Netanyahu’s Alternative Ties to Europe

Joseph Puder

Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was on a state visit to Japan last week, as part of his efforts to strengthen Israel’s economic and political ties with Asia, Africa and Latin America. On the political side, Netanyahu sought to persuade his Japanese counterpart, Shinzo Abe, to refrain from lifting the economic sanctions on Iran. He also addressed Japanese business leaders on the wisdom of buying Israeli technologies.
In search for markets outside Europe, Netanyahu is planning a trip to Latin America. A previously scheduled trip to Columbia, Mexico and Panama by PM Netanyahu was cancelled due to the Israeli Foreign Ministry strike. It has since been rescheduled.

The Netanyahu-led government is responding to the threats of sanctions by the European Union, and the EU attempts to isolate Israel as a way to exact Israeli concessions to the Palestinians. The Europeans have been putting the onus on Israel for the freeze in the Israeli-Palestinian negotiations. They continually protest to Israeli officials the “ongoing Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories.”
The EU boycott threats worries Israel’s Finance Minister Yair Lapid, who fears a drop of 20% in Israeli exports to the EU (Lapid supports a pullback from most of Judea and Samaria/West Bank in an effort to secure a peace accord with the Palestinians). Israel’s trade with the EU last year reached $36.7 billion, up from $20.9 billion a decade earlier.

Jews, Get Out of Europe

P. David Hornik


The Anti-Defamation League created a stir last week by releasing the results of a global survey of antisemitism, the most comprehensive ever.
These results are considered shocking by many. Actually, for those who bother to keep up with reality, they contain no surprises.

The Middle East and North Africa come out worst, with 74 percent among population groups qualifying as antisemitic according to the poll’s 11-question index. The most antisemitic political entities in the world? The West Bank and Gaza, coming in at 93 percent. (Yes, those same Palestinians with whom Israel is always under pressure to “make peace.”) 
The next worst region is Eastern Europe, with 34 percent scoring as antisemites. But not too far behind is Western Europe—the home of multiculturalism, advanced environmental awareness, bevies of human rights NGOs, and so on—at 24 percent.

CNN footage shows Israeli troops firing rubber bullets, not live fire, in Beitunia

Elder of Ziyon

his is Israel's Channel 2 analyzing video released by CNN yesterday that appeared to show the Israel border police officer firing the gunshot that felled Nadim Nawarah at the "Nakba Day" protest in Beitunia.



While Nadim and the other youth have had funerals and Palestinian Arab medical reports indicating bullets that tore through their bodies, the CNN footage actually shows without a doubt that the border police bullet that was shot at the time Nawarah fell came from a gun equipped with the extension used to fire rubber bullets. (The bullet that Nawarah's father says he found in the backpack simply could not have killed him, as the expert in the video notes - a bullet that hits a target does not look like that.)

Here is what an M16  looks like.

Here it is with the attachment:

Here's the gun that fired the bullet at the time:

It is clear that this gun has the rubber bullet attachment.

Rubber coated bullets used in Israel are blunt cylinders. They cannot penetrate skin unless fired from very close range, although they could cause serious pain and injury. Even then - they wouldn't exit the body. They certainly could not go through Nadim's backpack the way it was described.

The CNN footage did not show what was happening around the corner from the building where Nawarah fell down, closer to the Israeli position, and from other footage we know that protesters were throwing and sling-shooting stones to the police from there (out of the view of the security camera footage.)  We cannot tell where the police were firing towards.

Is it possible that Nawarah was hit by a misfired rubber bullet, or a ricochet? Did he fall as soon as he heard the shot? I dislike conspiracy theories on either side and the idea that the youths faked their falls to coincide with the shots and were then whisked away to replaced with similar dead bodies, or to be killed themselves as martyrs, seems far fetched. But no image or video released so far shows Israeli police using anything but tear gas and rubber bullet guns, and there is no way that the damage mentioned in the medical report matches what a rubber bullet could do.  Also, there is no blood visible near the supposed wounds in any of the photos of the youths who were apparently killed.

My earlier post on the incident, along with the comments, is perhaps the single biggest repository of photo and video of the incident.

See also here.

(h/t CifWatch for the translation)

Obama Administration Ready to Work with Terrorist Group Hamas

by Jordan Schachtel 

A senior official in the Obama administration announced Tuesday that the United States is ready to engage the newly unified Fatah-Hamas Palestinian government.

