Syrian government retakes Golan Heights frontier with Israel  

Islamic State-linked fighters surrender control of Yarmouk Basin in southwestern Syria, their last pocket of control in the area • Breakthrough against fighters caps six-week campaign by government forces to retake southwest.

Associated Press and Israel Hayom Staff

The Syrian government regained control of the frontier with the Israeli Golan Heights for the first time in seven years on Monday, after Islamic State-linked fighters gave up their last pocket of territory in the area.

The breakthrough against the fighters, reported by state media and an opposition-linked war monitoring group, capped a six-week campaign to retake the southwest corner of the country.

Rebels captured the area along the Golan Heights after a popular uprising broke out against President Bashar Assad in 2011. An Islamic State-linked outfit known as the Khaled bin Al-Waleed Army later seized the area from the opposition fighters.
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July 31, 2018 | 2:56 pm | 1 Comment »

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Israel, stand firm on the nation-state law  

T. Belman. Sherman makes the case why Israel shouldn’t wobble. Why it is entirely proper that we should have this law. What matters is not the wording per se, which Caroline Glick challanged, but the fact that we proclaimed it at all.

I note that the Catholic Church, the UN, Erdogan, much of the American Jewish leadership and the PA have all gone on the attack. We must take the heat. It will pass. Under no condition should we amend it to please our minorities, even the ones we like. Do not create a chink in our armour. Our detractors will try to take advantage of it.

Bibi was right when he said to the MKs, “don’t apologize”.

Everyone, Druze included, must accept that Israel is the nation-state of the Jews.

By Martin Sherman, ISRAEL HAYOM

Arens, you’re wrong about the law.

A few notable personalities from the Right are joining the wave of condemnation of Basic Law: Israel as the Nation-State of the Jewish People, namely former Defense Minister Moshe Arens and MK Benny Begin. In doing so, they are legitimizing those who wish us harm and who are using the “racist” nation-state law as proof that the Israeli government seeks to implement “discrimination” and “apartheid.”

The main reason they were foaming at the mouth was that the law makes no mention of the equal status and rights of the non-Jewish minorities in Israel, particularly those who serve in the IDF and the other branches of the security establishment. Of course, they are talking about the Druze and the Bedouin. This is a mistake; the nation-state law contains nothing that is designed to minimize the acknowledgment of minorities’ contributions to the state and its defense.
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July 31, 2018 | 2:45 pm | 11 Comments »

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Climate change alarmists burned by studies showing destructive wildfires in decline  

Global burned area dropped by about 25 percent over the previous 18 years, study shows
 – The Washington Times
A Cal Fire firefighter waters down a back burn on Cloverdale Rd., near the town of Igo, Calif., Saturday, July 28, 2018. The back burn kept the fire from jumping towards Igo, Calif. Scorching heat, winds and dry conditions complicated firefighting efforts. (Hector Amezcua/The Sacramento Bee via AP)

Scenes of Californians fleeing their homes and Greeks swimming out to sea have fueled alarm about climate change fueling deadly wildfires, but recent studies show that such destructive blazes are on the decline worldwide.

A September 2017 report in the journal Science found that global burned area dropped by about 25 percent over the previous 18 years, a finding consistent with a May 2016 paper published by the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences.

“[G]lobal area burned appears to have overall declined over past decades, and there is increasing evidence that there is less fire in the global landscape today than centuries ago,” said the study by British researchers at Swansea University.
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July 31, 2018 | 6:35 am | 3 Comments »

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George Soros: Trump is Winning, He’s Destroying the New World Order  

Globalist fears the Presidents dramatic rise in popularity

 By: Daniel Newton, NeonNettle

The rapid dismantling of the New World Order spearheaded by President Donald Trump. Geroge Soros recently expressed his frustration that “everything that could go wrong has gone wrong” referring to the rapid dismantling of the New World Order spearheaded by President Donald Trump.

