by Andrew McCarthy, NATIONAL REVIEW January 23, 2018

New FBI texts highlight a motive to conceal the president’s involvement. From the first, these columns have argued that the whitewash of the Hillary Clinton–emails caper was President Barack Obama’s call — not the FBI’s, and not the Justice Department’s. (See, e.g., here, here, and here.) The decision was inevitable. Obama, using a pseudonymous email account, had repeatedly communicated with Secretary Clinton over her private, non-secure email account.

These emails must have involved some classified information, given the nature of consultations between presidents and secretaries of state, the broad outlines of Obama’s own executive order defining classified intelligence (see EO 13526, section 1.4), and the fact that the Obama administration adamantly refused to disclose the Clinton–Obama emails. If classified information was mishandled, it was necessarily mishandled on both ends of these email exchanges. If Clinton had been charged, Obama’s culpable involvement would have been patent.
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By Ali Waked, BREITBART

TEL AVIV — Arab countries recently made contact with prominent personalities and Palestinian officials who live in Jerusalem with the goal of changing the Palestinian leadership to one that would accept the Trump administration’s Mideast peace deal, an official from Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas’ Fatah party claims.

The countries made the contact “in order to build a Palestinian leadership in Jerusalem prepared to accept the American suggestion for compromise over Jerusalem like accepting the town of Abu Dis next to Jerusalem as the capital of a Palestinian state,” Fatah’s representative in charge of Jerusalem, Hatem Abdelkader (pictured), claimed to Breitbart Jerusalem.

“We warned all of these individuals not to cooperate with this initiative when we learned that they had been contacted,” said Abdelkader.
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By Rachel Ehrenfield, AMERICAN THINKER

Two years ago, as then-secretary of State John Kerry was boasting in Davos about Obama’s deal with Iran,  he acknowledged that some of the $150 billion given to the mullahs in Tehran “will end up in the hands of the IRGC or other entities, some of which are labeled terrorists. I’m not going to sit here and tell you that every component of that can be prevented.” He was right. We don’t know how much money went to fund Iran’s global terrorist activities. And we know even less about the billions in untraceable cash that was supposedly delivered to the mullahs or the recipients of that cash. How about investigating that? There should be ample evidence to prove Kerry and his boss President Obama have willfully engaged in terrorist financing and money laundering. That is unless the pertinent emails and documents related to the payments to Iran had been lost or destroyed.

After the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) was implemented on January 16, 2016,  Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who wished to lift all sanctions on Iran, kept complaining that “On paper the United States allows foreign banks to deal with Iran, but in practice they create Iranophobia so no one does business with Iran.” As much as the Obama administration wanted to comply, it needed congressional support to do that. Thus, the Obama administration decided to circumvent U.S. anti-money laundering laws to help Iran’s economy.
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Turkish offensive risks direct confrontation between NATO allies

By Natalie Johnson, WASH NEW BEACON

U.S. coalition forces stationed in the Syrian Kurdish town of Manbij are ready to guard against a threatened Turkish offensive that risks direct confrontation between the NATO allies, a coalition spokesman said Friday.

Turkey last week launched an air and ground assault on the northern Syrian enclave of Afrin in an attempt to oust the American-backed People’s Protection Units, or YPG, which Ankara considers a terrorist group. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has threatened to extend the operation 60 miles east to Manbij, where, unlike in Afrin, the Pentagon maintains U.S. troops.

“Our forces there are well prepared to defend themselves,” coalition spokesman Col. Ryan Dillon told the Washington Free Beacon. “We have air coverage over all of our troops so we’re always prepared to defend ourselves, whether it’s from ISIS or any other threat.”

Dillon reaffirmed American support for the Kurdish YPG fighters who make up the backbone of the Syrian Democratic Forces, a key U.S. partner in the campaign against the Islamic State. The Trump administration has continued to provide weapons, training, and air support to SDF troops over the protests of Turkey.
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by James Delingpole, BREITBART

We knew something apocalyptic was coming in Davos today. Those tactically released photographs of President Trump arriving by helicopter with his entourage were the giveaway: the silhouetted choppers strung out in extended line in the orange-yellow light above the mountains.