The senior White House official told the Haaretz newspaper that the US is ready to embrace Hamas as part of a legitimate government. The official said the unity government must abide by certain conditions. What exactly those conditions demand remains unclear.
“We want a Palestinian government that upholds those principles. In terms of how they build this government, we are not able to orchestrate that for the Palestinians. We are not going to be able to engineer every member of this government,” said the senior official.
A precedent established by the US congress mandated that the United States would not recognize Hamas until it committed to dropping its continuing de facto jihad against Israel and the West. To date, the United States lists Hamas as a designated Foreign Terrorist Organization.

Al-Dura Redux

Blogger

Shimon Fogel Shimon Fogel is CEO of the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs, a non-partisan organization that serves as the voice … [More]

Recent footage of the alleged shooting of two unarmed Palestinians during Nakba Day clashes at Beitunia were quickly picked up by news outlets around the world, prompting UN and other officials to call for an “independent investigation.”

With the death toll in Syria surpassing 160,000, one cannot help but note the absurd irony of a UN official lecturing Israel about the need for responsible action. It would have been equally ridiculous for the UN to issue directives to Canada, for example, in the wake of alleged transgressions by police during the 2010 G-8 riots in Toronto. Liberal democracies – Israel and Canada alike – have long-established processes to investigate such incidents and hold security officials accountable.

Putting aside the clear double standard, those quick to express outrage should take a moment to consider the veracity of the video footage in question. Without prompting, several Canadian military experts contacted me privately this week to state – with considerable confidence – their belief that the incident is a hoax.

05/22 Links Pt2: Why Are the Irish Anti-Israel?; BDS Fails Round-up; China buys control of Tnuva

Elder of Ziyon

Ian:

---

Why Are the Irish Increasingly Siding With Palestine Over Israel?

As the Irish conflict has ended, or even as a result of it, Israel has become the favored target of an adventurous but ineffectual activist left in search of a cause that is both suitably righteous and distant. Unlike with other conflicts—say, the invasion of Western Sahara by Morocco—Israel’s modernity marks it as recognizably Western. It can easily be cast in the role of being little more than a U.S.-backed aggressor against the noble Palestinians unfettered by modern affectations.
Johnson say this does a disservice to Palestinians.
“When the Palestinians are anything other than [victims of Israel], when they’re being thrown off rooftops by Hamas or are being starved by Assad in Syrian refugee camps, [pro-Palestine activists] don’t have any interest in that,” he says. “They’re pro a certain kind of agency-less Palestinian. It’s politically useless.” (h/t MtTB)

The Left’s Hatred Of Israel Has A Rich History

Communists saw no anti-Semitism in the Soviet Union; modern radicals deny Arab anti-Semitism.

Sound the alarm!‏

"Blow a trumpet in Zion; sound an alarm on my holy mountain!" (Joel 2:1)

On May 25, Pope Francis will begin his two-day visit to the Holy Land. It will begin in Bethlehem with a large mass together with PA leader Mahmoud Abbas. Palestinians are already celebrating the visit, saying his choice to begin the trip directly in PA-held Bethlehem is meant to "recognize Palestine," and "oppose the occupation."

Hind Khoury, a former PA minister for Jerusalem affairs, has admitted that every detail of the visit "will be highly charged politically." Already in February, Rabbi Sergio Bergman, a member of the Argentinian parliament and close friend of Pope Francis, said that the pope intends to define himself as the "Che Guevera of the Palestinians" and support their struggle and rights during his visit.

Pallywood again? IDF denies using live fire during "Nakba Day" demonstration (updates - new videos)

Elder of Ziyon

Yesterday, a security video was released that seems to show the two Palestinian Arabs being shot and killed during "Nakba Day" demonstrations near Ofer Prison in Bitunia:



The first second one shot was Mohammed Udeh, wearing a green Islamist flag. Here are some close-up photos of him before and after the event, plus a video of him throwing rocks beforehand: (These photos are from AFP.)

I cannot figure out how the second photo above, which must have been taken in the two seconds before he was swarmed by people, lines up with any frame of the video. Similarly, in the video he is taken away immediately, while the photos indicate that he was lying there for at least a minute. (UPDATE: I mixed up the two people in the CCTV video. The videos and the photos are largely consistent.)

Here is video of him beforehand, according to Al Watan Voice. He is clearly seen  at 0:17:




This heavily edited jumble of a video purports to show IDF soldiers shooting, but the editing does not allow anyone to determine if that portion was even taken that same day. The green-clad victim is also seen in this video.

