Showing posts with label AIPAC. Show all posts
Showing posts with label AIPAC. Show all posts

Wednesday, February 17, 2016

Obama Reluctantly Signs BDS Bill Recognizing Territories as Part of Israel by Ahuva Balofsky - BREAKING ISRAEL NEWS


Obama Reluctantly Signs BDS Bill Recognizing Territories as Part of Israel


“And Elijah came near unto all the people, and said: ‘How long halt ye between two opinions? if the LORD be God, follow Him; but if Baal, follow him.’ And the people answered him not a word.” (1 Kings 18:21)
A trade bill which passed a senate vote Thursday is set to be signed into law by US President Barack Obama, despite his objections to its pro-Israel portions. The Trade Facilitation and Trade Enforcement Act of 2015 came before Congress last summer as part of a package designed to strengthen rule enforcement and address currency manipulation.
The bill, however, contains a provision which would extend agreements with Israel into “Israeli-controlled territories”, a move lauded by pro-Israel lobby AIPAC (the American Israel Public Affairs Committee) but criticised by the White House, which said it “contravenes longstanding U.S. policy towards Israel and the occupied territories, including with regard to Israeli settlement activity.”
statement by White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest acknowledged that the president would sign the bill despite his objections. “As with any bipartisan compromise legislation, there are provisions in this bill that we do not support,” he explained. “However, the legislation would strengthen trade enforcement at our ports and borders and improve our ability to stop evasion of our trade laws; improve transparency, accountability, and coordination in enforcement efforts; and give us unprecedented new tools to address unfair currency practices. Its passage is an important milestone in our overall trade agenda.”
The bill includes a clause intended to curb politically-motivated trade moves, such as limiting or prohibiting economic relations with Israel. The clause, which discourages corporate or state-affiliated entities from participating in the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement, received particular accolades from AIPAC.
NO to BDS and YES to Israel!
“The provision puts the US firmly on record opposing BDS and supporting enhanced commercial ties between the United States and Israel,” AIPAC said in a statement Thursday. “This measure builds on the important work of Congress … passing into law firm anti-BDS negotiating objectives for American trade negotiators.”
In accordance with the bill, 180 days following its passage, the US administration will be required to report to the Congress on global BDS activities, including the participation of foreign companies in political boycotts of Israel. A number of legal protections for American businesses operating in Israel are also included.
While Obama opposes BDS, the White House expressed concern about extending such a clause to East Jerusalem, the Golan Heights and Judea and Samaria, regions considered “occupied”. Long-standing US policy has held that Israeli settlement activity in these regions undermine peace efforts and the establishment of a two-state solution.
As one administration official told The Times of Israel, successive US governments have walked a fine line between enhancing economic ties with Israel and preserving the possibility of a two-state solution with the Palestinians. He said this has been a priority for both Democrats and Republicans since the US-Israel Free Trade agreement was signed in 1985.
The bill passed Thursday’s Senate vote 75-20.

Monday, February 1, 2016

US to Begin Enforcing Labeling of West Bank Products By Adam Eliyahu Berkowitz - BREAKING ISRAEL NEWS

View of Ma'ale Adumim, an Israeli community in Judea and Samaria, on May 26, 2014. (Photo: Serge Attal/Flash90)

View of Ma’ale Adumim, an Israeli community in Judea and Samaria, on May 26, 2014. (Photo: Serge Attal/Flash90)

