The widow of the terrorist who committed Sunday’s8 Jan. 2017, truck-ramming attack in Jerusalem, killing four Israeli soldiers and wounding another 15, will receive a lifetime monthly stipend as a reward for her husband’s "martyrdom for Allah,” a prominent research organization reported on 11 Jan. 2017. Fadi al-Qanbar’s widow, a resident of east Jerusalem, will receive a total of NIS 2,900 (approximately $760) each month, in accordance with Palestinian Authority law. All families of "martyrs” receive a base monthly payment of NIS 1,400 ($365). Widows of "martyrs” receive an additional NIS 400 ($104). NIS 200 ($52) is paid for each of their children; al-Qanbar has four. And Jerusalem residents, such as al-Qanbar, receive an extra NIS 300 ($78). In addition, within the next few months, al-Qanbar’s widow will receive a one-time grant of NIS 6,000 ($1,580).

In October 2016, USA Senators Lindsey Graham (R-SC), Dan Coats (R-IN) and Roy Blunt (R-MO) introduced the Taylor Force Act - named after the American military veteran who was stabbed to death in Tel Aviv in March 2016 by a Palestinian terrorist - which would cut off funding to the PA if it continues its policy of dispensing monetary rewards for terrorism. In an editorial the following month, the Wall Street Journal called on the incoming Trump administration to "send a powerful message” and back the bill, stating: "The truth is these payments are blood-soaked gifts from a Palestinian leadership still devoted more to destroying Israel than to building a Palestinian state.” This week’s truck-ramming attack - for which al-Qanbar’s family will receive a monetary award - was the most serious of the latest acts of violence against Israelis in the Palestinian terror wave that began in September 2015. Commonly known as the "lone-wolf” or "knife” intifada, it has been characterized by stabbings, car-rammings, Molotov-cocktail throwing and arson. (Algemeiner) Pray that the shameful practice of rewarding the families of terrorists who undertake to wound and murder innocent Israelis will brought to a halt and that Western governments that fund - with taxpayers money - the Palestinian Authority will cease to do so. [Comment]

 Just three days before foreign ministers from 70 different countries are set to descend upon Paris for a conference aimed at solving the Israel-Palestinian conflict, PM Netanyahu said "there are more attempts to destroy any attempt at peace, and one of these attempts will be happening in Paris. It's a conference rigged by the Palestinians with French auspices to adopt additional anti-Israel stances. This pushes peace backwards," Netanyahu continued. The prime minister then said that "this conference is not going to obligate us. It's a relic of the past, it's a last gasp of the past before the future sets in." Meanwhile, French President Francois Hollande said that talks to discuss the Middle East peace process in Paris on Sunday 15 Jan. 2017 do not aim to replace bilateral negotiations between Israelis and Palestinians. Israel is concerned that whatever text is passed during the conference will be then put to a vote at the UN Security Council during a meeting set to be held on the Middle East two days after the Paris conference. After the USA stated that they will veto any anti-Israel resolution, it seems the French will try and present a proposal worded in such a way that it will be signed by all of the members of the UN Security Council. (Ynet) Intercede that there will be no further treachery against Israel on the part of outgoing USA President Obama or his administration and that any text passed during the Paris Peace conference that is detrimental to the Jewish State will not be put to a vote at the 17 Jan. 2017, UN Security Council meeting. Obama cannot be trusted to refrain from one last parting shot at Israel for who is has made it obvious he has a great deal of contempt. [Comment]

USA Secretary of State John Kerry will attend a Middle East peace conference in Paris on Sunday 15 Jan. 2017 in a move likely to dismay an already angry Israel. Neither Israel nor the Palestinian leadership will attend the talks, and PM Benjamin Netanyahu has said the meeting will only widen the gaps between Israel and the Palestinians. Just weeks after the UN Security Council voted to condemn Israeli settlement building, the talks are meant to underline global support for a two-state peace deal. Washington abstained on the UN vote rather than casting its usual veto, and last month Kerry made a major speech laying out proposed parameters of a two-state solution. Netanyahu insists that outside powers cannot impose a settlement on Israel and the Palestinians and has called for direct talks between the parties.

Around 70 countries will gather for the conference and they are expected to throw their weight behind calls for a halt to settlement building and a negotiated peace. France has been planning to hold a conference for months, but Washington had refused until 10 Jan. 2017 to confirm that its top diplomat would attend. Diplomats have played down rumors the foreign envoys could draft a new UN resolution to codify plans for two states in international law. Sunday’s stop in Paris, at a conference chaired by President Francois Hollande, will come halfway through Kerry’s last foreign trip as secretary of state. (Times of Israel) Pray that global leaders, will understand there is absolutely zero chance Israel is going to comply with any plan for a future Palestinian state based on pre-1967 lines. It is a ludicrous objective, one which a long line of Israeli government and military leaders have considered to be "suicidal,” for the Jewish state.

