Dear Family & Friends,

Today really seemed like spring. Soft sunny weather; birds nesting & pairing; away with winter coats!

It’s 3 o’clock in the morning. Time to say goodnight. Have a wonderful night & a great Friday. Shabbat Shalom. See y’all Motzei Shabbos (Saturday Night)

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

1.In Israel’s hour of need By CAROLINE B. GLICK

2.Arlene Kushner “Wearisome”

3.Jewish ‘Settlements':If not Illegal, What are They? By Dr. Avi Perry

4.Arabs:Why is Obama Siding with Supporters of Terrorism?by Khaled Abu Toameh

5.Turkey’s Illusions Hit Realities by Burak Bekdil

6.Watch: US Congressman Harassed By Islamists on Temple Mount

7.Freedom Center Launches ‘Jew Hatred on Campus’ Campaign

8.Rabbi David Saperstein the new US Ambassador for Religious Freedom

9. Palestinians working for Israelis paid double those working in the West Bank

10.The Chamberlainization of Israeli politics by MARTIN SHERMAN

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FREEMAN CENTER BROADCAST FEBRUARY 27, 2014

For Zion’s sake I will not hold my peace and for Jerusalem’s sake I will not rest.” Isaiah 62

FREEMAN CENTER FOR STRATEGIC STUDIES P.O. Box 35661 * Houston, Texas 77235-5661
* E-mail: bernards@sbcglobal.net OUR WEB SITE < www.freeman.org

1.In Israel’s hour of need By CAROLINE B. GLICK 02/26/2015 20:36

Netanyahu is coming to Washington next week because Obama has left him no choice.

US President Barack Obama meets with Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu at the White House, October 1, 2014. (photo credit:REUTERS)

It is hard to get your arms around the stubborn determination of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu today. For most of the nine years he has served as Israel’s leader, first from 1996 to 1999 and now since 2009, Netanyahu shied away from confrontations or buckled under pressure. He signed deals with the Palestinians he knew the Palestinians would never uphold in the hopes of winning the support of hostile US administrations and a fair shake from the pathologically hateful Israeli media.
In recent years he released terrorist murderers from prison. He abrogated Jewish property rights in Jerusalem, Judea, and Samaria. He agreed to support the establishment of a Palestinian state west of the Jordan River. He agreed to keep giving the Palestinians of Gaza free electricity while they waged war against Israel. He did all of these things in a bid to accommodate US President Barack Obama and win over the media, while keeping the leftist parties in his coalitions happy.
For his part, for the past six years Obama has undermined Israel’s national security. He has publicly humiliated Netanyahu repeatedly.
He has delegitimized Israel’s very existence, embracing the jihadist lie that Israel’s existence is the product of post-Holocaust European guilt rather than 4,000 years of Jewish history.
He and his representatives have given a backwind to the forces that seek to wage economic warfare against Israel, repeatedly indicating that the application of economic sanctions against Israel – illegal under the World Trade Organization treaty – are a natural response to Israel’s unwillingness to bow to every Palestinian demand. The same goes for the movement to deny the legitimacy of Israel’s very existence. Senior administration officials have threatened that Israel will become illegitimate if it refuses to surrender to Palestinian demands.
Last summer, Obama openly colluded with Hamas’s terrorist war against Israel. He tried to coerce Israel into accepting ceasefire terms that would have amounted to an unconditional surrender to Hamas’s demands for open borders and the free flow of funds to the terrorist group. He enacted a partial arms embargo on Israel in the midst of war. He cut off air traffic to Ben-Gurion International Airport under specious and grossly prejudicial terms in an open act of economic warfare against Israel.
And yet, despite Obama’s scandalous treatment of Israel, Netanyahu has continued to paper over differences in public and thank Obama for the little his has done on Israel’s behalf. He always makes a point of thanking Obama for agreeing to Congress’s demand to continue funding the Iron Dome missile defense system (although Obama has sought repeatedly to slash funding for the project).
Obama’s policies that are hostile to Israel are not limited to his unconditional support for the Palestinians in their campaign against Israel. Obama shocked the entire Israeli defense community when he supported the overthrow of Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak, despite Mubarak’s dependability as a US ally in the war on Islamist terrorism, and as the guardian of both Egypt’s peace treaty with Israel and the safety and freedom of maritime traffic in the Suez Canal.
Obama supported Mubarak’s overthrow despite the fact that the only political force in Egypt capable of replacing him was the Muslim Brotherhood, which seeks the destruction of Israel and is the ideological home and spawning ground of jihadist terrorist groups, including al-Qaida and Hamas. Obama then supported the Muslim Brotherhood’s regime even as then-president Mohamed Morsi took concrete steps to transform Egypt into an Islamist, jihadist state and end Egypt’s peace with Israel.
Israelis were united in our opposition to Obama’s behavior. But Netanyahu said nothing publicly in criticism of Obama’s destructive, dangerous policy.
He held his tongue in the hopes of winning Obama over through quiet diplomacy.
He held his tongue, because he believed that the damage Obama was causing Israel was not irreversible in most cases. And it was better to maintain the guise of good relations, in the hopes of actually achieving them, than to expose the fractures in US-Israel ties caused by Obama’s enormous hostility toward Israel and by his strategic myopia that endangered both Israel and the US’s other regional allies.
And yet, today Netanyahu, the serial accommodator, is putting everything on the line. He will not accommodate. He will not be bullied. He will not be threatened, even as all the powers that have grown used to bringing him to his knees – the Obama administration, the American Jewish Left, the Israeli media, and the Labor Party grow ever more shrill and threatening in their attacks against him.
As he has made clear in daily statements, Netanyahu is convinced that we have reached a juncture in our relations with the Obama administration where accommodation is no longer possible.
Obama’s one policy that Netanyahu has never acquiesced to either publicly or privately is his policy of accommodating Iran.
Since Obama’s earliest days in office, Netanyahu has warned openly and behind closed doors that Obama’s plan to forge a nuclear deal with Iran is dangerous. And as the years have passed, and the lengths Obama is willing to go to appease Iran’s nuclear ambitions have been left their marks on the region, Netanyahu’s warnings have grown stronger and more urgent.
Netanyahu has been clear since his first tenure in office in the 1990s, that Iran’s nuclear program – as well as its ballistic missile program – constitutes a threat to Israel’s very existence. He has never wavered from his position that Israel cannot accept an Iran armed with nuclear weapons.
Until Obama entered office, and to an ever escalating degree since his reelection in 2012, preventing Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons has been such an obvious imperative among both Israelis and Americans that Netanyahu’s forthright rejection of any nuclear deal in which Iran would be permitted to maintain the components of its nuclear program was uncontroversial. In some Israeli circles, his trenchant opposition to Iran’s acquisition of nuclear capabilities was the object of derision, with critics insisting that he was standing strong on something uncontroversial while buckling on issues like negotiations with the Palestinians, where he should have stood strong.
But now we are seeing that far from being an opportunist, Netanyahu is a leader of historical dimensions. For the past two years, in the interest of reaching a deal, Obama has enabled Iran to take over Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, and Yemen. For the first time since 1974, due to Obama’s policies, the Golan Heights is an active front in the war against Israel, with Iranian military personnel commanding Syrian and Hezbollah forces along the border.
Iran’s single-minded dedication to its goal of becoming a regional hegemon and its commitment to its ultimate goal of destroying the US is being enabled by Obama’s policies of accommodation. An Iran in possession of a nuclear arsenal is an Iran that can not only destroy Israel with just one or two warheads. It can make it impossible for Israel to respond to conventional aggression carried out by terrorist forces and others operating under an Iranian nuclear umbrella.
Whereas Israel can survive Obama on the Palestinian front by stalling, waiting him out and placating him where possible, and can even survive his support for Hamas by making common cause with the Egyptian military and the government of President Abdel Fattah al-Sissi, the damage Obama’s intended deal with Iran will cause Israel will be irreversible. The moment that Obama grants Iran a path to a nuclear arsenal – and the terms of the agreement that Obama has offered Iran grant Iran an unimpeded path to nuclear power – a future US administration will be hard-pressed to put the genie back in the bottle.
For his efforts to prevent irreparable harm to Israel Netanyahu is being subjected to the most brutal and vicious attacks any Israeli leader has ever been subjected to by an American administration and its political allies. They are being assisted in their efforts by a shameless Israeli opposition that is willing to endanger the future of the country in order to seize political power.
Every day brings another serving of abuse. Wednesday National Security Adviser Susan Rice accused Netanyahu of destroying US relations with Israel. Secretary of State John Kerry effectively called him a serial alarmist, liar, and warmonger.
For its part, the Congressional Black Caucus reportedly intends to sabotage Netanyahu’s address before the joint houses of Congress by walking out in the middle, thus symbolically accusing of racism the leader of the Middle East’s only liberal democracy, and the leader of the most persecuted people in human history.
Radical leftist representatives who happen to be Jewish, like Jan Schakowsky of suburban Chicago and Steve Cohen of Memphis, are joining Netanyahu’s boycotters in order to give the patina of Jewish legitimacy to an administration whose central foreign policy threatens the viability of the Jewish state.
As for Netanyahu’s domestic opponents, their behavior is simply inexcusable. In Israel’s hour of peril, just weeks before Obama intends to conclude his nuclear deal with the mullahs that will endanger Israel’s existence, Labor leader Yitzhak Herzog insists that his primary duty is to defeat Netanyahu.
And as far as Iran is concerned, he acts as a free loader ad a spoiler. Either he believes that Netanyahu will succeed in his mission to derail the deal with or without his support, or he doesn’t care. But Herzog’s rejection of Netanyahu’s entreaties that he join him in Washington next week, and his persistent attacks on Netanyahu for refusing accommodate that which cannot be accommodated shows that he is both an opportunist and utterly unworthy of a leadership role in this country.
Netanyahu is not coming to Washington next Tuesday to warn Congress against Obama’s nuclear deal with Iran, because he seeks a fight with Obama. Netanyahu has devoted the last six years to avoiding a fight with Obama, often at great cost to Israel’s national security and to his own political position.
Netanyahu is coming to Washington next week because Obama has left him no choice. And all decent people of good will should support him, and those who do not, and those who are silent, should be called out for their treachery and cowardice.
www.CarolineGlick.com

