T. Belman, Use the $700 million/year taken from the Pals, to pay for the wall.

By Victor Davis Hanson, TOWNHALL

President Trump set off another Twitter firestorm last week when he hinted that he may be considering cutting off hundreds of millions of dollars in annual U.S. aid to the Palestinians. Trump was angered over Palestinian unwillingness to engage in peace talks with Israel after the Trump administration announced the move of the U.S. Embassy in Israel to Jerusalem.

Given that the U.S. channels its Palestinian aid through third-party United Nations organizations, it’s unclear how much money Trump is talking about it. But in total it may exceed $700 million per year, according to reports.

A decade ago, the U.S. row with the Palestinian Authority would have been major news. But not now.
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By Reuven Berko, ISRAEL HAYOM

In his book “Fire and Fury,” Michael Wolff cites U.S. President Donald Trump’s former strategic adviser Steve Bannon as saying the White House’s formula for solving the Middle East conflict involved Egypt’s annexation of the Gaza Strip and Jordanian administration of the West Bank as part of efforts to counter the Iranian threat. This alleged blueprint illustrates how, in contrast with the days of former President Barack Obama, Washington now sees the Palestinian issue as marginal and certainly not the cause of the crisis in the region. From this perspective, plans to shut down the United Nations relief agency for Palestinian refugees, improve the lives of descendants of Palestinian refugees in Arab countries, remove the issue of Jerusalem from the negotiating table and have Egypt annex Gaza and Jordan annex Judea and Samaria all point to a comprehensive approach to finding a solution in the face of constraints and violent Palestinian noncooperation.
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Judaism and Christianity both claim to be true, but they have rival versions of the truth.

BY RAYMOND APPLE, JPOST

TheJerusalem Post editorial on January 7 spoke of the “Judeo-Christian tradition.” That fabled tradition does not exist, nor does the “Judeo-Christian ethic.” Though sharing a common origin in the Hebrew Scriptures, the two faiths read the scriptural texts differently. They believe in God, but view Him through different lenses. They each have a story, but they are not the same. They each have a concept of man, but they are not the same. They are both ethical religions, but with separate ideas of man’s nature, salvation and destiny.

For Christianity, Jesus is central; in Judaism he does not figure even though he was a Jew. Christianity, says Leo Baeck, prefers the “finished statement” of dogma: Judaism, the “unending process of thought.” Judaism and Christianity both claim to be true, but they have rival versions of the truth. There are commonalities, but so many differences.
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Palestinians question whether Ramallah will follow through on its threats.

BY DIMA ABUMARIA/ THE MEDIA LINE, JPOST

The Executive Committee of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), the umbrella organization that is internationally-recognized as the representative of the Palestinian people, will push to withdraw formal recognition of Israel and end Washington’s longstanding role as mediator of the peace process. Instead, the PLO will pursue an “international formula” for achieving statehood. The developments were outlined in a report that aims to redefine not only the parameters for future relations with Israel and the Unites States, but also change the status of the Palestinian Authority from a “transitional authority” to a “state under occupation.” The details are intended to be finalized in a follow-up meeting of the PLO mid-month.
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Patriot and a believer in American, sovereignty and American exceptionalism who can’t be bought or bullied–that certainly is the Deep State’s worst nightmare

By Selwyn Duke, CFP

by Dexter Van Zile, ALGEMEINER

Somebody needs to give Wafsi Kailani a copy of the 1994 peace treaty between Jordan and Israel. Kailani, who has served as manager of Jerusalem Affairs for the Hashemite kingdom of Jordan since 2008, violated a major component of this treaty by falsely declaring that a Jew set fire to the Al-Aqsa Mosque on August 21, 1969.

