Who will endorse Palestine?

How will Germany vote? What about Japan? Ynet maps out global interests ahead of Palestinian UN bid

Ynetnews
by Ronen Medzini

On September 20th, the Palestinian Authority will submit its statehood bid at the United Nations General Assembly; the process will culminate with the UN's 193 member states voting on recognizing a Palestinian state. What can we expect at the vote?

Officials in Jerusalem presume that should a vote indeed take place, the Palestinians will win an automatic majority thanks to the guaranteed support of the 116 "non aligned" states," which tend to vote as a bloc and promote joint interests. Hence, Foreign Ministry officials are focusing their efforts at what they refer to as the "moral majority," that is, large, influential states – this list includes the 27 members of the European Union, global powers, and several other key states.
Read more »

Column One: Glenn Beck’s revealing visit

In general, Israeli media responded to Beck’s visit either as a non-event, or distorted who Beck is and what he is trying to do

The Jerusalem Post
by Caroline B. Glick

American media superstar Glenn Beck’s visit to Israel this week was a revealing and remarkable event. It revealed what it takes to be a friend of Israel. And it revealed the causes of Israel’s difficulty in telling its enemies from its friends.

Many world leaders, opinion-shapers and other notables protest enduring friendship with Israel. From Washington to London, Paris to Spain, policy- makers and other luminaries preface all their remarks to Jewish audiences with such statements. Once their declarations are complete – and often without taking a breath – they proceed to denounce Israel’s policies and to deny its basic rights.

US President Barack Obama exemplifies this practice. Obama always begins his statements on Israel by proclaiming his enduring friendship for Israel. Then he tells us to deny Jewish property rights, accept indefensible borders, or desist from defending ourselves from aggression.
Read more »

Netanyahu learns to crawl and all the latest on Margalit Tzanani

Give Peace A Chance

Egypt and Israel: Springtime in Sinai

Israel is worried by extremists on its desert border and political changes in Cairo

The Economist

“SOMETIMES you have to subordinate strategic considerations to tactical needs,” says Ehud Barak, Israel’s defence minister, former prime minister and the country’s most decorated military man. This is one such time: Mr Barak, backed by the current prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, is going to agree to Egypt deploying thousands of troops in Sinai even though the Israel-Egypt peace treaty strictly forbids it. They will have helicopters and armoured vehicles, Mr Barak says, but no tanks beyond the lone battalion already stationed there.

The decision comes after an audacious attack on August 18th on Israeli vehicles travelling on a scenic road that hugs the Israel-Egypt border and ends at the resort town of Eilat. Eight Israelis, civilians and soldiers, died in the attack and in shoot-outs involving the army. Ten attackers were killed, two apparently by Egyptian border guards, six of whom were also killed in the crossfire. Egypt blamed Israel for the deaths. Israel replied that a hard-core group of Palestinians, all heavily armed, had entered Egypt’s Sinai peninsula from Gaza a month ago, camped and trained there, and made their way unhindered across open desert to the site of the attack. Egyptian and Israeli security sources believe that several militants operating in Sinai joined them to take part in the attacks. Read more »

Saudi Columnist Calls on Arabs to Learn from Israel's Handling of Protests

The Middle East Media Research Institute

In an article in the London-based Saudi daily Al-Sharq Al-Awsat, Saudi academic and writer Amal 'Abd Al-'Aziz Al-Hazzani called on the Arab rulers to learn from Israel's handling of the social protests there, contrasting the swift measures taken by the Israeli government and Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu with Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad's use of military force against his own people.

