Dear Family & Friends

My favorite topic: THE SOVEREIGNTY CAMPAIGN! Women-in-Green, my heroes, are bringing forth their next monumental journal. I know it will ring all the right bells & lead to an invigorated campaign to give us ALL of the Land of Israel under JEWISH SOVEREIGNTY as is our right!

Settlements in our Land would be rightly called villages, towns & cities in any other Land. Why the pejorative? I don’t care what we’re called. I’ll be proud to be a Jewish Settler, building on our Land for our children & people.

The campaign against voting for Iran Nukes is being run well. I hope it can beat the hostile pressure exerted from the current White House. Bravo to all the Congress-people who are bragging about being against the Very Bad Deal gifting the know Terror Chief in the World. IRAN gets both $150 Billion dollars to propagate violence against the West plus the path to the Nuke Bombs…if they don’t have them already.

It was a sweet cool day today. Enjoy the night with its full bright moon.

All the very best, Gail/Geula/Savta/Savta Raba x 2/Mom

1.THE SOVEREIGNTY CAMPAIGN

2.Rivlin: Settlements Guarantee our Existence

3.‘Big embarrassment for Obama’ as DNC chair blocks Iran nuclear deal

4.Cheney: Iran deal ‘tragically reminiscent’ of Munich deal

5.Iranian president: Nuke deal doesn’t affect military capability

6.“Slandering the US: PA demonizes its largest donor.”

7.Obama shows geostrategic incomprehension in webcast with Jewish groups By J.E. Dyer

8.Hamas Accidentally Admits to Committing War Crimes

10.Jew Hatred in Islamic Doctrine

1.THE SOVEREIGNTY CAMPAIGN

by Women-for-Israel’s-Tomorrow/Women-In-Green: Nadia Matar & Yehudit Katsover

As you know from our previous mail, we are ready to go to print with the latest Sovereignty Journal in order to distribute it in hundreds of thousands of copies, in Hebrew and English. The importance of promoting the Sovereignty vision has been detailed in that email.

“As with its predecessors, in this issue too, there are important and fascinating interviews and articles about the necessity to proceed with the vision of sovereignty over Judea and Samaria and the ability to implement it. Now, when more and more groups among the Israeli Left are coming to the conclusion that the dangerous idea of “two state solution” is not feasible and that establishing a terror state in the heart of the Land of Israel is no longer possible, is the time to step up the activity and to wave the flag of sovereignty even more fervently.”

We also need to set up a professional Sovereignty website. We thank those who already sent in their donations. We are still in need of a least $18,000. With your generous help we will, please G-d, be able to do it. Details for donations: http://www.womeningreen.org/help

Thank you. Shavua Tov, Have a good week,

Yehudit Katsover and Nadia Matar, www.womeningreen.org

2.Rivlin: Settlements Guarantee our Existence: ‘Settlements don’t threaten our existence, they guarantee it,’ By Maayana Miskin, INN ArutzSheva IsraelNationalNews.com 8/30/15

Knesset Speaker Reuven Rivlin spoke Wednesday in honor of Zionist leader Zev Jabotinsky. Rivlin took the opportunity to reject statements made by President Shimon Peres several days earlier during a memorial for Binyamin Zev (Theodore) Herzl.

Peres had warned that Israeli communities in Judea and Samaria (Shomron) pose a demographic threat to Israel’s future as a Jewish state.

“I admire and respect President Peres, as a noted Zionist and a beloved public representative,” Rivlin said. “But the students of Jabotinsky, myself included, do not see settlements as a threat to our existence.”
“The communities in Judea and Samaria do not threaten our existence, they guarantee our existence,” he said.

Regardless, Judea and Samaria communities should not be judged solely by their strategic usefulness, Rivlin argued. “The settlements are not more or less justified based on their strategic location,” he said. “Rather, based on our right to our land.”

“Unfortunately,” he added, “today there are many who think we do not need to emphasize this right… Even those who think we must give up parts of the land must not hint at disregard for our right.”

Rivlin expressed sympathy with Israeli Arabs while not-so-subtly accusing the left of racism. “I feel pain for the Arab public in Israel, which is humiliated over and over by statements that describe it – or its brothers, and it by implication – as a threat,” he said.

