Report: Netanyahu Looking Into 'Enclave Peace Plan'

Elad Benari

If it works in Belgium and the Netherlands, could it also work in the Middle East? Channel 2 News reported on Sunday that Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu is looking into the option of applying a Dutch-Belgian enclave model to the peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinian Authority (PA).

According to the report, Netanyahu has directed Cabinet Secretary Avichai Mandelblit to look into this issue and submit a report on its possible implementation.

Netanyahu is basing his idea on the Belgian municipality of Baarle-Hertog, which has some territory made up of exclaves in the Dutch province of North Brabant. The total area of the region is 7.48 square kilometers (2.89 square miles) which gives a population density of 308 inhabitants per km² (798 inhabitants/sq mi).

Baarle-Hertog consists of 24 separate parcels of land. There are twenty Belgian exclaves in the Netherlands and three other sections on the Dutch-Belgian border. There are also seven Dutch exclaves within the Belgian exclaves.

The Obama-Netanyahu rift

Isi Leibler

In an unprecedented breach of diplomatic etiquette, U.S. President Barack Obama once again sandbagged Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. In a carefully orchestrated interview with Jeff Goldberg, a columnist for Bloomberg View, released a few hours before the prime minister's arrival in the U.S., Obama reverted to his May 2011 role as an Israel basher and engaged in personal savaging and humiliation of Netanyahu.

This was despite Netanyahu's intimation that Israel intended to adopt the Kerry framework, albeit with reservations.

Obama accused Netanyahu of leading his country towards disaster, condemned the "more aggressive settlement construction" and rhetorically asked, "Do you resign yourself to what amounts to a permanent occupation of the West Bank?" He effusively praised Mahmoud Abbas -- who had rejected Olmert's offer for 97 percent of territories over the Green Line and refused to even conduct negotiations unless Israel released mass murderers whom he currently fetes as heroes. Obama made no reference to Palestinian intransigence and total unwillingness to compromise.

Iran's gift to Gaza terrorists: 40 missiles, 181 mortar shells and 400,000 bullets

srael set to reveal to world the weaponry that Iran attempted to send to Gaza terror groups on Klos C ship that was intercepted last week in Red Sea • IDF official: The M-302 missiles would have given Hamas and Islamic Jihad strategic capability.

Lilach Shoval, Shlomo Cesana, Eli Leon, Dan Lavie and Israel Hayom Staff

A missile and mortar shells found aboard the Klos C ship | Photo credit: IDF Spokesperson's Unit

<< 1 2 3 4 >>

Prime Minister Benajmin Netanyahu, Defense Minister Moshe Ya'alon and Israeli Navy Commander Vice Adm. Ram Rothberg were scheduled to hold a press conference Monday at the Eilat Port to present the Gaza-bound weaponry found aboard the Klos C ship, which was intercepted by the navy last week in the Red Sea.

The ship was carrying:

• 40 Syrian-made M-302 missiles with a 90-to-160 kilometer (60-to-100 mile) range
• 181 mortar shells, 120 mm caliber
• About 400,000 bullets, 7.62 mm caliber

Soldiers from Yahalom, the Israel Defense Forces combat engineering unit for special operations, began unpacking the ship's cargo on Saturday afternoon. After unloading and removing the weapons, the containers were returned to the ship's hold.

Britain: Mass Immigration Leaves Towns and Cities 'Unrecognizable'

Soeren Kern

http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/4205/britain-immigration

"The free market to which our EU partners are fundamentally committed has turned out to have rather different and serious implications in the UK. The fundamental mistake was to expand the EU to include 100 million people with a standard of living of about one quarter of ours." — Migration Watch UK.

Net immigration to the United Kingdom surged to 212,000 in the year ending September 2013, a significant increase from 154,000 in the previous year, according to the latest official statistics.
The new immigration data cast considerable doubt on a pledge by Prime Minister David Cameron to get net migration—the difference between the number of people entering Britain and those leaving—down to the "tens of thousands" before the general election in May 2015.
According to the latest Migration Statistics Quarterly Report (MSQR), published by the Office for National Statistics on February 27, some 532,000 people migrated to the UK in the year ending in September, up from the 497,000 people who arrived during the previous year, while 320,000 left the country, down from the 343,000 the previous year.

Arab League Says it will not Recognize Israel as Jewish State

CAIRO, (WAFA) – Council of the League of Arab States expressed Sunday their support of the Palestinian leadership in its pursuit for ending the Israeli occupation in the Palestinian Territory, adding it absolutely rejects to recognize Israel as a Jewish state.

The council said in the conclusion statement of their 141st meeting of the Arab ministers of foreign affairs there will be no peace unless East Jerusalem is made capital of Palestine and unless an independent Palestinian state is established based on the 1967 borders in accordance with international legitimacy resolutions and the Arab peace initiative.

The statement also said settlement construction and expansion is illegal, as per the international law.

Jonathan Pollard describes his health as 'wretched'

By GIL HOFFMAN

 

Homefront security minister Gilad Erdan warns Obama not to let him die in jail; says would be "stain" on president's administration.

Jonathan Pollard red, white and blue Photo: Courtesy

Israeli agent Jonathan Pollard returned to his North Carolina prison cell over the weekend to recover from surgery related to the malfunctioning of his kidneys, gall bladder and intestines.
Pollard was hospitalized Wednesday morning suffering from tremendous pain. His wife Esther expressed distress over his condition after speaking to him by phone.

He is very weak," she told The  Jerusalem Post. “He is totally drained and worn out. When I asked him how he was feeling, he groaned and whispered 'Wretched.'"
Esther Pollard said her first conversation with her husband after the surgery was very alarming because he had to struggle to speak. His breathing was labored and he was in terrible pain.
"Mostly all he was able to do was to answer yes or no to my questions," she said. "He was not able to speak more than a few words."
In their next conversation a day later, he was able to speak more, though he was in a lot of pain and she could hear the strain in his voice.

