April 14, 2020

Iran and Ayatollah Khamenei are more influential today than at any time since 1979.

By Reuel Marc Gerecht, FDD

Part I: The Coming Collision

The Islamic revolution recently celebrated its 41st birthday. The upheaval, especially the hostage-taking and the failed attempt to rescue American diplomats, may have cost Jimmy Carter the election in 1980. In 2020 the Islamic Republic may already be trying to enter the presidential campaign by challenging Donald Trump in Iraq and through its nuclear ambitions. After slowly pushing forward the atomic program beyond the confines of Barack Obama’s now defunct nuclear deal, the clerical regime is advancing more vigorously; another murderous assault upon Americans, via Iran’s Iraqi proxies, just happened. Given the president’s determination to keep maximum economic pressure on Iran, more attacks are surely coming.

If Ayatollah Khamenei wants to try to bring the Democrats to power, and he believes that challenging Donald Trump is the best way to weaken his chances of victory, then it’s a near certainty that the supreme leader is going to attack something more significant than what he has before November. President Hassan Rouhani’s and foreign minister Mohammad-Javad Zarif’s extraordinary effort to engage and bend U.S. and European officials to their goals ultimately failed because of the unexpected election of Trump, but the Iranian political elite became much more attuned to U.S. politics because of the nuclear negotiations.  Where once Khamenei was an inattentive, bipartisan hater of America, he became more nuanced in his contempt for Democrats and Republicans. The Iranian regime’s understanding of how American politics function has improved a lot.

Read more…

Ankara’s finances were weak before the pandemic—but the combination of external debt, a public health crisis, and a president who chooses to protect his reputation rather than his people could spell disaster.

By Aykan Erdemir and John Lechner, FDD

The investor Warren Buffett once pithily remarked, “Only when the tide goes out do you discover who’s been swimming naked.” The COVID-19 pandemic has caught both governments and the private sector in every country off guard, but Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, through years of political and economic mismanagement, has put his nation in arguably the most vulnerable position of all major emerging markets.

If Erdogan insists on doubling down on his past mistakes, he will bring further economic ruin to Turkey, with financial and geopolitical consequences that endure far beyond the pandemic’s end.

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The US exit from the flawed 2015 nuclear agreement has prompted Iran to test the patience of the international community.

By Jacob Nagel and Jonathan Schanzer, JPOST

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was among the first world leaders to understand the dangers of the coronavirus. He locked down the country in an attempt to halt the spread of the virus. Even so, the country’s economy has been hammered by the pandemic. The economic slowdown has been painful. Business has ground to a halt and unemployment is through the roof. Israel will come out of this crisis in a deep budget deficit.

The government’s economic rescue package, currently totaling 6% of GDP, will go a long way to keeping the country intact. But there will be some difficult decisions about how to disburse it. The distribution of public funds in Israel has always been a rather straightforward process. Defense gets the first priority, followed by entitlements, health, and education. But this will all likely to change now, given the greater needs in the healthcare sector and the economic fallout.

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By Ted Belman

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Both sides have made concessions they never dreamed of, but the red lines PM Netanyahu has laid down are existential, whereas Benny Gantz has already proven he’s willing to go back on his biggest demand.

By Mati Tuchfeld, ISRAEL HAYOM

Crises are an inseparable part of negotiations. The old political hands learned a long time ago that not every blow-up means an end to the process, just like a good atmosphere and progress do not necessarily promise that anything will be inked soon.

In the current political crisis, it appears as if the two sides are closer to agreeing than to calling it all off, and have their hands around each other’s throats in an attempt to gain an advantage. After Benny Gantz’s list split up, he is heavily dependent on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and the prime minister will have a very difficult time calling a new election right now, and thus is dependent on Gantz. When neither side has good options, it would be reasonable to assume that in the end, they’ll find a way to work together.

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Puts US Mortality Rate at 0.1% Just Like the Seasonal Flu

By Jim Hoft, GATEWAY PUNDIT

A new report by Justin Silverman and Alex Washberne on COVID-19 and featured in The Economist finds that the coronvirus is widespread in the US.

The authors argue that 28 million Americans have or have had the coronavirus.

Justin Silverman@inschool4life

Our work (@Alex_Washburne and I) on COVID-19 has been featured in @TheEconomist. I am extremely impressed by @DanRosenheck who wrote the piece.

Read more…

Gantz said to agree to go to 4th elections if High Court bars indicted Netanyahu from forming coalition; Likud said to give up its desired changes to the judge selection mechanism

By TOI

President Reuven Rivlin, center, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, left, and Blue and White leader Benny Gantz shake hands at the memorial ceremony for the late president Shimon Peres at the Mount Herzl cemetery in Jerusalem on September 19, 2019. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)

Progress was reported Monday morning in the negotiations between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party and Benny Gantz’s Blue and White to form a unity government, even as a former partner urged Gantz to return to the center-left bloc opposing the premier.

With a midnight deadline for Gantz to form a government looming, both sides are close to reaching an agreement on judicial issues, which have been a sticking point, the Kan public broadcaster reported. It said Likud would give up proposed changes to the way senior judges are selected, with a clause saying instead that appointments would be carried out with the approval of both parties.