“Jabotinsky’s liberal, democratic and nationalist tradition is not part of the ‘demographobic’ school of thought,” he continued. “That school, which spends all day counting heads – whether east of the armistice line or west of it – is dangerous.”

“For the one thing, because in the name of demography the two-state solution is presented as necessary. Worse than that, because in the name of demography, Arab citizens of Israel wake up in the morning and discover that they are a threat. They find that when they brought children into the world, they were plotting against the state of Israel, without even realizing it,” he said.

The legacy of Jabotinsky is to take the vision of Jewish democratic state seriously, “and not to let go,” he concluded. ?Posted by Ted Belman @ 6:04 pm

One Comment to Rivlin: Settlements Guarantee our Existence mookergee says: 8/30/15

Rivlin finally has the guts to say what we think. When The USA gives back California and Texas to Mexico and Alaska to the Russians then come back to us. It’s time to classify groups like JStreet the enemy of Israel and close the borders to them. 99% of these morons have never been to Israel. These are the same Jews that did nothing when 6 million Jews died in the concentration camps. The rabbis that sign that petition to accept Iran as a peace partner and letting them have the bomb will be playing golf on Yom Kippur

3.‘Big embarrassment for Obama’ as DNC chair blocks support for Iran nuclear deal

Democratic National Committee chief Debbie Wasserman Schultz blocks resolution that would have backed Iran nuclear deal, Washington Post reports • “The Obama-controlled DNC couldn’t pass a resolution backing the deal,” CNN panelists comment.

Israel Hayom Staff and The Associated Press

CNN calls DNC’s failure to approve a resolution supporting the Iran deal a “big embarrassment” for President Barack Obama

Democratic National Committee Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz blocked a resolution that would have backed U.S. President Barack Obama’s Iran nuclear deal, which curbs Iran’s nuclear program in exchange for billions of dollars in sanctions relief, The Washington Post reported Saturday.

Citing “knowledgeable Democrats,” the paper reported that during the party’s summer meeting, Wasserman Schultz had prevented a vote on a resolution seeking to put the national committee on record as supporting the nuclear agreement between Iran and six world powers, ahead of a crucial vote in Congress that will seal its fate.

A CNN panel described the incident as the “president’s big embarrassment.”

“The Obama-controlled DNC could not pass a resolution this weekend expressing support for President Obama’s Iran deal,” New York Times reporter Jonathan Martin said during the panel debate. “It’s a bit of an embarrassment for the administration seeing as it’s his party; he appointed Debbie Wasserman Schultz, and it’s revived the sort of latest round of eye-rolling among Democratic operatives about the state of the party.”

CNN host John King said Martin was being diplomatic, saying it was a “big embarrassment for the president.”

“We wanted to show support for the president,” James Zogby, the co-chair of the DNC’s Resolutions Committee, told The Washington Post. “We found that the best way to show support was a letter that members would sign on to, and the overwhelming majority of DNC members signed onto the letter.”

But according to a party spokeswoman, the proposal was not considered due to “procedural issues.” The spokeswoman did not name Wasserman Schultz, but according to The Washington Post, other democrats said “it was the congresswoman’s direct opposition that blocked its consideration.”

Debbie Wasserman Schultz, who represents a heavily Jewish congressional district in Florida, has not officially declared her position on the agreement. Next week, Vice President Joe Biden plans to visit Wasserman Schultz’s district in an effort to sway Jewish leaders there to support the nuclear agreement with Iran.

According to the report, critics of Wasserman Schultz’s role in the incident urged her to maintain her allegiance to the president rather than acting on her own political considerations.

Meanwhile, Oregon’s Democratic Sen. Jeff Merkley on Sunday became the 31st senator to announce support for the Iran nuclear deal. Merkley’s backing puts supporters within reach of the 34 votes required to uphold a presidential veto of a congressional resolution disapproving the agreement.

Republicans are unanimously against the deal. But with an overwhelming number of Senate Democrats in favor, some have now begun aiming to amass 41 yes votes, which would allow them to use Senate rules to kill the disapproval resolution outright in the Senate and protect Obama from having to use his veto pen.

A vote on the nuclear deal the U.S. and other world powers negotiated with Iran is scheduled for early September.

