Articles Archives - Page 5 of 10

Does Trump Grasp the Reality of ‘Radical Islam’?

hzDecember 31, 2016January 1, 2017Articles

National Review

Palestinian Hamas Terrorists

By Andrew C McCarthy: It was the key national-security debate of the 2016 election. Donald Trump won the election, in no small part, because he appeared to be on the right side of it. Appeared is used advisedly: Trump was at least in the general vicinity of the bull’s-eye; his opponent wouldn’t even acknowledge the target existed — except in the most grudging of ways, and only because Trump had forced the issue. The question boiled down to this: Are you willing to name the enemy?

Read more at: http://www.nationalreview.com/article/443440/donald-trump-radical-islam-israel-palestinian-conflict-test-case-new-administration

hzDecember 30, 2016December 30, 2016Articles

Wall Street Journal

A Construction Site in Efrat

By Felicia Schwartz: John Kerry’s speech on the Mideast peace process has drawn an exceptionally sharp reaction in Washington, with lawmakers in both parties warning it could further inflame the fraught state of the relations between Israel and the Palestinians that the secretary of state described.

Some top Democrats including incoming Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D., N.Y.) said the speech, which attempted to defend and preserve President Barack Obama’s approach to resolving the conflict, could yield the opposite effect, leading to an unraveling of the long-held push for a two-state solution. “While he may not have intended it, I fear Secretary Kerry, in his speech and action at the United Nations, has emboldened extremists on both sides,” Mr. Schumer said in a statement late Wednesday.

hzDecember 29, 2016January 1, 2017Articles

Jewish World Review

By Victor Davis Hanson: Israel would seem to be in a disastrous position, given the inevitable nuclear capabilities of Iran and the recent deterioration of its relationship with the United States, its former patron and continued financial benefactor. Immediately upon entering office, President Obama hectored Israel on so-called settlements. Obama promised to put “daylight” between the U.S. and Israel — and delivered on that promise.

Last week, the U.S. declined to veto, and therefore allowed to pass, a United Nations resolution that, among other things, isolates Israel internationally and condemns the construction of housing in East Jerusalem and the West Bank.

hzDecember 29, 2016December 30, 2016Articles

Jerusalem Post

UN Security Council

By Caroline B. Glick: UN Security Council Resolution 2334 was the first prong of outgoing President Barack Obama’s lame duck campaign against Israel. US Secretary of State John Kerry’s speech on Wednesday was the second.On January 15, stage 3 will commence in Paris.

At France’s lame duck President François Hollande’s international conference, the foreign ministers of some 50 states are expected to adopt as their own Kerry’s anti-Israel principles.

The next day it will be Obama’s turn. Obama can be expected to use the occasion of Martin Luther King Jr. Day to present the Palestinian war to annihilate Israel as a natural progression from the American Civil Rights movement that King led 50 years ago.

Finally, sometime between January 17 and 19, Obama intends for the Security Council to reconvene and follow the gang at the Paris conference by adopting Kerry’s positions as a Security Council resolution. That follow-on resolution may also recognize “Palestine” and grant it full membership in the UN.

hzDecember 28, 2016December 28, 2016Articles

Bloomberg

US Secretary of State John Kerry

By Michael Arnold, Chris Strohm and David Wainer: Strained U.S.-Israeli ties reached another low on Wednesday as Secretary of State John Kerry and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu traded blame over the stalled Middle East peace process, with President-elect Donald Trump vowing a fresh start when he takes office on Jan. 20.

Kerry, in a speech Wednesday in Washington, said Netanyahu’s policies backing the expansion of settlements in East Jerusalem and the West Bank were putting a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict increasingly out of reach. Netanyahu, minutes later, accused Kerry of anti-Israel bias and said the U.S. focus on settlements was “unbalanced.”

“This conflict is and always has been about Israel’s very right to exist,” Netanyahu said. “How can you make peace with someone who rejects your very existence.”

hzDecember 27, 2016Articles

Bloomberg

By Eli Lake: The way the White House tells it, the U.S. had no choice. For eight years, President Barack Obama has been pleading with Israel to stop building settlements. But they didn’t listen. So reluctantly, the president instructed his United Nations ambassador to abstain from a Security Council resolution that affirmed for the first time in 36 years that every Jewish home in East Jerusalem and the West Bank was a “flagrant violation of international law.”

