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JERUSALEM -- Israel last year revoked the Jerusalem residency of more than 4,500 Palestinians, far more than in any other year since Israel took full control of the city in 1967, according to government figures obtained under the country's freedom of information act by a local human rights group. In what an official for the group on Wednesday called a "frightening" escalation in the enforcement of Jerusalem residency laws, the Interior Ministry said that a sweep of its files last spring turned up thousands of names of Palestinian Jerusalemites who had left the country for longer than the allowed seven...

Saturday, November 28, 2009 Finally, Israel Gets It! By Joseph Farah For more than five years, I have been conspicuously alone in pointing out the racist, anti-Jewish nature of policies that require the evacuation of Israelis from Gaza, Judea and Samaria and, more lately, the halts on building and repairing homes and businesses owned by Jews in Jerusalem. Finally, someone in Israel has figured this out and called the policies advocated by Barack Obama and the international elite what they are. "Israeli law does not discriminate between Jews, Muslims and Christians or between eastern and western Jerusalem," said Jerusalem Mayor...

US President Barack Obama is an extremely intelligent man surrounded by equally intelligent advisers, many of whom have years of experience dealing with the Middle East. His continued misreading and misunderstanding of the Israeli public is, therefore, somewhat baffling. This misread was evident again in the past few days by the US objection to the Jerusalem Municipal Planning Committee's approval of a plan to build some 900 new units in Gilo - not in a far-flung settlement overlooking Nablus, nor even in one of the settlement blocs like Gush Etzion, nor even a Jewish complex in one of the Arab...

With his typical left-wing arrogance, Tom Friedman of the New York Times says that Obama should drop his peace efforts and call a pox on both the Israeli and Palestinian houses because neither side is willing to negotiate. Friedman assumes that President Obama is an idiot who did not understand that peace is unattainable. I suggest a different scenario. President Obama has a lifetime's worth of anti-Israel sentiments, a cause for great suspicion for Jewish voters during the early part of the campaign. Before the economy collapsed, the Jewish vote was moving away from Obama. In the end it was...

President Obama's Middle East policy is in ruins. While the US continues to press Israel for a settlement freeze (and a freeze on Jerusalem) his strategy is falling apart piece by piece. He has turned the Israeli populace against him and strengthened the hand of Prime Minister Netanyahu. At the same time he has eroded his own support among American Jews and other US friends of Israel. Which is why he has pressured political hacks such as Congressman Steve Israel to lend their names to the Anti-Israel Group, J-Street. The Arab League nations answered no to the Presidents request for...

By Ted Belman Hillary Clinton recently said, "And the Obama Administration's position on settlements is clear, unequivocal. It has not changed. And as the President has said on many occasions, the United States does not accept the legitimacy of continued Israeli settlements." That may well be his position but it has not always been the position of the US and its presidents. In 1995, The Center for Policy Analysis on Palestine and Georgetown University's Center for Contemporary Arab Studies co-hosted a June 2 symposium on "Settlements and Peace: The Problem of Jewish Colonization in Palestine." Geoffrey Aronson of the Foundation...

It was just two days ago that the Secretary of State Hillary Clinton made a statement that seemed to indicate that the US Government was throwing in the towel on its unreasonable demands regarding Israeli Settlements. Clinton praised Netanyahu, saying that "what the Prime Minister has offered... a restraint on the policy of settlements, which he has just described, no new starts, for example, is unprecedented in the context of prior to negotiations." She also said that Israel's freezing construction "has never been a precondition [for negotiations], it has always been an issue within the negotiations." Today Clinton seemed to...

US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton on Saturday night rejected Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas's demand that Israel freeze all settlement activity as a precondition to negotiations. Stopping construction in the settlements "has never been a precondition, it has always been an in issue within the negotiations," Clinton said at a joint press conference with Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu in Jerusalem. In a strong show of support for Israel, she said she approved of Netanyahu's decision to issue a moratorium on new construction permits. "What the prime minister has offered... a restraint on the policy of settlements, which he...

Mohammed Dahlan, the former Fatah leader in Gaza and a senior PA legislator, told Israeli Radio listeners Sunday that a Jewish presence in eastern Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria is equivalent to Arab terrorist suicide bombings. "What is the difference between blowing up a bus in Tel Aviv and taking over Palestinian land?" he asked rhetorically. Dahlan also warned Israel that violent riots in the capital will continue as long as Jews visit the Temple Mount, which was re-opened to Jews on Sunday.

