Will Avigdor Lieberman Save Amona?

The Amona community, long viewed as a red line for activists from Yehuda and Shomron is slated to be destroyed do to Arab claims that they in fact own the land. The key with Amona is to ignore the noise coming from the Knesset and the two bills in committee there. At the end of the day they will be removed by the Prime Minister. The real solution rests in the 1950 Absentees’ Property Law. This law allows the government to buy the land of those who fled their property to enemy countries.

Newly appointed Defense Minister, Avigdor Lieberman has the power to implement this. Sources say he is looking into the very possibility of doing so in Amona’s case.

Most observers believe that if Amona would fall, the coalition would be imperiled and the country would move to new elections. In 2006 Amona was the site of intense police brutality against protesters seeking to block house demolitions there.

If Lieberman is successful in using the 1950 law to solve this issue, the precedent will be replayed across the Judea and Samaria.

So the question this summer, what kind of Amona will we have?  Will it be a 2006 redux or will Amona will serve as a catalyst to move the country forward and finally find a solution to conflicts on property ownership in Judea and Samaria?

Will Ayelet Shaked Be Prime Minister One Day?

It seems that her abilities to change the system go far beyond simple laws.  She has in fact built a unique bridge to an unlikely ally. If Asher Axelrod, the Chairman of the Jerusalem District of the Israeli Bar Association was placing bets on who would likely be Prime Minister one day he would have to go with Ayelet Shaked, Israel’s current Justice Minister.

“It’s no secret that Shaked does a lot of important work beyond the appointment of judges, but to devote such care to this issue is very important, and I’m not sure that politicians gave it the proper attention in previous years.”

This is an incredible turnaround for Axelrod, who once opposed Shaked’s appointment.

“The involvement of Religious Zionism in the courts now is unprecedented, and that’s to the credit of Minister Shaked,” said Axelrod. Ayelet Shaked has always been known as a change candidate.

 

American Desire for Control over Israel is Uncovered through its Funding of OneVoice

As reports of American meddling in last year’s Israeli elections continue to come out, a State Department spokesman attempted to cover up for the US government’s actions with the following statement:

“I’m not going to go into details, but to our understanding the report showed there is no proof that the OneVoice organization used money to influence the Israeli election.”

The problem with this explanation is the bipartisan Senate investigatory committee found the State Department in fact gave $350,000 to the OneVoice organization.  This neither side disputes. The State Department would like Americans and Israelis to believe they had no idea the OneVoice organization would use that money or intended to use that money to actively fund the V15 campaign against a sitting Prime Minister.

The fact is the State Department has a pattern of doing this around the world. Ukraine, Nigeria, and Russia, are just some of the examples.  Moreover, sending US taxpayer’s money along with Obama’s campaign manager over to lend a hand in unseating a foreign leader, especially in Israel smacks of neo-colonialism.

The NGO law being pushed through the Israeli government is more and more becoming a necessary component in preserving Israel’s independence from foreign influence.

Of course opponents of the law are deriding it as uprooting democratic freedoms in Israel. The recent reports about State Department activity here, not only debunk that claim, but prove that NGO’s that are funded by foreign governments have one goal in mind when it comes to Israel and that is assuring it remains a vassal state of the West.

Can Chaos Be Controlled?

Israel increasingly finds itself in a chaotic world. The West it so latched onto all these years seems bent on pursuing suicidal policies in the face of a Radical Islamic war seeking to destroy it. The irony is that the chaos that has metastasized was encouraged, funded, and born from the USA’s own cold war policy to arm and train the Mujihadeen of Afghanistan in their fight against the Soviets during their invasion of Afghanistan.  

The Mujihadeen were more than a typical rebel group.  They were a product of aggressive islamization by   neighboring Pakistan as well as an amalgamation of foreign fighters such as Osama Bin Laden.  The idea behind President Jimmy Carter’s Operation Cyclone  was to enable the Mujihadeen to wage Jihad against the Soviets.  The Mujihadeen won, thus proving the American strategy of using heavily Islamicised groups to fight proxy wars.  The American government went on to support Islamists across the Middle East. This created created chaos with the sole objective to harm Soviet and later secular Arabist control of oil and mineral flush areas in the Middle East.  

The strategy made sense.  With the USA being an ocean away and Europe still relatively set apart from the “barbaric” deserts of the Middle East, there was never any push back against these sorts of covert neo-colonial policies. Afterall, Israel would continue to sponge up the rage of the Arab street. Of course as long as the West could fund the very allies that helped to redirect the street’s animosity to the tiny Jewish State.

Islam Can No Longer Be Controlled

The problem with creating a monster is that there is a good chance that monster will eventually turn on its maker.

