Sinai Today: Open letter to South Africa Deputy FM

CHIEF RABBI of South Africa WARREN GOLDSTEIN

For the sake of peace and justice, we need more information, not less; we need more dialogue, not less.

Photo: reuters

Dear Mr. Ebrahim,

You are a minister of the South African government, appointed to advance the interests of the Republic and the people of South Africa in an impartial and rational manner. As a citizen and as a national religious leader of South Africa, I object to the way in which you are abusing your high office to promote your own personal agenda. You obviously have a “blind spot” when it comes to Israel; you lose your sense of objectivity and rationality when dealing with the Jewish state.

Most recently you have used your platform and title in an active campaign to prevent South Africans – and especially members of government – from visiting Israel. This is but one example of your irrational obsession with Israel to the detriment of the proper execution of your governmental duties. You have acted in breach of your government’s own foreign policy, in terms of which South Africa and Israel have full diplomatic relations.

Alawites in Syria and Alevis in Turkey: Crucial Differences

Stephen Schwartz

Most significant is the political difference. Alawites support a brutal dictatorship, while Turkish and Kurdish Alevis defend electoral democracy.

Sectarian differences, threatening to ensnare Muslims outside Syria's borders, have emerged as a key aspect of the horrific bloodshed there. Since February 2011 the Syrian protestors, mainly following Sunni Islam, have mobilized against the Baathist government of Bashar Al-Assad, as a further chapter in the "Arab Spring." As of the end of July 2012, fatalities in the Syrian fighting are estimated at more than 20,000.

In Syria, Al-Assad's state, military, and irregular militias draw significantly on a small – and, to the world, mysterious – variant of Shia Islam known as Alawites. Of Syria's population of 22 million, at least two million are Alawites; it is common to see them credited with 12 percent of the country's inhabitants. They mostly reside in the Syrian province of Latakia, from the northwest border with Turkey along the Mediterranean coast, and in southern Syria. Alawites are also found in Lebanon, and among Syrians and Lebanese abroad.

Ryan: The View From Israel

MICHAEL FREUND, Special to the Sun

http://www.nysun.com/foreign/ryan-the-view-from-israel/87945

Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney's selection of Representative Paul Ryan as his running mate earlier this week has shaken up the race for the White House.

With his youthful demeanor, impressive command of policy, and affable personality, the Wisconsin congressman's appeal extends far beyond the traditional Republican base. Indeed, initial polls indicate that it has already given Governor Romney a boost, with the Rasmussen Reports Presidential Tracking Poll released on Tuesday now giving him a 3-point lead over President Obama.

The addition of Mr. Ryan to the ticket has also helped Mr. Romney in some key battleground states such as Ohio, where the race is tight and every advantage, however slight, can ultimately tilt the balance. More importantly, as a leading spokesman for greater fiscal discipline and tackling America's national debt, Mr. Ryan is well-positioned to highlight to the electorate the Obama administration's signal failure to tackle these crucial issues.

Morsi Makes His Move

What the Power Grab Means for Cairo -- And Washington

Steven A. Cook

 

 

 
Supporters of the Muslim Brotherhood's presidential candidate Mohamed Morsi carry a banner of him. (Asmaa Waguih / Courtesy Reuters)

Over the weekend, Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi sacked Mohamed Hussein Tantawi, the minister of defense, and Lieutenant-General Sami Hafez Enan, the chief of staff of the armed forces. He also cancelled the military’s June 17 constitutional decree, which stripped important national security and defense prerogatives from the presidency. His move came as a shock. Yet Morsi is doing what any prudent national leader does upon assuming office -- consolidating power.

