Dear Family & Friends,

Tonight revel in the gorgeous full moon created by G-d. Have a safe day.

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

2.Bennett: “anyone who thinks we are sitting in a right-wing government is mistaken.”

4.After deadly attacks, Gush Etzion taking no chances on security

5.US officials advise Jewish groups to review security after Paris attacks

6.Israeli envoy to US: Militant Islam, not Islam, is the enemy

8.The ISIS effect in Hebron by Dr. Haim Shine

9.Hamas officials to be paid with formerly Jewish land

10.Rachamim47@aol.com: News Updates today: November 22

11.Barack Obama & the Oslo effect By BERNARD-HENRI LÉVY

‘No gestures to Palestinians until calm is restored’

2.Bennett: “anyone who thinks we are sitting in a right-wing government is mistaken.”

Bennett told private meeting of West Bank party activists how he made Netanyahu reverse talk of unilateral moves: By Stuart Winer & Times Of Israel Staff 11/23/15

Jewish Home party leader Naftali Bennett claimed he forced Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to backtrack on recent comments he made of possible Israeli unilateral pullouts in the West Bank by giving the prime minister a verbal “bullet between the eyes,” Army Radio reported on Monday.

Bennett allegedly made the statement during a private meeting last week with Jewish Home party activists from West Bank settlements. The education minister’s remark prompted fellow party member Agriculture Minister Uri Ariel, sitting alongside him, to caution him to be careful in his choice of language.

“Abroad Bibi talked about unilateral moves; he went back on it after I put a bullet between his eyes,” Bennett reportedly said.

Bennett said. “There will be no unilateral moves as long as I am in the government. I have no intention to be nice when we are talking about a danger to the citizens of Israel.”

Other details of the private meeting first came to light last week, when Army Radio reported that Bennett told the audience “anyone who thinks we are sitting in a right-wing government is mistaken.”

Earlier this month, Netanyahu walked backed a comment he made a day after suggesting that an Israeli unilateral pullout from the West Bank was possible under the right conditions if it had the international community’s backing and fully satisfied Israel’s security concerns.

“The prime minister didn’t speak of a unilateral withdrawal but of the possibility of unilateral steps, specifically those that would strengthen Israel’s security and diplomatic interests in the face of terror,” Netanyahu’s Likud party said in a Hebrew-language statement to the press, some 12 hours after Netanyahu made his remarks during an event at a progressive Washington think tank, the Center for American Progress.

3.Is Israel considering giving land to the PA?

Report says Israel looking into transferring part of Area C to the PA. Minister Ariel: That will cost Netanyahu his coalition. By Nitsan Keidar Arutz Sheva IsraelNationalNews.com 11/25/2015, 1:15 AM

Agriculture Minister Uri Ariel Hadas Parush/Flash 90 Israel is considering the possibility of transferring land from Area C, which is under complete Israeli control in accordance with the Oslo Accords, to the Palestinian Authority, Channel 2 News reported on Tuesday.

Agriculture Minister Uri Ariel later made clear that if Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu goes through with the plan, he will not have a coalition.

According to the report, the Civil Administration is looking into the idea of transferring some 10,000 dunams of land in Area C which are either state-owned land or private Palestinian Arab land that borders Areas A and B.

The move is part of a series of “gestures” that Israel is considering making to the Palestinian Authority.

This plan, which is being examined under the heading “thickening the Palestinian Authority-controlled areas”, has yet to be approved by the Cabinet, but officials in the Civil Administration told Channel 2 it is definitely being examined and formulated.

Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon’s office refused to comment on the report.

Responding to Tuesday evening’s report, Ariel made clear that approval of such a plan could result in the dismantling of Netanyahu’s current coalition.

“Again it is being reported that a ‘gesture’ in the form of transferring land to the PA is being considered. Therefore I will be clear, if Netanyahu goes through with this, his current coalition will fall apart,” tweeted Ariel.

Interestingly enough, news of Israel’s plan came hours after the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee’s Subcommittee on Judea and Samaria held a follow-up discussion regarding the response to illegal Arab construction in Area C.

Representatives of Regavim, an NGO watchdog group for Jewish national property rights, spoke at the discussion saying, “In the region of Ma’ale Adumim (east of Jerusalem – ed.) alone there are around 1,000 illegal structures, and the trend is only building strength.”

MK Moti Yogev (Jewish Home), who heads the committee, said during the discussion that in practice those in enforcement are doing nothing on the subject, both in terms of the operational and the legal aspects of the matter.

“The enforcement on the ground is not being managed equally between Arabs and Jews. In general the construction is directed by the Palestinian Authority mainly on strategic land – E1,” he said, noting a highly important stretch linking Jerusalem and Ma’ale Adumim.

He added that the illegal construction is “funded by the European Union in breach of the Oslo Accords.”

Related Stories

Bennett: Zero tolerance for improper behavior; Why doesn’t Israel stop illegal Arab construction?; Minister demands PM deport terrorists’ families; Tekuma sends ‘ISIS wine’ from Golan to EU envoy, Jewish Home behind Jerusalem building thaw, Jordan: Only we can access Temple Mount cameras, Minister: Keep Arabs off murder road, MKs boycott EU in response to labeling decision; Bennett: We will not agree to any ‘gestures’; Palestinian Authority continues to support terror

4.After deadly attacks, Gush Etzion taking no chances on security Gush Etzion Regional Council tells Arutz Sheva how it’s protecting residents from unrelenting Arab terrorism. By Raphael Poch Arutz Sheva IsraelNationalNews.com First Publish: 11/25/2015, 2:43 PM

Attack site in Gush Etzion (file Gush Etzion Regional Council)

Gush Etzion has been hit by some of the deadliest attacks during the last two months of daily stabbings, car-rammings and shootings by Palestinian terrorists. Most recently, 21-year-old Hadar Buchris of Tzfat was stabbed to death in a brutal attack.

