I think this is an excellent analysis of what is going on. That is not to say that a final agreement will be reached, even if a provisional state is set up. Barry Rubin thinks no compromise from the palestinians will be forthcoming. They may not even return to the negotiating table. But America won’t let that stop them.

By Yisrael Ne’eman, Mid East on Target

Right wingers have been stunned by Israeli PM Benyamin Netanyahu’s Palestinian policies since he took office this past March 31. Not only did he announce in his famous Bar Ilan speech that he advocated a two-state solution but now there is to be a building freeze (not including Jerusalem or public structures) for the next ten months in settlements across Israel’s 1949-67 armistice line with the West Bank. Even former army chief of staff Moshe (Bogey) Ya’alon and right wing ideologue Benny Begin are favoring the move. The Palestinians may claim it is not enough and the Americans expected more, but in Israeli political terminology Netanyahu’s concession is huge. The PM prefaced this latest policy announcement several weeks ago when explaining that should the Palestinians come to the table they will see that Israel will be very forthcoming.
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University of East Anglia’s Climatic Research Unit admits slipshod research practices
by Bill Levinson

We reported previously that the Environmental Protection Agency allegedly committed scientific misconduct and academic dishonesty by ordering a researcher to suppress information that did not support the Obama Administration’s agenda of implementing carbon emission caps. As reported by the Wall Street Journal’s Kimberly Strassel,

Dr. Alan Carlin, a 37-year agency veteran, was muzzled earlier this spring. Dr. Carlin offered a report poking holes in the science underlying the theory of manmade global warming. His superior … complained the paper did “not help the legal or policy case” for Team Obama’s decision to regulate carbon, told him to “move on to other issues,” and forbade him from discussing it outside the office.

Senator Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) meanwhile wrote openly in her letter to the Wall Street Journal that the real purpose of cap and trade is to enrich companies like Goldman Sachs and J.P. Morgan Chase, along with the Green Exchange and New York Stock Exchange. Goldman Sachs and J.P. Morgan Chase each bundled more than half a million dollars in campaign contributions to help elect Obama, and they also contributed to Gillibrand. Now the University of East Anglia’s Climatic Research Unit has admitted to destruction of original data--a practice that anybody who has ever taken a high school science class knows to be slipshod, incompetent, or even worse. (Read more…)

By Ted Belman

I just read Greta van Susteren’s Interview with Sarah Palin conducted on her bus tour.

It is very long but worth every minute. Palin is honing her message. She has done her homework. She is not rambling as she did. She can hold her own with anyone.

But what sells her the most is her common sense policies and her confidence.

Look out. Here she comes.

By Ted Belman

When Netanyahu came to into office he continued the freeze that Olmert had started in August 2008 and came under withering pressure from Obama for more. Why Olmert agreed to it in the first place has never been discussed.

Last summer it appeared that the quid pro quo would be normalization steps by Arab countries. Nothing came of it. Then Netanyahu and Obama counted on getting Abbas to accept the freeze when they were all in New York. Abbas didn’t bite.

Finally, Netanyahu decided to announce the freeze unilaterally which he did on Wednesday.

Surely he doesn’t want endless negotiations with no hope of progress. So one must conclude that its all about gaining time to deal with Iran.

Herb Keinon in his article Gaining Grace?
points out that Yossi Beilin knew about this 9 days ago,
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Jimmy Carter’s presidency offers a lesson in how the purest intentions can lead to the most disastrous results.

By BRET STEPHENS, WSJ

An idealistic president takes office promising an era of American moral renewal at home and abroad. The effort includes a focus on diplomacy and peace-making, an aversion to the use of force, the selling out of old allies. The result is that within a couple of years the U.S. is more suspected, detested and enfeebled than ever. No, we’re not talking about Barack Obama. But since the current administration took office offering roughly the same prescriptions as Jimmy Carter did, it’s worth recalling how that worked out.

How it worked out became inescapably apparent 30 years ago this month. On Nov. 20, 1979, Sunni religious fanatics led by a dark-eyed charismatic Saudi named Juhayman bin Seif al Uteybi seized Mecca’s Grand Mosque, Islam’s holiest site. After a two week siege distinguished mainly by its incompetence, Saudi forces were able to recapture the mosque at a cost of several hundred lives.
(Read more…)

I sent Barry Rubin my post Obama wants return of all territories. In it I note Clinton’s quote and simply point out what the title says. Thus we don’t get to keep even 10% of the land. Rubin prefers to embrace the positive aspects.. I agree with most of what he writes but resist the deal Clinton is offering. He apparently prefers to accept it as most Israelis would accept it. But as he notes the PA will never accept it.

