Arab states normalizing ties with Israel are making noisy threats about their sustainability. But informed by years of disillusionment, Palestinians are rightly skeptical about their protestations

By Yousef Alhelou, HAARETZ

With days left to the potential start of Israel’s annexation of parts of the occupied West Bank, potentially extending Israeli sovereignty over about 30 percent of its total area, the Arab states that have moved closer to normalization with Israel are making noisy threats about the sustainability of that process if Benjamin Netanyahu goes ahead. But informed by years of disillusionment, Palestinians are rightly skeptical about their protestations.

The most prominent public intervention by an Arab state warm to Israel was an op-ed written by UAE ambassador to the United States, Yousef al-Otaiba, published earlier this month in the high-circulation Israeli newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth.

The surprising piece, and the accompanying direct-to-camera videos shared on Twitter, was addressed to officials but was most clearly aimed at the Israeli public. His message: annexation could be the trigger for “igniting violence, rouse extremists and destabilising the entire Middle East and North African region” and would spell the end of normalization.

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www.verygoodnewsisrael.blogspot.com <

In the 28th June 20 edition of Israel’s good news, the highlights include:

• A critically ill Israeli Covid-19 patient has received the world’s first (Israeli) passive vaccine.
• Israeli scientists have combined two non-cancer treatments to kill cancer.
• Holocaust survivor sees his granddaughter become an Israeli Air Force pilot.
• Tel Aviv University has the world’s best on-line cybersecurity course.
• An Israeli device helps parents interpret a baby’s cries.
• Six Israeli startups are 2020 World Economic Forum tech pioneers.
• Two Israelis are ranked top US sports prospects.
• An Israeli Ethiopian technician maintains the plane that brought her family to Israel.

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by Raymond Ibrahim, GATESTONE INSTITUTE  •  June 28, 2020

On May 8, 2020, a man tried to torch the Surp Asdvadzadzin Armenian Church in Istanbul, which in previous years was repeatedly attacked with hate-filled graffiti, among other desecrations. (Image source: Vmenkov/Wikimedia Commons)

• • “The atrocities against Christians have gone unchecked and risen to alarming apogee with the country’s security forces and concerned political actors looking the other way or colluding with the Jihadists.” — The Nigerian Voice, May 14, 2020
  • Earlier this year, Christian Solidarity International issued a “Genocide Warning for Christians in Nigeria.”

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Editorial of The New York Sun | June 27, 2020

As the House readied its vote to make a new state out of the District of Columbia, the Speaker went before the press to dilate on injustice of what has obtained for the past 230 years. Mrs. Pelosi called the District “an affront to our democracy.” She noted that its residents pay taxes, serve in the military, and contribute to the “economic vitality” of America but lack for representation. “How could it be? Whose idea was that?”

It turns out that we know exactly whose idea it was. That’s because it was hatched at the very dinner party that, among other things, is now being immortalized anew in the Broadway blockbuster “Hamilton.” The dinner took place in 1790 at New York. It was no cabal of counter-revolutionary cads. The three persons in the room where it happened were Thomas Jefferson, Alexander Hamilton, and James Madison.
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Start at 3:00

Globalism is the enemy of Zionism and the USA

FARRAKHAN’S SPOKESWOMAN

Biden Says If Elected, He’ll Issue Executive Order To Make Mask-Use In Public Mandatory

Can the country confront its current problems with its traditional can-do spirit? We have barely four months to figure out how.

By Ayaan Hirsi Ali, WSJ  June 26, 2020

Outrage is the natural response to the brutal killing of George Floyd. Yet outrage and clear, critical thinking seldom go hand in hand. An act of police brutality became the catalyst for a revolutionary mood. Protests spilled over into violence and looting. Stores were destroyed; policemen and civilians injured and killed. The truism “black lives matter” was joined by a senseless slogan: “Defund the police.”Democratic politicians—and some Republicans—hastened to appease the protesters. The mayors of Los Angeles and New York pledged to cut their cities’ police budgets. The Minneapolis City Council said it intended to disband the police department. The speaker of the House and other congressional Democrats donned scarves made of Ghanaian Kente cloth and kneeled in the Capitol. Sen. Mitt Romney joined a march.

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DAILY CALLER

Attorney General William Barr told “Verdict with Ted Cruz” this week that the way that the big tech companies obtained the overwhelming level of power that they have was through “the biggest bait and switch in history,” arguing that they gained power by allowing diverse views on their platforms and once they became dominate in the market, they started censoring views they didn’t like.

“We have antitrust investigation of all the major Internet platforms or most of the major Internet platforms, and that’s very much underway,” Barr said on the show, which is co-hosted by Daily Wire podcast host Michael Knowles. “I expect to be making decisions in the next few weeks about actions on that. I think during the summer we’ll see some developments. But this issue of censorship is very troubling because our country was based and the Framers, as you know, believed the thing that would ultimately keep us free and keep a majority from repressing the minority is a lot of diversity of voices out there — a robust marketplace.”