In response, Gush Etzion’s Regional Council is stepping up their efforts to restore calm and a sense of security the area.

Arutz Sheva turned to spokesman Yehuda Shapira, to get a better idea of how precisely his Council hopes to protect residents against the ever-present threat of Arab terrorism.

“We are actively working to increase security everywhere we can in order to restore a sense of calm to the residents,” Shapira told Arutz Sheva. “We are installing security cameras in all of the kindergartens in the region. We are looking after the security of the youth groups during their weekly activities, and we are organizing increased security for a fair on Friday in which local residents will be able to come out and shop with a sense of safety and calm. All of this is in an effort to restore a sense of calm to the residents who live in the area.”

Additionally, the council is holding daily meetings with the heads of the security forces in the area to make sure that the interests of the residents are being heard.

Following Tuesday’s meeting, the council sent out a letter to the Residents making them aware of the new security measures that are being put in place to help restore calm to the area.

Included in the new security measures are increased IDF activity and actions in Arab villages, including night time raids to arrest terrorists, the confiscation of any and all weapons, as well as the closure of radio stations that promote violence in any way, the quick destruction of the homes of terrorists and the revocation of work permits for the family of a terrorist.

In addition to those steps the IDF will also be searching for and arresting individuals who promote hate and terror via online social networks. The IDF will also assign an elite unit to monitor and patrol the intersection and surrounding area at all times, close highway 367 to Palestinian traffic, and set up checkpoints on roads leading to the intersection to enable soldiers to properly check all vehicles for weapons before they arrive at the intersection.

Lastly the IDF has relaxed the protocols limiting the firing of live ammunition at terrorists in the area, thus enabling soldiers to have a quicker response time to any terror activity.

At this time – despite demands by many local residents – the Regional Council said that the IDF is unwilling to close highway 60 (north-south route from Beer Sheva to Nazareth that goes through Judea and Samaria) to Palestinian Arab cars as there are many Palestinians who are not involved in these attacks, and they do not wish to make the situation more difficult for them or to foment more frustration in the current situation.

Likewise, they warn, the removal of Palestinian bystanders from the roadways will only make things easier for the terrorists, and will likely cause an increase in terror activities in the eastern part of Gush Etzion, which is more removed from the highway.

Related Stories

· Gush Etzion moms: Make the terror stop now, Gush Etzion to be revamped for security, Arab attack bystander buried as ‘victim of Israel’, ‘What a Jew you were’, ‘We’ll respond to terror with more settlement’, Murdered yeshiva student identified: Ezra Schwartz, ‘He loved education, and loved his students’, ‘Terrorist bypassed jam, sprayed fire at cars’, Three killed in Gush Etzion shooting attack, Terrorist dies in shootout with IDF

After deadly attacks, Gush Etzion taking no chances on security

5.US officials advise Jewish groups to review security after Paris attacks By JTA JPost.com DIASPORA 1/25/2015 07:56

New ISIS propaganda video threatens attack on White House

‘Lone wolf attackers, not ISIS, pose the biggest threat to America’

“We’re asking Jewish agencies to institutionalize security as a part of the culture,” Homeland Security official says.

New York police officers (illustrative) . (photo credit:REUTERS)

WASHINGTON — Top Department of Homeland Security officials advised Jewish communities to initiate or review security maintenance in the wake of the recent terrorist attacks in Paris.
Some 300 Jewish agencies nationwide joined a conference call on Monday with Alejandro Mayorkas, the deputy secretary, and two other top officials organized by the Secure Community Network, the security outlet for the national Jewish community. SCN’s director, Paul Goldenberg, said the officials briefed 500 to 600 Jewish lay and professional leaders.
Goldenberg said Mayorkas and his aides did not report any specific threat in the United States, but advised the communities on security maintenance.
“If they have not developed security management plans, they need to get those plans,” Goldenberg told JTA. “We’re asking Jewish agencies to institutionalize security as a part of the culture.”
Goldenberg said that training organized by SCN, an arm of the Jewish Federations of North America and the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, would incorporate findings from the Nov. 13 attacks in Paris, where at least 130 people were killed.
Mayorkas explained how even when a primary target is not Jewish, the attackers may seek out Jewish targets in a secondary attack. He noted the attacks in Paris in January, where a satirical magazine that had mocked Islam was the first target; subsequently, attackers targeted a kosher supermarket.
Speakers on the call also reported findings from a recent trip to Israel organized by a number of federations that included police chiefs from those localities. Israeli officials briefed their US counterparts on how to prepare civilian institutions for a terrorist attack.

At ZOA dinner, Ron Dermer says for thousands of years, Islam was more tolerant than Christianity. ‘Jews, of all people, should know this’ TimesOfIsrael.com BY JTA November 23, 2015, 8:11 pm

MORE ON THIS STORY

NEW YORK — Taking center stage at what organizers dubbed an all-star night of Zionist heroes, Israel’s Ambassador to the United States Ron Dermer called on the international community to wage war against “militant Islam,” and simultaneously cautioned his audience against viewing Islam itself as the enemy.

Dermer issued his declaration Sunday night during his keynote address at the annual Louis Brandeis Award Dinner of the Zionist Organization of America. He warned of a global network of diverse Muslim terrorist groups waging a relentless war to create a world where “women are chattel, gays are hanged and minorities are either eliminated or persecute” — and one where Israel and the United States do not exist.

At the same time, Dermer rejected the idea that the “problem is Islam itself.”

“Faiths tend to be very malleable things,” Dermer said. “They get interpreted in different ways at different times. For most of the last 1,400 years, Islam was much more tolerant to minorities than Christianity was. Jews, of all people, should know this.”

