Dear Family & Friends,

Wow! Some good news (maybe it’s true). France cancelled its proposed summit, i.e., which would have been most of the whole world against Israel – sort of like a kangaroo court.

An excellent (as usual) piece by Caroline Glick, giving a full description of the legal weakness behind the Israeli Supreme Court’s decision to demolish Amona by December 25^th (Chanukah, l’havdil). No papers prove Arab ownership of the land on which Amona has been built – with government help in funds & utilities for 20 years with now 40 families.

Tzipi Hatoveley will launch a Foreign Ministry-led campaign to remove the label of ‘occupation’ from world vocabulary & address “the false paradigm” that Israel’s communities in Judea & Samaria are ‘illegal’. As she says: “We can’t be occupiers in our own land. That is the most historic area for our nation.” & she will embark upon a US campus tour, which she says is the first of its kind by an Israeli politician at her level. She plans to speak at political science departments and law schools, as part of her goal to reach out to young people.

I’m off to the Jerusalem Post Diplomatic Conference this am. I hope I will report tomorrow.

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

1.Report: France to postpone Mideast peace summit in Paris

2.Amona & the rule of law By Caroline B. Glick

3.Tzipi Hotoely, Deputy FM, hopes to break international West Bank paradigm

4.’Regulation Law may constitute annexation’

6.Regime Change In Iran Only ‘Long-Term Solution,’ Says Amb. John Bolton

7.Unrealistic targets by Sha’i Ben-Tekoa

10.Netanyahu forbids ministers contacting Trump advisers 11/22/16

11. ‘The Regulation Law harms Jewish settlement’ 11/21/16

12.BIBI: ‘I’m going to be around for a long time’

13.Hijacking the news on campus by Dr. Richard L. Cravatts

FREEMAN CENTER BROADCAST – NOVEMBER 21, 2016 FREEMAN CENTER FOR STRATEGIC STUDIES, P.O. Box 35661 * Houston, Texas 77235-5661
* E-mail: bernards@sbcglobal.net OUR WEB SITE < www.freeman.org >

1. Report: France to postpone Mideast peace summit in Paris

Ted Belman: Similarly the EU has no alternative but to follow the US line. If the US says settlements are legal or approves settlement construction, what is the EU to do? If the US criticizes illegal EU construction in Area C, what is the EU to do?

Paris reportedly receives clear message from the elected administration in Washington that the planned summit is unacceptable at this time • Palestinians: New administration’s biased position in favor of Israel will make resolving the conflict difficult.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu with French President Francois Hollande at the U.N. Climate Change Conference in Paris in 2015 | Photo credit: Reuters

The international peace summit seeking to reignite the stalled Israeli-Palestinian peace process, scheduled to be held in Paris in December, will be postponed and possibly even cancelled due to the result of the U.S. presidential elections.

The reason, according to a Sunday report in the London-based Arabic newspaper Al-Hayat, is that the elected administration opposes the summit, Israel’s objections to it notwithstanding.
Al-Hayat quoted senior government officials in Paris, who said that France had received clear messages from the elected administration in Washington saying the planned summit was unacceptable at this time.

Senior officials in Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas’ office told Israel Hayom that they had not received any official notice about the postponement or cancellation of the summit.

The Palestinians criticized Washington, saying that “the clearly biased position of President-elect [Donald] Trump and his people in favor of Israel will make it difficult to reach a solution to the conflict.”

2.Amona & the rule of law By Caroline B. Glick

JPost.com 11/21/2016 20:47

Mandelblit & his comrades have left our lawmakers no choice. They must pass the Arrangements Law & override Mandelblit.

Who owns what? A view of Amona & an Arab village in the background.

(photo:Marc Israel Sellem)

Israel’s rule of law is facing a serious challenge.
Depending on how it ends, we will either see our democracy secured, or we will find ourselves trapped in an authoritarian legal order in which our laws and our legal norms are dictated to the public by a junta of unelected attorneys.

