DEBKA  Nov 30, 2018

For 75 minutes on Thursday night, Nov. 29, the IDF blasted Iranian, Hizballah and Syrian targets in its biggest ever surface missile attack on Syria, DEBKAfile’s intelligence and military sources can now reveal. This was not an Israeli air force strike such as those conducted for two years against Iranian targets in Syria. Two kinds of ground-to ground missiles were used in this cross-border offensive: a Long-Range Artillery Weapon system known as LORA which has a range of 400km; and the guided, short range Tamuz. They raked across at least 15 sites, most of them belonging to the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), pro-Iranian militias and Hizballah. They covered an area ranging from the Syrian Hermon slopes in the north, down to the Iranian command center at Izra north of Daraa in the south (See attached map.)
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By Michael Ledeen, FPM

[..]

The most important part of Reagan’s success was the tireless critique he and his people unleashed on the Kremlin.  It wasn’t just the well-known broadcasts from Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty;  a lot came directly from the president, the secretary of state, and a plethora of senior officials.  A lot of this campaign has been forgotten and denied.  Reagan critics like to pretend, as is their wont, that the Soviet Empire fell because of its economic failure.  As if the Communists hadn’t failed from the very beginning, and as if our practice of calling for the release of political prisoners were not crucial.  But those of us who worked with the dissidents knew that Soviet Communism was doomed once the president had gone after its failed system.  It would not have occurred to him to say we wanted a change in behavior, not a change in regime.  I wish Messrs Trump, Pompeo, Bolton and Mattis would emulate Reagan’s example.

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Officials belatedly realize that obscure law passed in October would force U.S. to end all aid to the PA by the end of January 2019, including security assistance supported by Israel • U.S. security envoy urges Congress to find solution before recess.

Associated Press and Israel Hayom Staff

For two years, the Trump administration has unabashedly slashed U.S. aid to the Palestinians. Now, amid signs that it may finally roll out its long-awaited Middle East peace plan, the administration is scrambling to save what little remaining Palestinian assistance it provides.

The striking turnabout is the result of the belated realization that an obscure new law is likely to force the U.S. to terminate all aid to the Palestinian Authority, including security assistance supported by Israel, by the end of January. Eliminating such aid, which totaled $61 million this year, while other assistance was also being cut, would deal a blow to Palestinian-Israeli security cooperation, which both sides value. The law would also require the Jerusalem offices of the U.S. Agency for International Development to close.
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Funds to Palestinian security agencies that cooperate with Israel are also in jeopardy.

BY ROBBIE GRAMER, COLUM LYNCH, FOREIGN POLICY

A boy holding a Palestinian flag looks at clashes with Israeli security forces near the border between Gaza and and Israel on May 14. (Mahmud Hams/AFP/Getty Images)

T. Belman. Apparantly Trump has now got his Syria/Iran act together. He is building up the Kurdish forces in Eastern Syria, with the involvement of Saudi Arabia. It will be tasked with stopping Iran from establishing a land corridor to the Mediterranean Sea. In addition the US will protect the Kurds from another Turkish attack. Meanwhile Israel started bombing runs again.

With the collapse of peace talks, Syrian civil war escalating into regional – and possibly global – conflict.

By Yochanan Visser, INN

Tensions in Syria are once again on the rise after Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan repeated his demand that the United States ends its support for the Kurdish militia group YPG, which is the dominant force in the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), and since the so-called Astana peace talks between Iran, Syria, Turkey and Russia collapsed.

A series of recent events in the war-torn country, furthermore, indicate that the civil war in Syria is turning into a regional conflict with the potential to become a world war.

After claiming that the Islamic State terror organization has no presence left in Syria, Erdogan told members of his ruling AKP party that the U.S. has an opportunity to strengthen ties with his regime by dropping American support for the Syrian Kurds.
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ANDREW KLAVAN, THE DAILY WIRE

Donald Trump is a mirror that drives men mad.

By Gabriella Muñoz – The Washington Times – Thursday, November 29, 2018

President Trump essentially dared Democrats on Wednesday to investigate him when they retake the House in January and threatened to release “devastating” Justice department documents in retaliation.

“If they go down the presidential harassment track, if they want go and harass the president and the administration, I think that would be the best thing that would happen to me,” Mr. Trumptold the New York Post. “I’m a counter-puncher, and I will hit them so hard they’d never been hit like that.”

