The Israeli government has announced a new step in plans to build 300 new homes in Beit El, in  northern Samaria, just as U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry is trying to convince Mahmoud Abbas to return to talks if Israel slaps a freeze on building for Jews in Judea and Samaria.

Reports from Israeli sources earlier this week stated that Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu has buckled under pressure from Kerry, and probably President Barack Obama, to freeze construction to bring Abbas back to the so-called negotiating table.

“Negotiations” in Arab Doublespeak means that Israel must accept Palestinian Authority territorial and political demands or they will be forced down its throat, either by the United Nations or by “resistance,” another Doublespeak word, which means terror.

No government  official has denied the reports of a “de facto” building freeze, and Prime Minister Netanyahu is conveniently in China.

Kerry hosted the government’s unofficial Minister for the Peace Process, Tzipi Livni, in Washington last week and continued discussions with her in Rome this week, where he said he will return to Israel in two weeks.

Journalists covering the State Department asked why he is returning after having been here last month, but the reports of the unofficial freeze provide the obvious answer.

But smack in the middle of Kerry’s Big Momentum – run as fast as you can with the ball so that everyone is too dazzled to see that the ball is a bomb – the government announced the next step for building 296 more homes in Beit El.

The town is not just another community in Samaria. More than 6.000 national religious Jews live there. Beit El is a symbol of the national religious movement in Judea and Samaria. A yeshiva bearing the town’s Biblical name has wide influence across the country. It is home to two of the most prominent national religious rabbis in Israel, Rabbi Zalman Melamed, head of Yeshiva Beit El, and Rabbi Shlomo Aviner, who is widely respected and consulted by many Jews who are not part of the “club.”

After the announcement of the preliminary approval of the homes, the Palestinian Authority immediately said everyone can forget about trying to dig up the bones of the peace process.

As with almost every announcement of building new homes, the one in Beit El refers only to one of several bureaucratic steps before the bulldozers can start digging, not less than a year from now.

Israel has been through this time after time, the most famous incident being the announcement of another bureaucratic stage having been completed for building homes in the Ramat Shlomo neighborhood in eastern Jerusalem, claimed by the Palestinian Authority.

The news broke just as Vice President Joe Biden was landing in Israel, causing high tension between Jerusalem and Washington for a long time.

Coincidental or not with Kerry’s dream for resumed direct talks between Netanyahu and Abbas, the Beit El housing project proves that Israel is trying to “sabotage” Kerry’s efforts, according to senior PA negotiator Saeb Erekat.

“We condemn this new decision which is proof that the Israeli government wants to sabotage and ruin the US administration’s efforts to revive the peace process,” he said. “This is a message to the American administration and a blow to the peace process. This aims to drag the region into violence instead of peace and stability.”

Violence.

Erekat did not even have the diplomacy to say “resistance.”

It is out-and-out violence, and obviously Kerry would blame Israel if the Arabs kill more Jews. Otherwise he would have to go back on his statement earlier this year that the proof that Abbas is such a great peace partner can be found in the fact that not even one Jew was murdered by Palestinian Authority terrorists in 2012.

What about 2011? Well, that is history. Let’s look at the present and not the past and talk peace.

And what about the present the year 2013? Uh, yeah, well, sure, a Palestinian Authority terrorist stabbed to death a father of five, but that was an isolated incident, and after all, the murderer was not a member of a known terrorist gang.

Kerry does not have to defend himself. He has Livni to do that for him. Both of them desperately need a peace agreement, Kerry because he wants to be president and Livni because she needs something to justify her being politically alive. The latest polls shows that her party would win zero seats in if elections were held today.

Two television stations, one in New Jersey and one in California, are broadcasting programs from the outlawed Hezbollah and Hamas terrorist organizations, encouraging American children to grow up into suicide bombers.

The New York-based Lawfare Project said the NileSat IPTV in New Jersey and ArabTV4ALL in California are transmitting broadcast from the Al Aqsa television network, which is linked with Hamas, and from the Al Manar satellite network, a mouthpiece for Hezbollah.

