UNRWA shuts down in Gaza because of riots. The irony is lost on them.

Elder of Ziyon

From UNRWA:

Demonstrators today stormed the compound of the UNRWA Gaza Field Office in response to a programme cut necessitated by budget shortfalls. The incident is a dramatic and disturbing escalation in a series of demonstrations that have taken place over the past week.

Commenting on today’s escalation and demonstrators breaking into UNRWA’s compound, the Gaza Director stressed that the Agency “respect people's right to peaceful demonstration but what happened today was completely unacceptable: the situation could very easily have resulted in serious injuries to UNRWA staff and to the demonstrators. This escalation, apparently pre-planned, was unwarranted and unprecedented". "These demonstrations affect our ability to provide much needed service to the Palestine refugees in Gaza and—because they also targeted the Gaza headquarters building—our operations in the West Bank, Jordan, Lebanon and Syria."

Demonstrations during the past week had already forced UNRWA to close many of its facilities. With the situation further compounded by today's actions, all relief and distribution centers will consequently remain closed until guarantees are given by all relevant groups that UNRWA operations can continue unhindered. "This is a very regrettable situation for us to be in, as food distributions right now are taking place for some 25,000 refugees every day. But we cannot tolerate these ongoing threats to our staff: their safety is of crucial concern at the moment," added Turner. "Any other affected installations will also remain closed."

UNRWA calls on all the groups behind today's event to immediately stop inciting crowds at these demonstrations and to conduct themselves in a responsible manner.

For years, UNRWA condemned Israel for closing the crossings to Gaza in response to deadly rocket fire and other attacks. The idea that Israeli citizens have the right to safety and security did not cross their minds - to them, Israel providing services to Gazans was more important than the mere lives of Israelis.

But when their own facilities get violently attacked - and not with anything approaching deadly force, from what we can see - UNRWA immediately shuts down their own services to the very people they are tasked with helping, forever.

Just a little more UNRWA hypocrisy.

Where's the Justice for American Settler Killed by Palestinian Stone-Throwers?

FBI Hasn't Prosecuted Anyone for Deaths in West Bank

getty images

Solemn Moment: Jewish settlers gather for funeral of Asher Palmer and his son, Yonathan, whose car was hit by stone-throwing Palestinians on the occupied West Bank in 2011.

By Michael Palmer

Published April 04, 2013, issue of April 12, 2013.

Two FBI special agents sat across from me in a conference room at the J. Edgar Hoover Building, in Washington. It was late October last year, shortly after Sukkot. We were discussing the deaths of my son Asher Palmer, and my grandson Yonatan Palmer, who were murdered on a Friday afternoon, September 23, 2011.

That day, Asher had strapped Yonatan into his car seat and headed to his in-laws in Jerusalem, where he expected to spend the Sabbath with his wife. Soon after they left, Asher drove onto a two-lane highway just outside the West Bank settlement of Kiryat Arba; a taxicab sped toward him, its rear window rolled down. The cab swerved close to Asher’s lane, and a football-size rock was thrown from the back seat, crashing through his windshield. Asher’s car veered off the road and rolled over. The cab sped off.

Obama still can't be trusted

Op-ed: US president's Jerusalem speech should have been addressed to young Palestinians
Shoula Romano Horing

After his trip to Israel, it is clear that President Obama's strategy in regard to Israel has changed but his goal remains the same. He is still trying to convince the Israelis to take suicidal risks and agree to the establishment of a Palestinian state in the pre-1967 borders, which includes dividing Jerusalem.

Ireland to Build One of Europe's Largest Mosques

by Soeren Kern

The Emir of Qatar, who has long cultivated an image as a pro-Western reformist, has vowed to "spare no effort" to spread Wahhabi Islam throughout Europe. Wahhabism — which not only discourages Muslim integration in the West but actively encourages jihad against non-Muslims — threatens to radicalize Muslim immigrants in Ireland.

City planners in the Irish capital, Dublin, have given the go-ahead for the construction of a sprawling mega-mosque complex that will cater to Ireland's burgeoning Muslim population.
The massive €40 million ($50 million) "Islamic Cultural Center" will be built on a six-acre site in Clongriffin, a new and as yet unfinished suburb at the northern edge of Dublin.

Cause and effect, reversed by the anti-Israel press

Meryl Yourish

The New York Times does it.

Clashes Resume Across Israel-Gaza Border as Tensions Mount
Israeli-Palestinian tensions rose sharply on Wednesday with a resumption of clashes over the Israel-Gaza border as Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails declared a three-day hunger strike to protest the death on Tuesday of a fellow inmate of cancer, a death that the Palestinians blamed on Israel.
In response to rockets fired from Gaza into southern Israel, apparently in support of the Palestinian prisoners, the Israeli military said it carried out an airstrike in Gaza late Tuesday night, its first since a cease-fire that ended eight days of fierce cross-border fighting in November. Warplanes struck two open areas in northern Gaza, causing no damage or casualties.

The AP does it.

