The last remnant of Oslo crumbles

By Seth Mandel. COMMENTARY

Yasser Arafat and Bill Clinton stood in the Map Room of the White House on September 13, 1993, making awkward conversation. Two days earlier, Clinton had Arafat’s Palestine Liberation Organization removed from the State Department’s list of terrorist groups. The Map Room meeting came after the Palestinian leader’s famous handshake outside the White House with Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, which inaugurated the “Oslo era.” The accords created the Palestinian Authority to serve as a sort of caretaker government tasked with making peace with Israel and building the institutions of a state, led by Arafat. Just like that, one of the most consequential terrorists of his generation became the equivalent of a head of state—before the state even existed.
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ZOA to ADL: Stop Attacks on Pro-Israel Groups/Leaders Who Combat Radical Islamists/Anti-Semites – Don’t Promote Groups Hostile to Israel

Zionist Organization of America President Morton A. Klein and ZOA Director of Special Projects Liz Berney, Esq. released the following statement:

Incredibly, in the space of a little over two weeks, the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), headed by Jonathan Greenblatt, wrongly condemned and/or defamed three wonderful pro-Israel organizations and three fabulous pro-Israel individuals and political leaders who expose and/or combat radical Islamists and anti-Semites.  On April 24, ADL National falsely accused the Canary Mission of “antithetical and destructive” “Islamophobic & racist rhetoric,” and thanked University of Michigan students for writing a letter attacking Canary Mission.
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Our troops in Syria are hostages to Obama’s deal with Iran, which mandates a state of perpetual war between America and the region’s Sunni majority. Donald Trump wants to withdraw from both.

By Lee Smith, TABLET

“Mission Accomplished,” Donald Trump tweeted triumphantly after the recent limited strikes on Bashar al-Assad’s chemical weapons facilities. Critics were quick to portray the President’s boast as hot air, and pontificate about the need for a comprehensive White House strategy to deal with Syria and other long-term regional issues.

But Trump does have a strategy, which the strikes and the President’s tweets have made plain—a U.S. troop withdrawal from Syria and a U.S. withdrawal from the Iran deal. Washington has plenty of allies to work with and through in the Middle East, especially Israel and Saudi Arabia. Both share an American interest in rolling back Iran. Further, the White House can work against Iran and its partners in Syria through proxy forces on the ground.
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The Land of Israel belongs to us and we must not surrender it.

By Yehudit Katsover, Nadia Matar, JPOST

As part of our efforts to promote the vision of Israeli sovereignty over Judea and Samaria, we appear before groups throughout the land. Military preparatory schools, high schools, religious and secular schools, from the Left and the Right, invite us for discussions, panels and lectures.

Sometimes these meetings are held as part of what is called “Judea-Samaria Week,” when youths come to Judea and Samaria to meet with spokesmen from across the political spectrum.
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By Mike Gonzalez, NEW YORK POST

The failure of the Trump administration thus far to staff up the executive branch is hurting the conservative policy agenda and thwarting the will of the voters.

And six Republican senators who asked Secretary of State Rex Tillerson to probe whether foreign aid is promoting a progressive agenda around the world just got an abject lesson in how.

They got their answer not from Tillerson or anyone around him, but from a mid-level career official at the Bureau of Legislative Affairs, Executive Secretary Joseph E. Macmanus. He pretty much told the senators to take a hike.

The six — Mike Lee (R-Utah), Bill Cassidy (R-La.), Ted Cruz (R-Texas), Jim Inhoffe (R-Okla.), David Purdue (R-Ga.) and Thom Tillis (R-NC) — had written Tillerson in mid-March requesting an investigation into whether State and the US Agency for International Development were using taxpayer money to support a raft of progressive causes with no clear national-security interest.
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START AT 4:00 MINUTES
April 11/18

Macron spoke of an “appointment with history” as he embraced the US President and harkened back to historic friendship.

BY Seth Frantzman, JPOST

US President Donald Trump meets French President Emmanuel Macron in New York, US, September 18, 2017 .(photo credit: REUTERS/KEVIN LAMARQUE)

During meetings in Washington, French President Emmanuel Macron and his US counterpart, Donald Trump, appeared to frolic in pleasantries.

Macron smiled, shook hands and patted Trump on the back. They planted an oak tree together at the White House. The tree was from Belleau Wood, where the US Marines had fought alongside French Poilus, infantry soldiers, to repel the German army in June 1918. Today Franco-American relations appear at one of their highest points since the time of Jefferson and Lafayette and France joined the US and UK for air strikes on Syria and has sought to stand alongside US policy in eastern Syria.
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T. Belman. Why would the King do this?  There may be more here than meets the eye.

The officials who will lose their citizenship included Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, Chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat and Palestinian Authority negotiator Ahmed Qurei.

BY Juliane Helmhold, JPOST

The Kingdom of Jordan began the process of revoking the Jordanian citizenship of about 30 Palestinian Authority and Fatah officials and their families, London-based Arabic language newspaper Raialyoum reported Wednesday.

