Muslim extremists issue call to arms following Trump’s pro-Israel speech

BY Adam Kredo, FREE BEACON

Top officials in Iran and the Muslim Brotherhood are calling for violent reprisals on the United States and Israel following President Donald Trump’s recognition Wednesday of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital city, a long-promised declaration that has lit a fuse in the Arab world.

Iran’s Supreme Leader, as well as many in the Muslim Brotherhood, condemned Trump’s effort to relocate the U.S. embassy in Israel to Jerusalem and threatened increased attacks on the Jewish state and American assets in the region.

These threats were issued as Palestinians took to the streets in and around Jerusalem to violently protest Trump’s move. Hundreds of Palestinian protestors clashed with Israeli security personnel on Thursday, amid a call from the Hamas terrorist group for Palestinians to take up arms.
Read more…

Projects at Atarot, Pisgat Ze’ev, Katamon and Rehes Lavan linked to Trump’s recognition of capital

By RAOUL WOOTLIFF and SUE SURKES, TOI

The Atarot industrial zone, with the Ramallah suburb Kafr Aqab seen in the background. (Miriam Alster/Flash90)

Bolstered by US President Donald Trump’s declaration recognizing Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, the government is reportedly planning to build around 14,000 units in the city, some 6,000 of them in East Jerusalem.

As part of the plan, being advanced by Housing and Construction Minister Yoav Galant (Kulanu), 5,000 units are planned for Atarot, north of Jerusalem and just outside Ramallah, and a further 1,000 units for the East Jerusalem Jewish neighborhood of Pisgat Zeev, Hadashot news reported Thursday.
Read more…

By Dr. James M. Dorsey, BESA

BESA Center Perspectives Paper No. 676, December 7, 2017

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: Qatar and Saudi Arabia share a Wahhabi tradition, yet Qatar’s secular social character is more similar to that of Turkey. Despite their current antagonism, the leaders of the two countries share a forward-looking, less socially conservative vision. But a government-engineered modernizing process will be ineffective if it is not accompanied by political change.

A multi-domed, sand-colored architectural marvel, Doha’s national mosque symbolizes Qatar’s complex and troubled relationship with Saudi Arabia. Its naming six years ago after eighteenth century Islamic scholar Muhammad Ibn Abdul Wahhab, the founder of one of Islam’s most puritan strands, sparked controversy, becoming an episode in the latest Gulf crisis.

The naming of the mosque, which overlooks the Qatar Sports Club in Doha’s Jubailat district, was intended to pacify more traditional segments of Qatari society as well as Saudi Arabia, which sees the tiny Gulf state, the only other country whose native population is Wahhabi, as a troublesome and dangerous gadfly on its doorstep. Qatar has long challenged the Kingdom’s puritan interpretation of Islam. Now, together with the Saudis’ other nemesis, the United Arab Emirates, it offers an unacknowledged model for Saudi reforms envisioned by the Kingdom’s powerful crown prince, Muhammad bin Salman.

Read more…

By Evelyn Gordan, COMMENTARY

That Arab and European leaders are protesting President Trump’s intent to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital is no surprise. Nor is it any surprise that groups like J Street and Jewish Voice for Peace joined them. I was, however, genuinely shocked that the leader of America’s largest Jewish denomination also joined the denunciations. Until recently, any mainstream American Jewish leader would have been embarrassed to oppose U.S. recognition of Jerusalem publicly.

And yet, it’s of a piece with recent decisions by non-Orthodox Hillel directors to bar mainstream Israelis from speaking on campus, and with the fact that Birthright Israel recently dropped the Union for Reform Judaism as a trip organizer because it was recruiting too few students. Taken together, all these facts paint a worrying picture.
Read more…

Along comes Trump, the most untraditional and nonconformist of all US presidents, and says “enough is enough.” What has been tried didn’t work, so it’s time to try something new.

BY HERB KEINON, JPOST
In a brief speech of 1,240 words, US President Donald Trump did more on Wednesday than “just” recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and begin the process of moving the embassy there from Tel Aviv. He also upended the orthodoxy that has dominated the approach to Middle East peacemaking for a quarter century.

Over the last 24 years, since the beginning of the Oslo peace process, certain tenets have come to be accepted as truths: that the only solution is a two-state solution; that there can be no long-term interim agreements; that dozens of settlements will have to be removed; that a future Palestinian state must be free of Jews; and that Washington cannot recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital until there is a final peace deal.

On and off over this period, a lot of intelligent people have devoted a great deal of time and energy towards trying to bridge the chasm between the most Israel would offer and the minimum the Palestinians were willing to accept. And despite their best efforts, they couldn’t bridge the gap.
Read more…

About time.

In addition Trump threw a few bones to the Arabs saying the Jerusalem was equally important to them. He also made sure to say that this recognition doesn’t in any way preclude Israel agreeing to divide Jerusalem so that the Palestinians could have a capital in eastern part of  Jerusalem.

He made one other important statement when he said it is up to the younger generation, I think referring to Mohammed ben Salman, to forge a new path.

STARTS AT 34 MINUTES AND ENDS AT 46 MINUTES

By Linda Goudsmit, PUNDICITY

The humanitarian hoax is a deliberate and deceitful tactic of presenting a destructive policy as altruistic. The humanitarian huckster presents himself as a compassionate advocate when in fact he is the disguised enemy.

Relativism is defined as the belief that there is no absolute truth, only truths that a particular individual or culture happen to believe. People who believe in relativism accept that different people can have different views about what is moral and immoral. So far so good – society can tolerate multiple opinions on the relative merits of a thing or an idea. Here is the problem – civilized society requires consensus on the existence of that thing or idea – it requires agreement on what is real.

Objective reality is the foundation for the laws and rules that regulate public behavior in society.