Religious hate speech for children on PA TV

Child recites poem:

Jews - "Allah's enemies, the sons of pigs"

"murdered children," "cut off their limbs,"

"raped the women in the city squares"
and "defiled Allah's book"

http://palwatch.org/main.aspx?fi=157&doc_id=8730

by Itamar Marcus and Nan Jacques Zilberdik

Earlier this month, Palestinian children were taught Islam-based hatred of Jews on the weekly PA TV children's show The Best Home. A young girl recited a poem filled with both Islamic hate messages and other libels demonizing Jews. The poem taught Palestinian children that Jews, "Allah's enemies, the sons of pigs," defiled the Quran and Jerusalem, both crimes against Islam, and "murdered children," "cut off their limbs," and "raped the women in the city squares." Palestinian Media Watch has documented that this weekly PA TV children's program teaches hatred and denial of Israel's existence.

Choosing Life in Israel

RUTH KING April 2, 2013

David Hornik moved to Israel in 1984. In the preface to Choosing Life In Israel he states: "This book is both about my own choice to live in Israel and Israel's choice to live and thrive in the face of challenges."
Hornik's book is a compendium of personal and political essays he has written since he became one of Israel's most incisive journalists. Arranged in chronological order, they revisit in eloquent prose a besieged nation's triumphs and tragedies, its ancient stones and its modern cities, its beauty, its warts, the incalculable harm of mindless appeasement, and its holiness.

Email addresses of NGOs that support Miftah

Here is a list of email addresses of some of the organizations that financially support Miftah, which published a blatantly anti-semitic article on Wednesday. So far, they have not responded to numerous tweets, so here is a chance for you to do something that can make a difference.

Representative Office of Norway repram@mfa.no
The Anna Lindh Foundation info@euromedalex.org Facebook
Oxfam UK enquiries@oxfam.org.uk Facebook
National Endownment for Democracy info@ned.org Facebook 
Secretariat for Consulate of Italy in Jerusalem segreteria.gerusalemme@esteri.it
Heinrich Böll Foundation info@boell.de Facebook Arab Middle East FB

This Blood Libel Brought to You by the West

Western-backed Palestinian apologizes for anti-Semitic blood libel

Fishermen stand at the Gaza seaport, in Gaza City / AP

BY: Adam Kredo 
April 1, 2013

Following a rash of criticism from U.S. Jewish groups, a Palestinian nonprofit funded by Western governments has apologized for accusing Jewish people of using “Christian blood” during the Passover holiday.

Miftah , a Palestinian nonprofit group founded by Hanan Ashrawi, a Palestinian lawmaker, said Monday it regrets publishing an article on its website accusing “the Jews [of using] the blood of Christians in the Jewish Passover.”

Miftah had refused to apologize for the article last week, instead lashing out at pro-Israel bloggers who highlighted the offensive article.

The Life of a Modern Jewish Refugee from Egypt

Daniel Greenfield


As Jews celebrate the Passover holiday, that commemorates the historical exodus from Egypt, it may be worth noting that this is not just a matter of ancient history.

The Jews of Egypt, and much of the rest of the Muslim world, became refugees once again in modern times. And this is not just something that happened 50 years ago. It’s still happening today.

This story of life for Egyptian Jews in a country of Islamic oppression comes to us from 2005.

Cpl. Dina Ovadia is telling her winding, unbelievable story for the umpteenth time, but her eyes still well up with tears. Ovadia, now 22, left her family home in Alexandria for the last time as a young and curious 15-year-old girl. All she wanted was to fit in. “Everyone always looked at me as though I was something different, the ugly duckling in the class. They asked me why I dressed the way I did, and why I spoke with my parents during the breaks, and why this and why that.”

Dina knew very little about Jews as a child. “In school they always taught us to hate Jews and Israelis,” she says. “Let’s take Koran class for example. I would be sitting, taking a test, and would read a verse that said you need to kill Jews. I also remember during the Second Intifada all the TV programs I watched that always said that Israelis are bad. I cried over the story of Mohammed al-Dura. My grandfather did his best to explain to us that they’re not bad, that we have to understand that in war, that’s what happens. At home we were always taught that all human beings are equal and you have to respect them for who they are, no matter what their background. In school they taught us that Israel is the enemy. They would say when I grew up that I would understand. During the Intifada I was even at demonstration, waving the Palestinian flag. It never even occurred to me that I was Jewish.”

Muslim "Secret" Courageously Outed

Douglas Murray

"As a community, we do have a 'Jewish problem.' There is no point pretending otherwise." — Mehdi Hasan, British Muslim journalist

How rife is anti-Semitism among Muslims? Well if you poll the so-called "Muslim world, " as Pew and other organizations have done, the answer is: very rife indeed. Take Pakistan for instance. In 2006 only 6% of the population had a "favorable" attitude towards Jews. In 2011 when that question was polled in Pakistan again, favorable attitudes towards Jews had gone down to just 2%.
Of course if you were to cite this figure, you would get an inevitable set of responses, such as claims that the figure was so worrying because "everyone knows" that Pakistan is a somewhat "challenging" country in that regard.
So take a nice moderate Arab country such as Jordan, for instance. After all, it has a peace treaty with Israel and everything.

Alas, the news is not much better. In 2006, just 1% of Jordanians polled had a positive attitude towards Jews. But there is some good news: when they were polled again in 2011, this number had soared to an amazing 2%.

