At rallies where he warms crowds up , cries of ‘2024’ underscore his rising stardom; ‘He’s the future,’ says one rally goer, ‘and I can’t wait to vote for him someday too’

By JONATHAN LEMIRE, TOI

In this June 18, 2019, file photo, Donald Trump Jr. throws hats to supporters at a campaign rally for President Donald Trump in Orlando, Fla. (AP Photo/John Raoux)

The shout of “2024!” from the crowd was unmistakable. It stopped Donald Trump Jr. cold.

President Donald Trump’s eldest son had been in the midst of a humor-laced screed in which he decried Joe Biden as too old and Elizabeth Warren as too liberal and insisted his father’s 2016 campaign was too disorganized to possibly collude with the Russians. As many in the crowd of several hundred laughed, Trump Jr. held a dramatic pause before exclaiming his response:

“Let’s worry about 2020 first!” he yelled.
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In 4th day of demonstrations over crumbling economy, protesters call for ‘the fall of the regime’; Druze party leader threatens to quit cabinet if reforms not enacted

By AGENCIES20 October 2019, 6:06 pm  0

Lebanese demonstrators wave national flags as they take part in a rally in the capital Beirut’s downtown district on October 20, 2019. (Patrick Baz/AFP)

BEIRUT — Hundreds of thousands of Lebanese took to the streets to condemn political stasis and corruption Sunday, the largest in four days of demonstrations that have crippled the country and threatened the coalition government.

The capital Beirut, second city Tripoli in the north and the southern port of Tyre came to a standstill, with streets filled with protesters waving the national flag, chanting “revolution” or “the people demand the fall of the regime” — a common refrain of demonstrations in other parts of the Arab world.

The protests, Lebanon’s largest in five years, have grown steadily across the Mediterranean country since public anger first spilled onto the streets Thursday evening in response to a proposed tax on calls via WhatsApp and other messaging services.
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T. Belman.  Just as I forecast,Trump and Putin have cut a deal. Russia is now responsible to rein in Turkey and to protect the Kurds. Exactly what Putin has agreed to with respect to Iran, will soon be evident.  Trump is now focused on pushing back Iran in Iraq.

DEBKA  
Oct 21, 2019 @ 10:07

At $0.06 per kilowatt, the cost of solar energy is now less than the cost of natural gas.

BY TARA KAVALER/THE MEDIA LINE

Solar panels at one of the projects of Enlight Renewable Energy. (photo credit: RACHAF PRO DRONE)

The Arava region of southern Israel, which includes the city of Eilat, will reach its goal of being 100-percent reliant on solar energy during the daytime by next year, placing the area light years ahead of the rest of the country.

The team responsible for the achievement, along with other experts, is now lobbying for legislation that would make the entire country 100% solar-energy-reliant during daytime hours by 2030. At present, fossil fuels provide 95% of Israel’s electricity.

The Arava achievement is the result of a partnership between Yosef Abramowitz, CEO of Energiya Global, and Dorit Banet, CEO of Eilat-Eilot Renewable Energy.
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By Diane Bederman

The enemy of your enemy is not your friend. He may use and abuse you for a period of time, but then will throw you over.

The West is involved in the Middle East – not by design, but by acts of war. Sept 11, 2001 began the latest march. And what we need to learn from our actions there is that honour/shame cultures are dangerous. The ethic of all Muslim countries rests on vengeance; not justice and mercy. And vengeance is never ending. Aristotle wrote that memory is the scribe of the soul. Muslim memory calls for revenge. There are few real Muslim nation states. Most are tribes, not living well together. There is no sense of loyalty up the chain from family, clan, tribe to nation.

In the Muslim world, the Shia and Sunni do not get along at all. And that is putting it mildly.There are Hashemites and Alawites, Ibadi and Suffis who don’t agree on much of anything: except vengeance.
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T. Belman. Because of the Russian Hoax, any rapprochment between Russia and the US has been hidden from view. I believe that Trump is coordinating his moves in Syria with Putin.  Putin has joined Trump as a protector of the Kurds and will ultimately, together with Syria, push Turkey out of Syria.  But what does the US get in the deal? Time will tell.

By Emil Avdaliani, BESA

BESA Center Perspectives Paper No. 1,316, October 22, 2019

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: There have been hints over recent months of improvement in Russian-Western relations that could have major implications for the balance of power in the Eurasian landmass.

The Ukraine crisis of 2014 was a watershed moment in modern Russian-Western relations as it marked the critical divide between the powers. Anti-Russian sanctions imposed by the West, though not working perfectly, have succeeded in limiting Russian advances in eastern Ukraine.

Over the past several months, however, hints in the European media as well as practical foreign policy moves point to a new scenario: a rapprochement between Europe and Russia.

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With Wednesday’s deadline looming to form a government, New Right leader calls on allies to stand with PM to increase his negotiating power.

ISRAEL HAYOM

MK Naftali Bennett (center) and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (right) in the Knesst plenum | Photo: Oren Ben Hakoon

New Right leader Naftali Bennett called on right-wing and haredi factions to stand by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, warning that if he was forced out of office just because of looming indictments this would inflict major damage on Israel.

“My fellow friends on the Right,” Bennett wrote on Facebook. “One thing must be clear: If law-enforcement officials take down Netanyahu just because of cigars and positive press online, this will be a deadly blow to our entire ideological bloc. Any leader on the Right that would follow Netanyahu would be too scared of confronting the media and law enforcement.”
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T. Belman. When Esper says that the mission is to “defend Iraq”, what he meant was from Iran who has Shiite mititias operating in Iraq and has huge influence there.  If effect, Trump is leaving it to Russia to defend Syia which includes pushing Turkey and Iran out. The US can now focus on liberating Iraq from Iranian clutches.

