January 1, 2013

By David Lev, Arutz Sheva

Speaking Tuesday night, Likud Knesset candidate Moshe Feiglin said that before the state imposes Israeli law on Judea and Samaria, it should make sure that it is in control of Afula and Lod. At this time, Feiglin said, there is a great doubt in his mind on whether that is the case.

On Tuesday, Feiglin said, he visited a 70-year-old woman in Lod who has been “suffering day and night from persecution by local Arabs. I was shocked by the stories she told more than by almost anything else I have ever heard.” The torture that the woman faced, he said, was similar to incidents that occurred throughout the country.
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By TOVAH LAZAROFF, JPOST

High-ranking Likud politicians voice support for annexation of West Bank Area C, where all settlements are located, say lack of annexation strengthens international community’s demand for withdrawal to the pre-1967 lines.

Israeli annexation of the West Bank’s Area C — where all settlements are located — received public support from two high-ranking Likud politicians on Tuesday evening, Minister Yuli Edelstein and MK Ze’ev Elkin.

“Lack of Israeli sovereignty over Area C, means the continuation of the status quo,” said Edelstein, as he spoke about an area of the country that is now under Israeli military control.
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The American Interest

The US shale gas boom, drastically cutting the cost of gas, is shaking the foundations of the Saudi Arabian economic model—and more is coming. The highly profitable $100bn Gulf petrochemical industry is taking a hit as its biggest customer—the U.S.—is importing less and relying instead on domestic production.

US petrochemical companies, propelled by cheaper access to raw materials, are competing effectively against companies like the Saudi Basic Industries Corp (Sabic), the world’s largest chemical maker. Sabic also has some home-grown problems. The rapidly growing Saudi population wants to consume (subsidized) petrochemicals at home, air conditioning Saudi houses and running Saudi cars instead of exporting product abroad. Falling production, demand, and prices are beginning to hurt the once stalwart $89bn company. (Read more…)

Mudar Zahran, one of the leaders of his country’s burgeoning Dignity Revolution, says spring is in the air. And, he claims, a post-Hashemite Jordan will have huge implications for the Palestinians, who may be forced to choose — Western-style secular democracy or a government led by the likes of Hamas’s Khaled Mashaal

By PHILIPPE ASSOULINE, TIMES OF ISRAEL

To hear Mudar Zahran tell it, change is coming to Jordan, and fast. “The King is not going to survive, it’s out of the question… I give him until next summer, more or less. And even if I am wrong, I can’t see the King making it to 2014 by any stretch.”

The Britain-based Zahran, aged 39 and a father to three young children, is one of 15 people, in exile or still in Jordan, who together are leading the “Dignity Revolution,” which erupted on the streets of Amman on November 15, 2012. The movement seeks to topple King Abdullah and replace him with democratic leadership, and Zahran firmly believes that his grouping of secular parties — the Jordanian Opposition Coalition (JOC) — speaks for the vast majority of Jordanians, both Palestinians and Bedouin.

Polite to a fault, Zahran was educated in the US and is a prolific writer – a skill he uses to inspire opposition to the King in Jordan, in particular among the Palestinian majority. Though a devout Muslim, he also seeks to shape the next government by “preaching the gospel” of a secular democracy to the Jordanian street.
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