DEBKA

Both US and Syria (plus pro-Iranian allies) are massing strength in the south and east for military clashes in the continuing confrontation.

Assad’s army with Hizballah and other pro-Iranian forces backed by Russia are massing for two objectives: a major offensive to capture Daraa on Syria’s southern border with Jordan;  and at the Deir ez-Zour region in the east for another attempt to cross the Euphrates from west to east. US forces and allies are building up to ward off the two offensives. This time, Syria has positioned its Russian anti-air weapons for targeting incoming air strikes by US as well as Israeli air force planes. Syrian Foreign Minister Fayssal Mikdad articulated this threat when he said Wednesday, Feb. 14: “Syria will down any warplane that launches an airstrike on the SAA [Syrian Arab Army].”

US military officials are cited by DEBKAfile’s military sources as estimating on Thursday that the combined Russian, Syrian, Iranian and Hizballah army massing on the western bank of the Euphrates in the Deir ez-Zour region will make another attempt to transfer troops to the eastern bank. They are expected to go for one of the oil or gas fields held by the US-backed SDF (Syria Democratic Forces), which is composed mainly of Kurdish YPG militiamen. Their particular targets are the CONICO gas facility and the al-Omar oil fields.

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By Emil Avdaliani, BESA   

BESA Center Perspectives Paper No. 742, February 15, 2018

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: On February 11, 2018, Israel conducted multiple airstrikes on Syrian-Iranian targets in Syria in response to the downing of an Israeli F-16 in Israeli territory following infiltration by an Iranian drone. Moscow’s mild reaction to these events reflects its desire to maintain cooperation with both Tehran and Jerusalem.

Russian politicians have been surprisingly mute on the Israeli airstrikes in Syria that took place on February 11. Nothing notable has been said beyond an official statement from the Russian Foreign Ministry urging all sides to show restraint and avoid actions that could lead to further complications.

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By Ali Younes, AL JAZEERA

Protesters gather in front of parliament in Amman on February 1 with a sign that reads ‘Don’t raise prices’ [Muhammad Hamed/Reuters]

Marking 10 years of the Hindu Samhati movement, demonstration includes violent dust-up with media, arrests of protesters, and mass conversion of 14-member Muslim family

By AMANDA BORSCHEL-DAN, TOI

Marking 10 years of the Hindu Samhati movement, demonstration includes violent dust-up with media, arrests of protesters, and mass conversion of 14-member Muslim family

Holding pro-Israel banners aloft, some 70,000 people assembled in the center of Calcutta on Wednesday to mark the tenth anniversary of the founding of the far-right, anti-Muslim Hindu Samhati nationalist movement.

The rally, which organizers are claiming is the “largest pro-Israel rally in history,” eclipses a similar demonstration held in 2014, which saw a reported crowd of 20,000.

Wednesday’s rally included speeches by nationalist figures such as Maj. Gen. Gagandeep Bakshi, a decorated career soldier expert in counter-terrorism, from a stage in the heart of one of the poorest areas of India. The event culminated in a celebratory presentation to the crowd of a family of 14 former Muslims who converted to Hinduism.

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https://mailchi.mp/12c8c8f8d63b/sign-the-2018-ttfi-petition

Dear Overseas American, It’s a new year, and we have new opportunities to work towards the implementation of Territorial Taxation for Individuals. TERRITORIAL TAXATION FOR INDIVIDUALS We initially expected that a tax reconciliation bill would be submitted in April 2018 to fix any issues with the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act that was passed at the end of 2017. However, it now appears that the IRS will not make any recommendations for ‘fixes’ until the end of 2018. Republicans Overseas has champions in both the House and Senate who are willing to sponsor clean TTFI bills. However, we will need your support to petition the Speaker of the House, Representative Paul Ryan, and the Senate Majority Leader, Senator Mitch McConnell, to bring these bills to a vote. We will run a petition campaign from February 12 – March 25, 2018, seeking to gain 10,000 signatures asking for a vote on TTFI. Please sign this petition at www.ttfi.info and ask 10 of your American friends to do so, as well. It doesn’t matter if they live overseas or stateside:  we need to show strong support for these bills. The petition will run from February 13 through March 13, 2018. Read more…

 – She needs to be saved. King Demands Silence, Threatens Forced Lobotomy

 (Amman) – A Jordanian women rights and political activist, Hebal Melham, was being labeled “mentally ill” by the regime in Jordan, all for taking off her hijab, pointing out that women have few rights in Jordan, and speaking out for peace with Israel. The government is actually planning to lobotomize her and has issued a court ruling for that. Heba Melham, a lawyer and PhD who is an outspoken advocate of women rights, and peace with Israel.  She has been constantly appearing in videos over social media to advocate her cause and calling for regime change in Jordan through peaceful means.

In her last video, linked here, she can be seen appealing to the world to save her life, states she fears for her life and accusing Jordan’s king and Queen of oppressing her.

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Washington sees the Kurds through a regional lens

By Ithan Tanior, AHVAL

From Turkey’s perspective, it is starting to look as though the United States has chosen a few million Syrian Kurds, who do not even have their own state, over its 70-year NATO partnership with Turkey.

