“There will be just one state between the Jordan River and the sea, andthat is the State of Israel”

From Times of Israel, 28 May 2014 (Yom Yerushalayim):

Housing minister Uri Ariel (Jewish Home) said Tuesday that there would be no freeze on settlement construction in the West Bank or Jerusalem, according to media reports of an address he made at a Jerusalem Day party.

“There will be just one state between the Jordan River and the sea, and that is the State of Israel... ”

“Jerusalem will not be divided again...There are no [construction] freezes and there will be no more freezes — we won’t allow it...We won’t accept delays and restrictions [on building], not in Jerusalem and not in Judea and Samaria.”

Ariel, the founder of several settlements, the first mayor of the settlement of Beit El, and a former 10-year head of the Council of Jewish Settlements, is a consistent advocate of accelerated settlement building and annexing the entire West Bank. The Jewish Home party’s opposition to a settlement freeze was reportedly central to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s opting instead to release Palestinian prisoners as part of the framework for resuming peace talks with the Palestinians last year — a nine-month attempt at peacemaking that collapsed last month.

One of the most hawkish members of Knesset, he was elected to parliament as No. 2 on the Orthodox-nationalist Jewish Home slate, after its leader Naftali Bennett. While Bennett has urged Israel to annex the 60% of the West Bank designated as Area C — where most of the settlers and relatively few Palestinians live – Ariel in 2012 unveiled a plan to annex the entire West Bank, giving the Palestinians “permanent resident” status in the expanded Israel, and the possibility of full voting rights. “All Arabs of Judea and Samaria who are interested in receiving full Israeli citizenship will be able to do so following a five year period following which, as in the US, they will take a citizenship test and a Hebrew language test and will sign a statement of loyalty to Israel. Following this procedure, they will be granted the right to vote for the Knesset,” Ariel suggested. Most would not want to do so, he argued.

Several right-wing MKs led by Bennett have in recent days come out in support of annexing Jewish sites and Jewish settlement blocs in the West Bank, and have been working on legislation to that effect.

The initiative has presumably come in response to Netanyahu’s comments last week in an interview with Bloomberg, in which he hinted that Israel may have to take unilateral action in response to failed negotiations with the Palestinians.

The statements were interpreted by hawkish MK’s as a call for annexation, while more dovish elements in the government, Tzipi Livni among them, said the time may have come to consider a unilateral pullout from certain areas in the West Bank.

Sources close to Netanyahu were later quoted saying he did not have unilateral withdrawals from territory in mind. Netanyahu acknowledged during the interview that the idea of a unilateral withdrawal from the area was gaining traction across the political spectrum, but warned that Israel could not risk another Gaza, which was taken over by Hamas after Israeli unilaterally disengaged.


“Many Israelis are asking themselves if there are certain unilateral steps that could theoretically make sense. But people also recognize that the unilateral withdrawal from Gaza didn’t improve the situation or advance peace,” he said.

Islamist infiltration of Europe and even the US

From Times of Israel, 29 April, by Ruthie Blum:

At Tel Aviv University on Monday, Baroness Caroline Cox, ...member of the British House of Lords, gave a talk sponsored by the Yuval Ne'eman Workshop for Science, Technology and Security and the Israel Institute for Strategic Studies, run by Martin Sherman.

A passionate defender of human rights and the rule of law, Cox has spent the bulk of her career fighting forces that threaten to undermine Western democracy in general, and that of her country in particular. The focus of her lecture was the spread of political Islam in the U.K. and Africa, a phenomenon that has taken up much of her parliamentary and humanitarian work.

...Her message was that jihad is being waged through an Islamist infiltration of the political, cultural, legal and economic systems of non-Muslim countries. It is being accomplished, she said, by pushing to have Shariah law written into, if not replace, the law of the land; by manipulating democracy to destroy it; by investing in educational institutions and making it impossible for anyone to criticize their teachings; and -- as in the case of African countries -- by preventing anyone who does not convert to Islam from getting a job or receiving government aid, including food for starving children.

The list goes on, and it is as ugly as the honor killings and female genital mutilation practiced by Shariah-abiding citizens and accepted by Western apologists. Even more shocking is the extent to which Britain has willingly resigned itself to this barbarism. Indeed, recounted Cox, the situation is so "schizophrenic" that while bigamy is prohibited in the U.K., polygamy among its Muslim citizens is accepted as a religious-cultural norm.

This, she explained, is not only dangerous for Britain; it is devastating for Muslims seeking the protection of British law. They are abandoned by the system in the name of diversity, and sent to Shariah courts to settle their issues.

Shariah, thus, is managing to thrive in the U.K., thanks to concessions made by the establishment to an ever-growing Islamic population. And it's no wonder, with Muslim men being left to marry multiple wives with whom they sire dozens of children.

Admitting that educating and rallying her peers and the public against this crack in civilized society is a Sisyphean task, she concluded by urging that we all tell ourselves, "I cannot do everything, but I must not do nothing."

Such an appeal often falls on deaf ears. Ignorance is partly to blame. Then there's the fear -- of being accused of Islamophobia on the one hand, and of violent repercussions on the other. It is far easier to empathize with the enemy and confront a less daunting culprit.

....One key element of global jihad is propaganda aimed at turning lies into truth and vice versa. Trained by the Soviets masters of this art, Arab-Muslim apparatchiks have taken it to a whole new level. Their success lies in their two-pronged self-portrayal as downtrodden victims of Western imperialism and as destined victors against the "infidels." Chief among these are the "Great Satan" (America) and the "Small Satan" (Israel).