The site of the battle is the 20-year-old community of Amona in Samaria. Home to 40 families, Amona was built on 150 acres adjacent to the community of Ofra.
Two years ago, based on a petition submitted by the foreign government funded radical Yesh Din organization, the High Court of Justice ruled that Amona must be razed to the ground by December 25, 2016. The decision was based on claims to private ownership of the land by a number of Palestinians who had been sought out and identified by Yesh Din.
The High Court is not a court of first instance. It does not weigh in on the actual merit of claims. It simply assumes they exist. And due to a failure of Israel’s administrative law, presently, there is no lower court tasked with adjudicating claims to ownership before such claims can be asserted before the High Court.
Following the initial High Court ruling, Yesh Din decided to take matters a step further. Based on the ruling it filed a separate civil suit against Israel’s military administration for damages in the name of the purported owners.
Yehuda Yifrach reported Friday in Makor Rishon that once the suit was filed, the Jerusalem District Court acted to ascertain the actual scope of the ownership rights under question. It was determined that a mere half-acre of Amona was built on lands to which the Palestinians made claim. The rest of their claims pertained to land outside of the community altogether.
In other words, once the actual claims of ownership were examined it worked out that a mere fraction of the community was built on privately owned land. It further worked out that the precise areas that were owned by claimants are non-contiguous and indiscernible, but all were generally located on smidgens of plots on the southern side of the community.
Others have disputed Yifrach’s findings. But that is part of the problem of ascertaining the validity of ownership claims.
At any rate, as Yifrach noted, rather than say that the owners would be compensated for the half acre, whose specific locations were unclear, the Attorney General’s office decided that all the plots that included privately owned land had to be destroyed. Thus the Attorney General’s lawyers magically transformed a half acre into 15 acres, covering the entire southern part of Amona.
The government then decided it would raze only the homes located on those 15 acres and move the families to new homes in Amona on undisputed plots in the northern half of the community.
The Supreme Court would have none of that, however.
The justices insisted their initial decision that all 60 acres be razed to the ground still stands.
In the two years since the court’s ruling, the government formed a committee charged with resolving the dispute between the Palestinian claimants to ownership on which the Israeli families have built their homes.
The committee came up with the solution of passing a new law in the Knesset that enables the military administration in Judea & Samaria to seize land for the purpose of settlement & compensate the owners for their property. The draft law, known as “the Arrangements Law,” passed its preliminary reading in the Knesset last week & is set to pass its three formal readings in the coming weeks.
There is nothing radical about the draft law. As Bar Ilan University law professor Avi Bell explained in an article published in Friday’s Israel Hayom, there are numerous examples of such laws in other liberal democracies.
Bell’s article came in response to Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit’s opinion on the draft law. Ahead of the initial passage of the law, Mandelblit published an opinion in which he claimed that the proposed law was unconstitutional and would be overturned by the High Court.
Mandelblit made three claims to support his contention.
First, he claimed that the proposed law is a breach of international law. While this claim itself is at best debatable, Bell showed that even if it were correct, it wouldn’t matter. As is the case in the US and other liberal democracies, in Israel international law does not supersede the laws passed by the Knesset.
Mandelblit also claimed that the Knesset has no right to pass laws that supersede the international laws relating to belligerent occupation of lands seized in war. But as Bell explained, the opposite is actually true. First of all, the Knesset has in the past decided that the rules of belligerent occupation will not apply to specific areas that Israel took control over during the 1967 Six Day War. For instance, in 1981 the Knesset decided that the rules of belligerent occupation would no longer apply to the Golan Heights and replaced the military administration of the area with Israeli law when it passed the Golan Heights Law.
Second, Mandelblit argued that in cases that do not involve land governed by a military administration, eminent domain cannot be used in relation to private construction projects. But as Bell noted, this claim is incorrect. In the US alone, there are dozens of examples where courts ruled that eminent domain can be used to seize land for private construction projects.
Mandelblit’s third argument against the Arrangements Law was that the Knesset doesn’t have the right to pass laws that contradict High Court decisions. Here too, Bell countered that the record does not support Mandelblit’s contention. Israel’s Basic Laws, which form the basis of its constitutional regime make clear that the Knesset is the highest legislative authority. Bell also recalled that the Knesset has passed numerous laws that have overturned High Court decisions.
Given the specious nature of Mandelblit’s legal reasoning, it is difficult to avoid the conclusion that in writing his opinion he was not acting as a lawyer, but as a political activist. Mandelbilt’s purpose was not to protect the rule of law – which his opinion ignores and distorts. Rather his goal was to protect the rule of lawyers who use their positions as officers of the court to advance their political agenda.
Faced with the specter of Mandelblit’s legally unsupported “legal” opinion, PM Benjamin Netanyahu first tried to get the court to delay the deadline for destroying Amona for several months.
Unsurprisingly, the court, which is fighting not for justice but to prove that it is more powerful than the government, rejected his request.
Now, in an attempt to get around Mandelblit’s specious opinion, Netanyahu is apparently backing a plan that would set up a special tribunal to determine ownership rights and compensation on the basis of a Turkish model used in occupied Northern Cyprus.
The problem with that model is first that it would come too late to save Amona and so doom the community to unwarranted destruction, at the hands of an authoritarian and hostile legal fraternity.
Moreover, it is far from clear that such tribunals can function without the Knesset first passing a law delineating the basis of their powers.
The timing of this showdown between the rule of law and the rule of lawyers couldn’t be worse. It comes in the twilight of the Obama administration which has shown consistently that the actual legal basis for Israel’s actions in Judea, Samaria and Jerusalem is irrelevant.
President Barack Obama and his advisers condemn every action Israel takes because they oppose Israel’s presence in the areas for ideological reasons that have nothing to do with law.
Unfortunately, we can’t always pick the timing of our great battles.
Mandelblit and his comrades have left our lawmakers no choice. They must pass the Arrangements Law, and override Mandelblit. This is the only way to ensure the Knesset’s position as Israel’s lawmaking body is respected.

This is the only way to secure Israel’s position as a nation governed by the rule of law, rather than the rule of unelected, unaccountable lawyers.

3.Tzipi Hotoely, Deputy FM, hopes to break the international West Bank paradigm By Lahav Harkov JPost.com11/22/2016 04:22

· Our world: Amona and the rule of law

The deputy minister lamented the persistent idea that “everything starts & ends with ‘the occupation.’”

Deputy Foreign Minister Tzipi Hotovely (R) The Foreign Ministry

needs to lead the battle against the term ‘occupation’.

(photo credit:AFP PHOTO / GALI TIBBON)

Deputy Foreign Minister Tzipi Hotovely (Likud) has big plans for next year, the 50th anniversary of the Six Day War. She seeks to alter what she terms “the false paradigm” that has taken root in the international community, claiming that Israel is an illegal occupier.
The false paradigm has developed over the decades following the war in light of Israel’s continued presence in the West Bank (Judea & Samaria), east Jerusalem, the Golan Heights &, until 2005, Gaza.

Israel, however, has always maintained that it is not an occupying force. The territory is disputed, and Hotovely, who will be addressing the Jerusalem Post Diplomatic Conference on Wednesday, wants to drive home that point, as well highlighting the millennia of Jewish history in the West Bank and Jerusalem.
“The Foreign Ministry needs to lead the battle against the term ‘occupation,’” she said. “It is my flagship project to try to break this myth.”
This flagship project is part of a broader initiative by Hotovely to reverse years of Israeli diplomats avoiding discussing the Israeli-Arab conflict.
Instead, she has instructed them to do the opposite & to firmly emphasize the Israeli position.
“They said, let’s avoid political issues and rebrand Israel as being all about technology. Technology is important and interests a lot of countries, but we can’t talk like we’re in a hi-tech bubble without dealing with the Middle Eastern context. People talk about us in that context. We can’t disconnect from the region or from core issues,” she explained.
The deputy minister lamented the persistent idea that “everything starts and ends with ‘the occupation.’” “It’s not correct legally, and it doesn’t make sense. We can’t be occupiers in our own land. That is the most historic area for our nation. You can’t say we belong in Tel Aviv, but not in Judea and Samaria,” she argued.
In addition, she said, “it’s very clear that the Palestinians are not ready for any kind of agreement,” citing radicalization in Palestinian society.
The Palestinians have shown they’re not interested in reaching an agreement with Israel by trying to undermine Israel’s legitimacy, Hotovely said, and that is the Foreign Ministry’s real battle, which also ties into her plans for next year.
“People say we’re barely 70 years old, but we have a 3,000-year-old connection to this land. We’re a new state & a an ancient civilization,” she said, repeating a catchphrase she likes to use for this topic.
In that vein, the deputy foreign minister hopes to invite diplomats and foreign press in Israel to events in which they can learn more about Israel’s history and for embassies to hold similar events.
“We want to celebrate this year, not be apologetic. We’ll have an aggressive campaign around knowledge and history – things that weren’t discussed for a long time,” she said.
Recently approved UNESCO resolutions denying the Jewish connection to the Temple Mount and Western Wall in Jerusalem emphasized for Hotovely the need to focus on history.
The resolutions are an “own goal for the international community,” she said. “The minute they move from politics to historic farce, these institutions lose their legitimacy.
How can you take any UNESCO decisions seriously if political processes control everything?” She continued: “We thought our connection to Jerusalem was obvious, but now we see we have to work on it and talk about it.
“The resolution says that we’re violating religious freedom, but the fact that we’re in Jerusalem is what allows real religious freedom. The Muslims are trying to erase Jewish and Christian history. If we want all three [major monotheistic] religions to have freedom in Jerusalem, we have to make sure it remains united and its decision is off the international agenda,” she argued.
Hotovely partly blamed the delegitimization of Jewish history in Jerusalem on former prime minister Ehud Olmert, who, in 2008, offered Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas a far-reaching agreement that would include the Old City.
This is further proof that the Palestinians are not interested in statehood, she posited.
“There were Israeli leaders willing to give them a state, and they didn’t take the offers, so now they’re looking for a new narrative, through delegitimizing Israel and disconnecting us from this land, turning us into colonialists and saying we’re the white man who came from Europe,” Hotovely scoffed.
The deputy minister also called the Palestinians’ efforts at UNESCO a sign of their desperation for attention from the international community.
“The world lost patience with the Palestinians. The world isn’t interested in them. The biggest deal in the region is Syria. Now, we see a weakness in the Palestinians’ ability to create a positive discourse, and they just keep lying,” she stated.
Another way Hotovely plans to spread the word next year is through a US campus tour, which she says is the first of its kind by an Israeli politician at her level. She plans to speak at political science departments and law schools, as part of her goal to reach out to young people.
She also wants to bring the Foreign Ministry into the 21st century and invest more in digital engagement. “There’s a whole world of young people who aren’t connected to official channels and traditional media. Social media are stronger now, and the Foreign Ministry has to be there,” she explained. “We need to reach people who don’t already have a strong opinion about Israel and seek out new platforms.”
One way to do that is to simplify Israel’s messages.
“We’ve become addicted to the concept of complexity, and we forgot to tell a story. We have to give people accessible information, not just maps and UN resolutions,” she said.
When it comes to more traditional audiences for a foreign minister – diplomats, for example – Hotovely said that, although she has a different message about Israel than they are used to, people are very receptive and even understanding.
“Most people who hear this are somewhat in shock that the big dramas in the region aren’t our conflict. They don’t know how to deal with the new reality of stability here.
Our job is to call for a new agenda. “There’s a new Middle East, but unlike what [former president Shimon] Peres thought it would be, of peace and opportunities, it’s a Middle East in which countries are falling apart and returning to Muslim tribalism,” she said.
When officials try to convince Hotovely that the two-state solution is the right way, she asks them what the alternative is to an Israeli presence in the West Bank.
“Is it going to be Hamas or ISIS? I haven’t met one international representative that, when we sit one on one, doesn’t admit that there is no chance of a democratic entity on our border. They understand that we will have radical Islam sitting on our border,” she stated.
And with that realization, Hotovely chips away at the paradigm.

