Israel to freeze marketing of new settler homes in 2017  

Angry politicians threatened to pressure Netanyahu to rescind the decision, which would prevent workers from breaking ground on new housing projects.

 

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu promised the United States that he would freeze the publication of tenders for new building projects in West Bank settlements through the end of 2017, settler sources told The Jerusalem Post.

They spoke with the Post after the Hebrew newspaper Makor Rishon broke the story on Friday morning.

Angry politicians threatened to pressure Netanyahu to rescind the decision, which would prevent workers from breaking ground on housing projects.
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June 25, 2017 | 7:55 am | 1 Comment »

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Kurdistan: From Referendum to the Road to Independence  

BESA Center Perspectives Paper No. 507,

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: On September 25, a referendum will be held on the future of the Kurdistan region of Iraq. The vote will decide whether autonomous Kurdistan should disengage from Iraq and become an independent state or remain within the Iraqi state. The referendum will be the Iraqi Kurds’ first concrete step towards the realization of the more than century-long dream of an independent Kurdish state.

After WWI, the victorious powers promised independence for the Kurds. This did not materialize, however, mainly due to the opposition of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the founder of modern Turkey.

Since then, the Kurds have suffered persecution and oppression in the countries where they reside: Iraq, Iran, Syria, and Turkey. The Kurds now constitute the largest national group in the world without a state to call their own.
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June 25, 2017 | 7:18 am | Comments »

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Republican Lawmakers Call for Investigation Into James Comey and Robert Mueller  

 

Three Republican House Oversight Committee members on Friday called for an investigation into former FBI Director James Comey and Special Counsel Robert Mueller for acting in a partisan manner and applying double standards when it came to the Obama and Trump administrations.

Reps. Jim Jordan (OH), Mark Meadows (NC), and Jody Hice (GA) said Comey misled the American people last year when he agreed to then-Attorney General Loretta Lynch’s request that he call an investigation into Hillary Clinton a “matter” instead of an investigation.
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June 24, 2017 | 5:12 pm | 3 Comments »

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What? You mean they don’t care about our Democrat investigations…again  

What? Karen Handel beat that Democrat in the race for Sixth Congressional District in Georgia ?

How could that be? How could that posssibly be? Five straight Republican Congressional wins in races against Democrats?

Didn’t the voters in Georgia know that Chuck Schumer believes that Donald Trump colluded with Vladimir Putin to win the 2016 Presidential election against Hillary Clinton?

Looks like no one really cares. And looks like Americans see through the nonsense and the enormous waste of our taxes and national resources.
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June 24, 2017 | 12:57 pm | 3 Comments »

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COLUMN ONE: Israel, American Jewry and Trump’s GOP  

To understand what can and ought to be done, it is first important to understand the nature of the BDS movement.

 

Earlier this month Norway, Denmark and Switzerland did something surprising.

Norway announced that it was demanding the return of its money from the Palestinian Human Rights and Humanitarian Law Secretariat, for the latter’s funding of a Palestinian women’s group that built a youth center near Nablus named for PLO mass murderer Dalal Mughrabi.

Denmark followed, announcing it was cutting off all funding to the group.
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June 24, 2017 | 12:28 pm | 15 Comments »

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Iranian Reformists lash out over Tillerson’s hints at regime change  

 

On June 14, US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson spoke of support for a “peaceful transition of government” in Iran, a controversial statement interpreted in Tehran as meaning that US policy is reverting to regime change.

Prominent Reformist figures, including those who have been imprisoned, protested the apparent new policy of the US government toward Iran. In a joint statement June 16, the Reformists condemned Tillerson’s announced posture and described it as “interventionist.”

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June 24, 2017 | 11:58 am | 1 Comment »

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Obama administration orchestrated false information  

Public  records document  that the Obama administration  orchestrated false information to create  public acceptance for several major administration programs. 

1.      IT IS ESSENTIAL FOR   US  NATIONAL SECURITY AND  FOR AMERICAN NATIONAL UNITY THAT ROBERT MUELLER [OR SOMEONE OF HIGHER AUTHORITY] BEGIN THEIR  INVESTIGATION WITH A THOROUGH EXAMINATION OF SQUARE ONE

A.     History documents  that  several false assumptions/accusations  led the US into major wars.

1.  The USSMaine was  sent to protect U.S. interests during the Cuban revolt against Spain, she exploded suddenly, without warning, and sank quickly, killing nearly three quarters of her crew.  Popular opinion in the U.S., fanned by inflammatory articles printed in the “yellow press” by William Randolph Hearst and Joseph Pulitzer, blamed Spain. The phrase, “Remember the Maine! To hell with Spain!”, became a rallying cry for action, which came with the Spanish–American War later that year.