So...who to believe?

American ambassador endorses key Netanyahu demand, saying Arab world will have to accept ‘nation state of the Jewish people’

By Elie Leshem

Just a little over two weeks ago-we were told:

US Ambassador to Israel Dan Shapiro asserted on Friday that the framework peace deal currently being negotiated by US Secretary of State of John Kerry will include Palestinian recognition of Israel as “the nation state of the Jewish people.”

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s insistence that Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas recognize Israel’s Jewishness has been a sticking point in negotiations, with the Palestinians refusing to accede to a demand that would tacitly do away with Palestinian hopes for a “right of return” for refugees and their descendants. 

“It’s too early to know what compromises and concessions both sides will make,” Shapiro told Israel Radio on Friday morning. “But we do believe… that Israel deserves recognition as a Jewish state. That has always been US policy — that Israel is a Jewish state and should remain a Jewish state. That will be one of the elements of the framework we’re working on.”

Netanyahu Reiterates Intent to Block Construction Freeze

by Tova Dvorin

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu reiterated Sunday that he is opposed to imposing a construction freeze on Judea and Samaria as part of the ongoing talks between Israel and the Palestinian Authority.

"We imposed one in the past and it brought no results," Netanyahu noted, in an interview with IDF Radio. ?He added that a framework agreement from the US - which would not obligate Israel or the PA to follow the US's plan, but concretize "an American document on American positions" - may not go smoothly with the PA. 

Netanyahu's comments are not the first hint that Israel is rejecting a building freeze in Judea and Samaria, despite Palestinian Authority (PA) Chairman Mahmoud Abbas's demands Monday for such a freeze.

The Prime Minister stated almost exactly the same declaration on Sunday as he had on Friday, in remarks to Channel 10. 

U.S.: No Need for PA to Recognize Israel

by Elad Benari

The United States believes there is no need for the Palestinian Authority (PA) to recognize Israel as a Jewish state as part of a peace agreement, State Department Spokeswoman Jen Psaki said Saturday.

Psaki, who spoke to the PA-based Arabic-language Al-Quds newspaper, said, “The American position is clear, Israel is a Jewish state. However, we do not see a need that both sides recognize this position as part of the final agreement.”

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu has been adamant on the PA recognizing Israel as a Jewish state, explaining that the Arabs’ refusal to recognize Israel stands at the heart of the conflict.

The PA has already formally refused to recognize Israel as a Jewish state, stating that "the Arab states will never recognize a Jewish state." PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas reiterated this position on Friday, when he told young members of his Fatah movement that “there is no way” he would recognize Israel.

Islam's inadvertent patterns

Daniel Pipes

How does Islam shape the way Muslims live? The religion's formal requirements are the narrow base for a far wider structure of patterns that extend the formal rules of Islam, stretching them in unexpected and unplanned ways. A few examples:

The Quran strictly bans the consumption of pork, leading to the virtual disappearance of domesticated pigs in Muslim-majority areas, then their replacement by sheep and goats. These latter overgrazed the land, which led, as the geographer Xavier de Planhol observes, to "a catastrophic deforestation that in turn "is one of the basic reasons for the sparse landscape particularly evident in the Mediterranean districts of Islamic countries." Note the progression from Quranic dietary injunction to the desertification of vast tracts of land. The scriptural command was not intended to cause ecological damage, but it did.

Islam's unattainably high standards for governmental behavior meant historically that existing leaders, with their many faults, alienated Muslim subjects, who responded by refusing to serve those leaders in administrative and military service, thereby compelling rulers to seek personnel elsewhere. This led to their systematically deploying slaves as soldiers and administrators, thereby creating a key institution that lasted a millennium from the eighth century.

Netanyahu to Israel Hayom: Iran has not changed

"Right now the battle is over the truth, and the truth is Iran is a country that breaks all the rules," Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says in Israel Hayom interview • PM: Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas refuses to move toward peace deal.

Shlomo Cesana

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu: "On Jerusalem, until now, I haven't compromised, and this is a strong indication about the future" | Photo credit: Ziv Koren

"The smuggling of the missiles was an Iranian covert operation that we discovered, caught and stopped. Beyond catching the dangerous missiles, this is a message to the world, a message that we are transferring gradually and methodically: Despite the Iranian denials, despite the smiles and imaginary moderation emanating from Iran, this is still the same Iran and it hasn't altered its murderous conduct in any way," Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told Israel Hayom in an interview upon his return from last week's trip to the United States.

In the interview, Netanyahu addressed the Iranian nuclear issue, the peace talks with the Palestinians, his most recent meeting with U.S. President Barack Obama and the ongoing incarceration of Israeli spy Jonathan Pollard.

Netanyahu continued to tout the military and diplomatic victory scored by Israel and its naval commandos by capturing the Klos C weapons ship: "It should and it will influence those conducting the negotiations with Tehran regarding the question of how best to proceed with Iran. Right now the battle is over the truth, and the truth is Iran is a country that breaks all the rules. It is important to expose Iran's true face."

'Concessions aren't necessary'

Next week, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas is also scheduled to visit with Obama in Washington. Netanyahu hopes the U.S. president will pressure Abbas to agree to a one-year extension period for the peace talks. According to the prime minister's assessment, Abbas is not showing signs that he is willing to do so.

Menachem Begin, The Counter-Revolutionary

HILLEL HALKIN

A pair of events, neither of which occurred at a chronological midpoint in Israel's history, nevertheless divide that history in two. The first was the Six Day War of 1967. The second was Menachem Begin's electoral victory of 1977. Both came unexpectedly, both launched Israel on unforeseen trajectories and both had immense consequences that the country is still struggling to cope with.