The Jerusalem Post Diplomatic Conference will take place on Wednesday in Jerusalem. Live streamed at www.jpost.com.

4.’Regulation Law may constitute annexation’ by Hezki Baruch

Knesset legal advisor Eyal Yinon warns that the Regulation Law could be interpreted as annexation of Judea & Samaria. 11/22/16

Nissan Slomiansky – Flash90

Knesset legal advisor attorney Eyal Yinon warned at a special committee hearing Tuesday morning that the Regulation Law (also known as the Normalization Law) “may cross a frontier yet to be traversed” as it calls for legislation for a Palestinian population who have no right to vote in the Knesset.”

“This could be interpreted as annexation,” added Yinon, stating that “the present proposal is sailing outside Israel’s known territorial waters & the question is can it be brought back to port.”

MK Nissan Slomiansky (Jewish Home) said at the beginning of the meeting that “I intend to conduct a genuine discussion, lengthy but not populist. It is possible that proposals will be brought in the course of discussions which will make the law redundant. These are subjects which are at the fulcrum of democracy – after 50 years the legislators wish to relate to the 450,000 subjects who live around the country but whose status remained unclear. The topics are profound and the responsibility on us is great.”

‘We want a strong, stable judicial system just as we want a strong, stable legislative system, so there is no intention to harm or belittle one of the systems. We have to make order and possibly establish demarcation lines for each system. I think that the law will not harm the status of the courts but will establish borders and demarcation lines.”

5.A White House that is for settling the Land Of Israel

The Fox News op-ed on the Trump administration said it all. By Ronn Torossian, 21/11/16 23:22

Ronn Torossian The author is CEO of 5WPR, 1 of the 25 largest PR Agencies in the US.

More from the author ?

In 2008, Barack Obama said: “I think there is a strain within the pro-Israel community that says unless you adopt a unwavering pro-Likud approach to Israel that you’re anti-Israel and that can’t be the measure of our friendship with Israel.”

Obama reportedly described Israel’s elected government as “extreme right”, and told Peter Beinart, the American Jewish journalist who supports a boycott of Israel to “hang in there.”

In a 2015 speech at the White House, he noted “I came to know Israel as a young man through these incredible images of kibbutzim, and Moshe Dayan, and Golda Meir, and Israel overcoming incredible odds in the ’67 war. The notion of pioneers who set out not only to safeguard a nation, but to remake the world. Not only to make the desert bloom, but to allow their values to flourish; to ensure that the best of Judaism would thrive.”

But the reality is that Obama has consistently been hostile towards Israel.

If the Obama White House viewed Israel through the prism of kibbutzim, Moshe Dayan and Golda Meir, the Trump White House is shaping up to be one that is comfortable with the ways of Rav Kook, Menachem Begin and Ze’ev Jabotinsky. Free market values, a whole Land of Israel and a stand against radical terrorists.

A Fox News op-ed asked half-seriously today, “Did we just elect our first Jewish President?”

As the piece noted, “…Donald Trump is as close as you can come to being our first Jewish president…..When he bought his Florida home and turned it into a popular and exclusive country club, he specifically opened the membership up to Jews. Mar-a-Lago was the first club that ever allowed Jews in Palm Beach. Donald changed the customs of the most-wealthy, WASP-y town in America to favor Jews.

Donald is family-oriented and clearly loves and dotes on all his children. He is bursting with pride at his children’s success. To Jews, family and children are everything…..Donald’s daughter Ivanka has converted to orthodox Judaism. That makes Donald the first president in the history of America with orthodox Jewish grandkids…

Donald is handing his business over to his children. That is the goal of every Jewish businessman in history. Donald is the most relentless person I’ve ever met. Relentless is a very uniquely Jewish trait. Jews are relentless fighters- we have survived thousands of years of hate, discrimination, persecution, robbery, slavery and murder.

Many of Donald’s political views and policies are tailor-made for Jews. He could be the most pro-Israel president in history. Donald will always stand with the Jews of Israel.

How strong are Donald’s bonds to Israel? He was the Grand Marshal of the annual “Salute to Israel” parade….His stance on “extreme vetting” and stopping the mass importation of Muslim refugees should be welcomed and enthusiastically embraced by every American Jew. Donald’s goal is the same as mine- keeping people out of our country who could commit acts of terrorism and who have an unnatural hatred and prejudice toward Jews…

One of Donald’s first priorities as president is to re-negotiate the Iran deal- perhaps the worst treaty ever negotiated in U.S. history and a danger to Israel’s future survival…

Donald is the strongest anti-terrorism president possible. He understands our enemy is radical Islam. He uses the words “Islamic extremist” in the same sentence.”

