T. Belman. That’s axiomatic if you foresee most of the land going to the PA. If we refuse to follow the Kerry framework then only good comes out of settlement construction.

[JPOST used this sub-title “Israel’s continued policy of settlement expansion is illegal under international law.” They are so far left that they are in the ditch.]

By Tova Lazaroff, JPOST

The United States and the European Union over the weekend accused Israel of harming the peace process by advancing plans to build 3,178 settler homes.

US President Donald Trump “has talked about this consistently and he has said, in his opinion, unrestrained settlement activity does not help advance the peace process,” US State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert told reporters in Washington on Thursday.

• Israeli settler activity triples, 7,721 homes planned or approved

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UK Jewish leadership sends both candidates list of 10 Commitments; May and Corbyn promised to keep them – one is to advocate for a PA state.

Arutz Sheva

British Jewish leaders urged both candidates for British premiership to support Palestinian statehood and get Jewish votes in return, Israel National News has learned. Israeli members of government, most of whom strongly oppose this request have expressed their displeasure privately.

The Board of Deputies is considered the main representative body of British Jews. Yesterday, the Board distributed an email linking to videos sent to the Jewish community by the two prime-ministerial candidates, Conservative candidate Theresa May and Labour Leader Jeremy Corbyn.
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Analysis: The Saudis and their Arab allies have had enough of Qatar and its media proxy al Jazeera’s behavior. They intend to win this fight.

By Moredechai Kedar, INN

The Emirate of Qatar is a peninsula that juts out from Saudi Arabia into the Persian Gulf. The only overland route out of Qatar is by way of Saudi Arabia and if that route is blocked, the only way to reach Qatar or leave it is by air or sea. However, flights to and from Qatar pass over Saudi air space part of the time and ships from or to Qatar have to pass through Saudi territorial waters. This means that Saudi Arabia can in effect declare a total blockade on Qatar if it so desires. It has never done so before, but it began the process on June 5th.
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By Michael Curtis, AMERICAN THINKER

A hundred years ago, in the Balfour Declaration of November 2, 1917, the British Government in a letter from Foreign Minister Arthur Balfour to Lord Rothschild, viewed “with favor the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people.” Since then, British enthusiasm for the rights of Jews, support for the establishment of a Jewish state and relationships with the State of Israel have varied.

Before and during World War II, the British authorities ruling in the League of Nations British Mandate and the governments refused to admit or limited the entrance of European Jews into the area of Palestine, even during the Holocaust. In November, 1947 the UK abstained on the crucial UN General Assembly Resolution 181 vote calling for partition of Palestine. In 1956, Britain, together with France, persuaded Israel to invade Egypt after President Nasser nationalized the Suez Canal.
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By Daniel Greenfield

Here’s the good news.

It’s 2017 and Republicans control the White House, the Senate, the House and more statewide offices than you can shake a big bundle of fake news papers at. And, potentially soon, a Supreme Court that takes its guidelines from the Constitution not Das Kapital and the National Social Justice Party.

Here’s the bad news, Republicans are still Republicans.

The media throws some chum in the water and sits back and watches the bloody fun as Republicans go after Republicans for the entertainment of their enemies. Scandals are manufactured and then strategically aimed to divide and conquer Republicans. But the real target is the conservative agenda.
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THE GUARDIAN

Donald Trump has accused Qatar of sponsoring terrorism at the highest levels, in an extraordinary escalation of the diplomatic row with one America’s most important military partners in the Middle East.

Speaking in the White House rose garden on Friday, Trump said he had decided “the time had come to call on Qatar to end its funding … and its extremist ideology.”

His comments marked his most forthright intervention in a crisis triggered on Monday when Saudi Arabia and its Gulf allies launched a co-ordinated diplomatic and economic campaign to isolate Qatar.
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By Fehim Tastekin, al-Monitor

The only firm opposition to the “Let’s Teach Qatar a Lesson” operation currently underway in the Middle East is coming from Turkey. Even US President Donald Trump initially loudly applauded the campaign led by Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates — though he has since taken a more conciliatory tone.

Arguably, Qatar’s role in undermining the stability of the Islamic world has been second only to Iran’s.

BY CAROLINE B. GLICK, JPOST

President Donald Trump has been attacked by his ubiquitous critics for his apparent about-face on the crisis surrounding Qatar.

In a Twitter post on Tuesday, Trump sided firmly with Saudi Arabia, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates and the other Sunni states that cut diplomatic ties with Qatar and instituted an air and land blockade of the sheikhdom on Monday.

On Wednesday, Trump said that he hopes to mediate the dispute, more or less parroting the lines adopted by the State Department and the Pentagon which his Twitter posts disputed the day before.
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BESA Center Perspectives Paper No. 491, June 9, 2017

By Burak Bekdil

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: Discounting the sincerity of Turkish President Erdogan’s fiercely anti-western rhetoric ahead of the April 16 referendum is akin to disregarding bitter facts about once staunch NATO ally Turkey. NATO’s deepening “Turkey problem” is contained in the country’s Islamist ideology, conspicuous “un-likemindedness”, and democratic anomalies, which stand against NATO’s founding values of safeguarding freedom and the principles of democracy, individual liberty, and rule of law. 