These events, though 10 years apart, were closely connected. Begin, a loser in eight prior national elections, would never have won the prime ministership on his ninth try without the '67 war. It bestowed on him-a right-wing leader despised and shunned by Israel's ruling establishment until asked to join a national unity cabinet as war threatened-a political respectability he hadn't had before. It transformed his Herut Party's platform, which called for Jewish rule in all of Palestine, from an apparent fantasy to a reality. It awakened a wave of repressed sentiment for places-the Old City of Jerusalem, Hebron, the hill country of Judea and Samaria-that, though an integral part of the Jewish people's biblical heritage, had been written off as permanently lost by all but Begin's most fanatic followers. And it led directly to the surprise Egyptian and Syrian attack in 1973, whose initial debacle and terrible losses turned Israelis against the Labor Zionist leadership they had trusted since the nation's founding in 1948. It made them ready for a change.

Few Minutes as Prime Minister Netanyahu

Nurit Greenger | March 9, 2014

Once in a while an ordinary citizen would like to slide into the body of a prime minister or a president of a country and sow him or her how to perform their job. For instance….if I am prime minister Netanyahu for few minutes, addressing all western media, here is what I will tell them:

Ladies and gentlemen,
It is time you acknowledge, repetitiously, that Israel is fighting the Fanatic Moslem Ideology (FMI) in order to protect her own land and citizens along with protecting all western societies, as an act of survival, not from a point of egotistic, economic profitability, or power gain.

The Black Hitler of Harlem

Sultan Knish

The Black Hitler was a Chicago community organizer who moved to New York. Somewhere along the way he picked up a gold lined cape, a purple turban and a stepladder on which he used to stand while giving speeches outside the stores of Harlem's dwindling Jewish community. 

The cape and the turban were combined with Nazi style military shirt and jackboots, for the quixotic uniform of a man who is remembered today as a pioneering labor leader-- but was known back then as the Black Hitler.

A dagger thrust through his belt completed the ensemble.

In his stepladder speeches, Black Hitler declared that he was the only man who could stop the Jews, accusing them of spreading filth and disease, and called on his followers to tear out the tongues of any Jew they met.

He vowed an "an open bloody war against the Jews who are much worse than all other whites."

Speeches like these earned him the title, 'Black Hitler' and intimidated local businesses into hiring workers from his own private labor union. 

Obama's Balloon Burst

Nurit Greenger | March 9, 2014

By now every American can agree that Obama is a failed president. There is no reason to be lauding Mr. Obama for anything. The world is laughing at America and the vacuum he is creating allows the United States adversaries' to fast rise and fill the gaps and take control.
Obama’s performance, or lack of, in handling Putin's Russia is appalling; his failed foreign policy with Syria's Assad, Khameinei's Iran and other tyrants who are murdering people with abandon and playing with chemicals and nukes is weakening the United States' security blanket.
Folks you are no longer safe in between the two oceans!
On the home-front Obama has failed too. Every law he signed, every change he made, every regulation he passed made every American's life more difficult, more unpleasant, and created less trust in the government, which they already have little trust in.
He even took, the much imperfect as it was, America’s health care system and broke it, made it dysfunction.

Israeli teens to Netanyahu: As conscientious objectors, we won't serve in IDF

By JPOST.COM STAFF

 

The youths said the letter was written in solidarity with ultra-Orthodox and Arab youngsters who refuse to perform military service.

Givati swearing in ceremony at the Western Wall in Jerusalem. Photo: IDF SPOKESMAN'S OFFICE

Dozens of Israeli teenagers soon to be eligible for conscription into the Israel Defense Forces signed a letter addressed to Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu on Saturday declaring their intention to refuse military service on the basis of conscientious objection.

"Their refusal is designed to protest the continuing occupation [in Judea and Samaria] and the intrusion of the military into civilian life, something which further entrenches chauvinism, militarism, violence, inequality, and racism," the organizers of the letter said in a press release on Saturday.

"The military's operations move us further away from finding a [diplomatic] solution and reaching peace, justice, and security," said Mandy Kartner, a Tel Aviv native and one of the letter's signatories. "My refusal is a way to express opposition to injustices committed by us and in our name every day."

Qatar, Bahrain, UAE ban “Noah” film; Al Azhar says it violates Islam

Robert Spencer 


This kind of censorship is routine when it comes to something deemed “un-Islamic” in a Muslim country. A far greater cause for concern is the self-censorship that the Western media increasingly practices in regard to things that offend Muslims: for example, the near-universal unwillingness to reprint the Muhammad cartoons, which despite the furor they caused were actually quite bland. A willingly Sharia-compliant media is the enemy of free people.
An update on this story. “Egyptian Islamic body says Russell Crowe’s ‘Noah’ should be banned,” from News.com.au, March 7:

RUSSELL Crowe’s new big budget biblical epic Noah is facing a battle to get on to screens, with bans in place in several countries.
The Hollywood Reporter states that censor boards in Qatar, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates will refuse a local release for the film, which was directed by Darren Aronofsky for Paramount.
Studio executives are expecting similar bans in Egypt, Jordan and Kuwait, the site reported.
Egypt’s top Islamic body has already claimed the film is irreligious and should be banned.

The Zionist Organization of America – A personal postscript

 Martin Sherman

ZOA’s current condition reflects the accumulative result of the incumbent president’s best efforts over the past 20 years. His reelection is unlikely to induce the change that even his proponents admit is needed

An excerpt:

                            

…the ZOA is in crisis today… the ZOA’s crisis isn’t about its direction. It is about its leadership...right now, the most important thing for the ZOA and the American Jewish community as a whole is for Klein to be reelected. 

– Caroline B. Glick, “The ZOA’s leadership challenge,”The Jerusalem Post, March 3 

This is not the topic I was hoping to deal with in this week’s column.

I had intended to devote it to a critical analysis of the (borderline anti-Semitic) interview Barack Obama gave to Bloomberg’s Jeffrey Goldberg on March 2.