Islam: ‘Appalling and Abhorrent’ in the Eyes of a Blind World?

Raymond Ibrahim


A few days ago in Sudan, an eight-month pregnant wife and mother was sentenced to death by hanging for refusing to renounce Christ and embrace Islam.  According to the LA Times:
Meriam Yehya Ibrahim, who has a young son and is married to a Christian from South Sudan, violated Islamic sharia law, the court said. She insists she was raised Christian, not Muslim.

The court also ordered Ibrahim to be flogged for having sexual relations with her husband, since her marriage is not recognized by officials.
Ibrahim refused a court order Sunday giving her several days to renounce her Christian faith, which resulted in the sentencing Thursday….
Ibrahim, currently jailed with her son, will be allowed to give birth and raise her second child until the age of 2 years but then faces execution. Sudanese authorities refuse to allow Ibrahim’s son to reside with her husband because the husband is Christian.

Israel Will Be The Last Man Standing in the Middle East

David Archibald

The Arab Spring, which started with the self-immolation of a Tunisian vegetable vendor at 11.30 am on 16^th December, 2010, has resulted in two failed states in the region so far.  Libya has become “Scumbag Woodstock” because of the number of terrorist organisations headquartered there.  The French and English attempt at regime change created a terrorist haven with consequences as far afield as Mali and the 300 Christian girls kidnapped in Nigeria.  Fortunately, Syria has become a meatgrinder for Islamic terrorists and for the moment has ceased being a net exporter of terrorism.  In that conflict, the Obama Administration has chosen to support the side that does all the beheadings.  Perhaps it is a brilliant plan -- a rational person would want the meatgrinder to keep grinding rather than have the Islamists defeated too quickly.

Analysis: What's stopping the Third Intifada?

Al-Shabaka

Al-Shabaka is an independent non-profit organization whose mission is to educate and foster public debate on Palestinian human rights and self-determination within the framework of international law.

This policy brief is authored by Jamil Hilal, an independent Palestinian sociologist and writer who has published many books and numerous articles on Palestinian society, the Arab-Israeli conflict, and Middle East issues.

The repeated failure of bilateral negotiations brokered by the United States to halt and reverse Israel's aggressive colonialism regularly fuels speculation about a third intifada (uprising) against the Israeli occupation.

However, a third intifada depends on the interaction of two sets of processes: the collective repressive and dehumanizing conditions of life under occupation, on the one hand, and, on the other, the changes that have taken place within Palestinian society in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip, as well as the overall Palestinian political movement.

The PA, Refugees, the Holocaust, and Peace

Posted by Ted Belman 

EU Envoy Says ‘No Reason’ to Stop Talks Over Fatah-Hamas Unity. Why? Because they are the same.

“I don’t see a reason for the peace talks stopping in order to send a message that there’s a difference between Fatah and Hamas,” opined Faaborg-Andersen.

While indeed Palestinian Authority (PA) Chairman Mahmoud Abbas’s Fatah faction has made clear that there is little distinction between them and Hamas in terms of their goal of destroying Israel, which would of course call the end result of any peace process into question

I agree. So does Gordon, the author of the article below. Israel shouldn’t have started negotiations with Fatah/PA in the first place. Ted Belman

The Daily Tip

 http://www.theisraelproject.org/hamas-political-bureau-chief-unity-deal-does-not-mean-an-end-to-efforts-to-eradicate-israel/

Hamas political bureau chief: Unity deal "does not mean an end" to efforts to eradicate Israel Top Iranian nuclear figure lashes out at proposal for robust inspections regime NOW Media: U.S. think tanks hail congressional legislation targeting illicit Hezbollah funding network Gulf states announce new Saudi-UAE "supreme committee" aimed at confronting "regional challenges"

Reuters on Wednesday conveyed statements from Khaled Meshaal, the head of Hamas's political bureau, doubling down on his organization's commitment to the eradication of Israel, especially and specifically in the context of an anticipated agreed government between Hamas and the rival Palestinian Fatah organization. Speaking in Doha, Meshaal declared that Hamas had made a range of compromises to secure reconciliation - the exact language was that the group had "already made sacrifices and this was necessary to be closer with our brothers" - but emphasized that "with the invader [Israel] we will not make any compromises." He went on to state that "the reconciliation does not mean an end to our resistance against the invaders [and] resistance will continue." The stance is not new.

Islam: 'Appalling and Abhorrent' in the Eyes of a Blind World?

