The Bahrain Conference: Nothing New Under the Sun

By Col (Res.) Dr. Raphael G. Bouchnik-Chen 
BESA Center Perspectives Paper No. 1,211, June 28, 2019

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: “Peace to Prosperity” is certainly an ambitious title for the Bahrain Conference, which offers an “out of the box” plan to handle the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The US vision essentially turns the “refugees” from liabilities into assets, thereby taking the refugee issue off the table. This concept has an historic precedent: the resettlement initiative presented by UN Secretary General Dag Hammarskjold on June 15, 1959.  Both plans received the same response from Palestinians: angry dismissal.

At the Bahrain Conference, Jared Kushner unveiled the administration’s “Deal of the Century.” The sentiment about this plan among the Arab states, as well as among the Palestinians themselves, was gloomy. Their main objection is what the plan leaves out: it offers an economic vision but postpones the political issues at the core of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

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Technology has doubled the amount of water available to Israelis, and a new NIS 1 billion plan to bring treated water to the northern freshwater lake will increase it even further<

By Melanie Lidman, TOI

The world’s first recorded war over water happened 4,500 years ago near the junction of the Tigris and Euphrates between the city-states Umma and Lagash, when the King of Umma drained a canal providing water to Lagash and thereby sparked a battle that left 60 soldiers dead.

Thousands of years later, neighboring states are still fighting over water. Water diplomacy — or lack thereof — has plunged Gaza deeper into a humanitarian crisis. When Jordan signed a peace treaty with Israel in 1994, Syria hastily built more dams along the Yarmouk River, the main tributary that feeds into the Lower Jordan River, punishing Jordan by limiting the amount of water available to it.

But Israeli technology is completely upending the notion that the Middle East must be a fierce battleground for water where countries are forced to fight each other for the precious life-giving resource.
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MEMRI head Yigal Carmon sits down with JNS to talk about the dual threats of Islamic extremism and white supremacy in the United States, and the role played in both by the big social-media companies.

BY ARIEL BEN SOLOMON, JPOST

(June 26, 2019 / JNS) “Far-right anti-Semitism is on the rise in the United States and Europe, but the response from both Jewish communities and law enforcement agencies has been defensive and case by case, rather than proactive and comprehensive,” Yigal Carmon, the president of the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI), told JNS in a recent interview.

The threat to freedom in the United States is twofold, said Carmon.

On the one hand is the jihadi threat, which manifests in terrorist attacks but is rooted in the ideological incitement of preachers in the mosques. On the other hand are white supremacists, neo-Nazis, fascists and others who frequently pose a mortal threat to Jews and people of color. Like the jihadists, the white supremacists also target the LGBT community, said Carmon.
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Massive increase in illegal Arab construction, watchdog group warns, with 28,000 illegal Arab buildings built since 2009.

Arutz Sheva Staff,

Bahrain FM: Palestinians made a mistake by boycotting summit. Arab finance ministers voice support for US economic peace plan. UAE: Having supported the Palestinians for 15 years, “now is the time to move forward.”

by  Ariel Kahana, i24NEWS , 
Israel Hayom Staff

US Special Representative for International Negotiations Jason Greenblatt | Photo: AFP/Jaafar Ashtiyeh

As the ‘Peace for Prosperity’ conference in Bahrain came to an end on Wednesday, US Special Representative for International Negotiations Jason Greenblatt said that Washington was pleased with the summit, which unveiled the economic portion of Washington’s long-awaited peace plan.

The White House kicked off its bid for Israeli-Palestinian peace with the ambitious economic conference in Bahrain which it hopes will pave the way for a political resolution to the decades-long conflict.

The event and proposal, however, have been met with a lukewarm reception, with critics noting that the business-minded plan fails to address the most sensitive disputes at the core of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
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By Barbara Diamond, TOI  JUNE 26, 2019  10:39

When one attends the annual Shurat Ha Din conference on Law and War, it is a marathon of experts presenting their views on the International understanding of the protocols of fighting a war. It is an update on fighting international terrorist network funding. It is an opportunity to face uncomfortable truths and to digest sensitive new information which we had not heard before. One never knows what will stand out as life-changing information.

At the end of two days of seminars, military experts, politicians, international previous heads of State, technology experts and International leaders – new conclusions came upon me which I must now digest and share with you.

The first and most critical conclusion is quite simply that Israel will be at war with Lebanon in the not too distant future. It may be one year or two or three…but it is coming. It is really quite absurd as the Lebanese people have quite a good life and Israel makes no demands upon them and threatens them in no fashion. I am quite sure that the Lebanese people do not relish the idea of their homes being destroyed, family members dying and their way of life being decimated. But that is exactly what is waiting for them if there is no international attention, world-wide pressure and internal rebellion against Nazrallah’s leadership of Hezbollah.
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Senior adviser to Trump found no interest in his proposals for ending Israel/Palestine conflict

By Martin Chulov, THE GUARDIAN

Jared Kushner speaks at the Peace to Prosperity Workshop in Manama. Photograph: AP

In the end, the ‘deal of the century’ was little more than a failed clearance sale. Jared Kushner arrived in Bahrain touting bedrock principles at untenable discounts. And even then there were no buyers.

The conference that was supposed to offer a new way out of the malaise of the Israel/Palestine conflict provided little of the sort. Its central premise of prosperity as a precursor to a lasting solution barely appeared to register on either side of the separation wall.
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Can an agreement on Syria be reached?
CLICK ON THIS LINK.

