1. Settlements' Legality Won't Prevent Peace, Commentary Magazine, Jonathan S. Tobin
2. Op-ed: Term 'West Bank' only came about as result of Jordan's imperialist effort to expand, YNet News, David Ha'ivri
3. Egypt's Real Ruler: Mohamed Tantawi, The Washington Times, Daniel Pipes and Cynthia Farahat
4. Rocky Egypt-Saudi Relationship Strengthens, FrontPage Magazine, Rick Moran
5. Obama's spectacular failure, The Jerusalem Post, Caroline Glick

The release of a report on the legality of Israel’s presence in the West Bank commissioned by Prime Minister Netanyahu is being widely dismissed by critics of his government as well as those of the Jewish state. Though its findings that Jews have the right to live in the territories and that Israel’s presence there does not fit the traditional definition of a military occupation are solidly based in international law, no one should expect the left to respect the report issued by a panel headed by former Supreme Court Vice President Edmond Levy. Nor should we be surprised if the international community ignores it. Opposition to the settlements is so deeply entrenched that there is no argument, no matter how grounded in logic or justice, that would persuade those committed to the myth settlements are the only obstacle to peace, that they are not illegal. As legal scholar David M. Phillips wrote in the September 2009 issue of COMMENTARY, international law supports this position.

But while we expect this effort to be trashed, those horrified by the fact that Israel is willing to assert that it has rights in the West Bank that are as worthy of respect as those of the Arabs are not just wrong about the legal arguments. Their assumption that a belief in the settlements’ legality makes a peace deal impossible is equally mistaken. Just because Israel has rights in the West Bank doesn’t mean it need necessarily exercise them on every inch of the territory. The assertion of Jewish rights merely means Israel has a leg to stand on when negotiating the permanent status of the West Bank and Jerusalem. Far from that rendering peace unlikely, it ought to give Palestinians an incentive to come to the table and work out a deal that will give them as much of the territory as they can get. The obstacle to peace is the Palestinian belief that the Jewish presence throughout the country — including pre-1967 Israel — is illegitimate....

Click here for the complete article, or copy and paste this link into your web browser:
http://www.unitycoalitionforisrael.org/news/article.php?id=8285

The term “West Bank” is used so widely that one might get the impression that it has some real historical significance. Those who rally together, calling for Israel to pull out of this area and allow the establishment of a Palestinian State here, would like you to believe that one previously existed and that Israel took it over and closed it down. The narrative presumes that people will believe it without question and will not ask for any proof. Amazingly, that strategy has worked pretty well so far.

Many people do not expect to be lied to by TV announcers and academics, and so they just take the narrative at face value. Even people who support Israel often do not realize how un-related to fact many of these claims against Israel are. So Israel’s supporters are more often put on the defensive, trying to point out the good deeds that Israel is doing in the world as a way to cover up for actions that they do not know how to explain.

But, in fact, the West Bank narrative really has little foundation. It only appeared on the stage of history in 1948, when the Hashemite army of Trans-Jordan crossed over its own western border, the Jordan River, which it is named for. The army of Trans-Jordan did so as part of the joint Arab effort to destroy the newly founded Jewish State and push the Jews into the sea.

The line of defense that the Jewish army succeeded in holding as they defended Tel Aviv from invasion was later dubbed “The Green Line” because it was marked with green colored crayon on the map that was used at the signing of the Armistice Agreement between Israel and its neighbors in 1949 on the Greek island of Rhodes. In that agreement, the Arab side refused to define the green line as a recognized border, but only as an agreed ceasefire line - nothing more....

Click here for the complete article, or copy and paste this link into your web browser:
http://www.unitycoalitionforisrael.org/news/article.php?id=8286

What does it mean that Mohamed Morsi is president of Egypt? Speaking for the American consensus, Bret Stephens recently argued in the Wall Street Journal against the consolation that the Muslim Brotherhood's victory "is merely symbolic, since the army still has the guns." He concluded that "Egypt is lost."