Jason Greenblatt, is one of three members of Trump’s Israel Advisory Committee, he’s Modern Orthodox, was a student of Yeshivat Har Etzion and notes that this administration “does not view Jewish settlements as an obstacle to peace.” David Friedman, Trump’s other Israel advisor is an outspoken supporter of Judea & Samaria, and serves as the President of American Friends of Bet El Institutions.As he’s written perceptively on Arutz Sheva, “The US State Department – with a hundred-year history of anti-Semitism — promotes the payoff of corrupt Palestinians in exchange for their duplicitous agreement to support a two-state solution.”

Can any friend of Israel believe that these people can betray the Jewish State? The Trump White House has the potential to be a tremendous friend of Israel.

November 21, 2016 Bolton, a controversial figure in US diplomatic circles, is reportedly being considered as a possible candidate for US Secretary of State following the presidential election victory of Donald Trump.

Former UN envoy Bolton to ‘Post’: US supporters of Trump should not fret.
(Photo credit:Oded Antman)

Former US ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton said on Thursday that the only “long-term solution” to erasing the threat Iran poses to the Middle East is regime change, according to Politico citing an interview he gave to Breitbart News Daily.

Bolton, a veteran diplomat who served in former US president George W. Bush’s administration, has been floated as a possible contender for US Secretary of State following the presidential election victory of Donald Trump on November 8.

“The ayatollahs are the principal threat to international peace and security in the Middle East,” Bolton told Breitbart.

“Now, their ouster won’t bring sweetness and light to the region, that’s for sure, but it will eliminate the principal threat.”

Bolton argued that the people of Iran would welcome a new government in the Islamic Republic & the US should be a sponsor of opposition groups looking to topple the current regime.

“I think the people of Iran would long for a new regime…I don’t think the regime is popular, but I think it has the guns. I think there are ways of supporting the opposition that does not involve the use of American military force, but does involve helping the opposition get a different kind of government.”

He acknowledged, however, that “a new government may not be filled with Jeffersonian Democrats, either.”

Bolton is a controversial figure in US diplomatic circles, known for his hawkish foreign policy attitudes and adversarial disposition towards the UN, stating in the past that “The Secretariat Building in New York has 38 stories… If you lost ten stories today, it wouldn’t make a bit of difference,” according to The Washington Post.
He later commented that “there is no United Nations… there is an international community that occasionally can be led by the only real power left in the world, and that’s the United States.”

The former ambassador has advocated for attacks on Iran in the past, telling The Jerusalem Post Israel should have carried out a preemptive strike against the Islamic Republic back in 2013.

“Israel should have attacked Iran yesterday – every day that goes by puts Israel in greater danger, every day Iran makes more progress,” he told the Post.

“I can understand why Israel wants us to take action, but the longer Israel waits for something that is not going to happen, the greater the danger Israel is in,” he added.

Bolton made the comments a day after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Iran was approaching the red line he set out at the UN in the fall of 2012, who said that Israel could attack Iran as a last resort to prevent it from gaining nuclear weapons capability.

Bolton later said that the nuclear deal signed between world powers and the Islamic Republic last year was “unacceptable,” describing it as a “total failure” that should be rethought, according to Breibart News. Ariel Ben Solomon contributed to this report.

8.Government to destroy monument to fallen IDF soldiers

[Gail sez: Why do we keep destroying communities & monuments of & to our own people?!!! Btw: This same photo was too appropriately used in my GWDiary of 11/17-20 #6 re: Planned house demolitions in Elazar & Nativ Avot.]

The Civil Administration is preparing to demolish monument to IDF soldiers despite legal and political efforts to stave off destruction. By Shimon Cohen., 22/11/16 09:09

Dept. Minister Ben Dahan & Saville at the monument – Gush Etzion spokesperson

According to various reports the Civil Administration intends to move forward the destruction of the monument erected in the Netiv Avot neighborhood of Elazar in memory of slain IDF soldiers Lieutenant Colonel Immanuel Moreno and First Lieutenant Ezra Asher.

The soldiers were killed during the Second Lebanon war. Moreno’s task was so sensitive that to this day his picture cannot be viewed by the public as it might put others in danger.

Arutz Sheva spoke with the acting head of the Gush Etzion regional council, Moshe Saville.

Saville initially confirmed reports about the intended razing of the monuments in the next few days. “We have heard about the Civil Administration’s intention to expedite the destruction of the monument despite the fact that we are conducting significant negotiations to prevent its destruction. We do not want to see monuments to IDF soldiers being destroyed. We think it is wrong. This structure is not harming anyone & nobody is claiming the land on which the monument was erected.”

“We are doing all we can and trying every avenue to prevent this from happening. At the same time we wish to emphasize that this will not pass silently. Neither the families of the soldiers nor the residents and those who erected the monument will let the matter pass without a response.”

Regarding the intensive efforts to prevent the destruction, Saville said: “There is a High Court decision requiring the government to do this before the end of the year. For some reason there are those who want to speed up the destruction, and we are hearing hints to that effect. We know that last week they intended to act but we managed to put on pressure and postpone it. We told the Civil Administration to wait until we have utilized all the available legal procedures.”

“I don’t know whether we will stop it but we will do all in our power to stop it. It is absurd to destroy a monument situated on land the government intends to regulate and on which there is no claimant, but there are still officials intent on destroying it and performing an injustice to the dead soldiers’ memory. It is our right and our obligation to protest this act.”

A few days ago Deputy Defense Minister Eli Ben-Dahan visited the monument and the adjacent Netiv Avot neighborhood together with Saville, who mentioned that he himself spoke with Ben-Dahan to try and use his influence to prevent this injustice from happening. Saville added that “This requires time. Even though he wants to help and realizes how ridiculous this is, these actions require time and (the Civil Administration) should not be so eager to act with such urgency.”

Regarding the predicted protests against the destruction of the monument Saville said that “We are negotiating with the leadership of Netiv Avot and Elazar. I feel that there is a real moral requirement not just on the residents of the area but on all Israeli citizens to say that such an injustice cannot be done. It is illogical and immoral, I expect people to come and visit in order to see what we are discussing and when they realize that this is irrational they will change their attitude and do all in their power to prevent this destruction.”

9.James Woolsey: Trump will usher in new age in US-Israel relations

Clinton-era CIA chief condemns Obama’s behavior towards Israel, believes Trump will repair relationship. By David Rosenberg, 21/11/16 11:09 Former CIA chief & Navy Undersecretary James Woolsey on Sunday blasted Obama’s handling of the US-Israel relationship & its conciliatory stance vis-à-vis the Iranian regime. A registered Democrat, Woolsey was critical of what he described as the Bush administration’s intelligence “failure” prior to the Iraq war.

In September, 2016, Woolsey crossed party lines to become Donald Trump’s senior national security adviser.

