New states are not created in the UN

Dore Gold The passage of U.N. General Assembly Resolution 181, also known as the Partition Plan, on Nov. 29, 1947, marked an enormous moral victory for the Jewish people in their effort to gain international recognition for their right to Jewish state. Five months later, David Ben-Gurion declared Israel's independence, referring to the U.N. General Assembly’s partition resolution from Nov. 29.  But was it true that Israel owed its very existence to the U.N., as it became popularly perceived years later? According to a legal study commissioned in the late 1970s by the U.N. Secretariat’s Special Unit on Palestinian Rights, Resolution 181 was the "juridicial basis" of the State of Israel according to international law. This same line of argument was repeated just this week by an Israeli analyst in the opinion section of the New York Times, who wrote that the vote on Nov. 29 was the "legal basis for the establishment of the State of Israel.” Leading international legal scholars have vociferously rejected this claim. The noted Australian legal scholar Professor Julius Stone wrote in 1980 that Israel "does not derive its legal existence from the Partition Plan."

Obama and Hamas

Bob Beauprez

"I try not to pat myself too much on the back – but this administration has done more in terms of the security of the state of Israel than any previous administration."

Barack Obama, Nov. 30, 2011, Manhattan, New York

In recent days Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was clearly in the middle of cobbling together a tenuous cease fire agreement between the Hamas Palestinians and Israel with a major assist from the Obama Administration's BFF, Mohammed Morsi, the Muslim Brotherhood President/Dictator of Egypt.  Time will tell how long the agreement lasts.
Nonetheless, while the Obama Administration is taking their victory lap around Gaza, objective observers will take note of the broader landscape that has befallen Israel over the last four years. 

A front page feature essay by Investor's Business Daily this past week is one of the most comprehensive summaries we have seen.  We strongly encourage you to read the entirety (link here), but if nothing else, study the graphic and consider the impact of just the excerpt below.  Then ask yourself, just how good a friend of Israel is Barack Obama?

Where to be born in 2013

The World In 2013 print edition 

Warren Buffett, probably the world’s most successful investor, has said that anything good that happened to him could be traced back to the fact that he was born in the right country, the United States, at the right time (1930). A quarter of a century ago, when The World in 1988 light-heartedly ranked 50 countries according to where would be the best place to be born in 1988, America indeed came top. But which country will be the best for a baby born in 2013?

To answer this, the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU), a sister company of The Economist, has this time turned deadly serious. It earnestly attempts to measure which country will provide the best opportunities for a healthy, safe and prosperous life in the years ahead.

Its quality-of-life index links the results of subjective life-satisfaction surveys—how happy people say they are—to objective determinants of the quality of life across countries. Being rich helps more than anything else, but it is not all that counts; things like crime, trust in public institutions and the health of family life matter too. In all, the index takes 11 statistically significant indicators into account. They are a mixed bunch: some are fixed factors, such as geography; others change only very slowly over time (demography, many social and cultural characteristics); and some factors depend on policies and the state of the world economy.

Abbas Calls Israel A “Racist” State Three Times During UN Speech Prior To Statehood Vote…

 http://weaselzippers.us/2012/11/29/abbas-calls-israel-a-racist-state-three-times-during-un-speech/
The UN representatives no doubt ate it up.

• We have not heard one word from any Israeli official expressing any sincere concern to save the peace process. On the contrary, our people have witnessed, and continue to witness, an unprecedented intensification of military assaults, the blockade, settlement activities and ethnic cleansing, particularly in Occupied East Jerusalem, and mass arrests, attacks by settlers and other practices by which this Israeli occupation is becoming synonymous with an apartheid system of colonial occupation, which institutionalizes the plague of racism and entrenches hatred and incitement.
• Yet, we must repeat here once again our warning: the window of opportunity is narrowing and time is quickly running out. The rope of patience is shortening and hope is withering. The innocent lives that have been taken by Israeli bombs – more than 168 martyrs, mostly children and women, including 12 members of one family, the Dalou family, in Gaza – are a painful reminder to the world that this racist, colonial occupation is making the two-State solution and the prospect for realizing peace a very difficult choice, if not impossible.

Brotherhood On Operation Pillar Of Defense: Antisemitic Statements, Calls For Jihad Against Israel”

The Global Muslim Brotherhood Daily Report

MEMRI has issued a new report titled “Muslim Brotherhood On Operation Pillar Of Defense: Antisemitic Statements, Calls For Jihad Against Israel” that examines the antisemitic statements and calls for Jihad issued by the  Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood during the latest Gaza crisis. The report begins:

Following the assassination of ‘Izz Al-Din Al-Qassam Brigades Commander Ahmad Al-Ja’bari and the launch of operation Pillar of Defense, the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood (MB) were prominent in leading popular anti-Israel sentiment and calls to sever diplomatic ties with Israel,[1] in contrast to President Morsi’s commitment to the peace agreement.[2] The MB staged protests outside mosques throughout Egypt in solidarity with the Palestinians.[3]

Op-Ed: I Stand Ashamed that My Country Voted for the New Nazis

Giulio Meotti

At the United Nations we are witnessing the creation ex nihilo of a foreign country, which never existed, and accepting the claims of the “Palestinian Arabs”, by giving them the land whose memory kept the Jews together as a people and brought them back to Jerusalem after the Holocaust.

The Western community at the United Nations, including my miserable Italy, just adopted the Nazis' strateg. Cunning in wickedness, the Germans dangled before their victims the possibility of saving themselves at the expense of other Jews.