The Blaze website obtained a memo from the Lawfare Project, which said that the AdvancedTV Network currently supplies over 600 Arabic channels from Nilesat and Arabsat directly via the Internet, and that resellers such as NileSat IPTV and ArabTV4All pick up the material.

“By subscribing to NileSat IPTV, the subscriber receives an IPTV box, which can be hooked up to a television set without a satellite dish anywhere in the United States,” the memo note, author Charles Johnson wrote on the Blaze.

“A customer simply calls NileSat IPTV and orders a box, which is then delivered to his or her house. The channels are then broadcast using this box and an internet connection.”

Lawfare project director Brooke Goldstein said, “We contacted NileSatIPTV way back and they confirmed they air the Hezbollah and Hamas channels,” which broadcast hate programs that could be considered illegal assistance to terrorism.

“It’s unthinkable, especially in light of the Boston terror attacks, that our government continues to allow Hamas and Hezbollah, two designated foreign terrorist organizations, to openly and illegally broadcast their stations within our borders, stations aimed at radicalizing and recruiting Muslim youth towards violence, a most egregious form of child abuse,” she added.

Israel is familiar with Hezbollah and Hamas propaganda and incitement to terror, much of which also is aired by the Ramallah-based Palestinian Authority, headed by Mahmoud Abbas. To see one of the videos of indoctrinating children, click here, and also here for a recent report on Fatah’s lauding suicide bombers.

Television programs, especially those geared for little children, broadcast a heavy dose of  anti-Semitic programs. Many of them use popular cartoon figures with blatant “kill the Jews” messages.

It is one thing for American to dismiss the incitement in Israel as part of the Muslim radical agenda to rid the world of Israel, but the question remains if the Obama administration, in an effort to be politically correct, will gloss over the importing into the United States programs that teach children to blow up people.

David Reaboi, Vice President for the Center for Security Policy, told the Blaze, “While the Obama administration, talking heads in the mainstream media and Islamist pressure groups all assure us we have no problem with domestic so-called ‘radicalization’ in the American Muslim community, it’s clear that this openly jihadist and genocidal programming has some kind of audience in this country.”

“The major obstacle to peace in the Middle East has always been a Palestinian culture of blood-lust; that it’s being broadcast inside America is frightening – and gives lie to talking points from Islamist pressure groups and their allies. Looking at the audience for these channels, it’s impossible to conclude that we do not have a domestic Islamist radicalization problem.”

Goldstein said the First Amendment protection of freedom of speech does not apply to the two television stations.

“The U.S. Supreme Court has been very clear; there is no First Amendment right whatsoever to provide material support to designated terrorist organizations,” she explains. “If this administration is serious about tackling homegrown radicalization, it must at the very least immediately prosecute those who act so brazenly and openly in violation of the law.”

Goldstein says the Lawfare Project has been in contact with New Jersey authorities about criminal enforcement, which have been slow about enforcement.

Neither NileSatIPTV, nor ArabTV4ALL could be reached for comment.

Richard Falk, U.N. Human Rights Council official and the Obama administration’s unofficial pain in the neck, has written that the Boston Marathon terrorist bombings were a cheap price that the United States paid for trying to dominate the world. He also said the government’s supposed “Israel First” policy is also to blame.

United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon did not condemn or even hint criticism of Falk’s remarks, explaining through a spokesman that he is “not responsible” for Falk’s “independent views.”

Bitter criticism was fast and furious from other quarters, especially from Jewish groups, but Falk, who has described himself as a Jewish American, never has been bantered by condemnation.

This time around, after years of spitting on Israel, calling it Apartheid and often comparing it with Nazis, Falk castigated the United States and related to the casualties in Boston with a chilling and methodical reasoning of “proportionality” that is shocking coming from anyone, especially a “human rights” activist.