In September, Mr. Trump ordered the Justice Department to declassify and publicly release documents released to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act application for former campaign adviser Carter Page, reports about the application and FBI interviews with Department of Justice official Bruce Ohr.
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Nationwide strikes all across Iran, Nov. 15 – 30th

By Joyce Karam,  The National (UAE)

The US administration sounded the alarm on Thursday about the prospects of a regional conflict fuelled by the spread and reach of Iranian weaponry into the region including to the Taliban, the Houthis and Iran’s proxies in Bahrain, Iraq, Lebanon and Syria.

US Special Representative for Iran Brian Hook delivered a speech at Joint Base Anacostia-Bolling in Washington D.C. with an exhibition of Iranian Materiel Display (IMD) with Farsi markings shown in the background.

The weaponry included Iranian Sayyad-2C SAM missiles, AK-47s, small arms and debris from an Iranian drone that were caught in Yemen, Afghanistan and Bahrain where he said that Iran is seeking to expand its influence and foment instability.

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Canadian legal scholar Dr. Jacques Gauthier has devoted 20 years to the thorny question of the ownership of Jerusalem, and has concluded that Israel has unquestionable sovereignty not only over the whole city, but over Judea and Samaria as well.

By Eldad Beck, ISRAEL HAYOM

T. Belman. This plan is already 6 years old and yet they stick to the idea that when Area C is annexed Israeli citizenship should be given to Arabs living there. The Jordan Option proposed by me and Zahran,  which is close to fruition, provides Jordanian citizenship for these people so there is no need to give them Israeli citizenship. Bennett’s plan does not discuss how Israel will prevent Palestinians from taking up residence in Area C or Israel. Nor does it discuss how we maintain a border between Israel and Areas A and B.

In foreign press briefing, justice minister calls for annexation of Area C, claims Palestinians may in the future agree to her plan

By RAPHAEL AHREN, TOI – 29 November 2018,

Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked speaks at the Maariv Conference in Jerusalem on October 15, 2018 (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)

Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked has proposed a “confederation” between parts of the West Bank, Jordan, and Gaza.

“Our plan is to apply Israeli sovereignty on Area C and give the Palestinians living there full citizenship. Areas A and B will be part of a confederation, together with Jordan and Gaza,” she told journalists Wednesday in Jerusalem.
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Republicans need to fight the wild ideas of the Democratic Party’s left wing.

By Karl Rove, WSJ

Sen. Bernie Sanders knows what he wants. In a Washington Post op-ed last week, the democratic socialist from Vermont laid out a legislative agenda for the 116th Congress’s first 100 days. Among the dizzying array of proposals Mr. Sanders pushed were his signature “Medicare for All” bill, tuition-free college, student-debt relief, tax increases requiring “wealthy people and large corporations to begin paying their fair share” and a $15 minimum wage indexed to “median wage growth,” not inflation.
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ISRAEL TO SHIP GAS DIRECTLY TO EUROPE

By Barry Shaw, IISS

After fairly rapid negotiations, Israel has agreed with European nations to supply Europe with its future natural gas needs. The project will turn Israel into a significant fuel-exporting nation.

Construction will begin on the longest and deepest underwater fuel pipeline in the world. 1,305 miles in length and lying 1.86 miles under the Mediterranean Sea. The $7 Billion project will take five years to complete.

Natural gas will flow from Israel’s natural gas reserves in the Mediterranean via Cyprus to Greece and Italy. This multi-national pipeline will supply Europe with 125 billion cubic meters of natural gas annually by 2030.
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T. Belman.  It bothers me the most when liberal Jews or their leadership, support antisemitic Muslim immigration on the basis that we Jews were once immigrants.  Jewish immigrants shared American values, hated no one and wanted to be American. Muslim immigrants don’t share American values, hate Jews (at least a large majority do) and don’t want to integrate.

Like Engelhard says, there is no comparison.

Ignorance? Anti-Semitism? There is no comparison between today’s militant migrants and Holocaust survivors and no excuse for the spurious comparison.

By Jack Engelhard, INN

It appears that throughout this entire great country, we have but one proper news channel, Fox News, and even over there we can use a day without Juan Williams.

Or Geraldo Rivera.

There he was, saying that it is wrong to use the Holocaust to score political points, as Rep-elect Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) just did – which would have been a good place for him to stop.

For those who haven’t heard, Ocasio-Cortez, neither our best nor our brightest, compared the migrants crashing our borders to Jews fleeing Nazi Germany.
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By ELANA SCHOR, POLITICO

The Senate delivered a stunning rebuke to the Trump administration on Wednesday, voting overwhelmingly to advance a measure yanking U.S. support for Saudi-backed forces at war in Yemen.

