By Liz Sly, WaPo

Members of the Kurdish People’s Protection Units, or YPG, attend a funeral Saturday for Kurdish fighters from the Syrian Democratic Forces who were killed in combat against the Islamic State in northeastern Syria. (Delil Souleiman/AFP/Getty Images)

BEIRUT — U.S.-allied forces in eastern Syria said Tuesday that they are withdrawing from the front lines of the war against the Islamic State in order to battle the United States’ NATO ally Turkey elsewhere in the country, jeopardizing the fight against the militants.

Citing disappointment with the United States, the Kurdish-dominated Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) said they were pulling fighters off the front lines in the province of Deir al-Zour, where Islamic State fighters have been putting up a fierce fight in a pocket of territory on the eastern bank of the Euphrates River. The holdouts there are thought to include some of the most senior leaders of the organization who escaped the cities of Mosul in Iraq and Raqqa in Syria last year, U.S. officials say.
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Middle East expert Dr. Mordechai Kedar explains how Arabs see Israel’s requests for peace, explains how true peace can be achieved.

By Hezki Baruch, INN

Middle East expert Dr. Mordechai Kedar spoke at a Knesset meeting about how Israel’s neighbors see peace, and what Israel should do to achieve a true and lasting peace.

Slamming the Knesset,, he said, “You really want to stop the incitement? Have you ever closed a TV or radio station run by the Palestinian Authority (PA)? You always blame the Supreme Court, it’s time that you, the members of the Knesset, start functioning.”

“We are the ones responsible for the fact that Jibril Rajoub (a PA leader and terrorist – ed.) still walks free. PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas gives money for terror – how come he is still the PA chairman?

“We are the ones guilty, not them. They do whatever we allow them to do.”
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T. Belman. Wouldn’t that be nice. Who better than Bolton to take on Iran and North Korea?

John Bolton Blasts Trump’s New North Korea Sanctions as Worthless

By Hank Berrien, DAILY WIRE

On Tuesday, former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton met with President Trump.

Rumors have been swirling that national security advisor H.R. McMaster may leave his post, and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson is rumored to be on tenuous ground. Bolton tweeted on Tuesday:

?@AmbJohnBolton

T. Belman. Of what value is it of “keeping the disgruntled Liberals inside the big pro-Israel tent” as Tobin suggests. To my mind, a small AIPAC committed to a large Israel from the River to the Sea is of much greater value to Israel than a large AIPAC committed to a fantasy and to bipartianship.

Endorsing the traditional formula for peace was smart politics for AIPAC, but that doesn’t make it a realistic option for the foreseeable future.

By Jonathan S Tobin, JNS

March 6, 2018 / JNS) Time was, the endorsement of a two-state solution by the executive director of AIPAC wouldn’t have been news. But when Howard Kohr told those who gathered for the group’s annual conference on Monday that the organization still believes in a vision of two states for two peoples, it was considered significant. Kohr understood that affirming the pro-Israel lobby’s stance in favor of what has long been considered the only rational solution to the conflict makes sense even if there is little reason to believe in the peace process right now.
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plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose

In 1937, an official British report first proposed the partition of Mandate Palestine. The story behind it helps to explain why the Arab-Jewish conflict remains unresolved.

By Rick Richman, MOSAIC

Lord Peel and Sir Horace Rumbold, chairman & vice chairman of the Palestine Royal Commission, after taking evidence from the Arab Higher Committee in Jerusalem in 1937. Library of Congress.In this epochal year of Zionist anniversaries—the 120th of the First Zionist Conference in Basle, the 100th of the Balfour Declaration, the 70th of the 1947 UN Partition Resolution, the 50th of the Six-Day War—there is yet another to be marked: the 80th anniversary of the 1937 British Peel Commission Report, which first proposed a “two-state solution” for Palestine.

The story of the Peel report is largely unknown today, but it is worth retelling for two reasons:
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Like you never heard him before

ZOA Strongly Criticizes AIPAC’s Support of Abbas/PA State 

ZOA

The Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) has strongly criticized the America Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) for calling for the establishment of an Abbas/Palestinian Arab state, a position that contradicts those of both the Trump Administration and the Israeli government.

That coupled with AIPAC’s long standing refusal to support Israel’s policy of the right of Jews to live anywhere in Judea/Samaria, its delay of almost a year in supporting a stronger Taylor Force Act until it was weakened, indicates AIPAC’s claim that its policy is only to support Israeli policy seems to be inaccurate.
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By David Solway, PJ MEDIA

The mid-20th Century scandal involving Joseph McCarthy’s investigations of communist infiltration into the U.S. government has become an American myth, and “McCarthy” a handy term for a witch-hunter. Like Benedict Arnold,* Joe McCarthy figures, perhaps permanently, in the devil’s hornbook of America’s legendary scoundrels. In the words of the generally staid Encyclopedia Britannica: “The term has since become a byname for defamation of character or reputation by means of widely publicized indiscriminate allegations, especially on the basis of unsubstantiated charges.”

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By Mitchell Bard, FOX NEWS

The tiny Persian Gulf nation of Qatar – one of the wealthiest countries in the world on a per capita basis, thanks to enormous oil and natural gas reserves – has become one of the most harmful influences in the Middle East and a key supporter of terrorist groups.

