West Bank: What the West is Funding

Khaled Abu Toameh

Harb said that the decision to summon him for questioning was in the context of the Palestinian Authority leadership's campaign to intimidate Palestinian writers and journalists and stop them from discussing internal issues. International human rights groups and countries that fund and support Abbas's authority have yet to sound their voices. Failing to hold the Palestinian Authority accountable will only drive more Palestinians into the arms of Hamas and other radical forces.

The Palestinian Authority leadership in the West Bank has come up with a new method to silence its Palestinian critics.
From now on, any Palestinian writer or journalist who dares to criticize Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and his policies or demand an end to corruption will be accused of "belittling the dignity of the state."
Since the beginning of this year, at least 10 Palestinian journalists, bloggers and political opponents have been detained by various Palestinian Authority security services for writing about corruption and criticizing the Palestinian leadership.

Dems Tap Radical Islamists for Cash

STEVEN EMERSON AND JOHN ROSSOMANDO
IPT News


http://www.investigativeproject.org/3792/dems-tap-radical-islamists-for-cash

The Investigative Project on Terrorism has learned that House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi headlined a Democratic Party fundraiser with leaders of Hamas and Muslim Brotherhood front groups in May of this year.

The invitation-only fundraiser was sponsored by Reps. Keith Ellison, D-Minn.; Andre Carson, D-Ind.; and Steve Israel, D-N.Y., chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, and took place on the evening of May 16, 2012, at the W Hotel in Washington D.C.

In attendance were about 20 members of a Syrian dissident group and 10 officials representing Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas front groups. Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) Executive Director Nihad Awad was perhaps the most prominent attendee and played a key role in organizing the event.

Rabin's last Knesset speech

Dore Gold

This week Israel marked the 17th anniversary of the assassination of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin. At various events, there were speakers who recalled their personal relationship with the late prime minister in order to determine what his legacy was.

But Rabin actually detailed how he envisioned the future borders of the State of Israel, in his last Knesset address, which was delivered exactly one month before he was killed. Looking back and reading the speech is an eerie exercise, for although he had no idea what would happen to him in a few weeks, he nonetheless appeared to be leaving a political will to the citizens of Israel. 

Why Israel Hasn’t Struck Iran—Yet

P. David Hornik

For those, like me, who scour media reports hoping to discern what’s really going on regarding Iran, Israeli defense minister Ehud Barak’s interview this week to Britain’s The Telegraph is like striking gold.

Last summer, speculation about a possible Israeli attack on Iran’s nuclear program was at fever pitch, and Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu appeared genuinely at the end of his tether in public appearances and statements. A stream of top U.S. political and defense officials came to Israel in what seemed a last pitch to talk Jerusalem out of it.
As we now know, nothing happened. Netanyahu, addressing the UN General Assembly at the end of September, gave a totally new timeline, saying Iran’s nuclear development wouldn’t reach the “red line” until the spring or summer of 2013.

Benghazi Consulate Held Emergency Meeting Before Attack Warning of the Danger

Daniel Greenfield


Forget Woodward and Bernstein. Benghazigate has one man at the center. An unflagging Regional Security Officer named Eric Nordstrom who kept warning that the consulate was in danger and whose testimony levered open the lies that the media and its Obama team pushed over the ashes of Benghazi.

The U.S. Mission in Benghazi convened an “emergency meeting” less than a month before the assault that killed Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans, because Al Qaeda had training camps in Benghazi and the consulate could not defend against a “coordinated attack,” according to a classified cable reviewed by Fox News.

TV Host Refuses to Back Down After Calling Israel a “Cancer”

Simon Plosker
 
On Tuesday 23 October, Irish broadcaster Vincent Browne referred to Israel as a “cancer” during his live show on TV3 channel’s Tonight With Vincent Brown.
In a discussion on the recent televised US presidential foreign policy debate between Republican challenger Mitt Romney and Democrat President Barack Obama, Browne lamented that Israel had barely been mentioned, stating:

Israel is the cancer in foreign affairs. It polarizes the Islamic community of the world against the rest of the world.