The billionaire globalist who financed of countless Color Revolutions all across the world told the Washington Post that he was “living in [his] own bubble” due to failing to forsee Trump’s meteoric rise.

Soros expressed fears that Trump “is willing to destroy the world” and vowed to “redouble [his] efforts” by pouring millions of dollars into o opposing everything that the President stands for all across the world.

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July 31, 2018 | 3:36 am | 5 Comments »

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Bill to Apply Standard Refugee Standards To Palestinians (no inherited status)  

115TH CONGRESS
2D SESSION
H. R. 6451
Initiated by  Congressman Doug Lamborn (CO-05)

A BILL
To establish the policy of the United States with respect to contributions to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East, and for other purposes.

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.
This Act may be cited as the ‘‘—–Act of 2018”.
SEC. 2. FINDINGS.

Congress finds the following:
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July 30, 2018 | 9:01 pm | 2 Comments »

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Newly released minutes show US pressure on Israel to leave West Bank in ’78  

Marking 40 years to Camp David accords, the Center for Israel Education is rolling out memos detailing negotiations that led to Israel-Egypt peace treaty

By ERIC CORTELLESSA, TOI

Egyptian president Anwar Sadat, US president Jimmy Carter, center, and Israeli prime minister Menachem Begin clasp hands on the north lawn of the White House as they sign the peace treaty between Egypt and Israel, March 26, 1979. (AP/Bob Daugherty)

Egyptian president Anwar Sadat, US president Jimmy Carter, center, and Israeli prime minister Menachem Begin clasp hands on the north lawn of the White House as they sign the peace treaty between Egypt and Israel, March 26, 1979. (AP/Bob Daugherty)

WASHINGTON, DC — It has been almost 40 years since former president Jimmy Carter initiated the negotiations that led to Israel’s peace treaty with Egypt. To commemorate that historic accomplishment, the Center for Israel Education is incrementally releasing sensitive memoranda from the Carter administration archives detailing those negotiations.

Most recently, the educational non-profit unveiled a March 1978 meetingin Washington, DC, between the Carter and prime minister Menachem Begin’s delegations, at a time when the US warned there was a risk of losing the momentum gained after Egyptian leader Anwar Sadat unexpectedly visited Jerusalem to address the Knesset.
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July 30, 2018 | 6:28 pm | 1 Comment »

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The Chinese Think Trump is a Genius  

By Monica Showalter, AMERICAN THINKER

Has anyone ever called the Chinese ‘stupid’? Not those guys.

So now they’re reading President Trump, and unlike the childish Eurotrash of western Europe, they see a shrewd, wily, chess-playing, Sun Tzu-grade genius, who could easily checkmate them, and they’ve got a lot of reasons for thinking so.

That’s the report from a European policy-domo, who actually went to Beijing and asked the local leaders what they were seeing. The report that European Council of Foreign Relations President Mark Leonard gives, in the Financial Times, is well worth the subscription or trial subscription to read it. Some of his thoughts from the pice can be read on Instapundit, however. Here’s a bit of what Glenn Reynolds posted:
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July 30, 2018 | 6:38 am | Comments »

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Why Tikkun Olam Can’t Fix American Judaism  

T. Belman. I recently had a discussion with Mike Diamond who is a community leader in Toronto who hails from the Reform movement. He was critical of our nation-state law because it offended liberalism (my take on his position). I advised him that it all boils down to one question. Do you want Israel to be a state of all its citizens, like America or Canada, or a nation-state of the Jews. He showed some resistence to this question preferring to be picayune.

This article sheds further light on the debate. It appears that liberal Judaism is the enemy of particular or traditional Judaism and fights it at every turn. Ergo Mike Diamond is pushing liberalism at the expense of Jewish peoplehood, Judaism and Zionism. It boils down to that.

Mike is to the right of his American counterparts and is a supporter of Israel. Yet he too can’t escape the push of liberalism. Whenever the Reform Movement take us to task for not being plualistic enough, we should take them to task for undermining everything we stand for. They must be resisted for our sake and for their sake. If only they would be more concerned with saving themselves rather than “saving” Israel.