Woolsey broke with the Obama administration over budget cuts to the military, the controversial 2015 Iran nuclear deal, and the icy relations between the White House and Israel.

Speaking to Fox News on Sunday, Woolsey said the incoming Trump administration was likely to alter or reject the Iran nuclear deal, signed by the Obama White House but never ratified by the US Senate.

When asked what would be the most consequential policy change President Trump would likely make, Woolsey replied: “I think definitely the agreement with Iran on nuclear weapons & nuclear technology.”

“It’s a terrible agreement,” Trump’s adviser continued, “it’s the worst I’ve ever come across in nearly 40 years of negotiating agreements with the Soviets and so forth. I think that anybody who brought that agreement back as something that was effective and verifiable would be laughed out of Washington. The people who brought this one back should have been.”

Woolsey went on to call hopes that the nuclear agreement would constrain Iran’s nuclear ambitions as “fanciful”.

“They can call anything, on the spur of the moment, to be a military facility and therefore can’t be inspected. If I’m an inspector and I start out to go inspect something, before I get there they turn it into a military facility. They never disseminated all of the paperwork that had to be – in copies of the agreement – that had to be disseminated. So the steps that obligatory to us – paying the funds that have been withheld from banks and so forth – should never have been paid and should be stopped now. It is really a very, very bad and dangerous agreement because it lulls us into a false sense of security and it is not going to be an effective restraint on the Iranians.”

The former CIA Director added that any arrangement with the Iranian regime would have to take into account that government’s history of evading treaty obligations.

“The Iranians never don’t cheat. Negotiations for them are not about a deal where there’s a quid pro quo and each side goes away more or less satisfied. That’s totally alien [to them]. From their point of view, it’s about dominance. It’s about showing dominance. And this agreement they are very pleased with because they believe it shows their dominance.”

During the interview, Woolsey praised Vice President-elect’s 2014 comments on Israel, calling the US-Israel relationship the “most cherished” one with a foreign power.

“I think that that’s a good statement. I would put Britain and Israel together in that.”

He added that the Trump White House would strengthen the US-Israel relationship, repairing damage done during the Obama administration.

10.Netanyahu forbids ministers from contacting Trump advisers

By Herb Keinon JPost.com 11/21/2016 23:58

· Iranian Guard using Trump to reclaim power

Liberman retracts comments about only building in settlement blocs

Trump & Netanyahu. (photo credit:Reuters)

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu directed ministers and deputy ministers on Monday not to make direct contact with officials in US President-elect Donald Trump’s transition team, in an apparent effort to prevent a proliferation of messages from Jerusalem to the new administration.
Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman said last week that Jerusalem had received messages from Trump’s transition team to tone down comments and behave with “a bit more humility.” Immediately after the US elections on November 8, Bennett said “the era of a Palestinian state is over.”
Liberman himself walked back comments on Monday that he made at a press briefing last week, when he said that Israel should contain settlement building to the main settlement blocs. Liberman was harshly criticized by the Right for these remarks, and reportedly was chastised as well by sources close to Trump.
Liberman said at the Yisrael Beytenu faction meeting in the Knesset that “over the weekend I saw so many false accusations and disinformation” about his position regarding the settlements that he felt the need to clarify matters.
“As a pragmatic man of the Right, and as a realistic resident of Judea and Samaria, I admit and confess that we did not build enough over the last eight years – we hardly built,” he said. He added this was not because of a lack of legislation or will, “but because of a failure in attempts to formulate a policy acceptable both to us and the United States.”

11. ‘The Regulation Law harms Jewish settlement’ 11/21/16

Defense Minister Liberman addresses the Regulation Law, building in Judea and Samaria and the delay in Rabbi Karim’s appointment. Arutz Sheva Staff, 21/11/16 15:48

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Defense Minister, Avigdor Liberman, opened the Yisrael Beitenu faction meeting today by addressing the issue of Amona and the Regulation Law, as well as the Supreme Court’s decision to delay the appointment of Colonel Rabbi Eyal Karim to the military rabbinate.

Liberman said that “we have not built enough in Judea and Samara in recent years due to the failure to formulate a policy that is acceptable to the United States. We should not now be creating facts on the ground. We need to wait for the new administration to take shape and then reach an agreement regarding construction in Judea and Samaria.”

Regarding Amona, Liberman said that the Regulation Law, in his opinion, is not the solution. “I support the residents of Amona, so I will not lie to them. There is no connection between the Regulation Law and preventing the evacuation of Amona. The Regulation Law doesn’t strengthen Jewish settlement. It weakens it.”

When asked about the recent Supreme Court decision delaying the appointment of Rabbi Karim, he said, “The Supreme Court has not given its final decision yet.”

‘The Regulation Law harms Jewish settlement’

12.’I’m going to be around for a long time’ by Hezki Baruch

At the Likud faction meeting today, PM blasts what he calls Israel’s ‘industry of dismay,’ and emphasizes that he won’t leave his post. 21/11/16 16:20

Netanyahu – Reuters

Prime Minister Netanyahu alluded at the Likud faction meeting today to the “submarine affair” & the accusations against him of corruption.

He also related to his recent visits to Be’er Sheva, where he was exposed to cutting-edge hi-tech advances made by Israel, and to Wolfson Medical Center in Holon, where he met with children who had arrived from all over the world for cardiac operations.

“There are those who are determined to constantly [present Israel in a negative light], there is a whole industry here of ‘dismay,’ under whose framework they tell us how bad it is here,” he said in reference to the press and the opposition.

With respect to the submarine affair, Netanyahu said, “I want to tell everyone who is in a hurry to downshift and calm down. I’m going to be around for a long time.”

“I say to my friends in the opposition: ‘you want to convince the public? Then present your opinion, we will present ours, and the public will decide,’” he said.

13.Hijacking the news on campus by Dr. Richard L. Cravatts, 21/11/16 23:59 College newspapers display shocking and one-sided anti-Israel bias on behalf of Palestinian Arabs.

Dr. Richard L. Cravatts, is the president of Scholars for Peace in the Middle East. authored Genocidal Liberalism: The University’s Jihad Against Israel & Jews and was formerly professor at Simmons University.

When Elmer Davis, director of FDR’s Office of War Information, observed that “. . . you cannot do much with people who are convinced that they are the sole authorized custodians of Truth and that whoever differs from them is ipso facto wrong” he may well have been speaking about those well-meaning, but misguided college students who rail against a world in which their dreams of social justice for the oppressed and weak are not being realized, despite their best efforts.

That same tendentious behavior now seems to have been exploited by editors of college newspapers who have purposely violated the central purpose of journalism and have allowed one ideology, not facts and alternate opinions, to hijack the editorial composition of their publications and purge their respective newspapers of any content—news or opinion—that contradicts a pro-Palestinian narrative and would provide a defense of Israel.

The latest example is a controversy involving The McGill Daily and its recent astonishing admission that it is the paper’s policy to not publish “pieces which promote a Zionist worldview, or any other ideology which we consider oppressive.”

