Why Not Arm the Jews In Ukraine?

John Ransom | Apr 19, 2014

As finger-pointing and accusations tumble out about whether Russian nationalists or Ukrainian nationalist are responsible for flyers in eastern Ukraine demanding that Jews register with local municipalities, the most important thing is being lost in the shuffle.

Without Vladimir Putin stirring the embers of Russian nationalism in Crimea and in Ukraine into a flame, it wouldn’t have happened in the first place.

"We are skeptical about the flier's authenticity, but the instructions clearly recall the Nazi era and have the effect of intimidating the local Jewish community," U.S.-based Anti-Defamation League Director Abraham Foxman said in a written statement according to CNN.
Whether the fliers were distributed by pro-Russian nationalists attempting to discredit Ukrainian nationalists or by pro Ukrainian nationalists looking to discredit pro Russian nationalists hardly matters anymore.

Congress prompts review of high visa rejection rate for Israelis

Julian Pecquet

Secretary of State John Kerry has ordered a review of the surging visa rejection rate for young Israelis following a backlash from Jewish members of Congress, according to a letter obtained by Al-Monitor.

Summary⎙ Print Secretary of State John Kerry ordered the review after receiving letters from lawmakers.

Author Julian Pecquet 

In the letter sent April 17 to Rep. Nita Lowey, D-N.Y., the State Department's assistant secretary for legislative affairs wrote that Kerry "shares" lawmakers' concerns. The secretary, it says, "has directed the Department to take a range of immediate actions to ensure that, consistent with U.S. immigration law, we make every effort to maximize the number of young Israelis able to travel to the United States."
"The Secretary has directed us to address these matters quickly and comprehensively," reads the letter from Julia Frifield. "The Department can and will do more to encourage and assist qualified Israelis to visit the United States."
The review follows a doubling of the rejection rate — from 16% to 32% — for tourist visas for Israelis between the ages of 21 and 26 from 2009 to 2013. The State Department says it has observed "increased rates of overstays and illegal employment," particularly for young Israelis who visit the country between the completion of their military service and the resumption of their college studies, but insists that the "perception by some that young Israelis are unwelcome" in the United States is flat wrong.

Murderer laments negative impact of prison life on his stamp collection

Issa Abd Rabbo who tied up two Israeli hikers

and then shot them in the head

complained that while in prison

he couldn't update his stamp collection properly

http://palwatch.org/main.aspx?fi=157&doc_id=11245
 

by Itamar Marcus and Nan Jacques Zilberdik

Terrorist Issa Abd Rabbo murdered two Israeli university students, Ron Levi and Revital Seri, who were hiking south of Jerusalem on Oct. 22, 1984. He tied them up at gunpoint, put bags over their heads, and then shot both in the head. He was serving two life sentences until he was released in October 2013 as one of 104 terrorists whom Israel agreed to release to fulfill the PA's precondition for renewing negotiations.

Recently, official Palestinian Authority daily honored Issa Abd Rabbo with an interview, reporting that the murderer "has enthusiastically resumed his hobby [of collecting stamps], which the occupation had prevented him from [pursuing] during the 30 years he spent in the occupation's prisons." In the interview, Abd Rabbo complained of the "many restrictions" in prison that made it "difficult for me to pursue [my] hobby.":

Top-notch intelligence

In recent years, Israel's operation intelligence has been undergoing a revolution that could transform the way Israeli military forces operate in the field • In the next war, troops will know exactly what they face in each sector.

Yoav Limor

Shaping the nature of the next war. An intelligence briefing | Photo credit: Ziv Koren

Very quietly, far from the public eye, Israel's operational intelligence has been undergoing a dramatic process in recent years that could change one of the best-known truths about war completely: the one stating that the battlefield is the kingdom of uncertainty.

This process, which is being revealed here for the first time, could lift a significant portion of the fog that accompanies every force that goes out to fight. Although question marks will remain, they will be accompanied by many more solid facts, the most important of them information about the location of the enemy and the various threats. No longer will commanding officers go out to fight with general information, relying on shreds of intelligence and what they see through their binoculars. The next war will be based more significantly upon intelligence, and will allow each force to know what it faces in every sector.

