I know it’s after the holiday, but I found a new menorah picture that I thought you’d get a kick out of.

Syria and Iran are going to stay bestest buddies like, forever!

Syrian President Bashar Assad rejected claims that Syria’s alliance with Iran had been weakened by Damascus’ participation in last month’s US-sponsored Mideast peace conference, saying Thursday that the two countries’ ties will never be shaken.

Assad made the comments as he inaugurated two joint Syrian-Iranian industrial projects - factories for cars and cement. He was joined at the ceremonies by the Iranian industry and housing ministers.

What? You mean getting a Syrian representative at Annapolis was all for naught?

The November conference in Annapolis, Maryland, which relaunched Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations, was widely seen as also aimed at isolating Iran by bringing together Arab nations. US officials have expressed hopes that Syria’s attendance would mark a start to easing it out of its alliance with Teheran.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and other top officials denounced the conference, and some officials expressed surprise over Syria’s participation - though none directly criticized it.

It’s a love story made in hell. And cash money.

“I confirm, on this occasion, that relations will not be shaken for any reason or under any circumstance,” Assad said at the factory in Hasya, some 160 kilometers north of the Syrian capital, Damascus. according to the official SANA news agency.

Syria and Iran have growing economic ties, with the annual two-way trade estimated at about US$200 million. The size of Iranian investments in Syria has reached around US$2 billions in sectors such as power generation, automobiles, cement and agriculture.

Syria is Iran’s closest Arab ally. The two countries have had close relations since 1980 when Syria sided with Persian Iran against Iraq in the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war.

I just love hearing the “experts” talk about how Syria is going to be drawn away from the Iranian influence. Not in this lifetime, bubelah. Syria is Iran’s backup in Lebanon and Gaza. Iranian influence on Syria threatens Israel’s existence. Iranian arms, missiles, and munitions dot the landscape of Syria, Lebanon, and Gaza. The Iranian proxy war against Israel continues, using Syrian influence in the region. Bashar al-Assad learned very hard lessons from his mass-murdering father Hafaz (let’s not forget Hama, the town that was razed to the ground, and the thousands slaughtered there). He knows that without a common enemy, his people will remember that he’s the real reason they live in misery.

Hamas is asking its Iranian masters for permission to kill more Jews.

Hamas has asked Iran to allow the organization to escalate its altercations with Israel, carry out more suicide attacks and if need be – threaten kidnapped IDF soldier Gilad Shalit with execution, Kuwait’s Al-Jarida newspaper reported Friday.

The report, citing senior Hamas officials, Hamas politburo chief Khaled Mashaal recently met with a senior Iranian intelligence official, who accompanied Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on his visit to Qatar last week.

The two reportedly discussed Hamas’ retaliation to a possible large-scale IDF operation in Gaza, which may leave Hamas debilitated.

Mashaal, said the report, told the Iranians Hamas will need their political support, as well as Iran and Syria’s go-ahead to carry out a series of major attacks on Israel.

Oh, and Hamas wants permission to carry out more war crimes.

Al-Jarida further reported that Mashaal told the Iranians Hamas wants to kidnap more Israeli soldiers, as well as threaten Gilad Shalit’s well-being in order to “stir Israeli public opinion, pressure Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and hinder the Israeli-Palestinian peace process.”

Once again, let me point out, that a substantial number of politicians in the EU and UN think that Israel should deal with Hamas as a negotiating partner.

The wages of Annapolis just keep on paying off. Let’s be thankful that the Israeli security forces are as good as they are. But remember, they can’t stop 100% of the attacks. Hamas would absolutely love to see the pressure against Israeli checkpoints pay off. That would make this job a whole lot easier.

The post-Annapolis crush toward forcing Israel to lift checkpoints is leading the charge (and the USA Today webbot can’t spell “Israel”).

The Palestinian prime minister said he failed to win assurances from Israel’s defense minister Thursday that he’ll ease stifling restrictions on Palestinian movement — a measure seen as key to the success of an ambitious international effort to revive the Palestinian economy.

