Iran Fears Growing Israel-Azerbaijan Cooperation
- The visit to Israel in April 2013 by Azeri Foreign Minister Elmar Mamadyarov intensified growing Iranian concerns over the tightening ties between Jerusalem and Baku, both of which view Iran as a threat. Iran’s progress in its nuclear program and the failure of the nuclear talks with the West have raised Tehran’s threshold of sensitivity about a military attack on its nuclear facilities, and it increasingly fears that Azerbaijan is turning into a base for such a strike.
- In recent months, Iran has stepped up its critical public tone toward Baku’s “incautious” policy. Iran continues its covert subversive activity in Azerbaijan including through Lebanese Hizbullah, which is providing assistance to local terrorist and espionage cells. Iran’s aim is to build an infrastructure for retaliation there in case it is attacked, and also to try and influence Azerbaijan’s domestic political arena. Azerbaijan has exposed and arrested a number of Iranians, Hizbullah operatives, and local activists on suspicion of involvement in terror and subversion.
“Grand Deception” Documentary by Steven Emerson Racks Up Film Festival Honors
“Jihad in America: The Grand Deception,” a new film by a new film by Investigative Project on Terrorism Executive Director Steven Emerson, was honored this week as the best documentary at the 2013 International Beverly Hills Film Festival.
A jury of entertainment industry professionals selected the film, which also won best documentary at last month’s Myrtle Beach International Film Festival.
The 70-minute film focuses on the Muslim Brotherhood and its penetration in the United States. It features documents and recordings from federal investigations, undercover recordings and interviews with FBI agents, federal prosecutors and Muslim experts on radical Islam. (Read more…)
NYT interviewed Lapid and was unhappy with what he said
[Dr. Aaron Lerner - IMRA:
On the one hand, Minister Yair Lapid's remarks against a settlement freeze and the division of Jerusalem should serve to dash hopes among those who saw him as the point man for pushing through such policies.On the other hand, Mr. Lapid takes the profoundly dangerous position supporting the immediate creation of an interim Palestinian state. If the idea is to propose something with 100% certainty the other side will reject it then at least there is a logic to it. But if that is not the case, providing for the establishment of a sovereign Palestinian state anywhere in our bedroom is incredibly dangerous.]
By JODI RUDOREN The New York Times Published: May 19, 2013
“I’m going to be bashed now, and be the beneficiary of this within, I don’t know, a year or a year and a half,” Mr. Lapid, 49, said in his first interview with an international news organization since his unexpected vault into global headlines. He still hopes to succeed Mr. Netanyahu, but said, I’m in no hurry.”
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Radicals, Moderates and Islamists
The radical-moderate continuum that has defined the dialogue on Islam in the War on Terror is not an authentic perspective, it is an observer perspective.
To the Western observer, a suicide bomber is radical, a Muslim Imam willing to perform gay weddings is moderate and the Muslim Brotherhood leader who supports some acts of terror, but not others, is moderately radical or radically moderate.
These descriptions tell us nothing about Islam or about what Muslims believe, but do tell us a great deal about its observers and what they believe. They turn Islam into inkblots that reveal more about the interpreter than the splotch of ink being interpreted.
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Official PA daily: Israel’s building in its Negev region is also a “settlement”
The Palestinian Authority daily recently published a report attacking Israel’s program to resolve questions of land ownership in Israel’s southern desert region, called the Negev. The PA daily refers to Israeli building in the Negev as additional “settlement”:
“The Netanyahu government has not decided to freeze settlement, but rather has transferred it to the Negev.”
This PA daily report shows the PA’s rejection of Israelis living and developing land anywhere in Israel. For years, Palestinian Media Watch has documented that the PA as policy often defines all of Israel as “Palestine” or “occupied Palestine.”
The following is the official PA daily’s report calling Israeli construction in the Negev “a settlement”:
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Report: U.S. Government Funding for Mideast Political NGOs Undermines U.S. Policy
NGO MONITOR
Jerusalem – A report presented to Members of Congress today by NGO Monitor shows that U.S. Government funding of several political NGOs in the Palestinian Authority and Israel contradicts U.S. policy, has a negative impact on the peace process, and lacks the independent oversight necessary to prevent abuses.
Professor Gerald M. Steinberg, President of NGO Monitor, a Jerusalem-based research institute, is meeting this week with Members of Congress, congressional staff, Washington think tanks, journalists and foreign policy decision-molders.
