In a week marked by dramatic events on the diplomatic front, Yamina leader Naftali Bennett speaks to Israel Hayom about why the country needs a different kind of leadership, and why he would choose sovereignty in Judea and Samaria over peace deals with Gulf states.

By  Jacob Bardugo, ISRAEL HAYOM

Yamina leader and former Defense Minister Naftali Bennett: “We’re all in the same boat” | Photo: Eric Sultan

While the Right and Left in Israel are at loggerheads on nearly every issue, there appears to be the start of a consensus about one thing: that Yamina leader Naftali Bennett could become the next prime minister.

The successful handling of the first wave of coronavirus in Israel, when Bennett was defense minister, and the disappointment at the government’s functioning during the second wave have caused Bennett’s stock as an enthusiastic opposition leader to rise, along with the number of seats polls are projecting for his party.

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T. Belman. Dr Zahran is telling you exactly what is happening. Believe every word.

The Abraham Accord commits both sides to

“continuing their efforts to achieve a just, comprehensive, realistic and enduring solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

 “to working together to realize a negotiated solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that meets the legitimate needs and aspirations of both peoples, and to advance comprehensive Middle East peace, stability and prosperity.”

What Dr Zahran is saying is that he will become the ruler of Jordan with its 7 million Palestinians and then he will replace the PA thereby becoming the ruler of another 2 million Palestinians.  As such he will speak for all Palestinians. He will say that Jordan is the Palestinian state and home for all Palestinians thereby satisfying the Abraham Accord. .  Thus the Gulf states will be happy that the Palestinians have a homeland.

Sept `5/20

By Douglas J. Feith, HUDSON INSTITUTE

There’s nothing normal about the normalization deals Israel formalized at the White House yesterday. Having weeks ago made public the news of an agreement with the United Arab Emirates, President Donald Trump then announced that, at the same White House event, Bahrain will also sign an accord with Israel.This diplomatic double-play refutes notions that have powerfully influenced U.S. Middle East policy for more than half a century. The first is the assumption that the Palestinians are central to the larger Arab-Israeli conflict. The second is the belief that the Palestinian problem has to be solved before the United States or Israel can improve relations with the Arab states. Both belong on the trash heap of the peace process.
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By Gregory Winkeleer, AM THINKER

President Trump announced the Abraham Accords earlier this week, marking the beginning of an historic and lasting peace to the Middle East. This was a result of years of effort on his part, planning a comprehensive strategy and carefully putting it into effect. To that end, he was able to use three tactics to bring about his desired result.

Play the Energy Card

[…]
Rule #1 in negotiation: if you want to strengthen your hand in negotiations with someone, make sure that you don’t depend on them for anything. Apparently, Trump knows this rule well.

Neutralize Foggy Bottom

After his inauguration,  President Trump saw the largest obstacle to implementing his foreign policy to be resistance at the State Department. So, he devised the following strategy: Hire Rex Tillerson to head State Department (Feb 2017). Watch him cut the departmental budget by 31% in 2017 and follow up with a 29% cut in 2018 (Tillerson was previously CEO for Exxon Mobil; he knows how to streamline an operation). Watch the resultant mass exodus of senior staff (nearly all of them holdovers from previous, and unsuccessful, administrations). Monitor him for any major policy disagreement (Tillerson wanted the U.S. to abide by Obama’s Iran Nuclear Deal.  Trump did not) and if such a policy disagreement was serious enough, act accordingly — Tillerson was dismissed in Mar 2019 and replaced by Mike Pompeo.
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By Kasim Hafeez ,  CUFI

As I watch the trailer for the forthcoming documentary Never Again?, it’s strange to hear myself talking about how I hated America and believed the Jews were responsible for all the evil in the world. But that was the reality of the person I was—a person I would be forced to confront during the making of this film. As I traveled to places of once-great significance in my life, especially after a long day of shooting, I became, in some ways, a spectator to my own life. I would remember the moments and details that led me into that darkest corner of the human mind, where one sheds any pretense of basic humanity in pursuit of an unjust and evil cause.

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By Dr. Manfred Gerstenfeld, BESA 

BLM protest in London, photo by Ehimetalor Akhere Unuabona via Unsplash

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: In a recent public letter permeated with distortions published in The New York Times, 600 Jewish signatory organizations identified themselves with Black Lives Matter (BLM). This decentralized movement was founded by Marxists and had in its original platform expressions of extreme anti-Israel incitement. BLM is a racist, anti-capitalist, anti-democratic movement that should be exposed as such and fought. It intends nothing good for Jews or Israel, regardless how many Jews proclaim their allegiance to it.

On August 28, 2020, six hundred American Jewish organizations signed on to a full-page open letter in The New York Times identifying with the antisemitic Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement. (One of the named groups, NCSY, has since stated that its name was included in error.)

