Marking 40 years to Camp David accords, the Center for Israel Education is rolling out memos detailing negotiations that led to Israel-Egypt peace treaty

By ERIC CORTELLESSA, TOI

Egyptian president Anwar Sadat, US president Jimmy Carter, center, and Israeli prime minister Menachem Begin clasp hands on the north lawn of the White House as they sign the peace treaty between Egypt and Israel, March 26, 1979. (AP/Bob Daugherty)

WASHINGTON, DC — It has been almost 40 years since former president Jimmy Carter initiated the negotiations that led to Israel’s peace treaty with Egypt. To commemorate that historic accomplishment, the Center for Israel Education is incrementally releasing sensitive memoranda from the Carter administration archives detailing those negotiations.

Most recently, the educational non-profit unveiled a March 1978 meetingin Washington, DC, between the Carter and prime minister Menachem Begin’s delegations, at a time when the US warned there was a risk of losing the momentum gained after Egyptian leader Anwar Sadat unexpectedly visited Jerusalem to address the Knesset.
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By Monica Showalter, AMERICAN THINKER

Has anyone ever called the Chinese ‘stupid’? Not those guys.

So now they’re reading President Trump, and unlike the childish Eurotrash of western Europe, they see a shrewd, wily, chess-playing, Sun Tzu-grade genius, who could easily checkmate them, and they’ve got a lot of reasons for thinking so.

That’s the report from a European policy-domo, who actually went to Beijing and asked the local leaders what they were seeing. The report that European Council of Foreign Relations President Mark Leonard gives, in the Financial Times, is well worth the subscription or trial subscription to read it. Some of his thoughts from the pice can be read on Instapundit, however. Here’s a bit of what Glenn Reynolds posted:
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T. Belman. I recently had a discussion with Mike Diamond who is a community leader in Toronto who hails from the Reform movement. He was critical of our nation-state law because it offended liberalism (my take on his position). I advised him that it all boils down to one question. Do you want Israel to be a state of all its citizens, like America or Canada, or a nation-state of the Jews. He showed some resistence to this question preferring to be picayune.

This article sheds further light on the debate. It appears that liberal Judaism is the enemy of particular or traditional Judaism and fights it at every turn. Ergo Mike Diamond is pushing liberalism at the expense of Jewish peoplehood, Judaism and Zionism. It boils down to that.

Mike is to the right of his American counterparts and is a supporter of Israel. Yet he too can’t escape the push of liberalism. Whenever the Reform Movement take us to task for not being plualistic enough, we should take them to task for undermining everything we stand for. They must be resisted for our sake and for their sake. If only they would be more concerned with saving themselves rather than “saving” Israel.

By Gil Troy,  JEWISH JOURNAL 

This past spring, Rabbi David Wolpe dared to banish politics from his pulpit. The denunciations in these pages of his principled stand again revealed American Jewry’s massive political bias. Headlines proclaimed: “What You Call Politics, We Call Torah” and “A ‘Politics Free’ Pulpit Is an Empty Pulpit.” The articles made it clear that there’s only one form of kosher Jewish “politics” in America: worshiping at the altar of tikkun olam.

How odd. Those who believe evangelical Christians — and Israeli politicians — corrupt democracy by not separating church and state, freely mesh synagogue and state. Those who mock settlers for treating the Bible like a modern real estate manual, proclaim God is a liberal Democrat.

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‘They told the administration, “what we could do for you before Jerusalem, we won’t be able to do now,”‘ one diplomatic source says, referring to the embassy move

By Amir Tibon, HAARETZ

WASHINGTON — Saudi Arabia and other key Arab countries have told the Trump administration they won’t be able to support its plan for Israeli-Palestinian peace if it doesn’t include a Palestinian capital in East Jerusalem.

The Saudi position was first reported by Reuters on Sunday, and was later confirmed to Haaretz by two diplomats involved in conversations on the peace plan.

The Saudi position was expressed by King Salman during a number of recent communications with senior U.S. officials, as well as in conversations with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and other Arab leaders in the region. It contradicts many media reports over the past year about a Saudi willingness to adopt Trump’s peace plan even if it is unacceptable to the Palestinians.
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by Vic Rosenthal

The favorite complaint made by the Israeli Left and the American liberal Jewish establishment against anything the supposedly “right-wing” government of Israel does is that it is “undemocratic.”

They do not usually define the concept of democracy, but they are certain that the nation-state law, and the NGO transparency law, and the campaign to rectify the imbalance between the Supreme Court and the Knesset, and the surrogacy law, are “undemocratic.”

So what is democracy, anyway? It seems to me that there is one basic idea along with several conditions that are necessary for it to be realized. The basic idea is something like this:

The citizens of a state express their will through free and fair elections, and the government governs according to this will.
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T. Belman. I agree with Netanyahu’s position. Bennett was wrong to back away from it and Glick was wrong to argue it was meaningless. As for the reaction of the Druze citizens, I don’t empathize with them at all. They must accept the fact that they are living in a Jewish state. But I do empathize with them because 250 Syrian Druzer were killed due to the coordinated Islamic State attacks in Syria’s Sweida on Thursday.

