A new online course illuminates how Jewish teachings, combined with the age’s best Enlightenment sensibilities, helped to create and to guide the young republic.

By Tevi Troy, MOSAIC

The Tikvah Fund’s new online course, Jewish Ideas and the American Founders, is a must-view and a must-hear. Its star—I use the word advisedly—is Rabbi Meir Soloveichik, well-known to readers for his enlightening contributions to Mosaicas well as to Commentary, the Wall Street Journal, First Things, and other publications.

For lovers of Jewish ideas and American political history, these eight one-hour videos constitute an eye-opening introduction to the Jewish influence on the American founding and the early republic, relayed through Rabbi Soloveichik’s erudite insights into the religious underpinnings of some of America’s basic political ideas. The course does not overreach into the exaggerated, apologetic, and untrue claim that America is simply an outgrowth of biblical ideas. Instead, this telling helps us see how Jewish teachings, grounded in the Hebrew Bible, and the age’s best Enlightenment sensibilities together helped create and guide the development of the young republic.
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Law enabling gov’t to deport infiltrators illegally residing in Israel passed by Knesset, paves way for closure of Holot detention center.

By David Rosenberg, INN

A plan to deport more than 40,000 illegal immigrants from Israel passed the Knesset late Monday night, paving the way for the implementation of program previously blocked by the Supreme Court.

The Knesset voted just before midnight on Monday to pass a bill which would close the Holot detention facility, where thousands of infiltrators have been detained since a surge in illegal immigration less than a decade ago. The bill, which passed 71 to 41, would also empower the government to deport illegal immigrants who refuse to self-deport in exchange for compensation.
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By Shoshana Bryen, DAILY CALLER

President Trump’s decision to have the United States recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel was not taken in a vacuum. It was another step in changing the moribund Palestinian-Israel “peace process” into something else. What else is not clear, but the intention and the antecedents are.

The intention is to disabuse the Palestinians of the notion that the U.S. is neutral between them and our democratic, pro-Western, tolerant, free-market ally Israel. Clarity will actually make the U.S. an honest broker in any future negotiations – honest being the operative word. Our support for Palestinian aspirations is conditional on their behavior.

As for antecedents…
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By Fay Voshell, AMERICAN THINKER

Tertullian, a second-century leader of the Christian church, is well known for a statement he made concerning the importance of Jerusalem as contrasted with the secular city of Athens.  He wrote, “What has Athens to do with Jerusalem?”

He continued, “After we become Christians, we have no need of Greek philosophy.”  Jerusalem and Athens were to have nothing to do with one another.

Those who have thought of faith and the “world” as entirely two separate domains sometimes do not realize that their arguments against the entanglement of religion and the world have been appropriated gladly by those who believe in radical separation of church and state, arguing that the world of faith is irrational and that the actual workings of the world should be left to secularists.
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Despite his widespread unpopularity, Trump has delivered on specific promises to wealthy donors and the far right.

By Earl Ofari Hutchinson, HUFFINGTON POST

This is one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to write and admit: Trump is winning. In the brief space of a week, he won a brief court fight to shove Mick Mulvaney to head the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Mulvaney wasted no time in unhinging a spate of consumer protection rulings, regulations, and personnel hires made during the Obama years.

His SCOTUS pick, Neil Gorsuch, eagerly cast a vote to impose the Muslim travel ban. His EPA head, Scott Pruitt, delivered a couple million acres of public monument land in the West to oil, gas, and coal industry developers. Trump busily continues to pack the federal judiciary with a parade of ultra-conservative, strict, constructionist Clarence Thomas and Antonin Scalia clones.
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Jordanian parliament approves committee to reevaluate all formal ties with Israel, including the peace agreement.

By Elad Benari, INN
The Jordanian parliament on Sunday approved a proposal to establish a committee to reevaluate all formal ties with Israel, including the peace agreement, Haaretz reported.

According to the proposal, the committee will study Jordan’s agreements with Israel and look into Israel’s violation of them in order to determine whether or not the agreements should be continued or canceled.

The Jordanian parliament’s decision Sunday does not necessarily mean that the peace accords with Israel will be annulled, noted Haaretz. Such a decision requires the approval of the government, the royal palace and the council advising Jordan’s King Abdullah II.
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Security Council became a kangaroo court, turning a perverted version of “international law” against the Trump administration for its just defense of the Jewish state of Israel and Israel’s right to choose its own capital

By Joseph A Klein, CFP

On December 6th, President Trump announced his decision to officially recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and to instruct the State Department to begin the process of relocating the U.S. Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. Two days later, at a special meeting of the United Nations Security Council, the other 14 members of the Council, including U.S. allies such as France, the United Kingdom and Italy, ganged up on the United States to condemn President Trump’s decision. Allies and adversaries of the U.S., one after the other, claimed that President Trump’s decision had defied international consensus on how to achieve a viable two-state solution, violated international law and risked destabilizing the region as well as imperiling the peace process. Bolivia’s ambassador was the most strident, demanding that the Security Council take action against President Trump’s decision if it wanted to avoid becoming “an occupied territory.”
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State Department: ‘Specific boundaries of Israeli sovereignty in Jerusalem are subject to final status negotiations’

BY Adam Kredo, FREE BEACON

The United States still will not formally recognize Jerusalem as being located in Israel on official documents, maps, and passports, despite President Donald Trump’s announcement earlier this week that America is formally recognizing the holy city as Israel’s capital, according to State Department officials who spoke to the Washington Free Beacon about the matter.