Raymond Ibrahim
Human Events
May 21, 2014

http://www.meforum.org/3829/islam-apostasy-christians

A few days ago in Sudan, an eight-month pregnant wife and mother was sentenced to death by hanging for refusing to renounce Christ and embrace Islam. According to the LA Times:

The court also ordered Ibrahim to be flogged for having sexual relations with her husband, since her marriage is not recognized by officials.
Ibrahim refused a court order Sunday giving her several days to renounce her Christian faith, which resulted in the sentencing Thursday….
Ibrahim, currently jailed with her son, will be allowed to give birth and raise her second child until the age of 2 years but then faces execution. Sudanese authorities refuse to allow Ibrahim's son to reside with her husband because the husband is Christian.

Tragic as this story is, it is also immensely commonplace in Islamic countries. Why? Because Islamic law does in fact punish the apostate from Islam—including with death—in accordance with the commands of the Muslim prophet Muhammad.

Pope to visit PA Mufti who preached Jews are enemies of Allah destined to be exterminated by Muslims

PMW calls on the Pope

 to condition meeting on a retraction

  

by Itamar Marcus and Nan Jacques Zilberdik

In the course of his visit to Israel and the Palestinian Authority next week, as a matter of protocol, Pope Francis, the most senior figure in the Catholic Church, is scheduled to meet with Israel's two chief rabbis as well as the most senior religious figure in the PA, the Mufti Sheikh Muhammad Hussein. What Pope Francis may not be aware of is that the Mufti has an ongoing record of vicious Antisemitic hate speech, which has been condemned internationally. In 2012, the Mufti preached that it is Muslim destiny to kill the Jews. On a different occasion, in the Al-Aqsa Mosque, he taught that Jews were "enemies of Allah," and in another speech he said that the souls of suicide bombers "tell us to follow in their path."

In his 2012 speech at a Fatah celebration in East Jerusalem, the Mufti linked the extermination of Jews to "Palestine," and claimed that Israelis know this religious war, "Jihad," is coming and are trying to protect themselves by planting a special tree that will hide them from Muslims when they come to kill them.

Moderator at Fatah ceremony: "Our war with the descendants of the apes and pigs (i.e., Jews) is a war of religion and faith.

Long Live Fatah! [I invite you,] our honorable Sheikh."  

Palestinian Authority Mufti Muhammad Hussein: "47 years ago the [Fatah] revolution started. Which revolution? The modern revolution
of the Palestinian people’s history.
In fact, Palestine in its entirety is a revolution,
since [Caliph] Umar came [to conquer Jerusalem, 637 CE],
and continuing today, and until the End of Days.
The reliableHadith (tradition attributed to Muhammad),
in the two reliable collections, Bukhari and Muslim, says:

'The Hour [of Resurrection] will not come until you fight the Jews. 

The Jew will hide behind stones or trees. 

Then the stones or trees will call: 

"Oh Muslim, servant of Allah, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him." 

Except the Gharqad tree [which will keep silent].' 

Therefore, it is no wonder that you see Gharqad [trees] 

surrounding the [Israeli] settlements and colonies.
[Gharqad trees] surrounding, surrounding and surrounding.
That’s the Palestine we are talking about,
with the beginning of the Jihad and the continuation of the Jihad,
with the struggle and the procession of the Martyrs."

[PA TV (Fatah), Jan. 9, 2012] 

Click to view

Obama's not on our team

Ruthie Blum

As 10,000 Israeli basketball fans traveled to Italy on Sunday to root for Maccabi Tel Aviv in the Euroleague championship game against Real Madrid, an estimated 1,000 American troops arrived in Israel for a very different sort of gathering.

Due to the jubilation surrounding Maccabi's stunning overtime victory, with crowds cheering the players and fireworks and celebrations bursting out all over the country, even Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu took time out to take pride in his country's national team.

For this reason, little attention has been given to the presence of the U.S. soldiers, who have come to participate in "Juniper Cobra," a five-day exercise with the IDF.

The joint training exercise is aimed at testing Israel's missile interceptors -- the Iron Dome, David's Sling and the Arrow -- all of which were developed with the financial assistance of the United States. So far, these interceptors have been put to the test, mostly successfully, against rockets fired from Gaza.

UK: "The Islamic Republic of Tower Hamlets"

Mohshin Habib

http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/4320/tower-hamlets-lutfur-rahman

"One day our representatives will govern this country." — Mayor Lutfur Rahman, standing for reelection as Mayor of Tower Hamlets.
"There was a clear diversion of funding away from secular bodies serving the whole community to faith-based or religious groups serving only sections of the community." — Andrew Gilligan, The Telegraph.

