Re: ISRAEL BREAKING NEWS

Admin Sat 25 Jul 2015, 5:04 pm

Israel could be blamed if Congress rejects Iran deal, warns Kerry
Secretary says Jewish state will be more isolated if US lawmakers overturn nuclear accord; ex-envoy Oren slams his ‘threat’BY RICKY BEN-DAVID AND REBECCA SHIMONI STOIL July 24, 2015, 7:49 pm 180
Secretary of State John Kerry speaks at the Council of Foreign Relations on July 24, 2015 in New York City. (Spencer Platt/Getty Images/AFP)
SHINGTON — US Secretary of State John Kerry warned Friday that should Congress vote against the Iranian nuclear deal signed last week in Vienna, Israel could find itself more isolated in the international arena and “more blamed.”
“I fear that what could happen is that, if Congress were to overturn it, our friends in Israel could actually wind up being more isolated. And more blamed. And we would lose Europe and China and Russia with respect to whatever military action we might have to take. Because we will have turned our backs on a very legitimate program that allows us to put their program to the test over the next few years,” Kerry told an audience at the Council of Foreign Relations in New York.
The statement was promptly rejected by the former Israeli ambassador to the United States Michael Oren, now a member of the centrist Kulanu party.
“If American legislators reject the nuclear deal, they will do so exclusively on the basis of US interests. The threat of the secretary of state who, in the past, warned that Israel was in danger of becoming an apartheid state, cannot deter us from fulfilling our national duty to oppose this dangerous deal,” Oren said in a statement.
Earlier Friday, Kerry warned that any future Israeli military action against Iran over its nuclear program would be an “enormous mistake.”
Iran and the US-led P5+1 world powers signed a nuclear deal last week that would see Iran curbing its nuclear program in exchange for the lifting of international sanctions. The agreement was met with fierce opposition by Israel, Saudi Arabia and other countries that maintain the deal doesn’t go far enough to prevent Iran from developing a nuclear weapon.
In Israel, politicians across the spectrum slammed the deal as soon as it was announced.
Opposition leader Isaac Herzog, head of the Zionist Union party, said he would work with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s ruling coalition to thwart the Iran nuclear deal.
“Now Iran is out of the cage and will become a regional tiger,” Herzog said last week, calling the agreement “a complex challenge that mandates cooperation on understanding the threat and on finding solutions.”
Yesh Atid chairman Yair Lapid, who also sits in the opposition, said the Iran deal was the country’s biggest foreign policy failure ever, and blamed Netanyahu for mishandling the affair.
Netanyahu earlier this week urged US lawmakers to combat Iranian aggression by rejecting the nuclear deal.
The agreement now goes to Congress which started a 60-day review of the deal and is expected to vote on it by September 17. Congress can pass a motion of disapproval, which President Barack Obama can veto. An override of the veto requires two-thirds approval in both the House and Senate.
Kerry said Friday it would be embarrassing to him and a blow to US credibility on the world stage if Congress rejects the deal.
It would be a “repudiation of President Obama’s initiative and a statement that when the executive department negotiates, it doesn’t mean anything anymore because we have 535 secretaries of state,” Kerry said, referring to the number of members of the House and Senate.
“Do you think the ayatollah is going to come back to the table if Congress refuses this and negotiate again?” he asked.
“Do you think that they’re going to sit there and other people in the world are going to say, ‘Hey, let’s go negotiate with the United States, they have 535 secretaries of state’?,” Kerry said.
“I mean please. I would be embarrassed to try to go out. What am I going to say to people after this as secretary of state. ‘Come negotiate with us.’ ‘Oh, can you deliver?’ Please.”
Kerry defended the nuclear deal, saying it was the only alternative to military action and must be tested if diplomacy is to succeed.
In a reprise of his testimony Thursday before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Kerry said the agreement is the best way to prevent Iran from developing an atomic weapon. If Congress rejects the deal, he said Iranian hardliners would speed ahead with their nuclear program and the international sanctions regime would collapse.
He said there is more chance of a nuclear arms race in the Middle East without the recently negotiated deal.
Kerry also revealed Friday that the Bush administration offered a far more generous package than the current nuke deal in its efforts to thwart Iran’s nuclear program, but Tehran rejected it.
The US secretary of state will later Friday meet with the leaders of the American Jewish Committee and the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations to discuss the deal.
AP and AFP contributed to this report.

http://www.timesofisrael.com/wsj-expose-on-syrian-chemical-weapons-is-a-harbinger-of-farce-in-iran/

WSJ exposé on Syrian chemical weapons is a harbinger of farce in Iran If a beleaguered Assad found it easy to deceive Western powers about his illicit WMD, imagine what Tehran will do BY AVI ISSACHAROFF July 24, 2015, 10:08 pm
Investigators take samples from sand near a part of a missile that was suspected of carrying chemical agents, according to activists, in the countryside of Ain Terma, Syria, August 28, 2013 (photo credit: AP/United Media Office of Arbeen, File)
The Wall Street Journal’s revelations Friday about the West’s efforts to destroy Syria’s chemical weapons constitute a harbinger of what the international community can expect vis-a-vis the Iranian nuclear program. It’s a taste of how Tehran will conduct itself with the West.
The newspaper paints a detailed picture of the holes in the West’s ability to dismantle Bashar Assad’s chemical weapons program. Simply put, most of the chemicals intended for use as weapons were destroyed, as were most of the chemical weapons themselves. The strong suspicion is, however, not only that Assad retains chemical weapons — according to the report, Assad tucked away “caches of even deadlier nerve agents” than the ones relinquished — but that he is also still secretly producing them.
The dismal saga starts with a passionate American president who drew a red line at the possibility of the Syrian regime using chemical weapons. The Syrian president was not impressed. He believed that the US administration and its leader were bluffing, and therefore, when it was “necessary,” he used short-range rockets to deliver sarin gas in an attack in the Damascus suburbs in August 2013.
It turned out that President Assad was correct in his estimation. President Obama did not want to attack Syria for a variety of reasons (some of them good ones). Still, Obama did show enough determination to force Assad to give up his chemical weapons. In theory, at least.
Ostensibly, this was the best outcome imaginable — even if Obama’s credibility took a hit.
President Obama makes his case during his weekly address Saturday for pursuing a diplomatic solution following Syria’s use of chemical weapons, September 2013. (screen capture: YouTube)
Members of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) began implementing the Russian-mediated agreement to remove Assad’s chemical weapons, operating a range of facilities in Syria, where there were allegedly 1,300 tons of materials for chemical warfare. But here too problems started, an investigation by the Journal’s Adam Entous showed.
According to conversations Entous and his colleagues had with the US government, intelligence community and OPCW members, the only facilities inspected were ones that had been declared by the Syrian regime. Even the figure for the amount of chemical warfare materials — 1,300 tons — was provided by the regime. The information provided by Assad was deemed at the time to be highly reliable. This amount was destroyed and 23 facilities inspected. But from the outset, the inspectors were unable to operate in any facilities that the Syrian regime did not want them to visit.
Under the agreement, inspectors could only visit facilities after giving 48 hours’ notice, and only in line with security considerations. In other words, they needed advance permission from the Syrians. In some instances, if the area due to be visited was not deemed “safe enough” in the assessment of the Syrian regime, the inspectors could not go there.
This meant that inspectors had to make do with photographs and videos “proving” that certain facilities had been emptied of chemical materials. And this is where still other problems cropped up. Members of the OPCW suspect that Assad and his associates continued to produce chemical weapons in various facilities belonging to Syria’s Scientific Studies and Research Center (SSRC), facilities that did not appear on the list of 23 sites.
Just last October, the regime added to the list some new facilities, including some from the SSRC, which the West had at least already known about. OPCW inspectors had anticipated disclosures about mobile laboratories for the production of chemical weapons, operating from massive trucks, including 18-wheeler semi-trailers. These trucks were innocuous from the outside, and bore advertising for companies in Hungary.
The Syrians reported to the OPCW the existence of 100 Scud missiles armed with chemical warheads and 1,100 bombs for aerial attacks on Israel. Some of those weapons were destroyed by the regime — at least according to Assad’s aides — and others were handed over to the OPCW. But the inspectors and the intelligence community were well aware that the regime had short-range rockets, like those used in Damascus in August 2013, which it had not divulged. And those same rockets carried sarin gas.
Furthermore, the Journal report revealed, there is a strong suspicion that the regime is hiding quantities of mustard and sarin gases. For example, the regime reported that it had just 20 tons of mustard gas, which had already been installed in various weaponry, despite the suspicions of Western intelligence agencies that Assad had hundreds of tons. So Syria’s initial reports now seem unreliable, and it is widely believed that the Syrian regime is holding far larger quantities.
Ultimately, the OPCW and the West preferred to continue dismantling what the Syrians had reported, so that they could at least claim that achievement. The agreement thus did improve the situation. But did it completely stop the Assad regime having chemical weapons or producing them? All too evidently not.
In Israel, the talk for some time has been that the threat of Syrian chemical weapons has declined, but still exists. Israel’s concern is that Assad kept some chemical weapons that could now fall into the hands of Islamic State or be transferred to Hezbollah.
With all of this in mind, one can only imagine the Iranian response, as the deal signed with the P5+1 powers last week is implemented, when inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency seek access to suspicious sites. The complex formulations of the deal will give the Iranians 24 days’ notice of any visit; if that were not problematic enough, some Iranian officials are already ruling out such visits altogether.
US Secretary of State John Kerry testifies during a hearing before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee July 23, 2015 on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC (Alex Wong/Getty Images/AFP)
On Thursday, Secretary of State John Kerry’s testimony to Congress was marked by the grilling he faced over the question of whether a separate IAEA-Iran deal allows the regime to self-inspect — the allegation that, rather than IAEA inspectors visiting, Iran will hand over soil samples from its suspect facility in Parchin.
It might be amusing if it wasn’t tragic. And the belated revelations of the holes in the Syrian process only underline the yawning flaws in this one.

Admin Fri 24 Jul 2015, 5:39 pm

sraeli military action against Iran would be 'huge mistake,' Kerry says
US Congress to begin hearings on Iran nuclear agreeme...
Obama: Lifting of sanctions will increase Iran's abil...
US secretary of state told NBC on Friday that an Israeli strike on Iran would have 'grave consequences for Israel and for the region.'
US Secretary of State John Kerry chats with Matt Lauer, co-host of the NBC News "Today" program, in New York. (photo credit:STATE DEPARTMENT)
US Secretary of State John Kerry said on Friday it would be a huge mistake if Israel decided to take unilateral military action against Iran over its nuclear program in the future.
Kerry was asked in an NBC "Today" show interview if the nuclear deal reached last week between would make it more likely that Israel might attempt a military or cyber attack on Tehran.
"That'd be an enormous mistake, a huge mistake with grave consequences for Israel and for the region, and I don't think it's necessary," Kerry said.
The secretary's remarks are just the latest offering in a public relations blitz staged by the Obama administration as it tries to sell the public and Congress of the necessity and utility of the nuclear agreement struck with Iran last week.
The nuclear agreement reached between world powers and Iran last week took its first official beating in Congress on Thursday, with members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee from both parties questioning the strength of the accord.
During an appearance on Thursday before a skeptical Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Kerry mounted a furious counter-attack against the deal’s detractors, saying it would be “fantasy” to think the US could simply “bomb away” Tehran’s atomic know-how.
The secretary of state insisted that critics of the deal – which curbs Iran’s nuclear program in return for sanctions relief – were pushing an unrealistic alternative that he dismissed as a “sort of unicorn arrangement involving Iran’s complete capitulation.”
“The fact is that Iran now has extensive experience with nuclear fuel cycle technology,” Kerry told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. “We can’t bomb that knowledge away. Nor can we sanction that knowledge away.
“Let me underscore the alternative to the deal we have reached is not – as I’ve seen some ads on TV suggesting disingenuously – it isn’t a ‘better deal,’ some sort of unicorn arrangement involving Iran’s complete capitulation,” Kerry said. “That is a fantasy, plain and simple, and our intelligence community will tell you that.”
Several Democrats on the panel were listening closely.
Some expressed concerns with specific provisions of the deal, but the majority seemed to voice agreement that a lack of alternative paths to a peaceful end to the decades-long conflict may force them to vote to approve of it.
Congress began a 60-day review period on Monday, during which it may choose to vote to approve or disapprove of the deal. A resolution of disapproval would have to come to a second vote with two-thirds support of both chambers in order to overcome a presidential veto.
Michael Wilner contributed to this report.

Admin Fri 24 Jul 2015, 10:44 am

Thousands Gather in Times Square to Protest Nuclear Deal
By Lea Speyer July 23, 2015 , 11:30 am
“Righteous lips are the delight of a king, and he loves him who speaks what is right.” (Proverbs 16:13)
Thousands gathered at the Stop Iran Rally in Times Square, July 22, 2015. (Photo: Mason Resnick/ Stop Iran Rally Times Square Facebook Page)
Thousands gathered in the heart of New York City on Wednesday to protest the threat of the Iran nuclear deal. Those gathered called on members of Congress to block the deal, which puts Israel’s security and that of the world at risk.
Right-wing Jewish and Christian Zionist groups had a major presence at the rally, including StandWithUs, Christians United for Israel (CUFI), Israeli American Council and the Zionist Organization of America.
Busses and caravans from across the country converged on Times Square, with similar rallies taking place in Los Angeles, Ft. Lauderdale, Phoenix and Toronto.
Speakers, including various Republican politicians, slammed the deal, calling a nuclear Iran the greatest threat to the world. Protestors waved American flags and signs denouncing the deal.
READ MORE
Americans Don’t Trust Iran to Uphold Deal
By Ahuva Balofsky July 23, 2015 , 12:30 pm
“Some trust in chariots, and some in horses; but we will make mention of the name of the LORD our God.” (Psalms 20:8)
A new Pew poll shows that most Americans do not trust Iran to hold up its end of the bargain in the final nuclear deal reached last week, while almost half oppose its conditions. The results of the poll were released Tuesday, and unsurprisingly, they also revealed a significant partisan divide on the subject.
The survey, conducted between July 14-20 among 2,002 adults, with a 3 percent margin of error, showed that most Americans had some knowledge of the details of the nuclear agreement. While only 35 percent said they knew a lot about it, 79 percent said they had heard at least a little about it.
Among those knowledgeable on the matter, many had little (35 percent) or no (38 percent) confidence that Iran would uphold its end of the bargain. The agreement, reached a week ago, calls for the reduction or elimination of crippling sanctions in return for scaling back Iran’s nuclear program and allowing inspections of nuclear sites.
54 percent of respondents said they had little (33 percent) to no confidence (21 percent) that the US and international agencies could monitor Iran’s compliance with the accord.
Of those who had heard of the agreement, 48 percent disapproved of it while 38 percent said they approved; 14 percent did not offer an opinion.
Americans were also divided on the impact the deal would have on US-Iranian relations. 42 percent thought it would not change much between the two nations, while 25 percent thought it would improve relations and 28 percent thought it would make things worse. However, 58 percent still think diplomacy is the best way to ensure peace.
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Missile Defense System to Protect Passenger Planes in Southern Israel
By Ahuva Balofsky July 23, 2015 , 9:30 am
“As birds hovering, so will the LORD of hosts protect Jerusalem; He will deliver it as He protecteth it, He will rescue it as He passeth over.” (Isaiah 31:5)
Israeli commercial aircraft headed to Eilat will now be protected by an on-board missile defense system, with the installation of the new systems taking place three weeks ago.
According to reports, the order to deploy the anti-missile systems on Arkia and Israir flights came from the Israeli defense establishment in response to a growing threat from an Islamic State (ISIS)-affiliated group in the Sinai Peninsula, which carried out a major offensive on the Egyptian military there.
Last year, the Israeli Defense Ministry announced that its tests of the new SkyShield system were “100 percent successful”. The system combines lasers and a thermal camera to redirect ground-to-air missiles.
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Majority of Israelis Support Rebuilding Jewish Communities in Gaza
“By wisdom a house is built, and by understanding it is established.” (Proverbs 24:3)
A majority of Israelis believe the country’s disengagement from the Gaza Strip in 2005 was a mistake and that Israel should rebuild Jewish communities there, a new survey by the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies think tank has found.
The survey’s findings—63 percent of respondents called disengagement a mistake, and 51 percent supported Jewish rebuilding—contradict opinion polls taken at the time of the disengagement in 2005, which showed strong backing for withdrawing from the coastal territory.
Additionally, the survey found that 47 of Israelis oppose evacuating Jewish communities from Judea and Samaria.
READ MORE

