Dear Family & Friends,

A very big news day! 18 interesting news items. Many in depth. Esp. about the process of selecting & ‘wrangling’ Avigdor Liberman as Defense Minister. I thought the Ben Caspit ‘analysis’ #1 was a bit snarky but, if true, it does humanize the unknowable system. #6 re: Synagogues becoming mosques was very alarming!

#10. Mark Langfan, as usual, gives a superb commentary on the Big Lie re: Iran Nuke Deal & the 2-State Solution: Both are designed as the ‘Ultimate Final Solution’ to the so-called World’s Jewish Problem!?! Always, Caroline Glick in #12 hits the nail in Fruits of Subversion. #14.Obama got JStreet more than $500,000 to Promote his Iran Deal – Outrageous! The remaining are just plain interesting & Dry Bones is to lighten the load.

I had 2 lovely family parties – for Shabbat & today – for my Birthday. Thanks all!

The Full Moon just peeked out at me! Have a soft night & a cooler day tomorrow.

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

1.Elkin the fox wrangles Liberman through his glass ceiling By Ben Caspit

2.Moshe Ya’alon’s public trashing of Netanyahu harms Israel worldwide – Moshe Ya’alon should not have spoken to world media against Netanyahu & the IDF

3. Comptroller Draft Reports Ya’alon Brazenly Refused to Attack Hamas Tunnels

4.Ya’alon Uses Last Crumbs of Authority to Lock Out HaBayit HaYehudi Deputy

8.Dry Bones by Ya’acov Kirschen “Class of 2016”

9. Report: Arab countries willing to change peace initiative

10.Iran Deal & 2-State Solution: One ‘Big Lie” serves another By Mark Langfan

12.The Fruits of Subversion By Caroline B. Glick

13.Defending Martin Sherman At Jerusalem Post By Ted Belman

1.Elkin the fox wrangles Liberman through his glass ceiling By Ben Caspit

JPost.com 05/19/2016 21:10

· Column One: The Koch Brothers meet the crackpots by Caroline Glick Editor’s notes: Redrawing Sykes-Picot

Liberman is a man who is easily bored. He has to be constantly in motion. He needs action. Even if he doesn’t admit it, he has lost interest.

Yisrael Beytenu chief Avigdor Liberman. (photo credit:Marc Israel Sellem/The Jerusalem Post)

On Wednesday a secret cabinet meeting was convened in the deep fishbowl that is the Prime Minister’s office. Present were PM Benjamin Netanyahu, Defense Minister Moshe “Boogie” Ya’alon, Transportation and Intelligence Minister Israel Katz, Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked and several security officials.
Two hours earlier, Avigdor Liberman had announced at a press conference that there was a basis to negotiate Yisrael Beytenu’s joining the government following a “respectable proposal” that included the Defense portfolio.
He was still talking when Netanyahu called him to an urgent meeting. Meanwhile, the security cabinet had convened and Netanyahu found himself facing the still alive and kicking incumbent defense minister, Boogie Ya’alon.

Ya’alon said nothing. Uncharacteristically, he took no part in the debate, & even when, toward the end, Netanyahu asked if he wished to add anything he said, “No, I don’t.”
Bibi closed the debate and the participants started to leave the cabinet room, adjacent to the PM’s office, both of them inside the fish bowl. Whom did they encounter outside, lounging calmly in an armchair and awaiting his turn, but Avigdor Liberman. Between him and Boogie – he on the way out and he on the way in, there was obvious dislike.
At that stage, Ya’alon had not internalized that it was happening. That it was possible. That it’s real. That a possibility exists that Netanyahu would dispose of him and replace him with his nemesis, Liberman, the man, who weeks earlier had called the PM a “liar” and a “crook” and various other succulent words of abuse.

Ya’alon had suppressed this wacko possibility. He would soon learn it was absolutely true.
Two conflicting forces had been at work during recent weeks in efforts to join the government. On the one hand, the Labor/Zionist Union, led by Isaac Herzog/Eitan Cabel, who were pushed from behind by international forces, mainly Tony Blair, former British prime minister, Egyptian President Sisi and additional regional and European leaders.
Against them stood hawks from the Likud and senior activists in Judea and Samaria, who recognized the trouble they were in if this happened. The currently restricted building in the territories would dwindle further, budgets would disintegrate; life would become hard.
Heading this group was super-strategist Minister Ze’ev Elkin, one of the more efficient of Israel’s politics foxes. Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked assisted him. Further backup was provided by fieldworkers such as Samara Council chairman Yossi Dagan and other regional council heads.
At the head of these was one Avigdor Liberman, without whom nothing would have happened. Liberman is unpredictable. He can do an about turn in lightning speed. Everyone who spoke to him in recent months is aware of his intense disdain and resentment for Netanyahu. No one in the world knows Bibi better than Liberman does; nowhere does anyone have less respect for Bibi.
But there is also another side.
Liberman is a man who is easily bored. He has to be constantly in motion. He needs action. He has exhausted the pleasures of life in the opposition. Even if he doesn’t admit it, he has lost interest. How many insults can he hurl at Bibi? His prophesies of doom for Netanyahu’s fourth government did not materialize. What should he do in the meantime? Liberman knew that for him the Foreign Ministry had constituted the glass ceiling.
On being appointed director-general of the Prime Minister’s Office after Netanyahu’s big victory in 1996, Liberman said that Israel was the real land of unlimited opportunities.
Here he was, a young immigrant from Moldova, with the bearing of a communist, a thick Soviet accent and the manners of a wild boar, being given the keys to the Prime Minister’s Office. Two years later he returned the keys, when he realized that Netanyahu was interested in one thing only (to perpetuate his rule) and came back with a private party of his own, via which he was hoping to take off.
He succeeded, but only ostensibly.
He was foreign minister, but who cares about foreign ministers? They can do no damage; they don’t really influence anything. In this country, the No. 2 Man is the defense minister; sovereignty over the territories.
This position allows Liberman to break all chains, prejudices and weights that tether his legs. After having been nearly erased in the last election, suddenly he has the chance to rebuild himself.
To reach as high as he can. All at once, he matured.
A month ago Netanyahu gave Ze’ev Elkin the green light to take action in Liberman’s direction, following the news of the Herzog investigation that blocked negotiations for unity with the Zionist Union. Elkin went to work, as only he knew how; slowly, intelligently, with sophistication. He and Liberman are connected on many fronts, including their mother tongue, and Elkin was sure he had plenty of time at his disposal. Then, with the announcement that the police’s Herzog file was about to be closed, he realized that time was running out. Netanyahu pushed on the natural gas sector outline and negotiations with the Zionist Union went into marathon mode, advanced, continuous. Elkin knew that if Herzog comes in, he and his friends are in trouble. He intensified his activity, established an organized and efficient war room, brought in all the leading activists in the territories, who bombarded the Likud ministers with telephone calls, text messages and petitions to go with Liberman and oppose any Herzog option.
The problem was disbelief. Liberman didn’t believe that Netanyahu wanted him in. Netanyahu believed Liberman wanted only to torpedo his deal with Herzog, but then wouldn’t join the coalition.
Elkin exerted all his influence on Liberman. By Tuesday afternoon, he knew that Liberman was willing to hold out his hand. Ayelet Shaked joined the effort. She, too, spoke with Liberman. She knew that Herzog’s inclusion in the coalition would clip her wings and might result in the removal of Bayit Yehudi from positions of influence.
She implored Liberman to give it a chance. In the meantime Elkin called Netanyahu’s office and announced, “Liberman is inside. He wants to come in.” No one believed it.
That afternoon another marathon meeting with the Zionist Union began and was leaked to the media. On the other end of all this commotion, Liberman was outraged.
He understood that he was being taken for a ride. Once again Elkin & Shaked went into action.
It’s real, they told Liberman; why not give it a try. You’ve nothing to lose. At worst, if you hold out a hand and he prefers Herzog, it’s his problem. You won’t lose from it.
You’ll only win.
Liberman was reassured. He called a press conference for Wednesday at midday. Ayelet Shaked called him again on Wednesday morning with a “golden proposal.” Just go for the logical things, she told him, don’t demand anything that will hurt the ultra-Orthodox, you know Bibi can’t renege again on his agreements with them. Be reasonable & logical & it’ll happen, she promised him.
Liberman listened to her. He’d been having quite a few problems recently. Elkin & his friends on the Right had been walking over him in the Russian media, using the same lethal mantra: They’re offering Liberman Defense & Immigration, as well as pensions for new immigrants & he prefers to stay on the outside simply because he hates Bibi. What about the voters? ”They’ve been scorching my earth,” Liberman said on Wednesday in a private conversation. “I understood I had to give it a chance. They’ve activated all regional activists, all branch managers & mayors. I decided to give it a try.”
It’s all going to plan. The moment Liberman extended his hand, a huge support system went into action on the Right. Ministers sent congratulations, regional activists and Likud offices nationwide called to forget Herzog and go with Liberman.
Netanyahu realized he had a problem: If he continues with Herzog, he’ll be accused of collaborating with the Left.
Within seconds, Bibi picked up the phone to Liberman. Suddenly he’d forgotten all the international threats, the boycott in Europe, what awaits him in November when Obama is released from his bonds and has two months to avenge himself. Everything Netanyahu had been chanting at the Likud leaders over the last few weeks went up in smoke. He became locked on the old, familiar Avigdor. Netanyahu returned, without so much as a glance, back into the warm arms of the Right-wing base he so loves. If he’d looked, he’d have seen Herzog’s political body being dragged, tarred and feathered, throughout the streets of the city.
Translated by Ora Cummings.

