Egyptian troops enter Sinai in force. Three officers kidnapped DEBKAfile Exclusive Report August 15, 2011, Egyptian forces descended on the Sinai Peninsula Sunday, Aug. 14, for their first post-Mubarak operation to retake control of the territory from lawless and terrorist elements rampant there since the Egyptian revolution and responsible for sabotaging the Egyptian gas pipeline to Israel, Jordan and Syria. Monday, three Egyptian army brigades of 1,700 men backed by tanks, an equal number of special policemen and 3,400 security personnel drove into the northern towns of El Arish, Sheikh Zuweid and Rafah, which is divided between Egypt and the Gaza Strip. In their first clashes with Islamic Liberation Army gunmen, they killed one and detained 11, four of them Palestinians, he Egyptian military communiqué reported.
... DEBKAfile Exclusive Report August 15, 2011, Encouraged by the 15-day leeway granted him by the US President Barak Obama and Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan, Bashar Assad Monday, Aug. 15, sent his tanks backed by mechanized infantry into Homs, a town of 1.5 million inhabitants. Witnesses report heavy shelling and clouds of smoke. Homs is Syria’s third largest town and the biggest the Syrian military has assaulted in the course of the five-month uprising against the Assad regime. While Obama and Edrogan presented the extra time they granted Assad as his last chance to implement reforms, the Syrian ruler is making use of it to crack down harder and grind the opposition to dust. After that, the Assads will reign supreme and there will be no one left to fight for reforms. Sunday, Aug. 14, debkafile reported on Palestinian armed resistance to Syrian tank incursions in the coastal town of Latakia.
According to DEBKA, the US an Turkey gave Assad two weeks to end the rebelion. That’s like giving him a license to kill for the next two weeks. Ted Belman href=”http://www.herblondon.org/10120/us-betrays-syria-opposition”>by Herbert I. London, Hudson New York August 15, 2011 As Reuters headlines indicate, dozens die and thousands flee a Syrian tank assault in Hama. At least 45 civilians were killed the first week in August, a sharp escalation in President Bashar al-Assad’s campaign to crush the political opposition that has already claimed over 2000 people. So violent have been Assad’s assaults that even the U.N. Security Council condemned the use of force – its first substantive response to five months of unrest. Assad has given his security forces a virtual blank check, the same Assad Secretary of State Hillary Clinton called “a reformer.” As a diplomat in Syria noted, “The Security apparatus thinks it can wrap this uprising up by... How Radicals Infiltrated a New Protest Movement By Jonathan Spyer, PAJAMAS MEDIA Israeli politics since 1967 have largely revolved around foreign policy and security. But the gap between incomes and costs as well as the left’s attempt to find some winning issues and the deadlock in the “peace process” have produced a new protest movement complaining about high housing prices that is sweeping Israel. What is the cause and meaning of this movement? The protests’ key organizers have clearly political motives, despite the fact that the New York Times claims, “So far, the protesters have managed to remain apolitical.” In fact, the individuals and organizations animating this protest are committed to a left-wing political agenda intended to weaken, embarrass, and, if possible, topple Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government.
As we expected, Israel again agreed to violate the Camp David peace treaty by allowing Egypt military deployment in Sinai. The violation is kept informal, the treaty is not amended – which is actually the worst way because it establishes precedent for continuous violation. It would solve nothing. Reports indicate a mere 1,000-strong contingent. They intend to pacify to the public opinion, and the real figure is probably a few times higher. Nevertheless, such number is insufficient by far. Al Takfir alone mustered some 200 gunmen for operations, and certainly can bring along many more. Bedouin terrorists are incredibly more numerous. As usual, Egyptian government makes a face of fighting terrorism without doing so. Terrorist groups will retreat in the face of the army, then come back soon after the soldiers return to barracks. Smuggling in North Sinai Surges as the Police Vanish NYTimes Jewish Identity and Civil Rights in America
Reviewed by Asaf Romirowsky
Why has the position of Jews at American universities deteriorated in the past decade and what can be done about it? Understanding the history of this dilemma requires going back a number of years. In 2003 the social commentator Stanley Kurtz testified before the House Subcommittee on Select Education. The hearing was convened to examine charges of bias in international studies programs funded under Title VI of the Higher Education Act of 1965, including the academic study of the Middle East and other areas of the world. Kurtz, in conjunction with other critics such as the Middle East scholars Daniel Pipes and Martin Kramer, highlighted the bias existing in Title VI-funded Middle East centers.
