
Iran is campaigning for a key position on a U.N. General Assembly committee that deals with disarmament and international security amid strong criticism from Israel and others who accuse Tehran of seeking to develop nuclear weapons.
Iran is competing against Kuwait to be the rapporteur of the U.N. General Assembly's First Committee for its 68th session, which begins in October, U.N. diplomats said. The rapporteur reports on the proceedings of the 193-member committee.
A spokesman for Iran's U.N. mission confirmed the country's bid on Tuesday. Asked why Tehran was interested in the position, he said: "It's a normal routine by a member state."
The First Committee considers all disarmament and international security matters, cooperation in the maintenance of international peace and security, as well as principles governing disarmament and the regulation of armaments.
The farces at the UN never end. And if you pay US taxes, you're paying for 22% of it. What could go wrong?

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'Why hunt Nazis and release Muslim Nazis'?

The title to this post was the reaction of Rabbi Eliezer Weiss upon learning that the Israeli government intends to release the murderers of his wife, three children and unborn child.
A neighbor of Rabbi Weiss, Efraim Holtzberg, recalled the rabbi’s reaction to the news. “He told me he doesn’t understand why the state of Israel invests millions in searching for Nazi criminals around the world,” he told Arutz Sheva.
“Why does the Weisenthal Center track down Nazis who murdered Jews, while here we have Muslim Nazis who murdered Jews, who spilled blood as if it were water, who burned a mother and three children and an unborn baby alive – and they are released? Is there a difference between them and the Nazis criminals?” he asked, quoting Rabbi Weiss.
Holtzberg burst into tears as he recalled the funeral for Rachel Weiss and her children. The four were killed when terrorists hurled a firebomb at a bus full of civilians, setting it on fire.
Three-year-old Netanel and 2-year-old Rafael tried to escape the flames by hiding under a bus seat. Their mother stayed with them rather than escape alone.
“The three children hid under the benches. She was nine months pregnant. The brave soldier David Delarosa grabbed Rachel Weiss’ hand and told her to leave the burning bus.
“Rachel told the soldier that she knew the bus would burn, but a mother doesn’t leave her children. And so she rose in flames to heaven with the children,” Holtzberg related.
“I cried more at her funeral than at my father’s funeral,” he recalled. “What was left of her? Ashes.”
Hashem Yerachem (May God Have mercy)....

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It starts: 'Palestinian' terrorists shoot rocket at western Negev

The 'peace talks' have started and so has the 'Palestinian' rocket fire.
Several hours after Israel and the Palestinians resumed peace talks in Washington, Gaza's terror groups sent a message of their own. A Qassam rocket exploded in an open area at the Sha'ar HaNegev Regional Council on Tuesday morning. No injuries or damage were reported.

Benny, who resides in the surrounding area, told Ynet, "We know where we live. For weeks now we've been waiting for something to come from Gaza's direction. Every time there is talk of negotiations, we get a present from Gaza."
But just give them a 'state' and they'll police their terrorists and get them to stop shooting rockets at us. 

/Fantasyland.

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Think tank: Iran using Israeli laser technology to enrich uranium; Israelis fear Iran weeks away from breakout

The Institute for Science and International Security says that Iran may be enriching uranium using Israeli laser technology, an activity that it previously told the IAEA that it had ceased in 2003. And note the last paragraph of the story....
The institute says Iran is still developing laser technology for enriching uranium. It notes accelerated construction at a site where this type of enrichment was once performed, and mentions then-President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s 2010 statement that Iran had the ability to enrich uranium via laser isotope separation.
Based in part on images from commercial satellites, the institute notes the expansion of the Lashkar Ab'ad facility, where laser-assisted enrichment experiments have been done in the past. The facility was exposed in 2003 and later investigated by the International Atomic Energy Agency.
Iran later announced that it had no intention of enriching uranium using laser technology, and IAEA agents who visited the facility said laser technology there was for civilian purposes. In February 2010, Ahmadinejad said Iran would for the time being enrich uranium using centrifuges rather than lasers, but the institute says the issue must be investigated considering Iran’s record of false statements.
The institute says Iran is taking steps to conceal the connection between the Lashkar Ab’ad facility and other organizations involved in laser technology, one of which has been subject to sanctions by the United States and the European Union. 
...
The method of enriching uranium by exposing its vapors to laser beams was developed in Israel in 1969 by two young scientists: Prof. Menahem Levin of Tel Aviv University and Prof. Yeshayahu Nebenzahl. The two sought to patent the invention, but the state forbade them.  
...
In any case, Israeli officials have said in recent weeks that the pace of enrichment in the centrifuges that Iran is now building will let it skip from 3.5-percent enrichment to above the 90 percent needed for a nuclear bomb. The fear is that within weeks Iran will overcome the last obstacle to building a bomb without Western intelligence knowing ahead of time.
 And Obama is doing nothing.... Unless he's holding Israel back.... What could go wrong?