In a previous article I introduced the problem of multiple realities inherent in Kurt Lewin’s Change Theory with the example of a man walking down the street.

Read more…

Taylor Force Act must now clear the full Senate before going to the president’s desk

By ERIC CORTELLESSA, TOI

WASHINGTON — The US House of Representatives passed on Tuesday the Taylor Force Act, legislation that would cut US funding to the Palestinian Authority unless it discontinues its practice of paying monthly stipends to the families of terrorists who kill Israelis.

Last month, the measure unanimously advanced out of committee, including three exceptions: allowing for US funding to Palestinian water and childhood vaccination programs, as well as East Jerusalem hospitals.

The bill must now pass the full Senate, which is expected to vote on it this month, when the upper chamber votes on a foreign operations bill it was packaged into last September. It is expected to pass.

Read more…

While rumors fly over his return to service, the Jewish State’s American-born former ambassador to the UN says Israel has increasing international clout

By CATHRYN J. PRINCE, TOI

NEW YORK — Former Israeli ambassador to the United Nations Dore Gold is pushing back against the idea that Israel is more isolated than ever.

Instead, he says, an increasing number of countries are not only willing, but are eager to embrace Israel.

The 63-year-old Connecticut native spoke in an interview with The Times of Israel at the November 14 StandWithUs third annual gala. In conversation, Gold credits lucrative trade deals and Israel’s security expertise, among other things, for the warming ties.

Read more…

By E.M. Cadwaladr, AMERICAN THINKER

We are all familiar with the Democratic Party gambit of packing the electorate with poor, third-world immigrants, all but guaranteed to vote for the party who offers them a living on the taxpayers’ largesse. While progressives still roll their eyes at the suggestion that this is why third-world immigration has been encouraged — the point is no longer even worth arguing. The fact that this immigration policy has, for many decades, had the effect of moving the country to the left is uncontestable. Latinos and other poor minorities vote for big government until they make it to middle class — an achievement which has become conveniently difficult since government effectively punishes people for being in the middle class.

Call me a conspiracy theorist, a xenophobe, a racist, or a leprechaun if you like, but this is what has actually happened. For quite a few election cycles now, there have been indications that this game is running out of steam. The election of Donald Trump was an unmistakable thundering proclamation that a growing majority of the people have had enough — that we do not need more social programs or more federally enforced diversity, and we certainly do not need more unskilled workers to serve an economy with an ever-shrinking number of unskilled jobs.
Read more…

By Evelyn Gordan, COMMENTARY

North Korea’s demonstration of a ballistic missile capable of reaching most of the United States prompted gloomy commentary in Israel about the failure to halt Pyongyang’s nuclear program and, by analogy, the seeming impossibility of stopping Iran’s nuclear program. As Haaretz commentator Anshel Pfeffer put it, Kim Jong-un “proved that a dictator who wants a nuclear weapon badly enough,” and is ruthless and determined enough, “will ultimately achieve it.” Yet the North Korean example proves no such thing because it says nothing about the efficacy of the one tactic America never tried: military action, or at least the credible threat thereof.
Read more…

Israel’s Ambassador to the US says chances of conflict with Iranian proxies in the near future is ‘higher than people think.’

By Tod Polon, INN

The chances of war on Israel’s northern border could be “weeks” away, according to Israel’s Ambassador to the US Ron Dermer.

In an interview on Monday with Politico touching on a wide range of issues, Dermer said that the chances of a military conflict taking place in the near future between Israel and the Iran-backed Hezbollah terror group were “higher than people think because of Iran’s continued push through the region.”

“If Iran is not rolled back in Syria, then the chances of military confrontation are growing. I don’t want to tell you by the year or by the month. I’d say even by the week,” Dermer assessed.
Read more…

[US Quietly Working on Site for Jerusalem Embassy]

By JNi.Media

Monday night was an exciting time for international law experts such as Eugene Kontorovich, who must have been sitting with their eyes on their kitchen clock, counting the minutes until midnight. Because at midnight, Kontorovich, a Professor of Law at Northwestern University and a valiant supporter of Israel, tweeted the following:

“HUGE: With midnight coming up and no Jerusalem Embassy waiver signed, it means the law will take full effect. It is a hard deadline, & once waiver missed, it cant be made late.”

Eugene Kontorovich
@EVKontorovich

HUGE: With midnight coming up and no Jerusalem Embassy waiver signed, it means the law will take full effect. It is a hard deadline, & once waiver missed, it cant be made late.
The sky not falling despite non-signature of waiver. @APDiploWriter @LovedayM

Read more…

By Amb Alan Baker, JCPA

Institute for Contemporary Affairs

Founded jointly with the Wechsler Family Foundation

Vol. 17, No. 34

1. Jerusalem has been the official capital of the State of Israel and the center of its government since 1950. Jerusalem is the seat of Israel’s President, Knesset, and Supreme Court, and the site of most government ministries and social and cultural institutions. Jerusalem is the ancient spiritual center of Judaism and is also considered a holy city by the members of other religious faiths. Israel protects the holy sites of all faiths.

Read more…

T. Belman. Trump doesn’t have to be bribed to fight Iran or to let Saudi Arabia do it. That’s what he wants.

By Adam Shaw, BREITBART

White House Senior Adviser Jared Kushner is stoking a widely reported feud with Secretary of State Rex Tillerson by pursuing his hopes that a relationship with Saudi Arabia’s crown prince will lead to a peace deal in the Middle East.

Kushner was given the task of creating peace in the Middle East as part of his broad portfolio when Trump took office in January. Now, CNN reports that Tillerson is upset by what he believes to be a dangerous strategy by Kushner that involves pushing an agreement with Saudi Arabia which would create a Palestinian state and “normalization between Israel and its Arab neighbors.”
Read more…