2.Arlene Kushner “Wearisome” February 26, 2015

My friends, how long can we monitor the current political situation without feeling weary to the bone – no, even more, revolted – because of what is taking place.

Here in Israel, the left is using Bibi’s upcoming speech in the Congress as a weapon with which to attack him. For shame. Buji Herzog declares that he is as much against a nuclear Iran as our prime minister is, but he would handle matters differently: He would cancel the talk in Congress and meet privately with Obama.

Given this information, we must ask: Is he enormously naïve and self-deluded? That is, does he really think he might sway the president in the slightest? Or is he a poseur – knowing the reality well enough but pretending in order to lend the impression that he could handle the relationship with the US in a manner that would reduce current tensions and still achieve our essential security goals?

Part of what makes me crazy is that, according to the polls, there is some percentage of the Israeli electorate that actually sees him as the best candidate for running the country. Well less than 50%, it is true. But still…

And there is something else that makes me crazy. According to those very same polls, the percentage of the electorate that would want him to be prime minister is smaller than the percentage that says it would vote for Labor…I mean, the Zionist Camp.

But hey, guys, if Labor/the Zionist Camp gets the most mandates (Heaven forbid!) and is able to put together a coalition, Buji would BE prime minister. Is this not clear to the people answering the polls?

Here we have a picture of Tzipi Livni, Buji’s running mate in the Zionist Camp campaign, listening to him speak. She is definitely not one of the swiftest of the candidates, but here I begin to wonder if she’s on to something:

Credit: EPA

It was suggested in several quarters that, in order to show a united Israeli front to the world, Buji accompany Bibi to Congress. Buji declined. Then he announced that he had been scheduled to speak at the AIPAC convention next week, but was cancelling. He can speak out against a nuclear Iran, he declared, but can do it quite well from here in Israel. This was supposed to convey the impression that he was more statesman-like than Bibi. But I think he made a tactical error. That’s fine.

The prime minister has made it crystal clear that he will not be backing down and will indeed speak in Congress on March 3rd, as scheduled.

He has turned down the offer I wrote about in my last posting, to address Democrats privately. This, he said, would be interpreted as a partisan action, and he intends to do nothing but address the issue of Iran’s nuclear ambitions and radical Islam – to both parties in Congress. There will be nothing partisan in his statements or his actions in Washington.

Last night, at a Likud meeting, he said: ”From the agreement that is forming, it appears that they (world powers) have given up on that commitment (to thwart Iran) and are accepting that Iran will gradually, within a few years, develop capabilities to produce material for many nuclear weapons. They might accept this but I am not willing to accept this.” (Emphasis added)
http://www.timesofisrael.com/netanyahu-world-has-given-up-in-iran-nuke-talks/

Meanwhile, as would have been expected, Obama and his team of flunkies are doing everything in their power to tear the Israeli prime minister apart.

Let me remind one and all that it is the president who is responsible for the internal party tensions, not Bibi. All Obama had to do was announce that he felt confident that his negotiating team was taking the correct path with Iran, but Prime Minister Netanyahu was certainly welcome to come and speak on such a significant subject. Instead, he is sending his team, like attack dogs, to go after our prime minister.

I would further point out, again, that our prime minister was invited by the speaker of the Congress, who had a legitimate right to extend that invitation, and that Congress has a role to play in this critical matter – and thus a right to be as well-informed as possible – even if Obama wishes to circumvent the legislative branch of the government.

Former US Secretary of Defense (from 2001 to 2006) Donald Rumsfeld declared today in a statement to Israel Hayom: “I find it stunning to see the comments out of the White House on this issue. It is more than a distraction, it is unfortunate. It plays into the hands of those people who are not in favor of the relationship [between Israel and the U.S.], who are not in favor of Israel or who are in favor of Iran, and the idea that people are saying what they are saying I find most unfortunate.”

http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_article.php?id=23775

On Tuesday, we had Susan Rice, National Security Advisor, saying that Netanyahu’s intention to speak to Congress is “destructive of the fabric of the relationship” between the US and Israel.

A day later, Secretary of State Kerry was saying not only that Netanyahu was “uninformed,” he was just plain “wrong.”

http://www.politico.com/story/2015/02/obama-administration-offensive-against-netanyahu-115517.html

Minister of Strategic Affairs Yuval Steinitz responded quickly (emphasis added):

Kerry, he said, “might not know everything we know.”

http://www.algemeiner.com/2015/02/25/senior-israeli-minister-responds-to-kerrys-criticism-of-netanyahu-he-might-not-know-what-we-know/

Love it.

Steinitz explained that, “We know all that we need to know, and we have an excellent picture of the negotiations.”

He explained that Israel is in touch with French negotiators (by choice, the US is apparently out of this loop) who are dealing directly with Iran, and are thus well-versed in the details of the negotiations.

What is more, it is the information that has reached Israeli officials so far that has generated the greatest concern. Steinitz acknowledged that the friendship with the US is a strategic asset, but “when it comes to the security of the State, we are also ready to fight.”

Steinitz is on the right in this picture, with Yossi Kuperwasser.

Credit: Flash 90

I wrote last about my conversation with Yossi Kuperwasser, and here I present an important new paper he has done for BESA, “The Struggle over the Iranian Nuclear Program”: “It is incumbent on Israel to use all the diplomatic and political tools at its disposal to halt the signing of an accord with Iran that leaves Teheran with the capability to produce nuclear weapons…

“Thus Iran: continues to develop its arsenal of missiles; avoids providing information about its weapons activity and achievements; continues to enrich uranium using around 9,000 centrifuges of a relatively low-yield model, including at the Qom facility; maintains around 10,000 additional centrifuges that have been installed but are not yet active, most of them of the same type, but some more advanced; continues to develop different types of more advanced centrifuges, which it will be able to make operational should it need to do so; and continues to hold some 7.5 tons of enriched uranium to a level of 3.5% (which represents around half the investment in enrichment required for military-grade material). Once brought up to a 90% enrichment level, this would be sufficient fissionable material to make four or five atomic bombs…

“It is possible to say that the fact that Iran has not yet developed nuclear weapons, in spite of the 27 years in which it has been trying to do so, is due in no small part to Israel’s efforts…Thus the claims made that Iran’s success in proceeding towards the attainment of nuclear weapons represent an Israeli failure, are themselves worthy of ridicule. Without Israel’s actions, Iran would have obtained nuclear weapons several years ago, and moreover, it is thanks to Israel’s actions that Iran is unlikely to obtain nuclear weapons for many years to come, even if an agreement is reached that does not meet Israeli expectations… (Emphasis here and below added.) “Western leaders, with Obama at their forefront, believe in the almost exclusive use of dialogue as a means to address disagreement. They believe that Muslim perspectives in general, and Iranian perspectives in particular, of the West as a historical oppressor that has wrought great harm to the region, contain an element of truth that needs to be acknowledged. They are convinced that the burden of proof as to the good intentions of the parties to the current negotiations falls first and foremost on the West, and in accordance with their liberal outlook, believe that all people share essentially similar and equally worthy values and aspirations.