More on the “apology” to Turkey

Meryl Yourish

Lee Smith says that it wasn’t President Obama who got what he wanted. It was Bibi.

According to Obama’s senior advisers quoted in the New York Times, the president “prodded” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to apologize to Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, with Obama “raising the importance of a makeup phone call every day he was in Jerusalem.” Netanyahu’s apology, according to the Washington Post, was “bowing to a long-standing Turkish demand.”
The reality is somewhat different than the official administration account. Jerusalem has long been looking to mend relations with its onetime strategic ally in Ankara. Contrary to popular narrative, it was Erdogan who was intransigent—not Netanyahu. Nor was Obama the prime mover here, “prodding” the Israeli prime minister to do his bidding. If anything, it was Netanyahu who used the commander in chief as something like a blunt instrument to force Erdogan to accept the same deal that his government had first put on the table at least 18 months prior: Israel would apologize; it would pay compensation; but it would not, as Erdogan had demanded, end the maritime blockade of the strip.

Miftah attacks me, refuses to condemn its blood libel

Elder of Ziyon
Miftah has responded to my exposé of their anti-semitic article last week:

The Palestinian Initiative for the Promotion of Global Dialogue and Democracy, MIFTAH strongly denounces the smear campaign being carried out against it and, by association, its founder Dr. Hanan Ashrawi. The obscure pro-Israeli website “The Elder of Ziyon” has wrongly accused MIFTAH and Dr. Ashrawi of promoting Jewish blood libel during Passover through its publication of an Arabic-language article that briefly addressed the subject.
The disclaimer at the opening of the “News and Analysis” section clearly states that, “The views represented in [News and Analysis] are solely those of their authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of MIFTAH, but rather fulfill its mandate for open dialogue.” For the record, to avoid further misunderstanding, Al Zaru’s article has been taken down from MIFTAH’s website.

Gilad Schalit's capture, in his own words, part II

BEN CASPIT

Former IDF soldier gives military investigators an account of the attack that led to his capture, the deaths of 2 of his comrades.

Gilad and Noam Schalit reuniting Photo: Reuters)

On June 25, 2006, IDF Corporal Gilad Schalit was abducted by Palestinian militants from Gaza, who had infiltrated into Israel by tunneling under the border fence. An attack on Schalit's tank led to the deaths of two of the tank crew, and Schalit, frozen in the face of an assault, freely admitted that he had acted in such a way as to facilitate his capture. After more than five years as a hostage in Gaza, Schalit gave IDF investigators an honest and often unflattering recount of the events surrounding the attack. The second part of an exclusive two-part feature. Click here for part one.

The use of the hand grenades that were thrown into Gilad Schalit's tank casts doubt on the view that the main goal of the attack was to kidnap a soldier. If the militants had wanted to kidnap a soldier, it is unlikely that they would have thrown a grenade into the tank. They wanted to kill, to cause as much damage as possible and then get away quickly.

Click here to read the original article in Hebrew

Somehow, Schalit survived the grenade blasts and exited the tank. As he left the tank, he saw the terrorist climbing the front of the tank which on the Merkava is referred to as "the knife."

Busing with Jodi

My Right Word

Jodi Ruderon took a trip to ... Ramallah, on a bus:

Israelis tour a no-go zone 

...about four dozen [Israelis]...made an unusual recent pilgrimage to Ramallah, one of several Palestinian cities that have been officially off-limits to most Israeli citizens for more than a decade...organized by the Israel Palestine Center for Research and Information [from their FB: IPCRI - Israel Palestine Center for Research and Information shared a link.Wednesday Our Breaking Down Walls tour is featured in the New York Times!]...contacts between the two peoples have dwindled. Fewer Palestinians work inside Israel. Dialogue groups have broken up. Camps connecting children are harder to find. The communities increasingly function as if in alternate universes.

Passover: a Time for Reflection

Harold Witkov

To Jews, Passover is a festival of freedom. It is the celebration of a people overcoming slavery and obtaining redemption.
As a Jew very much devoted to my religion, I take the Passover story very seriously. That said, there is one part of the narrative that I feel speaks more to my political side than my religious. It concerns the loss of freedom, rather than the obtaining of it.
To many, the Passover story begins with the ancient Israelites already enslaved in Egypt. Another way to approach the Passover story is to consider its beginning when Joseph invited his brothers and their families to relocate in Goshen, Egypt, (hundreds of years earlier).
Just to backtrack for a moment, as you no doubt recall, Joseph's brothers, who once sold Joseph into slavery and presumed him long dead, had come to Egypt seeking relief from the drought. Joseph recognized them but they did not recognize him. After testing them a bit to see if they had grown morally, he eventually revealed himself to them, and, bearing no malice, invited his siblings and their families to move to Goshen where he could help them beat the remainder of the seven-year drought, and, as the number two man of Egypt, be able to look after their well-being in general.

Muslim Brotherhood Thugs Tortured Christians in Mosque

Daniel Greenfield


Not a problem for Islamists. After all Jihad, the torturing and killing non-Muslims, is the highest form of worship in Islam.