IDF Looks to Bible to Prepare for Future Threats
By Ahuva Balofsky July 23, 2015 , 10:30 am
“And the LORD said unto Gideon: ‘The people that are with thee are too many for Me to give the Midianites into their hand, lest Israel vaunt themselves against Me, saying: mine own hand hath saved me…’” (Judges 7:2)
The Israeli Defense Forces is preparing for a possible future which includes a nuclear-developing Iran, a senior defense source told The Jerusalem Post. According to the paper, the IDF must assume the worst to properly reshape the military, improve training and cut costs.
New IDF Chief of Staff Lt.-Gen. Gadi Eisenkot and a team of military planners spent four years developing what they have termed the “Gideon Plan” for streamlining the IDF over the next several years.
It calls for significantly increasing the power of wartime multi-arena combat divisions; restructuring the army to create specialized brigades and battalions that focus exclusively on border security, leaving the main fighting to the divisions; and improving weapons and training.
The Gideon Plan was publicized Monday, ahead of the results of the Locker Commission, which calls for significant reductions in the Israeli army’s operating budget. The Locker commission, ordered by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to examine the military budget and headed by Major General (Res.) Yohanan Locker, has received considerable criticism from defense officials, who claim it undermines the army and delegitimizes career officers.
While the Locker Commission calls for sweeping cuts to the budget, as well as to personnel, the Gideon Plan has its own recommendations for reducing waste and improving efficiency. The plan is named for the Biblical hero Gideon, who reduced his army of thousands to a mere 300 men to fight against the Midianites.
The Gideon Plan cuts the number of reservists by 100,000, eliminates four major-general positions and reduces the number of high-level administrative positions by six percent. Unlike the Locker Commission, it preserves the pensions of career officers, but limits the number of those who remain in the army long enough to be eligible for such pensions.
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http://www.breakingisraelnews.com/45672/idf-looks-to-bible-to-prepare-for-future-threats/#bCXkRAOed62cQVOP.97
Iran Deal Empowers Enemies of Peace
By Khaled Abu Toameh July 23, 2015 , 12:00 pm
Hamas is only one of several radical groups in the Gaza Strip that have been receiving financial and military aid from Iran. The other groups include Islamic Jihad, the Popular Resistance Committees and some Fatah-affiliated militias. According to Palestinian sources in the Gaza Strip, the Iranians have already resumed their aid to Hamas’s military wing, Ezaddin al-Qassam.
Hamas officials hope that the nuclear deal and the lifting of sanctions imposed on Iran will lead to a dramatic increase in Tehran’s support for the terror groups in the region. Thanks to the deal, Hamas and Hezbollah are once again working together toward achieving their goal of undermining moderate Arabs and Muslims and eliminating Israel.
“The Palestinian people will not surrender and we will continue with the resistance until the liberation of all of Palestine.” — Mahmoud Zahar, Hamas leader.
Hamas seeks to ensure continued Iranian backing for its plan to destroy Israel, while at the same time joining the Sunni-led coalition and pretending to oppose Iran’s rising power in the Middle East.
This deal has virtually destroyed any prospect of a peaceful solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Hamas, the Palestinian Islamist movement that has vowed to destroy Israel, is emerging as one of the biggest beneficiaries of the nuclear deal reached last week between Iran and the world powers.
READ MORE
http://www.breakingisraelnews.com/45701/iran-deal-empowers-enemies-of-peace-opinion/#T5bCWAKmu0QxOjY4.97

Admin Wed 22 Jul 2015, 8:38 pm

Iran’s Deputy FM: P5+1 Knew We’d Keep Arming Allies During Negotiations
By Lea Speyer July 22, 2015 , 11:30 am
“The adversaries of the Lord shall be broken to pieces; against them he will thunder in heaven.” (1 Samuel 2:10)
Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi (Photo: Iranian Mission to the UN)
Iran’s deputy foreign minister revealed Tuesday that P5+1 negotiators knew the Islamic Republic would continue to arm its regional allies despite a nuclear agreement.
“We have told them in the negotiations that we will supply arms to anyone and anywhere necessary and will import weapons from anywhere we want and we have clarified this during the negotiations,” Abbas Araqchi told Iranian state TV.
The nuclear deal does not stipulate any restrictions on Iran’s missile capabilities or access to advanced weaponry. The Islamic Republic, the world’s greatest state-sponsor of international terrorism, directly and openly support’s Hezbollah’s terrorist actions against Israel.
“We will take any necessary action to maintain and expand our defensive capabilities, safeguard our independence and sovereignty and help our regional allies to fight against terrorism,” he stated.
“We are not even ready to even negotiate on our security and defensive issues, let alone compromising them.”
Araqchi’s comments echo similar sentiments made by Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei on Saturday.
READ MORE

Iran Tells Germany to Take a Hike after Warning to Recognize “Zionist Regime”
By Raphael Poch July 22, 2015 , 9:30 am
“Incline your ear, and come to me; hear, and your soul shall live; and I will make an everlasting covenant with you…” (Isaiah 55:3)
Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Kahemnei and President Hassan Rouhani following the nuclear announcement. (Photo: Twitter)
On a three day visit to Tehran, Vice Chancellor of Germany Sigmar Gabriel warned Sunday that Germany cannot accept Iran’s questioning of Israel’s right to exist. He called on Iranian officials to fix its relations with the Jewish state as a sign of good faith in developing and strengthening ties with Western powers.
Gabriel, who also serves as Germany’s Finance Minister, is the first official to visit Iran from one of the P5+1 powers who signed the nuclear treaty with the Islamic Republic last week. Germany, who has had close political and economic ties with Israel since the 1950s, is in a delicate position vis a vis the dynamic between the two enemy countries.
Gabriel offered to have Berlin arbitrate and be a go between for the two countries, in an effort to bridge the gap between the Iranians, who have sworn themselves to be enemies of Israel.
“You cannot maintain positive long term economic relations with Germany, if you do not discuss these matters and attempt to make progress in them,” said Gabriel to a group of Iranian and German businessmen at a gathering in Tehran. “We Germans cannot accept the questioning of Israel’s right to exist”.
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Presidential Election Cheat Sheet: Jeb Bush and Israel
By Daniel Bar-Cohn July 22, 2015 , 7:30 am
“Desire without knowledge is not good, and whoever makes haste with his feet misses his way.” (Proverbs 19:2)
(Photo: Gage Skidmore/ Wiki Commons)
Jeb Bush, former governor of Florida, is a candidate for the Republican nomination for presidency. The son and brother of two US presidents, Bush’s politics are in line with the GOP establishment, sometimes coming under fire from more right-wing candidates in his party.
Her are his stances on a range of issues of importance to Israel.
Israeli-Palestinian Conflict
Bush has said repeatedly that he supports a two-state solution as the key to peace between Israelis and Palestinians. According to a campaign spokesman, Bush believes “both sides must be represented by leaders who have the ability to uphold the promise made at the negotiating table — something the Palestinian people do not have right now.”
READ MORE

Admin Wed 22 Jul 2015, 8:38 pm

Iran’s Deputy FM: P5+1 Knew We’d Keep Arming Allies During Negotiations
By Lea Speyer July 22, 2015 , 11:30 am
“The adversaries of the Lord shall be broken to pieces; against them he will thunder in heaven.” (1 Samuel 2:10)
Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi (Photo: Iranian Mission to the UN)
Iran’s deputy foreign minister revealed Tuesday that P5+1 negotiators knew the Islamic Republic would continue to arm its regional allies despite a nuclear agreement.
“We have told them in the negotiations that we will supply arms to anyone and anywhere necessary and will import weapons from anywhere we want and we have clarified this during the negotiations,” Abbas Araqchi told Iranian state TV.
The nuclear deal does not stipulate any restrictions on Iran’s missile capabilities or access to advanced weaponry. The Islamic Republic, the world’s greatest state-sponsor of international terrorism, directly and openly support’s Hezbollah’s terrorist actions against Israel.
“We will take any necessary action to maintain and expand our defensive capabilities, safeguard our independence and sovereignty and help our regional allies to fight against terrorism,” he stated.
“We are not even ready to even negotiate on our security and defensive issues, let alone compromising them.”
Araqchi’s comments echo similar sentiments made by Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei on Saturday.
READ MORE

Iran Tells Germany to Take a Hike after Warning to Recognize “Zionist Regime”
By Raphael Poch July 22, 2015 , 9:30 am
“Incline your ear, and come to me; hear, and your soul shall live; and I will make an everlasting covenant with you…” (Isaiah 55:3)
Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Kahemnei and President Hassan Rouhani following the nuclear announcement. (Photo: Twitter)
On a three day visit to Tehran, Vice Chancellor of Germany Sigmar Gabriel warned Sunday that Germany cannot accept Iran’s questioning of Israel’s right to exist. He called on Iranian officials to fix its relations with the Jewish state as a sign of good faith in developing and strengthening ties with Western powers.
Gabriel, who also serves as Germany’s Finance Minister, is the first official to visit Iran from one of the P5+1 powers who signed the nuclear treaty with the Islamic Republic last week. Germany, who has had close political and economic ties with Israel since the 1950s, is in a delicate position vis a vis the dynamic between the two enemy countries.
Gabriel offered to have Berlin arbitrate and be a go between for the two countries, in an effort to bridge the gap between the Iranians, who have sworn themselves to be enemies of Israel.
“You cannot maintain positive long term economic relations with Germany, if you do not discuss these matters and attempt to make progress in them,” said Gabriel to a group of Iranian and German businessmen at a gathering in Tehran. “We Germans cannot accept the questioning of Israel’s right to exist”.
READ MORE

Presidential Election Cheat Sheet: Jeb Bush and Israel
By Daniel Bar-Cohn July 22, 2015 , 7:30 am
“Desire without knowledge is not good, and whoever makes haste with his feet misses his way.” (Proverbs 19:2)
(Photo: Gage Skidmore/ Wiki Commons)
Jeb Bush, former governor of Florida, is a candidate for the Republican nomination for presidency. The son and brother of two US presidents, Bush’s politics are in line with the GOP establishment, sometimes coming under fire from more right-wing candidates in his party.
Her are his stances on a range of issues of importance to Israel.
Israeli-Palestinian Conflict
Bush has said repeatedly that he supports a two-state solution as the key to peace between Israelis and Palestinians. According to a campaign spokesman, Bush believes “both sides must be represented by leaders who have the ability to uphold the promise made at the negotiating table — something the Palestinian people do not have right now.”
READ MORE

Admin Tue 21 Jul 2015, 5:08 pm

Israel Fuming Over West’s Promise to Protect Iran’s Nuclear Facilities
By Ahuva Balofsky July 21, 2015 , 9:30 am
“O my God, in Thee have I trusted, let me not be ashamed; let not mine enemies triumph over me.” (Psalms 25:2)
(Photo: Emil Salman/POOL)
Israel reacted in anger Monday to a hidden detail in the Iran nuclear deal which promises Western support and training to protect Iranian nuclear facilities from attack or sabotage, Israeli media reported.
According to Israel Hayom, the commitment in Article 10 did not appear in draft versions of the agreement. Israel National News noted it was buried on page 142 of the 159-page agreement.
“The US has to protect Iran as it pursues nuclear weapons because its program is allegedly civilian?” one senior official in Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office fumed.
Iran’s nuclear program, which the Islamic Republic claims is peaceful in nature but which most Western allies doubt, has been subject to several sabotage attempts in the past, some successful. The crippling Stuxnet virus cyber-attack in 2010 has been popularly attributed to either Israel or US President Barack Obama. Now, the P5+1 are promising to help Iran defend against such attacks.
Article 10 appears in a section titled “Reactors, Fuels, Facilities, and Processes,” and stipulates that the P5+1 powers and Iran will foster “cooperation through training and workshops to strengthen Iran’s ability to protect against, and respond to, nuclear security threats, including sabotage, as well as to enable effective and sustainable nuclear security and physical protection systems.”
According to National Infrastructure, Energy and Water Resources Minister Yuval Steinitz, Article 10 is disconcerting because it is open to interpretation. Israel, he said, was focusing on “illustrating the fundamental deficiencies in the deal, such as in the provisions detailing oversight over Iran’s nuclear facilities, which require that [International Atomic Energy Agency] inspectors give Iran 24 days’ notice. It’s a joke.”
“The fact that 12 years from now Iran could be days away from a nuclear weapon, all in exchange for relative calm, means the world powers have legitimized [Iran’s] desire to become a nuclear threshold state.”
With a military response to Iran’s nuclear program becoming increasingly difficult, the P5+1 commitment is all the more significant. A top Iranian general announced last week that the Islamic Republic is developing defensive systems which would prevent an Israeli or American airstrike on its nuclear facilities. An Iranian paper also threatened that any attack would result in the US being “destroyed in under 10 minutes.”
Netanyahu convened the Diplomatic-Security Cabinet on Sunday to discuss Israel’s options in response to the deal. He noted that US Congress still had the power to block the deal.
“If anyone thought the far-reaching concessions offered to Iran would make it change its policies, they were proved wrong by Iranian leader [Ayatollah Ali] Khamenei’s defiant and aggressive speech over the weekend,” Netanyahu said. “The Iranians have stated, in no uncertain terms, that they will continue to fight the U.S. and its allies, primarily Israel.”

Obama: Congress Needs to Take Hint from UN and Pass Iran Deal
By Lea Speyer July 21, 2015 , 10:30 am
“LORD, I know that people’s lives are not their own; it is not for them to direct their steps.” (Jeremiah 10:23)
image: http://www.breakingisraelnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/barack-obama7.jpg
(Photo: Pete Souza/ Official White House Photo)
US President Barack Obama congratulated the passage of a UN Security Council resolution supporting the Iran nuclear deal Monday, saying that he expected Congress to follow suit.
The president stated his hope that the UN’s actions would “send a clear message that the overwhelming number of countries” that diplomacy is “by far our strongest approach to ensuring that Iran does not get a nuclear weapon.”
“There is a broad international consensus around this issue,” Obama stated. “My working assumption is that Congress will pay attention to that broad basic consensus.”
The unanimous decision by the UN Security Council to adopt the P5+1 brokered agreement now gives countries the ability to lift sanctions on Iran.
While the president may be happy with the UN’s decision, US lawmakers from both sides of the aisle have expressed their disappointment and anger in Obama’s push to secure UN approval before Congress has had the chance to properly review the nuclear accord.
Representative Eliot Engel (D-NY), the top Democrat on the Foreign Affairs Committee, said in a joint statement with Chairman Ed Royce (R-CA) that they were “disappointed” the Security Council voted “before Congress was able to fully review and act on this agreement.”
Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Bob Corker (R-TN), who previously asked Obama to postpone the UN vote, criticized the move.
“It is inappropriate to commit the United States to meet certain international obligations without even knowing if Congress and the American people approve or disapprove of the Iran agreement,” Corker said. “During the review period, members on both sides of the aisle will evaluate the agreement carefully, press the administration for answers and then vote their conscience.”
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Back at the UN, Iranian Ambassador Gholamali Khoshro condemned Israel’s actions to block the agreement, accusing the Jewish State of spreading “Iranophobia” and treating peace “as an existential threat.”
The “Israeli regime, following its general policy to stoke tension in the region, has done whatever is in its power to sabotage and defeat any effort towards resolving the standoff over Iran’s nuclear energy program,” he stated. “In so doing, it proves once more that it doesn’t see peace in our region in its interest and considers peace as an existential threat to itself.”
Khoshro added that Israel’s “Iranophobia” seeks to undermine the Islamic Republic’s legitimacy across the world and will stop at nothing “to serve this nefarious purpose.”
“Thus, we alert our friends and neighbors not to fall into their trap,” he added.
Israeli Ambassador to the UN Ron Prosor called out the international community for being blind to Iran’s true intentions.
“Today’s a very sad day. Not only for Israel, but for the entire world, even if at this moment the international community refuses to see the tragedy,” he said during a speech in the UN. “It’s a sad day, because the international community is taking its first steps to lift sanctions on Iran without waiting to see if it complies with even one obligation.”
According to Prosor, the Security Council “awarded a great prize to the most dangerous country in the world.”
“In future years, the consequences of this mistake will become clear to all. But for Israel, tomorrow is already too late.”