“On the other hand, the leaders of Iran, who are driven by a sense of mission that is both Islamic and revolutionary Iranian-nationalist, believe that it is their duty to bring about a wholesale change in the world order, using a combination of cunning, force, and daring, and making the most of the freedom of action afforded to them by the reined-in West. They are convinced that the West has no values whatsoever, and is unworthy of its current preferred status in international affairs.

“As a result, the talks between the powers and Iran are not conducted in a manner reflecting the true balance of power between them, but rather the exact opposite. It is Iran that dictates the agenda, while America and the West attempt to placate the other side, and are hesitant about bringing up issues that they fear Iran will refuse to discuss, lest they be accused by Iran of lacking serious intent in the negotiations…

http://us6.campaign-archive1.com/?u=7e381afc91d1b09aec08b492b&id=267a1ae9af&e=b64dce4bd6

I end with an amazing video, showing who we are, in several different respects (with thanks to Chana G.):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JZzQLxN-pTQ&feature=youtu.be

(I am recommending this video only, having not reviewed what follows automatically.)

© Arlene Kushner. This material is produced by Arlene Kushner, functioning as an independent journalist. Permission is granted for it to be reproduced only with proper attribution. If it is reproduced and emphasis is added, the fact that it has been added must be noted.

See my website at www.arlenefromisrael.info Contact Arlene at akushner18@gmail.com

3.Jewish ‘Settlements':If not Illegal, What are They? By Dr. Avi Perry

Israel captured Judea and Samaria from its illegal possessor, the Jordanian Hashemite kingdom, in a defensive war. Look at the rest of the world. Arutz Sheva IsraelNationalNews.com Wed. Feb. 25, 2015

Dr. Avi Perry, talk show host at Paltalk News Network (PNN), is the author…

The US Administration, The EU, the UN, almost everyone who counts keep claiming that Israeli settlements in Judea and Samaria (aka “West Bank”) are illegal. Unfortunately they confuse illegality with unhelpfulness. Considering international law, these settlements are not illegal. Some of them may be problematic, but nonetheless, they are not—by any means—illegal.

Let me explain.

It was the twilight of the 19th century.

European Jews started in on their journey back to Judea, their ancient homeland, renamed Palestine by the Roman Empire some 2000 years earlier following the Bar Kokhba revolt in 135 CE. The territory was mostly a vacant wasteland with several villages and towns inhabited by Arabs plus a few Jewish enclaves. It was ruled by the Ottoman Empire, which occupied it following the fall of the Byzantine Empire, which had inherited the land from the Roman Empire.

The Jews who embarked on their journey back home settled the land. They were a small minority among the Arab majority, which amounted to several hundred thousand residents. There was nothing illegal about these settlements. Jews purchased land from its former owners; they built their kibbutzim, their Jewish towns, and also settled in towns that exhibited Arab majorities.

Following WWI Palestine became occupied by the British. European Jews continued arriving in spite of British restrictions. They continued settling the land in spite of Arab violent disapproval. There was nothing illegal about these settlements. As before, Jews purchased land from its former owners; they built their kibbutzim, their Jewish towns, and also settled among the Arabs in towns with Arab majorities and in towns where Arabs were no longer a significant bulk.

The violence and counter violence between Arabs and Jews intensified. It grew to a point that required international intervention. The UN came upon a partition plan, a two-state solution that parted Palestine into a Jewish state and a Palestinian Arab state. The Arabs rejected it.

The British left Palestine in 1948. Seven Arab countries launched a war on the Jewish enclave in Palestine. Their stated goal: “We will drive these subhuman Jews into the sea”. The Jews fought for their lives and for their state. It was their war of independence—a defensive war. And they won.

The victorious Jews were able to expand their territory beyond their existing kibbutzim and Jewish towns, and beyond what the UN partition plan had called for. In the process, many Arabs fled the area; they became refugees. Some were driven out by the menacing, destructive hellhole of war, as the terrain was ethnically cleansed, then resettled by Jews.

The 1949 armistice agreement established the new borders of the state of Israel. It included territory that happened to be occupied in the aftermath of the 1947-8 war. Most countries in the world, with the exception of the Arab and some Muslim nations recognized the state of Israel. They accepted the 1949 armistice (green) line as the firm boundaries of the state. They did not deem Jewish settlements, within the Green line, in the state of Israel as illegal even though the land had been occupied by the Jews in consequence of a defensive war.

And then came 1967.

Once again, four Arab countries declared war on the Jewish State. Abd el Nasser, Egypt’s president and leader of the Arab world, was quick to remove any doubt or misunderstanding about the Arabs’ true intentions. “The liquidation of Israel will be liquidation through violence. We shall enter a Palestine not covered with sand, but soaked in blood,” He announced.

The Jews fought for their lives and for their state. It was a war for survival. And, once again, they won.

The victorious Jews were able to expand their territory beyond their existing state. In the process, Arabs in the Golan Heights fled the area as the terrain was ethnically cleansed, then resettled by Jews. The Sinai desert was—still is—a desert. It was sparsely populated to begin with. Fortunately, the war was exceptionally short. Residents of the Gaza strip and the “West Bank” had no time to flee. They stayed in place, and were left under Israeli governance.

Still, there was plenty of uninhabited, public land; land that had been retained, then abandoned by the previous occupier of the area—the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan.

Israel conquered the “West Bank” in a defensive war. International law, spelled out by the charter of the League of Nations, states that the status of territories occupied in consequence of a defensive war shall remain in dispute as long as there is no peace agreement between the warring parties. Accordingly, the conquered territory is disputed rather than occupied. And although Israel’s control over the area makes peace with the Palestinians more challenging, it is, nonetheless, legal.
What’s more, international law states that a territory conquered in a defensive war may be used to maintain security in the absence of a peace treaty. The conquering party may resettle it if it had been driven out of the area (like East Jerusalem, Hevron, Gush Etzion) in an earlier war (1947-8) and the rest of Judea and Samaria during the Roman revolt in 135 CE. Besides, UN Resolution 242 states clearly that in the absence of peace between Israel and the Arabs, Israel may develop and settle any public unoccupied land.
This public unoccupied land was never owned by a Muslim Palestinian state, since no Muslim Palestinian state ever existed. Four hundred years prior to the end of World War I in 1917 this land was occupied and owned by the Ottoman empire; then between 1917-1948 it was controlled by the British, and following the 1948 war between Israel and the Arab states, the kingdom of Jordan occupied — and, I must say, illegally absorbed — the same territory.
An Arab Palestinian authority has never owned public land in Judea and Samaria, (a.k.a. the West Bank) or the Gaza strip. The Jews were the only legitimate local resident owners before the Roman Empire’s conquest of the land. After the Romans drove the Jews out of Israel and renamed the territory, the only owners were foreign imperialists who took control of Palestine after defeating a former imperialist occupier.
Public unoccupied land in Judea and Samaria had never been in possession of a Palestinian Arab authority or government. Israel captured the land from its illegal possessor, the Jordanian Hashemite kingdom, in a defensive war.
In the absence of peace between Israel and any Palestinian authority, it has been Israel’s legally justified right to maintain its sovereignty over these territories, develop and settle them, as long as the Israeli government has not deported or displaced the original residents. Accordingly, Palestinian Arabs were able to challenge the Israeli government concerning land use and ownership and that several of these challenges were successful. Consequently, the Israeli Supreme Court ordered the Israeli government to reverse position and hand the land over to its rightful owners whenever it found such land grab illegal or unjust.

It is important to note that Palestinians and many other Arabs consider all of Israel to be an occupied territory. A UN resolution that partitioned the land in 1947 into a two-state solution was rejected by the Arabs, and the resulting war ended similarly to the 1967 Six-Day-War. Israel captured more territory in consequence of a defensive war. That war of independence did not end up in a peace treaty. It was concluded in a ceasefire and a demarcated ceasefire (green) line, serving as a temporary border between Israel and its Arab neighbors. Israel went ahead and annexed the conquered territory, which became an integral part of the Jewish State. Israel’s captured territory was recognized by the rest of the world, with the exception of the Arab states, as an integral part of Israel.

