Tag: Benjamin Netanyahu

There Are Bad Times to Overcome – So RESIST


John R. Houk, Blog Editor

© November 21, 2022

14 For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so God will bring with Him those who [a]sleep in Jesus.

15 For this we say to you by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive and remain until the coming of the Lord will by no means precede those who are [b]asleep. 16 For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of an archangel, and with the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. 17 Then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And thus we shall always be with the Lord. 18 Therefore comfort one another with these words. — 1 Thessalonians 4: 14-18 NKJV

I subscribe to Prophecy Update which probably alienates a number of Believers Saved by the Death, Burial and Resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ. Rather than engage in heated theological disagreements over the Word of God, WE the Redeemed should all realize that none of us will agree on our perceptions of what Redemption entails for the Redeemed in this AGE before the Return of King Jesus that begins the complete cleansing of the cursed Earth brought to humanity via Adam’s disobedience.

Until Christ’s Return the Redeemed should at least strive to find the common ground issues that all agree upon and stop fussing about the disagreements that only allows elements of the Curse to overshadow the spiritual reality of the Blessings we have in the Risen Savior Jesus the Christ.

I suspect for some Believers, that which is disagreed upon might be too heavy a weight to examine thoughts from those they disagree. I understand. I’ve been there and frankly sometimes and I get quite cranky with what I consider erroneous thinking or erroneous backstabbing.

Well … That’s my “Believers, let’s try to get along” by what we agree upon until Christ Returns to set the entire record straight for all of us.

So, Back to Prophecy Update.

I read two posts I sense are relevant to the corrupt tyranny Americans are experiencing under what I consider a godless Dem-Marxist coup-installed government.

1) “Worthless Hissy Fits” by Daymond Duck posted on 11/19. Daymond begins by writing about Benjamin Netanyahu resuming the Office of Prime Minister for Israel. Then he elaborates on the hissy fits of Globalists internationally and Dem-Marxists in the USA by highlighting their anti-God agendas.

2) “Gates of Hell Prophecy” by Terry James posted by 11/21. Terry’s theme is there is a Gates of Hell that all Believers in Christ will overcome. HOWEVER, until the Return of Jesus, there are and will be times when bad things happen to the Believers in the Risen Savior that will get worse as the days of the Tribulation approach. In these days of seemingly increasing tyranny against Liberty and Biblical Values, I found this an interesting read.

JRH 11/21/22

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Worthless Hissy Fits

By Daymond Duck

November 19, 2022

Rapture Ready

Israel’s new government under former Prime Minister Netanyahu is expected to be very conservative (Netanyahu won 64 seats, and his new government will include members from the far right that want to change things on the Temple Mount and the West Bank).

Biblically speaking, the U.S. should eagerly support equal rights for Jews on the Temple Mount (the right to go there, pray there, etc.), Israel’s annexation of all the West Bank (at least some of the Jewish settlements), and more, but White House officials are panicking over changes on the Temple Mount.

They are already criticizing people that may be in Netanyahu’s government, and on Nov. 8, 2022, it was reported that America’s ambassador to Israel said the U.S. will aggressively fight Israel’s annexation of all or part of the West Bank.

Those in the White House are opposing what the Bible says about God’s restoration of Israel, but they do not believe the Bible, so they ignore what it says.

America’s rejection of Jehovah and the Bible, its celebration of perversion, and its desire to divide Israel are major reasons why America is in trouble.

The situation on the Temple Mount will change, God’s Word will be fulfilled, the Jews will rebuild the Temple and resume the animal sacrifices, and the worthless hissy fits (displeasure, anger, temper tantrums) of unbelievers in the White House before the Netanyahu government is even formed will not stop that.

Here are some recent events that recently made the news.

One, concerning world government: on Nov. 10, 2022, Human Events posted an article by Ethan Peck that says:

  • The leaders of all the G7 nations (7 major industrialized nations) took up the same slogan: “Build Back Better.”
  • The CEOs of the 3 American pharmaceutical companies that developed a vaccine for Covid-19 are frequent attendees of World Economic Forum (WEF) meetings.
  • The founders of Microsoft, Amazon, Facebook, and Google have all attended WEF Young Global Leaders (YGL) training events.
  • Several of the most recognizable people in the media are graduates of the YGL school.

Peck astutely points out that all these people have one common denominator: the WEF.

(Question: What are the odds that all 7 major industrialized nations would adopt the same slogan in the same year?)

Two, concerning financing world government and wealth redistribution: on Nov. 8, 2022, a report was released at the COP27 meeting that calls for “developed countries” to start giving one trillion dollars a year before 2030 to “emerging markets and developing countries,” plus it was suggested that they also cut subsidies on fossil fuels and impose “carbon taxes” to raise about $1.4 trillion dollars more.

I cannot predict what world leaders will do, but these fanatics want control of everyone on earth and more than two trillion dollars of financing pouring in every year before 2030.

(Note: A recent poll found that more than 40% of highly respected climate scientists do not believe that climate change is settled science. The high level of skepticism among experts is one reason why many Bible prophecy teachers believe climate change is a scam to justify the establishment of a world government.)

Three, concerning a Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) to eventually track all buying and selling: on Nov. 15, 2022, the NY Federal Reserve Bank announced a pilot program to explore the use of CBDCs for the next 3 months.

Several large banks and Master Card will participate in this pilot program.

I cannot predict what they will do, but I expect them to test the CBDC for the next 3 months and put it into use in at least some places early next year (unless the House or God stops them).

This will be a major step toward a new global economic system and the Mark of the Beast.

Four, concerning the decline of America: on Nov. 14, 2022, the Washington Examiner reported that Pres. Biden implied that the mid-term elections were a repudiation of former Pres. Trump’s “America First” foreign policy agenda.

In a past speech, Biden said “America First” is dead.

Biden’s goal is “Globalism First” (cause the decline of America and Build it Back Better with the New World Order), and he wants the U.S. to lead it.

(My Opinion: On Nov. 15, 2022, former Pres. Trump announced that he will run for president again in 2024. I believe we can expect Biden and America’s shadow government to do everything they can to lock the U.S. into a world government before the election.)

Five, concerning the mid-term elections in Pennsylvania: State Rep. Tony DeLuca was running for re-election, but he died on Oct. 9, 2022 (one month before the vote).

It was too late to change the ballots, so DeLuca’s name was still listed when the election took place.

Pennsylvania will now hold a special election to replace the deceased man that more than 85% of the people voted for.

(Note: Concerning corruption in the election: a Rasmussen survey on Nov. 8-9, 2022, found that 30% of likely voters believed that cheating was “very likely,” and 27% believed it was “likely.”)

(Note: Following the collapse of Crypto Exchange FTX, there have been reports that the head of the company gave more than $38 million of stolen money to Democrats to help them win the mid-term elections, and we may never know the truth, but one report said he was running a gigantic slush fund that was funneling money that was appropriated for Ukraine to selected Democrats.)

(My opinion: Those who do not believe there is corruption in the elections probably believe our border with Mexico is secure, we don’t have a drug problem, inflation is under control, Hunter’s laptop was disinformation, men can get pregnant, our border patrol agents beat immigrants with the reins of their horses, etc. Sadly, it looks like a strong delusion has come upon America.)

Six, concerning COP27: a reader asked this question, “I would like to know what that means to you in the prophecy world?”

Here is my slightly altered answer:

  • In essence, globalists are worshipping Mother Earth, the creation instead of the Creator (they are transforming climate change into a religion).
  • Globalists are replacing God’s Ten Commandments with ten commandments that have nothing to do with God. [Bold emphasis Blog Editor’s]
  • They are seeking to make their commandments global law, and that would empower them to persecute those that do not keep those global laws.
  • Attacking the Ten Commandments is an attack on Christians and Jews.
  • Globalists are replacing the Commandments written by the finger of God on stone tablets with commandments written by humans or a machine on paper.
  • The world religion is shaping up at the same time that globalists are working to establish a world government and world economic system.
  • All of this means the Rapture is close.

Seven, in a Nov. 12, 2022, American Thinker article, author Eric Utter reported that the UN and World Economic Forum (WEF) are working together on ways to dramatically reduce the population of the earth as part of the Great Reset.

Notice that Utter said “reduce” the population of the earth, not “maintain” the population of the earth.

According to Utter, the goal is to reduce the population of the earth by 50% or more by 2050.

Utter asks, “Who gets to decide which humans are expendable, unneeded?”

Eight, concerning a population reduction on earth: on Nov. 14, 2022, it was reported that the Australian government is now saying the danger of vaccinated males age 16-40 getting myocarditis (an infection in the heart that hinders the heart’s ability to pump blood) may be greater than the danger of getting Covid.

According to the report, citizens were told the Covid shots are safe, but they are not.

From now on, the Australian government will advise citizens under thirty not to take the fourth shot.

(More: On Nov. 15, 2022, it was reported that Covid vaccinations have caused an increase of death in all age groups by almost 300,000 people in the 27-nation EU during the first 44 weeks of 2022. [Bold Emphasis Blog Editor’s])

Nine, concerning the Battle of Gog and Magog: it is being reported that Russia has lost more than 100,000 troops and many weapons in its war against Ukraine.

This is terrible for the Russian troops and their families, and God can destroy Russia’s military no matter how many troops and weapons they have, but He may be weakening the Russian military before it attacks Israel.

Finally, are you Rapture Ready?

If you want to be rapture ready and go to heaven, you must be born again (John 3:3). God loves you, and if you have not done so, sincerely admit that you are a sinner; believe that Jesus is the virgin-born, sinless Son of God who died for the sins of the world, was buried, and raised from the dead; ask Him to forgive your sins, cleanse you, come into your heart and be your Saviour; then tell someone that you have done this.

duck_daymond@yahoo.com

© 2022 Rapture Ready – Gauging the End Times & Pre-Trib Rapture. All rights reserved.

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Gates of Hell Prophecy

By Terry James

November 21, 2022

Prophecy Line

Often we overlook much prophetic truth when we read and study God’s Word. The Bible is without limits in its rich wisdom available to be mined. The Creator’s purpose in giving His Word to the human race is to provide direction for living in the most abundant way possible.

Jesus Christ is that Word. The last book of the Bible—Revelation—is the unveiling of Jesus in all His power, glory and majesty.

Prophecy—telling of the future—resides at the heart of that Word. The promises issued from the holy pages guarantee eternal life for each person ever to be born who genuinely accepts God’s grace-given redemption from sin through belief in Christ’s death, burial, and resurrection.

Jesus Christ is the Second Person of the Godhead, whom God the Father sees as the nucleus around which all things hold together:

“For by him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers: all things were created by him, and for him: And he is before all things, and by him all things consist.” (Colossians 1:16–17)

So, with it established that the Lord Jesus is preeminent in all things, we come back to the opening statement to add that one truth we often overlook deals most directly with the next prophecy to be fulfilled—the Rapture of the church.

Jesus spoke about this commentary’s primary topic—the gates of Hell. Although the disciples He was speaking to really had no concept of what He was referring to, the prophecy and its details have been coming to pass ever since—and are now set for fulfillment.

“He saith unto them, But whom say ye that I am? And Simon Peter answered and said, Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God. And Jesus answered and said unto him, Blessed art thou, Simon Barjona: for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven. And I say also unto thee, That thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.” (Matthew 16:15–18)

They didn’t understand the concept of “the church;” at that point they were totally ignorant of that “structure” Jesus prophesied to be built. But built it was, and it is still under construction as each person who comes to salvation is added.

The specific part of this prophecy I want to look at in perhaps a new way is wrapped within the phrases “my church,” “the gates of hell,” and “shall not prevail against it.”

My study of how God deals with people–including believers—in different dispensations leads me to conclude that there are entirely different fates awaiting believers in Christ. And I’m talking about physical fate, not spiritual/eternal fate.

In terms of eternal fate, the gates of hell cannot and will not prevail or win against any believer in Jesus Christ. All believers, of every dispensation, will enjoy the bliss and exultation of Heaven forever. But in terms of physical fate, believers are prophetically scheduled to meet differing destinies.

Here is something we’ve looked at before, but still is not the primary point I wish to address.

Jesus said in Matthew 16, as we’ve read above, that He will build His church and the gates of hell will not prevail against it. That has turned out to be the dispensation we call the Church Age. This began at Pentecost, as recorded in Acts chapter 2, when the Holy Spirit came to indwell believers. (I’m aware there are those who believe the church began along the shores of Galilee when Jesus began His ministry.)

On the other hand, the same Jesus, in His ascended form, gave the following prophecy to John to write in the Revelation.

“And it was given unto him to make war with the saints, and to overcome them: and power was given him over all kindreds, and tongues, and nations.” (Revelation 13:7)   

So it is plain that in the physical sense, Satan (his Antichrist) will overcome—prevail against—the saints (believers in Christ). But the gates of hell, referring to Satan’s evil domain, will not prevail over the church. The devil will never be able to physically or spiritually totally overcome or destroy Christ’s Bride, the church.

Now to get to that nuance of examination I hope will help make clear just how important this promise to the church—all believers of the Church Age—really is.

My friend Jonathan Cahn, in his most recent book, The Return of the Gods, points to the spiritually and even physically observable reality that portals of the demonic sort have been somewhat opened in these obviously manifest times of insane, anti-god activity. We’ve examined many of the bizarre manifestations over and over in these columns, but I will only repeat that it looks like God is in the process of turning rebellious human beings over to a reprobate mindset—to demented, upside-down thinking, as Paul prophesied in Romans chapter 1:

I’m in agreement with Jonathan. And I believe these portals equate to Jesus’ reference to the gates of Hell.Those gatesare opening wider by the day, it seems. The demonic minions from those portals, as well as the human minions that are anti-God, intend to completely erase all vestiges of the true Christian church from the planet.

That will never happen. The very God who created all that exists has said so: “The gates of hell shall not prevail against it”—the church Jesus Christ is still building.

I’m convinced that the moment the Restrainer (the Holy Spirit) lifts His hand of restraint against these hellish forces, all believers will go to the Lord Jesus when He says: “Come up hither!” (Revelation 4:1).