Kailani leveled the false accusation — clearly intended to defame the Jewish state — at a conference about the Temple Mount that took place at Harvard Law School late last year. The conference, organized by professor Noah Feldman, was titled “Temple Mount/Haram al-Sharif: Conflict, Culture, Law,” and was held from November 28-29, 2017.
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By Evelyn Gordan, COMMENTARY

The fact that Iran’s anti-regime protests appear to have died down is not a reason to relax the pressure on Tehran. On the contrary, it’s a reason to increase it through serious sanctions on Iran’s ballistic missile program as well as its support for terror and regional aggression. The protests will only become a truly mass movement if enough Iranians come to realize what the protesters already have: Contrary to the promise held out by the nuclear deal, Iran can’t have it all. Terror and military aggression are incompatible with a thriving economy.

To understand why more pressure is needed, it’s worth revisiting a New York Times article from November that has been widely but somewhat unfairly derided. In it, reporter Thomas Erdbrink wrote that “The two most popular stars in Iran today—a country with thriving film, theater, and music industries—are not actors or singers but two establishment figures: Gen. Qassim Suleimani, the leader of Iran’s regional military effort, which is widely seen as a smashing success; and the foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, the symbol of a reasonable and measured Iran.”
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By Yossi Kuperwasser, ISRAEL HAYOM

The validity of the Palestinian narrative is waning. Will this spur a shift in Palestinian policy?

Developments in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in recent weeks, and some we can expect to unfold in the near future, have caused increasing frustration among Palestinians.

This is due to the erosion of Palestinian power, which until now has ensured that the Palestinians are treated with kid gloves, as well as perpetuating the realization in Israel that there is no Palestinian peace partner, particularly in light of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas’ recent speeches.
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T. Belman. I highly recommend the books of Joseph Roth.  I read the Radetsky March and others about 30 years ago..

By Joseph Epstein |JEWISH REVIEW OF BOOKS

In Ostend, his book about the German and Austrian émigré literary group that gathered in the Belgian resort town after Hitler came to power, Volker Weidermann describes Joseph Roth, the most talented of these writers, looking “like a mournful seal that has wandered accidentally onto dry land.” Roth was small, thin yet pot-bellied, slightly hunched over, with a chosen nose, a bad liver, and missing lots of teeth. He began most mornings, like the serious alcoholic that he was, vomiting. Always in flight, one of the world’s permanent transients, Roth was a one-man diaspora: “Why do you people roam around so much in the world?” asks a Galician peasant in one of his novels. “The devil sends you from one place to another.”
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BESA Center Perspectives Paper No. 712, January 10, 2018

By Dr. James M. Dorsey, BESA

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: Talks aimed at transferring US nuclear technology to Saudi Arabia serve as an indicator of where the Saudi-Iranian rivalry is heading as well as the strength of the informal Saudi-Israeli alliance against Iran. The possible transfer could spark a new arms race in the Middle East and constitutes one explanation why Saudi responses to President Donald J. Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel were muted and limited to rhetorical statements.
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The US administration should stop financing this humiliating facade.

BY SHIMON MENDES, JPOST

As long as the “UNRWA state” exists, the Palestinian issue will never be resolved.

In the 1948 war the Arab Liberation Army suffered a crippling defeat. The Arab League refused to accept defeat and, to save its reputation, decided to demand the implementation of the principle “status quo ante bellum.” Meaning to restore the Palestinian refugees to their homes.

The United Nations embraced the League’s demand and created a special UN agency – the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA). The goal was not to rehabilitate the refugees, but rather to render the League refugees state services, like health, welfare and education.
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DEBKA

A broad, purposeful assessment of policy on Syrian president Bashar Assad’s political future has been scheduled for the rest of the week in Washington, DEBKAfile reports. This event accounts for the timing of Israel’s purported air strikes from Lebanese air space, which Syrian state media claimed targeted the Al Qutaiba base east of Damascus before dawn on Tuesday, Jan. 9.

DEBKAfile’s Washington sources reveal that the deliberations in the White House are to be led by high officials of US government branches involved in Syrian policy. Invited too are senior European diplomats from Britain, Germany, France and Italy, and representatives from Asia, led by Japan and India. The conference has been called to hammer out a unified US-European-Asian policy for determining the shape of the regime in post-war Syria and Assad’s future role. The Trump administration intends to come out of these deliberations with a broadly-based US-led coalition policy for Syria that will challenge Vladimir Putin’s plans for leading Syria from war to peace in conjunction with Iran and Turkey.