If Jewish settlements established over territory captured by Israel during the 1967 Six-Day-War are considered illegal, then one could extrapolate the same reasoning to proclaim illegality for the entire State of Israel. History tells us that Israel was established in 1948 in the aftermath of a defensive war over territories that were conquered, occupied and settled by the triumphant Jews. (Emphasis added)

And similarly, territories captured in the aftermath of wars like—

Northern Ireland—captured, occupied and annexed by the British

Territories belonging to Poland and Romania—captured, occupied and annexed by the Russians

Kurdistan—Occupied and annexed by Turkey and Iraq

Catalonia—Occupied and annexed by Spain

German territories before WWII—occupied and annexed by France and Poland

Hungarian territories (Transylvania)—occupied and annexed by Romania

Tibet—occupied and annexed by China

Texas—Captured from Mexico

The entire US—captured by force from the native Americans and settled by the White Americans—ought to be classified as illegal, if consistency, rather than anti-Semitism, governs the civilized world.

At the same time, if Jewish settlements established west of the Green line (1949 Armistice lines) are considered legal, then one could extrapolate the same reasoning to proclaim legality of Jewish settlements east of the Green Line (i.e., in the “West Bank”). Both territories were conquered, occupied and settled by Jews in consequence of a defensive war.

There is another problem. Most Israeli citizens want to live in a Jewish State with a significant Jewish majority where Hatikva is the national hymn and the prime minister, the defense minister, the military and the security agencies’ chiefs are Zionist Jews. Annexing the “West Bank” with all of its Arab residents might cause a problem with that, but that is a different issue.

Many Arabs and Muslims see the meeting between Obama and Qatar’s al-Thani as a gift to Qatar for its continued support of Islamic radical groups across the Middle East, including Iraq, Syria, Egypt, Lebanon and the Gaza Strip.

On the eve of Obama’s meeting, Egyptian sources revealed that Qatar was providing weapons and ammunition to members of the Islamic State in Libya. The sources said that 35 Qatari aircraft were involved in transferring munitions.

Arab political analysts are also concerned about Obama’s ongoing attempts to appease Iran, which continues to expand its presence in Arab countries such as Yemen, Iraq and Lebanon — as well as in Syria, where it is deeply involved in backing Hezbollah and operating along the border with Israel. A Reuters report revealed that Iran also has hundreds of advisors in Iraq.

Qatar is also one of the biggest funders of Hamas, whose leader, Khaled Mashaal, is based in Qatar’s capital, Doha. During the past few years, Qatar has provided Hamas with hundreds of millions of dollars — money used to purchase and develop weapons to attack Israel.

By the time Obama leaves the White House, Iran will most likely be in control of more Arab countries, and Qatari-backed terror groups will be much stronger.

The Egyptians are furious with U.S. President Barack Obama for meeting in the White House this week with the emir of Qatar, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani. They say that the Obama Administration has once again turned its back on moderate Arabs and Muslims by endorsing those who support and fund Islamic terror groups.

The meeting between Obama and the emir of Qatar came shortly after Egypt accused the emirate of supporting terrorism.

Obama was quoted as saying that “Qatar is a strong partner in our coalition to degrade and ultimately defeat ISIL. We are both committed to making sure that ISIL [ISIS/Islamic State] is defeated, to making sure that in Iraq there is an opportunity for all people to live together in peace.”

Obama’s decision to host the emir of Qatar and his ensuing statements in praise of the emirate’s role in “combating” the Islamic State have drawn sharp criticism from the Egyptians and other Arabs and Muslims.

U.S. President Barack Obama shares some laughs with Qatar’s Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani at the White House, February 24, 2015. (Image source: C-SPAN video screenshot)

Many Arabs and Muslims see the meeting between Obama and al-Thani as a gift to Qatar for its continued support of Islamic radical groups in different parts of the Middle East, including Iraq, Syria, Egypt, Lebanon and the Gaza Strip.

The meeting came less than a week after the Egyptian envoy to the Arab League, Tareq Adel, accused Qatar of supporting terrorism. In response, Qatar recalled its ambassador to Cairo for “consultations.”

The latest crisis between Cairo and Doha erupted after Qatar expressed reservations about Egypt’s airstrikes against Islamic State targets in Libya in retaliation for the beheading of 21 Egyptian Coptic Christians.

On the eve of Obama’s meeting with the emir, Egyptian sources revealed that Qatar was providing weapons and ammunition to members of the Islamic State in Libya. The sources said that 35 Qatari aircraft were involved in transferring weapons and ammunition to the terror group.

Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi and his regime consider Qatar to be one of the main supporters and funders of Islamic terror groups. They believe that without Qatar’s support and money, Islamic terror groups would not have been able to launch numerous attacks on Egyptian soldiers in Sinai, and Hamas would not be in control of the Gaza Strip.

But President Sisi and his regime are equally furious with Obama for his public embracing of the Qatari emir.

Sisi is expected to travel to Saudi Arabia next week to hold urgent talks with King Salman bin Abdel Aziz on the crisis between Egypt and Qatar. According to reports in the Egyptian media, Sisi is also expected to complain to the Saudi monarch about Obama’s support for Qatar at a time when Egypt and other Arab countries are engaged in fighting Qatari-backed terror groups.

The Egyptian president is hoping that the Saudis will use their influence to convince Obama to stop supporting a country that openly backs terror groups.

The government-controlled media in Egypt is now full of articles and cartoons strongly denouncing Obama’s policy toward Qatar. Such attacks on Obama could not have surfaced in the media had they not been approved by Sisi and his top aides in Cairo.

One cartoon, for example, features Obama standing next to the emir of Qatar at a press conference and declaring, “We have recalled our emir from Qatar for consultations.” This cartoon is intended to send a message that Obama and the Qatari emir, a major supporter of Islamic terrorism, are buddies.

The Egyptian condemnations of Qatar are also directed at the Obama Administration, which seems to be losing one Arab ally after the other because of its perceived support for Qatar and its proxy, the Muslim Brotherhood.

Writing in the Al-Makal newspaper, columnist Ahmed al-Faqih launched a scathing attack on Qatar and the US in an article that carried the title “The Qatari dwarf that feeds the ISIS monster.”

Al-Faqih claims that Qatar is nothing but a pawn in the hands of the US and the Israeli Mossad, and that Qatar uses its resources to support terrorism.

Another columnist, Ahmed Musa, wrote that Qatar, “which is allied with Israel and the US,” was being used to fight Arab countries such as Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Libya and Syria.

“Qatar us conspiring against Egypt to serve the interests of terror groups and organizations,” Musa said, noting the close ties between the Qataris and the US Administration. “The Qatari regime has aligned itself with the murderers of the Muslim Brotherhood and the terrorists of Islamic State and Al-Qaeda, and is paying them billions of dollars.”

Arab political analysts are not only concerned about Obama’s close relations with Qatar, but also his ongoing attempts to appease Iran. They argue that what is needed now is a serious US policy to counter terrorism, as well as a new and harsh approach toward Iran.

As Obama was welcoming al-Thani, Qatar continued to face charges of supporting Islamist groups. The Egyptians say Qatar provides “financial, logistical and media support for terrorist leaders.”

Qatar is also one of the biggest funders of Hamas, whose leader, Khaled Mashaal, is based in Qatar’s capital, Doha. During the past few years, Qatar has provided Hamas with hundreds of millions of dollars — money used to purchase and develop weapons to attack Israel.

Meanwhile, Iran continues to expand its presence in Arab countries such as Yemen, Syria, Iraq and Lebanon.

In Yemen, Iranian-backed Houthi militias have contributed to the collapse of the government there, Secretary of State John Kerry said this week.

In Syria, Iran is deeply involved in backing the regime of Bashar Assad and Hezbollah in their fight against opposition forces. Iranian generals and military experts are also operating in the Golan Heights along the border with Israel.

In Iraq, hundreds of military advisors from Iran are operating, according to a Reuters report. The report quoted Iraqi officials as saying that Tehran’s involvement is driven by its belief that Islamic State is an immediate danger to Shi’ite religious shrines. The Iranians have helped organize Shi’ite volunteers and militia forces to defend Iraq against Islamic State terrorists.

As for Lebanon, the Iranian-backed terror group Hezbollah continues to maintain a powerful security and political presence there.

“The Islamic Republic of Iran has helped Iraq, Syria, Palestine and Hezbollah by exporting the technology that it has for the production of missiles and other equipment,” Revolutionary Guard Air Force commander Brig. Gen. Amir Ali Hajizadeh was quoted recently.

By the time Obama’s term in office ends, Iran will most likely be in control of more Arab countries, and Qatari-backed terror groups will be much stronger, killing more Muslims and non-Muslims.

5.Turkey’s Illusions Hit Realities by Burak Bekdil http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/5270/turkey-isis-illusions February 26, 2015 at 4:00 am

Apparently, the Turkish government does not want to confront ISIS.