The church cannot and will not be on planet earth when those gates of Hellare fully opened and allowed to overcome the saints of the Tribulation era (those saved following the Rapture). We have Christ’s Word on that wonderful promise.

With all the wickedness deluging this time on earth, the end is about to come like a flood (Daniel 9:26). The gates of hellwill soon swing fully open, bringing the most horrible, deadliest time of human history, according to the Lord (Matthew 24:21).

But you and I, if we know Christ for salvation, don’t have to worry for a second about being here to face that time. Jesus said He will keep us out of that hour of horror (Revelation 3: 10). To be sure you are a part of the church that will be taken out before that Tribulation era begins, follow Paul’s Holy Spirit-given instructions.

That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation. (Romans 10:9–10) [Bold Emphasis Blog Editor’s]

TERRY JAMES PROPHECY LINE HOMEPAGE

Resist 21st Century Antisemitism


John R. Houk

© November 5, 2022

I hope people have noticed Antisemitism has returned on levels that undoubtedly would have pleased Nazi in the 1930s and 1940s. Sad thing about the current Antisemitic infection is that Jews worldwide have embraced Leftist Thought and godless contradicting-Bible morals. In essence, a Leftist Jew still proud of their Judaic heritage has abandoned much of the God-given Covenant that has made the 12-Tribes of Israel the Chosen People.

Hence the 21st century emerging Antisemitism is largely based on Marxist/Socialist embraced ideology and societal-transforming constructs. For Conservative-Patriots observing American Jews embracing the Dem-Marxist Party, one passionately desires to criticize.

The Problem: No matter how one tries to justify a new found Antisemitism, the Bible is still Clear. Jews who keep and practice their Torah (1st five books of Old Testament) Covenant are the apple of God’s Eye and are the primary receivers of Promise: a People Chosen and a People Promised specific geographic land.

A constant problem plaguing the descendants of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob has been the issue of Covenant-keeping. When the Hebrew Leadership inspired the people to Keep Covenant, the Hebrew People are receivers of God’s Promises. When the Hebrew Leadership inspires Covenant-abandonment, the Hebrew People experience promised curses primarily because disobedience withdraws God’s protection. Today the Gentile (non-Jewish) world view the Hebrew Tribes as Jews, largely as the result of the curse: The last independent Israeli Kingdom of the Davidic line was the Tribe of Judah (the Kingdom of Judah consisted of larger Tribe-Judah and much smaller Tribe-Benjamin). The last Kings of Judah were not Covenant-Keepers which resulted in the Babylonian Captivity. When Persia conquered Babylon, the Persian emperor allowed Judah-Captives (who chose to) to return to their homeland. From “Judah” is where the designation “Jew” come from.

Understanding the ebb and flow of blessings and cursing is recorded in the lengthy Chapter 28 of Deuteronomy (NKJV):

Blessings and Cursings

Blessings on Obedience

28 1“Now it shall come to pass, if you diligently obey the voice of the Lord your God, to observe carefully all His commandments which I command you today, that the Lord your God will set you high above all nations of the earth. 2 And all these blessings shall come upon you and overtake you, because you obey the voice of the Lord your God:

3 “Blessed shall you be in the city, and blessed shall you be in the country.

4 “Blessed shall be the [a]fruit of your body, the produce of your ground and the increase of your herds, the increase of your cattle and the offspring of your flocks.

5 “Blessed shall be your basket and your kneading bowl.

6 “Blessed shall you be when you come in, and blessed shall you be when you go out.

7 “The Lord will cause your enemies who rise against you to be defeated before your face; they shall come out against you one way and flee before you seven ways.

8 “The Lord will command the blessing on you in your storehouses and in all to which you set your hand, and He will bless you in the land which the Lord your God is giving you.

9 “The Lord will establish you as a holy people to Himself, just as He has sworn to you, if you keep the commandments of the Lord your God and walk in His ways. 10 Then all peoples of the earth shall see that you are called by the name of the Lord, and they shall be afraid of you. 11 And the Lord will grant you plenty of goods, in the fruit of your body, in the increase of your livestock, and in the produce of your ground, in the land of which the Lord [b]swore to your fathers to give you. 12 The Lord will open to you His good [c]treasure, the heavens, to give the rain to your land in its season, and to bless all the work of your hand. You shall lend to many nations, but you shall not borrow. 13 And the Lord will make you the head and not the tail; you shall be above only, and not be beneath, if you [d]heed the commandments of the Lord your God, which I command you today, and are careful to observe them. 14 So you shall not turn aside from any of the words which I command you this day, to the right or the left, to go after other gods to serve them.

Curses on Disobedience

15 “But it shall come to pass, if you do not obey the voice of the Lord your God, to observe carefully all His commandments and His statutes which I command you today, that all these curses will come upon you and overtake you:

16 “Cursed shall you be in the city, and cursed shall you be in the country.

17 “Cursed shall be your basket and your kneading bowl.

18 “Cursed shall be the [e]fruit of your body and the produce of your land, the increase of your cattle and the offspring of your flocks.

19 “Cursed shall you be when you come in, and cursed shall you be when you go out.

20 “The Lord will send on you cursing, confusion, and rebuke in all that you set your hand to do, until you are destroyed and until you perish quickly, because of the wickedness of your doings in which you have forsaken Me. 21 The Lord will make the [f]plague cling to you until He has consumed you from the land which you are going to possess. 22 The Lord will strike you with consumption, with fever, with inflammation, with severe burning fever, with the sword, with scorching,[g] and with mildew; they shall pursue you until you perish. 23 And your heavens which are over your head shall be bronze, and the earth which is under you shall be iron. 24 The Lord will change the rain of your land to powder and dust; from the heaven it shall come down on you until you are destroyed.

25 “The Lord will cause you to be defeated before your enemies; you shall go out one way against them and flee seven ways before them; and you shall become [h]troublesome to all the kingdoms of the earth. 26 Your carcasses shall be food for all the birds of the air and the beasts of the earth, and no one shall frighten them away. 27 The Lord will strike you with the boils of Egypt, with tumors, with the scab, and with the itch, from which you cannot be healed. 28 The Lord will strike you with madness and blindness and confusion of heart. 29 And you shall grope at noonday, as a blind man gropes in darkness; you shall not prosper in your ways; you shall be only oppressed and plundered continually, and no one shall save you.

30 “You shall betroth a wife, but another man shall lie with her; you shall build a house, but you shall not dwell in it; you shall plant a vineyard, but shall not gather its grapes. 31 Your ox shall be slaughtered before your eyes, but you shall not eat of it; your donkey shall be violently taken away from before you, and shall not be restored to you; your sheep shall be given to your enemies, and you shall have no one to rescue them. 32 Your sons and your daughters shall be given to another people, and your eyes shall look and fail with longing for them all day long; and there shall be [i]no strength in your hand. 33 A nation whom you have not known shall eat the fruit of your land and the produce of your labor, and you shall be only oppressed and crushed continually. 34 So you shall be driven mad because of the sight which your eyes see. 35 The Lord will strike you in the knees and on the legs with severe boils which cannot be healed, and from the sole of your foot to the top of your head.

36 “The Lord will bring you and the king whom you set over you to a nation which neither you nor your fathers have known, and there you shall serve other gods—wood and stone. 37 And you shall become an[j] astonishment, a proverb, and a byword among all nations where the Lord will drive you.

38 “You shall carry much seed out to the field but gather little in, for the locust shall [k]consume it. 39 You shall plant vineyards and tend them, but you shall neither drink of the wine nor gather the grapes; for the worms shall eat them. 40 You shall have olive trees throughout all your territory, but you shall not anoint yourself with the oil; for your olives shall drop off. 41 You shall beget sons and daughters, but they shall not be yours; for they shall go into captivity. 42 Locusts shall [l]consume all your trees and the produce of your land.

43 “The alien who is among you shall rise higher and higher above you, and you shall come down lower and lower. 44 He shall lend to you, but you shall not lend to him; he shall be the head, and you shall be the tail.

45 “Moreover all these curses shall come upon you and pursue and overtake you, until you are destroyed, because you [m]did not obey the voice of the Lord your God, to keep His commandments and His statutes which He commanded you. 46 And they shall be upon you for a sign and a wonder, and on your descendants forever.

47 “Because you did not serve the Lord your God with joy and gladness of heart, for the abundance of everything, 48 therefore you shall serve your enemies, whom the Lord will send against you, in hunger, in thirst, in nakedness, and in need of everything; and He will put a yoke of iron on your neck until He has destroyed you. 49 The Lord will bring a nation against you from afar, from the end of the earth, as swift as the eagle flies, a nation whose language you will not understand, 50 a nation of fierce countenance, which does not respect the elderly nor show favor to the young. 51 And they shall eat the increase of your livestock and the produce of your land, until you are destroyed; they shall not leave you grain or new wine or oil, or the increase of your cattle or the offspring of your flocks, until they have destroyed you.

52 “They shall besiege you at all your gates until your high and fortified walls, in which you trust, come down throughout all your land; and they shall besiege you at all your gates throughout all your land which the Lord your God has given you. 53 You shall eat the [n]fruit of your own body, the flesh of your sons and your daughters whom the Lord your God has given you, in the siege and desperate straits in which your enemy shall distress you. 54 The [o]sensitive and very refined man among you will[p] be hostile toward his brother, toward the wife of his bosom, and toward the rest of his children whom he leaves behind, 55 so that he will not give any of them the flesh of his children whom he will eat, because he has nothing left in the siege and desperate straits in which your enemy shall distress you at all your gates. 56 The [q]tender and [r]delicate woman among you, who would not venture to set the sole of her foot on the ground because of her delicateness and sensitivity, [s]will refuse to the husband of her bosom, and to her son and her daughter, 57 her [t]placenta which comes out from between her feet and her children whom she bears; for she will eat them secretly for lack of everything in the siege and desperate straits in which your enemy shall distress you at all your gates.

58 “If you do not carefully observe all the words of this law that are written in this book, that you may fear this glorious and awesome name, THE LORD YOUR GOD, 59 then the Lord will bring upon you and your descendants extraordinary plagues—great and prolonged plagues—and serious and prolonged sicknesses. 60 Moreover He will bring back on you all the diseases of Egypt, of which you were afraid, and they shall cling to you. 61 Also every sickness and every plague, which is not written in this Book of the Law, will the Lord bring upon you until you are destroyed. 62 You shall be left few in number, whereas you were as the stars of heaven in multitude, because you would not obey the voice of the Lord your God. 63 And it shall be, that just as the Lord rejoiced over you to do you good and multiply you, so the Lord will rejoice over you to destroy you and bring you to nothing; and you shall be plucked[u] from off the land which you go to possess.

64 “Then the Lord will scatter you among all peoples, from one end of the earth to the other, and there you shall serve other gods, which neither you nor your fathers have known—wood and stone. 65 And among those nations you shall find no rest, nor shall the sole of your foot have a resting place; but there the Lord will give you a [v]trembling heart, failing eyes, and anguish of soul. 66 Your life shall hang in doubt before you; you shall fear day and night, and have no assurance of life. 67 In the morning you shall say, ‘Oh, that it were evening!’ And at evening you shall say, ‘Oh, that it were morning!’ because of the fear which terrifies your heart, and because of the sight which your eyes see.

68 “And the Lord will take you back to Egypt in ships, by the way of which I said to you, ‘You shall never see it again.’ And there you shall be offered for sale to your enemies as male and female slaves, but no one will buy you.”

Footnotes

a. Deuteronomy 28:4 offspring

b. Deuteronomy 28:11 promised

c. Deuteronomy 28:12 storehouse

d. Deuteronomy 28:13 listen to

e. Deuteronomy 28:18 offspring

f. Deuteronomy 28:21 pestilence

g. Deuteronomy 28:22 blight

h. Deuteronomy 28:25 a terror

i. Deuteronomy 28:32 nothing you can do

j. Deuteronomy 28:37 a thing of horror

k. Deuteronomy 28:38 devour

l. Deuteronomy 28:42 possess

m. Deuteronomy 28:45 did not listen to

n. Deuteronomy 28:53 offspring

o. Deuteronomy 28:54 Lit. tender

p. Deuteronomy 28:54 Lit. his eye shall be evil toward

q. Deuteronomy 28:56 sensitive

r. Deuteronomy 28:56 refined

s. Deuteronomy 28:56 Lit. her eye shall be evil toward

t. Deuteronomy 28:57 afterbirth

u. Deuteronomy 28:63 torn

v. Deuteronomy 28:65 anxious

Note the curses of disobedience are more numerous.

Christian Antisemites are typically quick to point out that Jewish disobedience has led to some kind of transference of Blessings permanently removed from Jews and given to Christians. UNFORTUNATELY for Christian Antisemites the New Testament (the Covenant presented after the Resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ) CLEARLY is to the Jew First and the engrafted Gentile Second. Which has nothing to do with the primacy of one group over the other but more a bringing of those without Covenants and Promises (i.e., Gentiles) onboard with the original Chosen People. MEANING not a replacement but an addition.

CONSIDER Romans 1: 16-17; 2: 5, 7-11 (NKJV):

1 16 For I am not ashamed of the gospel [a]of Christ, for it is the power of God to salvation for everyone who believes, for the Jew first and also for the Greek. 17 For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith; as it is written, “The just shall live by faith.”

Footnotes

a. Romans 1:16 NU omits of Christ

2 5 But in accordance with your hardness and your [a]impenitent heart you are [b]treasuring up for yourself wrath in the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God,

Footnotes

a. Romans 2:5 unrepentant

b. Romans 2:5 storing

7 eternal life to those who by patient continuance in doing good seek for glory, honor, and immortality; 8 but to those who are self-seeking and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness—indignation and wrath, 9 tribulation and anguish, on every soul of man who does evil, of the Jew first and also of the [a]Greek; 10 but glory, honor, and peace to everyone who works what is good, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. 11 For there is no partiality with God.