I agree that Obama is ruling out a return of refugees for the most part.. That’s good. But as for the PA never accepting swaps, I beg to differ. I believe that the Kadima government offered swaps. I didn’t think the PA rejected them out of hand. Furthermore the Saudi Plan which Obama embraces, and which I believe was originally drawn up by the State Department, definitely refers to swaps. In subsequent discussions the Saudis insisted the swaps were to be of equal value rather than size. She assumed that Israel wanted to keep prime real estate around Jerusalem and therefore had to give much more land in return. The Saudi Plan also refers to a just settlement of the refugee issue pursuant to Res 194 of the UNGA which provides

11. Resolves that the refugees wishing to return to their homes and live at peace with their neighbours should be permitted to do so at the earliest practicable date, and that compensation should be paid for the property of those choosing not to return and for loss of or damage to property which, under principles of international law or in equity, should be made good by the Governments or authorities responsible;

This leaves open the possibility of compensation rather than return. Keep in mind that the Arab League amended the Saudi Plan and gave Syria a veto over any settlement deal that left refugees in Syria.

Rubin rightfully highlights the importance of the phrase “subsequent developments”. I would add that the State Department micromanaged the location of the fence and in various areas the fence will be the border. Where there was disagreement such as around Ariel, Maaleh Adumin and Jerusalem, the fence wasn’t built.

Such a settlement would reduce the expulsion of Jews to a minimum; perhaps 10% of those now living east of the greenline. Such a deal as proposed by Clinton/Obama would be accepted by a majority of Israelis.

Hillary’s Bombshell: Obama Administration Subtly Launches Dramatic Policy Change on Peace Process

By Barry Rubin
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The role of fat cat climate profiteers’ bundled contributions in so-called “climate legislation”
by Bill Levinson

We read in our morning paper that the Obama Administration promises that proposed carbon regulations will cost American families less than a dollar a day, and will reduce deaths from air pollution. The latter proposition is an outright fraud because carbon dioxide is not a pollutant; our lungs always contain a far higher concentration than the air around any coal-fired power plant. Obama’s dishonest efforts to equate carbon dioxide to genuine pollutants like sulfur oxides, nitrogen oxides, mercury, and so on shows just how eager he is to enrich the special interests whose bundled campaign contributions bought him. Bundled contributions are legal but working Americans who will have to pay to enrich Obama’s sugar daddies nonetheless have the right to know who really runs the Obama Administration.

We reported previously that Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) said openly that the real purpose of “climate legislation” is to enrich Goldman Sachs, J.P. Morgan Chase, the Green Exchange, and the New York Stock Exchange. Goldman Sachs and J.P. Morgan Chase each bundled six figures in contributions to Obama. Goldman Sachs bundled $12.6K for Gillibrand, and J.P. Morgan Chase raised $12.8K for her; now it is easy to see why she remembered these firms when she wrote her letter to the Wall Street Journal. (Read more…)

While I put myself out there in support of Bibi’s tactics, Obama increases his demands beyond anything expected. It is not too late for Bibi to pull back from what appears to be a gratuitous offer. Time to abrogate Oslo. Nobody is abiding by it anyway so it affords no protection.

Israel should now say take it or leave it. If it is not accepted as enough, Israel should withdraw is offer to freeze.

I searched for confirmation of the demands that Glick says Obama is now making but I could find no article in which they are set out or referred to save hers.

By Caroline B. Glick, JWR

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu weakened Israel this week. And he did so for no good reason.

Thursday’s headlines told the tale. The day after Netanyahu bowed to US pressure and announced a total freeze on Jewish construction in Judea and Samaria for ten months, Yediot Ahronot reported that the Obama administration now wants Israel to release a thousand Fatah terrorists from prison.

The Americans also want Israel to allow US-trained, terror supporting Fatah paramilitary forces to deploy in areas that are currently under Israeli military control. Moreover, the Americans are demanding that Israel surrender land in the strategically crucial Jordan Valley to Fatah.

