Trump secretly threatened to impose 25% tariff on European autos if they didn’t

By John Hudson and Souad Mekhennet, WaPo

The Trump administration’s threat to impose auto tariffs on Europeans if they failed to call out Iran on nuclear deal underscores the tumult in the transatlantic relationship. (Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty Images)

A week before Germany, France and Britain formally accused Iran of breaching the 2015 nuclear deal, the Trump administration issued a private threat to the Europeans that shocked officials in all three countries.

If they refused to call out Tehran and initiate an arcane dispute mechanism in the deal, the United States would impose a 25 percent tariff on European automobiles, the Trump officials warned, according to European officials familiar with the conversations.

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Deals inked throughout the 2010-2019 decade amount to $111 billion – an 800% surge from the previous decade. Some 138 deals totaling $21.7 billion inked in 2019 alone.

by  Gilad Zwick, ISRAEL HAYOM

The value of deals inked by privately-held companies soared to $10.33 billion in 2019 | Illustration: Getty Images

The past decade has been very good to Israel’s high-tech industry, which saw 1,210 mega-deals amounting to 385 billion shekels ($111 billion), high-tech industry data research firm IVC-Meitar said this week.

The total exits value throughout the 2010-2019 decade represents an 800% surge in exits value and a 50% increase in the number of overall deals materialized from the previous decade, IVC’s report said.

The final year of the decade, 2019, was especially lucrative for the high-tech sector, with 138 deals totaling $21.7 billion.
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By Evelyn Gordan

Although Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was favored to win his Likud party’s leadership contest on Dec. 26, the magnitude of his victory surprised many observers. Despite his three indictments for corruption and his failure to form a government following two elections last year, 72 percent of primary voters chose him over a popular and respected challenger. To understand why, it’s worth examining a High Court of Justice ruling handed down the following week.

The court was asked by 67 academics, former defense officials and cultural figures to rule that due to the indictments, Netanyahu should be barred from forming the next government, even if Likud and its allies win the most Knesset seats in March’s election. The justices dismissed the petition as premature since the election results may render the question moot.
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By Melanie Phillips, JNS Published Jan. 15, 2020

Cue liberal horror and outrage. Maj. Gen. Qassem Soleimani — the man responsible for a vast infrastructure of global slaughter and oppression, and with blood on his hands from American and British soldiers, as well as Iranians, Iraqis, Syrians, Yemenis, Jews and others — was described in The New York Times after being annihilated by an American drone as “universally admired.”

The actress Rose McGowan tweeted imbecilically: “Dear #Iran, The USA has disrespected your country, your flag, your people. 52% of us humbly apologize. We want peace with your nation. We are being held hostage by a terrorist regime. We do not know how to escape. Please do not kill us.”

Howling that Trump had provoked another world war, progressives totally ignored the fact that for the past four decades, Iran had been waging war against the West and Israel and anyone who stood in its way.
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by Jeff Dunetz | Jan 14, 2020

At a meeting of the House Foreign Relations Committee, Rep Brian Mast (R-FL) destroyed the committee Democrats’ political objections to President Trump’s order to take out IRGC General Soliemani (video below).  He didn’t “destroy” them with a statement, but with a question: Brian Mast question

“Some people might call this rhetorical, but I’m not going to ask it as rhetorical: there’s a number of my colleagues still remaining here. I am more than willing to yield to any of my colleagues that want to answer this question: If you walk out this hallway, and you take a right, and another right, and another right, you’re going to come to several beautiful walls that have the names of our fallen service members from the war on terror. And I would ask, can any of you provide me one name on that wall that doesn’t justify killing Soleimani? I’ve got two minutes and thirty seconds. I’ll be more than happy to sit here and wait. Somebody provide me with a name on that wall that does not justify his killing”

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It’s not a coincidence that Iran labels its fight against America and Israel as “The Resistance,” and the Democrats have labeled their war on President Trump, and America, as “The Resistance.”
By Mark Langfan, INN
Imagine an incumbent Democrat President at a time when America is in a national security crisis with Russia, and that the Republicans were goading Russia to attack American troops, and making every excuse to enhance Russia’s propaganda advantage.  The Democrats would rightly be saying that “The Republicans are colluding with Russia, and putting American soldiers at risk.”

