Without their giant expat populations, the economic future of the Gulf region looks dimmer than ever

By David Rosenberg, HAARETZ

One way to look at the economies of the Gulf is like a ship floating on a sea of oil. Taking the metaphor further, the crew running this giant vessel are overwhelmingly foreigners.

Expats make up close to half the population of the Gulf countries, in some cases close to 90%. They are the ones who build the luxury homes, showcase skyscrapers and giant shopping malls. They are the only ones who wait tables at the restaurants and clean the rooms at the hotels. Further up the labor ladder, expats run the banks and property companies, serve as doctors, and teach at the universities.

The crew is jumping ship. A report by Oxford Economics published this week estimates that employment in the Gulf Cooperation Council countries, which includes Saudi Arabia and six Arab emirates, could fall by as much as 13%. And, because expats make up such a large part of the population, the exodus will actually cause the GCC’s overall population to shrink. In Saudi Arabia the population could contract by about 4% but in the United Arab Emirates and Qatar it could fall by more than 10%.
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Yamina MK explains to New York Times why the right is opposed to Trump’s peace plan despite it including sovereignty over Judea and Samaria.

Arutz Sheva Staff , 02/06/20 00:07

Bezalel Smotrich

MK Bezalel Smotrich (Yamina) on Monday explained in an interview with The New York Times why the right is opposed to US President Donald Trump’s peace plan despite it including an Israeli application of sovereignty over Judea and Samaria.

Smotrich said that the plan would open the door for a Palestinian state and bring an end to the settlement enterprise in Judea and Samaria.

“It’s either or,” he stated. “Either the settlements have a future, or the Palestinian state does — but not both.”

Efrat Mayor Oded Revivi said in the same article that the next several months are a window of opportunity to apply sovereignty that could slam shut if former US Vice President Joe Biden defeats Trump in the November election.

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by Gordon G. Chang, GATESTONE INSTITUTE  •  June 1, 2020 at 5:00 am

• The truth is that the United States is defending more than just its position in the international system. We are defending the international system itself, the system of treaties, conventions, rules, and norms.
• Unfortunately, Xi Jinping, the Chinese ruler, does not believe in that system. He is trying to impose China’s imperial?era notions of the world.
• In short, Chinese rulers believed that they had the mandate of heaven over tianxia, meaning “all under heaven.” Recently, his pronouncements have become unmistakable.
• In the last few months, Xi Jinping has seen an historic opportunity because the United States has been stricken by the disease that China itself has pushed out… What must we do? First, let us talk about what we must not do. We must not save Chinese communism again. In the past, American presidents, when China has been stressed, had ridden to the rescue of the Chinese state.

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By Ebony Bowden, NY POST

US President Donald Trump holds up a bible in front of St John’s Episcopal church after walking across Lafayette Park from the White House.AFP via Getty Images

WASHINGTON — President Trump on Monday invoked a law from 1807 allowing him to send military forces to states rocked by unrest over the death of George Floyd in a sudden White House Rose Garden address interrupted by the sounds of protestors being cleared out by police nearby.

“We cannot allow the righteous cries of peaceful protesters to be drowned out by an angry mob,” Trump said, declaring himself the “president of law and order” while blaming extremist groups such as Antifa for the unrest.

“I am mobilizing all available federal resources, civilian and military, to stop rioting and looting, to end the destruction,” he said, immediately mobilizing the Insurrection Act of 1807, which allows him to deploy troops anywhere across the nation.

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By Steve McCann, AT 

[…]

Despite this relentless bombardment of epithets and accusations, Donald Trump has not lost any of his core supporters and has, in fact, gained additional support.  Further, reliance on calculatingly prolonging the economic fallout from the Wuhan Virus lockdown and the Antifa sponsored rampages will not be effective in altering the mindset of these voters.

 Why?  Two clues for the myopic elites: how have Americans fared when men and women of “character and civility” acceptable to today’s self-styled elites oversaw the fate of this nation?   And who is responsible for the rise and mainstreaming of radical leftism, including their militant arm Antifa and its affiliates?

In the United States since the 1960’s, the governing American elites, who are people of great sophistication, erudition and rectitude, unlike Trump and his execrable supporters, have recorded quite a litany of accomplishments:

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By Andrea Widburg, AMERICAN THINKER

On Sunday, President Trump took aim at Antifa, which apparently has driven the violent side of the protests ripping through America’s Democrat-run cities. With full-throated support from Attorney General Barr, Trump is designating Antifa as a terrorist organization. This is an extremely important announcement because Antifa is more than just a terrorist group. It is, in fact, the paramilitary arm of the Democrat Party.

As is often the case, Trump made his consequential announcement via Twitter:

@realDonaldTrump

The United States of America will be designating ANTIFA as a Terrorist Organization.