If you listen to President Obama and much of the world, Jewish settlers who live on the West Bank of the Jordan Creek (River) are the most evil people in the world (if you have ever seen the Jordan River you would call it a creek too). The world community over-reacts to fake Arab claims of ill treatment with-in the Pre-1967 borders of Israel. The fact is Arabs are allowed to live anywhere in Israel, but God-forbid a Jew decides to live on land that was once the property of the diminutive King of Jordan, and somehow that is evil....

(IsraelNN.com) Security forces on Friday destroyed the first hareidi-religious outpost in Samaria, Givat Sefer, just hours before the Sabbath. The site of the budding community is located next to the hareidi-religious city of Kiryat Sefer.

Yesterday Pres Obama addressed the UNGA on the subject of the conflict between Arabs and Jews conflict and had this to say; ...I will also continue to seek a just and lasting peace between Israel, Palestine, and the Arab world. What is noteworthy here, is that he referred to "Palestine" like it was a state already. Is that not pre-judging the outcome? He also wants there to be peace with the "Arab world" which means more pressure on Israel to cave to the demands of Syria. Palestinians have strengthened their efforts on security. Israelis have facilitated greater freedom of movement...

In declaring that it is time for Middle East peace "without preconditions," President Obama used his speech to the U.N. General Assembly Wednesday to fire a warning at Israel that "America does not accept the legitimacy of continued Israeli settlements." Obama's stark declaration, which drew applause, was coupled with a call for Palestinians to end their "incitement of Israel." But it was the use of the U.N. forum to carry the settlement message to Israel that drew the most enthusiastic response on the floor -- and incredulous reaction outside its walls. Obama just put Israel "on the chopping block," said...

There was only one reason that yesterday was the first meeting between Netanyahu and Abba since the Israeli Election, President Obama's screw-up. What the President and his advisers perceived as a minor concession, a settlement freeze, was not perceived by Israel as a minor one. This was a major error by Obama. And when he added Jerusalem to his demands it just compounded the situation. His insistence for a freeze and the constant public berating of the Jewish State has turned the Israeli population against Obama, and increased the support of Prime Minister Netanyahu even with the Israeli left, no...

Ahead of the Obama administration's first U.S.-Palestinian-Israeli summit, Israel has agreed to a partial freeze of settlement construction for six to nine months but still wants to build more than 2,500 new housing units, said Israeli officials... The private Israeli position, which was described by these three individuals on the condition that they not be named, is at odds with the public stance Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has taken... What the Israelis are offering is still shy of Mr. Obama's demands. The two Israeli officials and the Israel specialist said Mr. Netanyahu wants to move forward with 2,500 to 3,000...

Hey, let's face it. Much of the world still prefers its Jews ghetto style, groveling Uncle Abes instead of Uncle Toms (note: the very word "ghetto" was originally coined for the Jewish experience). Ironically, of all world leaders, the current American president should be tuned in to this problem the most; Instead, he's among the worst offenders when it comes to this. Recently the Obama White House rebuked Israel because it refuses to prostrate itself and say, "whatever you say, boss!" On September 4th, Associated Press writer Matthew Lee reported that, "the White House said Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's...

JERUSALEM (AP) - Israel defied U.S. pressure to halt construction in its West Bank settlements Sunday, with key leaders speaking out in support of the contentious enclaves and preparing to sign orders to allow building of hundreds of new housing units there. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barak are expected to approve orders for about 500 new apartments Monday, said Israeli officials, speaking on condition of anonymity because the plans have not been finalized.

be his friend in return for a freeze on building for Jews in Judea, Samaria and eastern Jerusalem, according to Politco.com editor Ben Smith. The relationship between the two leaders has been termed as chilly even before they met in Washington earlier this year. "Netanyahu’s at a pivotal moment,” a senior U.S. official told Smith. “Depending on what he decides, he could wind up with a very strong relationship with President Obama and potentially become a historic figure in Israel." Ron Dermer, spokesman for the Prime Minister, declined to comment on the report.

President Obama's Middle East policy is in ruins. While the US continues to press Israel for a settlement freeze (and now a freeze on Jerusalem) his strategy is falling apart piece by piece. He has turned the Israeli populace against him and strengthened the hand of Prime Minister Netanyahu. At the same time he has eroded his own support among American Jews and other US friends of Israel. The Arab League nations answered no to the Presidents request for a peace gesture and the President of the Palestinian Authority uses Obama's settlement pressure as his "out" from re-entering negotiations. What...

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu will return from his European trip to find that two Likud rallies have been organized to express opposition to the settlement freeze he reportedly negotiated with US envoy George Mitchell in London. The first, scheduled for Tuesday at Tel Aviv's Azrieli Tower, was organized by Minister-without-Portfolio Yossi Peled. It is not officially an anti-Netanyahu rally but rather a "pro-Jerusalem event," and yet MKs who attend are expected to bash the deal the prime minister is negotiating with the Americans. The second, set for September 9 at the Likud's Tel Aviv headquarters, openly opposes any freeze on...

