The Egyptian revolution, infighting within Gaza, Syria’s civil war, and Israeli concerns about Iran have led two of the world’s fiercest enemies to hold, with only one major transgression, to a 15-month truce. Late last month, Hamas fired 20 rockets into Israel, part of a 150-rocket volley launched by it and other Gaza-based groups. The attack violated an unofficial truce that had stood since April 2011, prompted an Israeli counter-attack that killed up to 15 Palestinians, and that’s where it stopped. That might not sound like a great week of Middle East peace, but in many ways it was a reminder of how calm the Israel-Hamas conflict has grown over the last 15 months. by Bill Levinson There is ample evidence that Barack Obama, and people under his supervision, committed at least one felony — specifically,illegal gambling across state lines — to fund his 2008 election campaign. Congress, meanwhile, found Obama’s attorney general, Eric Holder, in contempt for refusal to testify about Operation Fast and Furious. Orchestration of straw purchases of firearms, one of which resulted in the death of a law enforcement officer, could easily be another felony. The Obama Campaign’s Numbers Racket The general definition of a lottery is an activity that includes (1) mandatory payment of consideration — i.e., money — as a condition of participation, (2) a prize — i.e., anything of value, such as an expenses-paid trip, and (3) an element of chance in the selection of the prize winners. It is against federal law to conduct a lottery across state lines, and it is illegal in... The Plesner plan for equalization of the burden of national service, released two days ago, is neither crassly populist nor militant. On the contrary, it wisely constructs a compassionate path toward greater ultra-Orthodox participation in the Israeli workforce and the military. It would be a tragedy if political party machinations toss the plan into the waste bin. MK Yohanan Plesner and the national committee he headed suggest a carrot and stick approach. In deference to haredi values, the Plesner guidelines would allow all haredim to defer army service and set no limit on their numbers. It would further exempt some outstanding yeshiva students from all service permanently, and allow for continued government funding of yeshivas for those with serious Torah careers ahead of them. Too many of our leading British academic and cultural institutions are in the thrall of left-wing activists, but anti-Semitism is far from rife at the British grassroots By Peter C. Glover, The Commentator It’s not just Hamas rockets that regularly strike Israeli interests these days. It is just as likely to be the long-range politicized ‘ordnance’ of British liberal elites. Given, that is, the British Left’s penchant for cultural boycotts against Israel. Over the past few years the unions for British journalists, architects, doctors, even the Synod of the Church of England, have all sought boycotts or censure motions against Israel. In 2007 British academics added themselves to the list – imposing a boycott of relations between British and Israeli universities at a conference of the British University and Colleges Union (UCU). The biggest news story of the week, perhaps of the year, slipped under the media radar yesterday: Edna Adato of Israel Hayom revealed the main points of a report drafted by the Committee to Examine the State of Construction in Judea and Samaria, headed by retired Supreme Court Justice Edmond Levi. The report touches upon the heart of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and makes sense of the matter. One can say that the government received permission to toss attorney Talia Sasson’s report on settlement outposts into the dustbin of history. Levi’s report concludes that Israel has the right to settle Jews in Judea and Samaria, and that it is incorrect to say that building settlements is illegal according to international law: “According to international law Israelis have the legal right to settle in all of Judea and Samaria, and at the very least in territories under Israeli control based on agreements with the Palestinian Authority; and... By Salomon Benzimra There is little doubt that Prof. Dershowitz’s latest peace proposal of July 5, 2012, is in reaction to former Israel Justice Edmond Levy’s “Outposts Committee Report” released on July 4. Whereas the latter finally restored the truth on the legality of the “settlements”; rejected the “belligerent occupation” approach to Judea and Samaria; and stressed the internationally recognized Israel’s legal rights to these territories, Prof. Dershowitz shows once more his obsessive insistence on inflicting death by a thousand cuts. Hopelessly mired in the “two-state solution,” Prof. Dershowitz recommends that Israel should make “painful compromises in the interests of peace” by adopting an absolute building freeze, even for natural growth. More painful than these compromises is the absurd rationale he lays out to ensure the bona fides of the Palestinian side. 1. Israel should give up its legitimate claims to Judea and Samaria if the Palestinians... IDF officials painted a bleak picture of a future conflict between Israel and Lebanon, saying that it will probably entail a massive response by the IDF, including the deployment of ground forces. On the eve of the sixth anniversary of the Second Lebanon War, IDF officials expressed grave concern over the future of the relative calm noted on the Lebanese border. “Any escalation can result in rocket fire on central Israel,” a senior officer said. “The next war will be different. We’ll have to attack with more force, more violently, to halt any assault of the home front as quickly as possible.” Israel is aware that the deployment of ground forces “has a... First Time: U.N. Rights Body Defies U.S. with “Right to Peace” Resolution Giving Legitimacy to Terror Sponsors include Syria, Iran, North Korea, Cuba GENEVA, July 5 - The U.N.’s top human rights body defied the U.S. today by adopting a Cuban-led “right to peace” resolution that endorses resistance against “foreign occupation,” for the first time granting U.N. Human Rights Council legitimization of the terminology used by Middle East extremists to justify terrorist attacks against Americans and Israelis. Initiated by Cuba, the resolution’s co-sponsors included Syria, Iran, North Korea, Sudan, Belarus, China, Palestine, Sri Lanka, Venezuela, Bolivia and Nicaragua. The Geneva-based human rights group UN Watch expressed serious concerns over the text. “The U.N. was founded on moral clarity,” said UN Watch executive director Hillel Neuer, “yet today the Syrian regime, which denies its... 
Israel and Hamas Have (Mostly) Stopped Fighting
These sorts of incidents have often escalated, after all, sometimes disastrously. But this one didn’t. Despite the fire, the same forces that led Israel and Hamas into this truce still hold, and though they obviously didn’t prevent this attack, they may have...Obama’s Problem Obeying the Law
Originally published in the Adopt the Plesner plan
This doesn’t sound like a holy war on haredim to me. On the contrary, the committee understood that to demand something really drastic, like the flat-out draft of all...Anti-Israel culture war of British elites is not a grass roots movement
In 2009, after yet another violent spat with Hamas in Gaza, Britain’s leftist culture warriors again took to the...The unoccupied territories
The Case against Alan Dershowitz
‘Next Lebanon war will be different’
Between the Islamist dawn in Egypt, the bloody uprising in Syria and the overall instability in the Middle East, the situation in Lebanon is seen as fairly stable; but IDF officials warned Thursday that as Hezbollah’s grip on the country grows, looks may be deceiving.UNHRC legitimizes terror
UN WATCH PRESS RELEASE More Recent Articles
Jerusalem, Israel
Saturday, 7 July 2012
Posts