The World Bank warned that unless Israel removes some of the physical and administrative obstacles to Palestinian travel and trade, donor countries asked to pledge $5.6 billion at a conference in Paris next week may be wasting their money.

Even if the donors pay the full amount, the Palestinian economy would keep shrinking by about 2% a year as long as the Israeli restrictions remain in place, the World Bank wrote in a report Thursday.

Israel’s military has been reluctant to remove some of the hundreds of roadblocks and barriers in the West Bank, saying they’re an effective tool against Palestinian militants, and that the Palestinian government does not have sufficient control over the territory to prevent attacks on Israelis.

The issue of roadblocks was raised Thursday in a meeting between international Mideast envoy Tony Blair, Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad and Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak. Asked whether he won any Israeli guarantees of easing restrictions, Fayyad said: “It’s a one-word answer — no.”

That’s because of a one-word problem: Terrorism. Stop the murders, and I’m sure Israel would be more than happy to lift checkpoints and let the boys in the IDF go home. Not that the problem of Israelis being murdered makes anyone outside of Israel (and the Jewish community) lose any sleep. Certainly not Tony Blair.

However, Blair’s presence made it clear that the international community has a “huge stake in all of this,” Fayyad said.

“Donors are being asked to fund the Palestinian Authority whose funding needs are at least in part caused by these (Israeli) restrictions,” he said. “Clearly, the trade- off is there for everyone to see.”

Definitely not the AP writers and editors.

In violence Thursday, a rocket fired by Gaza militants hit a house in the Israeli border town of Sderot and seriously injured an Israeli woman. The rocket smashed through the roof, and Israeli TV showed medics carrying a woman out of the house on a stretcher.

Palestinian militants fire crude rockets almost daily at southern Israeli border communities, but the inaccurate projectiles rarely cause casualties or damage. However, they disrupt daily life there, and Israel has been indicating strongly that it will launch a large-scale ground attack in Gaza to try to stop the barrages.

See? A woman was seriously injured today, and a woman was lightly injured two days ago, but the rockets “rarely cause casualties or damage.” The fact that they’ve done so two days this week means—nothing.

The incoming U.N. Mideast envoy, Robert Serry, denounced the rocket attack in unusually strong terms. “Let me be clear about this: We consider that to be terrorist acts,” he said.

I’ll believe that means something when I see more than words.

Ahead of Monday’s pledging conference, Israel was coming under heavy pressure to show flexibility on the restrictions issue.

Gordon Brown is supposedly putting restrictions on the British pledge of half a billion dollars in aid.

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown has said he would link an aid package of $500 million to improved security in the region, progress in peace talks, and an easing of Israeli restrictions.

Britain has lobbied Israel to ease restrictions and pressed for the removal of barriers to travel within the West Bank. “The aid is dependent on the conditions the prime minister set out,” a British Foreign Office spokesman said on customary condition of anonymity in line with policy.

Britain is the only country to raise such a condition ahead of the Paris conference, said a diplomat in Paris, who requested anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly on the matter.

Yeah, we’ll see how long that lasts. Watch for the conditions to disappear or be satisfied by mere tokens.

Also jumping onboard: The ICRC, the organization that refused to let Magen David Adom use the Star of David as a member, but that lets the Muslim world use the Crescent of Islam.

In Geneva, the International Committee of the Red Cross said the humanitarian situation in the Palestinian territories is worsening. Gaza’s situation is particularly dire; it’s been cut off from the world since June when Hamas seized control, and Israel and Egypt virtually closed their borders with the territories.

Referring to the donors’ conference, the ICRC called for immediate political action to alleviate the suffering. The Red Cross rarely addresses conflict parties so openly, preferring instead to raise its concerns through less-public channels.

“The measures imposed by Israel come at an enormous humanitarian cost, leaving the people living under occupation with just enough to survive, but not enough to live a normal and dignified life,” said Beatrice Megevand Roggo, ICRC’s head of operations for the Middle East.

But that’s not all. Oxfam has leaped into the fray as well. But then, Oxfam has a history of anti-Israel proclamations and actions.