The IDF is the World’s Best Defense Against a Nuclear Iran
By Raphael Poch July 21, 2015 , 8:30 am
“The people shall hear and be afraid; sorrow shall take hold…” (Exodus 15:14)
With the world in turmoil following the recent deal between Iran and the P5+1, the Israeli Defense Forces are preparing to serve as the world’s best defense against a nuclear Iran.
“Over the years, the Israeli Defense Forces have managed to thwart the evil plans of our enemies,” said Dr. John Grossman, chairman of American Friends of LIBI, the IDF’s unit supporting humanitarian aid to soldiers. “We have no doubt that the IDF will continue to play a vital role as Israel’s and the Jewish people’s first line of defense.”
Since April, amid the foreshadowing of the acceptance of an agreement between Iran and the P5+1, the IDF has been instructed to prepare plans for a military response to the Iranian problem. Israel for some time has been developing air defense systems that will be able to counter Iranian missiles with a nuclear payload, such as David’s Sling, the Arrow, and the Patriot missile systems, as well as Iron Dome for smaller missiles.
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New Sign on the Temple Mount Violates Israeli Law, Forbids Jewish Prayer
By Abra Forman July 20, 2015 , 1:30 pm
“The LORD is near to all who call on him, to all who call on him in truth.” (Psalm 145:18)
A group of Jews, accompanied by Rabbi Yehuda Glick, founder of the Temple Mount Heritage Foundation, seen visiting the Temple Mount in Jerusalem’s Old City. November 19 2013. (Photo: Sliman Khader/FLASH90)
Violating Israeli law guaranteeing freedom of worship, the Israeli Police Monday morning erected a new sign at the visitors’ entrance to the Temple Mount strictly forbidding any kind of prayer and enforcing a set of stringent restrictions on dress,
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US Probes Chattanooga Gunman’s Travel to Middle East
By JNS July 21, 2015 , 7:30 am
“The LORD examines the righteous, but the wicked, those who love violence, he hates with a passion.” (Psalm 11:5)
image: http://www.breakingisraelnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/Muhammad-Youssuf-Abdulazeez-chatanooga-terrorist.jpg
Muhammad Youssuf Abdulazeez
US authorities are looking into recent travel to the Middle East by Mohammad Youssef Abdulazeez, who shot and killed five US Marines on Thursday in Chattanooga, Tenn., before he was shot dead by police.
“We do know that he has traveled outside of the United States,” said Ed Reinhold, the FBI agent leading the probe into the shooting.
Authorities fear that Abdulazeez was radicalized in recent years and are investigating his visit to Jordan last year. They have also not ruled out a possible trip he made to Yemen.
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Admin Mon 20 Jul 2015, 9:59 pm

US Official Warns Security Pledge to Israel Won’t Be “Swag Bag” of Military Aid
By Lea Speyer July 19, 2015 , 11:30 am
“Blessed be the Lord, my rock, who trains my hands for war, and my fingers for battle.” (Psalm 144:1)
Despite assurances by the Obama administration that it would protect the security of its Middle Eastern allies in the wake of the Iran nuclear deal, US military officials said that it won’t come in the form of a military handout.
The US is rumored to have extended further military aid to Israel, Saudi Arabia and Gulf nations – countries who oppose the nuclear deal – following last week’s announcement. However, according to a report in Defense News, the US will not be offering offensive military weaponry as form of protection against the possible threat of a nuclear Iran.
“There seems to be some conflation between the Iran nuclear deal and the expectation to fix all the bad things Iran does that we and our partners don’t like,” an unnamed US official stated. “Obviously those issues will continue to be a key subject of conversation, but there’s not going to be a swag bag of military hardware as a result of this deal.”
According to the report, American aid will come in the form of military exercises, regional troop presence of some 40,000 soldiers and arms stockpiles.
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In Israel, US Defense Secretary Says He’s “Not Going to Change Anybody’s Mind” on Iran Deal
By Lea Speyer July 20, 2015 , 11:30 am
“Many are the plans in the mind of a man, but it is the purpose of the Lord that will stand.” (Proverbs 19:21)
US President Barack Obama and Secretary of Defense Ash Carter. (Photo: Glenn Fawcett/ US Department of Defense)
US Secretary of Defense Ash Carter said Sunday he does not have any expectations of changing Israel’s stance against the nuclear deal with Iran.
In Israel on an official visit, Carter said the main purpose of his trip was to deepen military ties between the two allied nations.
“I’m not going to change anybody’s mind in Israel. That’s not the purpose of my trip,” Carter told media while en route to Israel, Reuters reported.
Carter is scheduled to meet with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday, making him the first member of US President Barack Obama’s cabinet to visit Israel following the Iran nuclear deal.
Following his visit to the Jewish State, Carter is expected to travel to Jordan and Saudi Arabia.
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Admin Sun 19 Jul 2015, 7:43 am

Holding On to Nuclear Deterrence for Dear Life
By Louis Rene Beres July 16, 2015 , 8:00 am
Left to themselves, especially as more “normal” hostilities dissolve into a full-blown regional chaos, Israel’s adversaries could drive the Jewish State toward an unconventional war, into fire, into ice. This fateful endangerment could be produced singly or collaboratively, by deliberate enemy intent, or by the “collateral damage” of sectarian strife. Militarily, these Islamic adversaries of Israel, both Sunni and Shia, could be either non-nuclear, or, in the future, nuclear.
They might also include certain well-armed sub-state or terror-group fighting forces. Already, Iranian-backed Hezbollah may have more usable missiles than all NATO countries combined.
To most effectively deal with such interpenetrating threats – including reasonably expected “synergies” and “force multipliers” – Israel’s leaders will first need to consider some largely-opaque factors. These include: (1) probable effects of regional chaos upon enemy rationality; (2) disruptive implications of impending Palestinian statehood; and (3) re-emergence of a corrosively Cold War-style polarity between Russia and the United States. Apropos of a “Cold War II,” there is already evidence of growing contact between Russia and Saudi Arabia, the world’s two largest oil producers.
In essence, Jerusalem must take all necessary steps to successfully manage an expectedly unprecedented level of adversarial complexity and weaponization. Israel’s leaders, in this connection, must take proper measures to ensure that any conceivable failures of its national deterrent would not spark biological or nuclear forms of regional conflict. To accomplish this indispensable goal, the IDF, inter alia, must continue to plan carefully around the core understanding that nuclear deterrence and conventional deterrence are inherently interrelated and meaningfully “seamless.”
Sometimes, in strategic matters, seeing requires distance. A nuclear war in the Middle East is not beyond possibility. This is a sensible assessment, even if Israel were to remain the only nuclear weapons state in the region.
How is this possible? A bellum atomicum could come to Israel not only as a “bolt-from-the-blue” enemy nuclear attack (either by a state, or by a terror-group), but also as the result, intended or otherwise, of certain uncontrolled military escalations.
Needed prudence in such narratives calls for additional specificity and precision. If particular Arab/Islamic enemy states were to launch certain overwhelming conventional attacks upon Israel, Jerusalem could then respond, sooner or later, with calculated and more-or-less calibrated nuclear reprisals. Alternatively, if some of these enemy states were to launch other large-scale conventional attacks, Jerusalem’s own still-conventional reprisals could then be met, perhaps even in the not-too-distant future, with enemy nuclear counterstrikes.
How should Israel prepare for such perilous contingencies? More than likely, Israel has already rejected any doctrinal plans for fielding a tactical/theatre nuclear force, and for assuming any corollary nuclear war fighting postures. It would follow further from any such well-reasoned rejection that Israel should do whatever is needed to maintain a credible conventional deterrent. By definition, such a measured threat option could then function reliably across the entire foreseeable spectrum of non-nuclear threats.
Still, any such strategy would need to include an appropriately complementary nuclear deterrent, a distinctly “last-resort” option that could display a “counter-value” (counter-city) mission function. Si vis pacem, para bellum atomicum. “If you want peace, prepare for atomic war.”
A persuasive Israeli conventional deterrent, at least to the extent that it might prevent a wide range of enemy conventional attacks in the first place, could reduce Israel’s growing risk of escalatory exposure to nuclear war. In the always arcane lexicon of nuclear strategy, a complex language that more-or-less intentionally mirrors the tangled coordinates of atomic war, Israel will need to maintain firm control of “escalation dominance.” Otherwise, the Jewish State could find itself engaged in an elaborate but ultimately lethal pantomime of international bluster and bravado.
The reason for Israel’s obligation to control escalatory processes is conspicuous and unassailable. It is that Jerusalem’s main enemies possess something that Israel can plainly never have.
Mass.
At some point, as nineteenth century Prussian military thinker, Carl von Clausewitz, asserts in On War: “Mass counts.” Today, this is true even though Israel’s many enemies are in substantially chaotic disarray. Now, amid what Clausewitz had famously called “friction” and the “fog of war,” it could become harder for Israel to determine real and pertinent differences between its allies, and its adversaries.
As an example, Jordan could soon become vulnerable to advancing ISIS forces. Acknowledging this new vulnerability, an ironic question will come immediately to mind: Should Israel support the Jordanian monarchy in such a fight? And if so, in what specific and safe operational forms?
Similarly ironic questions may need to be raised about Egypt, where the return to military dictatorship in the midst of surrounding Islamist chaos could eventually prove both fragile and transient. Should President AbdelFattah al-Sisi fail to hold things together, the ultimate victors could be not only the country’s own Muslim Brotherhood, but also, in nearby Gaza, Palestinian Hamas. Seemingly, however, Hamas is already being targeted by ISIS, a potentially remorseless opposition suggesting, inter alia, that the principal impediment to Palestinian statehood is not really Israel, but rather another Sunni Arab terrorist organization. Of course, it is not entirely out of the question that ISIS’s Egyptian offshoot, the so-called “Sinai Province of Islamic State,” could sometime decide to cooperate with Hamas – the Islamic Resistance Movement – rather than plan to defeat it.
To further underscore the area’s multiple and crosscutting axes of conflict, it is now altogether possible that if an ISIS conquest of Sinai should spread to Gaza, President al-Sisi might then “invite” the IDF to strike on Egypt’s behalf. Among other concerns, Egypt plainly fears that any prolonged inter-terrorist campaign inside Gaza could lead to a literal breaking down of border fences, and an uncontrolled mass flight of Palestinians into neighboring Sinai.
Credo quia absurdum. “I believe because it is absurd.” With such peculiar facts in mind, why should Israel now sustain a conventional deterrent at all? Wouldn’t enemy states, at least those that were consistently rational, steadfastly resist launching any conventional attacks upon Israel, for fear of inciting a nuclear reprisal?
Here is a plausible answer. Suspecting that Israel would cross the nuclear threshold only in extraordinary circumstances, these national foes could be convinced, rightly or wrongly, that as long as their initial attacks were to remain conventional, Israel’s response would remain reciprocally non-nuclear. By simple extrapolation, this means that the only genuinely effective way for Israel to continually deter large-scale conventional war could be by maintaining visibly capable and secure conventional options.
As for Israel’s principal non-state adversaries, including Shiite Hezbollah and Sunni ISIS, their own belligerent calculations would be detached from any assessments of Israeli nuclear capacity and intent. After all, whatever attacks they might sometime decide to consider launching against the Jewish State, there could never be any decipherable nuclear response.
Nonetheless, these non-state Jihadist foes are now arguably more threatening to Israel than most enemy national armies, including the regular armed forces of Israel’s most traditional enemies – Egypt, Jordan, and Syria.
Some other noteworthy nuances now warrant mention. Any still-rational Arab/Islamic enemy states considering first-strike attacks against Israel using chemical and/or biological weapons would likely take Israel’s nuclear deterrent more seriously. But a strong conventional capability would still be needed by Israel to deter or to preempt certain less destructive conventional attacks, strikes that could escalate quickly and unpredictably to assorted forms of unconventional war.
If Arab/Islamic enemy states did not perceive any Israeli sense of expanding conventional force weakness, these belligerent countries, now animated by credible expectations of an Israeli unwillingness to escalate to nonconventional weapons, could be more encouraged to attack. The net result here could be: (1) defeat of Israel in a conventional war; (2) defeat of Israel in an unconventional (chemical/biological/nuclear) war; (3) defeat of Israel in a combined conventional/unconventional war; or (4) defeat of Arab/Islamic enemy states by Israel in an unconventional war.
For Israel, even the presumptively “successful” fourth possibility could prove too costly.
Perceptions are vitally important in all calculations of nuclear deterrence. By continuing to keep every element of its nuclear armaments and doctrine “opaque,” Israel could unwittingly contribute to the injurious impression among its regional enemies that Jerusalem’s nuclear weapons were unusable. Unconvinced of Israel’s willingness to actually employ its nuclear weapons, these enemies could then decide to accept the cost-effectiveness of striking first.
With any such acceptance, Israeli nuclear deterrence will have failed.
If enemy states should turn out to be correct in their calculations, Israel could find itself overrun, and thereby rendered subject to potentially existential harms. If they had been incorrect, many states in the region, including even Israel, could eventually suffer the assorted consequences of multiple nuclear weapons detonations. Within the directly affected areas, thermal radiation, nuclear radiation, and blast damage would then spawn uniquely high levels of death and devastation.
To prevent a nuclear war amid steadily growing regional chaos, especially as Iran will soon be fully nuclear (and the grateful beneficiary of President Obama’s pretend P5+1 diplomacy), Israel will need suitably complementary conventional and nuclear deterrents. Even now, at the eleventh hour, it will also require a set of residual but still-available preemption options. Under authoritative international law, actually exercising any such last-resort options would not necessarily represent lawlessness or “aggression.” On the contrary, such strikes could readily meet the long-established and recognizable jurisprudential standards for “anticipatory self-defense.”
Going forward, Israeli nuclear deterrence – reinforced, of course, by ballistic missile defense – must become an increasingly central part of the Jewish State’s overall survival plan. Fulfilling this requirement should in no way suggest any corresponding violations of international law. After all, every state in world politics has an overriding obligation to survive.
International law is not a suicide pact.
Reprinted with author’s permission from Israel National News

Timing is Everything: Major Christian Zionist Summit Coincides with Iran Deal
By JNS July 17, 2015 , 7:30 am
“Many are the plans in the mind of a man, but it is the purpose of the Lord that will stand.” (Proverbs 19:21)
Attendees of the 10th Christians United for Israel Washington Summit wave Israeli and American flags on Monday night. The next morning brought an announcement of a nuclear deal between Iran and world powers. (Photo: Maxine Dovere)
By: Jacob Kamaras
Having spent a decade growing into America’s largest pro-Israel organization, with 2.2 million members, the journey of Christians United for Israel (CUFI) arrived at a historic crossroads on Tuesday. The same could be said for the rest of America and much of the world.
Upon the announcement of a final nuclear deal between Iran and world powers, CUFI deployed thousands of Christian Zionists to lobby members of the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives to support Israel against the Iranian nuclear threat. Though the complete details of the agreement reached in Vienna were not immediately available at the time of CUFI’s Tuesday-morning program (the text of the deal was later published here), the lineup of legislative speakers struck a defiant tone.
“The magic number, the magic number of the United States Senate is 67. If we get 67 votes in the United States Senate, we can override the president’s veto,” said U.S. Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas), referring to President Barack Obama’s expected intention to veto Congressional rejection of the nuclear deal if Congress votes to do so during its 60-day period to review the agreement.
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Americans Show Mixed Feelings on Iran Deal
By Ahuva Balofsky July 17, 2015 , 7:00 am
“Wisdom is better than weapons of war; but one sinner destroyeth much good.” (Ecclesiastes 9:18)
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, joined by other European Union and P5+1 countries, stands on the stage at the Austria Center in Vienna, Austria, on July 14, 2015, for a group photo with Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif after the parties reached agreement on a plan to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon in exchange for sanctions relief. (Photo: US State Department)
A poll conducted in the days leading up to the final Iran nuclear deal shows Americans have mixed feelings about it, the Associated Press reported. The AP-GfK survey revealed while most still view the Islamic Republic as the enemy, roughly half wish to see diplomatic relations established.
The poll was conducted Monday through Thursday last week, with 1,004 adults questioned online. Respondents were pre-selected at random by phone or mail survey. A slim majority of 51 percent favored diplomatic relations with Iran, while 45 percent disapproved.
56 percent of respondents considered Iran an outright enemy of the US, while another 31 percent saw it as an unfriendly state.
45 percent felt the current level of sanctions against the Islamic Republic should be maintained, while 32 percent wished to see those sanctions increased. 12 percent approved of reducing sanctions, while a mere 7 percent felt they should be cancelled altogether. The survey question did not link the reduction in sanctions to a possible nuclear deal.
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Could the Iran Deal Be the Worst International Accord of All Time?
By: Daniel Pipes July 16, 2015
Barack Obama has repeatedly signaled during the past six and a half years that his No. 1 priority in foreign affairs is not China, not Russia, not Mexico, but Iran. He wants to bring Iran in from the cold, to transform the Islamic Republic into just another normal member of the so-called international community, thereby ending decades of its aggression and hostility.
In itself, this is a worthy goal; it’s always good policy to reduce the number of enemies. (It brings to mind Nixon going to China.) The problem lies, of course, in the execution.
The conduct of the Iran nuclear negotiations has been wretched, with the Obama administration inconsistent, capitulating, exaggerating, and even deceitful. It forcefully demanded certain terms, then soon after conceded these same terms. Secretary of State John Kerry implausibly announced that we have “absolute knowledge” of what the Iranians have done until now in their nuclear program and therefore have no need for inspections to form a baseline. How can any adult, much less a high official, make such a statement?
The administration misled Americans about its own concessions: After the November 2013 joint plan of action, it came out with a fact sheet that Tehran said was inaccurate. Guess who was right? The Iranians. In brief, the U.S. government has shown itself deeply untrustworthy.
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Does this Deal Prevent Iran from Developing a Nuclear Weapon?
By: Alan Dershowitz
Does the proposed deal with Iran actually prevent the Mullah’s from ever developing a nuclear weapon? Or does it merely delay them for a period of years? That is the key question that has not yet been clearly answered.
In his statement on the deal, President Obama seemed to suggest that Iran will never be allowed to develop a nuclear weapon. He said that this “long-term deal with Iran… will prevent it from obtaining a nuclear weapon.” He then repeated this assurance: “because of this deal, the international community will be able to verify that the Islamic Republic of Iran will not be able to develop a nuclear weapon.” These seemingly categorical statements were intended to assure the world that President Obama would keep his earlier promise that Iran will never be allowed to develop nuclear weapons.
But is that what the deal itself does? Or, as stated by its critics, does it actually assure that Iran will be allowed to develop a nuclear arsenal after a short delay of several years? That is the key question that the Obama administration has refused to answer directly. It must do so before Congress can be asked to buy a pig in a poke for the American people.
There is an enormous difference between a deal that merely delays Iran’s development of a nuclear arsenal for a period of years and a deal that prevents Iran from ever developing a nuclear arsenal. Prime Minister Netanyahu of Israel and many other critics of this deal describe it as merely a delay, while the Obama administration seems to be suggesting by its rhetoric that the deal will prevent Iran from ever obtaining a nuclear weapon.
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The Deal with Iran: How to Make Lemonade out of Lemons
By Alexander H. Joffe July 16, 2015 , 9:00 am
It is always perilous to predict what future historians will say. But regarding the nuclear deal with Iran it is likely historians will observe the remarkable fact that at the moment of its greatest weakness, Iran’s enemies suddenly reversed course. In the name of enticing it not to build nuclear weapons, they dismantled years of carefully built economic and political sanctions, saved its crumbling economy, and empowered the regime against its domestic and foreign enemies, including the West itself.
Doing so they accepted Iran’s attacks and insults, left its nuclear enrichment program intact and under minimal supervision, guaranteed Iranian threats to neighboring countries and efforts to expand regional hegemony, and did nothing to help the Iranian people, who struggled under harsh repression. Whether it will have succeeded in preventing Iran from building a nuclear weapon is unlikely. What is certain is that a new period of instability will have been created — that period is already upon us.
It is an extraordinary moment in world history, perhaps a turning point, based, as many such moments are, on an extraordinary convergence of lies and self-delusions. But for those interested in the two goals of an Iran free of nuclear weapons and free of religious fascism, perhaps it is also a moment of opportunity. Iran is about to undergo a kind of opening to the world. Taking advantage of that is now a vital goal for Western intelligence and public diplomacy. It is the art of the making lemonade out of lemons.
Western businessmen are already flooding into Iran seeking deals, selling all manner of wares in exchange for Iranian cash. Those businessmen, the various branch offices they will establish, and the goods they will sell, represent an important opportunity for Western intelligence agencies to gather information and to subvert the Iranian regime.
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World Powers’ Surrender on Iran Deal Reverberates Most Immediately in Syria
By: Ben Cohen
Halfway through the second decade of the 21st century, it’s time to admit the bitter truth. We’ve failed. We’ve failed to prevent genocide and crimes against humanity. We’ve failed to deliver a decisive message to the world’s tyrants that they can no longer get away with murder.
Twenty years after Bosnia was torn apart by the genocide committed by both Serb and Croatian forces, the Russians—who were the main backers of the regime of the late tyrant of Belgrade, Slobodan Milosevic—are still playing the insidious role of denying the most monstrous crime to take place in Europe since the Second World War. In vetoing a joint American-British resolution to commemorate the slaughter at Srebrenica with the legal status of a genocide, Russian U.N. Ambassador Vitaly Churkin grunted that what was tabled at the U.N. Security Council was “not constructive, confrontational and politically motivated.” Predictably, his words drew a furious response: “After 20 years, Russia showed that it backed the crime instead of justice,” declared Munira Subasic, the head of the Mothers of Srebrenica Association.
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Admin Fri 17 Jul 2015, 1:50 pm