2.Moshe Ya’alon’s public trashing of Netanyahu harms Israel worldwide – Moshe Ya’alon should not have spoken to world media against Netanyahu & the IDF. By Ronn Torossian Arutz Sheva IsraelNationalNews.com Published: Sunday, May 22, 2016 7:16 AM

Ronn Torossian. The author is CEO of 5WPR, 1 of the 25 largest PR Agencies in the US and author. His public relations firm, 5WPR, had revenues of about $21 million in 2015.^[3]As a public relations executive, Torossian built his firm’s brand through aggressive media tactics, which has, at times, enmeshed him in controversy.^[4][5]

It is shameful for a “nationalist” politician to create headlines which harm Israel all over the world.

The Washington Post headlines today read “Israel’s defense minister abruptly resigns in slap at growing ‘extremism.”

The paper goes on to note that, “In a press conference Friday, [Moshe] Yaalon, a fellow member of Netanyahu’s Likud party, warned that Israel was drifting dangerously toward extremism. I fought with all my might against manifestations of extremism, violence and racism in Israeli society, which are threatening its sturdiness and trickling into the armed forces, hurting it already,” he said.”

I don’t know defense but I do know PR – and I know that Israel’s opponents today don’t know Likud from Labor, don’t know former Chief of Staff Moshe Yaalon from MK Tamar Zandberg of Meretz.
Is this something which someone who cares about Israel’s Defense wants American elected officials and the Obama administration reading? Mr. Ya’alon I ask you – Is this good for Israel?

Today’s BBC headline reads, “Israeli Defence Minister Moshe Yaalon has resigned, warning that Israel has been taken over by ‘dangerous and extreme elements’”.

This article – and countless other media outlets worldwide – included Ya’alon’s quote that “extremist and dangerous forces have taken over Israel and the Likud movement and are destabilizing our home and threatening to harm its inhabitants.” Surely, one cannot possibly think that anti-Semites in Europe will use this to mean that there should be a government compromised of the Labor Party rather than Avigdor Lieberman…

IDF Deputy Chief of Staff Yair Golan compared Israel to Nazi Germany on Holocaust Day this year: “It is frightening to see horrifying developments that took place in Europe begin to unfold here,” he said, and was backed by Ya’alon.

These statements simply harm Israel worldwide. I don’t know defense but I do know PR – and I know that Israel’s opponents today don’t know Likud from Labor, don’t know former Chief of Staff Moshe Ya’alon from MK Tamar Zandberg of Meretz. Those who boycott Israel do not differentiate between Ma’aleh Adumim and Tel Aviv – and those who beat Jews in the streets of Europe do not ask their political affiliation when blaming Israel for the world’s ills.

Prime Minister Netanyahu is right that these accusations would never have been made had Ya’alon not been removed from his role. Israel is a democratic nation – and elected officials who bash the country and create world headlines against Israel do the State no favors.

Mr. Ya’alon, I quote Ze’ev Jabotinsky, the forefather of the Likud who often wrote that words were like weapons, he noted in a famous essay, “Our passion is to speak, to proclaim—“Shouting” is what the same audience calls it, ‘we have no need for words; give us actions.’”

“One thing that audience forgets is that speech is also an action – Perhaps the most authentic of all other actions. Cities have been destroyed, and more will fall, but what was shouted in the wilderness thousands of years ago is alive and still relevant. The world was created by the Word. The world will be mended by the Article.”

The world heard your words – and will use them against Israel. Trashing the Netanyahu government is trashing the State of Israel in the war for Israel.

3.State Comptroller Draft Report Reveals Ya’alon Brazenly Refused to Attack Hamas Tunnels

By: JNi.Media JewishPress.com Published: May 22nd, 2016

Minister Bennett (R) at the July 6, 2014 Weekly Cabinet Meeting / Screenshot

The texts of meeting protocols which were used in the State Comptroller’s draft report on the 2014 Israel–Gaza conflict, also known as Operation Protective Edge, offer a peek into the intense political pressure used mainly by Minister Naftali Bennett (Habayit Hayehudi) to force a reluctant IDF and defense ministry brass to take action against the Hamas terror tunnels reaching inside Israel, Channel 2 News revealed Saturday night.

One mindblowing revelation in the report is that Defense Minister Ya’alon, famous for his recent encouragement of IDF officers to speak their minds, no matter what, was in the habit, during the security cabinet meetings, of forcing those same officers to remain silent if their views did not match his own. Some Israeli commentators have already speculated that Ya’alon chose to leave over an “ideological” dispute with Prime Minister Netanyahu, rather than to be pushed out over the upcoming condemning Comptroller’s report.

The security cabinet convened on the day of the discovery of the bodies of three Jewish youths who had been kidnapped by Hamas operatives. At the meeting, Former Chief of Staff Benny Gantz, now retiring Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon, and the Shabak — all shared the view that Hamas was not seeking a large-scale confrontation with Israel. In the meeting, Minister of the Economy and of Religious Services Naftali Bennett, and Foreign Minister Avigdor Liebrman (Yisrael Beiteinu) both warned they would vote against a weak military retaliation.

At the same meeting, the protocols show Bennett mentioning dozens of Hamas attack tunnels and the fear that Hamas would use them for a strategic attack. This information should be viewed in the context of the 2006 Gilad Shalit kidnapping. The Shalit kidnapping was executed in a Hamas raid using a cross-border underground tunnel. It resulted in the 2011 prisoner exchange fiasco, in which PM Netanyahu, fearing for his popularity, released 1,027 Arab security prisoners, many with Jewish blood on their hands.

On that first security cabinet of the Gaza War, before the forces had been launched, Netanyahu told Ya’alon: “I would like to see plans for taking care of the tunnels, even if this would lead to an escalation and to rocket fire.” But the meeting ended without resolutions.

24 hours later, the security cabinet convened again, twice. Ya’alon presented a report saying that Egypt claims Hamas is calling for restraint.

Bennett then asked, “What will happen if they use the tunnels the way did with Gilad Shalit?”

Netanyahu answered that “a penetrating ground operation might drag Israel into conquering Gaza.”

And Ya’alon said, on the record, “If we don’t act, Hamas won’t use the tunnels.”

“Are we going to hear the plan to take care of the tunnels?” Bennett insisted, and Netanyahu explained that the army still needs to discuss those plans. Bennett responded impatiently, “They should have done their homework already.”

Another 24 hours later, Shabak presented intelligence reports of an attack tunnel near the Jewish community of Kerem Shalom. However, the Shabak head assured the security cabinet: “Strategically, the Hamas has no intention of using the tunnels.” Bennett asked him how he knew this, and the Shabak head did not respond.

Bennet: Is it possible to destroy the tunnels?

Gantz: There are a few options of action.

Bennett: Is there a plan?

Ya’alon: Yes.

Gantz: We should leave the decision of taking care [of the tunnels] to when we decide whether we’re going in on the ground and how.

According to Channel 2, Gantz was referring to the option of bombing the tunnel openings from the air, using intelligence reports.

On July 3, 2014, at the next security cabinet meeting, the IDF once again argues that Hamas does not intend to use the tunnels, which results in confrontation between various ministers. At some point, Bennett called IDF Chief of Staff Benny Gantz a “lazy horse,” saying that the forces in the field are eager to go into Gaza and finish the job once and for all, but the high command is preventing them.

Netanyahu: Attacking the tunnels would make it difficult to expose and thwart them.

Bennett: There is a scenario of a mass attack coming out of the tunnels.

Gantz: If we exit from a tunnel and they’ll shoot at us from some hilltop, and we’ll take it over, and then another hill, and another, we’ll find ourselves in the heart of Gaza. We could be dragged into conquering the Strip.”

Bennett: [But] we decide how and when to exit.

Ya’alon: Forces would be sucked in. It’s preferable to try and calm the situation.

