MORE THAN JUST GOOD FOR ISRAEL, A BREAKUP OF THE EU WOULD BENEFIT EUROPE TOO

Manfred Gerstenfeld wrote about whether the EU's breaking up would be good for Israel:

A more integrated EU would not bode well for Israel. There is by now ample evidence to support the prediction that the more power Brussels has, the more it will abuse it against Israel. This may be seen, for example, from the discriminatory labeling of settlement products and the financial support for extremist so-called humanitarian Israeli NGOs – in reality humanitarian racist bodies – which remain silent about the genocidal intentions of Hamas, the largest Palestinian party. The EU also interferes in the in the Israel-controlled Area C in opposition to Israel’s declared wishes, including financing housing for Palestinians there.

Double standards are at the core of anti-Semitism through the centuries. The EU has frequently applied these against Israel. The requirement to label goods from Israeli settlements – something not demanded for areas elsewhere which are similarly in dispute – made the EU bias against Israel so explicit that the Simon Wiesenthal Center gave the EU pride of place in its annual 2015 list of major anti-Semitic slurs.

This is why a dissolution of the EU would honestly be better for Israel, but not just here: even for the rest of Europe, it would be better, because the EU's proven abusive to the rest of the continent too, and they're one of the reasons jihadists have been able to penetrate so badly into European countries. The subject does come up in the article too. So, that's why I don't think all Europeans would consider it a loss were the EU to dissolve, any more than Israelis would.

Besides, the EU's proven itself as corrupt and bad an example as the UN. That's why it's better if the EU goes.

ARAB-CHRISTIAN OWNER OF OHIO RESTAURANT REOPENS

The owner of the restaurant that was attacked by an Islamofascist says he won't be cowed by jihadists, and the guy, who's pro-Israel, had the following to say:

In an interview with the Tower magazine, a publication that reports on Israel and the Middle East, Baransi said he would not cower in the face of Islamic terrorism.

When asked whether he would consider removing the Israeli flag seen from his restaurant’s entryway as a precaution, Baransi did not hesitate to give an unequivocal answer.

“Actually I have another flag, and I am going to get a bigger flag, and I am going to get a Star of David necklace and put it on my chest, and I am going to get a tattoo,” said Baransi, a devout Catholic. “Honest to God, I am not kidding. They don’t scare me. We are Israelis. We are Israelis. We are resilient, we fight back.

“We are used to these bastards,” he added. “We are used to these kinds of attacks, that they hate us just for what we are. They don’t know us, they don’t know anything about us, and they do that. You know, I don’t care if I was an Arab or not, because I am an Israeli, and if you don’t like Israelis you don’t like me.”

He's got the right response, and I wish him well and safety continuing his business in running the restaurant.

CAR BOMBING IN ANKARA, TURKEY

Jihadism has struck in the middle of a regime that's been backing it:

Twenty-eight people were killed and dozens wounded in Turkey's capital Ankara on Wednesday when a car laden with explosives detonated next to military buses near the armed forces' headquarters, parliament and other government buildings.

The Turkish military condemned what it described as a terrorist attack on the buses as they waited at traffic lights in the administrative heart of the NATO member's capital.

The attack, the latest in a series of bombings in the past year mostly blamed on Islamic State, comes as Turkey gets dragged ever deeper into the war in neighboring Syria and tries to contain some of the fiercest violence in decades in its predominantly Kurdish southeast.

President Tayyip Erdogan said Turkey's determination to fight those behind such acts would only get stronger and that it would not hesitate to exercise its right to self defense.

What Erdogan fails to understand is that the religion he follows is what brought this right back onto their own doorstep. And unless they abandon it, it'll obviously continue.

JESSE HUGHES SAYS ALL FRENCH SHOULD HAVE GUNS

The rocker Jesse Hughes, who survived the bloodbath in Paris, had a message for French lawmakers:

“Did your French gun control stop a single [expletive] person from dying at the Bataclan?” Hughes said. “And if anyone can answer yes, I’d like to hear it, because I don’t think so. I think the only thing that stopped it was some of the bravest men that I’ve ever seen in my life charging head-first into the face of death with their firearms.”

