The Islamic State Is Building Caliphate 2.0 in a Syrian Camp - Josh Rogin (Washington Post)
    The Islamic State has largely taken over control of the al-Hol camp in northeast Syria, containing tens of thousands of Islamic State fighters and family members. The camp is home to 70,000 people, including more than 50,000 children.
    In al-Hol, Islamic State now exerts more influence and control than the few dozen Kurdish Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) guards stationed there, according to U.S. officials.
    Islamic State women have created a morality police corps inside the camp, enforcing sharia law and even conducting brutal executions.
    Islamic State is recruiting from the camp, smuggling fighters in and out and using it to plan attacks in other parts of Syria, officials told me.

The EU Battles Israel in Area C - Hillel Frisch (Jerusalem Post)
    Since a decision in January 2012, the European Union has committed to the expansion of illegal Palestinian settlement in Area C of the West Bank in conjunction with the Palestinian Authority, disregarding the Oslo agreements.
    As new Israeli building dwindles into insignificance in areas east of Jerusalem, the PA with the help of the EU have succeeded in housing tens of thousands of Palestinians in parts of Area C near Jerusalem (some estimates say 120,000).
    Hundreds of 6-10 story illegal apartment buildings were built in a space of nine square km.
    Jamil Sanduqa, head of the local council of Ras al-Khamis, acknowledges these neighborhoods are an ecological disaster.
    The writer is a senior research associate at the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies at Bar-Ilan University.

    See also Who's Funding Illegal Palestinian Settlements in Area C? - Edwin Black (JNS)
    Illegal Palestinian settlements, agricultural tracts, water networks, roads and infrastructure have been built throughout Area C of the West Bank in violation of the Oslo Accords, which specify full Israeli administrative control of the area.
    In the past five years, illegal Palestinian construction has sprawled across more than 9,000 dunams in more than 250 Area C locations, supported by more than 600 km. of access roads.
    The rapid buildup is funded by hundreds of millions of euros annually from the EU and individual European nations.

There Is No Difference between Hatred of Israel and Hatred for Jews - Marc A. Thiessen (Washington Post)
    Recently, the State Department revised its definition of anti-Semitism to include "drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis" - an apparent response to the rise of the anti-Israel BDS movement whose supporters routinely make such comparisons.
    Just a few days ago, I sat in the former SS headquarters of the Auschwitz concentration camp with Piotr Cywinski, director of the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum, who explained that there is no difference between hatred of Israel and hatred for Jews.
    "It's the same old story with some different words," he said.
    "If you are speaking with somebody who is defending some anti-Israeli ideologies, maybe not in the first minute, maybe not in the second minute, but in the third minute you will find the same old story accusing Jews of every bad thing in the world."
    "For me, that's very, very clear. I never saw any anti-Israeli theory that was not anti-Semitic."

The Men Responsible for the AMIA Bombing in Buenos Aires Are Known and Still at Large - Matthew Levitt (Mosaic)
    As Avi Weiss has documented, the devastating July 1994 bombing of the AMIA building in Buenos Aires was the largest single attack "against a Jewish community in the Diaspora since the Holocaust," leaving 85 dead and hundreds wounded.
    Argentine prosecutors concluded: "The decision to carry out the AMIA attack was made, and the attack was orchestrated, by the highest officials of the Islamic Republic of Iran at the time, and...these officials instructed Lebanese Hizbullah - a group that has historically been subordinated to the economic and political interests of the Tehran regime - to carry out the attack."
    Despite the publication of three detailed reports on the AMIA bombing itself, on the role of Hizbullah, and on Iranian agents in Argentina, not one of the key suspects has been apprehended.
    Indeed, several individuals who were personally involved in the AMIA bombing have since been promoted to senior positions within the Iranian government or Hizbullah.
    Those who executed the AMIA bombing 25 years ago continue to oversee international terrorist operations today.
    The writer, a former FBI and Treasury Department official, directs the program on counterterrorism and intelligence at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.

Druze Officer Appointed Military Secretary to President Rivlin (Times of Israel)
    Brig.-Gen. Ala Abu Rokun, a Druze IDF officer from Isfiya, was appointed Wednesday as Israeli President Reuven Rivlin's military secretary.
    Abu Rokun, 47, has served in the military for 25 years and was previously the IDF military attache in China.

Forgotten Heroes: The Jewish Resistance in France and Exodus 1947 - Dr. Tsilla Hershco (BESA Center for Strategic Studies-Bar-Ilan University)
    The Jewish Resistance organization in France participated in the rescue of tens of thousands of Jews during the Nazi occupation.
    At the end of the war, David Ben-Gurion appointed Avraham Polonski, a leader of the Jewish resistance in France, as commander of the Haganah in France.
    Veterans of the Jewish resistance participated in many critical postwar activities, including clandestine immigration, forging documents, transferring of arms to the Haganah, and setting up communication systems, immigrant camps, and military training camps.
    Members of the Haganah in France were involved in the Exodus 1947 ship endeavor from its early stages.
    They forged travel documents and helped transport the refugees on their journey to the port of Marseilles.