By Charles Dunst, JTA

NEW YORK (JTA) – After Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez shocked the political world by defeating longtime New York Rep. Joseph Crowley in a Democratic primary last month, Democratic National Committee Chairman Tom Perez quickly aligned himself with the former political outsider, saying on a radio show that “she represents the future of our party.”

If so, that future appears to include the kind of sharp criticism of Israel once considered taboo in both major parties.

Ocasio-Cortez ran on a platform of Medicare for all, fully funded public schools and a universal jobs guarantee. But she has also been critical of Israel, calling its military’s killing of Palestinian protesters in May a “massacre.”
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By Shoshana Bryen, AMERICAN THINKER.

The Washington Post headline blared, “Trump is bent on wrecking NATO. Prepare for catastrophe.”  The Post fears that President Trump’s diplomacy will benefit Vladimir Putin to the detriment of American and European interests.  European Council president Donald Tusk sniped, “Dear America, appreciate your allies.  After all, you don’t have that many.”

The NATO countries are, indeed, among America’s closest allies, but some of them appear more interested in oil, natural gas, and trade with Iran than in the Fulda Gap.  Some of our “closest allies” have been working overtime to undermine America.  If Mr. Trump is irritated with them, there is a reason.
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Over 150 acres of national forest scorched • Nearly 1,000 acres lost in less than a week • Since Palestinians began committing remote arson using kites and balloons, Israel has lost 7,400 acres of land • EU slams Israel’s punitive closing of Kerem Shalom.

By Nikki Guttman, Associated Press and Israel Hayom Staff

A fire rages on open land near the Gaza border Photo: Michal Yaakov Yitzhaki

As the oppressive July heat and humidity settles in, residents of Gaza-adjacent communities in southern Israel are seeing no abatement to the fires caused by burning kites and balloons flown over the border from Gaza, which consumed thousands of acres of farmland and racked up millions of dollars’ worth of damage.

On Tuesday, residents of communities near the Gaza border reported 36 different fires caused when the burning toys touched down. Over 600 dunams (150 acres) of the Baram Forest nature preserve went up in flames, bringing the total amount of national park acreage scorched in less than a week to 4,000 dunams (nearly 1,000 acres).
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Congress Learns About the Brotherhood. Urge a Ban! July 11, 2018

A subcommittee on national security in the House of Congress is holding a hearing on the threat of the Muslim Brotherhood to the United States and its interests and how to effectively counter it.

As the subcommittee notes:

“The Muslim Brotherhood is a radical Islamist organization that has generated a network of affiliates in over 70 countries. The Brotherhood has been designated as a terrorist organization by multiple countries including Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. The United States has designated multiple Muslim Brotherhood affiliates as terrorist organizations, including Hamas.”

Most recently, the State Department designated two Brotherhood-affiliates — HASM and Liwa al-Thawra — and Hamas’ political leader Ismail Haniyeh, as Specifically Designated Global Terrorists (SDGT) under an executive order.

By Ryan Mauro, CLARION PROJECT Mar 22/18

Supporters of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt (Photo: Reuters)

The Muslim Brotherhood’s sigh of relief after being rescued by Secretary of State Tillerson and National Security Adviser McMaster has been replaced by a sweaty panic.

With Tillerson out and Pompeo in and McMaster’s days numbered, it is now probable that the Muslim Brotherhood will finally be designated by the State Department as a Foreign Terrorist Organization, paving the way for its infrastructure in America to begin being dismantled.
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Hamas persistently downplays the escalating flight of Gaza’s professionals, but Gaza’s best and brightest are intent on escape, and Turkey is their favored destination. By MuhammeadBut there’s a bitter twist

By Muhammad Shehada, HAARETZ

Demonstrators take part in a protest against the recent killings of Palestinian protesters on the Gaza-Israel border and the U.S. embassy move to Jerusalem, in Istanbul, Turkey May 18, 2018.\ MURAD SEZER/ REUTERS

More than 18,000 Gazans have rushed to join an exodus from the enclave since its border crossing with Egypt opened in mid-May. They sought to seize the opportunity to escape the bleakness of Gaza before the crossing closes again, for who knows how long.

But it’s an exodus of the elite.
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Right-wing politicians have spent half a decade trying to pass a ‘nation-state’ bill that would prioritize Israel’s Jewish nature over its democratic one. Even President Rivlin thinks the law could harm Jews worldwide

By Alison Kaplan Summer, HAARETZ

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in a cabinet meeting in Jerusalem, June 24, 2018. Netanyahu is determined to pass the nation-state bill before the Knesset heads for its summer recess.Marc Israel Sellem

Israel has always understood itself to be a Jewish state. But for the past five years, politicians – specifically those on the right – have been pushing for legislation that would make that fact irrefutable, strengthening their ability to incorporate the country’s Jewish national and religious character into government policy.
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Israel and the Saudis pushed for Trump-Putin deal, The New Yorker reports. Netanyahu could try and sell this idea to Putin, but can Moscow deliver the goods?

