“Countries may vary, but civilization is one, and for a nation to progress, it must take part in this one civilization. The decline of the Ottomans began when, proud of their triumphs over the West, they cut their ties with the European nations. This was a mistake which we will not repeat.” –Kemal Ataturk, 1924
Spinning in his grave, indeed. for now his successors not only think they can revive a Turkish-ruled imperium but have made the very mistake of turning their backs on the West that the republic’s founder rightly saw as the downfall of that earlier incarnation of his country. I’d change Ataturk’s wording slightly: the Ottomans turned their backs on the modern world then being developed in the West while still forming alliances with European powers. (Read more…)
A broad international coalition agrees that Iran must freeze its nuclear weapons program and may not develop either of the ingredients—sufficient highly enriched uranium and a usable warhead and delivery system—that could result in a bomb for the Islamic Republic. The International Atomic Energy Agency Board of Governors, the UN Security Council, and the governments of almost every influential country—including the United States, Russia, China, Germany, Britain, and France, acting as the P5+1 negotiating group—have not only reached consensus on this demand but acted upon it. Increasingly tough sanctions have been imposed on Iran to force it to stop what is obviously a military program aimed at building a usable nuclear weapon. These diplomatic steps and these tightened sanctions reflect a wide consensus about the dangers that an Iranian nuclear weapon would bring. (Read more…)
World opinion should not deter Israel from enhancing Jewish roots and national security, expanding the Jewish presence in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria and the Golan Heights, and pre-empting Palestinian and Hezbollah terrorism.
Adverse world opinion and global pressure have always been an integral part of the Jewish people and the Jewish state. The aim of this global campaign has been to eliminate the unique national, religious, cultural and territorial features of the Jewish people, including Jewish sovereignty over the land of Israel.
The bolstering of Jewish sovereignty generates negative world opinion (except in the U.S. and a few other countries), but enhances respect toward a conviction-driven Jewish state. On the other hand, when Jewish sovereignty retreats and Israel submits to world opinion, it just reflects weakness. Israel will never satisfy world opinion, and such action only further fuels global pressure, which erodes respect toward the Jewish state. (Read more…)
Syrian rebels battling the regime of President Bashar al-Assad have begun receiving significantly more and better weapons in recent weeks, an effort paid for by Persian Gulf nations and coordinated in part by the United States, according to opposition activists and U.S. and foreign officials.Obama administration officials emphasized that the United States is neither supplying nor funding the lethal material, which includes antitank weaponry. Instead, they said, the administration has expanded contacts with opposition military forces to provide the gulf nations with assessments of rebel credibility and command-and-control infrastructure.A look at the Syrian uprising one year later. Thousands of Syrians have died and President Bashar al-Assad remains in power, despite numerous calls by the international community for him to step down.
I have known Sherkoh Abbas for 5 years and have been working with him to gain currency for his vision. I am glad that Spyer whom I also know brought attention to this. Ted Belman
Sherkoh Abbas, a veteran Kurdish dissident, calls for dismantling the country into ethnicity based areas. Photo: REUTERS
Sherkoh Abbas, a veteran Syrian Kurdish dissident, called on Israel this week to support the break-up of Syria into a series of federal structures based on the country’s various ethnicities.
Speaking from Washington, Abbas was also critical of US attempts to induce Syrian Kurds to join and work with the main opposition body, the Syrian National Council. Abbas, who heads the Washington- based Kurdistan National Assembly, said that dismantling Syria into ethnic enclaves with a federal administration would serve to “break the link” between Syria and the Iran-led “Shi’a crescent.” (Read more…)
Israeli advocacy group Shurat HaDin (Israel Law Center) won a $323 million judgment in a U.S. court against Iran and Syria for supporting terrorists who killed an American teenager and ten others in a 2006 bombing, The Associated Press reported on Tuesday.
The group’s attorney, Nitzana Darshan-Leitner, told AP that Shurat HaDin had won courtroom victories against Iran but never before against Syria.
The center was representing the family of 16-year-old Daniel Wultz of Florida, who was one of 11 people killed when an Islamic Jihad suicide bomber set off his explosives at a Tel Aviv restaurant six years ago. Daniel’s father was severely injured in the attack. (Read more…)
In July 2011 the EU issued a report focussing on “Area C” and made clear that EU policy was to change the governing rules regarding it, which rules are clearly set out in the Oslo Accords.
The officials said France, Britain and Germany shepherded the conclusions through the EU, and it reflected the EU’s new Middle East envoy Andreas Reinicke’s focus on maintaining the viability of a two-state solution in face of what the Europeans are increasingly concerned may be a closing window of opportunity.
“The viability of a two-state solution must be maintained,” the statement read, “The EU expresses deep concern about developments on the ground which threaten to make a two state solution impossible.”
[..] (Read more…)
by Joseph E. Katz
Middle Eastern Political and Religious History Analyst
Source: “Battleground: Fact & Fantasy in Palestine” by Samuel Katz,
In a British television interview on December 12, 1971, Mr. Richard Crossman, one of Britain’s famous left-wing intellectuals, a member of the Labour government between 1964 and 1970 and subsequently editor of the prestigious Socialist weekly The New Statesman, bluntly accused the former Labour Prime Minister Clement Attlee and Foreign Minister Ernest Bevin, who presided over the destinies of Britain after World War II, of having “tried to destroy the Jews of Palestine.” Mr. Crossman recalled that he was intended by Mr. Bevin in 1945 to be one of the instruments of his policy. He thus discovered first hand what that policy was. (Read more…)
Militant Muslims use Islam to Justify Atrocities
by Bill Levinson
Major John L. Plaster posted a chapter from “The Ultimate Sniper,” and it is very instructive as to the nature of the enemies of Civilization.