Only at this stage, less than one week before the July 8 start of the war, did the Southern Command form a “forward defense” plan to deal with the tunnels. The plan was presented to the chief of staff and the defense minister, who chose not to present it to the cabinet the next time it convenes, July 7, 2014. Bennett nevertheless insisted on adding the taking care of the tunnels to the operation’s goals. Both Netanyahu and Ya’alon object.

Ya’alon: It’s wrong to define a goal of stripping Hamas of its tunnels at this stage, the Egyptians are working on a ceasefire.

Head of the NSC Yossi Cohen: We’ve asked the chief of staff already, and he says they’re doing the best they can, but we can’t destroy all of them.

Bennett and Lieberman, who appear to have done their homework, want to know if the army had examined all the options, including going in on the ground.

Shabak head: The IDF has decided at this stage not to go in on the ground.

Southern Command Chief, Maj. Gen. Shlomo Turgeman, attended the July 10, 2014 security cabinet meeting. Only then was the IDF plan of dealing with the tunnels presented to the ministers.

Bennett: How deep will this draw us in?

Turgeman: There will be friction, but we shouldn’t exaggerate [the consequences].

Bennett then asked Turgeman what he would have done in his, Bennett’s shoes, at which point Ya’alon and Gantz retorted that, “he is not you, he is not in your shoes.” So Bennett deferred and asked, “Fine, what would you have done in your own shoes?”

Here is when both Gantz and Ya’alon tried to force their subordinate Turgeman to shut up. Remember Moshe Ya’alon, who has grabbed so much attention urging IDF officers to speak their minds even if it contradicted the accepted dogmas? Even, in fact, if it could be perceived as a kind of coups d’état? Turns out that when one of Ya’alon’s top officers was trying to voice an opinion different from the boss’s, it was not greeted lovingly. Finally, Netanyahu asked Turgeman to respond.

Turgeman: “In your shoes or in mine, I would take action.”

Lieberman then said, “We have to go on everything or nothing. Either conquer Gaza or stop everything.” But according to the protocols, all the other ministers objected.

Should be interesting when the same question comes up again, except this time around Lieberman would be running the army. JNi.Media

4.Ya’alon Uses Last Crumbs of Authority to Lock Out HaBayit HaYehudi Deputy

By: David Israel JewishPress.com Published: May 22nd, 2016

Deputy Defense Minister Rabbi ELiyahu Ben-Dahan (Habayit Hayehudi)

According to TPS, access to Sunday’s farewell ceremony for departing Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon has been revoked from Deputy Defense Minister Rabbi Eli Ben-Dahan (Habayit Hayehudi) and his staff, who were told they had to leave the IDF Kirya compound in Tel Aviv by 4:30 PM Sunday.

According to Rabbi Ben-Dahan, Ya’alon’s chief of staff informed Ben-Dahan’s staff, seven employees altogether, that their entry permits would be revoked as of 4:30 PM. Ben-Dahan noted that, according to the law, when a minister resigns, his or her deputies automatically lose their positions as well, but the same does not hold for their entry permits. Someone in Ya’alon’s office had to go out of their way to revoke those.

Ben-Dahan’s position as Deputy Defense Minister is anchored in Habayit Hayehudi’s coalition agreement with PM Netanyahu, and it is expected that once the new defense minister is sworn in, presumably this Tuesday, Ben-Dahan will receive his commission back. So someone under Ya’alon wanted to make sure the Deputy and his staff not be allowed in between ministers.

Petty? You bet. Ya’alon maintained a cool relationship with Ben-Dahan throughout the current coalition term, and would not permit him to run the office of the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT), as was his assignment in the coalition agreement. According to TPS, Ya’alon’s people also personally harassed Ben-Dahan’s staff whenever they could.

About the Author: David writes news at JewishPress.com.

5.Yehuda Glick: I’m only ‘extreme’ in my faith in human rights

Incumbent MK and longtime activist explains why his views are all over the political map – and why he’s sad to see Ya’alon go. By Tova Dvorin Arutz Sheva IsraelNationalNews.com First Publish: 5/22/2016, 2:46 PM

Rabbi Yehuda Glick – Photo Credit: Facebook

Incoming Likud MK Yehuda Glick is regularly referred to as an “extremist” or “hardliner” by international media outlets, due to his peaceful campaign to advocate for Jewish prayer rights on the Temple Mount.

While many of his supporters – and the man himself – regularly dismiss those monikers, in a recent radio interview Glick did admit he is “extremist” about one thing: human rights.

“I’m very radical in my beliefs,” Glick told Army Radio. “I am extreme in my faith in human rights, I am extreme in my belief that we should respect every human being, I’m extreme in that I think every Israeli has to be as tolerant & listen, I’m an extremist in thinking that we should be against violence.”

While Glick is seen as a “right-wing” extremist by many for championing Jewish prayer rights on the Temple Mount – Judaism’s holiest site – he noted that many from the Right are simultaneously appalled that he also believes Muslims should continue to have prayer rights as well.

“Banning Muslims from the Temple Mount – I think every liberal person in this world would think that is wrong,” he said.

Defending Ya’alon

Glick also expressed sorrow over Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon (Likud) stepping down, despite the fact that this is what allowed Glick – who was #33 on the Likud list – to enter the Knesset.

“I think that Ya’alon was a beacon of light in both the field of security and in the area of ethics,” he said. “We shouldn’t have had to give him up so easily and I’m very sad he’s leaving.”

Glick also defended his condemnation of the actions of IDF Sergeant Elor Azaria, who faces trial for controversially shooting dead a terrorist who was already neutralized.

“An IDF soldier must obey orders, and if he did not obey his command he should be held accountable for it,” Glick explained.

“He does not need to be made into a national hero,” he insisted, while adding, “but there’s no need to humiliate him into the ground.”

Activist, survivor

Glick has long fought for Jewish rights on the Temple Mount, the holiest site in Judaism, where the Jordanian Waqf has been left with de facto control and bans Jewish prayer in a violation of Israel’s laws guaranteeing freedom of religion.

His activism led him to be the target of an assassination attempt by an Islamic Jihad terrorist in October 2014, which he miraculously survived after being shot four times at point blank range.

In an indication of the positions Glick is likely to press in the Knesset, back in January he called on Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu to take a stronger stand against Arab terrorism after a woman was murdered at her doorstep in his town of Otniel.

Somewhat ironically, however, by entering the Knesset Glick will forfeit his own right to visit the Temple Mount. Netanyahu recently banned all serving MKs and government ministers from ascending the holy site, in a bid to “calm tensions.”

Yehuda Glick: I’m only ‘extreme’ in my faith in human rights

§ In the Dutch province of Friesland, 250 of 720 existing churches have been transformed or closed. The Fatih Camii Mosque in Amsterdam once was the Saint Ignatius Church. A synagogue in The Hague was turned into the ‘Al Aqsa Mosque’. In Flanders, in place of a famous church, a luxury hotel now stands. Catholic arches, columns and windows still soar between menus and tables for customers.

§ “The French will not wake up until Notre Dame becomes a mosque.” — Emile Cioran, author.

§ Germany is literally selling its churches. Between 1990 and 2010, the German Evangelical Church closed 340 churches. Recently in Hamburg, a Lutheran church was purchased by the Muslim community.

§ “History teaches us that these transformations are rarely innocent.” — Bertrand Dutheil de La Rochère, assistant to Marine Le Pen.

Last year, at the famous Biennale artistic festival in Venice, Swiss artist Christian Büchel took the ancient Catholic Church of Santa Maria della Misericordia and converted it into a mosque. The church had not been used for Christian worship for more than forty years. Büchel decorated the baroque walls with Arabic writing, covered the floor with a prayer rug, and hid the crucifix behind a prayer niche indicating the direction of Mecca, the holy city of Islam. It was a provocation.

But everywhere else in Europe, the practice of Islam really is outstripping Christianity, while Jews are leaving — not only France but the old continent — en masse.

In January, Zvi Ammar, the president of the Marseille Israelite Consistory, recommended that Jews that stop wearing a kippah (skullcap) when out in the street. Too many anti-Semitic incidents have cast fear into the hearts of Marseille’s 70,000 Jews, who make up a tenth of the city’s population. 500 Jews already left the city in 2015. A few days ago, Mr. Ammar announced another attempt at appeasement: the conversion of a historic synagogue into a mosque.

The synagogue Or Torah [“light of the Torah”] was bought by the Muslim organization Al Badr for 400,000 euros ($456,000). The synagogue was empty, due to rampant anti-Semitism in Marseille, while the nearby mosque, run by Al Badr, was unable to handle the overcrowding every Friday, with the faithful forced to pray in the street (a quarter of the inhabitants of Marseille are Muslim). Muslims in Marseille already have 73 mosques.

