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Obama Campaign Team Sent to Israel to Defeat Netanyahu

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By Thomas Rose. Just days after the Obama White House accused House Speaker John Boehner of “breaking protocol” by inviting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to address a joint session of Congress, a team of up to five Obama campaign operatives has reportedly arrived in Israel to lead a campaign to defeat the Israeli Prime Minister in upcoming national elections scheduled for March 17.

The anti-Netanyahu, left wing Israeli newspaper Haaretz reports a group called “One Voice,” reportedly funded by American donors, is paying for the Obama campaign team. That group is reportedly being led by Obama’s 2012 field director Jeremy Bird.

As Jerusalem Post columnist and putative Knesset candidate Caroline Glick reported on her Facebook page, “Obama won’t meet Benjamin Netanyahu in Washington when he addresses the Joint Houses of Congress in March because of Netanyahu’s visit’s proximity to the Israeli elections. And Obama, of course believes in protocol and propriety which is why he won’t get involved.” And yet, Glick adds, “He’s just sending his 2012 field campaign manager to Israel to run a campaign to defeat Netanyahu.” (Read more about the Obama campaing team arriving in Israel HERE)

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IDF Strikes Syrian Army Targets

By Yaakov Lappin. The Israel Air Force (IAF) struck Syrian army artillery targets late on Tuesday night in response to an earlier rocket attack carried out on the Golan Heights and Mount Hermon.

“The IDF views the Syrian regime as responsible for what occurs in its territory, and will act at any time and any way it sees fit to protect the citizens of Israel,” the IDF said.

The targets were accurately struck, the IDF added.

IDF confirmation of the strike came minutes following reports of air sirens being heard in the Golan Heights, which later proved to be false alarms. (Read more from this story HERE)

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Israeli Strikes Kill Iranian, Top Hezbollah Fighters in Syria

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An Israeli strike in Syria on Sunday killed the son of a slain top Hezbollah commander and another four fighters in a move that could ratchet up tensions with the powerful Lebanese Shiite movement, which recently boasted of rockets that can hit any part of the Jewish state.

Hezbollah fighters in towns and villages along the border with Israel went on high alert, said an official from the group. In the Shiite-dominated areas of south Lebanon and Beirut the streets emptied quickly, as residents feared an escalation. Hezbollah-run al-Manar TV warned that Israel was “playing with fire that puts the security of the whole Middle East on edge.”

A Hezbollah official identified one of the five slain men as Jihad Mughniyeh, the son of Imad Mughniyeh, a top Hezbollah operative assassinated in 2008 in Damascus. Hezbollah blames Israel for the killing and has long vowed to avenge his death. The official said the dead included another senior Hezbollah commander, Mohammed Issa, and at least one Iranian national with the group.

The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to brief the media.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the slain Iranian belonged to the Revolutionary Guards. The group, which obtains its information from a network of activists on the ground, said the Israeli strikes hit two vehicles and a home. It said the fighters were in the area to plan attacks along the Israeli-controlled frontier. (Read more about the strikes killing the Hezbollah fighters in Syria HERE)

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Hamas Stopped Palestinian Children from Going to Israel for Postwar Peace Trip

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Photo Credit: NY Daily News

Photo Credit: NY Daily News

By Fares Akram. Gaza’s Hamas rulers prevented a group of children from entering Israel on Sunday for a postwar conciliatory trip meant to foster peace, Hamas and organizers said.

The 37 children, most of whom have lost a parent in fighting between Hamas and Israel, were to enter Israel on Sunday and spend a week visiting Jewish and Arab communities and a zoo. They were also going to travel to the West Bank for a meeting with the Palestinian president.

But a bus carrying the children and their adult chaperones was turned back when it reached the main crossing between Gaza and Israel. Hamas spokesman Eyad Bozum said the decision was made “to protect the culture of our children and our people” from normalizing relations with Israel. He said Hamas would make sure such a trip “will never happen again”. . .

Yoel Marshak, an Israeli organizer, said the visit was meant to a show a positive side of Israel and promote peace. (Read more on why Hamas stopped Palestinian children from their Israel peace trip HERE)

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UAW Teachers Branch Joins Israel Boycott

By Sean Higgins. A local branch of the United Auto Workers has become the first U.S. labor organization to join the international movement to boycott Israel, according to liberal groups.

UAW Local 2865, which represents teaching assistants at the University of California, voted to join it on Dec. 4, saying that Israel was engaging in “ongoing human rights violations” against the Palestinians.

