By Jonathan S Tobin, NY POST

When President Trump withdrew the United States from the Iran nuclear deal back in May, the foreign-policy establishment was unanimous in its opposition.

Their dismay was rooted in loyalty to Barack Obama’s legacy and personal contempt for Trump. But there was at least one point the critics made that seemed irrefutable, in warning against the re-imposition of US sanctions on Iran’s oil exports.

Trump’s unilateral move would certainly fail because of the interest of America’s European allies as well as the Russians and Chinese in continuing to do business with Iran. But if by some chance it worked, the experts were sure that would result in a severe hike in oil prices that American consumers would feel at the gas pump.
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By Ted Belman

TOI reports,

Russia’s embassy in Tel Aviv on Thursday excoriated the US for closing the PLO mission in Washington and for cutting funding for Palestinian refugees and hospitals in East Jerusalem, amid tensions between Moscow and Jerusalem over the Syrian downing of a Russian spy plane following an Israeli missile strike on a Syrian weapons facility.

“[The] closure of PLO office in Washington, US decisions on Jerusalem testify to attempts to undermine the well-known international basis for the Israeli-Palestinian settlement,” the mission wrote in a statement on its Twitter account. “We don’t understand recent funding cessation to UNRWA, refusal to help hospitals in Eastern Jerusalem.”

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“Shooting began by several gunmen from behind the stand during the parade. There are several killed and injured,” a correspondent told state television.

BY REUTERS, JERUSALEM POST STAFF

Eleven people, including eight or nine military personnel, were reported killed after gunmen opened fire during a military parade in the southwestern Iranian city of Ahvaz on Saturday, Iranian media reported.

“Shooting began by several gunmen from behind the stand during the parade. There are several killed and injured,” a correspondent told state television.

More than 30 were injured in the attack, local officials told ISNA. Of the four attackers, two were killed by security forces and two were arrested, the officials said.
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The course the West followed has been a disaster.

By Noah Rothman, COMMENTARY

Syrian Civil Defense White Helmets via AP

The West has squandered the last, best opportunity to rid the world of the criminal regime in Syria.

Damascus was designated a state sponsor of terrorism in 1979, and it has lived up to that title every year since. Syria’s descent into civil war presented several opportunities to dispense with the despot in Damascus and avert a crisis in the process, but they were all ignored. As I wrote for National Review, Syria is a case study in the perils of ideological non-interventionism. The results of the West’s over-reliance on covert action, outsourcing, and diplomacy in Syria is arguably the worst-case scenario.
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By Yoram Ettinger, ISRAEL HAYOM

by Gregg Roman, MEFORUM – September 18, 2018
2018 Dallas Israel Symposium Keynote Speech 

Executive Summary
The 3rd Annual Israel Symposium was held on Sunday, August 12, 2018 at Temple Shalom in Dallas, Texas. Middle East Forum director, Gregg Roman gave the keynote address.

Ayelet Shaked claims Israel has never passed a racist law, says any Knesset that can pass racist laws is one that would not obey a High Court’s decisions

By Jonathan Lis, HAARETZ

Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked and Knesset Speaker Yuli Edelstein in the Knesset plenum, Jerusalem, Israel, September 17, 2018 – Olivier Fitoussi

Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked said on Monday that the High Court of Justice lacks the jurisdiction to rule on petitions against thenation-state law and may not intervene in the legislation of Basic Laws.

“It has never been determined that Basic Laws are subject to judicial review,” said Shaked, who was speaking at a special session of the Knesset convened at the request of left-wing party Meretz in the wake of her recent remarks concerning the court.
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By Dogan Akman

Preliminary observations on the law

I have read a great number of papers and articles where the authors stated or alleged facts, analysed, opined and argued various positions that supported or impugned the  necessity, timing, spirit, wisdom, substance and wording of  the Nation State [Basic] Law (“NSL”).

Personally, I consider the law to be a perfectly legitimate exercise of the sovereign right of the State of Israel through its legitimate government to propose this legislation and for the democratically elected Knesset to enact the law in accordance with the applicable parliamentary rules and in conformity with the laws of the country.
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T. Belman. For added measure read the brilliant Andrew McCarthy’s It’s a Set-up. The Democrats will stop at nothing.

By Michelle Malkin, NATIONAL REVIEW

Such bloviations are moral and intellectual abominations that insult every human being of sound mind and soul.

I have a message for virtue-signaling men who’ve rushed to embrace Me Too operatives hurling uncorroborated sexual-assault allegations into the chaotic court of public opinion.

Stuff it.

Your blanket “Believe Women” bloviations are moral and intellectual abominations that insult every human being of sound mind and soul.

A certain class of Never Trump harrumphers are leading the charge on behalf of Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh’s memory-addled partisan accuser Christine Blasey Ford — who cannot recall the year she was allegedly traumatized, where it happened, who threw the party that paralyzed her for nearly four decades, how many were in attendance during her claimed assault, how she got there, or how she left.
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The new migrants will be accepted on the grounds that they already have children who migrated to Israel

By Noa Landau, HAARETZ – Sep 18, 2018

About 1,000 Falashmura whose children are already in Israel will be allowed to immigrate, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahuannounced on Monday, following a decision by a ministerial committee. The announcement is the latest step in implementing long­­-delayed cabinet decisions from 2015 and 2016. That’s when the government promised to bring the remaining Falashmura to Israel, but in fact has to date brought only 1,300 of about 9,000 people who are waiting in Addis Ababa and Gondar.

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Russia implies France or Israel responsible for missing aircraft; Syria claims 2 killed after Israel fires missiles from Lebanese airspace toward chemical weapons-linked facility

TOI

A Russian military plane with 14 servicemen aboard was accidentally shot down by Syrian air defenses as they tried to repel an alleged Israeli strike on Monday, a US official told CNN.

The official added that the plane was downed by a Russian-made missile system which was sold to its Syrian ally.

Russian state news TASS said the IL-20 disappeared over the Mediterranean on Monday evening was as it returning to Latakia province at the same time as the suspected strike by Israel, and that concurrently France was also firing rockets nearby.
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BBC