Peloni:  Jennifer offers important insights into Trump’s Iran policy, which, as she notes, offers a more optimistic perspective.

Trump plays his own game.

J.E. Dyer, a retired Naval Intelligence officer, blogs as The Optimistic Conservative, May 18, 2025

An update is due on Trump’s pathbreaking movements in divers places over the past couple of weeks.  As noted in the previous article on Trump and Qatar, the “Trump and Qatar” dynamic is coming in for heavy criticism.  It isn’t my project to talk through what others are very competently treating from the complaints side, so I’ll confine this discussion, which I hope to keep abbreviated, to laying out more optimistic considerations.

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Peloni:  Another example of failing attempts of peace thru strength in the face of Arab impudence.  Making demands which are not met requires immediate and strong responses, this is the very kernel of what might be described as peace thru strength.  Failing to respond to such demands as releasing all of the hostages on day one of his term, or on holding Iran directly responsible for Houthi attacks which persisted nonetheless, have led to regional actors taking Trump’s threats as being insincere, and finding that their presumptions, thus far at least, are correct, as is the situation with Al Jolani who has a 6 month reprieve during which he will will continue to receive sanction relief while ignoring Trump’s demands to rid Syria of foreign fighters.  At the same time, Israel is reported to being pushed to make peace with Syria and abandon the Druze, thus giving this Turkish proxy all the benefits he needs to consolidate power during the six month period of US impotence.  As Sharawi noted, Trump should reimpose the sanctions due to Jolani’s insolence, but in addition he should simultaneously have the Israelis withdraw from any peace talks as well.  Bringing pressure to bear is the strength aspect thru which peace might be pursued.  Otherwise it is just rhetorical bluster from which only allies might have to fear any serious consequences.

Ahmad Sharawi | May 20, 2025

President Donald Trump with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman and President of Syria Ahmed al-Sharaa during Donald Trump’s state visit to Saudi Arabia. (Photo by White House – Karoline Leavitt in X, Public Domain)

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Establishing peace in Ukraine demands addressing the longstanding historical injustice

Alexander G. Markovsky

The lodestar of President Donald J. Trump’s foreign policy, “America First,” is reminiscent of the concept of raison d’état —the national interests—originated by Cardinal Richelieu, which prioritizes practicality and national interests and has been the basis of international relations for the last three centuries. No president since Theodore Roosevelt has so comprehensively defined America’s position in global affairs through the lens of national interests as Donald Trump.

From the perspective of geopolitical realism, the United States stands nothing to gain, and has no constructive future in perpetuating the conflict in Ukraine.

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Peloni:  Jerusalem is the eternal capital of Israel, the ancient seat of the Jewish people, free, united, and strong, may it ever remain.

The term is not in the Torah because it is a modern political invention.

Moshe Phillips

Jom Jeruschalajim. (Photo by Hoheit, to commons uploaded Daniel.baranek 11:10, 6 May 2007 (UTC) – de-wiki, CC BY-SA 2.0 de)

Yom Yerushalayim, or Jerusalem Day, is observed this year from Sunday evening, May 25, through Monday night, May 26. It celebrates the 68th anniversary of the reunification of Judaism’s holiest city.

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By Victor Sharpe

Israel today is in a war of images with the Arab world. Sometimes these images are still or moving pictures, but more frequently they’re images painted by words.

Words have become the new battleground on which the legitimacy of Israel is contested before the eyes of the world. Logically, this ought to be good news for Jews who are by nature wordsmiths, having created the greatest book ever: the Bible. And yet it seems that around the world they are losing this war and I’d like to offer a few reasons for why this is so. However, I warn you that the truth is often not pretty.

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Peloni:  Europe would have Israel choose how it would prefer to see itself destroyed, by voluntary or imposed actions.  Bibi’s must continue to oppose the pressure being placed upon him to capitulate, no matter from where it stems.

Leaders threaten to recognize ‘Palestine,’ impose sanctions against Israel

All Israel News Staff | Published: May 20, 2025

Israel’s Foreign Policy Priorities, 3 November 2017 (Photo by Chatham House – Benjamin Netanyahu, Prime Minister, State of Israel, CC BY 2.0)

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu issued an unusually sharp rebuke on Monday evening after a statement by the leaders of the UK, France, and Canada, who threatened to recognize a Palestinian state and to issue sanctions if Israel didn’t stop the Gaza offensive and restore aid to the enclave.

