START AT 3:20 AND THEN WATCH THE SPARKS FLY AS OWENS BUILDS UP A HEAD OF STEAM

Cairo is said to be “greatly disappointed” in Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas over his efforts to torpedo indirect negotiations between Israel, Hamas • Gaza’s rulers: Abbas is also responsible for deadlocked internal reconciliation talks.

Egypt’s efforts to broker a long-term cease-fire between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip have come to a grinding halt, Arab media reported Tuesday.

Cairo has been trying to mediate a truce between Israel and the terrorist group that controls the coastal enclave for the past several weeks, in an effort to prevent the recent flare-up in hostilities – the worst in four years – from escalating into a full-fledged war.

Israel and Hamas have fought three wars over the past decade, in 2008, 2012 and 2014.

Egyptian intelligence officials were able to broker a truce between the parties some two weeks ago, after a round of violence that saw Hamas terrorists fire nearly 200 rockets at Israel’s south and the Israeli military pound Hamas assets in Gaza in response.
Read more…

T. Belman. The PA still think they are calling the shots. In reality, the train has left the station and it is not on it.

Arab media reports Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas plans to use his speech at the General Assembly to declare the end of the 25-year-old Oslo process • This will effectively disband the PA • PLO official: Move has yet to be finalized.

By Yoni Hersch, Associated Press and Israel Hayom Staff

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas speaks at the U.N. General Assembly in 2017 

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas plans to use his speech at the upcoming U.N. General Assembly to declare a “Palestinian state under occupation,” the London-based Arab newspaper Asharq Al-Awsat reported Wednesday.

A senior official with the Palestine Liberation Organization said Abbas has briefed PLO officials of his intention to declare statehood at the world leader’s forum during his speech, scheduled for Sept. 27.

The official noted that Abbas’ declaration means to stress that statehood process launched with the 1993 Oslo Accords has effectively ended and that it was time to shelve the concept of the “Palestinian Authority” in favor of the “state of Palestine.”
Read more…

Lessons from the collapse of the Soviet Union are useful not only to show us how to proceed, but also how not to

By Frederick W. Kagan, COMMENTARY

The attractiveness of applying to Iran the set of policies that caused the relatively peaceful collapse of the Soviet Union in the 1980s and early 1990s, often called the “Victory Strategy,” is obvious. The strategy produced the most desirable possible end to the Cold War—victory for the United States and its allies without a major direct conflict with the Soviet Union. Similarities between Iran and the Soviet Union make it reasonable to assess that applying a similar set of policies would yield a similar result. That assessment may indeed be accurate, and some variant of the strategy is almost certainly the correct policy to pursue against Iran today.
Read more…

IDF Chief of Staff submits defense report to Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee on IDF’s readiness for war.

ARUTZ SHEVA

IDF Chief of Staff Gadi Eizenkot recently submitted his annual report on the readiness and fitness of the IDF forces to the political echelon.

The report is complex and details the IDF’s overall level of fitness and the ability of each of the IDF’s divisions to fight. It was signed by the generals of the General Staff.

The document, classified as “extremely confidential,” is submitted annually to the Prime Minister, the Minister of Defense, the members of the Political Security Cabinet and the members of the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee.
Read more…

By David Adesnik, FDD Policy Brief  31st August 2018 –

In a rare press briefing this week, Secretary of Defense James Mattis identified three conditions that must be met before U.S. troops withdraw from northeast Syria. But those conditions will not be met easily. Tension may arise between the Pentagon’s commitment to a responsible withdrawal and President Trump’s vow to withdraw the troops “very soon.”