International assistance to the Palestinians will not be effective unless Israel eases travel restrictions that have stalled some aid projects and sent the costs of others soaring, Oxfam International warned on the eve of a donors’ conference.

Israel says the restrictions in the West Bank and Gaza Strip are necessary to ensure its security. But with 80 percent of Palestinians depending on aid, Oxfam urged donor states to challenge Israel on its policies at their meeting in Paris next week.

Now, read this next paragraph carefully, and tell me what is missing:

“It is not enough simply to plow more money into Palestine foreign governments and the Palestinian Authority must increase the pressure on the Israeli government to lift the blockade of Gaza and make it possible for people in the West Bank to go about their business,” Oxfam head Jeremy Hobbs said in a news release.

That’s right. Any words at all urging the Palestinians to stop their murderous attacks on Israelis. Because after all, it’s much more important that the Palestinians be allowed to move freely to get their handouts from the world organizations that are effectively funding the murder of Jews in Israel than it is for Jews in Israel to not be murdered.

Exit questions: Will all this pressure cause Israel to make eliminate checkpoints? And how soon afterward will the first suicide bomber hit Tel Aviv?

Treppenwitz recently wondered if Munich was an appropriate venue for the 2018 Winter games given the city’s unfortunate past when it had hosted the Olympics.

A recent article in OpinionJournal told of Qatar’s Olympic bid. In the whole article not once does the reporter ask the most telling question he could: “Will Israeli athletes be allowed to participate?”

Given the IOC’s shameful past, I don’t expect that a refusal to let Israel participate would disqualify the bid.

Crossposted at Soccer Dad.

Snapped Shot informs us

Wow, so yesterday’s concussion grenade was not anything major, but it was followed up by a major car bombing in a different part of town, an event that took the life of one of Lebanon’s most fiercely anti-Syrian generals. Was the first attack intended to distract the Lebanese security forces, and to provide an opening for the second attack?

The Washington Post (with no sense of irony) gives play to some of the hypocrisy here:

Asked about the culprit, shop owner Rafael shrugged his shoulders, a gesture conveying the anonymity of those behind the assassinations that have become part of the country’s political calculus. Government supporters blamed Syria, as they have in bombings that targeted eight prominent opponents of Syria in the past two years. Syria denied any role and suggested that Israel or its allies had a hand in the attack.Government opponents, led by the Shiite Muslim movement Hezbollah, denounced the attack, calling Hajj’s death “a great national loss.” One of their Christian allies, former general Michel Aoun, said Hajj had been his candidate to assume leadership of the army if parliament elected the present commander, Gen. Michel Suleiman, as president. While government opponents and supporters have agreed in principle on Suleiman succeeding former president Emile Lahoud, who stepped down Nov. 23 at the end of his term, negotiations have stalled over a comprehensive deal to resolve the crisis, the country’s worst since the 1975-90 civil war.

Israel did it and Hezbollah denounced it. Right.

The New York Times deserves credit for leaving Israel out of the story, and pointing to an ominous statement by a Syrian politician.

Some leading anti-Syrian politicians blamed Damascus for the killing, as they have for a series of political assassinations during the past three years. They pointed to comments made Tuesday by the Syrian vice president, Farouq Sharaa, who said that Syria’s friends in Lebanon were stronger than ever and that “no one in Lebanon, even with foreign support, can win the battle against Syria.”

The Times has followed up the reporting with news of a crackdown in Syria.

The arrests followed Syria’s participation in the Middle East peace forum at Annapolis, Md., which was seen in the region as a coup for Syria and a sign of a thaw in relations between Mr. Assad and the White House.Emboldened by a sense that Syria’s tough anti-American policies have paid dividends, human rights advocates say, the authorities have turned to closing the last channels of public debate.

“This goes back to what we’ve always seen as a problem, that the opening with the West has never been contingent on Syria improving its human rights records,” Nadim Houry, who tracks Syria for Human Rights Watch, said. “It’s contingent on Syria cooperating on Lebanon, Iraq and the peace process.”