Lutfur Rahman, the Bangladesh-born Muslim elected mayor of Tower Hamlets, East London, was accused by BBC's Panorama of doubling public funding to Bangladeshi and Somali Muslim groups from £1.3 million ($2.9m) to £3.6 million ($6m) at the recommendation of council officers.
The Secretary for the Department for Communities and Local Government [DCLG], Eric Pickles, had apparently sent inspectors into Tower Hamlets to investigate Rahman's activities. But when, on April 4, the Metropolitan Police Service received three files from the DCLG, and police investigators reviewed the allegations, they found no evidence of fraud or other offenses. In response, Mr. Rahman labeled BBC's Panorama report as having "clear racist and Islamophobic overtones targeting the Bangladeshi Muslim community in Tower Hamlets."
Rahman, a solicitor specializing in family law, describes himself as a liberal and a social democrat. But many consider him as secretive, sly, inept, anti-gay and a frontman for Islamists. The question now in London, before local elections on May 22, is whether Rahman is a liberal or actually a fundamentalist.
In September 2010, Lutfur Rahman was selected by the Tower Hamlets Labour Party as its candidate for the first directly elected mayor of the borough. The party's national executive committee removed him as the party's candidate, however, after an allegation that he was closely linked with the Islamic Forum of Europe, an Islamic fundamentalist group. The Islamic Forum of Europe has a youth wing, Young Muslim Organization, based in Tower Hamlets and established mainly by the Bangladeshi expatriates.

Israeli Researchers Synthesize Cancer-Fighting Molecule

Hebrew University researchers have pinpointed the process by which tumors become resistant to cancer treatments, according to NoCamels, paving the way for significant changes in cancer-treating drugs.

While Israel has developed several anti-cancer drugs, not every patient will benefit from every drug; the correct cancer treatment for any given person must be individualized. Research has thus focused heavily on determining why certain tumors reject specific treatments - and how to universalize anti-cancer drugs to become more and more accessible.

HUJI's research team previously discovered that breast, lung and colon cancer cells change the structure of an enzyme called Mnk2, which is involved in the transmission of information from the environment or body into the cell. Enzyme MnK2 is found in two forms: it has a "normal" form, which inhibits cancer, and a second form - often triggered by cancer cells - which promotes cancer development.

Pope to visit PA Mufti who preached Jews are enemies of Allah destined to be exterminated by Muslims

http://palwatch.org/main.aspx?fi=157&doc_id=11466

by Itamar Marcus and Nan Jacques Zilberdik

  

In the course of his visit to Israel and the Palestinian Authority next week, as a matter of protocol, Pope Francis, the most senior figure in the Catholic Church, is scheduled to meet with Israel's two chief rabbis as well as the most senior religious figure in the PA, the Mufti Sheikh Muhammad Hussein. What Pope Francis may not be aware of, is that the Mufti has an ongoing record of vicious Antisemitic hate speech, which has been condemned internationally. In 2012, the Mufti preached that it is Muslim destiny to kill the Jews. On another occasion, in the Al-Aqsa Mosque, he taught that Jews were "enemies of Allah," and in another speech he said that the souls of suicide bombers "tell us to follow in their path."

In his 2012 speech at a Fatah celebration in East Jerusalem, the Mufti linked the extermination of Jews to "Palestine," and claimed that Israelis know this religious war, "Jihad," is coming and are trying to protect themselves by planting a special tree that will hide them from Muslims when they come to kill them. 

Israel Palestine: Who’s Indigenous?

Ryan Bellerose 

This is the first post by a new Israellycool contributor, Ryan Bellerose. He has been known to Israellycool for a while and we’re delighted to publish this important essay here.
I am a Métis from Paddle Prairie Metis settlement. My father, Mervin Bellerose, co-authored the Métis Settlements Act of 1989, which was passed by the Alberta legislature in 1990 and cemented our land rights. I founded Canadians For Accountability, a native rights advocacy group, and I am an organizer and participant in the Idle No More movement in Calgary. And I am a Zionist.

Indigenous status

To begin, let us acknowledge that there is no rule that a land can have only one indigenous people; it is not a zero sum game in which one group must be considered indigenous so that therefore another is not. However, there is a very clear guideline to being an indigenous people. It is somewhat complex but can be boiled down to the checklist below, as developed by anthropologist José R. Martínez-Cobo (former special rapporteur of the Sub-commission on Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities for the United Nations).