[Comment from Sha’i ben-Tekoa in his Facebook 11/24/15

“Ambasador Ron Dermer is dead wrong about Islam being better for the Jews than Christendom. There was not a century without a major persecution in it somewhere and worse, the daily “oppression and humiliation” everywhere. The Koran calls the Jews Believers’ No. 1 enemy, “worse than Christian priests,” and mandates that Jews be “oppressed and humiliated.” And they were.

In Arabic there is no sub-sect called “militant Islam,” and the words “Islamism” and “Islamist” do not exist. They are recent inventions of mostly non-Muslim Western academics for non-scholarly purposes. No good can come from inventing a rosy past that never existed. Comment from Sha’i ben-Tekoa’s Facebook of 11/24/15]

[As Gail Sez: Dermer is more correct with his last statement:]

But in the 21st century, Dermer said, “It is Muslims, not Christians, who are killing Jews in the name of religion.”

Dermer added that just as Nazism quickly came and went in Germany, the Islamic world could change again. “But for that to happen,” he said, “it is not only important to define the enemy, it is important to defeat the enemy.”

The Israeli ambassador then criticized those in the media and the international community who strongly condemn ISIS attacks in Paris but make excuses for Palestinian terrorism against Israel. Dermer did not directly criticize members of the Obama administration, but he did take aim at several of their frequent talking points — rejecting as “drivel” the idea that Palestinian terrorism is in any way fueled by Israeli policy and mocking those who respond to Palestinian attacks with calls for an end to the cycle of violence and restraint on both sides.

Dermer, who received the Dr. Bob Shillman Award for Outstanding Pro-Israel Diplomacy, stopped short of including the Palestinian Authority and its president, Mahmoud Abbas, on his list of Islamic terrorist groups. But ZOA’s president, Morton Klein, did—using his speech to compare Abbas & the PA to ISIS.

Klein in his more than two decades at the helm of ZOA has turned the group into a relentless opponent of the Oslo process, Israeli territorial concessions and a Palestinian state. In addition to accusing Abbas of anti-Jewish incitement, Klein called for a new law requiring the deportation of parents and siblings of terrorists who failed to condemn their relative’s actions in Hebrew and Arabic. He also issued an impassioned call to block the entry of Syrian refugees into the United States, saying many of the refugees hate Jews and Israel.

Other high-profile speakers at the ZOA dinner included casino mogul Sheldon Adelson, a mega-philanthropist and Republican donor; Michele Bachmann, a former congresswoman and GOP presidential candidate; actor Jon Voight; and Danny Danon, Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations.

During his speech, Dermer also praised the ZOA — a frequent critic of the Obama administration — for its dogged defense of Israel, and he hailed Adelson and his wife, Dr. Miriam Adelson, as the “greatest Jewish philanthropists of our time.” Event organizers offered their own tribute to Adelson, hanging a “Heroes of Zionism” banner under the dais with his image alongside seminal Zionist leaders who either laid the groundwork or were directly involved in the creation of the Jewish state — Theodor Herzl, David Ben-Gurion, Zeev Jabotinsky, Edmond De Rothschild, and two previous ZOA presidents, Louis Brandeis and Rabbi Abba Hillel Silver.

Jon Voight, who received the Dr. Miriam and Sheldon Adelson Award, drew large applause — and a standing ovation from Adelson — with his call for a Republican to be elected in 2016. The actor, an ardent defender of Israel, was introduced by Bachmann. The former Minnesota congressman is staunchly pro-Israel, but recently found herself in the middle of controversy after telling a Christian radio show that Christians needed to “share” Jesus with as many people as possible, including Jews, because “he’s coming soon.”

Despite the controversy, Klein introduced Bachmann as part-Margaret Thatcher, part-Esther for her defense of Israel and the Jewish people. Afterward, he told JTA that Bachmann had apologized, explaining that she did not intend for her comments to be widely publicized. Klein defended Bachmann and other evangelical Christians, saying that while they believe the key to salvation for all people, including Jews, is the acceptance of Jesus, they also defend Jews and Israel. Klein said it was no different than how he as a Jew rejects fundamental tenets of the Christian faith. Klein added that he would have a problem if he knew that [Bachmann] was actively trying to convert Jews.

The ZOA’s Louis Brandeis Award went to Jack Halpern, a businessman and philanthropist who has worked to promote Israel’s development of energy sources. His father won the award nearly four decades ago.

Susan Tuchman, the director of ZOA’s Center for Law and Justice, warned of increased harassment of Jewish students on multiple college campuses, citing the organization Students for Justice for Palestine and the calls from some of its leaders for a third intifada. She called on university presidents to condemn SPJ and to hold the group’s members accountable under their schools’ anti-hate and -harassment rules.

The night also featured taped remarks from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Alan Dershowitz, who received the Mort Zuckerman Award for Outstanding Journalism.

A late addition to the program was one of Jonathan Pollard’s attorneys, Eliot Lauer, who lamented what he described as onerous parole conditions facing his client after his release from a federal prison after serving 30 years for spying for Israel.

By PAMELA GELLER on November 20, 2015

OBAMA AND ISLAM OBAMA: POST AMERICAN IMMORALITY

Obama is our worst nightmare. The USA, once the nation that led 40 countries in a “Coalition of the Willing,” is now leading from behind a coalition of the unwilling. Despicable.

France is trying to create a coalition to destroy ISIL, but President Obama isn’t interested
Will the leader of the free world please stand up? By Charles Krauthammer, The Telegraph, 11/20/15

Tell me: What’s a suicide bomber doing with a passport? He’s not going anywhere. And, though I’m not a religious scholar, I doubt that a passport is required in paradise for a martyr to access his 72 black-eyed virgins.

A Syrian passport was found near the body of one of the terrorists. Why was it there? Undoubtedly, to back up the Islamic State boast that it is infiltrating operatives amid the refugees flooding Europe. The passport may have been fake, but the terrorist’s fingerprints were not. They match those of a man who just a month earlier had come through Greece on his way to kill Frenchmen in Paris.

