By Ted Belman

In Feb 2016, Lt Gen. Mike Flynn became an advisor to candidate Donald Trump. Trump was interested in his views of how to defeat radical Islam.

In the summer of that year, Flynn published his book “The Field of Fight: How We Can Win The Global War Against Radical Islam and Its Allies.”

In it he wrote, “The political and theological underpinnings of their immoral actions have to be demolished.”

According to Breitbart:

“The book identifies the main enemy to Islam’s ideological encouragement of supremacism, violence, and expansionism, describes Iran as a ‘linchpin” of a loose anti-American alliance of Russia, Islam, China, and North Korea, and calls for a diplomatic effort to flip Russia against Iran and radical Islam. When dealing with Islamic militants, he writes, ”[w]e’ve got to stop feeling the slightest bit guilty about calling them by name and identifying them as fanatical killers acting on behalf of a failed civilization.”

Even though Flynn was asked to resign in February, Trump is following his prescription to a tee.
Read more…

A Middle East analyst close to the White House tells Fox News about the report, “the president has been clear that he wants to see peace and integration between Israel and its Arab neighbors, not least of all so they can cooperate against the threat posed by Iran. This is a welcome step in that direction. It makes many requests of the Israelis and the White House knows the Israelis can’t meet all of them, and the President won’t pressure them to. But these sorts of initiatives are the sorts of deals the President wants to see from regional players.”

Fox News May 16, 2017

Gulf states that long opposed Israel’s every move are proposing a rapprochemont in the hopes of restarting the Palestinian peace process.

The development comes just days ahead of historic meetings between President Trump and Middle Eastern leaders. It consists of a draft proposal reportedly offered up by Sunni Muslim Gulf states and offers closer economic and diplomatic ties with Israel in exchange for significant moves in restarting the Palestinian peace process.

The plan, first reported by The Wall Street Journal, is outlined in a draft document circulated by the Gulf states, the mostly Sunni Muslim countries that line the Persian Gulf, including Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates, among others.
Read more…

By Daniel Greenfield, FPM May 10/17

Kris Bauman, the National Security Council’s new point man on Israel, believes that the “Israel Lobby” is a threat, that Israel should be pressured into making concessions to Islamic terrorists and that “the Obama Administration must find creative (but legal) ways to include Hamas in a solution.”

Yael Lempert, Bauman’s predecessor, had been one of the Obama holdovers that conservatives had fought to pry out of the swamp. Lempert had been described as “Obama’s point person in the White House orchestrating his war against Israel.”

Lee Smith wrote that, “Lempert, one former Clinton official told me, ‘is considered one of the harshest critics of Israel on the foreign policy far left. From her position on the Obama NSC, she helped manufacture crisis after crisis in a relentless effort to portray Israel negatively.’”
Read more…

NGO MONITOR

Danish Minister of Foreign Affairs Anders Samuelsen is set to hold a series of meetings in Ramallah tomorrow (May 18, 2017), where according to documents published by the Danish government, he will announce an additional $8.3 million (DKK 56 million) in Danish funding to the  Human Rights and International Humanitarian Law Secretariat (the Secretariat), which distributes funds to numerous anti-Israel organizations. The Secretariat is a joint funding mechanism of the Danish, Dutch, Swedish, and Swiss governments, operating out of Bir Zeit University in Ramallah.
Read more…

New US Ambassador to Israel says Trump is coming to Israel with no ‘pre-prepared plan or road map.’

By Arutz Sheva

US Ambassador to Israel David Friedman in an interview with Hebrew-language newspaper Israel Hayom said US President Donald Trump will arrive next week in Israel “with no specific plan or road map in mind” and that “there are no demands for Israel to freeze building in Judea and Samaria.”

According to Friedman, “The President clearly explained what he wants to see happen in the beginning, which is that both sides should sit down at the same table with no preconditions, and talk. Hopefully, this will lead to peace.”

“The US will not dictate how you need to live together here. That’s something that only you will decide.
Read more…

By Shoula Romano Horing, AMERICAN THINKER

On Friday, President Trump’s National Security Adviser, H.R. McMaster, announced that Trump will indicate his support for a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict during his forthcoming trip to Israel and the Palestinian Authority. Sadly, this is another indication to Israeli supporters of Trump that despite Trump’s many campaign promises and words of support, his actions show that he is not firmly on Israel’s side.

