First restrictions target British-based Hamas operative.

By ANNA AHRONHEIM , JPOST

Defense Minister Naftali Bennett attends a cabinet meeting, December 2019.

Defense Minister Naftali Bennett has signed the first executive order placing economic restrictions on members of terrorist organizations in Israel and around the world on Tuesday, placing a limit on the ability of individuals to use their assets to promote terrorism.

In a statement released by the Defense Ministry, the “targeted economic sanctions” will be an effective deterrent by placing a limit on the ability of terrorist activists to use their assets to promote and finance terrorist organization in Israel and abroad.
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The tumor in one mouse that was injected with human cancer cells completely disappeared.

By MAAYAN JAFFE-HOFFMAN, jpost

Economy Min. Cohen says PM Netanyahu believes he is innocent, won’t request immunity.

Economy Minister Eli Cohen (Likud) on Tuesday told Channel 12 that Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu does not intend to request parliamentary immunity from the Knesset.

“In recent days I held conversations with the Prime Minister and I heard him say explicitly that he does not intend to come and request immunity,” Cohen said. “Netanyahu fully believes that he is innocent, and he says, ‘I’m willing to come and stand trial.'”

Cohen also blamed Blue and White leader MK Yair Lapid for foiling attempts at a unity government.

“[Blue and White Chairman MK Benny] Gantz is held hostage by Lapid, who wants elections. Lapid understands that if they form a unity government with the Likud, which is what the nation wants and the recent elections showed that, he won’t be prime minister. Gantz needs to make a decision as a leader, and accept the Likud’s offer.”
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This is truly fascinating

By Dick Morris on December 2, 2019

How The U.S. Has Decisively Defeated China In The Global Trade War – Lunch Alert!

T. Belman.  Given how weak and unprecidented the charges are and the great service Netanyahu has redered Israel, I sincerely hope that the Knesset will grant him immunity.

Must a government be formed for this to happen?

Under Israeli law, Netanyahu can get immunity through Knesset’s House Committee if he proves that his indictment would be of great detriment to the state or if there are other unique circumstances.

by  Yair Altman , Ariel Kahana

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Attorney General Avichai Mendelblit | Archives: Dudi Vaaknin

In Case 4,000, on top of the count of fraud and breach of trust, Netanyahu will face an additional count of bribery.

In Case 1,000, Netanyahu is accused of receiving gifts worth over $200,000 from friends over an extended period, while Case 2,000 and Case 4,000 both involve alleged attempts by Netanyahu to secure positive media coverage in exchange for political favors.

In Case 4,000 – considered the most serious of the three – Netanyahu is accused of expediting a regulatory change toward the merger of Israel’s two largest telecommunications companies, Bezeq and YES, in exchange for positive coverage on the Walla! news portal. Read more…

Project will add 176 homes to Nof Zion, located in Jabel Mukaber; Housing Ministry said to revive another plan for up to 11,000 units on site of Atarot Airport

By TOI STAFF  

Work started in recent weeks on expanding a Jewish community in East Jerusalem which, once completed, will make it the largest Jewish enclave in an Arab neighborhood of the city, Haaretz reported Wednesday.

The project will add 176 housing units to the existing 96 homes of Nof Zion, which sits in the Arab neighborhood of Jabel Mukaber.

Currently, the largest Jewish presence in any Arab neighborhood in the city is the 106 families of Ma’ale Zeitim on the Mount of Olives, located in Ras al Amud, according to the report.

The Nof Zion expansion was approved two years ago by the Jerusalem Planning and Building Committee after a group of Jews was said to have purchased the land.
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Short statement from White House says leaders also talk about ‘other critical bilateral and regional issues,’ but gives no details

TOI

US President Donald Trump spoke Sunday with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, with the two leaders focusing talks on “the threat from Iran,” the White House said.

“The leaders discussed the threat from Iran, as well as other critical bilateral and regional issues,” a brief statement said late Sunday.

There was no immediate readout on the call from Israel.

The two last spoke on November 19, when Netanyahu thanked the president for Washington’s decision to repudiate a State Department legal opinion that said West Bank settlements were illegal.

Though Netanyahu and Trump were once close allies who touted their friendship to their respective bases, ties between the two have been seen as cooling in recent months as the Israeli premier has struggled to cling to power.

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Deal would see PM leave post to Gantz within six months; plan designed to take advantage of ‘rare opportunity’ of tacit US backing, minister says

By TOI STAFF

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaks before a map of the Jordan Valley, vowing to extend Israeli sovereignty there if reelected, during a speech in Ramat Gan on September 10, 2019. (Menahem Kahana/AFP)

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is seeking to serve as premier first in a rotational government with rival party Blue and White for only as long as it takes him to make good on a promise to annex the West Bank’s Jordan Valley, his party said Monday.

The Likud and Blue and White parties have been locked in unsuccessful unity talks with the country steadily slipping toward a third round of elections. Likud has insisted that Netanyahu go first in a rotational deal, even for only a few months, but Blue and White has stuck to its promise not to join a government led by a prime minister under indictment.