Islamic hard-liners stormed a mosque in suburban Cairo, turning it into torture chamber for Christians who had been demonstrating against the ruling Muslim Brotherhood in the latest case of violent persecution that experts fear will only get worse.
Demonstrators say they were taken from the Muslim Brotherhood headquarters in suburban Cairo to a nearby mosque on Friday and tortured for hours by hard-line militia members.

Israel's Insightful Cynicism

Robert D. Kaplan
Chief Geopolitical Analyst

Israel is in the process of watching a peace treaty unravel. I don't mean the one with Egypt, but the one with Syria. No, I'm not crazy. Since Henry Kissinger's shuttle diplomacy in 1974, the Israelis have had a de facto peace agreement of sorts with the al Assad family. After all, there were clear red lines that both sides knew they shouldn't cross, as well as reasonable predictability on both sides. Forget about the uplifting rhetoric, the requirement to exchange ambassadors and the other public policy frills that normally define peace treaties. What counts in this case is that both sides observed limits and constraints, so that the contested border between them was secure. Even better, because there was no formal peace agreement in writing, neither side had to make inconvenient public and strategic concessions. Israel did not have to give up the Golan Heights, for example.

Europe: The Submission That Dare Not Speak Its Name

Guy Millière

What is taking shape could be a shift toward the end of the Jewish presence in Europe.

Exactly one year ago, a killer entered the courtyard of a Jewish school in Toulouse, France, and shot in cold blood a rabbi and three children. He said he had wanted to kill more, and to perpetrate a massacre, but that his gun jammed.
During the previous days, he had shot three French soldiers of Arab origin.
The killer was quickly located, besieged by the police for thirty two hours, then riddled with bullets when he tried to escape.

Europe acquiesces while Jews are threatened, and killed. Again

Adam Turner

When Gunther Grass, a German writer, wrote a nasty bit of verse attacking the Jewish state of Israel and defending the Mad Mullahs of Iran and their genocidal desires to destroy the world's Jews, many of the chattering classes in the Europe were, oh-so-shocked.  Considering Grass's background as a member of the notorious Waffen S.S., I was not.  The only shocking thing to me was that a Nazi verbally attacking the Jewish state was considered newsworthy by anyone in the real world. 

Formal peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinians would only lead to more hatred

Elyakim Haetzni

YnetNews.com

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4358206,00.html These words are addressed to the president of the United States on the eve of his visit and are written by a "settler" who, according to the president's policy, should be banished from his home. They are written in the classic Jewish form of dialogue known as ichfa mistabra - where one takes the opposite point of view to prove a point. Dear Mr. President, They say the Americans are committed to resolving our crisis with the Palestinians. But could it be, ifcha mistabra, that the Americans are the problem and not the solution, because the Arabs' expectation for American pressure on us only makes their positions more radical? A two-year-old girl is fighting for her life, and her mother and two sisters are injured.

Obama encouraged Israelis to rebel

Op-ed: In Jerusalem speech, US president went over the head of a prime minister he does not trust

http://www.ynetnews.com/Ext/Comp/ArticleLayout/ CdaArticlePrintPreview/1,2506,L-4360129,00.html Try to imagine for a moment what would happen if Prime Minister Netanyahu would speak before American students at Columbia University and call on them to rise up and demand that their politicians block any gun control legislation or encourage the students to act determinedly against President Obama's health care law. What an uproar such an act would have caused in the US and the world over - and justifiably so. The prime minister of Israel, the headlines would say, is intervening in the most sensitive issues of American politics.

Lebanon teeters on the edge, where's the media?

Times of Israel

One has to wonder why this story has not gotten more play. Pro and anti-Assad factions have been battling it out for the last three days on the streets of Tripoli, Lebanon, which is generally one of that country's quieter cities.

Lebanese media reported several people injured Saturday night in the fierce fighting between pro- and anti-Bashar Assad partisans in the country’s second largest city, as sectarian tensions threatened to plunge the country into further chaos.

The army said Saturday night it would enter the Alawite neighborhood of Jabal Mohsen to restore order, after the worst fighting the city has seen since the latest round of violence erupted on Thursday.

Some seven people have been killed and scores more injured in three days of fighting, according to Lebanese media.

UN concerned Syria war spilling over into Golan Heights

REUTERS

Security Council voices "grave concern" about repeated violations of ceasefire line between Syria, Golan Heights; cite danger to UN peacekeepers due to escalating civil war, armed members of opposition in buffer zone.

Israeli Syrian border in the Golan Heights Photo: REUTERS/Baz Ratner

UNITED NATIONS - The UN Security Council voiced concern on Wednesday about repeated violations of the ceasefire line between Syria and the Golan Heights and the danger to UN peacekeepers there due to the escalating Syrian civil war.

The armed struggle between rebels and forces loyal to Syrian President Bashar Assad has posed increasing difficulties for the 1,000-strong UN Disengagement Observer Force (UNDOF). UN peacekeepers monitoring the line halted patrols this month after rebels held 21 Filipino observers for three days.