Hughes, who has vigorously advocated for unfettered gun ownership — even waving a gun at a friend in a documentary that was pulled from film festivals after the Nov. 13 attacks — told iTélé that, if anything, his experience had only strengthened his views.

“I know people will disagree with me, but it just seems like God made men and women, and that night guns made them equal,” he said. “I think the only way that my mind has been changed is that maybe that until nobody has guns everybody has to have them.”

He's spot on here. There's only so much France and other parts of Europe have to do to repair their legal systems, not just to allow self-defense properly, but also to ensure that proof burdens fall upon plaintiffs in a court case, and not the defendant. It's time his views were taken very seriously.

ARAB MK CONDEMNS THOSE WHO SUPPORTED FAMILIES OF TERRORISTS

An Arab MK who's part of the Labor party has shown some common sense:

Zionist Union MK Zoher Behalul leveled harsh criticism at fellow Israeli Arab MKs Hanin Zoabi, Basel Ghattas and Jamal Zahalka over their meeting two weeks ago with the families of Palestinian terrorists, calling their actions an "unnecessary provocation."

The three, members of the Balad faction (one of three factions making up the Joint Arab List), were suspended from the Knesset for meeting with the families and observing a moment of silence in honor of the terrorists during that meeting after 450 public complaints and dozens of grievances were filed by MKs from across the political spectrum.

And they fully deserve the suspension they got. They should be disqualified altogether for what they did, and the time has come that this be ensured. Terrorist sympathizers are not people we need in the Knesset.

OLMERT ENTERS PRISON, WHINING ON THE WAY

The former prime minister, one of the most disastrous ever in this country, has become the first premier to spend time in jail:

Former prime minister Ehud Olmert walked into Ma'asiyahu jail in Ramle on Monday to begin serving an 18-month sentence for graft-related offenses.

Olmert becomes the first former prime minister to be sent to prison for criminal offenses.

Just hours before his arrival to the prison, Olmert released a videotaped statement to the press on Monday professing his innocence of graft and bribery charges.

Yep, keeping telling us that. Also keep telling us you had no guilt to shoulder in the damage done to Gaza, or that you weren't associating with the PLO and setting such a bad example. Olmert is one of those kind of criminals who vehemently refuses to admit their guilt, all the way to the bitter end. There's more here about the conditions of his incarceration. He really doesn't deserve what he's gotten, and after he's out, he should probably leave the country for good.

MUSLIMS VANDALIZE SYNAGOGUE BUILT IN MEMORY OF 3 VICTIMS OF JIHAD

An arson attack on a synagogue built in memory of 3 yeshiva students took place:

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called on the international community to condemn Friday night’s Palestinian arson attack on a synagogue in the West Bank outpost of Givat Sorek.

“I expect from everyone in the country and around the world who rightly condemn every desecration of a mosque or writing of graffiti on mosques, including the burning of mosques, I expect them to come out with the same cry against, and condemnation of, this abhorrent act,” Netanyahu said on Sunday at the weekly cabinet meeting.

The outpost, which is solely made up of a modular synagogue, is built outside the Karmei Tzur settlement in the Gush Etzion region of the West Bank.

It was built in memory of the three teenagers, Naftali Fraenkel, 16, Gil-Ad Shaar, 16, and Eyal Yifrah, 19, who were kidnapped and killed by Hamas terrorists in the summer of 2014. It is located near the spot where the bodies of the three teens were found.

Police suspect that late Friday night Palestinians from the nearby village of Halhoul entered the synagogue. They gathered the prayer books into a pile and lit them.

The blaze was discovered and extinguished by the settlement’s security team.

So the Islamists who committed arson are adding insult to injury, and proving they have no remorse. Truly disgusting.