The 63-37 vote, in which 14 Republicans joined every Democrat in voting to move forward on the bipartisan Saudi resolution, came hours after Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Defense Secretary Jim Mattis failed to sway key undecided senators with an appeal to hold off lest they upset progress of nascent talks on a cease-fire in Yemen. Read more…

A group of 63 senators voted to allow a debate over ending U.S. support for Saudi Arabia’s war against Iranian proxies in Yemen, despite calls from the administration not to harm the U.S.-Saudi alliance.

By Amir Tibon, HAARETZ

WASHINGTON – The vote which took place on Wednesday in the U.S. Senate over America’s involvement in the ongoing war in Yemen represented a stinging foreign policy failure for the Trump administration.

A group of 63 senators – including every Democrat in the Senate and 14 Republicans – voted to allow a debate over ending U.S. support for Saudi Arabia’s war against Iranian proxies in Yemen. The vote took place just hours after two senior Trump cabinet members, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Secretary of Defense James Mattis, pleaded senators not to take steps that could harm the U.S.-Saudi alliance.

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The crown prince seeks support to blunt criticism over Khashoggi murder, but despite his charm offensive in the Arab world, he is still getting a hostile reception

By Zvi Bar’el, HAARETZ

Tunisia’s decision to invite Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman for a visit had local journalists up in arms last week. “Inviting bin Salman to Tunisia is an insult to the revolution and its values,” the Tunisian journalists union announced, upon learning of the invitation. “He’s an enemy of freedom of expression.”

Some 100 Egyptian journalists also issued a statement condemning the visit of bin Salman to Cairo, where he was received Monday with all the requisite flourishes.oth countries, while the social networks in Egypt, where he landed on Monday, and Tunisia and Algeria, where bin Salman is also expected to visit, were roiling against the visit of the “holder of the saw,” as one tweet called him, and not just because of the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

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A betrayal of justice.

BY EVELYN GORDON, COMMENTARY

The International Criminal Court’s blatant anti-Israel bias is no secret. Just two months ago, I wrote about its decision to launch an unprecedented fishing expedition against Israel.

Nevertheless, its latest decision raises bias to an art form—the art in question being farce. It also completely destroys any pretensions the court has left of serving its original purpose: Ensuring that the world’s worst crimes don’t go unpunished.

On November 15, the pretrial chamber of judges ordered the court’s prosecutor—for the second time—to reconsider her refusal to investigate Israel’s 2010 raid on a flotilla to Gaza. Demanding one reconsideration is rare. Demanding two is unheard of. No such option even exists in the ICC’s rulebook.
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T. Belman. Crushing Palestinian aspirations is the right thing to do. This includes oblitherating the Palestinian narrative.

Crushing Palestinian aspirations is no less significant for the prime minister than derailing the Iran nuclear deal

By Chemi Shalev, HAARETZ

Palestinian demonstrators shout during clashes with Israeli troops at a protest on the Israel-Gaza border, east of Gaza City, April 6, 2018.\ MOHAMMED SALEM/ REUTERS

Benjamin Netanyahu’s foreign policy has been, by his lights, a resounding success. The United States is in his pocket, at least until Donald Trump presents his “deal of the century.” Europe is mostly engaged with itself, Brexit and immigration, and in the meantime Netanyahu is forging a formidable pocket of resistance with the four Visegrad countries, in exchange for an Israeli pardon for past and present anti-Semitism of some of its members. His idyll with Vladimir Putin may have been marred by the downing of a Russian plane over Syria, but the astounding progress in ties with Saudi Arabia, Gulf countries, and even Chad more than makes up for it.
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T. Belman. The prospect for such a war is extremely high.  Israel must be in it to win it. That means Israel must massively invade invade Gaza and Lebanon with a view to destroying their missiles before too many are fired on Israel. Every day counts. Plus Israel must attack Iran’s nuclear facilities and the IRPG and the Mullahs. Victory must be our goal and not a ceasefire.

By Yochanan Visser, ISRAEL TODAY

Iranian leaders stepped up their war of words against Israel and the United States over the weekend while new information shows both the Israel Defense Forces and the Islamic Republic are actively preparing for a multi-front war in Israel.

The new war of words started when Iran’s so-called moderate president Hassan Rouhani told participants in an Islamic conference that Israel was a “cancerous tumor” and “a fake regime” founded by Western nations.

While calling upon the Islamic world to establish a “joint force” that could win the “battle against criminals”  Rouhani claimed Israel had killed and displaced the (non-existing) “historic nation of Palestine.”
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