By Randy Desoto, WESTERN JOURNALISM
Conservative author Jerome Corsi filed a “criminal and ethics” complaint against special counsel Robert Mueller on Monday, alleging his team threatened prosecution if Corsi refused to provide false testimony against Donald Trump’s presidential campaign.
Fox News reported the 78-page complaint, filed with the Department of Justice and the DOJ’s inspector general, stated “Dr. Corsi has been criminally threatened and coerced to tell a lie and call it the truth.”
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It would be disastrous if the Supreme Court shuts down gender-separate college programs.
Land mine has been laid against the overall positive momentum in integration of haredi students in higher education. The threat comes from a group of extremist professors who petitioned the Supreme Court (in its capacity as the High Court of Justice) to terminate all government funding for gender-separate college programs for ultra-Orthodox students.
The so-called “liberal” professors argue that the separation into genders in academia harms women’s equality in the workplace because female instructors are not selected to teach haredi male classes. They also warn that such segregation, which they call a “distortion,” could become a precedent for other areas, from the army to the job market. On top of that, they complain that gender separation is an affront to the “fundamentals” of higher education, such as “openness and pluralism.”
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T. Belman. If only liberal Jews would feel this way about Israel.
Ben Shapiro was asked how were we going to get Liberal Jews to connect to Israel, he said teach them about Judaism. Of course the closer you are to Judaism the more pro-Israel you are. That applies to Christians as well.
Hundreds of Latino Evangelicals gather in LA for bilingual ‘Night to Honor Israel’, one in a series of events for Hispanic community.
Hundreds of Latino Evangelicals from Southern California gathered at the Igelsia Evangelica Latina church in Los Angeles Thursday night for a special event honoring the State of Israel.
The event, which was advertised as a “Night to Honor Israel”, was organized by Pastor Peter De Jesus, a Latino Evangelical clergyman from Texas and the National Hispanic Outreach Coordinator for Christians United For Israel (CUFI).
Participants waved Israeli, American flags while singing Hebrew songs, as girls from the congregation danced in blue-and-white outfits, based on the colors of the Israeli flag.
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[PM rejects corruption allegations, decries police ‘witch hunt’ ]
If Netanyahu wins the coming election, which all the polling currently indicates he will, he will use that as vindication for his legal position
There is nothing surprising about the police recommendation to indict Benjamin and Sara Netanyahu in the so-called Case 4000 investigation – neither the details nor the charges, which have all been leaked to the press. There’s nothing surprising, either, about calls from the opposition for Netanyahu to resign and the fact that his ministers have rallied around him. The lines on what is called the telecom affair were drawn months ago, as the prime minister’s proxies in the media prepared the case for his defense. So far they’ve been effective. Instead of emphasizing the bottom line – that the prime minister of Israel is now suspected by the police in three separate cases of bribery – the media is now obsessing over the “timing” of the recommendations, released on Police Commissioner Roni Alsheich’s last full day on the job.
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A new pipeline and additional desalination plants will introduce fresh water into Lake Kinneret — in order to meet Israel’s commitments to Jordan, which suffers from a dire water shortage
The National Water Carrier of Israel has an outsize place in the national consciousness. The formidable system of pipes, tunnels, reservoirs and open canals, one of the country’s largest infrastructure projects, was built over half a century ago to transport water from Lake Kinneret in the north to the central and southern regions. Now, as a result of the historically low water levels in the lake and the introduction of desalination as a major source of water, it is part of a backup system that is barely used.
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Iraq seems powerless to stop Iran’s interference and the US is doing nothing to stop it. Has the battle been lost?
Iraq is finally on its way to getting a new government more than half a year after elections were held. Those elections resulted in a political earthquake when Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr’s list the Sairoon bloc beat its opponents.
At the beginning of October Adel Abdul Mahdi, a 76-year-old economist and veteran Shiite politician, who lived in exile in France for an extended period, was appointed prime minister by the newly elected President Barham Saleh who is a Kurd.
