Reaction to Trump’s latest decision once again proves that liberal Jewish groups see Israel in the context of American politics, not Middle Eastern reality.

As loyal Democrats, liberal Jews simply oppose everything Trump does, whether or not it’s right or good for Israel.

Jonathan S. Tobin, ISRAEL HAYOM,

When Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced this week that the United States no longer considers Israeli settlements in the West Bank to be in violation of international law, most Israelis were clearly pleased. But a good portion of American Jews were not. This tells us more about American Jewish priorities and indifference to what Israelis think than it does about what’s good for the Jewish state or arguments about international law.

As was the case with the Trump administration’s moves on Jerusalem, the Golan Heights, the Iran nuclear deal and accountability for the Palestinian Authority’s support of terrorism, all the major Israeli political parties greeted the announcement with support. Both Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his leading rival, Blue and White Party leader Benny Gantz, agreed that America was right to scrap its old insistence that Jews had no right to live outside the 1949 armistice lines.

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Yisrael Beytenu chief addresses failure to form unity government, blames both Netanyahu and Gantz.

By Arutz Sheva Staff, 20/11/19 13:23

Yisrael Beytenu Chairman MK Avigdor Liberman spoke out in a televised address Wednesday afternoon on the failure of the Likud and Blue and White to agree on the formation of a national unity government.

Liberman said in his address that both sides were at fault for the failure to reach a deal for a unity government.

The only thing preventing unity, said Liberman, was personal hostilities, not serious political issues, with one side, Blue and White, unwilling to share power, and the other, the Likud, unwilling to be flexible on what he termed the “messianic bloc” of religious and right-wing parties.

“If you ask me who’s to blame, I say both parties: Blue and White and Likud.” “I respect the President, but I don’t accept his plan.”
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BY DAVID P. GOLDMAN, PJ MEDIA

Israel fascinates China. I spent most of last week in Israel with a group of Chinese experts visiting under the auspices of SIGNAL, an Israeli non-profit that sponsors dialogue with China. I’ve served on SIGNAL’s Board of Advisers for the past five years and visited China several times in the company of prominent Israeli experts. This year’s discussion was tense. As SIGNAL’s executive director Carice Witte told Israel HaYom, “Our conference on Israel’s China policy indicates that small and medium countries like Israel, Germany and South Korea, with representatives at the events are all feeling the challenge of the U.S. – China rivalry. At the same time, there is a consensus among Israelis that if compelled to decide, it is no contest — the US is Israel’s ally,”

Why do 7 million Israeli Jews command the attention of representatives of 1.4 billion Chinese? More than anything, Jewish creativity fascinates the world’s oldest and largest civilization. Jews earned one in five Nobel Prizes, although they comprise less than one five-hundredth of the world population. Not a single Nobel Prize in the sciences has been awarded to a Mainland Chinese, except for a medicine award to a practitioner of Chinese traditional healing. (Eight scientists of Chinese descent have won the prize, but for work done in North America).

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Defense Minister Naftali Bennett to Iran: You are no longer immune. Wherever you stretch your tentacles-we will hack them off.

By ANNA AHRONHEIM, IDAN ZONSHINE, JPOST

IAF attacks Syrian and Iranian targets in Syria, November 20, 2019

(photo credit: YEDIOT M’HASHETACH (TELEGRAM))

PM says Benny Gantz rejected offer to form rotational unity government, calls on Yisrael Beytenu to help him form right-wing government.

Arutz Sheva Staff, 

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu called on Yisrael Beytenu chief Avidgor Liberman Wednesday to help him form a right-wing government, after the prime minister’s meeting with Benny Gantz Tuesday night failed to achieve progress towards the formation of a national unity government.

Netanyahu cited Liberman’s vow to back whichever candidate pushed for a unity government, if the second candidate refused the overture, saying the time had come for Liberman to make good on his promise and back the Likud after Tuesday night’s failed talks with Blue and White chief Benny Gantz.

“Unfortunately, during our talks last night Benny Gantz refused to accept the condition set by Avidgor Liberman – accepting the president’s compromise arrangement under which I would serve first as prime minister, as part of a rotational premiership. Liberman said that he would go with whichever side doesn’t refuse the deal. Now, all that is left is to see if Avidgor Liberman will keep his promise.”
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BREITBART

(JNS) As Israel approaches what would be its third election in less than a year, many Israelis and international observers are questioning the sustainability of the country’s complicated parliamentary system.

Yet at the heart of Israel’s current political impasse lies not only its system of government, but also its justice system.

Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit is expected to decide in the coming weeks whether or not to issue formal indictments in three separate cases against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. In Case 1000, Netanyahu is accused of receiving gifts worth over $200,000 from friends over an extended period, while Case 2000 and Case 4000 both involve alleged attempts by Netanyahu to secure positive media coverage in exchange for political favors.
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By Ofira Seliktar, BESA

BESA Center Perspectives Paper No. 1,349, November 19, 2019

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: President Trump’s ill-advised decision to withdraw from Syria should be viewed in the context of two broader developments. In terms of foreign policy, both the Republicans and the Democrats are moving from international engagement to neo-isolationism; and strategically, the Pentagon is shifting from the war on terror to a renewed focus on Russia and China.

President Donald Trump’s hasty decision to abandon the Syrian Kurds, America’s most loyal allies in its war on ISIS, and the subsequent Turkish invasion triggered a firestorm of condemnation from both sides of the political aisle. Although Trump backed down and allowed about a hundred troops to stay, even some of his closest Republican supporters expressed anguish and dismay. The Democrats, seeking a winning issue in the middle of the contentious impeachment process, described the decision in dire terms. Critics on all sides warned that by betraying the Kurds, the US lost all credibility in the Middle East and beyond.

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In light of the growing probability of a direct military confrontation between Israel and Iran, Israel would do well to remember Elie Wiesel’s words: “Better to believe the threats of our enemies than the promises of our friends.”

By Eytan Gilboa, ISRAEL HAYOM

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu recently warned that increasing Iranian provocations and the absence of a US response could lead to a dangerous military confrontation between Israel and Iran. While some have suggested the warning is designed to break Israel’s political deadlock and push for the establishment of a national unity government of the type Netanyahu favors, IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Aviv Kochavi and Maj. Gen. Aharon Haliva, the head of the IDF’s Operations Directorate, have issued similar warnings.

Military and strategic experts argue that an Iranian military attack on Israel is just a matter of time, in part due to American strategic weakness, as reflected in its failure to respond to a series of Iranian provocations in the Gulf. The main purpose of such an attack would be to deter Israel from continuing its relentless strikes on the military infrastructure Iran is attempting to build in Syria and more recently in Iraq.
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T. Belman. This is no deal at all.  Its bullshit. They must at least meet Liberman half way in terms of what he has been demanding.

In bid to form a right-wing government, brokers offer compromise deal to Yisrael Beytenu and haredi parties to break ongoing deadlock.

Arutz Sheva Staff, 19/11/19 08:57

Negotiators trying to cobble together a narrow right-wing government have put together a new compromise deal, offering the plan to Yisrael Beytenu and haredi lawmakers in a bid to resolve the ongoing dispute between the two sides, and pave the way for a new right-wing government.

According to a report by Reshet Bet Tuesday morning, officials working to broker a deal between Yisrael Beytenu and the haredi Shas and United Torah Judaism parties have offered a new compromise arrangement aimed at bringing both sides into a new right-wing government led by Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu.

Under the proposed compromise deal, the haredi parties would cede a number of powerful positions they have held since 2015, including the Interior Ministry portfolio, currently held by Shas chief Aryeh Deri, and leadership of the Knesset’s Finance Committee, currently held by UTJ MK Moshe Gafni.
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By SETH J. FRANTZMAN, NATIONAL REVIEW

Israelis take cover as a siren sounds warning of incoming rockets from Gaza, in the southern Israeli city of Ashkelon, May 5, 2019. (Amir Cohen/Reuters)

A battle with terrorists in Gaza is a preview of Jerusalem’s tactics in the next, larger conflict.Commuters on Route 4, driving toward the Israeli coastal city of Ashdod on November 12, were shocked by an explosion, a rocket impact next to a major intersection. Had it fallen on a car or one of the many trucks plying the route, there would have been deaths, and the road would have been closed. Instead, police and Israeli Home Front Command units came and cordoned off the sidewalk, and drivers went about their day. Twenty-five miles south of where the rocket landed, other rocket teams from Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), an Iranian-backed terrorist group, were preparing to fire more than 400 rockets at Israel during a brief flare-up in fighting. Most of them would be intercepted by Israel’s high-tech air defense.
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AP Exclusive: By Matthew Lee

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, pauses during a news conference at the State Department in Washington, Monday, Nov. 18, 2019. Pompeo spoke about Iran, Iraq, Israeli settlements in the West Bank, protests in Hong Kong, and Bolivia, among other topics. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)

WASHINGTON (AP) — Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced Monday that the U.S. is softening its position on Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank, the latest in a series of Trump administration moves that weaken Palestinian claims to statehood.

