By Emil Avdaliani, BESA   December 15, 2019

BESA Center Perspectives Paper No. 1,372, December 15, 2019

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: Russian foreign policy since the mid-2000s tends to be perceived in contradictory terms: as either a negative for Russia or the product of a grand strategic vision on the part of the Russian leadership. It is also often falsely perceived as representing a break with the past. Moscow’s foreign policy moves need to be viewed with a balanced perspective and should be placed in their historical context.

The grand analytical narratives of Russian foreign policy dating from the early 2000s draw radical and opposing conclusions. Some analysts warn that Russia is on a downhill trajectory because of internal economic troubles, while others claim it has been transformed into a geopolitical player as important as the US, China, or the EU.

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US secretary of state says International Criminal Court’s move ‘unfairly targets’ Jewish state, calls for direct negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians

By TOI STAFF

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo speaks at the State Department in Washington, December 11, 2019. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Friday decried a decision by the International Criminal Court’s chief prosecutor to proceed with an investigation into war crimes allegedly committed in the Palestinian territories.

“We firmly oppose this and any other action that seeks to target Israel unfairly,” Pompeo said.

“We do not believe the Palestinians qualify as a sovereign state, and they therefore are not qualified to obtain full membership, or participate as a state in international organizations, entities, or conferences, including the ICC.”
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BBC

John Anderson talks to British journalist, author and broadcaster Melanie Phillips about the origins of Western cultural and political freedoms, the resurgence of antisemitism around the globe and the key problems confronting the youth of today.

T. Belman. This is hugely important. One wonders why no previous Ministers of Defence appointed by Netanyahu waged war against this encroachment. My guess is that Netanyahu didn’t want them to, but that Bennett insisted that he be permitted to do so as part of his appointment.  It bothers me that Bennett wants two years to do it.. Why doesn’t he do it  post haste?

If Likud forms the next government, I am sure he will remain as Min of Defence and continue what he has started.  If Blue and White wants to form the government, he can join it to enable it to exceed the 61 seats required, providing he is appointed the Min of Defence with the same powers.

Israel Hayom learns that Defense Minister Naftali Bennett wants to put an end to European-funded illegal Palestinian construction in Israeli-controlled areas, designed to establish “facts on the ground,” within two years.

by  Ariel Kahana, ISRAEL HAYOM

Illegal Palestinian construction | Photo: Regavim

T. Belman. I urge you to read all links in her newsletter.

By Melanie Phillips’ newsletter

By Valerie Sobel

It’s been four years since Donald J. Trump announced his bid to become the 45th. Guided meticulously by the DNC, the entire liberal media machine (owned by five out of six media moguls), relentlessly trashed the man in pursuit of ratings. The ratings didn’t materialize, but generous promises of schadenfreude to the gullible unthinking public over the course of the last four years surely warrants some reminiscing.

Donald J. Trump was guaranteed to

* Bury himself in the 2016 GOP debates
* Poll no better than the lowest GOP candidate
* Never be chosen as the GOP Candidate for President
* Never get Americans behind him
* Never win the 2016 Presidential Election
* Sink the DOW after the election
* Crash the economy after the election
* Destroy NATO
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It is one of 17 annual pro-Palestinian and anti-Israeli resolutions the UNGA has approved this month.

By TOVAH LAZAROFF, JPOST

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas addresses the 74th session of the United Nations General Assembly at U.N. headquarters in New York City, New York, U.S.

Palestinians have a right to claim restitution for their loss of natural resources due to the Israeli occupation, the United Nations General Assembly said on Wednesday.

It approved by 160-6, with 15 abstentions an annual resolution called “Permanent sovereignty of the Palestinian people in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including east Jerusalem, and of the Arab population in the occupied Syrian Golan over their natural resources.”

It is one of 17 annual pro-Palestinian and anti-Israeli resolutions the UNGA has approved this month. The UNGA is slated to vote on at least two other such texts this month.
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The very conception that every problem has a “solution” is simply not realistic. This may be doubly true in the Middle East. Here is why, and here, despite that statement, is a proposed solution.

By Moshe Phillips, INN

After reading an editorial harshly criticizing Secretary of State Pompeo for his statement on the legality of Israeli settlements in the Washington Jewish Week newspaper, I wrote a letter to the editor. That letter led to brief exchange of emails with David Holzel, the paper’s managing editor. Mr. Holzel responded to my letter thus “Thank you for the letter. Your points are well taken. I was wondering if you would propose your alternative to the two-state solution.”

During our email dialogue I was offered a 600 word op-ed space to provide the Herut answer on this. The op-ed was published earlier this month. These are the original lines that I was responding to: “the Trump administration’s still-secret Middle East peace plan will not promote a two-state solution. Official recognition of Israeli control over territory that includes land anticipated to become part of a Palestinian state is viewed by two-state proponents as another ill-considered step by the Trump administration.”
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Likud leadership candidate visits Jerusalem neighborhood of Givat Hamatos, speaks out against construction freeze.

By Orli Harari,INN

Gideon Sa’ar in Jerusalem

Likud leadership candidate MK Gideon Sa’ar on Thursday visited the neighborhood of Givat Hamatos in Jerusalem and spoke out against the construction freeze in the area.

