I believe the realignment is good for Israel becaus Iran is a threat to both of us. We are an insurance policy for them. Also the US often had to placate the Saudis with Israeli coinage.Ted Belman
DEBKA WEEKLY
Saudis to US: No More Oil Trade for US Security Shield
Saudi King Abdullah landed a surprise on the Gulf Cooperation Council summit convened in Riyadh Tuesday, May 10: He proposed inviting two Arab monarchs, Morocco’s King Mohammed V and Jordan’s King Abdullah II to join the GCC with full membership privileges. Neither kingdom is situated in the Persian Gulf geographic region which is represented by the GCC; nor do they have oil or gas and their economies are weak and dependent on American aid. Morocco and Jordan are furthermore not in Iran’s cross-hairs, the threat of which is uppermost in the minds of Gulf rulers (along with the crisis in Yemen: See our last issue No. 492 of May 13: Saudi Prince Butts Heads with Iranian General in Syria).
Condell
Netherlands abandoning multiculturalism
bY Thomas Lifson, AMERICAN THINKER
In a landmark turnabout, one of the cornerstones of contemporary liberalism is being rejected by one of the fountainheads of liberalism. The politically correct doctrine of multiculturalism is heading for decline, as Holland, one of the most socially liberal societies on earth, is reversing its former policy of multiculturalism. Soeren Kern, writing for Hudson New York, covers an important story that has gotten almost no notice from the American media, which wishes to pretend that multiculturalism works just fine:
A new integration bill (covering letter and 15-page action plan), which Dutch Interior Minister Piet Hein Donner presented to parliament on June 16, reads: “The government shares the social dissatisfaction over the multicultural society model and plans to shift priority to the values of the Dutch people. In the new integration system, the values of the Dutch society play a central role. With this change, the government...
Good News Israel
Compliments of Anglo Saxon Raanana Real Esate
Quote for the Week
“That which we call a rose By any other name would smell as sweet.”
Juliet in Romeo and Juliet. [Read item 2]
We’ll start this week with a brief item but one that is jam packed with significance and joy: in March the unemployment rate dropped to 5.9 %, not finished yet, in April the figure was 5.8%, the lowest ever since the establishment of the State. We make two comments, neither of which we can prove; this figure must be approaching zero unemployment, that is when everybody employable – and sadly there will always be those who are not – is employed and we believe that nobody but nobody would have predicted this even as little as a year ago. Long may it last.
Universities teach and do research, sometimes in the oddest things and engage in lots of other activities. Hebrew University has Yissum that commercializes and markets all these theoretical goings on so here are two new...
The US, like Portugal, will be forced to turn right
Running Out of Options, Portugal Turns Right
PAJAMAS MEDIA
In Portugal, this year’s elections mark the beleaguered country’s most significant turn to the right since the seventies. Of course, the right is not exactly the same as the right in the U.S., but it is the rightward-most option available. In some respects, the Partido Social Democrata can sound almost libertarian.
Their work is cut out for them. In Portugal, a different understanding of the state and its relationship with the people prevails than that enshrined in the U.S. Constitution. In Portugal, the idea that the government is at the mercy of the governed is, if not heresy, occasion for the open-mouthed incomprehension usually reserved for the remarks of an eccentric aunt or grandmother.
Yet, Portugal is in a predicament similar to America’s. Both countries have too many commitments and not enough money to cover them.
This is not new in Portugal — a country that started out profoundly indebted,...
Arab propaganda
By Ted Belman
The truth is that less then 10 were killed and they were all killed trying to cross the border. They also threw molotov cocktails which burst into flames in a minefield. Some of the mines exploded.
The occupation is not illegal. There is no right of return.
Israel kills 24 refugees in occupied Golan Heights
By Elham Asaad Buaras, Muslim News
Israeli troops opened fire on protesters who stormed the border in the occupied Golan Heights
The Israeli Defence Force (IDF) shot and killed 24 protesters and injured a futher 350 people who gathered on the Syrian side of the border of the Israeli occupied Golan Heights marking the Naksa Day.