Pompeo repudiated a 1978 State Department legal opinion that held that civilian settlements in the occupied territories are “inconsistent with international law.” The move angered Palestinians and immediately put the U.S. at odds with other nations working to end the conflict.

The Trump administration views the opinion, the basis for long-standing U.S. opposition to expanding the settlements, as a distraction and believes any legal questions about the issue should be addressed by Israeli courts, Pompeo said.
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By Amb. Yoram Ettinger

The following are politically-incorrect, game-changing themes, which have dominated my weekly article, videos, PowerPoint presentations, lectures and briefings in Israel (Hebrew) and the US (English). These game-changing themes dwell on US – rather than Israeli – interests, which is the common sense approach, when addressing US target-audiences. 

• The US investment in – not foreign aid to – Israel feeds the mutually-beneficial, two-way-street US-Israel cooperation, which yields to the US a few hundred percent annual rate-of-return, rendering the US taxpayer significant benefits (e.g., advancing research & development, increasing exports, expanding employment base, enhancing national security).
• The400^thAnniversary of the unique US-Israel ties  (from the 1620 “Mayflower” to the 2020 statues of Moses in the US House of Representatives and Supreme Court) reflects the deep roots of the American people’s solidarity with the Jewish State, which transcends the political beltway in Washington, DC, the US media and academia. 2020 will be dedicated to the amplification of the 400^th Anniversary via Congressional and State (Governors and State Legislatures) resolutions, a series of 2 minute videos, a series of PowerPoint presentations, exhibits (based on an inventory of over 100 documents), lectures and articles in the US and Israel.

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New Right leader Ayelet Shaked predicts Yisrael Beytenu and haredi lawmakers will be able to reconcile, opening door for Rightist government

By Ayelet Shaked, INN

New Right MK and former Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked is optimistic that a reconciliation can be reached between the secular rightist Yisrael Beytenu party and haredi lawmakers, paving the way for a right-wing government.

Speaking with Arutz Sheva Monday, Shaked pointed to the more conciliatory tone taken by the Likud recently vis-à-vis Yisrael Beytenu’s chief, Avidgor Liberman, as a positive sign regarding the possibility of a last-minute rapprochement before new elections are called.

“The change in the Likud’s talk is correct. There is no reason at this time to attack Liberman; instead he should be seen as a partner. From the beginning, I believed that that is the right way, and I made great efforts in this regard.”
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T. Belman. Looking good. Blue and White has agreed to Liberman’s demands re religion. The Likud block has no choice but to do likewise. This is what I have been recommending.

If President Ford could give a pardon to Pres Nixon for far greater crimes than Netanyahu has been accused of, surely the same principles suggest that Netanyahu be pardoned by Liberman. Considering what Netanyahu has done for Israel and considering how insignificant the potential indictments are, we should put it all behind us and move on.

In a joint statement of Likud and Yisrael Beytenu, both sides reported progress and called the discussion “professional and good.”

By GIL HOFFMAN, JPOST
NOVEMBER 18, 2019 06:08

Yisrael Beytenu leader Avigdor Liberman, (photo credit: AVSHALOM SASSONI/MAARIV)

Yisrael Beytenu leader Avigdor Liberman will conduct fateful shuttle diplomacy on Monday with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Blue and White leader Benny Gantz that will decide whether Gantz will form a minority government by Wednesday night’s deadline.

The four leaders of Blue and White decided late Sunday to await the results of Liberman’s meeting with Netanyahu before making a final decision on whether to give on forming a unity government and instead build a minority coalition backed from outside by a parliamentary safety net from the Joint List.

“We all agree that taking the country to a third election now would be completely insane,” Liberman said at an event in Tel Aviv on Sunday evening. “We have to do everything possible to bring about a wide unity government.”
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T. Belman. That’s what I’ve been saying.

By Hezki Baruch, INN

MK Miki Zohar (Likud) took part on Sunday evening in the Likud “emergency conference” which was called to protest the possible establishment of a left-wing government supported by the predominantly Arab Joint List party.

Speaking to Arutz Sheva, Zohar called the haredim to compromise in order to prevent a third election in one year and also urged Yisrael Beytenu chairman Avigdor Liberman to return to the right-wing bloc.

“We are in a state of emergency. There is a real danger that a left-wing minority government will be established. I truly hope that Liberman will come to his senses, will not lend a hand to this, and will prevent this because, ultimately, it’s in his hands. He can prevent this disaster and I hope that he does so,” said Zohar.
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