In this case, the Jews to be sacrified are all of those living in Judea and Samaria, but ultimately it is the entire State of Israel, since a Palestinian State would only arise upon the fall of Israel.

I am ashamed that my country will vote for the first step towards officially prohibiting Jews or any other faith from living in a certain area, the first since Nazi Germany, which sought a country that was “jüdenrein”, or cleansed of Jews.

4 Questions for Anyone Who Supports a Palestinian State

Daniel Greenfield


1. How can a place with no elected officials be considered a state?
Mahmoud Abbas, the president of the Palestinian Authority, last won an election in 2005. His term ended in 2009. The Palestinian Legislative Council was last elected in 2006. Much of the Palestinian Authority is run by Prime Minister Salam Fayyad who has never been elected to anything.

 

The Palestinian Authority has refused to call elections, but found the time to put forward statehood bids. Shouldn’t there be an election before a statehood bid?

2. How can Palestine be a state if it’s actually two mutually hostile states run by two different governments?
The West Bank is governed by the Palestinian Authority. Gaza is run by Hamas. Each have their appointed politicians, militias and officials. Each is a mini-state. Despite several unity attempts, both remain divided between two mutually hostile armed camps, which are unable to agree on elections.
Shouldn’t there at least be a single Palestinian government that runs both the West Bank and Gaza as a prerequisite for statehood?

UN Perfidy on PA "state" - Shame on ALL Jewish Organizations! not having 30,000 Jews in front of the UN building!‏

Two Palestinian goals at UN: Have all disputed land declared "occupied" and have terrorists declared legitimate freedom fighters

Adopted by the PLO in the 12th session of the Palestinian National Council, in Cairo, June 9, 1974

Phase One: acquire as much territory as possible

Phase Two: Use the territory to launch terror on Israel

Phase Three: Destroy Israel

 

If Israel gives up Judea and Samaria, as it gave us Gaza Strip, in 2005, would there be peace tomorrow?

Palestinian Islamic Jihad Leader Promises "Savage Round" of Fighting

John Rossomando  
http://www.investigativeproject.org/3829/palestinian-islamic-jihad-leader-promises-savage

A leader of the third-largest Palestinian faction told the Egyptian newspaper El-Balad Thursday that the truce with Israel will be brief and that Palestinians are braced for a "more savage and bloody round" of fighting with Israel.

"We are preparing for a new, more savage round," Dr. Mohammed Al-Hindi, a leading Palestinian Islamic Jihad figure told the newspaper. "We are in a short truce (hudna), the Israeli enemy is preparing for further rounds of war in Gaza."

What the UN Palestine Vote Means and What it Doesn't‏

Eugene Kontorovich 

1) It should be no surprise that 130-odd countries took the rather technical step of of voting recognize Palestine as a “non-member” in the U.N. General Assembly. That is roughly the number of countries that already directly recognize Palestine as a state! If they have already actually recognized the state themselves, voting to extend such recognition for some particular purpose is hardly precedent-making. (Palestine’s international-recognition level rivals Israel’s.)

2) The apparent diplomatic victory is itself a consolation prize for the collapse of Abbas’ bid last year for actual U.N. membership for Palestine, which was rejected at the Security Council. If that effort was to be a “diplomatic tsunami,” as Israel’s defense minister warned, the current ploy is at most a chill breeze.

A few notable anniversaries on the Palestinians' big day

CarolineGlick

With the nations of Europe and the rest of the world lining up to support the PLO bid to receive non-member state status at the UN General Assembly, it is worth noting two anniversaries of related but forgotten events.

Of course, everyone knows the obvious anniversary - Nov. 29, 1947 was the day the UN General Assembly passed the plan to recommend the partition the British Mandate of Palestine into a Jewish state and an Arab state. The Jews accepted the plan. The Arabs -- both local and regional - rejected it. The local Arabs who 25 years later became known as "Palestinians," responded to the passage of UNGA resolution 181 by launching a terror war against the Jews. Their war was commanded by Iraqi and Lebanese terror masters and supported by the British military and its Arab Legion from Transjordan.

Hamas Is Fooling Everyone, Everywhere (Video)

The next time a Western media outlet interviews a Hamas leader, it would be advisable to ask him whether his movement was willing to change its charter.

By: Khaled Abu Toameh

 

Photo Credit: Screen shot

Is Hamas really on its way to moderation and pragmatism, as some Western political analysts and diplomats have come to believe?

 

And what do some Hamas leaders mean when they say that they are ready to accept a Palestinian state “only” in the West Bank, Gaza Strip and east Jerusalem?

These questions were raised after CNN recently aired an interview with Hamas “political leader” Khaled Mashaal.

 

Mashaal told CNN’s Christiane Amanpour: “I accept a Palestinian state according to 1967 borders with Jerusalem as the capital, with the right of return [of millions of Palestinians to Israel].”

"That Infernal UN Petition"

Today is the 65th anniversary of the UN General Assembly vote on the recommendation that Palestine be partitioned into a Jewish and an Arab state.  This followed the surrender by Britain of the Mandate for Palestine, under which the British were supposed to work for the establishment of a Jewish homeland from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea.  The British found themselves unwilling, finally, to cope with Arab violence and resistance to the Mandate and threw up their hands.

 

It was this vote that led, the following May, to Israel's declaration of independence as a state. In solidly rejecting this recommendation, the Arabs rendered the portion of Palestine that could have been an Arab state unclaimed Mandate land.

