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The PA announced today that it is abandoning swaps and negotiations. That means it has formally abandon Oslo and the Roadmap both of which require negotiations. We are back to Res 242. Khalid also admitted the PA has no interest in reaching a bilateral agreement with Israel - that is, peace - and plans to continue on its current unilateral track. By Ted Belman The Palestinian/Israeli conflict has entered a new era. Since the UNSC passed Res 242, it had been focused on the “peace process,” which included the Madrid Conference, the Oslo Accords, The Roadmap, Annapolis and finally Obama’s...

This question always elicits different opinions. Obviously, in part, the answers depend on one's definition of "friend" or of "enemy." The most famous articulation of U.S. policy vis-à-vis Israel was made by Henry Kissinger in 1975 when talking to an Iraqi diplomat. To wit: We don't need Israel for influence in the Arab world. On the contrary, Israel does us more harm than good in the Arab world[.] ... We can't negotiate about the existence of Israel but we can reduce its size to historical proportions[.] Before the '67 War, U.S. policy was mostly hostile in that the U.S. imposed...

Nothing illustrates the hypocrisy better than a comparison of their demand that Israel accept an Arab “right of return” with their ambition for a state that would be ethnically cleansed of all Jews. Part I: Western Hypocrisy In seeking to impose a Palestinian state on Israel, the Obama Administration, European Union, and western media have displayed a cynical contempt for history that is astounding in its breadth and scope. Pressure is brought to bear solely on Israel, who is expected to sacrifice sovereignty and security in the name of an ideal that is premised on a repudiation of the Jews’...

he Israel Defense Forces are preparing for the possibility of Palestinian Authority Arab riots beginning September 20, when the PA will bring its statehood bid to the United Nations. Israel's military will begin to call up its reserves, probably starting this Sunday, September 18, sources said Thursday. Arutz Sheva has been informed that the residents of the Jewish towns in Judea and Samaria have warned the Arab residents of PA-controlled areas that if they approach the security fences surrounding their towns, the response will be “unequivocal.” The warning comes in the wake of threats by PA Arabs to march on...

Dem Party leaders mobilizing to solidify president's standing with Jewish voters to counter image Obama not friend of Israel... NYT setting story for lead Thursday, newsroom sources tell DRUDGE... Comes after shock defeat of Dem candidate... DEVELOPING...

Vice Prime Minister Silvan Shalom at Tel Aviv conference: Abbas and Fayyad are committed to peace. There's no alternative to negotiations. .....

~ EXCERPT ~ OK, let’s try and actually compare the new Obama budget plan — “The Framework for Shared Prosperity and Shared Fiscal Responsibility” — with Rep. Paul Ryan’s “Path to Prosperity.” My calculations — partly based on work done by Goldman Sachs — find that the Ryan Path would save more than double, 130 percent. In dollars, it’s a difference of $3.9 trillion (nearly 2/3 from higher taxes, net interest expense savings).1) Obama says his plan cuts $4 trillion in debt over 12 years vs. … something or other. Ryan says his plan cuts $4.4 trillion over ten years vs....

Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin (R) on Tuesday commended House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan's (R-Wis.) budget, calling it "Serious & necessary." Palin, a potential 2012 presidential candidate, said that Ryan's proposal is a good start (and linked to an op-ed from December when she praised Ryan's previous budget plan, a "Roadmap for America's Future"). She tweeted: There is hope! Serious & necessary leadership rolls out serious & necessary reform proposal. Good start (from Dec. http://on.wsj.com/eP0Kwo)

Democrats are not very fond of House Budget Committee chairman Paul Ryan (R., Wis.). That’s no secret. But even liberals used to offer some faint praise for Ryan’s courage in writing a plan to reduce the deficit — before lambasting that very plan as a heartless assault on America’s kids and grandmothers. Those days are likely gone forever now that Ryan has unveiled his 2012 budget proposal: “The Path to Prosperity,” a bold but politically risky plan to reduce the deficit by $4.4 trillion over ten years. It achieves big savings in part by significantly reforming entitlement programs, specifically Medicare...

Washington Paul Ryan doesn't look like the menacing sort. He's amiable in a familiar Midwestern way, his disposition varies between cheerfully earnest and wry, and he uses words like "gosh." Yet to hear Democrats tell it, the 41-year-old Republican congressman is the evil genius, the cruel and mad budget cutter who threatens grandma's health care, grandad's retirement, and the entitlement state as we know it. Senate Democrats like Chuck Schumer issue almost daily press releases attacking Mr. Ryan, Paul Krugman is obsessed and demeaning, and even President Obama can't stop mentioning him. Only this week, the president justified his own...