Instead of taking modest pride in managing to have averted a crisis, the Turkish leadership portrayed the historic tomb’s relocation as if Turkish special forces had abducted Syrian President Bashar Assad, rather than rescuing their own besieged soldiers and the roaming tomb of a pre-Ottoman Turkish commander.

Turkey’s dramatic miscalculation over Syria is pushing it into weird acts. The latest was the forced relocation of a pre-Ottoman Turkish commander’s tomb from its spot in Syria to another spot in Syria, this time a stone’s throw away from the Turkish border. Relocating the tomb seems to have been prompted by the fear of an attack from radical Islamists — who, ironically, Turkey wanted discreetly to support.

Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu, who in 2001 authored the 600-page book, “Strategic Depth,” hoped at the start of the Arab Spring, when he served as Foreign Minister, that a belt of (Sunni) Muslim Brotherhood-ruled regimes would proliferate in Syria, Egypt, Tunisia, Lebanon and Libya, and be subservient to an emerging Turkish empire. To start with Syria, therefore, the Nusayri strongman of the country, President Bashar al-Assad, had to go.

In August 2012, Davutoglu predicted that Assad’s days in power were numbered “to a few weeks.”

Two and a half years later, Assad is no longer Turkey’s southern neighbor. Instead, various groups of jihadists and armed comrades from among Turkey’s own restive Kurds are Turkey’s new neighbors across the 910 km border. It was one of those violent groups, the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria [ISIS, aka The Islamic State], which prompted Turkey to perform one of the most bizarre military operations in recent history.

Suleyman Shah was the grandfather of Osman I, the founder of the Ottoman Empire and a revered figure for the Turks. He is believed to have drowned in the Euphrates in 1236, and was buried in what is now Syria. In 1886, a tomb was built for him. And in 1921, when France controlled Syria, it signed a peace treaty with Turkey and granted the Turks sovereignty over the small plot of land that hosted Suleyman Shah’s tomb. That land would be Turkey’s only sovereign land outside its own territory.

The treaty stated that: “The tomb of Suleyman Shah, the grandfather of the Sultan Osman, founder of the Ottoman dynasty (the tomb known under the name of Turk Mezari), situated at Jaber-Kalesi shall remain, with its appurtenances, the property of Turkey, which may appoint guardians for it and may hoist the Turkish flag there.”

Although the tomb was relocated to a new piece of land inside Syria in 1973, due to threats from floods from a dam, its new location also became a de facto Turkish enclave. A garrison of 38 Turkish soldiers has stood guard permanently at the tomb since then.

The guards were regularly replaced with new conscripts until eight months ago when, threatened by ISIS, the Turkish military felt no longer able to change them: The guards were besieged at the tomb, surrounded by ISIS’s jihadists who have a notoriety for destroying tombs and sepulchers that they deem “un-Islamic.”

Turkish soldiers prepare the new site for the relocation of Suleyman Shah’s tomb in Syria, Feb. 21, 2015. (Image source: CNN video screenshot) On the night of Feb. 21, the Turkish military sent 572 troops, 39 tanks, 57 armored vehicles and 100 other vehicles to extract its soldiers from there.

The building was destroyed by the army (in order not to let ISIS do that); the tomb was transferred to land just a few hundred meters away from the Turkish border, and the risk of humiliation from a new encounter with ISIS was averted. (In 2014, ISIS raided the Turkish consulate in Mosul, Iraq’s second biggest city, and held hostage 46 people, including the consul general, consul staff and their family members. The hostages were released after 101 days of captivity under terms that were never disclosed).

The tomb rescue operation, at best, could be considered a retreat with a rational explanation. Apparently, the Turkish government does not want to confront ISIS, which until recently was its comrade-in-arms against Assad. The risk of another hostage crisis with ISIS would have been too embarrassing for Turkey’s government, especially with only about 100 days to go until critical parliamentary elections.

But instead of taking modest pride in successfully averting a crisis, the Turkish leadership and its cheerleaders in the media — 65% of which it controls — portrayed the operation as if Turkish special forces had abducted Assad, rather than rescuing their own besieged soldiers and the roaming tomb of a pre-Ottoman Turkish commander.

One headline said, “The world is talking about the success of Operation Suleyman Shah.” Other headlines said: “The Turkomans are proud”; “No permission, we just went there and took it”; “We hit whoever stood on our way”; “The epic [tale] of Shah Euphrates.”

Social media were quickly filled with jokes teasing the “heroes.” One of them created speech balloons on a photo that shows Davutoglu and the top military brass managing the crisis at military headquarters. The speech balloons say “What an escape it was!”; “How successfully we ran away, eh?”; “After all, it was a perfect escape”; and “Let’s accept it… We ran away so skillfully…”

Another photo shows Davutoglu with General Necdet Ozel, Turkey’s top military commander. Ozel’s speech balloon reads: “Now are we abandoning the tomb?” To which Davutoglu answers: “Do you think we should also abandon [the Turkish city] Hatay?”[1] Meanwhile, the air force commander looks on and says: “Strategic madness…”

In many ways, the “abduction from the tomb” is not just neo-Ottoman skullduggery. It is yet another face of neo-Ottoman illusions hitting hard on a wall of Middle Eastern realities.

Burak Bekdil, based in Ankara, is a Turkish columnist for the Hürriyet Daily and a Fellow at the Middle East Forum. [1] In the 1930s, Hatay, a Turkish city bordering Syria, was disputed territory between the two countries. It became Turkish territory after a plebiscite.

6.Watch: US Congressman Harassed By Islamists on Temple Mount

Republican Congressman Dennis Ross comes face-to-face with shrieking Muslim extremists during a tour of Judaism’s holiest site. By Ari Soffer Arutz Sheva IsraelNationalNews.com 2/25/2015, 4:54 PM

A US Congressman witnessed firsthand the harassment faced by Jews on the Temple Mount at the hands of Islamist activists last Wednesday.

A video released by the Temple Institute shows Republican Congressman Dennis Ross (FL-15) taking part in a tour of Judaism’s holiest site along with Temple Institute guide Yitzchak Reuven.

The video clearly shows groups of fully covered female Muslim agitators following and harassing the Congressman and his group with calls of: “Allahu Akbar” and “Leave!” as well as statements proclaiming the “superiority” of Islam.

Jewish visitors are regularly subjected to similar harassment and abuse, which has on occasion escalated into threats and even acts of violence by Muslim extremists.

Recent reports have revealed how radical Muslim groups, including the Hamas- and Muslim Brotherhood-linked Islamic Movement, are paying groups of Muslim women specifically to stand at the site and harass Jewish visitors and stage provocations in an attempt to further restrict and even prevent Jewish visits.

The Congressman spent a full hour on the Mount accompanying a group of Jewish visitors led by Reuven, during which time he also experienced the discriminatory practices meted out to visibly Jewish visitors by authorities – both Israeli and Muslim.

As per usual, Jewish groups were separated and subjected to excessive security checks to ensure they had no non-Muslim religious items on their persons, after which they were followed closely by Islamic Waqf guards to ensure that they don’t partake in any form of prayer or non-Muslim worship.

Despite numerous court rulings backing Jewish activists’ petitions for equal rights at the Temple Mount, Israeli police forbid any forms of Jewish prayer on the site – despite it being the holiest site in Judaism – for fear of a violent Muslim backlash.

The sizes of Jewish groups are also severely restricted, and unlike Muslims – who can visit whenever they want – Jews are only allowed to ascend the Mount during a few hours each day.

Ross’s group had to wait for over an hour before being allowed entry to the holy site, during which time hundreds of tourists ascended with ease.

In addition the congressman’s son was taken into a private room and body searched to ensure that he wasn’t in possession of any religious paraphernalia.

When asked on camera how he felt about the strange welcome he received, the visibly bewildered Congressman responded: “It’s a little bit of a different reception than what I am used to, but coming from a country that respects freedom of religion we respect what they are doing.”

He also commended the Jewish group for their perseverance and commitment to their own religious freedom at the site.

“It was a great honor to host Congressman Ross and his family on a tour of the Temple Mount, it was unfortunate that he had to witness the duress and harassment that Jewish visitors are subjected to on a daily basis,” Reuven said after the tour.

Striking a defiant tone, Reuven noted that far from scaring Jews off, the Islamist campaign of harassment had only made many Jews more determined to visit the Temple Mount.

Indeed a poll conducted last November – after the attempted assassination of veteran Temple Mount activist Yehuda Glick – showed increased interest in visiting as a direct reaction to Muslim violence there.