UN: Palestine is Now a Non-Member State; Reality: Palestine Will Continue to be a Non-Existent State

Barry Rubin On November 29, 2012

Twenty-four years ago, almost to the day, in 1988, I stood in a large hall in Algeria and saw Yasir Arafat declare the independence of a Palestinian state. It was forty-one years, almost to the day in 1947, when the UN offered a Palestinian state. Twelve years ago Israel and the United States officially offered a Palestinian state as part of a compromise at deal in the Camp David summit of 2000.

Arguably, despite all their errors, the Palestinian movement has made progress since those events, though it is not very impressive progress. Yet in real terms there is no real Palestinian state; the movement is more deeply divided than at any time in its history; and the people aren’t doing very well.

Now the UN will probably give Palestine the status of a non-member state. The only thing that will change is to convince people even more that they are following a clever and successful strategy. They aren’t.

Perhaps in 24 or 41 years there will actually be a Palestinian state.

Providing a Platform for Terror

Samuel Westrop
November 29, 2012 

If we really want to take an effective stand against extremism, we should not obsess over the extremists; rather, we should tackle those who facilitate, empower and legitimize extremism. The worst culprits are particular British Members of Parliament – elected officials whom we employ to safeguard our liberties and democratic rights but who betray these duties in favor of promoting the work of terror advocates. We have given terror and its apologists a platform, while we deny truth, reason and accountability a voice.

On the 28^th November, Labour MP Jeremy Corbyn will be hosting an event organised by the Palestine Solidarity Campaign in the British House of Commons with Mousa Abu Maria, an activist for the proscribed terrorist organisation Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ). Abu Maria will be speaking as part of a panel discussion – the conclusion to an anti-Israel lobbying day held by the Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC). The PSC is the leading anti-Israel organisation in Britain, whose members are accused by human rights activists of practising Holocaust denial and supporting terrorist groups such as Hamas.

Two Palestinian goals at UN: Have all disputed land declared "occupied" and have terrorists declared legitimate freedom fighters

http://palwatch.org/main.aspx?fi=157&doc_id=8111

by Itamar Marcus and Nan Jacques Zilberdik

The Palestinian Authority wishes to achieve a number of political gains by having the UN vote today, recognizing "Palestine" as a non-member observer state. First, all lands that are disputed and whose future must be negotiated according to the Oslo Accords, the PA wants declared Palestinian "occupied territory." Second, they claim that UN recognition would change the status of Palestinian terrorists in Israeli prisons to legitimate freedom fighters and prisoners of war.

1- Changing the status of land under Israeli administration since 1967 to "occupied territory"

PA Foreign Minister Riad Al-Maliki:

"If Palestine receives status of a non-member state in the General Assembly, there will be positive effects on all levels in the future... Israel will no longer be able to define the occupied territories as disputed lands. They will become lands of a separate, occupied state."

[Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, July 24, 2012]

America Has No Foreign Policy

Sultan Knish
The United States of America has a State Department, it has row after row of people who speak badly every language from Arabic to Swahili badly, and it has rich donors who take on the task of acting as ambassadors to some foreign country every four to eight years. There are think-tanks, actual tanks and institutes dedicated to turning out papers on foreign policy. And despite all this, or perhaps because of all this, the country still has no foreign policy.

Americans are by nature isolationist. American leaders, since Woodrow Wilson dumped ashes from his pipe on the Oval Office carpets and dumped America into the international game of empires, are bent on getting involved in world politics. Unfortunately everything they know about world politics comes from the back of cereal boxes. And yes that includes our current precious genius who comes to us from eating dog and living the life of a privileged member of Indonesia's upper classes, but knows almost as little about the world outside Chicago, as he does about economics.

Op Ed: Israel, Hamas, and the Value of a Human Life

By Op Ed November 27, 2012 The Stanford Daily

As you drive up the main road to Jerusalem, the world’s holiest city welcomes you with a sign offering the universal greeting of shalom aleichem, the Hebrew equivalent for the Arabic salaam aleikum, or “peace [be] upon you.” Yet Jerusalem’s status as the location of innumerable holy and historic sites provided no immunity and no peaceful shelter in the face of an encroaching tide of violence last week. On Nov. 20, in the midst of a week during which nearly 1,500 rockets rained down on Israel, a rocket was fired from the Gaza Strip towards Jerusalem, threatening nearly one million residents of diverse faiths and nationalities. As sirens sounded around the city and pedestrians ran for cover, the rocket landed harmlessly in the nearby West Bank, but notice had been served: not even the world’s holiest places were safe from the indiscriminate violence of Hamas.

COP: Buffett's Dividend Plan

 Larry Elder

Revealed: Warren Buffett's Dividend Stock Picking Strategy. New Report. 

 WealthWire.com/Buffett_Strategy

Once again, billionaire investor Warren Buffett urges his fellow high-on-the-hoggers to pay more in taxes. “Only in Grover Norquist’s imagination,” says Buffett, do taxes make much of a difference in how people invest. “So let’s forget about the rich and ultra-rich going on strike and stuffing their ample funds under their mattresses if – gasp – capital gains rates and ordinary income rates are increased. The ultra-rich, including me, will forever pursue investment opportunities. …

“We need Congress, right now, to enact a minimum tax on high incomes. I would suggest 30 percent of taxable income between $1 million and $10 million, and 35 percent on amounts above that.”

So taxes, says Buffett, do not deter the ultra-rich “from pursuing investment opportunities.” Really?