Emerson interviewed by Canadian Anchor Michael Coren on Dire Developments in Egypt by Muslim Brotherhood

Interview on Sun News Canada

August 14, 2012 TV transcript of Sun News Canadian Television Anchor Michael Coren interview with Steven Emerson of the Investigative Project on Terrorism discussing the continuing radicalization of Egypt and what can be expected in the Middle East. Emerson focuses primarily on the shocking new actions taken by the Muslim Brotherhood to begin their plans for a total takeover of the country.

http://www.sunnewsnetwork.ca/video/featured/prime-time/867432237001/disturbing-changes-in-egypt/1785572571001

Sun News Anchor Michael Coren: "You just heard the monologue. Look I don't claim to be the world's expert on the Middle East but I have at least had the decency to spend long periods of time out there and I'm reading media coverage, for example the Arab Spring, this absurd liberal naiveté that somehow it was all going to be pluralism and coexistence. Just don't know the region. When I was a teenager I remember when the Shah fell in Iran. The Shah was not ideal but the Shah would drive around without security, women dressed as they wanted to dress. There were gay bars in Tehran. It was a Western society. And we had the mainstream media saying this is wonderful rejoicing, the Shah has fallen. Well look at that bloody country now. Turkey, similar. And now Egypt, a virtual coup in Egypt and what will happen next. Steve Emerson knows more than most about this. He's monitored Islamic fundamentalism, he's advised the government. He's an activist and a broadcaster and a friend. Welcome back to you, sir.

Sinai: New Islamic Terror Emirate?

Khaled Abu Toameh

The Egyptians were the first to condemn Israel each time it fired back at terrorists who launched rockets and missiles at Israeli cities and communities. The Egyptians are finally learning that terrorism is a double-edged sword, and that those who approve of terror activities will one day find themselves targeted by the same terrorists.

Until last week, the underground tunnels along the border between the Gaza Strip and Egypt did not seem to bother the Egyptians.

The dozens of tunnels that have long been used to smuggle weapons, basic goods, fuel and terrorists into the Gaza Strip were fine as long as they did not pose a threat to Egyptian national security and interests.

Silverstein Hoodwinks The Media Again

Aussie Dave | Aug 15, 2012

Anti-Israel blogger Richard Silverstein has published “Bibi’s secret war plan” against Iran, which he claims to have received from a high-level Israeli source who received it from an IDF officer.

http://www.richardsilverstein.com/tikun_olam/2012/08/15/bibis-secret-war-plan/
Silverstein goes into detail regarding the supposed plan, albeit with the assistance of a translator who makes up for his lack of knowledge in Hebrew.

Reading his post, it is clear Silverstein’s main purpose is to undermine Israel’s security, although satisfying his lust for the limelight is also a clear motivation.

After much effort to try and bring his so-called scoop to the attention of all and sundry (judging by his Twitter feed).

The IDF’s Egyptian Fiasco

Caroline Glick On August 15, 2012 In Daily Mailer,FrontPage

So Muslim Brotherhood President of Egypt Mohamed Morsy just sacked the leaders of the military junta General Hussein Tantawi and the Egyptian Army’s’ Chief of Staff General Sami Enan.

Morsy has also cancelled the constitutional protections that the Egyptian military has enjoyed and overturned their edicts circumscribing his control over foreign and military policy.

That is, as the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt has declared, today Morsy completed the Egyptian revolution. Egypt is now an Islamic state. Its leaders drink from the same well as al Qaida, Hamas and all the rest. Egypt, with its US armed military has reemerged after 30 years as the greatest military threat that Israel has ever faced.

According the the Israel media, the IDF was surprised by Morsy’s move. Clearly our esteemed generals believed reassurances they received from their Egyptian military counterparts that Israel had no reason to be concerned with the election of Hamas’s big brother to Egypt’s presidency.

EU drops Modiin from 'eligible imports' list

In bizarre decision, EU's Taxation and Customs Union excludes central Israeli city from list of locations eligible for tax breaks under EU-Israel treaties, effectively rendering it 'outside' Israel 
 
Alphi Sahuli


A recent update by the European Commission's Taxation and Customs Union of its list of global imports' locations that are eligible for tax breaks has excluded Modiin, effectively rendering it "outside" of Israel's territory.