PM Netanyahu defends controversial law defining Israel as the nation-state of the Jewish people, saying debate is “one-sided” and demanding that Likud ministers express “unreserved and unapologetic” support • PM calls Left’s criticism “hypocritical.”

By  Mati Tuchfeld, ISRAEL HAYOM

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday told Likud ministers he expected them to express “unreserved and unapologetic” support for the controversial nation-state law.

“The Jewish nation-state is the basis of our existence,” Netanyahu said.  “There is constant defiance against the nation-state law and the discourse is very one-sided. Discussions in media panels are shallow. Don’t be apologetic – fight for the truth,” he urged.

Though largely symbolic, the contentious legislation, which states that “Israel is the historic homeland of the Jewish people and they have an exclusive right to national self-determination in it,” has been lambasted by Arab lawmakers as “racist,” and discriminatory against Israel’s non-Jewish citizens, which make up a substantial percentage of the population.
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T. Belman. If this story wasn’t so tragic it would be funny.  I am firmly against accommodating transgenders, whether it is in competitions or bathrooms or with selected pronouns.  Apparently transgenders represent only 0.6% of the population. We should not have government ordered transformations to accommodate such a small minority.

The fact that only a few short years ago, It was inconceivable that society would embrace the LGBT community let alone the transgender community speaks volumes about how public opinion is being manipulated to acheive a government ordained value system. The government is also trying to get us to embrqace Islam and Muslims as if they weren’t a threat to our culture and values.

This is what happens when you replace god given morality with man made morality.

Anyone who thought Bill C-16, the Transgender Rights Bill, was really about pronouns is naïve

by Barbara Kay, POST MILLENIAL

I wasn’t able to attend Idea City in person this year, but I did participate in a segment dedicated to freedom of speech via a pre-taped interview on the subject with the brilliant journalist Mark Steyn, who has spent decades beating against the current of identity politics and political correctness with trademark audacity and wit.
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It’s like a drinking contest: You harm yourself and hope your opponent isn’t able to withstand as much.

By Donald L. Luskin Wall Street Journal

One thing came through loud and clear in President Trump’s press conference Wednesday with European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker. When they announced an alliance against third parties’ “unfair trading practices,” they didn’t even have to mention China by name for listeners to know who their target was. Cooperation between the U.S. and EU will squeeze China’s protectionist model, and even before this agreement, there’s been evidence that China is already running up the white flag.

Yes, China is acting tough in one sense, quickly imposing tariffs in retaliation for those enacted by the Trump administration. But while U.S. stocks approach all-time highs and the dollar grows stronger, Chinese stocks are in a bear market, down 25% since January. The yuan had its worst single month ever in June, and is well on its way to a repeat this month. Chinese corporate bonds have defaulted at a record rate in the past six months, yet this week China unveiled a new stimulus program designed to encourage even more corporate borrowing.
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By Alexander G. Markovsky, AMERICAN THINKER

Procurator-General of the Soviet Union Roman Rudenko, who presided over a wave of trials and executions during Stalin’s terror, used to say that “the most important thing during an investigation is not to implicate ourselves.”

Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein and special counsel Robert Mueller were obviously unaware of Rudenko’s professional dictum when they indicted 12 Russian intelligence officers. According to the indictment, the Russians had interfered in the 2016 presidential election by hacking Democratic political organizations and releasing troves of stolen files in an effort to aid the Donald Trump campaign.

The indictment has no law enforcement value; it is strictly political move designed to offer evidence of Russian meddling in the elections and therefore provide more weight to the Mueller investigation based on the questionable anti-Trump dossier.
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Authorities arrest 24 people, with 4 officers injured, after Palestinians barricade themselves in mosque following Friday afternoon prayers; holy site reopened after nearly 4 hours

By ALEXANDER FULBRIGHT and JACOB MAGID, TOI

Police are seen outside the Al-Aqsa Mosque during clashes following Friday afternoon prayers at the Temple Mount compound in the Old City of Jerusalem on July 27, 2018. (Police Spokesperson)

Police forces entered the Al-Aqsa Mosque during clashes with Muslim worshipers Friday afternoon that led to an hours-long closure of the Jerusalem holy site.

The highly unusual decision to forcibly expel Palestinians from the mosque was ordered by Jerusalem police commander Yoram Halevi, police said, and came after dozens of people barricaded themselves in the house of worship.

The Al-Aqsa Mosque is the third holiest site in Islam and sits atop the Temple Mount, the most sacred place in Judaism and revered as the home of the ancient Jewish Temples.
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This law is a nothingburger without a bun, or a patty, a plate or a pickle. It does nothing new and it says nothing new.

BY CAROLINE B. GLICK, JPOST

There is no connection between the substance of Israel’s newly passed Nation State of the Jewish People law, and the debate its passage has unleashed.