Football/FIFA is a Metaphor for the UN.

 Muqata

Thursday, November 29, 2012

Football/FIFA is a Metaphor for the UN.

Posted by Jameel @ The Muqata at 11/29/2012 01:33:00 PM

Football (soccer) enthusiasts around the world are familiar with the FIFA football federation (Fédération Internationale de Football Association), and their Mission Statement is: 

"...to improve the game of football constantly and promote it globally in the light of its unifying, educational, cultural and humanitarian values, particularly through youth and development programmes"

So why is FIFA trying to rebuild (again) the destroyed Football stadium in Gaza?

It was most recently destroyed (again) by the IDF 2 weeks ago, after Hamas used the stadium to shoot Fajr-5 rockets at Greater Tel-Aviv and at Jerusalem.

 

YNET reports (copying an AFP report):

Statement by PM Netanyahu

None of the vital interests of peace appear in the resolution that will be put forward before the General Assembly today and that is why Israel cannot accept it.
(Communicated by the Prime Minister's Media Adviser)

GPO archive photo

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, this morning (Thursday, 29 November 2012), at the Menachem Begin Heritage Center in Jerusalem, made the following statement:

"Israel is prepared to live in peace with a Palestinian state, but for peace to endure, Israel's security must be protected. The Palestinians must recognize the Jewish state and they must be prepared to end the conflict with Israel once and for all.

Depraved Celebrities Support Jew-Killers

 Ted Belman

Laura:  Just when you think degenerate leftists can’t be any more vile in their positions regarding the Jewish state, they explicitly come out endorsing hamas rocket fire at Israeli civilians.  They are calling for the boycott of weapons sales to Israel so that hamas can fire rockets at Israelis unobstructed. These are sick, twisted, morally depraved people who see Israeli self-defense as probematic rather than the genocidal hamas terrorists who’s charter calls for the obliteration of Israel and the genocide of Jews. Every one of these signatories should be forced to endure dodging rocket fire in their neighborhoods.  That worthless piece of excrement roger waters is among the supporters of this depraved cause. He is the guy who came out against Israel’s security fence, falsely calling it an “apartheid” wall. There is no other way to describe these miscreants other than calling them what they truly are, nazis. There is no other conclusion to be drawn except that they support the mass murder of Jews. Who is going to prevent hamas from receiving weapons? These scumbags don’t care about that. The left is constantly harassing the beseiged and belleaguered tiny Jewish state while it defends itself from attacks against genocidal enemies surrounding it.  But they are silent on islamic Jew-hatred, on the real apartheid being practiced in muslim countries and the persecution and murder of non-muslims.  Take note of the entertainers who signed this petition and boycott them.

Nobel peace laureates call for Israel military boycott over Gaza assault
Letter with 52 signatories including artists and activists also denounces US and EU ‘complicity’ through weapons sales

Iran 'will press on with enrichment'

Israel News

Iran will go on refining uranium "with intensity" and the number of enrichment centrifuges it has operating will rise substantially in the current year, the country's nuclear energy chief was quoted as saying on Wednesday.


The comments by Fereydoun Abbasi-Davani, head of Iran's Atomic Energy Organisation, signaled continued defiance in the face of international demands that Tehran halt enrichment to the higher 20% fissile purity level, close down its Fordow enrichment plant, and ship out its stockpile of the material.

Nuclear facility near Teheran (Archive Photo: AP)

Leave Sharia alone

By Khalil al-Anani
Al-Ahram Weekly

The Arab Spring of democracy has deteriorated into a winter of mangled hopes. At the heart of the growing disappointment is the zealous portrayal of Sharia — Islamic law — as a political cause, as something to be enforced rather than experienced, as a tool of one-upmanship rather than an inspiration of noble ideals.

In Egypt, Tunisia and Libya, Sharia is being used by Islamist groups to mobilise supporters and discredit opponents. The damage of this tactic is not confined to the opponents of Islamists. The concept of Sharia itself, I am convinced, will suffer.

World Bank And Islamic Development Bank To Collaborate On Promoting Islamic Finance

The Global Muslim Brotherhood Daily Report
Arab media is reporting that the World Bank and Islamic Development Bank have signed an agreement to collaborate in the development of Islamic finance. According to the report:

ARAB NEWS  Last Update 15 October 2012 1:39 pm The World Bank and Islamic Development Bank have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to set out a framework for collaboration between the two parties and lend support to global, regional and country efforts in the development of Islamic Finance. World Bank Managing Director Dr. Mahmoud Mohieldin and Islamic Development Bank Group President Dr. Ahmad Mohamed Ali signed the memorandum on behalf of their institutions with the common objectives of fostering, encouraging, and studying the expansion of Islamic finance globally.

COP: The Left's Scrooge McDuck Mythology of the Wealthy

Brian T. Carter

On a sidewalk in Monterrey, Mexico -- a rich (by Mexican standards) industrial city in the northern state of Nuevo Leon -- a kid, reasonably well-dressed with clean clothes and flip-flops, approaches an American and asks, "Por favor, usted me da dinero para la escuela?" (Will you please give me money for school?)

In southern Mexico, a 6 year old -- without any clothes -- approaches an American, "Usted puede darme dinero para comer?" (Can you give me money to eat?)
In the Kabul Green Zone, a clean-cut boy in a new school uniform -- dark blue slacks with a light blue polo shirt -- catches up to some Americans walking between bases. With some shock, one American realizes this is the same boy who, just yesterday, was caked in dirt and wearing tattered clothes while begging for a dollar.