Hezbollah terror plot against Israeli tourists in Bangkok foiled

Hezbollah reportedly planned attack on Israelis in Bangkok's popular Khao San Road tourist hub • Bangkok Post reports suspects were arrested at different locations in Bangkok after Thai police received intelligence from Israel about a Passover attack.

Israel Hayom Staff

Suspected Hezbollah operative, Lebanese-Filipino national Youssef Ayad | Photo credit: Stop910.com

<< 1 2 3 >>

The investigation into two alleged Hezbollah terrorists arrested in Thailand recently was progressing swiftly, the Bangkok Post reported on Thursday, as one of the suspects reportedly admitted to a planned attack on Israeli tourists in Bangkok's popular Khao San Road tourist hub. There are several Israeli travel agencies and other establishments in the area, along with a Chabad house.

The men have been identified as French-Lebanese national Daoud Farhat and Lebanese-Filipino national Youssef Ayad.

A Thai source familiar with the investigation, according to the Bangkok Post, said Farhat held a French passport and Ayad carried a Philippines passport. According to their passports, both were born in Lebanon, though authorities have yet to confirm if the travel documents are genuine.

Time to draw new lines

http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_opinion.php?id=8103

Ze'ev Jabotinsky

 

In 1928 my grandfather, my namesake, wrote in an article that the "character of a person is not black and is not white; it is the result of the relation between appetite and ability. Man has appetites and he seeks to fill them by turning to the path of least resistance. If the resistance is too great, the person says to himself that the benefit is not worth the cost and he forgoes his desires. But because he sees a lack of resistance, he says to himself: 'Here I can…' The most poisonous venom capable of infecting the virtue of man is the phrase 'here I can.' Any place where this term is valid, virtue is noneffective."

On the importance of San Remo

Yom Haatzmaut (Israel's Independence Day) is celebrated every year by Israelis and Diaspora Jews.  The proclamation of the State of Israel, on May 14, 1948, was indeed an important event, but it pales in comparison to the rebirth of the Nation of Israel on April 25, 1920.

PA Duplicity and Western Ignorance

PA duplicity:

PA minister told Palestinians about terrorist prisoners:

They are not criminals,  

their hands committed no crime, 

they are an authentic element
of the Palestinian movement [March 28, 2014]     

 
The same minister told Israeli journalists about this week's murder of Israeli civilian: 

"It hurts... We condemn the killing of any person. The principle of killing and violence is completely unacceptable" [April 16, 2014] 

http://palwatch.org/main.aspx?fi=157&doc_id=11252

Itamar Marcus and Nan Jacques Zilberdik 

PA Minister of Religious Affairs Mahmoud Al-Habbash met with Israeli journalists today and condemned this week's murder of an Israeli:

"This Israeli who was murdered, it hurts... We condemn the killing of any person. The principle of killing and violence is completely unacceptable."  

[Israel Army Radio, April, 16, 2014]

Yet, just two weeks ago, this same Al-Habbash defended and honored all Palestinian terrorists who are in Israeli prisons: 
"All the Palestinian prisoners who protected [our] land, honor and homeland are prisoners of freedom; they are prisoners of war. They are not criminals, will never be and have never been. Their hands committed no crime. They were defending themselves. They are an inseparable part of this national Palestinian movement and one of its authentic elements."

[Official PA TV March 28, 2014]

This is another example of PA's policy of duplicity: The minister told the authentic Palestinian message to Palestinians and the opposite message to Israelis and the West. When PA Minister Al-Habbash defined Palestinian prisoners as people whose "hands committed no crime" and who are "an authentic elements" of the Palestinian movement, he was including well known imprisoned terrorists like Abdullah Barghouti, (67 life sentences), Ibrahim Hamed, (54 life sentences) and Abbas Al-Sayid, (35 life sentences), all imprisoned for planning suicide bombings that murdered in all 156 civilians.

Jewish leaders down under not intimidated

Isi Leibler

Former Australian Labor Party Foreign Minister, Bob Carr, this week released a 500 page book titled "Diary of a Foreign Minister" depicting his activities in office from March 2012 to September 2013. It includes a vicious attack on the Jewish communal leadership, charging it with disproportionate influence on government. The criticism is reminiscent of the notorious Stephen Walt and John Mearsheimer book on the Jewish lobby in America.