Criticizing those who claimed that Israel's strikes in response to the attacks in Eilat had been meant to distract attention from the protests in the Israeli street, Ms. Al-Hazzani aked how Palestinians and Arabs could condemn this expected response while keeping silent over the Syrian army's shelling of the Al-Ramal Palestinian refugee camp in Latakia. She added that in contrast to the Israeli government, which clearly defined and took action against its enemies but maintained respect for its own citizens, the Syrian regime defined Syrian citizens who threatened the regime's legitimacy as the enemy, but had relinquished its legitimate borders in the Golan Heights
Following are excerpts from Ms. Al-Hazzani's article:

"We rejoiced when the contagion of the Arab revolutions reached Israel. We said that this was an unintentional direct hit, that the Israeli street would revolt and demand to topple the regime – which would lead Netanyahu, who [at the time] was traveling abroad, to rush back to Tel Aviv and mobilize the Israeli army in full force to suppress the protestors. [We said that] he would fire live ammunition at them, and humiliate them by beating them with shoes, throwing them in prison, and sending them the mutilated corpses of their children. Then, [we said,] the Hebrew state would crumble, weaken, and collapse, and would ask America for help; disputes would arise among [Israel's] leaders; [Israel] would go from being strong to feeble; and the long story of Israeli tyranny would end, without a single Arab batting an eyelash.

"But this joy did not materialize. Unfortunately, Netanyahu disappointed us. While he did, in fact, wake up and return [to Israel], it was not in order to massacre his citizens, but to contain the crisis and propose swift solutions to what the street was demanding. He felt concern over the [public] anger toward him. It is said that he and his ministers did not sleep for a week, staying up nights in order to study tactical and strategic plans to meet the protestors' demands. And, fearing that the people would not think that he was in earnest, he established a committee of academics at Haifa and Tel Aviv Universities and at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem to serve as his mouthpiece vis-à-vis the public, and he committed to accepting whatever [this committee] proposed.

"It was the protestors who set the demands, accusing Netanyahu's government of failing to [ensure] social justice, and of failing to notice that the youth among the Israeli people had grown in number over time – and that these same youth would marry and need higher wages, more reasonably priced housing, advanced healthcare, and lower taxes.
Read more »

Israeli ambassador to U.S. hosts Ramadan dinner

(CNN) - The Israeli ambassador to the United States hosted a dinner celebrating the Muslim holy month of Ramadan on Thursday, marking the first time an ambassador from the Jewish state has hosted such a dinner in the United States, the embassy said.

By Dan Gilgoff, CNN.com

Israeli Ambassador Michael Oren hosted the dinner at his residence, with about 65 guests in attendance, including imams, rabbis and officials from the White House, Congress and the State Department, according to Israeli Embassy spokesman Lior Weintraub.

Oren said the unusual dinner is fitting at a time when the future of the Middle East is uncertain, as the Arab Spring has unseated regimes in Tunisia and Egypt and as Libya appears poised on the brink of a revolution. Read more »

No more Israeli apologies

In face of world indifference, Israel should be fighting terror without apologizing

Ynetnews
by Avi Yesawich

While rockets were falling on Israeli towns and innocent Jewish blood was being spilled, an odd debate raged on in the UN Security Council: whether to issue a condemnation of the recent terror attacks perpetrated against innocent Israeli civilians, including children. Amazingly enough, a current member of the Security Council – Lebanon – prevented the condemnation from coming to fruition.
 
The Lebanese demanded a toned down, more “balanced” denunciation that includes criticism of Israeli retaliatory strikes in Gaza. It did not matter that the IDF responded by attacking legitimate targets – leaders of the terror group that executed the attacks, weapons compounds, smuggling tunnels and rocket and mortar cells aiming to kill Jews indiscriminately. No condemnation was issued, and no one blinked an eye. Read more »

What has happened to Israel?

Something has gone horribly wrong here in Israel.

The Jerusalem Post
by GEORGE  ROOKS

How did we ever get to a point in this country where the South, including Beersheba, Sderot, Ashkelon, Kiryat Gat, Kiryat Malachi, Be’er Tuvia, Ofakim, Azrikam, Gan Yavne, Gedera and Ashdod were hit by more than 100 Grad rockets this past weekend? How did we ever get to a point in this country where we put the safety of our citizens at the mercy of international approval – with an Israeli defense official proclaiming on Monday morning that “lack of international support” was a reason that “Israel could not open a larger offensive” against the terrorists in Gaza.

Let me tell you how I think we got here.

We got here by hiding the truth in euphemisms.