Before analyzing the Iraqi insurgent sniper’s other attributes, keep in mind that he’s a terrorist first, who’s capable of any kind of act to further his cause without regard to law or ethics or what a Westerner would consider morality. An inseparable seam connects him to his comrades who bomb public places and kill helpless hostages with little remorse. Every day he violates the Laws of Land Warfare by wearing civilian clothes, assassinating civilians, continuing to shoot incapacitated soldiers and marines, escaping sniping incidents in ambulances, purposely firing behind a human shield of women and children, and operating from mosques.
The latest issue of The American Rifleman included an article written by and about the snipers of our Armed Forces. Two stories were particularly telling about the nature of our militant “Islamic” enemies:
…an enemy sniper had just shot an American soldier. In a fourth-floor hospital window some 12 blocks away, his spotter detected the sniper…
(…)
A short time before Passover a group of Jews moved into a newly purchased building in Hebron. Named Beit HaMachpela, the property is situated within the complex containing Ma’arat HaMachpela, the tomb of the Patriarchs and Matriarchs, just opposite a large parking lot, used by tourists arriving at this holy site. The building was legally purchased; Hundreds of thousands of dollars passed hands. One of the Arabs involved in the deal was arrested by the palestinian authority and sentenced to death. Sale of property to Jews is a capital offence, according to PA law.
Within days, following a government decision to leave the people in the house for at least a few weeks, until further investigations could be concluded, Netanyahu gave (…) a green light to expel the building’s residents (…).
Last night HaAretz correspondent Chaim Levinson published an article citing the ostensible reason for the expulsion: Fear of the goyim. (Read more…)
With unity government, electoral reform finally takes center stage
Knesset committee established to examine the issue of electoral reform proposes gradually raising the electoral threshold from the current 2% to 4% by half percent increments, limiting the number of ministers and move toward a regional election system • Parliamentary and external bodies also submit reform proposals.
One of the main clauses contained in the national unity government agreement signed between Likud and Kadima last week states that “the parties commit themselves to working toward a fundamental reform of Israel’s system of government and establishing a government system that will increase government stability and governability.” (Read more…)
Leaked documents on Arab-Israeli conflict promote misinformation from NGO grantees
Background
Since 2010, six documents from the offices of EU representatives in Israel and the Palestinian Authority – dealing with the central, complex, and sensitive issues of Israeli policy in Jerusalem, “Area C,” the status of Israeli-Arab citizens, and the allegations of settler violence – have been leaked to the Israeli and international media. The documents repeat many of the false, inaccurate or misleading allegations made by a select group of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) that are based in Israel and the Palestinian Authority but receive much of their funding from the EU and member states.
Last week, Damascus was rocked by a bomb that left more than 50 dead and scores wounded in what was probably the worst terrorist attack since the beginning of the insurgency against President Bashar al-Assad’s regime just over a year ago. The insurgents accused the regime of staging the horrifying massacre in order to stain the opposition’s reputation while the regime blamed the opposition and claimed that the insurgency has become an al-Qaeda tool bent on spreading jihadist values across the Middle East. (Read more…)
Attorney General Yehuda Weinstein has warned Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu that expropriating land and homes from Palestinian Authority Arabs in Judea and Samaria and giving them to Jews could lead to the issue of the Jewish settlement in Judea and Samaria being brought before the International Court in The Hague. [..]
To be fair, there may be validity in this in that the FGC prohibits expropriation except in limited circumstances. But that in no way puts the settlements themselves in issue.
The report said that the concern is that Israel or Israeli officials will be prosecuted in the criminal courts in The Hague under the Fourth Geneva Convention, which stipulates that transferring an occupying population into occupied territory is a war crime.
As the Jewish leadership sucks up to those in power who ignore the anti-Jewish venom in their ranks, and the Jewish left remains unchallenged over its unholy alliance, the community’s collective head will remain buried in the sand while its rump is left horribly exposed for a kicking.
The recent elections here and in Europe have left Jews and all who care about freedom and democracy with many reasons for unease.
In Greece, around two thirds of those who voted did so for extremist parties of left and right. Chillingly, the neo-Nazi “Golden Dawn”party won no fewer than 21 seats.
As I write, Greece is in chaos, with fresh elections a distinct possibility if no party can form a government. (Read more…)
Iranian outlets have been claiming recently the United States has been forced to bow before Iran on its nuclear program, demonstrating the West’s abandonment of Israel and paving the way for the Islamic regime to annihilate the Jewish state.
While restating that Iran will demand ever more in the upcoming second round of talks with the 5+1 nations to be held this month in Baghdad, the Iranian media are now boasting that Israel has been abandoned by its allies and is in a dire bind.
One such editorial, published last week by Iran’s Keyhan newspaper, which is directly under the supervision of Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, stated, “It can be said that within the last 60 years, this is the first time that the Zionist regime, since its illegal inception, has had to endure rejection by the West over its vision and interest in the region.” (Read more…)
Professor Shalom Lerner wrote a legal opinion which he forwarded to PM Netanyahu arguing that the law doesn’t mandate the destruction of the houses in Ulpana even if the houses were built on private land. So long as the houses were build in good faith, then the court should determine the most sensible course. This is a well established principle of law but it was never argued or considered in this case.
In actual fact, the courts never ruled that the law requires destroying the five Ulpana hill buildings in Beit El.
The court never ruled that they are on private land, and that the claimants are the owners of that land.
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