A year ago, the Muslim French leader Dalil Boubakeur suggested turning empty churches into mosques. It is the first time in France that something similar happened to a synagogue. “History teaches us that these transformations are rarely innocent,”said Bertrand Dutheil de La Rochère, an assistant to Marine Le Pen, leader of the National Front party. He appeared to be comparing the fate of the synagogue to that of the Hagia Sophia Basilica, which became a mosque in Constantinople (now Istanbul) in 1453, after its capture by the Muslim Ottoman Turks.

“What should we do?” Zvi Ammar asked this author.

“Security concerns had already pushed the Jews out of the city’s center. We could no longer live in a Muslim area, so the synagogue was empty. Thousands of synagogues in the Arab-Islamic world, from Libya to Morocco, from Iraq to Tunisia, have been converted into mosques. The only difference is that in France, Muslims cannot expropriate a synagogue; they have to pay for it.”

What a sad consolation.

Zvi Ammar, however, is right: not only is the Middle East full of synagogues turned into Islamic sites, but also of churches converted into mosques, such as the Umayyad in Damascus, the Ibn Tulun in Cairo and the Hagia Sophia in Istanbul. In Hebron & on Jerusalem’s Temple Mount, Muslim conquerors built their sites atop the Jewish ones.

A few years ago, Niall Ferguson, the brilliant contemporary historian, wrote about Europe’s future as “the creeping Islamicization of a decadent Christendom.” It is easy to find images of the decay of Europe’s Christianity and the growth of Islam in the heart of the old continent. Every traveler in any modern European city can notice the new mosques being built alongside abandoned and secularized churches, some converted into museums.

The most crucial moment in Michel Houellebecq’s novel, Submission, is when the novel’s protagonist, a Sorbonne professor searching for a conversion experience, visits a Christian shrine, only to find himself unmoved. This is a reality in France.

In the French region of Vierzon, the Church of Saint-Eloi has become a mosque. The diocese of Bourges had put the church on sale & a Muslim organization made a most generous offer to buy the site. In the Quai Malakoff, in Nantes, the old Church of Saint Christopher became the Mosque of Forqane.

In the Dutch province of Friesland, 250 of 720 existing churches have been transformed or closed. The Fatih Camii Mosque in Amsterdam once was the Saint Ignatius Church. A synagogue in The Hague was turned into the Al Aqsa Mosque. The Church of St. Jacobus, one of the oldest of the city of Utrecht, was recently converted into a luxury residence. A library just opened in a former Dominican church in Maastricht.

The main mosque in Dublin is a former Presbyterian church. In England, the St. Marks Cathedral is now called the New Peckam Mosque, while in Manchester, the Mosque of Disbury was once a Methodist church. In Clitheroe, Lancashire, the authorities granted permission to have an Anglican church, Saint Peter’s Church in Cobridge, transformed into the Madina Mosque. It is no longer taboo in the media to talk about “the end of British Christianity.”

Belgium, once a cradle of European Catholicism, is closing dozens of its churches. The Church of St. Catherine, built in 1874, dominates the historic center of Brussels, the only religious building created in the city’s “pentagon” at the end of Ancien Régime, and today one of the most protected in the EU’s capital, especially after the terror attacks there on March 22, 2016. Brussels, however, wanted to convert the church into a fruit market. Only the mobilization of the faithful hindered the city’s plan.

Last month, The Economist explained what is happening in Belgium, once famous for the Madonna of Bruges, one of Michelangelo’s most famous paintings: “If anything holds Belgium together through its third century of existence, Catholicism will not be the glue,” the magazine wrote. That, it noted, will be Islam. In Brussels, half the children in state schools choose classes in Islam; practicing Catholics amount to 12%, while 19% are practicing Muslims.

According to La Libre newspaper, dozens of Belgian churches are in imminent danger of conversion to other uses. The Church of Saint-Hubert in Watermael-Boitsfort is expected to accommodate apartments, while the Church of the Holy Family of Schaerbeek awaits an investor. In Malonne, the chapel of Piroy has been transformed into a restaurant. In Namur, the Saint-Jacques Church was transformed into a clothing store and the Church of Notre Dame, built in 1749 and deconsecrated in 2004, is now a “cultural space.” The square will be redeveloped, with ticketing services and catering. Dozens of exhibitions, concerts and fashion shows have already been held in the church. In Tournai, the Church of St. Margherita has been transformed into apartments.

Eight centuries after its founding, the Church of the Blessed Sacrament at Binche, a majestic building in the heart of a medieval town close to Brussels, was put on sale for the symbolic sum of one euro. In Mechelen, Flanders, in place of a famous church, a luxury hotel has arisen. Catholic arches, columns and windows still soar between menus and tables for customers.

Despite the fact that the “Pope Emeritus,” Joseph Ratzinger, comes from Germany, that Chancellor Angela Merkel is the daughter of a Lutheran minister and the current German president, Joachim Gauck, is a Protestant pastor, Germany is literally selling its churches. Between 1990 and 2010, the German Evangelical Church closed 340 churches. Recently, in Hamburg, a Lutheran church was purchased by the Muslim community. In Spandau, the church of St. Raphael is now a grocery store. In Karl Marx’s town, Trier, some churches have been turned into gyms. In Cologne, a church is now a luxurious residence with a private pool.

The writer Emile Cioran once cast a sinister prophecy on Europe: “The French will not wake up until Notre Dame becomes a mosque.” Five years ago, a French historian, Dominique Venner, shot himself on the altar of Notre Dame, Paris’s most famous Cathedral. This suicide, which the mainstream media dismissed as the gesture of a Catholic crank, was a terrible warning to Europe. But no one was paying attention.

Giulio Meotti, Cultural Editor for Il Foglio, is an Italian journalist and author.

9.Report: Arab countries willing to change peace initiative

T. Belman. I would not be satisfied with anything they would agree to. Neither would the Palestinians. My guess is that Netanyahu has been trying to negotiate a better deal now for quite some time but to no avail. Even if they agree that the refugees can only go back to Palestine, the deal should be rejected. It is not in Israel’s interest to have 2 million “refugees come back to what would be Palestine. thereby doubling their population.

Saudi Arabia, the Gulf states, Jordan and Egypt reportedly prepared to change their attitude towards Israel in exchange for peace with PA. By Ben Ariel, Arutz Sheva INN

Arab countries including Saudi Arabia, the Gulf states, Jordan and Egypt, are prepared to discuss with Israel changes to the Saudi peace initiative in order to resume peace talks between Israel and the Palestinian Authority (PA), Channel 10 News revealed on Friday.
In return for a peace agreement with the PA, those countries would reportedly change their attitude towards Israel.

Western diplomatic sources quoted by Channel 10 said that Arab countries have been sending messages to Israel through various emissaries, including former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, saying they are expecting to receive from Israel a response to the Saudi peace initiative and are also expecting Israel to make gestures towards the Palestinians in Judea and Samaria, so that peace talks can be relaunched and those countries could ultimately change their public attitude to Israel.

The Saudi peace initiative, unveiled in 2002 and re-endorsed at the 2007 Arab League summit, says that 22 Arab countries will normalize ties with Israel in return for an Israeli withdrawal from Judea and Samaria.

But Israel has rejected the plan due to the fact that it calls for Israel to accept the so-called “right of return” for millions of descendants of Arabs who fled pre-state Israel, effectively bringing an end to the Jewish state.

The diplomatic sources who spoke to Channel 10 Newssaid that there is a desire among the leadership of the Arab countries in the region that do not have diplomatic relations with Israel to change their attitude towards the Jewish State, and to start taking an active part in mediating between Israel and the PA on the basis of the Saudi peace initiative.

While Israel has refused the conditions of the Saudi initiative, the sources are now saying that the messages conveyed to Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu implied that the Arab states are ready to discuss with Israel some changes in the initiative, so that it serves as a foundation towards a return to negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians.

The report comes days after Egypt’s President, Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, urged Israelis and Palestinians to seize what he said was a “real opportunity” and renew peace talks.

The comments were welcomed by Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, who stressed that “Israel is ready to participate with Egypt and other Arab states in advancing both the diplomatic process and stability in the region.”

Palestinian Authority (PA) chairman welcomed Sisi’s call as well, saying he welcomed the Egyptian president’s efforts to achieve peace and establish a Palestinian state.

Report: Arab countries willing to change peace initiative

10.Iran Deal & 2-State Solution: One ‘Big Lie” serves another By Mark Langfan

The left uses same arguments, the same falsehoods & is leading to the same level of danger for both issues Arutz Sheva INN May 20, 2016

Much has been made out of Obama’s National Security flunky Ben Rhodes’ fictional imaginary advocacy for Obama’s Iran Nuclear Bomb deal. No one should be under any delusion that Rhodes’ Iran Nuclear fictional lies were not approved by Barack Obama. But no one should think that Ben Rhodes had to work very hard to conjure up the Iranian nuke fabrications that almost all the American Jews and the mainstream media were ready to swallow whole..