On the one hand, supporters of the law led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu insist that the law is a vital step in entrenching and protecting Israel’s Jewish identity. After the law passed last Thursday night, Netanyahu declared, “This is a pivotal moment in the annals of Zionism and the annals of the State of Israel. 122 years after [Theodore] Herzl published his vision [of a Jewish state] we affixed in law the founding principle of our existence.”

On the other hand, Arab members of Knesset theatrically condemned the law and claimed that with its passage, Israel had officially embraced “apartheid.”

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Israel is the heir of Nazi Germany. PLO chief Mahmoud Abbas and his deputies said the UN should reinstitute its definition of Zionism, the Jewish national liberation movement as a form of racism.
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SECRETARY POMPEO:

Thanks for the kind introduction and thanks for hosting me here at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation and Library. It’s a very special place and an honor for me to be here.

I also want to thank my friend Tom for joining me here tonight. He and I have been on multiple missions together, and I am confident we will continue to do so in the days and weeks and years ahead.

And it’s great to see Governor Wilson here. I voted for you a couple times a long time ago. (Laughter.)

And I know we have many members of the Iranian American community with us this evening. This is just a fraction of the quarter million Iranian Americans in Southern California alone. We have many Iranian American guests from all across the United States here as well. Thank you. I look forward to hearing from you this evening, learning more about the situation in Iran as you see it, and understanding what your loved ones and friends are going through living in that place.
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By William F. Marshall, AMERICAN THINKER

Liberal MSNBC talking head Chris Hayes recently committed what political wags call a “Washington gaffe”: He spoke the truth. He responded to one of his Twitter followers who was complaining that television networks, and Hayes’s own program All In in particular, did not devote “commensurate energy” to the “disaster” of supposed man-made climate change by constantly braying about it. Hayes said: “Almost without exception[,] every single time we’ve covered [climate change] it’s been a palpable ratings killer. So the incentives are not great.”

Gee, Chris, thanks for that admission. Maybe you and your journalistic colleagues can draw a lesson from the failure of this media-foisted canard and apply it to the other canard you and your fellow travelers have been peddling: that Donald Trump and his campaign somehow “colluded” with the Russian government to throw the 2016 presidential election to Trump’s favor.
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BESA Center Perspectives Paper No. 907, July 27, 2018

By Irina Tsukerman, BESA

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: The Arab Coalition in Yemen is facing three internal challenges: differences between Abu Dhabi and Riyadh, Qatari meddling, and recent tensions between Saudi Arabia and Morocco. Despite these complications, new developments show that over the long run there is a likelihood of a strategic response to the stalemate in Yemen and to other Iran-related problems in the form of an upgrading of the scattered and divided Arab Coalition into a formal and organized infrastructure similar to NATO.

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T. Belman. The author takes the position that the liberal world order is good for world’s peace and stabilty and that Trump will be restrained from abandoning it by the myriad checks and balances that he is subject to. I disagree on both counts.

Central to the liberal world order is the UN, EU and NATO. All three are must be replaced by institutions or alliances  that focus on the real world rather than the world they were designed to cope with. USSR is no more.  Russia is no match for the US or for the EU. NATO is compromised by Turkey and isn’t needed to contain Russia. The UN is hopelessly antisemetic and corrupt. The EU is falling apart due to the stresses caused by its open borders and unrestrained immigration of Muslims.

Trump is well on his way to tearing the UN apart and to disenfranchising it from a role in settling the Israel/Palestine conflict or should I say in promoting it..

Whatever the U.S. president’s intentions, his efforts to rock the foundation of international politics are hopeless.

By James Kirchick, FOREIGN POLICY

By Evelyn Gordon, COMMENTARY

It’s no secret that Arab countries like Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates loathe Iran. What’s far more surprising is that Iran seems to be wearing out its welcome even in the Arab countries with which it is most closely allied. That, at least, is the message of both a recent study of Syrian textbooks and a recent wave of violent protests in Iraq.

In Syria, Shiite Iran has been the mainstay of the Assad regime (which belongs to the Alawite sect of Shiism) ever since civil war erupted in 2011, pitting the regime against Sunni rebels. It has brought more than 80,000 troops to Syria to fight for the regime, mostly either from Shiite militias it already sponsored in Lebanon and Iraq or from new Shiite militias created especially for this purpose out of Afghan and Pakistani refugees in Iran. It has also given the Assad regime astronomical sums of money to keep it afloat.
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IT WON’T BE EASY.

After Druze leaders decry nation-state law as an “extreme act of discrimination” against Israel’s minorities, Education Minister Naftali Bennett acknowledges legislation process was “damaging” • Finance minister: Nation-state law was enacted hastily.

By Ariel Kahana and Israel Hayom Staff

In a surprise move Wednesday, Habayit Hayehudi leader Naftali Bennett called for amendments to the recently adopted nation-state law Wednesday, a law that he supported during the legislation process.

Kulanu leader Finance Minister Moshe Kahlon said Thursday that “we were reckless. The nation-state law was enacted hastily.”

Basic Law: Israel as the Nation-State of the Jewish People, a coalition flagship initiative, was enacted last week after months of heated debates between coalition partners. From the time of its introduction, Bennett was one of the bill’s most vocal supporters.

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