The 13-page report, The Negative Impact of U.S. Government Funding for Mideast Political NGOs, is written by Steinberg and Naftali Balanson, NGO Monitor Managing Editor. The 38-page appendices include a directory of the political NGOs involved and correspondence with U.S. government agencies and officials.
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Lapid favours interim deal on road to statehood
Lapid is dreaming. Abbas will never agree to an interim agreement on these terms. The issue of demilitarization and IDF presence in “Palestine” was not discussed. While I think Bibi would like an interim agreement that permits him to build anywhere in the land we keep, Abbas will object to our building in Jerusalem. An interim agreement serves the purpose of evacuating Jews in stages. first the Jews outside of the settlement blocs with some exceptions. They will number just under 100,000 with more to come with the permanent agreement. That would be the purpose of the disengagement otherwise known as convergence. An interim agreement is only possible if we gave them much of what they want. This I don’t want to happen. Ted Belman
Yair Lapid is not only the finance minister; he is also a member of the Political-Security Cabinet, and his opinions on these issues may be crucial when the time comes to make decisions. Lapid does not reveal these opinions often. Last week I spoke with him about his diplomatic viewpoints.
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Meet Eugene Kontorovich
Eugene Kontorovich is a rising star in Jewish/Israeli advocacy and is making aliyah with his wife and 4 children. He is very active in the Lawfare Project. This is a great interview. Ted Belman
Campus divestment campaign is a political war on Israel
At university campuses, particularly in California, anti-Israel divestment debates in student government have become a spring ritual.
From San Diego to Berkeley and Davis, student senators introduce resolutions backing divestment, debate is scheduled immediately, propaganda is spread, supporters pack the halls, pro-Israel speakers are harassed (or worse), and student senators with almost no knowledge cast deciding votes. Whether the resolution (which has no practical impact) is adopted or defeated, Israel’s demonization is propagated.
While presented under the façade of local student initiatives, this process is a central part of a much wider and well-financed campaign of political warfare against Israel. The delegitimization of Israel began with its founding, and has not stopped. In the early decades (before the pretext of occupation after the 1967 war), the Arab League boycott office, located in Damascus, persuaded many firms, including Pepsi and American Express, not to do business with Israel. And travelers with Israeli visas in their passports were barred from Arab countries.
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Obama is a Trojan Horse
Look who’s new in the White House!
- Arif Alikhan – Assistant Secretary for Policy Development for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security
Mohammed Elibiary – Homeland Security Adviser
Rashad Hussain – Special Envoy to the (OIC) Organization of the Islamic Conference
Salam al-Marayati – Obama Adviser – Founder Muslim Public Affairs Council and its current executive director
Imam Mohamed Magid – Obama’s Sharia Czar – Islamic Society of North America
Eboo Patel – Advisory Council on Faith-Based Neighborhood Partnerships
This is flat out scary!!!!
Israeli committee: Al-Dura alive at end of video
Dr Richard Landes of the Second Draft created a blog, The Al Durah Project, which has the facts and the story in detail. Don’t miss it.
Israeli government publishes report on controversial video allegedly portraying death of Palestinian boy during intifada, claims boy alive at end of video, thus absolving Israel of responsibility for his death; ‘With my own eyes I saw that we were shot at from nearby Israeli post,’ boy’s father says in interview with Ynet
Attila Somfalvi, YNET
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu received a government report Saturday, presenting the findings of a special governmental inquiry committee into the death of Muhammad al-Dura during the al-Aqsa Intifada. The report focuses on the controversial September 2000 France 2 broadcast – in which the boy is seen hiding behind his father while the two were under IDF gunfire – and conclude that al-Dura was still alive at the end of the video.
Video of al-Dura moving hand
Academic stupidity reaches news heights
By Salomon Benzimra
“There are some ideas so stupid that only an intellectual could believe them” (George Orwell)
Columbia University Professor Joseph Massad is blind to reality. His virulent anti-Zionist streak leads him to the most laughable constructs: In “The last of the Semites,” Massad wants us to believe that the Zionist effort to remove the Jews from Europe in the 1930s and 1940s (to save them from imminent extermination) is undistinguishable from Nazi anti-Semitism!
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Ted Belman
Jerusalem, Israel
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