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June 24, 2017 | 11:50 am | Comments »

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Intersectionality: Leftist politics designed to fail  

America is a divided nation and supports two distinct narratives – the narrative of survivors and the narrative of victims.

The survivor mentality created America and is defined by its core values of independence, equality, and freedom. It is supported by institutions promoting growth, independence, sovereignty, and the common denominator of American nationalism. The survivor narrative is the narrative of President Donald Trump.

The victim mentality was created to deconstruct America and is defined by its core values of dependence, inequality, and escape from freedom. It is supported by institutions promoting regression, dependence, internationalism, and the common denominator of globalism. The victim mentality is the narrative of the Left and Liberalism – America’s newest religion. Nationalists and Globalists have irreconcilable differences because their fundamental premises are diametrically opposed to one another. Americans must choose between them.
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June 24, 2017 | 10:40 am | 9 Comments »

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The thing about Wonder Woman  

 

So I gave in. After promising everyone that I never would, and complaining (a lot) about the very concept of superhero movies, I went to see the much-hyped adventures of Wonder Woman. Initially, I was humoring a friend, but with each minute I sat there, I found myself unwillingly inspired by what I saw.

Much has been made of the fact that several countries have chosen to boycott the movie, on the grounds of its lead actress, Gal Gadot, being a proud Israeli and Zionist. It makes sense that this movie would rub Israel’s neighbors the wrong way, but after actually seeing it, I have a feeling it is not the Zionism that is their main point of concern.  Read more…

June 23, 2017 | 7:01 pm | 3 Comments »

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Abbas said enraged by Kushner meet, refuses to halt pay even to worst terrorists  

Ramallah reportedly accuses US delegation of being mouthpiece for Israel, rebuffs watered-down demand to stop paying 600 prisoners serving life terms

A meeting between Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and senior White House official Jared Kushner reportedly left the Palestinian leader fuming and refusing to agree to watered-down demands that Ramallah cut off payments for some convicted terrorists and their families.

According to Palestinian sources quoted in Hebrew and Arabic media Friday, Abbas and his advisers accused the US of taking Israel’s side and refused a demand to stop paying salaries to several hundred prisoners serving time for the most serious crimes.

Kushner, who is US President Donald Trump’s son-in-law and chief Middle East adviser, met with Abbas in Ramallah on Wednesday, along with Trump’s international negotiator Jason Greenblatt.
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June 23, 2017 | 6:40 pm | 4 Comments »

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Hundreds of Former Israeli Generals Warn U.S. Taylor Force Act Could Create Security Risks for Israel  

File photo: Palestinian security forces line up the street in Bethlehem, Tuesday, May 23, 2017.
File photo: Palestinian security forces line up the street in Bethlehem, Tuesday, May 23, 2017. Nasser Shiyoukhi/AP

Commanders for Israel’s Security, an organization consisting of hundreds of former Israeli generals and senior security and intelligence figures, has warned that the “Taylor Force Act,” a bill that would cut all U.S. funding to the Palestinian Authority unless it stops paying salaries to convicted terrorists and their families, could create a security crisis and hurt Israel’s military cooperation with Palestinian security forces in the West Bank.
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June 23, 2017 | 6:16 pm | 7 Comments »

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Does Trump Get the Israel-Arab Problem?  

Following high-level meetings with foreign leaders, the U.S. State Department issues a “readout,” an official statement to cover and characterize the event.  This week, Jared Kushner, assistant to the president, and Jason Greenblatt, special representative for international negotiations, met with Israel’s Prime Minister Netanyahu and Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas.  At the first meeting, they were accompanied by U.S. ambassador to Israel David Friedman, at the second by consul general in Jerusalem Don Bome.

The language was precisely the same in both readouts – with the exception of a single sentence modified in each – and included affirmation of “their commitment to advancing President Trump’s goal of a genuine and lasting peace between the Israelis and the Palestinians that enhances stability in the region.”

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June 23, 2017 | 4:42 pm | 2 Comments »

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Trump’s team collides with reality in the ME  

It might seem like a no-brainer, but it’s nothing short of an epiphany.

 

The statement the White House issued late Wednesday night following a more than two-hour meeting between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and US President Donald Trump’s Mideast point man Jared Kushner was, at first glance, extremely innocuous.