Footnote

a. Romans 2:9 Gentile

AND just to be there is no primacy of position but just honor of first selected and second added yet BOTH one in the /risen Savior Jesus – Ephesians 2: 11-22 (NKJV):

2 11 Therefore remember that you, once Gentiles in the flesh—who are called Uncircumcision by what is called the Circumcision made in the flesh by hands— 12 that at that time you were without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. 13 But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ.

14 For He Himself is our peace, who has made both one, and has broken down the middle wall of separation, 15 having abolished in His flesh the enmity, that is, the law of commandments contained in ordinances, so as to create in Himself one new man from the two, thus making peace, 16 and that He might reconcile them both to God in one body through the cross, thereby putting to death the enmity. 17 And He came and preached peace to you who were afar off and to those who were near. 18 For through Him we both have access by one Spirit to the Father.

19 Now, therefore, you are no longer strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, 20 having been built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ Himself being the chief cornerstone, 21 in whom the whole building, being fitted together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord, 22 in whom you also are being built together for a dwelling place of God in the Spirit.

If there was ever good evidence to point to reasons for Jews to NOT trust Christians sharing and/or evangelizing the Good News of Salvation and Redemption by the Blood of the Risen Messiah Jesus the Son of God, it is the way too often violent Christian Antisemitism over thousands of historical years through unscriptural blood libel blaming such as Christ-Killing and just poisonous lies such the blood sacrifice of Christian Children (Too many Christians support unborn baby murder via abortion as if a woman’s authority over her body extends to a God-created little life awaiting to be born).

YUP, I condemn Antisemitism in any form it manifests: an atheist Antisemite, a Christian Antisemite, a Muslim Antisemite or whatever kind of Antisemite I cannot think of.

It’s been quite some time since I have taken a journey to attack the idiocy of Antisemitism. But as I alluded earlier in this post, a large segment of Jews have placed a target on their own back by embracing the God-hating ideology of Leftist. Anything Leftist (it really doesn’t matter the degree of Marxism – which is atheistic by nature – or the variation of Socialism – which either dilutes God’s Word or degenerates God’s Word to myth eliminating Divinity) removes the efficacy of God’s Covenant. Frankly, that includes self-proclaimed Christians who do the very same thing Leftist Jews do. But that is another train of thought.

You might be interested why I decided to rail against Antisemitism. Although it happened a few days ago, I discovered Benjamin Netanyahu has again fought off the Jewish Left in Israel and has won the role of Prime Minister in Israel. Netanyahu is adding more time as the already longest serving Prime Minister in modern Israel history.

For American Patriots disgusted about the constant lies and false accusations leveled against legitimate President Trump – INCLUDING AN ELECTION COUP 2020, Benjamin Netanyahu lost his last term as Prime Minister via the same of Leftist vitriol Trump endured.

Sara & Benjamin Netanyahu November 2022

If Netanyahu can overcome his Leftist Covenant-breaking countrymen, perhaps Donald J. Trump will rise again to spank American Leftists are either witting or unwitting God-haters.

JRH 11/5/22

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Benny Gantz and the pyromaniacal cockpit


It is apparent to me – an American – that Israel’s Left have become stupendous understudies of America’s Left. As America’s Left (Dem-Marxists) have developed Trump Derangement Syndrome to keep transforming America, so has Israel’s Left developed Netanyahu Derangement Syndrome that could very likely lead to the destruction of Jews in Israel to bow down to Jew-hating Muslim pseudo-Palestinians. Caroline Glick has the write-up.

 

JRH 3/22/20

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***************************

Benny Gantz and the pyromaniacal cockpit

 

Cockpit Gantz Coalition

 

By Caroline B. Glick

03/22/2020

CarolineGlick.com

Originally Israel Hayom

 

If Blue and White Party leader MK Benny Gantz forms a minority government with Avigdor Liberman’s Israel Beitenu Party and the Labor-Meretz party, based on the outside support of the Joint Arab List, Gantz’s success will torpedo Israel’s relations with the United States.

 

This week, a senior official who was present during Gantz’s meeting with U.S. President Donald Trump in late January revealed: “Gantz committed in the Oval Office that, if he became prime minister, he would form a government of people that would support the president’s peace deal.”

 

The Trump peace plan includes applying Israeli sovereignty to the Jordan Valley and the Israeli communities in Judea and Samaria. Labor-Meretz and the Joint Arab List are both violently opposed to the Trump plan. A Gantz government that includes them will be a government that is hostile to the Trump plan.

 

The only way for Gantz to keep the promise he made to Trump is to join a coalition government led by Netanyahu with Likud and its right-religious coalition partners. And that is an option that Gantz and his partners in the Blue and White “cockpit” – fellow former IDF chiefs of General Staff Moshe Yaalon and Gadi Ashkenazy and former media star Yair Lapid – will not support.

 

They are working feverishly to cobble together a radical government with the post-Zionists in Labor-Meretz and the anti-Zionists in the Joint Arab List. All of which will be hard-pressed to work with the Trump administration.

 

How can Trump or his administration trust a man who flat out lied to the President in the Oval Office?

 

What can explain Gantz’s irresponsible behavior?

 

Did he lie to Trump – and the Israeli public – because he and his colleagues are secretly radical leftists who seek power to undermine everything Israel stands for? They wouldn’t be the first leftist politicians to do so.

 

In 1999, their commander, former IDF chief of General Staff Ehud Barak ran against Netanyahu by presenting himself as ideologically indistinguishable from him. Barak insisted that he would implement Netanyahu’s center-right policies, but that he would do so with the support of the media and the leftist elite.

 

The public bought his act. Barak – the centrist – defeated Netanyahu and Barak – the leftist – offered PLO chief Yasser Arafat Judea, Samaria, Gaza, and the Temple Mount as well as the Golan Heights to Syrian dictator Hafez Assad.

 

Israel is a center-right country. Barak understood the only way for a leftist to win an election in Israel is to pretend to be a center-rightist.

 

Gantz’s willingness to effectively surrender Israel’s rights in Judea and Samaria to win the parliamentary support of politicians that seek Israel’s destruction as a Jewish state – shared by his partners in the Blue and White leadership – seems to indicate that they are rabid post-Zionists. But a brief consideration of their other positions and actions suggests that something else is motivating them.

 

Gantz and his colleagues present themselves as champions of the rule of law and democracy, which they insist, Netanyahu is destroying.

 

But consider their actions: Presently, Blue and White is viciously attacking Knesset Speaker Yuli Edelstein for refusing to convene the Knesset’s Arrangements Committee, which is responsible for convening the rest of the Knesset committees. They insist that in acting as he is, Edelstein is colluding with Netanyahu to destroy Israeli democracy. But as Simcha Rothman, from the Movement for Governability and Democracy, explained in Israel Hayom Thursday, it is Blue and White that is blocking the Arrangements Committee from convening.

 

The Knesset rules provide that membership in the committee is determined by the size of each party. The parties in the Knesset receive one member in the committee for every four members in their Knesset faction. Under the prevailing rules, the blocs working with Netanyahu and Gantz would have equal representation in the committee.

 

Blue and White wants to break the rules in order to receive a majority of Arrangement Committee members. Edelstein insists on following the rules.

 

Why are Gantz and his colleagues fighting so hard to break the rules? Because they need a majority on the committee in order to have the procedural power to pass laws that will undermine Israeli democracy and the rule of law.

 

Blue and White and Israel Beitenu have submitted bills explicitly directed towards achieving one goal: Preventing Netanyahu – and only Netanyahu – from forming a government. These bills, if passed, would overturn Israel’s rule of law twice.

 

First, they are personal legislation – directed at Netanyahu alone. Personal laws are a concept antithetical to the rule of law and liberty. They open the door for full-scale repression and authoritarianism.

 

Second, if they succeed in passing their anti-Bibi laws, they will retroactively nullify the votes of 2.5 million Israelis who voted for parties that want Netanyahu to remain in office.

 

Blue and White wages its war against parliamentary rules to pass vindictive, anti-democratic laws at a time where Israel is facing the gravest health and economic crisis it has ever confronted.

 

The Wuhan coronavirus epidemic presents Israel with a choice between terrible and terrifying options.

 

Tuesday, Netanyahu announced that in a bid to lower the infection rate, Israelis should stay home and only go out to buy food and medicine and other critical activities. Schools are closed. Most government offices are closed. Businesses are closed. The only people still working are the ones who can work from home.

 

Netanyahu and his colleagues in the government enacted this policy with the understanding that, if forced to treat thousands of coronavirus patients at once, the health system will collapse. Everything must be done to slow the infection rate.

 

But the quarantine strategy holds its own terrible risks. Israel can handle an economic shutdown for a few weeks. If the current situation goes on for months, the economy will collapse and bring the health system with it. Hundreds of thousands of Israelis are being laid off. They will not be paying taxes. Without taxes, the government will be unable to maintain the health system or any other system for that matter.

 

What can be done? It appears that the only way to suspend the quarantine and so salvage the economy is by conducting universal coronavirus testing. Only universal testing can limit the quarantine to people who need to be isolated and enable the restoration of economic activity.

 

How quickly can Israel achieve the capacity to undertake such a program? What would it involve?

 

What other options are available?

 

Netanyahu, his ministers, the Health and Treasury Ministry officials and the National Security Council members have been working around the clock to try to come up with solutions.

 

Where are Gantz and his partners – Lapid, Yaalon and Ashkenazy – in their brandishing “cockpit” on these issues?

 

Blue and White has offered no recommendations for fighting the epidemic. Although Tuesday night, Gantz was nice enough to retweet Netanyahu’s warning to the public to stay home. His partners Yaalon and Lapid were not so disposed.

 

Instead, the two would-be national leaders belittled the threat – each in his own way – and insinuated that Netanyahu is colluding with the Coronavirus to destroy Israeli democracy.

 

Yaalon tweeted that Netanyahu is using the Coronavirus to avoid his criminal trial and destroy the Knesset. He later threatened Likud parliamentarians with legal probes for supporting Netanyahu’s efforts.

 

In a Facebook chat, Lapid insinuated that Netanyahu’s move to quarantine the public was unlawful and self-serving. In short, that Netanyahu isn’t interested in protecting the public from mass death. All he cares about is staying in power.

 

Blue and White has offered no solution on how to save the economy from collapse. But they can be counted on to blame Netanyahu for the high unemployment rates and negative economic growth if Israel finds itself in a fourth election.

 

Yaalon, who seeks to serve as Education Minister, has offered no suggestions for how to educate the 1.3 million schoolchildren who are at home with parents trying to keep up with their own work while homeschooling their children.

 

Then there is Iran. As the coronavirus rages through Iran, experts warn that the risk of an Iranian strike against Israel rises with the death toll. The theology of Iran’s ruling clerics holds that the Shite messiah, the Mahdi, is supposed to return at the end of days. To hasten his arrival, Iran’s ayatollahs believe that they need to start Armageddon.

 

Do the three former IDF chiefs at the helm of Blue and White have any concern over this? Do they have any suggestions for how to handle the threat as Iranians dig more and more mass graves for coronavirus victims?

 

Which brings us back to Washington: Three weeks ago, I traveled to Washington to speak on a panel at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) – the largest conservative gathering in America. Most of the discussions were related to U.S. domestic issues. But Israel is so important to conservatives that organizers chose to hold a panel devoted to Israeli sovereignty in Judea and Samaria.

 

There were no calls for the partition of Jerusalem and the expulsion of Jews from Judea and Samaria either on the panel or from the audience. On the contrary, the sentiment shared by the audience and the panelists alike was that Israel should assert its sovereign rights in Judea and Samaria wherever it deems necessary.

 

This salutary state of affairs will be turned on its head if the Democrats win the presidency in November. In that event, Israel will find itself under assault from a hostile president who heads a party hostile to Israel. How would a Blue and White government handle such a challenge? Dependent on the Joint Arab List – which openly seeks Israel’s destruction as a Jewish state – for its survival, there can be little doubt that Blue and White would surrender to even the slightest pressure emanating from Washington.

 

Gantz, Lapid, Yaalon and Ashkenazy are not ideologues  – unless detesting Netanyahu with the single-minded venom of a rabid dog is an ideology. They accuse Netanyahu of caring only for himself and pledge to put the country first. But we see that, as Netanyahu labors to save the country from medical and economic collapse, all they can think about is destroying him. Even at the expense of torching Israel’s relations with the U.S., endangering the lives and financial stability of its citizens, and disregarding strategic threats and opportunities. They accuse Netanyahu of destroying democracy as they contemptuously ignore Knesset rules in order to pass laws that would nullify both the rule of law and the votes of 2.5 million citizens.

 

So no, Gantz and his colleagues aren’t ideologues.

 

They are pyromaniacs.

 

Originally published in Israel Hayom.

++++++++++++++++++

BLOG EDITOR (In Fascistbook jail since 1/20/20): I’ve apparently been placed in restricted Facebook Jail! The restriction was relegated after criticizing Democrats for supporting abortion in one post and criticizing Virginia Dems for gun-grabbing legislation and levying protester restrictions. Rather than capitulate to Facebook censorship by abandoning the platform, I choose to post and share until the Leftist censors ban me completely. Conservatives are a huge portion of Facebook. If more or all Conservatives are banned, it will affect the Facebook advertising revenue paradigm. SO FIGHT CENSORSHIP BY SHARE – SHARE – SHARE!!! Facebook notified me in pop-up on 1/20/20: “You’re temporarily restricted from joining and posting to groups that you do not manage until April 18 at 7:04 PM.”

__________________________

© 2013 All Rights Reserved to Caroline Glick

 

About Caroline B. Glick

 

Caroline B. Glick is a senior columnist at Breitbart News and the senior contributing and chief columnist for The Jerusalem Post. She is also a senior columnist for Maariv. She is the author of The Israeli Solution: A One State Plan for Peace in the Middle East, (Crown 2014) and of Shackled Warrior: Israel and the Global Jihad (Gefen 2008). The Israeli Solution was endorsed by leading US policymakers including Vice President Mike Pence, Senator Ted Cruz and National Security Advisor John Bolton. Shackled Warrior was endorsed by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former CIA director James Woolsey.