[url=http://read more at http//www.breakingisraelnews.com/45260/iran-nuclear-deal-signal-start-gog-magog-jewish-world/#BjmAFAvUMxl1JHfE.99]Israel: Inspection Mechanism of Iran’s Nuclear Sites “Worse than Worthless”[/url]
By Lea Speyer July 16, 2015 , 12:00 pm
“It is better to take refuge in the Lord than to trust in man. It is better to take refuge in the Lord than to trust in princes.” (Psalm 118:8-9)
One of the main points of the nuclear agreement being hailed by Western powers as a victory is “worse than worthless,” a senior Israeli minister stated on Wednesday.
In a briefing in Jerusalem, the National Infrastructure, Energy and Water Minister Yuval Steinitz slammed the mechanism in place that gives Iran a 24 day advanced notice of inspections to its nuclear program.
“Actually, you have here a mechanism that instead of serving the inspection is serving the deception,” Steinitz stated.
According to the nuclear deal, Iran will have the ability to conceal any illicit nuclear activity before opening up its nuclear sites to inspectors. Steinitz charged that the advanced notice renders inspections, and therefore the agreement, useless.
Steinitz, a member of Israel’s security cabinet, is Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s unofficial point person on the Iran deal. While Israel is satisfied with surveillance measures to be put in place at uranium enrichment facilities Fordo and Natanz, the minister said inspections at top-secret Iranian military sites will not keep Iran in check.
“Unfortunately, when you examine the details, you discover that the inspection [mechanism for undeclared military sites] is actually just a mirage,” he said.
Should intelligence agencies produce evidence that Iran was violating the agreement, inspectors would be powerless to conduct surprise visits. Rather, according to Steinitz, inspectors will need to “provide Iran the basis for such concerns and request clarification.”
“This is not just a worthless inspection method — it serves the Iranians. It’s backfiring. It’s counterproductive. It’s better to have an agreement without it,” Steinitz said.
With Israel, Saudi Arabia and Gulf states vehemently opposed to the nuclear agreement, Steinitz called Western powers “naïve” in signing a deal with the world’s largest sponsor of international terrorism.
“Israel is like the little child that is pointing its finger and saying, ‘The king is naked, this agreement is naked,’” Steinitz said. “Those who think that giving Iran $150 billion will have no effect on the Middle East are naive,” he added. “It’s like pouring fuel on the burning Middle East.”
Echoing Steinitz’s comments, Netanyahu called the inspection mechanism “absurd.” During a speech to the Knesset, the prime minister states “It’s like giving a criminal organization that deals drugs a 24-day warning before inspecting its drug lab.”
“The agreement also requires the world powers to do something else — they must show Iran the very intelligence for which they want to conduct the inspections in the first place.”

http://www.breakingisraelnews.com/45260/iran-nuclear-deal-signal-start-gog-magog-jewish-world/#ASwFGQ9ei7231ta7.97
Is the Agreement with Iran the Start of the War of Gog and Magog?
By Rivkah Lambert Adler July 16, 2015 , 9:30 am
“Son of man, set your face toward Gog, [toward] the land of Magog, the prince, the head of Meshech and Tubal, and prophesy concerning him.” (Ezekiel 38:2)
gog and magog nuclear mushroom cloud middle east globe earth map
Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu has called the recent permanent Iran nuclear deal as “a bad mistake of historic proportions,” slamming western powers for capitulating to Iran. Is this agreement with the Islamic Republic the beginning of the War of Gog and Magog?
The Bible mentions Gog, the leader of a nation called Magog, in Ezekiel, chapter 38. But who is Gog and what modern country is Magog?
Just before his passing in 1995, Rav Levi Sa’adia Nachmani, a mystical rabbi from Israel who accurately predicted the Six Day War in 1967 and the Yom Kippur War in 1973, clearly stated in this video, that Korea is Magog.
End of Days blogger Menachem Robinson consistently states in his blog The Absolute Truth that Gog is Former US President George Bush whom he calls “the evil Gog Bush” and Magog is the United States.
A few months ago, Lisa Haven, writing for the Before It’s News website, stated that “Russia is Magog and Gog is their leader.”
As the End of Days advances, whichever scenario proves true, the recent nuclear agreement with Iran has Israel lovers worried about the fate of the Holy Land in the War of Gog and Magog.
Speaking earlier this year from Lakewood, NJ, Rabbi Mendel Kessin predicted that, after Obama leaves office, America will elect a strongly pro-Israel president and that America and Israel will join together in the War of Gog and Magog to fight ISIS and Iran.
Will ISIS and Iran, fighting the War of Gog and Magog, ultimately destroy the Land of Israel? Not according to Jewish sources. In fact, there are plenty of Jewish sources that suggest that Israel will be the safest place in the world during the War of Gog and Magog.
Rabbi Nir Ben Artzi, a mystical rabbi living in Southern Israel, writes a weekly column about a spiritual perspective on world events. His Hebrew newsletter is distributed in synagogues throughout Israel.
An English translation of his message from a few weeks ago notes, “Iran doesn’t care about anything else but being a respected country in the world, a nuclear power. It is deathly afraid of Israel and does not mess with Israel directly, only indirectly.”
Earlier last month, another blogger, Hezbos In YOUR Backyard, quoted Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, the powerful and universally respected leader of the worldwide Chabad Lubavitch movement who passed away in 1994, as saying “This world war of Gog and Magog cannot impinge on Jewish life.”
In this video, Rabbi Schneerson, speaking in Yiddish, also “says that what happens regarding Jerusalem and Israel is indeed only happening ‘around’ Jerusalem (but not ‘in’ Jerusalem).” The implication is that Jerusalem will be spared the pangs of war.
From a Jewish perspective, the Bible does not give us enough information to determine the true identity of Gog and Magog. We also don’t know for certain whether the War of Gog and Magog will be a physical war as we understand the term or whether it will be a spiritual battle. However, according to Jewish sources, we can look forward to the ultimate defeat of Gog.
Rabbi Yechiel Weitzman, in his book “The Ishmaelite Exile”, predicts a positive conclusion to the War of Gog and Magog that Bible believers can cling to. “If we contemplate our sages’ words, we will realize that the feature characteristic of Gog is his war against belief in God. This being the case, his downfall will come about through supernatural plagues that will force everyone to recognize God, and all will proclaim, ‘God is One, and His name is One.’”

When Muslims Betray Non-Muslim Friends and Neighbors
By Raymond Ibrahim July 12, 2015 , 10:00 am
Let believers not take for friends and allies infidels rather than believers: and whoever does this shall have no relationship left with Allah—unless you but guard yourselves against them, taking precautions – Koran 3:28
Days ago, after the Islamic State [IS] entered the Syrian city of Hassakè, prompting a mass exodus of Christians, a familiar, though often overlooked scene, took place: many otherwise “normal” Muslims joined ranks with IS, instantly turning on their longtime Christian neighbors.
This is the third category of Muslims that lurks between “moderates” and “radicals”: “sleepers,” Muslims who appear “moderate” but who are merely waiting for circumstances to turn to Islam’s advantage before they join the jihad; Muslims who are waiting for the rewards of jihad to become greater than the risks.
There is no lack of examples of these types of Muslims. The following are testimonials from non-Muslims, mostly Christian refuges from those regions of Iraq and Syria now under Islamic State (or other jihadi) control. Consider what they say about their longtime Sunni neighbors who appeared “moderate”—or at least nonviolent—but who, once the jihad came to town, exposed their true colors:
Georgios, a man from the ancient Christian town of Ma‘loula—one of the few areas in the world where the language of Christ was still spoken—told of how Muslim neighbors he knew all his life turned on the Christians after al-Nusra, another jihadi outfit, invaded in 2013:
We knew our Muslim neighbours all our lives. Yes, we knew the Diab family were quite radical, but we thought they would never betray us. We ate with them. We are one people.
A few of the Diab family had left months ago and we guessed they were with the Nusra [al-Qaeda front]. But their wives and children were still here. We looked after them. Then, two days before the Nusra attacked, the families suddenly left the town. We didn’t know why. And then our neighbours led our enemies in among us.
The Christian man explained with disbelief how he saw a young member of the Diab family whom he knew from youth holding a sword and leading foreign jihadis to Christian homes. Continues Georgios:
We had excellent relations. It never occurred to us that Muslim neighbours would betray us. We all said “please let this town live in peace — we don’t have to kill each other.” But now there is bad blood. They brought in the Nusra to throw out the Christians and get rid of us forever. Some of the Muslims who lived with us are good people but I will never trust 90 per cent of them again.
A teenage Christian girl from Homs, Syria—which once had a Christian population of approximately 80,000, but which is now reportedly zero—relates her story:
We left because they were trying to kill us. . . . They wanted to kill us because we were Christians. They were calling us Kaffirs [infidels], even little children saying these things. Those who were our neighbors turned against us. At the end, when we ran away, we went through balconies. We did not even dare go out on the street in front of our house. I’ve kept in touch with the few Christian friends left back home, but I cannot speak to my Muslim friends any more. I feel very sorry about that. (Crucified Again, p. 207)
When asked who exactly threatened and drove Christians out of Mosul, which fell to the Islamic State a year ago, another anonymous Christian refugee responded:
We left Mosul because ISIS came to the city. The [Sunni Muslim] people of Mosul embraced ISIS and drove the Christians out of the city. When ISIS entered Mosul, the people hailed them and drove out the Christians….
The people who embraced ISIS, the people who lived there with us… Yes, my neighbors. Our neighbors and other people threatened us. They said: “Leave before ISIS get you.” What does that mean? Where would we go?… Christians have no support in Iraq. Whoever claims to be protecting the Christians is a liar. A liar!
Nor is such Muslim treachery limited to Christians. Other “infidels,” Yazidis for example, have experienced the same betrayal. Discussing IS invasion of his village, a 68-year-old Yazidi man who managed to flee the bloody offensive—which included the slaughter of many Yazidi men and enslavement of women and children—said:
The (non-Iraqi) jihadists were Afghans, Bosnians, Arabs and even Americans and British fighters…. But the worst killings came from the people living among us, our (Sunni) Muslim neighbours…. The Metwet, Khawata and Kejala tribes—they were all our neighbours. But they joined the IS, took heavy weapons from them, and informed on who was Yazidi and who was not. Our neighbours made the IS takeover possible.
Likewise, watch this 60 Minute interview with a Yazidi woman. When asked why people she knew her whole life would suddenly join IS and savagely turn on her people, she replied:
I can’t tell you exactly, but it has to be religion. It has to be religion. They constantly asked us to convert, but we refused. Before this, they never mentioned it. Prior, we thought of each other as family. But I say, it has to be religion.
Lest it seem that this phenomenon of Sunni betrayal is limited to Islamic jihad in Mesopotamia, know that it has occurred historically and currently in other nations. The following anecdote from the Ottoman Empire is over 100 years old:
Then one night, my husband came home and told me that the padisha [sultan] had sent word that we were to kill all the Christians in our village, and that we would have to kill our neighbours. I was very angry, and told him that I did not care who gave such orders, they were wrong. These neighbours had always been kind to us, and if he dared to kill them Allah would pay us out. I tried all I could to stop him, but he killed them — killed them with his own hand. (Sir Edwin Pears, Turkey and Its People, London: Methuen and Co., 1911, p. 39)
And in Nigeria—a nation that shares little with Syria, Iraq, or Turkey, other than Islam—a jihadi attack on Christians that left five churches destroyed and several Christians killed was enabled by “local Muslims”:
The Muslims in this town were going round town pointing out church buildings and shops owned by Christians to members of Boko Haram, and they in turn bombed these churches and shops.
Such similar patterns of traitorous behavior—patterns that cross continents and centuries, patterns that regularly appear whenever Muslims live alongside non-Muslims—are easily understood by turning to Koran 3:28:
Let believers [Muslims] not take infidels [non-Muslims] for friends and allies instead of believers. Whoever does this shall have no relationship left with God—unless you but guard yourselves against them, taking precautions. But Allah cautions you [to fear] Himself. For the final goal is to Allah.
Here is how Islam’s most authoritative ulema and exegetes explain Koran 3:28:
Muhammad ibn Jarir at-Tabari (d. 923), author of a standard and authoritative commentary of the Koran, writes:
If you [Muslims] are under their [non-Muslims’] authority, fearing for yourselves, behave loyally to them with your tongue while harboring inner animosity for them … [know that] Allah has forbidden believers from being friendly or on intimate terms with the infidels rather than other believers—except when infidels are above them [in authority]. Should that be the case, let them act friendly towards them while preserving their religion.
Ibn Kathir (d. 1373), another prime authority on the Koran, writes:
The Most High said, “[U]nless you but guard yourselves against them, taking precautions”—that is, whoever at any time or place fears their evil may protect himself through outward show—not sincere conviction. As al-Bukhari records through Abu al-Darda the words [of the Prophet], “Truly, we grin to the faces of some peoples, while our hearts curse them.”
In other words, Muslims are not to befriend non-Muslims, unless circumstances are such that it is in the Muslims’ interests to do so. For example, if Muslims are a minority (as in America), or if their leaders brutally crack down on jihadi activities (as in Bashar Assad’s pre-Islamic State Syria): then they may preach and even feign peace, tolerance and coexistence with their non-Muslim neighbors.
However, if and when circumstances to make Islam supreme appear, Muslims are expected to join the jihad—“for the final goal is to Allah.”[1]
Reprinted with author’s permission from FrontPage Mag

