March 20, 2013
Full text of Obama’s speech on arrival in Israel
Shalom.
President Peres, Prime Minister Netanyahu, and most of all, to the people of Israel, thank you for this incredibly warm welcome. This is my third visit to Israel so let me just say tov lihiyot shuv ba’aretz.
I’m so honored to be here as you prepare to celebrate the 65th anniversary of a free and independent State of Israel. Yet I know that in stepping foot on this land, I walk with you on the historic homeland of the Jewish people.
More than 3,000 years ago, the Jewish people lived here, tended the land here, prayed to God here. And after centuries of exile and persecution, unparalleled in the history of man, the founding of the Jewish State of Israel was a rebirth, a redemption unlike any in history.
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The Hezbollah Biological Warfare Threat to UN Peacekeepers and Israel
By Jerry Gordon, New English Review
Yesterday, news broke about an alleged Chemical Warfare (CW) attack in Syria. There were cross allegations between Syrian opposition and the Assad Regime. Russia accused the rebels of perpetrating the event, while as the day progressed there wasn’t clear evidence as to which side in the more than two year conflict was the perpetrator.
President Obama in White House Press room remarks also drew attention to the potential threat of Biological Warfare (BW). That is a concerning topic Dr. Jill Bellamy van Aalst, noted international expert and NATO consultant on BW threat reduction, addressed in an op-ed article, “Hezbollah Biological Threat to UN Peacekeepers.”.
Our interviews with Dr. Bellamy van Aalst in both 2007 and in 2013 New English Review articles on the Syrian Biological Threat have been prescient.
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Is Mideast Peace Possible?
Kenneth J. Bialkin
The announcement of President Obama’s forthcoming visit to Israel and the Palestine Authority in March presents an opportunity to review the status of the Peace Process between Israel and the P.A. Right now the peace process is in a state of repose. Both sides say they seek renewal of negotiations, but only Israel has offered to negotiate face to face on all issues without preconditions.
On September 21, 2011 President Obama addressed the General Assembly of the U.N. Regarding the Peace Process he said:
- “Ultimately, it is the Israelis and the Palestinians who must live side by side. Ultimately, it is the Israelis and Palestinians – not us – who must reach agreement on the issues that divide them: on borders and on security, on refugees and Jerusalem. Ultimately, peace depends upon compromise among people who must live together long after our speeches are over, long after our votes have been tallied.”
Bibi is still strongly in control
Pundits suggest PM is weaker and more hawkish than in the past, but a closer look shows an unassailable leader who preserved some space for political maneuvering
By HAVIV RETTIG GUR
If you believe the media coverage of Israeli politics in recent weeks, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is a weakened premier clinging to power by his fingernails.
The New York Times’ Jodi Rudoren has called Netanyahu’s political standing both “diminished” and “weakened.” He leads a government that“is likely to be paralyzed on the Middle East peace process.”
Tablet’s Liel Liebovitz explained that “Netanyahu has been considerably weakened by the recent election and now depends on Bennett and Lapid for his political survival.”
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Obama’s mysterious visit
By CAROLINE B. GLICK, JPOST
In contrast to the high expectations the White House cultivated in pre-Cairo visit statements, Obama has downplayed his visit to Israel.
Why is US President Barack Obama coming to Israel today? In 2008, then president George W. Bush came to celebrate Israel’s 60th Independence Day, and to reject Israeli requests for assistance in destroying Iran’s nuclear installations.
In 1996, then-president Bill Clinton came to Israel to help then-prime minister Shimon Peres’s electoral campaign against Likud leader Binyamin Netanyahu.
It is possible that Obama is coming here in order to build up pro-Israel bonafides. But why would he bother? Obama won his reelection bid with the support of the overwhelming majority of American Jews. Their support vindicated his hostility toward Israel in his first term. He has nothing to prove.
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EU violates Oslo Accords
The Arabs have no right to develop Area C. EU’s support of such activity is in direct violation of Oslo.Revavim has been doing its best to thwart such development activity which has been going on for a few years with financial support from the EU and even USAID, sometimes with Israeli assistance. Maybe Bennett will make a difference.
