T. Belman. Tell her to bugger off.

“The European Union calls upon the Israeli authorities to reconsider their decision to demolish Khan al-Ahmar.”

BY TOVAH LAZAROFF, JPOST

European Union foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini warned Israel of “serious consequences” if the IDF demolishes the West Bank Bedouin herding village of Khan al-Ahmar.

“As repeatedly stressed, the consequences of a demolition of this community and the displacement of its residents, including children, against their will, would be very serious and would severely threaten the viability of the two-state solution and undermine prospects for peace,” Mogherini said.
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T. Belman. Trump sure knows how to play hardball. Who would have ever hoped for such a tactic? No one.

Complaining that the PA rejects peace efforts, Trump administration has cut aid three weeks in a row

By TOI STAFF

The United States will halt $25 million in aid to East Jerusalem hospitals, a State Department spokeswoman said Friday, leading to warnings of the “collapse” of medical centers that provide crucial care to Palestinians.

The fresh cuts mark the third week in a row the US has slashed financial support for the Palestinians and come a day after President Donald Trump said American aid will be withheld until a peace deal is reached with Israel.

Alessia Dinkel, the State Department spokeswoman, told National Public Radio the $25 million for the East Jerusalem Hospital Network would instead go toward other “priorities.”
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The course the West followed has been a disaster.

By Noah Rothman, COMMENTARY

Syrian Civil Defense White Helmets via AP

Damascus was designated a state sponsor of terrorism in 1979, and it has lived up to that title every year since. Syria’s descent into civil war presented several opportunities to dispense with the despot in Damascus and avert a crisis in the process, but they were all ignored. As I wrote for National Review, Syria is a case study in the perils of ideological non-interventionism. The results of the West’s over-reliance on covert action, outsourcing, and diplomacy in Syria is arguably the worst-case scenario.
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Ahead of Rosh Hashanah, he speaks about current bonds with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Israel, the rocky relationship with Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas, other regional powers at play, and the complex and uncertain prospects for peace.

BY JOSH HASTEN, JNS

Q: How do you view the overall relationship at this point between the United States and Israel under the current Trump administration?

A: I think that the relationship between the United States and Israel has never been stronger, and I don’t think we’ve ever had a president more supportive of the State of Israel. And I think that it’s clear that the support is returned by Israelis, who have clearly expressed their appreciation to President [Donald] Trump for his policies relating to Israel. He’s done something no other president had the courage to do. He recognized the reality that Jerusalem is and always will be Israel’s capital. And he finally moved the United States embassy to Jerusalem, where it always belonged.
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In call to mark Rosh Hashanah, president also says Iranians have ‘lost their mojo’ since he quit the nuclear deal, and are now ‘fighting for their own survival’

By TOI STAFF

US President Donald Trump told Jewish leaders Thursday that the US would not give aid to the Palestinians until they reach an agreement with Israel. He also said the Iranian regime had “lost their mojo” since he withdrew from the 2015 nuclear deal, and was now fighting for its survival. In quitting the deal, he said, he had done “a great thing for Israel.”

In a conference call with several dozen American Jewish leaders ahead of Rosh Hashanah, Trump noted that he had recently slashed immense amounts of US aid to the Palestinians — a reference to the administration’s recent cuts in overall aid to the Palestinian Authority and its complete defunding of the UN’s Palestinian refugee agency UNRWA. The US would resume funding, he said, but only if the Palestinians reached a deal with Israel.
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The Lebanese Armed Forces won’t do more to confront Hezbollah because the two groups are fundamentally allied

By Tony Badran, FDD

Western intelligence sources have revealed that in July and August Iran used a civilian airliner to fly arms to Hezbollah directly through Beirut International Airport. That would be right after the United States completed the delivery of light attack aircraft to the Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF) in June, and right before a high-ranking CENTCOM delegation visited Lebanon in mid-August. On both occasions, U.S. officials praised the LAF as the “defender of Lebanon’s borders”—a cringeworthy line that captures the painful silliness of U.S. policy. The LAF will not confront a group with which it enjoys close relations and that effectively controls the Lebanese government, from which it takes its orders.
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By Dick Morris, WESTERN JOURNAL

Alarmingly, all recent polls that have measured “generic preference” by party in the coming congressional elections have recorded a Democratic margin — some by a lot.

In this survey question, voters are asked to choose between a hypothetical Democrat and a hypothetical Republican in their district for Congress. Ten polls in a row have shown a Democratic lead — eight by more than eight points and six by more than ten.
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By Raheel Raza, THE CLARION PROJECT

The event was a meeting of modern Muslim minds titled “Reform in a Politically Correct World.” I would be understating this to say that it was “mind blowing.”