By Gil Troy,  JEWISH JOURNAL 

This past spring, Rabbi David Wolpe dared to banish politics from his pulpit. The denunciations in these pages of his principled stand again revealed American Jewry’s massive political bias. Headlines proclaimed: “What You Call Politics, We Call Torah” and “A ‘Politics Free’ Pulpit Is an Empty Pulpit.” The articles made it clear that there’s only one form of kosher Jewish “politics” in America: worshiping at the altar of tikkun olam.

How odd. Those who believe evangelical Christians — and Israeli politicians — corrupt democracy by not separating church and state, freely mesh synagogue and state. Those who mock settlers for treating the Bible like a modern real estate manual, proclaim God is a liberal Democrat.

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July 30, 2018 | 2:17 am | Comments »

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Saudi King Tells U.S. That Peace Plan Must Include East Jerusalem as Palestinian Capital  

‘They told the administration, “what we could do for you before Jerusalem, we won’t be able to do now,”‘ one diplomatic source says, referring to the embassy move

By Amir Tibon, HAARETZ

WASHINGTON — Saudi Arabia and other key Arab countries have told the Trump administration they won’t be able to support its plan for Israeli-Palestinian peace if it doesn’t include a Palestinian capital in East Jerusalem.

The Saudi position was first reported by Reuters on Sunday, and was later confirmed to Haaretz by two diplomats involved in conversations on the peace plan.

The Saudi position was expressed by King Salman during a number of recent communications with senior U.S. officials, as well as in conversations with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and other Arab leaders in the region. It contradicts many media reports over the past year about a Saudi willingness to adopt Trump’s peace plan even if it is unacceptable to the Palestinians.
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July 29, 2018 | 8:20 pm | 4 Comments »

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On democracy  

by Vic Rosenthal

The favorite complaint made by the Israeli Left and the American liberal Jewish establishment against anything the supposedly “right-wing” government of Israel does is that it is “undemocratic.”

They do not usually define the concept of democracy, but they are certain that the nation-state law, and the NGO transparency law, and the campaign to rectify the imbalance between the Supreme Court and the Knesset, and the surrogacy law, are “undemocratic.”

So what is democracy, anyway? It seems to me that there is one basic idea along with several conditions that are necessary for it to be realized. The basic idea is something like this:

The citizens of a state express their will through free and fair elections, and the government governs according to this will.
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July 29, 2018 | 8:05 pm | Comments »

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Amid nation-state law controversy, PM urges lawmakers to ‘fight for the truth’  

T. Belman. I agree with Netanyahu’s position. Bennett was wrong to back away from it and Glick was wrong to argue it was meaningless. As for the reaction of the Druze citizens, I don’t empathize with them at all. They must accept the fact that they are living in a Jewish state. But I do empathize with them because 250 Syrian Druzer were killed due to the coordinated Islamic State attacks in Syria’s Sweida on Thursday.

PM Netanyahu defends controversial law defining Israel as the nation-state of the Jewish people, saying debate is “one-sided” and demanding that Likud ministers express “unreserved and unapologetic” support • PM calls Left’s criticism “hypocritical.”

By  Mati Tuchfeld, ISRAEL HAYOM

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday told Likud ministers he expected them to express “unreserved and unapologetic” support for the controversial nation-state law.

“The Jewish nation-state is the basis of our existence,” Netanyahu said.  “There is constant defiance against the nation-state law and the discourse is very one-sided. Discussions in media panels are shallow. Don’t be apologetic – fight for the truth,” he urged.