Despite Trump’s declaration, which was formally codified on Wednesday into U.S. policy, the State Department is taking a more nuanced position on the matter, drawing some ire in Congress among pro-Israel lawmakers who accuse the State Department of undermining Trump’s efforts.

State Department officials this week had difficulty stating as fact that Jerusalem is located within Israel, instead trying to parse the issue as still subject to diplomatic negotiations.
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by Ilan Berman, Al-Hurra Digital

It’s the most important Middle Eastern news story that no one is talking about.

Earlier this Fall, Egypt’s state statistics agency, the Central Agency for Popular Mobilization and Statistics (CAPMAS), formally released the findings of its 2016 national census. The results shed important new light on the challenges now confronting the government of president Abdel Fatah al-Sisi in Cairo.

The central conclusion of the CAPMAS survey is that Egypt’s population is ballooning. Over the past three decades, the country’s population has essentially doubled, rising from 48 million in 1986 to nearly 95 million at the end of last year. Moreover, the pace of this growth appears to be quickening. In the decade between 1986 and 1996, the census notes, Egypt’s population grew by just over 11 million souls. In the subsequent decade (1996-2006), it grew by an analogous amount: nearly 13.5 million. But in the ten years since, it has accelerated, growing by some 22 million, and this surge shows no signs of slowing.
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http://english.wafa.ps/page.aspx?id=76V58Va95548387176a76V58V

CAIRO, December 9, 2017 (WAFA – Official PLO news agency) – Foreign Minister Riyad al-Malki Friday said US President Donald Trump’s decision deprived his country of the ability to play a role in the peace process.

Al-Malki said in a press conference held Saturday evening in Cairo that the US has excluded itself from having a role in the peace process in the region, including its role in the Quartet, because the decision shows the extent of US’s bias towards Israel and against the Palestinian people.

“We came today to attend an emergency meeting of Arab foreign ministers to discuss the issue of US recognition of Jerusalem and to know what action could be taken. We will ask all countries that recognize Palestine to recognize East Jerusalem as the eternal capital of the state of Palestine, for both Christians and Muslims.”
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Government says new metropolis will draw population away from Amman and inject momentum into a sluggish economy plagued by high unemployment

By KARIN LAUB, TOI

MADOUNEH, Jordan (AP) — A shiny new city is to arise from Jordan’s desert over the next three decades, potentially rivaling the kingdom’s capital of Amman, a rapidly growing and increasingly unwieldy metropolis of 4 million people.

Announcing plans for what it portrays as a high-tech utopia, Jordan joined other Middle Eastern countries betting on multi-million-dollar mega projects as an investment magnet and quick economic fix.

Yet some urban planners warn that “cities from scratch” are risky endeavors and argue it’s more efficient to improve existing cities.
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DEBKA

The Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas only found Jordan’s King Abdullah and Turkey’s President Tayyip Erdogan to back him up Thursday, Dec. 7, in the first 24 hours after US President Donald Trump’s announced recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital. The Arab street’s first response was also minor in scale and pitch – less than 100 protesters at most of the rallies. Prepared for an outbreak of “the third Palestinian intifada (uprising)”, foreign correspondents arrived on the scene kitted up in helmets and vests, only to find a fairly low-key event to cover rather than a violent backlash. The Palestinian sources reported 140 injured so far, most of them from inhaling gas and three from rubber bullets.
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Her probable replacement is no different.

By Mike Diamond, CJN

Western society has plunged headlong into the world of political correctness. At first, the reaction to what was not deemed suitable, by those in a position to judge, was a raised eyebrow or perhaps polite commentary in back rooms. Then it became a glare. And more recently, reactions have become far more flagrant, ranging from firings to public chastisement and, in some countries, prosecution. The examples are many, but the underlying theme in each case is that some group in society professes to be uncomfortable, unhappy, challenged or feels unsupported by something that has been said or done by another individual or group, and demands change on the part of the source of that discomfort.

The alleged victims in our own country may be members of the LGBTQ community, followers of Islam, black or brown Canadians, indigenous Canadians or women. Also included are certain select groups outside the country who are deemed to be oppressed, including Palestinians (but for some reason not including many other persecuted groups, such as Christians, Yazidis or the Rohingya, or pretty well anyone not part of the power structure in China).
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Merkel’s government and Germany’s liberal elites are desperate to maintain the fiction that integration of Muslim immigrants and migrants will proceed apace with time

By Barbara Kay, NATIONAL POST

Refugees crowd at the Hungarian-Austrian border in Szentgotthard, Hungary, as thousands of migrants wait for their departure to Germany on September 19, 2015.

Bad things that are tips of bad icebergs shouldn’t happen to good people. But if they must, it’s as well they happen to people with influence to command respectful attention.

Gordon Wasserman (since 2011 Baron Wasserman) grew up in Montreal, won a Rhodes Scholarship to Oxford University, and joined the U.K. Home Office in 1967. He is presently a Conservative member of the House of Lords and Government Advisor on Policing and Criminal Justice. The “bad thing” happened to his grandson, “Oscar,” not his real name.
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