The officials who are slated to lose their citizenship include Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, Chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat and Palestinian Authority negotiator Ahmed Qurei (“Abu Ala”).

The also stated that there would be major changes in the visa arrangements for entry into Jordan of the senior officials, granting them only temporary visitor’s rights.
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Letter calls for suspension of aid to the Palestinians

By Adam Kredo, NEW BEACON

Members of Congress hope to compel the State Department to disclose the amount of U.S. aid money the Palestinian Authority has given to convicted terrorists and their families, according to a congressional communication viewed by the Free Beacon that calls for a complete freeze in U.S. aid to the Palestinian government.

Reps. David McKinley (R., W.V.) and John Ratcliffe (R., Texas) are circulating a letter to Republican offices urging them to join an effort to compel the State Department to detail the amount of taxpayer money that has been used by the Palestinian government to pay terrorists under a longstanding policy known as “pay to slay.”

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T. Belman. I have been touting the possibility of a deal with Russia for over one year. Obviously it depends onf what deal is offered.. I suggested giving Russia Alawite Syria and Crimea and dropping the sanctions in exchange for Russia being our ally in pushing back Iran and stabelizing all of Syria.

By: Yigal Carmon, MEMRI

In recent days, German media[1] have reported that U.S. and European diplomats are ready to offer Russian President Vladimir Putin a deal on Syria, indirectly addressing Iran, which is the hardest nut to crack in the Syria crisis, even more so than President Bashar Al-Assad. MEMRI research on Russian media over the past two and a half years suggests that Russia might be interested.

According to details provided by the German media, the West is dangling three prizes before Putin:

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DEBKA
In a speech before the joint houses of the US Congress, French President Emmanuel Macron declared that Iran must never possess a nuclear weapon – not in 5 years, not in 10 years – never! He went on to say that even if the US abandoned the 2015 nuclear pact with Iran, France would not – until “something more substantial replaced it.” On this he and President Trump were working, he said. Macron added that the nuclear issue must not lead to another Middle East war and called for respect for the sovereignty of all its nations, including Iran. He also stressed that the US and France must keep their troops in Syrian to continue fighting terrorists. The speech, in which he enlarged at length on joint US-French values and shared history, was frequently punctuated by standing ovations – although only one side of the chamber cheered when the French president condemned fake news as a threat to democracy. President Macron was the first world leader to pay a state visit to the US and address Congress in the Trump presidency.

Migrants will not be sent out of Israel to third country, will be able to renew residency permits every 60 days • PM Netanyahu says he will try to have detention facilities reopened • Pro-deportation group: Government has long since lost its credibility.

By Brian of London, ISRAELLY COOL

Ha’aretz’s Amira Hass has done her usual job of taking a press release from Hamas and turning it into anti-Israel agitprop. And of course, because Ha’aretz is Israel’s premier far-left newspaper, with a vanishingly small circulation but the reputation as Israel’s New York Times, every anti-Israel thing they print goes world wide via syndication and quotation.

Amira Hass’s latest is all about the horrific injuries and deaths amongst the obviously innocent, civilian, peaceful protesters at the March of Return. There’s even a funky Infographic and we all know that all facts presented in an Infographic must be true.
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http://freebeacon.com/issues/trump-admin-grant-iran-missiles-capable-destroying-israel/

“Obama’s Iran nuclear deal was fatally flawed from the beginning,” Cruz told the Free Beacon.”The deal required reckless international concessions and incentivized the international community to turn a blind eye to Iranian bad behavior. These proposed European ‘fixes’ don’t address the missiles Iran would actually build, the inspection problems that would actually arise, or the eventual sunsets as they would actually occur. They would only constrain the Iranians from doing things they never would have done. President Trump should reject these empty promises and withdraw America from this disastrous deal.”

By Chemi Shalev, HAARETZ

President Donald Trump and French President Emmanuel Macron embrace at the conclusion of a news conference in the East Room of the White House in Washington, Tuesday, April 24, 2018.\ JIM BOURG/ REUTERSPresident Donald Trump savaged the “insane” and “ridiculous” Iran nuclear deal on Tuesday, declaring it “a disaster.” With French President Emmanuel Macron at his side, Trump threatened Iran, in blunt language that should sound familiar to its leaders, that Tehran would pay prices “like never before” if it dared threaten the United States or relaunch it’s nuclear program. He certainly sounded, at times, as if a U.S. withdrawal on May 12 from the so-called Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action was already a done deal.
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Jews have been among the first to “virtue signal” their compassion for refugees from the Syrian civil war.

By Lyn Julius, JNS

April 24, 2018 / Sephardi Perspective) German Chancellor Angela Merkel has finally woken up and smelled the coffee.

Speaking after a 19-year-old Syrian refugee lunged with a belt at an Israeli wearing a kipah, Merkel denounced a “different type of anti-Semitism” that has taken root in her country.

“We have refugees now, for example, or people of Arab origin, who bring a different type of anti-Semitism into the country,” Merkel said in an interview with Israel’s Channel 10.

Jews have been  among the first to “virtue signal” their compassion for refugees from the Syrian civil war.
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