Though largely symbolic, the contentious legislation, which states that “Israel is the historic homeland of the Jewish people and they have an exclusive right to national self-determination in it,” has been lambasted by Arab lawmakers as “racist,” and discriminatory against Israel’s non-Jewish citizens, which make up a substantial percentage of the population.
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July 29, 2018 | 7:47 pm | 1 Comment »

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She gives Brazilians; “She” wants Manzilian: Let’s Call the Whole Thing Off  

T. Belman. If this story wasn’t so tragic it would be funny.  I am firmly against accommodating transgenders, whether it is in competitions or bathrooms or with selected pronouns.  Apparently transgenders represent only 0.6% of the population. We should not have government ordered transformations to accommodate such a small minority.

The fact that only a few short years ago, It was inconceivable that society would embrace the LGBT community let alone the transgender community speaks volumes about how public opinion is being manipulated to acheive a government ordained value system. The government is also trying to get us to embrqace Islam and Muslims as if they weren’t a threat to our culture and values.

This is what happens when you replace god given morality with man made morality.

Anyone who thought Bill C-16, the Transgender Rights Bill, was really about pronouns is naïve

by Barbara Kay, POST MILLENIAL

I wasn’t able to attend Idea City in person this year, but I did participate in a segment dedicated to freedom of speech via a pre-taped interview on the subject with the brilliant journalist Mark Steyn, who has spent decades beating against the current of identity politics and political correctness with trademark audacity and wit.
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July 29, 2018 | 7:11 pm | 3 Comments »

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China Is Losing the Trade War With Trump  

It’s like a drinking contest: You harm yourself and hope your opponent isn’t able to withstand as much.

By Donald L. Luskin Wall Street Journal

One thing came through loud and clear in President Trump’s press conference Wednesday with European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker. When they announced an alliance against third parties’ “unfair trading practices,” they didn’t even have to mention China by name for listeners to know who their target was. Cooperation between the U.S. and EU will squeeze China’s protectionist model, and even before this agreement, there’s been evidence that China is already running up the white flag.

Yes, China is acting tough in one sense, quickly imposing tariffs in retaliation for those enacted by the Trump administration. But while U.S. stocks approach all-time highs and the dollar grows stronger, Chinese stocks are in a bear market, down 25% since January. The yuan had its worst single month ever in June, and is well on its way to a repeat this month. Chinese corporate bonds have defaulted at a record rate in the past six months, yet this week China unveiled a new stimulus program designed to encourage even more corporate borrowing.
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July 29, 2018 | 2:42 am | Comments »

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The Contradictions of the Russian Interference Claim  

By Alexander G. Markovsky, AMERICAN THINKER

Procurator-General of the Soviet Union Roman Rudenko, who presided over a wave of trials and executions during Stalin’s terror, used to say that “the most important thing during an investigation is not to implicate ourselves.”

Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein and special counsel Robert Mueller were obviously unaware of Rudenko’s professional dictum when they indicted 12 Russian intelligence officers. According to the indictment, the Russians had interfered in the 2016 presidential election by hacking Democratic political organizations and releasing troves of stolen files in an effort to aid the Donald Trump campaign.

The indictment has no law enforcement value; it is strictly political move designed to offer evidence of Russian meddling in the elections and therefore provide more weight to the Mueller investigation based on the questionable anti-Trump dossier.
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July 28, 2018 | 9:05 pm | Comments »

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Police enter Al-Aqsa Mosque, clash with worshipers in Temple Mount riots  

Authorities arrest 24 people, with 4 officers injured, after Palestinians barricade themselves in mosque following Friday afternoon prayers; holy site reopened after nearly 4 hours

By ALEXANDER FULBRIGHT and JACOB MAGID, TOI

Police are seen outside the Al-Aqsa Mosque during clashes following Friday afternoon prayers at the Temple Mount compound in the Old City of Jerusalem on July 27, 2018. (Police Spokesperson)
Police are seen outside the Al-Aqsa Mosque during clashes following Friday afternoon prayers at the Temple Mount compound in the Old City of Jerusalem on July 27, 2018. (Police Spokesperson)

Police forces entered the Al-Aqsa Mosque during clashes with Muslim worshipers Friday afternoon that led to an hours-long closure of the Jerusalem holy site.