As Sunni and Shi’ite blocs emerge among revolutionary Islamists, attacks may increase as each side tries to prove it’s “authentic.” A development of huge importance is happening in the Middle East, equivalent perhaps to the Sino-Soviet conflict’s effect on the Cold War: the division of revolutionary Islamists into separate Sunni and Shi’ite camps. Of course, there have always been tensions between Sunni and Shi’ite Muslims, notably bloody fighting in Iraq. Islamists often attempt to portray this as a Western conspiracy, but most Muslims know it is a historical reality within Islam.
Dr. Aviad Hacohen found that many Israeli judges look down on the use of Jewish law. His college offers an alternative. According to a new study by Dr. Aviad Hacohen, Dean of the Shaarei Mishpat College, despite the talk by officials in Israel’s judicial system about the importance of Jewish law and its integration into the Israeli legal system, in practice no use is made of it and those who use it are looked down upon. Justice Minister Yaakov Ne’eman has called in the past to incorporate mishpat ivri (Jewish civil law) into Israel’s law procedures. He is the present-day representative of a long tradition in the religious Zionist sphere, of those who hoped for mishpat Ivri to be the law of the Land.
Few states can claim to have failed before they are even declared, but the Palestinian Authority may be about to create one of them.
On Thursday, August 4th, Arab League foreign ministers and representatives from Jordan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Morocco, Lebanon and Qatar announced that they would support the plan of the Palestinian Authority (PA) to seek a seat for a Palestinian state at the UN General Assembly (UNGA). So what kind of state exactly would the UNGA be endorsing? The 1933 Montevideo Convention on the Rights and Duties of States defines a “state” as an entity with a permanent population; a defined territory; a government; That state would have two incompatible presidents, two rival prime ministers pursuing incompatible policies, a constitution whose central provisions are being violated by both Hamas and the Palestinian Authority, no functioning legislature (elected on Jan. 25, 2006, for a term of four years, the Palestinian Legislative Council has...Condell on the Riots in UK
Egypt’s 5,000 troops take on 2,000 al Qaeda in Sinai.
debkafile’s military sources add that three Egyptian officers were kidnapped in the clash – whether they were killed or held as hostages is unknown.Syria tanks enter Homs while fighting Palestinians in Latakia
For the first time in the five-month anti-Assad uprising, Syrian forces...U.S. Betrays Syria’s Opposition
Meet Israel’s Alinskyites
Nevertheless, it is equally true that an authentic cross section of Israelis protest in response to genuinely urgent issues. The first fact...Sinai problems
Edward Said’s Influence
by Kenneth L. Marcus, Cambridge University Press, 2010, 225 pp.
Jewish Political Studies Review Spring 2011
This bias correlated with the influence of the late Palestinian intellectual Edward Said. Said was a...The Region: The revolutionary movement’s big split
Iran’s regime tried, with some success, to bridge this gap, becoming a patron of Sunni Hamas and majority- Sunni Syria. Similarly the non-Muslim (it pretends otherwise, but most Muslims know the truth) Alawite-dominated Syrian regime claims to be Shi’ite, and sold itself for a while to Sunnis as a cross-confessional champion of resistance against...Do Israeli Judges ‘Look Down’ on Jewish Civil Law?
These included Rabbi Kook, Rabbi Maimon and the hareidi-religious Rabbi Eliezer Waldenburg (the latter, in his book Hilchot Medinah, referred to it as “atchalta d’Geulah, the start of the redemption, in the arising of our own state on part of...A Palestinian State-The Day After
Mark Silverberg, INN
Ted Belman
Jerusalem, Israel
Tuesday, 16 August 2011
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