T. Belman.  Credit should also go to Dennis Rodman and Chairman Kim Jong Un

Dear Mr. President:

Thank you and congratulations for outstanding negotiations at the Summit held in Singapore on June 12, 2018 with North Korean Chairman Kim Jong Un. What you were able to accomplish in one day with the leader of the DPRK was far more than any American President had done since President John F. Kennedy. Because I was able to provide JFK with the analytic reports that had revealed the clandestine deployment of Soviet nuclear missiles to Pinar del Rio Province at least a year before the Cuban Missile Crisis, they have given me a special advantage for being able to compliment you about your extraordinary merit, which is worthy of far more than a Nobel Peace Prize honor because you, just as did President Kennedy, had prevented a thermonuclear war.

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After US amendment censuring Hamas is rejected on procedural grounds, 120 countries vote in favor of resolution calling for ‘protection’ for Palestinian civilians

By Raphael Ahren, TOI 

Palestinian Ambassador to the United Nations Riyad Mansour (white hair) passes by US Ambassador Nikki Haley (seated) during voting, to condemn Israeli actions in Gaza, in the General Assembly June 13, 2018 in New York. (AFP PHOTO / Don EMMERT)

With a huge majority, the United Nations General Assembly on Wednesday passed a resolution condemning Israel for using “excessive, disproportionate and indiscriminate” force during the recent clashes at the Gaza border and calling for an “international protection mechanism” for Palestinian civilians.

The dramatic, down to the wire session saw the United States attempt to add a paragraph condemning Hamas, which was ultimately rejected on procedural grounds though most member states supported it. The resolution, proposed by Algeria and Turkey, then passed with 120 “yes” votes, 8 “no” votes and 45 abstentions.
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T. Belman. If you read one thing today, this should be it. I will be meeting with the author soon.

By Tapan Kumar Ghosh, Jerusalem herald

Tapan Ghosh (Image credit: Vijeta Uniyal) 

The recent spate of attacks on Israel using burning kites and multitudes of rockets, destroying Jewish neighborhoods, reminds me of the horrors that the people of Israel have to live with every day. Even from faraway India, we can feel the pain.

But this antisemitism is not limited just to Israel alone; rather, it is a manifestation of a narrative shared by Islamists and communists across the globe. The manifestations may be in Israel, but those perpetrating the attacks in Gaza draw both moral and financial support from those adhering to a similar ideology globally.

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By Rick Moran, AMERICAN THINKER

Alan Dershowitz is one of the premier civil liberties attorneys in the country.  He is the author of Trumped Up: How Criminalizing Politics is Dangerous to Democracy and The Case Against BDS: Why Singling Out Israel for Boycott is Anti-Semitic and Anti-Peace.

Dershowitz has been a longtime supporter of the American Civil Liberties Union.  It’s been decades since the ACLU was a truly non-partisan organization dedicated to the maintenance of our constitutional rights.  But, as Dershowitz points out in this op-ed he penned for The Hill, the ACLU has now made it official policy to intervene in partisan politics.
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Ted Belman. Instead we should play hardball like Trump does.

By Steve Kramer

Imagine that Mexico was one of America’s worst enemies. Imagine that Mexico was an undemocratic country that was ruled by terrorists who adhered to a 1-man, 1-vote, 1-time policy and refused to allow new elections. Imagine that Mexico’s rulers educated its youngsters to hate America and everything it stands for, advocated and expedited attempts to kill Americans, and put the needs of Mexicans far below the imperative to destroy America. Then imagine Mexico’s citizens storming US borders by the tens of thousands, while shooting mortars, rockets, flaming kites and explosive balloons into America.

Finally, imagine US military and government officials pondering how to fix Mexico’s “humanitarian crisis,” which is fundamentally caused by 1) political infighting among its rulers, 2) the expenditure of limited capital for armaments and tunnels to destroy America instead of improving living conditions, 3) the necessity to use the residents as pawns to garner the world’s sympathy. Would US citizens think their leaders had lost their minds, or would they agree that the US should support Mexico by feeding and housing its citizens – so that the Mexican government could spend yet more funds to destroy America.
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What follows is a letter written by a Canadian MP, Rob Oliphant  and then a reply by Howard Bochner  another Canadian.

Then comes my response.

On Jun 12, 2018,  <Rob.Oliphant@parl.gc.ca> wrote:

Thank you for your email concerning the recent violence in Gaza. The continued conflict in that area is of constant concern to me as a member of Parliament, as a Canadian citizen and as a humanitarian.

Let me begin by saying that I fully support Israel and its right to safety, security and prosperity. It is a thriving democracy that respects diversity of opinion. Equally, I support the right of Palestinians to a homeland that has full status as an independent state and equally their right to safety, security and prosperity. The conflict which continues is a threat to both those goals.

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By Peter Skurkiss, AMERICAN THINKER

What with President Trump blowing up the recently concluded G-7 summit in Canada, it is likely that the Europeans now know that Trump’s ‘Make America Great Again’ rhetoric is not idle talk. This is a shock for Europe, especially with the G-7 meeting coming soon after America’s imposition of steel and aluminum tariffs and its withdrawal from the Obama-Iran nuclear deal. It is hard for Europeans to believe that America is willing to depart from the script of the last 70 years.

That script was basically that the United States would maintain international order at its own cost and allow its markets to be open to allies without the expectation that their markets would be equally open to American exports.
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PM Netanyahu calls Sebastian Kurz “a true friend of Israel and the Jewish people” • Austrian leader tells Israel Hayom Austria will combat anti-Semitism, foster greater understanding of Israel’s unique security needs when Austria assumes EU presidency.

