JEWISH PRESS

In March 2019, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced that the US would apply visa restrictions on individuals directly responsible for any International Criminal Court (ICC) investigations of US personnel. He added that the visa restrictions may also deter ICC efforts to target US allies, including Israelis.

Pompeo further threatened economic sanctions if the ICC doesn’t change direction regarding who it targets.

On Friday, April 12, the ICC announced its unanimous rejection of a request to investigate American military and intelligence professionals who served in Afghanistan.

President Trump released a statement welcoming the decision, and added that “any attempt to target American, Israeli or allied personnel for prosecution will be met with a swift and vigorous response.”
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You need to understand that when Israelis worry about ‘dangers, threats and extremism,’ they’re thinking about Palestinian terrorists

By the Times of Israel, Uri Pilichowski, Author, Educator and Father- Brother to All

We love you. You are our brothers and sisters. We know that Israelis have disappointed you in elections this week but please don’t take it personally. Israeli votes were about Israel, not you. You were energized by Prime minister Rabin’s Oslo peace process. He brought a new dreamlike optimism to Israel. No longer would Israel be at war. Israel’s safety would be secured through diplomacy instead of war. While it stalled under Prime Minister Netanyahu, the peace process was slightly resuscitated under Prime Ministers Barak and Olmert. Understandably, you feel let down. The peace process is all but dead and the loudest voices in Israel are silent on peace with the Palestinians.

This week’s election results must seem like a rejection of your values. You’ve expressed concern over Israeli priorities and it looks like we’re ignoring you. Very few Israeli parties talked about the religious pluralism you hold so dear. The Western Wall deal, conversions, and marriage were hardly mentioned in the campaign. Israel seems to be embracing racism, its darkest demons coming to the forefront. Values of equality between privilege and underprivileged doesn’t seem to be a shared value between American and Israeli Jews. Worst of all, Israelis have embraced Donald Trump. To American left wing Jews, President Trump is the vilest side of a nation. The Israeli embrace of President Trump represents the rejection of all things holy to the Jewish left.
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CANDACE IS NOTHING SHORT OF BRILLIANT

T. Belman.  Its getting to look a lot like what I have been proposing for the Jordan Option.

Report says Trump peace plan includes Jordan ceding territory to Israel, settling 1 million Palestinians, forming confederation with PA.

By David Rosenberg, INN

A report released Friday morning claims that the soon-to-be released Middle East peace plan drawn up by the Trump administration – dubbed the “Deal of the Century” – includes large-scale resettlement of Palestinian Arabs in Jordan, the ceding of Jordanian territory to Israel, and the formation of a tripartite confederation between Jordan, the Palestinian Authority and Israel’s Civil Administration to administer Judea and Samaria.

According to the report, published by the Beirut-based Al-Akhbar, sources in Jordan and Egypt say that the much-anticipated peace plan would include a broad regional agreement, with a number of Arab states taking an active role in the deal.
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Four US Democratic lawmakers warn against sovereignty over Judea and Samaria, stress importance of two-state solution.

By Elad Benari, Canada, 12/04/19 21:14

by Stephen M. Flatow / JNS.org

The community of Beit El in Judea and Samaria. Photo: Wikimedia Commons.

JNS.org – Since Ronald Reagan is by far the president most admired by Republicans in modern times, perhaps GOP leaders and members of Congress should remind the current president of Reagan’s long-forgotten proposal for Israeli-Arab peace.

I’m not talking about the awful plan that was foisted upon Reagan in 1982 by US Secretary of State George Shultz and other senior officials, whose attitude towards Israel was lukewarm at best.

I’m referring to the amazing speech that then-presidential nominee Reagan delivered to the B’nai B’rith International convention in Washington, D.C., on September 3, 1980.
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By Frank Hawkins, AMERICAN THINKER

In 1949, with the debris of WWII still clogging German cities, Western nations led by the United States and Great Britain formed the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). The primary purpose of the alliance was to provide a multinational shield  against Soviet aggression.

Today the alliance itself is threatened, with President Trump rightly accusing Germany and other members of not living up to their pledges to support the pact. Of the 28 members of NATO, only seven are paying the required 2% of GDP to support the alliance. The United States weighs in with a hefty 3.39% while Germany, the second largest economy in the alliance, is only contributing 1.36%.

By seeking to override or ignore the will of Israeli democracy, they are accelerating the breakdown of the rapidly eroding bipartisan consensus in favor of the Jewish state.

Jonathan S. Tobin

When leaders of Tammany Hall—the legendary Democratic machine that ran New York City for more than a century—would be confronted with an occasional electoral setback, their usual response was to deride it by claiming that if their handpicked candidates didn’t win, then “it ain’t democratic.”

