CENTER FOR SECURITY POLICY

CAROLINE GLICK, Center for Security Policy’s Adjunct Senior Fellow for Middle Eastern Affairs, Senior Contributing Editor at The Jerusalem Post, Contributor at Breitbart News:

• Implications of the aftermath of the Khashoggi Affair
• Origins of Saudi’s fight against Sunni Jihad

(PART TWO):

• The strategic reason why the US should not take action against the Saudis
• Trump’s Middle East policy
• Why the US must designate the Muslim Brotherhood a terrorist organization

(PART THREE):

• President Trump’s maximum pressure campaign against Iran
• How Turkey and Iran are operating with each other to defeat a common enemy

(PART FOUR):

• The weaknesses of King Abdullah’s regime
• Why anti-Zionism is a form of antisemitism

This is the third year in a row that such attacks have increased, FBI’s annual Hate Crime Statistics report shows • 7,175 hate crimes reported in 2017, up from 6,121 in 2016 • Attorney general: Hate crimes are “despicable violations” of American values.

Reuters and Israel Hayom Staff

The data was compiled from reports voluntarily submitted by 16,149 law enforcement agencies 

Antisemitic crimes surged 44% from 2014 to 2016, says Campaign Against Anti-Semitism NGO . The trend has worsened in first half of 2017 . “Hate crime of any type is not acceptable. Everyone in this country has the right to be safe,” says home secretary.

By Erez Frisch, News Agencies and Israel Hayom Staff

Protesters march against antisemitism in London [Illustrative] 

Antisemitic crime in the United Kingdom has escalated for the third year running to reach the worst level on record in 2016, a new report by the Campaign Against Anti-Semitism warned Sunday.

Oman’s Foreign Minister: I am going to say something that I say for the first time. Israel is a state that is present in this region….but…Israel is not being treated by the other countries as it is treating the other countries.

By David Singer, INN

Oman has broken ranks with the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) by endorsing President Trump’s efforts to resolve the Arab-Jewish conflict.

The PLO has made it crystal-clear on many occasions that it wanted nothing to do with Trump’s upcoming proposals. The PLO Central Council also threatened on 30 October to suspend its recognition of the State of Israel and halt security coordination with Israel.
Read more…

T. Belman. Bennett is demanding the Defense portfolio. Bibi is refusing.

By resigning now, Lieberman is sticking the failure of Gaza on Netanyahu and signaling Israel’s election campaign has begun

By Anshel Pfeffer, HAARETZ

Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman’s announcement Wednesday that he is resigning and his Yisrael Beiteinu party is leaving Israel’s ruling coalition, in the wake of the cease-fire agreements with Hamas, will almost certainly spell elections in early 2019 – at least six months earlier than their scheduled date.

It will force Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to defend his unpopular decisions on Gaza during the election campaign, which is exactly what the prime minister had hoped to avoid. In his surprise press conference in the Knesset, Lieberman avoided blaming the prime minister directly as part of his long list of disagreements with the government’s defense policies, but it was clear who Lieberman was gunning for. Nonetheless, his statements were a blanket accusation against all the other cabinet minsters – his political rivals in the looming election.

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by Tabitha Korol

Rebecca Ratcliffe’s article in the Guardian, (Women in Paradise face violence and political exclusion, campaigner tells UN, Oct. 26), concerned Randa Siniora, director of the Women’s Centre for Legal Aid and Counseling, and her recent address to the UN Security Council.  Siniora presented multi-faceted accusations against Israel, with scant background or context.  She referred to Israel as an occupying power despite the UN’s declaration of Israel’s sovereignty as a state in 1948 over territory that had been Jewish-occupied for 3,000+ years, and never ruled or developed by Muslims.

The brief “occupation” of Gaza by Israel, won in a defensive battle against five attacking Islamic armies, was voluntarily relinquished in 2005; Gaza has since been ruled by the Palestinian Authority and Hamas, a terrorist organization.  Siniora’s address represents Islam’s perpetual jihad.  To Islam, the entire world falls into two kinds of “houses” – The House of Peace, Dar al-Islam, the land that Islam as already conquered, and the House of War or Chaos, Dar al-Harb, literally the rest of the world that is targeted for conquest for Allah (8:40).  There are no other designations.
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A cease-fire in Gaza fits in perfectly with Netanyahu’s strategy: Bullying the Palestinians until they give up, then pushing them off the political agenda

By Anshel Pfeffer , HAARETZ

An Israeli soldier stands next to an armored personnel carriers in a field in southern Israel, near the border with Gaza, November 13, 2018.\ AMIR COHEN/ REUTERS

The real target of the Israeli operation in Gaza on Sunday night is unlikely to be revealed for decades to come. Hindsight speculation on whether or not it was wise to launch the operation at the very moment that a long-term cease-fire in Gaza seemed to be finally materializing is largely pointless.

Here’s what we can say almost for certain: When this operation was brought to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s desk at one of the routine meetings with the heads of the security establishment in which cross-border activity is authorized by the prime minister, Netanyahu gave the green light based on the assumption that like a thousand previous operations, this one would be over by morning and no one in Israel and Gaza beyond a small circle of secret partners would be any wiser.
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Palestinian terror groups in the Strip say they will abide by Egyptian-brokered ceasefire if IDF does too

By JUDAH ARI GROSS, TOI Today, 6:36 pm

A ball of fire above the building housing the Hamas-run television station al-Aqsa TV in the Gaza Strip during an Israeli air strike, November 12, 2018. (MAHMUD HAMS/AFP)

Palestinian terrorist groups in the Gaza Strip announced that Egypt brokered a ceasefire agreement between them and Israel on Tuesday evening, after over 460 rockets and mortar shells were fired at southern Israel over the course of 25 hours.

