How the totalitarian virus came to the U.S.A.

“Israel should not be afraid of a confederation of Iraq and Syria as a counterweight to a more assertive Turkey and Iran.”

BY SETH J. FRANTZMAN, JPOST

The Middle East is at a crossroads and it is worth considering new approaches in the region. A confederation, involving Iraq, Syria, or even Jordan and Israel might harness the unique qualities of each, while giving space for all the different groups and their agendas to be heard. These were some of the ideas that emerged from a unique event last week at The Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, where a group of Israeli, Arab and Kurdish speakers, some speaking via Skype from abroad, discussed the current state of the Middle East and its future.
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T. Belman. The author does a great job of answering this question.  It is a must read.

By Daniel John Sobieski, AMERICAN THINKER

If the Kavanaugh hearings showed Chief Justice Roberts anything, it should have been that the notion that the Supreme Court is in a pristine bubble immune from political considerations and thoughts is false and has been at least since the days that the character assassins of Robert Bork made his name a verb in the dictionary his failed nomination left on the ash heap of history:

The year was 1987. It was fall. It was November 11. It had been a tough year for President Ronald Reagan. Liberals were going bonkers with Iran-Contra as a hopeful tool to destroy a great president on the verge of winning the Cold War. The media was dubbing Iran-Contra the worst mistake of Reagan’s presidency. It was not. What happened on November 11, 1987 would, in due course, constitute the worst mistake of the Reagan presidency: the nomination of Anthony Kennedy for the U.S. Supreme Court.

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Civil rights loses, corruption wins.

Daniel Greenfield, FPM

T. Belman. Talk of a Plan is soley to distract your attention. There is no plan. Once Mudar Zahran will replace King Abdullah as the leader of Jordan, Jordan will be the Palestinian state east of the Jordan R and Israel, the Jewish state, west of the river. No peace process will be necessary. In anticipation Trump has greatly undermined the PS and UNRWA. Jordan will take over their functions.

The PA will call for violence but Israel is ready for it. That’s why Israel is already threatening to invade Ramallah.

By Jochanan Visser, INN

White House delays release of much-anticipated ‘Deal of the Century’ Mideast peace plan as PA, Hamas again show unwillingness to compromise.

President Donald Trump has reportedly shelved his ‘deal of the century’ peace plan, at least for now, Palestinian Authority media outlets reported on Thursday.

The decision was taken after Ron Dermer, the Israeli ambassador to the United States, reportedly recommended that the White House postpone the publication of the initiative because of the political and security crisis in Israel, according to the Palestinian Authority paper Al-Quds.

An unnamed Israeli diplomatic source said Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu “prefers no ?announcement of the plan whatsoever, especially now, amid the ?recent developments in the region and the political ?crisis in Israel.”
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BREITBART

German Chancellor Angela Merkel has said that European Union (EU) member states must be prepared to transfer powers over to Brussels at a debate on the ‘tensions’ between globalisation and national sovereignty.

“Nation states must today be prepared to give up their sovereignty,” Merkel said, speaking at an event organised by the Konrad Adenauer Foundation in Berlin on Wednesday.

“In an orderly fashion of course,” Merkel said, explaining that — while Germany had given up some of its sovereignty in order to join the EU, national parliaments were in charge of deciding whether to sign up to international treaties.
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Judges criticize authorities for transferring land to settlers organization without bothering to notify Palestinian residents

By Evelyn Gordon

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is being assailed by his own base for his restraint last week following Hamas’s massive bombardment of southern Israel. But in considering what Israel’s policy should be, it’s important to realize that for now, the option of permanently ending Hamas terror doesn’t exist—not because it’s beyond Israel’s capability, but because it lacks sufficient public support.

If someone came up with an idea for destroying Hamas that could be executed quickly and with minimal casualties, Israelis obviously would support that, but nobody has. Thus the only plan with proven capability to suppress terror over the long term remains the one Israel executed in the West Bank in 2002 in response to the second intifada: The army goes in, and it never leaves. That’s how Israel defeated the second intifada, and how it has kept West Bank terror within tolerable limits ever since.
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By David Israel, JEWISH PRESS

On Thursday, Hamas revealed alleged information about the IDF’s operation deep inside the Gaza Strip on Sunday, Nov. 11, in which Lieutenant Colonel M. was killed, and following which some 500 rockets and mortars were fired from Gaza at Israeli civilian settlements near the border.