If the other goal of the Paris massacre was to frighten France out of the air campaign in Syria — the way Spain withdrew from the Iraq War after the terror attack on its trains in 2004 — they picked the wrong country. France is a serious post-colonial power, as demonstrated in Ivory Coast, the Central African Republic and Mali, which France saved from an Islamist takeover in 2013.

Indeed, socialist President Francois Hollande has responded furiously to his country’s 9/11 with an intensified air campaign, hundreds of raids on suspected domestic terrorists, a state of emergency and proposed changes in the constitution to make France less hospitable to jihad.

Meanwhile, Barack Obama, titular head of the free world, has responded to Paris with weariness and annoyance. His news conference in Turkey was marked by a stunning tone of passivity, detachment and lassitude, compounded by impatience and irritability at the very suggestion that his Syria strategy might be failing.

The only time he showed any passion was in denouncing Republicans for hardheartedness toward Muslim refugees. One hundred & twenty-nine innocents lie dead but it takes the GOP to kindle Obama’s ire.

The rest was mere petulance, dismissing criticisms of his Syria policy as popping off. Inconveniently for Obama, one of those popper-offers is Dianne Feinstein, the leading Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee. She directly contradicted Obama’s blithe assertion, offered the day before the Paris attack, that the Islamic State (aka ISIL) was contained and not gaining strength. “I have never been more concerned,” said Feinstein. “ISIL is not contained. ISIL is expanding.”

Obama defended his policy by listing its multifaceted elements. Such as, “I hosted at the United Nations an entire discussion of counterterrorism strategies and curbing the flow of foreign fighters.” An “entire” discussion, mind you. Not a partial one. They tremble in Raqqa.

“We have mobilised 65 countries to go after ISIL.” Yes & what would we do without Luxembourg?

Obama complained of being criticised for not being bellicose enough. But the complaint is not about an absence of bellicosity but about an absence of passion, of urgency and of commitment to the fight. The air campaign over Syria averages seven strikes a day. Seven.

In Operation Desert Storm, we flew 1,100 sorties a day. Even in the Kosovo campaign, we averaged 138. Obama is doing just enough in Syria to give the appearance of motion, yet not nearly enough to have any chance of success.

Obama’s priorities lie elsewhere. For example, climate change, which he considers the greatest “threat to our future.” And, of course, closing Guantánamo. Obama actually released five detainees on the day after the Paris massacre. He is passionate about Guantánamo.

It’s a great terrorist recruiting tool, he repeatedly explains. Obama still seems to believe that — even as the Islamic State has produced an astonishing wave of terrorist recruitment with a campaign of brutality, butchery and enslavement filmed in living color. Who can still believe that young Muslims are leaving Europe to join the Islamic State because of Guantánamo?

“For 11 post-World War II presidencies, coalition leading has been the role of the United States. Where is America today? Awaiting the next President”

Obama’s other passion is protecting Islam from any possible association with “violent extremism.” The Islamic State is nothing but “killers with fantasies of glory.” Obama can never bring himself to acknowledge why these people kill and willingly die: to advance a radical Islamist millenarianism that is purposeful, indeed eschatological — and appealing enough to have created the largest, most dangerous terrorist movement on earth.

Hollande is trying to gather a real coalition to destroy the Islamic State, even as Obama touts his phony 65. For 11 post-World War II presidencies, coalition leading has been the role of the United States. Where is America today? Awaiting a president. The next president.

– See more at: http://pamelageller.com/2015/11/france-is-trying-to-create-a-coalition-to-destroy-isil-but-president-obama-unwilling.html/#sthash.fxMSWK5x.dpuf

Gaza Strip’s Hamas government decides to compensate officials whose wages or severance payments have been delayed by allotting them land once part of Gush Katif, evacuated by Israel in 2005 • Fatah enraged, says move constitutes “unparalleled corruption.”

By Daniel Siryoti and Israel Hayom Staff

The Hamas government in the Gaza Strip has reportedly begun allotting plots of land evacuated by Israel in 2005 to officials whose wages have been delayed.

According to Palestinian sources, Hamas Finance Minister Ziad al-Zaza announced Sunday that officials who served in the Gazan parliament before the formation of the 2014 Fatah-Hamas unity government who are still waiting for wages or severance pay will be given land as compensation.

All the land included in Hamas’ remuneration plan was once part of Gush Katif, the bloc of 21 Israeli communities in the southern Gaza Strip that was home to 8,600 Israelis before August 2005, when the communities were evacuated & the homes razed in Israel’s unilateral disengagement from Gaza.

Hamas’ decision to divvy up the land enraged Fatah officials in Ramallah, who said the move constitutes “unparalleled corruption,” and urged the Palestinian people “to come together and oppose the division of Gaza’s lands to [Hamas] cronies.”

Since the Fatah-Hamas unity government was formed in 2014, the Ramallah-based Fatah government has been paying Gaza-based Hamas officials’ wages, but Fatah has so far refused to dole out severance pay for some 40,000 Hamas government officials who were dismissed.

10.Rachamim47@aol.com: News Updates today: November 22

Former politician helps neutralize terrorist on Har Gerizim: http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/203741#.VlF5ZfkrKM8

Sunday is starting as a terror day after the above incident-possible shooting on or near Kfar Adumim, http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/203744#.VlHPBvkrKM8

Stabbing or attempted stabbing near Yerushalayim. Victim OK. http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/203741#.VlHO8_krKM8

In the third attack the victim and murderer both die. http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/203760#.VlHOXfkrKM8

Kiriat Gat attacker from Chevron and two helpers caught after a building to building manhunt with police and troops. http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4728871,00.html

From Shona. The US is part of NATO yet refuses to help France because of POTUS. http://pamelageller.com/2015/11/france-is-trying-to-create-a-coalition-to-destroy-isil-but-president-obama-unwilling.html/

From the following blog, Boko Haram gassed 105 Nigerian Soldiers to death: http://fredlinaonyekachi.blogspot.co.il/2015/11/army-division-of-105-nigerian-soldiers.html

From Shona the verse in the Koran 5:32 is what Allah ordained for the Jews if you read it. 5:33 for Muslims is to cut off their hands and feet and crucify them but only part of the first verse is quoted by what G. W. Bush called “The religion of peace” and the quote is out of context and describes Jews. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ur7Ttz0q0o4 Other videos of this man are pure Christianity and perhaps missionizing.