Ben Rhodes, Obama’s speechwriter and deputy national security adviser, whined about this on Friday after the vote. “There’s a huge record on this, and I think it’s very unfair and inaccurate to suggest that somehow this was an outcome that we sought,” he said. “If it was an outcome that we sought, we would have done this long ago.”

I don’t believe him. Obama’s decision to break precedent by declining to veto Friday’s resolution looks entirely premeditated.

hzDecember 27, 2016December 27, 2016Articles

JTA

Danny Danon, Israel’s ambassador to the UN

By Daniel S. Mariaschin: The feeling in this country following the adoption of the anti-settlements resolution in the U.N. Security Council on Friday is more than palpable. For those who observe Shabbat, there was the knowledge on Friday afternoon that a vote in New York would occur after all had sat down to dinner, with the outcome unknown until early the next evening. For others, Shabbat dinner was served with the TV volume turned up to hear the outcome of the vote.

By Saturday evening, and continuing into the new week, the resolution and its ramifications had become Topic A in cafes, barber shops, supermarkets and offices. The national letdown caused by the American abstention — outrage may be a better word — can be felt everywhere. Now the conversation is turning to what may come next. There is concern that another shoe will soon drop, possibly a Security Council measure that would outline the parameters of a settlement of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict — a development that would fly in the face of the long-supported notion that only face-to-face negotiations can bring about a lasting peace agreement.

hzDecember 25, 2016December 26, 2016Articles

Algemeiner

The UN Security Council

By Ira Stoll: In the aftermath of Friday’s disastrous and disgraceful UN Security Council vote condemning Israel, a competition has emerged over who deserves the blame. Prime Minister Netanyahu blamed the Obama administration. He said it “not only failed to protect Israel against this gang-up at the UN; it colluded with it behind the scenes.”

The American permanent representative at the United Nations, Samantha Power, who works for President Obama, blamed Prime Minister Netanyahu, contending in her remarks at the Security Council:

hzDecember 24, 2016December 24, 2016Articles

Facebook

By Caroline Glick: As Ambassador Bolton said in the clip below from Fox News, Obama killed the peace process by pushing this anti-Semitic, evil resolution. He killed the peace process and all prospects for peace by destroying the foundation of the process. That foundation was “land for peace.”

Land for peace formed the basis of UN Security Council resolution 242 from the end of the 1967 Six Day War. It stipulated that in exchange for Arab recognition of Israel and peace with the Jewish state, Israel would cede some of the land that it took control over during the course of that war. But Friday’s resolution says that Israel has no right to any of the land, that the presence of Israelis in that land — yes, including the Western Wall — is illegal. So Israel has no land to give and the Arabs will give no peace. And that is that.

hzDecember 23, 2016December 24, 2016Articles

Commentary

By Jonathan S. Tobin: It turned out that nothing could prevent President Obama from firing one last shot at Israel. Despite the pleas of the Israeli government and the warning from his successor that failing to veto a biased UN resolution on the Middle East conflict would be deeply unfair and soon repudiated, the administration broke with decades of U.S. policy, abstained from voting on a resolution that condemns Israeli settlements, and abandoned the Jewish state to its enemies at the United Nations Security Council.

Today’s resolution brands the Jewish presence in any part of the West Bank or in parts of Jerusalem that were occupied by Jordan from 1949 to 1967 as illegal. And it makes the hundreds of thousands of Jews who live in those parts of the ancient Jewish homeland international outlaws. The excuse given by the U.S. was that increased building in the territories and Jerusalem is endangering the chances of a two-state solution. But, as I noted yesterday when the vote on the resolution was postponed, this is a canard.

Does Trump Grasp the Reality of ‘Radical Islam’?

Kerry’s Israel Speech Could Backfire on Obama Administration

The Resilience of Israel

Column One: Obama and Israel, Strike and Counter-Strike

Strained U.S.-Israeli Ties Reach Another Low After Kerry Speech

Obama Fulfills His Prophecy on Israeli Settlements

After UN Settlement Resolution, Will Another Shoe Drop?

Blame the New York Times for the Disgraceful Anti-Israel UN Security Council Vote

Obama Killed the Peace Process

Obama’s Betrayal