Writing in the Foreign Policy Journal, Falk stated, “The scale and drama of the Boston attack, while great, was not nearly as large or as symbolically resonant as the destruction of the World Trade Center and the shattering of the Pentagon. Also, although each life is sacred, … the Marathon incident has so far produced three deaths as compared to three thousand, that is, 1/1000th of 9/11.”

Of course, 9/11 may actually have been an inside job in Falk’s mind, or whatever makes him tick.

He wrote in 2004 that  the Bush administration may have been complicit in the Al Qaeda- terrorist attacks.

He implied that the U.S. government was involved, writing, “It is possibly true that especially the neoconservatives thought there was a situation in the country and in the world where something had to happen to wake up the American people. Whether they are innocent about the contention that they made that something happen or not, I don’t think we can answer definitively at this point.”

Falk dumbfounded just about anyone who is not anti-American by explaining that the Marathon bombings were to be expected because “the American global domination project is bound to generate all kinds of resistance in the post-colonial world.”

He then went off the deep end altogether, explicitly stating that the United States is darned lucky the attack was not worse, because that is what America deserves.

“In some respects, the United States has been fortunate not to experience worse blowbacks, and these may yet happen, especially if there is no disposition to rethink US relations to others in the world, starting with the Middle East,: he wrote.

Falk almost never can complain about the state of the world without blaming Israel, and this time was no exception.  ”The war drums are beating at this moment in relation to both North Korea and Iran, and as long as Tel Aviv has the compliant ear of the American political establishment, those who wish for peace and justice in the world should not rest easy,” according to him.

“Now at the start of his second presidential term, it seems that Obama has given up altogether, succumbing to the Beltway ethos of Israel First,” he added.

Not surprisingly, Jewish groups demanded that the Council remove Falk from his position, a request that the U.S. government has previously made to no avail.

His “latest string of inflammatory remarks – whether it be on the Internet or in one of his ‘reports’ to the council – has no place in the United Nations and his continued presence at the UNHRC further undermines the credibility of the system,” said B’nai Brith International.

The American Jewish Committee also denounced Falk.

“Here he goes again,” said AJC Executive Director David Harris. “Given his public record, the question is why Richard Falk still occupies a UN position. Is there no shame?

“Falk’s unhinged diatribes against the U.S. and Israel are well-known….

“His malicious propaganda regarding the U.S. and Israel — and his glaring inability to see the stark truth about extremist violence and terrorism — has no place in any international body that takes itself and its mission seriously.”

Falk has a weird history of seeing terrorists and Muslim radicals through the lenses of “Human Rights.”

Nearly 100 bodies were counted by rebels in the streets of a Damascus suburb after Syrian President Bashar Assad’s army allegedly executed men, women and children.

The report was not verified, but the official Syrian SANA news agency reported, “Armed Forces units inflicted heavy losses upon terrorists in the town of Jdiadet al-Fadl in Damascus Countryside.”

At the same time, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry pledged $123 million in “non-lethal” to rebels as the Obama administration, plays it safe in what has clearly become a “lose-lose” war not only for Syria but also for the Middle East, if not the entire world.

Jamal al Golani, a member of the Revolution Leadership Council, said he counted 98 bodies in the streets. “There are almost no wounded because they were shot on the spot,” he added.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the dead included three children and six women.

Meanwhile, the West still is scratching its head over the civil war that threatens to spread to neighboring Lebanon.

It took too long for the Obama administration to understand it was backing the wrong man when then-US. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said after the beginning of the rebellion two years ago, “Assad is a reformer.”

The United States already has suffered two major diplomatic disasters in the past two years.  It backed the ouster of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, who has been replaced by an equally corrupt regime that promotes fundamental Islam. In Libya, the truth still is not known about the events leading up to the brutal murder of the American ambassador.

The West realizes that the civil war in Syria is not just a struggle of the “rebels” against Assad but is prime turf for terrorist organizations, not the least of them Al Qaeda, to stake out a power base.