Barack Obama has been able to do something that now Israeli politician was able to do, unify the Israeli public. Of course the public is unified by their mistrust of the US President. And that mistrust continues to grow. In early June two polls were released that showed the "Israeli on the street" feels that President Obama is bad for Israel. One poll reported that by more than a 2 to 1 margin Israelis believe that Obama's policies are bad for Israel. The other from The Fanis Research Institute, goes even further, it said that 59% of the Israeli public...

BERLIN (Reuters) - German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Thursday raised the pressure on Israel to freeze its settlement building program and resume the Middle East peace process. "We must make progress in the peace process ... and a stopping of the settlement (building) is very important," Merkel said at a joint news conference with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in the German capital. "Time is of the essence," she added.

Netanyahu on Wednesday presented a proposal for resolving the ongoing Israeli-American dispute over construction in the settlements. In a meeting with Mitchell, Netanyahu suggested a temporary freeze, reportedly for nine months, on construction in the West Bank, a government source said. Netanyahu also said that Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas' reported willingness to meet with him was "a positive first step." The Americans are slated to respond to Netanyahu's proposal at a meeting in Washington next week between Mitchell and two Israeli officials: Netanyahu's envoy, attorney Yitzhak Molcho, and Defense Minister Ehud Barak's chief of staff, Brig. Gen. Mike Herzog....

A pro-Israel lobby group in the U.S. has launched a project intent on shifting the focus of the Obama administration away from West Bank settlements, claiming they are not an obstacle to peace and that their evacuation would amount to "ethnic cleansing." A manual called Global Language Dictionary, circulated among supporters of the right-wing Israel Project group, seeks to develop a strategy to downplay the centrality of settlement freeze in the American efforts to press on with the peace process between Israel and the Palestinians. Developed in conjunction with the high-profile Republican pollster Frank Luntz, the document was drawn up...

There is an old proverb that compares the Jewish People to an egg. You place the egg on a cold frying pan and it spreads out, you turn on the heat and it gets hard and pulls together. What the President and his advisers perceived as a minor concession, a settlement freeze, was not perceived by Israel as a minor one. This was a major error by Obama. And when he added Jerusalem to his demands it just compounded the situation. His insistence for a freeze and the constant public berating of the Jewish State has turned the Israeli population...

Tending Someone Else’s Garden by Norma Zager “This land is mine. God gave this land to me…” Theme from Exodus These words of the theme from the movie Exodus bring a tear to the eye of any Zionist. Ironic they were written by a Christian. Penned by American icon Pat Boone, they have become the battle cry for Israel’s right to survive. Boone’s deeply heartfelt belief in the Bible and the words contained in both Testaments provide true insights into the Christian commitment to Israel as the homeland of the Jewish people. “God gave this land to me” connotes the...

Just a day after the House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer penned an op-ed with his boss, Nancy Pelosi telling Americans that disagreeing with the President is unpatriotic, Hoyer turned up in Israel and amazingly he disagreed with the President's one sided, anti-Israel Middle East Policy. It is interesting to point out that Hoyer, a Baptist, showed support for Israel and independence from the POTUS' Middle East strategy, that you would never see coming from the supposedly pro-Israel National Jewish Democratic Council. While in Israel today Hoyer said that too much attention has been put on the settlements and that Jerusalem...

A senior Israeli diplomat said that his government's row with the White House over Jewish settlements in the West Bank was causing strategic damage to the country's relationship with the United States. The unusual rebuke came from an internal memo by Nadav Tamir, Israel's General Consul in Boston that was leaked to the Channel Ten, an Israeli television station. In the memo Mr Tamir wrote that the high-profile dispute over a settlement freeze was causing Israel great harm. "Nowadays, there is a sense in the United States that Obama is being forced to deal with obduracy from the governments of...

If you ask the propagandists at J-Street, the NJDC, or within the White House itself, most Israelis support President Obama as a fair mediator for Middle East peace. Of course if you ask Israelis, Baarack Obamas one sided anti-Israel rants about settlements and Jerusalem convince them that the American President would throw them under the nearest bus the first chance he gets. The latest War and Peace Index poll conducted by the University of Tel Abiv reveals that almost two thirds of the Israeli public feel that President Obama is anti-Israel, the majority of Israeli public thinks sovereignty over Jerusalem...

This is my first posting, I hope it goes well!