US to Begin Enforcing Labeling of West Bank Products

“Better is the poor that walketh in his integrity than he that is perverse in his lips and a fool at the same time.” (Proverbs 19:1)
After months of heated debate over the European Union (EU) labeling products made in Judea and Samaria, the US is now quietly doing the same, but without the fuss or discussion.
The US Customs Department released a statement last Saturday reminding importers of a regulation from 1995 that goods produced in the West Bank must be labeled as such, and not labeled “Made in Israel”.
“Goods produced in the West Bank or Gaza Strip shall be marked as originating from ‘West Bank,’ ‘Gaza,’ ‘Gaza Strip,’ ‘West Bank/Gaza,’ ‘West Bank/Gaza Strip,’ ‘West Bank and Gaza,’ or ‘West Bank and Gaza Strip’. It is not acceptable to mark the aforementioned goods with the words ‘Israel,’ ‘Made in Israel,’ ‘Occupied Territories-Israel,’ or any variation thereof. Goods that are erroneously marked as products of Israel will be subject to an enforcement action carried out by US Customs and Border Protection,” the memo read.
State Department spokesman Mark Toner was asked at a press conference if this was intended as a rebuke to Israel for recent settlement expansion.
He responded that it was “simply a restatement of previous requirements” and does not “impose additional requirements”. He stressed that it was in no way a boycott.
It was pointed out that the policy had not been enforced in 20 years.
Toner claimed the decision to enforce it now came as a result of recent complaints, but he declined to specify where the complaints originated.
Toner was then asked if this was a move towards a universally stricter adherence to customs regulations and labeling, for example in the case of “Transnistrian products going to the US [labeled] as made in Russia”.
Read "Catch the Jew" - A True Laugh Out Loud Look Inside Israel
He responded that no changes were anticipated in regards to any other countries.
The American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) told the Forward it doesn’t object to the reminder being issued.
“This long-standing Customs policy, in contrast to the actions of the European Union, was not intended to stigmatize Israeli products but to merely facilitate duty free access to the US market for Palestinian goods,” said AIPAC spokesman Marshall Wittman. “It does not distinguish among manufacturers in the territories.”
This may be true, but the US policy carries a sting the EU policy does not. The EU policy does not bear a fine for non-compliance, but the US Customs policy carries a fine of 10% the value of the product, which the US Customs Department will presumably remember to begin enforcing.
It is true that this policy, passed through Congress and duly legislated, was a result of the Oslo Accords and as such, was welcomed by Prime Minister Yitzchak Rabin, but it is unwelcome by the Israelis in its new incarnation.
An Israeli official told YNet, “It is hard to believe that customs officials would randomly decide to publish a notice just because someone complained that guidelines are not being enforced. It’s convenient for them to present it as being a technical issue but in the US things never happen just by chance.”
He added that “under the guise of a technical notice the Americans are taking a political step. Israel will have to decide whether this is a technical reissuing of guidelines or a politically important directive.”

Tuesday, March 3, 2015

"Why does Netanyahu want to address Congress? He told me..." - Joel Rosenberg

Why does Netanyahu want to address Congress? He told me in this interview about a threat the West “misunderstands.”