Kerry, who as Senate Foreign Relations committee chairman frequently shuttled back and forth Syria to “engage” Assad, cannot do much more than try not to look helpless and offer humanitarian aid. The $123 million aid, which also is for non-lethal weapons such as armored carriers and communications equipment, is double the previous amount of assistance.

His hope is that the Syrian rebels will unite and live up to their pledge made on Sunday that it rejects extremism and is committed “not to use chemical weapons.”

Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel toed the official Obama administration line Sunday in his first visit to Israel in his new post, repeating the mantra” Israel has the right to defend itself.”

If anyone wants to interpret that as just a banal and superfluous statement, he made it clear that he is not ignorant of the danger to Israel of an Iranian nuclear weapon. He told reporters en route to Israel that a multi-billion dollar arms deal with Israel sends “another very clear signal to Iran,” although he did not note that Iran so far has not understood “signals.”

As is de rigueur for a maiden official visit to Issue, Hagel dutifully visited the Yad VaShem Holocaust Memorial Museum and Center, where he not so profoundly declared of the Holocaust, “It is reality. It happened.”

The Washington Post on Sunday called his visit a “charm offensive” to dispel the unusually vocal and often acid criticism of him before the Senate agreed to accept his nomination as Secretary of Defense.

For a man who once said the “Jewish lobby intimidates a lot of people up here,” Hagel so far has done a good job of showing how much he really loves the Tribe. If he doesn’t love Jews, at least he needs us.

Then again, the United States also needs the Arabs.

Whether that need is for security or for the military-industrial complex in the United States is another question. Whatever the answer, the fact is his trip is aimed at sealing multi-billion dollar agreement for buying weapons not only with Israel but also with Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.

Click here to understand if Israel really needs or can afford the weapons.

Behind the words of love and money for a possible war, Hagel does not hide a basic disagreement between the United States and Israel – the timing of a military strike on Iran, if necessary.

He insist negotiations, which so far have been a bad act, sanctions can alter Iran’s nuclear plans. Sanctions have definitely had an impact on Iran’s economy but not on its race for a nuclear weapon, which, according to the Ahmadinejad regime, exists only in the wild imagination of the Zionist enemy.

By the time Hagel returns to Washington, Israel, Saudi Arabia and the UAE are expected to have signed up for to buy enough F-16 fighter jets and advanced missiles that can be launched from the air to scare the dickens out of any normal country that threaten others.

The Obama administration is still trying to hope that Iran will be a normal country.

Palestinian Authority PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas is willing to accept an “unannounced” freeze on building by Jews in Judea and Samaria as a lever to return to talks with Israel, The New York Times reported Thursday.

The newspaper, which often floats trial balloons for the Obama administration or reflects the government’s intentions, said it obtained a document written by PA negotiator Saeb Erekat in which it was stated that Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu “can pledge to you secretly that he will stop settlement activities during the period of negotiation.”

PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas forcefully attacked “illegal settlements’ at his joint press conference with President Barack Obama in Ramallah early Thursday afternoon, but President Obama explicitly said that Abbas cannot continue to demands that Israel accept all of his territorial and political demands before sitting down for “negotiations” when there is nothing left to negotiate.

The New York Times report will help President Obama put more pressure on Prime Minister Netanyahu to let both Abbas and the American government to climb down from the weak limb of the “peace process.” which has been the cornerstone of American involvement in the attempt by the Palestinian Authority to establish an independent country based on the Temporary Armistice Lines drawn in 1949, otherwise known as the Green Line.

The report in Times provides convenient pressure on Israel, and Israel’s Channel 2 star analyst Ehud Ya’ari said, almost on cue, that he thinks Israel should withdraw from most of Judea and Samaria.

He asserted that the United Nations would recognize the move, a dubious possibility considering that the General Assembly last November gave de facto recognition to the Palestinian Authority sovereignty over all of the land that Abbas demands.