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Poll: 71% of Egyptians don't want the Muslim Brotherhood back

71% of Egyptians have told pollsters that they don't want to see Mohammed Morsy or the Muslim Brotherhood back.
The Egyptian Center for Public Opinion Research-Baseera survey found that 71 percent of Egyptians opposed the Brotherhood's protests. A year of Morsi and the Brotherhood's rigid policies and inflexibility that failed to address Egypt's economic crisis has left many Egyptians frustrated.
"The real problem that we're facing right now is from the time of President's Morsi's taking over, it has been a zero-sum political game. It is all or none and that is mainly the reason he was pushed out of power, because he would not share it with anyone else. He would not succumb to the opposition," Wael Eskandar, an Egyptian blogger with Al Ahram, said in an interview with Russia Today. "And now that he has been pushed out of power, the same attitude prevails, that they are not willing to make compromise at all and the reason is because the organization is bent on dominating and pushing their way of politics. It is difficult to see any way out of this without any side compromising."
The poll found that 78 percent of men and 65 percent of women disapproved of the protests. It also found that younger people are more sympathetic to the protests then their elders.
"[T]he people right now are disenchanted with the MB that they are willing to accept anything but the Muslim Brotherhood, which is a sign of how polarized things are at the moment and how the Muslim Brotherhood and Morsi made matters inside Egypt," Eskandar said.
So why does the West keep trying to bring him back? 

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The true apartheid

More here.

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Who is Abu Mazen?

Six years ago I wrote a letter to then-President Bush in which I attempted to show why Mahmoud Abbas Abu Mazen is not a 'moderate.'
Abu Mazen is not a man of peace. He is an anti-Semite and at least an accessory to murder. Abu Mazen is a Holocaust denier. He wrote his doctoral thesis in 1982 at the Moscow Institute for Oriental Studies. The heading of his doctoral thesis was: "Zionist leadership and the Nazis." The introduction dealt, among other topics, with a loaded issue: How many Jews perished in the Holocaust. In the Soviet period, especially in the anti-Israel institute that Abu Mazen attended, they often dealt with such questions. The Soviet Union, more than any other country, was addicted to Holocaust denial. The victims were not recognized by their origin, but rather by their nationality. And this is what the diligent researcher Abu Mazen wrote:
World War Two caused the death of 40 million people from different parts of the world. Ten million Germans, 20 million Soviets, and more…Rumors at the end of the war said that 6 million of the world's Jews were among the victims in the war of extermination that was waged against the Jewish people and later on against other peoples. The fact is that no one can confirm this number or deny it. The number could be 6 million, but it could be much smaller, perhaps even smaller than one million.
"Many researchers who discussed the number reached the unconventional conclusion that it is no more than several hundred thousand," he wrote. Later on, Abu Mazen quotes a Holocaust denier who claimed that "at first the Zionists spoke about 12 million Jews who were killed in the death camps. They later narrowed the number down to 6 and to 4 million. It is not possible that the Germans murdered more Jews than existed in the world at the time." He quotes another Holocaust denier who counted 896,000 Jewish victims in all. Abu Mazen has consistently refused to distance himself from his thesis.