by joelcrosenberg
Netanyahu-AIPAC2014(Washington, D.C.) -- Why does Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu want to address a Joint Session of Congress despite intense – even unprecedented -- political attacks against him from the Obama administration, the media, and the left-wing in Israel?
Because he understands something too few in the West do – that the most serious threat we face today is not simply from “Radical Islam,” but from “Apocalyptic Islam.”
“I think the West misunderstood, and still misunderstands, the threat” posed by Iran, Mr. Netanyahu told me during a 2007 interview for a documentary film I was producing. “It is a fanatic, messianic ideology that seeks to have an apocalyptic battle for world supremacy with the West. It seeks to correct what it sees as an accident of history, where the West has risen, and Islam had declined.  The correction is supposed to be done by the resurrection of an Islamic empire and the acquisition of nuclear weapons and the use of nuclear weapons, if necessary, to obliterate Islam’s enemies, and to subjugate the rest.”
“This is a pathological ideology, much like Naziism was,” Mr. Netanyahu, then out of office, continued. “It poses a threat, in my judgment, in many ways bigger than Naziism. Because Hitler embarked on a world conflict and then sought to achieve nuclear weapons, where as the leading Radical Islamic regime – Iran -- is seeking to first acquire nuclear weapons and then embark on a world conflict. And that is what is not yet understood in the West, and certainly, if it’s understood, it’s not acted upon.”
Today, for the first time in human history, the world faces not just one but two nation states whose rulers are driven by an apocalyptic, genocidal, End Times eschatology that seeks not simply to attack us but to annihilate us.
The first is the Islamic Republic of Iran. The second is Islamic State (also known as ISIS or ISIL). The leaders of the former are Shia. The latter are Sunni. Both believe the End of Days has come. Both believe the Islamic messiah – known as the “Mahdi” — is coming at any moment. Both are trying to hasten the coming of the Mahdi so that he can conquer the earth and establish justice and peace. They speak often of such things.
That said, each has a different strategy to speed up the Mahdi’s arrival. ISIS wants to build a caliphate. Iran wants to build The Bomb. ISIS is committing genocide now. Iran is preparing to commit genocide later, openly stating it seeks to wipe Israel off the map and create a world without the United States, which they describe as the “Great Satan.”
In the immediate term, ISIS is more dangerous, as journalist Graeme Wood explains in a must-read article in The Atlantic. Why? Because ISIS is on a jihadist rampage right now – robbing, killing, destroying, enslaving, raping, torturing, beheading and burning people alive.
Longer term, Prime Minister Netanyahu argues that Iran is the most dangerous, especially if the President approves this disastrous nuclear deal. Why? Because the apocalyptic leaders of Iran are biding their time to build a nuclear arsenal capable of killing tens of millions of people in a matter of minutes. Thus, the Prime Minister will urge Congress to do everything in its Constitutional power to block ratification and implementation of treaty with Iran giving the mullahs a legal path to uranium enrichment, plutonium development, building ICBMs, and building nuclear warheads.
Far too few people in the West truly understand the nature and threat of Radical Islam. Fewer still are aware of — much less understand — the nature and threat of Apocalyptic Islam. Indeed, many dismiss these concerns all together.
However, according to a 2012 report by the Pew Research Center, “in most countries in the Middle East and North Africa, South Asia and Southeast Asia, more than half or more of Muslims believe they will live to see the return of the Mahdi.” In a world of 1.5 billion Muslims, that means more than 750 million Muslims believe not only that the Mahdi is coming, but that his arrival is imminent.
In Egypt, 40% of Muslims believe the return of the Mahdi is imminent. In Jordan, the number is 41%. Among Palestinians, it’s 46%. In Iraq, a stunning 72% of Muslims believe the Islamic messiah is coming soon.
What’s more, the Pew report found that an enormous number of Muslims believe that Jesus is literally coming back to earth. In Islamic eschatology, Jesus is not the Savior, nor the Son of God. Thus, Muslims do not believe Jesus will reign as the “King of kings and Lord of lords,” as prophesied in the Bible. Rather, Apocalyptic Islamic eschatology asserts that Jesus will come as a deputy, serving under the Mahdi, forcing people to convert to Islam or die.
In Jordan, 29% of Muslims believe Jesus is coming back to earth. In Egypt, the number is 39%. Among Palestinians, the number is 46%. In Iraq, a remarkable 64% of Muslims believe Jesus is coming back. Not all of these Muslims are dangerous, of course. But the leaders of Apocalyptic Islam are seeking to mobilize the masses who share their End Times theology towards violent, even genocidal, ends.
The President is ignoring such facts and their implications. The Prime Minister is not.
“The Obama presidency has two great missions: fixing the economy, and preventing Iran from gaining nuclear weapons,” Mr. Netanyahu told a reporter in March of 2009, upon coming back to power after a decade in the political wilderness. Speaking of the Iranian leadership, he said, “You don’t want a messianic apocalyptic cult controlling atomic bombs. When the wide-eyed believer gets hold of the reins of power and the weapons of mass death, then the entire world should start worrying, and that is what is happening in Iran.”
Mr. Netanyahu is still sounding the alarm. Mr. Obama is still refusing to listen.
God help us all.
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joelcrosenberg | March 3, 2015 at 3:36 am | Categories: Uncategorized | URL:http://wp.me/piWZ7-3eA

Sunday, January 25, 2015

It's Urgent That We Stand FIRM With Israel - Steve Strang Report

Wayne Hilsden
Wayne Hilsden (King of Kings Jerusalem)