Mattis’ first precondition is the defeat of the Islamic State, a point on which he is in full agreement with the president. The secretary’s second, related prerequisite is the training of local forces capable of providing security after the U.S. departure, a subject the president has not addressed. Gen. Joseph Dunford, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who appeared with Mattis, said that training those forces “is going to take some time,” but did not elaborate.
Read more…

Syrian Observatory for Human Rights: Eight killed, including Iranian and Syrians, in air strike as Iranian foreign minister visits Damascus ahead of battle over Idlib

HAARETZ

A picture released by the official Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA) on August 26, 2018 shows Iranian Defense Minister Amir Hatami (R) and his Syrian counterpart Abdullah Ayoub (L) in Damascus.AFP

• Iran, Russia prepare to battle each other over control of post-war Syria

• New details emerge on unprecedented ‘Israeli strike’ on Syria-Iraq border

• Israel rules out new political landscape in Syria as final battle inches closer

Airstrike attributed to Israel and threats made by its leaders suggest Israel may respond to any danger – even if it means deviating from deals made with Moscow

By Amos Harel, Haaretz

FILE PHOTO: Missile fire is seen from Damascus, Syria May 10, 2018.  OMAR SANADIKI/REUTERS

The Jordanians immediately rejected the confederation idea.

By Herb Keinon, JPOST

Israel is not behind what Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas said was a US-backed peace plan based on a Palestinian confederation with Jordan, senior Israeli diplomatic officials clarified Sunday.

The clarification came after reports claimed the idea of a Palestinian-Jordanian confederation – which Abbas told a Peace Now delegation was raised in a conversation he had with US envoys Jared Kushner and Jason Greenblatt – was an Israeli proposal.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s position remains that an agreement must be directly negotiated between the sides and include a demilitarized Palestinian entity – which he has referred to it as a “state-minus” – with Israeli security control west of the Jordan River, the official said. That position, which Netanyahu has articulated numerous time, “has not changed,” the official added.
Read more…

T. Belman. The obious answer is for Jordan to take them in and naturalize them. This will only happen under Mudar Zahran’s leadership.

By Mike Konrad, AMERICAN THINKER

President Trump seems determined to shut down UNRWA (the United Nations Relief and Works Agency), the organization singularly preoccupied with caring for the Arab refugees, and their descendants, of the 1947-49 war between Jewish and Arab forces for control of Mandatory Palestine.  While the idea seems good – a final nail in the coffin of Palestine dreams – there might be unintended consequences.

Long going, unresolved refugee crises are not unique to the Mideast – think of the Rohingya in Myanmar (Burma), which conflict is partially rooted in British colonial era policies, or the Lhotshampas from Bhutan.
Read more…

Hussein Agha warns Trump his peace team is misguided if it thinks it can buy Palestinians off with economic incentives

By Amir Tibon, HAARETZ

Hamas’ Ismail Haniyeh delivering a speech on the first day of the Eid al-Adha holiday in Gaza City, August 21, 2018.AFP

WASHINGTON – A close confidant of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas says Israel’s current right-wing government has a better chance of reaching an agreement with Hamas than with the Palestinian Authority.

Hussein Agha, a scholar who represented Abbas in multiple secret negotiations with Israel, made the comment in a lengthy interview with Fathom Journal, a British publication that focuses on Israel.
Read more…

T. Belman. True enough for the old plan. But though the idea was raised, the old plan was never considered.  I think that as soon as Zahran takes over Jordan, Jordan with its present boundries will devour the PA. I am talking about the Jordan R remaining the agreed to border. He will also change the national identity of Jordan from Jordanian to Palestinian.

As for the PA, who cares what they think or say. If they try to mount a new intifadah, it will only speed their demise.

The Palestinians refuse to give up their aspirations for independence, Israel is waging a war on the idea of an independent Palestinian state, and Jordan fears losing its national identity

By Zvi Bar’el, HAARETZ

File photo: U.S. President Donald Trump and behind him Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas as the two arrive in the Roosevelt Room of the White House.Evan Vucci/AP

In the early ‘80s, King Hussein and Yasser Arafat had a plan to create a confederation between Jordan and the West Bank, after Israel would withdraw to the 1967 border and without either member of the confederation recognizing Israel. Most of the plan was accepted but later abandoned, largely due to a disagreement over the division of responsibilities and the status of each component.
Read more…

The Assad regime’s imminent assault on Idlib will empower jihadists and crush the last of the revolution’s democrats. Why is the world standing by?