In Manila, kids offer to serve as guides, sell flowers, flag down a taxi for pesos, or just beg. Their poverty runs the gamut from well-dressed, well fed, and clean; to fed and relatively clean-cut kids wearing torn hand-me downs in the squatter areas; to filthy, near feral looking pre-teens without any clothes whatsoever.

No Tears for Israeli Victims

Leo Rennert

The Nov. 28 edition of the Washington Post grabs readers with a four-column photograph at the top of the front page with a caption reading: "Aseel Tafesh, 4, gathers her dolls from her home in a destroyed apartment building in Gaza City, where an uneasy quiet has settled as a truce between Israel and Hamas holds. The recent eight-day conflict killed 174 Palestinians, according to health officials in Gaza." 

Rules of Engagement Changed: IDF May Not Shoot Back in Gaza

The rules of engagement have been altered radically in Gaza.

 

By: Yori Yanover

Architects of the Gaza victory: Defense minister Ehud Barak tours the southern command with it's commander Maj. Gen. Tal Russo.
Photo Credit: Ben Avraham/by Defense ministry/Flash90

One week after the conclusion of operation Pillar of Defense in Gaza, the security reality alongside the Gaza Strip border is being reshaped, the IDF has been instructed to show restraint, farmers on both sides are permitted to stretch their tilled lands all the way to the border fence, and should a Hamas or Islamic Jihad cell aim a rocket launcher at Israel, Israeli soldiers would not be allowed to shoot at it before going through channels, Maariv reports this morning.

General Assembly Resolution for Limited Palestinian Statehood Lacks Legal Authority

November 29, 2012  |  Eli E. Hertz

A host of resolutions passing annually by the General Assembly are not legally binding documents by any measure. One needs only to read Article 10 of the UN Charter:

“The General Assembly may discuss any questions or any matters within the scope of the present Charter or relating to the powers and functions of any organs provided for in the present Charter, and, except as provided in Article 12, may make recommendations to the Members of the United Nations or to the Security Council or to both on any such questions or matters” [italics by author].

European anti-semitism out in the open: Boycott ahead?

 Israel Matzav
They have nothing to say about Syria or Sudan or Somalia or anyplace else in the world where people are being massacred daily, but days after announcing that they were seeking to ban 'violent settlers,' the Jew-hating Europeans are seeking to ensure that no 'settlement products' enter their soon-to-be Islamic paradise.

Israel registered a protest with the EU last week regarding a conference scheduled for Wednesday in Brussels about the possibility of labeling goods made in the settlements.

Rafi Schutz, the Foreign Ministry’s deputy director-general for Europe, called the ambassadors of Denmark, Ireland and the EU to the ministry on November 19, in the midst of Operation Pillar of Defense, to protest the scheduled meeting, called an “informal technical workshop on settlement products and related policy issues.”

Schutz also protested by phone to a ranking official at the British Embassy.
Britain, Ireland and Denmark, as well as the EU’s foreign service, were singled out for promoting the conference along with various NGOs.

“Palestine” Does Not Qualify as a “State”

Rick Richman | @jpundit | Contentions | 

Back in 2005, after Israel removed every soldier and settler from Gaza, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas announced that “from this day forward, there will be no security turmoil and weapons chaos and abductions, which are not characteristic of our culture.” He proved a poor prognosticator regarding Palestinian culture: given the chance to live “side by side in peace and security” with Israel, the Palestinians demonstrated they could not do so even with themselves. 

Public Sobriety on "Post-Arab Spring" Egypt

Andrew G. Bostom

On the heels of Egyptian President Morsi's recent consolidation of power, polling data from a survey of 1,000 Likely Voters by Rasmussen Reports, conducted November 26-27, 2012, reveal once again that the American public is appropriately sober about what the much-ballyhooed Arab Spring "transitions" have wrought. 

Exactly the Point....

http://www.drybonesproject.com/blog/pages/D09524_1600.html

Canadian PM Harper, heir apparent to the free world, stands up for freedom, personally intervened to stop 'Palestinian' terror statehood bid at UN

Pamella Geller

Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper continues to pick up the slack left by an absent American president who has abandoned freedom across the world.
Nothing makes Obama look so small as a real leader.

"[W]hen Israel, the only country in the world whose very existence is under attack, is consistently and conspicuously singled out for condemnation, I believe we are morally obligated to take a stand," Harper said last year.

The Canadian prime minister further affirmed that "as long as I am prime minister… Canada will take not that stand, whatever the cost."

"Canadian PM Personally Intervened to Stop PA Statehood Bid at UN" INN, November 27, 2012

Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper personally intervened to pressure PA Chairman Abbas to drop his bid for upgraded status at the UN.

Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper personally intervened to pressure Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas to drop his bid for upgraded status at the United Nations.

UN Resolution 181 – The Partition Plan

November 29, 1947

Eli E. Hertz

]

In 1947 the British put the future of western Palestine into the hands of the United Nations, the successor organization to the League of Nations which had established the Mandate for Palestine. A UN Commission recommended partitioning what was left of the original Mandate – western Palestine – into two new states, one Jewish and one Arab. [1] Jerusalem and its surrounding villages were to be temporarily classified as an international zone belonging to neither polity.