“While we recognize that, for some, Zionism represents an important freedom project,” the editors wrote in a defense of their odious policy, “we also recognize that it functions as a settler-colonial ideology that perpetuates the displacement and the oppression of the Palestinian people.”

After the paper had given its tacit support to a 2015 Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) resolution, and had then run a satirical piece this September, “White Tears Increase on Campus,” which seemed to mock Jewish students complaining about the anti-Israel campus climate and asserted that they were in fact privileged by virtue of being “white,” a McGill student, Molly Harris, filed a complaint with the Students’ Society of McGill University’s (SSMU) equity committee. In that complaint, Harris contended that, based on the paper’s obvious anti-Israel bias, and “a set of virulently anti-Semitic tweets from a McGill Daily writer,” a “culture of anti-Semitism” defined the Daily—a belief seemingly confirmed by the fact that several of the paper’s editors themselves are BDS supporters and none of the staffers are Jewish.

In fact, on the basis of both the EUMC and U.S. State Department’s working definitions of anti-Semitism, the editors’ spurious contention that Zionism “functions as a settler-colonial ideology that perpetuates the displacement and the oppression of the Palestinian people” is, in itself, anti-Semitic, since, according to the EUMC, it denies “the Jewish people their right to self-determination, e.g., by claiming that the existence of a State of Israel is a racist endeavor.”

Of course, in addition to the existence of an insidious anti-Semitism permeating the editorial environment of The Daily, there is also the core issue of what responsibility a newspaper has to not insert personal biases and ideology into its stories, and to provide space for alternate views on many issues—including the Israeli/Palestinian conflict—in the opinion sections of the paper.

At Connecticut College, Professor Andrew Pessin also found himself vilified on campus, not only by a cadre of ethnic hustlers and activists, but by fellow faculty and an administration that were slow to defend Pessin’s right to express himself—even when, as in this case, his ideas were certainly within the realm of reasonable conversation about a difficult topic: the conflict between Israel and Hamas. Central to the campaign of libels waged against Pessin was the part played by the College’s student newspaper, The College Voice.

In August of 2014, during Israel’s incursions into Gaza to suppress deadly rocket fire aimed at Jewish citizens, Pessin, a teacher of religion and philosophy, wrote on his Facebook page a description of how he perceived Hamas, the ruling political entity in Gaza: “One image which essentializes the current situation in Gaza might be this. You’ve got a rabid pit bull chained in a cage, regularly making mass efforts to escape.”

That image of a pit bull did not sit well with at least one Connecticut College student, Lamiya Khandaker, who, not coincidentally, had founded a chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine, the virulently anti-Israel, sometimes anti-Semitic student activist group operating on more than 115 campuses across America.

Khandaker complained publicly about Pessin’s old Facebook post, and he deleted the offending Facebook entry, and even proffered an apology. Pessin’s apology was insufficient for the ever-suffering moral narcissists on his campus. In fact, editors of The College Voice insisted that Pessin’s thoughts were “dehumanizing” to Palestinians and had “caused widespread alarm in the campus community.”

The paper’s editor, Ayla Zuraw-Friedland, initiated a campaign of lies against Dr. Pessin, contending that his post “caused widespread alarm in the campus community,” that the college community could and should “identify racism when we see it,” and that the very students viciously attacking Pessin for his thoughts were themselves “victims of racism.” In March 2015, the College Voice even ran three op-eds, beginning on the paper’s front page that condemned Pessin and accused him of racism and comparing Palestinians to rabid dogs.

The Wesleyan University community also underwent collective apoplexy over a 2015 opinion submission in the school’s student newspaper, The Argus, which critically examined the Black Lives Matter movement. The thoughtful, relatively-benign op-ed, written by sophomore Bryan Stascavage, a 30-year-old Iraq veteran and self-described “moderate conservative,” questioned if the behavior of some BLM supporters “cheering after [a police] officer is killed, chanting that they want more pigs to fry like bacon” showed a moral and ideological flaw in the movement, leading him to wonder, “is the movement itself actually achieving anything positive? Does it have the potential for positive change?”

That opinion was apparently more than many of the sensitive fellow Wesleyan students could bear, and the newspaper’s staff was inundated with denunciations of the implicit racism of the offending op-ed and the “white privilege” demonstrated by its author, demands that apologies be issued by the paper’s editors, the widespread theft of The Argus around campus, and calls for sensitivity/social justice training for staffers.

The shell-shocked editors even published a front-page apology for having run the piece in the first place, cravenly caving to the sensibilities of the campus crybabies and saying they understood “the frustration, anger, pain & fear that members of the student body felt in response to the op-ed ‘Why Black Lives Matter Isn’t What You Think.’” More tellingly, they wrote, “in light of the Black Lives Matter op-ed, students of color may not feel comfortable [emphasis added] or welcome writing for The Argus. College students have now taken a new, misguided approach in their attempt to suppress speech whose content they do not approve of, as they seem to have done at Wesleyan. On college campuses, to paraphrase George Orwell, all views are equal, but some are more equal than others.

To illustrate how a double standard exists in the academy as it relates to academic free speech one only has to look at other opinion pieces that have appeared in the self-same Argus, such as a March 2015 column written by members of Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), a corrosive, anti-Israel group, who published an op-ed with the mendacious title, “Israel’s Apartheid State.”

In the op-ed, written as the annual anti-Israel hate fest known as Israeli Apartheid Week was about to get underway at Wesleyan and campuses around the country, Israelis, and those Jewish students and other pro-Israel individuals on campus who support Israel, are described by the writers as racists, oppressors, ethnic cleansers, thieves and appropriators of Palestinian land, participants in “state terror,” colonial settlers, and aggressive militants who randomly and barbarically initiate “wars against Gaza” while slaughtering innocent Arabs in violation of international law, seemingly without motivation or justification.

While the Argus editors, in their extensive apology for the BLM op-ed, claimed that the writer had “twisted the truth” and misrepresented facts in making his argument, and that they felt editorial responsibility for not fact-checking the piece, in fact the op-ed did not wildly distort facts or misrepresent the recent history of the Black Lives Matter movement, at all.

But one could just as easily, and perhaps more relevantly, ask why the editors had not employed that same editorial scrutiny when they agreed to publish the libelous piece by the SJP members in March, an opinion piece whose main message was built upon an analysis that was fraught with untruths, distortions of history and fact, libelous assertions about political behavior and military operations, and a view of the Israeli/Palestinian conflict that disingenuously assigns all of the blame on Israel and ignores Arab rejectionism and truculence, not to mention terrorism, in the decades-long assault on the Jewish state.