Mr. President, you are a few years older than I am, but we are from the same generation. I am sure that you remember as vividly as I do watching eleven Israeli athletes being held hostage at the Munich Olympic games in 1972 and their eventual murder by their 'Palestinian' kidnappers. But perhaps you never knew that Abu Mazen, whom you now call a 'man of peace' financed that terror attack and has never expressed any remorse for it. In case you have forgotten, I am enclosing a picture of one of the terrorists on the balcony outside the room in the Olympic village where the Israeli athletes were held. I'm sure you recognize it. It was taken from ABC television's live coverage of the 'event.'

I know that when you ask Secretary Rice about Abu Mazen's thesis and the Munich Olympics, she's going to tell you that's all ancient history and that you should ask Scowcroft about it. But I'd like to show you a few statements that Abu Mazen has made in the last few months that ought to convince you that he is not a man of peace and should not be invited to any peace conferences.
Read the whole thing

Matters like Abu Mazen's anti-Semitism are things that Israel's chattering classes prefer to ignore, so they are not often discussed in Israel's media. But on Tuesday, in a rare display of honesty, they were discussed in the Knesset, and the media had little choice but to report on it.
Jerusalem and Diaspora Minister Naftali Bennett, who is responsible for the government's efforts to battle anti-Semitism, attended a conference of a Knesset caucus on the issue, led by MK Shimon Ohayon (Likud Beytenu), and pointed out that Abbas denied the Holocaust.
"The President of the Palestinian Authority said he doesn't want to see any Israelis on his land. Bad things happen when good people are silent. Good people need to act," he stated.
...
Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee chairman Avigdor Liberman (Likud Beytenu) said he keeps a copy of Abbas' book, which purports to connect Zionism and Nazism and has a Star of David and a swastika on its cover, in his office.
"I don't know why, now that we're all so excited about the peace process, no one remembered to mention it. Abbas never took his words back or apologized," Liberman stated.
As if an apology would undo all the damage Abu Mazen has done....
Jewish Agency Chairman Natan Sharansky said he read Abbas' dissertation from the Patrice Lumumba University in Moscow, and explained that it claims Zionism and Nazism worked together because both wanted to remove all Jews from Europe.
"To this day, people ask me if I think anti-Semitism is a good thing, because it brings people to Israel. What ignorance and lies!" Sharansky said.
"Anti-Semitism is enemy number one of Zionism," he added. "For every one person who makes aliya because of anti-Semitism, 10 assimilate. Anti-Semitism and delegitimization of Israel lead Jews to distance themselves from Judaism and Israel."
Sharansky said anti-Semitism "is reaching new heights" and that the Knesset must put it on its agenda.
 And the Knesset can start putting it on the agenda by being honest and calling Abu Mazen what he is: An anti-Semite.

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EU's Ashton meets with Morsy

EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton met with deposed Egyptian President Mohammed Morsy on Monday at his Egyptian hideaway.
European Union foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton said on Tuesday she found that deposed Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi was well and had access to television and newspapers when she visited him.
Ashton was speaking to journalists after meeting Morsi at an undisclosed location on Monday night. "I've tried to make sure that his family know he is well," said Ashton.
Ashton, who is trying to mediate a resolution to Egypt's political crisis, added: "I said I wouldn't come unless I could see him (Morsi)." Asked about a media report that she had offered Morsi a "safe exit", she replied: "I did nothing of the kind."
European Union foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton held two hours of "in depth" discussions with Morsi late on Monday, her spokeswoman Maja Kocijancic said on Twitter. Kocijancic did not say where the talks had taken place.
 A lot better than the Brotherhood treated Mubarak.... And no one was allowed to meet Mubarak.

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Jeremy Ben Ami's Jerusalem home is in 'ethnically cleansed' Baka

For those who don't read Hebrew, or are not familiar with the form above, the form is a standard summary from the Israeli Companies Registrar listing the names and addresses of the shareholders of an Israeli company. You can get a form like this for any Israeli company online through the Companies Registrar.

This particular form is for Ben-Or Communications Ltd., a public relations company which has two classes of shares (Hat Tip: Lenny B). There are 200 'management shares' (which are usually the shares that control the company's management), outstanding, which are owned by Oriella Ben Zvi of Herzliya. There are 200 ordinary shares (like common stock in the US) outstanding, 170 of which are owned by Ben Zvi, and the other 30 of which are owned by Jeremy Ben Ami, the chairman of J Street. Ben-Or Communications acts as J Street's public relations firm in Israel.