The reason? It’s simple. Obama’s Iranian Nuclear Bomb Deal “Big Lies” were ripped straight out of the 2-State Solution “Big Lies” that American Jews and the mainstream media have been swallowing whole for decades. In fact, the Israeli Left’s “Big-Lies” on the Two-State Solution laid the necessary foundation for the success of Obama’s “Iran-Nuke Deal.”
1) “The Iran Deal will empower the Iranian moderates.” How many time have the Jews been told by the Left that “the 2-State solution will empower the Palestinian moderates,” when in reality, it empowers the Palestinian extremists. In fact, Hamas took over the Gaza Strip exactly because of the 2-State Solution.

But, the Israeli and American Jews still buy into the lie that ceding to terror will somehow “moderate the terrorists,” despite the fact that everyone knows rewarding the terrorists because they engaged in terror will only encourage more terrorism. Rhodes figured correctly that the American Jews will buy the giving Iran Nukes “empower the moderates” line with the Iranians. And, the American Jews swallowed it whole. There was barely a peep out of the Conference of Presidents of Major Jewish Organizations.

2) “It’s either we sign the Iran deal now, or it’s war. It’s now or never. If we don’t make a deal we’ll be forced into a worse deal later.” I wish I had a nickel for every Israeli Leftist who opined, “If we don’t make a Palestinian “West Bank” State today, it’ll be a war or another intifada.” I’d be a very rich man.

Ask yourself a simple question: Did Israel fall apart because Ehud Barak didn’t create a Palestinian State in the 1990’s? In fact, had Barak created a PA State in the 90’s there would have been PA rockets into Tel Aviv, and Israel would have fallen apart.

The Obama people, just like the 2-Staters, had to create a false sense of urgency where there was no urgency, in order to short-circuit any rational analysis of the Iran-Nuke deal. That’s because any rational look at the Iran-Nuke deal, or the 2-State solution, would expose both of them to be hoaxes & security nightmares for America & Israel respectively. So, Rhodes adeptly copied the 2-State Solution’s “false urgency” to slip the Iran-Nuke hoax past all-too-willing American Jews & US Congress.

3) “The Iran Nuke Deal is air-tight secure, and 24/7 verifiable.” How many Israeli generals strongly advocated for the Rabin 2-State deal and the Sharon Gaza Disengagement and said they were both 100% secure and totally verifiable? Almost all the Israeli generals are part of the Leftist Israeli IDF High command who believe in the 2-State Solution as if it were a religion.

American Leftists buy off some Israeli generals who have nothing else to sell to American Jews when they retire except the 2-State Solution, and these Generals create a “think-tank,” and – you’ve got a 2-State-Solution machine. It doesn’t matter that the 2-State Solution or the Iran deal were security catastrophes and totally unverifiable.

Rhodes and Obama again figured correctly, if American Jews still believe in the 2-State Solution when the Hamas is firing rockets into Tel Aviv, the same Jews who don’t know the difference between U-235 and U-238, will buy the canard that “the Iran deal is subject to 24/7/365 verification.” Obama had the measure of the Peace-at-any-price American Jews.

4) “The Iran Nuke deal is “reversible,” or equivalently, “The Iranian Nuclear sanctions will automatically snap-back if Iran violates the agreement.” Again, with the 2-State Solution we’re always told, “if anything goes wrong, we can re-invade Gaza or the ‘West Bank’.” Oy, gevalt. Doesn’t everyone now see this as a total fraud?

Re-invade Gaza where they have smuggled in thousands of anti-tank weapons because Israel withdrew, and allowed the Arab terrorists to unlimitedly arm themselves? Obama just used the gullibility of American Jews and said the Iranian sanctions will “automatically snap-back.” And, the American Jews bought Obama’s Iran-deal fraud.

How could the American Jews be so stupid to believe that $150 Billion Dollars of funds to Iran would be “snapped-back”? Where are the Iranian sanctions “snapping-back” now that Iran is supposedly “violating” the deal by firing ballistic missiles? In fact, John Kerry is on a world tour to encourage people to drop the Iranian sanctions despite the Iranian violations, and the imaginary “automatic snap-back sanction.”

Obama forgot to mention that the Iranian sanctions will, “automatically snap-back” only after Russia and China vote for the “automatic snap-back.”

5) “If you’re against the Iran-Nuke deal, you’re a war-monger and against ‘Peace’.” This is, once again, an exact copy of the 2-State Solution “Big Lie.” How many times has the Left attacked any person rationally criticizing the 2-State Solution as a “war-monger” and “against Peace”?

Obama only used the tried-and-true Orwellian tactic of attacking people who want to preserve peace and security by fraudulently calling them “war-mongers.” The “Big Lie” tactic has worked for years against the brave rational Jews who have fought against Auschwitz 67-borders. It worked like a charm for Obama.

6) If all else fails, “Blame Israel for any problems in either coming to an Iran-Nuke “deal,” or for “enforcing” an Iran-Nuke deal.” Obama has a simple approach when the Palestinian Arabs are waging a terror war on Israel and are refusing to negotiate: Blame Israel first, second, and third. Whenever there was a problem in the Iran-Nuke talks, or Congress had a problem with it, or Obama needed to make even more suicidal concessions, he would simply blame Israel because the Iran-Nuke deal wasn’t working. Again, Obama’s use of the 2-State ‘Big Lie’ worked to sell the Iran-Nuke ‘Big Lie.”

The true tragedy of Obama’s Iran-Nuke fraud is far from unfolding. But the reality is Obama’s ‘Big Lie’ on the Iran-Nuke Deal, will lead Israel to face Iran’s nuclear “gas-chamber” sooner rather than later.

The Iran Deal & the 2-State Solution: One ‘Big Lie” serves another by Mark Langfan

&&& IsraPundit by Ted Belman May 20, 2016

T. Belman. This so-called aid is not aid at all. It is what US agrees to pay in exchange for a multitude of benefits that Israel gives the US in exchange. How can a joint research programme of any kind where the US is entitled to the make use of the end result be called aid. Israel spends a fortune on human intelligence which is shared with the US. Of course the US must share the expense. The US can’t achieve the same human intelligence if they did it on their own even at double the expense.. The US defense budget includes billions to keep troops in South Korea and Germany among other places year after year. It is spared this expense in the Middle East because Israel is there. Without Israel there, the US would have to station one aircraft carrier there, at a minimum, to achieve half the benefit. The list of benefits the US purchases with this paltry sum vastly exceeds the cost.

It is time that this “aid” is included in the US Defense Budget where it rightly belongs.

Amb. Yoram Ettinger makes the same point, but in a more detailed analysis, in US investment in – not foreign aid to – Israel [Gail Sez: I sent Yoram’s complete report out on: May 2^nd.]

On top of $700 million more annually, Jerusalem said to seek separate funding for surface-to-air programs TOI STAFF (May 4/16) Negotiations over a new US security aid package to Israel have hit a snag, and the two sides are in disagreement not only over the size of the annual increase but also over a request from the Jewish state that a separate sub-package for missile defense be enshrined in the deal, Reuters reported Tuesday.

Read more… [Gail Sez: I also sent this full Report out.]

12.Column One: The fruits of subversion By Caroline B. Glick

Jerusalem Post 05/12/2016 22:24

Sixty-eight years later, it works out there are still competing gangs trying to obligate the rest of us with their unlawful, anti-democratic and immoral behavior.

MEIR DAGAN. (photo credit:Marc Israel Sellem)

For the Obama administration, Israel’s security brass is an alternative government.
That is the lesson from an article published this week in Foreign Affairs by David Makovsky, a member of Secretary of State John Kerry’s negotiating team during his failed peace process 2 years ago.
Makovsky wrote the security brass’s unbridled vilification of Sgt. Elor Azaria, for killing a wounded terrorist in Hebron in March, “captures IDF’s growing involvement in the Palestinian issue.”

“Seeing a diplomatic vacuum in Israeli politics,” he wrote supportively, “the IDF has increasingly worked to assert itself as a guardian of democratic values and a stabilizer of the Israeli-Palestinian arena.”
The article tells us two things. First, for the administration, “Israeli democracy” means the Left is in charge.
The “diplomatic vacuum,” Makovsky referred to after all wasn’t an oversight. The public elected leaders who shared its view that the “peace process” is a fraud. We elected leader who agree that Israel making unreciprocated concessions to terrorists is not a peace process. It’s a process of destroying Israel.