Foiled terror attack in Chevron woman with knife stopped: http://www.jpost.com/Arab-Israeli-Conflict/Security-forces-foil-suspected-stabbing-attack-in-Hebron-arrest-Palestinian-woman-with-knife-434851

Another incitement radio station shut down: http://www.jpost.com/Arab-Israeli-Conflict/Joint-military-operation-shuts-down-Hebron-radio-due-to-incitement-434842

Another driving attack or smuggling weapons or bombs attack: http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/203713#.VlCf9fkrKM8

Belgistan wakes up a bit late in the game to the chemical terror attack threat. I was told years ago by Jews there not to visit. http://www.foxnews.com/world/2015/11/21/belgium-raises-terror-alert-to-highest-level-in-brussels/?intcmp=hpbt1

In Cameroon 6 died from an explosive device set off by members of “the religion of peace” and Israeli died in the Mali attack: http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4728789,00.html

11.Barack Obama & the Oslo effect By BERNARD-HENRI LÉVY 11/23/2015 20:51

· A yellow star for the Jewish state?

Things we need to stop hearing about the ‘stabbing intifada’

No questions today are as essential or as agonizing as these.

We are at war, declared François Hollande before a joint session of the French legislature.
We are at war, Hollande’s prime minister, Manuel Valls, has repeated at every opportunity.
But there is a complication.
Hollande and Valls have emphasized that this war is a double one to be waged against a single enemy that has split into two.

The domestic front passes through sidewalk cafes, football stadiums & concert halls of Paris, & through safe houses in Saint Denis & Molenbeek (Belgium) where infiltrated fighters hide & wait.
But the principal front is abroad. It passes through Raqqa, Mosul and other cities in Iraq and Syria where the barbaric enemy obtains its weapons, collects its marching orders, and learns – in training camps that the West allowed to proliferate for much too long – the art of the new and horrifying war against civilians.

Kurdish Women Battle Islamic State.. (photo credit:REUTERS)

Acknowledging that this second front is the more decisive does not imply that destroying Islamic State (IS) will suffice to conjure away all of the more or less dormant cells that have been set up and are ready to strike in the great cities of France and Europe.
But it does mean without any doubt that because the resources and command centers of those cells are in IS’s territory, striking at the beast’s head would deprive them of much of their power. Can one combat the effect without attacking the cause? Shut down a subsidiary without dealing with the home office?

Cure cancer by targeting the metastases while allowing the primary tumor to grow? How, then, can one avoid the conclusion that peace in Paris can be won only through war in Mosul? Or, more to the point, that the war against IS cannot be won in the streets of Paris or any city tormented by an invisible, unpredictable enemy ever ready to strike, but only on the plains of Iraq and Syria where that enemy is simultaneously visible, easy to target, and vulnerable? Against this common-sense argument are marshalled three forces of varying intensity.
First, there is the appeasement reflex of those who, reversing the sequence of causality, never tire of repeating that the Islamists come after us because we have gone after them. This is an ignorant and shameful argument akin to the one used by the French pacifists of the 1930s, an argument that aligns with the cynical rhetoric of the assassins and their despicable communiqués.
Second, there is the old argument that was served up to us 20 years ago with regard to the Serbian army, then alleged to be the world’s third largest, and that now consists of scaring the Western public with stories of the all-powerful and nearly invincible legion that dismembered Iraq and Syria and that is now trying to draw us ineluctably into another quagmire.

If that were true, how is it that the Kurds, who for the moment are the only force facing the enemy on the ground, prevail decisively in every battle they wage? How does one account for the fact that in Kirkuk and, more recently, in Sinjar, the beheaders bolted without a fight in the face of the determination and bravery of the poorly armed Peshmerga? And, by the way, what has happened to the purported “stocks of tanks and artillery” that the fanatics made off with after the rout of the Iraqi army, stocks of weapons that were supposed to make any form of intervention except air-strikes much too risky?

Why did we not see those weapons used in Kobani or, last week, in the battle that liberated the Yazidi capital?

Why has IS not shelled the Peshmerga’s lines instead of continuing to use the same antediluvian suicide trucks? The answer is that these arsenals were destroyed, reduced to silence, or paralyzed by coalition aircraft and that IS is no longer anything but a paper tiger.
And, third, there is the reticence of Barack Obama, who appears to be more and more visibly haunted by what one is tempted to call the Oslo effect in reference to the Nobel Peace Prize that was conferred on him in the early days of his first term. In the manner of Victor Hugo taking himself for Victor Hugo and Sartre’s cafe waiter who liked to pretend he was a real cafe waiter, the president of the world’s most powerful nation, the man without whom little will be possible and whose determination, therefore, is at least as important as that of François Hollande and David Cameron, seems to be asking himself each morning, while shaving, how a real winner of the Nobel Peace Prize should act. When will the president of the United States realize that, faced with an enemy that has declared war on civilization, the time for narcissistic moralizing is over?

When will he grasp how disastrous it would be to leave a legacy in which a Nazi-like state was allowed to take root where it wished, while it was still possible to eradicate it if the decision had been made to do so.