Ben Zvi's address is given as being in Herzliya, and she gives an Israeli identification number. Ben Ami has an Israeli identification number which indicates that he is not an Israeli citizen (900000000), but curiously gives a Jerusalem address.

What's even more curious is that Ben Ami's Jerusalem address is on Mordechai HaYehudi Street, which is located in Baka, a neighborhood that was populated by Arabs before the War of Independence.
Baka was established in the late 19th century after the completion of the Jerusalem Railway Station. The station created the nucleus of a commercial center that eventually attracted wealthy Arab, Christian and Armenian families from the Old City who built mansions there in the 1920s. [3] The neighborhood had an agricultural character until the 1950s.
During the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, the neighborhood was left on the Israeli (western) side of the dividing line between West Jerusalem and East Jerusalem. Its population changed, as with many neighborhoods on both sides of the dividing line.
I'd be curious to hear why Ben Ami thinks it's okay to live in a house that was confiscated from Arabs (who probably fled) after the War of Independence, but not okay to live in a house that was built on empty, ownerless land in Judea and Samaria (or on land in Judea and Samaria that was owned by Jews before 1948 and was ethnically cleansed by the illegal Jordanian occupation from 1948-67).

Hmmm.

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Burgas terrorist active on Facebook?

The two Hezbullah bomb-makers and the terrorist who carried out the terror attack in Burgas, Bulgaria last summer may have smuggled the bomb parts into Bulgaria on a train from Poland.
The suspected Hezbollah operatives behind the Burgas attack last July smuggled a detonator and remote control device from Poland into Bulgaria.

The Bulgarian daily Trud reported on Monday that the bomber, who remains unidentified, and the two additional Hezbollah suspects smuggled the bomb devices on a train from Warsaw on June 28.

...

According to media reports in June, Poland hesitated to designate Hezbollah’s military wing as a terrorist organization. It is unclear if the Polish government was concerned about Hezbollah’s retaliation in Poland.

The suspects Farah and Hassan used three Eastern European countries for their terrorist operation. After the men detonated the bomb, they fled to Romania and escaped to Lebanon.

Hezbollah has used Europe over the last several years to conduct meetings to plan terrorist operations. The convicted Hezbollah member , the Swedish-Lebanese national, Hossam Taleb Yaacoub in Cyprus , used Lyon, France and Amsterdam in the Netherlands, to hold meetings with his Hezbollah handlers. A Cypriot court convicted Yaacoub in March for planning to murder Israelis on the Mediterranean island. The court sentenced Yaacoub to a four-year prison term.
Meanwhile, Threat Matrix, a blog run by the Long War Journal, reported on Monday that one of the Hezbullah terrorists may be active on Facebook
Farah, an Australian national who is believed to have built the bomb in Bulgaria, may still be active on Facebook as authorities search for him.

One Facebook account possibly attributable to Farah states that the user studied at the Lebanese International University (LIU) and lives in Australia. According to press reports, the printer utilized to create the forged licenses carried by the Hezbollah cell responsible for the Burgas terror attack was based at LIU, where the suspects are said to have studied engineering.
The user of this account, who has 'liked' an array of celebrities and athletes, including Usher and David Beckham, appears to have used online chat services, such as Tohla and Omegle, among others. The user of the account was also involved in online poker via Facebook.
Interestingly, none of the publicly available photos linked to the account provides a match to the photo released by Bulgarian authorities. In fact, the user has used photos of Turkish actor Necati Şaşmaz and Iranian actor Mostafa Zamani as profile pictures. A photo of Zamani is currently adopted as the user's profile picture.
The last public activity for this account, which has 62 friends, was today, July 29, when the user became friends with a few women based in Bulgaria, including at least one in Burgas.
 There are two other accounts that may be connected to the bomb-maker. Read the whole thing.

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The Hillary Clinton mini-series that's worth seeing

Heh (Hat Tip: All the Right Snark via Jack W).

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Obama threatened retaliation against Israeli action on Iran if Israel didn't release 'Palestinians'?