Unless you deal with the problem of Israel and the Palestinians in that part of the world, there’s going to be conflict and disharmony. It’s a massive injustice — they stole the land from the Arabs.

US withdraws support from Syrian National Council

Rick Moran

 

Despite this move being long overdue, it is not a good sign that the administration understands the Islamist dynamic in the Syrian opposition. This means that any attempt to bring together members of the opposition will almost certainly result in an even more dangerous coalition that would be hazardous to American interests.

Haaretz identified the problem last month:

The Islamists' Need to Feel Wronged

Nonie Darwish

As "the true focus behind jihad…. is to defend, not destroy", the Muslim world is constantly looking for excuses to confirm the need to feel wronged to justify attacks on American and Western interests. The US should by now have understood that because Islamic anger and terror are always on the search for these excuses, one must never fall for them. The Islamists do not want co-existence; they want surrender.

When the truth finally came out that three loyal Americans and the American Ambassador had been murdered in Benghazi, Libya, on 9/11/12 as the result of a calculated terror attack and not, as the White House had been insisting for two weeks, a YouTube video made privately by an American and released months earlier, the President abruptly changed his discredited story, and surreally tried to slip the world into believing he had called that attack an act of terror all along.

It must be difficult for any American administration to deal with aggressors in the Muslim world; so far it has been treating them as if they were immature, spoiled children who must be given their way.

Obama's Libya Fail Brings More Conflict

A.M. Mora y Leon

Right under the radar of news of Hurricane Sandy and the election itself, Hillary Clinton is in Algiers, trying to coax Algeria into a planned military action in Mali to hose out al Qaida's latest nest.

The terrorists have taken over another country in Mali -- as they did with other failed states in Somalia and Afghanistan, but this one was probably preventable.

French officials set to exhume Arafat's body next month

A French official says criminal investigators from France will exhume Yasser Arafat’s remains next month to try to find out how the Palestinian leader died

by The Commentator

A French official has confirmed that investigators from France will exhume Yasser Arafat’s remains next month in an attempt to ascertain the cause of death of the former Palestinian leader died.

Egypt's "United States of Arabs"

Yaakov Lappin

Recent comments by the head of the Muslim Brotherhood [MB], the winner of the recent elections in Egypt, and others, provide yet another jolting reminder of the ruling party's plans for the Middle East.

With the presidency under its control, members of the MB apparently believe they must oversee a comprehensive process of Islamization of the Egyptian state and society, before they can turn their sights on their final goal, the creation of a pan-Islamic super-state that will encompass the region, and then wage war on Israel.

Civil War in Lebanon?

Aymenn Jawad Al-Tamimi
The American Spectator
October 30, 2012

http://www.meforum.org/3368/lebanon-civil-war

Since the recent assassination of the head of intelligence -- Wissam al-Hassan, who was known to be aligned with the anti-Syrian March 14 alliance in Lebanese politics -- in Beirut, there has been much speculation that the internal conflict in Syria could re-ignite civil war in Lebanon.

Such a line of thought has been raised vis-à-vis Iraq too. Indeed, just as Shi'ite militants from Hezbollah, which is aligned with the pro-Syrian March 8 alliance in government, have been fighting to assist the Assad regime in Syria, so too have Shi'ite militants from Iraq's Badr Brigades and the Iranian-backed 'Special Groups' been heading across the border to fight against the rebels.

Target in Sudan: Arms shipment

Analysis: Iran missiles destroyed in attack on Khartoum 'factory' could have threatened Israeli ships, oil and gas drilling 

Israel Opinion 


All signs indicate that it was not an "arms factory" that was bombed in Sudan recently, but a huge shipment of advanced weapons and ammunition that was on its way from Iran to terror elements in Gaza. A reliable Western source says that even if a small number of these weapons systems would have reached the Hamas-ruled territory, they could have posed a major threat to Israel and the IDF. However, it appears that the shipment did not include chemical weapons or drones, as published by several media outlets around the world.

"Time Grows Short"

Until US election day, that is. 

 

I know some of my readers may be awaiting the megastorm Sandy and others may be into it already.  I wish all of you an easy time, without personal injury or damage to property and with uninterrupted electrical service.  You'll catch this when you can.