Merkley said that while he thinks the deal has “significant shortcomings,” it is the best strategy to block Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon.

“Because of these shortcomings, many have argued that the United States, instead of implementing the agreement, should withdraw from it, persuade our partners to set the agreement aside and work together to negotiate a better deal,” Merkley said in a statement.

“However, the prospects for this are slim. All of our partners … believe that the current deal — in regard to its central goal of blocking Iran’s pathways to a nuclear bomb — is sound. They have committed the good faith of their governments behind the agreement and intend to honor the deal as long as Iran does likewise, with or without the United States.”

4.Cheney: Iran deal ‘tragically reminiscent’ of Munich deal

The nuclear deal reached last month between world powers and Iran “makes war more, not less, likely,” former U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney and his daughter Liz Cheney wrote in a Wall Street Journal op-ed published on Friday.

“The Obama nuclear agreement with Iran is tragically reminiscent of British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain’s Munich agreement in 1938,” the op-ed, titled “Restoring American exceptionalism,” said. “Each was negotiated from a position of weakness by a leader willing to concede nearly everything to appease an ideological dictator. Hitler got Czechoslovakia. The mullahs in Tehran get billions of dollars and a pathway to a nuclear arsenal. Munich led to World War II. The Obama agreement will lead to a nuclear-armed Iran, a nuclear-arms race in the Middle East and, more than likely, the first use of a nuclear weapon since Hiroshima and Nagasaki.”

Meanwhile, at a meeting in Florence on Saturday evening with Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said, “Civilization today is under threat from militant Islam. The savagery of [the Islamic State group] captures the world’s attention, and justifiably so.

“But I believe that a far more serious threat is posed by another Islamic state, the Islamic State of Iran, and specifically its pursuit of nuclear weapons.

“Let me make clear, Matteo, that Israel doesn’t oppose a civilian nuclear program in Iran. We oppose a military nuclear program in Iran. And regrettably, the deal with Iran allows it to keep and expand a formidable nuclear infrastructure that is completely unnecessary for civilian nuclear purposes, but is entirely necessary for the production of nuclear weapons.

“The deal will give Iran within 13 years the ability to make as many centrifuges as they want, enrich as much uranium as they want to whatever level that they want. And this will put the Iranian Islamic state that practices terrorism worldwide … on the threshold of an entire nuclear arsenal.

“But well before that, Iran will get hundreds of billions of dollars of sanctions relief and investments to fuel its aggression and terrorism in the Middle East, in North Africa and beyond.

“I think that this will make Iran far richer and far stronger militarily, and it will make it far more difficult to confront its nuclear ambitions in the future.”

On Friday, U.S. President Barack Obama sought to reassure American Jewish groups that the U.S.-Israel relationship is strong, despite differences over the nuclear deal with Iran, and called for more talks between the two governments on security cooperation.

“As soon as this particular debate is over, my hope is that the Israeli government will immediately want to rejoin conversations that we started long before about how we can continue to improve and enhance Israel’s security in a very troubled neighborhood,” Obama said during a webcast focused on the nuclear deal.

Obama said the U.S. and Israel have been in talks “for months” about getting security talks back on track, and those talks could include next-generation missile defense systems and improved intelligence.

Netanyahu has been a fierce critic of the nuclear deal, in which six world powers agreed to ease economic sanctions against Iran in exchange for Iran curtailing its nuclear program.

Netanyahu’s government, and some U.S. pro-Israel groups, have lobbied fiercely against the nuclear deal, potentially a core foreign policy achievement of Obama’s presidency if successful.

Members of Congress have until Sept. 17 to vote on a “resolution of disapproval” of the nuclear agreement. If it passes, and survives Obama’s veto, it could cripple the deal by eliminating Obama’s ability to waive many U.S. sanctions.

U.S. Republicans are largely united against the agreement, and have allied themselves with Netanyahu’s government against it.

Obama said on Friday that the U.S. commitment to Israel is “sacrosanct and it is nonpartisan.”

“Everybody keep in mind that we’re all pro-Israel,” Obama said. “We have to make sure that we don’t impugn people’s motives even as we have what is a very serious debate.”