Strang Report, by Steven Strang, Founder of Charisma magazine
Every once in a while something comes along that is so important it rises above many other things that are clamoring for our attention. Two weeks from now in Colorado, a new organization will be formed uniting Christian ministries who love and support Israel.
It is called the Fellowship of Israel Related Ministries (FIRM). They are holding their Israel Summit from Feb. 4-6 at Resurrection Fellowship Church in Loveland, Colorado.
There are many organizations that support Israel, and most have different functions. Some are more focused on lobbying and working with the Jewish community and the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). 
I believe that it is time for Christian ministries to join together to support Israel, even embracing those believers who come from a Jewish background who are often excluded from participation in other pro-Israel organizations.
You know that I have been a big supporter of Israel. I have donated my time and resources helping to do what I could. Now I am throwing my weight behind Wayne Hilsden, the visionary and founder of FIRM. He is the pastor of King of Kings Community Jerusalem in the heart of the Israeli capital.
A Canadian by birth, he has pastored that congregation for more than 30 years. He has written for us numerous times, and I've had the privilege of visiting his congregation and seeing the impressive work, also over time becoming friends.
So when asked me to be involved, I jumped at the chance. I am planning to attend this important summit. I understand that more than 1,200 already have registered and the number continues to grow. Additionally, between 450 and 500 high school students who will be attending Friday's sessions, along with 75 to 90 Youth With a Mission (YWAM) students.
The Israel Summit is for all ages but Wayne says, "it will especially inspire and challenge youth to stand united with the Jewish people as anti-Semitism is spreading like a cancer."
"We'll hear God's heart for the Jewish people and reveal our biblical mandate to stand with Israel at this critical moment in history," Wayne says.
The cost is only $39, which is very reasonable. I urge you to quickly make plans in the two weeks that are left to participate in what I believe will be a historic event.
Featured speakers at the conference include Hilsden, Pastor Jack Hayford, Dr. Michael Brown, Calev Myers of the Jerusalem Institute of Justice and Jewish Voice Ministries International's Jonathan Bernis. Other leaders from Israel and around the world will be in attendance as well.
Billy Graham's daughter, Anne Graham Lotz, voiced her endorsement for FIRM on her Facebook page:
"My good friend, Wayne Hillsden, founded and pastors King of Kings Church in downtown Jerusalem. I have spoken there on two occasions, and each time I've been thrilled by what God is doing in the midst of the city He uniquely loves. Wayne has begun an initiative that is seeking to bring together ministries that stand with Israel during these very difficult days. His first public launch is a conference called the Israel Summit ... ."
Please share this link about the Israel Summit by email and social media to spread the word. Be sure to share this Strang Report as well.
As Wayne says, "There is a sense of urgency, and we need to rally the troops now, especially younger people, for worldwide support of Israel."
Steve Strang is the founding editor and publisher of Charisma. Follow him on Twitter @sstrang or Facebook (stephenestrang).
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Thursday, March 6, 2014

Netanyahu: Israel Longs for Peace - AIPAC Speech

Netanyahu: Israel Longs for Peace With the Arabs

Wednesday, March 05, 2014 |  Ryan Jones ISRAEL TODAY  
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Tuesday went somewhat outside what some would describe as his “comfort zone” and waxed eloquent about how Israelis long for peace with the Arabs and the benefits that an end to the conflict will bear.
“We all have so much to gain from peace. Peace would be good for us. Peace would be good for the Palestinians,” Netanyahu told the annual American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) gathering in Washington. “But peace would also open up the possibility of establishing formal ties between Israel and leading countries in the Arab world.”
The Israeli leader went on to explain that “many Arab leaders – and believe me, this is a fact, not a hypothesis, it’s a fact – many Arab leaders today already realize that Israel is not their enemy, that peace with the Palestinians would turn our relations with them and with many Arab countries into open and thriving relationships.”
“Think of the possibilities,” Netanyahu urged his audience, noting that the “combination of Israeli innovation and Gulf entrepreneurship, to take one example,” could bring about a solution to the region’s water and energy problems and catapult the Middle East forward on the international stage.
Unfortunately, Netanyahu continued, it would seem Israel does not have in the Palestinian leadership a partner that is ready to achieve that glorious future. “President Abbas, recognize the Jewish state and in doing so you will be telling your people the Palestinians … the right of the Jewish people to a state of their own is beyond dispute,” Netanyahu said in a direct plea to the Palestinian leadership.
The Palestinian Authority immediately made clear that it does not share Netanyahu’s vision for the future.
In remarks to the AFP, Palestinian negotiator Nabil Shaath called Netanyahu’s speech “an official announcement of a unilateral end to negotiations” and a contravention of the “rules of the peace negotiations.”
Shaath reiterated that the Palestinian leadership would never agree to recognize Israel as the national homeland of the Jewish people, nor would it relinquish its quest to flood sovereign Israel with millions of so-called “Palestinian refugees.”
Meanwhile, report circulated that when Netanyahu met US President Barack Obama at the White House on Monday, the latter promised to put increased pressure on the Palestinians to meet the terms of a new American framework proposal, which includes many of Israel’s conditions for peace.
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