Will he hear the plea for help that a grieving France is making to its eternal ally? Will he see that today, as in 1917 and 1941, his country has a rendezvous with Europe?
What has become of the young Obama who explained to me with perfect clarity, when I met him in Boston in 2003, the differences between the absurd war in Iraq and a politically just, morally justified war, the first principle of which must be not to compound an evil but to curb it? No questions today are as essential or as agonizing as these.
Translated by Steven B. Kennedy.

12.The kinetic religion of Islam by Barry Shaw

Remaining and expanding is the motto of Islam, not just ISIS. And it drives the Palestinian Arabs. Arutz Sheva IsraelNationalNews.com Published: Wednesday, November 25, 2015 6:53 AM

Barry Shaw is the Senior Associate for Public Diplomacy at the Israeli Institute for Strategic Studies. He is also the author of ‘Fighting Hamas, BDS and Anti-Semitism.’

Most people are unaware that the driving motto of ISIS (Islamic State) is ‘baqiya wa tatamaddad,’ which stands for ‘remaining and expanding.’

Both these elements must be understood to really understand not only ISIS but Islam generally.

The ‘remaining’ component is the establishment of a presence and strengthening this base. This includes centering a population, constructing a mosque, educational facilities and official institutes. This requires effort, financing and resources to turn it into solid Launchpad from which to expand to other locations which must be controlled and fortified before spreading out to the next stage of the expansion. This can be done militarily or peacefully, depending on the political environment into which Islam intends to expand.

This then is the kinetic energy, indeed the driving force of Islam in all its forms. It is far from being limited to ISIS.

The point that Western policy-makers fail to grasp is that ISIS is only a symptom of a wider malady, just as Al-Qaeda s before it. If it were an isolated cell it would be relatively simple in military terms to apply sufficient force to eliminate it.

The misunderstanding comes when ISIS, Al-Qaeda or other Muslim terror groups retaliate against Western targets (as opposed to their ongoing battles against non-Western targets) it is too often construed as a rebuttal against what we have done to them. It is not. It is an angry response to our interference of their intended expansion into our territory.

It has to be remembered that what we see, in all forms of Muslim-based violence (even in cases where it is not perpetrated officially in the name of Islam), is exactly a modern-day, Muslim-inspired crusade.

What was done on the name of Christ is now being done in the name of Mohammed or Allah.
It is their version of the Christian/Catholic crusades that not only set out to conquer the Holy Land, slaughtering non-believers along the way. It also drove out and slaughtered the Jews of Spain, Portugal, Britain and other European countries. It conquered and converted much of Africa, Central and South America, and spread into Asia.

What was done on the name of Christ is now being done in the name of Mohammed or Allah.

In today’s world, we can see the jihadi agenda in both the Sunni and Shia factions of Islam.

Sunni countries such as Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Kuwait openly promulgate Wahhabism and Dawa (the promotion of Islam) throughout the West. Recently, I saw it being done on busy Oxford Street in the heart of London. This too is an integral part of tatamaddad, expanding the Caliphate.

It is known in Islamic circles as Dar-al-Islam (the House of Islam) replacing Dar-al Harb (the House of War.) Any land not under Shariah law is considered Dar al-Harb.

Iran is the global leader on the Shiite world. It’s promotion of tatamaddad can be seen in its state-sponsored terrorism as it supplies and supports its global proxies including the Houthis in Yemen, Hezb’Allah in Lebanon and even non-Shia Hamas in Gaza because Hamas fights a shared enemy – Israel.

It is in this light that we can see the aim of the Palestinian Arab leadership. Although they hide their aim for the staged destruction of Israel behind a secular nationalistic mask, this mask often slips revealing the real face of the Palestinian cause, which is steeped in radical Islamic terms.

One only has to glance at the Hamas Charter to be appalled at the heavy tome of Jew-hating incitement to murder and genocide.

“Oh Muslim! There’s a Jew hiding behind me. Come out and kill him!”

This Article 7 can hardly be called a call for Palestinian independence. It can only be defined as anti-Semitic rhetoric couched in Islamic terms.

This incitement is also found in the opposing Fatah party’s manifesto as well as in the P.L.O. founding documents.

If further proof was needed that the Palestinian movement is not based in Jew-hating Islamic-inspired incitement to murder, the words that came out of the mouth of Palestinian Authority leader, Mahmoud Abbas and into all elements of Palestinian life, words that were based on an ancient blood-libel that the Jews were destroying the Temple Mount, removed all lingering doubts. This incitement came with an unmistakable call to spill Jewish blood.

“The blood of the martyrs spilled on the Temple Mount is pure.”

Nobody can convince this author that the ultimate aim of the Palestinian movement is not the destruction of the Jewish state which is viewed as an abomination throughout the Muslim world.

As such, it is an integral and inseparable element in the Islamic call for tatamaddad, an expansion of the Muslim world leading, eventually, to a global Caliphate.

Barry Shaw is the Senior Associate for Public Diplomacy with the Israel Institute for Strategic Studies. He is also the author of ‘Fighting Hamas, BDS and Anti-Semitism.’ www.barrysbooks.info

The kinetic religion of Islam by Barry Shaw

Israeli Ambassador to the U.N. Danny Danon slams international community for hypocrisy on terrorism • “If the U.N. wants to play a constructive role, it must get a grip on reality and hold the Palestinians accountable,” he says. By Shlomo Cesana and Israel Hayom Staff

Israel Ambassador to the UN, Danny Danon holds up a picture of Israel’s recent victims of Islamic TerrorismIU

Phot Speaking as the U.N. marked the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People on Monday, Israeli Ambassador to the U.N. Danny Danon slammed the international community for its hypocrisy on terrorism.

“This is a shameful day for the U.N.,” Danon said. “Instead of issuing a clear and categorical statement denouncing all acts of terror, this institution has granted legitimacy to Palestinian terror.

