• Iran Calls Aoun's Election in Lebanon a Victory for Hizbullah
  Iran welcomed the election of Michel Aoun as Lebanon's new president on Monday, calling it a victory for Hizbullah, Tehran's ally in Lebanon. "The election of Michel Aoun as president shows new support for the Islamic resistance (against Israel)," said Ali Akbar Velayati, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei's top foreign policy adviser. (Reuters)
      See also Lebanon's New President Vows to "Liberate the Remainder of Our Lands" from Israel
  In his inaugural address, Lebanese President Michel Aoun said his government would "not spare any efforts to protect Lebanon from Israel and liberate the remainder of our lands," referring to the Shebaa Farms region. (Times of Israel)
• Iraq Offensive Unleashes Tales of Islamic State Brutality - Ben Kesling and Tamer El-Ghobashy
  Survivors from villages surrounding Mosul recounted how ISIS militants kept them impoverished and scared, levying frequent fines and encouraging children to inform on parents. Sunni villagers who decided to stay and live under the new regime lost faith in their Sunni occupiers after the militants showed a brutal face.
      "They would get small children like this to flog grown men in public," said Assad Ali Hassan, 45, gesturing to his young son. "They would slide a pen into your beard and if it didn't stay, if it fell out because the beard wasn't long enough, you would get lashings."
      Such punishments often would be meted out in a public square, the violator forced to stand on a single floor tile. If the offender wavered and stepped off, the lash count would start over. (Wall Street Journal)

• Netanyahu: Arab World Respects a "Strong Israel" - Raoul Wootliff
  Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Monday that "a strong Israel" is the key to growth and stability in a tumultuous Middle East. "Many in the Arab world are beginning to view Israel with respect and appreciation," he told the Knesset at the opening of its winter session, noting that the Arab world respects those who stand up for themselves and project strength and power. (Times of Israel)
• Palestinian Policeman Wounds Three Israeli Soldiers in West Bank Shooting Attack - Yotam Berger
  Mohammad Turkamen, 25, a Palestinian police officer in Mahmoud Abbas' presidential guard who was armed with a Kalashnikov rifle, wounded three Israeli soldiers at a checkpoint near Beit El in the West Bank on Monday before he was killed at the scene. (Ha'aretz)
      See also Hamas Calls for More Attacks by PA Security Personnel - Dov Lieber
  Hamas welcomed an attack by a Palestinian police officer on Israeli soldiers Monday and called on Palestinian security personnel to carry out more attacks. (Times of Israel)
• Three Palestinians Jailed for Planning to Stab Israelis
  Three Palestinians from Jenin in the West Bank - an adult and two minors - were sentenced to prison terms of over two years Sunday for plotting to carry out a terror attack last year in the Israeli city of Afula. (Times of Israel)

• A New President for Lebanon - David Schenker
  The new president of Lebanon, Maronite Christian General Michel Aoun, has been aligned with the Assad regime in Syria and Hizbullah in Lebanon since 2005. While many in the U.S. and the region are declaring Aoun's election a victory for Hizbullah and Iran, it is difficult to imagine an Aoun presidency being worse for U.S. interests than the ongoing vacuum. With or without Aoun, Hizbullah and Iran remain Lebanon's dominant political actors. The writer is director of the Program on Arab Politics at The Washington Institute. (Washington Institute for Near East Policy)
      See also Lebanon's New Hizbullah-Led Political Order - Firas Maksad (National Interest)
• Anti-Semitism Goes to Parliament - Daniel Johnson
  At an event in the House of Lords last week, Jews were blamed for the Holocaust, Israel was compared to Islamic State and Zionists were said to have power over Parliament. Jenny Tonge, a baroness who hosted this showcase of anti-Semitic lies on behalf of the Palestinian Return Center, was launching a campaign to press Britain to apologize for the 1917 Balfour Declaration, which promised to create a home for the Jewish people in Palestine.
      The precincts of Westminster ought never again be desecrated by anti-Semites acting on behalf of Islamist lobbyists. But an avalanche of such propaganda can be expected, as Palestinians exploit next year's anniversary to mobilize support for their delegitimization of Israel. It is vital to put the record straight: Israel is not and never has been a colonial enterprise. Zionism is the political expression of the legitimate aspiration of Jews to have their own state.
      The demographic context of such increasingly visible anti-Semitism is Europe's rapidly growing Muslim population. There is panic in the political establishment about how to halt the rising tide of radicalization in these communities. All too often, appeasement and hypocrisy prevail, with Israel becoming the scapegoat. (Wall Street Journal)
• World Is Silent, Except When It Comes to Israel - Ben-Dror Yemini
  The massacre in Mosul and its surroundings has begun and the world is keeping quiet. Several weeks ago the big hospital in Aleppo was ruined, while the world watched and kept silent. Since World War II, 86 million people have been killed, but the protests, the articles, the rallies, and the UN resolutions are mainly against Israel. The manipulative and poisonous protest against Israel paves the way for the free world's silence in light of the massacres and crimes against humanity that are really taking place. (Ynet News)
• Launching a New Chapter in Australia-Israel Relations - Anthony Bergin
  In conjunction with the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies, ASPI has released a new report, The Wattle and the Olive: A New Chapter in Australia and Israel Working Together. There's really no country in the Middle East whose interests are more closely aligned to Australia than Israel. Areas of cooperation where interests are aligned include countering terrorism, countering proliferation, cyber security, and water management. The writer is a senior research fellow at the National Security College, Australian National University. (Australian Strategic Policy Institute)

Will Israel Face an Ambush at the UN after the U.S. Elections? - Editorial (Wall Street Journal)

• Israeli diplomats are girding for the possibility that President Obama may try to force a diplomatic resolution for Israel and the Palestinians at the UN in the period after the U.S. elections. Our sources say the White House has asked the State Department to develop an options menu for the President's final weeks.
• One possibility would be to sponsor, or at least allow, a UN Security Council resolution condemning Israeli settlement construction, perhaps alongside new IRS regulations revoking the tax-exempt status of people or entities involved in settlement building. The Administration vetoed such a resolution in 2011 on grounds that it "risks hardening the position of both sides," which remains true.
• The U.S. may also seek formal recognition of a Palestinian state at the Security Council. This would run afoul of Congress' longstanding view that "Palestine" does not have the internationally recognized attributes of statehood, including a defined territory and effective government.
• The worst option would be an effort to introduce a resolution at the UN Security Council setting "parameters" for a final settlement between Israel and the Palestinians. One option for the Administration would be to let such a resolution pass simply by refusing to veto it.
• This would be a blunder. U.S. policy has long and wisely been that only Israelis and Palestinians can work out a peace agreement between themselves, and that efforts to impose one would be counterproductive. Whatever parameters the UN established would be unacceptable to any Israeli government.
• The Palestinians would seize on those parameters as their birthright, making it impossible for any future Palestinian leader to bargain part of them away in a serious negotiation. Arab states would find their diplomatic hands tied, making it impossible to serve as useful intermediaries.
• After decades of fruitless efforts to end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, it might be wiser for the U.S. to step back until the Palestinians recognize that peace cannot be imposed from the outside.