"The members of the Security Council expressed grave concern at all violations of the Disengagement of Forces Agreement," the council said, adding that it also voiced "grave concern at the presence of the Syrian Arab Republic Armed Forces inside the area of separation." UNDOF has the task of monitoring an "area of separation" between Syrian and Israeli forces, a narrow strip of land running 45 miles (70 km) from Mount Hermon on the Lebanese border to the Yarmouk River frontier with Jordan.

Arab League reject call to recognise Israel as Jewish state

IBA
The Arab League have rejected Israel's request to recognise it as a Jewish state.

The League approved a Qatari proposal to set up a $1 billion fund for Arab east Jerusalem, which Palestinians want as the capital of an independent state under any peace deal with Israel.

Canada, Keystone, and the Palestinians

Christine Williams

One can note some important "arguments" the U.S. is having with Canada. Canada is outperforming the U.S. economically on every level.

As Obama wrapped up his Middle East tour, applauded by AIPAC for reaffirming "unbreakable bonds" and "deep affection" between two key allies; and by Al Jazeera for "normalizing" Israel Turkey ties, Obama's neighbors to the north are left scratching their heads about what he meant by his off-the-cuff statement that compared Israeli-Palestinian relations to Canada-U.S. relations.

Islam’s Outrageous Obscenities

Raymond Ibrahim

Islamic TV personality, Abu Islam—the man who made international headlines when he insulted Christianity and tore a Bible on camera to screams of “Allahu Akbar!” and later incited Muslims to rape female protesters—unwittingly insulted Islam’s prophet Muhammad in a way that would have caused much of the Islamic world to riot and call for his death (if he was a non-Muslim).

This occurred during one of Abu Islam’s recent TV shows, which revolved around attacking Egyptian commentator and comedian Bassem Youssef, whose popular jabs frequently target Islamists, including President Morsi.  In retaliation, Abu Islam spent a large segment of his show insulting Youssef.  Yet, unlike the latter’s well-received jokes which are primarily based on wit and innuendo, the cleric relied on hurling ugly obscenities).  Among other things, Abu Islam swore to Allah that according to Sharia law, because Youssef is a “pretty boy,” he is required to wear a niqab, or face veil, to cover himself up like a woman.

Apartheid Palestine

Jihad Watch

Israel is not an apartheid state. Muslim Arabs are in the Knesset, and enjoy more rights there than they do in an Islamic state. The real apartheid is in Sharia states, where the oppression of women and non-Muslims is institutionalized.
"Apartheid Palestine?," by Ann Bayefsky in the Jerusalem Post, March 17 (thanks to Pamela Geller):

It is impossible to read this latest UN report, or to listen to its authors and its state sponsors, without knowing that the campaign to rid the world of Israeli settlements is a campaign to rid the world of Israel. On Monday, March 17 in Geneva, the UN Human Rights Council will hold a first-ever three-hour session devoted to the alleged human rights abomination known as the “Israeli settlement.” In the moral wasteland of the United Nations, a Jew living on Arab-claimed land is a violation of Arab human rights.
There were once an estimated 900,000 Jews across the Arab world, but today there are less than a few thousand. They were given a choice: die, convert or flee.

This was an Islamic phenomenon, not an Arab one. But otherwise Bayefsky's analysis is spot-on.

Op-Ed: A Baby is Stoned for Being an "Occupier"

The "occupation" terminology has lethal results.

Giulio Meotti

The writer, an Italian journalist with Il Foglio, writes a twice-weekly column for Arutz Sheva. He is the author of the book "A New Shoah", that researched the personal stories of Israel's terror victims, published by Encounter. His writing has appeared in publications, such as the Wall Street Journal, Frontpage and Commentary. He is at work on a book about the Vatican and Israel.

A two-year-old Jewish girl named Adele, who lives in the "settlement" of Ariel, is fighting for her life, and her mother and two sisters are severely injured. The truck driving in front of the Bitons was attacked with stones during Palestinian Arab riots that erupted in Judea and Samaria ahead of Obama’s visit. The driver stopped short and Adele's mother, whose vision was blocked by the width of the truck, hit the back of the vehicle.

A week earlier, an old Israeli man was shot near Kedumim.

In 2011, Asher Palmer and his infant son Yonatan were killed when their car overturned after being pelted with boulders.

The Fogel family is already legend in the pantheon of Israel's victims of terrorism.
Who is responsible for this? The Western "symbolic violence against the Jews" is to blame, as Shmuel Trigano called it in a recent essay. The Israelis must be burn in effigy, he said, before being physically slaughtered on the streets.
The same week as the terror attack against the Bitons, a 8,000-word New York Times magazine cover story justified Palestinian Arab terrorism and called for another Intifafa.

“If there is a third Intifada, we want to be the ones who started it: One village in the West Bank tests the limits of unarmed resistance”.

U.S. will spend $6 billion to remove military equipment from Afghanistan by 2014

Emma Graham-Harrison, The Guardian

 

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Huge numbers of weapons and vehicles and tense relations with nearby countries make task more daunting than Iraq pullout
Fighting wars is expensive, but so is winding them down. As the US prepares to ship most of its weapons, vehicles and other equipment home after more than a decade in Afghanistan, the bill for the move will be a staggering $6bn, officers in charge of the complex process say.
Rusting Soviet tanks and guns still dot the Afghan landscape, serving as bleak memorials to violence of the 1980s, and perhaps a spur to Nato forces to ensure there are no similar reminders from the last decade of conflict.