Why, if you’d listened carefully, you might almost have heard the strains of Wagner’s Ride of the Valkyrie wailing above the whup whup whup of those thrumming blades. And a guy with a cavalry hat and cigar in his mouth growling something about Charlie’s lack of surfing abilities, and the sweetness of the smell of napalm in the morning.

Yep, Lt Col Kilgore had arrived at the heart of the belly of the beast and the enemy was about to get a very rude awakening.
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By David Israel, JEWISH PRESS

Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri heard “disturbing” news from Jordanian King Abdullah II, who warned him of the danger of resisting President Trump’s peace plan, the Beirut-based daily Ad-Diyar reported on Friday. The meeting between the king and the PM took place on the sidelines of the Davos summit in Switzerland, and could mean a “black cloud for both countries’ attempts to deal with both the Syrian and Palestinian refugee crises,” Ad-Diyar noted, quoting Jordanian senior officials.

In the meeting, Abdullah alerted Hariri to the danger of losing the Trump administration’s funding for Palestinian refugee camps in both their countries, insisting that the president does not want to continue paying. For both Lebanon and Jordan, being able to fund the refugee population is an existential problem, as both host countries have been torn in the past by uprisings of their “Palestinian guests.”
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The country’s civil war is over — and an entirely new one has started, with the United States at the center of it.

By Jonathan Spyer, FOREIGN POLICY

he idea that Syria’s civil war is winding down has been repeated so often in recent months as to become a cliche. It has never been entirely true.

U.S. officials recently confirmed Washington’s intention to indefinitely retain effective ownership of around 28 percent of Syrian territory, in partnership with the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces. But those plans are increasingly in conflict with the other major international players in the war-torn country. That includes America’s erstwhile ally, Turkey, which recently launched “Operation Olive Branch,” an incursion into the Kurdish-held Afrin canton in Syria’s northwest. Meanwhile, President Bashar al-Assad’s regime is assaulting mainly Sunni Arab rebels to the south, and completing its conquest of the Abu Duhur airbase in the northern Idlib Province. Read more…

There is absolutely no justification for UNRWA’s operation in areas governed by the Palestinian Authority.

BY Danny Danon, JPOST

The recent decision by the American administration to withhold significant funding for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees has been met with warnings of a humanitarian crisis and regional unrest. This is a mistaken reaction. Instead of smearing this bold decision as a perceived slight, the United Nations should seize this moment and use it as a catalyst to implement both short- and long-term changes to UNRWA’s mandate. In the immediate future, UNRWA must undergo significant reform and enhanced oversight must be put into place. Then, steps must be taken to finally end the role of this nearly 70-year-old organization.
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Israel’s efforts to explain itself will not crack through the closed intellectual circle of identity politics and partisanship.

BY CAROLINE B. GLICK, JPOST

Vice President Mike Pence gave an epic speech at the Knesset this week. His was the most powerful embrace of Zionism and the Jewish people any foreign leader has ever presented. Pence’s fluency in Jewish history, and his comprehension of the centrality of the both the Bible and the Land of Israel in the vast flow of that history in far-flung-exile communities across time and space was spellbinding. He touched the hearts of his audience, causing knots in the throats of most of the people sitting in the Knesset on Monday afternoon.

Pence’s speech was rendered poignant and the friendship he bore became tinged with urgency with the publication, the very next day, of the latest Pew Center survey on American views of Israel.
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By Victor Sharpe, SWIER

The Arab and Muslim total war against Israel is a war without end. This is why it is not accurate to describe it as the Arab-Israel conflict, nor is it correct to label it the Israel-Palestinian conflict. It is, in reality, the Islam-Israel conflict.

The irrevocable Islamic and Koranic injunction upon all Muslims is to wage endless war against any non-Muslim nation state that exists within what Islam decrees as the Dar al–Islam(the House of Islam). Wherever the Muslim foot has once trod triumphal in the name of Allah, that territory is considered eternally Islamic land. If it is lost, then it enters the Dar al-Harb (the House of War) and must be retaken at all costs and its non-Muslim population either forcibly converted to Islam, subdued or exterminated.