Kushner was joined by Mideast envoy Jason Greenblatt and Ambassador to Israel David Friedman, and the communiqué that followed the session with the prime minister was bland and seemed to reveal – true to form for these types of statements – very little.
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June 23, 2017 | 10:28 am | 4 Comments »

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First Russian base for SE Syria – near US garrison  


The Russian engineering corps has started building a new base in southeastern Syria at a small village called Khirbet Ras Al-Wa’r in the Bir al-Qasab district. Until now, Moscow adhered to a policy of restricting its military presence to the western part of the country along the Mediterranean coast; no Russian troops were based further east than Palmyra.

The new facility is the first to be established since Moscow’s initial military intervention in the Syrian war in September, 2015. DEBKAfile’s military sources say it will provide Russia with a lever of control over the volatile Syrian southeast and its borders, where US-backed and Iranian-backed forces are fighting for dominance. . Russian forces will also stand closer than ever before to the Israeli border – 85 kilometers from central Golan and 110 kilometers from southern Golan, not far from IDF military positions.
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June 23, 2017 | 8:54 am | Comments »

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INTO THE FRAY- Gaza:The ultimate indictment of “two-statism”  

The real humanitarian solution to the plight of Gaza lies not in its reconstruction, but in its deconstruction

…the prospective Palestinian state is bound to be a failed and repressive entity, and a permanent danger to its Israeli and Jordanian neighbors    Elliott Abrams, in a briefing to the Middle East Forum, June 15, 2017

Hamas wants Israel to supply it with electricity “or else”, but there is no reason why Israel should submit to Hamas extortion. It is not Israel’s obligation to satisfy the needs of a population that continues, through its ongoing support of Hamas, to pursue Israel’s destruction. Efraim Inbar, Gaza in the Dark Is Not So TerribleJune 18, 2017
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June 22, 2017 | 10:35 pm | 3 Comments »

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Turkey’s Failed Grand Design for the Middle East  

BESA Center Perspectives

In many ways, the recent crisis between Qatar and its Gulf and other Muslim “friends” marked, among other things, the last nail in the coffin of Turkey’s “grand Middle Eastern design.” Once again, Turkey’s leaders were trapped by their own ideological shallowness into betting on a losing horse.

Very important Turks in dark suits saw the start of the Arab Spring as a golden opportunity to realize their neo-Ottoman ambitions. In Tunisia, their Islamist brothers in arms, the Ennahdha Party, would come to power and annihilate the “secular infidels.” Rachid Ghannouchi, Ennahdha’s chief ideologue, never hid his admiration for Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdo?an’s stealth Islamization by popular vote.
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June 22, 2017 | 6:46 pm | 2 Comments »

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Sorry, global warmists: The ’97 percent consensus’ is complete fiction  

By Dan Calabrese, CFP

You hear it all the time. Why, 97 percent of all climate scientists agree that global warming is dangerous and man is causing it. The debate is over and it’s time to act! (With the very kinds of tax and regulatory policies liberals would advocate anyway.)

Did you ever think to question, though, what the basis of this 97 percent figure might be? Joseph Bast and Roy W. Spencer did. Mr. Bast is president of the Heartland Institute, while Dr. Spencer is a principal research scientist for the University of Alabama in Huntsville and the U.S. Science Team Leader for the Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer on NASA’s Aqua satellite. Writing today in the Wall Street Journal, the two men examine the most frequently cited sources for this claim and find them wanting. No matter how many times you hear politicians repeat the claim, there is no 97 percent consensus:

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June 22, 2017 | 6:11 pm | 1 Comment »

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On Mueller investigation, Trump should fight fire with fire  

John Eastman, law professor at Chapman University, writes in American Greatness this week that the powers invested in Special Counsel Mueller to investigate “Russian hacking/collusion/obstruction poses grave dangers to our body politic and our liberty.”  His advice to President Trump: Fight fire with fire.  Turn the law and the courts back on your opponents.  Trump is being investigated without any probable cause of a crime.  The Obama administration, in contrast, is a target-rich arena of criminal activity.

It is unconstitutional to issue a search warrant when there has been no crime and there is no probable cause.  But that is exactly what President Trump’s DOJ has inflicted on the president and his team with Mueller’s special investigation.  It was not just cowardice, but folly for the DOJ to buckle to the left-wing media’s hysterical insistence to investigate our president’s alleged collusion with the FSB.
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June 22, 2017 | 5:58 pm | 2 Comments »

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