Since the last “cease-fire” in 2008, the South has been assaulted by over 800 Kassams, mortars and Grads. Read more »

With Glenn Beck by the Temple’s Walls | Rubin Reports

Glenn Beck’s program in Israel went off without a hitch, ending in a rally on the southern side of the Old City of Jerusalem. About 1000 people were in attendance, mostly Americans (contrary to the media coverage, a number of the Americans were Jews not Evangelicals) who’d come to Jerusalem at Beck’s urging, but with a sprinkling of Israelis, including a fair proportion of Orthodox Jews.

With the Old City walls to his right and in front of him, and the Al-Aqsa Mosque looming quite close, Beck handled himself with a mixture of audaciousness toward his enemies and sensitivity toward his friends. He announced a global movement, to be headquartered in Texas, to encourage average people to act against injustice, though the details of its scope and goals weren’t clear. Since you won’t get any real coverage in the media, here is the full text of the speech. Read more »

More by Barry Rubin:

 JPost | Beck gets it right when it comes to the big picture issues

As Jews, and Israelis most of all, should know, to be falsely reviled is not proof of being wrong or evil.

Having studied the Middle East professionally for 35 years, and with a PhD in Middle East history, let me make it perfectly clear: Glenn Beck, who is holding several rallies in Israel this week, has a better grasp of Middle East politics than most Western experts, as well as some Western leaders. Read more »

Egypt: Muslim Brotherhood threatens Israel's ambassador: "Zionist envoy, leave Egypt or die" | Jihad Watch

More glories of the Arab Spring from the genocide-minded, Nazi-loving Egyptian demonstrators. "‘Zionist Envoy, Leave Egypt or Die,' Demonstrators Demand," by Tzvi Ben Gedalyahu for Israel National News, August 23 (thanks to all who sent this in):

[...] “Revolution,” cried out Muslim Brotherhood activists. “Revolution is stronger than the Zionist attackers. The entire Egyptian people are Hamas.”
One hostile placard threatened that the ambassador must “get out [of Egypt] or die here.”

The demonstrators also proclaimed, “Oh Zionist traitor, blood and fire are between you and us.“ They charged that “Zionists mock us with calls for peace, and their principles offend Muslim [sic].”..."

Source: Jihad Watch

Beck Announces Global Movement to Defend Israel

Egyptians plan million-man rally against Israel | Ynetnews

Facebook groups call for mass protest outside Israeli embassy in Cairo, as protesters demand ambassador be expelled, embassy be closed.

...protesters continue to demonstrate outside the embassy for the fifth day in a row. They called out "Expel the ambassador immediately". Others gathered outside the ambassador's Cairo residence and called fellow citizens to join them in order to "force the ambassador to leave Egypt".
Read more »

Cyprus wants Israeli support in offshore drilling spat JPost

With her country locked in a nasty tiff with Turkey over maritime gas exploration rights, Cypriot Foreign Minister Erato Kozakou-Marcoullis came to Israel Wednesday looking for signs of support on the matter from Jerusalem, and received it in the form of statement put out by the Prime Minister’s Office.
Read more »

Glenn Beck Restoring Courage

Should Israel Welcome Glenn Beck's Support?

Hudson New York
by Alan M. Dershowitz

All decent people, whether on the left or the right, should support Israel's right to exist as the democratic nation state of the Jewish people. All decent people should support Israel's right to defend its civilians from terrorist attacks. All reasonable people should favor a just peace that assures Israel's ability to thrive in a dangerous neighborhood and to defend its borders.

These issues should not divide decent people along ideological or political lines. Israel's existence and right to defend itself should be bipartisan issues, not only in the United States, but in all democratic countries of the world.

The reality, however, is very different. The Jewish state is demonized by the hard left in America, by virtually the entire left in much of Europe, and by most of the left and right in Ireland, Norway and Sweden. Its right to exist is denied by a high proportion of Arabs and Muslims, and most of the Arab and Muslim nations do not have diplomatic relations with Israel.

In many circles, anti-Zionism easily morphs into anti-Semitism, and in some countries Jews are afraid to walk the streets wearing any clothing or symbols that identify them as Jewish.