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May 18:

Detailing the deranged malevolence of the utterly misinformed, smug and self-righteous sensationalist peddling a discredited 60 year-old conspiracy theory to profit from clickbait…

Peloni:  Mike Doran and Gadi Taub discuss the recent turmoil in the wake of Trump’s Gulf tour.  Mike makes the case that the manner in which Trump has been pursuing its America First policies has effectively undermined his own stated goals in pursuing this policy, eg making threats against the terrorists and Iran while failing to make good on those threats.  He also argues to consider that Trump’s team is still forming its agenda, and learning as they go, and that this past week was just a bad week which should not necessarily be taken to indicate Trump’s agenda.   He also argues that Trump wanted credible victories to herald from his first overseas trip, and that Israel had no such victories to hand him, suggesting that this should not be taken to indicate that Trump is no longer prioritizing Israel in his Middle East policies.  Notably, while Mike is entirely correct in suggesting Trump wanted tangible victories from this trip, he gave the Islamists a tangible victory in separating Israel from his deal with the Saudis, while growing closer to Qatar, and promoting the canard that Gazans are starving.   Are any of these actions likely to be revised in the coming weeks or months?  I would be happy to find the answer is yes, but I suspect the answer is actually no.  But of course we will see.

by Khaled Abu Toameh  •  Gatestone Institute  •  May 19, 2025

President Donald Trump’s visit to Qatar — Hamas’s major sponsor and funder — is seen by many Palestinians and Arabs as a victory for the Palestinian terror group. If Trump wants real peace and prosperity, he must, unfortunately, act against Iran and its terror proxies, and distance himself from jihadists and their sponsors, especially Qatar. Pictured: President Donald Trump participates in a receiving line with Amir of Qatar Sheikh Tamin bin Hamad Al Thani and his wife, Sheikha Jawaher, at an official State Dinner at Lusail Palace in Doha, Qatar, Wednesday, May 14, 2025. (By The White House – Flickr, Public Domain)

• In the eyes of Iran and the Houthis, Trump’s separate peace deal that excluded Israel is a captivating green light to continue their attacks on “The Little Satan”, while obligingly halting their assaults on vessels in the Red Sea.

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Not all speech is protected under the First Amendment. Thus, for example, speech that is directed towards inciting or producing lawless action and is likely to do so is not protected speech, even if both Left and Right use it.

Leonard Grunstein | May 20, 2025

United States Supreme Court Building at dusk in Washington, D.C (Photo by Joe Ravi, CC BY-SA 3.0)

There have been many documented links between leaders of the far left and far right over the years.

Historically, there was the Hitler-Stalin pact that divided up Poland. Some of the more modern iterations include flirtations between Elijah Muhammad of the Nation of Islam and George Lincoln Rockwell of the Nazi party, as well as Louis Farrakhan of the Nation of Islam and Tom Metzger of the KKK. Then there is the phenomenon of extremists like David Duke of the KKK, Farrakhan and their ilk sharing each other’s poisonous antisemitic views.

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Mark Levin May 18 Show

Peloni:  The below Thread covers a report on a post-election Qatari foreign influence operation which targeted conservative news outlets following Trump’s election victory.  The targets included Tucker Carlson, Fox News Digital, Just The News, the New York Post, the Daily Mail, and the Washington Examiner, with the Qatari PM’s interview with Tucker Carlson being described as “Perhaps Qatar’s biggest victory in its post-election right-wing media campaign thus far”.   Notably, the report, written by Robert Schmad, was published on one of the targets of the Qatari influence efforts, the Washington Examiner.

A recent Spaces on X by Stealth Medical provides a good bit more detail on this subject as well.  See link for Stealth Medical Spaces below Thread Link and the direct link to article at bottom.

Click on Photo for Full Thread:  

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Peloni:  This is an important video by Rabbi Pesach Wolicki.  Trump’s claim that there are “a lot of people starving” in Gaza is a blood libel against Israel.  In doing so he is adopting the propaganda of our enemies and is actively promoting these lies as factual.  Worse than this, he is acting on this false narrative in a way which will embolden and strengthen Hamas by basically funding Hamas via the ruse of sending them ‘humanitarian aid’, something which was forced on Israel by the Biden White House.  There is no famine in Gaza.  This is part of the Qatari influence op being leveraged either by the many Qatari supporters in Trump’s own administration, or by his now strongly cemented partnership with the slave terror state of Qatar, directly.   While Rabbi Wolicki notes that the canard about starving Gazans is being used to directly supplement Hamas as well as to preserve its governance over the Pals, it should also be noted that it is being used to preserve the Gazans as Hamas’ human shields, which in turn leads to an entirely alternate form of blood libel against Israel.  Consequently, rather than feeding the false narrative of a fake famine, Trump should be demanding that any and all aid should be directed towards moving the Gazans away from Hamas, and eventually out of Gaza, as per his own proposed plan.  Doing otherwise, as he is currently doing, only serves to increase the victimhood of the Gazans at the hands of Hamas, which is of course exactly what Hamas and Qatar would prefer.  

Hamas must be stripped of all resources, stripped of their human shields, and denied any support including the humanitarian aid which Israel is currently being pressured to facilitate for Hamas by the Trump’s own White House as well as Trump’s own commentary.   It is time to end the fake news and pursue humanitarian solutions by halting all humanitarian aid which supports Hamas and their savagery in any way.