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Ted Cruz Questions Whether Obama 'Launched An Economic Boycott Of Israel'

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Photo Credit: Business Insider

Photo Credit: Business Insider

Freshman firebrand Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) questioned on Wednesday whether President Barack Obama has effectively “launched an economic boycott of Israel,” after the Federal Aviation Agency’s decision to bar all flights into and out of Israel’s Ben Gurion Airport for the past two days.

The Obama administration forcefully shot back at the charge, with State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf calling it “ridiculous and offensive.” She rejected any assertion the FAA’s move was at all politically motivated, saying it was only done to protect American citizens and carriers.

For its part, Cruz’s office released a lengthy statement on his behalf, blasting it out to reporters with the subject line, “Did President Obama Just Launch an Economic Boycott of Israel?” He claimed, as some in the Israeli government have over the past two days, that it effectively hands the Palestinian Islamist militant group Hamas a victory.

“Aiding Hamas while simultaneously isolating Israel does two things. One, it helps our enemy. Two, it hurts our ally,” Cruz said in the statement.

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Netanyahu Says Israel Will Hit Hamas Hard

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Photo Credit: REUTERS / Ibraheem Abu MustafaIsrael’s leader says the country will exert “great force” against Gaza’s Hamas rulers after the Islamic militants rejected a truce agreement.

Israel halted its fire for six hours Tuesday after accepting an Egyptian truce proposal. But with Hamas continuing to launch rockets into Israel, it resumed strikes in the afternoon.

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The Peace Process Is a Game Israel Can’t Win

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Photo Credit: FrontPageMagNo matter what terrorist atrocity was committed against Israel yesterday, the call goes out for a return to the peace process today. For two long decades of terror that has never changed.

Diplomacy is a strange twisted business of lies, deceit and badly mixed drinks served at hotel bars that are a year away from being blown up. The motives are so twisted that everyone often ends up doing the opposite of what they set out to do. But even by the standards of international diplomacy where mixed motives and terrible ideas stew in a solid gold pot for years before they explode, the peace process between Israel and the PLO terrorists is in a horrible class of its own.

The one thing that everyone involved in the process, from the PLO terrorists to the Israelis to the international diplomats who arrive with a Bluetooth in one ear and a talking point in the other, can agree on is that it will never work. Not today. Not tomorrow. Not in a million years.

But that doesn’t mean that they’re about to stop.

Israel realized it wasn’t working a few years in after buses began blowing up more often than they were arriving on time. And the PLO can’t reach a final agreement because it’s not an independent actor. From its earliest days, before the Six Day War, it was a puppet of other countries. It’s still a projection of state power by Muslim countries in the region who want to perpetuate a conflict with Israel without spending too much money on bombs and guns.

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U.N. Experts Trace Recent Seized Arms to Iran, Violating Embargo

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Photo Credit: REUTERS / HEINZ-PETER BADERA U.N. expert panel has concluded that a shipment of rockets and other weapons that was seized by Israel came from Iran and represents a violation of the U.N. arms embargo on Tehran, according to a confidential report obtained by Reuters on Friday.

The finding comes just days ahead of the next round of negotiations in Vienna between Iran and six world powers aimed at securing a deal that would gradually lift international sanctions on Tehran — including the arms embargo — in exchange for curbs on the controversial Iranian nuclear program.

Despite Israel’s public statements that the seized arms were destined for Gaza — an allegation that Gaza’s governing Islamist militant group Hamas dismissed as a fabrication — the experts said the weapons were being sent to Sudan.

The experts do not speculate in the report about why the arms were being sent to Sudan, a country which Western diplomatic and intelligence sources have told Reuters has in the past been a conduit for Iranian arms shipments to other locations in Africa, as well as the Gaza Strip.

The experts said the Israeli U.N. mission wrote to the U.N. Iran Sanctions Committee on March 13 about “the transfer of rockets, mortars and related materiel from Iran to Sudan.”

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Unreal: Obama Admin Urges Israel To Show “Restraint” In Hunt For Teens Kidnapped By Palestinian Terrorists…

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Photo Credit: Weasel Zippers Washington (AFP) – The United States on Wednesday called on both Israel and the Palestinians to show restraint as Israelis tightened their grip on the West Bank hunting for three kidnapped teenagers.

“We recognize this is an incredibly sensitive and difficult circumstance on the ground, and we feel all sides should exercise restraint,” State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki told reporters.

Israeli troops have pressed their biggest arrest operation in years, imposing a tight lockdown on huge swathes of the West Bank in the hunt for the three boys kidnapped six days ago.

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Poof, the Magic Settlements!

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Photo Credit: Jewish Policy CenterWhen Mahmoud Abbas’ Fatah/Palestinian Authority (PA) signed a reconciliation agreement with Hamas, a recognized terrorist group that calls in its Charter for the destruction of Israel and the murder of Jews, the State Department’s spokeswoman, Jen Psaki, observed, “It’s hard to see how Israel can be expected to negotiate with a government that does not believe in its right to exist.”

Despite the obvious truth of this statement, Secretary of State John Kerry blamed Israel. As he told the Congress, “700 settlement units were announced in Jerusalem. And poof! That was sort of the moment.”

Again the claim is that “magical” settlements can “magically” destroy a major peace negotiation. Somehow, the PA promoting hatred and violence, not arresting terrorists, allying itself with Hamas, refusing to accept Israel as a Jewish state are not the destroyers of peace – it is the announcement of the construction of Jewish homes within the boundaries of settlements that existed when Oslo began. Specifically, in Gilo, a southern Jerusalem neighborhood of 40,000, which would remain part of Israel under any conceivable peace agreement.