I even had a title for it: “The bitter fruits of Bibi’s Bar-Ilan blunder.” In it I planned to show how the causal chain of events that led to the predicament in which Israel finds itself with the US administration can be traced back – link by unfortunate link – to Binyamin Netanyahu’s regrettable June 2009 speech at Bar Ilan University, when, reneging on his electoral commitments, he endorsed Israeli acceptance of Palestinian statehood.

Or perhaps, given breaking news on the spectacularly successful IDF marine interception of the Iranian rockets bound for Gaza, I would have composed a piece pointing out that — for all our unmitigated admiration for the astounding feat – the only reason such risk-fraught operations are necessary is that Israel abandoned Gaza in 2005.

But the fallout from last week’s column on the upcoming Zionist Organization of America elections in Philadelphia  on March 9-10 dictates otherwise. Read More

Weakness is the New Strength

Sultan Knish

WEAKNESS IS THE NEW STRENGTH

The progressive spin is that Putin’s invasion, as the Center for American Progress put it, is “an act of weakness, not strength — an act, as Kerry aptly characterized it, anachronistic in both moral and strategic terms… fundamentally mismatched to 21st century realities.”

In the upside down world of progressive soft power, invading another country is an act of weakness while being unable to do anything about it is an act of strength. Weakness is the new strength and strength is the new weakness.

Obama’s impotence makes him a world leader, while Putin’s potency makes him a 19th century relic.

The more Putin does, the more he shows that he’s another Sarah Palin or Mitt Romney, a déclassé bumpkin unfit for the modern 21st century realities of discussing foreign policy on Jay Leno and cracking wise about horses and bayonets.

Obama Enters Putin’s World




Dem Senator’s Son Claims Iraq Vet Running Against Him has “Sense of Entitlement” - His Republican opponent graduated Harvard Law and joined the Army to go to Iraq





SOME ANIMALS ARE MORE EQUAL THAN OTHERS

Like ObamaCare, Obama’s massive budget proposal has all sorts of horrible things in it, but one of them is more horrible than the rest.

Surviving Obama

Caroline Glick

Bloomberg columnist Jeffrey Goldberg minced few words in discussing the interview that US President Barack Obama gave him on the eve of Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s latest visit to Washington.

Speaking with journalist Charlie Rose, Goldberg equated Obama’s threat to stop supporting Israel in international forums to the talk of a mafia don. Obama told Goldberg that if Israel doesn’t cut a deal with the Palestinians soon, “our ability to manage the international fallout is going to be limited.” He added, “And that has consequences.”

That statement, Goldberg noted, was a “veiled threat” and “almost up there with, ‘Nice little Jewish state you’ve got there. Hate to see something happen to it.’” Goldberg saw the interview as Obama’s way of showing that he is beginning to abandon the pretense of supporting Israel, now that he no longer faces reelection. In Goldberg’s words, “It’s not that the gloves are coming off. It’s more that the mask of diplomatic language is coming off a little bit.”

Goldberg added that due to the fact that Obama “doesn’t have to run again for anything,” he doesn’t need to pretend feelings for Israel that he doesn’t have, by among other things, going to the AIPAC annual policy conference.

Money, Politics and Israel's Defense

Shoshana Bryen
March 7, 2014 

http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/4207/obama-budget-israel-missile-defense

Missile defense buys time and the Administration should appreciate -- and fund -- that.
When the President is leaning hard on Israel to be forthcoming and flexible on issues of its own short and long-term security, the signal that missile defenses are expendable sends the wrong signal to both friends and adversaries.
Does the president really believe that Hamas, the Palestinian franchise of the Muslim Brotherhood -- supported, oddly, by Iran -- would throw in the revolutionary towel if Israel makes a deal with Mahmoud Abbas for the West Bank?

Early Wednesday, the IDF intercepted a shipment of Syrian-made M-302 rockets with a range of up to 200 kilometers (125 miles). The missiles, which apparently went through Iraqi airspace to Iran and then by ship to the Red Sea, were likely headed to Sudan. From there, they would have gone by truck through the (mostly unguarded) Sinai to Gaza, from which they would have been capable of reaching nearly all of Israel.

Israeli naval commandos on their way to board the Klos-C cargo ship, which was found to be smuggling missiles from Iran to the Gaza strip, via Sudan, March 5, 2014. (Image source: Israel Defense Forces)

That makes this a very bad day for the annual "Obama slashes Israeli missile defense programs and Congress puts the money back" dance. For years, the Obama Administration has sent a budget to Capitol Hill that included steep reductions in prior year spending for cooperative U.S.-Israel missile defense programs. Congress complains loudly then puts in the money it believes the programs merit. With the release of the budget figures two years ago, Defense News noted:

PIP: Abbas: "No Way" He'll Recognize Jewish State

IPT News  •  Mar 7, 2014 
http://www.investigativeproject.org/4308/abbas-no-way-hell-recognize-jewish-state

Dear Obama and associates-time to stop the pressure upon us here in Israel-Abbas has made it absolutely clear-AGAIN! So-exert all of your efforts upon the Abbas organization to shift their staunch belief-PIP (Peace Isn't Possible) with an enemy that assumes this stance .

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas is rejecting a key demand of the United States and Israel as part of ongoing peace talks that would lead to the creation of a Palestinian state.
"They are pressing and saying, 'no peace without the Jewish state,'" Abbas said in remarks released Friday by the official Palestinian news agency WAFA. "There is no way. We will not accept."
Recognizing Israel as a Jewish state is believed to be part of the blueprint for an agreement developed by U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry. He hoped to win endorsements from Israel and the Palestinians on an outline for a peace agreement by the end of next month.
President Obama has repeatedly referred to Israel as the Jewish state, most recently in his State of the Union speech in January. Still, in an interview with journalist Jeffrey Goldberg, Obama cast Abbas as a political moderate and put the onus on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to sign on to the proposals.