According to Israeli media outlets, Hamas is in the process of tracing the extent of the ” Mista’arvim” unit’s inside Gaza, not overnight but for a considerable period of time during which they allegedly rented lodgings in Gaza and visited strategic locations, including the homes of top Hamas leaders.
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By MARTIN SHERMAN

Jewish victory over the adversarial Arab collective must be Israel’s overriding moral & operational concern. Facilitating its achievement should be the overriding challenge for Israel’s legal establishment

We impose countless restrictions on our soldiers—legal as well as mental. Our fighters are more afraid of the Military Advocate General than [Hamas leader] Yahya Sinwar. Instead of defeating the enemy, we are containing it…—Education Minister Naftali Bennett, Press Conference, Nov. 19, 2018—relating to wide spread dissatisfaction with inadequate IDF response to the months of Hamas-instigated violence.

There is always a cost to defeat an evil. It never comes free, unfortunately. But the cost of failure to defeat a great evil is far higher —then-NATO spokesman Jamie Shea, cited in “Civilian deaths ‘necessary price’” , BBC, May 31, 1999—in response to allegations of extensive civilian casualities as the result of NATO bombing in the 1998-9 Balkan War.
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MEMRI TV Clip No. 6848

During a debate on Al-Hurra TV (U.S.) that aired on November 9, 2018, Saudi journalist Muhammad Al-Osaimi said that Iran is the “obvious and real enemy” of the Arab states. He criticized the Arab countries for not recognizing Israel’s existence even though the entire world – the Palestinians included – does. He said the any Middle Eastern alliance against Iran or other agendas that threaten peace and stability in the region must include Israel and that the Arab states should find common ground with Israel in order to “enable a just peace, followed by all-out normalization.”  Another Saudi journalist, Dahham Al-Enazy, said that the Arabs need partners with serious intentions in order to establish a comprehensive peace in the region, and that they should see Israel as a friend against the Iranian enemy and against “Ottoman colonialist aspirations.” Omani researched Zakariya Al-Muharrami added that the Jews are among the original inhabitants of the region and that the Palestinian issue is a question of justice rather than a question of religion.
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T. Belman. Why should the Jews of eastern Europe feel closer to Israel and shun intermarriage moreso than American Jews do?

Survey finds 96% of Jews in Eastern Europe feel safe, compared to 76% of Jews in Western Europe • Intermarriage rate drops from 64% in 2008 to 40% in 2018 • Alienation from Jewish community life, demographic decline seen as greatest threats, data shows.

By Dan Lavie, ISRAEL HAYOM

A new poll finds 68% of European Jews fully support Israel, regardless of its government’s actions 

Support for Israel among Jewish communities in Europe has increased dramatically, according to a 2018 survey of community leaders and Jewish professionals recently published by the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee.

Of the 893 respondents from 28 European countries and Turkey, 68% said they fully support Israel, regardless of its government’s actions. In comparison, 55% said they fully supported Israel in a poll taken in 2015, and 61% and 56% said they did in the first two such polls taken in 2008, 2011, respectively.
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T. Belman. I have been advocating this grand bargain for a few years now. See,  Contemplating a US-Russia Alliance.

Mark Langfan the same, When Putin drops hints, the West should listen

By Brandon J. Weichert, AMERICAN THINKER

[…]

What few acknowledge is that the North Koreans came to the negotiating table because of the increasing pressure that the Trump administration placed on China.  Trump used tripolar diplomacy (among the United States, China, and North Korea) to bring North Korea to heel.  Just as China is North Korea’s most important partner, Russia is Iran’s most important ally.  Thus, Trump must replay his strategic gambit of using tripolar diplomacy to prevent a seemingly implacable rogue state – this time Iran – from threatening the world.
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Iran (newspaper) (pdf)
November 17, 2018
Daniel Pipes is interviewed.

According to Gallant, Hamas is at a “very dramatic junction,” in which it has to recalculate whether it wants to fight Israel or keep the calm of the past week.

By Lahav Harkov, JPOST

Israel is ready for a large-scale operation in Gaza if necessary, Housing and Construction Minister Yoav Gallant, a retired IDF major-general, said at The Jerusalem Post Diplomatic Conference in Jerusalem on Wednesday.

“Let me say it to be clear: [Hamas leader in Gaza] Yihya Sinwar’s time is limited. He won’t finish his life in an old-age home,” Gallant said.

According to the minister, Hamas is at a “very dramatic junction,” in which it has to recalculate whether it wants to fight Israel or keep the calm of the past week.
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Katz espoused a policy that mirrored Liberman’s, saying what was needed was a harsh military strike.

BY Tovah Lazaroff, JPOST

Israel can only conduct a policy of normalized ties with the Arab world from a position of strength, Transportation and Intelligence Minister Israel Katz said on Wednesday.

He was one of a number of high-level ministers who spoke at The Jerusalem Post’s annual diplomatic conference in Jerusalem.

“The pragmatic Arab states in the region recognize Israel’s capabilities” in the military and civilian spheres, said Katz.
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