But from Washington’s perspective, the U.S. alliance with the Syrian Kurds is not about U.S.-Turkey relations, but instead it is an important building block in the U.S. future in the Middle East.

Washington is angry that Ankara, which was expected to remain firmly in the NATO camp, has refused to work alongside the United States in the upcoming struggle against what U.S. officials see as their common rival, Iran.
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By Major General (res.) Yaacov Amidror, JISS

The Anne and Greg Rosshandler Senior Fellow at the Jerusalem Institute for Strategic Studies.

It must be made clear to Israel’s rivals in both the north and the south that they will pay a very serious price for attacking Israel.

At one time, military intelligence was responsible for alerting the government to an imminent war. Following the intelligence failure of the 1973 Yom Kippur War, a complex concept called “indicative signs” was developed, the purpose of which is to enable the intelligence collection units to focus their efforts and intelligence research to closely monitor the processes indicative of the concrete preparation for war.

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Although kingdom slammed recognition of Jerusalem as capital of Israel, as a key ally it will still receive $1.275 billion a year until 2022, an annual increase of $275 million

By AP

AMMAN, Jordan — Despite repeated threats to punish countries that don’t agree with US policy in the Middle East, the Trump administration is set to boost aid to Jordan by more than $1 billion over the next five years.

US President Donald Trump has vowed to cut aid to nations that oppose the US, yet rhetoric appears to have hit reality with Jordan, a critical American partner in the volatile Middle East that has opposed the administration’s Mideast approach.

Jordan voted in December to condemn the US for recognizing Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and has criticized the US for withholding millions in funding for Palestinian refugees, many of whom live in Jordan.

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By Carol Morello, WaPo

Nikki Haley, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, said in a General Assembly emergency special session in December that the U.S. was “taking names” of countries that voted against its recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital. (Lane/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock)

As expected, the new budget proposal is much like last year’s, featuring billions of dollars in cuts to foreign aid. Congress essentially ignored it last year and continued funding near previous levels.
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By Guy Lieberman, YNET NEWS

The Tikvah Fund offices in Jerusalem. ‘I think the NIF is less dangerous to Israeli society and solidarity,’ says right-wing poet Eliaz Cohen (Photo: Amit Shabi)

Huge donations, aiding organizations with a distinct agenda, an attempt to change the public discourse in Israel with foreign money: The Tikvah Fund, which promotes a US Republican worldview through research institutions, seminars and media outlets with a clear right-wing ideology, is being accused by Religious Zionism circles of turning a cold shoulder to the disadvantaged, underrepresenting women and deepening the rift among the Jewish people.

Millions of dollars in funding to organizations and NGOs, an aggressive attempt to insert and spread a foreign worldview and values into Israel, extending tentacles into politics, education and practically every possible field—all these charges and others have been hurled in recent years against the New Israel Fund (NIF).

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DEBKA

In the first military clash between US and Russian forces in Syria, more than 200 Russian “mercenaries” are reported killed, scores more injured. US military sources first  reported that 100 Russian “advisers” were killed and dozens injured in a US attack on Syrian and allied pro-Iranian forces on Feb. 8. By  Tuesday, Feb. 13, those figures had doubled. Moscow has not confirmed the incident or the casualties, which would be five times more than Russian official losses since it entered the war in 2015. President Vladimir Putin’s spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, declined to comment, saying the Kremlin only tracks data on the country’s armed forces. According to one Russian officer, the death toll continues to rise after scores of Russian wounded were flown to hospitals in Moscow and St. Petersburg.
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T, Belman.  J Street has replaced AIPAC and now controls the Democratic Party

102 of House’s 193 Democrats lobby Trump to continue funding for UNRWA, after US withholds more than half of $125 million support package.

JTA

Some 102 Democratic congressmen sent a letter to President Donald Trump calling on him to continue funding for U.N.’s Palestinian aid agency.

The State Department last month announced that it had put a hold on $65 million of the $125 million annual allocation to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East, which distributes its assistance in the Gaza Strip, Judea and Samaria, as well as to refugee camps in Jordan, Syria and Lebanon. Days later, the State Department announced that a $45 million payment pledged for the UNRWA food aid program would also be held up.

According to UNRWA, the United States provided more than $350 million in aid to the organization in 2017.
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Millions deported worldwide, but only the Jewish state remains the focus of Israel-obsessed media – and Israel’s own leftists.

By Robert HArris, INN

On an average day, the Jewish State played host to one of the largest foreign press corps in the world. This seemed to me to reflect not mere international interest, not mere international curiosity, not mere international preoccupation; but an outright international obsession.

–Yehuda Avner, former director, Prime Minister’s Foreign Press Bureau

Israel is at long last beginning the process of deporting 38,000 African men who came to Israel seeking jobs. None of these men had visas and illegally crossed the southern border prior to the construction of the fence built there by Israel.

The issue of Israel seeking to deport young African men is now being used as a club by the elites in their never-ending battle to destroy Israel and the Jewish people. Worldwide media coverage creates lies about an “intolerant” and “racist” Israel, while refusing to report the same story when other countries deport illegal immigrants.
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