Three of Blue and White’s four leaders may be willing to compromise to form unity government, report says.

Arutz Sheva Staff, 13/11/19 12:43

Blue and White leaders Chairman MK Benny Gantz, MK Moshe Ya’alon, and MK Gabi Ashkenazi have ruled out the formation of a minority government supported from the outside by the Joint Arab List, and are working towards the formation of a unity government with Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and his Likud party, Israel Hayom reported.

It is estimated that the three leaders have already agreed to the President’s compromise, that Netanyahu should be first in a rotational deal, and that the 55-MK right-religious bloc is also welcome in the government, provided the number of ministers is equal in both the center-left and right-religious blocs. Read more…

By Dmitri Trenin, NYT Nov. 12, 2019

For many in the West, Russia’s return to the world stage over the past few years has come as a surprise, and not an especially pleasant one. After the downfall of the Soviet Union, the country was written off as a regional power, a filling station masquerading as a state.

Five years later, however, Russia is still resilient, despite the Western sanctions imposed over its actions in Ukraine. It has effectively won, militarily, in Syria: Today it is a power broker in that country; the victory has raised its prestige in the Middle East and provided material support for Moscow’s claims to be a great power again.

Those who experience this moment with some discomfort should get used to it: Russia is not a superpower, but it is back as an important independent player. And it will be playing in various regions around the world in the years to come.
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T. Belman. I wrote about the history of Islam here.

Trump calls Muslim migration “the all-time biggest Trojan Horse”.

Ever wonder why there are so many Muslims and Muslim countries in the world? Over the millennia many countries were conquered, but didn’t remain Persian or Greek or Roman as the case may be. But, the countries conquered in the name of Islam, became and remained, Islamic. For example Pakistan, part of India, and Malaysia were Hindu; Turkey, Iraq, Syria, Egypt and N. Africa were Christian; Afghanistan was Buddhist. They are all Islamic now.

This transformation was not by chance but by design.

By John Dale Dunn, AMERICAN THINKER

Sword and Scimitar: 14 Centuries of Conflict Between Islam and the West, by Raymond Ibrahim, Hardcover pp 481 $20.42  Kindle $16.99, ISBNs 978-0-306-82555-2,  (DeCapo Press NYC 2018).

In the book Sword and Scimitar Raymond Ibrahim, an Egyptian Christian, tells the story of the millennium-plus of conflict between Islam and Western (Christian) Nations, structured on 8 landmark battles.  The first, Yarmuk in 636 AD, was a devastating defeat for the West, and the last in 1683 at Vienna, a defeat for the attacking Islamist army of the Ottoman Empire. Read more…

By Lauri B. Regan, AMERICAN THINKER

Over 190 rockets launched at Israel since killing of Islamic Jihad commander, Sporadic fire from Strip continues as IDF hits rocket launching cells; 46 Israelis injured, 7 Gazans said killed; numerous cities in south, central Israel cancel school Wednesday

Benny Gantz claims nothing’s changed, but he knows an operation limits his options and bolsters Netanyahu, while putting nail in coffin of Plan B, Arab-backed minority government

We Have Hundreds Of Kilometers Of Underground Tunnels, Thousands Of Traps, Thousands Of Anti-Tank Missiles

MEMRI

https://www.memri.org/reports/hamas-leader-yahya-sinwar-we-have-hundreds-kilometers-underground-tunnels-thousands-traps

Hamas Leader Yahya Sinwar said in a November 4, 2019 speech that aired on Al-Aqsa TV (Hamas-Gaza) that Hamas has hundreds of kilometers of underground tunnels, hundreds of underground and above-ground command centers, thousands of traps, and thousands of locally-made anti-tank missiles, which he claimed can destroy Israel’s tanks. He said that Hamas has thousands of missiles that will turn Israel’s cities into ruins and ghost cities if Israel makes any “stupid” mistake. Addressing Israeli politician and former IDF Chief of Staff Benny Gantz, who is currently trying to form a coalition in the Israeli government, Sinwar threatened: “We will make you curse the day your mother gave birth to you.” Sinwar also threatened: “We will crush Tel Aviv and cause its sirens to wail morning, evening, and night for six whole months.” In addition, Sinwar recalled a time when the Al-Qassam Brigades ran out of metal pipes for making missiles and a simple farmer led its members to former Israeli settlements in the Gaza Strip, where he allegedly showed them metal pipes that were part of an irrigation system that had been left behind when Israel withdrew from the Gaza Strip. Sinwar claimed that these pipes were enough to produce missiles for ten years.
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TV cites sources in Likud, Blue and White saying rivals are discussing idea of a prime ministerial rotation in which Netanyahu will serve for first year, but step aside if indicted

By TOI STAFF  11 November 2019, 10:16 pm

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (R) and Blue and White party leader Benny Gantz at a memorial ceremony marking 24 years since the assassination of former Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, in the Knesset on November 10, 2019. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and rival Benny Gantz may be closing in on a coalition deal that would allow the formation of a government and prevent Israel from heading to its third election in under a year, Channel 12 reported on Monday.

