Morton A Klein, national president of the Zionist Organization of America (ZOA), released the following statement:

The Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) congratulates CIA Director and former Congressman (R-KS) Mike Pompeo on his nomination to become Secretary of State. We also congratulate President Trump for his superb choice of this outstanding patriot Director Pompeo.

Director Pompeo is a strong friend of America’s greatest ally Israel, and well understands the continuing Arab/Islamic war against Israel.

Director Pompeo demonstrated his mettle and dedication to transparency and the safety of the American public during his heroic efforts to stop and obtain information regarding the catastrophic Iran deal.  In July 2015, then-Congressman Pompeo traveled to Vienna with Senator Tom Cotton to meet with International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) officials.  During those meetings, Cong. Pompeo and Senator Cotton uncovered the secret IAEA-Iran side deals, agreed to by the Obama administration, which the Obama administration failed to disclose for public scrutiny and failed to submit to Congress for its legislatively mandated review of the Iran deal.  Cong. Pompeo and Senator Cotton then conveyed this vital information to Congress and the American public.  (“Pres. Obama Must Disclose Iran Deal Secret Annexes,” ZOA, July 23, 2015.)
Read more…

The Iranian media increasingly reflects fears and mistrust of Russian intentions in Syria.

By Rohollah Faghihi, AL MONITOR

Israel Deepens its Anchor in the Eastern Mediterranean

By Oded Eran, Elai Rettig, Ofir Winter, IISS

On February 19, 2018, the gas partnerships in Israel announced a $15 billion contract to export 64 billion cubic meters of natural gas to Egypt over ten years. The contract, between the owners of the Tamar and Leviathan fields and the Egyptian Dolphinus Holding, is based on a memorandum of understanding from October 2014. Presumably the government of Israel played an important role in securing this deal, by promoting it with the Egyptian government and possibly also by covering the guarantees required from Dolphinus for its approval.

The green light in Cairo for signing the deal after long Egyptian delays reflects several considerations. First, Egypt seeks to settle the $1.76 billion in compensation that the Egyptian gas companies were required to pay the Israel Electric Corporation (IEC) as part of an international arbitration verdict in 2015. Second, the decision to allocate most of the gas in the Zohr field to Egyptian domestic consumption paves the way for the flow of gas from Israel, Cyprus, and other countries to the liquefaction facilities in Damietta and Idku for the purpose of export to Europe, a step that maximizes the economic and political value of the fact that Egypt is the only country in the region with the infrastructures for gas liquefaction. The third consideration is the promise of estimated revenues of some $22 billion over ten years, and strengthened economic ties between Egypt and Europe.
Read more…

Detailing approaches to sensitive and incendiary topics without pushing for any single approach, the new US peace plan for the Israel-Palestinian conflict aims to give the two sides freedom to pick and choose from its proposals, according to a New York Times report.

By Orly Azoulay, YNET NEWS

Read more…

Evidence Sudanese migrants deported back to Sudan tortured found to be unreliable, contradictory, according to Belgium immigration ombudsman • Report proves “infiltrators from Sudan can return to their country without worrying,” says Israeli NGO.

By Akiva Bigman, ISRAEL HAYOM

A report issued in Belgium last month appears to cast doubt on the claim that Sudanese refugees who were deported back to Sudan faced torture and abuse, Israeli officials recently learned.

The report comes amid a heated dispute in Israel, where African migrants are facing imminent deportation. Many in Israel argue that deporting the illegal migrants from Israel back to Africa would place their lives in danger, while the state argues that migrants will be completely safe.

Most asylum seekers in Israel come from either Sudan or Eritrea. Earlier this year 20,000 male African migrants were instructed to leave the country by April.
Read more…

By Tiberiu Dianu, AMERICAN THINKER

On Saturday evening, March 10, 2018, President Trump held a rally at a Pittsburgh airport (in Moon Township, Pennsylvania) in an effort to help Republican Rick Saccone win a western Pennsylvania congressional district in today’s special election.  The president won the district by 20 points during the 2016 election.  The speech was vintage Trump 2016, displaying, in the midst of an enthusiastic crowd of supporters, both the president’s achievements since he has taken office on January 20, 2017 and his electoral promises that he has yet to deliver on in the years to come.

There were, however, some new – some would say unconventional – elements of the president’s populism prefiguring a departure from the traditional conservatism, as we know it, of the Reagan-Bush era.
Read more…

Explosion hits Palestinian Prime Minister Rami Hamdallah’s convoy during a rare visit to Gaza to dedicate a long-awaited sewage plant • Fatah accuses Hamas of being behind the “cowardly attack,” further escalating tensions between the rival factions.

News Agencies

Palestinian Prime Minister Rami Hamdallah arrives at a waste treatment plant in Gaza Tuesday | Photo: Reuters

An explosion struck the convoy of the Palestinian prime minister Tuesday as he was making a rare visit to Gaza, in what his Fatah party called an assassination attempt it blamed on Gaza terrorists.

The explosion went off shortly after the convoy entered Gaza through the Erez border crossing between Israel and Gaza.

Gaza’s Hamas-run interior ministry said the explosion hit as the prime minister’s convoy passed near the northern town of Beit Hanoun. No one was injured, and security services have launched an investigation, ministry spokesman Eyad Al-Bozom said.
Read more…

McMaster is next.

By Dave Boyer, The Washington Times

By Amir Taheri, ASHARQ AL AWSAT

Casting himself as the best friend Israel could hope for, President Donald Trump is promising, some may say threatening, to unveil his grand plan for a peace “deal” to end the so-called “Middle East problem”.