What resulted was Resolution 181 [known also as the 1947 Partition Plan], a non-binding recommendation to partition Palestine, whose implementation hinged on acceptance by both parties – Arabs and Jews. The resolution was adopted on November 29, 1947 in the General Assembly by a vote of 33-12, with 10 abstentions. Among the supporters were the United States and the Soviet Union, as well as other nations including France and Australia. The Arab nations, including Egypt, Syria, Iraq, and Saudi Arabia denounced the plan on the General Assembly floor and voted as a bloc against Resolution 181 promising to defy its implementation by force.

A Call to Save Lives

Nurit Greenger

Israel's Ambulance fleet always needs renewal and that is the job of the nonprofit organization Magen David Adom (MDA), Israel's national emergency medical, disaster, ambulance and blood bank services. With the threat, in real time, of terror and rocket attacks from the north, by Hezbollah, and, as we see these days, from Hamas in the south, Israel cannot afford to be short of ambulances. Israel is now short of 100 ambulances and it can no longer afford to move ambulances from one part of the country, as it has been doing thus far, per call and as needed. Each region must be fully equipped and be ready, within seconds, to go save a life.

Seven people, each one donates $15,000 equals one more ambulance for Israel manufactured in Indiana, USA.

The Indignation Industry

Martin J. Day  •  November 28, 2012

We cannot, and must not, stand for a religion that will limit our ability to speak, especially a religion that openly calls for the murder of people of other religions, and often even its own.

The Sydney police force announced a few weeks ago that, in anticipation of more hostile Islamic street protests similar to those that several weeks ago had turned violent, it intended to increase its numbers by several hundred. The original protest, sparked by the YouTube video that mocked the Islamic prophet Mohammed, featured people sporting placards that read, "Behead those who insult the prophet," and ended with at least nine arrests.

Sydney, Australia? A place that prides itself on racial and religious tolerance and for being a land of broad multi-culturalism? Well, as the young Muslim, Mohammed Zuhbi from Liverpool Sydney told reporter Tom Tilley from Triple J, "We don't want to apologize for our behaviour, or feel like we need to justify our existence because of this."

Zuhbi then asked how else can you express yourself when you are seeing death on a global scale, besides being violent. He went on to claim it was a peaceful protest, but had escalated when the police "provoked" them with batons and pepper spray -- just as the Americans had provoked them into violence with their unforgivable treatment of Muslims, including Israeli provocations.

How Hamas Is Trying to Fool Everyone

Khaled Abu Toameh

In reality Hamas has not changed or relinquished its dream of replacing Israel with an Islamist state that is funded and armed by Iran. Unless Hamas changes its charter, the talk about changes in its strategy only serves to spread the movement's campaign of deception.

Is Hamas really on its way to moderation and pragmatism, as some Western political analysts and diplomats have come to believe?

And what do some Hamas leaders mean when they say that they are ready to accept a Palestinian state "only" in the West Bank, Gaza Strip and east Jerusalem?

These questions were raised after CNN recently aired an interview with Hamas "political leader" Khaled Mashaal.

Mashaal told CNN's Christiane Amanpour: "I accept a Palestinian state according to 1967 borders with Jerusalem as the capital, with the right of return [of millions of Palestinians to Israel]."

The Hamas leader's remark has since been misinterpreted by some Westerners as a sign that the radical Islamist movement, which was established 25 years ago with the declared goal of destroying Israel, has now abandoned its ideology and is on its way to endorsing a softer approach.

With Democracy For All and Freedom for None

 Sultan Knish
It would be tempting to attribute the disaster spreading across the Middle East to a brief flirtation with democracy snake oil, but for the better part of the last century the political class of the United States could talk of nothing else. Nearly every war was fought was to spread democracy, protect democracy or worship at the altar of democracy.

For much of the 20th Century it was the working assumption of the sort of men who got up to give speeches in crowded halls that it was democracy that made America special. But it is not so much that democracy made America special, as America made democracy special and workable. And that is because democracy only works when government is limited. When government power isn't limited, then democracy is just tyranny with a popular vote behind it.

Hangin’ on Rekab Street: The Stupefaction of the West

November 28, 2012   Richard Landes

I’d like to introduce a new term: Rekab Street. That’s Baker Street spelled backwards, and it represents the opposite of Sherlock Holmes’ approach: rather than notice the anomalies and detect evidence of criminal or shameful activity that people have deliberately tried to conceal, residents of Rekab Street systematically ignore any clues that violate the expectations/demands of their preconceived narrative, sweeping aside the anomalies and highlighting precisely what has been created to mislead. It is, in a sense, a process of stupefaction.

Rekab Street exists in many fields.

In a sense, Thomas Kuhn’s book, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, focuses on the problem, in particular, on the resistance to anomalies that contradict the paradigm. He cites a study by Bruner and Postman about how the resistance to anomalies that violate expectations can be so strong that people can literally not see that a deck has some playing cards with red spades and black hearts. The authors note the psychological discomfort felt by people confronting these anomalies (which their minds literally do not want to see).

Islamic Jihad proves Israel right in targeting media facility

Islamic Jihad has just confirmed that one of its members of its armed Al Quds brigade was killed by an Israeli airstrike previously widely condemned

by The Commentator

An Islamic Jihad local commander was killed today in an Israeli air strike on a tower that is used by many international media outlets, a source in the terrorist group has said.
It was initially reported that the dead man was the owner of a computer store on the third storey of the city centre building, however it has come to light that Israel's targeting of the building is in fact legitimate.

The news comes as many international media organisations claimed that Israel should avoid targeting buildings which house journalists, however Israel has assured the international media that it has indeed targeting terrorist facilities placed within or on top of the building, and that the building was used by terrorist outfits to house command and communication posts.