Another equally disingenuous SJP October 2015 op-ed in The Argus, “Occupation Breeds Violence, Free Palestine,” written as Palestinian murderers were stabbing, shooting, and driving over Israeli citizens in a month-long wave of terror, remarkably assigned the blame for the carnage, not on the psychopaths who were perpetrating it, but on its victims, asserting that “SJP not only condemns terror, we go further by condemning the primary engine of the ‘recent surge in violence’: Israel’s illegal military occupation of the West Bank.”

So while campus free speech is enshrined as one of the university’s chief principles, the current Wesleyan Argus controversy, as well as the editorial biases exposed in McGill’s and Connecticut College’s student newspapers, shows us that it rarely occurs as free speech for everyone, only for a certain few who feel they are morally and rationally more fit to express themselves than their ideological opposites.

If we want speech to be truly free, to paraphrase Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., then editors have to embrace not only speech with which they agree, but also that speech with which they disagree, the speech that they hate.

____________________________________________________________________________

Richard L. Cravatts, PhD, President Emeritus of Scholars for Peace in the Middle East, is the author of the new book, Dispatches From the Campus War Against Israel and Jews.

November 21, 2016
Egyptian foreign minister Sameh Shoukry, visited Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu this year in Jerusalem, in the first visit by any Egyptian FM in close to a decade [Reuters]

Almost four decades since former Egyptian President Anwar al-Sadat extended a hand of peace to Israel, the two governments have reached “full partnership and unbreakable alliance”, analysts say.

Although many Egyptians continue to regard Israel as a threat and sympathise with the Palestinian cause, the relationship between the two countries has become markedly explicit under President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi.

“Egyptian-Israeli relations are today at their highest level in history,” Nathan Thrall, a Jerusalem-based senior analyst for International Crisis Group (ICG), a research NGO, told Al Jazeera.

It certainly appears so.

In 2016, Egyptian foreign minister, Sameh Shoukry, visited Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in a much-publicised meeting at the latter’s home in Jerusalem. It was the first visit by any Egyptian FM in close to a decade. Netanyahu said the two “made time to watch the Euro 2016 final” football game together.

Egypt also reinstated an ambassador to Tel Aviv this year, following Morsi’s decision to pull out the envoy in protest against the 2012 Israeli assault on Gaza.

In 2015, the Israeli embassy in Cairo was reopened after a four-year closure, due to protests in front of the embassy over Israel’s killing of several Egyptian police officers in the Sinai. And, in the same year, Egypt voted in favour of Israel to become a member of a United Nations committee – the first time that Egypt has voted for Israel at the UN since the creation of the Jewish state in 1948.

Such examples are only a few of the many developments that signal a new chapter in this relationship, which Mohamed Soliman, a Cairo-based political analyst, characterises as a “full partnership, unbreakable alliance and diplomatic completion” between the two countries.

Common Enemies

The alliance, analysts say, has been predicated on military & security cooperation, mainly with regard to the armed groups operating in the Israeli-occupied Gaza Strip & the Egyptian Sinai desert.

The two have worked together to battle the Sinai insurgency, where allies of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS), have gained momentum in recent years.

Thrall says Israel “has repeatedly allowed” Egypt to bring forces and weapons into the Sinai beyond the scope of the peace treaty.

Israel’s willingness to allow Egypt to deploy into areas that clearly defy the security appendix of the Camp David Accords demonstrates a “flexibility and coordination between Egypt and Israel [that came] early in Sisi’s tenure,” Soliman told Al Jazeera.

The relationship between the two countries has become so lucid that there have been multiple, but unconfirmed, reports of Israel carrying out drone strikes in Sinai with Egypt’s consent.

The common ground has also extended to a dislike of Hamas, the political and armed movement that governs two million Palestinians in the occupied Gaza Strip. Egypt has accused Hamas of being linked to the Muslim Brotherhood, while Israel considers it a threat to its sovereignty.

Since Sisi’s coming to power in 2014, Egyptian authorities have kept the Sinai border crossing with Gaza largely sealed. The move has suffocated its residents, whose only other passage to the outside world is through Israel, which imposes an airtight blockade.

Besides keeping their borders shut, the two countries cooperated in the most recent destruction and flooding of the vast Palestinian-built tunnel network between Gaza and the Sinai, analysts say. The tunnels, used for everything from smuggling people out & KFC in, are viewed as a threat to both Israel & Egypt. Both sides claim the tunnels were being used for weapon trade.

“Egypt and Israel view the tunnel economy between the Sinai Peninsula and Gaza as a clear and present danger. Cairo knows that the tunnel economy enriches smugglers on the Sinai side – many of whom have ties to the local Islamic State branch – while Israel is well aware that it bolsters and arms Hamas in Gaza,” Oren Kessler, deputy director of Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a DC-based think-tank, told Al Jazeera.

“Egypt has taken an uncompromising approach to destroying the tunnels, and has worked with Israel to do so.”

While cooperation over the flooding of the tunnels has not been announced publicly, Israel’s energy minister, Yuval Steinitz, stated that some flooding took place at Israel’s request, but he was reportedly forced to retract his claims.

Aside from military cooperation and common enemies, Israel and Egypt have found mutually beneficial economic opportunities in gas, in a partnership that predates Sisi’s arrival.

Until 2012, Egypt had been selling natural gas to Israel as part of a 20-year deal that was cancelled. According to Bloomberg, the two countries are now close to securing a new multibillion-dollar deal that would see Israel export gas to Egypt.

Broker for peace?

In May 2016, Sisi committed Egypt as a middleman between the Israelis & Palestinians. His FM’s visit to Jerusalem in July was subsequently publicised as part of Egypt’s initiative to push for peace.

Safa Joudeh, a Cairo-based political and security analyst, believes the calls for peace are merely a cover aimed at distracting Egyptians. “Renewing peace talks between Palestinians and Israelis was largely a smoke screen for Egypt to pursue closer diplomatic ties with Israel, while avoiding public backlash,” Joudeh told Al Jazeera.

The visit also took place at a time of local discontent over Egyptian foreign policy on issues that “are deemed more pressing” she said, which “raises the question of the timing [of Shoukry’s visit].”

“Although the rapprochement initiative is unpopular with the Egyptian public,” said Joudeh, “there was no adverse reaction to Shoukry’s visit as it was largely overshadowed by all the other foreign policy debates within the public sphere,” including the transfer of two Red Sea islands to Saudi Arabia and tension over Ethiopia storing Nile water behind its dam.

While in theory, the concept of closer Egyptian-Israeli ties is potential for pushing Palestinian-Israeli peace talks along, analysts say they are having an opposite effect by creating intra-Palestinian division and diverting Israeli responsibility to come to the negotiating table.

Israel has for years stalled and ignored US calls to halt illegal settlement building in the Israeli-occupied Palestinian West Bank and East Jerusalem. A French proposal to restart the talks this year was also bluntly rejected by Israel, claiming it would only agree to direct talks.