That’s pretty much the reaction of much of the Democratic Party to the results of Israel’s election. Prominent Democrats have greeted the victory of the man who was the bitter foe of President Barack Obama and, just as bad, the close friend and ally of President Donald Trump with a mixture of dismay and horror.

More to the point, they view the judgment of Israel’s voters—the majority of whom voted for either Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud Party or other slates that were pledged to support his bid to lead the next government—as not merely wrong, but contrary to what is good for their country.
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by Dr. Eric R Mandel, MEPIN

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his wife, Sara, greet supporters during his victory speech in Tel Aviv, April 10, 2019. (Amir Levy/Getty Images)

(JTA) — After the smoke clears from this contentious Israeli election, which amounted to a referendum on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s tenure, it appears that Netanyahu will again be asked by Israeli President Rivlin to form the next government.

How did he win again?
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by Ezequiel Doiny

“Inside every progressive is a Totalitarian screaming to get out”.  -David Horowitz

On May 23, 2013 Daniel Greenfield wrote in Frontpage Magazine “There is a characteristic feature to tyranny. It isn’t the scowling faces of armed guards or the rusting metal of barbed wire fences. It isn’t the black cars of the secret police or the prison camps surrounded by wastelands of snow.

The defining characteristic of tyranny is the diversion of power from the people to the unelected elite. The elite can claim to be inspired by Allah or Marx; it can act in the name of racial purity or universal workers compensation or both. The details don’t matter, because in all instances, tyranny derives its justification from the superiority of the rulers and the inferiority of the people.

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Therefor, it is time to embrace the truth that Israel is the rightful owner of the land where Jews have lived from time immemorial.

By Goldi Steiner, JPOST

Soon after Israel’s April 9 general elections, US President Donald Trump is expected to unveil the “deal of the century.” What is clear is that Trump is taking serious steps to recognize the reality on the ground by not insisting that Israel relinquish its control over the Golan Heights and major Israeli controlled areas in Judea and Samaria. Trump should be thanked and commended for his recent recognition that these lands are NOT “occupied.” It is vitally important at this time to change the rhetoric, “to avoid repeating the mistakes of the past” and, to paraphrase a quote by Albert Einstein, to hope “for different results.”

In recent times, there have been tensions in the Palestinian arena. The  rocket attack last week that scored  direct hit on a home in Moshav Mishmeret in central Israel, the escalation in violence emanating from Gaza and the prospects of war concern us all, despite the lull in recent days. Furthermore, there have been repeated calls from the Palestinian Authority to not make peace or reconcile with the “infidels” prior to the recent escalation. Under such leadership, which rewards terrorists at the expense of its own employees, it may be impossible to make any peace agreement, even if it is the “deal of the century.”
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Note: This piece is a response to an essay by Haviv Rettig Gur

By Evelyn Gordon

Like Haviv Rettig Gur in “How and Why Israelis Vote,” I, too, think the advantages of Israel’s parliamentary system outweigh its disadvantages, and for essentially the same reason: because it keeps a great many people in the political system who would otherwise remain outside it.

Critics of the system’s plethora of small parties—as Gur notes, no fewer than 43 parties have been vying for Knesset seats in this year’s election—maintain that it should be streamlined and redesigned so that only big parties would be able to enter the Knesset. In that case, the critics argue, people who currently vote for small parties would simply switch their votes to large ones.
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By JACK CROWE, NATIONAL REVIEW

U.S. has been trying to forge an “Arab NATO,” with key allies in Arab world • Sources say Egypt announced decision at meeting in Riyadh on Sunday • Move seen as blow to Trump administration’s strategy on Iran.

by Reuters and Israel Hayom Staff

Egyptian President Abdel-Fatah el-Sissi | Photo: Handout via Reuters

Egypt has pulled out of the U.S. effort to forge an “Arab NATO” with key Arab allies, according to four sources familiar with the decision, in a blow to the Trump administration’s strategy to contain Iranian power.

Egypt conveyed its decision to the United States and other participants in the proposed Middle East Security Alliance, or MESA, ahead of a meeting held Sunday in Riyadh, the capital of Saudi Arabia, one source said.

Cairo did not send a delegation to the meeting, the latest gathering held to advance the U.S.-led effort to bind Sunni Muslim Arab allies into a security, political and economic pact to counter Shiite Iran, the source said.
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The two White House power players have conflicting visions, yet both have been tasked to develop detailed plans, creating confusion in Trump administration

By JILL COLVIN and ZEKE MILLER, TOI

In this January 2, 2019, file photo White House senior adviser Stephen Miller listens as US President Donald Trump speaks during a cabinet meeting at the White House in Washington. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci, File)