By Kara Pendleton, CONSERVATIVE TRIBUNE
JANUARY 3, 2019

The refugee arrivals numbers are in, and there’s good news and bad news. The numbers are calculated based on the fiscal year, which runs from Oct. 1 through Sept. 30, according to the Cato Institute.

Early on, President Donald Trump was attacked over the travel ban. Some claimed it was a Muslim ban, but it was not.

It had been used by President Barack Obama, as well. The focus was on restricting entry to the United States from people coming from countries that were known as terrorism hotbeds.

In September 2017, CNN reported that the Trump administration would “dramatically reduce the number of refugees allowed to resettle in the United States, bringing the number to less than half of what former President Barack Obama had proposed for the current fiscal year.” And the number of refugees for the last fiscal year has shown a significant decline.
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The Bedouin residents of an illegal outpost have begun to cultivate a huge tract of land, using heavy equipment, in an attempt to establish facts on the ground that will be very difficult to reverse.

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Land seizure at Maskiyot. Credit: Regavim.

Residents of an illegal Bedouin outpost adjacent to Maskiyot were served with demolition orders. But instead of pulling up stakes, they are carrying out a takeover through agricultural projects on state land—land that is registered to the state, straddling the area’s major traffic artery, in an area under military closure orders.

The Bedouin residents of the illegal outpost, which has grown significantly in recent years thanks to the support it receives from the Palestinian Authority and a consortium of European organizations, have begun to cultivate a huge tract of land, using heavy equipment, in an attempt to establish facts on the ground that will be very difficult to reverse.
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By Hillel Frisch, BESA

BESA Center Perspectives Paper No. 895, July 16, 2018

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: Why has Russia under Putin acknowledged Israel’s need to prevent the buildup of an Iranian military presence in Syria?  Putin’s vision is to cement an alliance of minorities against the Sunni majority in the Middle East. Israel could be a valuable participant in making that vision a reality – but only if Moscow works to rid Syria of the Iranian presence, joins forces to topple its Islamist regime, and weans the Alawite regime in Damascus away from Tehran.

Ever since September 2015, when Russia turned the tide of the Syrian civil war in the Assad regime’s favor through strategic air power (and subsequently on the ground, where it brokered truces and withdrawals of rebels from strategic areas in Syria to the rebel stronghold in Idlib), Israel has been heavily pounding Syrian, Iranian, and Hezbollah forces.

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See also: LIBERMAN: NETANYAHU ‘SEEKS A SCAPEGOAT’ FOR AMONA EVACUATION

When Amona fell in 2017, Netanyahu rode the wave of anger by authorizing a completely new settlement, the first in more than 20 years.

BY TOVAH LAZAROFF, JPOST

If there was a handbook of how to win an election, then top of the list for any right-wing candidate, particularly the prime minister, would most definitely be – don’t evacuate an outpost in the opening days of the campaign.

Yet early Thursday morning, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu did just that. In a pre-dawn raid, security forces moved against two modular caravans on the site of the former Amona outpost that filled with right-wing activists, mostly teens. Security forces forcibly removed them, then placed the two caravans on flatbed trucks and drove them away.

It is akin to Netanyahu financing, writing, designing and published a campaign ad on behalf of any of his Right opponents.
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BY BY KARA PENDLETON, WESTERN JOURNALISM

President Donald Trump’s personal lawyer, former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, has issued a challenge to special counsel Robert Mueller to “put up or shut up.”

Two years into the investigation, Mueller has yet to provide any evidence whatsoever that the president colluded with Russia.

In an appearance Tuesday on Fox News’ “Hannity,” Giuliani presented a concise list of why the investigation is a sham. Some of the points he made on the show are things he’s also noted on Twitter.
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Why Trump Pulled Out Of Syria – Dick Morris TV: Lunch Alert!

T. Belman. In a recent interview, Trump said Iran “has been leaving Syria and Yemen because of financial difficulties because of the sanctions he imposed.”.

by Jeff Dunetz , THE LID | Jan 2, 2019

In May 2018 when President Trump pulled out of Obama’s horrible Iran deal and announced that America would be reimposing the U.S. sanctions against Iran that were in place before the JCPOA,  the liberals went crazy.  They claimed unless the U.S. was able to revive the UN sanctions against Iran also and get cooperation from the other P5+1 countries, the sanctions would have no effect.

However, the latest news from the rogue regime proves that the liberals have no idea what they were talking about, the reimposed sanctions are destroying the Iranian economy. The first round of sanctions limited Iran’s non-oil related business and was imposed on August 4th. The second round covered oil-related businesses and was effective on Nov. 4th.
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Iran’s role in Iraq is multi-layered. It suffered a slight setback in the elections in 2018 as Muqtada al-Sadr, a Shi’ite cleric and Iraqi nationalist, came in first.

BY SETH J. FRANTZMAN, JPOST

he leader of Iraq’s second largest party, Hadi al-Amiri, called on foreign forces to leave Iraq over the weekend. Slamming US President Donald Trump’s visit, in which Trump did not meet Iraqi officials, he intimated that the US should also draw down its forces. This comes at the same time as Maj.-Gen. Tamir Hayman, head of Israel’s military intelligence, warned at a conference in Tel Aviv that Iraq is under growing influence of Iran.

Iran’s role in Iraq is multi-layered. It suffered a slight setback in the elections in 2018 as Muqtada al-Sadr, a Shi’ite cleric and Iraqi nationalist, came in first. Amiri, leading a party supported by former and current Shi’ite militias, some of them closely connected to Iran, came in second.
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PM gets ‘7 of 8 demands’ agreed to in his meeting with Secretary of State Pompeo; lone issue yet to be worked out is Israeli sale of jets to Croatia, which White House has opposed

By Israel Magid, TOI

A senior Israeli official tells reporters that “Israel received almost everything it wanted” during Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s meeting yesterday in Brasilia with US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.

“The prime minister left the meeting with a feeling that Israel has influence in certain areas (on US policy) and that Israel and the United States are working on various ideas regarding Syria that will help Israel,” the official says.

Netanyahu said ahead of the meeting that he had asked to Trump to carry out the US withdrawal from Syria gradually rather than all at once.

The official says that “Israel had 8 requests — 7 of where were answered” by Pompeo.
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