Jonathan Pollard: The Case for Commutation of Sentence

MARK SILVERBERG March 26, 2013

During the course of President Obama's recent interview with Israel's Channel 2 on March 21st, in response to whether he would consider commuting the life sentence of former civilian American naval intelligence analyst and convicted Israeli spy Jonathan Pollard, he remarked: "As president, my first obligation is to observe the law here in the US. I need to make sure that every individual is treated fairly and equally."

Scottish Government Funds Pro-Terror Group

Samuel Westrop

Although the Scottish government may be convinced it is engaging with the Muslim community, in truth it is funding Islamist groups with extremist agendas and ties to terrorism.

The Daily Express revealed last week that Islamic Relief Worldwide, a British charity accused of links to terrorism, was presented with £398,000 of the taxpayers' money by the Scottish Government last year, as part of its £9 million International Development Fund.

Barak Ravid

Erdogan, Netanyahu reconciliation: Interests triumph over ego and politics

After three years in which relations between the two countries fell victim to internal politics and ego games disguised as national pride, unrest in Syria, Iran's nuclear program and some U.S. pressure pushed the Israeli and Turkish PMs to make up. 

There were three reasons behind Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan choosing to end the crisis between the two countries: Interests, interests, interests.
After three years in which Israel-Turkey relations were the victim of ego games and internal politics disguised as national pride, the two leaders understood that the damage done by the crisis was far greater than the benefits they could reap from a renewal of relations.

Germany and Genocide - Again

Kenneth R. Timmerman

The overwhelming majority of technical expertise, know-how, and design information of the Iraqi dictator's chemical weapons plants came from German companies. The nerve and mustard gas was produced in German-built factories in Samarra and Fallujah. The government of Chancellor Angela Merkel refused to accept responsibility for the actions of German companies.

Halabja, Iraq – Just a few days ago, the Kurds in northern Iraq and I stood to commemorate the 25^th anniversary of one of the most barbaric war crimes since WWII: Saddam Hussein's use of chemical weapons to commit mass murder of his own citizens.
Within months of the March 16 attack, after a fact-finding team dispatched to interview refugees along the Turkey-Iraq border pieced together eye-witness accounts to reconstruct an accurate account of the events, the United States Senate determined that the chemical attack against the city of Halabja by the Iraqi Air Force was a "genocide."

Two different views on Netanyahu’s apology to Turkey’s Erdogan plus predictable subsequent action.

http://israel-commentary.org/?p=6231
I From Professor Steven Plaut – An open letter to Recep Tayyip Erdoğan
Prime Minister of Turkey
Dear Mister Prime Minister:
On behalf of all of the people of Israel, I would like to apologize to you for the cowardice and fathomless idiocy of the Prime
Minister of Israel. As you know, this weekend Benjamin Netanyahu sent you an “apology” for Israel having defended itself against the genocidal terrorists who attacked Israeli soldiers armed only with paint guns when they boarded the terrorist “flotilla” ship that you sent out to challenge Israel’s naval blockade of the Hamas enclave in Gaza.

Flotilla 3.0: Redeeming Obama's Palestine Speech With Gaza's Ark

Robert Naiman

Policy Director, Just Foreign Policy

There's a half-empty way and a half-full way of looking at President Obama's Jerusalem speech about the creation of an independent Palestinian state in the West Bank, Gaza, and East Jerusalem.
The half-empty way of looking at it is: this was Obama's white flag of surrender. To everyone around the world who for decades has been assuming that at the end of the day, the president of the United States would lead the way to resolution of the Israel-Palestine conflict, Obama was saying:

Obama’s Visit to Israel: A Turning Point?

Isi Leibler
March 24, 2013
http://wordfromjerusalem.com/?p=4558

"In each and every generation they rise up against us to destroy us. And The Holy One, blessed be He, rescues us from their hands" (Passover Hagada)

Wishing all my readers a very Happy Passover

Chag Sameach,

Isi and Naomi Leibler

Both American and Israeli leaders must have heaved sighs of relief as Air Force One departed from Ben-Gurion Airport with President Obama’s visit culminating on a high note for both parties.

Don't Call It Amnesty

Sultan Knish

DON'T CALL IT AMNESTY

Amnesty is bad. Everyone agrees on that. Even the senators who support amnesty claim not to support it. Instead they support “Comprehensive Immigration Reform” with “A Path to Citizenship”. They support a comprehensive solution that will be compassionate and work as an immigration policy for the 21st century.

No one uses the term “amnesty” anymore except opponents of amnesty for illegal aliens and their more vociferous advocates. This makes for some confusing speeches and press conferences.

The most bizarre argument that advocates of amnesty are making is that we have “de facto amnesty” now. The argument goes that since we have de facto amnesty now, we should just have the real thing and get it over with.

A lack of proper enforcement is not de facto amnesty. Amnesty is legalization. What Rubio and Rand Paul call de facto amnesty is the difference between not arresting a drug dealer and legalizing heroin.

