The departing national security adviser embraced a hawkish strain of Cold War-era Republican foreign policy that the president has largely sidelined

By Gerald F. Seib, WSJ Sept. 10, 2019 5:48 pm ET

Longtime Republican thinking on national security, which embraces American intervention abroad and is comfortable with military action, just collided with Trumpian thinking on national security, which is dubious of intervention abroad and deeply skeptical of foreign wars.

In a nutshell, that is the story of the abrupt departure of John Bolton as President Trump’s national security adviser Tuesday. Obviously, Mr. Bolton’s departure roils the Trump national-security team once again.

More important, though, the Bolton exit represents something far broader: It underscores a significant turn in Republican national-security philosophy, as least as Mr. Trump envisions it today.

Mr. Bolton is a longstanding figure in a hawkish wing of the Republican party that was prominent, and sometimes dominant, in the party’s national-security thinking from Ronald Reagan’s presidency until Mr. Trump arrived on the scene.
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This is in line with the Jordan Option.

T. Belman. Netanyahu first said he would annex the settlements. And now he has added the Jordan Valley. Next it will include all of Area C. He is moving toward the Jordan Option. Thus his policy proposals are falling in line with the Deal of the Century which is slated to be tabled shortly after the election.

I just read another article that said Bibi announced he would apply sovereignty over “Judea and Samaria and other areas,” starting with the Jordan Valley and the Dead Sea region.

Netanyahu said the steps would be taken in coordination with the administration of US President Donald Trump.

BY JERUSALEM POST

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced on Tuesday that if he is re-elected, he will express Israeli sovereignty over all the Jewish settlements in Judea and Samaria, starting with the Jordan Valley.

Netanyahu said the steps would be taken in coordination with the administration of US President Donald Trump. He revealed that Trump intends to announce his Middle East peace plan the day after the September 17 election.

“This is an historic opportunity that we may not have again,” Netanyahu said in his statement that he delivered at Ramat Gan’s Kfar Hamaccabiah Hotel.
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 Trump tweets services no longer ‘needed’

President Trump said Tuesday he fired his national security adviser, John Bolton, because he “disagreed” strongly with his suggestions and so did others.

….I asked John for his resignation, which was given to me this morning. I thank John very much for his service. I will be naming a new National Security Advisor next week.

By Giran Ozcan, The National Interest, Sept. 8, 2019

Last month, the United States and Turkey reached a temporary agreement on a proposed “safe zone” in Northeastern Syria, marking the latest installment in a pattern of threats and negotiations that has characterized the past several years of the two countries’ relations. While the United States appears to have staved off a unilateral Turkish military operation against the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) for the time being, the details of the plan are vague—and it is likely to prove to be little more than a stopgap measure. Rather than negotiate from a position of strength, American diplomats intervened at the last minute, and prioritized a solution that would allow Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan to save face rather than force his government to address the root causes of the conflict at hand. In doing so, they have averted a temporary escalation by pushing its resolution further down the diplomatic road.
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T. Belman. This is interesting. I always thought that they were only interested in maintaining their religious privileges. This is a right wing nationalist position which I would like Likud to embrace. Good for them.

MKs from the Knesset’s haredi UTJ party promise to oppose agreements which require relinquishing control of Israeli land.

Arutz Sheva Staff,

New details from the billionaire couple’s testimony in the prime minister’s corruption case, reported by Channel 13, include shock and dismay over his wife’s behavior

By Nati Tucker, HAARETZ

The Adelsons and the Netanyahus, Ariel, West Bank, June 28, 2017.Moti Milrod

Multi-billionaire Sheldon Adelson, once Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s key supporter, and his wife Miriam testified to police that Sara Netanyahu was “crazy” and that “she decides everything,” including key appointments and even some political matters, in the Netanyahu household, Channel 13 reported Sunday.

“She’s completely crazy,” said Sheldon Adelson, publisher of the Israel Hayom daily. “She was compulsive about photos of herself and how she looked. She said ‘I’m the first lady, I’m a psychologist and I teach children about psychology.’ … She would tell my wife that if Iran attacked it would be her fault … because we didn’t publish good pictures of her,” said Adelson, a leading donor to Israeli and Jewish causes as well as to the Republican Party.
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Sanctions depress oil sales, taking heavy toll on economy; unclear where strategy is headed

By Gerald F. Seib, WSJ

You think you have trouble at work? It could be worse. You could be the government official in charge of Iran’s budget.

It is becoming increasingly clear just how effectively the Trump administration’s campaign of economic sanctions is shredding the Iranian government’s balance sheet and damaging the underlying economy. You may agree or disagree with the strategy, and where it is taking things is unclear, but its impact is no longer in doubt.