Hosted by the JCC (Jewish Community Centre) and CCAT (Canadian Coalition Against Terrorism) with generous donors, it was attended by over 250 people who were informed, well read and curious.

However they had never experienced or heard anything like this.
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CAMPUS BATTLES PART I

Crisis on campus: Anti-Israel forces and the battle for the Jewish future
By Deborah Fineblum

CAMPUS BATTLES PART II

Equiping a cadre of students with debating tools, historical information, legal support, trips to Israel and more, so that Israel has a place on the university playing fields.

BY Deborah Fineblum, JNS

(September 6, 2018 / JNS) IfNotNow has a plan. It’s determined, according to its website, to create nothing less than “a movement led by young Jews to reclaim the mantle of Jewish leadership from the out-of-touch establishment.” Or, more specifically, to be “the generation to end our community’s support for the occupation.”

Since the term “occupation” is increasingly equated with the very existence of the State of Israel, these words written by young Jews are chilling to many for whom Israel is at the very least a safety net preventing future Holocausts, and at its height the answer to a prayer by generations of Jews who never had the opportunity to find life-saving sanctuary within its borders.
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Despite everything that has changed, today’s internal Jewish divisions eerily echo those from exactly a century ago.

By Rick Richman, MOSAIC

One-hundred years ago, Rosh Hashanah came early, just as this year. On the eve of the holy day—September 5, 1918—the New York Times published the text of a letter from President Woodrow Wilson to Stephen S. Wise, a prominent Reform rabbi who also served as vice-president of the Zionist Organization of America. In the letter, the president effectively announced his approval of the November 1917 Balfour Declaration, in which the British government had expressed its history-changing commitment to “the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people.”
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By Conrad Black, NATIONAL REVIEW

He ran for office against both parties and the status quo and carries the fight into the midterms.

The unusually eventful summer has reinforced the stark division between the supporters and enemies of the administration. And in this case, there is no point engaging in the traditional sportsmanlike nomenclature of describing the opposition as “adversaries.” They are enemies and the president would not wish it any other way. He ran for office against both parties, the lobbyists, almost all the national political media, and the politically active elements of Wall Street, Hollywood, and Silicon Valley.

Keeping this in mind, it was disappointing but not surprising that the protracted obsequies of Senator John McCain became a shadow lamentation of the absence in the current president of the qualities that most of the official mourners posthumously discovered in Senator McCain. His patriotism and courage are not at issue; his flawless selflessness and judgment are less clear. It was a shameful thing to exploit a state funeral in this way, but illustrative of the fight to the political death between the all-party, multi-vocational, entrenched political establishment and the ferocious Trump movement.
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T. Belman. The opening paragraph misinforms. The Democracy Institute itself said “Half of the Jewish Israeli public thinks that Palestinians deserve an independent state, while (43%) think they do not.” I am astounded by that percentage because I thought it would be much lower. I would suspend belief until I read how the question was put.

In the monthly Peace Index of the Israel Democracy Institute and Tel Aviv University, support for a Palestinian state increases with age.

jns

The Israeli flag. Credit: Wikimedia Commons via Dr. Zachi Evenor.

(September 5, 2018 / JNS) As the Jewish New Year 5779 approaches, half of the Jewish Israeli public supports an independent Palestinian state, while 43 percent do not.

In the monthly Peace Index of the Israel Democracy Institute and Tel Aviv University, published on Wednesday, support for a Palestinian state increased with age: Some 35 percent of those aged 18-34 were in favor, as were 54 percent of those aged 35-54 and 61 percent among the oldest age group.
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by Daniel Pipes, Middle East Quarterly, Fall 2018

http://www.danielpipes.org/18500/why-israelis-shy-from-victory

One day, imagine, a U.S. president tells an Israeli prime minister: “Palestinian extremism damages American security. We need you to end it by achieving victory over the Palestinians. Do what it takes within legal, moral, and practical boundaries.” The president continues: “Impose your will on them, induce a sense of defeat so they give up their 70-year-old dream of eliminating Israel. Win your war.”

American presidents have been meeting Israeli prime ministers for a long time: it began with Harry Truman and David Ben Gurion (with Abba Eban in the background) on May 8, 1951.

How might the prime minister respond? Would he seize the moment and punish the incitement and violence sponsored by the Palestinian Authority (PA)? Would he inform Hamas that every aggression would temporarily stop all shipments of water, food, medicine, and electricity?
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DEBKA

IDF air strikes, Iranian expansion in Syria, Qassem Soleimani, US-Israel cooperation in Syria