Friday’s webcast was part of an intense White House campaign to bolster support for the Iran nuclear deal, which has divided the U.S. Jewish community. The webcast was hosted by the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations and the Jewish Federations of North America. Organizers said thousands of people participated and questions submitted online were selected by the moderators.

While Obama was measured in his remarks on Friday, he has spoken passionately about the nuclear deal in the past, accusing those who oppose the deal of supporting war over diplomacy. Earlier Friday, his spokesman equated an anti-deal rally Republican presidential candidates Donald Trump and Sen. Ted Cruz plan to hold next month to a “pro-war rally.”

Obama also infuriated congressional Republicans earlier this month when he compared opponents of the agreement to Iranian hard-liners who chant “Death to America” in the streets of Tehran.

Don Stewart, a spokesman for Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Kentucky, said Friday that Republicans were still waiting for the president to retract that assertion.

5.Iranian president: Nuke deal doesn’t affect military capability

Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani says in nationally televised press conference that Iran “will not accept any limitations” and will do “whatever it needs” to defend itself • Last week, Iran unveiled new surface-to-surface missile with range of over 300 miles. By Reuters and Israel Hayom Staff

Iran’s military capability has not been affected by its nuclear deal last month with six world powers, President Hassan Rouhani said on Saturday, moving to reassure hard-liners that the deal was no sign of Iranian weakness.

“With regards to our defensive capability, we did not and will not accept any limitations,” Rouhani said at a press conference carried on live television. “We will do whatever we need to do to defend our country, whether with missiles or other methods.”

Last week, Iran unveiled a new surface-to-surface missile it said could strike targets with pinpoint accuracy within a range of 500 kilometers (310 miles), a move likely to worry Tehran’s regional rivals.

Rouhani said at the ceremony that Iran’s military might was a precondition for peace, after being criticized by hard-line factions in Iran’s multi-tiered leadership for negotiating with Western powers they see as fundamentally hostile to the Islamic republic.

Under the July 14 pact, Iran agreed to strict limitations on its nuclear program to ensure it cannot be turned to developing atomic bombs, in exchange for a removal of international sanctions imposed on Tehran.

According to the deal, any transfer to Iran of ballistic missile technology during the next eight years will be subject to the approval of the U.N. Security Council, and the United States has promised to veto any such requests.

An arms embargo on conventional weapons also stays, preventing their import into and export out of Iran for five years.

6.“Slandering the US: PA demonizes its largest donor.”

Bulletin 8/28/15

Official PA daily op-ed: PA daily: “US is the biggest settlement country established on the ruins of the original inhabitants, wiped out millions of them, enslaved millions of Blacks & today enslaves millions of Hispanics” http://palwatch.org/main.aspx?fi=157&doc_id=15591

by Itamar Marcus

The Palestinian Authority continues to demonize anyone who has an opinion different than their own. Even the United States, the largest donor to the PA, is subject to verbal attacks by PA leaders and its official media. Any statement or activity that the PA disagrees with can be used as the hook to insult even its biggest financial supporter.

When US presidential candidate Mike Huckabee visited Israel recently, he expressed support for Israel’s right to the Land of Israel. He spoke about Jewish history in the land going back thousands of years. As Palestinian Media Watch has documented, the PA denies Jewish history in the Land of Israel and Jerusalem in order to deny Israel’s right to exist.

Presidential candidate Huckabee’s statements in support of the Jewish right to Israel were used by former editor-in-chief of the PA official daily, and now regular columnist, Hafez Al-Barghouti to demonize the US and its policies since America’s founding:

“It is possible that the US is the biggest settlement country, since it was established on the ruins of the original inhabitants, wiped out millions of them, enslaved millions of Blacks, and today enslaves millions of Hispanics in the same manner.” [Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, Aug. 20, 2015]

In the same article, Huckabee is likewise demonized as “inane creature… jellylike…wicked, despicable man… carry[ing] the genes of settlement and racism.” Another Presidential candidate, Donald Trump, was also demeaned as “aged teenager, the swindler and realtor, and haven’t yet gotten rid of them… and the fate of these political jugglers is oblivion.” “billionaire, rabid.”