That Europe's response is to sell its soul to appease the beast is bad enough. But when the administration in Washington follows suit, the sense among the sane is that even science fiction couldn't do justice to the horror of it all.

Yes, President Barack Obama is looking the other way during bogus negotiations with Iran, thereby enabling the Islamic republic to develop nuclear weapons. Meanwhile, Secretary of State John Kerry is blaming Israel for not acting in a similar fashion with the Palestinian Authority.

Not only has Kerry chided Israel on several occasions for its inability to persuade the PA to engage in peace talks toward the establishment of a Palestinian state, but he has made public statements to that effect. Buoyed by the moral relativism that the State Department has been applying to "both sides," the PA signed a treaty with Hamas.

Fuming, Kerry outdid himself on Friday. During a closed meeting of the Trilateral Commission -- a tape of which was obtained and released by the Daily Beast -- Kerry told officials from Europe, Russia and Japan that in the absence of a two-state solution, Israel "winds up either being an apartheid state with second-class citizens, or it ends up being a state that destroys the capacity of Israel to be a Jewish state."

Though Kerry now says he regrets using the word "apartheid," it was no mere slip of the tongue. Rather, it revealed the depth of his hostility to Israel. It also served as proof of the power of propaganda. When repeated often enough, such a blatant falsehood can even roll easily off the lips of the world's highest-ranking diplomat....

Antisemitic murders in Brussels

From Times of Israel, 25 May 2014:

[There were] four fatalities from a Saturday shooting at Brussels’ Jewish museum

• an Israeli couple from Tel Aviv...who were touring the city...
• a female volunteer at the Jewish Museum of Belgium...
• a 23-year-old employee of the museum...

The police had no suspects in custody...

Belgian and Israeli authorities have yet to release the names of those who died in the museum.

The shooter aimed for the victims’ throats and heads, witnesses told the daily.



Authorities are looking for the shooter, who was driven to the museum by a suspected accomplice in an Audi car, and are analyzing security camera footage.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Foreign Minister Avigdor Liberman said that the attack was caused by anti-Israel and anti-Jewish attitudes in Europe.

"This act of murder is the result of constant incitement against Jews and their state,'' Netanyahu said in a statement hours after the shooting.

Earlier Saturday, Belgian Prime Minister Elio Di Rupo told a hastily called news conference that Belgians stood “united … faced with this hateful attack,” while Belgium’s King Philip expressed his “indignation over this act of violence closely affecting the Jewish community.”

The head of the EU executive Jose Manuel Barroso condemned “this terrible act” in the heart of the European capital, saying: “This was an attack at European values which we cannot tolerate.”

EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton said “there must be no impunity for terrorism.”

It was the first fatal attack on a Jewish center since the early 1980s in Belgium, home to some 40,000 Jews, roughly half of them in Brussels, the remainder in the port city of Antwerp.

A deputy public prosecutor, Ine Van Wymersch, said police had detained and were interrogating a person who admitted to having been on the scene at the time of the attack but who denied all involvement.

The person was initially interrogated as a suspect but later questioned as a witness, the public prosecutor’s office said.

An inquiry was opened for “murder with premeditation.”

Van Wymersch said police believed two men were involved, one who left the scene at the wheel of a car and was in police custody and one who escaped on foot and who had not yet been identified.

Detectives were examining video camera footage in and outside the museum for further leads.

“This is an odious attack,” said premier Di Rupo. “Everything is being done … to identify and arrest its author or authors.”

A Jewish community figure, Joel Rubinfeld, told AFP it clearly “is a terrorist act” after the two men were seen driving up and double-parking outside the museum.

One opened fire, allegedly shooting indiscriminately first in the entrance hall and then further inside before getting away.

The area around the museum was closed off and security beefed up to maximum level across the country in places associated with the Jewish community in Belgium, Milquet said.

The shooting took place at around 4 pm (1400 GMT), with the victims apparently shot to kill in the face and throat.

A bystander, Alain Sobotik, told AFP he saw the corpses of a young woman and a man just inside the doors of the museum.

A picture shows them lying in pools of blood.

“The young woman had blood on her head. She was still holding a leaflet in her hand, she looked like a tourist,” he said.

Also witness to the two corpses lying at the entrance shortly after the shooting was Belgian Foreign Minister Didier Reynders who told reporters that the two other victims had been shot further inside the museum.

“I hope we will identify those responsible very quickly,” he said.

Reynders said he had been strolling nearby when he saw people fleeing and heard shots and rushed to help.

When he saw “bodies on the ground in pools of blood” he called the 112 emergency number and rounded up eye-witnesses to assist the police.

While stopping short of calling it an anti-Semitic act, Reynders said “evidently one thinks of that.”

The Jewish Museum of Belgium is located in the heart of the Sablon district which is home to the city’s top antique dealers.The area is a popular weekend haunt for shoppers and tourists, hosting the city’s best chocolate shops and many cafes.

“A deeply symbolic place was struck,” said Di Rupo. “The government expresses all its support to our country’s Jewish community.”

The attack came on the eve of elections in Belgium for a new federal government as well as for its regional parliaments and the European Parliament.

In 1982, a gunman opened fire at the entrance of the synagogue in Brussels, wounding four people, two seriously.