UCLA CHANCELLOR BLOCK AND UC PRESIDENT NAPOLITANO RESPOND TO JEWISH & COMMUNITY CONCERNS BY CONDEMNING HARASSMENT TACTICS

Recently, Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) at UCLA launched a campaign calling for the investigation of student council members who have taken trips to Israel sponsored by Jewish organizations.  SJP also demanded that candidates for student government positions sign a statement pledging that they will not go on any trip to Israel sponsored by three Jewish organizations. According to campus sources, the SJP campaign is a reaction to its failed attempt to get the student government to endorse an anti-Israel divestment resolution last February.

Shocked at UCLA’s statement last week that the university did not plan to intervene, AMCHA Initiative coordinated a letter signed by seven organizations to the UC Regents, UCLA Chancellor Gene Block and UC President Janet Napolitano and spoke at the Board of Regents meeting, demanding the university officials stop SJP from targeting and harassing Jewish students at UCLA. AMCHA members and supporters also emailed and called UCLA administrators to demand action.  

Egypt's Amr Moussa denies saying Hamas must recognise Israel

Insisting that Hamas accept the 2002 Arab Peace Initiative doesn't mean that it must also recognise Israel, says former Arab League head

 

Ahram Online

Amr Moussa (Photo: Reuters)

Related

Egypt's Amr Moussa: Hamas must recognize Israel - AFP

Amr Moussa reveals El-Sisi’s ‘electoral vision’

Amr Moussa: President and citizens are constitution-bound

Egypt's Moussa: political future possible for Brotherhood - Reuters

Former head of the Arab League Amr Moussa denied on Monday previous reports quoting him as saying, "Hamas must recognise Israel if the Palestinians are to move forward with their hopes in establishing their own state." The quote, reported by AFP on 8 May during Moussa's visit to Washington, was denounced in a statement by the Egyptian politician's spokesman, Ahmed Kamel.

Battle for the Heart of Eretz-Israel!

Steven Shamrak

The PA Minister of Religious Affairs Mahmoud Al-Habbash and the former Chief Justice of the PA's Religious Court both recently declared that the PA's Islamic belief and political position is that Jews are prohibited from praying at the Western Wall of the Temple Mount .

The PA claims that the area of the Muslim holy site, the Al-Aqsa Mosque, includes not only the mosque itself, but extends over the entire Temple Mount and includes the current Judaism's holiest site - the Western Wall.

The religious belief that Jerusalem must only be Muslim is also the PA's political demand. "I say to the leaders of our Arab nation and to its peoples: Jerusalem and its environs are a trust that Allah entrusted to us. Saving it from the settlement monster and the danger of Judaization and (land) confiscation is a personal (Islamic)] commandment (Arabic: fard ayn) incumbent on all of us." (Al-Jazeera TV, March 27, 2010) (Enemies are waging war against Israel on all fronts. Regardless what Israel have or will offer to the PA it will never be enough!)

Nasrallah alleges ‘Christian Zionist’ plot

Badih Chayban

Hizbullah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah said Tuesday that Arabs were not “red Indians” and will not be liquidated or driven into exile by Israel and the United States. Speaking at a graduation ceremony in Haret Hreik, Nasrallah said that “Christian Zionists” were gaining strength and had a powerful impact on US foreign policy. Nasrallah alleged that oil companies and weapons firms that have financed the “Christian Zionists,” the Arabic term for the right-wing Christian supporters of Israel, were in alliance in the United States. “Their aim is to redraw the world’s political map,” he said. “It is said that several US presidents are affiliated with the Christian Zionists.” Nasrallah said their aim was to return the Jews to Israel and rebuild their temple, destroyed by the Romans in 70AD, over the Al-Aqsa Mosque. However, Nasrallah added, “if they (Jews) all gather in Israel, it will save us the trouble of going after them worldwide.”

US official: Obama blames settlements for failed talks

Ted Belman

As I wrote in my article Israel must continue to build east of the greenline.:

Were Israel to agree to stop building for ever, she would be put at a disadvantage for ever. The Arabs, with the support of the EU and the US, would continue building in violation of Oslo and would avoid making painful concessions forever. On the other hand, were Israel to offer to cease constructions for one year to give negotiations a chance, on the condition that if no agreement is consummated in that time frame, then Israel would be fully within her rights to build in Area C, no one would agree to this deal. What’s really at stake here, is to get Israel to give up any of her rights to Judea and Samaria before a deal has been negotiated.