But now, America is in a national security crisis situation with Iran, the world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism.  And, what are the Democrats doing? They are goading the Iranians into attacking American troops so that the Democrats can gain a “Trump has blown up the world” talking point.
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By Phyllis Chesler

After completion of the reading of each of the five books of the Torah in synagogue, the congregation calls out, “Chazak, Chazak, V’nitchazek!” It might be translated:

Be strong! Be strong! And let us be strengthened!

I thought this a good way to begin.

I want to carry through on that theme of strength in a different context: the fight against anti-Semitism. I recently described the plague of Jew hatred currently taking place in the U.S. But there is a great deal more to be said on the issue with regard to how Jews are responding and need to respond.

Dr. Deborah Lipstadt, author and professor of Holocaust Studies at Emory University, recently said the following (JewishInsider.com):
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Human Rights Watch’s Sara Leah Whitson has one standard for Israel, another for Armenia.
By Eugene Kontorovich, WSJ

Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East and North Africa director for Human Rights Watch, speaks in Doha, Qatar, June 12, 2012. Photo: Stringer/REUTERS

Hypocritical attacks on Israel are common, but Sarah Leah Whitson takes them to a new level. As Middle East and North Africa director of Human Rights Watch, she is one of the sharpest critics of the Jewish state’s presence in the West Bank, promoting boycotts and international prosecution for the supposed crimes of occupation and settlement. Yet elsewhere Ms. Whitson strongly supports settlements in occupied territories—suggesting that she and her colleagues don’t take their own legal claims against Israel seriously.

The settlements Ms. Whitson supports are in Nagorno-Karabakh, an area that was within the borders of post-Soviet Azerbaijan until 1994, when Armenia occupied the region after a protracted war. Since then, the Armenian leadership in Yerevan has actively encouraged the movement of settlers into the area. Many Armenians regard Karabakh as their historic homeland. But the United Nations, international courts and the U.S. all consider it occupied Azeri territory.
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Such gross intervention, clearly timed to help Netanyahu, would make Russia’s 2016 meddling seem like child’s play

By Chemi Shalev, HAARETZ

U.S. President Donald Trump embraces Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, as Vice President Mike Pence looks on, in the Diplomatic Reception Room of the White House in Washington, March 25, 2019Susan Walsh,AP

U.S. National Security Adviser Robert O’Brien told Axios on Monday that publishing Donald Trump’s long-awaited peace plan before Israel’s March 2 election would not constitute improper interference in Israel’s democratic process. If you buy that, please contact Mr. O’Brien directly: He’s got a beautiful bridge in Brooklyn you might be interested in.

“We’re not focused on the Israeli election calendar,” O’Brien noted, apparently without breaking out in laughter. After 1,092 Trump days in office, endless promotion, countless false starts and all-around dithering that made even the parties involved lose interest, publishing the plan right now, smack dab in the middle of Israeli election, has suddenly become urgent. And it has nothing to do (stifles guffaw) with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s changing electoral needs.
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Naftali Bennett and Ayelet Shaked’s party says it won’t merge with others ahead of March elections, saying there’s room for 2 national religious parties to Likud’s right

By JACOB MAGID, TOI 13 January 2020,

Ayelet Shaked and Naftali Bennett at a press conference in Ramat Gan, where the former was announced as the new head of the New Right party, on July 21, 2019. (Tomer Neuberg/Flash90)

The New Right party announced on Monday that it would be running independently in the upcoming election in March, officially putting to bed the possibility of a broad alliance of national religious parties to the right of Likud.

“The New Right will run independently in the upcoming election as the party of the ideological and liberal right-wing,” Defense Minister Naftali Bennett’s faction said in a statement.

“This is the right-wing bloc’s only chance of reaching 61 seats [in the Knesset],” the party said.
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Launched in 2016 and funded by conservative US gentiles and Jews, the Passages program aims to shape the next generation of Christian leaders and shore up support for Jewish State

By RENEE GHERT-ZAND, TOI Today, 3:02 am1

European nations do not have a good history when it comes to dealing with their Jews.