If the voters wanted a government that felt otherwise, they would have voted the Left to lead.
So the “diplomatic vacuum” is just the government doing what it was elected to do.
The General Staff is the Left’s representative, and has in recent months served as its surrogate government, taking steps that advance the Left’s agenda against the wishes of the government and the public that elected it.
For instance, the General Staff “inadvertently” returned the body of a dead terrorist to his family despite an explicit cabinet decision to end the practice.
Likewise, our generals continuously pressure the government to agree to relinquish security control over the Palestinian population centers & transfer security responsibility to terrorism-supporting Palestinian militias. This despite the fact that the government repeatedly rejected their position.
These actions are bad enough on their own. But when seen in the context of recent events, they lend the impression that for our generals, gross insubordination to the Netanyahu government is the rule, rather than the exception.
Deputy Chief of General Staff Maj.-Gen. Yair Golan compared Israeli society to the Nazis on Holocaust Remembrance Day. This was a direct assault on the government’s policy of fighting, rather than joining, Israel-bashers who deny the right of the Jewish state to exist. And his comrades in the General Staff and in the Left praised him for his appalling behavior.
Then there is the late Maj.-Gen. Meir Dagan, the retired director of the Mossad.
Last Thursday Channel 2’s investigative news program Uvda broadcast an interview with Dagan, conducted shortly before his death.
Dagan told the host Ilana Dayan that in 2010, he committed espionage.
Dagan revealed that in 2010, he went behind Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s back and informed then-CIA director Leon Panetta that Netanyahu and then-defense minister Ehud Barak were about to order the security services to attack Iran’s nuclear installations.
Panetta, who Dayan also interviewed, substantiated Dagan’s remarks.
Dagan gave three justifications for his behavior. He claimed that whereas he acted out of Israel’s national interest, Netanyahu acted out of “political motivations.”
Dagan insisted that had Israel attacked, the US would have used force to protect Iran’s nuclear installations from Israel.
Dagan argued that Netanyahu is to blame for President Barack Obama’s decision to cut a deal with the Iranian regime that effectively paves the way for Iran’s emergence as a nuclear power and a regional hegemon.
Had Netanyahu played along with Obama, Dagan argued, Obama wouldn’t have opened negotiations with Iran.
Dagan’s actions and his justifications for them indicated that he trusted Panetta, and through him, Obama, more than he trusted Netanyahu, a man whom he loathed.
Shortly after his interviewed aired, The New York Times posted an article repudiating Dagan’s faith in Obama and showing that Netanyahu’s judgment was far superior to that of his spy chief.
David Samuels’s profile of Obama’s Deputy National Security Adviser Ben Rhodes, “the single most influential voice shaping American foreign policy aside from [Obama] himself,” revealed that Obama’s Iran policy was determined well before he entered office. And it had nothing to do with anything Netanyahu did or didn’t do.
Samuels also exposed that Dagan’s confidante Panetta was little more than a marionette controlled by Obama and Rhodes.
In a candid interview with him, Panetta revealed that Obama tasked him with convincing Netanyahu not to strike Iran’s nuclear installations.
As Samuels put it, Panetta, said that as secretary of defense, “one of his most important jobs was keeping… Netanyahu and his defense minister Ehud Barak from launching a preemptive attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities.”
Panetta said that he convinced them not to strike Iran by telling that if push came to shove, Obama would order US forces to strike Iran’s facilities to prevent the regime from acquiring nuclear weapons.
Panetta then admitted that today he does not believe that he was telling them the truth.
For his part, Rhodes revealed that from the outset of his presidency, it was Obama’s aim to cut a deal with Iran while ending the US’s alliances with Israel and the Sunni states.
In Rhodes’s words, from Obama’s perspective, reaching a deal with Iran was “the center of the arc” around which Obama’s whole vision of a transformed US foreign policy ran.
Rhodes said that Obama believed, “We don’t have to be in cycles of conflict if we can find other ways to resolve these issues. We can do things that challenge the conventional thinking that, you know, ‘AIPAC doesn’t like this,’ or ‘the Israeli government doesn’t like this,’ or ‘the Gulf countries don’t like it.’” He continued, “It’s the possibility of improved relations with adversaries. It’s nonproliferation. So all these threads that the president’s been spinning – and I mean that not in the press sense – for almost a decade, they kind of all converged around Iran.”
Rhodes said the administration’s claim that talks with Iran only began after the 2013 election brought the supposedly moderate Hassan Rouhani to power instead of outgoing president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was a deliberately concocted lie.
The myth of Iranian “moderates” locked in a struggle with “extremists” was invented, Rhodes said, to “eliminate a source of structural tension between [the US and Iran] which would create the space for America to disentangle itself from its established system of alliances with countries like Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Israel and Turkey.”
Panetta and other senior Obama administration officials told Samuels that Obama ignored their advice, using them as “cover” to push through his radical foreign policy agenda.
Netanyahu understood all of this intuitively. But Dagan refused to see it. Driven by his personal animus toward Netanyahu and by egomania, he chose to trust Panetta, and through him, Obama, more than he trusted the man he was legally bound to serve.
And so, Dagan willfully subverted the premier’s authority. He unlawfully revealed Israel’s most classified operational secret to Obama’s puppet. Through his action, Dagan cleared the final obstacle to Obama’s pursuit of his anti-Israel agenda.
Since his final interview was broadcast, Dagan’s many supporters have argued that his behavior is beside the point. It is Netanyahu’s fault that Israel didn’t attack Iran at the time or since. Netanyahu, they say, could have fired Dagan and replaced him with someone who agreed with his assessments.
Although valid in theory, these arguments insult the intelligence of even a casual observer of the routine insubordination of senior security officials with dovish conceits toward Right-wing politicians.
Netanyahu allowed Dagan to retire with honor from the Mossad despite his appalling behavior.
And still, the minute he was out the door, Dagan denounced Netanyahu. Projecting his own behavior on the prime minister, Dagan castigated him as irresponsible, untrustworthy and dangerous. Perhaps hoping to help Obama’s reelection, on the eve of the 2012 election, Dagan told Dayan that he had informed the Americans of Netanyahu’s planned attack on Iran’s nuclear installations.
Far from being punished for his espionage, Dagan was the toast of the town. He was the hero of the Left and a star of the international lecture circuit.
Like Golan, the Left celebrated him as a guardian of Israel’s “democratic values.”
The Left’s response to Dagan and Golan shows the real balance of power between a right-wing prime minister and left-wing, insubordinate generals.
Had Netanyahu fired Dagan, he would have acted just as he did upon his retirement. And he would have been idealized as a martyr just as he was upon retiring. Perhaps Netanyahu hoped that by not firing Dagan he had a better chance of being able to attack Iran’s nuclear installations after he was gone. Whatever the case, the blind Dagan was more powerful than the clear-sighted Netanyahu.
It is difficult to assess the damage Dagan caused Israel’s security. But it is clear that harm he did us was immense, strategic, long-term and multi-dimensional.
And national security wasn’t the only victim of Dagan’s behavior. His insubordination, like that of his comrades on the General Staff, struck a devastating normative blow to the country as well.
From the perspective of democratic norms, the worst part of Dagan’s subversion is that he was proud of it.
By insisting his final interview be broadcast posthumously, Dagan showed that he wanted his subversion of the government to be his legacy. Dagan’s final act was to tell his countrymen that it is legitimate to place themselves above the law and above the lawful government and take independent actions that will obligate the entire country.
Ironically, there is no substantive difference between Dagan’s actions – or the generals’– and the actions of the so-called Hilltop Youth in Samaria whom the generals continuously condemn as the greatest threat to Israel.
Like the generals, right-wing extremist teenage outlaws reject the authority of the government. Like the generals, denizens of “the state of Judea” believe that they know how to advance Israel’s national security better than our elected officials.
True, the damage the generals cause the country by revealing state secrets to foreign governments and libeling the nation of Israel as Nazis is several orders of magnitude greater than the damage wrought by fanatical teenagers who vandalize Arab property. Indeed it is far greater than alleged acts of murder that a handful of Hilltop Youth stand accused of committing.
By acting lawlessly and showing bottomless contempt for our elected officials, Dagan, Golan and their comrades tell the Hilltop Youth and the rest of us that the law is what they say it is.
Sixty-eight years ago, after declaring Israel’s independence, David Ben-Gurion set about dismantling the underground militias to ensure the survival of the state as a coherent political unit.
Sixty-eight years later, it works out there are still competing gangs trying to obligate the rest of us with their unlawful, anti-democratic and immoral behavior. If Israel is to survive for the next 68 years, we need to act firmly and forthrightly to end this state of affairs.
www.CarolineGlick.com

13.DEFENDING MARTIN SHERMAN at JERUSALEM POST by TED BELMAN

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By Ted Belman

On May 13/16, I announced that JPOST is about to make a big mistake in that it was about to discontinue Martin Sherman’s excellent column, INTO THE FRAY.

I called upon my readers to protest vigorously should the column be cancelled and to, in turn, cancel their subscriptions to the paper.

Many did in fact send emails in support of Sherman’s columns. Management replied that,

“Contrary to the false rumors, The Jerusalem Post has not decided to discontinue Martin’s column and looks forward to continuing to publish it on a weekly basis.