The highly unusual decision to forcibly expel Palestinians from the mosque was ordered by Jerusalem police commander Yoram Halevi, police said, and came after dozens of people barricaded themselves in the house of worship.

The Al-Aqsa Mosque is the third holiest site in Islam and sits atop the Temple Mount, the most sacred place in Judaism and revered as the home of the ancient Jewish Temples.
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July 28, 2018 | 8:52 pm | 2 Comments »

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The holographic nation-state law  

This law is a nothingburger without a bun, or a patty, a plate or a pickle. It does nothing new and it says nothing new.

BY CAROLINE B. GLICK, JPOST

There is no connection between the substance of Israel’s newly passed Nation State of the Jewish People law, and the debate its passage has unleashed.

On the one hand, supporters of the law led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu insist that the law is a vital step in entrenching and protecting Israel’s Jewish identity. After the law passed last Thursday night, Netanyahu declared, “This is a pivotal moment in the annals of Zionism and the annals of the State of Israel. 122 years after [Theodore] Herzl published his vision [of a Jewish state] we affixed in law the founding principle of our existence.”

On the other hand, Arab members of Knesset theatrically condemned the law and claimed that with its passage, Israel had officially embraced “apartheid.”

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Israel is the heir of Nazi Germany. PLO chief Mahmoud Abbas and his deputies said the UN should reinstitute its definition of Zionism, the Jewish national liberation movement as a form of racism.
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July 28, 2018 | 8:37 pm | 1 Comment »

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MIKE POMPEO’S TREMENDOUS SPEECH ON IRAN July 22, 2018  

SECRETARY POMPEO:

Thanks for the kind introduction and thanks for hosting me here at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation and Library. It’s a very special place and an honor for me to be here.

I also want to thank my friend Tom for joining me here tonight. He and I have been on multiple missions together, and I am confident we will continue to do so in the days and weeks and years ahead.

And it’s great to see Governor Wilson here. I voted for you a couple times a long time ago. (Laughter.)

And I know we have many members of the Iranian American community with us this evening. This is just a fraction of the quarter million Iranian Americans in Southern California alone. We have many Iranian American guests from all across the United States here as well. Thank you. I look forward to hearing from you this evening, learning more about the situation in Iran as you see it, and understanding what your loved ones and friends are going through living in that place.
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July 28, 2018 | 8:24 pm | 8 Comments »

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Trump-Russia Collusion: The New ‘Climate Change’  

By William F. Marshall, AMERICAN THINKER

Liberal MSNBC talking head Chris Hayes recently committed what political wags call a “Washington gaffe”: He spoke the truth. He responded to one of his Twitter followers who was complaining that television networks, and Hayes’s own program All In in particular, did not devote “commensurate energy” to the “disaster” of supposed man-made climate change by constantly braying about it. Hayes said: “Almost without exception[,] every single time we’ve covered [climate change] it’s been a palpable ratings killer. So the incentives are not great.”

Gee, Chris, thanks for that admission. Maybe you and your journalistic colleagues can draw a lesson from the failure of this media-foisted canard and apply it to the other canard you and your fellow travelers have been peddling: that Donald Trump and his campaign somehow “colluded” with the Russian government to throw the 2016 presidential election to Trump’s favor.
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July 27, 2018 | 5:30 pm | Comments »

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Towards an Arab NATO?  

BESA Center Perspectives Paper No. 907, July 27, 2018

By Irina Tsukerman, BESA

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: The Arab Coalition in Yemen is facing three internal challenges: differences between Abu Dhabi and Riyadh, Qatari meddling, and recent tensions between Saudi Arabia and Morocco. Despite these complications, new developments show that over the long run there is a likelihood of a strategic response to the stalemate in Yemen and to other Iran-related problems in the form of an upgrading of the scattered and divided Arab Coalition into a formal and organized infrastructure similar to NATO.

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July 27, 2018 | 4:57 pm | 2 Comments »

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