JERUSALEM (AP) - Israeli police evicted two Palestinian families in east Jerusalem on Sunday, then allowed Jewish settlers to move into their homes, drawing criticism from Palestinians, the United Nations and the State Department. Police arrived before dawn and cordoned off part of the Arab neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah before forcibly removing more than 50 people, said Chris Gunness, spokesman for the U.N. agency in charge of Palestinian refugees. U.N. staff later saw vehicles bringing Jewish settlers to move into the homes, he said. Israeli police cited a ruling by the country's Supreme Court that the houses belonged to Jews...

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu has denied calling White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel and senior Obama advisor David Axelrod “self-hating Jews." Whether or not the Prime Minister used the term, increasing criticism by American Jews of U.S. President Barack Obama signals a split in the American Jewish community. Emanuel has pushed the president into a head-on collision with the Netanyahu government, but there is a growing opinion that he has also left the president out on a limb.

Beginning tomorrow, a parade of four Obama administration officials are coming to visit for a series of meetings with Israeli Officials. The purposes of the meetings are to twist Israel's arm regarding the disagreement over the adding home to existing settlements and to make sure that Israel doesn't try and destroy Iran's growing nuclear capacity First up is George Mitchell, the special U.S. envoy to the Middle East, He will meet with Defense Minister Ehud Barak on Sunday and with Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu on Tuesday.

George Soros, admitted Nazi Collaborator and convicted inside trader is waging a great deal of influence on the the Obama government's foreign policy, especially regarding Israeli Settlements. Last week when the President invited Jewish supporters to the White House to discuss their reaction to his one-sided policy on Israeli settlements, one of the groups Obama invited was J-street. J-street has minimal standing in the Jewish community but it was set up and funded by George Soros to oppose pro-Israel Jewish groups. ... Typical of the Soros/Obama alliance, J Street pushes for negotiation with Hamas, but is silent on whether the...

The U.S. State Department made it clear Tuesday that Jewish neighborhoods in eastern Jerusalem are “settlements,” which U.S. President Barack Obama has called “illegitimate." Reporters covering the daily State Department press briefing have recently asked tough-than-usual questions concerning what they see as the United States trying to determine the future borders of a Palestinian Authority state instead of allowing Israel and the PA to negotiate directly.

France summoned Daniel Shek, the Israeli ambassador in Paris, to demand that Israel stop all building for Jews in eastern Jerusalem. French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner said Tuesday afternoon. "The Israeli ambassador in Washington was summoned and the ambassador in Paris has now been summoned to the Foreign Ministry," Kouchner told reporters at a weekly news conference. France’s bold move, coupled with increasingly harsh criticism of Israel by Russia, have strengthened U.S. President Barack Obama’s determination to enforce his demands that Israel stop construction for Jews. American officials said that the building activity is a negative factor on negotiations with...

Tel Aviv - Radical Jewish settlers overnight vowed to respond to US President Barack Obama's stance against Israeli settlements in the occupied Palestinian areas, by rebuilding one in the northern West Bank, evacuated in 2005. Homesh was one of four West Bank settlements uprooted by former Israeli premier Ariel Sharon as part of his unilateral pullout from the Gaza Strip and a small area in the northern West Bank. Settler leaders published a message to Obama, slamming him for his pressure against Israel on the issue of settlement construction. "Mr. President, your policy that aims to destroy the Jewish communities...

ORTHODOX JEWISH LEADER COMMENTS ON MEETING WITH PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA AT THE WHITE HOUSE Mr. Stephen Savitsky, president of the Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America (the “Orthodox Union”) – the nation’s largest Orthodox Jewish umbrella organization – was among a small group of American Jewish leaders who met yesterday with President Barack Obama. Mr. Savitsky issued the following statement commenting upon the meeting: The Orthodox Union appreciated The White House’s invitation to participate in this meeting with the President at which issues of concern and interest to the Jewish community were discussed respectfully and candidly. I was honored...

On Monday President Obama met with leaders of 13 Jewish Organizations most of whom worked to get him elected along with two anti-Israel lobbying groups (JStreet and Americans for Peace Now), with the purpose of calming their nerves regarding the President's one-sided criticism of the the Jewish State. According to the Israeli Newspaper Ha'aretz: “ Obama told the leaders that he wants to help Israel overcome its demographic problem by reaching an agreement on a two-state solution, but that in order to do so, Israel would need "to engage in serious self-reflection." Serious self-reflection !?@! Every day for the last...

