Israel Strikes Oil Off Tel Aviv Coast

Pictured left - Oil tankers in New Jersey -- coming soon to Israel? (Reuters)

Israel has struck oil again, this time off the Tel Aviv coast. Developers maintain the find includes 100 million barrels of oil, worth $10 billion.

Modiin Energy and Adira Energy discovered an estimated 128 million barrels of oil and 1.8 trillion cubic feet of gas in their Gabriella and Yitzhak licenses, in shallow water less than 15 miles northwest of Tel Aviv.

Officials called the find “significant” and added, "Surveys conducted in recent months found oil in the target strata. The potential oil reservoir is 128 million barrels of oil, and the contingent reserves are an additional 120 million barrels."...

Iran Declares Victory in Nuclear Talks

Since the beginning of the P5+1 nuclear talks with Iran, foreign policy establishment figures have been bubbling with optimism about the negotiations leading to a deal that will settle the crisis. The inauguration of the talks is considered a master stroke that will head off the possibility of a Western or Israeli attack on Iran and allow the European Union to back off its pledge to implement an oil embargo on the Islamist regime. All that will be needed, we are told, is a little patience, and then EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton will broker an agreement that will involve the removal of refined uranium from Iran but allow Iran to continue its “peaceful” nuclear research.

But if President Obama thinks the negotiations are the perfect way to kick the nuclear can down the road while he is running for re-election, the Iranians think the talks are a triumph for their nuclear ambitions. As Hamidreza Taraghi, an adviser to Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, stated in a startlingly frank interview with the New York Times, the regime’s stalling tactics have been an unmitigated success, allowing them to transgress every red line set by the West and forcing them to accept Iran’s terms. As the Times notes:

In continually pushing forward the nuclear activities — increasing enrichment and building a bunker mountain enrichment facility — Iran has in effect forced the West to accept a program it insists is for peaceful purposes. Iranians say their carefully crafted policy has helped move the goal posts in their favor by making enrichment a reality that the West has been unable to stop — and may now be willing, however grudgingly, to accept.

Taraghi is, of course, absolutely right. The opening of the talks in Istanbul gave the Iranians reason to believe the international community was prepared to accept their nuclear enrichment program as well as buying the fiction that Iran’s Supreme Leader had issued a fatwa against a nuclear weapon. The question these conclusions pose for President Obama is whether he is really prepared to allow Ashton and the Europeans to broker a deal while he is running for re-election that will, in effect, give the international seal of approval to an Iranian nuclear program that is likely, deal or no deal, to lead to a nuclear weapon?...

Iran Boasts of End to US-Israeli Alliance

An Iranian newspaper tied to Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei recently boasted that the U.S. has “rejected” Israel over the past three months. This belief could have disastrous consequences. The author writes that the only “obstacle” remaining is the Saudi Royal Family and once it falls, Israel can be destroyed.

“It can be said that within the last 60 years, this is the first time that the Zionist regime, since its illegal inception, has had to endure rejection by the West over its vision and interest in the region,” wrote Sadollah Zarei, according to a translation by Reza Kahlili.

It’s easy to see why Iran has picked up on this fact, which Democrats have desperately tried to deny throughout Obama’s tenure. Headline after headline is about the U.S. trying to hold Israel back. In March, an anonymous administration official told the Washington Post, “We’re trying to make the decision to attack as hard as possible for Israel.”...

Terrorists Begin Nakba Day with Kassam Rocket, Firebombs

Arab terrorists attacked southern Israel with a Kassam rocket early Tuesday and attacked Jews in the Hevron area with two firebombs overnight as “Nakba Day” began. No one was injured.

The rocket, fired from northern Gaza, exploded in an open area near Sderot, and the firebombs were hurled at IDF soldiers stationed at the village of El-Aroub, located less than one mile south of the Gush Etzion junction on Highway 60 leading to Kiryat Arba-Hevron.

The attacks coincided with the beginning of what Arabs call Nakba Day, or the day of catastrophe, referring to the English date of May 15 when the State of Israel was re-established with a declaration of independence in 1948....

Fight the Terrorists, Not the Bombs

...The formula for fighting a War on Terror without defining a vector for that terror has led to a state of terror, in which everyone is either terrified or terrorized. The official word is that anyone and everyone can be a terrorist, and even though they all seem to be Muslim, the official position is that this is a complete coincidence, a misunderstanding of the religion of peace or a result of our foreign policy.

To believe any of these things is to also believe that history is bunk. Al-Asiri’s last name indicates that he comes from the Asir province, the heartland of fanaticism in Saudi Arabia. Asir means “difficult” in Arabic. Six of the 9/11 hijackers came from Asir and Bin Laden praised its tribes as “forming the lion’s share.” Asir had been a source of violence and Islamic fanaticism long before American foreign policy mattered to anyone outside the hemisphere. The Asiri Wahhabis had fought the Ottoman Empire in Asir going back to the early 1800s and then they fought the House of Saud. With global access, Asiris are able to extend their wars deep into our territory. To launch attacks well beyond their desert home.

The sword has given way to the bomb, though it is still used occasionally on hostages, and by importing Islam we have imported the way of the sword and the rule of the bomb. When the followers of the sword take the plane, then sooner or later they will bomb the plane or use the plane as a guided missile. There is no avoiding that....