Trump has always fancied himself as a deal-maker; he has even written a book on the subject. It is, therefore, no surprise that he might want to put his skill to use on an issue which has defied numerous deal-makers for six decades.

Justice Minister calls on PM not to topple right-wing government over what she calls an ‘imaginary crisis.’

By Nitsan Keidar, INN

Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked talked this morning about the coalition crisis and called on the prime minister not to topple the right-wing government.

“This is an imaginary crisis,” she wrote on Twitter. “Prime Minister, to topple a right-wing government over nothing would be a historic mistake similar in size to the fall of the Shamir government in 1992.”

Shaked was interviewed this morning on the haredi radio station Kol Barama and added, “It’s really frustrating. To dismantle the government is a mistake that later everyone will regret, I hope that the prime minister or the defense minister will come to their senses. It’s in the hands of both of them.”
Read more…

By Isi Leibler, JPOST

The American Jewish leadership’s downward spiral has accelerated. This can be traced back to its cowardly silence when then-President Barack Obama began treating Israel as a rogue state and applied moral equivalence to Israelis defending themselves and Palestinian terrorists.

The leaders of the Reform and Conservative movements and the Anti-Defamation League have effectively become adjuncts of the liberal wing of the Democratic Party. Many have become so obsessed with hatred of President Donald Trump that their bitterness supersedes their support for Israel.
Read more…

Following alleged chlorine attack on Syria’s beseiged eastern Ghouta region, U.S. Defense Secretary Mattis says Russia either “incompetent or in cahoots with Assad” • U.S. president has “full political maneuver room” to respond as he sees fit, he says.

Reuters and Israel Hayom Staff

U.S. Defense Secretary James Mattis warned Syria on Sunday it would be “very unwise” for government forces to use weaponized gas, as he cited unconfirmed reports of chlorine attacks in eastern Ghouta and slammed Russian support for Damascus.

Mattis stopped short of threatening to retaliate against Syrian forces if a chlorine attack were confirmed. But he noted America’s April 6, 2017 cruise missile strike on a Syrian air base over a sarin gas attack and said President Donald Trump had “full political maneuver room” to take whatever decision he believed was appropriate.

“It would be very unwise for them to use weaponized gas. And I think President Trump made that very clear early in his administration,” Mattis said, speaking with a small group of reporters before landing in Oman.
Read more…

by Aaron Klein, BREITBART

It is time for Israel to formally abandon the so-called two-state solution as well as the concept of a Palestinian state and instead push for the complete Israeli annexation of the West Bank and retaking of the Gaza Strip, Israeli politician Moshe Feiglin contended.

Feiglin is chairman of Israel’s Zehut Party and a former Likud Knesset Member.

In a wide-ranging interview, broadcast Sunday on this reporter’s weekend talk radio program, “Aaron Klein Investigative Radio,” Feiglin outlined a three point plan for Israel to “annex the total territory between the Mediterranean and the Jordan river.”

Read more…

The Supreme Court will say by March 29 whether it will consider the appeal by the litigants in the case, known as Sokolow v. Palestine Liberation Organization

The Trump administration sided with the Palestine Liberation Organization in a terrorism lawsuit the Supreme Court may soon consider, drawing an angry rebuke from conservatives, including one of its most steadfast Jewish community defenders, the Zionist Organization of America.

Read more…

‘The Palestinian leadership is firm in its decision to sever relations with the administration since Trump’s declaration’ of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, member of top Palestinian body says</p>

Jordan’s King Adbullah II welcomes Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in Amman, December 2017.Khalil Mazraawi/AP

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas will meet with Jordan’s King Abdullah II in Amman on Monday to discuss U.S. President Donald Trump’s Middle East peace plan.

Aside from Abbas, attending the meeting on the Palestinian side will be longtime peace negotiator Saeb Erekat and Palestinian intelligence chief Majid Faraj.

The king called the meeting between the two leaders following a recent phone conversation with Abbas. Abdullah wants to discuss Trump’s peace plan, which sources close to Abbas say is expected to be unveiled by the White House soon, as well as its implications.

Read more…

By Tabitha Korol

C-Span has a dedicated propagandist program that reaches millions of viewers.  It works on the basis of having the viewing audience call in, vilifying Israel or world Jewry, for all the world to hear, while the host broadcasters remain silent and blameless.  The accusations go unopposed, the lies unchallenged, the slander uncensored, and the audience has digested a full dose of uninterrupted, unexpurgated hate speech against Israel, with defamation of the US for our friendship with the sole middle-eastern democracy that shares our values.  So Islam and the left, the enemies of Jews and Christians worldwide, have their own kind of Lord Haw-Haw, the Fascist mouthpiece of World War II, protected from all censure.  The callers should be screened out and the hosts should be ethical and better informed to disallow the vilification and falsehoods.

Here are just a few of about one hundred damaging comments by callers in 2017, to which the journalists were either silent, ineffective or in agreement.

Read more…

Riyadh seems convinced that opposing Iran and its proxy militias must be an international effort. March 11, 2018

Right signals. Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri (R) meets with Saudi envoy Nizar al-Aloula at the governmental palace in Beirut, on February 26. (AFP)

Very little solid information has filtered out about Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri’s talks in Riyadh. However, the selfie Hariri posted showing him with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman bin Abdulaziz and the Saudi ambassador to Washington is quite telling about the atmosphere of the talks and sends the right signals to Lebanon about the nature of Saudi-Lebanese relations with the Hariri family at the helm.

It is possible that Riyadh wishes to edge closer to Lebanon, as it had previously done with Iraq. In Iraq, Saudi Arabia chose to “revive” its presence even though many had said it was a wasted effort.
Read more…