Israel’s Homicidal Peace Partner

Daniel Greenfield


Solomon Yahya was born in Yemen in 1915. He worked as a gardener for forty years in Israel. Even long after retirement he continued doing the work that he loved. A month before the Madrid Conference at which Israel was forced to negotiate with the PLO, he was stabbed to death in a public park.
He was 76 years old.

Solomon had escaped Muslim persecution in Yemen, where the last remaining Jews live in a ghetto, only to be murdered by a Muslim terrorist in his own country.
At the end of last year, Solomon’s murderer, Abu Mohsin Khaled Ibrahim Jamal, was freed by Israel as a “confidence-building” measure to bring Mahmoud Abbas, the leader of the Palestinian Authority, to the negotiating table.
Most of the prisoners released along with Solomon’s murderer had also killed civilians; their victims included Steven Rosenfeld, an American immigrant, a mother of seven and a history professor.
The release of the murderers, negotiated by Kerry, was praised by a State Department spokeswoman as “a positive step forward.”

Putin Rebuffs International Warnings

FP

Top News: Vladimir Putin rebuffed calls from the international community to pullback troops from Crimea, saying Russia had to protect native Russian speakers in Ukraine. A Ukrainian official reported that there are now 30,000 Russian troops in the region, though Putin continues to deny that the unidentified soldiers are Russian forces.
Putin's latest moves come as the Ukrainian interim prime minster warned Crimean MPs against a secession vote. Arseniy has called the vote, which is scheduled for March 16, "illegitimate." The referendum has been supported by the Russian parliament.
Jordan: Secretary of State John Kerry met with Jordan's King Abdullah II to discuss the peace process. Kerry hopes to present a framework for an agreement between Israel and Palestine authorities by the end of April. Any proposal centers on a security plan in the Jordan Valley.

---

Asia Malaysian opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim was sentenced to five years in jail on sodomy charges after a court overturned his previous acquittal. China expressed "deep concern" after a North Korean ballistic missile crossed paths with a Chinese civilian airplane. An explosion on board an Indian naval vessel killed one officer after the blast led to a toxic gas leak.

Rocking the boat?

Ruthie Blum

On Wednesday, Israeli Navy commandos intercepted a commercial ship in the Red Sea between Eritrea and Sudan that was transporting weapons from Iran to terrorists in Gaza.

Because the commandos that boarded the vessel were wearing helmet cameras, there is real-time footage of the operation. And what the pictures reveal are dozens of Syrian-made long-range missiles, hundreds of pounds of payload and sacks of concrete with a "made in Iran" label in plain English.

According to sources in the Israeli defense establishment, this event is merely the tip of the iceberg. At its epicenter is the Quds Force of the Iranian Republican Guards, the unit in charge of "exporting the Islamic Revolution" worldwide. Key to the success of its goal is arming and financing terrorist networks bent on Israel's annihilation.

Israeli intelligence has been closely monitoring the activities of Iran's global reach and Middle East stronghold. Wednesday's interception of the Klos C ship was one among many thwarted attempts by the ayatollah-led regime to transfer arms to Palestinian terror groups. One shudders to think of all the successful efforts emanating out of Tehran that Israel was unable to block.

Obama's 'If not now, when?!'

Yoram Ettinger

U.S. President Barack Obama assumes that regional and global circumstances are now conducive for a peace accord between Israel and the Palestinian Authority. According to Obama, such a peace accord would require Israel (once again) to undertake tangible, critical, territorial concessions, in return for (once again) intangible Palestinian commitments. "If not now, when? " he asked Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, in a March 2, 2014 interview.

However, the editorial headline of the March 3, 2014 Washington Post, a solid supporter of Obama, stated: "President Obama's foreign policy is based on fantasy." According to the Washington Post, "For five years, President Obama has led a foreign policy based more on how he thinks the world should operate than on reality. It was [supposedly] a world in which 'the tide of war is receding.' Secretary John Kerry displayed this mindset, [saying that] Russia's invasion of Ukraine is a 19th century act in the 21st century. ... Unfortunately, Russian President Putin has not received the memo on the 21st century behavior. Neither has China's President Xi Jinping, who is engaged in gunboat diplomacy against Japan and weaker nations of Southeast Asia. ... Assad is waging a very 20th century war against his own people."

It Takes a Rogue Nation to Stop a Rogue State

Sultan Knish

The international community looked into Putin's eyes and blinked. Multilateralism has failed as badly as it did in the days of the League of Nations, but then again it never actually worked.

The international order that everyone pretends is a real force in world affairs is really the United States and a few partners doing all the work and letting the diplomats and bureaucrats of the world pretend that they matter. Without America, the United Nations would be just as useless as the League of Nations. With America, the United Nations is only a deterrent when the United States puts its foot down and the rest of the world doesn't get in the way.

It has become fashionable to denounce the United States as a rogue state. A military intervention, even with the backing of its Western allies, but outside the framework of the organizations of the international order, was deemed unilateralism and cowboy diplomacy.

And then Obama rode in on a three-speed bike and won a Nobel Peace Prize for his commitment to doing nothing.

Obama Budget Slashes Israeli Missile Defense Programs Lamborn slams funding decrease of nearly $200 million

An Iron Dome missile interceptor overlooking Haifa, Israel / AP

BY: Adam Kredo      
March 5, 2014

Joint U.S.-Israeli missile defense programs would be reduced by nearly $200 million under President Barack Obama’s fiscal year 2015 budget proposal, prompting concern from lawmakers who have fought to keep the critical defense programs fully funded.

Israeli Cooperative Programs—which include the Arrow II, Arrow III, and David’s Sling missile defense systems—are slated to receive $96.8 million under Obama’s newly released budget proposal, a reduction of nearly $200 million from the previous year’s finalized levels.

The funding dip hits as the White House seeks to significantly reduce the overall U.S. defense budget and enact severe cuts to the U.S. military.

