Deputy Speaker Danon: We’ll Stop Barak’s Creeping Erosion of Judea and Samaria

By: Yori Yanover

Published: April 23rd, 2012

Likud MK and Deputy Speaker of the Knesset Danny Danon says Barak must be stopped.
Photo Credit: Yori Yanover / Jewishpress.com

Likud MK and Knesset Deputy Speaker  Danny Danon said that if Defense Minister Ehud Barak is not stopped now, there are nine thousand housing units in Judea and Samaria which are being challenged like Ulpana Hill and the Jewish purchased residences in Hebron.
“We must stop this erosion and say, enough, we won’t let Barak carry out a creeping erosion of the settlements of Judea and Samaria,” Danon told JewishPress.com Sunday night, at the end of a crowded assembly outside the homes of Ulpana Hill in Bet El, under the banner “The Likud Is With the Settlement Movement” (Ha’Likud im ha’hityashvut).
MK Danon was one of a dozen or so Likud MKs and other dignitaries who arrived Sunday evening to show their support for continued and even expanded Jewish settlement in Judea and Samaria.
Danon promised before Passover to pass legislation to correct the Migron issue, whereby the Israeli High Court had annulled a deal signed between the government and the settlers to prevent a forcible evacuation, and instead provide them with alternative housing on a nearby hill.
“Last week the Knesset convened during its recess, to discuss these very issues,” Danon told JewishPress.com. “Migron was the beginning. It continued with Machpelah House, and now Bet El.”
“There are a few legislative options,” Danon continued. “I have endorsed the Settlement Regulation Act. It’s a good, appropriate, Zionist option. There are other ideas as well.”
The Settlement Regulation legislation determines that after some time has passed and a previously unknown Palestinian claimant comes up with documentation of ownership of an existing settlement, the alleging owner will receive monetary compensation or alternative land, if they can prove their ownership.
Some speakers at the Likud solidarity meeting outside the Ulpana Hill homes have suggested that today all a Palestinian person has to do is go to the Palestinian Authority and receive a piece of paper saying a certain plot of land belongs to him. We asked Danon how the court would go about verifying such claims, which are becoming rampant with the encouragement of leftist, pro-Palestinian Israeli organizations, many of which are directly or indirectly funded by the European Union.
“The mother of all evils is the fact that we have not enforced Israel’s authority over Judea and Samaria,” said Danon. “Today the process is that they don’t go to a court, but instead they begin with filing an appeal with the Supreme Court. And there the entire process of proving ownership is more problematic (as the high court may accept evidence which would never be acceptable to a civil court — YY). If the same claim were filed with a normal court, this would not have been the outcome.”
About the Author: Yori Yanover has been a working journalist since age 17, before he enlisted and worked for Ba'Machane Nachal. Since then he has worked for Israel Shelanu, the US supplement of Yedioth, JCN18.com, USAJewish.com, Lubavitch News Service, Arutz 7 (as DJ on the high seas), and the Grand Street News. Now he's here.
Printed from: http://www.jewishpress.com/news/deputy-speaker-danon-well-stop-baraks-crawling-evacuation-of-judea-and-samaria/2012/04/23/

Mitzraim - Broken Gas Deal Reflects Tentative Future of Peace Treaty

By: Yori Yanover

Published: April 27th, 2012

Israeli soldiers patrol the Egyptian border. Doubts have been raised recently regarding the stability of Israel's peace treaty with Egypt.
Photo Credit: Nati Shohat/Flash90