Historically, the PA has promoted hatred of the US regardless of the president’s political party, ignoring the hundreds of millions of dollars that the US gives yearly to the PA.

The following is longer text of the op-ed by Hafez Al-Barghouti, former editor-in-chief, now regular columnist for official PA daily Al-Hayat Al-Jadida:

“The contenders for the leadership of the parties in the American presidential race seem as though they are in a bull run, and they are trampling values and principles, ramming rights, and trying to tear the Palestinian people to shreds in order to win the votes of the supporters of wars and bloodshed, and the settlers.

“After the statements of the aged teenager, the swindler and realtor, the billionaire, the rabid [Donald] Trump, in which he called to transfer the Palestinian people from the [West] Bank to Puerto Rico, another Republican candidate, Mike Huckabee, made a pilgrimage to Israel to emphasize his support for settlement in the West Bank.

This inane creature thinks he is the only one who understands politics, as he revealed his political shallowness when he said that it is not possible to push the peace process as long as there is incitement in Palestinian schools. This jellylike man ignores the burning of children, as if those who burned them, the settlers, learned the foundations of good ethics and human dignity, and did not imbibe violence in the school of settlement, occupation, and the transformation of the land and blood of others to worthlessness.

This wicked, despicable man [Huckabee] came to protect them and their settlements, as if to provide them with matches to practice their hobby of burning, blocking roads, chopping down trees, and harassment of the rooted Canaanite Palestinian, who carved its letters in the stones of this land before any religion.

Huckabee is also a settler, and it is possible that the US is the biggest settlement country, since it was established on the ruins of the original inhabitants, wiped out millions of them, enslaved millions of Blacks, and today enslaves millions of Hispanics in the same manner. It could be that Trump and Huckabee carry the genes of settlement and racism,

[Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, Aug. 20, 2015]

7.Obama demonstrates geostrategic incomprehension in webcast with Jewish groups By J.E. Dyer on August 30, 2015 at 7:16 pm

(Image: IRNA via Gatestone Institute)

There was a lot to reject in the comments made by President Obama on Friday to the leaders of the Jewish Federations of North America, in a webcast sponsored by JFNA. That’s putting it in the mildest possible way.

But we can gain invaluable perspective from focusing on one particular passage in the Q&A session. It illuminates everything else that’s going on, and exposes the brittle emptiness of Obama’s rhetoric – because it betrays the anachronism of his view of the Middle East and Israeli security. It’s as if Obama doesn’t realize it’s not 2009 anymore.

The topic is the security relationship of the U.S. with Israel: how strong it is, and how it can be reenergized. Here’s Michael Siegal, Chairman of Jewish Federations of North America, asking Obama the question (from the White House transcript emailed after the webcast, which the Chicago Sun-Times has here):

Obama responds (important section highlighted):

The terms in which Obama speaks are woefully outdated. If he’s looking at the current situation in the Middle East and thinking “missile defense” and “interdicting arms to terrorists” and “countering Iranian proxies,” it’s like he hasn’t been awake for the last six years.

A transformed geostrategic reality

The Middle East is [in] a vast war for territory today. Besides the other combatants, “Iranian proxies” occupy swaths of Iraq now – north, south, and east of Baghdad – and have drawn Saudi Arabia into a war in Yemen. That’s in addition to their hydra-headed activities in Syria, Lebanon, the Sinai Peninsula, the Golan, and Gaza. This isn’t a random grab-bag of happenings; it has strategic meaning just because of the geography, regardless of whether you accept that it’s part of a grand Iranian strategy.

The geostrategic map of the region is being transformed as you read this. Six years ago, there was no imaginable prospect of Iran being able to consolidate any uninterrupted military avenue of approach between Iran’s territory and Israel’s.

Today, there are imaginable prospects of that on not one but three axes. The most obvious, and of most concern to Israel’s immediate security, is through Syria, where Iran has long been embedded with the Assad regime, and has a useful ally in Hezbollah.

The other two axes run through central Iraq, and the maritime route from the Strait of Hormuz to the Sinai Peninsula.

On each of these axes, Iran would have to transform conditions further to gain secure and fully usable lines of communication. But it is indisputable that the gains needed to achieve that outcome are already being worked on.

Iran’s aggressively expanding posture across the region. (Google map; author annotation.)