When Obama endorsed the ’67 lines plus swaps, he was denying Israel’s the right to build. Put another way, he can’t concede Israel’s right to build because it would conflict with the TSS. Ted Belman

In Blaming Israel to Preserve a Theory, Jonathan Tobin put it this way:

The reason for this obfuscation is not a mystery. Acknowledging the truth about the collapse of the talks would force Kerry and his State Department minions to admit that their theory about how to achieve peace has been wrong all along. It was primarily the Palestinians’ refusal to make the symbolic step of recognizing that Israel is the nation state of the Jewish people that would live in peace alongside a nation state of the Palestinian people that sunk the talks. But acknowledging that would mean they understood that the political culture of the Palestinians — in which national identity is inextricably tied to rejection of Israel’s existence — must change before peace is possible. Israel, which has already made large-scale territorial withdrawals in the hope of peace, has already dismantled settlements and would uproot more if real peace were to be had. Moreover, since most of the building that Kerry and company were blamed for the lack of peace, are located in areas that would be kept by Israel, the obsession with them is as illogical as it is mean spirited.

Hamas: Unity govt to be unveiled in days

GAZA CITY (AFP) -- A new Palestinian "consensus government" to be named by the PLO and Hamas is to be finalized within days, a senior official in the Islamist movement said Sunday.

Bassem Naim, an adviser to Hamas' premier for the Gaza Strip, Ismail Haniyeh, said a senior member of President Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah movement, which dominates the PLO, would meet with Hamas officials in Gaza this week to conclude negotiations.

Azzam al-Ahmad is "arriving in Gaza on Wednesday and Thursday to meet with the Hamas reconciliation delegation to hold consultations," Naim told AFP.

"We expect the government to be announced by (Abbas) early the following week," he said, and will then be presented to the Palestinian parliament for a vote of confidence.

Hamas signed a reconciliation deal last month with the PLO in a surprise move which aims to overcome a years-long intra-Palestinian split.

Nigerian ‘Sex-Slaves’ Disrupt Obama Narrative on Islam

Raymond Ibrahim

Read more at http://www.breakingisraelnews.com/15163/nigerian-sex-slaves-disrupt-obama-narrative-islam/#yLpTXmG47uQMPSYs.99

Islamic law permits the possession of concubines, or sex slaves.  This has been demonstrated countless times, including through Islamic clerics quoting Islamic scriptures, and through ordinary Muslims, past and present, acting on it.

That said, Islamic sanctioned sex-slavery does not perturb the Western world simply because the powers-that-be—specifically academia, media, and government—ignore it, and all other unsavory phenomena associated with Islam, out of existence.

Interesting, therefore, are the responses from the authorities—comical one might even say—when one of these everyday anecdotes actually does surface to the general public.

Enter the recent abduction of nearly 300, mostly Christian, teenage schoolgirls in Nigeria at the hands of Boko Haram, yet another Islamic terrorist organization plaguing mankind.  As expected, the group justified its actions in Islamic terms, with its leader declaring on video, “I abducted your girls. I will sell them on the market, by Allah….There is a market for selling humans. Allah says I should sell.”

Of course, for those in the know, none of this is surprising.   In March 2012, Boko Haram warned that it would do just this, declaring that it was preparing to “strike fear into the Christians of the power of Islam by kidnapping their women.”

The Fire Burns

Daniel Greenfield @ the Sultan Knish blog

The circle of men whirls around the fire, hand in hand, hand catching hand, drawing in newcomers into the ring that races around and around in the growing darkness.

A melody thumps through the speakers that teeter unevenly with the bass, the sound is old and new, a mix of the past and the present, like the participants in the dance, traditional garments blending with jeans and t-shirts until it is all a blur.

It is Lag BaOmer, an obscure holiday even to  those who come to the fires. The  Jewish Revolt against the Roman Empire is remembered through days of deprivation for the thousands of students who died in the war, until the thirty-third day of the Biblical Omer, the day when Jerusalem was liberated.

Deprived of music for weeks, it rolls back in waves through speakers, from horns blown by children and a makeshift drum echoing an ancient celebration when men danced around fires and shot arrows into the air in a free Jerusalem.

The fires and bows have remained a part of Lag BaOmer even when hardly anyone remembers the true reason.