By Zvi Bar’el, HAARETZ

Netanyahu and Putin in January, 2018.\ MAXIM SHEMETOV / REUTERS

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday will be devoted mainly to Israel’s demand that all Iranian forces leave Syria – a demand that Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has already deemed completely unrealistic.

Russia has told Israel on several occasions that it can’t make Iran leave Syria completely; the most it can do is try to get Iranian forces and Iranian-affiliated militias, including Hezbollah, to move a significant distance away from the Syrian-Israeli border in the Golan Heights. But Russia isn’t even managing to keep its promise to secure a partial withdrawal of Iranian forces.
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By Jonathan S. Tobin – U.S. News – Haaretz.com

Reasonable people must stop buying into the lunacy that Americans are living in the moral equivalent of the last days of the Weimar Republic. And that applies to Jews making offensive Holocaust analogies too

Demonstrators protest during the “Keep Families Together” national day of action against the Trump administration’s immigration policy in Los Angeles, California, U.S. June 30, 2018.\ MONICA ALMEIDA/ REUTERS

For many on the American Jewish left, President Donald Trump’s nomination of Judge Brett Kavanaugh to the U.S. Supreme Court is the last straw. Like his “zero tolerance” immigration policy, the prospect of ensuring a solidly conservative majority on the high court is viewed with horror by many who see this as the beginning of the end of liberal democracy.

Indeed, Trump’s presidency is so abhorrent to those who deplore his policies that they have ceased to view politics as something on which decent people can agree to disagree.
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By Amil Imani, AMERICAN THINKER,

It is hard to believe that four decades has passed since the Islamic Revolution was forced upon the Iranian people and their freedom disappeared. Under the rule of these adherents of death, everything in Iran is deteriorating while Iran’s religious government is strong and has a great deal of control on everything. Too much control without independent checks and balances encourages corruption, nepotism and inefficiencies.  As a result, the bulk of the nation’s wealth flows to a few select individuals.

This is a wake-up call for Iran’s authorities and the international community. Although denied by many through the past four decades, Iran is literally a political, social and economic time bomb closing in on a colossal detonation.

While Iran continues to develop its missile program that is sharply criticized by the United States and Israel, they simultaneously seek to suppress people’s desire to keep a share of the country’s wealth. Prosecution and imprisonment of innocent people and systematic and illegal abuse of detainees, along with hundreds of gruesome acts, have also been reported.
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DEBKA

By Jeff Dunetz, THE LID

The criticism of comments made by White House Deputy Press Secretary Hogan Gidley made it is clear that some American Jews have forgotten the words of the late Zionist philosopher and leader Ze’ev Jabotinsky. In his famous essay, “The Iron Wall,” Jabotinsky wrote,

“It is incredible what political simpletons Jews are. They shut their eyes to one of the most elementary rules of life that you must not ‘meet halfway’ those who do not want to meet you.’

Traveling with President Trump to West Virginia last Tuesday, aboard Airforce One, Deputy Press Secretary Hogan Gidley held a press gaggle (an impromptu press conference where a video is not allowed). Per the official transcript, America’s relationship with Israel came up:

Reporter:  What evidence are you referring to when you say the U.S. is more beloved around the world?
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The situation prevailing among the Arab citizens of Israel is as complex and complicated as their affiliations are.

By Dr Mordechai Kedar, INN

The topic of Arabs who are Israeli citizens is a complex and complicated one, on the one hand because this population sector is far from uniform, and on the other, because of its extant geo-political context.

This sector, close to one fifth of Israel’s citizenry, includes members of five different religions: Muslims, Christians, Druze, Alawites and  Ahmadis, in addition to two non-Arab religions to be found in Israel, the Samaritans and the Bahais.

Three main cultural groups can be identified:  Bedouin, fellahin (agricultural workers) and urban dwellers, whose sociological characteristics and ways of life differ considerably from each other. Regarding their relationship to the state, it should be noted that the Druze, along with some of the Christians and Muslims (mainly the Bedouin) serve in the IDF, a clear indication of their outlook on the Jewish state.
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Ted Belman. Two issues stand out.  Should communities be permitted that are exclusively Jewish. Rivlin says “no”. I say yes. Should traditional Jewish law be given more weigth in establishing legal-precidents? I say yes. We are a Jewish state.

INN

The Jewish Home party has threatened to block passage of a long-awaited “nationality law”, defining in law Israel as the nation-state of the Jewish people, if the Likud abandons a clause in the law strengthening the role of traditional Jewish law in the State of Israel’s legal code.