And these are just American preconditions for starting negotiations with the Palestinians. According to Yediot, if those talks ever begin, the White House will demand that Israel accept a Palestinian state in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria and Gaza and agree to ethically cleanse all the areas of Jews.
(Read more…)

Compliments of AngloSaxon Raanana Real Estate

* Israel is having its ups and downs right now and the GN is they’re all in the right places. The ups are where they should be and the downs are also right on target. Let us give you a few examples:

ü The economy is up by 2.2% in Q3

ü Unemployment is down for the first time in a year declining 0.2% to 7.8% [comparisons are odious but here we go anyway; the figure for the US is 10.2% and for the eurozone it’s 9.7%, both figures supplied by Bloomberg and it doesn’t come more reliable than that]

ü GN for Israeli manufacturing. Israeli Procurement Managers Index was up sharply in October, by 8.2% in fact to a two-year high of 60.4% from 52.2% in September. October was the fifth consecutive month that the index was over 50%, and that’s the dividing line between economic expansion and contraction
(Read more…)

In Canada Jews have been wedded to the Liberal Party forever. But as this article points out, they are now abandoning it in droves. The author Ezra Levant was the publisher of the Weekly Standard which published the Danish cartoons. He is the one who is also leading the fight for free speech.

The last 100 Jews in the Liberal Party
By Ezra Levant

I saw a headline pop up on my BlackBerry tonight: “Jewish leaders ask Harper to trash Tory flyer”.

Naturally, when I saw “Jewish leaders” and an attempt to publicly embarrass Stephen Harper, arguably the most pro-Jewish and pro-Israel head of government in the world, I thought that the Jewish leaders involved would be Bernie “Burny” Farber and the pro-Liberal Canadian Jewish Congress.

So when I read the item I was surprised, and even a little pleased, that the list of “Jewish leaders” denouncing Harper does not include Burny, or for that matter the leaders of B’nai Brith or the Canada-Israel Committee or the Simon Wiesenthal Center or any organization of synagogues or really anyone who leads anything, other than various branches of the Liberal Party.
(Read more…)

[Harel and Eldar seem to be cribbing from my notes]

Settlers have been working for months to undermine construction freeze
By Amos Harel, Haaretz Correspondent

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu owes much gratitude to the Yesha Council and the members of the rightist flank in Likud. Were it not for their public opposition over the past two days, someone might have suspected that the decision to freeze settlement construction permits for 10 months was an even smaller Israeli concession than it originally appeared to be.

There can be no doubt: Under heavy U.S. pressure, Netanyahu crossed an ideological Rubicon from his point of view. The announcement to freeze settlements joins the Bar-Ilan declaration, in which the prime minister agreed to a two-state solution. But in practice, analysis of the situation on the ground suggests that there will be nearly no change in settlement construction, at least not in the coming months.
(Read more…)

SINGER, DANCER, COMIC

By Ted Belman

Many critics of Netanyahu want him to be inflexible like they presume themselves to be. I always separate myself from them because I tend to be more pragmatic or “flexible” if you like.

Gil Hoffman discusses the announced freeze in JPOST by advising

The security cabinet’s decision to freeze settlement construction for 10 months was aimed at thawing three relationships that had grown cold: Israel’s with the US government, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, and Likud’s with Labor.

And ultimately, like any decision Netanyahu makes, its real goal is preventing the nuclearization of Iran.

(Read more…)

By Ted Belman

When PM Salam Fayyad released his plan to “establish Palestine as an independent, democratic, progressive, and modern Arab state, with full sovereignty over its territory in the West Bank and Gaza, on the 1967 borders, with East Jerusalem as its capital.” within two years, Israel took little notice of it.

When it recently became clear that he intended a “unilateral declaration of independence”, Israel took notice and said ‘If PA Declares State, Israel Will Annex Settlements’.

The PA also threatening to seek the formal endorsement of the UN but the EU and the US have turned thumbs down on the issue.

So long as Israel controls the land it controls what happens there.

(Read more…)

To all the friends at Israpundit

Yamit (Unlcle Nahum), Ayn, Laura, Narvey, ShyGuy, Bill Levinson, RandyTexas (has to be a longhorn fan), h peskin and many others

Of course Ted Belman who makes this all possible.

G-d/God bless America and our neighbor Canada

G-d/God bless Israel

Ron Grand

By Ted Belman

In Sultan Knish’s The Dead End Quest for Peace he reiterates a truism, “If you want peace, prepare for war.”

A year into Obama’s first term dedicated to multilateralism and soft power, the world is more unstable than ever. Iran is openly pursuing nuclear weapons and regional domination. North Korea is firing on South Korean ships. The Chavez Marxist axis in Latin America has become more ambitious. Russia is amping up the rhetoric against the Ukraine and Georgia again, and building up its arsenal. And even Obama’s staunchest apologists and defenders cannot think of a single tangible thing that he has accomplished in all his visits to virtually every major country on the globe.

