T. Belman. Just as I have been saying, the US and Russia have been working to find a solution to the “Kurdish problem” for at least a year and they appear to have found one via “Decentralized Democratic Syria” instead of a federal solution. The Kurds had no objection to cutting a deal with Syria and Russia so long as they were protected from the Turks and retained their ethnic identity.

All this was agreed to before Trump announced his withdrawal. A few days later everything was resolved between all parties.

By Col. (ret.) Dr. Jacques Neriah, JCPA

U.S. Forces’ ammunition loaded onto an American C-130 at the Kobani Landing Zone, Syria, Oct. 21, 2019. (U.S. Army Reserve photo by Staff Sgt. Joshua Hammock)¹

• The withdrawal of American troops ordered by President Donald Trump from Kurdish-held territories in northeastern Syria was no surprise to the Kurds.
• The Kurds were deeply concerned by Turkish President Erdogan’s declarations that he intended to resettle the three million Syrian refugees currently dwelling in Turkey in the territories “liberated” by the Turkish army. His vow could mean only one thing to the Kurds: a deliberate policy of ethnic cleansing.
• Therefore, to ensure Kurdish survival as a nation and as a political power in the reconstruction of the future Syrian state in the aftermath of the civil war, the only logical alternative open to the Kurds was to reach an agreement with the Bashar Assad regime.
• Trump’s decision to abandon the Kurds has reshaped the Middle East, politically and geographically, with profound negative implications on America’s allies in the region.

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DEBKA   Oct 24, 2019 @ 8:25

Only some of the thousand US troops on their way out of northern Syria will leave. Others will remain “to keep the Bashar al-Assad regime and Iranian forces away from Syria’s oil fields,” while one air base may also be retained.

This was decided by President Donald Trump early Thursday, Oct. 24 at the end of a day’s briefing by James Jeffrey, his special adviser on Syria. “We do contemplate, I believe, maintaining one of our two airfields there,” he said.

A US air force presence in northern Syria will allow American attack helicopters and armed drones to retain control over North Syrian air space and its border with Iraq. DEBKAfile’s military sources report that the air base in question is located at Rmeilan in the Kurdish province of Hasaka facing the Iraqi border. According to the earlier decision, too, the US will not leave the large Al Tanf garrison which sits strategically on the Syrian-Iraqi-Jordanian border junction. The latter also commands Syria’s oil and gas fields as well as the southern sections of the Syrian-Iraqi border.

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By Joel Pollak, BREITBART

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Blue and White leader promises to form ‘liberal unity government’ and reach out to all parties; he has 28 days to muster a majority where Netanyahu failed

By RAOUL WOOTLIFF, TOI

President Reuven Rivlin presents Blue and White party leader Benny Gantz with the mandate to form a new Israeli government, after PM Netanyahu’s failure to form one, at the President’s Residence in Jerusalem on October 23, 2019. (GALI TIBBON / AFP)

President Reuven Rivlin on Wednesday tasked Benny Gantz, the Blue and White party leader, with forming Israel’s next government, after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced earlier this week that he had failed to do so.

Gantz, like Netanyahu before him, now has 28 days to try and form a government, though the prime minister-designate is seen as being no more likely to manage the task.

Gantz promised to build a government of national reconciliation, and said he would invite Netanyahu and his Likud to be part of it. He also reached out to Israel’s ultra-Orthodox community. “An entire nation is waiting to sigh with relief” that the political deadlock is over, he said.
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By Alissa J. Rubin and Farnaz Fassihi, NYT

Oct. 22, 2019, 7:14 p.m. ET

Iran wanted to help Iraq organize a major religious pilgrimage, but when it offered to send tens of thousands of police officers, Iraq said no thanks.

Worshipers at the shrine of Imam Hussein in Karbala, Iraq, on Friday.Hadi Mizban/Associated Press

KARBALA, Iraq — The annual ceremony commemorating a founding figure of Shiite Islam is one of the most important religious celebrations in the Shiite world, drawing millions of pilgrims to the holy city of Karbala, Iraq.

