The winning card lies in Israel’s legal – not its historical and religious – claims to Jerusalem. Arutz Sheva spoke to the former head of the Ministry for Jerusalem to clarify the issue.

By Rochel Sylvetsky, INN

The winning card lies in Israel’s legal – not its historical and religious – claims, but can the legal status of Jerusalem be determined?

Ran Ichay, Director General for The Ministry of Jerusalem and Heritage, ILTV

With a new coalition in formation,Trump’s “Deal of the Century” hovering in the air, and the Arab world continuing to vent its fury at the US for the Embassy’s move to Jerusalem and daring to try to make a deal, Arutz Sheva talked to Amb. (ret.) Ran Ichay, who initiated the First International Legal Conference on Jerusalem last year, to examine the legal aspects of Israeli rights more closely.
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T. Belman. I often am critical of Churchill for limiting Jewish immigration to Palestine’s absortive capacity and for removing Trans Jordan from the Jewish National Home. This excellant video shows how much pressure he was under from both the House of Lords and the Arabs. Since the Balfour Declaration in 1917, Britain was our enemy but Churchill was our friend.

By Jeff Ballabon and Bruce Abramson, JEWISH PRESS

We have entered a dark period in American Jewish history. Nine mainstream Jewish organizations just declared war against Israel and America’s Jewish community. There is no other way to read a new letter they addressed to President Trump.

While all clearly aligned with the left, the signatories are hardly fringe groups. The Central Conference of American Rabbis and the Union for Reform Judaism represent the leadership of the Reform movement. Joining them were the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism, its Rabbinical Assembly, and MERCAZ, the Conservative movement’s Zionist affiliate. These groups, plus the Anti-Defamation League––arguably the most valuable brand in organizational Jewry––Ameinu, and the National Council of Jewish Women are all members of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations.

With the results of Israel’s election still trickling in, these groups called upon the president to reject a position that almost 85 percent of Israelis support as critical to their security in favor of their own progressive preference for rewarding anti-Jewish terror. They demand that Trump embrace a failed “two-state solution.”

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T. Belman. Pipes couldn’t be more wrong in what he thinks the plan will contain. He doesn’t know what he is talking about and has no inside sources.

The unofficial reports, which have been slammed by the White House as misleading, suggest the plan could fail because of a great miscalculation of traditional Palestinian-Israeli diplomacy, by asking too little of Arabs and too much of Israelis.

By Daniel Pipes, ISRAEL HAYOM

U.S. President Donald Trump’s peace plan for the Palestinian-Israeli conflict surfaced two years ago and to this day – remarkably – only he and a handful of aides know its precise details. A stream of leaks, however, contains enough internal consistency that their collation, supplemented by conversations with administration officials, provides a plausible outline of the plan’s contents.

These suggest the plan boils down to a grand exchange: The Arab states recognize Israel and Israel recognizes Palestine, both with capital cities in Jerusalem. This approach builds on elements forwarded by Egypt’s President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi in 2016, the Obama administration in 2009, the 2002 Arab Peace Initiative, and even my 1990 symmetry plan.
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By Yochanan Visser, ISRAEL HAYOM

You probably didn’t know this but normalizing relations with Israel is against the Quran and Islamic faith.

At least that’s what Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said to participants in a Quran knowledge competition in Tehran on Monday.

Never mind that the Quran, in chapter 5:21, explicitly says that the Land of Israel has been given to the Jewish people by God as a perpetual covenant, this is what Khamenei really thinks and he’s acting upon it too.
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Reports indicate PM favoring two hardliners for key post amid calls to limit court’s ability to overturn Knesset legislation, all in shadow of his impending graft indictments

By TOI STAFF

Negotiations are likely to be fierce, with all parties, barring Kulanu, indispensable for a majority in the 120-seat Knesset.

Initial speculation focused on the Justice Ministry, with Netanyahu’s legal woes expected to be a major issue in the next term. The premier is facing indictment in three separate cases in the coming months, pending a hearing.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (right) with Tourism Minister Yariv Levin during a Knesset vote on the budget, which coincided with police publishing recommendations that Netanyahu be indicted for bribery and breach of trust, February 13, 2018. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)
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T. Belman. Does anyone doubt the dawning of a New Middle East. All these things that Trump is doing support my contention.

Missions in West Bank and Gaza won’t shutter entirely, but employees expect team of 100 to be whittled down to 14 in coming months

By TOI STAFF

The US Agency for International Development, responsible for civilian foreign aid, is reportedly preparing to lay off the majority of its local staff as the last of American aid for Palestinian civilians is terminated.