The Nationality Law would establish the status of the State of Israel as the nation-state of the Jewish people and the right of the Jewish people to self-determination in its homeland as a unique right for the Jewish people. It would also anchor the symbols of the state, Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, the Jewish calendar as the country’s official calendar, and Hebrew as the official language.

The bill also included provision giving special consideration to traditional Jewish law in Israel’s legal code – a key demand of the Jewish Home.
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The truth about the great betrayal

https://www.timesofisrael.com/uk-campaigner-french-muslim-leaders-wouldnt-sign-anti-semitism-condemnation/

Fiyaz Mughal, who led a similar, successful campaign in UK, says he floated draft for interfaith declaration against Jewish and Muslim hatred, was rebuffed even after revising text

By Marissa Newman, TOI

French Muslim leaders all refused to sign on to a joint declaration with their Jewish counterparts condemning anti-Semitism and anti-Muslim hatred, according to the British activist behind the interfaith campaign, which ran successfully in the United Kingdom.

Fiyaz Mughal, of the Muslims Against Anti-Semitism initiative, last month sought to replicate in France a successful public interfaith campaign that was undertaken in the United Kingdom in May, which saw full-page newspaper advertisements signed by more than a dozen UK Muslim leaders placed in major British dailies — including the Telegraph and Metro — condemning anti-Semitism.

Mughaz said he had found “a receptive base within some Muslims in the UK and care and empathy for Jewish brothers and sisters when we ran the campaign in the UK.”
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Israel has been exploiting this internal, complex and delicate European dissent in recent years in order to change the way decisions about its policies are made in the EU

By Noa Landau, HAARETZ

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, left, shakes hands with Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu prior to meeting of Netanyahu and the Visegrad Group’s (V4) Prime Ministers in the Pesti VigaBalazs Mohai/MTI via AP

The official signal was sounded a year ago, in mid-July 2017. In an incident involving a microphone left open – it was not clear whether this was deliberate or not –  Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was heard sharply assailing the European Union during a closed meeting held in Budapest with the prime ministers of Hungary, Poland, the Czech Republic and Slovakia, a group of countries known as the Visegrad Group, or the V-4. “The EU is the only international organization which predicates its relations with Israel – which provides it with technology – on political considerations,” said Netanyahu at the time, supposedly for the ears of these leaders only. However, his words were clearly heard over earphones handed out to journalists moments before they were cut off: “We have special relations with China and they don’t care about political issues. Modi told me he has to look after the interests of India; Russia doesn’t set political conditions and Africa doesn’t either. Only the European Union does – it’s crazy. It’s contrary to European interests.”
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T. Belman.  I don’t support rebuilding Gaza in any way shape or form. If the Gazans don’t like Gaza, they should leave.

with Maj. Gen. (res.) Gershon Hacohen, MEF Wire 
July 03, 2018

https://www.meforum.org/articles/2018/israel’s-gaza-policy

The transformation of the Gaza Strip into an ineradicable terror entity poses a formidable security threat to Israel by placing its population centers and strategic infrastructure within the range of Hamas’s rockets and missiles all the way to Tel Aviv, and by allowing the group to breach the border fence and infiltrate Israel via its extensive network of underground tunnels. Should the IDF need to enter Gaza in a future war, Hamas has the ability to exact a heavy toll through its well-organized defensive positions in the cities and refugee camps.
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BESA Center Perspectives Paper No. 886, July 8, 2018

Dr. James M. Dorsey

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: A United Arab Emirates-backed Saudi effort to wrest control from Jordan of Islam’s holy places in Jerusalem signals a sharper, more overt edge to Saudi religious diplomacy. The kingdom’s quest for regional hegemony risks deepening divides in the Muslim world.

The Saudi effort to take control of Islam’s holy places in Jerusalem serves, among other things, to support President Donald Trump’s plan for a resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict – a plan that has split the Muslim world even before it has officially been made public, and that has been clouded by Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.

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by Linda Goudsmit, PUNDICITY

Dear America: Who’s Driving the Bus? is a philosophy book that offers a universal paradigm for understanding the often confounding and contradictory ways in which people behave.

America is currently embroiled in a second civil war that it is unaware of and that threatens our way of life. The civil war in this country is being fought over the same thing all great wars are fought over: power. But in this war, the adversaries are ourselves. Civil War II is not a race war, an economic war, or a war between states. It is a psychological battle between states of mind that will determine who has the power in our society, who is in control.

The human growth process is twofold; it has a physical component and a psychological component. Chronological age is an uncontested biological accomplishment. Psychological growth is another matter entirely. We struggle with the wish to become powerful, independent adults and the longing to remain powerless, dependent children.
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