 

In the meantime, I want to begin by sharing a piece of mine that just went up on Frontpage Magazine.  It is election-oriented.  Former head of Mossad, Ephraim Halevy wrote a strange piece in the NYTimes, attempting to show that Obama is good for Israel by demonstrating that Republicans are not.  This line of thinking fails abysmally. In my article, I comment on his approach, and offer facts demonstrating that, in fact, Obama is the worst of presidents for Israel.

Palestinian Elections: Which Fatah Won?

Khaled Abu Toameh

Abbas does not have a mandate even from his own Fatah faction, to embark on any significant political move, such as signing a peace treaty with Israel or or applying for membership for a Palestinian State at the UN. Had Hamas participated in the elections, turnout would have been higher, and the Islamist movement would easily have defeated a divided Fatah. Instead of going to New York next month, Abbas should stay in Ramallah and work toward reuniting and reforming Fatah before his political rivals drive him out.

Fatah leaders were quick to declare victory in the October 20 local elections in the West Bank.

But the results of the vote for 93 municipal and village councils show that the vote was anything but a victory.

True, in some cities and villages, Fatah did win a majority of seats.
But this is not the same Fatah that Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas and the old guard leadership of the faction had backed.

Who Threw Israel Under the Bus?

Arlene Kushner

On October 23, the profoundly anti-Israel New York Times ran an op-ed by Ephraim Halevy – former head of Israel’s Mosad and national security advisor to Prime Minister Ariel Sharon – titled “Who Threw Israel Under the Bus?”

His thesis is that it has always been Republicans who have been bad for Israel; and he provides examples of how this has been the case.

I do not presume to know what motivated Halevy to write this badly biased piece, but what seems clear is that it requires a response, especially in the week before election day, when everything has become grist for the campaign mill.

 

The fact that three named Republicans were allegedly problematic for Israel says less than nothing about whether Romney would be, and certainly does not vindicate Obama.

One of the “problematic” Republicans Halevy fingers is Obama’s predecessor, George W. Bush. Halevy’s attempt to assess Obama by looking at Bush’s record, rather than Obama’s, is rather foolish: Bush is bad, so ipso facto Obama is good.

Obama's Taqqiya Unravels

By Nonie Darwish
I have never entertained the idea that Obama was a Muslim and always believed he was a socialist. But Obama's behavior over the last four years regarding Islam has convinced me that Obama has a Socialist/Islamic centered worldview -- a combination that is not uncommon in many parts of the Muslim world.

Haredim to be drafted to Border Police under new program

The plan, which will begin before the next Knesset decides on a replacement of the expired Tal Law, will call 50 ultra-Orthodox men for service in the Border Police • New draftees said to be slated for service in the Judea region.

Yehuda Shlezinger

Haredim near the Tel Hashomer IDF Induction Center. [Illustrative] | Photo credit: Moshe Shai

A civilian service program aiming to draft ultra-Orthodox men of eligible age for military service into the Border Police is set to begin in the near future. A civil service official told Israel Hayom that 50 haredim (ultra-Orthodox) would be drafted into the service in the first stage of the plan.

Ha'aretz's Apartheid Campaign Against Israel

Yishai Goldflam

Ha'aretz's Apartheid Campaign Against Israel

Amidst its financial hardships and declining Israeli readership, the Israeli daily, Ha’aretz, has upped its anti-Israel advocacy, engaging in a campaign to promote the apartheid canard about Israel. First, Akiva Eldar falsely alleged that the Israeli government had acknowledged Jews as the minority population residing between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea, a claim he was forced to correct. Then Gideon Levy wrote an article bearing the sinister headline, "Survey: Most Israeli Jews support apartheid regime in Israel." The online versions in English and Hebrew were subsequently changed slightly. And the print edition’s English headline was "Survey: Most Israeli Jews advocate discrimination against Arabs."  This story was followed the next day by an article that attempted to solidify as fact supposed Jewish support for an apartheid regime, with the headline, "Arab MKs: Israeli Jews' support of apartheid is not surprising."