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America needs to back up its allies (Israel, Saudi Arabia, and potentially Turkey), and isolate its adversaries (Iran, Russia, China, Islamic State). Everything else is secondary.

by Michael Doran, MOSAIC – JAN 2019

President Trump’s surprise December 19 announcement of an immediate withdrawal of American forces from Syria hit some Israelis like a sucker punch. “With this withdrawal, the United States abandons Syria and leaves Israel alone,” said Yaakov Amidror, a former national-security adviser to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. While conceding that “the effect of the U.S. decision is primarily psychological and diplomatic,” Amidror continued: “In those arenas, this is a very significant decision.” Subsequent reports to the effect that the drawdown of forces will be slower than originally announced and coordinated with America’s allies have softened the blow, but the shock still remains.

In retrospect, the announcement shouldn’t have come as a surprise. After all, Trump has never hidden his conviction that extended military operations in the Middle East are futile. He campaigned on the theme in 2016 and then returned to it last April. The United States, he declared then, had “spent $7 trillion in the Middle East in the last seven years. We get nothing out of it, nothing.” To this general observation, he added a specific promise: “We’ll be coming out of Syria . . . very soon. Let the other people take care of it now.”
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The next Iraqi prime minister will have to at least profess distance from Iranian influence, without jeopardizing close economic ties with Tehran, including dependence on Iranian aid

Zvi Bar’el, HAARETZ

Iraqi demonstrators gather as flames start consuming Iran’s consulate in the southern Iraqi Shiite holy city of Najaf on November 27, 2019AFP

The Iraqi parliament is expected to confirm the resignation of Prime Minister Adel Abdul-Mahdi, as well as that of his government, on Sunday. The Iraqi public appears to have achieved the initial goal of the violent protests, in which more than 400 people have been killed and thousands more have been injured. But this is not the end of the “wicked government.”

Under the provisions of the Iraqi constitution, the current government will remain in power for at least another month, until a consensus can be reached on a candidate to lead the next one. After the country’s president assigns this task, the candidate has another month to form a coalition. On paper, the goal is simple, but experience shows that the selection of a consensus candidate could take a long time and that the formation of a government that parliament would approve could take many months.
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By  Gavriel Dan

Ben Shapiro speaks with mathematician and author David Berlinski about how scientists have caved to politically correctness and the government’s role in enforcing your personal life.

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T. Belman.  At least NATO isn’t hurting us ie, the nationalist camp. I would much rather focus my attack on the United Nations..  Not only are they biased towards Israel but they have a lot to do with political correctness, multiculturalism, outlawing criticism of Islam, socialist education and on and on.

By Michael Curtis, AMERICAN THINKER

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Washington will step up its forces and expand the war on ISIS with the Kurds, who hope to win a seat at the negotiating table. Meanwhile, Russia’s efforts at ending the conflict have failed and Iran is watching closely

By Zvi Bar’el, HAARETZ

U.S. armored vehicles patrolling fields near the northeastern Syrian town of Qahtaniyah near the Turkish border, October 31, 2019. AFP

“I don’t have an end date” for the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Syria, Gen. Kenneth McKenzie, the head of U.S. Central Command, told a press conference Saturday. It seems, then, that Donald Trump’s controversial decision last month to withdraw all American forces from the combat zones in northern Syria has fizzled out.

On Wednesday, the American forces even got a boost from armored forces that included three tanks and three other armored vehicles in addition to a logistics unit that crossed into Syria from the Kurdish region. According to McKenzie, these forces, in cooperation with the Kurdish militias, will broaden their operations against the Islamic State in the Deir el-Zour province.

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Iraq protest vs militias, Qssem Soleimani, Shiite internecine war

DEBKA

Adel Abdel-Mahdi’s resignation as Iraq’s prime minister on Saturday, Nov. 30, confirmed that Iraq’s 22 million Shiites (out of a 39 million population) are being torn apart by a potential internal Shiite war. More than 400 people were killed in three months of protest and 16,000 injured. At least 40 died on Friday, most from gunfire.

The protest against corruption and failure of government sweeping the Shiite south and parts of Baghdad is pitting opponents of Iranian influence against the Shiite militias loyal to Iran which defer to Al Qods chief Gen. Qassem Soleimani. By stepping down, the prime minister responded to the demand of Iraq’s top Shiite cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, who condemned the use of force against protesters and called for a new government.

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BY HUGH FITZGERALD, JIHAD WATCH

Justin Trudeau’s anti-Israel vote at the U.N.  is a “betrayal” but not, alas, surprising. When it comes to Israel, Trudeau is no Stephen Harper. He’s now shown he is willing to join the jackals.

The story is here:

Top Jewish groups in Canada have expressed disappointment after the country voted in favor of an anti-Israel UN General Assembly resolution earlier this week.

The Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs (CIJA), the advocacy arm of the Jewish Federations of Canada, called the move a “betrayal.”
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