BRUSSELS, 19 March 2013 (WAFA) – Prime Minister Salam Fayyad and EU High
Representative Catherine Ashton signed a EUR 7 million financing agreement
to support development projects in area C, said a European Union press
release on Tuesday.
Representative Catherine Ashton signed a EUR 7 million financing agreement
to support development projects in area C, said a European Union press
release on Tuesday.
Fayyad and Ashton adopted an Action Policy Plan between Palestine and the
EU. Ashton said that the Action Plan is a result of “a shared commitment to
deepen our bilateral relations and strengthen our privileged partnership.”
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EU. Ashton said that the Action Plan is a result of “a shared commitment to
deepen our bilateral relations and strengthen our privileged partnership.”
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Majority of Americans: There will never be peace in Middle East
CNN poll reveals that while nearly 50% believe Israel is an ally, 66% think peace between Israel and Arab nations is nothing more than a pipe dream
US President Barack Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will try to use the Presidential visit to show the strong ties between the countries and end negotiation deadlock but according to a new poll, their efforts may be wasted.
Results of a poll carried out by CNN on Wednesday revealed that while nearly half of the American public believes that Israel is the US’ true ally, a majority of Americans think peace is not on the horizon. Poll respondents were divided over whether Washington should support Israel were it to carry out a military strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities.
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The Christian Left’s Peculiar Hatred of Israel
Last week Jerusalem witnessed the convergence of 80 Christian leaders from 20 countries and five continents. They came to Israel to express their solidarity with the Jewish state and its Jewish people. The occasion was the fourth bi-annual leadership forum of Christians for Israel; a non-denominational Christian organization that was established in the Netherlands in the 1970s and has grown in numbers to the hundreds of thousands. Issuing “A call to repentance, a word of hope,” their statement declared that God has not terminated his everlasting covenant with Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and their descendants, and that the Church has definitely not replaced Israel as God’s covenant people. “The return of the Jewish people to the land is a wonderful sign of hope – it proves that God is faithful to His word, and that He is preparing all things for the coming of the Messiah and the establishment of God’s kingdom on earth.”
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The New Strategic Environment
The way it looks now, it seems that the regime of al-Assad will not last more than a number of days or weeks. A coalition of Sunni jihad organizations will succeed in toppling the government of an Arab state despite the state having used every weapon in its arsenal – including scud missiles – in order to survive.
During the past two years all of the red lines have been crossed in Syria , and both sides are sunk deep in this dirty, ugly struggle, which is fought with no moral or legal constraints. Tens of thousands of citizens, women, children and elderly, have been brutally murdered , hundreds of thousands of houses and apartments have been rendered uninhabitable; infrastructures of the country are collapsing; the economy is paralized and the organizational framework of the state is falling apart.
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New York Times is an avowed enemy of Israel
NY Times Hits Israel with a One-Two Punch
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| COMMITTEE FOR ACCURACY IN MIDDLE EAST REPORTING IN AMERICA |   |
The Times landed a sharp one-two punch at Israel in its March 17 coverage. There was correspondent Jodi Rudoren’s front page story rehashing old themes about Jewish housing in eastern Jerusalem allegedly victimizing Arab residents and thwarting peace. Then, in a rambling 8000-word cover story for the Sunday magazine (“Is This Where The Third Intifada Will Start?”), Ben Ehrenreich, who has elsewhere called for an end to the Jewish state because “the problem is Zionism,” waxed poetic about the Palestinian “resisters” from a West Bank town engaged in weekly – and sometimes violent – protests.
Among the featured faces in the cover illustration is the unrepentant terrorist who helped take the life of Malki Roth and other innocents at Jerusalem’s Sbarro Pizzeria in August 2001.
Sunday’s banner day followed other recent, extreme anti-Israel pieces, including aMarch 9 column by Joseph Levine that argued “one really ought to question Israel’s right to exist…” He claimed it’s “morally problematic” for Jews to inhabit the land of their forefathers. Levine is an active, vocal champion of divestment campaigns against Israel.
A few days later on March 12, former PLO spokesman and current Columbia University professor Rashid Khalidi, poured invective on the Jewish state in an Op-Ed devoid of balance and factual context, charging Israel with “intransigence,” “colonization,” “subjugation,” “discrimination,” “oppression” and more.
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Ted Belman
Jerusalem, Israel
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