Contrary to his campaign promises regarding Israel, he did not move the American embassy to Jerusalem, cut funding to the United Nations after UNESCO issued more anti-Israeli resolutions, or cut U.S. aid to the Palestinian Authority for paying off terrorists and its ongoing culture of anti-Israeli hate. Nor did he tear up the horrible nuclear deal with Iran, or confront its regional Jihadist aspirations and he has pressured Israel to slow down the building of Jewish homes, schools, and kindergartens in its ancestral land of Judea and Samaria, to entice back Abbas to the negotiating table. It seems that Trump has made a decision to make the Israeli-Palestinian conflict a priority of his foreign policy and to be a neutral broker rather than Israel’s best friend and ally.
Read more…

The notion that a PLO state will make the region more stable as far more coherent Arab states collapse is absurd.

BY CAROLINE B. GLICK, JPOST

Eight years from now, China will outstrip the US as the world’s largest economy. In three years, Israeli GDP per capita will outstrip Japan’s. These two data points are useful to bear in mind as we consider the Trump administration’s sudden decision to go retro and embrace the Clinton administration’s foreign policy on Israel from the early 1990s.

When then US president Bill Clinton decided to embrace Yasser Arafat, the architect of modern terrorism, it seemed like a safe bet.
Read more…

T. Belman. The US policy on the liberated territories has been in place for 50 years but it is unsustainable when history and reality are taken into account.

Jerusalem, including the Kotel, are fundamentally a part of Israel and always have been. It is high time that the US recognize this and change their policy. Their policy is based on the Res 181, which contrary to the Mandate, made Jerusalem an international city. Notwithstanding that, Ben Gurion accepted the resolution because it also provided that after 10 years the status of Jerusalem would be determined by referendum of it citizens. Ben Gurion had confidence that the Jews would win the referendum. Such referendum never took place.

The US also went along with the world and perhaps even led it, to reject Israel’s annexation of Jerusalem in 1980.

The US Envoy to the UN made the two remarkable statement supporting Israel’s sovereignty over the Western Wall as well as the embassy move in an interview with CBN News on Tuesday.

BY TOVAH LAZAROFF, JPOST

The Western Wall is part of Israel, US Ambassador to the UN Nikkey Haley said on Tuesday as she took a number of stands that appears to differ from the Trump Administration.

“The Western Wall is part of Israel and I think that is how we have always seen it and that is how we should pursue it,” Haley told the Christian Broadcasting Network in a video interview.
Read more…

By Michael Ledeen, FORBES

There is an important and damaging cultural divide between the Trumps and the governing system that the president and his closest allies are trying to tame. Call it New York vs. Washington, or business vs government, but it comes down to this: the president hasn’t gotten control over the bureaucracy, much of which is in open rebellion against him. You can see it by the remarkably low numbers of political appointees currently approved by the Senate, as by the torrent of leaks aimed at damaging Trump and his top aides.

The New Yorkers—famously, the Trumps themselves, the Kushners, and the bankers in the Cabinet and the White House—seem to have come to Washington expecting that, once The Donald had been sworn in, the bureaucrats would do what they were told. The New Yorkers—as we saw during the election campaign and throughout the transition—did not believe they needed a large organization, staffed with their own loyal followers. They thought the important thing was to make the right decisions, and install a few key officials at the very top.
Read more…

T. Belman. When the NYT refuses to use the term Female Genital Mutilation and uses the term Genital Cutting instead they are putting FGM in the same basket as circumcision. Thus any push back against the practice will affect both.

By Anshel Pfeffer, HAARETZ

Israeli officers now know that the commander-in-chief of their American counterparts is clearly compromised

President Donald Trump listens during his meeting with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, Tuesday, May 16, 2017 Evan Vucci/AP

Ironically, just when the New York Times and other American news organizations were breaking the news that the secret intelligence President Donald Trump shared last week with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov had been provided to the U.S. by Israel, Trump was in a meeting with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. This is the same Erdogan who appointed a pro-Iranian aide to head Turkey’s intelligence service. Israel’s once intimate strategic alliance and intelligence-sharing with Turkey all but evaporated due to fears that the Turkish intelligence was leaking to Iran and jeopardizing Israeli assets.
Read more…

Berman’s Tikkun Article – The Settlement Legality Debate: FAQ -Items of error

By Donald Carr

Revival of legality – debate. There has not been any “revival”. The assertion of legality has been constant and consistent.