Revealed: Obama Targeted Papadopoulos Twice – First To Halt Israel And Assist Iran’s Gas Pipelines And Then A Second Time To Stop Candidate Trump

(Gateway Pundit) – The sins of former President Obama are just now beginning to surface. We know that Obama targeted George Papadopoulos first to stop the construction of Israel’s natural gas pipeline to Europe in favor of Iran’s pipeline. Then Obama targeted Papadopoulos a second time to prevent candidate Trump from being President!

The pieces are all starting to fall together and Obama and his gang can’t make it stop. The most corrupt President in US history, Barack H. Obama, will soon be known as the biggest crook to enter the Oval Office. One individual who was targeted by Obama will be the key to his demise, Trump campaign volunteer George Papadopoulos.

Above: George Papadopoulos
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Just by taking place, Jared Kushner’s conference has moved the needle against the Palestinians and in the direction of Netanyahu’s vision for the Middle East

Anshel Pfeffer, HAARETZ

A Palestinian demonstrator burning a poster depicting U.S. President Donald Trump during a protest against Bahrain’s workshop for U.S. Middle East peace plan, in the southern Gaza Strip, June 25, 2019\ IBRAHEEM ABU MUSTAFA/ REUTERS

The “Peace to Prosperity” economic workshop currently taking place in Bahrain is important. Not because it will lead to peace: it won’t. And most of the dismissiveness about it has been justified. As one Palestinian leader said, “It’s a technocrats’ conference.” No decisions will be made there and the glossy realtors’ prospectus prepared by Jared Kushner’s team for the event is a copy-paste job, plagiarized from previous failed initiatives, totally devoid of any context or connection to the reality on the ground.

But the Bahrain gathering, which ends Wednesday, is still important. For the first time, official representatives of a significant number of Sunni Arab states will be openly attending an international conference on resolving the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians. They will be doing so against the express wishes of the Palestinians, and not one of the cardinal Palestinian demands — statehood, Jerusalem, borders, refugees — will be on the conference’s official agenda.
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James O’Keefe and Project Veritas released alarming new undercover video, leaked documents, and testimony from a Google insider revealing the tech giant’s plans to meddle in US politics and “prevent a Trump situation in 2020.”

One aspect of the report features undercover footage of longtime Google employee and Head of Responsible Innovation, Jen Gennai, saying Google has been working diligently to “prevent” the results of the 2016 election from repeating in 2020, meaning they are actively engaging in election meddling and working to elect someone from the Democratic Party.
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Knesset Speaker Yuli Edelstein says legal framework to reinstate the 21st Knesset exists but stresses he will not pursue move unless it is assured the support of at least 80 MKs. Likud insiders say unity government with Blue and White is an option only if faction sidelines Yesh Atid head Yair Lapid.

by  Mati Tuchfeld , Gideon Allon , Yehuda Shlezinger , Israel Hayom Staff

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (right) and Blue and White leaders Benny Gantz and Yair Lapid | Photo: Oren Ben Hakoon, Marc Israel Sellem

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is reportedly considering following a legal path that would allow for the cancellation of the Sept. election in favor of reinstating the 21st Knesset and the formation of a unity government with the Blue and White party.

Israel Hayom has learned that Likud officials have been exploring the issue but said it would require Blue and White – a union of the Israel Resilience, Yesh Atid, and Telem parties – to sideline Yesh Atid leader Yair Lapid and name Israel Resilience Party head Benny Gantz as the faction’s sole leader.

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By Selim Koru, NYT

ISTANBUL — Ekrem Imamoglu, the opposition candidate in the Istanbul mayoral election, on Sunday defeated President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s choice and the Justice and Development Party by winning 54 percent of the votes, 806,000 more than his opponent. It was the biggest defeat of the governing party in close to two decades.
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By Joel Fishman, JCPA,   June 25, 2019

The recent outburst of open antisemitism in American public life is a shocking development. No less disturbing than the hateful statements of Minnesota Congresswoman Ilhan Omar was the failure of the House of Representatives and its Democrat leadership to condemn this language forcefully and to disassociate themselves formally from expressions of hatred which offend against the American traditions of freedom of religion and civility. Some have called this development a “game changer.” According to Merriam-Webster, a “game changer” is a “newly introduced element or factor that changes an existing situation or activity in a significant way.” Although the failure to repudiate publicly expressed antisemitism may be a “game changer” in its own right, it should be identified as part of the greater game which is still being played out and which endangers the very foundations of democracy in America. One cannot speak of a “game changer” without first knowing the type of political warfare to which it belongs. According to the Prussian theoretician of war Carl von Clausewitz (1780-1831), “the first of all strategic questions” is to identify the kind of war in which one is engaged.¹ Following his recommendation, this article will focus upon the example of the Red-Green Alliance.
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by Linda Goudsmit, PUNDICITY 

The Humanitarian Hoax is a deliberate and deceitful tactic of presenting a destructive policy as altruistic. The humanitarian huckster presents himself as a compassionate advocate when in fact he is the disguised enemy.

Planned Parenthood began in 1916 as the American Birth Control League when Margaret Sanger and her two sisters opened the first birth control clinic in Brooklyn, NY. They distributed birth control, birth control advice, and birth control information. Abortion was illegal and throughout her incumbency Margaret Sanger maintained that abortion would not be necessary if women had access to birth control. In 1942 the name American Birth Control League was changed to Planned Parenthood Federation of America. What happened?
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‘Things heading in right direction at Bahrain peace summit,’ says Ambassador David Friedman. ‘No plans for annexation of Judea, Samaria.’

Arutz Sheva Staff

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