Don't rush it

Make it part of your daily routine

Know where you're going

 Following the lead of Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas, the Fatah leadership has announced their intention to start a new intifada if USA President-elect Donald Trump follows through on his promise to move the US Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. According to MEMRI, Fatah Central Committee member Sultan Abu al-Einein said on Alghad TV, "I believe that any American act of stupidity will ignite the Palestinian territories. We must prepare for a confrontation with the new USA administration, which has clearly and audaciously declared that Israel and its settlements are legitimate and legal." He also blamed his threat on Israeli "arrogance" and "settlement activity," claiming both Israel and the USA would "bear responsibility for the return of bloodshed in the Palestinian territories." (MEMRI) [Comment]

 Israel is not the biggest problem in the Middle East, by a long shot. But you wouldn't know that from the disproportionate way in which the UN has treated the country. To this day, 47 resolutions concerning the Israeli-Palestinian conflict have been adopted by the UN Security Council. In 2016 alone, 18 resolutions against Israel were adopted at the UN General Assembly in September, and 12 resolutions were adopted in the Human Rights Council. There is nothing unique about the Israel conflict deserving such disproportionate attention. Baluchistan, Kurdistan, Cyprus, Kashmir, and Taiwan are but a few other disputed territories not fetishized like Palestine is at the UN and in our media. All of these disputes involve deep religious, historic, and political meaning for their respective parties.

Why is it that Israel is expected to integrate - and does a reasonable job of including - the 20% of its population that is Arab, yet a Jewish presence of 500,000 settlers in any future Palestinian state is deemed "an obstacle" to the two-state solution? [Not one Jew, according to peace conditions set up by Palestinian Authority is to remain or be allowed to live in land ceded to the Palestinians in any final agreement. Right now, over a million Arabs live inside Israel.] Are Palestinians assumed to be ethno-fascists? Are they not capable of building a multi-ethnic state just like Israelis? Is this how low the standard is to which the West holds Palestinians, Arabs, and Muslims? In reality, Israel has been the perennial excuse used by Arab despots seeking to silence their domestic opponents or the foreign critics of their ferocious repression. To call for greater freedoms in these countries where there was little or none was to be accused of "Zionist collusion." (Daily Beast)

Former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee slammed UN Security Council Resolution 2334 as an act of hate and contempt against the State of Israel and criticized Secretary of State John Kerry's speech against construction in Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria during a visit to the Knesset Tues. 3 Jan. 2017. "I'm not here today to in any way suggest a course of action for Israel. That's the sovereign duty of a sovereign state to decide for itself," Huckabee said in the Knesset. "John Kerry's speech last week was without any historical precedent at all. No perspective. He made the ridiculous and irrational statement that Israel can either be a Jewish State, or it can be a democracy, but it can't be both...Mr. Secretary, it is both."

He accused Kerry of fundamentally misunderstanding Israel. "The only way that statement makes any sense at all is if you take faith and religion out of the equation of who Israel is. Be happy about your history. Be proud. Your history tells you where you came from and where you are going. The UN Resolution was an act of hatred and contempt. Very rarely are Syria, North Korea, Russia, etc. condemned. Israel is condemned far more. There are more condemnations in the UN when Israel builds houses than when Iran builds a nuclear reactor," Huckabee said. "The world doesn't hate you because of where you are, but because of what you are - and especially because of who you are. The Muslim world is far larger and there is no justification for Israel to withdraw from the territories. To divide Jerusalem is like asking King Solomon to divide the baby in half." he added. "I hope that President-elect Donald Trump will not let the people in Washington draw him into the swamp of inactivity. There is a saying: Do it big or go home. You need to do it big, and you are already home," he said in conclusion. (Arutz-7) [Comment]

Israel has been wracked by a wave of stabbings and shootings and rocket attacks from Palestinian terrorists over the last two years [as well as for decades]. Kerry spent a few minutes on that in his recent biased and deeply flawed UN speech targeting Israel for its settlement expansion, but only in order to draw moral equivalence with Jews building additional bathrooms in East Jerusalem, the capital of Israel. "The truth is that trends on the ground, violence, terrorism, settlement expansion, and the seemingly endless occupation, they are combining to destroy hopes for peace on both sides,” Kerry said. This is nonsense. Before there were any Jewish settlements – when Israel did not control Judea, Samaria, or Gaza – the Palestine Liberation Organization called for the "liberation” of Palestine, meaning the complete destruction of Israel. The problem isn’t people building homes. It’s Palestinians murdering Jews, and refusing to accept that any home built by a Jew ought to exist in the Middle East.

Case in point is that UN-run schools in Judea, Samaria and Gaza use textbooks which negate the very existence of Israel; teach that the Western Wall and Cave of the Patriarchs are exclusively Muslim holy sites which the Jews strive to occupy. These textbooks - written by the Palestinian Ministry of Education - are used in schools run by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) in Gaza, Judea & Samaria. The UN schools don't teach Palestinian children to recognize Israel as a country - not within the 1947 borders, nor any borders at all. Furthering out-and-out lies and obstacles to peace, late last year, committees of the UN passed resolutions that referred to the Temple Mount only by its Muslim name, denying, despite archaeological, historical and biblical proofs of the Jewish connection to the site of the First and Second Temples, the local of thousands of years of yearning by Jews who mention it daily in their prayers and pray in the direction of the Temple Mount. Muslims pray towards Mecca and the Temple Mount does not appear in the Koran. Even this week, an eminent Israeli archaeologist was nearly ejected by Muslim guards from the holiest site in Judaism, located in Jerusalem, for calling it by its real name - the Temple Mount. (Ynet/Daily Wire/Arutz-7) Pray for corruption in the UN to be exposed and finally dealt with and for its de-funding. [Comment]

I will add action to words 

I will be more compassionate 

I will love more deeply