Three axes

In central Iraq, ISIS has done Tehran the favor of making it necessary to deploy Iran-backed troops to Anbar and fight to seize control of it. It’s been millennia since a Persian army has had a realistic shot at success that far west of Baghdad. And, to be sure, most of the fighting force seizing Anbar back from ISIS will be Iraqi Shia militias.

But the Iraqi Shia militias are Iran’s SOBs, trained and led by the Iranian paramilitary Qods Force. If Iran has unfettered access to Anbar, there is nothing unbreachable – nothing stronger than Iran, nothing better able to withstand subversion and attrition – between there and the Jordan River.

Centrality of Ambar to the Iraq/Syria fight – and a preview of what else Iran can do with a military campaign there. (Google map; author annotation)

There’s more than one way to open up a military avenue of approach. We’re seeing that already in Syria, where Iranian general officers on a field survey in the Golan were eliminated in January. Hezbollah, a “terror proxy,” has been used in a conventional military role to seize Syrian territory, which Iran has then come in to secure and administer.

Today, Iran has to fly high-value men and materiel into Syria, or – more perilously – try to get arms shipments through by sea. There isn’t a secure land line of communication across Iraq and into Syria. That would need to change, for Iran to be able to mount conventional military operations on this axis.

But what’s important is that that hasn’t stopped Iran from transforming the threat posed from Syrian territory, into something worse than Israel has faced in more than 40 years. From 2009, when rocket fire from Syria into Israel would have been an alarmingly unusual event, the threat has progressed through the period 2011-2015, when stray projectiles from the Syrian conflict began landing near Israeli territory; and now the threat is that rockets under the ultimate control of Iranian paramilitary commanders can be launched into Israel deliberately.

The material conditions for this level of threat – geography, client governments, terror proxies, weapons caches – have existed for a long time. But since 2011, Iran has been able to exploit and shape political and military conditions to transform the very nature of the threat. It is not a “terrorist” threat any longer. It is a military threat, posed by a nation-state with a central government and a strategic idea.

The third axis – the maritime axis – may seem in some ways to be the least developed of the three. And it’s a challenging axis, requiring a lot of specialized preparation. But Iran has actually been at work on it for some time. Tehran has had a foothold in the Red Sea, in Eritrea, since at least 2008, and with logistic access to the Eritrean port of Assab, and a constant maritime presence around the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, is better positioned than you might think to see the relationship with Sudan cooling off.

The Houthis’ war for western Yemen carries the prospect of turning Yemen’s very long coastline on the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden into a great chokepoint “veto zone” for Iran, administered through patrol aircraft, missile boats, submarines, and coastal missiles and guns. Egypt has long been the main exerciser of a veto – granted, a mostly latent one – over any portion of this waterway system. The emergence of Iranian power as a counterweight would change the dynamics of the region in ways we can’t even foresee.

Six years ago, such a prospect was all but unimaginable. Today, it’s not even improbable. Iran has a long way to go to make offensive military use of this axis. But the conditions of access and control are foreseeable today, in a way they were not six years ago.

The map of power relationships is going to change. Period.

Here is a key point about the line between probability and improbability. The United States, under Obama, isn’t going to do anything about Iran’s adventure in Yemen. The Saudis don’t have the power to forcibly eject Iran from Yemen. In the post-American-leadership era, in fact, there isn’t anyone who – singlehandedly – can either oust Iran or keep her reined in, in her activities in Yemen. There exists no great-power-centered vehicle, diplomatic or military, for performing that task.

If such a vehicle were to emerge – perhaps with Russia in the driver’s seat, as Iran’s biggest patron – that in itself would be a transformative event for the Middle East.

A strategically passive United States means that for the “status quo” nations of the Middle East, countering Iran will entail inviting regional transformation on a grand scale.

The Obama administration behaves as if it has no comprehension of this changing reality. And on Friday, Obama himself spoke in just such uncomprehending terms. He reiterated a perfunctory checklist of 2009-era considerations for U.S.-Israel cooperation, using 2009-era verbiage.

Yet it’s clear what Iran has been able to do in the four-odd years since the Arab Spring. What can Iran do in the next 15 years – the duration of her JCPOA stint in what Obama is pleased to call the nuclear “penalty box”? What can she do in the next four?