 

Glick is the adjunct senior fellow for Middle Eastern Affairs at the Center for Security Policy in Washington, DC and directs the Israeli Security Project at the David Horowitz Freedom Center. She travels frequently throughout the world to brief policymakers on issues related to Israel’s strategic environment and other related topics. She lectures widely on strategic and political issues affecting global security, Israel and the Jewish people, US-Israel relations, Israel-Diaspora affairs and Israel’s changing strategic landscape.

 

In 2008 Glick founded Latma, the Hebrew language satirical media criticism website. She served as editor in chief of the site until it ceased operations in 2015.

 

Latma changed the face of Israel’s social media and revolutionized the Israeli entertainment industry by bringing an alternative voice to the popular culture. Latma launched “Hakol Shafit,” a primetime, half hour satirical newscast on Israel television Channel 1. Glick served as the editor in chief of the program.

 

Glick was born in Houston, TX and grew up in Chicago, IL. She moved to Israel in 1991, two weeks after receiving her BA in Political Science from Columbia University. She joined the Israel Defense Forces that summer and served as an officer for five and a half years.

 

From 1994-1996, as an IDF captain, Ms. Glick served in the Defense Ministry as a core member of Israel’s negotiating team with the Palestinians.

 

In 1997 and 1998 Ms. Glick served as Assistant Foreign Policy Advisor to Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu.

 

From 1998-2000 Ms. Glick studied at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government and received a Master’s in Public Policy in June 2000.

 

In the summer of 2000 Ms. Glick returned to Israel and … READ MORE

 

Netanyahu-Likud Solid Election Win


Even as Israel’s Left tries to take down Prime Minister Netanyahu with Trump-like fake crimes, Israel’s voters make the third time a charm giving Netanyahu a Parliamentary Conservative bloc to form a majority government.

 

Below are two news briefs on the Netanyahu-Likud election victory I found from Breaking Christian News (BCN) and World Israel News (WIN).

 

JRH 3/4/20

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BLOG EDITOR (In Fascistbook jail since 1/20/20): I’ve apparently been placed in restricted Facebook Jail! The restriction was relegated after criticizing Democrats for supporting abortion in one post and criticizing Virginia Dems for gun-grabbing legislation and levying protester restrictions. Rather than capitulate to Facebook censorship by abandoning the platform, I choose to post and share until the Leftist censors ban me completely. Conservatives are a huge portion of Facebook. If more or all Conservatives are banned, it will affect the Facebook advertising revenue paradigm. SO FIGHT CENSORSHIP BY SHARE – SHARE – SHARE!!! Facebook notified me in pop-up on 1/20/20: “You’re temporarily restricted from joining and posting to groups that you do not manage until April 18 at 7:04 PM.”

*************************

‘This Was a Great Victory’: Netanyahu Promises ‘Strong, Stable Government,’ Vows to ‘Heal the Rifts’

 

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his wife, Sara, address their supporters on Israeli election night at Likud Party headquarters in Tel Aviv, March 3, 2020. Photo by Olivier Fitoussi/Flash90.

 

Posted by BCN News Staff

Picked up from JNS.org

Mar 3, 2020

Breaking Christian News

 

“I intend to be the prime minister of every citizen of Israel, every right-wing voter, left-wing voter, Jews and non-Jews, every sector and every gender.” -PM Benjamin Netanyahu

 

[JNS.org] In his address to supporters, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu hailed the initial results from Monday’s election, the results of which are poised to make the Likud Party the largest in the next Knesset and on the cusp of forming a new government. (Image: Olivier Fitoussi-Flash90 /via JNS)

 

“Tomorrow, after we’ve got some sleep, we will meet [with right-wing leaders] to form a strong, stable government, a good national government for Israel,” Netanyahu said to supporters at the Expo Tel Aviv, which served as the party’s election headquarters.

 

“This was a great victory for the right-wing camp, and first and foremost a victory for us Likudnikim,” he said following the third round of elections within the course of a year.

 

Vowing to avoid any more elections, he said that it is “time to heal the rifts.”

 

“I intend to be the prime minister of every citizen of Israel, every right-wing voter, left-wing voter, Jews and non-Jews, every sector and every gender,” he insisted.

 

Meanwhile, Blue and White Party leader Benny Gantz expressed his disappointment with the results to his supporters.

 

“I share your feelings of disappointment and pain,” he said at his party’s election headquarters in Tel Aviv, adding that he hoped for a “different result.”

 

Updated exit polls reduced Netanyahu’s right-wing bloc from 60 seats to 59, while giving Gantz’s left-wing and Arab party bloc 55 seats. Nevertheless, Netanyahu’s Likud remained firmly in the lead with 36 to 37 seats to Blue and White’s 32 to 33 seats, and close to being able to form a 61-seat coalition government.

 

[Reprinted with permission from JNS.org (to BCN)]

++++++++++++++++

Netanyahu: ‘They eulogized us – this is the biggest win of my life’

 

PM Benjamin Netanyahu addresses supporters on the night of the Israeli elections, at party headquarters in Tel Aviv, March 3, 2020. (Olivier Fitoussi/Flash90)

 

By World Israel News Staff

March 3, 2020

World Israel News

 

“The victory is even sweeter, because it was against all odds,” he [PM Netanyahu] said.

 

Calling it “the biggest win of my life,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addressed a raucus crowd of the faithful at Likud election headquarters in Tel Aviv in a speech that began after 2:00 a.m. on Tuesday morning.

 

“The victory is even sweeter, because it was against all odds,” he said.

 

“They already eulogized us. Our opponents said, ‘the Netanyahu era is over.’ But together we flipped the script. We turned lemons to lemonade,” the prime minister said.

 

Cheers of “Bibi, King of Israel” filled the packed hall.

 

Exit polls showed the Likud with as many as 37 seats. On Tuesday morning, with 90% of votes counted, the Likud held 36 seats to Blue and White’s 32.

 

The right-wing as a whole leads 59 seats to the center-left-Arab bloc’s 54.

 

Still in campaign mode, Netanyahu said on Monday evening, “We plowed the country from north to south. There is nothing like the citizens of Israel. Israeli citizens trust us because they know that we have brought about the best decade in Israeli history.”

 

He then vowed to form a “strong, national government.”

 

“Tomorrow, after we’ve got some sleep, we will meet [with right-wing leaders] to form a strong, stable government, a good national government for Israel,” he said.

 

“This was a great victory for the right-wing camp, and first and foremost a victory for us,” he added, referring to Likud party voters.

 

Netanyahu also struck a conciliatory note, reaching out to non-Likud voters.

 

“I want to say, I intend to be the prime minister of every citizen of Israel, every right-wing voter, left-wing voter, Jews and non-Jews, every sector and every gender,” said Netanyahu.

 

“We must avoid any more elections. It’s time to heal the rifts. It’s time for reconciliation.”

++++++++++++++++++

BLOG EDITOR (In Fascistbook jail since 1/20/20): I’ve apparently been placed in restricted Facebook Jail! The restriction was relegated after criticizing Democrats for supporting abortion in one post and criticizing Virginia Dems for gun-grabbing legislation and levying protester restrictions. Rather than capitulate to Facebook censorship by abandoning the platform, I choose to post and share until the Leftist censors ban me completely. Conservatives are a huge portion of Facebook. If more or all Conservatives are banned, it will affect the Facebook advertising revenue paradigm. SO FIGHT CENSORSHIP BY SHARE – SHARE – SHARE!!! Facebook notified me in pop-up on 1/20/20: “You’re temporarily restricted from joining and posting to groups that you do not manage until April 18 at 7:04 PM.”

_________________________

‘This Was a Great Victory’: Netanyahu Promises ‘Strong, Stable Government,’ Vows to ‘Heal the Rifts’

 

All articles on this site and emails from BCN are copyrighted property of Breaking Christian News. Permission is given to link to, or share a BCN story if proper attribution is given to both the original writer and summarizer of the story. Breaking Christian News 2005-2019. All Rights Reserved.

 

Breaking Christian News is a division of Elijah List Publications, Inc. All Rights Reserved

 

Disclaimer: Articles and links, as well as the source articles linked to; do not necessarily reflect the opinion of Breaking Christian News.

editor@breakingchristiannews.com

_______________________

Netanyahu: ‘They eulogized us – this is the biggest win of my life’

 

World Israel News © Copyright 2020

 

ABOUT WIN

 

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readers with important news from Israel and around the world.

 

Our audience consists of people who are concerned about Israel and
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Intro to ‘Israeli sovereignty and the fate of the Trump plan’


Intro by John R. Houk

Title by Caroline Glick

Intro © February 7, 2020

 

The topic: the Trump Administration’s The Deal of the Century as laid out in the White House preliminary framework entitled, “Peace to Prosperity: A Vision to Improve the Lives of the Palestinian and Israeli People”.

 

For me there is no getting around the 181 page document’s declaration that a Palestinian State would have its capital city in an Eastern portion of Jerusalem. I have read advocates of the peace deal claim it will be parts of Jerusalem already dominated by Arabs. If that geographical Arab domination includes the Temple Mount those physical dimensions MUST BE rejected by Jews and Christians.

 

Jerusalem – 1948 Quarters and Divided 1949-67

 

BUT the part of the plan I am beginning to slowly inch toward maybe is the part that is driving Islamic terrorist leadership Arabs calling themselves Palestinians nuts is a significant swath of Jewish Settlement areas of Judea-Samaria (labelled the West Bank by conquering Jordanians in 1948) becoming a part of sovereign Israel which must be recognized for the plan to move forward.

 

The God Plan for Israel

 

On a personal level it is my belief for Israel is God’s plan of the Promised Land to the descendants Abraham, Isaac and Jacob/Israel. That means Arabs who refuse accept God’s plan should leave to Arab lands that practice hateful and intolerant Islam.

 

BUT I live in America and really don’t have a vote.

 

Caroline Glick tackles the duplicity of the Israeli Left which she indicates might be taking cues from the American Dem Party. If accurate, God have mercy on Israel and its probably brainwashed Left-Wing voters.

 

JRH 2/7/20

Your generosity is always appreciated – various credit, check 

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BLOG EDITOR: I’ve apparently been placed in restricted Facebook Jail! The restriction was relegated after criticizing Democrats for supporting abortion in one post and criticizing Virginia Dems for gun-grabbing legislation and levying protester restrictions. Rather than capitulate to Facebook censorship by abandoning the platform, I choose to post and share until the Leftist censors ban me completely. Conservatives are a huge portion of Facebook. If more or all Conservatives are banned, it will affect the Facebook advertising revenue paradigm. SO FIGHT CENSORSHIP BY SHARE – SHARE – SHARE!!! Facebook notified me in pop-up on 1/20/20: “You’re temporarily restricted from joining and posting to groups that you do not manage until April 18 at 7:04 PM.”

*************************

Israeli sovereignty and the fate of the Trump plan

Trump-Kushner-Bibi

 

By Caroline Glick

02/07/2020

Originally published at Israel Hayom.

CarolineGlick.com

 

On Wednesday morning, NeverTrump propagandist Bill Kristol told his MSNBC audience that Democratic chances of victory over US President Donald Trump will rise if Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is defeated in Israel’s elections on March 2.

 

Along the same lines, if Netanyahu fails to apply Israeli sovereignty to the Israeli communities in Judea and Samaria before the election, not only will he almost certainly lose those elections, his defeat will bury Trump’s peace plan and harm Trump’s reelection chances.

 

To understand why this is the case it is first necessary to understand the nature of the Blue and White party and its relationship to Trump and his peace plan.

 

After Trump’s peace plan was published, Israelis discovered significant problems with the map attached to the plan. Among other things, the map places large sections of Highway 60, which crosses Judea and Samaria from south to north outside Israeli jurisdiction. If left uncorrected, the designation will endanger the security of tens of thousands of Israelis whose communities will be rendered isolated enclaves. Since ensuring Israel’s ability to defend itself and its citizens on a permanent basis is a major goal of the plan, this omission was obviously an oversight. Netanyahu announced this week that he has assembled a team to work on the map.

 

So long as the map is not adjusted, members of Likud and other parties in the right-religious bloc Netanyahu leads will be unable to vote in favor of the plan, despite their support for Trump and for the plan overall.

 

This then brings us to Benny Gantz and his party.

 

Just before Gantz traveled to Washington to meet with Trump at the White House last Monday, it came out that his top campaign strategists, Ronen Tzur and Joel Benenson had both separately published multiple posts on Twitter viciously attacking Trump. Both men compared him to Hitler, called him a Russian agent and a racist. In other words, both men parroted Democratic talking points against Trump. (After his posts were reported, Tzur claimed that he no longer believed the things he had written.)

 

Whereas Tzur – like every garden variety Israeli leftist politico – apparently follows the Democrats on everything related to American public affairs automatically, Benenson shapes Democratic positions. Benenson served as Barack Obama’s senior political strategist in the 2008 and 2012 elections and as Hillary Clinton’s senior political strategist in 2016.

 

In 2015, Wikileaks published Clinton’s campaign manager John Podesta’s emails. Several email chains included internal campaign discussions in which Benenson participated. In two discussions, Benenson advised Clinton not to mention Israel in public events.

 

Now Benenson is directing Blue and White’s campaign, and there is little reason for surprise at the seamlessness of his move from Obama and Clinton to Gantz. The Israeli left has been intertwined with the Democratic Party.

In 2016 when Gantz was still a private citizen, he was strongly encouraged to enter the political fray by a public service company called Darcheinu, or “Our Way.”

 

Darcheinu is the successor to two organizations – V-15 and One Voice. One Voice was established in 2003 by Daniel Lubetsky, a Mexican-American Jewish businessman with close ties to the Obama administration. Lubetsky founded One Voice at the height of the Palestinian terror war to advance the establishment of a Palestinian state and an Israeli withdrawal to the 1949 armistice lines. PLO Chief and Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas’s son Yasser Mahmoud Abbas is a member of One Voice’s Trustees Advisory Council.

 

Ahead of the 2015 Knesset elections, One Voice formed V-15 as a spinoff to run a campaign to “change the government” – that is, to bring down Netanyahu. V-15’s campaign was directed by Jeremy Bird, Obama’s field director in his presidential races. It came under scrutiny from the US Senate when it was discovered that the Obama’ State Department funded its efforts.