“The heinous murder of 20 innocent Israelis, just because they are Israelis, is no different than the cruel massacre of innocents in France. Terror is terror is terror, and it must be fought against, not justified. Terror has no borders and we must fight it wherever we find it, whether it is Hamas in Gaza, Palestinian terror in the streets of Israel, or ISIS attacks in the streets of Europe.

“These terrorist attacks and killings are a direct result of incitement. Palestinian officials continue to use inflammatory rhetoric and dangerous incitement, intensifying this wave of terror against Israeli civilians. If the U.N. wants to play a constructive role, it must get a grip on reality and hold the Palestinians accountable.

Demand that the Palestinians leaders cease their incitement to violence. Insist that [Palestinian Authority] President [Mahmoud] Abbas finally, finally respond to Prime Minister [Benjamin] Netanyahu’s repeated calls to negotiate. And make it clear that peace will only come once the Palestinians accept that Israel is the home of the Jewish people.”

14.Obama gets ‘verklempt’ awarding Medal of Freedom to Streisand, Spielberg By REUTERS JPost.com 11/25/2015 10:45

Group of heavyweight Hollywood Jews expresses public support for Iran deal

Schindler’s List producer takes on Hollywood’s most prominent Jews over Iran deal

Singer and actress Barbra Streisand and filmmaker Steven Spielberg were among 17 Americans who received the honor at a ceremony at the White House.

President Barack Obama awarded the nation’s highest civilian honor, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, to a star-studded list of Americans at the White House on Tuesday in honor of their accomplishments in public service, entertainment and sports.
“Off the stage, [Streisand has] been a passionate advocate for issues like heart disease and women’s equality,” Obama said in his opening statement. “I’m getting all verklempt just thinking about it,” the president quipped in Yiddish.
Hollywood legendary Jewish director Steven Spielberg was the next recipient of the prestigious award, recognized for his contributions to American cinema.
“His story has shaped America’s stories, and his values have shaped our world,” said Obama of the famous Hollywood director. “Steven’s films are marked, most importantly, by a faith in our common humanity. The same faith in humanity that led him to create the Shoah foundation, and lend a voice to survivors of genocide around the world.”
(Photo: Reuters)
Other honorees included Grammy Award-winning Cuban-American singer Gloria Estefan, Stephen Sondheim and singer James Taylor the White House said.
Award-winning Jewish-Israeli conductor Itzhak Perlman was also a recipient of the Medal of Freedom award. (Photo: Reuters)
Bonnie Carroll, known for her work with veterans, was also honored, as was long-serving Democratic Maryland Senator Barbara Mikulski, former Indiana Democratic Congressman Lee Hamilton, NASA mathematician Katherine G. Johnson, and former Environmental Protection Agency head William Ruckelshaus.
Posthumous honors were given to New York Yankee catcher Yogi Berra, African American trail-blazing Congresswoman Shirley Chisholm, Indian treaty rights advocate Billy Frank, Jr., and Japanese-American civil rights activist Minoru Yasui.

· THE TOWER MAGAZINE

· Briefing Book: ‘Surrender in Vienna: Iran Nuclear Deal’

15.State Dept: Nuclear Deal Is Unsigned & Not “Legally Binding” on Iran

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Iran

by TheTower.org Staff | 11.25.15 10:57 am

The State Department acknowledged that the nuclear deal with Iran is not a binding agreement, but rather a set of “political commitments,” the National Review reported Wednesday. The admission was made in response to an inquiry from Rep. Mike Pompeo (R – Kan.).

“The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) is not a treaty or an executive agreement, and is not a signed document,” wrote Julia Frifield, the State Department assistant secretary for legislative affairs, in the November 19 letter.

Frifield wrote the letter in response to a letter Pompeo sent Secretary of State John Kerry, in which he observed that the deal the president had submitted to Congress was unsigned and wondered if the administration had given lawmakers the final agreement.

Frifield’s response emphasizes that Congress did receive the final version of the deal. But by characterizing the JCPOA as a set of “political commitments” rather than a more formal agreement, it is sure to heighten congressional concerns that Iran might violate the deal’s terms.

“The success of the JCPOA will depend not on whether it is legally binding or signed, but rather on the extensive verification measures we have put in place, as well as Iran’s understanding that we have the capacity to re-impose — and ramp up — our sanctions if Iran does not meet its commitments,” Frifield wrote to Pompeo.

Reacting to the State Department’s letter, Pompeo released a statement, saying, “unsigned, this agreement is nothing more than a press release and just about as enforceable.” Pompeo also called on Congress to “stand ready, willing, and unified in combating aggression by a regime who continues to view America as the ‘Great Satan’ and has been emboldened by this deal.”

The administration’s view of the nuclear agreement contrasts sharply with Iran’s. In a letter published this March, Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif argued that the United Nations Security Council’s ratification of the deal would effectively bind the United States to its terms. “If the next administration revokes any agreement with the stroke of a pen, as they boast, it will have simply committed a blatant violation of international law,” he wrote.

Notably, since the deal was signed, President Hassan Rouhani and other Iranian officials have conversely stated that Iran is not bound by U.N. Security Council resolutions.

[Photo: UNVIE U.S. Mission To International Organizations in Vienna / Flickr ]

· THE TOWER MAGAZINE

· Briefing Book: ‘Surrender in Vienna: Iran Nuclear Deal’

16.Surge in Iranian Cyber-Attacks on U.S. Officials Prompts Congress to Boost Security Measures

by TheTower.org Staff | 11.25.15 12:55 pm

A spike in Iranian hacking attacks on U.S. State Department officials has prompted Congress to boost the military’s ability to counter cyber-security threats, The New York Times reported Wednesday.

James Clapper, the director of national intelligence, informed Congress in closed sessions that state-backed Iranian hackers “were stepping up traditional cyberespionage, and getting better at it,” according to the Times. James Lews, a cyber-security expert, added that the Iranians “are getting far more aggressive in cyber-espionage, which they know is less likely to prompt a response from the United States.”