Why Palestinians Cannot Make Peace with Israel
By Khaled Abu Toameh July 16, 2015 , 10:00 am
Americans and Europeans fail to acknowledge that in order to achieve peace, the leaders must prepare their people for compromise and tolerance. If you want to make peace with Israel, you do not tell your people that the Western Wall has no religious significance to Jews and is, in fact, holy Muslim property. Palestinian Authority leaders who accuse Israel of “war crimes” and “genocide” are certainly not preparing their people for peace. Such allegations serve only to further agitate Palestinians against Israel.
If Yasser Arafat was not able to accept the generous offer made by former Prime Minister Ehud Barak at the 2000 Camp David summit, who is Mahmoud Abbas to make any concessions to Israel? Arafat was quoted then as saying that he rejected the offer because he did not want to end up drinking tea with assassinated Egyptian President Anwar Sadat, the first Arab leader to sign a peace agreement with Israel.
No Palestinian leader has a mandate to reach an everlasting peace agreement with Israel. No leader in Ramallah or the Gaza Strip is authorized to end the conflict with Israel. Any Palestinian who dares to talk about concessions to Israel is quickly denounced as a traitor. Those who believe that whoever succeeds Abbas will be able to make real concessions to Israel are living in an illusion.
There are two main reasons why Palestinians will not sign a real and meaningful peace agreement with Israel — at least not in the foreseeable future.
The first is a total lack of education for peace. The second is related to the absence of a leader who is authorized — or has the guts — to embark on such a risky mission.
Americans and Europeans who keep talking about the need to revive the stalled peace process in the Middle East continue to ignore these two factors. They continue to insist that peace is still possible and that the ball is in Israel’s court.
The Americans and Europeans fail to acknowledge that in order to achieve peace, the leaders must prepare their people for compromise and tolerance.
image: http://www.breakingisraelnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/BIN-OpEd-Experts-300x2501.png
BIN-OpEd-Experts-300x250(1)In fact, it is inaccurate to say merely that Palestinian leaders have failed to prepare their people for peace with Israel. Instead, one should say that the Palestinian leadership has long been inciting its people against Israel to a point where it has become almost impossible to talk about any form of compromise between Israelis and Palestinians.
Since its inception in 1994, the Palestinian Authority (PA) has devoted most of its energies and propaganda to delegitimizing and isolating Israel. Ironically, this incitement continued even as the PA was negotiating with Israel in an attempt to reach a peace agreement.
If you want to make peace with Israel, you do not tell your people every now and then that the Western Wall has no religious significance to Jews and is, in fact, holy Muslim property.
You cannot make peace with Israel if you continue to deny Jewish history or links to the land. Take, for example, what the PLO’s Hanan Ashrawi said in response to statements made by President Barack Obama, in which he acknowledged Jewish history. “Once again, he [Obama] has adopted the discourse of Zionist ideology,” she said. “He adopted it when he came to this region, speaking about the Jews’ return to their land, and that this is a Jewish state.”
You will never be able to make peace with Israel if you keep telling your people and the rest of the world that Zionism was created in order to implement the Jewish project of world domination. This is what the Palestinian Authority ambassador to Chile, Imad Nabil Jadaa, said at a conference on Israeli-Palestinian peace in Santiago.
Imad Nabil Jadaa, the Palestinian Authority ambassador to Chile, declared on May 15 that the The Protocols of the Elders of Zion (an antisemitic forgery) contains proof of a Jewish plan for world domination. In the same speech, Jadaa declared “there is no Jewish People” and that Palestinians do not recognize the existence of a Jewish people. (Image source: ISGAP video screenshot)
It will be impossible to make peace with Israel at a time when the Palestinian Authority is telling its people that Jews use wild pigs to drive Palestinian farmers out of their fields and homes in the West Bank. This is what PA President Mahmoud Abbas told a pro-Palestinian conference in Ramallah.
According to the PA, Jews have also used rats to drive Arab residents of the Old City of Jerusalem out of their homes. The official Palestinian news agency, Wafa, which reports directly to Abbas’s office, claimed in a dispatch that, “Rats have become an Israeli weapon to displace and expel Arab residents” of the Old City of Jerusalem. The agency reported: “Settlers flood the Old City with rats… they release the rats to increase the suffering of the [Arab] residents and force them to evict their homes and leave the city.”
These messages are being sent to Palestinians not only by Hamas, but also by the Western-funded Palestinian Authority, which happens to be Israel’s “peace partner.” The messages are being sent to Palestinians through the mosques, media and public statements of Palestinian leaders.
image: http://www.breakingisraelnews.com/wp-content/uploads/useful_banner_manager_banners/123-LIBI-GeneralNavy-600WIDE.jpg
This is in addition to the PA’s worldwide campaign to isolate, delegitimize and demonize Israel and Israelis. PA leaders and representatives who continue to accuse Israel of “war crimes” and “genocide” are certainly not preparing their people for peace with Israel. On the contrary, such allegations serve to further agitate Palestinians against Israel.
This is the type of incitement, in fact, that drives more Palestinians into the open arms of the Palestinian Authority’s rivals, first and foremost Hamas. If you keep telling your people that Israel does not want peace and only seeks to destroy the lives of the Palestinians and steal their lands, there is no way that Palestinians would ever accept any form of reconciliation, let alone peace, with Israel.
Yet this is not only about the lack of education for peace or anti-Israel incitement.
It is time for the international community to acknowledge the fact that no Palestinian leader has a mandate to reach an everlasting peace agreement with Israel. That is because no leader in Ramallah or the Gaza Strip is authorized to end the conflict with Israel.
If Yasser Arafat was not able to accept the generous offer made by former Prime Minister Ehud Barak at the 2000 Camp David summit, who is Mahmoud Abbas to make any form of concession to Israel? Arafat was quoted back them as saying that he rejected the offer because he did not want to end up drinking tea with assassinated Egyptian President Anwar Sadat, the first Arab leader to sign a peace agreement with Israel.
In many ways, Abbas can only blame himself for the situation he faces today. If you are telling your people that you will never make concessions, how can you ever sign a peace agreement with Israel?
Those who believe that whoever succeeds Abbas will be able to make real concessions to Israel are living in an illusion. It is time to admit that no present or future Palestinian leader is authorized to offer even the slightest concessions to Israel. Any Palestinian who dares to talk about concessions to Israel is quickly denounced as a traitor.
These are the two reasons why the “peace process” in the Middle East will continue to revolve in a vicious cycle. In order to make peace with Israel, you need to prepare your people for peace with Israel. This is something that the Palestinian Authority has failed to do. And that is why we will not see the emergence of a more moderate Palestinian leader in the near future.
Reprinted with author’s permission from Gatestone Institute

Admin Thu 16 Jul 2015, 9:12 pm

http://www.jewsnews.co.il/2015/07/14/retired-general-some-in-military-want-to-take-out-obama-from-presidency-2/
Retired General: Some in military want to ‘take out’ Obama from presidency…
JUL 14, 2015
A retired three star Flag Officer recently stated he knows of certain unnamed individuals within the Armed Forces of having at least considered the possibility of an armed coup d’état aimed directly at of Barack Obama, as reported by the on-line news portal Government Executive on Nov. 4, 2013.
(GOVERNMENT EXECUTIVE) — A former top general and current executive at the Family Research Council says members of the military have considered staging a coup d’état against president, but will not because of civilian control of the military.
“People I’ve spoken to would like to see the military ‘fulfill their constitutional duty and take out the president,’ ” retired Army Lt. Gen. William Boykin told World Net Daily, a website best known for pushing Obama “birther” conspiracy theories. “Our Constitution puts a civilian in charge of the military and as a result a coup would not be constitutional. You’re not going to see a coup in the military.”
Despite enthusiasm expressed by US President Barack Obama and Western leaders regarding the nuclear deal with Iran, Canada remains skeptical and will base its decisions on Iran’s actions, not words.
The world is rushing to establish diplomatic and economic ties with Iran following the signing of an accord with the P5+1 powers regarding its nuclear program on Tuesday. However, Canada has stated it will keep its sanctions in place, at least for now, despite the agreement.
Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister Rob Nicholson issued a statement on Wednesday saying that Canada “appreciates” the efforts made by the six world powers to reach the agreement.
Nevertheless, “at the same time, we will continue to judge Iran by its actions, not its words. To this end, Canada will continue to support the efforts of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to monitor Iran’s compliance with its commitments.”
Nicholson stressed that Iran still constitutes a “significant threat to international peace and security owing to the regime’s nuclear ambitions, its continuing support for terrorism, its repeated calls for the destruction of Israel and its disregard for basic human rights.
“We will examine this deal further before taking any specific Canadian action,” he stated. The Canadian sanctions against the Islamic Republic will not be removed and Ottawa will not renew diplomatic ties with Tehran, which were severed in 2012.
Canada has expressed skepticism about the deal with Iran in the past, saying it was not convinced that the accord would prevent Tehran from developing a nuclear weapon. “Iran’s track record is not one that encourages trust,” Nicholson said in April.
By: Max Gelber, United with Israel
Sign the Petition to Keep the Pressure on Iran http://unitedwithisrael.org/despite-deal-canada-to-keep-sanctions-on-iran/
Urge President Obama and the US Congress:
The United States and world powers must ensure that sanctions on Iran remain in force until the nuclear threat is completely eliminated. A nuclear Iran is a threat not only to Israel but to the entire world.

Admin Thu 16 Jul 2015, 10:54 am

Hundreds Gather for Rally for Freedom of Worship on the Temple Mount
By Abra Forman July 15, 2015 , 11:30 a
“These I will bring to my holy mountain, and make them joyful in my house of prayer; their burnt offerings and their sacrifices will be accepted on my altar; for my house shall be called a house of prayer for all peoples.” (Isaiah 56:7)
Tuesday evening, Temple Mount Heritage Foundation founder and activist Rabbi Yehudah Glick led a demonstration at the Dung Gate in the Old City of Jerusalem protesting the recent closures of the Temple Mount to non-Muslims during the Ramadan holiday.
The Temple Mount Heritage Foundation, along with several other groups and organizations working to increase access on the Temple Mount, decided to hold a peaceful demonstration to protest the most recent closure of the Temple Mount, which will be lifted when Ramadan ends on July 17.
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Does this Deal Prevent Iran from Developing a Nuclear Weapon?
By Alan Dershowitz July 15, 2015 , 12:00 pm
Does the proposed deal with Iran actually prevent the Mullah’s from ever developing a nuclear weapon?
Or does it merely delay them for a period of years? That is the key question that has not yet been clearly answered.
In his statement on the deal, President Obama seemed to suggest that Iran will never be allowed to develop a nuclear weapon. He said that this “long-term deal with Iran… will prevent it from obtaining a nuclear weapon.” He then repeated this assurance: “because of this deal, the international community will be able to verify that the Islamic Republic of Iran will not be able to develop a nuclear weapon.” These seemingly categorical statements were intended to assure the world that President Obama would keep his earlier promise that Iran will never be allowed to develop nuclear weapons.
But is that what the deal itself does? Or, as stated by its critics, does it actually assure that Iran will be allowed to develop a nuclear arsenal after a short delay of several years? That is the key question that the Obama administration has refused to answer directly. It must do so before Congress can be asked to buy a pig in a poke for the American people.
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Admin Wed 15 Jul 2015, 7:35 pm

Obama “Confident” US Lawmakers Will Resist Israeli Lobbying Efforts Against Iran Deal
By Lea Speyer July 15, 2015 , 10:30 am
“Whoever trusts in his own mind is a fool, but he who walks in wisdom will be delivered.” (Psalm 28:26)
(Photo: Pete Souza/ Official White House Photo)
US President Barack Obama is “confident” that US lawmakers will not be swayed by Israeli lobbying efforts to pass the newly signed nuclear deal with Iran.
In an interview published Wednesday morning, the president told Thomas Friedman from the New York Times that he believes Iran should be given the chance to become a regional power. Obama expressed his trust in Iranian officials, saying that they will follow the deal “to the letter.”
The Iran deal, which was finalized on Tuesday, will now be passed to Congress for approval. Lawmakers will have 60 days to either approve or reject the deal. The president has already threatened to use his veto power should Congress try and quell the agreement.
“Perhaps [Netanyahu] thinks he can further influence the congressional debate, and I’m confident we’re going to be able to uphold this deal and implement it without Congress preventing that,” Obama stated, adding that international support of sanctions on Iran were losing steam.
The president reiterated that Tuesday’s historic agreement is not meant to change the Iranian regime but rather prevent it from acquiring nuclear weapons.
“We are not measuring this deal by whether it is changing the regime inside of Iran,” Obama said. “We’re not measuring this deal by whether we are solving every problem that can be traced back to Iran, whether we are eliminating all their nefarious activities around the globe. We are measuring this deal — and that was the original premise of this conversation, including by Prime Minister Netanyahu — Iran could not get a nuclear weapon. That was always the discussion. And what I’m going to be able to say, and I think we will be able to prove, is that this by a wide margin is the most definitive path by which Iran will not get a nuclear weapon, and we will be able to achieve that with the full cooperation of the world community and without having to engage in another war in the Middle East.”
Minutes before the interview, Obama spoke with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu over the phone. According to Friedman, the president “did not try to sugar coat their differences” but did reveal the US was working on “significant strategic upgrades for both Israel and America’s gulf allies.”
Obama promised to “keep his eye on the ball” to stop Iran from “acting in an unconstructive way,” including the country’s global sponsorship of terror, adding that Israel and other Middle Eastern countries are “not just being paranoid.”
“The thing I want to emphasize is that people’s concerns here are legitimate. Hezbollah has tens of thousands of missiles that are pointed toward Israel. They are becoming more sophisticated. The interdiction of those weapon flows has not been as successful as it needs to be,” the president explained.
While the president did acknowledge Iran’s terrorist ties, he added that the country’s potential nuclear program should not be halted due to “denigrating Israel or threatening Israel or engaging in Holocaust denial or anti-Semitic activity.”
Responding to the Iran deal, Israeli officials slammed the agreement, with many promising to defend the Jewish state no matter the cost. Netanyahu called the deal a “bad mistake of historic proportions.”
Responding to his critics, the president said “I think that criticism is misguided. Let’s see exactly what we obtained. We have cut off every pathway for Iran to develop a nuclear weapon.”
“[Continued Iranian aggression] is a possibility, and we are going to have to systematically guard against that and work with our allies — the gulf countries, Israel — to stop the work that [Iran is] doing outside of the nuclear program. But the central premise here is that if they got a nuclear weapon, that would be different, and on that score, we have achieved our objective,” he added.

Iran’s Rouhani: “Warmongering Zionist Regime” Failed to Stop Nuclear Deal
By JNS July 15, 2015 , 9:30 am
“Keep me free from the trap that is set for me, for you are my refuge.” (Psalm 31:4)
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani addressing the Iranian people about the nuclear deal on state television. (Photo: TouTube Screenshot)
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani ridiculed Israel for its “failed” effort to thwart his country’s newly announced nuclear deal with world powers.
“Do not be deceived by the propaganda of the usurper Zionist regime,” Rouhani said Tuesday in a broadcast on Iran’s Press TV, adding that “today major world powers recognized Iran’s nuclear program.”
“The Zionist state has failed in its efforts,” he added, in reference to Israel’s staunch opposition to the nuclear deal.
Rouhani continued his remarks against Israel on Twitter in an attempt to calm regional fears over a resurgent Iran.
“To our neighbours: Do not be deceived by the propaganda of the warmongering Zionist regime. #Iran & its power will translate into your power,” Rouhani tweeted.

Israel and leading Arab states in the Middle East fear that the removal of economic sanctions on Iran will allow the country to provide more funding to terror groups like Hezbollah and Hamas, as well as to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, leading to further destabilization in the region. Rouhani tried to dismiss those claims in his televised speech.
“Today, we are at an important juncture in the history of our country and our revolution, and the situation in the region,” Rouhani said.

Admin Wed 15 Jul 2015, 1:53 pm

Israeli Officials Livid Over Final Iran Nuclear Deal
By Lea Speyer July 14, 2015 , 11:34 am
“In peace I will both lie down and sleep; for you alone, O Lord, make me dwell in safety.” (Psalm 4:8)
(Photo: Emil Salman/POOL)
A deal has been reached Tuesday between Iran and world powers that would lift sanctions on the Islamic Republic in exchange for curbs on the country’s nuclear program.
Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammed Zarif hailed the deal as a “win-win solution” and a “new chapter of hope” for humanity.
On Twitter, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani applauded the efforts of world powers to resolve the “unnecessary crisis” surrounding Iran’s nuclear program.
The agreement comes after two weeks of tumultuous talks between P5+1 and Iranian officials and more than a decade of sporadic negotiations.
While details of the deal have just been made public, world powers have agreed to limit the amount of nuclear activity Iran can conduct over the next 10 to 15 years. In exchange, international sanctions, which have choked off Iran’s economy, will be lifted.
Tehran will be allowed to continue to enrich uranium at 3.67 percent for the next 15 years and continue running 6,104 centrifuges, 1,044 of them at the secretive Fordo nuclear site.
Following an official announcement, the deal will be reviewed by legislators from the seven nations involved in the talks – US, Britain, Russia, China, France, Germany and Iran. US legislators will have 60 days to review the agreement and either accept it or reject it.
US President Barack Obama has warned that he would use his veto power should Congress fail to pass the nuclear legislation. The agreement has been a focal point in Obama’s foreign policy.
“I will veto any legislation that prevents the successful implementation of this deal,” the president said Tuesday during a press conference at the White House. “Every pathway to a nuclear weapon is cut off. The international community will be able to verify that the Islamic Republic of Iran will not achieve a nuclear weapon.”
“If Iran violates the deal, all the sanctions will snap back into place. Iran must complete key nuclear steps before it receives new sanctions relief,” Obama said.
P5+1 member countries met with Iranian officials amid negotiations about the future of their country’s nuclear program, July 6, 2015. (Photo: US State Department)
Israeli officials are livid over the agreement, with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu saying the “Iran nuclear deal is a bad mistake of historic proportions.”
While meeting with Netherlands Foreign Minister Bert Koenders Tuesday, Netanyahu stated: “I would like to say here and now – when you are willing to make an agreement at any cost, this is the result. From the initial reports we can already conclude that this agreement is an historic mistake for the world.”
“Far-reaching concessions have been made in all areas that were supposed to prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons capability. In addition, Iran will receive hundreds of billions of dollars with which it can fuel its terror machine and its expansion and aggression throughout the Middle East and across the globe.”
“One cannot prevent an agreement when the negotiators are willing to make more and more concessions to those who, even during the talks, keep chanting: ‘Death to America.’ We knew very well that the desire to sign an agreement was stronger than anything, and therefore we did not commit to preventing an agreement,” the prime minister explained.
“We did commit to preventing Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons, and this commitment still stands. I say to all the leaders in Israel, it is time to put petty politics aside and unite behind this most fateful issue to the future and security of the State of Israel.”
Deputy Foreign Minister Tzipi Hotovely slammed the deal, saying “This agreement is a historic capitulation agreement of the West to the axis of evil led by Iran. The consequences of the agreement in the foreseeable future are very serious, Iran will continue to spread the terror and it will metastasize everywhere, continue to stoke the flames Middle East, and worst of all make a huge step towards being a nuclear threshold state.”
She warned that “The State of Israel will work via all diplomatic means to try to prevent the ratification of the agreement.”
Culture and Sports Minister Miri Regev said the deal gave Iran “a license to kill.”
“Iran today received a license to kill, and it must be revoked before it’s too late. The fact that they’re celebrating in Tehran teaches that the deal is bad for the free world. Bad for humanity. Now is the time to come together at home and go out on an explanation campaign for the American public opinion,” she stated.
“The last word hasn’t been said and the American Congress isn’t ready to approve the capitulation deal of the West against the terror state.”
Minister of Education Naftali Bennet took to Twitter and called Tuesday a dark day in history.