This year, the Arbaeen ceremony was also a political skirmish — the latest test of Iran’s power in Iraq and of Iraq’s increasing desire for independence from its powerful neighbor.

Iran, the largest Shiite Muslim country in the world and a regional powerhouse in the Middle East, saw the pilgrimage that ended Saturday as an opportunity to assert its role in Iraq and send a message about its regional reach.
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Shoshana Bryen, Jewish Policy Center- Senior Director. “My Iraq contact says the opposite – Iraqis – Shiites in the south – are demanding that Iran leave Iraq. This is huge.

They’re also demonstrating against their majority Shiite government. The government killed up to 500 protesters (this has not been reported in the US) and had to issue a) a formal apology and b) announce it would talk to the demonstrators. Iran didn’t like it, but some things can’t be helped.

Iraq was also unhappy that Iran used its territory to launch the attack on Saudi Arabia (also unreported here).

There has always been tension between Iranian – Persian – Shiites and Iraqi – Arab – Shiites, and now the Iraqi Arab Shiites and the Iraqi Sunni Arabs are finally agreeing that Iranians don’t help. There has always also been Iraqi nationalism.

I wouldn’t be so quick to determine for them what they’ll do.”

By Behnam Ben Taleblu, FDD OCT 11/19

Protesters in Iraq are fighting against government corruption and Iran’s malign influence, which is built on hard power, not public good will. Tehran has a lot to lose.

“Iran and Iraq are two nations whose hearts & souls are tied together,” tweeted Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei on Sunday, as protests raged in neighboring Iraq. Alleging that the protests are a foreign plot, Khamenei continued, “Enemies seek to sow discord but they’ve failed & their conspiracy won’t be effective.”

Khamenei’s response is proof of panic. Iraq is a pivotal part of Iran’s political project in the Middle East, and a friendly government in Baghdad cannot afford to be lost.

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T. Belman. Trump chose to disengage from Syria and the Kurds. What’s wrong with that? Unless you think that the US should have stayed in Syria forever. The US tried to negotiate a syrian deal for a few years but were unsuccessful.  The Kurds and ISIS are now Russia’s problem. What’s wrong with that?

Remember that the Kurds cut a deal with Russia a few days ago to stem the Turkish assault.

Trump has stated that he is holding on to the oil fields in eastern Syria with a view to developing them with the profits going to the Kurds.

Analysis by Nathan Hodge, CNN

Moscow (CNN)Russian President Vladimir Putin and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan met in the southern Russian resort city of Sochi on Tuesday with a shared agenda of shaping the endgame in Syria’s eight-year civil war.

The two leaders unveiled a 10-point memorandum of understanding with an unstated bottom line: The Americans do not have a place in shaping the future of Syria.

What did Putin and Erdogan agree to?

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T. Belman.  No mention of Turkey’s plan to settle the area with Syrian refugees now living in Turkey.

Also no mention of what Russia intends to do with the rest of eastern Syria lying to the south of this zone.

Leaders agree Syrian Kurdish fighters will move 30 km away from border area within 150 hours, beginning at noon Wednesday ? Deal lets Turkey maintain control ONLY of areas it pushed into since it launched incursion

Reuters  The Associated Press

Russian President Vladimir Putin welcomes Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan during a meeting in Sochi, Russia October 22, 2019Sputnik/Alexei Druzhinin/Kremlin via REUTERS

Russian and Turkish leaders have made a deal to share control of Syria’s northeast that requires Kurdish fighters to clear the entire length of the Syria-Turkey border.

The deal allows Turkey to maintain control of areas it pushed into launching its offensive into Syria earlier this month.
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The distinguishing element of the recent elections was obvious: they were built on hatred for the head of government and for a specific group in Israeli society, the haredim and Religious Zionists.

By Alexander Maistrovoy, INN

I realize how provocative, absurd and even monstrous this question might sound, and yet … does Israel need peace?