A total of 66 percent of the members backed joining the movement, which supporters call “Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions against Israel.” Only 2,168 members participated in the Dec. 4 vote, a small fraction of Local 2865’s reported 13,000 members.

The ballot language asked members to support the boycott and to call on both the university and the UAW to join in by “divest[ing] their investments, including pension funds, from Israeli state institutions and international companies complicit in severe and ongoing human rights violations as part of the Israeli oppression of Palestinian people.” It also called on UAW and the university not to do business with any such companies and for the federal government to end economic aid to the country. (Read more from this story HERE)

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Publisher HarperCollins Apologizes for Middle East Atlas that Wiped Israel off the Map

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Photo Credit: Algemeiner

Photo Credit: Algemeiner

HarperCollins, one of the world’s leading publishing companies, has apologized for removing Israel from its Middle East Atlas, which is sold to English-speaking schools in the Arab Gulf, after receiving angry criticism from Jewish and Christian leaders.

“Shame on HarperCollins,” Rabbi Abraham Cooper, associate dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles, told The Algemeiner, prior to the release of a statement from the publisher which announced that the atlas “has now been removed from sale in all territories and all remaining stock will be pulped. HarperCollins sincerely apologises for this omission and for any offence caused.”

As the British Christian newspaper The Tablet reported on Wednesday, the atlases “depict Jordan and Syria extending all the way to the Mediterranean Sea.” A spokesman for Collins Bartholomew, the subsidiary of HarperCollins that specializes in maps, told the paper that including Israel would have been “unacceptable” to their customers in the Gulf and the amendment incorporated “local preferences.” The Tablet also reported that a customs officer in one Gulf nation would only permit the atlases to reach their intended recipient “only once Israel had been struck out by hand.”

Bishop Declan Lang, the chairman of the Department of International Affairs Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales, told The Tablet that the deliberate omitting of Israel from the map would harm peace efforts on the Middle East. (Read more about publisher HarperCollins apologizes for map taking Israel off HERE)

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ISIS is Setting Sites on Israel (+video)

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Photo Credit: ISIS video

Photo Credit: ISIS video

By WND. A new video issued by ISIS contradicts the oft-repeated claim that the Islamic movement now controlling large portions of Iraq and Syria has no interest in the Palestinian jihad against Israel.

ISIS, which now calls itself the Islamic State after declaring the creation of a new caliphate, vows in the video: “Allah willing, we will continue to fight against the Israelis and their allies.”

Islam researcher Robert Spencer, editor of Jihad Watch, notes, for example, Jay Michaelson claimed in the Jewish Daily Forward that “the Islamic State is a Salafist jihadist/fundamentalist movement that regards Hamas as impure and the Israel/Palestinian conflict as largely irrelevant.” (Read more on how ISIS is setting sites on Israel HERE)

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Islamic State Releases Interview with Captured Jordan Pilot

By Newsmax. The hardline Islamic State group has released what it said was an interview with a Jordanian pilot captured last week after his plane crashed during U.S.-led coalition bombing in eastern Syria.

It was not possible to independently verify the interview published in the group’s English-language online magazine Dabiq in which First Lieutenant Muath al Kasaesbeh was quoted as saying his F-16 fighter was “struck by a heat seeking missile”.

“I heard and felt its hit. The other Jordanian pilot in the mission contacted me from a participating jet and told me that I was struck and that fire was coming out of the rear nozzle of my engine,” Kasaesbeh said.

He made brief comments about life at his base, sharing meals with hundreds of U.S. personnel.

“The Americans sometimes have dinner with us and eat mansaf (a traditional Arab dish) which they like alot. Their talk does not include details about operations because of matters of secrecy and security.” (Read more from this story HERE)
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ISIS Complains About Media Treatment of Australian Hostage-Taker

By Patrick Goodenough. The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) on Monday praised the man responsible for a 17-hour siege at a café in Sydney, Australia this month, saying he had “added his name to the list of Muslims who answered the Khilafah’s [caliphate’s] call to strike those waging war against the Islamic State wherever they may be.”

In the latest edition of its propaganda publication Dabiq, ISIS lashed out at media for highlighting the fact that at the time of the “daring raid,” the hostage-taker, Man Haron Monis, was awaiting trial on several criminal charges.

It said any past transgressions had been wiped away by his act of martyrdom. (Read more from this story HERE)

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Israel Erased from Map by Biggest Children’s Book Publisher

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Times of Israel

Times of Israel

Arab textbooks are not the only ones erasing Israel from their maps. Scholastic, the world’s largest publisher of children’s books, has also eliminated the Jewish state in a book.