The EU's list, meant to advise importers of location from which products may or may not be eligible for such breaks, had previously labeled many cities located in the West Bank and Golan Heights as "under Israeli control," and thereby subjected to any EU-Israel trade agreements. 

Modiin, or Modiin-Maccabim-Reut, which is located in central Israel, about halfway between Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, was on the list – until now.

Since 2005 and according to the trade agreements, any product manufactured by Israel for export to the EU must be clearly labeled in a manner which shows exactly where it was made.

PA TV music video honors killer of 13

http://palwatch.org/main.aspx?fi=157&doc_id=7258

by Itamar Marcus

Palestinian Authority TV dedicated a program to terrorist Nasser Awais, who is serving 14 life sentences for murder in multiple terror attacks. These include an attack on guests at a Bat-Mitzva celebration and the killing of a baby. Throughout the program, the PA TV moderator refers to Awais as "the heroic fighter" or the "heroic prisoner." The PA TV broadcast featured a short music video in his honor. The following words appeared next to the terrorist's picture:

"Heroic prisoner, Nasser, arrested on April 13, 2002,sentenced to 14 life sentences, 50 years and 6 months.

Through your patience and resilience

you achieved the most outstanding heroism. Heroic prisoner Nasser Awais, from the Balata refugee camp, Nablus, you are towering like the steady mountains."

Click to view

Jerusalem dare not speak its name in Wash. Post travel section

Leo Rennert

Washington Post travel writer Daniela Deane may be an expert on Israeli breakfasts, but she flunks political geography 101 when she describes eating places in Jerusalem - "Morning glories - Israel's breakfasts can't be beat" Aug. 12, page F3)  Deane starts by informing readers that she "moved to Jerusalem a few months ago."  Fine.  Plain and simple.

The war against the Jews

Efraim Karsh
Israel Affairs
pp. 319-343

http://www.meforum.org/3299/war-against-jews

The sustained anti-Israel de-legitimization campaign is a corollary of the millenarian obsession with the Jews in the Christian and the Muslim worlds. Since Israel is the world's only Jewish state, and since Zionism is the Jewish people's national liberation movement, anti-Zionism—as opposed to criticism of specific Israeli policies or actions—means denial of the Jewish right to national self-determination. Such a discriminatory denial of this basic right to only one nation (and one of the few that can trace their corporate identity and territorial attachment to antiquity) while allowing it to all other groups and communities, however new and tenuous their claim to nationhood, is pure and unadulterated anti-Jewish racism, or anti-Semitism as it is commonly known.

"Unreal!"

I am alluding to the efforts of the US government to pretend that responding to Iran's nuclear development NOW has not become an imperative.  Officials are twisting themselves into pretzels to avoid the obvious (because it would require military action before the election).  It would be funny if it were not so very critical and pathetic.

 

As of Thursday, Reuters was reporting that:

 

"The United States still believes that Iran is not on the verge of having a nuclear weapon and that Tehran has not made a decision to pursue one, U.S. officials said on Thursday...

 

"'We believe that there is time and space to continue to pursue a diplomatic path, backed by growing international pressure on the Iranian government,' [a White House National Security Council] spokesman said. 'We continue to assess that Iran is not on the verge of achieving a nuclear weapon.'"

What are Israel’s Rights in Judea and Samaria? Two Views

By Avi Bell and Weiler and Zilbershats
I am mostly in agreement with Avi Bell, but I disagree completely with the “consensus” approach to determine questions of law instead of using the Judicial Process. Wellman and Zilbershats prefer the consensus approach to deciding questions of law. Wasn’t it Moses who said the Jews are a government of laws and not men? We should not take a vote to decide questions of law. We should look at the Levy Report and see if it is a sound application of legal principles to the credible historical facts at hand that are a preponderance of the evidence.

Professor Berman of Brown university came up with the “consensus” approach also.