A senior Israeli diplomatic official appeared to confirm the reported armistice. First reports said the decision to accept a ceasefire agreement with Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and other terror groups in Gaza was taken by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at Tuesday’s seven-hour meeting of the security cabinet without being put to a vote. Four ministers quickly said they opposed it.
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By Steven A. Cook
November 13, 2018—“While Turkey remains formally a NATO ally, it is not a partner of the United States,” writes Steven A. Cook in the Council Special Report, Neither Friend nor Foe: The Future of U.S.-Turkey Relations. “Unlike in previous eras, Washington and Ankara no longer share overarching threats or interests that bind them together,” Cook notes.

“[President Recep Tayyip] Erdogan’s consolidation of power and corresponding suppression of journalists, academics, civil society organizations, and minorities” contradicts the underlying principles of American society and Turkey’s own North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) membership, Cook writes. Diverging policies and perspectives—such as Turkey’s incursion into northern Syria, its intention to purchase an advanced air defense system from Russia, and the arrest of more than a dozen Americans and three Turks employed by the U.S. embassy—have further widened the chasm between the United States and Turkey.
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BY CILLIAN ZEAL, CONSERVATIVE TRIBUNE
NOVEMBER 13, 2018

Video: Military’s ‘Active Denial System’ Can Hit Illegals at 700 Yards, Instantly Turn Them Back

Could the Active Denial System be the answer for possible border problems? Conservative commentator Glenn Beck thinks so.

You may not have heard of the ADS, which has been a topic of debate for over a decade now. The non-lethal deterrent system been labeled by both military personnel and press alike as a “pain ray” — which, I suppose, is a catchier way to refer to it than ADS.

The U.K. Telegraph, describing the system back in 2010, said that military officials described it as a “non-lethal, directed-energy, counter-personnel weapon.”
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Adviser says Tehran is under ‘significant pressure,’ declares Trump administration will ‘significantly increase the enforcement of sanctions’

By AFP

SINGAPORE, Singapore — US National Security Adviser John Bolton vowed Tuesday to “squeeze” Iran “until the pips squeak,” a week after a tough new round of sanctions came into force.

US President Donald Trump has dramatically increased pressure on Tehran, withdrawing from an international agreement aimed at ending its nuclear program and introducing several rounds of unilateral US sanctions.

The latest tranche of measures have been touted as the toughest yet, and aim to significantly reduce Iran’s vital oil exports and cut off its banks from international finance.
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By Whitt Flora, CFP

T. Belman. Hamas has 20,000 rockets. What does that say about the effectiveness of our bloickade. Israel is giving warnings and striking empty buildings. Gazans voted for Hamas.  There is no reason for Israel to avoid casualties. This is war. Apparently we are deterred from attacking them in a serious way but they are not deterred from attacking us.

What is clear is that Israel doesn’t want a full scale war at this time and that Iran who ordered the violence does.

DEBKA

Nov 13, 2018 @ 1:05

Israel’s deterrent strength is on the line after the Palestinian Hamas fired more than 400 rockets in 5 and-a-half hours on Monday, Nov. 12. After their massive barrage, Hamas and its terrorist allies threatened to expand their targets beyond the South if the Israel air force on missions in Gaza Monday night goes beyond its routine tit-for-tat reprisals against empty buildings in the Gaza Strip.
Read more…

By Brian Freeman, NEWSMAX

DEBKA 17:08

GO HERE FOR LIVE UPDATES.

After taking several barrages of 100 rockets on Monday, Nov. 12, Israelis living less than 40km from the Gaza border were told to stay in fortified spaces until further notice as Hamas threatened to expand its rocket targets if Israeli air strikes hit large areas in the Gaza Strip in retaliation.

Rocket alerts were accordingly heard Monday evening in more distant parts of southern Israel, including the Dead, Sea region.  Residents of towns up to 40km from Gaza, including Beersheba, Lachish and Kiryat Gath, were advised to stay within easy access to shelters.

Read more…

By Abraham Diskin, ISRAEL HAYOM

Exit polls are one of the most important tools for identifying supporters of a specific candidate or party in U.S. elections. Various media outlets station people outside sample voting stations to poll voters on how they voted immediately after they exit the station. The results of these polls are usually based on huge samples taken from across the country and they are fascinating.

Midterm exit polls showed that around half of voters said they had decided who to vote for “in the last month” and even “in recent days.” In this respect, there was no difference between supporters of Democratic and Republican candidates for the House of Representatives. The polls indicated the final results long before the election was held. The same was also true in the past. When U.S. President Donald Trump won the 2016 presidential elections, many commentators called it a “big upset,” but it turns out early exit polls had been right.
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The plan is based around a simple idea: Establish an Israeli desalination plant, built on Israeli land, funded by Saudi Arabia, the Europeans and others, that provides clean water to Gaza.

BY MIKE EVANS, JPOST  NOVEMBER 10, 2018