 

Establishing a Palestinian state and fomenting an Israeli evacuation of Judea and Samaria replete with the expulsion of hundreds of thousands of Israeli Jews from their homes is a goal all three groups share with the Democratic Party. And like the Democrats, the goal places all three groups in opposition to Trump. Trump’s plan makes the establishment of a Palestinian state contingent on significant changes in Palestinian actions and positions. It also foresees Israel retaining permanently all Israeli communities in Judea and Samaria and the areas surrounding them as well as the Jordan Valley.

 

In recent years, Darcheinu continued V-15’s efforts to bring down Netanyahu. In 2017-18, it sponsored the weekly leftist protests outside Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit’s home demanding he indicts Netanyahu. Darcheinu also funded and promoted the 2018 campaign by the far-left Commanders for Israeli Security calling for the establishment of a Palestinian state and an Israeli withdrawal to the 1949 armistice lines.

 

Until 2019, Darcheinu was led by Israeli businessman Kobi Richter. Richter was one of the central activists responsible for forming the Blue and White Party last year. In an interview with Globes, Richter said that he paid for the polls that convinced Gantz to join forces with Moshe Yaalon, Gabi Ashkenazy and Yair Lapid.

 

According to officials with knowledge of the events, Gantz was well-aware of the substantive problems with the map attached to the Trump peace plan when he left Washington. And it is with this knowledge in mind that we need to consider what he did when he got back.

 

Upon returning to Israel Gantz declared that he intended to introduce the Trump plan to the Knesset for approval. Some commentators portrayed his move as proof that he supported Trump’s peace plan. But given his awareness of the problems with the map and the implications for the political right, the opposite appears to be the case. Gantz’s announcement can better be seen as a bid to subvert and discredit Trump’s plan and to discredit Netanyahu and Trump personally.

 

Without corrections to the map, Likud and other right-wing lawmakers who otherwise support the plan and enthusiastically support Trump will be unable to vote in favor of it in a Knesset vote. Forcing them to oppose the plan publicly would serve several interests shared by both Blue and White and the Democrats. It would provide cover for the majority of Blue and White lawmakers who, like the Democrats wish to bury the plan. With the media scope-locked on right-wing opponents of Trump’s plan, they will avoid scrutiny of their own views.

 

The sight of Likud lawmakers opposing the Trump plan would discredit Netanyahu in the eyes of his voters. They would view him as incompetent and treacherous and many will avoid voting on March 2 as a result.

 

In light of joint opposition to the Trump plan from Likud and Blue and White lawmakers alike, center-right voters will perceive the parties as indistinguishable and follow the media’s urging to vote for Gantz.

 

For Trump, a Knesset defeat of his plan, followed in all likelihood by the defeat of Netanyahu would demoralize and anger Trump’s evangelical Christian base. Blue and White would move quickly to bury Trump’s plan. The Democrats would use the Knesset’s opposition to the plan and Gantz’s support for their positions as proof that Trump’s pro-Israel bona fides are skin deep and that Trump’s overall Middle East policy is misguided.

 

In short, advised by Benenson, after enjoying Trump’s hospitality, and benefiting from the prestige a meeting at the Oval Office confers, Gantz raised an initiative that would cause grievous political harm to Netanyahu and Trump and destroy any prospect of implementing any part of Trump’s peace plan.

 

And so we return to the issue of applying Israeli sovereignty in Judea and Samaria.

 

In light of the need to correct the mistakes in the map, it is clear that full implementation of Israeli sovereignty over the areas the Trump deal recommends will take time and will be impossible before March 2. But it is still possible to implement a significant component of the plan in a manner that will avert the damage Gantz and Benenson are seeking to cause.

 

Gantz has studiously worked to prevent his party from being identified with the ideological left. To achieve this goal despite the fact that the majority of his Knesset faction holds leftist and far-leftist views, Gantz has used the two center-right lawmakers from his party’s minority Telem faction as his campaign’s primary spokesmen on television. Whereas Yoaz Hendel and Zvika Hauser are pushed in front of microphones to extol the virtues of extending Israeli sovereignty to the Jordan Valley, the majority of Blue and White lawmakers, who share Obama’s views, are hidden in the shadows.

 

Without changing the maps, and while postponing approval of the Trump plan itself, the Netanyahu government can pass a government decision to apply Israeli law to all Israeli cities, towns, and villages in Judea and Samaria immediately in accordance with the Trump peace plan. Doing so will energize right-wing voters. And it will also expose Blue and White.

 

Applying Israeli law to the Israeli communities will arouse strenuous opposition from the majority of Blue and White faction members. Their opposition to a move that the majority of Israelis support would demonstrate that despite its right-wing fig leaves, Blue and White is a leftist party. Swing voters from the center-right would get the message.

 

This then brings us to the Democrats. For years, despite their protestations of support for Israel and commitment to Israel’s security, the Democrats have adopted a policy towards Israel that revolves obsessively around their demand to destroy the Israeli communities in Judea and Samaria and transfer the areas Jew free to the PLO. The Obama administration was so hateful towards these communities that it pushed through UN Security Council resolution 2234 that slanderously called them “illegal” after Donald Trump was elected president.

 

By applying Israeli law to these areas while avoiding a Knesset vote until after the map is corrected, the Netanyahu government will deny Democrats the ability to use Trump’s peace plan against him. It will also demonstrate Trump’s commitment to Israel to his evangelical base. Most importantly, applying Israeli law to the Israeli communities in Judea and Samaria will take the issue of their future off the table and ensure that the Trump peace plan will survive into the next government, regardless of who wins next month.

 

Senior presidential advisor Jared Kushner has said that it would be best to wait until after the election to begin applying Israeli sovereignty to areas in Judea and Samaria. Under normal circumstances, he would be right. But given the larger context in which this issue must be judged, it is fairly clear that delaying the move until after the elections will cause great harm to President Trump, and effectively bury his peace plan while elevating the Israeli left and the Democrats.

 

Originally published at Israel Hayom.

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BLOG EDITOR: I’ve apparently been placed in restricted Facebook Jail! The restriction was relegated after criticizing Democrats for supporting abortion in one post and criticizing Virginia Dems for gun-grabbing legislation and levying protester restrictions. Rather than capitulate to Facebook censorship by abandoning the platform, I choose to post and share until the Leftist censors ban me completely. Conservatives are a huge portion of Facebook. If more or all Conservatives are banned, it will affect the Facebook advertising revenue paradigm. SO FIGHT CENSORSHIP BY SHARE – SHARE – SHARE!!! Facebook notified me in pop-up on 1/20/20: “You’re temporarily restricted from joining and posting to groups that you do not manage until April 18 at 7:04 PM.”

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Intro to ‘Israeli sovereignty and the fate of the Trump plan’

Intro by John R. Houk

Intro © February 7, 2020

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Israeli sovereignty and the fate of the Trump plan

 

@ 2013 All Rights Reserved to Caroline Glick

 

ABOUT Caroline B. Glick

 

Caroline B. Glick is a senior columnist at Breitbart News and the senior contributing and chief columnist for The Jerusalem Post. She is also a senior columnist for Maariv. She is the author of The Israeli Solution: A One State Plan for Peace in the Middle East, (Crown 2014) and of Shackled Warrior: Israel and the Global Jihad (Gefen 2008). The Israeli Solution was endorsed by leading US policymakers including Vice President Mike Pence, Senator Ted Cruz and National Security Advisor John Bolton. Shackled Warrior was endorsed by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former CIA director James Woolsey.

 

Glick is the adjunct senior fellow for Middle Eastern Affairs at the Center for Security Policy in Washington, DC and directs the Israeli Security Project at the David Horowitz Freedom Center. She travels frequently throughout the world to brief policymakers on issues related to Israel’s strategic environment and other related topics. She lectures widely on strategic and political issues affecting global security, Israel and the Jewish people, US-Israel relations, Israel-Diaspora affairs and Israel’s changing strategic landscape.

 

In 2008 Glick founded Latma, the Hebrew language satirical media criticism website. She served as editor in chief of the site until it ceased operations in 2015.

 

Latma changed the face of Israel’s social media and revolutionized the Israeli entertainment industry by bringing an alternative voice to the popular culture. Latma launched “Hakol Shafit,” a primetime, half hour satirical newscast on Israel television Channel 1. Glick served as the editor in chief of the program.

 

Glick was born in Houston, TX and grew up in Chicago, IL. She moved to Israel in 1991, two weeks after receiving her BA in Political Science from Columbia University. She joined the Israel Defense Forces that summer and served as an officer for five and a half years.

 

From 1994-1996, as an IDF captain, Ms. Glick served in the Defense Ministry as a core member of Israel’s negotiating team with the Palestinians.

 

In 1997 and 1998 Ms. Glick served as Assistant Foreign Policy Advisor to Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu.

 

From 1998-2000 Ms. Glick studied at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government and … READ THE REST

 

Is there a Deep State coup underway against Bibi Netanyahu?


American Dems drool over the concept over a Parliamentary political system such as exists in Israel. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is facing irrelevant criminal presented in such a way with the intent to force a Netanyahu resignation to face an idiotic case. Trump’s Constitutional separation of powers within government Branches enables him to withstand an American Deep State. Israel’s Deep State owns unelected bureaucrats that could force Netanyahu from Office regardless of the voters. THE EXPLANATION:

 

JRH 12/23/19

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Is there a Deep State coup underway against Bibi Netanyahu?

By Dovid Mark, ISRAEL UNWIRED

December 22, 2019

Israpundit

 

With Israel heading to a third election and the Prime Minister now indicted, the real story is what is driving the judicial system against the Prime Minister. Mark Levin, in a comprehensive show below explains how the current crisis and political upheaval are really a product of a Deep State coup underway against Bibi Netanyahu.

 

VIDEO: EP 677 | The Coup Against Benjamin Netanyahu

 

 

[Posted by LevinTV

Dec 11, 2019

 

Mark and special guest Arthur Fergenson dissect the insidious indictment against Prime Minister Netanyahu and expose the political machinations behind it. … MORE TO READ]

 

Israel’s Deep State as I have pointed out in other places, has an entrenched interest in keeping their power within the Justice system and Law enforcement agencies. This is where the left’s hold on Israel’s system remains the strongest and provides for an ability to thwart the nationalist and rightwing capabilities to actually implement policies that are beneficial to a majority of Israelis.

 

This struggle between the national camp and those hold overs within the bureaucracy of Israel is the real internal war going on now. The cases against Netanyahu are flimsy and yet the judicial system has used its power to create obstacles for Netanyahu to easily defeat them.

 

For example, the Attorney General has filled the case files with over 300 witnesses, many who have little or nothing to do with the cases themselves. One reason to do this is to keep the Prime Minister’s case going for years, forcing him to step down to handle it.

 

Why a Coup?

 

Ultimately, the left has recognized that the younger generation of right wing politicians in Israel are now coming of age. They have grown and matured under Netanyahu’s cover and are willing to do away with the Left’s Deep State once and for all. By taking the Prime Minister down and ensure a center-left coalition, or even someone amicable to the judiciary from the center-right, they can hold on longer to their power.

 

Ironically, it is the Prime Minister, when asked years ago to change the system to ensure more transparency, opted to protect it rather than alter it. This decision may have been a mistake as he underestimated the determination that the Deep State would have at taking him down.

 

What to Expect Next?

 

As Israel is in a period of chaos, predictions seem to be unwarranted as most have been deemed wrong over the last year. One thing is clear, after 70 years we seem to be reaching a point of national reckoning with two great founding movements the Labor Zionists who morphed into the secular Deep State and the Zionist Revisionists represented by the Likud throwing down for a final battle of rulership in the Holy Land.

 

Perhaps Israelis have matured more than their leaders and will opt to go a third way altogether. These days, anything is possible.

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Blog Editor: Rather than capitulate to Facebook censorship by abandoning the platform, I choose to post and share until the Leftist censors ban me. Recently, the Facebook censorship tactic I’ve experienced is a couple of Group shares then jailed under the false accusation of posting too fast. So I ask those that read this, to combat censorship by sharing blog and Facebook posts with your friends or Groups you belong to.

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Copyright © 2017- Israpundit – All Rights Reserved

 

The reign of the prosecutors


Caroline Glick provides a snapshot of Israel mirroring the U.S. Left among Dems, MSM and unelected government bureaucracy blowing up miniscule policy disagreements into unsubstantiated crimes to get rid of a Conservative oriented Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. President Trump, the Israeli Left is doing to its Prime Minister what the American Left is attempting to do to you.

 

JRH 11/22/19

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Blog Editor: Rather than capitulate to Facebook censorship by abandoning the platform, I choose to post and share until the Leftist censors ban me. Recently, the Facebook censorship tactic I’ve experienced is a couple of Group shares then jailed under the false accusation of posting too fast. So I ask those that read this, to combat censorship by sharing blog and Facebook posts with your friends or Groups you belong to.

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The reign of the prosecutors

 

By Caroline Glick

November 22, 2019

CarolineGlick.com

Originally published in Israel Hayom

 

Israel AG Avichai Mandelblit & PM Benjamin Netanyahu

 

In Israel Thursday morning, the politicians were the big story. Israel Beitenu chairman Avigdor Liberman was the villain who had held the country hostage for nearly a year as he fed his narcissistic personality disorder.

 

The left’s latest flagship, the Blue and White party is all the once vibrant political camp can put together now that it has lost its ideology. With its god of peace killed by suicide bombers and missiles, and its socialism statues crushed under the weight of bankrupt government companies, all the left has left is Blue and White. The party stands on two planks – destroying Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and eternalizing the regime of Israel’s unelected bureaucrats.

 

The party’s figurehead – Benny Gantz – was tempted to join a unity government with Netanyahu that would guarantee he would serve as prime minister in a rotation agreement. But his comrades wouldn’t let him. Joining a government with Netanyahu would be a betrayal of their very reasons for existing. So, unhappily, he walked away.