“It is important to note that these agitators receive direct payment from extremist Islamic organizations for their efforts to intimidate us, but they will not scare us away. The number Jewish visitors to the site continue to grow,” added Reuven.

The Congressman was in Israel on a one ­week mission arranged by YES! to a Strong Israel.

The organization has brought many other members of Congress to Israel as well, and last year Congressmen Bill Johnson, (R-OH) and David McKinley (R-WV) had a similar experience of their own during a visit to the Temple Mount.

During the trip, Ross also met with Prime Minister Netanyahu, Cabinet Ministers and Members of Knesset, as well as members of the security community. Apart from his tour of Jerusalem and the Temple Mount, he also took part in an IDF tour of sensitive military sites across the country.

7.Freedom Center Launches ‘Jew Hatred on Campus’ Campaign

FRONT PAGE MAG

A new campaign has been launched by the David Horowitz Freedom Center to combat rapidly growing anti-Semitism on college campuses in the United States. The campaign, “Jew Hatred on Campus” aims to educate the public about the anti-Semitic acts occurring throughout the nation’s colleges and universities and calls on university administrators to withdraw campus privileges from the hate groups responsible.

As one of its first initiatives, Jew Hatred on Campus has compiled a list of the 10 U.S. campuses having the worst anti-Semitic activity in 2014. Universities included in the top 10 played host to numerous incidents of anti-Jewish acts, such as Israeli Apartheid Week (a week-long event that demonizes the Jewish state); interrupting university activities by staging mock “checkpoints” on campus; campus speakers that call for the destruction of the Jewish state; and verbal or physical harassment and violence against Jewish and pro-Israel students. These anti-Semitic incidents occur on university property, often with the support of university funds, despite the fact that such behavior is explicitly forbidden under campus codes of conduct.

The top 10 colleges in 2014 cited by the group are shown in the table below. Details on why these institutions made the “Top 10” can be found at http://www.jewhatredoncampus.org/. The David Horowitz Freedom Center plans to contact each of the named institutions to discuss its findings and to offer assistance in helping them to rectify this serious situation. The group plans to update its analysis and publish a similar report naming the worst offenders each year.

“We made the decision to form ‘Jew Hatred on Campus’ to expose anti-Semitic student groups who support or are associated with known terrorist organizations such as Hamas and Hezbollah, and which call for the destruction of the Jewish State,” said Jew Hatred on Campus founder, David Horowitz. “These activities against Jewish and pro-Israel students would not be tolerated by university administrators if they were committed against students from any other ethnic group. But because Jews are the target, they have been largely ignored. It is an obligation of university administrators to recognize and condemn acts of anti-Semitism by campus hate groups and to withdraw campus privileges and university support from them.”

The David Horowitz Freedom Center is an advocacy group that is dedicated to the defense of free societies whose moral, cultural and economic foundations are under attack by enemies both secular and religious, at home and abroad.

Launched in 2015 by the David Horowitz Freedom Center, the Jew Hatred on Campus campaign aims to educate the public on the anti-Semitic acts occurring throughout the nation’s higher learning institutions and calls on administrators to remove campus privileges and university support from hate groups. For more information on the Jew Hatred on Campus campaign, visit http://www.jewhatredoncampus.org/.

Freedom Center Launches ‘Jew Hatred on Campus’ Campaign

8.Rabbi David Saperstein the new US Ambassador for Religious Freedom

Rabbi David Saperstein was sworn in on Friday, Feb 20 as the new US Ambassador for Religious Freedom

· by David Bedein – 5 Adar 5775 (Feb 24, 2015) David Bedein was an invited guest at the ceremony. Here is an essential excerpt of Rabbi Saperstein’s remarks after accepting the appointment.

AMBASSADOR SAPERSTEIN: During my career, my mandate has indeed covered a wide range of issues, but there are few that have been as central to my heart as that of religious freedom, for like most Jews, I know all too well that over the centuries, the Jewish people have been a quintessential victim of religious persecution, ethnic cleansing, and demonization. Indeed, the Bible on which I affirmed the oath today was published at the turn of the century by the Hebrew publishing company owned by – in part by part of my mother’s family and purchased by my great-grandfather, an orthodox rabbi, on my father’s side, both part of families that left Europe looking for refuge, freedom, and opportunity in this great land, which distinctly offered all three. But through too many tragedies we have learned firsthand the cost of universal – to universal rights, security, and wellbeing of religious communities when good people remain silent in the face of persecution.

This is just one key reason why I stand here today, to affirm that I cannot remain silent. When we see historic Christian, Yezidi, other communities in Iraq, from which I have just returned, in Syria being devastated; when we see Baha’is in Iran, Tibetan Buddhists in China, Shia Muslims in Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, Rohingya Muslims in Burma, all victims of governmental or societal discrimination, harassment, persecution, physical attacks, sexual violence, enslavement – even in Western Europe we are witnessing a steady increase in anti-Muslim acts and rhetoric and anti-Semitic discourse and acts of desecration and violence against Jewish individuals, synagogues, and institutions and communities that we thought we would never, never see again after World War II.

Sadly, this list is far from exhaustive, but shows a broad range of serious threats to religious freedom and religious communities in nearly every corner of the globe. I approach my new responsibilities mindful of Dr. Martin Luther King’s warning, who challenged our nation and humanity – is a remarkable Riverside Church speech on Vietnam: “We are now faced with the fact, my friends, that tomorrow is today. We are confronted with the fierce urgency of now. Over the bleached bones and jumbled residues of numerous civilizations are written the pathetic words, ‘Too late.’”

Well we, all of us here, do this work because we are all determined not to be too late. Yet we do this work at a time when forces aligned against religious freedom have grown alarmingly strong. Encouragingly, in many countries such freedoms flourish. Yet in even more countries, religious freedom faces daunting, alarming, growing challenges. According to the Pew Forum, 75 percent of the world’s population lives in countries where religious freedom remains seriously limited and many religious minorities face persecution, intimidation, and harassment. Most vividly, the whole world has witnessed the tragic, violent attacks by ISIL, known as Daesh, against peoples of many faiths – most recently the tragic, tragic targeting of Egyptian Copts in Libya. Even as we must respond to this specific crisis, we will win the battle of freedom only when our long-term goal must be to ensure the internationally recognized right to religious freedom for everyone and every group. It is an urgent task and the needs are great.

And in this spirit, Mr. Secretary, I express to you personally and I believe on behalf of most others here, and to President Obama, my abiding admiration, appreciation for your powerful and eloquent espousal of religious freedom that you have consistently expressed – the extraordinary summit combatting violent extremism that you drove to its culmination this week, and your support for me and for this cause that is shared so strongly by others here – Under Secretary Sarah Sewall, Assistant Secretary for Human Rights Tom Malinowski – is a blessing for this cause. And I am inspired by how talented, dedicated, tireless, and skilled are the staffs of the human rights and religious freedom offices, the latter led so ably by Brian Bachman and Dan Nadel, to whom I owe so much, and the members and staff of the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom, with whom I am blessed to work.

It will not be enough for us to mourn victims of religious persecution or even to condemn the traducers of faith who murder in its name. That just-concluded summit dramatizes America’s role in actualizing, facilitating, coordinating, mobilizing, shaping effective responses, even while learning from the best practices across the globe. And the Inter-Religious Freedom office, the IRF office, must play a key role in this effort.

And towards that end, I stand here to affirm five priorities: To use this position fervently; to advocate for freedom of thought, conscience, and belief; for the rights of individuals to practice, choose and change their faith safely; not only living their faith through worship, but through teaching, preaching, practice, and observance; as well as the right to hold no religious beliefs; and consequently, to seek strongly anti-blasphemy and apostasy laws.

Second, to engage every segment of the State Department and other departments of the United States Government to integrate religious freedom robustly, firmly into our nation’s statecraft. Religious discrimination and marginalization, as the Secretary has said, makes every other job we do here harder, from fighting terror to keeping the peace and enhancing communal stability, to building economic opportunity and upholding democratic values. Conversely, religious freedom tolerance efforts must make robust use of our Administration’s broad communication strategies that you’ve helped shape, and of our indispensable efforts to enhance internet freedom and firewall circumvention since the internet more and more is a highway of faith, more and more an antidote to the isolation and control that persecuting regimes must practice to keep religious minorities in fear and themselves in power. We must work together as a team, and my office is committed to being a valuable part of that team.

Third, to ensure the integrity of the annual International Religious Freedom report to regularize annual reviews of country designations for countries of particular concern which are such key instruments in motivating progress.