According to a recent Reuters report, the Egyptian decision to halt its already erratic natural gas supply to Israel was not, as the Egyptian government had put it, due only to financial disagreements. The report cites shareholders in East Mediterranean Gas Co (EMG) who stated: “Any attempts to characterize this dispute as a mere commercial one is misleading. This is a government-backed contract sealed by a memorandum of understanding between Egypt and Israel that specifically refers to the (1979) peace treaty.”
The international shareholders further accused the Egyptian oil and gas companies of failure to protect the pipeline from attack, failure to repair it promptly and the grim fact that they have “delivered almost no gas to EMG since February 2011.”
The Egyptian oil and gas companies have incurred substantial penalties due to their failure to supply the gas, according the shareholders.
Egypt Natural Gas Co is a also a shareholder in EMG.
(Meanwhile, according to Ha’aretz, the Israel Electric Corporation is hectically searching for a new source of natural gas. The IEC has issued an international tender looking to import liquefied natural gas, expecting to pick up some $800 million worth by December 1, 2012.)
Al Ahram agrees that “despite both sides claiming this was just a business deal gone sour, against the backdrop of growing discontent and following the exchange of heated statements, it has become apparent that the actions of the neighboring states are political.”
Al Ahram goes on to cite a 2010 Egyptian Supreme Administrative Court decision overruling a 2008 Administrative Court decision in favor of terminating the natural gas deal. The argument for the overruling was that the lower court did not have the authority to infringe on the government’s sovereignty.
In other words, the deal is officially not purely economical, and the decision to continue or stop the deal is considered by officials to be a political issue, linked to Egyptian national security.
But Al Ahram goes on to argue that the broken gas deal has not been the only source of tension between the two countries this week.
On April 21, South Sinai Governor Khaled Fouda accused Israel of trying to harm tourism in the Sinai. He was critical of a call by Israel’s anti-terrorism unit on Saturday, urging Israelis who were on holiday in the Sinai peninsula to leave immediately, for fear of kidnapping attempts and terrorism.
Governor Fouda refuted Israel’s claims, saying they were nothing more than rumors. The obviously frustrated Fouda said Israel does this whenever Egypt’s tourism industry sees an improvement. In his opinion, as soon as occupancy rates at Sharm El-Sheikh hotels reached 65 per cent, Israel released its “irresponsible statement.”
But Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu refuted those accusations when he said on Tuesday that Egypt’s Sinai peninsula had become a “kind of Wild West” overrun by militants, terrorists and arms smugglers. Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman even suggested Israel should post more troops along the border with Egypt.
Egypt’s military ruler, Field Marshal Mohamed Hussein Tantawi, was not happy. “Our borders, especially the northeast ones, are inflamed,” he admitted, but then added an angry warning: “We will break the legs of anyone trying to attack us or who come near the borders.”
Even if Israel were to discount much of that belligerent statement as intended for internal consumption, the sentiment is nevertheless authentic. Sad as it may sound, despite all the hope to the contrary, the Camp David peace treaty has not matured over the past 30+ years to the point where the occasional disagreement could not threaten its very existence. We may be looking these days at the beginning of the end of that treaty.
But those seeking positive signs for the future of the Israeli-Egyptian peace can point to the report this week about the Egyptian army preventing prevented a local group of Bedouins from defacing an IDF memorial in the northern Sinai Peninsula. According to Israel’s Army Radio, the Egyptian military deployed armored vehicles near the memorial, to prevent the Bedouins from reaching it.
Stay tuned…
About the Author: Yori Yanover has been a working journalist since age 17, before he enlisted and worked for Ba'Machane Nachal. Since then he has worked for Israel Shelanu, the US supplement of Yedioth, JCN18.com, USAJewish.com, Lubavitch News Service, Arutz 7 (as DJ on the high seas), and the Grand Street News. Now he's here.
Printed from: http://www.jewishpress.com/news/israel/beyond-the-gas-deal-egypt-israel-peace-on-the-line/2012/04/27/

Video: A Well Crafted Piece of Propaganda Packed with Intentional Lies, Is It Sunday Already?

Check this out!

http://www.jewishpress.com/news/media/video-a-well-crafted-piece-of-propaganda-packed-with-intentional-lies-is-it-sunday-already/2012/04/24/

Finance Minister: Evacuating Beit El Is Morally Reprehensible

By: Yori Yanover

Published: April 22nd, 2012

Israel's Finance Minister Yuval Steinitz objects to the demolition of Ulpana Hill.
Photo Credit: Miriam Alster/FLASH90