 

And then there was Netanyahu himself. Thursday morning, his supporters shook their heads in frustration and his enemies clapped their hands in glee at the sight of Israel’s greatest stateman, the leader the public wants to keep in office, unable to form a government,

 

The conversation about Israel’s politicians lasted less than 24 hours.

 

At 4 in the afternoon, Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit’s office announced that at 7:30 in the evening he would announce he his decision to indict Netanyahu. The underlying message was crystal clear: The day after Benny Gantz returned his mandate to form a government to President Rueven Rivlin after he failed to get a sufficient number of coalition partners to build a government, Mandelblit said that there’s no point in talking about whether or not Israel is going to new elections in March.

 

Voters don’t decide anything. The lawyers do. Politicians are irrelevant. The only people who count in Israel today are the unelected attorneys who run the country.

 

But then we already knew that. And the fact that – as expected – Mandelblit announced sternly that he is indicting Netanyahu on three charges of breach of trust and one charge of bribery was at best anticlimactic. The game was up – if it was ever in play – in February.

 

Last February, at the height of the first election campaign of the year, when Netanyahu and his right wing coalition partners were leading in all polls by a wide margin, Mandelblit took the unprecedented – and legally dubious – step of announcing his intention to indict Netanyahu of those charges – pending a pre-indictment hearing. The moment he made his announcement, the right began to slide in the polls. The Leader had spoken. And we had no right to question him. Blue and White’s scattershot campaign converged around Mandelblit’s “recommendation.” The left had a rallying cry and a reason to vote. Netanyahu’s neck was on the chopping block.

 

Ever since Mandelblit gave his “recommendations,” he and his comrades have been the only political actors with any power to speak of. Our actual elected leaders were rendered bit players in the lawyers’ regime. Mandelblit’s announcement Thursday just made it official.

 

To the cheers of Israel’s corrupt media, for the past three years our legal overlords have gnawed away at all aspects of political power in Israel, and in the process – not that they cared – they corrupted Israel’s legal system from top to bottom. From beginning to end, their criminal persecution of Netanyahu has been a travesty of every norm in democratic societies governed by the rule of law. Carefully edited and wholly distorted recordings and transcripts of police interrogations of Netanyahu, his wife, son, and advisors were systematically leaked to the media. The fact that every such leak was a felony offense was of no matter. Netanyahu’s attorneys submitted request after request for Mandelblit to order an investigation of the criminal leaks. All were summarily and scornfully rejected.

 

As the probes escalated, overseen by State Prosecutor Shai Nitzan, police investigators extorted Netanyahu’s closest advisors to coerce them into becoming state witnesses against the most successful and admired prime minister Israel has ever had. Investigators threatened Netanyahu’s former spokesman Nir Hefetz that they would destroy his family and bankrupt him if he didn’t turn on Netanyahu. They finally succeeded in breaking him after incarcerating him in a flea infested jail cell for 15 nights, denying him sleep and medical treatment and bringing a young woman he knew into an interrogation room next to him and then threatening to destroy his family.

 

In the earlier stages of the probes, then police inspector general Roni Elshech spun wild, unsubstantiated and frankly insane conspiracy theories about Netanyahu, including the claim that he hired private investigators to tail police investigators. Elshech then went out of his way to prevent the government from appointing a successor for him as he approached the end of his term of service. Still today, more than a year later, Israel has no police inspector general.

 

Then of course, there is Mandelblit himself. Mandelblit who claims not to have known about the abuse of witnesses – but then refused to investigate the allegations. And Mandelblit who promised – after publishing his “recommendations” for indictment at the height of the election campaign – that he would approach Netanyahu’s pre-trial hearing with an open mind. That promise was exposed as a lie when the chief prosecutor Liat Ben Ari left the hearing two days early to take her family on a safari in South Africa. Wouldn’t want a little thing like the Prime Minister’s legal fate to ruin her chance to see the elephants.

 

The same Mandelblit refused to investigate Ben Ari when recordings emerged last month showing that she submitted a false deposition to a court in relation to a lawsuit submitted against her by a former subordinate attorney.

 

Then of course there is the substance of the charges themselves. The charge that Netanyahu accepted a bribe is based on an invented notion that positive media coverage of a politician is bribery. The notion that press coverage can be considered bribery exists nowhere in the democratic world. No prosecutor in the world has ever indicted – or investigated – a politician or media organization of having committed bribery involving the provision of positive coverage. Senior American jurists appeared before Mandelblit in Netanyahu’s (self-evidently unserious) pre-indictment hearing to warn him that pursuing bribery charges against politicians for receiving positive coverage is a recipe for destroying freedom of the press and democracy itself.

 

But then, that is the entire point of going after Netanyahu with invented crimes. Now that Netanyahu has been charged for bribery – and incidentally, he never even received positive coverage from the media organ accused of providing it – every politician that gets on the lawyers’ bad side will be sweating bricks any time a reporter writes something nice about him.

 

After Mandelblit made his primetime announcement, Netanyahu pledged to fight for his freedom and for the restoration of Israeli democracy and the rule of law. In his speech Thursday night, he made an impassioned appeal to his “decent” political rivals to join him in this fight.

 

If any politicians doubt that Netanyahu’s struggle is their struggle, they should look no further than the prosecution’s announcement last week that it was opening a review, ahead of a criminal probe – of Gantz’s role in the so-called “Fifth Dimension Affair.” The Fifth Dimension was a start-up Gantz headed. Its sale for $14 million allegedly violated standard procedures.

 

Maybe Gantz did nothing wrong. But then, Netanyahu is being indicted for crimes that don’t actually exist. So it doesn’t matter. The message is clear. Every politician is at the mercy of the prosecutors. Fall out of line, and you will become a criminal suspect before you can say, “prosecutorial abuse.”

 

It’s certainly true that the left shares the prosecutors’ hatred of Netanyahu. Blue and White exists to destroy him. But all the leftist politicians – and Liberman – who are celebrating today need to understand that the Netanyahu they love to hate is their best friend and defender today. If Netanyahu is found guilty of crimes that were invented for the purpose of destroying him, then their goose will be cooked along with his.

 

Politicians may make us happy or sad, frustrated or infuriated. But today, in post-democratic Israel it hardly matters. Netanyahu called last night for an “investigation of the investigators.” Unless our elected officials join forces to heed his call, they – and the voters who elected them — will never be relevant again.

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Blog Editor: Rather than capitulate to Facebook censorship by abandoning the platform, I choose to post and share until the Leftist censors ban me. Recently, the Facebook censorship tactic I’ve experienced is a couple of Group shares then jailed under the false accusation of posting too fast. So I ask those that read this, to combat censorship by sharing blog and Facebook posts with your friends or Groups you belong to.

____________________

@ 2013 All Rights Reserved to Caroline Glick

 

Israel’s flailing democracy


Caroline Glick views parallels between the Marxist-Dems fabricating allegations against President Trump and Israel’s Left loosely examining Israeli statute law to render Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu a criminal to question his legitimacy as a Prime Minister. It’s an interesting read for both Americans and Israelis.

 

JRH 9/27/19

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Israel’s flailing democracy

 

President Trump & PM Netanyahu

 

By Caroline B. Glick

September 27, 2018

CarolineGlick.com

Originally published at Israel Hayom.

 

US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s announcement Tuesday that she is opening an official impeachment inquiry against President Donald Trump struck many Israelis as yet another sign that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Trump are in the same boat. Both are hounded by legal elites who will stop at nothing to oust them from office.

 

There are parallels between the two leaders.

 

Pelosi’s move followed the leak of a whistleblower complaint to the US intelligence community’s inspector general. The complainant alleged that during a telephone conversation with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in July, Trump sought the Ukrainian leader’s assistance in advancing his 2020 reelection prospects. This is arguable.

 

During the course of the phone call, Trump asked Zelensky to speak with US Attorney General William Barr about the private cybersecurity company Crowdstrike. Crowdstrike is the private contractor that was hired by the Democratic National Committee in the spring of 2016 to investigate the alleged hack of the DNC’s computer server.

 

Crowdstrike concluded that the DNC’s server was hacked by entities related to the Russian government. The DNC never permitted federal investigators to take possession of the breached server, or receive Crowdstrike’s full report. Despite the fact that they were never given the opportunity to verify Crowdstrike’s claims, those claims were the basis of the US intelligence community’s assertion in December 2016 that the Russian government hacked the DNC server to interfere in the 2016 election. It was also a foundation of the claim that the Trump campaign colluded with Russia against the Hillary Clinton campaign in 2016.

 

In his conversation with Zelensky, Trump said, “Our country has been through a lot and Ukraine knows a lot about it. I would like you to find out what happened with this whole situation with Ukraine, they say Crowdstrike…the [DNC] server, they say Ukraine has it…I would like to have the Attorney General call you or your people and I would like you to get to the bottom of it.”

 

Trump also talked with Zelensky about Democratic presidential aspirant, former vice president Joe Biden.

 

During his tenure in office, Biden was responsible for US ties with Ukraine. As investigative journalist Peter Schweitzer reported, in April 2014, Biden’s son Hunter was appointed to the board of Burisma, a Ukrainian gas company. Over the next 16 months, Bursima paid Hunter Biden $3.1 million. Biden joined the company while Burisma was under criminal probe by British and Ukrainian investigators.

 

In a post-vice presidency appearance before the Council on Foreign Relations, Biden bragged that he had conditioned the provision of $1 billion in US loan guarantees to the Ukrainian government – loan guarantees that had already been approved by Obama – on the firing of the Ukrainian prosecutor carrying out the investigation against Burisma. Given the stakes, the Ukrainian government bowed to his demand. The prosecutor was fired and the loan guarantees were extended.

 

Speaking of Biden’s admitted intervention with the Ukrainian prosecution, Trump said, “There’s a lot of talk about Biden’s son, that Biden stopped the prosecution and a lot of people want to find out about that so whatever you can do with the Attorney General would be great. Biden went around bragging that he stopped the prosecution so if you can look into it…It sounds horrible to me.”

 

Democrats claim that Trump’s discussion with constitutes an illegal solicitation of foreign assistance for his 2020 campaign for reelection. Republicans counter that Trump was reasonably trying to understand what happened to the DNC server in 2016. The story has served as a basis for claims that his presidency is illegitimate, and continuous investigations of his campaign.

 

Leaving aside the weight of the opposing claims, the fact is that there is nothing unique about Trump’s actions. As Mark Thiessen noted in the Washington Post, in 2018, three Democratic senators urged the Ukrainian government to continue investigations into Trump’s alleged collusion with Russia during the 2016 presidential campaign.

 

National Review noted that during the 2016 campaign, the Obama administration asked the Ukrainian government to open a criminal probe against Trump’s campaign chairman Paul Manafort. So too, revelations regarding the origins of the Trump-Russia probe which fomented the nearly two-year Special Counsel investigation showed that the Obama Justice Department based wiretap requests against Trump campaign officials on a dossier paid for by the Clinton campaign and the DNC, and compiled by a former British spy on the basis of contacts with Russian operatives.

 

Democrats braying for impeachment have never shown the slightest interest in investigating the Obama administration’s actions. No Democratic lawmakers has called to impeach Obama or members of his administration.

 

The criminal probes against Netanyahu relate to actions he took to secure positive media coverage that are similar, if not identical to routine political behavior. The two major probes against Netanyahu – dubbed Case 2000 and Case 4000 allege that Netanyahu acted criminally when he met with media owners in bids to secure more positive coverage.

 

In Case 2000, Netanyahu is accused of having breached the public faith when he met with Yediot Ahronot publisher Arnon Moses in an effort to secure positive media coverage. Yediot Ahronot’s coverage of Netanyahu has been unstintingly negative. In Case 4000, prosecutors allege Netanyahu accepted a bribe in the form of positive media coverage on Walla news portal from Walla owner Shaul Alovich. Like Yediot, Walla coverage of Netanyahu has almost uniformly hostile.

 

Leading jurists from Prof. Alan Dershowitz of Harvard University to Prof. Avi Bell from Bar Ilan University agree that the legal proceedings against Netanyahu are political and based on prejudicial and selective enforcement of statutes which prosecutors are interpreting inventively.

 

As is the case with the allegations related to Trump’s dealings with Zelensky, the first problem with the probes against Netanyahu is that his actions were far from unique – although less successful than similar actions by other politicians.

 

In just one striking example of the inherent bias of the charges against Netanyahu consider the behavior of the prosecutors in relation to Blue and White party co-chairman, and Yesh Atid party leader Yair Lapid.

 

While serving as finance minister in 2013 and 2014, Lapid held regular meetings Mozes. Government ministries controlled by Lapid’s party colleagues provided millions of shekels in government advertising to Yediot Ahronot. And Lapid and his Yesh Atid party received unstintingly positive coverage in Yediot Ahronot.

 

Lapid has never been investigated for his actions.

 

Today, post-election wranglings in Israel over governing coalitions are guided by varied assessments of the likelihood that Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit will indict Netanyahu. During the campaign leading up to the April elections, Mandelblit cast legal norms distinguishing politics from law to the seven winds. He took the unprecedented step of announcing that pending the outcome of Netanyahu’s pre-indictment hearing, which is scheduled for next week, he intends to indict the premier on bribery and breach of trust charges over his dealings with Mozes and Alovich.

 

Now, as Netanyahu prepares for his pre-indictment hearing, the prosecution has leaked its intent to indict Netanyahu by mid-November. In other words, they have no intention to consider Netanyahu’s defense claims. The outcome is preordained.

 

For many Israelis, Pelosi’ decision to begin an impeachment investigation parallels moves by Mandelblit and State Prosecutor Shai Nitzan to fast track the probes against Netanyahu. But the opposite is the case.

 

Pelosi’s impeachment bid is a sign that America’s legal system and indeed its democracy is far healthier than Israel’s.

 

For nearly two years, Special Counsel Robert Mueller and his partisan investigators spent millions of dollars on a massive, and barely veiled bid to find a legal excuse to oust Trump from office. But in the end, they failed. The evidence of collusion between Trump and his campaign and Russia, simply wasn’t to be found.