We shall argue to the contrary: the election was not just symbolic but illusory, and Egypt's future remains very much in play.

Morsi is not the most powerful politician in Egypt or the commander in chief. Arguably, he does not even run the Muslim Brotherhood. His job is undefined. The military could brush him aside. For the first time since 1954, Egypt's president is a secondary figure, assigned the functionary role long associated with its prime ministers...

Click here for the complete article, or copy and paste this link into your web browser:
http://www.unitycoalitionforisrael.org/news/article.php?id=8287

<img src="http://c481901.r1.cf2.rackcdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/0712-Egypt-Morsi-travels-to-Saudi-Arabia_full_600.gif"/>
In his first foreign trip since being elected last month, Egypt’s President Mohammed Mursi paid a visit to King Abudullah and Saudi Arabia on Thursday, seeking to repair relations with the Kingdom following several months of diplomatic conflict. The trip also sent a signal to Egypt’s Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) that the new president would respect the traditional alliance between the military and the Saudis who have given strong political and economic support to the generals in the past. This is important as Mursi continues his climb down from his ill-advised confrontation with SCAF and the nation’s courts over the recall of Parliament — dissolved by SCAF following a court decision that invalidated a third of the outcomes in the election last year.

Mursi now says he wants “consultations” with all those concerned and has specifically said that he will obey the court’s decision on Tuesday that invalidated his decree re-opening parliament. While in Jeddah for talks with the king, Saudi officials offered to mediate the constitutional dispute between Mursi and the generals if the Egyptians request it.

Another purpose of the trip was to assure Gulf states that any outreach by Egypt to Iran would not threaten the Saudis. Egypt is one of only three states — Israel and the US are the other two — who do not have relations with Tehran. Mursi needs Saudi Arabia far more than he needs the Iranians and the president is returning home with promises of more economic aid to bolster Egypt’s sagging economy. While there have been tentative feelers to Iran put out by the Egyptian government, and Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has invited Mursi to Tehran, the president’s Saudi trip sends a clear signal that the Islamists will likely not be receptive....

Click here for the complete article, or copy and paste this link into your web browser:
http://www.unitycoalitionforisrael.org/news/article.php?id=8288

Two weeks ago, in an unofficial inauguration ceremony at Tahrir Square in Cairo, Egypt's new Muslim Brotherhood President Mohamed Mursi took off his mask of moderation. Before a crowd of scores of thousands, Mursi pledged to work for the release from US federal prison of Sheikh Omar Abdel-Rahman.

According to The New York Times' account of his speech, Mursi said, "I see signs [being held by members of the crowd] for Omar Abdel-Rahman and detainees' pictures. It is my duty and I will make all efforts to have them free, including Omar Abdel-Rahman."

Otherwise known as the blind sheikh, Abdel Rahman was the mastermind of the jihadist cell in New Jersey that perpetrated the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. His cell also murdered Rabbi Meir Kahane in New York in 1990. They plotted the assassination of then-president Hosni Mubarak. They intended to bomb New York landmarks including the Lincoln and Holland tunnels and the UN headquarters.

Rahman was the leader of Gama'a al-Islamia - the Islamic Group, responsible, among other things for the assassination of Anwar Sadat in 1981. A renowned Sunni religious authority, Rahman wrote the fatwa, or Islamic ruling, permitting Sadat's murder in retribution for his signing the peace treaty with Israel. The Islamic group is listed by the State Department as a specially designated terrorist organization.

After his conviction in connection with the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, Abdel-Rahman issued another fatwa calling for jihad against the US. After the September 11, 2001, attacks, Osama bin Laden cited Abdel-Rahman's fatwa as the religious justification for them....

Click here for the complete article, or copy and paste this link into your web browser:
http://www.unitycoalitionforisrael.org/news/article.php?id=8289

 UCI's website and emails are written to current web standards according to the W3C. If your browser or email client is not standards-compliant, you can go here for one that is.