“Martin has requested a week off for a break but I look forward to publishing his column again in a week’s time.”

I spoke to Marin Sherman about this and he advised that the problem was still unresolved. Apparently, his emolument of 250 shekels an article was to be discontinued. Martin was expected to write without compensation. To my mind, it was insult enough that in the past, he was paid such a pittance. After all Sherman spends more than a day to write each article.

So last Friday, JPOST replaced his column by one by Ben Caspit who Arutz Sheva described as “one of Israel’s best-known Leftist journalists, also known for his hatred of Netanyahu”.

I am told that Caspit writes in Hebrew and which necessitates the services of a paid translator. His article generated almost zero reader response all of which was negative. Sherman’s columns on the other hand generate a huge response most of which is positive.

So why is JPOST unwilling to pay Sherman for his work. Is it really to save 250 shekels per week? Or is it more to do with Sherman’s ideology and support of compensated emigration for Arabs.

I have noticed that since JPOST has hired a new editor, JPOST has turned left and has come out against Prime Minister Netanyahu time and time again.

Please let JPOST know how you feel about this turn of events. Contact:

CEO – Ronit Hasin-Hochman jpost.com> Editor Yaakov Katz <yaakov@jpost.com>

DEFENDING MARTIN SHERMAN at THE JERUSALEM POST by TED BELMAN

14.Report: J-Street Received More Than $500,000 to Promote Obama’s Iran Deal
The Obama administration tapped J-Street via a wealthy US foundation to carry out a propaganda campaign for its Iran nuclear deal. By: Hana Levi Julian Jpress.com Published: May 22nd, 2016

Photo Credit: Paul Miller

The far-left J-Street lobby, which calls itself a “pro-peace” and “pro-Israel” organization, received $576,500 dollars last year to push the Obama Administration’s Iran deal, via the Ploughshares Fund, according to an AP report.

The Ploughshares Fund, one of the main groups named by the Obama administration’s spin doctor Ben Rhodes, set its sights on other media organizations in its campaign too. Their goal, according to Rhodes was to set up an echo chamber of pro-Iran messages bouncing back and forth between different organizations and individuals.

For instance, utilizing the services of the GMMB.com ad agency, the Ploughshares Fund attempted to directly reach politically active US Jews via online advertising on Israeli and Jewish websites, with a budget in the tens of thousands of dollars.

I’m looking to run on local Jewish community sites in PA, NY, MD or run on Jewish sites that can geo-target to these states.
More information below –
Timing: Sept 5th – September 18th
Goal: Completed video views and traffic to landing page
Geo: PA, NY, MD
Budget: $5- $40k
Target: Jewish people (preferably politically active)

GMMB was particularly interested in advertising on JewishPress.com, which did not run their ads. They were even willing to prepay for their campaign.

Two other sites GMMB expressed interested in advertising on were the Times of Israel and the JPost.com.

Banner ads that ran in the various newspapers and websites appeared to be from different organizations, which then led to different pro-Iran Deal websites and YouTube channels.

The Times of Israel ran ads for an organization called “No Nukes for Iran Project“, which of course supported the Iran deal.

Ads were also run on Google.

But the underlying account name from the back-end ad server sent to JewishPress.com said “Ploughshare Fund”.

Ploughshares Fund account information for the pro-Iran deal campaign to run on Jewish websites.

One such YouTube channel heavily featured Peter Beinart calling for viewers to #DefendTheDeal, under the name “Iran Deal Forum”.

“The Iran Deal Forum” promoting the Iran Deal with Peter Beinart videos.

The Associated Press explored the 2015 Annual Report of the Ploughshares Fund, a fund mentioned in the expose/profile of Rhodes published last week by The New York Times.

In that profile, Rhodes boasted about the main groups responsible for helping to create the “echo chamber” that promoted the Iran deal despite facts that contradicted the hype.

A fact sheet distributed this weekend by The Israel Project (TIP) managing director Omri Ceren noted The Ploughshares Fund is a donation hub that has distributed millions of dollars in recent years to groups pushing the Iran deal.

After Congress failed to defeat the deal, Ploughshares President Joseph Cirincione published a video and letter boasting about how the echo chamber – over 85 groups and 200 people – was created with Ploughshares money: “groups and individuals were decisive in the battle for public opinion and as independent validators… they lacked a common platform – a network to exchange information and coordinate efforts.

“Ploughshares Fund provided that network… we built a network of over 85 organizations and 200 individuals… We credit this model of philanthropy – facilitating collective action through high-impact grantmaking – with creating the conditions necessary for supporters of the Iran agreement to beat the political odds” Cirincione said.

The Ploughshares Fund gave National Public Radio $100,000 last year towards the mission to report on the Iran deal, funding reports on related issues and NPR’s annual report. According to the mission statement of the NGO, its primary raison d’etre is to “build a safe, secure world by developing and investing in initiatives to reduce and ultimately eliminate the world’s nuclear stockpiles.”

But it was that NGO and others who were used by the White House to carry out what amounted to a deliberate propaganda campaign to mislead the American people.

In its probe of the 2015 Annual Report of the Ploughshares Fund, the Associated Press broke down into three kinds of groups, the network of 85 organizations & 200 individuals funded by the NGO:

— Journalists and media outlets:

Ploughshares has funded NPR‘s coverage of national security since 2005, the radio station said. Ploughshares reports show at least $700,000 in funding over that time. All grant descriptions since 2010 specifically mention Iran… Previous efforts… Ploughshares has set its sights on other media organizations, too. In a “Cultural Strategy Report” on its website, the group outlined a broader objective of “ensuring regular and accurate coverage of nuclear issues in reputable and strategic media outlets” such as The Guardian, Salon, the Huffington Post or Pro Publica. Previous efforts failed to generate enough coverage, it noted. These included “funding of reporters at The Nation and Mother Jones and a partnership with The Center for Public Integrity to create a national security desk.”

— Think tanks and nuclear-issues associations:

The 33-page document lists the groups that Ploughshares funded last year to advance its nonproliferation agenda. The Arms Control Association got $282,500; the Brookings Institution, $225,000; and the Atlantic Council, $182,500… Princeton University got $70,000 to support former Iranian ambassador and nuclear spokesman Seyed Hossein Mousavian’s “analysis, publications and policymaker engagement on the range of elements involved with the negotiated settlement of Iran’s nuclear program.”

— Lobbies:

Other groups, less directly defined by their independent nuclear expertise, also secured grants. J-Street, the liberal Jewish political action group, received $576,500 to advocate for the deal. More than $281,000 went to the National Iranian American Council.

About the Author: Hana Levi Julian is a Middle East news analyst with a degree in Mass Communication and Journalism from Southern Connecticut State University. A past columnist with The Jewish Press and senior editor at Arutz 7, Ms. Julian has written for Babble.com, Chabad.org and other media outlets, in addition to her years working in broadcast journalism.

Report: J-Street Received More Than $500,000 to Promote Obama’s Iran Deal

An Israeli bus was targeted Saturday night in a drive-by shooting near Tekoa in Gush Etzion. The bus was damaged but no one was injured. By: Jewish Press News Briefs Published: May 21st, 2016 Latest update: May 22nd, 2016

Bullet hole in school bus windshield from terror attack in eastern Gush Etzion.
Photo Credit: Hatzholah Judea and Samaria

Arab terrorists opened fire Saturday night at an Israeli school bus in Gush Etzion as it passed the Arab village of Tequa, near the Jewish community of Tekoa.

The school bus was leaving Tekoa on its way west Gush Etzion, when a Fiat Punto pulled up by the bus, the driver pulled out a gun and began shooting at the bus.

The bus driver reported the shooting. The windshield was damaged.

No one was injured in the attack.

Security forces fanned out to hunt down the terrorists.

Residents in Jewish communities in the eastern Gush Etzion area are in lock-down while the search is ongoing.

Jewish Press News Briefs

Jewish School Bus Targeted in Drive-by Shooting in Gush Etzion

16.Urgent: Death for terrorists, or danger for Israel?? By Susie Dym

Arutz Sheva IsraelNationalNews.com 5/18/2016, 2:05 PM

Susie Dym serves as spokesperson for Mattot Arim, with over 20 years of experience.

About the coalition talks – now PM Netanyahu is wavering between Lieberman and Herzog. The decision may be made TODAY.

Please email LIEBERMAN YES, HERZOG NO NO NO !!! to Israel’s leaders:

Isn’t it better to legislate a death sentence for terrorists, as Lieberman demands, rather than

again sink into a dangerous “peace process” led by Leftists, which is what choosing Herzog represents??

For further reading: http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4804556,00.html

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4804702,00.html –

In a small country like Israel, every email counts. Please write now. NETANYAHU, KNESSET, PLEASE! HERZOG = NO!!

