• U.S. Defense Secretary Carter: Let's Work Together with Israel to Counter Iran's Malign Activities in the Region - Jeffrey Goldberg
  Moments after visiting Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Ya'alon departed the Pentagon for home, I met with U.S. Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter to discuss the U.S.-Israel relationship, and also the broader challenges facing the U.S. in Israel's neighborhood. "State collapse in the Middle East is the phenomenon of our time," he said.
      Carter said that Ya'alon's visit, and a visit he made to Israel this past July, were meant to place the Iran disagreement in a broader context. "My being there was to basically say, 'Look, you see this differently from us - we think it's a good deal and you have said it's a bad deal and I understand your reasoning there - but there is still a lot that we agree on and can work together on. We have to move on to the business we have in common and that means, specifically with respect to Iran, working together to counter their other malign activities in the region, which are just as worrying to us as they are to Israel, and to monitor the implementation of the agreement.'"
      Officials in Jerusalem and Washington tell me that Netanyahu gets along with Carter better than most anyone in the Obama administration, with the possible exception of Vice President Joe Biden. Carter noted: "It turned out that he [Netanyahu] and I went to rival high schools outside of Philadelphia."
      Carter was generous in praising Israeli military innovation, and crediting Israel with aiding in America's defense. "It's a two-way relationship," he said. "We really do get things from the Israelis in technology." He cited as an example work to counter the devastating impact of improvised explosive devices (IEDs). "The Israelis were really quite ingenious in this area and we got a lot from them. There's no question that lives were saved as a consequence of their [help]."  (The Atlantic)
• Senators Condemn Palestinian Terror Attacks Against Israelis - Jordain Carney
  Sens. Kelly Ayotte (R-N.H.), Michael Bennet (D-Colo.), Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), John Cornyn (R-Texas), Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), Mark Kirk (R-Ill.), Patty Murray (D-Wash.), Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) are backing a resolution to show "solidarity" with Israel after a recent spate of attacks. Blumenthal said he supports Israel "in defending itself against these tragic and indiscriminate Palestinian terror attacks against Israeli citizens....Repeated reprehensible attacks on innocent Israeli civilians follow President Abbas' dangerous disavowal of commitments made during the peace process."  (The Hill)

• Netanyahu: Last Time It Was Rockets, This Time It's Knives
  Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Tuesday: "I know that we are in a very stormy region. Radical Islam is all around us and is also extending its arms into our midst. At the moment, we are fighting against a wave of terrorism. First it was missiles and now it is knives. We overcame the former wave; we will also overcome this one."  (Prime Minister's Office)
• Ya'alon: "Those Who Cross Israel's Red Lines Will Be Hit" - Yaakov Lappin
  Israel will respond with zero tolerance to cross-border artillery fire from Syria, weapons trafficking to terrorists, and the distribution of chemical weapons to terrorists, Defense Minister Moshe Ya'alon said Tuesday. "Those who cross the red lines will be hit." Ya'alon's comments came three days after international media reported that Israeli aircraft carried out air strikes in Syria against Hizbullah targets in the Qalamoun mountain region near the Lebanese border, possibly to intercept a weapons convoy to Lebanon. (Jerusalem Post)
• Israel to EU: Labeling Settlement Products Is Boycotting Israel - Tovah Lazaroff
  Placing consumer labels on products from West Bank settlements is the equivalent of boycotting Israel, Deputy Foreign Minister Tzipi Hotovely said on Tuesday before she embarked on a trip to European capitals to wage a diplomatic war against the selective singling out of such exports. Senior Israeli diplomatic officials have warned of the imminent publication of EU guidelines that would allow EU member states to label such products.
      "We do not see any difference between the industrial area of Barkan and the industrial area of Haifa," she said during a visit to Barkan in the Samaria region of the West Bank. "I came today to show the world what it really looks like, co-existence." Industrial parks in the West Bank that export to Europe employ both Israelis and Palestinians who work together in the businesses. Hotovely said she visited a factory in Barkan where 60% of the employees were Palestinians, many of them in management positions. "When you do labeling you harm 10,000 Palestinian families and you do not do anything to the very strong economic system in Israel," she said.
      Opposition leader Isaac Herzog (Zionist Union) told UK Ambassador to Israel David Quarrey on Tuesday that the European move "is a process that ensures only one thing, the perpetuation of hatred and conflict in the region. Product labeling is a violent act of extremists that only want to make the situation worse, and the European Union has fallen into their trap."  (Jerusalem Post)

• Beware of Friends Bearing Boycotts - David Brog
  Where boycotters depart from reality is their belief that Israel can easily and unilaterally end this complex conflict, and that through their tough love they will force Israel to finally create a Palestinian state.
      Those placing all blame on one party to a conflict are not serious about solutions. Something darker is at work. Why are so many observers so desperate to disregard all evidence of Palestinian sin? Most Israelis desperately want peace. Israelis have repeatedly elected leaders such as Ehud Barak and Ehud Olmert who aggressively pursued offers to create a Palestinian state.
      When Israel's unilateral withdrawals empowered terrorists, Israeli cities suffered sustained rocket fire and Israelis learned that there are no simple solutions. They have gradually accepted the stark reality that peace is unlikely so long as so many of their neighbors reject both peace and Israel's very right to exist. Israel and the entire West face a tidal wave of hate we did not create and therefore cannot easily abate. The writer is executive director of the Maccabee Task Force, a new initiative to counter the campaign to boycott Israel. (Jerusalem Post)
• Licensing Iran to Ship Missiles to Hizbullah - Tony Badran
  The U.S. administration's diplomats will tell you there needs to be a compromise in Syria to end the killing, which means that Iran must preserve its legitimate core interest - namely, its link to Lebanon, where Hizbullah has tens of thousands of missiles aimed at Israel. Iran's interest in Syria is to preserve the land bridge through which it supplies Hizbullah with long-range missiles.
      The White House announcement that President Obama has brought Iran into formal discussions over Syria in Vienna is yet another public step on the path towards a broader policy of U.S. rapprochement with Iran. By recognizing Iran as a principal stakeholder in Syria and the region more broadly, America is choosing to legitimize Iran's local assets and means of projecting power. (Tablet)

Why Palestinians Do Not Want Cameras on the Temple Mount - Khaled Abu Toameh (Gatestone Institute)

• Why is the Palestinian Authority opposed to Jordan's proposal to install surveillance cameras at Jerusalem's Temple Mount? The idea was first raised by Jordan's King Abdullah in a bid to ease tensions at the holy site in the Old City of Jerusalem.
• The PA and Islamic Movement in Israel hired scores of Muslim men and women to harass Jewish visitors to the site. The men are called Murabitoun, while the women are Murabitat. The installation of surveillance cameras at the site will expose the aggressive behavior of the Murabitoun and Murabitat, and show the world who is really "desecrating" the Islamic holy sites and turning them into a base for assaulting and abusing Jewish visitors.
• The cameras also are likely to refute the claim that Jews are "violently invading" al-Aksa Mosque and holding prayers at the Temple Mount. Now, the cameras will show that Jews do not enter al-Aksa Mosque, as the Palestinians have been claiming.
• The Palestinians also fear that the cameras would expose how they have been smuggling stones, firebombs and pipe bombs into al-Aksa Mosque for the past two years, scenes they do not want the world to see.
• Moreover, the PA position could be seen as an attempt to change the status quo at the holy site by driving the Jordanians out of the area, arguing that the Palestinians, and not the Jordanians, should be in charge of the site.