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Move comes amid reported concern in Amman over Turkish influence at the site and elsewhere in East Jerusalem

TOI STAFF

A man walks past the Dome of the Rock, in the Temple Mount compound, in the Old City of Jerusalem on March 16, 2020. (Emmanuel DUNAND/AFP)

Israeli and Saudi officials have been conducting secret talks since December, mediated by the United States, with the aim of integrating representatives from Riyadh onto the Islamic Waqf Council that controls the Temple Mount, the Israel Hayom daily reported Monday.

The move was said to come as Jordan is reportedly increasingly worried by the levels of Turkish influence in Palestinian affairs and matters concerning East Jerusalem.

Unnamed senior Saudi officials told Israel Hayom that “these are sensitive and covert contacts that were conducted in ambiguity and low intensity by a limited team of senior diplomats and security officials from Israel, the US and Saudi Arabia as part of the contacts to advance the [White House’s Middle East peace] plan.”

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T. Belman. I am participating in a top level conference on “annexation”.  I argued that the Plan will not result in  the creation of the Palestinian statelet as envisioned or at all.  And the Trump team knows this.  But it will result in the annexation of the settlements and the Jordan Valley approved by Pres Trump.  That’s all that matters.

Efrat mayor: To gain U.S. recognition, we settlers must compromise on our dreams for complete control of Judea and Samaria – or risk losing what we have already achieved

By Oded Revivi, HAARETZ

The State of Israel faces a dramatic decision. Should we accept the Trump Mideast Vision for Peace, thereby applying Israeli law to large parts of Judea and Samaria for the first time in thousands of years?  Or, should we refuse to apply Israeli law, meaning we reject the recognition of our right to large sections of this country granted by the world’s strongest power?

The settlement movement does not make this decision alone. The settlers journeyed into Judea and Samaria as “the pillar of fire before the camp.” They went on behalf of the people of Israel. If we do not learn how to embrace the Trump plan, the “pillar of fire” risks being extinguished, and a sword will once again be placed on the neck of the settlements.

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T. Belman.  This is a very fair and informative article.

By John McCormack, NATIONAL REVIEW

Not so hot..  When Sweden’s government took a more lax approach than other western countries to fighting the coronavirus — it banned events with more than 50 people and shuttered secondary schools and universities but imposed few other restrictions — it was operating on the theory that stricter lockdowns couldn’t do much to save any lives in the long run. The Swedish society and economy would ultimately benefit, the thinking went, by reaching herd immunity more quickly than other countries that locked down.

“About 30 percent of people in Stockholm have reached a level of immunity,” Karin Ulrika Olofsdotter, the Swedish ambassador to the United States, told NPR on April 26. “We could reach herd immunity in the capital as early as next month.”

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Arab affairs commentator Yoni Ben Menachem explains that the PA threats against Israel are not serious.

By Nitsan Keidar, INN

PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas speaks at United Nations in New York

The Palestinian Authority continues to threaten Israel and is also trying to mobilize Jordan to prevent Israel from applying sovereignty in Judea and Samaria and the Jordan Valley.

Yoni Ben Menachem, a commentator on Arab affairs and a senior researcher at the Jerusalem Center For Public Affairs, spoke to Arutz Sheva on Sunday about the cooperation between Jordan and the PA.

“The Jordanian plan is made up of two parts and is coordinated with the Palestinian Authority. The first phase is before annexation and the second comes after it. The first phase is international – they applied to the EU, Latin America, and the UN to intervene – and also took a practical step when the PA announced that it was renouncing all agreements with Israel and the US, while [PA chairman Mahmoud] Abbas took a small step in announcing the end of the security coordination,” he said.
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T. Belman. The headline is very misleading because the Editorial doesn’t say that.  It says “the West Bank is regarded by international organizations and most of the world as occupied territory, and the Jewish settlements as illegal under the Geneva Convention.” Aside from saying “Mr. Biden, a strong supporter of Israel,”, I take no quarrel with their facts.  But I do disagree with their calculus.

“Annexation” will take place before the election and will be approved by Pres Trump. And Israel will proceed accordingly.  The international community or even a Democratic President will not be able to reverse history.

It would also render the territory into a patchwork of simmering, unstable Palestinian areas, forever threatening a new intifada.

By The Editorial Board May 30, 2020

Israeli soldiers standing guard in March at a protest against Israeli settlements in the West Bank.Majdi Mohammed/Associated Press

For his next act, after surviving a yearlong political struggle that he needed three national elections and a health crisis to overcome, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel has announced that on July 1 he will start the process to annex Jewish settlements and the Jordan Valley in the West Bank, as he pledged to do in his campaign.

Though the settlements have been steadily expanded over many decades, and the Jordan Valley is under effective Israeli military control, there are many reasons actual annexation is a bad idea.

The main reason is that the West Bank is regarded by international organizations and most of the world as occupied territory, and the Jewish settlements as illegal under the Geneva Convention. To Israeli nationalists, however, the West Bank is Judea and Samaria, the biblical homeland of the Jews. Israel holds that the Geneva Convention does not apply because there had been no Palestinian state in the West Bank, and because none of the settlers were “deported or transferred” to the territory, in the language of the convention.