For the sake of full disclosure, prior to my aliyah, I was head of the Australian Jewish community for three terms. My brother, Mark Leibler, presides over the Australia-Israel and Jewish Affairs Council (AIJAC), which is the Australian equivalent of AIPAC. Currently he is indisputably considered the most influential Jewish personality in the country.

Carr accuses former Prime Minister Julia Gillard of being controlled by the Jewish lobby and "subcontracting our foreign policy to party donors," denouncing the alleged power of pro-Israel lobbyists as "unhealthy." He also condemns Jewish leaders for promoting "an extreme right-wing rather than a tolerant liberal Israeli view" and seeking to "win on everything."

He singles out AIJAC Chairman Mark Leibler, accusing him of employing a "how dare you" tone in relation to Australian votes at the U.N. "Why can’t he and the lobby understand that their 'take no prisoners approach' creates immense harm?" asks Carr.

The 'House of Peace' on the road to Abraham

Nadav Shragai

Four hundred silver shekels was the amount our forefather Abraham dropped in Ephron the Hittite's extended hand, and "Ephron’s field in Machpelah near Mamre -- both the field and the cave in it, and all the trees within the borders of the field -- was deeded" (Genesis 23:17), becoming the eternal inheritance of the Jewish people and a sepulchre for its ancestors.

Half a million Jordanian dinars was the amount paid by a different Abraham, Morris Abraham from New York, a descendent of the 1929 exile, through frontman Ayoub Yusef Jaber to the House of Peace's owners in Hebron, making it a permanent inheritance for the city's Jews as well, while creating the much needed, natural passage between Kiryat Arba and the Cave of the Patriarchs.

In a normal Jewish state, the government would be the one encouraging Jewish settlement in Hebron, the city of our ancestors, which David Ben-Gurion saw as the "neighbor and progenitor of Jerusalem," believing "we would be making a huge, terrible mistake not to inhabit [Hebron]."

Five years too late, justice was finally served by the courts and the defense establishment regarding the House of Peace. Defense Minister Moshe Ya'alon showed the rule of law -- which over the years had devoted most of its efforts to isolating, encumbering, restricting and embittering Hebron Jewish life -- that there is another way, where policy is set by government ministers, not legal clerks -- not even if they serve in the State Attorney Office.

US: The Era of Nuclear Neglect

Peter Huessy
April 15, 2014 

http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/4254/us-nuclear-neglect

Looking at the most recent developments in Russia, China, Iran and Pakistan, as well as North Korea, it would seem urgent that the U.S. end as soon as possible its era of nuclear neglect.

On March 24, 2014 the Energy Department's Inspector General [IG] determined that many of our nuclear laboratories had not been archiving with care designs used in the manufacture of nuclear weapons.
According to Inspector General Gregory Friedman, "Over the decades of nuclear weapons development, neither NNSA nor its sites treated the maintenance of original nuclear weapons... information as a priority.[1]
The IG also concluded that the Energy Department leadership concurred with its findings and had taken effective steps to remedy the problems identified.[2]
Problem solved, right?
Unfortunately not.

Muslim Brotherhood Flees London After British PM Launches Investigation

 

by Raheem Kassam 

The Muslim Brotherhood's activities in Britain will be reviewed over concerns about possible links to violence, Prime Minister David Cameron said, widening pressure on a veteran Islamist movement facing an...

There Is No Way to Defend Israel without Israeli Troops along the Jordan River

Netanyahu’s ex-national security adviser says Abbas has a choice between Israeli troops on the Jordan River—or no state at all

By David Samuels

Yaakov Amidror, then national security adviser to the prime minister, center, with, left to right, Tzipi Livni, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and Military Secretary Maj. Gen. Eyal Zamir, as Netanyahu meets with U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry (unseen) in Jerusalem on June 29, 2013. (Jacquelyn Martin/AFP/Getty Images)

Bibi’s Brain: Meet Ron Dermer, Israel’s new ambassador to the U.S.