The general assembly of the United Nations has become the world's new Der Sturmer, whose podium hosts, and many of whose audience members cheer, virulent anti-Semites such as Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Read more »

Israelis, stop whining | Ynetnews

Recent wave of social protest mostly an indication that Israelis have become spoiled

by Alexander Goldenstein

For quite a while I wanted to write about why my friends and I do not go to the demonstrations. After reading in the financial newspaper "Calcalist" about an artistic couple who live in Tel-Aviv and don't want to move even to neayby Bat Yam or Holon, I decided to explain why young people aged 30-something like me, who've experienced firsthand the difficulties of living here, did not join the protest.
 
I am a journalist, deputy editor of a very influential website in Russian. Like the vast majority of journalists, I don't have a technical education; therefore, I can only dream about the wages and benefits of engineers and programmers. Financially, my situation is average. Nothing more, unfortunately. Read more »

Turning gray water green

A simple Israeli system for collecting, treating and reusing household water arrives right on time for global water shortages.

ISRAEL21c
by Karin Kloosterman

The facts on the ground are stark: Israel is in a serious water deficit. The Sea of Galilee is shrinking every year, as are its underground aquifers. Yet water needs are increasing along with energy costs.

One answer to this crisis may be found in the water we send down the sink and bathtub drains. Much of this "gray water" can be lightly treated and reused to flush toilets and water gardens.

Putting that ideal into action on a large scale is the target for Gil Ben-Meir, inventor of the Evergreen gray water solution developed by his company, Green Solutions. Some 150 family Israeli homes have already installed Evergreen. This business owner, working since 2009 on the project, is intent on making a dent in the foreign market with Israel's already well-known water solutions that work.

Speaking at the 15th annual Cleantech Exhibition in Tel Aviv in July, he tells ISRAEL21c that the Evergreen system is a small, affordable and easy-to-maintain gray-water processing device that can treat up to 600 liters of household water a day, or about 150 gallons. Read more »

Solar window is ‘green’ game-changer

The dream of constructing a net zero-energy building has yet to become a reality, but now an Israeli company has come up with an idea that could make it possible.

ISRAEL21c
By Daniel Ben-Tal

The innovative product from Pythagoras Solar can be described as a solar window that combines energy efficiency, power generation and transparency.

The world's first transparent photovoltaic glass unit (PVGU) has been designed to be easily integrated into conventional building design and construction processes. This means that existing office blocks can be retrofitted with the new material instead of energy-seeping glass windows - a process that will pay itself back within five years. Read more »

A Sky Above Jerusalem

London 1940, Israel 2011 | Ynetnews

Israelis facing similar onslaught to London blitz, but without world’s support

by Giulio Meotti

Sderot, Ashkelon, Ashdod, Beersheba....All major southern Israel cities are now under a heavy rocket offensive from Gaza. There are Jewish dead, babies wounded, schools and synagogues destroyed, entire cities and towns terrorized.

There is only one historical precedent of a modern democracy besieged under rocket attacks. During the afternoon of Sept. 7, 1940, 348 Nazi bombers appeared over London’s skies. For the next 57 days, London was bombed day and night. Fires consumed many portions of the city. Residents sought shelter wherever they could find it - many fleeing to the underground that sheltered as many as 177,000 people during the night. Read more »

Australia pulls out of Durban conference | The Australian

AUSTRALIA has pulled out of the United Nations Durban conference to combat racism on grounds that it would likely to be a repeat of the initial racist and anti-semitic event. Read more »

Australia now is part of the anti-Durban camp, which includes Italy, the Netherlands, Canada, Israel, the United States, and the Czech Republic.

New Cypriot FM makes Israel 2nd port of call | JPost

This will be Kozakou-Marcoullis’s second trip since becoming foreign minister, her first being a trip to Greece some 12 days ago.

