Looking for His glorious appearing! Titus 2:13

U.S. Warns Iran, Syria on Threats
Apr 30th, 2010
Daily NewsJpost
Categories: Today's Headlines;Anti-Israel

The Obama administration Thursday warned Iran and Syria that America's commitment to Israel's security is unshakable, and they should understand the consequences of threats to the Jewish state.

In a speech, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said Syrian transfers of increasingly sophisticated weaponry, including rockets, to terrorists in southern Lebanon and Gaza could spark new conflict in the Middle East. Additionally, she said a nuclear-armed Iran would profoundly destabilize the region.

"These threats to Israel's security are real, they are growing and they must be addressed," she said in the speech to the American Jewish Committee. The speech was the administration's latest effort to reassure Israel that its ties to the United States remain strong despite tensions that flared last month.

Reports: Obama Preparing to Force Israel's Hand
Apr 30th, 2010
Daily NewsIsrael Today
Categories: Today's Headlines;The Nation Of Israel;Peace Process

Israeli officials told Ha'aretz on Thursday that US President Barack Obama recently assured European leaders that if the Israeli-Palestinian peace process is not moving forward by September or October, he will convene an international peace summit.

The purpose of convening an international peace summit could only be to impose a peace settlement on the two sides, and if Obama's policies of late are anything to judge by, that peace settlement would greatly favor the Arabs by incorporating nearly all their demands.

Palestinian officials this week also said they had received assurances from US Middle East envoy George Mitchell that if Israel did not start complying with US-backed Arab demands soon, Obama would act to force Jerusalem's hand.

The Palestinians are also threatening to unilaterally declare independence by October if Israel does not start meeting their demands. Israeli officials fear the UN would recognize such a declaration, and that the Obama Administration would do little or nothing to block it.

Recent history has demonstrated that such reports, which are often leaked as a pressure tactic against Israel, actually further delay peace negotiations as the Palestinians are all too happy to remain defiant and wait on the international community to strong-arm Israel.

The US and Europe remain mum on the fact that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has repeatedly said he is ready to immediately restart direct bilateral negotiations, while the Palestinians refuse to sit with the Israelis and discuss anything.

Art's Commentary....The Arabs no longer need to negotiate, they just have to wait for the world to give them all they demand. What they are demanding will remove the State of Israel from the map.

Israeli Envoy Nearly Lynched in Britain
Apr 30th, 2010
Daily NewsIsrael today
Categories: Today's Headlines;Anti-Israel

The deputy chief of mission at the Israeli embassy in London was nearly lynched by Muslim and pro-Palestinian demonstrators after giving a speech at the University of Manchester on Wednesday.

Talya Lador-Fresher said that her speech was repeatedly disrupted by demonstrators hoisting Palestinian flags or yelling anti-Israel slogans. And when she tried to leave the premises, she found the exit blocked by angry protestors.

Fearing for the envoy's safety, embassy security and Manchester police evacuated her through a side exit and into an police getaway car, but that too was attacked. Lador-Fresher said the demonstrators attempted to smash the windows of the police vehicle, apparently intent on doing her physical harm.

Lador-Fresher said that despite the severity of the incident, she intends to continue speaking on UK campuses, since being cowed by the attacks would only play into the hands of Israel's enemies.

There were no reports of arrests following Wednesday's attacks, which further demonstrated the violent anti-Israel atmosphere that is growing in the UK.

Elliot Abrams: U.S. Must Deal With Iranian Threat
Apr 30th, 2010
Daily NewsArutz Sheva - Hana Levi Julian
Categories: Today's Headlines;The Nation Of Israel

A former national security official in the Bush administration told American Zionists this week that the United States should deal with Iran's threat to wipe Israel off the map – before Jerusalem does.

Elliot Abrams, who served as Deputy National Security Adviser and senior director for Near East and North African Affairs in the Bush administration's National Security Council, told a symposium in Baltimore that Israelis live with “the threat of annihilation” every day. Abrams also served as Assistant Secretary of State under former President Ronald Reagan.

Currently a senior fellow for Middle Eastern studies at the Council on Foreign Relations, Abrams made his remarks at an April 25 symposium entitled “U.S.-Israel Relations in a New Era.”

“If the world does not act, I believe Israel will act,” he said, “and I hope the U.S. will.” According to the Baltimore Jewish Times, the former national security official pointed out that at present, there does not appear to be anyone backing up their words with actions on Iran, other than the State of Israel.