Rep. Doug Lamborn (R., Colo.), a member of the House Armed Services Committee, slammed the administration for insufficiently funding the joint missile projects, which benefit both Israeli and American security.

COP: Keystone: Decide Already

Obama has “studied” the pipeline for five years.
 

By Deroy Murdock 

 

Give Obama this: When he wants something, no one moves more quickly and decisively. From unilaterally rewriting Obamacare at least 18 times to bypassing Congress and implementing the DREAM Act’s immigration policies by fiat, Obama rules by decree. His executive orders recall the late Yul Brynner’s portrayal of Pharaoh Ramses II in Cecil B. DeMille’s The Ten Commandments (1956). As the maximum leader of Egypt said: “So let it be written. So let it be done.”
Now that’s leadership.
“America does not stand still,” Obama likewise declared in his January 28 State of the Union address. “And neither will I.”
Obama has kept this promise. Regarding the Keystone XL (KXL) Pipeline, Obama has not stood still. Instead, he has sat on his rump and wallowed in relentless indecision.

What Are Kerry and Europe Really About?

Daoud Assaf

http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/4177/john-kerry-europeans

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas has already said he would never recognize Israel as a Jewish state. But the real problem is that even if he did, he or any of his successors could easily change their mind and retract their recognition, after Israel had already given him back the West Bank -- "That was him, not me" -- as well as in the time-honored tradition of Hudaibiyya.
"And We made those who had been persecuted inherit the eastern and western lands which we had blessed. Thus you Lord's gracious promise was fulfilled to the Children of Israel, for they had endured with patience." Qur'an, Surah 7, Al-A'raf, 137
For decades, the EU and many European nations have been secretly funding hundreds of millions of taxpayers' euros to organizations that specialize in overthrowing Israel.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry recently warned that "the status quo between Israel and the Palestinians" cannot continue, noting that while there is prosperity and momentary security in Israel, it is "an illusion" that is bound to change if [peace] talks flounder. "The risks are very high for Israel," Kerry said. "People are talking about boycott. That will intensify in the case of failure. We all have a strong interest in this conflict resolution."
In short, Kerry is threatening Israel with a boycott and even security unrest if it does not accept the peace plan he says he will deliver in two weeks. Is Kerry actually endorsing the anti-Israeli boycott that delegitimizes America's only stable and democratic ally in the region? Also, what is the peace plan Kerry is so determined to force on the Israelis and Palestinians?

Israel and the Rest of the World

Denis MacEoin

http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/4203/israel-rest-of-world

The Nazis invented the Jewish boycott, and went on from there to the Holocaust.
The world excuses Islamic murder, but focuses on flaws, often imaginary, on the part of Israel.
This is the wrong boycott in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Everybody hates Israel. That is not just accepted wisdom, it is a reality that chokes all rational debate on the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians. There are exceptions, of course, such as Canada, but most of Western Europe has slipped from support for Israel to support for the Palestinian cause, as if both sides might not have valid claims to the disputed land.
Most Americans are enthusiastic about Israel, but the U.S. government under Barack Obama, has, in recent years, shown increasing antagonism. Unsurprisingly, not a single Muslim nation likes Israel at all.
Many hate the Jewish state precisely because it is a Jewish state -- there seems no other reason why they might hate it. Many, in a display of true prejudice, have never even visited it.

The End of the 'Wrong Side of History'

Jonathan Spyer
PJ Media

http://www.meforum.org/3784/obama-history

President Barack Obama, in criticizing Russian leader Vladimir Putin's conquest of the Crimean Peninsula, described Putin as standing "on the wrong side of history." This curious and arresting phrase has become a frequent cliché among western liberals.
It is testimony to their self-confidence, and to their belief that they have accurately read the deeper currents and inevitable direction of human affairs. These, in the view of the president and his supporters, point inexorably toward greater cooperation between peoples; a decline in attachment to particularist ethnic, national or religious histories; and a decline in the use of force to settle disputes between states.
The unspoken assumption behind all this, of course, is that being on the right side of history also means accepting the unmatched dominance of the U.S. in global affairs, and in turn the unchallengeable domination of the U.S. by people supporting the particular progressive world view of the president and his supporters.

COP: EPA’s Climate Regulations Will Harm American Manufacturing

By Nicolas Loris and Filip Jolevski

 

The Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) forthcoming climate change regulations for new and existing electricity generating units have been appropriately labeled the “war on coal,”[1] because the proposed limits for carbon dioxide emissions would essentially prohibit the construction of new coal-fired power plants and force existing ones into early retirement.
However, the casualties will extend well beyond the coal industry, hurting families and businesses and taking a significant toll on American manufacturing across the nation. Congress should stop the EPA and all other federal agencies from regulating carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas emissions.

Driving Energy Prices Up, Economic Activity Down

Coal provides approximately 40 percent of America’s electricity generation.[2] By significantly limiting the use of an affordable energy source, the EPA’s regulations will increase electricity prices for American households. Since low-income families spend a larger proportion of their income on energy, a tax that increases energy prices would disproportionately affect the budgets of the poorest American families.
Higher energy prices as a result of the regulations will squeeze both production and consumption. Since energy is a critical input for most goods and services, Americans will be hit repeatedly with higher prices as businesses pass higher costs onto consumers. However, if a company had to absorb the costs, high energy costs would shrink profit margins and prevent businesses from investing and expanding. The cutbacks result in less output, fewer new jobs, and less income.
Heritage Foundation analysts modeled the economic effects of a phase-out of coal between the years 2015 and 2038. Using the Heritage Foundation Energy Model, a derivative of the federal government’s National Energy Model System, we found that by the end of 2023, nearly 600,000 jobs will be lost, a family of four’s income will drop by $1,200 per year, and aggregate gross domestic product decreases by $2.23 trillion over the entire period of the analysis.[3 ]

Manufacturing Hit Hard

America’s manufacturing base will be particularly harmed by the EPA’s climate regulations. Manufacturing accounts for over 330,000 of the jobs lost.[4] This occurs for a number of reasons.

