By Avraham Ben Zvi, ISRAEL HAYOM

This Monday, one day before midterm elections in the U.S., the second round of economic sanctions will be imposed on Iran as a result of the Trump administration’s withdrawal from the nuclear deal in May 2018. These sanctions will comprise a wide range of economic and financial measures, intended primarily at decreasing the regime’s oil exports and financial transactions via the country’s central bank to a bare minimum. Consequently, the Trump administration hopes to inch the regime closer to its breaking point and threshold of willingness to accept the inevitable and radically alter its “operational code” – whether in regard to its plans and ambitions for its nuclear and ballistic missile programs or its far-reaching and unrelenting subversive activities across the Middle East.
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Conservative American firebrand Ben Shapiro opens up about Israel and Judaism.

BY Lahav Harkov, JPOST

Conservative commentator Ben Shapiro‘s star has been rising in the US in recent years. He’s only 34 years old, but he began his career 17 years ago, writing a syndicated column, and now he has his own news site, The Daily Wire, “The Ben Shapiro Show,” a podcast with millions of listeners.

In between, he managed to become editor-at-large of the far-right – these days, some would say alt-right – website Breitbart, and resigned in 2016. Shapiro accused Breitbart chairman Steve Bannon, an eventual adviser to US President Donald Trump, of turning the site into “Trump’s personal Pravda.”
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The invented national ethos of the Palestinian Authority is about to collapse, now that the PA has cancelled the two agreements that allow its tottering government to survive.

By Mordechai Kedar, INN

When something is built on an unstable foundation, it is only natural for its long term survival to be at risk. It is also natural for it to be in need of constant support just to keep from falling. The belief that it will eventually be able to stand on its own two feet causes people to lend their support, but only egregious fools continue to do so if there is no hope of its ever being independent, because in that case, everythiing those supporters have invested is doomed to be irretrievably lost.

The Palestinian Authority is in exactly that position today and this article will expound on the reasons it has no hope of every being able to become a viable and independent entity.
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By Rabbi Yechezkel Moskowitz, DAILY CALLER

There is a saying in Judaism: “Whoever saves a life, it is as though he had saved the lives of all men.” It would go without saying that taking an innocent life analogous to destroying the entire world.

Indeed, on Oct. 27, 11 worlds were destroyed in a hateful act of misplaced vengeance — by the anti-Semitic, Trump-hating Robert Bowers. There, in a fleeting moment, the little Jewish community of Squirrel Hill, Pittsburgh was cast into darkness.

I spent shabbat in Squirrel Hill as a teenager. It was a quiet and peaceful suburb with a really nice and welcoming community. I — like the entire American nation, Jews and non-Jews alike — reeled in shock over such an abhorrent act of hatred toward the Jewish people.
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Lebanese daily says Egypt prepared to slash 70% of its own border restrictions under 3-year truce deal; Israel will be required to grant work permits and expand fishing zone

By TOI STAFF

An emerging cease-fire agreement aimed at calming months of violence on the Israel-Gaza border will last for three years and see a significant easing of the blockade on the Hamas-controlled territory, Lebanon’s Al-Akbar newspaper reported Saturday.

According to the report, the deal being brokered by Egypt stipulates a gradual stop to the ongoing, Hamas-orchestrated violent border protests and maritime flotillas over the next two months. In addition, Hamas will be obligated to punish Gazans caught engaging in violent demonstrating along the border with Israel.
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by Rusty Weiss, THE LID

The second caravan of migrants has broken through to Mexico, having crossed a river from Guatemala, and authorities report that some of them are armed with explosives and other weapons.

The Associated Press reports that the mob has been much more unruly than the first with some allegedly carrying weapons and firebombs made from improvised soft-drink bottles and gasoline.

The group has seemingly upgraded their arsenal, having used rocks and sticks against Mexican police over the weekend.

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By Max Fisher, NYT

Supporters of the Brazilian far-right presidential candidate Jair Bolsonaro celebrating his victory in Rio de Janeiro on Sunday.Fernando Maia/EPA, via Shutterstock

For anyone curious about the future of democracy, two developments out of Brazil and Germany pose something of a mystery.

The election of Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil looks too similar to the wave of right-wing, anti-establishment populism sweeping Europe and the United States to be dismissed as coincidence. Mr. Bolsonaro, known for praising his country’s former military dictatorship and insulting minorities and women, has championed anger at Brazil’s establishment by promising strong-fisted rule.
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By Deroy Murdock, NATIONAL REVIEW
November 2, 2018

Participants gather for the “2018 Young Black Leadership Summit,” in the East Room of the White House in Washington, D.C., October 26, 2018. (Carlos Barria/Reuters )

The party that freed the slaves continues to liberate black Americans today.‘What the hell do you have to lose?” candidate Donald J. Trump queried black Americans in 2016, as he asked for their votes with characteristically blunt eloquence. Eight percent of black voters bought his pitch. While this seems like a rout, Trump outperformed Mitt Romney by one-third; 6 percent of blacks backed 2012’s GOP nominee. Trump’s total was astonishing, given that the Left/media slandered him as the guy who brings the lighter fluid to a cross burning. Read more…

By Mathew Continetti, FREE BEACON

Not even Jared Bernstein, former economic adviser to Joe Biden, could put a negative spin on Friday’s jobs report. The U.S. economy created some 250,000 jobs in October, beating expectations. The labor participation rate increased even as unemployment held steady at 3.7 percent. That’s a 50-year low. The best part: Wages rose 3 percent in the highest rate of growth since the Great Recession a decade ago. “Pretty much everything you could want in a monthly jobs report,” Bernstein tweeted.