Al Qaeda Document Reveals Terrorist Plans For Attacks In The U.S., Europe

The Huffington Post | By Meredith Bennett-Smith

 

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Al Qaeda, Video, Al Qaeda Document, Al Qaeda Document Reveals Plans, Al Qaeda Terrorist Attacks, Attacks In The U.S., Terrorist Plans Revealed, World News, Terrorist Attacks, World News

Al Qaeda discussed attacking pipelines, dams, bridges, and other important infrastructure in the U.S. and Europe, according to a document seized from Osama bin Laden's Pakistan compound.
News of the document recently came to light after German newspaper Die Zeit published a story detailing its contents.
The outlet reports that the U.S. Department of Justice gave the letter to the German Federal Office of Justice in April 2012 for the trial of alleged terrorists in Germany, according to a Huffington Post translation of the story.

Does Obama not know the messages Palestinians get?

David Bedein
Published: Sunday, March 24 2013 

President Barack Obama, on his first trip to Israel as president, struck a cord of confusion with the people in Israel on Thursday when he ascribed peaceful intentions to Israel's adversary, the Palestinian Authority, the administrative arm of the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO), a terror group founded in 1964 by the Arab League, with the purpose of total war against the state of Israel.
Yet, President Obama, speaking on Thursday at the Jerusalem convention center, declared, "While I know you have had differences with the Palestinian Authority, I genuinely believe that you do have a true partner in President Abbas and Prime Minister Fayyad. I believe that. And they have a track record to prove it."

Mini-Guide on Different Groups’ Responses to Obama’s Trip to Israel

Barry Rubin

Since President Barack Obama’s trip to the Middle East was such a turning point for U.S. policy, I thought it should be summarized by showing characteristic responses of different groups. These are, of course, generalizations, and there are many variations.

The Far Leftist: Why has Obama been so nice to Israel? He’s sold out and become just another typical president who backs Israel. How infuriating!

The Left-Liberal: Did you see how Obama told off the Israelis and demanded they make peace? Of course, the people love him and it is only the reactionary leaders who oppose a truly great president who is doing a great job. He hasn’t changed at all; he’s just found a clearer way to articulate his position. 

 

The “Mainstream” Liberal (Current Version): We told you so! Of course Obama loves Israel despite all of that propaganda against him, and he really showed it this time. I’m so glad I voted for him twice.

Assessing President Obama's Trip*

Alan Dershowitz

Now that President Obama is on his way back from his trip to the Middle East, its potential impact can be assessed. All in all it was a success, despite some pitfalls.
Whenever a high ranking American dignitary visits Israel, there is concern that something will happen—new settlement building, further rocket attacks—to spoil the visit. It happened again, as President Obama was visiting President Abbas, having had a positive meeting with Prime Minister Netanyahu. This time the spoiler was neither Hamas nor the settlement builders (though rockets were fired and settlements expanded). It was The New York Times, running an extensive and illustrated story casting doubt on President Obama's signature gift to Israel: America's financial support for the joint anti-missile system called "Iron Dome."
The success of the Iron Dome has been central to Israeli-American relations, as well to the security policies of both countries. An anti-missile system capable of destroying up to 90% of Hamas rockets directed at Israeli population centers has made it possible for Israel to focus on prevention rather than deterrence.

From Cairo 2009 to Jerusalem 2013

Ambassador (ret.) Yoram Ettinger, "Second Thought: a US-Israel Initiative”
"Israel Hayom”, March 22, 2013, http://bit.ly/14hfaoH
Is President Obama learning from history by avoiding – or repeating - the crucial errors of his 2009 visit to the Middle East?
In 2009, Obama anticipated engagement, rather than confrontation, with Iran, which threatens the survival of pro-US Arab regimes in the Persian Gulf and beyond.  Obama expected an Arab Spring and a march of pro-US democracy on the Arab Street, rather than the stormy, tectonic anti-US Arab Winter.  Just like President Carter's reckless abandonment of the Shah and his courting of Khomeini, President Obama turned his back on America's ally, Mubarak, while extending his hand to America's inherent enemy, the trans-national, subversive Muslim Brotherhood.

Obama Uses His Egyptian Disaster to Argue That Israel Should Trust the Terrorists

Daniel Greenfield

Is Obama familiar with anything that happened in Egypt since his speech? Seriously.

 

I ask you, instead, to think about what can be done to build trust between people.
Four years ago I stood in Cairo in front of an audience of young people. Politically, religiously, they must seem a world away. But the things they want — they’re not so different from what the young people here want. They want the ability to make their own decisions and to get an education and to get a good job, to worship God in their own way, to get married, to raise a family. The same is true of those young Palestinians that I met with this morning. The same is true for young Palestinians who yearn for a better life in Gaza.

On Palestinian Shoes

President Barack Obama urged Israelis to consider the view from the other side, basically saying:

Put yourself in Palestinian shoes

His exact words were:

 But the Palestinian people’s right to self-determination and justice must also be recognized. Put yourself in their shoes – look at the world through their eyes

Mr. Obama, look what Palestinian shoes do, to you and to us:

Dear Gov. Huckabee,

Yesterday when I opened the Jerusalem Post I saw a copy your full-page Gush Katif address printed for those of us who live in Israel.  It was a lovely surprise at first but then, I realized that it should not have been- because you are always ready to support us no matter where you are.