Legislature approves bill to bar use of Islamic law, other foreign codes, in Kansas courts

TOPEKA, Kan. — A bill designed to prevent Kansas courts or government agencies from making decisions based on Islamic or other foreign legal codes has cleared the state Legislature after a contentious debate about whether the measure upholds American values or appeals to prejudice against Muslims.

The Senate approved the bill Friday on a 33-3 vote. The House had approved it, 120-0, earlier in the week. The measure goes next to Republican Gov. Sam Brownback, who hasn’t said whether he’ll sign or veto the measure.

The measure doesn’t specifically mention Shariah law, which broadly refers to codes within the Islamic legal system. Instead, it says that courts, administrative agencies or state tribunals can’t base rulings on any foreign law or legal system that would not grant the parties the same rights guaranteed by state and U.S. constitutions....

Mexican Jihad

As the United States considers the Islamic jihadi threats confronting it from all sides, it would do well to focus on its southern neighbor, Mexico, which has been targeted by Islamists and jihadists, who, through a number of tactics—from engaging in da‘wa, converting Mexicans to Islam, to smuggling and the drug cartel, simple extortion, kidnappings and enslavement—have been subverting Mexico in order to empower Islam and sabotage the U.S.

According to a 2010 report, “Close to home: Hezbollah terrorists are plotting right on the U.S. border,” which appeared in the NY Daily News:

Mexican authorities have rolled up a Hezbollah network being built in Tijuana … closer to American homes than the terrorist hideouts in the Bekaa Valley are to Israel. Its goal, according to a Kuwaiti newspaper that reported on the investigation: to strike targets in Israel and the West. Over the years, Hezbollah—rich with Iranian oil money and narcocash—has generated revenue by cozying up with Mexican cartels to smuggle drugs and people into the U.S.  In this, it has shadowed the terrorist-sponsoring regime in Tehran, which has been forging close ties with Hugo Chavez of Venezuela, who in turn supports the narcoterrorist organization FARC, which wreaks all kinds of havoc throughout the region.

Another 2010 article appearing in the Washington Times asserts that, “with fresh evidence of Hezbollah activity just south of the border [in Mexico], and numerous reports of Muslims from various countries posing as Mexicans and crossing into the United States from Mexico, our porous southern border is a national security nightmare waiting to happen.” This is in keeping with a recent study done by Georgetown University, which revealed that the number of immigrants from Lebanon and Syria living in Mexico exceeds 200,000. Syria, along with Iran, is one of Hezbollah’s strongest financial and political supporters, and Lebanon is the immigrants’ country of origin.   Just like only 19 jihadists were necessary to cause the devastation of September 11, 2001, only a handful of these 200,000 are necessary to wreak havoc north of the border....

Palestine – Israel Has Had Enough

The Palestinian Authority’s decision to unilaterally seek Palestinian statehood at the United Nations and UNESCO – in breach of its obligations under the Oslo Accords and the Roadmap – has propelled Benjamin Netanyahu and Shaul Mofaz into forming Israel’s government of national unity this week.

This was made abundantly clear when one of the four priorities announced by both leaders was:

“to move forward responsibly in the peace process”

With the new Government now controlling 78% of the votes in the Knesset – a new offer is set to be made by Israel to the Palestinian Authority in a final endeavour to resolve the allocation of sovereignty in the West Bank and Gaza between Jews and Arabs.

Israel has endured the machinations of the Palestinian Authority for the last 19 years. Its continuing obduracy in demanding – as a minimum – a Palestinian State equal in size to 100% of the West Bank and Gaza – with its capitol in Jerusalem – has been a major stumbling block in ending the conflict....

Op-Ed: Borges, Boldness and Israel: Truth and Paradox

On the face of it, Israel's best survival course is to "think positively," and  "prepare for the best." Could anything be more obvious?  After all, isn't this advice the irrefutably core wisdom of American philosophical thought?

Perhaps not. Sometimes, especially in matters of  life and death, truth emerges through irony and paradox. In one of his most illuminating parables, Jorge Luis Borges, the Argentine writer who once wished that he had been born a Jew, examines the meticulous calculations of a condemned man. Having noticed that human expectations rarely coincide with reality, this man deliberately imagines the circumstances of his own death. Because they have become expectations, he reasons, they can never really come to pass.

By this seemingly simple story, Borges illustrates, with both savvy indirection and subtle inference, the unlikely benefits of overtly negative thought. Here, he leads us to understand, at least in certain identifiable circumstances of mortal danger, that nothing can be more purposefully life-extending than extreme pessimism....

Christians, Jews to unite against Islam?

The Coliseum, where thousands upon thousands of "Judaeis" have been massacred by the Roman emperors, became for one night an arena for alliance between Christians and Jews against “odium fidei,” or religious hatred.

Last Wednesday in Rome, Jewish leaders for the first time rallied alongside Christians in a candlelit vigil to denounce the attacks in the Middle East and Africa. It was “interfaith” or “ecumenical” dialogue at its best. Forget the theological questions, which remain unsolvable. There is an urgent mutual solidarity about the single most defining issue of our time: religious freedom.

It is about the right to life of Jews and Christians in an Islamicized Middle East. Speaking at the Coliseum, Rome’s Chief Rabbi Riccardo Di Segni slammed Western “indifference” surrounding the massacre of minorities in the Middle East....