Suggesting that the Oslo Accords were responsible for sidelining the “core legal issues” does not make it so in fact. Perhaps, they did so far as Berman is concerned, but the Oslo Accords do not affect International Law one iota. They were agreements between Israel and the Palestine Authority. As Israel was entitled to the lands between the Mediterranean and the Jordan – as a result of International Law – it was entitled to deal with its lands in any way it wished. Thus, it entered into the Oslo Accords. The “death” of Oslo did not “revive” anything other than the status quo ante – namely, the legal rights of Israel to that territory under International Law.
Read more…

By Aleen Realmuto, TRUTH UNCENSORED

FBI Director James Comey testified under oath at a hearing before Congress, that the FBI’s investigation into Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server, where she sent and received ‘top secret’ emails, did not warrant pressing criminal charges against her.

In essence, he said, not only was Hillary not smart enough, or qualified, to know that using an unsecured email server put our nations security at risk, but she was incapable of determining what was top secret material was.

Read more…

Ted Belman. According to my sources, this is only the beginning of the Trump initiatives. Keep in mind that Trump sided with the Kurds notwithstanding the protestations of Erdogan. Now he is headed to S. Arabia where he will meet with many Arab leaders. As trump said in many of his stump speeches he wants to destroy the ideology behind the Islamists and expects his Arab allies to be on board. He will be demanding that the Arab leaders normalize with Israel without preconditions. If the Arabs want to be friends with the US, they must first be friends with Israel. Remember how he imposed his policies on the UN.

Secondly he is demanding that they reject terrorism and all terrorist organizations. In other words that they align with Trump in fighting the Islamist ideology.

And finally that he will give a serious try to achieve agreement on the two state solution. If he fails he will turn to an alternate solution. As I understand it, many insiders, including Kushner have read my article The Ultimate Alternate Solution. Let the good times roll.

Various Sunni Arab countries offer to establish direct telecommunication lines with Israel, among other steps, if Israel makes various gestures toward Palestinians, according to Wall Street Journal report

By Barak Ravid, HAARETZ

The Gulf states have compiled a proposal to take steps toward normalization with Israel if the Netanyahu government in turn makes gestures to the Palestinians, such as freezing settlement construction in parts of the West Bank and easing trade restrictions in the Gaza Strip, according to the Wall Street Journal. 

The report is based on details from a document that was prepared during discussions between various Sunni Arab countries. According to the report, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, which are leading the proposal, also updated the American administration and Israel on the bid.
Read more…

Josh Hastens interviews Harold Rhode, a world expert on Islam.

https://overcast.fm/+FeLOZA4RM

This is a very important interview. Keep this interview in mind when you try to understand the Arab Peace Initiative which offers Israel “peace”. But peace in Islam only comes when people submit to Islam.

By Ted Belman

Recently Nathaniel Berman, a Professor on International Law, wrote an article titled The Settlement Legality Debate: FAQ  It was extremely well argued.  I was not equipped to meet him head on or to refute his analysis.

A friend of mine from Canada, Mark Vandermass, entered the fray with
The Mandate is the foundation of Israel’s right to the land west of the Jordan River. I tip my hat to him.

Berman decided to take his arguments to task by commenting, and the subsequent comments from myself and others were well worth reading. So go to Vandermass’ article and read all the comments. You will be glad you did.

BESA Center Perspectives Paper No. 466, May 15, 2017

Dr. Edy Cohen

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: No solution for the Palestinian refugee problem is possible so long as justice is not served for the Jewish refugees from the Arab countries.

The Palestinians and their erstwhile international champions are commemorating Nakba Day on May 15. Just as the Jerusalem mufti Hajj Amin Husseini, the Palestinian Arabs’ leader from the early 1920s to the late 1940s, would habitually condemn the Balfour Declaration from his World War II Berlin headquarters to ingratiate himself with his Nazi masters, so May 15, the date when the British Mandate ended and the state of Israel came into being, has become the day on which the Palestinians’ annually commemorate their self-inflicted “catastrophe” (or Nakba).
Read more…