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By Dr. Amin Tarzi, BESA

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: The official normalization of relations between Israel and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) is a rare victory for the United States’ overall political and military strategy in the Middle East and has significant global implications. Should Israel elect to accept a measure of risk by supporting the sale of F-35 fighters to the UAE, both parties could see immediate as well as longer-term benefits.

For Israel, the new opening with Arab countries in the Persian Gulf offers unparalleled political, strategic, and financial opportunities. With the UAE case as a model, Israel has the opportunity not only to showcase its technological knowhow in safeguarding Gulf states from threats posed by Iran and other potential adversaries, but also to extend its own defensive measures further from its borders and closer to its most ardent adversary. Beyond security sector collaborations, numerous other Israeli firms—from desalinization plants to those producing safe nuclear energy—stand to expand their markets and accrue benefits, not only in economic terms but also in terms of public perception.

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By defying conventional wisdom on the Middle East and China, he reshaped both political parties

Matthew Continetti, FREE BEACON – SEPTEMBER 18, 2020 5:00 AM

On Sept. 16 the editorial board of the New York Times did the impossible. It said something nice about President Trump. “The normalization of relations between Israel and two Arab states, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, is, on the face of it, a good and beneficial development,” the editors wrote. They even went so far as to say that the “Trump administration deserves credit for brokering it.” I had to read that sentence twice to make sure I wasn’t dreaming. Perhaps the world really is ending.

Or perhaps the Times cannot avoid the reality that the “Abraham Accords” between Israel, the UAE, and Bahrain are a historic achievement. It is the first advance toward peace in the Middle East since Israel signed a treaty with Jordan in 1994. By exposing the intransigence and corruption of the Palestinian authorities, and thereby removing them from the diplomatic equation, the Trump administration reestablished the “peace process” as a negotiation between states. And because the states in the region face a common foe—Iran—they have every incentive to band together. This is textbook realpolitik. The world is better off for it.
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What a great analogy

By Ron Jager

McCarthyism, the name given to the period of time in American history that saw U.S. Sen. Joseph McCarthy of Wisconsin produce a series of investigations and hearings during the 1950s in an effort to expose supposed communist infiltration of various areas of the U.S. government, the film industry in Hollywood, and numerous individuals that came to his committee’s attention. The term has since become synonymous for defamation of character or reputation by means of widely publicized indiscriminate allegations, especially on the basis of unsubstantiated claims or associations. McCarthy terrorized his targets and silenced his critics. Thousands of people lost their jobs as a result, often based on nothing more than innuendo or chance associations. While McCarthyism ended with the senator’s downfall, the term is highly applicable in the current political discourse and seems to have been given an eerie resurrection in today’s highly politically charged and politically correct environment in which the leftist-progressive agenda has become a guiding light for those embracing the New McCarthyism.
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By Joel Fishman,   JCPA   August 4, 2020

• The murder of George Floyd by a police officer in Minneapolis on May 25, 2020, triggered rioting, looting, and arson across the United States. It became evident that an underground leadership structure had been in place and set in motion a wave of violence whose destructiveness was unforeseen.
• According to Marxist-Leninist doctrine, the goal of organized mob violence is to foment a state of civil war, which will lead to revolution. The would-be revolutionaries in the United States did so well that their success exceeded their expectations.
• Mayors of several major cities and governors of some states where violence took place chose not to act and ordered the police and firefighters to stand down. Such inaction created a state of anarchy, leaving the public without protection.

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T. Belman. This report presents the issue as a legal one. In reality it is an ethical one.  The US wants to stop Iran from getting the bomb and purchasing weapons. The rest of the world except Israel and the Gulf States, prefers to sell them weapons.

Move forcefully opposed by most countries, except for Israel and Gulf, and expected to be ignored by rest of Security Council, which could undermine credibility of world body

By AP

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is flanked by US Ambassador to the United Nations Kelly Craft as he speaks to reporters following a meeting with members of the UN Security Council about Iran’s alleged non-compliance with a nuclear deal and calling for the restoration of sanctions against Iran at United Nations headquarters in New York, August 20, 2020. (MIKE SEGAR / POOL / AFP)

WASHINGTON — In defiance of overwhelming opposition, the United States is preparing to declare that all international sanctions against Iran have been restored. Few countries believe the move is legal, and such action could provoke a credibility crisis at the United Nations.

Virtually alone in the world on the matter save for Israel, the Trump administration will announce on Saturday that UN sanctions on Iran eased under the 2015 nuclear deal are back in force, after invoking a “snapback” clause despite having pulled out of the landmark pact.

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By Dr. Edy Cohen and Dr. Frank Musmar,  BESA      September 16, 2020

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: The US-brokered Israel-UAE normalization agreement was swiftly followed by a similar agreement between Serbia and Kosovo, as well as an Israel-Bahrain agreement. The Trump administration has momentum as it continues to work toward a reformulation of formerly combative relationships. The Israel vs. Arab perception is rapidly changing to an Israel-Arab vs. Iran perception, and that dynamic will create further new alliances on both sides.

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