By Leila Al-Shami, NYT

March 21/18

A new order by the military reflects a major change in the IDF’s future tactics against enemies like Hezbollah

By Moshe Arens, HAARETZ

File photo: Rocket test by Israel’s Military Industry.IMI

As defense minister, over 19 years ago, I called into my office the representatives of Israel’s defense industries who had mastered ballistic-missile technology and asked them to submit competitive bids for the supply of medium-range ballistic rockets for the Israel Defense Forces. Until then Israel’s response to the large arsenal of ballistic rockets deployed by Hezbollah in Lebanon had been the capability of Israeli aircraft to bomb targets in Lebanon. Bombers were Israel’s answer to rockets.

Read more…

T. Belman. The significance of this offer by Tramp is that more and more he is making Jordan part of the solution. He is getting the world ready for it. He knows that both Abbas and Abdullah have turned down confederation.

PA chief US team preparing Mideast peace plan offered him ‘confederation’ between PA-Jordan. ‘Only if Israel included’, Abbas replied.

By David Rosenberg, INN

The Trump administration offered a plan to the Palestinian Authority for a final status agreement with Israel which would include the establishment of a “confederation” between the PA and the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, PA chief Mahmoud Abbas claimed in talks with the left-wing Peace Now organization.

According to sources within Peace Now on Sunday, representatives of the Trump administration, including President Trump’s son-in-law and adviser Jared Kushner, and special envoy Jason Greenblatt, recently asked Abbas if he would accept a final status agreement which included a confederation between the Kingdom of Jordan and the Palestinian Authority.
Read more…

Reports say Israeli strike caused five explosions, unknown number of casualties at Mezzeh airbase near Syrian capital, considered strategic Syrian asset • Syrian state media denies explosions were caused by “Israeli aggression,” cites electrical failure.

Israel Hayom Staff

A series of five explosions that rocked the Mezzeh airbase southwest of Damascus late Saturday night was caused by an Israeli airstrike, Arab media reported on Sunday.

Several reports said the strike had caused an unknown number of casualties, while others said Syrian air defenses countered the strike.

The U.K.-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said an Israeli airstrike had caused an unknown number of deaths and injuries.

According to Arab social media, Maher Assad, the younger brother of Syrian President Bashar Assad, was wounded in the strike and an unnamed Iranian general was killed.

Maher Assad, 50, is considered the second most powerful man in Syria. He is the commander of the Republican Guard and the Syrian army’s elite 4th Armored Division.

The reports were not corroborated by any Israeli source. A military spokesperson said the IDF does not comment on foreign media reports.

State-run Al-Ikhbariya TV station showed what appeared to be footage shot by residents of a string of bright explosions lighting up the night sky.

Citing an unnamed military source, the station reported that the explosions did not come from inside the airport but from a nearby munitions depot.

Smoke rises over the Mezzeh Airbase, Saturday

One resident told the BBC that the explosions lit up the night’s sky, saying, “It felt like the sun was shining for five minutes.”

Syrian state media denied the explosions were caused by an Israeli raid, saying they were the result of an electrical failure in one of the base’s munitions dumps.

The Syrian Arab News Agency quoted a senior military source as saying, “Mezzeh airbase has not been exposed to any Israeli aggression.”

The airbase houses elite Syrian units, Iranian troops and Revolutionary Guards-backed Shiite militias, and is considered a strategic Syrian asset. It was targeted by U.S.-led coalition forces in April in retaliation for a deadly chemical attack the Syrian army carried out in  Douma, in eastern Ghouta, earlier that month.

Israel rarely acknowledges strikes inside Syria but has consistently pledged to use military action to prevent weapons transfers to its enemies. Israel is alarmed by the expansion of operations by Iran and the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah to support President Bashar Assad in Syria’s seven-year-long civil war.

The blasts come at a tense time, as Syrian government forces prepare to attack the last refuge of the opposition in the northwest of the country. The U.S. is warning Damascus against using chemical weapons in the battle, while Damascus claims the U.S. is preparing to falsify a chemical attack to justify military operations on Syria.