Turkey-optimists in the western world tend to minimize President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s explosively chauvinistic, anti-western rhetoric before the April 16 referendum, which gave him sweeping new powers. They argue that he was merely attempting to appeal to an increasingly anti-western audience. That view is misleading, to put it mildly.
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By Ted Belman ( first published May 28/17)

The NYT published a major report this week on Pres Trump’s Mid East trip which it titled “Trump Leaves Middle East With Hope for Peace, but No Plan for It”. This title didn’t reflect the article which went no farther than to say, “What Mr. Trump did not do was reveal the least hint of what, if anything, was behind it“, referring to his hope. The article later acknowledged that “strict secrecy” was a good thing.

A close scrutiny of the statements made in the last few days and the events leading up to this trip would strongly suggest that Pres Trump is right to be cautiously optimistic because he has a plan.

After relentless pressure from Pres Obama and Secretary Kerry, PM Netanyahu came close to accepting the Kerry framework based on the ’67 ceasefire lines with swaps as borders and a divided Jerusalem.
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Israeli Defense Minister says Netanyahu investing considerable effort into forging peace deal

i24News

Israeli Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman said Thursday that Palestinians and Israelis are closer than ever before to reaching a peace agreement, adding that full relations with Arab states could entice the Israeli government to accept a deal.

“We are closer to reaching an agreement than we’ve ever been before,” Lieberman said in an interview with Israel’s Channel 2 television.”If someone comes and puts a deal on the table that includes an agreement with all the moderate Arab states, including the opening of embassies, trade and direct flights… I believe that will get a vast majority in the Knesset and among the people,” he told Channel 2.
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Ms. May, you can be the leader of this change, you can wake up Europe.

By Giulio Meotti, INN

The first 16 years of the 21st century have claimed 658 victims of terrorist attacks on European soil. A new report drafted by the European MP Maite Pagazaurtundúa from Spain accounts all the victims of terrorist attacks committed in Europe during the period 2000-2016, as well as another number: Europeans who have been victims of terrorism outside of the Community borders, 1,029 people. The report includes all the victims who died at the hands of any of the terrorist groups recognized by the EU. But of these, 1,534 have been killed by Islamic organizations.
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T. Belman. It is obvious that this is a one time occurrence. What has Israel agreed to do in exchange and I mean in addition to exercising restraint in our construction policies. I don’t trust Bibi one iota after he accepted the Kerry Framework in 2014. Rather than insist that all the land is ours, he pushes for an agreement. Everything is negotiable. The proper stance is to end the peace process.

State Department says no condemnation planned for Israel’s approval of 2,600 homes in Judea and Samaria – breaking longstanding US policy.

By David Rosenberg, INN

The Trump administration refrained from condemning Israel’s approval for 2,600 new housing units in Judea and Samaria this week, signaling a significant policy shift in Washington.

While every administration over the past half a century, from Lyndon Johnson through Barack Obama, has chastised Israel for the construction of civilian housing units in Judea and Samaria, the Trump White House made no comment as the first housing permits issued since the January 20th inauguration were approved.
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DEBKA

A single mystery missile, which could have been fired from the ground or the air early Wednesday morning, June 7, wiped out the entire top Islamic State command on the Syrian Golan, DEBKAfile’s military and intelligence sources report. All 16 officers of the 2,000-strong Khaled Ibn al Waleed army, the ISIS operations arm on the Syrian Golan, were present in the targeted building in the town of al-Shagara, located in the triangle where the Israeli, Syrian and Jordanian borders meet opposite the Sea of Galilee in northern Israel.
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by Vic Rosenthal

Sequel to the dispelling of  doubts regarding the feasibility – and morality – of largescale, financially incentivized emigration as the only non-kinetic approach for resolution of the Israel-Palestinian impasse. 

By MARTIN SHERMAN

The pessimist sees difficulty in every opportunity. The optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty. – (widely attributed to) Winston Churchill 

Readers will recall that last week I began a two part response to FAQs (Frequently Asked Questions) relating to the practical feasibility/moral acceptability of my proposed Humanitarian Paradigm (HP), which prescribes, among other measures, large-scale financially incentivized emigration of the Palestinian-Arabs, living across the pre-1967 lines as the only route to attain long-term survivability for Israel as the nation-state of the Jewish people.

To recap briefly

In last week’s column, I addressed the question of the overall cost of the funded emigration project, and showed that, given the political will to implement it, it would be eminently affordable – even if Israel had to shoulder the burden alone. If other industrial nations could be induced to participate, the total cost would be an imperceptible percentage of their GDP.
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By Ben Caspit. AL MONITOR

While Israeli security figures look for the trigger of the Sunni axis’ surprise charge against Qatar, they ignore the recent reports of how Russian hackers supposedly planted fake news items on a Qatari news agency’s website. Instead, they focus on the border region where three states — Syria, Iraq and Jordan — meet.

“Take note,” a senior Israeli security official told Al-Monitor on condition of anonymity. “Just this week, the United States attacked a convoy of Syrian forces in that sensitive region. It happened at the exact same time as events were unfolding in the Persian Gulf, when the Sunni states broke diplomatic relations with Qatar. This was the second American attack in that same region in the past two weeks. It is a much more dramatic move than it seems from the outside, yet it is passing beneath the radar. It represents a full-force change in US policy in the Middle East.”
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