“Egyptian involvement could reduce international pressure on Israel over its lack of serious steps towards negotiating with the Palestinians,” said Soliman. “Sisi’s initiative does not cost Netanyahu anything other than more negotiations”.
Elie Podeh, head of Mid East studies department at Hebrew University in Jerusalem, agrees. He says Israel “is indeed interested in diverting the Palestinian question by getting closer to the Arab states”. But crucially, he believes the Zionist state’s standing with Arab countries, as a whole, will not improve if it does not move forward on the peace process.

With Israel in a position of power, some believe it cannot be talked into making any concessions. For instance, Waleed al-Modallal, head of political science at the Islamic University of Gaza, says that it is not clear to him “how Egypt would be able to pressurise Israel into responding to the rights of the Palestinians. It seems that it is the other way round – that Egypt will pressurise Palestinians to relinquish more and more for Israeli objectives,” Modallal told Al Jazeera.

Instead, Modallal argues “the resistance movement”, particularly Hamas, has the most to lose in this new alliance. He also questions Egypt’s role as an honest broker between the Israelis and Palestinians, given its “negative attitudes towards the Palestinian cause, whether in contributing to the continued siege on Gaza or turning a blind eye to the Israeli aggression on the strip in 2014.

“Egypt has failed at moving the Palestinian cause along at international forums. Given its declining status on the regional front and its preoccupation with internal issues, Egypt is not a candidate to play the role of solving the Palestinian cause.”

In fact, as Israel and Egypt tighten the noose on Gaza, the rift between Hamas and Fatah, the ruling party of the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank, is thought to be widening.

“Mahmoud Abbas and his Fatah movement likely take quiet satisfaction in the fact that both countries take a hard line against Fatah’s archrival Hamas,” Kessler says.

While the PA is “engaged in a concerted campaign to isolate Israel diplomatically, and is, therefore, disappointed to see its fellow Arabs embrace Israel in any way,” it also “cautiously welcomes any steps to rein in Hamas,” Kessler continued.

But there is a third dimension.

Regional implications

Playing on regional rifts in the Arab world, with the divide between the Gulf states and Iran, Israeli officials and analysts speak of an unofficial “moderate axis” of Arab countries that are purportedly working behind the scenes with the Israeli government.

In this “alliance”, Western-backed countries including Egypt, Turkey, Saudi Arabia & several of the Gulf states, as well as Jordan & Morocco, are said to be pitted against “common enemies” Syria, Iran, ISIL, Hamas & the Muslim Brotherhood.

Kessler believes the tighter Egyptian-Israeli partnership is “being received with quiet approval by traditional US allies in the region, such as the monarchies of the Gulf states and Jordan, who see those relations as useful in confronting shared adversaries.

“More broadly, those ties help shore up the camp of those relatively pro-Western regimes against the ‘resistance’ camp led by Iran & its proxies including the Syrian regime & Hezb’Allah”.

Modallal, however, says this strategy will only mean more divide and instability for the region.

“Israel’s success in creating an ‘axis of relatively moderate states’ allows it to suffocate Iran by creating a basis for regional cooperation against it. This would fuel the conflict between the Arabs and Iran, in a way that would lead to the destruction of Israel’s two foes at the same time.”

He says that given the lack of any Arab country that could challenge Israel’s strength, strengthening this divide will allow Israel to achieve its strategic goals, and secure its superiority, while Arab countries are mired in conflict.

Egypt’s foreign policy towards Israel today is not much different from that of Mubarak’s, who, like Sisi, was a former military man.

The main aspects of bilateral ties, explains Joudeh, have remained intact, as historically, the relationship with Israel has been handled by the Egyptian army.

But the difference now, she says, is that under Sisi and his military-backed government, “the lines between political decision-making and national security strategy have become blurred”.

16.China to Israel: You are a technological powerhouse

The Chinese Deputy Minister of Science is visiting Israel to mark 25 years of China-Israel relations.

By Hezki Baruch, 21/11/16 17:48

Hotovely with Chinese Deputy Minister of Science – Public Relations

Deputy Defense Minister Tzipi Hotovely hosted today the Chinese Deputy Minister of Science, Li Meng. During the meeting, the two discussed developments in the China-Israel Joint Committee on Innovation (JCIC), set to take place this spring.

Hotovely praised developments in economic relations between Israel and China, and noted that mutual cooperation in technological advancement, science, and academic research is thriving. “This coming year marks 25 years in diplomatic relations between the two countries, and I have no doubt that recent years saw significant advances in the development of relations.”

The Deputy Minister noted that talks over a free-trade zone agreement between China and Israel are an important landmark in China-Israel relations, and expressed hope that the agreement will be advanced and will lead to greater cooperation between the business communities in China and Israel.

The Chinese Deputy Minister of Science told Hotovely that, despite Israel’s small size, China sees Israel as a technological powerhouse and important friend.

China to Israel: You are a technological powerhouse

15.Avi Kahalani: Female combat soldiers will lose maternal warmth

Reserve Brigadier-General discusses IDF decision to integrate women into Armored Corps, says it will impact their ability to mother.

Arutz Sheva Staff, 21/11/16 13:06  Avigdor Kahalani – Arutz Sheva

In an interview with Galei Israel Radio, Reserve Brigadier-General Avigdor Kahalani expressed his opinion on the IDF’s recent decision to integrate women into the Armored Corps.

“When I was injured and burned, and I couldn’t leave my tank, I screamed one word: Mommy!! There’s only one mother to a child, and a girl who fights in a war will end up completely different [than a mother should be],” Kahalani said.

Kahalani also thinks the danger in putting women in the Armored Corps is the emotional damage they’ll suffer after the war.

“I’m just thinking of seeing women injured from wars, like some of my comrades were,” he said. “I think at the end of the day, a woman’s job is to be a mother, and after the traumas of war, she’ll be completely different. The motherly feeling, the mother’s touch, the ability to nurse and give birth, it won’t be the same.”

Kahalani is currently CEO of the Association for the Wellbeing of Israel’s Soldiers (Ha’aguda Lema’an Hachayal). He has decorations from the Yom Kippur War where his battalion held off a Syrian force of 500 tanks, the Medal of Distinguished Service for service during the Six-Day War, where he was badly wounded when his M-48 Patton tank caught fire and a medal from the president for his contribution to Israel.

Former IDF Chief Rabbi, Rabbi Yisrael Weiss, was also interviewed in the program. He said women in the Armored Corps sounded like a crazy idea no matter how you looked at it.

“If we put two people into a closed box, there’s no way something won’t happen,” Rabbi Weiss said. “We can’t put a couple, a man and a woman, a male soldier and a female soldier, into a closed box for a week and expect that nothing will happen. You’ll get a little tank soldier in another nine months.”

On Sunday, former Major Gen.Yiftach Ron-Tal said the idea to put women in the Armored Corps was a leftist plot to weaken the IDF. In his words, the decision is a “scandal that will harm everything you can even think of, including the IDF’s abilities to fight.”

Avi Kahalani: Female combat soldiers will lose maternal warmth