No one expects Qatar to launch a military attack of its own on any country. Located on a peninsula jutting out of Saudi Arabia, it is slightly smaller than Connecticut and has a population of only about 2.3 million.

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The U.S. should make clear to ersatz allies that betrayal has consequences.

By Eli Lake, BLOOMBERG

There isn’t much that Turkey’s president can do these days to further debase his reputation in the West. Recep Tayyip Erdogan has crushed peaceful protests at home and abroad, closed newspapers, threatened American soldiers, and collectively scapegoated Kurds. But over the weekend, Erdogan managed to go even lower.
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That the world has fallen hook, line and sinker for duplicitous Arab propaganda speaks to the success of one of the biggest scams ever perpetrated. And Mahmoud Abbas is still at it!

By Victor Sharpe, CFP

So the Holocaust denying head of Terror, Inc, known as the Palestinian Authority, one Mahmoud Abbas, upped his erstwhile mentor and arch terrorist, Yasser Arafat, by spewing yet another Arabian Nights hallucinatory diatribe at the United Nations Security Council. It went as follows:

“We are the descendants of the Canaanites that lived in the land of Palestine 5,000 years ago and continuously remained there to this day.”
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Israel, the U.S. and some Arab states have stepped up. Europe needs to show much more resolve.

By Jose María Aznar and Stephen Harper, WSJ

A Tehran military parade for the anniversary of the 1980-88 war with Iraq, Sept. 22, 2017.PHOTO: STR/AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE/GETTY IMAGES

The Israeli military was forced last month to engage an Iranian drone launched into Israeli airspace from Syria. Israel’s defensive actions in this case were limited, but the world should take note. There will be more such incidents if Tehran is permitted to continue projecting force throughout the Middle East. To prevent a full-scale crisis, North America and Europe must join Israel in stopping Iran.

Iran is a revolutionary theocratic state committed to spreading religious extremism throughout the Islamic world. It combines this ideological mission with pragmatic tactics, projecting political and military power from the Persian Gulf to the Mediterranean and Red seas. To support its ambition, Iran has illegally pursued nuclear weapons and fought wars using terrorist proxies. Iran’s leaders have threatened Israel time and again with total destruction, and now, for the first time since the Islamist revolution of 1979, Iranian power has arrived at Israel’s border.

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Letter from Shomron Regional Council

Dear leaders of the AIPAC family, Shalom from Israel,

We are – speaking for all Israelis – extremely appreciative of AIPAC’s devoted efforts to strengthen, protect and promote the U.S.-Israel relationship. The Hebrew accolade is, “Kol haKavod!” We do however note that the AIPAC talking points are still very much tied to establishment of a Palestinian state (what has been called “the two-state solution”).

The AIPAC website also seems to imply that Israel is committed to a two-state solution and that the United States takes this position as well.

Please note this assumption has no basis in fact: The sovereign entity in Israel is of course the Government of Israel (GOI). The official GOI Guidelines are available to the public.
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By Karen McQuillan, AMERICAN THINKER

[..]
After Donald Trump’s election, Zuckerberg came under tremendous pressure to use Facebook for the Democrats’ Resistance.  All the bludgeons were brought out – Russian bots, fake news, that Facebook handed an unearned victory to Trump.  And the greatest of all, the threat of government regulation.

At first Zuckerberg resisted the Resistance, but then he caved suddenly, following a personal intervention by Obama.

The results of Obama’s intervention are in:

Engagement on Donald Trump’s Facebook posts has dropped by approximately 45 percent since the platform introduced a new algorithm change, following a year of pressure from left-wing employees and the mainstream media for “allowing” the President to win the 2016 general election.

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The anti-Trump resistance is in bed with Jew-haters and anti-Zionists. Why liberals need to draw a line in the sand.

By Jonathan Tobin, JNS

Is there a difference between left-wing antisemites and right-wing Jew-haters?

Members of the National Council of Jewish Women taking part in the Women’s March on Washington during the inauguration of President Donald Trump in January 2017. Credit: National Council of Jewish Women via Facebook.

In theory, the answer is no. Hate is hate, no matter what it’s source. Except for some, including many Jews, the source of the hate does seem to matter. If, for example, you think right-wing hate is inherently more dangerous, you might give a pass to haters on the left or at least pay a bit less attention to them. Just as important, if you’re inclined to think that the source of anti-Jewish prejudice matters more than anything else, you might also disregard the relative danger each threat poses to the Jewish community.
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T. Belman. Given McMaster’s connection to Soros and his views on radical Islam being totally at odds with those of Trump, you have to wonder why he was given the job in the first place.

Pentagon looks for new assignment for a National Security Adviser trapped between competing agendas, even though White House says his job is secure for now

By Dion Nissenbaum and Gordon Lubold, WSJ

WASHINGTON—Even before he took the job last winter as President Donald Trump’s national security adviser, Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster had a target on his back.

He stepped into the role with lukewarm support from the president and outright resistance from high-ranking Trump loyalists who saw in Gen. McMaster the embodiment of the Washington status quo they were trying to upend.

Working under a constant cloud of innuendo that his days in the West Wing were numbered, Gen. McMaster through the year positioned himself as one of Mr. Trump’s most hawkish allies in fractured debates on the president’s top national-security challenges, including North Korea.
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