 

We know what a dedicated and loyal friend you are - one who truly understands our history and our rights to this land.  At a time when Israel has so many enemies and anti-Semitism is once again rearing its ugliness worldwide, your vision and courage in speaking out is so appreciated.

 

At this particular time, we are again being pressured to agree to the creation of yet another terrorist apartheid state - this one 'Palestine' - in the heartland of our democratic precious ancient homeland!  Would such an outrageous demand be made of any other country - and would that country agree?!

Obama’s grim message to Jerusalem

JOHN BOLTON

 

 

Don’t confuse what Obama says with what the American people actually believe.

 

The White House is contending that Barack Obama’s first visit to Israel as president underlines his administration’s commitment to Israel’s security.

Rarely, however, has the style and symbolism of a political maneuver been more distant from the underlying substance.

"The Party's Over"

If indeed there ever was a party, except in people's imaginations.

 

I must confess something here.  I understand better today how Obama got re-elected.  I'm seeing his charm up close and when he turns it on, it's considerable.  Then it becomes a question of what to accept as real....

 

~~~~~~~~~~

A Case Study of Media Manipulation on the Middle East: Slate About Me

Barry Rubin

Here's what Slate has to say about me:

"The anti-Obama peace-process skeptics can’t help but gloat. As Barry Rubin, a conservative, pro-Israel American pundit put it on his Facebook page: “I think we have just won a huge victory … Obama has admitted defeat on trying to bully, manipulate, or pressure Israel.'"

This is a very revealing sentence in several respects:

--First of all, the article was not on my Facebook page. On my Facebook page was a link to my article in PJMedia. Zacharia is not a friend on my Facebook page so she could not have seen the material quoted there. Consequently, she wrote it that way to avoid having to admit the existence of PJ Media and linking to that publication. By saying something was on my Facebook page--rather than on one of the biggest news/analysis sites on the Internet--I am to be made to sound like a basement-dwelling blogger.

Obama's mysterious visit

 Caroline Glick

Why is US President Barack Obama coming to Israel today? In 2008, then president George W. Bush came to celebrate Israel's 60th Independence Day, and to reject Israeli requests for assistance in destroying Iran's nuclear installations.

In 1996, then-president Bill Clinton came to Israel to help then-prime minister Shimon Peres's electoral campaign against Likud leader Binyamin Netanyahu.

U.S. Government Funding Radical Israeli NGOs' Information Operations

CAROLINE GLICK March 19, 2013

Earlier this month NGO (Non-governmental organization) Monitor released its report on foreign government funding of radical political Israeli NGOs which work to undermine Israel's international standing and subvert Israeli society. Along with the usual European suspects who give millions of shekels (or Euros or pounds) to Israeli groups like this, it works out that the US government is also funding extremely radical organizations, courtesy of American taxpayers. Notably, the three groups that reported receiving funding from the US are all in the business of waging political warfare campaigns directed at the Israeli public.

PA's welcome to Obama: Americans behind 9/11 attacks and Hitler was greater than Roosevelt

Official PA daily:

History is written by the victors,

therefore "Muslim terrorists" are falsely blamed for 9/11

and Nazism is prosecuted instead of honored

"Had Hitler won, Nazism would be an honor"

http://palwatch.org/main.aspx?fi=157&doc_id=8684

by Itamar Marcus and Nan Jacques Zilberdik

Two days before US President Barack Obama's visit to Israel and the PA, the official PA daily chose to print anti-American hate speech along with pro-Hitler comments in an op-ed:
"Our history is replete with lies... [including] the lie about Al-Qaeda and the September 11 events, which asserted that Muslim terrorists committed it, and that it was not an internal American action by the Freemasons."

The op-ed further implies that Hitler was greater than both Churchill and Roosevelt, who were "alcoholics":

Ministers and Senior Officials of the 33rd Government of Israel 18 Mar 2013

Government Ministers      Benjamin Netanyahu - Prime Minister Minister of Foreign Affairs, Minister of Public Affairs and the Diaspora  Yitzhak Aharonovitch - Minister of Public Security  Uri Ariel - Minister of Housing and Construction  Naftali Bennett - Minister of Trade, Industry and Labor, Minister of Religious Services, Minister for Jerusalem and Diaspora Affairs  Meir Cohen - Minister of Welfare and Social Affairs  Gilad Erdan - Minister of Communications and Home Front Protection  Yael German - Minister of Health  Yisrael Katz - Minister of of Transportation, National Infrastructures and Road Safety  Uzi Landau - Minister of Tourism

Obama and Netanyahu – ReStart

Gerald M. Steinberg

In their second act, will Benjamin Netanyahu and Barack Obama find happiness, and cooperate on policies that will best serve both Israeli and American interests?

The answer does not depend on psychology or individual personalities. Serious leaders leave their private likes and dislikes behind when it comes to serious issues – Churchill, Roosevelt and Stalin did what they had to, despite the deep animosities. And Sadat and Begin did not need to play golf in order to negotiate peace.