Apparently, an alleged Palestinian desire for peace and statehood alongside Israel magically evaporated – poof! – at that moment.

Yet, if Palestinians’ urgent objective was to end settlements, they could do no better than rapidly negotiating with Israel the establishment of a Palestinian state from which they could exclude Jews. But this is precisely what they won’t do, because the price is acceptance of the Jewish state of Israel and an end of claims and conflict with it.

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White House Sidesteps Questions About Releasing Spy Jonathan Pollard

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Photo Credit: AP/Ayala Bar

Photo Credit: AP/Ayala Bar

White House spokesman Jay Carney sidestepped a question about whether the U.S. is weighing the possibility of an early release for Israeli spy Jonathan Pollard in exchange for concessions in the Mideast peace talks.

Carney did not respond directly when asked Monday afternoon if he would break with previous administrations, which have emphatically stressed that Pollard not be considered a bargaining chip in any negotiations with the Israelis.

“What I’ll say is that I have nothing new about Jonathan Pollard that I haven’t said in the past, which is that he was convicted of espionage and he is serving his sentence,” Carney told reporters Monday during his daily press briefing.

“When it comes to the Middle East peace process and the work being done with both parties to try to move the process forward, there’s a lot of complicated moving parts,” he added.

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UN Blasts Iran for Persecution of Christians, Other Religious Minorities

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Photo Credit: APThe election last year of self-professed moderate President Hassan Rouhani has not brought Iran’s Christians any relief, according to a new United Nations report which finds the Islamic Republic’s Bible believers more persecuted than ever.

The detailed report finds Iran has continued to imprison Christians for their faith and designated house churches and evangelical Christians as “threats to national security.” At least 49 Christians were among 307 religious minorities being held in Iranian jails as of January 2014, noted the UN, which also blasted the regime for its hostility to Jews, Baha’is, Zoroastrians and Dervish Muslims, the UN report stated.

“These are indicators that President Rouhani has no influence over hard-liners, who remain fully in charge of the judiciary and security apparatus, government entities that are responsible for the most severe abuses against religious minorities,” Dwight Bashir, deputy director for policy at the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, told FoxNews.com.

Among the Christians held in Iranian prisons is American citizen and Christian pastor Saeed Abedini, who is serving an eight-year prison term for alleged crimes related to his faith. President Obama has called for Abedini’s release, even as his administration has negotiated a disarmament deal with Iran.

“This report is as an important reminder about the true nature of the Iranian regime,” Sen. Mark Kirk, (R-III), told FoxNews.com. “We can’t pretend we are negotiating with Western moderates – we are negotiating with Islamic radicals who persecute Christians, Baha’is, other religious and ethnic minorities and women, while denying all of its citizens basic human rights — including the freedom of speech and assembly.”

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Defense Minister Says U.S. Will Not Lead; ‘Israel Can Only Rely on Itself’

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Photo Credit: White HouseIn a wide-ranging discussion reported in the Israeli newspaper Ha’aretz, Israel’s plain-speaking defence minister Moshe Ya’alon said Monday that Tehran has the upper hand in nuclear negotiations, and dismissed the idea of Israeli dependence on the United States to lead an action against Iran’s nuclear program, saying that Israel can only rely on itself.

“We had thought the ones who should lead the campaign against Iran [would be] the United States,” said Ya’alon, speaking during an event at Tel Aviv University. “But at some stage the United States entered into negotiations with them, and unhappily, when it comes to negotiating at a Persian bazaar, the Iranians were better.”

If Israel had ever expected the United States to take out Iran’s nuclear weapons capability, that is not about to happen, Ya’alon said: “Therefore, on this matter, we have to behave as though we have nobody to look out for us but ourselves.”

Ya’alon issued a sharp critique of Washington’s attitude toward Iran, suggesting President Barack Obama would prefer to delay any confrontation until it could be passed on to his successor. “People know that Iran cheats,” Ya’alon said. “But comfortable Westerners prefer to put off confrontation – if possible, to next year, or the next president. But in the end, it will blow up.”

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As World Order Implodes, Obama Promises to Act… Against Israel

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Photo Credit: APIn a bombshell interview with Bloomberg’s Jeffrey Goldberg, President Obama issued his most direct public threats ever against Israel and its Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

‘Bibi’, the President all but said, ‘if you don’t accept the peace plan that my Secretary of State hasn’t even released yet, you will ruin your country.’ The interview was released for publication almost the very moment as Netanyahu’s plane departed to meet with Obama in Washington.

In addition to droning on about the growing dangers posed by increasing Israeli settlement ‘expansion’, the “rights” of Palestinian refugees, the historic “moderation” of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, and the reasonableness of the Iranian regime, President Obama used the interview with Goldberg to issue ominous new threats and dire warnings against the Jewish state if it did not agree to accept his plan to shrink Israel back inside the 1949 armistice lines.

Obama tells Goldberg that it isn’t really the Palestinians who need to change. It is Israel. Palestinian terrorism against Israeli civilians is essentially the result of steps Israel takes to prevent such terrorism. The best way to change the Palestinian Authority’s incitement to – and celebration of blood curdling violence against Jews – is for Israel to change its housing policy.

Nothing new here. This has been the President Obama’s basic position since long before he ever ran for public office; and a position shared by most of the international community.

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