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By Hana Levi Julian, JEWISH PRESS

U.S. President Donald Trump had tough words for the Palestinian Authority and Palestine Liberation Organization on Thursday in a joint news conference with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

The two leaders met on the sidelines of the 2018 World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.

Trump was deeply displeased over the rude manner in Palestinian Authority officials publicly made it clear that Vice President Mike Pence was “unwelcome” in their territory. It is equally clear that Trump has been paying close attention, albeit quietly, to the vicious insults that have been flung his way as well by PA leader Mahmoud Abbas and his associates.
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by Joshua Caplan, GATEWAY PUNDIT

Former FBI Director James Comey, bureau Deputy Director Andrew McCabe and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein are officially named in the “shocking” FISA abuse memo, reports the Daily Beast.  

The Daily Beast reports:

A controversial Republican memo alleging surveillance abuse specifically names FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein along with former FBI Director James Comey.

Capitol Hill sources on both sides of the aisle say the memo’s release is only a matter of time. And when it comes out, these current and former officials — all GOP bêtes noires — are likely to face even more criticism from the right over their involvement in FBI counterintelligence work.

Republicans, including Trump himself, have spent months attacking McCabe and Comey while special counsel Robert Mueller has been investigating Team Trump’s connections to the Kremlin. Rosenstein put that probe in place—a move Trump has derided as a witch hunt. […]
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ZOA to Justice Dep’t and Congress: Investigate Kerry for Potential Logan Act Violations & Treason if Report is True that Kerry Advised PA’s Abbas to Reject US Demands & Attack US President

Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) President Morton A. Klein released the following statement:

The Zionist Organization of America calls upon the U.S. Department of Justice and Congress to investigate former Secretary of State John Kerry for potential Logan Act violations, treason and inciting violence, if the reports are true regarding Kerry’s recent meeting with Palestinian Authority (PA) terrorist dictator Mahmoud Abbas’s close confidante, Hussein Agha, in London.  During this meeting, Kerry reportedly asked Agha to convey a message to dictator Abbas that Abbas should “play for time,” “stay strong,“ “not break,” should “not yield to President Trump’s demands,” and should attack President Trump personally.  Maariv and the Jerusalem Post reported that Kerry “asked Abbas, through Agha, not to attack the US or the Trump administration, but to concentrate on personal attacks on Trump himself, whom Kerry says is solely and directly responsible for the situation.”  (“Kerry To Abbas Confidante: ‘Stay Strong And Do Not Give In To Trump’,” by Ben Caspit/Maariv, Jerusalem Post, Jan. 24, 2018.)
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By Irina Tsukerman, ISRAEL HAYOM

After taking a trip to Qatar, Professor Alan Dershowitz seems to have adopted a one-sided narrative on the Gulf crisis, apparently agreeing with every word of Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani’s version of the events.  While the events leading up to and following the blockade of the small Gulf state by Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Egypt, and others may indeed be more complicated than propagandists from either side would have it, the interpretation offered in his article stretches the boundaries of credulity.

Dershowitz begins by duly admitting that his visit was offered and paid for by the emir. That may not be a reason to reject a visit, but it is certainly a reason to ask tough questions and to remain skeptical throughout. The article is peppered with disclaimers about how “everything should be verified.” Why, then, write an opinion piece, which is essentially an argument exculpating Qatar and laying blame on its Gulf neighbors, if the information on which this argument rests is unverified?  Is it not, then, in essence the knowing peddling of likely false information under the approval of Dershowitz’s name?
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Spike likely due to US declaration of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, pollsters say; majority no longer supports 2-state solution; both sides see rivals as untrustworthy

By Michael Bachner, TOI

Support for armed struggle has almost doubled among Palestinians in the last six months, while Israeli backing for a decisive military offensive to end the conflict increased during the same period by almost 60 percent, according to a poll published Thursday that said the rise was most likely linked to  US President Donald Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.

The survey also found that most Israeli Jews and most Palestinians no longer believe the two-state solution is a possible way to end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
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