“Thea Stilton and the Blue Scarab Hunt,” part of the popular Geronimo Stilton children’s series translated from Italian and published by Scholastic in 2012, tells the story of a group of investigative journalists involved in a treasure hunt in Egypt.

The story commences with a map of modern Egypt and its neighboring countries. While Sudan, Libya and Saudi Arabia appear clearly on the map, the territory of Israel is completely covered by Jordan, painted red. A line indicating the Israeli border with the Sinai Peninsula does appear in the book.

Adina Golombek, a Jerusalem resident who emigrated to Israel from Canada last year, said she was shocked to discover Israel’s absence while reading the book with her 7-year-old son.

Read more from this story HERE.

U of California Event: “Bringing Down Israel Will Benefit Everyone in the World”

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Photo Credit: via Zombietime

Photo Credit: via Zombietime

Won’t someone please think of the murderous terrorists?

A November 12 panel discussion on the University of California’s flagship Berkeley campus was billed as an opportunity to learn about events 7,000 miles away in Israel – and about a Dec. 4 graduate student vote to join the anti-Israel Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement.

Instead, attendees were exhorted to bring down the Jewish State.

Hosted by UAW 2865, a union of over 13,000 student-workers across the University of California system, the union’s BDS Caucus brought in guest speakers to “discuss the role of organized labor in the Palestine solidarity movement.”

Panelist Lara Kiswani, executive director of the Arab Resource and Organizing Center (AROC), dominated the conversation.

“Bringing down Israel will really benefit everyone in the world and everyone in society, particularly workers,” she said later.

Read more from this story HERE.

Reports: Obama Mulling Sanctions on Israel

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Photo Credit: AP

Photo Credit: AP

The Obama administration is refusing to discuss reports that emerged early Thursday claiming that the White House is considering imposing sanctions on Israel for continuing construction on Jewish homes in Jerusalem.

State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf dodged several questions on Thursday when confronted with reports that the administration had held secret internal meetings to discuss taking action against Israel for its ongoing building in East Jerusalem.

The classified meetings were reportedly held several weeks ago and included officials from both the State Department and White House, according to the Israeli daily Ha’aretz, which first reported on the meetings.

The possibility of sanctioning Israel for its ongoing construction sends a signal that the Obama administration is willing to go further in its denunciations of Israel then any previous White House.

At the same time, the White House is vigorously pushing Congress against passing new sanctions on Iran.

Read more from this story HERE.

Palestinian Leader Says White House Insult of Netanyahu Reflects Obama's 'Sincere' Feelings

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Photo Credit: WNDIn a radio interview set to air Sunday, a senior leader of Hamas asserts the anonymous White House officials referring to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as “chickensh-t” reflect the Obama administration’s “sincere” feelings.

The interview with Salah Bardawil, senior Hamas leader and member of the Palestinian Parliament, airs Sunday night on “Aaron Klein Investigative Radio” on New York’s AM 970 The Answer.

A recording of the interview was obtained by WND.

Asked for his thoughts on the “chichensh*t” comments, the Hamas strongman told Klein, “It’s not a secret that Obama felt many times disappointed from Mr. Netanyahu. And it’s not a secret that Benjamin Netanyahu’s policy was not acceptable by the administration.”

Continued Bardawil: “The problem is that Obama, in spite of the fact that we feel that these feelings are sincere and true vis-à-vis Netanyahu, he ever translated these emotions against Netanyahu to actions on the ground in order to change the situation … which shows the decision making center is not exclusively in the hands of the president but in the hands of the whole American establishment that judges that Israel is in the strategic interests of the United States. This is why these declarations of the sources in the administration were not translated into changing the situation on the ground into pushing the situation forward but keeping the situation as it is.”

Read more from this story HERE.

5 Takeaways From Top Obama Official Calling Netanyahu ‘A Chickens**t’

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Photo Credit: Daily CallerIt’s probably safe to say that U.S.-Israel relations aren’t exactly at a high point.

In an article published Tuesday at The Atlantic by Jeffrey Goldberg, the Obama administration’s preferred conduit for all things Israel-related, an unnamed senior Obama administration official called Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “a chickensh*t.”

“The thing about Bibi is, he’s a chickensh*t,” the official told Goldberg.

“The good thing about Netanyahu is that he’s scared to launch wars,” he continued. ““The bad thing about him is that he won’t do anything to reach an accommodation with the Palestinians or with the Sunni Arab states. The only thing he’s interested in is protecting himself from political defeat. He’s not [Yitzhak] Rabin, he’s not [Ariel] Sharon, he’s certainly no [Menachem] Begin. He’s got no guts.”

Read more from this story HERE.