Remember Iran doesn’t share a border with Syria. They get to syria through Iraq.

REUTERS

ABOARD A U.S. MILITARY AIRCRAFT (Reuters) – U.S. Defense Secretary Mark Esper said on Saturday that all of the nearly 1,000 troops withdrawing from northern Syria are expected to move to western Iraq to continue the campaign against Islamic State militants and “to help defend Iraq.”

On Thursday, Turkey agreed in talks with U.S. Vice President Mike Pence to a five-day pause in an offensive into northeastern Syria to allow time for the Kurdish fighters to withdraw from a “safe zone” Ankara aims to establish near the Turkish border with Syria.
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By Kenneth R. Timmerman, NY POST

Critics blasted Trump for allowing Turkey to invade Kurdish-ruled northern Syria, but Kurdish fighters are more realistic about US military support.AFP via Getty Images

The national media blasted President Trump’s withdrawal of 50 US military advisors from the Syrian border with Turkey as a “sellout,” a “betrayal” and a “huge strategic blunder.”

Let’s be clear: None of them truly care about the Kurds. Otherwise, they would have been sending correspondents and camera crews to Rojava, as the Kurds call northern Syria, on a regular basis.

Let’s also be clear about the goals of Turkish president Tayyip Recep Erdogan. While he attempted to stylize his military invasion of Rojava as a counterterrorism operation, few international observers bought into it. Why? Because there have been no terror attacks against Turkey from Syrian territory since the Syrian Kurds established their self-governing entity in 2012. None.
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13 Oct 2019  

On this weekend’s broadcast of “Fox News Sunday,” Defense Secretary Mark Esper was asked by anchor Chris Wallace if President Donald Trump’s withdrawal of U.S. forces from Northern Syria was the equivalent of abandoning the U.S. allies, the Kurds.

Wallace said, “Turkish-backed militias are executing civilians and Kurdish fighters, reports that the Turks are hitting prisons and hundreds of either ISIS fighters or their supporters are escaping. How much of that can you confirm?”
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Image copyrightAFP

Between 25 and 35 million Kurds inhabit a mountainous region straddling the borders of Turkey, Iraq, Syria, Iran and Armenia. They make up the fourth-largest ethnic group in the Middle East, but they have never obtained a permanent nation state.

Where do they come from?

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Jonathan Spyer. Since the Autonomous Kurdish authority in north east Syria appears to be transitioning out of existence, I decided to write a brief retrospective focusing on some of my own experiences in this area over the last six years. The piece also notes the salient events and attributes by which this sadly apparently brief experiment in Kurdish self-rule will in my view deserve to be remembered.

Islamic State, that most malignant expression of the Sunni Islamist trend, was the natural enemy of this emergent Kurdish autonomy.

By Jonathan Spyer, JPOST
October 18, 2019 13:06

The news emerging from northern Syria remains confused. There are now fighters from five separate armies maneuvering in the area between the Euphrates River and the Syrian-Turkish and Syrian-Iraqi borders. These are the invading Turkish-Sunni Islamist force, the defending Kurdish-led SDF (Syrian Democratic Forces), the escaping Western (mainly US, also British and French) special forces soldiers whose mission has been declared at an end, and the incoming troops and hardware of Bashar Assad’s SAA (Syrian Arab Army) and of his Russian allies.
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Secretary of State defends ceasefire deal with Turkey. Says it will save lives. US will work to stop Iranian arm transfers.<

By Yaakov Katz, JPOST –  OCTOBER 18, 2019 16:09

Secretary Mike Pompeo in Jerusalem . (photo credit: MARC ISRAEL SELLEM)

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Mansur is the People’s Party of Canada candidate in London North Centre, one of the highest profile and most vaunted candidates of Maxime Bernier’s fledgling populist party. Though this wasn’t the path Mansur had envisioned for himself even four months ago.

“The four establishment parties – Liberal, Conservative, the NDP and the Green – are in full appeasement of the Islamists in the country. Except for PPC.”

ANDREW LAWTON, TRUE NORTH  OCTOBER 16, 2019

There’s no such thing as a simple answer when it comes to Salim Mansur.

The academic and journalist-turned-political candidate wants every question and every issue raised to be understood in what he says is the “necessary context.”

It makes for long conversations, though no doubt thoughtful ones.

Mansur is the People’s Party of Canada candidate in London North Centre, one of the highest profile and most vaunted candidates of Maxime Bernier’s fledgling populist party. Though this wasn’t the path Mansur had envisioned for himself even four months ago.
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T. Belman. I posted two videos today in which Dr Ahmed strongly attacked Ilhan Omar for her antisemitism. She took the position the Islam is not antisemetic and that Omar misrepresents it. Andrew Bostom has written many articles to show the Islam as practised over the centuries was very antisemitic. In 2008, He wrote a book Legacy of Islamic Antisemitism: From Sacred Texts to Solemn History

So don’t be too quick to believe Dr Ahmed.

Depredations based on Sharia.

By Andrew Bostom, FPM

Largely autonomous Iraqi Kurdistan is a Sharia-based society, per its own Constitution, (Articles 6 & 7):

This Constitution confirms and respects the Islamic identity of the majority of the people of Iraqi Kurdistan. It considers the principles of Islamic Sharia as one of the main sources of legislation… It is not allowed to enact a law inconsistent with the provisions of the fundamentals of Islam. (Articles 6 & 7)

Not surprisingly, given historical Sharia mores, the attendant legacy of Islamic attitudes towards non-Muslims, overall, including Jews, and Islam’s own intrinsic theological Jew-hatred, here are the current prevailing conditions for the tiny vestigial remnant population of mixed “Jews” of Kurdistan, forced to “practice” their faith surreptitiously, as reported less than a year ago (11/30/2018), by the Kurdish media outlet, Rudaw:
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