In an earlier post, I discussed (and cast doubt on) the claim that Israel traded 104 terrorist murderers for an American attack on Iran. But what if what happened was that Obama and Kerry told Netanyahu that if we didn't release the 104 terrorist murderers, and return to the table with the 'Palestinians,' when and if Israel bombed Iran, the US would leave us to face the consequences alone? That's what Defense Minister Moshe "Boogie" Yaalon implied in addressing new IDF inductees at Tel HaShomer on Monday.
Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon referred on Monday to unseen considerations that are far from the public eye as the main catalyst for Israel’s decision to release imprisoned Palestinian terrorists.
Speaking at the IDF’s absorption base for new draftees at Tel Hashomer, Ya’alon said, “Releasing prisoners came as a result of choosing a bad option over a worse option… We reached the decision to avoid the worse [option]. Many strategic considerations, which may be revealed in the future, stood behind this, and hence we must go forward with a release of pre-Oslo prisoners.”
Some analysts have suggested that Israel agreed to the release as part of its efforts to secure American support in a potential military confrontation with Iran over Tehran’s expanding nuclear program.
Ya’alon said the decision was made “with a heavy heart.”
“These are murderers,” he said. “This is a challenge to justice, to law and to bereaved families, and I hear their voices.”
He added that the release also posed challenges to deterrence and security, but said those problems could be dealt with.
“We are embarking on this maneuver responsibly, with good judgement, and we’ll be able to provide an answer to security aspects… I know who these prisoners are, how many they are, what they did, [and] when they did it,” Ya’alon said.
The implication is "Obama threatened us." How could Obama threaten us? He can't go to war against us - the American public would never tolerate it, and Obama would never lead a war anyway (see Libya, Syria).  He can't threaten not to attack Iran, because no one here believes he will attack Iran anyway. He can't really threaten to stop us from attacking Iran because the US doesn't control the skies over Iraq anymore, which was the previous basis for that threat.

That leaves a threat to leave Israel exposed to the military and diplomatic consequences of an Israeli attack on Iran, which Obama might do regardless of how many 'Palestinians' we release or what 'settlement' we reach with them.

What could go wrong?

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Abu Mazen's future apartheid 'state': Not one Jew in 'Palestine'

'Moderate' 'Palestinian' President Mahmoud Abbas Abu Mazen  told reporters in Egypt on Monday that his vision for 'Palestine' does not include a single Jew.
Abbas said that no Israeli settlers or border forces could remain in a future Palestinian state and that Palestinians deem illegal all Jewish settlement building within the land occupied in the 1967 Six Days War.
...
"In a final resolution, we would not see the presence of a single Israeli - civilian or soldier - on our lands," Abbas said in a briefing to mostly Egyptian journalists.
"An international, multinational presence like in Sinai, Lebanon and Syria - we are with that," he said, referring to United Nations peacekeeping operations in those places.
We Israelis refer to 'Israeli Arabs' but both the 'Palestinians' and many, if not most of the 'Israeli Arabs' refer to the 'Israeli Arabs' as 'Palestinians.' So when Abu Bluff says 'no Israelis' what he really means is 'no Jews.'

Will anyone call him on it? Don't hold your breath.

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Jeremy Ben Ami boycotts 'settlement goods' and still takes money from Soros

None of you should be surprised to hear that J Street head Jeremy Ben Ami boycotts 'settlement goods.' What's more surprising is that he seemed to try to avoid admitting it.
MT: Peter Beinart will be featured prominently this year at the J Street Conference. He advocates, among other things, what he calls “Zionist B.D.S.” It’s basically a boycott, as I understand it, of settlements. That’s not your position. Is that right?
JB: It would be a very boring conference, it would be a very boring life, if the only people you ever invited to engage with you were the people you agree with.
MT: That’s fair, but Beinart offers a position that is not extreme and is slightly more passionate. Do you worry that young, liberal American Jews might say, “Well, J Street, those are my grandparents, so I’m going to go to the Beinart school, I’m going to be in favor of a partial boycott. I am going to make sure that if the Park Slope Coop is offering products from the settlements, I’m not going to buy them”?
JB: I think probably a lot of people in J Street don’t buy settlement products. I would hope that the politically strategic young people still find [our organization] to be the more effective way to have joint, communal political action. We have the ear of the White House; we have the ear of a very large segment of Congress at this point; we have very good relations with top communal leadership in the Jewish community. If you want to have a voice in those corridors of power, then get involved with J Street.
MT: Do you buy settlement goods?
JB: I don’t. I just feel uncomfortable providing personal economic support to the settlements. But that’s just me. It has nothing to do with building an organization and a political and communal voice that stands for a certain set of policies and viewpoints. I’m very comfortable with that distinction.
Do as I say, not as I do? (J Street claims not to favor BDS). 