“We keep saying it's unacceptable for Iran to have a bomb, but we don't mean it,” he said. “We mean it's terrible, we don't want it. But when Israel says it's unacceptable, they mean it.”

Iran's president has repeatedly threatened to destroy the State of Israel, and although the United Nations Security Council has ordered the country to cease its nuclear development activities, the Islamic Republic is continuing its race to enrich uranium at a level that would enable it to create an atomic bomb. Three sets of sanctions imposed on Iran by the United Nations in the hopes of forcing the country to stop its uranium enrichment activities have so far been ineffective. The five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council plus Germany are currently meeting in New York to discuss a fourth round.

Barkat: Jerusalem Freeze Would be Illegal
Apr 30th, 2010
Daily NewsArutz Sheva - Maayana Miskin
Categories: Today's Headlines;The Nation Of Israel

Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat is in Washington this week to meet with senior United States officials. In a news conference held during his tour, Barkat took a firm stance on the Obama administration's pressure to stop building houses for Jews in eastern Jerusalem, saying a construction freeze would be “illegal”.

“There's no freeze... We're going to build, and we're not going to stop it,” Barkat told reporters. “It is illegal to stop it.”

Barkat admitted that construction in certain parts of the city had temporarily slowed following the Obama administration's angry reaction to a housing project in the Jewish neighborhood of Ramat Shlomo, in northern Jerusalem. However, he said, the slowdown was a momentary gesture of respect for the US, and construction has since picked up steam again.

Barkat added that the Jerusalem municipality will not change its planning process despite the diplomatic incident regarding Ramat Shlomo. The city will continue to approve construction without involving the prime minister, he said. “It doesn't work like that,” he said. “Each of us has his own authority and his own decisions to make.”

During his visit Barkat met with several US lawmakers, among them House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer and House Republican Whip Eric Cantor. Cantor backed Barkat's statement that Jerusalem will remain Israel's united capital, and said that both Democrats and Republicans back that view, despite the position taken by Obama and his staff.

Gathering support for continuing Israeli sovereignty over a united Jerusalem appears to be a central goal of Barkat's trip.

Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton have pushed for a freeze on construction of Jewish housing in all parts of Jerusalem east of the 1949 armistice line, including those neighborhoods such as Mei Shiloach (Silwan) and the Old City that are historically Jewish. The Palestinian Authority demands those neighborhoods as part of a future PA state, to be established in Judea and Samaria with Jerusalem as its capital.

'Israel Must Remove 23 Outposts'
Apr 30th, 2010
Daily NewsJpost - HILARY LEILA KRIEGER
Categories: Today's Headlines;The Nation Of Israel

State Department: "We expect [Israel] to fulfill responsibilities.”

WASHINGTON – The US pushed back against indications Israel has abandoned its commitment to take down authorized outposts Thursday, calling on Jerusalem to live up to its obligations.

“The Israeli government has pledged to take specific actions,” US State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley said. “They have responsibilities and we would expect them to fulfill those responsibilities.”

Earlier this week, The Jerusalem Post reported that Israel has no intention in the foreseeable future of dismantling any of 23 unauthorized West Bank outposts built after March 2001, despite a 2002 road map commitment and years of pledges by successive prime ministers including Binyamin Netanyahu.

The promise to dismantle the outposts was made in the framework of wider understandings with the second Bush administration that provided for continued home-building at settlements Israel is likely to retain under a permanent accord with the Palestinians.

Israeli officials told the Post that since the Obama administration replaced those wider understandings with a demand for a moratorium on all new home-building throughout the settlements – which was accepted by Netanyahu in November – Israel no longer regards itself as having to go through with the outpost demolitions on the basis of that pledge to the US.

Crowley, though, indicated the US sees the matter differently since it believes Israel still needs to keep its commitment.

He also said that “the parties need to take affirmative steps that create an improved atmosphere for negotiations to proceed and they need to avoid actions which inhibit progress, and certainly settlements are a contentious issue.”

He added that settlements, along with borders, security, refugees and Jerusalem, were final-status issues that needed to be resolved in those negotiations.

“We’re pushing hard to get them into proximity talks as soon as possible that we hope will lead to direct negotiations,” Crowley said.

State Department officials, however, are denying a report in a Roger Cohen column in The New York Times this week that the US administration had presented the Palestinians with a letter promising an intense effort to produce a Palestinian state in two years, accompanied by a pledge – if Israel seriously undermines trust between the two parties – to withhold its veto from a Security Council resolution condemning Israel.

Instead, they pointed to building momentum and US Middle East envoy George Mitchell’s plans to return to the region at the beginning of next week.