Mahdi had been a member of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, an exiled opposition party and militia that was formed by Iran in Tehran in 1982 and consisted of Iraqi exiles. He is, however, not considered an Islamist.
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T. Belman. After reading this I wanted to throw up. We should be stressing our differences rather than our alleged common ground. We should be girding our loins for battle rather that sucking up to our sworn enemies.
We are members of the Jewish community from a range of backgrounds, experiences, and political perspectives who are committed to a country and world rooted in justice and dignity for all. It is in the service of this commitment that we condemn the recent attacks on and threats to Linda Sarsour.
These attacks are dangerous, disingenuous and counterproductive, undermining core Jewish values of compassion, humility and human dignity.
T. BELMAN. CONGRESS PASSED A LAW OUTLAWING FGM.. THIS JUDGE SAID THE LAW WAS UNCONSTITUTIONAL AND THAT ONLY STATES COULD PASS SUCH A LAW.
Female genital mutilation is a religious practice carried out in many majority Muslim countries, although the Koran does not specifically command the operation. However it is condoned by Muhammed, and some scholars say ordered, in a Hadith, a separate part of Islamic scripture.
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Israel’s avoidance of an operation in Gaza; Netanyahu’s hints of secret activity in the north; the extension of the IDF chief of staff’s term – Hezbollah is connecting the dots and making its own conclusions: Israel may be planning a strike in Lebanon.
There was a lot of noise over nothing on Israel’s northern front over the weekend; while the media was abuzz over a number of incidents and reports, nothing significant actually changed on the ground.
The commotion began on Thursday when it was revealed that an Iranian aircraft had landed in Beirut. In the past, many such flights involved weapons shipments to Hezbollah, and the Lebanese terrorist organization may well believe that this latest report was an intentional Israeli move.
In the wake of these reports, Hezbollah launched an online campaign titled “defend our skies,” in which it called on the Lebanese government to act against the Israeli air force, which Hezbollah said was operating in Lebanese airspace in violation of United Nations Resolution 1701.
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“The international community must stop participating in such a blatant denial of history. You must not permit these blatant attempts to delegitimize Israel,” Furman said.
The UN General Assembly in New York on Friday approved six anti-Israel resolutions including two that ignored Jewish ties to the Temple Mount.
The primary resolution on Jerusalem, that passed 148-11 with 14 abstentions, also disavowed Israeli sovereignty in Jerusalem.
Both that text and a second more global one on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which passed 156-8, with 12 abstentions, spoke of Judaism’s most holy site – The Temple Mount – solely by its Muslim name of al-Haram al-Sharif.
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Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, has called on the Trump administration to act on two laws that demand automatic defunding of U.N.-affiliated agencies that have allowed the Palestinians to join as a state.
The two laws, passed by Congress in the early 1990s, were meant to deter the U.N. and specialized agencies from accepting the Palestinians as a full member and not to allow groups that aren’t recognized as a state to join.
In a statement to Fox News, Cruz said that “Congress has spoken clearly and repeatedly,” on the issue and that “the Palestinian campaign is a diplomatic offensive against Israel that undermines the prospect for peace, and there must be consequences for U.N. entities that enable and promote that behavior.”
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For 75 minutes on Thursday night, Nov. 29, the IDF blasted Iranian, Hizballah and Syrian targets in its biggest ever surface missile attack on Syria, DEBKAfile’s intelligence and military sources can now reveal. This was not an Israeli air force strike such as those conducted for two years against Iranian targets in Syria. Two kinds of ground-to ground missiles were used in this cross-border offensive: a Long-Range Artillery Weapon system known as LORA which has a range of 400km; and the guided, short range Tamuz. They raked across at least 15 sites, most of them belonging to the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), pro-Iranian militias and Hizballah. They covered an area ranging from the Syrian Hermon slopes in the north, down to the Iranian command center at Izra north of Daraa in the south (See attached map.)