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By Michael Ordman

Many of Israel’s latest innovations will support the new reality that will exist when the current pandemic is over. Patients will be monitored remotely both inside hospitals and outside. Radar sensors will protect the public and workers at airports, factories and care homes. Shoppers will use Israeli technology to bypass manual checkouts and global companies will follow Israel’s lead in flexible working.

Elsewhere, Israel is pioneering a new reality in cancer treatment, heart surgery, clinical trials and personalized medicine. It is transforming internal relationships with minorities and the perceptions of former adversaries. Israel’s scientific advances include replacement limbs, unmanned search and rescue and smarter business operations.

www.verygoodnewsisrael.blogspot.com
In the 31st May 20 edition of Israel’s good news, the highlights include:

• Israeli tests found that two Gaucher’s medications also treat Covid-19.
• Israeli engineers made an artificial arm for a girl to play the violin.
• Israel is using radar sensors to detect Covid-19 infections.
• An Israeli has won the Mathematics equivalent of the “Nobel Prize”.
• An Israeli company trained all its cleaning staff to become IT operators.
• Israeli restaurants, bars and cafes are open again.

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Despite Netanyahu saying he doesn’t intend to change July 1 date, Ze’ev Elkin says move depends on completion of Israeli-US committee’s mapping process

TOI STAFF Today, 11:47 am<

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (R) sits with Minister Zeev Elkin during a special cabinet meeting for Jerusalem day at the Ein Lavan spring in Jerusalem, June 2, 2016. (Marc Israel Sellem/POOL)

Just days after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told ministers that he had set a July date for the annexation of parts of the West Bank and had no intention of changing it, a minister in his Likud party said Sunday that the timing could be delayed by days or weeks.

Ze’ev Elkin, a member of the top-level security cabinet, told Army Radio that the July 1 date cited in the coalition deal signed with Benny Gantz’s Blue and White party wasn’t set in stone.

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By Victor Rosenthal

Louis Shenker is, or was, a Jewish student at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst (UMass). He is no longer a student there, because after allowing a campaign of defamation, harassment, and threats of physical harm orchestrated by members of the faculty and administrators to force him to flee, the university has expelled him.

Louis Shenker is admittedly guilty of several thought-crimes. He is a conservative. He is a Zionist. And (has vehalila) he is a Trump supporter. Who knows, he may even enjoy trolling his progressive political opponents. Still, I don’t believe any of this is illegal in the US.

What is illegal (or at least grounds for civil penalties), and what the university may pay dearly for – $27 million if Shenker’s lawyers get what they are demanding – is trying to wreck someone’s life by spreading false information about him, and inciting violence against him.

His troubles began in December 2018, when he tried to protest an anti-Trump march, wearing a “MAGA” hat and carrying a sign. He was roughed up by the marchers, and a graduate student, Barucha “Beth” Peller, snatched his hat and refused to return it.
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by Morton A. Klein

A recent JNS article needs to more clearly expose the true identity of the signers and originators of a falsehood-filled letter to the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations . The letter maligned me and the Zionist Organization of America for appropriately opposing the election of HIAS chair Dianne Lob to become chair of the Conference of Presidents, and for explaining how HIAS’s activities conflict with the Conference’s missions of helping Jews and Israel.

The letter misleadingly identified its signers as caring “young Jews.”

In fact, these “young Jews” were predominantly really George Soros-funded extremist J Street University officials (J Street U national vice presidents, J Street U national conference speakers, chapter chairs, organizers, etc.) or members of other radical anti-Israel groups. Top J Street U signers also tweeted in honor of “Nakba Day” (or “Catastrophe,” referring to the establishment of modern-day Israel) last week; supported teaching a notorious, virulently anti-Israel “Colonizing Palestine” course at Tufts; and boasted about helping to organize J Street’s campaign to insert anti-Israel planks into the Democratic Party platform.

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Daniel Estulin has investigated and researched the Bilderberg Group’s far-reaching influence on business and finance, global politics, war and peace, and control of the world’s resources and its money.

By Stephen Lendman, Global Research, May 28, 2019

The Bilderberg Group will be meeting behind closed doors at the Hotel Montreux Palace, Montreux from the 30th of May to the 2nd of June, 2019.

Henry Kissinger, Jared Kushner, Jens Stoltenberg, Mark Carney (Governor of the Bank of England) among others will be attending. US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo will also be present.

The list of guests and personalities can be consulted on the Bildberg website. The names of many of the prominent personalities including Pompeo are not on the list.

The yearly Bilderberg talk-fest, which dates back to 1954, features a guest list of around 130 people from Europe and North America including everyone from royals to business tycoons and academics. … According to the official Bilderberg website, discussions are held under the Chatham House Rule, which means participants can use any information they receive during the meeting but cannot reveal its source. (Thelocal.ch)

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