Opposition leader Tzipi Livni told Army Radio the Iran deal is “a dramatic agreement, and Israel is not there.” She criticized Netanyahu’s performance during negotiations, saying, “If anything is clear, it is that Netanyahu is ineffective.”
Former foreign minister Avigdor Liberman said the Vienna deal is a “complete capitulation to terrorism.”
“A black flag waves over this agreement and it will be remembered as a black day for the free world,” he stated. Recalling a verse from Ethics of the Fathers (1:14), Liberman added that Israel must remember, “If I am not for myself, who will be for me.”

Read more at http://www.breakingisraelnews.com/45147/netanyahu-final-nuclear-deal-bad-mistake-historic-proportions-jerusalem/#1yU5BejV0F6HktGr.99

Admin Tue 14 Jul 2015, 2:36 pm

Empowered 21 and Christians Who Promote Anti-Israel Propaganda
By: Tricia Miller
Empowered 21 (E21), a worldwide Christian organization based in Tulsa, OK and the sponsor of a Global Congress in Jerusalem in May 2015, may be endangering its credibility, and the credibility of the Christian faith it seeks to propagate, because of its relationship with Palestinian Christians who promote a fallacious anti-Israel narrative.
This global entity, which intends to “shape the future of the Spirit-empowered movement” and evangelize every person on earth by 2033, claims to represent 640,000,000 evangelical and pentecostal Christians. Therefore, the potential fallout from an alliance with those who spread dishonest propaganda against Israel is significant.
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Sex Slavery and the Islamic State
By Mark Durie July 6, 2015 , 10:00 am
Jamie Walker, Middle East correspondent for The Australian,asked two critical questions in a recent article which discussed the involvement of two Australian citizens, Mohamed Elomar and Khaled Sharrouf, in Islamic State sex slavery. In 2014 Elomar purchased sex slaves, of whom four, all Yazidis, later escaped to a refugee camp where the ABC caught up with them and interviewed them. Elomar had also boasted on Twitter that he had “1 of 7 Yehzidi slave girls for sale” at $2500 each.
Walker’s questions were:
“The uncomfortable questions for the Western world, including Australia, are why this debased appeal seems to be gaining traction with Islamic State’s target audience, which increasingly includes women, and why it’s not challenged more stridently in the public arena.”
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Make Anti-Semitism a Source of Jewish Pride
By Rabbi Dr. Nathan Lopes Cardozo July 9, 2015 , 10:00 am
Too much discussion is spent on how to fight anti-Semitism, without realizing that we cannot fight evil unless we understand its roots. While anti-Semitism is often paradoxical, and many explanations have been offered, there is one that is almost completely ignored, though it may quite well be the primary cause of the ongoing hatred of Jews and Israel.
In his book Moses and Monotheism, Sigmund Freud tried to understand Jewish history and the formation of the people of Israel and Judaism. This work has come under heavy criticism by eminent scholars, due to its many unproven assumptions, and yet it is remarkable that numerous theologians and sociologists are in agreement with Freud’s understanding of anti-Semitism.
Freud suggests that anti-Semitism is the result of – and the expression of – resentment on the part of many Christians, as well as secular people, who hold the Jews responsible for the creation of the Christian religion and morality: “They have remained what their ancestors were, barbarically polytheistic. They have not yet overcome their grudge against the new religion which was forced on them, and they have projected it onto the source from which Christianity came to them…. The hatred for Judaism is at bottom hatred for Christianity….”
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Getting a Bad Iran Deal at Any Price
By Noah Beck July 7, 2015 , 12:00 pm
Much has been written about just how bad the proposed Iranian nuclear deal has gotten. This outcome is hardly surprising after Israel’s former ambassador to Washington, Michael Oren, bravely published Ally, his memoir detailing Obama’s hostility towards Israel. But even without Ambassador Michael Oren’s personal testimony, there is overwhelming evidence that – on the issue most important to global security and Israel’s very existence – Obama has been, at best, reckless and, at worst, treasonous.
Obama’s administration has shown a breathtaking readiness to cover for a wide range of abuses and violations by the same Iranian regime that seeks international acceptance of its nuclear activities. U.S. Senator Ted Cruz recently noted that the State Department was illegally delaying the publication of a report on Iranian human rights violations, which was due last February, to avoid adversely affecting the talks with Iran on its nuclear program.
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Admin Mon 13 Jul 2015, 12:13 pm

Rouhani: We Have Charmed the World
Iranian President says that even if talks with major powers fail, Iran has been able to "charm the world, and it’s an art."
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said on Saturday that if nuclear talks with major powers succeeded, the world would see that Tehran had solved its biggest political problem by negotiation and logical argument, Reuters reported, citing an Iranian news agency.
"Even if the nuclear talks fail, our diplomacy showed the world that we are logical. We never left the negotiation table and always provided the best answer,” the Nasim news agency quoted Rouhani as saying in a meeting with artists.
“Twenty-two months of negotiation means we have managed to charm the world, and it’s an art," the Iranian president added.
The talks on a permanent deal between Iran and six world powers, which have already been extended several times and were to end Friday, were extended yet again through the weekend.
Major disagreements in the talks have included Iran's refusal to allow inspections on sensitive nuclear sites, its refusal to disclose the military aspects of its nuclear program, and in a newly added demand, Iran has called to end the UN arms embargo on the Islamic regime.
One Iranian official admitted on Thursday that "God only knows" if a deal is close, echoing comments attributed to U.S. President Barack Obama a day before by a senior Democratic senator, who said Obama believes the chances of a nuclear agreement with Iran are “less than 50-50."
As for Rouhani’s comments, Israel has warned the world many times not to be fooled by the Iranian president’s “charm offensive”
Since being elected Rouhani, who the West has branded as a “moderate”, has indicated an interest in a deal on Iran’s nuclear program, with hopes that the harsh sanctions imposed on the country would be lifted if it negotiated more with the West.
Courtesy of israelnationalnews.com

Admin Sat 11 Jul 2015, 3:18 pm

BDS Movement Could Cost Israel $9 Billion Annually
By Ahuva Balofsky July 10, 2015 , 7:00 am
“The rich ruleth over the poor, and the borrower is servant to the lender.” (Proverbs 22:7)
A report by Israel’s Finance Ministry reveals Israel could suffer significant financial losses if a boycott, endorsed by the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement is widely adopted, The Times of Israel reported. The ministry report was prepared in 2013 but only made public this week.
According to the report, the damage from an international boycott could range from approximately half a billion shekels ($130 million) per year and up to 500 people losing their jobs, to NIS 40 billion and 36,500 firings, depending on how widely implemented such a boycott becomes
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“Wonder Woman” Gal Gadot Reflects on IDF Service and Starring Role
“Strength and dignity are her clothing, and she laughs at the time to come.” (Proverbs 31:25)
Israeli actress Gal Gadot, who will portray the role of Wonder Woman in the “Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice” film that is due out in March 2016, said in an interview that her Israel Defense Forces (IDF) service helped prepare her for a career in Hollywood.
“The army wasn’t that difficult for me. The military gave me good training for Hollywood,” Gadot told Fashion Magazine.
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Declining United Church of Christ’s Israel Divestment May Not Pack Any Punch
“I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse…” (Genesis 12:3)
The United Church of Christ (UCC) last week became the latest mainline Protestant denomination to approve a resolution calling for divestment from companies that do business with Israel. But given the UCC’s declining membership, coupled with prominent issues such as the growing atrocities faced by Middle East Christians at the hands of Muslim terror groups like Islamic State, some observers are questioning the relevance of this latest divestment resolution.
At the UCC’s General Synod in Cleveland on June 30, the vote—508 in favor and 124 against, with 38 abstentions—culminates a process that began in 2005 “to end the Church’s complicity in Israel’s nearly half-century-old occupation and other abuses of Palestinian human rights,” according to a press release from UCC’s Palestine-Israel Network.
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Mismatched Alliance: Hamas, ISIS Teaming Up
“With God we shall do valiantly; it is he who will tread down our foes.” (Psalm 108:13)
Palestinian terror group Hamas, who is in control of the Gaza Strip, have found themselves in a seemingly mismatched alliance.
In recent months Hamas has been largely cut-off from the world, thanks mostly to cooperation between Israel and Egypt. Successful blockades and anti-smuggling initiatives on both land and sea borders have starved the group of the materials it needs to rearm after the 2014 war with Israel.
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Take an inside look behind why Israeli Bedouins are joining ISIS.
Bedouins in Israel Joining I.S. Jihadists: An Inside Look
124 NEWS
5.42 MIN VIDEO
https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=241&v=SM_zF_tAkr8

Published on 7 Jul 2015
Military correspondent Shai Ben-Ari visits Hura to bring their story
Read more at http://www.breakingisraelnews.com/44965/bedouins-in-israel-joining-isis-jihadists/#OE4hxLUq8Y1T0Z7O.99

Admin Sat 11 Jul 2015, 1:53 pm

Hillary Clinton Cozying Up to Zionist Supporters
By Ahuva Balofsky July 10, 2015 , 7:30 am
“He that covereth a transgression seeketh love; but he that harpeth on a matter estrangeth a familiar friend.” (Proverbs 17:9)
Hillary Clinton is cozying up to her Zionist supporters, making comments in recent weeks to signal her love for Israel. According to Politico, the presidential hopeful has indicated to her Jewish donors that she would be a more faithful friend to Israel than current US President Barack Obama, but has remained ambiguous on the Iran deal.
Regarding Iran, Clinton has publicly supported the nuclear negotiations, a process she secretly initiated during her tenure as Secretary of State. She has also said, however, that “no deal is better than a bad deal.” Israel has expressed concern that the Iran deal in its current form is highly dangerous and would be damaging to regional stability, leaving the Islamic Republic with the ability to go nuclear in a very short time.
According to those running her campaign, her support for the Iran deal does not contradict her support for Israel. Clinton spokesman Nick Merrill explained, “A strong deal is good for Israel in her view.”
Some donors seem to agree. “Whatever way you go, there will be some people who won’t like it,” said Sarah Kovner, a prominent New York donor. “You can’t have everybody with you. You’ve got to do what you think is right for the country.”
Clinton has also defended Obama’s interactions with Israel, saying the perceived damage to the relationship stems from a “perception” problem. She did indicate, however, that she could fix that problem and improve the relationship between the two states.
“Diplomacy is all about personal relationships, and I’ve got my own relationships,” she said.
Meanwhile, in a letter to longtime supporter and Hollywood mogul Haim Saban and dozens of other Jewish leaders, Clinton strongly condemned the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement, another move signalling her support for Israel.
According to The Guardian, Clinton blasted the movement in her letter dated July 2, saying, “The BDS campaign is counterproductive to the pursuit of peace and harmful to Israelis and Palestinians alike.” She promised to mount a bipartisan effort “to fight back against further attempts to isolate and delegitimize Israel”.
According to the paper, however, not everyone is impressed. Noah Pollak, the executive director of the Emergency Committee for Israel, expressed skepticism. Though welcoming the letter, he noted, “she will not be taken seriously as a pro-Israel candidate if she comes out in support of Obama’s Iran deal”.
While donors who support and those who reject an Iran deal both hear in Clinton’s words support for their own positions, Clinton will ultimately act in what she perceives to be the best interests of the United States. As one donor cited by Politico pointed out, the interests of the US and Israel, “although close, are not identical. It might not be in the best interest of American Jews, but it’s got to be in the best interest of the majority of the people.”

Admin Fri 10 Jul 2015, 1:29 pm

Obama: Chances of Reaching Nuclear Deal “Less Than 50-50”
By Lea Speyer July 9, 2015 , 12:30 pm
“Many are the plans in the mind of a man, but it is the purpose of the Lord that will stand.” (Proverbs 19:21)
(Photo: Amanda Lucidon/ Official White House Photo)
With less than 24 hours left to finalize a nuclear deal with Iran, US President Barack Obama estimated that the chances of reaching a final agreement were at “less than 50-50.”
Speaking to Democratic Senators Tuesday at a White House cocktail party, Obama made the pessimistic assessment as P5+1 and Iranian negotiators missed a self-imposed deadline for the second time.
“He said the chances he thought were less than 50-50 at this point and that he wouldn’t agree to something he thought was weak or unenforceable,” Senator Dick Durban (D-IL) told Politico on Wednesday.
“But if he comes up with an agreement and it meets his standards he wanted us to take an honest look at it and not prejudge,” the senator added.
Obama urged Democrats to support the nuclear initiative should it reach a final agreement and push the proposal through Congress.
“He wanted to make it perfectly clear that he is in no rush to an agreement and that he will walk away from the table if there is no good deal to be reached and that there isn’t a deal yet, and so all of these reports about what is in a deal are premature,” explained Senator Chris Murphy (D-CT).
World powers are set to convene Thursday in Vienna to attempt to finalize a deal with Iran. The deadline to present the agreement to US lawmakers is midnight.
Should Congress not receive the text by midnight in Washington, or early Friday morning in Vienna, the approval process will take double the amount of time and prove more problematic.
Obama is hoping to fast-track approval of the nuclear deal in a mere 30 days. Should a final deal not come though by midnight, Congress would have 60 days to reach a decision.
The nuclear accord seeks to end a 13-year standoff between Iran and the West. Building upon a framework agreement established in April, western officials seeks to dismantle a large part of Iran’s nuclear infrastructure and prevent the Islamic Republic from obtaining a nuclear bomb. In return, the United Nations and West would lift the harsh sanctions imposed on Iran.
Speaking on condition of anonymity, a Western official told AFP that there remains “very, very, very tough” issues to be resolved. Media reports out of Vienna on Wednesday indicate growing tensions after a reported stormy meeting between US Secretary of State John Kerry and Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammed Zarif, in which both officials engaged in a shouting match.
Tensions Rising, Southern Israel’s Largest Hospital Prepares for Next War
By Tsivya Fox July 9, 2015 , 7:30 am
“Deliver me, I pray, from the hand of my brother.” (Genesis 32:11)
One year ago, on July 8, 2014, Israel’s defensive Gaza war, Operation Protective Edge began. During the 50 days of fighting, few across the country escaped the sound of blaring sirens urging citizens to run to their bomb shelters.
With the war taking place in Israel’s southern region, the entire Negev in particular was subjected to heavy barrages of rocket fire from Gaza. Soroka Medical Center, in Beer-Sheva, became the main treatment center for the injured and traumatized.
The second largest hospital in Israel and the only one in the Negev, Soroka provides annually medical care to over one million residents in Israel’s south. During last summer’s war, their resources were stretched to their maximum capacity.
“Our staff worked around the clock to save lives,” recalled Orna Myara, Director of External Affairs and Friends of Soroka Medical Center, to Breaking Israel News.
“We are located on Israel’s southern front,” Myara noted. “This area is under constant threat and has a history of being hit with missile attacks.”
During Operation Protective Edge, while Israel’s Iron Dome defense system received praises from the Israeli population for the protection that it provided, Soroka gained its own nickname: “Israel’s Iron Dome for Health.”
According to recently released statistics by Israel’s Defense Ministry concerning injured IDF soldiers during the war, 322 IDF soldiers have been recognized as disabled war veterans from the fighting, with more than half considered seriously injured.
The IDF Rehabilitative Unit is playing a major role, alongside Soroka, in treating both physically and emotionally these soldiers.
With Hamas proudly reporting to Iranian television that new terror tunnels have been constructed into Israel and ISIS advancing towards Israel’s borders, Israel’s hospitals, especially in the south, are on constant high alert.
One of Soroka’s main new projects, for which they are seeking funding, is the enlargement of the facilities for the Emergency Medicine Department and the Trauma Unit.
Since learning of their vital role in Operation Protective Edge, LIBI USA, an organization that supports the IDF, has committed to donating funds to benefit the Soroka Medical Center.
With the continuous news reports reminding everyone that Israel’s enemies have not yet given up their pursuit of its destruction, LIBI has increased its efforts to raise additional, much needed funds for the benefit of Soroka.
“Soroka Medical Center was the safe landing ground for injured IDF soldiers and Israeli citizens during Operation Protective Edge,” shared Dr. John A.I. Grossman, LIBI USA Chairman, with Breaking Israel News. “We have an obligation to help Soroka treat their patients in the highest level possible.”
Myara related, “Our hospital always does its best to offer quality treatment to its patients. The 2014 summer military operation made it clearer than ever that we need additional funding to enable us to meet all challenges that the future will unfortunately bring in our unstable part of the world.”