The distinguishing element of the recent elections was obvious: they were built on hatred for the head of government and for a specific group in Israeli society – in this case, the haredim (aka Ultra-Orthodox) andl Religious Zionists, part of the current coalition. All the other problems were pushed to the side. A horde of people was led by clear and poorly veiled hatred. This is not a novelty.

• Rabin voters were motivated by an irrational hatred for the “settlers.”
• Tomi Lapid built his political campaign exclusively on hatred for the haredim.
• In turn, Rabbi Ovadia Yosef and Arye Deri blasphemed and insulted all groups that were not affiliated with Shas party: secular, non-Jewish, religious Zionists, “Russians”, reformists, homosexuals, etc.
• The hearts of the former USSR emigrants will be forever scarred from the arrogance of the elite and the appalling labeling.

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IMRA translation of the Hebrew Facebook message posted by MK Naftali Bennett on 20 October 2019

My friends in the right-wing camp, Let’s be clear: If the judicial system succeeds in bringing down Netanyahu because of cigars and articles on the Walla website, it will be a grave blow to the entire national camp.

The right-wing leader to follow will be castrated and frightened by the media and the legal system.
**
“Why are you protecting Bibi?”  I am asked every day. My friends, I am not only defending Netanyahu , but the entire national camp and our State of Israel.
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Jewish state ranks 23rd worldwide in total number of wealthy people, and Israelis gained more assets in the past year than the citizens of almost any other country

By Luke Tress, TOI

Israel has about 131,000 millionaires, and its population is getting wealthier quickly, according to a Monday report from the Swiss banking firm Credit Suisse.

Israel ranks 23rd worldwide in its total number of millionaires, and by 2024 is expected to have 173,000 millionaires, representing a growth rate of 32 percent, the annual Global Wealth Report found.

The total number of Israeli millionaires is relatively high, placing the Jewish state slightly below more populous countries including Brazil and Poland, although some states with fewer people, including Norway, Switzerland and Hong Kong, had more millionaires.
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BRILLIANT — (STARTS AT 12:30)

The Kurds’ deal with the Assad regime means that the future of Turkey’s operation is dependent on the say-so of Moscow, not Washington

THE NATIONAL

Ankara’s attempt to carve out a so-called safe zone deep inside Kurdish-held territory in north-east Syria has left Turkey alone, strategically weak and on the precipice of an economic meltdown. Even last week’s US-brokered truce was no victory for Turkey’s firebrand president Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

Sure, under the terms of the ceasefire, the White House agreed to practically everything Ankara wanted. US President Donald Trump froze sanctions and accepted Ankara’s demand for a safe zone and its calls for forces from the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) to retreat. More ominously, there was nothing said about the hundreds of thousands of Kurds who fled the area, nor of Turkey’s odious intention to resettle millions of Arab Syrian refugees in the proposed safe zone – such a deliberate policy of demographic tampering being tantamount to ethnic cleansing. Instead, Mr Trump declared the Kurds were “no angels”. By yesterday, four days into the ceasefire, Kurdish troops had withdrawn entirely from the key border town of Ras Al Ain in north-eastern Syria.
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This address is utterly fantastic —

Attorney General William P. Barr Delivers Remarks to the Law School and the de Nicola Center for Ethics and Culture at the University of Notre Dame South Bend, 

Friday, October 11, 2019

Remarks as prepared for delivery

Thank you, Tom, for your kind introduction. Bill and Roger, it’s great to be with you.

Thank you to the Notre Dame Law School and the de Nicola Center for Ethics and Culture for graciously extending an invitation to address you today. I’d also like to express gratitude to Tony de Nicola, whose generous support has shaped – and continues to shape – countless minds through examination of the Catholic moral and intellectual tradition.

Today, I would like to share some thoughts with you about religious liberty in America. It’s an important priority in this Administration and for this Department of Justice.

We have set up a task force within the Department with different components that have equities in this area, including the Solicitor General’s Office, the Civil Division, the Office of Legal Counsel, and other offices. We have regular meetings. We keep an eye out for cases or events around the country where states are misapplying the Establishment Clause in a way that discriminates against people of faith, or cases where states adopt laws that impinge upon the free exercise of religion.
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