It's the second strike on the building in two days. The Hamas TV station, Al Aqsa, is located on the top floor.

Islamic Jihad sent a text message to reporters today stating that Ramez Harb, who was responsible for propaganda in Islamic Jihad's Gaza City Brigade and served as an aide to Tissir Jabari, was killed by the Israeli strike.

Britain heads for Israel sell-out at the UN

The prospect of Britain backing the Palestinian UN bid shows just how deep anti-Israel feeling goes at the Foreign Office

More than a piece of paper

Robin Shepherd, Owner / Publisher

Just a few weeks ago I spoke to a senior Israeli official who waxed lyrical and enthusiastic at the prospect of Britain playing the "responsible adult in the room" when it comes to international discussion of the conflict with the Palestinians. I liked the concept, but I can't say I was optimistic.

When all is said and done, British foreign policy over the Israel-Palestine conflict has been designed over years and decades to please peoples and governments that would really rather Israel didn't exist at all. This has produced what is best described as an anti-Zionist subculture inside the Foreign Office (FCO). Subcultures, as opposed to policies, are not easily overturned.

It looked as though I was going to be proved right all too quickly as the Foreign Office initially dithered over Israel's recent response to rocket fire from Gaza. But then out came the Prime Minister and even the Foreign Secretary with statements expressing a clear recognition that Hamas had started it all.

Sure, that wasn't, how shall I put it, rocket science. But even getting the British foreign policy establishment to state the blindingly obvious counts as something of an achievement when it comes to Israel.

The FCO must have been seething

The missile defense Epistemic Closure of the “reality-based community”

William A. Jacobson   

How will the really, really smart set come to grips with Iron Dome and Magic Wand?

 

Less than 2 years ago Rachel Maddow, unofficial spokeswoman for the really, really smart “reality-based community,” parroted the left-wing line that missile defense cannot work, despite evidence to the contrary. Via Newsbusters (emphasis mine)

MADDOW: You know what? Here’s the country, here’s the kind of thing you put over like a cake to protect the cake from flies. Missiles don’t work that way. That’s the whole idea of SDI. We’ll protect ourselves by shooting missiles at other missiles. It’s never worked in a test. We spent billions on it.
MOORE: It’s worked.
MADDOW: And anybody who understands this knows it can never work.
MOORE: If you don’t think it works, then why did the Russians not want us to do it?
MADDOW: The Russians were very happy to sign this thing.
MOORE: No they weren’t. They didn’t want us to do SDI because they knew they didn’t want us to blow up their missiles.
MADDOW: You know what? If you think you can shoot the bullet with the other bullet, you can have an awesome life in Annie Oakley’s side show, but you should not be in charge of billions of dollars of the defense budget. It’s such a hysterical fantasy. I love it.

Maddow was not out of line with general Democratic thinking, and the Democratic president who routinely referred to “unproven missile defense systems” as targets of budget cuts.

Anti-Semitic Qatar casts a giant shadow.

It is bad enough that a small country like Israel has to contend with the likes of Qatar and their fellow travelers in the Arab world, but to have them embraced by the ruling elites in the US and Europe increases the danger to Israel exponentially.

Ted Belman, Israpundit

The author is a retired attorney and the editor of Israpundit. In 2009 he made aliya and is now living in Jerusalem.

Qatar is a small country with few people (1.87 million of which only 300,000 are citizens), yet it casts a giant shadow over N. Africa, the Middle East and Europe.
It has the highest GDP per capita in the world and the highest energy reserves per capita in the world. While it treats its women more liberally than S. Arabia does, it has been indicted for immigrant labour violations and human trafficking. It is notorious for how badly it treats its foreign workers.
The U.S. Department of State’s 2012 Trafficking in Persons Report reports:

“Qatar is a destination country for men and women subjected to forced labor and, to a lesser ‎extent, forced prostitution. [They] voluntarily migrate ‎to Qatar as low-skilled laborers and domestic servants, but some subsequently face conditions ‎of involuntary servitude.

Gazans say 'Thank you Iran' after Israel conflagration

Billboards in Gaza express gratitude for Iranian rockets that 'struck Tel Aviv' during latest round of hostilities
Reuters


Gazans offered very public thanks to Iran on Tuesday for helping them in this month's fight against Israel, when Iranian-made missiles were fired out of the Palestinian enclave towards Jerusalem and Tel Aviv.

"Thank you Iran," said large billboards on three major road junctions in the Gaza Strip – the first time there has been such public acknowledgement of Iran's role in the arming of Islamic militants in the tiny territory.

Hungarian rightist: List Jews who pose security risk

JEREMY SHARON

Marton Gyongyosi of Jobbik party calls for list of Jews who are threat to country; Jewish groups: Reminiscent of Nazi policy.

Photo: REUTERS

Jewish groups reacted furiously on Tuesday to far-right Hungarian political leader Marton Gyongyosi’s suggestion that the government draw up a list of Jews in Hungary who posed a “national security threat.”

Speaking on Monday in the Hungarian parliament about the recent hostilities between Israel and the Hamas regime in Gaza, Gyongyosi said, “I think such a conflict makes it timely to tally up people of Jewish ancestry who live here, especially in the Hungarian Parliament and the Hungarian government, who pose a national security risk to Hungary.”

Related:

COP: This is what you call fair?