Admin Thu 09 Jul 2015, 1:02 pm

IDF Readies Iran Strike Team Should Nuclear Talks Fail
By Ahuva Balofsky July 5, 2015 , 9:30 am
“Right wouldest Thou be, O LORD, were I to contend with Thee, yet will I reason with Thee: Wherefore doth the way of the wicked prosper? Wherefore are all they secure that deal very treacherously?” (Jeremiah 12:1)
A self-imposed deadline has come and gone without a nuclear deal, but Israel is not waiting around to see how the US and five other countries secure the world from the threat of Iran. Instead, Walla! reported, the Israel Defense Force has appointed a special team to plan for a potential strike at the Islamic Republic’s nuclear targets if needed.
The P5+1 powers had set Tuesday as a deadline for reaching a final agreement with Iran to curb its nuclear development and prevent it from developing atomic weapons. However, Iran has refused to allow unfettered inspections of its covert nuclear sites, saying it is unfair to hold it to different standards than other countries.
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United States’ Episcopal Church Rejects Boycott of Israeli Goods from Judea and Samaria
ALT LAKE – The General Convention of the Episcopal Church in the United States met in Salt Lake City on Thursday, July 2, and rejected in a voice vote the proposal to divest from businesses that have operations in Judea and Samaria and to boycott products from the region.
At the Church’s 78th General Convention, the House of Bishops, led by Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori, overwhelmingly defeated the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) resolution. The Episcopal Church has around 1.8 million members across the United States.
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Hamas: Israel Sent ISIS to Destroy Us
By Ahuva Balofsky July 7, 2015 , 8:30 am
“…that all of you have conspired against me, and there was none that disclosed it to me when my son made a league with the son of Jesse, and there is none of you that is sorry for me, or discloseth unto me that my son hath stirred up my servant against me, to lie in wait, as at this day?’” (1 Samuel 22:8)
Hamas terrorists in the Gaza Strip, May 2015. (Photo: Abed Rahim Khatib /Flash 90)A journalist for an official Hamas paper has made a startling accusation: Israel sent the Islamic State (ISIS) to Gaza to undermine Hamas. The accusation was voiced in the paper Palestine.
Last Friday, Hamas finally acknowledged that ISIS was operating in Gaza, after long denying its presence. In response, journalist Faiz Abu Shamala posed a series of accusatory questions to the terrorist group, known in Arabic and Hebrew as Daesh.
“Why doesn’t Daesh attack international naval ships on the Red Sea and the Israeli tourists in Sharm el-Sheikh? Why does Daesh attack the Palestinian fighters and not the collaborators with Israel?”
“Why doesn’t Daesh start a war front against Israel from the West Bank which could more greatly affect Israel than from the Gaza Strip? Why does Daesh spread a poster calling for Christians to leave Jerusalem but doesn’t publish a similar poster against the Zionists? Why doesn’t Daesh act against Israel from the Jordan border and (why) doesn’t it attack the Jordanian regime even as the Jordanian air force strikes Daesh targets?” he asked.
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Netanyahu Promises to Help Greece as Debt Crisis Worsens
By JNS July 7, 2015 , 12:30 pm
“Precious treasure and oil are in a wise man’s dwelling, but a foolish man devours it.” (Proverbs 21:20)
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met with Greek Foreign Minister Nikos Kotzias in Jerusalem on Monday, promising to help Greece as its debt crisis worsens.
In a referendum on Sunday, a majority of Greek voters rejected the tough economic bailout conditions set by the European Central Bank (ECB)—giving a boost to Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras in his negotiations with the ECB, but stoking more fears that Greece’s banks could collapse, possibly resulting in a messy exit from the European Union.
Netanyahu commended Kotzias for following through on his visit to Israel despite the deepening crisis back at home.
“You come here at a critical time for Greece, and I appreciate the fact that you kept this visit despite some rather dramatic events in your country,” said Netanyahu.
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With Second Missed Deadline to Seal Nuclear Deal, Netanyahu Warns Iran Wants to “Take Over World”
By Lea Speyer July 8, 2015 , 12:30 pm
“Why do the nations rage and the peoples plot in vain? The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against the Lord and against his Anointed…” (Psalm 2:1-2)
With yet another deadline expired to seal a final nuclear deal with Iran, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned that the Islamic Republic is planning to “take over the world.”
During a memorial service in Jerusalem marking 111 years since the death of modern Zionism visionary Theodor Herzl, Netanyahu said, “Iran’s growing aggression is several times more dangerous than that of IS, which is dangerous enough.”
“And this aggression, which aims to reach every corner of the world, has the ultimate true aim of taking over the world,” he added.
Netanyahu criticized the emerging nuclear deal between the P5+1 and Iran, in which he said weakened world powers are capitulating to too many Iranian demands.
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Admin Thu 02 Jul 2015, 8:13 pm

Heeding “His Call,” United Church of Christ Divests from Israel
Top officials of the United Church of Christ (UCC) voted on Tuesday to divest from companies that conduct business in Judea and Samaria.
During the church’s annual meeting in Cleveland, the groups General Synod endorsed the move with a final vote of 508-124 with 38 abstentions. Unlike a similar vote last year by the Presbyterian Church USA, which voted to sell of its stocks in companies whose products are widely used in Judea and Samaria, the UCC vote is more comprehensive.
Delegates of the church are calling on its financial officers to sell off all stock in companies which “have been found to profit from the occupation of the Palestinian territories by the State of Israel.” The church also agreed to boycott all products made in the territories.
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Israel’s President: “Month of Ramadan a Month of Terror”
“The fear of man lays a snare, but whoever trusts in the Lord is safe.” (Proverbs 29:25)
In a meeting Tuesday with Italian Foreign Minister Paolo Gentiloni, Israeli President Reuven Rivlin condemned the recent wave of terror attacks against Israelis during Ramadan.
The month-long Ramadan holiday, which began on the evening of June 17, sees a general uptick in violence and terror related incidents across Israel. Most attacks occur in Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria.
“This month of Ramadan is turning into a month of terror before our very eyes,” Rivlin said, vowing that Israel will continue to combat terrorism. “Terror is terror is terror, wherever it strikes in the land of Israel, and across the world.”
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DF Bolsters Presence in Sinai Amid ISIS Attacks in Egypt
By Lea Speyer July 2, 2015 , 12:30 pm
“And you will feel secure, because there is hope; you will look around and take your rest in security.” (Job 11:18)
Smoke rises in Egypt's North Sinai as seen from the border of southern Gaza Strip with Egypt on July 1, 2015. ISIS jihadists launched a wide-scale coordinated assault on several military checkpoints in Egypt's North Sinai on Wednesday in which 70 people were killed, security sources said, the largest attack yet in the insurgency-hit province. (Photo: Abed Rahim Khatib /Flash90)
Smoke rises in Egypt’s North Sinai as seen from the border of southern Gaza Strip with Egypt on July 1, 2015. ISIS jihadists launched a wide-scale coordinated assault on several military checkpoints in Egypt’s North Sinai on Wednesday in which 70 people were killed, security sources said, the largest attack yet in the insurgency-hit province
Fearing a spillover of fighting from Egypt, the Israeli Defense Forces has bolstered its presence in the Sinai Peninsula Thursday after dozens of people were killed in a wave of terror attacks by ISIS.
ISIS-affiliated Ansar Bayt al-Maqdis claimed responsibility for Wednesday’s surprise attacks, which targeted Egyptian soldiers and has left at least 70 people dead.
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ISIS to Israel, Hamas, PA: You’re Next
“For, lo, Thine enemies are in an uproar; and they that hate Thee have lifted up the head.” (Psalms 83:3)
The Islamic State (ISIS) has produced a video threatening Hamas, Fatah and what it calls “the state of the Jews”.
The video was published Tuesday and targets “Hamas dictators” in Gaza. According to Reuters news agency, a masked individual warns, “We will uproot the state of the Jews (Israel) and you and Fatah, and all of the secularists are nothing and you will be over-run by our creeping multitudes.”
The ISIS member continues, “The rule of Sharia [Islamic law] will be implemented in Gaza, in spite of you. We swear that what is happening in the Levant today, and in particular the Yarmouk camp [in Syria], will happen in Gaza,” referring to the besieged Palestinian refugee camp near Damascus.
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EXCLUSIVE: Despite Threats to His Life, Expert Avi Lipkin Warns of Radical Islamist Threat
“Save me, I pray, from the hand of my brother Esau, for I am afraid he will come and attack me, and also the mothers with their children.” (Genesis 32:11)
Radical Islam expert and Root Source lecturer Avi Lipkin shares insights about Islam that few people are willing to publicly address.
The author of five books, Lipkin was forced to write his first three books about radical Islam under the pseudonym Victor Mordecai for security reasons.
After running for the Israeli Knesset in 2011 as the head of a Judeo-Christian Bible Bloc party called “Gush Hatanakhi”, Lipkin finally revealed his true identity and wrote his next two books under his given name.
One of the few voices in the 1990s warning people about the coming of a major Islamic terrorist attack, following 9/11, his predictions became reality launching him as a much sought after international lecturer.
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BIN EXCLUSIVE: Temple Mount Activist Yehudah Glick Travels to Turkey to Meet With Prominent Muslim Religious Leaders
Temple Mount activist and head of the Temple Mount Heritage Foundation Rabbi Yehudah Glick is currently in Istanbul, Turkey, meeting with Muslim religious leaders and joining as an honored guest in celebration of the month-long holiday of Ramadan.
Several leading religious figures and muftis had reached out to Glick, inviting him to visit Turkish mosques and participate in joint public condemnations of terror and violence in the name of Islam.
Glick is an American-born Israeli whose life’s work is dedicated to increasing access to the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, Judaism’s holiest site. A controversial figure, he survived an assassination attempt in October when a Palestinian terrorist shot him four times in the chest at point-blank range.
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The Anti-Semitic UN Human Rights Council
By Earl Cox
It’s time for the world to truthfully acknowledge what Israel faced this past summer and what Israel continues to face as she stands strong against her neighbors who have vowed to wipe Israel from off the face of the earth.
The UN Human Rights Council recently released its report of the Israeli-Gaza conflict last summer known as Operation Protective Edge. The report cites violations of international law and alleged possible war crimes on both sides.
Prime Minister Netanyahu described the report as “morally flawed.” Dore Gold, Israel’s former ambassador to the United Nations and world renowned expert on Middle Eastern affairs, also responded to the report by describing Israel’s position and discussion on tunnels, timing on ending the confrontation, unnecessary deaths by the Palestinians and the protection of Israel afforded by Iron Dome.
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UWI Supporters’ Protests Contribute to French Telecom’s Reversal of anti-Israel Boycott
United with Israel supporters flooded French telecom giant Orange with protests of CEO Stephane Richard's anti-Israel statement and demanded an apology.
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Pro-Israel Professor Under Anti-Semitic Attack Praises UWI for its Support
Professor Andrew Pessin, a strong supporter of Israel, has become the target of an anti-Semitic smear campaign. UWI is helping him gain support by sending hundreds of people to sign his online petition.
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UWI Supporters Thank South Carolina for Outlawing Anti-Israel Boycotts
South Carolina became the first US state to take action against anti-Israel boycotts. United with Israel asked its supporters to thank the governor and the response was overwhelming!
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Admin Wed 01 Jul 2015, 8:30 pm

Large, gold-funded Hamas cell uncovered in West Bank, Shin Bet saysIsrael’s security agency breaks a 40-strong cell in the Nablus region, foiling a terror attack in the makingBY MITCH GINSBURG July 1, 2015, 1:58 pm

Gold found by the Shin Bet allegedly used to fund the Hamas cell (Shin Bet Communications)
Israel’s domestic security service said Wednesday it had revealed and arrested members of a 40-person Hamas cell in the Nablus region of the West Bank, foiling an attack still in the planning stage and breaking apart a community-wide infrastructure.
made public amid a rise in terror attacks against Israelis in the West Bank and corresponding calls from settlers to increase the Israeli army’s preventative actions in the region.
Over the past 10 days there have been four shootings and two stabbings, claiming the lives of Israelis Danny Gonen and Malachi Rosenfeld and wounding several more.
The Shin Bet said the Nablus cells were run from Qatar, by Hussam Badran, a Hamas spokesperson and a native of Nablus.
Budran, operating under Saleh al-Arouri, the Turkey-based head of Hamas operations in the West Bank, sent messages to the operatives in Nablus via “email channels,” the Shin Bet said, apparently referring to non-direct messages, and laundered the money into gold jewelry transported into the West Bank from Jordan.
Hamas operative Saleh al-Arouri, the Turkey-based head of Hamas operations in the West Bank (YouTube screenshot)
Anan Fatuah and Samih Aliwi, West Bank shop-owners, allegedly received cash from a Nablus couple that had traveled to Jordan for medical care but were, in fact, a forward unit of Hamas. The couple, Bassam and Mona Sayih, allegedly transferred the funds to Fatuah, who bought gold in Jordan and sold it along with Aliwi in their shop, funneling the money to Hamas operatives.
The Shin Bet and police said they found NIS four million (roughly one million dollars) in cash and gold during the arrests.
The 40-person infrastructure engaged in a wide range of activity, from education to media to charity, and was in the process of planning a terror attack.
Two of the arrested, Anas Abbas and Taufiq Sualmeh, admitted under questioning to planning a terror attack and buying night vision goggles to further the execution of that plan. They allegedly were in contact with operatives from Ahmad Jibril’s PFLP-GC terror organization in Syria.
Indictments are expected in the coming days, the Shin Bet said.
The security agency added that the large infrastructure proves “yet again” the extent to which Hamas operatives abroad and in the West Bank are willing to go to establish both social and terror Hamas activity in the West Bank.
“All this [was done] with the intent of strengthening the organization’s grip on the ground and to lay the groundwork for the day on which the order is given to carry out terror activity,” the Shin Bet said in a statement.

Admin Wed 01 Jul 2015, 3:16 pm

June 30, 2015, 02:06 pm
Netanyahu warns of nuclear-armed 'Islamic State of Iran'
By Jesse Byrnes
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is warning that a deal between world powers and Iran won't stop Tehran from developing a nuclear weapon as negotiators race to finalize an agreement.
"The world is properly concerned and aghast at the violence and savagery of ISIS," Netanyahu said at a press conference with Italy's foreign minister, referring to the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria.
"No one would dream of allowing the Islamic State of ISIS to have nuclear weapons. Why would anyone consider giving the Islamic State of Iran ... additional power of nuclear weapons.
"The Islamic State of Iran, the foremost sponsor of international terrorism, should not have access to nuclear weapons," Netanyahu continued. "We need a better deal. This deal should not pass."
A video posted to Netanyahu's Instagram account similarly likened Iran to the terrorist group, which the U.S. and allies launched a campaign against last year.
Negotiators announced Tuesday they extended the Iran talks by a week, to July 7, past Tuesday's deadline for a deal to provide sanctions relief for Tehran in exchange for limits on its nuclear program.
If the deal being negotiated between the U.S., France, Germany, Britain, Russia and China with Iran is presented to Congress by July 9, lawmakers will have 30 days to review it before going on recess.
But if the deal is presented to Congress after July 9, that review process would be extended to 60 days. Supporters of the Iran deal fear that could give critics time to mobilize opposition.
Netanyahu has been a vocal critic of the talks, most memorably sharing his concerns during a controversial address to Congress in early March.
President Obama insisted Tuesday that he would "walk away from negotiations if, in fact, it's a bad deal."