Thousands of Palestinian refugees and supporters marched near the border marking Naksa day on June 5, the day Israel illegally occupied the rest of Palestine in 1967.The protesters were demanding their right to return to their homeland when the Israeli forces opened fire at them. At least eight of the wounded are in serious...
The Altalena Tragedy
The view of the tragedy is too kind to Ben Gurion. He orderred the ship to be attacked and Rabin volunterred to do it. The arms and munitions were sorely needed. Had they been allowed to land, Israel would have been able to take all of Judea and Samaria and Jerusalem at that time, yet Ben Gurion preferred a “unified command”. Many Jews were killed by Rabin’s forces and much of the cargo destroyed. Begin on the other hand order his men not to fight back. He didn’t think Jews should kill Jews. Ted Belman
This Week in History: The sinking of the ‘Altalena’
By MICHAEL OMER-MAN
On June 20, 1948, just over a month after the State of Israel was established and shortly after the first cease fire in the War of Independence, Israel’s first prime minister, David Ben-Gurion, gave one of the country’s most controversial orders ever – to take the Altalena by force.
Prior to the establishment of the state, several armed Jewish militias protected early...
New Mideast Talks – Another Exercise in Futility
White House set for Obama-Netanyahu-Abbas summit. Israel downbeat
This is too clever by far. Evidently 120,000 settlers would be outside the borders of Israel (this includes Maaleh Adumin and Ariel). The settlers in them would have the “the option of relocating across the lines in pre-1967 Israel or remaining on the West Bank under sovereign Palestinian rule.” These settlements would retain “sovereign symbols”. These symbols would enable a deal to be worked out for joint sovereignty of Jeruslem.
This report is very credible. Bibi talked about settlements outside Israel’s borders and creative solutions to Jerusalem. I don’t like it and believe it won’t get anywhere. Ted Belman
Negotiations to begin and last for 18 months
Here’s the deal. Netanyahu and Abbas to start negotiations without preconditions. Obama continues to back negotiations based on ’67 lines with swaps. No one issue will end talks. The appearance of engagement is what all parties...
Human Rights NGO’s fail human rights
Human Rights Community” Agrees: Gilad Shalit Should Remain in Captivity
Noah Pollak, Contentions
Tomorrow marks the five-year anniversary of the Hamas raid into Israel in which Gilad Shalit was wounded and then dragged through a tunnel into the Gaza Strip, where he remains in captivity to this day. To mark the occasion, 12 prominent “human rights” organizations, including Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and B’Tselem, have issued a joint statement.
If a better example of the utter moral collapse of the human rights community exists, it would be hard to find. The statement is one of passionless brevity — just a few sentences long — and expresses no opinion on the standing of Hamas, or on its 2006 raid into Israel, or on the legitimacy of its goals and methods. Remarkably, it doesn’t even demand the release of Gilad Shalit. The most that this allegedly courageous and principled human rights community could bring itself to say to the terrorists of Hamas...
Shuffling the Middle East deck
Look Who Wants to Lead the Middle East!
By Barry Rubin, PAJAMAS MEDIA
In the absence of U.S. leadership, others want to direct the Middle East. The battle is becoming a competition of radicals to run the region. That’s what happened in the 1950s and 1960s and it isn’t good. Then, the competition was between Egypt, Syria, and Iraq. Today, the contestants are Turkey, Iran, and a radical Egypt, with Iraq and Syria sidelined due to internal issues. Meanwhile, the Saudis have been forced to take over leadership of the remaining moderate Arab states (the Gulf sheikdoms, plus Morocco and Jordan) since they can no longer depend on America for protection.
The Egyptian foreign minister has warned Iran not to try to intervene too much in the Gulf, posing as protector of Saudi Arabia and the smaller states. This is a hint that Egypt wants to resume its pre-Sadat role as leader of the Arab world. Cairo will see itself as protector of the Muslim, Sunni, and Arab world against Persian,...
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