The problem with creating a monster is that there is a good chance that monster will eventually turn on its maker. With the open border policies of Europe and naivety of the USA, muslims have been streaming into the west at record levels.  The immigrants themselves may not be dangerous, but they provide an opportune breeding ground for the armies of the once and future caliphate.  Even with this fact the current situation could have been avoided, but the USA played one last very dangerous game.

Department of Defense documents that have been declassified in the last year confirm that the Obama administration encouraged the flow of weapons into the moderate rebel groups in Syria, knowing they would eventually fall into Jihadists.  This worked well as it helped grow an independent Sunni state in Eastern Syria and Western Iraq.  Of course, when this state, later to be renamed ISIS refused to play by the rules, the game had turned dangerous.  Far worse was the West’s Sunni Caliphate than Assad or Iran.  Now to destroy the Frankenstein they built, the USA is forced to work with its sworn enemies.

In today’s world, geography is meaningless. ISIS has used its strength to rally disenfranchised Muslims across the world, giving them a global army in the once calm West. Chaos has become the norm and yet Western leaders, especially in the USA, seek to harness the chaos for their own benefit.

After the recent Orlando attack, calls to enforce stricter gun control laws became part of the mainstream cacophony of solutions. Not only that, calls on the right to make a Declaration of War against terrorism became part of the chorus of solutions. Both of these moves renders Americans less prepared to deal with a problem their government initiated nearly 40 years ago as well as effectively shredding the Constitution.

Does Israel Stand Alone?

The funny thing about chaos is that it is never permanent.  Chaos always leads to new order.  That is how the world works. The recent overtures between Israel and Russia are the results of finding new order amidst the global chaos. The burgeoning relationship between Israel and India as well as China and other East Asian countries will now only increase as the West crumbles.

The question for Israel going forward is how long does it stick with the West as it builds long standing relationships with an opposing bloc of nations?  The answer to that question may lie in how the West deals with the monster it helped create. If Europe and America continue to ignore the threat of Radical Islam, opting to utilize the threat to grab more power from their citizens, rather than snuff it out, their days will be quickly numbered.

Petition: European Union will be required to report on construction in area C

Regavim is appealing the EU’s immunity from prosecution. Based on the legal opinion of an expert on international law, Regavim is petitioning the Supreme Court to require accountability and reporting for building violations committed by the Union.

A petition filed this week by Regavim to the Supreme Court may put an end to the systematic evasion of the EU from being accountable for violations of building regulations that it has initiated in Area C of the of Judea and Samaria (West Bank). Regavim is requesting from the judges to require the European Union to participate, first as a respondent to the petition to the Supreme Court and to give an account of its construction activities.

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For some years the EU has been trying to take over extensive regions in area C through the establishment of buildings and infrastructures in illegal Bedouin outposts. One of the areas where the EU has made a large concerted effort to invest in is the area surrounding Maale Adumim.

Two weeks ago, Supreme Court justices, Uzi Fogelman, Daphne Barak-Erez and Meni Mazuz rejected the petition presented by Regavim against the Civil Administration in the Judea and Samaria (West Bank) on  ignored breaching of the law. The petition demanded that the Civil Administration implement peremptory demolition orders issued against the 15 illegal structures built by the Union within the limits of the jurisdiction of Mishor Adumim and Kfar Adumim.

The judges rejected the petition by Regavim based on the Civil Administration’s statement that the removal of illegal construction there is already a high priority item, and asked them not to get involved in managing schedules for implementing orders. However, in the decision Justice Fogelman hinted that he is not sure that there is basis for the Union’s immunity from such proceedings.

Regavim decided to take up the challenge laid down by Justice Fogelman, and worked on preparing a new petition concerning other illegal structures built by the Union in areas under the jurisdiction of Kfar Adumim. As for these buildings the Civil Administration announced a year ago that they are a top priority for demolition, however since then no enforcement action against them has been made.

Regavim contends that the long drawn out period of time is “the unreasonable renunciation of enforcing the law”, and seek to place the EU illegal construction activities at the center of the Supreme Court hearings.

The petition is based on the opinion of the expert on international law, Professor Aryeh Reich from Bar Ilan University, who doubts the claim of immunity of the EU. “The EU mission is indeed right that it enjoys immunity from lawsuits, both criminal and civil, and administrative,” says Reich, “but there is an exception in this regard in Article 31 of the Vienna Convention on diplomatic relations, in connection with activities relating to its private land that is located within the territory of the host country.”

Professor Reich explains that international law imposes the obligation of respecting the law on foreign diplomats who enjoy immunity.  “They are obligated to respect the laws and regulations of the country in which they serve, and not to interfere in its internal affairs.”

Another argument raised by the lawyers of Regavim states that immunity is granted to countries only, while the EU has no absolute status as a country. The inclusion of the Union in the petition is made possible in principle because if the petition is accepted by the court and consequently buildings are demolished, the EU will have to absorb EU economic damage.