 

Mueller could have kept going. The media wanted him to. The Democrats wanted him to. But after feeding the media prejudicial leaks against Trump and aggressively prosecuting Manafort and other Trump officials on unrelated issues, Mueller ran out of steam. Although in his final report Mueller tried to provide Democrats with the means to continue the Russia probe on the political level, he closed down his investigation and went home. US practice doesn’t permit the indictment of a sitting president. But even if it allowed for indictments, the materials he had assembled were too weak to justify and indictment.

 

In other words, Mueller walked his prosecutors to the brink of political interference, and then he walked them back. He did not replace politicians with prosecutors.

 

Until Mueller submitted his report, Pelosi used his ongoing probe to fend off pressure from the increasingly powerful radical members of her Democratic caucus to initiate impeachment proceedings against Trump. Since then, Pelosi argued, rightly, that impeachment proceedings require a huge political investment and hold little chance for success. Most Americans oppose impeaching Trump. The Republicans control the Senate. If the House votes to impeach Trump, chances of getting the two-thirds majority of Senators required to convict an impeached president and remove him from office are effectively non-existent.

 

Unfortunately for Pelosi – the Democratic base, including the media and the empowered radical faction of her Democratic caucus – have become deaf to reason. According to a Politico poll, whereas 70 percent of Democrats support impeachment, only 37 percent of the public does. The likes of Anastasia Ocasio-Cortez and Rashida Tlaib, like the New York Times and the Washington Post live in an echo chamber. Members of the echo chamber are so cut off from those outside it that just as they cannot fathom anyone objecting to socialism, so they cannot imagine that anyone supports Trump or accepts the validity of the 2016 election results.

 

It is hard to know how the impeachment proceedings will play out. But a likely scenario is that the proceedings will damage Democrats more than they will damage Trump.

 

This then brings us back to Israel.

 

Like Pelosi and her colleagues, Blue and White leaders Benny Gantz and Lapid and their colleagues on the Left claim that the very fact that Netanyahu is under investigation renders him illegitimate. They refuse to form a unity government with Likud unless Netanyahu is first ousted as Likud leader.

 

But unlike Pelosi, Gantz and Lapid don’t need to make their claims themselves. Lapid, whose ministers gave preferential treatment to Yediot through government advertising contracts and received glowing coverage in the paper, does not have to argue the case for impeaching Netanyahu. He stands behind the ostensibly “objective” state prosecutions.

 

Pelosi’s decision to open impeachment proceedings against Trump despite the great political risk involved going into an election year indicates that the radical faction of the Democratic party has swallowed the party. But more importantly, her move is a testament to the abiding power and fortitude of American democracy. The difference between the situation in Israel, where the prosecutors happily abuse their legal power for transparently political aims and the US, where politically motivated prosecutors backed away from the brink and compelled politicians to take over their political investigations, is the difference between a flailing democracy and a resilient democracy.

 

Blog Editor: Rather than capitulate to Facebook censorship by abandoning the platform, I choose to post and share until the Leftist censors ban me. Recently, the Facebook censorship tactic I’ve experienced is a couple of Group shares then jailed under the false accusation of posting too fast. So I ask those that read this, to combat censorship by sharing blog and Facebook posts with your friends or Groups you belong to.

____________________________

© 2013 All Rights Reserved to Caroline Glick

All rights reserved to Israel Hayom

 

About Caroline B. Glick

 

Caroline B. Glick is a senior columnist at Breitbart News and the senior contributing and chief columnist for The Jerusalem Post. She is also a senior columnist for Maariv. She is the author of The Israeli Solution: A One State Plan for Peace in the Middle East, (Crown 2014) and of Shackled Warrior: Israel and the Global Jihad (Gefen 2008). The Israeli Solution was endorsed by leading US policymakers including Vice President Mike Pence, Senator Ted Cruz and National Security Advisor John Bolton. Shackled Warrior was endorsed by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former CIA director James Woolsey.

 

Glick is the adjunct senior fellow for Middle Eastern Affairs at the Center for Security Policy in Washington, DC and directs the Israeli Security Project at the David Horowitz Freedom Center. She travels frequently throughout the world to brief policymakers on issues related to Israel’s strategic environment and other related topics. She lectures widely on strategic and political issues affecting global security, Israel and the Jewish people, US-Israel relations, Israel-Diaspora affairs and Israel’s changing strategic landscape.

 

In 2008 Glick founded Latma, the Hebrew language satirical media criticism website. She served as editor in chief of the site until it ceased operations in 2015.

 

Latma changed the face of Israel’s social media and revolutionized the Israeli entertainment industry by bringing an alternative voice to the popular culture. Latma launched “Hakol Shafit,” a primetime, half hour satirical newscast on Israel television Channel 1. Glick served as the editor in chief of the program.

 

Glick was born in Houston, TX and grew up in Chicago, IL. She moved to Israel in 1991, two weeks after receiving her BA in Political Science from Columbia University. She joined the Israel Defense Forces that summer and served as an officer for five and a half years.

 

From 1994-1996, as an IDF captain, Ms. Glick served in the Defense Ministry as a core member of Israel’s negotiating team with the Palestinians.

 

In 1997 and 1998 Ms. Glick served as Assistant Foreign Policy Advisor to Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu.

 

From 1998-2000 Ms. Glick studied at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government and received a Master’s in Public Policy in June 2000. … READ MORE

 

Can Netanyahu Lose?


Sarah & Benjamin Netanyahu

 

Benjamin (Bibi) Netanyahu has been facing legal troubles as Prime Minister of Israel. This is too bad since I’ve had admiration for Bibi for thumbing his nose at a corrupt Obama, the Antisemitic United Nations, and allowing Jewish settlements to proceed in Judea/Samaria which is legitimately Israel’s land contrary to the propaganda of the fake-people known as Palestinians. LET’S ALSO STIPULATE that Netanyahu has stood against Iran’s nuclear weaponry ambitions when Obama was willing to wink to a faux slow-down only to allow future nuke armament.

 

Bibi’s legal woes seem to be making inroads against his government’s reelection in upcoming April elections. Since Israel is a Parliamentary system, governments are elected by political party coalition blocs. Apparently past political allies are breaking away hoping to form their coalition bloc for government.

 

JRH 2/25/19

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Can Netanyahu Lose?

BIBI’S BALANCING ACT

 

By JOSHUA KRASNA

February 21, 2019

The American Interest

 

This April’s elections in Israel are no longer a sure thing for Netanyahu, but even with his rivals teaming up against him, the race is still Bibi’s to lose.

 

In recent weeks, the Israeli elections, called for April 9, 2019, changed from a sure thing for Prime Minister Benjamin (Bibi) Netanyahu to something approaching an actual race. The election is still Netanyahu’s to lose, but it certainly has become more interesting.

 

On December 26, 2018, the Knesset (Israel’s Parliament), in which Netanyahu’s government has a thin but stable majority, voted to disband itself and to move up the elections planned for November 2019. The proximate cause was Netanyahu’s desire to receive a renewed mandate from the public in the face of the possibility of criminal indictments being issued against him (one has already been issued to his wife) by the Attorney General, and Netanyahu’s declared intention not to resign if indicted. Netanyahu probably assessed that in the political constellation existing at the time none of the other heads of party in the Knesset had the stature to defeat him.

 

In September, Lieutenant General (res.) Benjamin (Benny) Gantz, the former Chief of General Staff of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), had ended the compulsory three-year “cooling-off period” for retired senior officers. This event was widely anticipated by Netanyahu’s opponents, and there had been much speculation—and elements of a “bidding war”—regarding his joining an existing party. On December 27, Gantz registered a political party by the name of “Israel’s Resilience (Hosen L’yisrael).” On January 29, Gantz announced that his party had unified with the Telem list headed by former Chief of General Staff and Defense Minister Moshe (Boogie) Yaalon, who would be number two on the combined list. On the same day, he gave his first, much anticipated programmatic speech, which was well received.

 

Since then, Gantz has become the main challenger to Netanyahu. On February 21, after a lengthy tug-of-war with the former front runner of the opposition, Yair Lapid, head of the Yesh Atid party (who felt he, as the more experienced politician, should be at the top of the list), the two parties agreed to run on a joint list, called “Blue-White” (the colors of Israel’s flag), with Gantz first on the list, Lapid second and Yaalon, third. Lapid had been under significant public pressure by the anti-Netanyahu camp, which feared splitting its vote, and that cannibalistic infighting in the Center would only help Netanyahu. The two parties have agreed that if the joint list is able to form a government, Gantz would serve as Prime Minister for the first 30 months, and Lapid for the next 18.

 

While handicapping polls is a mug’s game, it appears that since Gantz’s Israel’s Resilience has been running at around 20 seats in the 120-seat Knesset in the polls, and Yesh Atid at 10-12, the combined list is running neck-and-neck with Netanyahu’s Likud party, which is polled at around 30 seats (similar to their current number).1 It may even enjoy a bounce due to the merger. This is dramatic, since Gantz’s party didn’t even exist before late December.

 

Netanyahu’s strategy now largely consists in attempting to besmirch his rivals’ records (slightly problematical, since both Gantz and Yaalon served him as Prime Minister), and piling up achievements that highlight his political and security experience. This includes taking credit, after a decade of useful ambiguity, for attacks on Iranian targets in Syria; stressing diplomatic successes with Arab and Muslim states, including visits to Oman and Chad; spotlighting his close relationship with the current U.S. President and his willingness to irritate his predecessor; and taking an outsized role at the recent Warsaw Summit. (His arranging to host a summit, in Israel, of the Visegrad Group states—Czech Republic, Poland, Hungary, and Slovakia—did not work out as planned: When Netanyahu and his freshly appointed Foreign Minister made remarks that annoyed the Poles, the summit was summarily cancelled.) But will the strategy work anyway?

 

To answer that question we have to look at a series of deeper political trends in Israel. The first is that Israel has a tradition, since 1977, of “flash-in-the-pan” center parties, which do very well in their first election cycle and then dwindle away—either by losing support or by being absorbed into a larger party—by the next cycle or the one after. Israelis have for many years been unimpressed by the choices given them by the Right and the Left, and by their leaders, and so have plumped for new faces promising a “third way.” In the past 42 years, the following center parties have come and (mostly) gone:

 

  • 1977—Democratic Movement for Change—15 seats (the third largest party in the Knesset).

 

  • 1981—Telem (Dayan)—2 seats, Shinui -2 seats.

 

  • 1984—Yachad—3 seats.

 

  • 1996—Yisrael Ba‘aliya—7 seats, The Third Way—4 seats.

 

  • 1999—Shinui (new)—6 seats, Center—6 seats.

 

  • 2006—Kadima—29 seats (the largest party in the Knesset, in both this and the 2009 elections), Pensioners—7 seats.

 

  • 2013—Yesh Atid—19 seats (second largest party), Hatnua—6 seats.

 

  • 2015—Kulanu—10 seats.

 

These parties—with the notable exception of Kadima, formed by breakaway, very senior members of Likud and Labor—were often headed by non-politicians or unconventional politicians and strove to create lists of mostly non-political candidates “untainted” by previous service in the legislature or government. Yesh Atid itself was founded in 2012 and only entered the Knesset in 2013; Lapid was then a media personality and political newcomer. “Israel’s Resilience” is, therefore, only the latest example of a long tradition in Israeli politics.

 

The second trend that Gantz’s meteoric rise illuminates is a recurrent longing on the part of the Israeli public for a “man on horseback”—a politically unsullied general who rises above mere politics yet is a proven “safe pair of hands.” This phenomenon is partly due to the centrality of security concerns in Israel, but also to the high level of trust in the IDF in Israel, as opposed to political institutions. According to the Israeli Democracy Institute’s Annual Index, the IDF is the most trusted institution by 78 percent of the general public, as opposed to the media (31 percent), the government (30.5 percent), the Knesset (27.5 percent) and political parties (16 percent). Political debuts by generals into Israeli politics have known their ups and downs over the years, and once engaged, most generals have not proven themselves significantly different in their political and executive capabilities than their civilian counterparts. Be that as it may, half of the “third way” parties listed above were headed by a former general or senior security official. In addition, many civilian parties seek the “ballast” that former generals or security officials can provide to their civilian-led lists (witness Labor’s recent “parachuting” of a retired general to their number two slot).

 

Unlike in most states, however, the Israeli electorate’s desire for the involvement of former generals in politics does not necessarily stem from a conservative worldview. To the extent that the IDF command level can be said to have a political orientation or culture, it has been, for the past thirty years at least, moderate. Of the three former generals to have become Prime Minister, two—Itzhak Rabin and Ehud Barak—headed the Labor Party, and one—Ariel Sharon—broke with his Likud Party to form the centrist Kadima. The majority of generals and former senior security officers who have gone into politics in Israel’s history entered Left and Center parties.

 

In any case, the addition of Yaalon to Gantz’s list, and the addition of yet a third former Chief of General Staff, Gabi Ashkenazi, present a serious challenge to Netanyahu’s self-professed image as “Mr. Security,” and to a campaign strategy that stresses his foreign policy and national security expertise and experience.

 

A third trend in Israeli politics highlighted by the current race is the increased difficulty of coalition building. No large party has ever been able to form a government entirely on its own in Israel; the government has always been a coalition. The head of the party with the most votes is the one Israel’s President first asks to form a coalition government. In 2009 Netanyahu was able to form a government by bringing in the Labor Party under Ehud Barak (against the opposition of many luminaries within Labor); in 2013 Yesh Atid gave him the majority, and in 2015 Kulanu joined his coalition.

 

In the past, creative coalition-making was eminently possible. In recent years, however, the political system has hardened. The chances are vanishingly small that the parties to the right of Likud will join a Left or Center-led government. However, many of their leaders are personally ill-disposed toward Netanyahu, and may be positioning themselves to try to take over Likud if Netanyahu is forced from office. The Arab party bloc will not join a right-wing government, but has a significant problem with the Center parties, which, in their desire to woo voters from Likud, often venture into problematic rhetoric and policies from the perspective of Arab citizens. The ultra-orthodox parties, which used to be ideologically flexible on security and foreign affairs and have joined Left and Center governments in the past, have in the Netanyahu years become ever more oriented toward the Right, in consonance with the political leadings of their electorates.