While precise figures are elusive because some black-market trading persists, Iranian oil exports likely have been reduced to about 200,000 barrels a day, and actually were lower than that at some points this summer. That’s down from roughly 2.5 million barrels a day when President Trump announced in May 2018 that the U.S. was withdrawing from the nuclear deal President Barack Obama and other world leaders negotiated with Iran, and began imposing new sanctions to stop companies and countries from buying Iranian oil.
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Official quoted by state TV and Hezbollah claims base was under construction and deserted, but activists say at least 18 people killed, including Iranian and Iran-backed fighters

By JUDAH ARI GROSS and AGENCIES  Today, 5:34 am

Iraqi Shiite fighters of the Popular Mobilization Forces secure the border area with Syria in al-Qaim in Iraq’s Anbar province, opposite Al-Bukamal in Syria’s Deir Ezzor region, on November 12, 2018. (Photo by AHMAD AL-RUBAYE / AFP)

A Syrian security official blamed Israel and the US for an attack on a base belonging to a pro-Iranian Shiite militia in Syria near the border with Iraq on Monday.

The pre-dawn attack targeted a base known as the Imam Ali compound in the al-Bukamal region of eastern Syria, near the border with Iraq. A London-based observer said at least 18 people were killed, including Iranian and pro-Iranian fighters.

Israel reportedly believes the base was a key element in Tehran’s effort to develop a so-called “land bridge” that would allow the Islamic Republic to easily move weapons, fighters, and war materiel from Iran through Iraq, Syria and Lebanon.
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This is the third poll held by an Israeli news network in which Otzma Yehudit passes the electoral threshold. It is the second poll in two days stating that Blue and White are leading over Likud.

BY Tamar Beeri, JPOST

Otzma Yehudit may very well pass the electoral threshold, a new poll by KAN news shows – the third poll in the past week showing such a result.

The Blue and White Party are also seemingly leading over the Likud Party by one mandate, but the right-wing bloc is nevertheless leading the vote with 58 mandates, excluding Yisrael Beytenu.

Blue and White currently stands at 32 mandates in contrast to the Likud’s 31, according to the poll. Otzma Yehudit passed the electoral threshold with four mandates.
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By Jill Lawless and Gregory Katz The Associated Press and GLOBAL NEWS

ARUTZ SHEVA

Following a petition by the Regavim Movement for the protection of state lands, Supreme Court Justice Noam Solberg ordered the state to update the court within two weeks of the demolition date for illegal Arab construction on state land in Gush Etzion, for which orders were issued five years ago.

The state was demanded to update where enforcement procedures stood, repeatedly delaying its response, until at one point it even stated that some of the files in the Civil Administration for Judea and Samaria’s offices were lost and could not be located. Only recently the state said that the cases have been found and that the appeals filed by the invaders have been rejected and therefore there was nothing to prevent enforcing the orders but nevertheless did not carry out the orders.

From the aliyah of Soviet Jewry to the new anti-Semitism, Alan Dershowitz’s “Defending Israel: The Story of My Relationship with My Most Challenging Client” is almost a history of Zionism.

by James Sinkinson, ISRAEL HAYOM

World-renowned author, criminal lawyer, Harvard law professor and civil rights defender Alan Dershowitz sets the tone for his support of Israel in the introduction to his new memoir, succinctly explaining the global injustice – based on unrelenting anti-Semitism – meted out against the world’s only Jewish state:

“No country faced with comparable threats can boast a better record of human rights, a higher regard for the rule of law, or greater efforts to reduce civilian casualties. Nor has any country in history contributed as much to humankind – medically, scientifically, environmentally, academically, culturally – in so short a time than has Israel in its relatively brief existence as an independent state.”

The memoir is an inspiring primer to all who advocate for Israel – especially those who support the Jewish state from a posture of liberalism: Passionate support for democracy and free speech, combined with uncompromising, often heroic opposition to bigotry in all its forms, especially anti-Semitism. Read more…

What does it mean for the architect of Trump’s peace proposal to announce his resignation just weeks before its endlessly hyped release

US President Donald Trump’s Mideast envoy Jason Greenblatt addresses the American Jewish Committee’s Women’s Leadership Board Spring Luncheon in New York on April 24, 2018. (Courtesy / Ellen Dubin Photography)

WASHINGTON — Perhaps the strangest thing was the timing.

Jason Greenblatt’s announcement on Thursday of his resignation as US President Donald Trump’s Mideast peace envoy came just a few weeks before the administration’s declared target date for the release of its long-awaited peace plan.

The White House, which has pushed back the publication of its proposal multiple times, has been on record for months that it will finally unveil its contents shortly after Israel’s September 17 election.

Expectations for the plan’s success — at least in terms of its ability to facilitate an agreement between the parties — have been uniformly low, but veterans of Israeli-Palestinian diplomacy said Greenblatt’s move suggests that Trump’s team itself lacks confidence in it.
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