This is my reply:

Professor Berman of Brown University, in an article in the Times of Israel entitled“San Remo in Shilo[sic], has derided the Levy Report that parallels my own views, published as a two part op ed at Part1:
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/Articles/Article.aspx/11408

Part 2: http://www.israelnationalnews.com/Articles/Article.aspx/11412See also this simplifying video: Debunking the Palestine Lie
Professor Berman claims my view should be ignored because it is a minority view of International Lawyers, a very small minority.

International Law by consensus is no better than science by consensus. See: Michael Crighton, Aliens Cause Global Warming. Science is done by the scientific method, by individual scientists testing hypotheses. Before Semmelweis it was the consensus that obstetricians need not wash their hands before helping a woman deliver a baby and these doctors wore their blood soaked aprons from previous births as a badge of their expertise. Infant mortality was high from puerperal fever when this consensus did their work and they gave Semmelweis a very hard time for expressing his novel views, 180 died out of 1,000. The idea conflicted with both the existing medical concepts and more importantly, with the image that doctors had of themselves — that the doctors were helping, not killing their patients. That intransigence consigned large numbers of mothers to painful, lingering deaths. The scorn and ridicule of doctors was so extreme that Semmelweis moved from Vienna and was eventually committed to a mental asylum where he died. My dermatologist recently told me that at 82, I have a thinner skin, but even though thin skinned, I can take the derision of Berman. He and his consensus are killing Israel.

Swiss group suspends 'anti-Semitic' Norway scholar

BENJAMIN WEINTHAL, JERUSALEM POST CORRESPONDENT

Researcher Johan Galtung suspended form Swiss World Peace Academy after he remarks that Jews control the American media.

Photo: Facebook

BERLIN – The Swiss World Peace Academy suspended on Wednesday Norway’s peace researcher Johan Galtung because of his allegedly anti-Semitic comments.

According to articles in the Swiss papers Mittelland Zeitung and Basler Zeitung, Galtung was booted from the Swiss Academy because of “reckless and offensive statements to questions that are specifically sensitive for Jews.” The University of Basel is a partner organization of the Swiss World Peace Academy.

Apocalypse Soon

Richard A. Baehr

For about a decade, it seems, pretty much every analyst of Iran's nuclear program has offered up an attempt at reassurance, concluding that Iran was two to four years away from completing its program.  Of course, the continued use of this range was an absurdity as the years progressed, unless Iran had stopped the program in its tracks, which was the nonsense communicated in a 2007 National Intelligence Estimate, alleging that Iran had abandoned a plan to weaponize its program in 2003, while production of enriched uranium continued, supposedly for other purposes.

Today, no one makes a credible argument that a nuclear bomb is not Iran's goal, so the key question remains: how soon will they have one, and can and will they be stopped by Israel on its own, or Israel and the United States, before that happens?  Iran continues to deny that it has a nuclear weapons program, while it continues to threaten to destroy the Jewish state in virtually every pronouncement from the leadership of the country. 

The death of Camp David? On the real world consequences of “Land for Peace”

August 12, 2012 in Gidon Ben-Zvi

A guest post by Gidon Ben-Zvi, who blogs at Jerusalem State of Mind

Terrorist in Sinai with RPG

Does “land for peace” work?

Recent developments in the Sinai Peninsula, where the ‘Red Sea Riviera’ has spiraled into anarchy and violence, has put into sharp focus the serious consequences of Israel’s initial decision to embrace retreat as a guiding diplomatic philosophy.

The outbreak of hope that erupted following the signing of the 1979 peace treaty between Israel and Egypt was palpable.

Based on 1978′s Camp David Accords, this first attempt at a comprehensive peace between Israel and one of its neighbors was a valiant attempt to end 30 years of relentless hostility and costly wars.

Did the Israelis truly desire peace?

Well, by withdrawing from Sinai, Israel gave up:
Furthermore, Israel relinquished Taba — a resort built by Israel in what had been a barren desert area near Eilat — to Egypt in 1988. Taba’s status had not been resolved by the Camp David Accords.