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Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, today (Tuesday, 9 January 2017), in Jerusalem, attended a lunch with NATO member state ambassadors to Israel,

Prime Minister Netanyahu:

“Ambassador, you outlined the great cooperation between NATO and Israel.

It’s a natural one. NATO was created one year after Israel, it’s a unique alliance of democracies that share common values, committed to the preservation of freedom, the protection and advancement of peace. Israel is such a democracy as well. It’s the only such democracy in this region and therefore our cooperation is natural. It was somewhat overdue and it received significant acceleration and flourishing following the opening of our office in NATO headquarters in December of 2016. Beyond the many important areas that you outlined, there are two issues that I think I want to spell out for you which I think are important areas where Israel contributes to the security of every single NATO country. And they both have to do with radical Islam.
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After reported airstrikes on targets in Syria, PM and Mossad chief warn against advanced Iranian munitions reaching terror groups

By JUDAH ARI GROSS, TOI

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu leads the weekly cabinet meeting at the Prime Minister’s Office in Jerusalem on January 7, 2018. (Ohad Zwigenberg/Pool)

Following reports of an Israeli airstrike on a weapons depot in Syria, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Tuesday that Israel is prepared to take action to prevent advanced munitions from reaching the Hezbollah terrorist group.

“We have a longstanding policy to prevent the transfer of game-changing weapons to Hezbollah in Syrian territory. This policy has not changed. We back it up, if necessary, with action,” he said at an event with NATO officials in Jerusalem.
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BY: Noah Pollak, FREE BEACON

These have been good weeks for supporters of the U.S.-Israel alliance and peace in the Middle East. The president made history with his Jerusalem announcement, and his critics—the U.S. foreign policy establishment, Europe, the media—were embarrassed after their dire and hysterical predictions of violence failed to come true.

What’s more, it appears the president and his advisers, in dramatic contrast to the previous administration, take the Palestinians seriously and understand that anti-American, anti-Israel, and anti-Semitic rhetoric from Palestinian leaders is meaningful. The president also appears to believe that enormous U.S. spending on the Palestinian Authority—more than $5 billion since the mid-1990s—has earned us a negative return. The billions haven’t promoted peace, but instead kleptocracy, terror, and hate—in the course of making Palestinians the greatest per capita recipients of foreign aid in the world.
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MKs warned that International Criminal Court planning to investigate Israel over 2014 Gaza conflict, construction in J’lem, Judea, Samaria.

By David Rosenberg, INN

The International Criminal Court in The Hague is planning on investigating Israeli leaders over construction in eastern Jerusalem, the expansion of Israeli towns in Judea and Samaria, as well as the 2014 conflict with Hamas, Operation Protective Edge.

According to a report by Channel 10 Monday evening, the Israeli National Security Council warned Israeli lawmakers in the Knesset’s Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee that the international court is planning on opening an investigation later this year into the 2014 war with Hamas, as well Jewish housing projects in Judea and Samaria.
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The US should not provide welfare to a nation that openly supports the indiscriminate slaughter of innocent people.

BY NITSANA DARSHAN-LEITNER, JPOST

On New Year’s morning 2018, US President Donald Trump tweeted, “The United States has foolishly given Pakistan more than 33 billion dollars in aid over the last 15 years, and they have given us nothing but lies and deceit, thinking of our leaders as fools. They give safe haven to the terrorists we hunt in Afghanistan, with little help. No more!” The ultimatum was long overdue.

Nevertheless, Trump’s tweet caught virtually everyone by surprise – from State Department diplomats in Foggy Bottom to the generals and politicians in Islamabad – and sparked a true and soul-searching debate about the relationship between America and what many believe to be a failed state that just happens to have a population of 193 million people, and nuclear weapons.
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