Admin Wed 01 Jul 2015, 10:05 am

Report: Israel, Jordan in Negotiations to Reopen Non-Muslim Access to Temple Mount
By Lea Speyer June 30, 2015 , 12:00 pm
“These I will bring to my holy mountain, and make them joyful in my house of prayer; their burnt offerings and their sacrifices will be accepted on my altar; for my house shall be called a house of prayer for all peoples.” (Isaiah 56:7)
Thousands of Muslims pray in front of the Dome of the Rock on the compound known to Muslims as al-Haram al-Sharif and to Jews as Temple Mount during the second Friday of the holy month of Ramadan in Jerusalem's Old City, June 26, 2015. (Photo: Suliman Khader/Flash90)
Thousands of Muslims pray in front of the Dome of the Rock on the compound known to Muslims as al-Haram al-Sharif and to Jews as Temple Mount during the second Friday of the holy month of Ramadan in Jerusalem’s Old City, June 26, 2015. (Photo: Suliman Khader/Flash90)
Israel and Jordan are reported to be in talks to reopen mosques on the Temple Mount to non-Muslim visitors after more than 15 years, Haaretz reported on Monday.
According to the report, the two countries have been holding covert negotiations for several months. Israel, who currently controls security on the Mount and access to the holy site, is said to believe that opening the mosques to paying visitors will incentivize the Muslim Waqf, who manages religious affairs on the Temple Mount, to keep the peace.
One under control of the Palestinian Authority, the Waqf has come under a growing Jordanian influence over the last several years. Should the plan come to fruition, it would be the first time since 2000 that there is full coordination between Israel, Jordan and the PA.
The International Crisis Group, a Brussels based NGO, revealed the initial details of the negotiations in a report which is scheduled to be published in full on Tuesday. The authors of the report concluded that after meeting with Israeli, Palestinian and Jordanian officials, the opening of mosques to paying visitors would be the best and most feasible way of achieving peace on the Mount.
One of the main demands being made by Jordan is the banning of two types of visitors – soldiers in uniform and religious Jews who, Jordan fears, may try and pray on the Temple Mount.
An official from the Prime Minister’s Office denied the NGO’s report and said Israel is not seeking to change the status quo on the holy site. “There are no negotiations and no change in the status quo at the Temple Mount,” he said.
The Temple Mount has become an increasingly hot button issue in Israel. Jews are forbidden by the Waqf from praying on the site and are routinely verbally abused and physically harassed by gangs of Muslims when ascending the Mount.
The Temple Mount is considered to be the holiest site in all of Judaism and the third most holy site in Islam. The Temple Mount compound is the location where the first and second Jewish Temple stood.
Until 2000, Jewish and Christian visitors were allowed to enter various mosques on the Temple Mount, including the Dome of the Rock, Al Aqsa Mosque and the Islamic Museum upon paying for a ticket. However, with the start of the Second Intifada in September 2000, Israel banned Jews and tourists from ascending the Mount.
In 2003, despite fierce opposition from Jordan and the Waqf, Israel reopened access to the holy site for all. Muslim violence on the holy site increased dramatically, with clashes between Palestinian rioters and Israeli police becoming commonplace.
A major turning point occurred in November 2014 amid heightened tensions and outbreaks of terror attacks against Israelis for what the Palestinians said were in defense of Al Aqsa. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu traveled to Amman to meet with Jordan’s King Abdullah, accompanied by US Secretary of State John Kerry, to try and calm tensions.
Since that meeting, Israel has taken visible strides to appease Jordan and the Waqf as part of efforts to reduce tensions. Majority of restrictions for Muslim access to the Mount were lifted while restrictions on Jewish access were increased.
The prime minister ordered MKs and ministers to not visit the Mount, which has mostly been obeyed except for one visit by former MK Moshe Feiglin. Most politicians have dropped the issue from their agenda while Israeli security forces have become more vigilant in preventing Temple Mount activists from ascending the site.
Famous Temple Mount champion Rabbi Yehuda Glick has faced a long and almost deadly struggle in his quest to achieve open access for Jews to the holy site. In October 2014, Glick survived an assassination attempt by a Palestinian terrorist who wanted to kill him for his work on the Temple Mount.
During the month of Ramadan violence sees an uptick on the Mount. Commenting on recent reports of an ISIS flag being flown on the Temple Mount, Glick told Breaking Israel News, “The situation on the Temple Mount is very worrying.”
“The situation in general among Muslim leadership where, for some reason, celebrations like Ramadan are immediately interpreted as a celebrations of violence and terror is something that is very sad, mostly on the Muslim side,” he stated.
“Of course, in terms of the State of Israel, we think the government of Israel should implement order on the Temple Mount. The Temple Mount should not be a place for demonstrating, and definitely not ISIS. I do hope that the authorities and police make sure it doesn’t happen again.”

Drive-By Terror Shooting Leaves 4 Israelis Seriously Injured
By Lea Speyer June 30, 2015 , 9:30 am
“Behold, I will bring to it health and healing, and I will heal them and reveal to them abundance of prosperity and security.” (Jeremiah 33:6)
A wounded Israeli of a drive-by shooting terror attack near Shvut Rachel is brought to the Shaarei Tzedek hospital in Jerusalem, June 29, 2015. (Photo: Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)
Four Israelis were injured in a drive-by terror shooting Monday night near the Samarian community of Shvut Rachel, north of Ramallah.
Three of the victims were in moderate condition while the fourth suffered serious injuries. Magen David Adom paramedics treated the victims at the scene and evacuated them to hospitals in Jerusalem. Paramedics told Walla! news that the four victims were in their twenties and had been shot in the legs.
The four victims were driving back from a basketball game near Route 60, the main highway that runs north-south through Judea and Samaria, when they were attacked.
Security forces are unsure whether the car was shot at from a nearby vehicle or from a roadside ambush.
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Complications Arise in Israel’s Biblical Relationship with the Sons of Jethro
By Adam Eliyahu Berkowitz June 30, 2015 , 8:30 am
“Moses said to Chovav, son of Reuel, the Midianite, the father-in-law of Moses, ‘We are travelling to the place G-d spoke about, saying, ‘I shall give it to you’. Go with us and we shall treat you well…’” (Numbers 10:29)
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Israeli Minister of Defense Moshe ‘Boogie’ Ya’alon meet with leaders of the Druze community in Israel, at PM Netanyahu’s office in Jeursalem on June 24, 2015. (Photo: Kobi Gideon / GPO)
Recent events have, for the first time in Israeli history, pitted the Israeli Druze against their host country in a moral dilemma with biblical roots and life-or-death implications.
Druze are considered infidel by Islam and, as such, have been targeted for attack by Al-Nusra and ISIS in Syria. Less than two weeks ago, 20 Druze villagers were killed by Sunni rebels in the Idlib province in northwest Syria. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group reported that a Druze village on the border with Israel was in imminent danger of attack.
“Hader is now totally surrounded by rebels, who just took a strategic hilltop north of the village,” Observatory director Rami Abdel Rahman told AFP.
The community of 140,000 Druze living in Northern Israel has called on Israel to protect their threatened brothers just a few scant kilometers across the border in Syria. In truth, Israel owes them a debt of gratitude.
Druze live in villages scattered around the region and have a principle of not seeking to rule, but rather to aid their host country. They have served with great honor in the Israel Defense Forces in combat positions and there have been many Druze martyrs who have died protecting the Jewish State.
Israel recognizes this and IDF Spokesman Brig.-Gen. Moti Almoz reported that top IDF officers held a Golan assessment last week. He assured the Druze community that the IDF was taking measures “as part of the common cause and blood-alliance between us and our Druze brothers in the State of Israel.”
Despite this declaration, later the same day, the IDF declared the area near the northeastern border of the Israeli Golan a closed military zone, limiting access to residents of the area.
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For the First Time, Israel Acknowledges Aiding Syrian Rebels
By Ahuva Balofsky June 30, 2015 , 10:30 am
“And the men of Gibeon sent unto Joshua to the camp to Gilgal, saying: ‘Slack not thy hands from thy servants; come up to us quickly, and save us, and help us; for all the kings of the Amorites that dwell in the hill-country are gathered together against us.’” (Joshua 10:6)
View of bombing between Syrian forces from the Israeli side of the border with Syria in the Golan Heights due, on June 16, 2015. Druze residing in Israel have raised concern for their fellow Druze on the Syrian side, as the Al Nusra Front has moves fighting against the Assad forces onto the Syrian Druze village of Hadas. (Photo: Basel Awidat/Flash90)
View of bombing between Syrian forces from the Israeli side of the border with Syria in the Golan Heights due, on June 16, 2015. Druze residing in Israel have raised concern for their fellow Druze on the Syrian side, as the Al Nusra Front has moves fighting against the Assad forces onto the Syrian Druze village of Hadas. (Photo: Basel Awidat/Flash90)
Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon acknowledged for the first time Monday that Israel has been providing aid to Syrian rebels fighting President Bashar Assad’s forces. Such support has been offered to protect the Druze population.
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Israel to Build Security Barrier Along Jordanian Border
“Peace be within your walls and security within your towers!” (Psalm 122:7)The Israeli government approved a proposal Sunday to build a security fence along the border with Jordan that will extend from Eilat past a new international airport in the area.The security initiative was first introduced by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. According to a statement released by the Prime Minister’s Office, the fence will extend 30 kilometers northwards from Israel’s southern tip. Israel and Jordan share a 240 kilometer border.The barrier will be built inside Israeli territory and was given authorization by the security cabinet. The prime minister hailed the decision to approve the fence as a way to bolster Israel’s “national security.”
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Erdogan’s Fake Campaign to Save Morsi
By Burak Bekdil June 30, 2015 , 7:00 am
As always, the protests were an Islamist show, rather than a liberal, pro-democracy rally to condemn capital punishment.
That is typical Erdogan. He speaks against the “death sentence,” while ignoring the number of people executed every year in the homeland of his Saudi friends, never even hinting that Sisi’s Saudi friends might help as well.
If Erdogan is serious about saving his friend, Morsi, he should first speak to the Saudis instead of constantly blaming the fall of a Muslim Brotherhood leader on the Christian West.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s fierce campaign to help out his ideological next-of-kin, Egypt’s former President Mohamed Morsi, is not doing any favor to the Muslim Brotherhood man. Morsi, who was deposed by General Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi in 2013, was recently sentenced by an Egyptian court to both death and life imprisonment, for separate crimes.
Once again, Erdogan is more motivated by ideological rhetoric — aimed at boosting his popularity at home and on the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas streets — than serving a democratic purpose, which, in this case, should be to save Morsi at least from his death sentence.
First, Erdogan’s loud rhetoric that he and Morsi represent their nations’ will and that Egyptian President Sisi is a ruthless dictator, is problematic. In 2002, Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party (AKP) came to power with 34.3% of the national vote and won 66% of the seats in Turkey’s 550-member legislature. This month, during the June 7 parliamentary elections, the AKP, despite a 41% nationwide vote, lost its parliamentary majority for the first time since 2002.
The election results in Egypt also do not comfortably support Erdogan’s narrative.[1] In 2014, about 10 million more Egyptians (or 19 percentage points) voted for the “dictator” Sisi than had voted for Morsi in the previous election.
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Moral Equivalence on the Rampage
By Jerold Auerbach June 30, 2015 , 9:00 am
The report of the international commission of inquiry, established by the United Nations Human Rights Council to allocate responsibility for last summer’s Gaza war, exposed moral obtuseness masquerading as moral equivalency. The commission was authorized “to investigate all violations of international humanitarian law and international human rights law in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, particularly in the occupied Gaza Strip.” The only problem with that sweeping mandate was that the Gaza war, as its name rather clearly indicates, was not fought in the West Bank or Jerusalem. But the commission was palpably eager for its reach to exceed its grasp.
The original chairman of the commission was Canadian law professor William Schabas (family name Sabbath). But he soon resigned following the revelation that he had previously provided paid legal advice to the PLO. Israeli Ambassador to the UN Ron Prosor observed that “Forming an investigatory committee headed by Schabas is like inviting ISIS to organize religious tolerance week at the UN.” Astonishingly, even for a UN investigating commission, it assumed that despite the 2005 disengagement from Gaza, when Israel abandoned its settlements, evacuated residents and withdrew its military forces, “Gaza continues to be occupied by Israel.” By that illogic, the UN could decide that Germany continues to be occupied by the Allied nations and the United States by England.
The commission acknowledged, in passing, “the increasing number of rocket attacks on Israel” as the cause of war. But commissioners were “assured” (by Gaza authorities) that “Palestinian armed groups did not target civilians.” (Yet thousands of Israelis fled their homes and 4-year-old Daniel Tragerman was killed in his border kibbutz home by shrapnel from a rocket fired from an UNRWA-run school.) The notorious cross-border tunnels were only used “to conduct attacks directed at IDF positions in Israel in the vicinity of the Green Line, which are legitimate military targets.” Not surprisingly, the commission found “serious violations of international humanitarian law” that “may amount to war crimes” by both Israel and Palestinians. Surely one expects no better from the United Nations, which seems ever ready to justify the Palestinian terrorism for which it subsequently holds Israel responsible.
Enter The New York Times, whose editorial board contributed its own predictable judgment of moral equivalence. Noting that 4881 rockets and 1753 mortars were fired from Gaza, largely from civilian neighborhoods, it wondered “why residential buildings were considered legitimate targets” by Israel. Like UN commissioners, the editors called upon “leaders on both sides” to “hold violators of international law accountable for their conduct.”
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Admin Mon 29 Jun 2015, 10:12 pm

Female Palestinian Terrorist Stabs IDF Soldier Near Rachel’s Tomb
By Lea Speyer June 29, 2015 , 11:30 am
“Heal me, O Lord, and I shall be healed; save me, and I shall be saved, for you are my praise.” (Jeremiah 17:14)
n IDF soldier is being rushed into an ambulance after being stabbed by a female Palestinian terrorist near Rachel’s Tomb, June 29, 2015. (Photo: Magen David Adom)
A female IDF soldier was severely wounded Monday morning in a terrorist stabbing attack near Rachel’s Tomb in Jerusalem.
The attack occurred at approximately 11 am at a security checkpoint between Jerusalem and the Palestinian city of Bethlehem.
The 20-year-old soldier was stabbed in the throat and neck by the female terrorist during a security check. She was treated on scene by Magen David Adom (MDA) paramedics who evacuated the soldier to Hadassah Medical Center.
MDA told media that the soldier was conscious following the attack and sustained wounds in her upper body and neck.
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ISIS in Jerusalem: Christians Threatened
and a Temple Mount Takeover
By Ahuva Balofsky June 29, 2015 , 8:30 am
“The kings of the earth believed not, neither all the inhabitants of the world, that the adversary and the enemy would enter into the gates of Jerusalem.” (Lamentations 4:12)
The Islamic State (ISIS) has appeared in Jerusalem, with fliers attributed to the terror group being posted in the Holy City, reported Israeli media over the weekend. According to Israel’s Channel 10, the fliers were posted as early as Thursday.
ISIS does not have an operational presence in Israel, but many Islamists support the terror group, with dozens of Arab citizens joining the fighting in Iraq and Syria. Earlier this month, rocket fire from Gaza into Israel was blamed on these supporters, allegedly attempting to stir up unrest between Israel and Hamas.
The leaflets threaten “revenge” against Jerusalem’s Christians and were signed “ISIS Palestine”. According to a report in Haaretz, fliers welcoming Ramadan were posted Saturday, reading: “We tell the heretic Christians, you must clear out immediately or we’ll massacre you on Eid al-Fitr, marking the end of Ramadan, and one month is time enough to evacuate.”
These were signed “Islamic State, Jerusalem Emirate,” according to the paper. Haaretz noted they may have been a prank.
Meanwhile, reports have appeared on social media of the ISIS flag being flown atop the Temple Mount, the holiest site for Jews and a holy place for Muslims as well. Once home to the First and Second Temples, the Mount now hosts the al-Aqsa Mosque and the Dome of the Rock shrine.
Temple Mount activist Rabbi Yehuda Glick told Breaking Israel News, “The situation on the Temple Mount is very worrying. The situation in general among Muslim leadership where, for some reason, celebrations like Ramadan are immediately interpreted as a celebrations of violence and terror is something that is very sad, mostly on the Muslim side.
“Of course, in terms of the State of Israel, we think the government of Israel should implement order on the Temple Mount. The Temple Mount should not be a place for demonstrating, and definitely not ISIS. I do hope that the authorities and police make sure it doesn’t happen again.”.
As early as November, ISIS spokesperson Mohammed al-Adnani expressed the group’s interest in Jerusalem. A videotaped statement from al-Adnani was quoted in the Jerusalem Post at the time, saying, “We want Kabul, Karachi, Riyadh, Tehran, Baghdad, Damascus, Jerusalem, and Cairo, Sana’a, Doha, Abu Dhabi, and Amman. The Muslims will return to power, to be the vanguard and lead in every place.”
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Admin Thu 25 Jun 2015, 9:32 pm

Temple Mount Turning into “Wild West”
By Lea Speyer June 25, 2015 , 11:30 am
“Why do you look with hatred, O many-peaked mountain, at the mount that God desired for his abode, yes, where the Lord will dwell forever?” (Psalm 68:16)
image: http://www.breakingisraelnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/temple-mount-riot-stone-rock-throwing-.jpg
Temple Mount Riots
Palestinians throw stones towards Israeli police during clashes following Friday prayers at Jerusalem’s al-Aqsa mosque compound, on December 6, 2013. (Photo: Sliman Khader/Flash 90)
Temple Mount activists Yehuda Glick and Yehuda Etzion met with Israel’s justice minister on Wednesday to confer over the ongoing tensions and violent acts on the holy site, Arutz Sheva reported.
Glick and Etzion called on Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked to ensure that rule of law was applied on the Temple Mount against violent Islamists who attack Jewish visitors as well as allowing Jews, who are routinely banned by the Muslim Waqf, from praying at the holy site.
Despite court orders allowing Jews to visit and pray at Judaism’s most holy site, Israeli Police have ignored and violated the judicial decisions.
Glick and Etzion were accompanied by secular and religious Israeli students from the Students for the Temple Mount organization. The students called on Shaked to work more closely with Internal Security Minister Gilad Erdan to uphold civil rights on the Temple Mount, including freedom of expression and freedom of worship.
Following the meeting, Glick told the news website that the state does have the ability to enforce rule of law on the Mount but for some reason is not doing so. In one of many example, groups of Islamist women, known as mouribatoun, are paid to sit at the visitors entrance to the Mount harass Jewish visitors.
For unknown reasons, Glick says that police are preventing the disbandment of the women who verbally attack Jews with anti-Semitic and racist rhetoric.

image: http://www.breakingisraelnews.com/wp-content/uploads/useful_banner_manager_banners/144-JerusalemCovenant-600WIDE.jpg
“If we’re talking about racist chanting, the law allows for up to two years imprisonment,” Glick stated.
Glick and Etzion’s activist efforts are part of a larger struggle to end Israeli appeasement of the Jordanian government, which as threatened to cut ties with Israel if Jews are allowed to pray on the Temple Mount, as well as Muslim extremists.
One activist present at the meeting told Arutz Sheva, “The fundamental responsibility to impose the rule of law on the Temple Mount lies with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who bizarrely refuses to deal with the issues and is not willing to hear about it.”
He added, “Meanwhile, the Mount is run like the Wild West.”
With Muslims now celebrating the month-long Ramadan holiday, there has been an uptick of violence on the Temple Mount.
“I hope that they will use this special time for repentance and prayer and not take advantage of the time for violence on the Temple Mount as has happened in past years. If, God forbid, they start to incite, I hope that the police will act immediately to stop any violence,” Glick told Breaking Israel News earlier in June.

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