Email addresses for Knesset-member and ministers are:

Email addresses of Knesset members & ministers ?????? ???? ?? ???? ????? ??????:

lishkat_sar@education.gov.il;shaskel@knesset.gov.il; yedelstein@knesset.gov.il; davidam@knesset.gov.il; amiro@knesset.gov.il; oakunis@knesset.gov.il; gerdan@knesset.gov.il; bbeni@knesset.gov.il; nboker@knesset.gov.il; dbitan@knesset.gov.il; anatb@knesset.gov.il; ggamliel@knesset.gov.il; davraham@knesset.gov.il; tzhanegbi@knesset.gov.il; hkatz@knesset.gov.il; yiskatz@knesset.gov.il; zakil@knesset.gov.il; ymazuz@knesset.gov.il; anagosa@knesset.gov.il; nkoren@knesset.gov.il;kayoob@knesset.gov.il; mregev@knesset.gov.il; ysteinitz@knesset.gov.il; ebendehan@knesset.gov.il; nissan@knesset.gov.il; ashaked@knesset.gov.il; smoalemr@knesset.gov.il; dazulay@knesset.gov.il; ybentzur@knesset.gov.il; aderey@knesset.gov.il; yvaknin@knesset.gov.il; izchakec@knesset.gov.il; ymargi@knesset.gov.il; mnahari@knesset.gov.il; ieichler@knesset.gov.il; mgafni@knesset.gov.il; ylitzman@knesset.gov.il; mmozes@knesset.gov.il; umaklev@knesset.gov.il; mporush@knesset.gov.il; amarh@knesset.gov.il; olevy@knesset.gov.il; rilatov@knesset.gov.il; odedfo@knesset.gov.il; mcachlon@knesset.gov.il; aliberman@knesset.gov.il; alavie@knesset.gov.il; michaels@knesset.gov.il; sterne@knesset.gov.il;

EPILOGUE: This campaign seems to have been successful; the danger seems to have been averted, the chances of Herzog and his radically pro-Palestinian colleagues joining the government currently seem to be zero. As you know – every person counts, when everyone works together in a coordinated way. So, thanks for helping Israel. Just to remind, another very helpful step is to actually obtain voting rights for upcoming Likud primaries which determine the actual identities of the Knesset members and their order on the list. Contact mattot.arim@gmail.com for details, indicating your phone number and place of residence.

Urgent: Death for terrorists, or danger for Israel?? By Susie Dym

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17.’Balaamic results’ letter to editor of JPost.com by Susie Dym
The parallels between Lord Sacks’s pronouncements about Israeli settlements and Balaam’s biblical pronouncements about the dwellings of Israel are just too funny (“Rabbi Jonathan Sacks: Livingstone should be fired from Labour Party,” May 17).
Balaam famously failed in his quest to denigrate Israel, instead praising “Israel’s dwellings” in ageless prose. Rabbi Sacks, too, strove to air, via The Jerusalem Post, his inexplicable opposition to Jewish settlements in Judea and Samaria. Despite his best efforts, the rabbi ended up saying: “However improbable you might think a settlement is, you must not act to make it impossible.”
Indeed! However improbable each Jewish settlement’s future may seem (in Judea and Samaria specifically, and in the Land of Israel in general), we must not act so as to make it impossible. To the contrary, in Bamidbar 33:53, the Torah instructs every Jew to “take possession of the land [of Israel – including Judea and Samaria] and settle in it.”
What a smashing, modern-day enactment of “He who set out to curse, found himself giving a blessing.” SUSIE DYM , Rehovot

18.Netanyahu & Lieberman Will Seek to Reeducate Israel’s Military Brass

By Amos Harel, HA’ARETZ

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has never felt comfortable with the army. When the cameras are rolling, it’s clear there’s something forced & artificial about his encounters with soldiers. It’s not his natural element; he has been suspicious of generals since, when he was prime minister two decades ago, he clashed with the Israel Defense Forces chief at the time, Amnon Lipkin-Shahak.
Netanyahu has had more accounts to settle with the security chiefs, notably what the chiefs did between 2009 and 2012: the near rebellion by Mossad head Meir Dagan, Chief of Staff Gabi Ashkenazi and Shin Bet head Yuval Diskin to thwart Netanyahu’s plan to strike Iran’s nuclear sites. The current chief of staff, Gadi Eisenkot, didn’t play a major role in these intrigues because for most of that time he headed the Northern Command.

But Netanyahu still remembers the letter Eisenkot sent to Ashkenazi explaining the possible damage such a strike could do. At the end of 2014, when then-Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon urged Netanyahu to appoint Eisenkot chief of staff, the prime minister wavered until the last minute after considering alternatives like Golan & Maj. Gen. (res.) Yoav Galant. We can assume that Netanyahu hasn’t always been pleased with Eisenkot’s opinions since the general became chief of staff in February 2015.

In Avigdor Lieberman, Netanyahu has chosen as his next defense minister a man to whom military DNA is utterly foreign. Unlike Netanyahu and Habayit Hayehudi leader Naftali Bennett, Lieberman can’t look back at glory days as a young officer in an elite unit. Bennett has used his brief military career to befriend secular voters; he adds a thick layer of honey on any mention of his military experiences.

But Lieberman’s IDF experience amounts to a short stint in basic training for older immigrants. Senior officers who have dealt with Lieberman describe him as distant, almost suspicious. As chairman of the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, he didn’t make life easy for officers. More than once he showed impatience, but he also asked pointed questions (and fought tirelessly against leaks).

For years the Left wing has portrayed every Right-wing trick as a sure sign the country’s end is near. In endless articles, Right-wingers’ bills that rarely make it into law are compared to the dark days of far-off countries. The mountain’s shadow is perceived as the mountain.

And yet Netanyahu’s current term – a back-from-the-brink victory on Election Day itself – conveys another line. Netanyahu is more self-assured and aggressive than in the past.

After the immediate profit he gained from his “Arabs streaming to the polls” speech, the prime minister seems certain he knows everything better than his colleagues, whether allies or opponents. The forging of a 61-MK coalition was a work accident orchestrated by Lieberman. Now it is to be corrected, with Lieberman joining the government and Ya’alon leaving.

But the explanation isn’t just political expedience; it’s also the crisis of confidence between Netanyahu and Ya’alon and the IDF brass in recent months. As my colleague Yossi Verter has written, Lieberman’s entry reflects Netanyahu’s war against the elites, of which the military high command remains the last target.

There will now be an attempt to reeducate the General Staff, now without Ya’alon, as Bennett is doing to the Education Ministry and the civics teachers, and as Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked is trying to do with the state prosecution and the Supreme Court.

Lieberman doesn’t need to smash heads. He can make the officers’ lives miserable slowly but surely. As always, some people will bow enthusiastically to the new leadership, especially when the temptations are so great (promotions and even the office of the next chief of staff). In only a few weeks we’ll read an article saying that the new minister isn’t what we feared; he’s attentive, original and respects officers.

Still, in replacing Ya’alon with Lieberman, Netanyahu has turned the rudder sharply right. The significance of this move cannot be overestimated.

And it seems nowhere does the rudder need more careful navigation than Gaza, where Israel is two mistakes away from another war with Hamas. Netanyahu and Ya’alon had been treating this well and prevented an escalation even after the recent discovery of two tunnels dug by Hamas into Israel, apparently before the 2014 Gaza war.

Gaza is a powder keg. Statements by Lieberman, who only a month ago threatened to kill Hamas’ Ismail Haniyeh are like throwing a match into that keg. We can only hope that from the minister’s office on the 14th floor of the Defense Ministry, things indeed look different.

Gaza will also be a test case because the army’s recommendation was completely different from what Lieberman conveyed. The army says Israel should seek any economic means to relieve Hamas’ distress and reduce the threat of war.

Other sensitive areas regarding the army involve the terror wave in the West Bank. Just two months ago, the chief of staff made clear to ministers that the IDF’s rules of engagement were none of their business. The Palestinian question, in all its aspects, is expected to rise again between this November and January: Netanyahu fears harsh steps by Washington at the end of Barack Obama’s presidency. This might be the political tsunami that Defense Minister Ehud Barak warned about in 2011 and never came.

And there’s another issue, far from the public eye: weekly discussions of operations and urgent telephone consultations in which the prime minister and defense minister approve sensitive operations. Most of these operations are carried out successfully and aren’t even mentioned in the media.

Ya’alon, who was conservative about fielding large forces, tended to take calculated risks in small actions, in coordination with Eisenkot (his predecessor, Benny Gantz, was often even more cautious). It’s possible Lieberman’s entering the picture will change the system of checks and balances.

Netanyahu & Lieberman Will Seek to Reeducate Israel’s Military Brass