October 2018 is the 97th consecutive month of jobs growth. The trend began with the end of the Great Recession, allowing Barack Obama as well as Donald Trump to take credit for it. The Trump economy is more than the jobs figure, however. Amidst volatility in the financial markets, at the time of writing the Dow is up close to 30 percent since Inauguration Day 2017. The economy grew by 4 percent in the second quarter of this year and 3.5 percent in the third quarter, according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis. (The third-quarter number will be revised on November 28.) That puts us on track for the best annual growth since 2005.
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T. Belman.  As expected, the NYT is sympathetic to Soros

By Kenneth P. Vogel, Scott Shane and Patrick Kingsley, NYT

WASHINGTON — Hours after he was informed last week that an explosive device had been delivered to his suburban New York home, George Soros, the billionaire investor and Democratic donor, got on a call with colleagues to discuss yet another threat: the authoritarian Hungarian government’s crackdown on a university he had founded.

The attempted attack in New York — subsequently determined to have been part of a wave of pipe bombs targeting prominent critics of President Trump — did not come up. But it was no coincidence that Mr. Soros would be facing intense opposition and threats at the same moment in two countries thousands of miles apart.

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Yet, by the lights of Foer, Ioffe, Milbank and their fellow American Jewish Trump-haters, Obama was a friend of American Jews, and Trump and his Jewish supporters are their enemies.

BY Caroline B. Glick, JPOST

Just hours after the largest massacre of Jews in America in US history, the Atlantic Monthly posted a piece by Franklin Foer. In his “Prayer for Squirrel Hill, and for American Jewry,” Foer wrote, “Any strategy for enhancing the security of American Jewry should involve shunning [President Donald] Trump’s Jewish enablers. Their money should be refused, their presence in synagogues not welcome. They have placed our community in danger.”

That is, in the shadow of the blood drenched synagogue, Foer declared war on his fellow Jews.

Between a quarter and 30% of American Jews voted for Trump. A quarter of American Jews intend to vote Republican in next week’s election.
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Trump’s policy has been grounded in realism, in reasserting that the U.S. knows who its friends are – and who are not: A simple, old-fashioned, yet absolutely indispensable stance for a world power

By Elliott Abrams, HAARETZ

US President Donald Trump speaks during a campaign rally in Estero, Florida, on October 31, 2018AFP

When Donald Trump arrived in office U.S. influence in the Middle East was in broad decline. In the previous eight years, Iran and Russia had established vast influence and an on-the-ground presence in Syria, Iran was seen to be the rising power throughout the region, and U.S. relations with both Israel and the major Sunni Arab states were strained.

In two years Trump has turned that around.

U.S. power has been used to decimate Islamic State in Syria and shrink its geographical presence. Relations with Jordan, Egypt, and the Gulf states are much closer. The U.S. has withdrawn from the deeply flawed Obama nuclear agreement (JCPOA) that Israelis of all major parties had opposed, and has reimposed full economic sanctions on Iran aimed at damaging its economy and reducing the cash available to it for aggression, subversion, and terrorism.
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Institute for Policy Innovation

In a nationally syndicated op-ed, IPI’s Dr. Merrill Matthews says addressing border security is one of President Trump’s biggest concerns, and the caravan is making his case for him.

Matthews writes:

President Donald Trump is sending federal troops to the U.S.-Mexico border and taking other steps to stop the Honduran migrant caravan headed for the United States.

It’s unfortunate that it’s come to this, but it’s the right thing to do.

Millions of foreigners dream of coming to the U.S. because of the three pillars of our society: freedom, economic opportunity and the rule of law.

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Amman has been frustrated by long-stalled plans to jointly pump water from Red Sea to shrinking salt-water lake

TOI

Israel is seeking to advance work on the long-stalled Red Sea-Dead Sea project as a means of improving its relations with Jordan, Haaretz reported Friday.

The report said Israeli officials believe the repeated delays in implementing the project are a central factor in ongoing tensions between Jerusalem and its neighbor, which suffers from severe water shortages that could be alleviated by the canal.
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TV report says Netanyahu dispatched Shin Bet to convince PA chairman to renew cooperation. Abbas refused.

By Elad Benari, INN

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu attempted to renew ties with Palestinian Authority (PA) chairman Mahmoud Abbas and dispatched Israel Security Agency (Shin Bet) chief Nadav Argaman for this purpose, Hadashot TV reported on Thursday.

According to the report, Abbas refused all of Netanyahu’s overtures.

Argaman presented Abbas with a series of significant economic projects in an attempt to calm the region. Among other things, the report said, he offered Abbas the establishment of a joint industrial zone and partnership in the gas project opposite Gaza that Israel would be willing to promote in order to boost the PA economy.
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