The new Yom Yerushalayim, the day of the liberation of the city, is coming up soon,  but the old Yom Yerushalaim, came thousands of years ago and a number of days before. Time is a wheel, and, like the circle of the dance, everything comes around again. Hands pulling on hands, years pulling on years, on and on like the orbits of planets and stars. The Divine Hand of G-d pulls us along, and we pull each other in the dance of life.

Palestinian Magical Thinking

Jonathan Spyer
PJ Media

http://www.meforum.org/3825/palestinian-magical-thinking

So April 29^th has passed, and the nine-month period allotted by the current U.S. administration for its effort to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian dispute has come and gone. Entirely predictably, it has failed, in its entirety.
What can be learned from the failure? And what may be expected to happen now?
The failure of the talks was predictable first and foremost because of the irreconcilable positions of the sides. This is not a matter of small details, as is sometimes maintained. It isn't that the Palestinians want 99% of the West Bank while Israel will offer only 98%.
Palestinian nationalism in both its Fatah and Hamas variants rejects the possibility of accepting the permanence of Jewish statehood in any part of the area west of the Jordan River.
For the Palestinian Authority, the nine-month period of negotiations came as an unwelcome interruption to a very different strategy to which it will now return. This strategy consists of an attempt to place pressure on Israel through action in international forums to isolate and delegitimize the Jewish state. Presumably the intended result of this is to induce Israel eventually to make concessions in return for nothing. The struggle would then continue for further concessions.

Boko Haram and the Dynamics of Denial

Mark Durie
Frontpage Magazine

http://www.meforum.org/3826/nigeria-boko-haram-islam

It is a common refrain of pious Muslims in the face of atrocities done by other Muslims in the name of Islam that Islam must not be shamed. Whenever an Islamic atrocity potentially dishonors Islam, non-Muslims are asked to agree that 'This is not Islamic' so that the honor of Islam can be kept pristine. The real issue, however, is not what would be good or bad for Islam's reputation; Islam is not the victim here. The pressing issue is not to get people to think well of Islam, but how, for instance, in the case of Boko Haram's kidnapping of the Nigerian schoolgirls, the girls can be rescued and, above all, how Boko Haram's murderous rampage can be halted.

Qasim Rashid, an American Muslim, recently published on FoxNews.com a heart-felt expression of deep distress at the kidnapping of Nigerian girls by Boko Haram ('What would Muhammad say to Boko Haram'). He declared that Muhammad himself would not recognize this group as acting in line with his teachings:

Artists of the Palestinian revolution

• • Karma Nabulsi
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Advancing the Revolution with Weapons and Thought, in Pursuit of Liberation and Socialism, 1974, by Rafeik Sharaf. Courtesy of the Palestine Poster Project Archives (PPPA)

The series of Palestinian revolutionary films and art now showing at venues in London, under the slogan "The World is with Us", highlights the important fact that the Palestinian vision of "us" included Arab and international participants. Iraqi, Jordanian, German, Syrian, Egyptian, Lebanese, Italian and French artists – many of whom are coming to discuss the works they made – are sharing, for the first time, their experiences of contributing to the Palestinian revolution.

1. The World Is with Us: Global Film and Poster Art from the Palestinian Revolution, 1968-1980
2. Various

1. Starts 16 May
2. Until 14 June
3. More details

In the simplest terms, the story of the Palestinian revolution is a story of the cadres who created it, served it, and gave it both life and force. A people expelled en masse from their homeland, they managed to take matters into their own hands and transform their situation in a most ingenious manner. Initiated by a handful of young refugees, they began to "make their own history", launching a popular struggle in the late 1960s to regain their homeland and their rights.

Israeli Court Rules to Freeze JDECO’s Bank Accounts and Real Estates

ERUSALEM,  (WAFA) – Jerusalem District Electricity Company (JDECO)’s Director General Hisham Al-Omari stated Thursday that JDECO officially received an Israeli  court ruling to freeze its bank accounts and real estate to collect its unpaid debt.

Al-Omar stated that the Israeli Jerusalem District Court ruled to freeze  JDECO’s bank accounts to collect an accumulated debt of NIS 380 million and that it gave JDECO 30 days as of May 7 to pay off its debts.

Israel Electric Company (IEC) had filed a suit at the Jerusalem District Court against JDECO demanding a direct access to the JDECO’s bank accounts to collect an unpaid accumulated debt of NIS 530 million in debt.

Commenting on Israeli media reports that IEC had decided to restrict the power supply to Palestinians in East Jerusalem, Al-Omari stated that his company was not informed about such a decision.