I find that even today, Europe is being less than helpful to its own Jews and to those Jews living in the Jewish State of Israel. With respect to its own Jews, what were Europeans thinking when they opened their borders to inadequately vetted Jew-hating Islamist immigrants – who come from rabidly anti-Semitic nations, to spread their culture and Sharia Law rather than adopt western values.

With respect to Jews in Israel, the Europeans have this idea that it is in order for them to tell Israel that it should carve out from its historic homeland of Judea and Samaria (that its enemies call the “West Bank”) some sort of Islamist terror state. It is bad enough that Israeli civilians are targeted with missiles from Iranian sponsored terrorists in Gaza and southern Lebanon and that Europe provides aid to Iran. Now the Europeans, together with the immoral United Nations want Israel to be subject to rocket attacks in its population center of Tel Aviv, Jerusalem etc. The Islamists, including the Palestinian Authority (sic), make it quite clear that the only reason they would take a state in Judea and Samaria would be to use it to launch attacks to get what they really want, which is to get rid of the Jews who they see as occupying all of the land that was once ruled by Muslims and therefore must return to Muslim rule.
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By Maryam Rostampour / Marziyeh Amirizaeh, NEW SIGNAL/ January 11, 2020

In 2009, the Iranian government arrested and imprisoned us and sentenced us to death by hanging because of our evangelical Christian faith. We recounted that experience in the book “Captive in Iran.”

We have experienced firsthand the cruelty of the Iranian regime, including the intelligence officers and the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps forces who were responsible for brutally torturing our best friend, Shirin Alam Hooli, a Kurdish activist, and her execution by hanging, among many of their other cruel actions.

The Revolutionary Guard is notorious in Iran as a force behind all suppressions, arrests, tortures, and mass killings of many Iranians, including in the most recent protests last November, in which well over a thousand (and likely more) were killed, and many more were arrested. Also, the force is responsible for terrorist actions across the Middle East in Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, and beyond.
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The unnatural crowding on Israel’s coastline has thrown the eco-system out of kilter. Planning should be shifted eastward to take advantage of Israel’s geography.

By Maj. Gen. (res.) Gershon Hacohen, ISRAEL HAYOM

Most of the discussion about the damage caused by recent flooding in Israel’s coastal cities deals with the responsibility of the government authorities, which did not invest enough in infrastructure development. That’s only part of the story. The main problem, which we are virtually suppressing, stems from a failure in macro-planning. We aren’t facing mere problems of faulty sewage planning, but an entire outlook that failed by ignoring Israel’s basic geographic conditions.

Not since biblical times have so many people lived on the coast, which because of its location at the foot of the mountains is vulnerable to floods and swamp conditions. The High Priest’s Yom Kippur prayer mentions the residents of the Sharon region (“may their homes not become their graves”). But going back to the early days of Zionism, most of the Jews in Israel have crowded into the coastal strip. Today, 60% of the Jews in Israel live between Netanyahu and Rishon Lezion.
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Alongside the most pro-Israel US government in history, Israel finds itself caught in a political holding pattern, wasting precious chances that may not come again.

By Alex Traiman, ISRAEL HAYOM

At a conference in Jerusalem last week, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that Israel is suddenly experiencing “an unprecedented reality” and that the “change of the old order gives us the opportunity to liberate ourselves from old policies,” but warned that the opportunity will not last forever.

“There is a window of opportunity. It opened, but it could close,” Netanyahu told those gathered at the capital’s Begin Heritage Center for the Kohelet Policy Forum conference.

Sharp jump in approvals and rejections comes as officials seek to expedite approvals process after High Court’s criticism

By TOI

Th East Jerusalem neighborhood of Silwan on September 9, 2019. (AP/Mahmoud Illean)

Israel granted citizenship to 1,200 Palestinian residents of East Jerusalem last year, an all-time high, government figures show.

The figure is three times the number in 2018.

The number of citizenship requests denied — also roughly 1,200 — was similarly at an unprecedented high last year.

The sharp jump in approvals and rejections is not due to any change in the rate at which Palestinian are requesting the citizenship, the Haaretz daily reports, but in the Israeli government’s expediting of the approval process after a Supreme Court decision last year criticized the inefficiency in the citizenship request system.
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