Anatomy of militant groups reveals Iraq's different challenges

Aymenn Jawad Al-Tamimi
The National (UAE)

http://www.meforum.org/3783/iraq-militant-groups

The most influential militant group is the Al Qaeda-offshoot Islamic State of Iraq and Levant (Isil), the successor to the Islamic State of Iraq that was formed at the end of 2006. Isil is strongest in Anbar – where it runs training camps in the desert – and retains at least partial presence in Ramadi, Fallujah and Nineveh. In Mosul, Isil functions as the mafia in the city, extorting millions of dollars every month from local businesses.
On account of its vast financial clout, as well as boosts in manpower following the US troops' withdrawal and Baghdad prison breaks in July last year that saw hundreds of prisoners escape, responsibility for the frequent coordinated bomb attacks targeting civilians in Baghdad and elsewhere can be reliably traced to Isil. The group is also the only one among the active insurgent groups capable of targeting points south of Baghdad on an occasional basis, including Kut, Wasit and Nasiriyah governorates. This also applies to the autonomous Kurdish region, which is now dealing with a "blowback" from Iraqi Kurdish recruits to Isil who have headed to Syria.

Islamic Jihad and the Doctrine of Abrogation

Raymond Ibrahim

While other scriptures contain contradictions, the Koran is the only holy book whose commentators have evolved a doctrine to account for the very visible shifts which occur from one injunction to another. No careful reader will remain unaware of the many contradictory verses in the Koran, most specifically the way in which peaceful and tolerant verses lie almost side by side with violent and intolerant ones. The ulema were initially baffled as to which verses to codify into the Shari’a worldview—the one that states there is no coercion in religion (2:256), or the ones that command believers to fight all non-Muslims till they either convert, or at least submit, to Islam (8:39, 9:5, 9:29). To get out of this quandary, the commentators developed the doctrine of abrogation, which essentially maintains that verses revealed later in Muhammad’s career take precedence over earlier ones whenever there is a discrepancy. In order to document which verses abrogated which, a religious science devoted to the chronology of the Koran’s verses evolved (known as an-Nasikh wa’l Mansukh, the abrogater and the abrogated).

Culture of hate is not framework necessary for peace

PA honors terrorist who planned murder
of Israeli minister Ze'evi
for "heroic sacrifice"

Itamar Marcus and Nan Jacques Zilberdik Despite the ongoing peace talks between Israel and the Palestinian Authority, PA leaders persist in their glorification of killers of Israeli civilians. Recently, the PA's Ministry of Prisoners' Affairs chose to honor the families of several terrorists imprisoned in Israel "out of appreciation for their heroic sacrifice." Among the terrorists honored at the ceremony were Ahed Abu Gholmeh, who is serving a life sentence for planning the murder of Israeli Minister of Tourism Rehavam Ze'evi ("Ghandi") in 2001, and Ahmad Sa'adat, who is serving a 30-year sentence for heading the PFLP terror organization. A song played at a PFLP event praised Sa'adat for planning the murder of the Israeli minister, but he has not been tried for this crime. A few months ago, PA Minister of Prisoners' Affairs Issa Karake visited Sa'adat's family and glorified the terrorist leader as:  "A symbol of freedom and a conscience for all humanity, who spent his life in the service of his people's freedom and independence."  [Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, Dec. 27, 2013] Karake also said that "Ahmad Sa'adat represents all free men, honorable people and fighters and that he has been distinguished by his bravery, honesty and deep faith in the justice of his cause; [he] carried out acts of bravery and adopted fundamental and revolutionary positions during his path of struggle," the official PA daily reported.

Prejudice's Latest Victim: Islam

ANDREW E. HARROD March 5, 2014

"It is therefore discriminatory to equate Islam with Islamist terrorism and undifferentiated to attribute violence from Islamist fundamentalists and terrorists to Islam," the Swiss Press Council (SPC) assessed in a November 13, 2013, opinion.  The SPC thereby condemned an admittedly shoddy March 29, 2013, Basler Zeitung (BZ) article with a value judgment having troubling implications for free speech concerning Islam.
            Entitled in German "Every Five Minutes a Christian is Murdered," the article made the increasingly recognized argument that Christianity is the most persecuted religion worldwide.  Similarly increasingly recognized is the article's identification of "Islamic extremism" as Christianity's greatest current threat.  For sources, the article referenced, among others, Christian aid organizations like Open Doors.
            "Not an extremist, but doctrine" in some 200 Koran verses and 1,800 hadith call for the conversion or death of nonbelievers, the article stated.  Christians and Jews as "dhimmi" under Islam are only "second-class citizens" with limited religious freedom.

What U Penn Teaches Muslim Law Students

LANCE SILVER, ANDREW PALASHEWSKY 

Saturday evening, Feb. 22nd, University of Pennsylvania Law School hosted the "Eighth Annual Muslim Law Students Conference," on the topic of "MUSLIM OBLIGATIONS IN PROMOTING JUSTICE IN AMERICA." Our interest in Islamic law as American citizens is to learn first-hand exactly what Muslim American law students are being taught.

The fairly innocuous and well-meaning title of the program masked the true intent, which we believe is to lull the audience and our society into a false sense of complacency regarding the real aims and effects of Islamic incursion in our society - which Stephen Coughlin covers in his must-read thesis, " To Our Great Detriment."

We were greeted with "As-Salamu ' Alaykum" (Peace be upon you), upon entering the conference and by each speaker, prior to presentation. What a comforting greeting. I responded with "Aslim Taslam."

As is typically the case, conference attendees were highly educated and polite. This is a high-end mix of people who are difficult to fault on any personal level.

Putin to Obama - "it is a chess game!"