The Palestinian ambassador to Washington sees a role for the American Jewish community in creating a Palestinian state 

 

By David Samuels

My first glimpse of Maj. Gen. Yaakov Amidror came at the Herzliya Conference in December 2004, where a parade of notables took turns praising Ariel Sharon’s unilateral disengagement plan as brave, far-sighted, and wise. Amidror, a bearded former senior military intelligence officer, was the skunk at the Israeli security establishment’s annual garden party. Holding a black military beret on his lap, he mocked promises of a peace dividend, and of the moderating influence that an Israeli withdrawal from Gaza would have on Palestinian behavior.
“There won’t be peace,” Amidror predicted, raising his voice to be heard from the back of the crowded room. “The first thing they will do is tear down all the greenhouses that we built there. Then, Hamas will take over in Gaza, and then they will start to fire missiles at us. They will increase the quality and range of their missiles, until they can hit our major cities, just as has happened in Lebanon. When the missiles become unbearable for us, we will be forced to go back into Gaza, except they will be in control of it, not us.” The panelists shook their heads, the way polite and reasonable people do in the presence of a potentially dangerous fanatic. After the panel was over, no one came over to speak to Amidror, preferring the more soothing and cultivated company of Sharon’s lawyer, Dubi Weisglass.

Continue Reading Palestinians' "Anti-Normalization" Movement

Khaled Abu Toameh
April 14, 2014 

http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/4270/palestinians-normalization-dancers

The "anti-normalization" activists are already accusing Abbas of being a traitor for meeting with Israelis.
The dancers, invited by the Palestinians from India, a staunch supporter, have received a first-hand lesson in what years of incitement and negative campaigns can do.

Palestinian Authority security forces used force to disperse and arrest Palestinian activists who tried to prevent Indians from performing a dance in Ramallah on April 12.
The activists accused the Indian Classical Dance Performance, Kathak, of appearing before members of the Indian community in Tel Aviv, saying this was a form of "normalization" with Israel.
The Palestinian Campaign for the Academic & Cultural Boycott of Israel, an anti-Israel group that claims to be pro-Palestinian, issued a statement calling for boycotting the Indian dancers who had been invited to attend a Palestinian book fair in Ramallah.
The group said that the Indian dancers' performance in Tel Aviv came in "wake of an upsurge in the fierce onslaught against the Palestinian people by the Israeli Occupation Forces."

The Peace Process Is Dead. Let It Lie Down.

Jonathan Spyer

2014 Israel-Palestinian Peace Talks

The April 29^th deadline has not yet been reached, but it may be said with confidence that the initiative by Secretary of State John Kerry to revive the ‘peace process’ between Israelis and Palestinians has already reached its final destination: failure.

 The failure of this initiative was obvious from the beginning.  To everyone except, apparently, Kerry himself.  This reality lent an element of low farce to the entire proceedings.

 By now, it should really be obvious to any serious observer that there is no chance that the Israeli-Palestinian negotiating process will produce a comprehensive peace between the two sides.

 There are two core reasons for this.  One of them is of long-standing, the other is a development of the last decade.

 The first reason is because the Fatah movement, headed by Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas, is simply not interested in exchanging its historic goal of reversing the verdict of 1948 for the establishment of a small Palestinian state in the West Bank.

 This is the reason why it has refused every concrete proposal to end the conflict along these lines – from the Clinton proposals of 2000, via then Prime Minister Ehud Olmert’s plan in 2008, to the recent refusal by Abbas to declare that any agreement reached would mark an end to the conflict and to further Palestinian claims.

 The volume of proof supporting this contention is now so enormous that it is truly astonishing that this point needs to be made.  But illusions die hard, apparently.

Palestinian teenager: "My life's ambition is to reach the level that the Martyr fighter Dalal Mughrabi reached"

- words of student at school

named after terrorist Mughrabi who led massacre of 37 -

 shows success of PA's role modeling of terrorists

Teacher at the school:

"We in the Ministry of Education

had the honor of naming our school

after the Martyr Dalal Mughrabi"

palwatch.org/main.aspx?fi=157&doc_id=11243

Itamar Marcus and Nan Jacques Zilberdik

A Palestinian teenager's ambition in life is to be a killer of Israeli civilians, PA TV broadcast recently. The interview of the teenage girl took place in a school named after terrorist Dalal Mughrabi, whose bus hijacking north of Tel Aviv left 37 civilians murdered in 1978. The girl's statement demonstrates the PA's effectiveness in presenting terrorist murderers as heroes and role models for Palestinian youth.

Girl to PA TV about her goal in life:

"My life's ambition is to reach the level that the Martyr fighter Dalal Mughrabi reached..."

The purpose of the PA TV program was explained by the TV host:

"Today we are in the Dalal Mughrabi School [in Gaza], to get to know the Palestinian Martyr and fighter..."