New Cypriot Foreign Minister Erato Kozakou-Marcoullis will visit Israel on Wednesday, less than three weeks after taking over her new post, in what is widely viewed as a sign of the importance Cyprus now attributes to ties with Israel. Read more »

Israeli energy talks ‘very serious’ | Cyprus mail
The two governments would also discuss Turkey’s warning to Cyprus not to go ahead with plans to explore and drill for natural gas.
In recent weeks, the Turkish leadership has warned Cyprus against making any moves that might ignore the rights of Turkish Cypriots, saying that if gas exploration goes ahead, it will take “appropriate measures”. Read more »

Meet the Legal Wonks Who Brought Down the Flotilla Commentary Magazine | by Alana Goodman

At a radical left-wing coffee shop in Washington, D.C. last month, Code Pink founder and “Freedom Flotilla II” passenger Madea Benjamin woefully recounted the moment she realized her boat, the Audacity of Hope, wouldn’t be legally permitted to leave a port in Greece to sail to Gaza.

“There was something called a ‘complaint’ that was put against our boat,” Benjamin explained to a crowd of anti-Israel activists stuffed into the back room of the restaurant. “Well, it didn’t take long for somebody to uncover that the person, or entity, that lodged the complaint was none other than this right-wing Israeli law center based in Tel Aviv, that knew nothing about our boat and certainly had no interest in the passengers’ safety.”

The “right-wing” law center that caused Benjamin so much grief is Shurat HaDin – the Israeli group that single-handedly took down the “Freedom Flotilla II” simply by filing creative lawsuits. In total, nine out of the 10 boats in the flotilla never touched Israeli waters, largely due to Shurat HaDin’s work.

Led by Nitzana Darshan-Leitner and her husband Avi Leitner, the legal center is pioneering a new strategy of Israeli-self defense: Pro-Israel Lawfare. Read more »

Is Terrorism Against Israel Really More Justified Than Terrorism Against Norway? Hudson New York | by Alan M. Dershowitz

In a recent interview, Norway's Ambassador to Israel has suggested that Hamas terrorism against Israel is more justified than the recent terrorist attack against Norway.

His reasoning is that, "We Norwegians consider the occupation to be the cause of the terror against Israel." In other words terrorism against Israeli citizens is the fault of Israel. The terrorism against Norway, on the other hand, was based on "an ideology that said that Norway, particularly the Labor Party, is foregoing Norwegian culture." It is hard to imagine that he would make such a provocative statement without express approval from the Norwegian government.

I can't remember many other examples of so much nonsense compressed in such short an interview. First of all, terrorism against Israel began well before there was any "occupation". The first major terrorist attack against Jews who had long lived in Jerusalem and Hebron began in 1929, when the leader of the Palestinian people, the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, ordered a religiously-motivated terrorist attack that killed hundreds of religious Jews-many old, some quite young. Terrorism against Jews continued through the 1930s. Once Israel was established as a state, but well before it captured the West Bank, terrorism became the primary means of attacking Israel across the Jordanian, Egyptian and Lebanese borders. If the occupation is the cause of the terror against Israel, what was the cause of all the terror that preceded any occupation? Read more »

Hit Gaza Strip hard, now | Ynetnews | by Yakir Elkariv

Self-declared leftist Yakir Elkariv says Israel must pound Gaza terrorists, without apologies

Even if you turn Israel upside down and shake it up, you won’t find a worse leftist than me. If it depended on me, in the framework of an agreement with the Palestinians they would get a state with east Jerusalem as its capital, and a few more gestures “on the house.” Peace is not a favor we’re doing someone, but rather, the most genuine guarantee for the continued existence of the Zionist enterprise, or what we refer to as “home.”

All of the above is true on normal days – when everyone makes an effort to behave like adults. Yet until this happens, we cannot allow the wellbeing and security of hundreds of thousands of Israeli citizens – southern residents in this case – to hinge on the caprices of some member of some resistance committee that convenes at some cave or tunnel somewhere in Gaza. Read more »

Jon Voight compares Palestinian terrorists to Nazis | JPost

At J'lem Holocaust event organized Glenn Beck, Oscar-winning American actor praises Israel, condemns terror attacks.