DR. ROBIN MCFEE 

No patriot wants their country to fail. It should not give anyone joy to celebrate the failures of our nations' leaders. But as members of the participatory sport known as the US democracy we must examine, as well as hold our elected accountable, for failure and foolishness.

Speaking of which, there have been a fair amount of idiotic policy approaches and comments coming out of the White House and those who are working for Obama over these last 4 plus years. Take for instance the recent comment during the latest Putin adventures (Ukraine) that ‘global events are not a chess game.' Really?!  Add to this the willing suspension of disbelief Secretary Kerry would like us to exhibit, as he suggested we should not interpret recent events, like the Russians going on a field trip to Crimea, as a return to the Cold War. Of course not! Just because Putin repeatedly has lamented the decline of Russia as the Soviet Union fell, and has made no secret about trying to position his nation to global preeminence at all cost, why on earth should we be concerned about his latest military camping trip into a sovereign country?!

Several years ago one of my first articles for FSM addressed the Global Chess Game, describing how Putin is still winning. During that time Russia invaded Georgia.

Expert bashes UN’s ‘politicized’ West Bank numbers

Claim that 300,000 Palestinians live in areas under full Israeli control is not quite true, says ex-official who drew the map

By Elhanan Miller March 6, 2014

Palestinian activists place a flag post in E1 east of Jerusalem, lying within area C of the West Bank (photo credit: Issam Rimawi/Flash90)

Writers

Elhanan Miller Elhanan Miller is the Arab affairs reporter for The Times of Israel

A United Nations report published Wednesday stated that the number of Palestinians living under full Israeli control in the West Bank is far higher than previously estimated, but an Israeli expert responsible for drawing the map in the mid-1990s said the UN was disingenuously inflating the numbers for political reasons.

The “Area C Vulnerability Profile” published by the UN’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in Occupied Palestinian Territories, known as OCHA, estimated that 297,900 Palestinians live in 532 residential areas in Area C, a subdivision of the West Bank with full Israeli security and administrative control. These areas, OCHA claimed, comprise “some of the most vulnerable communities in the West Bank in terms of humanitarian needs.”

Scream and shout that Iran is lying

Dan Margalit

Israel disrupted its neighbors' afternoon nap on Wednesday. In fact, the nuisance had the world wake up from its siesta. That West, that sleeping beauty that has all but passed out, had been dreaming about Iran being gradually transformed into a moderate nation when those rude Israeli commandos raided a Panamanian-flagged merchant vessel some 1,500 kilometers (930 miles) away from home, seizing M-302 missiles that had been dispatched from Syria to the Gaza Strip, by way of Iran.

This perception of Israel has its origins in 1972, when the elite special forces unit Sayeret Matkal freed the passengers aboard a hijacked Sabena plane. It was reinforced in the wake of the daring Israeli mission in Entebbe, Uganda in 1976, when the Israel Defense Forces rescued some 100 Israeli hostages whose plane had been taken over by Palestinian terrorists and diverted to Africa, and in 1988, when Khalil al-Wazir, the second in command in the Palestine Liberation Organization, was assassinated by Israeli commandos in his Tunis home. Later, in 2002, Israel's Flotilla 13 naval commando unit seized Karine A in the high waters of the Red Sea before its Iranian-dispatched weapons could reach the Gaza Strip. The most recent raid was a culmination of a lengthy undertaking that required a great deal of preparation.

Israel, PA Get Copies of Kerry’s Proposal

by Maayana Miskin

Israeli and Palestinian Authority leaders have received copies of United States Secretary of State John Kerry’s proposed diplomatic agreement, the PA’s Al-Quds newspaper reports.

Copies of the proposal have reportedly been given to Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and to chief PA negotiator Saeb Erekat.

The report has not yet been confirmed by officials on either side.

The Kerry proposal has been the subject of speculation over the past several weeks. Journalist Thomas Friedman reported in January that Kerry’s deal includes a PA capital city in eastern Jerusalem and would create a PA state in Judea, Samaria and Gaza with borders based on the 1949 armistice line.

IDF intercepts deadly Iranian arms shipment in Red Sea

theoptimisticconservative
 

On 5 March, Israeli forces stopped and boarded a freighter in the Red Sea, KLOS-C, which was carrying a cargo of battlefield rockets from Iran to Port Sudan.  The crew of the ship doesn’t appear to have known what was loaded in Iran; more on that later.  Sudan has of course served for years as a waypoint for Iranian arms deliveries to Gaza.  (See The Tower on this as well.)

According to the IDF, Israeli intelligence actually observed the rockets in question being transferred from Syria to Iran several months ago.  The rockets are versions of the Syrian-made M-302, the rocket used in a 302mm multiple-rocket launch system (MLRS).   The Assad regime has supplied the Syrian M-302, called the “Khaibar,” to Hezbollah in Lebanon for a number of years. 

ISIS and al-Qaeda compete for supremacy in global jihad

Aymenn Jawad Al-Tamimi
Al-Monitor

http://www.meforum.org/3782/isis-alqaeda-global-jihad

Much media attention has recently focused on a statement issued by al-Qaeda's central command on the Afghanistan-Pakistan border under Ayman al-Zawahri's leadership, declaring that the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS) has no relationship with the central leadership of al-Qaeda.
On the basis of this development, one might think that ISIS, which has hitherto been described in the media as an "al-Qaeda affiliate," may lose ground and standing in the eyes of jihadis and their supporters both inside and outside Syria. Indeed, in Jordan, the Salafist-jihadist movement has come firmly on the side of Jabhat al-Nusra against ISIS, maintaining strong links with Jabhat al-Nusra in the southern Syrian border province of Daraa, which lacks an ISIS presence.
One should also note the extent to which tensions on the ground have grown between ISIS and Jabhat al-Nusra. Beginning with infighting between Jabhat al-Nusra and ISIS in the city of Raqqa, clashes have since spread further out east.