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The most important part of Reagan’s success was the tireless critique he and his people unleashed on the Kremlin. It wasn’t just the well-known broadcasts from Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty; a lot came directly from the president, the secretary of state, and a plethora of senior officials. A lot of this campaign has been forgotten and denied. Reagan critics like to pretend, as is their wont, that the Soviet Empire fell because of its economic failure. As if the Communists hadn’t failed from the very beginning, and as if our practice of calling for the release of political prisoners were not crucial. But those of us who worked with the dissidents knew that Soviet Communism was doomed once the president had gone after its failed system. It would not have occurred to him to say we wanted a change in behavior, not a change in regime. I wish Messrs Trump, Pompeo, Bolton and Mattis would emulate Reagan’s example.
Officials belatedly realize that obscure law passed in October would force U.S. to end all aid to the PA by the end of January 2019, including security assistance supported by Israel • U.S. security envoy urges Congress to find solution before recess.
Associated Press and Israel Hayom Staff
For two years, the Trump administration has unabashedly slashed U.S. aid to the Palestinians. Now, amid signs that it may finally roll out its long-awaited Middle East peace plan, the administration is scrambling to save what little remaining Palestinian assistance it provides.
The striking turnabout is the result of the belated realization that an obscure new law is likely to force the U.S. to terminate all aid to the Palestinian Authority, including security assistance supported by Israel, by the end of January. Eliminating such aid, which totaled $61 million this year, while other assistance was also being cut, would deal a blow to Palestinian-Israeli security cooperation, which both sides value. The law would also require the Jerusalem offices of the U.S. Agency for International Development to close.
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Funds to Palestinian security agencies that cooperate with Israel are also in jeopardy.
BY ROBBIE GRAMER, COLUM LYNCH, FOREIGN POLICY
A boy holding a Palestinian flag looks at clashes with Israeli security forces near the border between Gaza and and Israel on May 14. (Mahmud Hams/AFP/Getty Images)
The U.S. Agency for International Development could shutter all of its operations in the West Bank and Gaza by early 2019, a move that aid workers and former officials warn could have devastating humanitarian consequences and risk derailing the Trump administration’s long-awaited peace plan.
The drawdown, described to Foreign Policy by four U.S. officials and congressional sources, follows the Trump administration’s broad crackdown on support and assistance to Palestinians as top officials led by White House senior advisor Jared Kushner try to pressure the Palestinian Authority to strike a peace accord with Israel.
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T. Belman. Apparantly Trump has now got his Syria/Iran act together. He is building up the Kurdish forces in Eastern Syria, with the involvement of Saudi Arabia. It will be tasked with stopping Iran from establishing a land corridor to the Mediterranean Sea. In addition the US will protect the Kurds from another Turkish attack. Meanwhile Israel started bombing runs again.
With the collapse of peace talks, Syrian civil war escalating into regional – and possibly global – conflict.
Tensions in Syria are once again on the rise after Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan repeated his demand that the United States ends its support for the Kurdish militia group YPG, which is the dominant force in the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), and since the so-called Astana peace talks between Iran, Syria, Turkey and Russia collapsed.
A series of recent events in the war-torn country, furthermore, indicate that the civil war in Syria is turning into a regional conflict with the potential to become a world war.
After claiming that the Islamic State terror organization has no presence left in Syria, Erdogan told members of his ruling AKP party that the U.S. has an opportunity to strengthen ties with his regime by dropping American support for the Syrian Kurds.
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Donald Trump is a mirror that drives men mad.
There are plenty of legitimate reasons to dislike Trump the man. He can be rude and unkind — as when he publicly tormented his loyal supporter Jeff Sessions. He can play fast and loose with the truth — as when he declared he made no money in Saudi Arabia after bragging about all the money he made in Saudi Arabia. And he’s often lived badly, so that his former escapades sometimes rise up to stain the presidency — as with Stormy Daniels.
But for all that, he is doing an excellent job as President of the United States. Lower taxes and wiser regulations are spurring the economy. ISIS is scattered. Excellent judges are being appointed. Sanity is being restored to our Middle East policy. And — as opposed to the dark days of the Obama administration — the White House seems to be acting within the Constitution and the law.
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