Other children and teachers in the school were also interviewed.

Student at the school:

"Dalal Mughrabi is a great leader, who raised more and more and worked for the Palestinian cause to protect the pure land of the homeland, by defending Jerusalem to liberate it. This fighter may have died and her soul may have ascended to Heaven, but still our mothers give birth to thousands like Dalal, and she still walks among us. Dalal Mughrabi has given us a lot, and I personally am proud to attend the Dalal Mughrabi School, which bears this pioneering name."

The Jordan Valley: Israel’s Security Belt

 Prof. Efraim Inbar 
re-post

BESA Center Perspectives Paper No. 232
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: Israel must resist international pressure and hold on to the Jordan Valley – its only available defensible border to the east – in a future peace deal, as sudden changes in the volatile Middle East could render it even more important. Israel must also build in Area E-1, which would link the valley to an undivided Jerusalem. Israel should concentrate its settlement efforts in these strategic areas, and not in the more remote areas of the West Bank, which would signal both clear strategic preferences as well as possibilities for compromise with the Palestinians.
US Secretary of State John Kerry is once again in town trying to reach an agreement on a framework for continued peace talks between Israel and the Palestinian Authority. One of the issues of dispute is the fate of the Jordan Valley, which is indispensable for Israel’s national security. The Jordan Valley is the only available defensible border on the eastern front, the closest border to Israel’s heartland – the Jerusalem-Tel Aviv-Haifa triangle – which holds 70 percent of its population and 80 percent of its economic infrastructure.
Some pundits claim that Israel no longer needs the Jordan Valley as a shield against aggression from the east. They argue that the demise of the Saddam Hussein regime in Iraq, the weakening of civil war-torn Syria, and the impressive stability of Jordan in light of the turmoil of the Arab world renders the threat from the east and its proximity to Israel’s center a thing of the past.

Kerry Versus Rabin on Israel's Security

Kenneth Levin 

 Dr. Kenneth Levin is a psychiatrist and historian and author of The Oslo Syndrome: Delusions of a People under Siege.

Two months ago, on November 5, Secretary of State Kerry attended a ceremony in Tel Aviv marking the eighteenth anniversary of Yitzhak Rabin’s assassination. Kerry lauded Rabin as “a great man of peace,” praised Rabin’s efforts to resolve Israel’s conflict with the Palestinians, and urged rededication to Rabin’s vision.

Secretary Kerry is now striving to achieve agreement between the parties on elements of a peace accord, including security arrangements and future borders. Media reports claim that in the coming weeks he will present his own blueprint addressing these issues. Kerry has repeatedly insisted Israel’s security is a non-negotiable priority in his quest for a path to peace.

Given his warm praise of Rabin and Rabin’s perspectives on the parameters of a genuine, durable peace, one would expect any blueprint from the Secretary of State to incorporate what Rabin defined as areas vital for Israel’s defense.

PA names forest after arch-terrorist Abu Jihad

Abu Jihad masterminded terror attacks 

that killed 125 Israelis  

http://palwatch.org/main.aspx?fi=157&doc_id=11238

by Itamar Marcus and Nan Jacques Zilberdik

The official Palestinian Authority daily reported that the PA and Fatah inaugurated a forest they chose to name after arch-terrorist Abu Jihad: "The Martyr Abu Jihad Forest."

Sign at the entrance to the forest: "The Al-Shuyoukh Municipality welcomes you to the Martyr Khalil Al-Wazir [Abu Jihad] Forest" [Official PA TV, March 30, 2014]

 
Abu Jihad was a founder of Fatah and deputy to Yasser Arafat. He headed the PLO's military wing and planned many deadly terror attacks. These attacks, which according to the official PA daily killed at least 125 Israelis, included the most lethal in Israeli history - the hijacking of a bus and killing of 37 civilians, 12 of them children.

Palestinian Media Watch has documented that PA Chairman Abbas decorated terrorist Abu Jihad post-mortem a few months ago with "the highest order of the Star of Honor."

The inauguration ceremony was attended by several PA officials: Minister of Agriculture Walid Assaf, District Governor of Hebron Kamel Hamid and representatives of the PA Security Forces, as well as several mayors from the Hebron district and relatives of terrorist Abu Jihad, the paper reported. Official PA TV also showed footage from the ceremony.