1 Percent of Households Will Pay 80 Percent of California’s Income Taxes

Daniel Greenfield

This is a problem that can only be solved with higher taxes, union ownership of government and illegal immigration. And by solved, I mean empty the state of everyone who earns a living without working for the government and speaks English which will turn California into a place that Greece favorably compares itself to.

California residents already contend with one of the most progressive tax codes in the country. Not only does California have high marginal rates, those high rates kick in at relatively modest income levels. California’s middle class residents earning $48,000 a year, for example, pay a state tax rate of 9.3%. Millionaires in 47 other states don’t even pay that high of a marginal rate. However, one of the state tax code’s greatest flaws is it’s over-reliance on upper income households and the revenue volatility it creates, and that is a problem that Prop. 30 would further exacerbate.

Israeli Mother-of-Four Fights off Terrorist with Martial Arts

Daniel Greenfield


Or what the New York Times and the Guardian would call an outrageous overreaction by a colonizing power against indigenous militants fighting for freedom and the right to kill women and children.

39-year-old Yael Matzpun was sleeping in a room with her four-year-old daughter and two-year-old son when she was awoken by heavy footsteps in the hall. She knew that her husband, an IDF officer, was not due at home.

“Suddenly I saw a terrorist in a kefiyyeh [head scarf] standing opposite me,” she told Maariv. “I decided that if I didn’t fight, he would murder me and my four children, there would be a massacre like in Itamar, where the Fogels and three of their children were murdered in their home.”
The terrorist turned on the light and said something in Arabic, she recalled. He had a knife in one hand and a metal pipe in the other. Suddenly he lunged at Yael, stabbing her in the face and shoulder.

The Washington Post, aka The Hamas Gazette

Leo Rennert

Exhibit A in the case against one-sided reporting can be found in the November 27 edition of the Washington Post in a dispatch reporting that Israel and Hamas have opened indirect talks in Cairo on various understandings that are supposed to undergird their cease-fire. ("Hamas, Israel pursue talks -- Top Gaza official says fighting will resume if negotiations fail" by Abigail Hauslohner and Michael Birnbaum, page A8.) 

Since these are going to be crucial negotiations to resolve major issues on both sides, one might expect that the Post would pay equal attention to each side's agenda and demands. But unfortunately, this isn't the case. From start to finish, Hauslohner and Birnbaum limit their reporting to Hamas's demands. And for good measure, they even toss in some pro-Hamas spin of their own. 

Saudi 'Propaganda Center' Opens in Vienna

Soeren Kern

The most important goal of dialogue is "to introduce Islam" and "to correct the erroneous slanders raised against Islam." — Saudi Press Agency

Saudi Arabia has officially opened the doors of a controversial new "interreligious and intercultural dialogue center" in the Austrian capital, Vienna.

The King Abdullah International Center for Inter-Religious and Inter-Cultural Dialogue was inaugurated during an elaborate ceremony at the Hofburg Palace in downtown Vienna on November 26. More than 650 high-profile guests from around the world attended the event, including UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon and the foreign ministers of the center's three founding states, Austria, Spain and Saudi Arabia.

The Saudis say the purpose of the multi-million-dollar institution -- which will be headquartered at the Palais Sturany in the heart of Vienna and will have the status of an international organization -- is to "foster dialogue" between the world's major religions in order to "prevent conflict."

"Normalcy?"

There is a question mark after "Normalcy" because it's more than a bit difficult to ascertain precisely what "normal" is.  But I'm aiming for it, certainly in my own life.  Postings will resume their regular frequency -- which means they will be sent often, but not necessarily every day.  To my many readers who have written to me in past days, please know that I've done my best in terms of responding.

The world at large is definitely "certifiable."  But even here in Israel, I think a bit "crazy" is what's normal. And we'll see that as I write today.

~~~~~~~~~~

We start with a disturbing follow-up on the ceasefire, which immediately illustrates how crazy things are:

A ceasefire agreement was drafted and made public when the fighting stopped last week.  It has been analyzed up and down and sideways, with regard to its legality and the implications of its every word.  Some analysts staunchly maintain that we are not required to honor it because it was not signed -- that it is not even a legitimate legal document.

COP: Will Obama commit the U.S. to a UN climate treaty?

CFACT sends delegation to COP18,
the UN Climate Summit in Qatar
 
Will a reelected President Obama move the United States towards a new UN climate treaty by 2015?

Both President Obama and Governor Romney avoided climate change whenever possible throughout the 2012 campaign. Yet on election night Obama declared, “we want our children to live in an America … that isn’t threatened by the destructive power of a warming planet.” President Obama’s renewed interest (now that he no longer must face the voters), set the stage for COP 18, the UN climate summit , taking place from November 26^th to December 30^th.

Climate change is back on the agenda.

A Tale of Two Armies

 November 27, 2012 By Frontpagemag.com
Comparing the IDF to Hamas: Sometimes pictures say more than words:

 

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+10

Mary Sue · 8 hours ago

wow that one picture of the Hamas army looks like they were dressed up for the next KKK cross burning.

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3 replies · active 3 hours ago

+7

David R · 7 hours ago

Truly day and night compared...light and darkness. God-hating darkness of the worst kind.

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+9

LiveLoveLaugh 1p · 5 hours ago

Because cowards always hide their face!

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+2

DMWF · 3 hours ago

At first glance I thought they were KKK too; then I saw the waist suicide bombs (utility belts?). I immediately realized even KKK aren't that stupid. In contrast, IDF and real soldiers carry -- you know -- ammunition.