And by the way, J Street is still being financed by George Soros.
MT: Do you still take money from Soros?
JB: Absolutely. His son is a contributor now, too.
What could go wrong?

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Palin: 'Elitists running McCain campaign kept me silent on Obama'

I don't think RINO McCain is going to care about this anymore, but Sarah Palin Destroys Obama and his "Phony Scandals" on Fox New - 7/26/2013 - Tonight Greta Van Susteren explores why the president is calling the D.C. scandals "phony." In this sneak peek clip of the special, Greta talks to Sarah Palin who exposes that in her 2008 vice presidential run, she was forbidden from talking about Obama's relationships with both Jeremiah Wright and Bill Ayers, as well as his job experience.

Let's go to the videotape (Hat Tip: Breitbart).



Here's hoping that Sarah Palin has a greater role in national politics soon.

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Tzipi Livni converts to Islam?

Is Tzipi Livni converting to Islam? That's sure what it sounds like. She is sharing the Iftar dinner (the meal at the end of each day's fast in Ramadamadan) with US Secretary of State John Kerry on Monday.
Secretary of State John Kerry will host "an Iftar dinner for Israeli Justice Minister Tzipi Livni," according to a copy of his schedule released by the State Department. The dinner will also be attended by "Palestinian chief negotiator Saeb Erekat."
The event will be closed to the press.
Kerry's schedule for today reads:
DEPARTMENT OF STATE
PUBLIC SCHEDULE
MONDAY, JULY 29, 2013


SECRETARY JOHN KERRY

...

8:00 p.m. Secretary Kerry hosts an Iftar dinner for Israeli Justice Minister Tzipi Livni and Palestinian chief negotiator Saeb Erekat, at the Department of State.
(CLOSED PRESS COVERAGE)
Note that Prime Minister Netanyahu's confidante, Attorney Yitzchak Molcho, who is traveling with Livni, is apparently excluded from the event.

What could go wrong? 

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Protest signs in Egypt

This sign was seen at an anti-Muslim Brotherhood protest in Egypt (Hat Tip: Jack W).

Heh.

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Monday, July 29, 2013

Yoni Netanyahu comes back from the dead

Prime Minister Netanyahu's brother Yoni - who was killed in the raid on the airport in Entebbe in 1976 - has returned from the dead to see what his brother is doing.

Unfortunately, we're not. And Yoni's and Bibi's father would probably have an even harsher reaction.

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Moral relativism at the Washington Post

I don't know how many of you saw the front page of Monday's Washington Post, but here's some of the moral relativism that's typical of news coverage of 'Palestinian' terror.
The list of prisoners who may be released in coming days includes militants who threw firebombs, in one case at a bus carrying children; stabbed and shot civilians, including women, elderly Jews and suspected Palestinian collaborators; and ambushed and killed border guards, police officers, security agents and soldiers. All of them have been in prison for at least two decades; some were serving life sentences.
The Israeli public views these prisoners as terrorists who have blood on their hands. Palestinians see them as freedom fighters struggling to reclaim their homeland and oust the occupiers. Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and his leadership refused to return to the negotiating table without their release.
Two equally valid viewpoints, no? I wonder if WaPo would publish a description of the 9/11 hijackers who crashed a plane into the Pentagon as "freedom fighters struggling to spread Islam all over the world." Would they use the morally neutral term 'militants' to describe them?

I suppose maybe they would.

More here.

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After charging Morsy with collaborating with Hamas, Egypt supports Hamas-Fatah reconciliation

Go and figure....


(Link in the Tweet is to Twitter in Arabic)

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