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JINSA

I. Executive Summary

Israel’s recently declared intent to extend sovereignty to parts of the West Bank beginning in July, based on the Trump peace plan, has sparked passionate discussion. Often overlooked is the distinction between Israel extending its sovereignty to all proposed areas of the West Bank, versus just to the Jordan Valley. The former encompasses 29 percent of heavily populated areas in the West Bank, while the sparsely populated Jordan Valley comprises just 15 percent of the West Bank’s landmass. ( This excludes the ancient city of Jericho, to which Israel is not now considering extending sovereignty. Jericho currently has a population of about 20,000, mostly Palestinians.) And the Jordan Valley is a critical slice of strategic territory that holds the key to Israel’s security.

At JINSA’s Gemunder Center, we focus on U.S. strategic and security interests, and in this paper we explain that U.S. national security interests would be well served if Israel enshrined its permanent control of the Jordan Valley by acting now to extend its sovereignty there. This will boost the security of Israel, as well as Jordan, two pivotal American allies in the region. We believe it important to consider the status of the Jordan Valley on its own terms and dispassionately.

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T. Belman.  This article describes what drives Antifa but has nothing to say about who is behind it and who finances it.

By Bill Gertz, WASH TIMES June 3, 2020

Activists of the far-left Antifa movement began planning to foment a nationwide anti-government insurgency as early as November as the U.S. presidential campaign season kicked off in earnest, according to a law enforcement official with access to intelligence behind the shadowy group.

The radical movement has emerged as a key focus for investigators in the wake of violent protests and looting across the country after the death of George Floyd in police custody in Minneapolis, according to U.S. law enforcement officials and private security experts.

The law enforcement official would not speak on the record about Antifa’s plans as the election season heats up, but longtime analysts of the group say such a move would be entirely in character.

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After French official warns that the Israeli sovereignty bid “will have consequences,” Jason D. Greenblatt responds that the accusations against Israel are an attack against the United States as well.

By Ariel Kahana, ISRAEL HAYOM

U.S. Special Representative for International Negotiations Jason D. Greenblatt | Photo: Yonatan Sindel/Flash90

Former US Special Representative for International Negotiations Jason D. Greenblatt and a senior official at the French Foreign ministry clashed this week over the Trump administration’s peace plan, with the two clashing over Israel’s intention to apply its sovereignty to certain areas in Judea and Samaria.

The clash took place during a special online discussion to mark the 100th anniversary of the San Remo Conference, which was a major milestone in granting international recognition to future Jewish statehood and Zionism.

Greenblatt, who is one of the chief architects of the Trump administration’s peace plan, defended Israel against the Director of the North Africa and Middle East department of the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Christophe Farnaud, after the latter attacked Israel for planning to implement the part that allows it to extend its sovereignty to Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria.

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by Vijeta Uniyal, GATESTONE INSTITUTE    •  June 26, 2020

India has been facing its toughest military challenge in nearly six decades after 20 Indian soldiers were reported beaten to death by Chinese troops in a border clash. Pictured: An Indian army convoy drives towards Leh, on a highway bordering China, on June 19, 2020 in Gagangir, India. (Photo by Yawar Nazir/Getty Images)

• China’s artificial islands in the South China Sea — equipped with military bases, naval ports and airfields — pose a strategic threat to neighboring countries. In 2018, China landed nuclear strike-capable bombers on these artificial islands, sending an alarming message to the U.S. and regional powers.
• Some commentators ascribe China’s stepped-up predations — on Hong Kong, the Philippines, Japan, Indonesia, South Korea and Australia — to a hope that the world is too distracted by the coronavirus pandemic and the economic devastation it unleashed to bother confronting China, let alone stop it.

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Trump is allowing Americans to experience first-hand the immediate consequences of their political choices in America’s fifty “laboratories of democracy.” They will see the vast differences between Democrat run municipalities and states and Republican ones and vote accordingly.

By Andrea Widburg, AMERICAN THINKER

Since 2020’s craziness began, Tucker Carlson has been brilliant. He’s talked us through speech-killing political correctness and “cancel culture,” a health panic that leftist politicians have used to break Trump supporters, and racism as bad as that during the Jim Crow era only with the races reversed. Carlson is always unafraid to tell the truth.

When the riots started, between his job at Fox News and his home base in Washington, D.C., Carlson has had a front-row seat for the spectacle of leftist protesters systematically destroying property and America’s heritage. It is a demoralizing show.

This demoralization was front and center in Carlson’s monologue on Thursday night. He opened by saying there’s a good chance that Trump can lose the election, making Biden president. (Were that to happen, I believe America would become the first country ever knowingly to elect to its highest office a man with dementia.)

Carlson’s conclusion didn’t arise because the polls show that the basement-dwelling Biden, who’s trotted out every few days to prove he’s still alive, is soaring in the polls. After all, voters remember 2016 and Hillary’s lead. Carlson did observe that the Trump team is worried, but that wasn’t driving Carlson’s pessimism.
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