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Janet Levy. We’re talking about a virus with a LOWER mortality rate than the annual flu.  30-50% of those infected don’t know they’re sick and only 10% of those infected require hospitalization, 90% of whom have dangerous pre-existing conditions – diabetes, kidney, lung and heart disease, obesity…

Are YOU willing to give up your freedom for a “pandemic” that’s LESS SEVERE than influenza?  Do you want to destroy the economy, American lives and live in a quasi-police state for this?

By MARK LEVIN:

“To be clear. President Trump hasn’t shut a single business. The Governors did.”

“We are seeing the most draconian measures ENFORCED at some STATE &LOCAL LEVELS of government that we’ve ever seen in our lifetimes, and yet, rather than being alarmed by the things going on, so many of you applaud.

President Trump’s guidelines are VOLUNTARY & TEMPORARY but some Democrat states & cities are taking it one step further, extending the lockdown and CRIMINALIZING behavior. Bill Gates wants to keep America locked down for 10 months! THAT’S WHAT LIVING UNDER A COMMUNIST REGIME LOOKS LIKE, AND YOU APPLAUD.
Read more…

by Majid Rafizadeh, GATESTONE INSTITUTE  •  April 13, 2020

• The U.S. Embassy wrote in a Facebook post: “The possessions of the current supreme leader Ali #Khamenei alone are estimated at $200 billion, while many people languish in poverty because of the dire economic situation in #Iran after 40 years of rule by the mullahs.”
• If the Iranian leaders are so concerned about the public health, why they have been ratcheting up their use of lethal force, suppression and human rights abuses against those who have been revealing the truth about the COVID-19 virus in Iran or who have been voicing their concern about the regime’s mishandling of the coronavirus crisis?

Read more…

Rivlin has rejected both Gantz and Netanyahu, giving the two of them the firm, drop-dead deadline that politicians really need in order to be forced to make decisions.

By GIL HOFFMAN, JPOST
APRIL 12, 2020 21:21

Israeli President Reuven Rivlin attends Germany’s lower house of parliament, the Bundestag, to commemorate the victims of the Nazi dictatorship, in Berlin, Germany January 29, 2020. (photo credit: MICHELE TANTUSSI / REUTERS)

President Reuven Rivlin attempted to recover from the backlash against him disregarding Health Ministry directives by hosting his daughter for the Seder on Sunday when he sought to recover the mantle of the “responsible adult” in handling the ongoing political crisis.

Rivlin could have taken the easy way out and given Blue and White leader Benny Gantz two more weeks to form a government. After all, he had a good case that Passover prevented a deal from being closed.
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The Globe and mail

This article from the Globe and Mail discusses the connections between China, specifically the CPC, and the World Health Organization, and connects the dots with the Canadian response, which has been lock step with the WHO and therefore with the Chinese.

Economist Danielle DiMartino Booth Exposes China & World Health Organization in a sit-down with Patrick Bet-David.

The corrupt, criminal regime wasted 40 days blocking information while it crushed domestic dissent and ensured COVID-19 would become a global pandemic<

By IRWIN COTLER and JUDITH ABITAN, TOI
12 April 2020, 3:01 pm

People wearing masks, attend a vigil for Chinese doctor Li Wenliang, in Hong Kong, February 7, 2020. (AP Photo/Kin Cheung)

There is authoritative and compelling evidence — including a study from the University of Southampton — that if interventions in China had been conducted three weeks earlier, transmission of COVID-19 could have been reduced by 95 percent.

For 40 days, President Xi Jinping’s CPC concealed, destroyed, falsified, and fabricated information about the rampant spread of COVID-19 through its state-sanctioned massive surveillance and suppression of data; its misrepresentation of information; its silencing and criminalizing of its dissent; and its disappearance of its whistleblowers.

In late December 2019, Dr. Ai Fen, director of the Emergency Department at the Central Hospital of Wuhan — “The Whistle-Giver” — disseminated information about COVID-19 to several doctors, one of whom was Dr. Li Wenliang, and eight of whom were later arrested. Dr. Ai has recently disappeared.
Read more…

Rivlin warns if agreement between Blue and White chair and Netanyahu not reached by Monday deadline, he will ask Knesset to recommend candidate

By RAOUL WOOTLIFF, TOI

[…]

“If the two do not sign an agreement by midnight tomorrow, and if the number of recommendations for each candidate does not change, the task of forming the government will return to the Knesset and a period of 21 days will begin during which Knesset members can form a majority to recommend an agreed-on candidate to form a government, who would have 14 days to do so,” the statement said.

During that time, Knesset members are able to recommend one of their peers, who agrees to be nominated, to be given the mandate to form a government. The first MK to receive more than 61 recommendations will be tasked by Rivlin.

The statement from Rivlin’s office added: “If, during the remaining initial time given to Gantz to form a government, the circumstances change and the two sides come to the president with a request for an extension in order to help them come to an agreement, the president will reconsider his decision.” Read more…