Citing sources with knowledge of the negotiations between Likud and Gantz’s Blue and White party, the network said the two parties are now discussing the possibility, proposed by Likud, of a prime ministerial rotation in which Netanyahu will remain in office for a year before stepping aside in favor of Gantz. Read more…

After Liberman’s ultimatum, Blue and White party chief signals flexibility on demands regarding joint coalition with Likud

By RAOUL WOOTLIFF, TOI

Blue and White leader Benny Gantz addresses members of his faction during a meeting in the Knesset on November 11, 2019 (Elad Malka)

Blue and White party leader Benny Gantz on Monday said his party would be willing to consider compromising on some of its positions in the interest of forming a broad unity government alongside Likud and Yisrael Beytenu.

He also took a shot at Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, calling on him to focus government-building negotiations on “what interests Israeli citizens — and not just what interests you.”

On Saturday, Yisrael Beytenu Avigdor Liberman presented a challenge to both Netanyahu and Gantz, saying that if either of them failed to back a unity government according to a proposal set out by President Reuven Rivlin and accept tough compromises in order to form a coalition together, he would walk back his commitment to a national unity government and support a minority government led by the candidate willing to compromise.
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by Howard Rotberg, NEW ENGLISH REVIEW

In a world where cultural and moral relativism seem to demand that we should tolerate and respect every culture and every belief system equally, Canadian Remembrance Day and the U.S Veterans Day have more and more become the last bastion of traditional patriotism as a key value for our nations.

When we remember the soldiers who gave up their lives, or were disabled, for the maintenance of our way of life, our liberal democracies and our freedoms, we necessarily hold that our way of life is superior to those whose totalitarian illiberal governments forced the necessity of war upon us.

This year’s commemorations highlighted to me, how political correctness and relativism are going to have a large effect on future November 11^th remembrances.
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The time has come for Trump to rein in his Turkish counterpart following invasion of Kurdistan in Syria and anti-democratic measures at home

By Yochanan Visser, INN

US President Donald J. Trump should rein in Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan a Jerusalem Post editorial stated on Sunday.

“Trump needs to confront Erdogan and demand that he changes his policies not just in Syria and vis-à-vis Israel, but also when it comes to domestic issues like his treatment of journalists,” the editorial said.

Erdogan’s treatment of journalists – Turkey tops the list of countries that jail journalists for criticizing the regime – is no domestic issue as this reporter can testify.

The Turkish dictator used a lawyer working for the Islamist organization IHH to threaten me over my Turkey reporting and later put me on his blacklist I was told.
Read more…

Salehi says production of low-enriched uranium soaring after operations at underground site resumed;

By MEHDI FATTAHI, AMIR VAHDAT and JON GAMBRELL, TOI

By Howard Rothberg

T. Belman. One of the reasons that the king is still ruling Jordan is because Netanyahu is protecting him.

Katz: Israel wanted joint event to mark peace anniversary, but Jordan refused
Hashemite Kingdom shot down initiative due to ‘complicated’ domestic situation, foreign minister says at Knesset conference; no Jordanians attend

Netanyahu claimed that Israel and Jordan cooperate in security aspects as well as trade, intelligence and water.

BY Arik Bender/MAARIV   NOVEMBER 11, 2019

During this week’s broadcast of “CBS Sunday Morning,” it was revealed that former Trump administration U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley said in her book “With All Due Respect” that then-White House Chief of Staff John Kelly and then-Secretary of State Rex Tillerson “confided in me that when they resisted the president, they weren’t being insubordinate, they were trying to save the country.”

Reading from Haley’s book, Norah O’Donnell asked, “Tillerson went on to tell me the reason he resisted the president’s decisions was because if he didn’t, people would die. Do you memorialize that conversation? It definitely happened?”
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