 

It is therefore more difficult in general for parties of the Center and Left to build a coalition, since any coalition that excludes Likud and the right-wing parties would have to include both the ultra-orthodox and anti-ultra-orthodox (Meretz and to a lesser extent, Yesh Atid) parties, which are ideologically incompatible. Otherwise, they would have to depend for their majority on the support of the Arab party(s), which they fear doing since they leave themselves open to claims of “lacking a Jewish majority”—an accusation that haunted the government of Yitzhak Rabin until his assassination.

 

The bottom line: For several decades it has been easier for Likud to form a narrow government than for parties to its Left to do so.

 

The math may work out slightly differently in the coming elections. This is to a large part due to the “electoral threshold,” a mechanism built into Israeli election law, which was designed to prevent the proliferation of small parties, which were perceived to have led to un-governability and government instability in the past. The 11th (1984), 12th (1988) , and 15th (1999) Knessets, for instance, each contained 15 parties, some of which had one or two seats but held the pivotal role in close election results and therefore had inordinate leverage and influence. In 2014, the Knesset passed legislation raising the threshold to 3.25 percent of the vote: Since the Knesset has 120 seats, this meant that the minimum number of seats a party needed to get into the Knesset was four. That, in turn, led to the merging before the 2015 elections of ideologically close parties to ensure reaching the required number of votes, creating the Jewish Home party on the Right, and the United Arab List on the Left. However, personal rivalries and stubborn ideological differences within these “portmanteau parties” have caused them to collapse: Labor’s Gabbay unceremoniously dissolved his alliance with Tzippy [sic] Livni, who after 20 years (including an electoral victory in 2009 that she was unable to translate into a governing coalition) recently announced her retirement from politics; the Jewish Home split into three parties; and the Arab List has split into at least two.

 

This could have led to the discounting and “loss” of a substantial number of votes on the far Right, since they will be spread too thinly over too many parties. In addition, Kulanu, Netanyahu’s Right-Center partner, may not pass the threshold. This would strengthen the larger parties, including their ideological enemies (Israel’s Resilience/Yesh Atid). Netanyahu therefore put unprecedented effort into convincing the two remaining modern-Orthodox, pro-settler factions in Jewish Home (whose leaders, Naftali Bennet and Ayelet Shaked, split to form the own, secular, party, the New Right), to join with “Jewish Power” (Otzma Yehudit), a far-right racist party not in the current Knesset. This would ensure that votes cast for these three parties’ would not be dustbinned due to their not crossing the threshold. Netanyahu has promised the resulting, new, far-right portmanteau party the Education and Housing Ministries and two seats in the Security Cabinet; He also promised to put their representative in the 28th place on his own Likud list, from which that representative would return to the new party after the elections. This strategy should strengthen the Right bloc and prevent the erasure of votes. But it is also risky, since some “soft” Likud and Jewish Home supporters are dismayed by the entry of the racist, and perceived anti-democratic, Jewish Power into their camp.

 

With the reshuffling of the party decks and the creation of a new balance between the Center-Left and the Right, the ultra-orthodox parties may return to their traditional balancing role.

 

Lastly, it is important to note the decline of the Left in Israeli politics. Labor, which as recently as 1992 had 44 seats in the Knesset (and 34 in 1996), had 19 seats in 2006, 13 in 2009, 15 in 2013, and 24 in 2015, after it joined with the remnants of Kadima under Livni. The most optimistic predictions say it will win 10-11 in the next Knesset. Meretz, the Zionist party to the left of Labor, which had a peak of 12 seats in 1992, has five seats in the current Knesset, and is expected to achieve a similar result in the next elections, if it doesn’t disappear entirely due to the election threshold. Livni’s party, the rump of Kadima, has folded. Why has this happened?

 

The perceived failure of the Oslo process, and of the unilateral withdrawals from Southern Lebanon (2000) and the Gaza Strip (2005), key policies of Left- and Center-led governments; the continued stalemate on the Palestinian issue (attributed by the majority of Israelis to a lack of a viable Palestinian partner, especially since the split in 2007 between the Gaza Strip under Hamas and the West Bank under the Palestinian Authority/Fatah); as well as demographics, have moved the midpoint of Israeli politics to the Right. Centrist (or even right-of-center) parties like Yesh Atid and Israel’s Resilience are delegitimized as “leftists”—a term of opprobrium in Israeli political discourse today: The actual Left is largely seen as irrelevant. Recent internal developments in Labor seem to indicate that the party is shifting from seeing itself as a potential ruling party to a democratic-socialist “woke” opposition, which may explain the internal pressures to merge with Meretz on its Left.

 

The overarching dynamics of the system as sketched above still work to Netanyahu’s advantage. He enjoys the powerful benefits of incumbency, with its accompanying ability to largely shape the political, diplomatic, and media agenda. His base disregards his legal problems, either seeing them as the product of a conspiracy by left-leaning elites and the deep state or shrugging them off as peccadillos that should not bring down a strong and effective leader (especially since they would return “the Left” to power).

 

To win, Netanyahu only needs his current coalition to do no worse than before in the aggregate; the election is his to lose. However, Netanyahu’s legal issues and increasingly polarizing political style, combined with possible loss of seats due to inability of prospective coalition partners to pass the electoral threshold, may have opened a narrow path to victory for a “clean-hands” rule-of-law candidate of the Center-Left.

 

Even if Netanyahu is elected, it is not at all clear that the indictments (which are expected to come before the elections despite the Prime Minister’s ferocious efforts to push them off) and the court process they will engender, will allow him to remain in office through his term. So whatever the results of this election, expect more political reshuffling and possibly even another round of elections in the not-so-distant future.

1A word of caution: Public opinion polls in Israel historically slightly underestimate support for Likud.

__________________

© The American Interest LLC 2005-2019

 

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Joshua Krasna, a former senior Israeli civil servant, lives in Israel, teaches at NYU’s Center for Global Affairs, and is a senior fellow of the Foreign Policy Research Institute, as well as a fellow of the Jerusalem Institute for Strategy and Security.

 

About The American Interest

 

Since its founding in 2005, The American Interest has been one of the leading sources for understanding American policy, politics, and culture. Launched in the wake of the crisis triggered by the U.S. invasion of Iraq, TAI sought to bridge the gulf of misunderstanding separating Americans and their counterparts in other democratic countries. In that time, it has evolved from a bimonthly print journal into a unique multiplatform media organization featuring analysis, opinion, reviews, and podcasts.

 

Understanding America and its role in the world means focusing not only on U.S. foreign and domestic policy, but also uncovering the sources from which those policies arise, in American politics, culture, and society.

 

In the wake of Donald Trump’s election as President of the United States and the global populist surge, our mission—“to explain America to the world, and the world to Americans”—has grown even more urgent. While many media sources today have built business models around catering to popular appetites for outrage and hyper-partisanship, TAI remains committed to hosting evidence-based arguments and open contestation over values. As TAI founder and Chairman Francis Fukuyama has said, “Viable democracies require deliberation and disagreement. It is our hope that reestablishing a vital center will reconnect America with itself, and America with the world as we confront similar challenges.” (Published on: May 23, 2018)

 

Israel Looks to Self-Preservation


John R. Houk

© June 21, 2018

 

Yesterday I receive an email from Ari Bussel sharing an Israel GPO News Update about Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addresses a graduation ceremony of Israel Defense Forces (IDF) officers.

 

PM Netanyahu Addressing IDF Officer Graduation Photo by Kobi Gideon (GPO)

 

In that address Netanyahu talks about military/terrorist threats from Hamas in Gaza to the south and Iran building threatening military capabilities toward the north in Syria. Here is that relatively short news release from the Israel GPO:

 

PM Netanyahu Addresses IDF Officers’ Course Graduation Ceremony

 

Communicated by the Prime Minister’s Media Adviser

20 June 2018

GPO News

 

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, today (Wednesday, 20 June 2018), at IDF Training Base #1, addressed an IDF officers’ course graduation ceremony. Following is an excerpt from his remarks:

 

“I do not intend to go into detail about what we are planning vis-à-vis Gaza. The intensity will be stepped up as necessary. We are prepared for any scenario and our enemies would do well to understand this – now.

 

Regarding the Syrian front, we are constantly working to prevent Iranian forces and their proxies from establishing a military presence there. We will not allow those who call for our destruction to turn Syria into a base for aggression against Israel.

 

The iron fist of the IDF is powerfully striking whoever strives to attack us, and will continue to do so.”

 

In America you probably have no clue to what Prime Minister Netanyahu was talking about thanks to the lack of reporting by the Mainstream Media (MSM). OR if they do report, it is some disinformation blaming Israel for violence on the Gaza-Israel border or perhaps an idiotic accusation that Israel is attacking Iranian military assets in Syria especially near Syrian/Israeli border. Even after continued Islamic terrorist attacks by Hamas and affiliates against Israeli civilians originating from Gaza, the UN condemns Israel for reprisals.

 

Here is an example of Hamas/Islamic Jihad/UN hypocrisy:

 

Hamas and Islamic Jihad: Israeli Airstrikes Will Be Answered With Rocket Fire

 

By Tazpit Press Service

June 21, 2018 – 10:15 am

Breaking Israel News

 

 

North of the Gaza Strip Al-Quds Brigades of the Islamic Jihad. (Credit: Abed Khatib/Flash90)

 

Terrorist factions in the Gaza Strip, including Hamas and the Islamic Jihad warned Wednesday that Israeli airstrikes on the Strip will be met with rocket fire from Gaza.

 

In a statement released to the media, the factions took responsibility for the barrage of rockets fired at Israel on Tuesday night, which they said was a “response to Israel’s continuous aggression against Gaza,” adding that “the enemy’s leadership will bear full responsibility for its aggression and will pay a price for its arrogance.”

 

Hamas’ Spokesperson Fawzi Barhoum blamed Israel for the current escalation but also added that Hamas is not interested in war.

 

“It (Hamas) will always be ready to carry out its national duty of protecting the Palestinian people,” Barhoum said.

 

Earlier Wednesday, the IAF struck 25 Hamas targets in the Strip in response to ongoing cross-border arson and rocket attacks at civilian communities.

 

Five missiles hit towns around the Gaza Belt district overnight between Tuesday and Wednesday, with at least 13 rockets landing in the Eshkol Regional Council alone. No injuries were reported, but, several buildings and cars were damaged in the attacks.

 

“In response to the rockets fired throughout the night from the Gaza Strip at Israel, IAF fighter jets targeted approximately 25 terror objectives in the Gaza Strip thus far,” the IDF Spokesperson’s Unit said in a statement. “The Hamas terror organization targeted Israeli civilians throughout the night with a severe rocket attack and is dragging the Gaza Strip and its civilians down a deteriorating path. Hamas is responsible for everything that transpires in the Gaza Strip and will bear the consequences for deliberately targeting Israeli civilians.”

 

Pertaining Israel/Syria/Iran, here is an excerpt from Eurasia Review:

 

Accessing Israel-Iran Simmering Rivalry In Syria – Analysis

 

By Nagapushpa Devendra

June 15, 2018

Eurasia Review

 

…

 

On the other side of the conflict, Iranians have begun to tamp up the rhetorical escalation that has the potential to put these two countries on a path toward open confrontation. From Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei to IRGC generals there have been repetitive threat to wipe out ‘Zionists’ which has become a normal jargon in public forums. Though the rhetoric broadened that they will pursue every move with calculation and caution for two major factors.

 

…

 

This implacable aspiration to wipe out Israel from the map discredits Rouhani government’s claim to not pose any threat to the security and sovereignty of regional countries. In fact, the rift between Rouhani and IRGC widened with the eruption of a heated argument between Iranian President Hassan Rouhani and his Military Commander Mohammad Bagheri over the true intention behind launching retaliatory missiles against Israel. In the argument, Rouhani tried to explain the detrimental effect and international repercussions on the nuclear deal.

 

As the mutual hostility between Israel-Iran has deepened in Syria, Israel stated that their defence forces were on high-alert due to irregular Iranian activities in Syria and have ordered bomb shelters to be equipped in Golan Heights. Shortly, the Syrian state media reported that the government has downed two Israeli missiles near a military base of the capital. Subsequently, another report of Israel attacking targets of the Syrian military on the outskirts of Quneitra in the Golan Heights reverberated across the region. Prior to a week of frequent Israeli strikes, three unnamed US officials stated that Israel is preparing for military action against Iran in Syria, and is seeking US support. In addition, the officials also blamed Israel for the airstrike on a military base in Hamas and Aleppo that killed over 20 military personnel, including Iranians.

 

It seems that Israel has been motivated by the desire to fight sooner rather than later. Israel considers that an attack by Iran, while not imminent, is inevitable, and that delay in attacking would involve greater risk. Usually, this happens, when the balance of military capability is expected to shift in the enemy’s favour, due to the prospects that the opponent will acquire or develop a powerful new offensive or defensive capability. …

 

Israelis firmly believe that Iran as a nuclear emergence state will bring their world to the threshold of the abyss. Probably, this would be the factor for Netanyahu to urge Trump refer to the documents provided by them on the development of Iranian nuclear deal, rather than relying on the reports provided by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). …

 

This led Putin to send Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov on an errand to Tehran where he warned Rouhani about the far-reaching consequences of Iranian retribution to an Israeli strike, not least for Russia and Syria. However, before Rouhani could curb IRGC’s manoeuvrability in Syria, IRGC appears to have fallen for Israeli bait and have launched some 20 rockets at their positions in the Golan Heights. This gave Israel a solid ground to retaliate with the largest strike they have carried out in Syria since 1970 while substantiating it as an act of self-defence which is legitimate under international law. The Israeli said, its targets included weapon storage, logistic sites and intelligence centres used by elite Iranian forces in Syria. Additionally, they have also destroyed five Syrian air-defence batteries after coming under heavy fire.

 

… READ ENTIRETY

 

I believe you can see Prime Minister Netanyahu’s remarks to the IDF officers graduating class had to do with Israel’s self-preservation.

 

JRH 6/21/18

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