Fourth, to elevate the focus of religious freedom in regional and multilateral organizations within the international community at large. With my gifted Canadian counterpart, Ambassador Andrew Bennett, we are committed to mobilizing a contact group of ministers and ambassadors for religious freedom in countries all across the globe – not just in the Western countries but in the Southern Hemisphere as well – to stand for religious freedom, to coordinate and reinforce our common efforts, just as USCIRF has done so effectively in a parliamentarian level.

And finally, to draw on the insights of all of you gathered here today in supporting civil society, including religious communities, in shaping policies that contribute to isolating and delegitimizing extremist religious voices. To this end, I will work closely with my longtime friend Shaun Casey, brilliant, talented leader appointed by Secretary Kerry, to enhance the Department’s engagement with religious issues and communities.

I feel keenly the presence of my parents, so allow me to – who traveled the globe, visiting 80 countries long before jet planes were a norm. How they did it, I will never understand. And they came back and spoke eloquently of religious communities all across the globe.

So allow me to conclude with a personal story. In the summer of 1939, my father traveled throughout Poland and Palestine. He was one of the last to see the glory of European Jewry in full bloom. He visited Danzig, now Gdansk, just days after the Nazis had taken over. He went with enthusiasm to see the magnificent historic main synagogue of this vibrant Jewish community. To his utter dismay, it lay shattered in ruins. Only the portal over what had been the beautiful entrance front doors still stood. On the lawn, there was a sign that had been erected by the Nazis during the campaign which read “Komm lieber Mai und mache von Juden uns jetzt frei – come dear month of May and free us from the Jews.” With a chilling sense of the impending disaster symbolized by this scene, he gazed upward and saw the words – the ancient vision of Malachi, still inscribed over that remaining doorway: “Halo Av echad l’chulanu; halo eyl echad b’ra’anu – have we not all one Father? Has not one God created us? Two visions: one of hatred and tyranny, the other of brotherhood and sisterhood, of unity and peace; one of oppression, the other of freedom; one of darkness and despair, the other of light and hope.” This is a choice we face today.

To the religiously oppressed in every land who live in fear, afraid to speak of their beliefs; who worship in underground churches, mosques, or temples, lest authorities discover and punish their devotion to an authority higher than the state; who languish in prisons, simply because they love God in their own way; who question the existence of God; who feel so desperate that they flee their homes to avoid persecution, indeed, as we have seen so often to avoid simply being killed because of their faith – to all of them, together, you and I here, the State Department, this Administration, the Congress, together our nation can be, must be, will be a beacon of light and hope.

I pray that contributing to the fulfillment of that dream will be my legacy. Bless you all for being here.?

David Bedein

David Bedein (born August 31, 1950) is an MSW, a community organizer by profession, a writer, and an investigative journalist. In 1987 he established the Israel Resource News Agency, with offices at the BeitAgronInt’lPressCenter in Jerusalem. He serves as Director of the Center for Near East Policy Research. Mr. Bedein has also reported for news outlets such as CNN Radio, Makor Rishon, Philadelphia Inquirer, Jerusalem Post, and the Jewish World

Bulletin Feb. 26, 2015

EU survey:

9. Palestinians working for Israelis paid double those working in the West Bank

and triple those in the Gaza Strip http://r20.rs6.net/tn.jsp?f=001Nafnban3t8evPg2KtsybpBKia1RGWpa_UYoyjA4dYA-_W6Le3jiXeFJfxIZLLhQco-C6FhAWBzE6qCtLJzveeWOiAeaSp7dmjIHiS9ran7Sx9QbZ_NLJi4JhWY_SyHRxF5kJUb7uySDB0_ppRA69TvBTNEoyY_WiN5Z6AdpaorGxb_jRurEZsQrYgYV1zheI2GHxgH0MQ0OzxNiGhL7n-gOB1XJE9EGD&c=J2GOC1NAgpmhjBPRHnLeO9g_7K8y1eQoNlrjbY_SRAWZZX_NC94uFg==&ch=pCSAw10c2Ms31Q4gt9i5acum2gOIpnfKgrLy3ziVRVmtSxgfSNCfpA==

by Itamar Marcus and Nan Jacques Zilberdik

A survey conducted by the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics (PCBS) during October-December 2014, and funded by the European Union, shows that Palestinians who work in Israel or Israeli settlements are paid more than double the wage of Palestinians working in the PA-governed areas of the West Bank. In Israel and Israeli settlements, the average daily wage for Palestinians was 194.2 shekels during the period surveyed, while Palestinians working in the PA in the West Bank only earned 91.4 shekels daily. The average wage for Palestinians working for Israelis was triple that of those employed in the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip, who made only 66.1 shekels daily.

The results of this survey match the findings reported by Palestinian Media Watch last September, when the official PA daily lauded Israeli employers for their positive employment ethics towards their Palestinian employees.

Among the paper’s findings then:

“Whenever Palestinian workers have the opportunity to work for Israeli employers, they are quick to quit their jobs with their Palestinian employers – for reasons having to do with salaries and other rights.”

“The [Israeli] work conditions are very good, and include transportation, medical insurance and pensions. These things do not exist with Palestinian employers.”

[Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, Sept. 21, 2014]

The recent PCBS survey stated that the number of Palestinians employed by Israelis was around 105,200 people at the end of 2014, 20,200 of whom were employed in settlements. Around a fourth of the Palestinian work force was unemployed (26.5%). The survey also examined other labor force issues and can be viewed here. PMW | Palestinian Media Watch | Jerusalem | Israel

FREEMAN CENTER BROADCAST FEBRUARY 27, 2014

For Zion’s sake I will not hold my peace and for Jerusalem’s sake I will not rest.” Isaiah 62.

FREEMAN CENTER FOR STRATEGIC STUDIES P.O. Box 35661 * Houston, Texas 77235-5661
* E-mail: bernards@sbcglobal.net OUR WEB SITE < http://www.freeman.org/>

10.The Chamberlainization of Israeli politics by MARTIN SHERMAN JPost.com – 02/26/2015 22:16

The 1993 Oslo Accords, in which Israel agreed to accept the terrorist PLO as a legitimate negotiating partner, was a dramatic discontinuity in the evolution of Zionism.

Rabin, Clinton, and Arafat

We regard the agreement signed last night… as symbolic of the desire of our two peoples never to go to war with one another again… a British prime minister has returned from Germany bringing peace with honor. I believe it is peace for our time.

– Neville Chamberlain, 1938, in wake of signature of the Munich Agreement with Hitler

You were given the choice between war and dishonor. You chose dishonor and you will have war.

– Winston Churchill, 1938, in wake of signature of the Munich Agreement with Hitler

In war, whichever side may call itself the victor, there are no winners… all are losers…. We should seek by all means in our power to avoid war, by analyzing possible causes, by trying to remove them, by discussion in a spirit of collaboration and goodwill… even if it does mean the establishment of personal contact with the dictators. – Neville Chamberlain, 1938

You ask, what is our policy? I will say: It is to wage war, by sea, land and air, with all our might and with all the strength… to wage war against a monstrous tyranny…. You ask, what is our aim? I can answer in one word: victory; victory at all costs, victory in spite of all terror, victory, however long and hard the road may be; for without victory, there is no survival. – Winston Churchill, 1940

Since the late 1960s, following the sweeping military victory of the Six Day War, Israeli politics has been undergoing a malignant metamorphosis. Its progression was gradual, barely perceptible, until the early 1990s, when the metamorphosis mutated into a massive metastasis.

From vaunted virtue to vilified vice

The result has been a stunning sea-change, which has transformed the conduct of the political discourse, the substance of accepted/ acceptable political perceptions, and the assessment of existing/desired political outcomes, making them all virtually unrecognizable relative to those that prevailed decades ago.

The 1993 Oslo Accords, in which Israel agreed to accept the terrorist PLO as a legitimate negotiating partner, was a dramatic discontinuity in the evolution of Zionism.

Indeed, it soon saw a profound transformation of political processes in Israel, in which everything that came after it was qualitatively different – often diametrically opposed – to what came before.

As I noted in my column “Religion of retreat” (June 26, 2014): “Not only did the [Oslo process] grossly distort the founding ethos of Zionism, it inverted its essence and [reversed] the thrust of Zionism’s fundamental principles. What was once vaunted as virtue became vilified as vice – and vice versa.

Thus, it ushered in the previously taboo of Palestinian statehood as an acceptable, even preferred, mainstream policy option.

To justify this ideo-intellectual somersault, its architects began spawning an approach – or rather, a syndrome – that elevated surrender of homeland and abandonment of kin as the loftiest of enlightened values, while denigrating any sign of assertive endorsement of Jewish identity or solidarity as “ethnocratic racism.”