Hmm, sense from a member of Human Rights Watch. And sentiments that have been expressed by a number of bloggers, that Annapolis has strengthened Bashar Assad’s hand.

Similarly Barry Rubin writes

Claims made often verge on the pitiful. For example, dozens of observers insisted that Syria’s presence at the Annapolis summit showed that it was splitting away from Iran, which opposed the meeting. They forget that Syria participated in a nine-year-long peace process that Iran opposed–including direct negotiations with Israel–without damaging in the slightest the Iran-Syria axis.Second, this kind of talk destroys years of effort to isolate and pressure Syria. The tough strategy is not some silly stubborn refusal to chat with Damascus but designed to deter the regime from adventurism, shore up Arab states’ opposition to it, and encourage Lebanese forces battling against again becoming a puppet of the dictator next door.

And it looks like the effort to get Syria to Annapolis has emboldened Assad rather than engaging him.

JoshuaPundit sees even larger forces at play:

This is a clear signal that Iran and Syria are not going to be content with just Suleiman in the presidency. They want control of the Lebanese military, and they want anti-Syrian PM Fuad Siniora out as well, and in fairly short order, with Hezbollah, Amal and the pro-Syrian factions assuming total control of Lebanon.This will ensure that Lebanon comes under the control of Syria and Iran, and that the UN tribunal implicating members of Basher Assad’s family and other top Syrian political figures in the 2005 assassination of ex-PM Rafiq Hariri goes nowhere.

Like Israel, Lebanon’s democracy is the chief casualty of the new `understanding’ engineered by the Saudis between Iran and the Bush Administration

Seraphic Secret worries about the implications for Israel.

Israel is now being surrounded and strangled in a terrorist vice: Gaza, Lebanon; now the Israeli government talks of dividing Jerusalem and turning Judea and Samaria over to the Arabs, which means a deadly encirclement by short-range weapons—snipers and mortars.

Outrageously Joshua Landis defends Syria. Michael Young on the other hand explains what Syria’s been up to.

Creating a vacuum is not a strategy; it is a tactic designed to bring someone to power on Syria’s terms. Damascus wants exclusivity in the next Lebanese president, but without its armed forces in the country to impose this, a new officeholder might prove too independent. That’s why we should doubt Sharaa when he says, as he did on Tuesday, that Syria does not intend to return to Lebanon “militarily or in a security capacity.” But it’s also why, in believing that they cannot dominate the Lebanese without an armed presence, the Syrians might be overreaching. The Syrian move into Lebanon in 1976 required a regional and international consensus, as well as an Israeli green light, and was formalized by the Arab League. That’s unlikely to happen again today. In forcing the issue, doesn’t the Assad regime risk provoking a powerful local, regional and international backlash that might ultimately scuttle its plans?

(Both via the The POMED Wire)

Syria believes it can act with impunity. Someone needs the will and the means to exact a price from Syria for its latest adventurism or the situation will continue to deteriorate.

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.

Rabbi Weber wants to encourage Jews to marry Jews.

Rabbi Donald Weber is far from the first rabbi to call for single Jews in his congregation to marry other Jews.Such pulpit calls have become commonplace in an age of high Jewish intermarriage rates and fears the Jewish population will fall sharply in coming generations. But the Reform rabbi’s recent appeal came with a novel twist.

Six weeks ago, in his Yom Kippur sermon at Temple Rodeph Torah, Weber offered to personally pay for six-month memberships to JDate, the popular Jewish online dating service, for any singles in the congregation who asked.

What concerned Rabbi Weber was this:

The need is there, he said, be cause the American Jewish population has declined in recent decades, with about half of American Jews marrying outside the religion, according to widely reported national surveys. Weber punctuated his sermon by citing a recent study from the Hebrew Union College Jewish Institute of Religion indicating that fewer than 10% of grandchildren of intermarried parents identify as Jews.

Despite the fact that this puts Rabbi Weber in opposition to some of his congregants - Reform Temples accept non-Jewish spouses as full members - he is persisting.

I’m impressed.

(h/t Mrs. Soccer Dad)

Crossposted at Soccer Dad.