With Obama having the media’s back and the Times’ report floating around the web, President Obama has all his cards in place for his speech to Israeli university students and guest at the Jerusalem Convention Center Thursday night.

He will be at his oratorical best and is bound to deliver a powerful speech playing on emotions that are evoked by recalling the Holocaust and the deaths of more than 22,000 Israeli soldiers in Arab wars.

The president probably will probably not miss the opportunity to make an obscene comparison between the Exodus of the Jewish People from slavery in Egypt, as retold on the Passover holiday next week, and the Arabs in the Palestinian Authority.

As a warm-up, Obama said in Ramallah that PA Arabs deserve “dignity” that it is prevented by the lack of a Palestinian state, which, as every State Dept. clerk knows, is in turn prevented by “settlements.” The same foreign experts also knew that Jewish settlements in Gaza were the obstacle to peace.

The Hamas rocket attacks on Sderot early Thursday were a chilling reminder of the price Israel paid to advance the “war process,” but President Obama, of course, saw the latest missile attacks as proof that Israel has to stop the settlements” in Judea and Samaria in order to make peace with the Arabs.

But President Obama did not force the issue too hard in the press conference in Ramallah. His failure to publicly demand that Israel withdraw to the 1967 borders was met with an unhappy face by Abbas. Virtually all media outlets headlined that Obama chickened out from demanding that Israel accept a building freeze.

But the president is too smart to cause a commotion when he wants calm. He spared no condemnation for settlements, which he said are illegal.

He was careful with his words and insisted that he came to the region to “listen” to Prime Minister Netanyahu and Abbas to understand what they steps will take to advance the “peace process.”

In other words, Israel better accept the tiniest of supposed compromise by Abbas, such as “unannounced” freeze, or risk war, which was the result of Israeli concessions in Clinton’s Oslo Accords, which was the result of Israeli concessions in Bush’s Roadmap Plan, and which was the result of Israel’s grandiose withdrawal from Gaza.

An “unannounced” settlement freeze may not come tonight or tomorrow, but if Abbas makes the “great compromise,” he will have crawled back into the arms of President Obama. He also will have returned to the old game of playing the card of compromise to win a no-compromise deal.

Finance Minister Yuval Steinitz expressed concern Sunday that U.S. financial difficulties would affect Israel’s economy.

“We are very worried about the financial difficulties in the U.S., and I hope they won’t hurt us,” he said at the weekly Cabinet meeting.

Steinitz’s comments came after Obama on Friday night ordered $85 billion in automatic, across-the-board cuts, called sequestration, after Congress failed to reach a compromise on deficit reduction.

U.S. government agencies must cut $85 billion from their budgets through Oct. 1, much of it coming from the Defense Department.

The cuts are sure to affect military aid from the United States to Israel, with estimates of cuts as high as $300 million, including affecting funding for the Iron Dome missile defense system.

Participants in the American Israel Public Affairs Committee’s annual policy conference, which opened Sunday, are expected to lobby members of Congress during a visit to Capitol Hill on Tuesday to retain Israel’s $3.1 billion in military aid for 2013 and 2014, as well as some $211 million in additional funding for Iron Dome.

The White House has appointed Philip Gordon as  Special Coordinator for the Middle East, North Africa and the Gulf Region, as the Obama administration continues to try to succeed where others have failed. In the official announcement, Gordon was termed the “perfect person” for the job.

Gordon, born in 1962, was a senior foreign policy adviser to Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign. His professional background includes serving as an Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs since May 2009.

He previously was a Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution in Washington, Director for European Affairs at the National Security Council under President Bill Clinton, and a Senior Fellow at the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London.

He also has written books, one of which is called “Winning Turkey: How America, Europe, And Turkey Can Revive a Fading Partnership.”

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, in his visit to Turkey last week diplomatically upbraided Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who told a UN forum, “Just like Zionism, anti-Semitism and fascism, it becomes unavoidable that Islamophobia must be regarded as a crime against humanity.”

“We not only disagree with it, we found it objectionable,” Kerry said.