From defiant ‘David’ to compliant ‘Goliath’

Now, almost a quarter-century after the fatal concoction of the noxious Oslowian brew that culminated in the so-called Declaration of Principles (aka Oslo I) on the White House lawn in September 1993, Israel is a vastly different place – not only in terms of outer physical appearance, but in terms of inner spiritual vigor. There appears to be an inverse relationship between the height and opulence of the myriad towering high-rises, springing up in cities all around the country, and the level of national pride and self-esteem Israel conducts itself with in the international arena.

Paradoxically, as the external signs of material success multiply, there seems to be a diminishing belief in the nation’s ability to determine its destiny. The greater the economic prosperity and technological advancement, the less its apparent will to exercise its rights as a sovereign state.

Increasingly, Israel seems to see itself (and allows others to see it) less and less as a diminutive but daringly defiant “David,” and more and more as a compliant “Goliath,” susceptible to pressure, acquiescing to ever-more outrageous demands, plainly detrimental to its national interest, in a frantic effort to avoid appearing intransigent.

But of course, complying with such demands is inevitably counterproductive, for it only whets appetites for further and more far-reaching demands – and heightens impatient expectations that they be complied with, forthwith.

Slippery slope…

In the first volume of his epic series on the Second World War, Winston Churchill, traced the tragic chain of events the Chamberlain government’s policy of appeasement had wrought just prior to the German invasion of Poland: “Look back and see what we had successively accepted or thrown away: a Germany disarmed by solemn treaty; a Germany rearmed in violation of a solemn treaty; air superiority or even air parity cast away; the Rhineland forcibly occupied and the Siegfried Line built or building; the Berlin- Rome Axis established; Austria devoured and digested by the Reich; Czechoslovakia deserted and ruined by the Munich Pact, its fortress line in German hands, its mighty arsenal of Skoda henceforward making munitions for the German armies… the services of 35 Czech divisions against the still unripened German Army cast away… all gone with the wind.”

He lamented the folly and the inevitable consequences of this policy: “… if you will not fight when you can easily win without bloodshed; if you will not fight when your victory will be sure and not too costly; you may come to the moment when you will have to fight with all the odds against you and only a precarious chance of survival…” Sternly, he warned of the “wrong judgments formed by well-meaning and capable people,” who, “however honorable their motives,” would be “blameworthy before history” for facilitating the tragedy he correctly foresaw, resulting from their futile attempts to assuage dictators by accommodating their demands.

Pernicious parallel

Israeli political leaders would do well to heed the lesson to be learned from the catastrophic consequences that continued concession and capitulation culminated in, for a similar process has afflicted Israeli policy in its struggle to contend with its tyrannical Arab adversaries.

This pernicious parallel is thrown into stark relief by Yitzhak Rabin’s final address to the Knesset (October 5, 1995), barely a month before his assassination. In the address, in which he sought parliamentary ratification of the Oslo II Agreement, he laid out his vision for the permanent agreement with the Palestinians.

Repudiating the now well-known Obama prescription, he asserted categorically, “We will not return to the June 4, 1967, lines.”

Rejecting the idea of a sovereign Palestinian state, he declared: “The permanent solution will include a Palestinian entity which will be an entity which is less than a state.”

Rabin then went on to detail some of “the main changes… which we envision and want in the permanent solution.”

On Jerusalem: “First and foremost, a united Jerusalem, including both Ma’aleh Adumim and Givat Ze’ev – as the capital of Israel, under Israeli sovereignty.”

On the Jordan Valley: “The security border of the State of Israel will be located in the Jordan Valley, in the broadest sense of that term.”

On settlements: “Changes which will include the addition of Gush Etzion, Efrat, Betar and other communities, most of which are in the area east of what was the Green Line prior to the Six Day War.”

And perhaps most significantly: “The establishment of [new] blocs of settlements in Judea and Samaria, like the ones in Gush Katif” – the latter subsequently destroyed by Ariel Sharon’s 2005 Gaza disengagement.

Once unthinkable concessions; today policy imperatives As I have pointed out in previous columns (see for example, “A hijacked ‘heritage,’” October 17, 2013) in which I referred to this address, it is remarkable for a number reasons.

First, as mentioned, it was made just prior to his assassination, and as such was his last public prescription for a permanent resolution of the conflict with the Palestinians.

Moreover, not only was it delivered after he had been awarded the Nobel Peace prize and hailed internationally as a “valiant warrior for peace,” it conveyed to the Israeli public the outcome they should expect at the culmination of the Oslo process. Finally, it should be recalled that, at the time, this Oslo-compliant position articulated by Rabin was considered a radical lurch leftward, entailing concessions not only unthinkable prior to his 1992 election, but totally incompatible with the platform he had presented to the voter.

Yet despite all this; despite fact that the Oslo formula as presented by Rabin was considered by much of the electorate as excessively – indeed, unacceptably – concessionary; despite the fact that it was only ratified in the Knesset by the vote of a soon-to-be convicted drug-smuggling fraudster (then- MK Gonen Segev), if, in the present political climate, it was embraced verbatim by Benjamin Netanyahu and his government, they would be dismissed as unreasonable, unrealistic rejectionists.

Thus, by an ongoing process of attrition by the Arabs on the one hand, and capitulation by the Jews on the other, what once were unthinkable concessions became perceived policy imperatives for any conceivable configuration of a resolution of the conflict with the Palestinians.

Uselessness of unctuousness

Predictably, the Oslo-complicit concessions did little to advance the cause of peace or assuage Palestinian grievances. Far-reaching offers, acquiescing to virtually all Palestinians demands, by Ehud Barak and Ehud Olmert were rejected or ignored, only precipitating more violent conflagrations.

Further conciliatory gestures by Netanyahu – his acceptance of Palestinian statehood, the construction freeze in Judea-Samaria, the unrequited release of convicted terrorists – were to no avail – either in advancing substantive accords with the Palestinians or in obviating his image as a rejectionist with the international community.

Last week, The Jerusalem Post’s Sarah Honig, with her usual eloquence and perceptiveness, provided a scathing indictment of the self-obstructive – even self-destructive – obsequiousness that has taken hold of many in the Israeli political establishment, willing to imperil themselves, their people and their country, in a desperate endeavor to avoid angering others.

Focusing on the domestic censure of Netanyahu’s acceptance of the offer to address a joint session of Congress to convey his grave misgivings as to the dangers entailed in the emerging agreement on the Iranian nuclear program, she commented bitterly: “You can take the Jew out of the Diaspora, but not all the Diaspora out of all Jews. Israel’s Left and its media mouthpieces are prime examples.

To hear them, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has unpardonably angered the nobleman from the Oval Office. It was Netanyahu’s duty to obediently… self-destruct to appease his boss.”

It seems Chamberlain is alive and well in influential political circles in Israel.

Selling surrender as strategy

Astonishingly, undeterred by Arab intransigence, the Israeli adherents of the Chamberlainesque policy of political appeasement and territorial withdrawal have now come up with an even more radical proposal in their obsessive and futile pursuit of an unattainable peace accord.

Although many on the Israeli Left have despaired of reaching such an accord through bilateral contacts with the Palestinians, they have now embraced a new and more perilous paradigm – originally named the Saudi Peace Plan, now known as the Arab Peace Initiative.

The initiative is, in effect, a document of surrender to the Arabs, which in erases all the accomplishments of the 1967 Six Day War and even some of the 1948 War of Independence.

It contravenes every single element of Rabin’s previously cited prescription. It demands: (a) Israel return to the 1967 lines – with or without insignificant land swaps (b) the division of Jerusalem, (c) the evacuation of the Golan, and (d) a “just settlement” of the Palestinian refugee “problem.”

In short, it is a transparent blueprint for the staged annihilation of the Jewish state, which makes the fact that almost 200 senior security experts have embraced it – together with the ridiculous notion of a “regional solution” – as a “strategic initiative,” all the more distressing. But more on the Arab Peace Initiative and the “regional solution” in coming weeks.

Historians will be baffled

Allow me to conclude with one more excerpt from Churchill. He warned that “if mortal catastrophe should overtake the British Nation and the British Empire, historians a thousand years hence will still be baffled by the mystery of our affairs. They will never understand how it was that a victorious nation, with everything in hand, suffered themselves to be brought low, and to cast away all that they had gained by measureless sacrifice and absolute victory.”

The same goes for Israel.

Martin Sherman (www.martinsherman.org) is the founder and executive director of the Israel Institute for Strategic Studies. (www.strategicisrael.org)