* When an armed force holds territory beyond its own national borders, the term “occupation” readily comes to mind. However, not all the factual situations that we commonly think of as “occupation” fall within the limited scope of the term “occupation” as defined in international law. Not every situation we refer to as “occupation” is subject to the international legal regime that regulates occupation and imposes obligations upon the occupier. * The term “occupation” is often employed politically, without regard for its general or legal meaning. The use of the term “occupation” in political rhetoric reduces complex situations of competing...

U.S. President Barack Obama, worried over increasing criticism from Jewish supporters because of soft talk on Iran and a tough stance against Jews in Judea and Samaria, has invited Jewish leaders for a talk Monday. Among those attending is the strongly dovish J Street lobby. The president excluded the strongly nationalist National Council of Young Israel (YI) and Zionist Organization of America (ZOA), sources told Israel National News.

[..] Apparently, Netanyahu came away from his meeting with Obama, a changed man, a shell of his former self. Imagine if you will being ordered by the Mob at a Casino to come into the back room due to your "independence". You see on entering some heavy set men around a table on which there is a hammer, a saw, a blowtorch, razor blades, a vise, acid and a number of other persuaders. Well you get the idea of what Netanyahu's meeting was like.The gloves came off and the Obama administration put there tools on the table. 1. withdrawal of...

.S. President Barack Obama is turning to the Pope to back his vision of a new Arab state on all of Judea and Samaria and eastern Jerusalem. The president told the Catholic Italian newspaper Avvenire, one week before a scheduled meeting with the Pope in Italy, “It [the Middle East] is a subject I am keen to discuss with the pope. I think he will share my approach." Powered by WebAds President Obama has dug in his heels in insisting that Israel stop all building for Jews in Judea and Samaria, and the State Department has indicated that the ban...

The American lawyer Alan Dershowitz is one of the most prolific, high-profile and indefatiguable defenders of Israel and the Jewish people against the tidal wave of anti-Israel and anti-Jewish feeling currently coursing through the west. So a piece by him in the Wall Street Journal giving expression to the rising anxiety being felt about Obama by American Jews naturally arouses great interest. But just like the majority of American Jews, getting on for 80 per cent of whom voted for Obama, he is a Democrat supporter who is incapable of acknowledging the truth about this President. For most American Jews,...

I received an email today that contained these words of wisdom about our President: "Surely something must be terribly wrong with a man who seems to be far more concerned with a Jew building a house in Israel than with Muslims building a nuclear bomb in Iran." While true, the quote doesn't change the fact that the President's foreign policy priority is to ignore commitments made by the US Government and tell Israeli Jews where they can or cannot live. The evidence show that the operative part of the disagreement between Obama and the Israeli government (expansion of existing settlements)is...

It's times like these that make me proud to have been born in America. We will have piece (sic) in the Middle East at last, because President Barack Hussein Obama has decided to freeze all new settlements here on the West Bank of the Jordan River. If only we had known in 1929, that nasty pogrom would not have been necessary. Our Arab neighbors don't want to kill us, they just don't want us to live here. If only we'd voluntarily remove ourselves en masse, we'd have piece at last, just like we do in Aza. But they will graciously...

Likud Knesset Member Danny Danon has called on party leader and Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu to boycott Wednesday evening’s annual U.S. Independence Day reception. He said that most coalition MKs will join him to protest what he called American contempt towards Israel.

No one, including a president of the United States of America, can presume to tell me, a Jew, that I cannot live in the area of my national homeland. That's one of the main reasons my wife and I chose in 1981 to move to Shiloh, a so-called settlement less than 30 miles north of Jerusalem. After Shiloh was founded in 1978, then-President Carter demanded of Prime Minister Menachem Begin that the village of eight families be removed. Carter, from his first meeting with Begin, pressed him to "freeze" the activity of Jews rebuilding a presence in their historic home....

A senior Israeli government official said that Israel is “fed up” with American statements against Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria, the Hebrew-language Yisrael HaYom (Israel Today) newspaper reported Monday. As Defense Minister Ehud Barak flies to Washington for meetings with U.S. Middle East envoy George Mitchell, the unnamed senior official stated, “Israel will demand that any compromise be part of a wider program of regional peace, and only after agreement on the basic principles outlines by Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu in his [recent] speech at Bar-Ilan University.”

A key Bush administration official is disputing the Obama administration's contention that there were no understandings between President George W. Bush and then-Prime Minister Ariel Sharon on the issue of continued West Bank settlement construction. In an op-ed piece which appeared in Thursday's editions of The Wall Street Journal, Elliott Abrams, who served under Bush in the National Security Council and who held a series of discussions with the Israeli leadership, said that Bush and Sharon did strike a deal which constituted U.S. acquiescence to continued construction in Israeli settlement blocs that Jerusalem intended to keep under any final status...