But that is because peace is a paradox. To have peace, you must be prepared for war. You may speak softly, but you must carry a big stick. And like happiness, the worst possible way to go about finding peace, is by going out and looking for it. Because to pursue peace is to deliver a signal of weakness that all but invites war. Peace is produced not through goodwill, those with whom goodwill is easy to achieve are not likely targets for war, but through deterrence. War is deterred the same way that crime is deterred, through vigilance and strength.

Netanyahu should take note.

The corollary is also true. “If you want war, prepare for peace.”

Netanyahu should also take note.

By Ted Belman

On the heels of Netanyahu’s settlement freeze announcement yesterday, Hillary Clinton had this to say,

“Today’s announcement by the government of Israel helps move forward toward resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. We believe that through good-faith negotiations the parties can mutually agree on an outcome which ends the conflict and reconciles the Palestinian goal of an independent and viable state based on the 1967 lines, with agreed swaps, and the Israeli goal of a Jewish state with secure and recognized borders that reflect subsequent developments and meet Israeli security requirements.”

And that is a mouthful.

No mention of refugees or Jerusalem. This could be significant. Netanyahu keeps drawing the line on Jerusalem demanding it remain Israel’s undivided capital.

But it envisages every inch being given back facilitated by land swaps. Thus Israel could keep all settlement blocks including Ariel and Maaleh Adumin providing she swaps land to compensate. If this were the deal, she would still have to expell about 50,000 Israelis give or take 20,000.

This deal is not doable. Then what?

ZOA OPPOSES ISRAELI FREEZE ON JEWISH CONSTRUCTION IN JUDEA/SAMARIA

The Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) is opposed to the policy announced today in Jerusalem by the Israeli government to institute a freeze on all Jewish construction in Judea and Samaria for a ten month period.

ZOA National President Morton A. Klein said, “We would oppose freezing Jewish construction in any event, as Jews have a right to live in their religious and historic homeland. It would be wrong to deny Jews the right to live and build in these territories, simply because they are Jews. But we particularly oppose a freeze on Jewish construction in this instance as it is unilateral. Israel has not received any comparable, reciprocal concessions from either the Palestinians or the Arab states.
(Read more…)

I think Goldberg’s comments are a fair reading of Palin’s remark. Jews have their own belief system regarding the coming of the Mashiach. The “battle of Armageddon” is not part of it.

Now, my question is, so what? If this is what she believes is it good bad for the Jews? The Christian evangelicals, our largest support group, all share similar views. Would any evangelical, as President, encourage antisemitism in America to bring it about? I think not. If it were the case, they would be at the forefront of antisemitism today. But they are not. The opposite is true. Keep in mind that for this prophecy to come to pass, Israel must exist. Therefor dispensationalists will do everything they can t keep Israel safe and secure.

On the other hand there is evidence of antisemitic theory in the works and books of Rev Hagee and others. Goldberg’s article is too simplistic and shouldn’t be taken literally (I couldn’t resist). Palin’s Church Does Not Teach A Pre-Trib Rapture explores the issue in greater depth.

This is a very big issue. I think it will impact Palin’s chances more than Rev Wright’s Church and beliefs did Obama’s though I happen to think that the opposite should have been the case.
Ted Belman

Sarah Palin and the Rapture

By Jeffery Goldberg, The Atlantic

Ever curious about the eschatological implications of that Sarah Palin quote from her interview with Barbara Walters — the one in which she said she believes that “more and more Jewish people will be flocking to Israel in the days and weeks and months ahead” — I called the executive director of the Pre-Trib Research Center at Liberty University in Lynchburg, Va., Dr. Thomas Ice. The Pre-Trib Center is one of the preeminent evangelical institutions in this country arguing for literal Bible prophecy, and especially for pre-millenial dispensationalism, a complicated belief system that concerns the conditions that must obtain on Earth before Jesus can return (“Pre-Trib” is short for “pre-tribulation.”) One of the more famous conditions, of course, is the ingathering of the Jewish people in Israel. There are hundreds of variations of Protestant prophetic belief, but the Jewish role is generally crucial; very dramatic things will happen to the Jews in these prophetic belief systems, including their conversion to Christianity and their mass death in the battle of Armageddon.
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Straight from the Jerusalem Boardroom #138

November 25, 2009

1. Israeli youth highly motivated to serve: 73% of 18 year old recruits (in November 2009) prefer military service in combat units; number of applicants to the Golani infantry brigade was six times higher than needed; number of applicants to the Givati infantry brigade was four times higher than needed.

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