Israel’s Finance Minister Yuval Steinitz Sunday morning objected during the weekly cabinet meeting to the court-ordained plan to evacuate and demolish the Ulpana Hill neighborhood in Beit El.
Saying there are certain things which simply cannot be done morally, Steinitz added: “It is prohibited to evacuate Ulpana Hill on logical, Zionistic and moral grounds.”
He further noted that “even within the Green Line will not be evacuating an entire settlement or an entire neighborhood. I have suggested the principle of ‘seven square,’ meaning that any community with seven households or more, and has been on the ground for seven years or more will not be evacuated, even if someone proves ownership. Instead defendants would pay punitive damages. We would not have destroyed a neighborhood in Tel Aviv and Kfar Sava, even if after 20 years someone proves that he has title to the land.”
Defense Minister Ehud Barak sharply criticized the Likud ministers who have been calling to prevent the evacuation of the Ulpana Hill neighborhood.
“There’s no no point in this rant,” Barak said at the start of the cabinet meeting, “much of this fervor is not based on a pragmatic discussion of the Ulpana neighborhood but comes out of other considerations which I do not wish to describe. The Defense and Civil Administrations are seeking, along with the Attorney General, to try and exhaust all our options.”
About the Author: Yori Yanover has been a working journalist since age 17, before he enlisted and worked for Ba'Machane Nachal. Since then he has worked for Israel Shelanu, the US supplement of Yedioth, JCN18.com, USAJewish.com, Lubavitch News Service, Arutz 7 (as DJ on the high seas), and the Grand Street News. Now he's here.
Printed from: http://www.jewishpress.com/news/finance-minister-evacuating-beit-el-is-morally-reprehensible/2012/04/22/

Be in NY 6/3 to Support ISRAEL!!!

I will be in NY on June 3rd to support Israel. I will standing on the corner of 57th Street across from the Terrorists. This year will more important than ever as there will Anti-Semites and Holocaust deniers marching in the parade....because someone is NUTZ!!!

Will an Israeli Strike on Iran Harm US-Israel Relations?: By Moshe Feiglin

 

This weekend's newspapers widely quoted the Associated Press report of Obama's threat that an Israeli strike against Iran will bring about the cessation of US military aid to Israel. This situation is particularly reminiscent of the period prior to the Six Day War. Then, as now, Israel was faced with an existential threat. Then, as now, the US pressured Israel not to take action.

Despite the fact that after the 1956 Sinai War Israel received a signed US guarantee of intervention in the eventuality of an Egyptian obstruction of the Straits of Tiran, America ignored its commitment and threatened Israel that if it would attack Egypt, the US would not stand at its side. President Lyndon Johnson lamely excused his betrayal by telling Israeli PM Levi Eshkol that he "couldn't find his copy" of the guarantee document.

America's approach to Israel prior to the Six Day War was patently negative. It imposed an arms embargo on the Middle East, while Soviet arms continued to flow freely to the Arab states. But after the successful Israeli attack – that also included the destruction of the USS Liberty in the waters off the Sinai Peninsula – the American approach to Israel completely changed. Arms and vast amounts of aid began to flow from our "great ally." The flow of aid was downgraded only after Israel surrendered the Sinai to Egypt in the Camp David Accords. Currently, only one sixth of the American arms sold to the Middle East are directed to Israel. The rest is sold to the Arab world, directly endangering the Jewish State.

The situation was not much different in 1948. The American government did not want to lose a market of 400 million Arabs and planned to vote against the establishment of the State of Israel. Public opinion after the Holocaust forced the US to vote in favor – but only because they were convinced that the Arab armies would destroy the fledgling state in no time. For those who still hold the "great friendship with America" cliché dear, we will just add that in those difficult pre-State days, America also imposed an arms embargo on the Middle East – in other words, on the Jews. Jewish Americans who were caught smuggling arms to Israel were imprisoned.

There is no doubt that healthy relations with the (crumbling) American superpower are an important Israeli interest. But we must remember that those relations have always been founded on mutual interests and nothing more. If we were to evaporate in a radioactive plume, G-d forbid, Obama would respectfully lay a wreath at the new wing of the Holocaust Museum in Washington. Nothing more. So the American threat on an issue that is existential to Israel must not be taken into account at all.

One of the main lessons that we should have learned from the Holocaust is that when a Jew hater who heads a country declares his intention to destroy us – he means it.
If we have not yet attacked Iran after all of Ahmadinijad's blatant threats, we have not really learned the lesson of the Holocaust.

In the Six Day War, Israel initiated an aerial attack against its enemies that involved the entire Israeli air force. In the technological reality of those days, it was a mission no less complex than the proposed strike on Iran today. It demanded evasion of the Jordanian radar, total radio silence and difficult navigation at extremely low altitudes deep inside enemy territory – all with mechanisms that can only be described as primitive relative to the weapons systems used by Israel's air force today. Failure then would have left Israel with no air force against the attacks of all the Arab armies.

In other words, we have been in this scenario before. Israel has no choice but to attack Iran. America's relations with us should not be part of the question of whether to attack or not. At most, we can ask ourselves how America will relate to us following a strike. And the answer is simple: A successful attack will improve relations, while no strike or an unsuccessful strike, G-d forbid, will worsen them.