An Iranian push along three separate axes of approach toward Israel – and, as Benjamin Netanyahu would remind us, toward the Eastern Mediterranean – is evident today. But Iran doesn’t need to develop conventionally linear, conventionally invincible avenues of approach to gain the access she needs to transform the threat to Israel. That has already been proven in Syria.

Rather, the U.S. needs to understand, as Netanyahu does, that the threat is already different from what it was when Obama took office: more conventionally immediate; more militarily structured on Israel’s border; and affording Israel a significantly smaller security buffer, in terms of regional stability and ways to keep Iran blocked entirely across geographic axes.

Apparently, Obama does not understand that. His considerations for Israeli security, the U.S.-Israel relationship, and the JCPOA itself are outdated and unrealistic.

Unfortunately, what they amount to is a form of strategic imbecility.

J.E. Dyer is a retired Naval Intelligence officer who lives in Southern California, blogging as The Optimistic Conservative for domestic tranquility and world peace. Her articles have appeared at Hot Air, Commentary’s Contentions, Patheos, The Daily Caller, The Jewish Press, and The Weekly Standard.

8.Hamas Accidentally Admits to Committing War Crimes

In their attack on Ban Ki Moon, Hamas admitted to committing a different war crime.

By: JoeSettler Arutz Sheva IsraelNationalNews.com Published: August 30th, 2015

2nd Lt. Hadar Goldin Photo Credit: Courtesy

Hamas is upset with UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon, and are calling on him to resign, and in the process admitted to committing a different act of “unlawful perfidy”, otherwise known as a war crime.

Ban Ki Moon has gone on the record of agreeing with the Israeli timeline on the kidnapping and murder of IDF officer Hadar Goldin in Gaza — that the Hamas attack occurred after the cease fire was in place.

Hamas has now decided they don’t like that timeline, as it makes them guilty of breaking the truce, so they’ve come up with a new narrative.

Hamas now says they attacked, kidnapped (and murdered?) the IDF soldier before the ceasefire was in play.

But they decided to add another detail in their statement, apparently as part of their ongoing psychological warfare against Israel, and in part to try and explain how their narrative works in the real world.

Hamas claims that Israel found the body of their fighter Walid Tawfiq Mas’oud, who participated in the ambush of Goldin, and the IDF confused him with the Israeli soldier, because their Hamas fighter, who participated in the Goldin kidnapping/attack, was wearing an IDF uniform.

While the laws of war are split on whether its acceptable to wear an enemy uniform to move forward or retreat, it is clear to all nations that wearing an enemy uniform during an actual attack constitutes “unlawful perfify” under international law, or in simpler terms, a war crime.

Convention (IV) respecting the Laws and Customs of War on Land and its annex: Regulations concerning the Laws and Customs of War on Land. The Hague, 18 October 1907.

Art. 23. In addition to the prohibitions provided by special Conventions, it is especially forbidden

(f) To make improper use of a flag of truce, of the national flag or of the military insignia and uniform of the enemy, as well as the distinctive badges of the Geneva Convention;

The ICRC further states:

Rule 65. Perfidy Rule 65. Killing, injuring or capturing an adversary by resort to perfidy is prohibited.

Either way, whether Hamas attacked under “a flag of truce” or while wearing a “uniform of the enemy”, Hamas is guilty of a war crime, by their own admission.

About the Author: JoeSettler blogs at The Muqata.blogspot.com and occasionally on his own blog at JoeSettler.blogspot.com.

9.Now Exposed – Iran is Already Waging War Against Israel

Wake up, Congressmen, and read this. Arutz Sheva IsraelNationalNews.com 8/30/15 5:41am

Benyamin Korn, chairman of the Philadelphia Religious Zionists, is the former executive editor of the Philadelphia Jewish Exponent and the Miami Jewish Tribune.