Oscar-winning American actor Jon Voight slammed Palestinian terrorism Monday, at a Jerusalem event about the Holocaust organized by broadcaster Glenn Beck.

Voight, who is not Jewish, praised Israel and the Jewish people in his speech. He made reference to suicide bombings and to the March 11 slayings of the Fogel family in Itamar. Read more »

Standing with Israel against the Durban 3 convention and the UNHRC

First 'Restoring Courage' Event in Caesarea

Beck: We are entering the age of the miracles of God
JPost | By Jonah Mandel

US media personality opens four-day Restoring Courage rally in Caesarea; 2,000 Christians, mostly Americans, fly in especially for Beck’s event.

The solutions to the problems of our times are not within the reach of political leaders, rather divinity, US pundit Glenn Beck told nearly 3,000 enthusiastic followers in the Caesarea Amphitheater on Sunday night, at the opening event of his four-day Restoring Courage rally.

“I’ve spent the last few years trying to find solutions for what is happening in the world,” he said on the backdrop of the pillars of the grand stage. “While there may not be a political solution, the good news is the God of Abraham ain’t running for office,” he said to loud applause. “Be not afraid, know who he is, know his face, know that he is a God of covenants and miracles. We are leaving the age of man-made miracles of spacecraft, and we are entering the age of the miracles of God.” Read more »

Time Out | by David P. Goldman | Tablet Magazine

Conventional wisdom says Israel must reach a peace deal quickly, before population trends and diplomatic isolation overtake the Jewish state. Demographics and geopolitics tell a different story.

"Time isn’t on Israel’s side” must be the most-repeated phrase in Israeli politics, in the Jewish state as well as in the Diaspora. It’s Kadima party leader Tzipi Livni’s refrain, as Simon Schama put it recently in the Financial Times. Ronald Lauder, the president of the World Jewish Congress, said so in a Jerusalem speech to Jewish legislators from various parliamentary democracies June 29. We’ve heard the same shibboleth this year from Australia’s Foreign Minister Kevin Rudd, Turkish commentator Ömer Taşpinar, Rabbi Donniel Hartman of the Shalom Hartmann Institute, Jewish Week editor Gary Rosenblatt, and many others.

The claim that Israel is fighting the clock has two components: diplomacy and demographics. Israel’s diplomatic isolation will corner the Jewish state while fast-breeding Arabs will overwhelm the population balance between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean, goes the argument. On both counts, though, the facts speak against the notion that time is running out for Israel. Time, on the contrary, seems to be on Israel’s side. Read more »

Israel - Birth of a Nation - Sir Martin Gilbert

Egyptian protesters promise to destroy Israel

Terrorism is proof that the "peace process" has nothing to do with peace | Elder of Ziyon

Let's imagine that Israel and the PLO had agreed to the boundaries of a Palestinian Arab state back in 2008.

Would today's terror attack have still happened?

The answer can be seen by looking at where the attack occurred - in the "internationally recognized borders" of Israel.

Not in Gaza. Not in the area that the PLO officially claims they want for a state.

In fact, the attack was not even in a place that would have been called "Palestine" before the British Mandate.

People are so used to hearing the phrase "peace process" that they are conditioned to believe the biggest lie of all: that if only Israel would give up more territory, then there would be peace. An agreement, it is widely assumed, would mean no more claims against Israel and a chance for both nations to live side by side in harmony. Read more »

Elie Wiesel arranging Durban III counter-conference | JPost

Nobel Peace Prize Laureate and Holocaust survivor seeking to debunk process which critics say riddled with hatred, intolerance.

BERLIN – The third UN-sponsored anti-racisim conference, which plans to commemorate the 10-year anniversary of the 2001 anti-Israel Durban I event, will face a counter-conference in September featuring Nobel Peace Prize Laureate and Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel, seeking to debunk a Durban process which critics say is riddled with hatred and intolerance.

The Durban process, so named for the South African city where the first conference took place in 2001, is shrouded in controversy because the first conference singled out Israel for attacks in its political document. Read more »

92-Year-Old Palestinian Woman: Palestinians Should Massacre Jews Like We Massacred Them in Hebron