The United States faces a crushing debt of well over $14 trillion and adds to it at a rate of roughly $4.15 billion per day on average. The absolute first step in paying off this debt, which will be a problem to be dealt with likely through this entire century, is to balance the federal budget so that no more is added to it. This process will be extremely difficult and very drawn out in and of itself because the total gap between what the government collects in taxes and what it currently spends is about a $1.5 trillion deficit...

Entitlements: The Congressional Budget Office says Social Security will begin running deficits this year and every year until it is drained in 2037. The baby boomers who used to pull the wagon are starting to ride it. The problem with kicking the can down the road is that eventually, you run out of road. Social Security's insolvency has been staring us in the face for a long time as politicians whistled past its fiscal graveyard. Now, with baby boomers retiring in a jobless recovery, the end is not near, it's here. In a report released Wednesday, the Congressional Budget Office...

Is Ryan's plan too radical? Certainly the Dems think so. The plan addresses social security, medicare, and medicaid with an eye toward drastic reform of the very way we look at and fund entitlements. Robert Costa in NRO: With fanfare, Ryan last year published "A Roadmap for America's Future," a comprehensive government-shrinking document that tackles the three main problems in the federal budget: Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security. Its bold, data-fueled approach was the single best piece of evidence that Republicans were ready to address long-term liabilities. Rep. Eric Cantor of Virginia and Rep. Kevin McCarthy of California, now...

Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin, the GOP’s high priest of pecuniary politics, has ascended to the chairmanship of the House Budget Committee. Across the land, fiscal conservatives applaud the rise of the 40-year-old wonk. But the cheers in Congress are more sporadic: Unflinching endorsements of Ryan’s fiscal blueprint are rare. Apparently, the new majority is in no mood — yet — for a full-spectrum fight on entitlements. With fanfare, Ryan last year published “A Roadmap for America’s Future,” a comprehensive government-shrinking document that tackles the three main problems in the federal budget: Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security. Its bold, data-fueled...

For anyone interested in the "Peace Process" in the Middle East, laughingly called the "Road Map" by the deluded or simply antisemitic, it may come as no surprise at all that there are Palestinian claims of responsibility for the Carmel forest fire, and that there are graphics-heavy threads on jihadist sites gloating hysterically over the nice recollections of the ovens of Auschwitz.

Fiscal Policy: The godmother of the Tea Party movement suggests we bypass presidential commissions and Oval Office compromises on tax cuts and follow a well-thought-out path to fiscal discipline and prosperity. To paraphrase President Obama's famous quote: We won, although one would never know it from the rush to let the current Congress — a roundly "refudiated" and defeated Congress — decide the fate of extending the current tax rates established by the Bush tax cuts nearly a decade ago. The House Democratic caucus, populated by the largest number of lame ducks in recent memory, is being allowed to decide...

Europe's foreign ministers have threatened to recognise an independent Palestinian state to punish Israeli refusal to halt "illegal" Jewish settlements. A text, seen by The Daily Telegraph, warned of EU "readiness, when appropriate, to recognize a Palestinian state" increasing the international pressure on Israel following the effective collapse of direct Middle East peace talks last week. Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president, on Monday called "on the EU to take a step towards recognition of the state of Palestine based on the 1967 borders". "We hope that the EU will take this step to maintain the requirements for the success of...

Al Quds al-Arabi reports that PLO, Fatah plan to push for a unilateral abrogation of all Oslo and Road Map commitments, including fighting terror, in response to failed peace talks. The Palestinian Authority will stop coordinating its security with Israel, in response to the US's official announcement that peace talks have failed, Al Quds al-Arabi reported on Friday. Khana Amira, a PLO official, told the UK newspaper that the PA is also considering canceling its other commitments to Israel, including the Oslo Accords and the Road Map, which demand that terror organizations will stop. RELATED: Peace talks are officially dead:...

With one op-ed piece in the WSJ, Sarah Palin has made a lasting impact on the dynamic of the upcoming Republican presidential race — even if she doesn’t run. (Though I think she will.) By strongly endorsing Rep. Paul Ryan’s outstanding Roadmap for America’s Future, Palin has set a floor for how radical and sweeping an agenda the 2012 candidates can offer. Anyone offering less will look timid and inconsequential and most un-Tea Party-esque

"The Roadmap for America's Future produced by Rep. Paul Ryan (R., Wisc.)" is a far better plan than that of the Debt Commission, writes Sarah Palin in Wall Street Journal OpEd, just published and tweeted less than an hour ago by Palin. Palin points out that the Debt Commission's "A Moment of Truth" is accurate titled for what's needed to address the state of the American economy, stressing the chilling points the report includes and some equally chilling remedies: The Medicare Trust Fund will be insolvent by 2017Federal Revenue will barely cover Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and debt interest...