On August 16, the Israeli Army revealed that Iran has been directing terrorist attacks from Syria against Israelis in the Golan Heights region. Nobody paid attention. Four days later, Iranian-sponsored rockets from Syria struck Israel’s Upper Galilee. Is anybody listening now?
For weeks, supporters of Israel have been warning that the emerging Iran agreement would give Tehran funds that it could use to wage war against Israel through its proxies.
But now it turns out that Iran is already waging that war. The question is, who is paying attention?.
On August 16, a “senior Israeli Army Northern Command officer” revealed to journalists that for the past twenty months, Iran has “directed” terrorist attacks against Israelis on the Golan Heights.
“All of the attacks in the Golan Heights sector since December 2013 have been carried out with Iranian direction,” the officer told reporters, according to the Israeli daily Israel HaYom.
All of the attacks. Not one or two. All of them. “Directed” from Tehran.
The officer said that “several hundred Hezbollah operatives are currently active on the Syrian side of the border in the Golan Heights.” He said “Iran sends advisers [to the area] and provides money, weapons and training [to terrorists operating there].”
Among the Iranian-directed terrorist cells operating in the Golan, he said, is a cell led by one Samir Kuntar. Does that name ring a bell?
A Lebanese native, Kuntar is a veteran of the Palestine Liberation Front. The PLF, a member-organization of the PLO, was headed by Abu Abbas. Their most infamous attacks were the Achille Lauro hijacking in 1985, and an attempted attack on the Tel Aviv beachfront that resulted in the Bush administration withdrawing its recognition of the PLO.
Among the Iranian-directed terrorist cells operating in the Golan, he said, is a cell led by one Samir Kuntar. Does that name ring a bell?
In January 1978, Kuntar and three other PLF terrorists hatched a plan to hijack an Israeli bus traveling from Beit She’an to nearby Tiberias. (Note: It had nothing to do with “occupied territories” or “settlements.” This was to be an attack on a civilian bus within the pre-1967 borders.) The hijackers were arrested by the Jordanian police as they tried to swim across the Jordan River into Israel. In less than a year, however, Jordan set them free. Apparently the Jordanians don’t regard conspiracy to commit mass murder of Jews as a particularly serious crime.
In April 1979, four PLF gangsters led by Kuntar infiltrated the northern Israeli coastal city of Nahariya. They murdered an Israeli policeman and broke into an apartment at random. The mother, Smadar Haran hid in a closet with her two year-old daughter Yael, and a neighbor. While trying to keep Yael from crying, Smadar accidentally smothered her.
The terrorist took the father, Danny Haran, and their four year-old daughter Einat hostage, and forced them at gunpoint to the nearby beachfront. There Kuntar shot Danny in the head and murdered Einat by crushing her with the butt of his rifle (or with a large rock, according to some reports). Kuntar was captured by the Israelis–and then released in a 2008 prisoner exchange.
Now, thanks to the Iranians, Kuntar lives in the Syrian-controlled section of the Golan Heights. Perhaps not surprisingly, he is the recipient of a Syrian Order of Merit from his kindred spirit, the mass murderer Bashar Assad. “Kuntar has recruited local Syrians to join the ranks of his cell,” the Israeli officer said.
How serious is the likelihood of attacks from Kuntar’s group and other terror gangs in the Golan? “At any given moment, the IDF Northern Command faces at least two warnings of impending attacks in the Golan region,” the officer said. In fact, just two weeks ago, the IDF “conducted an exercise simulating an Israeli incursion into Syria in response to attacks on the border….The main threat in the area is posed by jihadi groups, not the Syrian military.”
“At any given moment.” Sure enough, just four days later, Iranian rockets from Syria struck in the Upper Galilee. Air-raid sirens sounded for the first time in years, as residents of local town and kibbutzim grabbed their children and ran, panic-stricken, to their bomb shelters.
It was bad enough when it turned out that the Iran deal would give the Iranians hundreds of millions of dollars, which they could use to help Hezbollah and Hamas. And it was bad enough when it was revealed that Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamanei, recently authored a 416-page book on the need to destroy Israel.
But now it turns out that the danger is not hypothetical, and Tehran is not just using words. It is already engaged in a daily proxy terror war against America’s ally, Israel.
Will Members of Congress ignore these “facts on the ground” as they are weighing how to vote on the Iran agreement?

Mr. Korn, chairman of the Philadelphia Religious Zionists, is former executive editor of the Philadelphia Jewish Exponent and the Miami Jewish Tribune.