In a defense bill passed earlier this month, Congress instructed the United States Cyber Command to counter these breaches by carrying out computer war games “to replicate the threats from China, Iran, North Korea and Russia.”

The Times noted that private security researchers first discovered that Iranian hackers were targeting political dissidents, as well as top policy makers and military officials in the United States, Britain, and Israel, last May. The attacks peaked in May of this year, right before the nuclear negotiations in Vienna, with more than 1,500 attempts. In the months leading up to the nuclear deal, the researchers found evidence that Iranian hackers “began probing critical infrastructure networks in what appeared to be reconnaissance for cyberattacks meant to cause physical damage.”

When reports that Iranian hackers were targeting State Department employees first broke several weeks ago, U.S. officials said that the attacks may be linked to the arrest in Tehran of Iranian-American businessman Siamak Namazi, whose computer was confiscated by Iranian authorities.

Earlier this month, European officials shut down the operations of an Iranian hacking group after receiving information on their activities from an Israeli cyber-security firm. A scheme by Iranian hackers to get sensitive information from professionals in the defense and telecommunications industries using fake LinkedIn profiles was discovered and shut down in October.

The New York Times revealed in February that the United States had enlisted the help of its allies, including Britain and Israel, to confront the escalating threat of Iranian cyber-attacks. A report released last year by cyber-security firm Cylance highlighted Iran’s growing cyber-terror capabilities, including “bone-chilling evidence” that its hackers had taken control of gates and security systems at airports in South Korea, Saudi Arabia, and Pakistan.

Iran’s cyber-attacks are not just directed at other countries and individuals abroad, but also its own citizens. Massive attacks on Iranian Google accounts were detected prior to the presidential election two years ago as part of a broader crackdown on dissent.

In Iran Has Built an Army of Cyber-Proxies, which was published in the August 2015 issue of The Tower Magazine, Jordan Brunner explained how Iran became one of the world’s leading forces in cyber-warfare:

Iran is adept at building terrorist and other illicit networks around the world. Its cyber-capabilities are no different. It uses the inexpensive method of training and collaborating with proxies in the art of cyber-war. It may also have collaborated with North Korea, which infamously attacked Sony in response to the film The Interview. It is possible that Iran assisted North Korea in developing the cyber-capability necessary to carry out the Sony hack. While acknowledging that there is no definite proof of this, Claudia Rosett of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies raised the question in The Tower earlier this year.

More importantly, Iran is sponsoring the cyber-capabilities of terrorist organizations in Lebanon, Yemen, and Syria. The first indication of this was from Hezbollah. The group’s cyber-activity came to the attention of the U.S. in early 2008, and it has only become more powerful in cyberspace since then. An attack that had “all the markings” of a campaign orchestrated by Hezbollah was carried out against Israeli businesses in 2012.

Lebanon’s neighbor, Syria, is home to the Syrian Electronic Army (SEA), which employs cyber-warfare in support of the Assad regime. There are rumors that indicate it is trained and financed by Iran. The SEA’s mission is to embarrass media organizations in the West that publicize the atrocities of the Assad regime, as well as track down and monitor the activities of Syrian rebels. It has been very successful at both. The SEA has attacked media outlets such as The Washington Post, the Chicago Tribune, the Financial Times, Forbes, and others. It has also hacked the software of companies like Dell, Microsoft, Ferrari, and even the humanitarian program UNICEF.

Surge in Iranian Cyber-Attacks on U.S. Officials Prompts Congress to Boost Security Measures

17.8-year-old stumbles on First Temple-era archaeological find

Itai Halperin, 8, and the head of an Iron Age statuette he found while walking near Tel Beit Shemesh. (Arik Halperin, courtesy of Israel Antiquities Authority)

Ilan Ben Zion is a news editor at The Times of Israel. He holds a Masters degree in Diplomacy from Tel Aviv University and an Honors Bachelors degree from the University of Toronto in Near and Middle Eastern Civilizations, Jewish Studies, and English.

IAA ISRAEL ANTIQUITIES AUTHORITY, ARCHAEOLOGY IN ISRAEL, BIBLICAL ARCHAEOLOGY

An Israeli boy’s dream to be like Indiana Jones when he grows up came true ahead of schedule during a recent visit to the Tel Beit Shemesh archaeological site with his family.

Itai Halperin, 8, of Pardesiya, was walking around the biblical site with his family last week when he picked up a small ceramic object which, upon closer examination, turned out to be a 3,000-year-old head of a figurine, the Israel Antiquities Authority announced on Wednesday.

he family immediately reported the find to the IAA.

ai said he recently saw an Indiana Jones film and wanted to grow up to be an archaeologist. The IAA commended Itai and rewarded him by inviting his class to take part in an IAA excavation. The head of an Iron Age statuette found by an 8-year-old while walking near Tel Beit Shemesh. (Alexander Glick, courtesy of Israel Antiquities Authority)

Alon De Groot, an Iron Age specialist with the IAA, identified the find as the head of a fertility goddess statuette.

“Figurines such as these, in the shape of naked women representing fertility, were common in the homes of the residents of the Judean Kingdom in the 8th century BCE and until the destruction of the kingdom by the Babylonians in the days of Zedekia (in 586 BCE),” De Groot said in a statement.

Statuettes such as these help identify sites as Judean, he noted.

“It’s no coincidence that a statuette like this was found atop Tel Beit Shemesh, next to a residential quarter from the First Temple period,” Anna Eirich, an IAA archaeologist in the region, said in a statement.

During the Iron Age, Tel Beit Shemesh was a large Judean city & a major industrial center, she said. It was ruined by the Assyrian army in 701 BCE & finally destroyed by the Babylonians in 586 BCE.