T. Belman. Coming from an adamant never-Trumper, this is some acknowledgment.  But he couldn’t end the article without a criticism of his own, “The Trump administration deserves all the condemnation in the world for its reckless conduct of American foreign affairs and trade relations,”

I don’t see it as reckless at all, but effective. And what’s wrong with taking America’s allies to task. To my mind,  with the exception of Israel, they are all leeches.

By Noah Rothman, Commentary Magazine June 11, 2018

Those in Barack Obama’s orbit were fond of commandeering the title of his second book, Audacity of Hope, and applying it to just about everything the president or his administration did. Obama delivers a speech extolling the benefits of modernity? “Audacity.” Obama wears a tan suit to a press conference? “Audacity.” Obama defies his party’s extremes while achieving some incremental legislative successes? “Audacity.” The former president’s admirers have appropriated the word’s positive connotations—daring, fearless, spunky, transgressive self-assuredness—but the word has an alternate definition that is equally apt but rarely applied to Obama or his courtiers. That’s a shame, too, because the impertinence the former administration’s leading lights often display sure is audacious.
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T. Belman. Trump ia OK in my book and that goes for his character as well.  Trump is aggressive both in business dealings and in dealings with women. And that aggression works for him.  Obama was effeminant and that got us into a lot of trouble. America needs a man in office, not a panty-waste.

And I should add that that man inside him doesn’t prevent him from having a heart of gold.

By Evelyn Gordon, COMMENTARY

Donald Trump has posed a serious dilemma for religious Christians and Jews supportive of his policies but dismayed by his character. As The New York Times reported last month, this dilemma has fractured evangelical Christianity, with some conservative Christians even abandoning evangelicalism because they view evangelical support for Trump as morally untenable. In contrast, Orthodox Jews, at least in my experience, seem willing to agree to disagree over Trump. And perhaps that’s partly because Jewish tradition grapples with this very dilemma and offers some guidance for how to approach it.
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Details shared by the world leaders raised more questions than they answered.

By Yonah Jeremy Bob, JPOST

No question that the US-North Korea summit was historic. No question that any signs that can be seen to date are positive about where the process will go.

But if there was hope that the summit would clarify crucial details about how completely denuclearization would remove the North’s nuclear infrastructure, about verification and about timing – those details were not clarified.

In typical obscure fashion, US President Donald Trump at a Tuesday news conference said that North Korean denuclearization would “start very soon” and occur “as fast as mechanically and physically” possible, but also said “it does take a long time to pull off complete denuclearization.”
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By: Z. Harel*, MEMRI

Introduction:

The mounting tension between Israel and Iran, which came to a head with Iran’s firing of missiles at Israel from Syrian territory and Israel’s counterattack on Iranian sites in that country, sparked a debate in Saudi Arabia regarding which side Saudis should support. Many Saudi intellectuals declared that, in case of a military confrontation between Iran and Israel, they would certainly support Israel, for Iran is the one threatening Saudi Arabia.

Iran’s military involvement in the region – its presence in Yemen and its support of the Houthi rebels there, who are fighting Saudi Arabia and firing rockets at its cities, as well as its military presence in Syria and Iraq and its involvement in Lebanon – are perceived by Saudis as an existential threat to their country. Israel, on the other hand, is not perceived as a threat to Saudi Arabia, but as a potential ally in the struggle against Iran.
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By Dr. Spyridon N. Litsas, BESA Center Perspectives Paper No. 862, June 11, 2018

Islamist language now permeates a once proudly secular Palestinian national identity, and Palestinian governance is decidedly illiberal. So why don’t their Western leftist allies speak out?

Yigal Walt  and Tamer Nashef ,  HAARETZ, Jun 11, 2018 

Demonstrators protest outside the Israeli Embassy in west London during the 2014 Gaza – Israel war. July 26, 2014 REUTERS

• Why Western ‘liberals’ so easily buy into Hamas’ anti-Semitic blood libel

• The Arab world needs to move on from the liberation of Palestine

The people who organize and participate in current riots on the Gaza fences, are UNRWA employees.

By David Bedein (David Michael Cohen)

How to defeat Hamas? Deprive Hamas members of their prime source of income, which is UNRWA, the largest employer of Hamas in Gaza.

The people who organize and participate in current riots on the Gaza fences, are UNRWA employees – 20,000 proud members of Hamas who control the UNRWA workers association and the UNRWA teachers association since 1999, all of whom incite for a mass invasion of Israel under the slogan of the “right of return by force of arms”

The “return” they refer to is to villages that Arabs left  three generations ago, most expecting to return after the Arab armies destroyed the fledgling Jewish state, between 1948 and 1953, in the wake of the Israel War of Independence – in which the Arabs attacked Israel.
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An ambitious plan to improve the situation in the Gaza Strip by building an artificial island off its coast was not discussed.

BY HERB KEINON, TOVAH LAZAROFF, JPOST,  JUNE 11, 2018

The sun sets over the Gaza Strip, as seen from the Israeli side of the border May 15, 2018. (photo credit: REUTERS/AMIR COHEN)

The much touted security cabinet meeting on Gaza, the first such discussion in months, ended without any operative decisions on how best to address the growing humanitarian crisis in the Gaza Strip.

The ministers discussed various plans, such as Energy Minister Yuval Steinitz’s idea of building a port in Cyprus, and Construction and Housing Minister Yoav Galant proposed industrial zone.

Earlier in the day Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman told Army Radio that the key to resolving the Gaza crisis “lies not in the cabinet but in the Mukata in Ramallah” and with the United Nations.
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