Sa’ar explained that “this location has strategic significance. Construction here will damage the territorial continuity that the Palestinians are striving for and will serve as a barrier to the establishment of a Palestinian state. Therefore, there are also political pressures, mainly European ones, to prevent the construction for Jews here.”

“Givat Hamatos is part of a larger building freeze in Jerusalem and its surroundings, along with E1 and Atarot. All in all – more than 17,000 housing units are frozen,” continued Sa’ar.
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Poll finds that when the Likud is headed by Sa’ar, it wins two fewer seats but the right-wing bloc as a whole wins three more seats.

According to the weekly Radio 103FM poll, prepared by the Smith Institute headed by Rafi Smith, the right-wing and haredi bloc, headed by Binyamin Netanyahu, reaches 56 seats, while the center-left bloc, including the Arabs, has 57 seats. Yisrael Beytenu, headed by Avigdor Liberman, is in the middle with 7 seats.

If Gideon Sa’ar leads the right-wing bloc, the Likud is weakened by two seats, but the entire bloc reaches 59 seats, putting it a step away from being able to form a right-wing government. The center-left bloc is weakened to 55 seats in this scenario, and Liberman’s power is also weakened from 7 to 6 seats.

If elections were held today and the Likud were headed by Netanyahu, the poll found, Blue and White would win 35 seats, followed by the Likud with 32.
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The relevance of context.

By Howard Rotberg, FPM

By CONRAD BLACK, Special to the Sun | December 19, 2019

The greatest significance in last week’s decisive and seminal British election is the victory it contains for the solidarity of the English-speaking peoples and the strength, coherence, and legitimacy of what Europeans frequently refer to as the Anglo-Saxons.

Of course, broadly, the English-speaking advanced democracies have much in common with Western Europe, and to a slightly reduced degree with Eastern Europe and westernized nations in other regions, most conspicuously Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Israel, South Africa, the Emirates, and parts of Latin America.

Yet the substantial detachment of the United Kingdom from an integrated Europe so it may retain the primacy of the political institutions and the legal system it has developed over many centuries, and align itself, implicitly, more closely to its senior Commonwealth associates, Canada and Australia, as well as to its sometime senior partner in the modern world’s greatest crises, the United States, is a geostrategic development of the first importance.
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The threat to Israel now is that Jordan is a very unstable partner in maintaining security in the Jordan Valley.

By Ken Cohen, ISRAEL HAYOM

The Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan canceled a component of its 1994 peace treaty last month with Israel. It evicted Israeli farmers from two tracts of contested land in the Jordan River Valley. The minor stretches of land – Naharayim in the north and Tzofar in the south – include what is now ironically called “The Isle of Peace.”

This action by Jordan emphasizes the need for Israel to assert its necessary security rights in the Jordan Valley. Just as the Golan Heights are clearly vital to the security of northern Israel in any foreseeable future, so, too, is the Jordan Valley for its eastern frontier.
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By Victor Rosenthal

The nightmarish prospect of a third election – and worse, the campaign for the third election, will become a reality for Israelis in the next few months, culminating at the ballot boxes on March 2^nd. There are several ways in which the outcome could be disastrous, and one way in which it could present a path forward out of the political swamp into which Israel has descended in the past few years, the almost-gridlock that has kept us from solving many long-standing problems.

I have to begin by talking about Binyamin Netanyahu. In my opinion, he is one of Israel’s greatest Prime Ministers, supremely competent and qualified to continue in his job – but mortally wounded, taken down by enemies who exploited his tragic flaws (we all have them) and a broken constitutional structure which does not properly provide for the separation of powers with appropriate checks and balances.
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The Resistance wins in the House, but will it now lose in 2020?

A man wears a lapel pin reading “Impeach” as activists rally in support of the impeachment of President Donald Trump, Dec. 18. Photo: tom brenner/Reuters

The impeachment press will deride the GOP as either afraid of Donald Trump or moral sellouts. But note that even the 20 GOP Members who are retiring from the House and not running for another office voted against impeachment. GOP Members like Peter King (N.Y.), Jim Sensenbrenner (Wis.) and Will Hurd (Texas) have been unafraid to break with party leaders or Presidents in the past.
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MK Gideon Sa’ar meets Likud activists in Haifa, says the ongoing political crisis must end.
By Hezki Baruch,INN

MK Gideon Sa’ar met on Wednesday evening with about 200 activists at the Likud branch in Haifa.

Sa’ar, who is running for the leadership of the Likud, said that the ongoing political crisis that is exhausting the state and stealing its resources must be ended.

“A new, strong and stable government must be allowed to be formed. If a change is not made – the Likud’s rule is in jeopardy in Netanyahu’s election – it is an election of the next leader of the opposition. Electing me is choosing a strong and stable government led by the Likud. The right has not lost the majority among the people. And we also have a majority in the Knesset. And yet twice this year, no government was formed,” claimed Sa’ar.
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By Robert Steven Ingebo, CFP

“Deep Equity”, developed by the Corwin company, is quickly becoming the new standard curriculum being taught in our public schools. If you’ve never heard of it, you soon will.  It’s in San Tan valley in Arizona, Chicago, Illinois, Louisville, Kentucky, the entire Cleveland, Ohio public school district, charter schools in California and many more American cities as well as Canada.