USAID intends to fire 85 percent of its local staff from its missions in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, whittling its 100 or so employees down to 14, according to a Thursday report in NPR that cited internal agency communications.

The vast majority of the workers were Palestinian or Arab Israelis, though a small number were Jewish Israelis, the report said.
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Ben Shapiro slams the freshmen Congressional Democrats for defending Rep. Ilhan Omar’s claims that criticism against her is incitement to violence.

T. Belman. Sherman is my guru and I don’t undervalue what he preaches. On the other hand, the advent of the Jordan Option with Mudar Zahran at the helm, will do more to advance the acceptance of sovereignty by the Jews not only in Israel but in America as well, than the best PR campaign. Stay tuned.

Intensive investment must be made in civil society frameworks that can not only draw the idea of extended Israeli sovereignty into the main-stream discourse as a legitimate political objective, but as one that can dominate that discourse

By Dr Martin Sherman

Several short excerpts:

I am going to extend sovereignty and I don’t distinguish between settlement blocs and the isolated settlements…From my perspective, any point of settlement is Israeli, and we have responsibility, as the Israeli government. I will not uproot anyone, and I will not transfer sovereignty to the Palestinians. – Benjamin Netanyahu, Channel 12, April 6. 2019. 

In a significant departure from his usual ambivalent and non-committal policy formulation regarding the final status of the territories of Judea-Samaria (a.k.a. “West Bank”), Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu came out with an unexpectedly robust and unequivocal statement of intent just a few days prior to the April 9 election.
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In the next election, every party should consider the great potential in the Arab public, where voters are searching for a new political home, yearn for hope and aspire to a new political reality where they can feel like an inseparable part of Israeli society.

By Joseph Haddad, ISRAEL HAYOM

Another election race has come and gone and again we see that one of the main runners, the Arab public, is not being counted. In 2015, it happened when Arab Israelis flocked to vote for the Joint Arab List, which became the country’s third-largest party. This time, it happened due to indifference and low voter turnout, which resulted in fewer Arab members of Knesset and the Balad party fighting for its life to remain above the electoral threshold. Out of some 928,000 eligible voters in the Arab sector, only one-third voted for Arab parties. The Arab public expressed a lack of faith in its representatives and told them: You’ve let us down, neglected us; we aren’t in your pocket anymore.
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The flames at Notre Dame Cathedral should remind Jews of the burning by that very same church of tens of wagonloads of the Talmud in the Middle Ages.

By Abraham Chicheportiche, INN

The mainstream media, even in Israel, is featuring in headlines “The Crown of Thorns and tunic of St Louis saved from Notre Dame fire.”

I do not like to do it, but sometimes it is necessary to remind some Jews of historical facts about antisemitism in France.

Many of you have certainly visited Paris or The Notre Dame Cathedral, but how many of you have seen the two statues at the main entrance of the Paris Cathedral?
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Is Israel’s Air Force the next frontier for haredi integration into the IDF?

Arutz Sheva Staff,

An F-16 flying over Israel’s skies conjures up many images in the minds of anyone taking notice, one of them is decidedly not an image of Israel’s Haredi population. But if Gavriel Hemo and his Barkai program have their way, the absence of that image will soon belong to the past.

In 2012 the Ministry of Defense’s Department of Social and Security Policy approached Hemo with the idea of establishing a program for integrating young Haredi men into the Air Force. Hemo, who served for many years as Deputy Mayor of the Golan Heights Regional Council, is currently chairman of the “Ruach HaGolan” educational network, which runs twelve unique high schools and post-high school institutions with over 2,000 students.
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By Amberin Zaman, Al Monitor

The United States is pressing its Kurdish allies in Syria to ease their resistance to allowing Turkish forces to deploy on their side of the Turkish-Syrian border, well-informed sources told Al-Monitor. The Turkish forces would be a part of the proposed safe zone in northeastern Syria.

US officials are pushing for “a limited number” of Turkish forces to be allowed to deploy on the Syrian side of the border, along a stretch of territory running from the east of the Euphrates River to the Iraqi border, according to a senior official from the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF). The source told Al-Monitor, “The subject has already been broached with us and we regard the presence of Turkish troops on our soil as extremely problematic and have made our position clear.”

The source said that the Donald Trump administration’s Syria envoy, Ambassador Jim Jeffrey, was expected to travel to northeastern Syria in the coming days, when he is likely to renew demands that Turkish forces be allowed to enter northeastern Syria.

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