The widely reported Kremlin plan to set up four safe or “de-escalation” zones, that were supposed to have gone into effect in Syria Friday night, May 5, turns out to be nothing but a propaganda ploy. The spin factor leaps to the eye from the small print of the plan that was released by Gen. Sergey Rudskoy, head of Russian General Staffs Operations Division, Friday night. He outlined four steps that may never take off.
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The White House is poised to greenlight an Obama administration plan to seize the last bastion of the Islamic State in Syria.
BY DAN DE LUCE, PAUL MCLEARY, FOREIGN POLICY
The Trump administration is ready to press ahead with a U.S.-backed military offensive to evict the Islamic State from its last remaining urban stronghold in the Syrian city of Raqqa over strong objections from Turkey.
President Donald Trump is expected to inform his Turkish counterpart, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, of the U.S. plans when he visits the White House later this month.
The long-delayed operation, based on an Obama administration-drafted plan that gives a leading role to Kurdish forces in the operation, will likely move forward in earnest after Erdogan’s visit, defense officials told Foreign Policy.
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Ivanka Trump to review climate change as US mulls Paris pullout
“Though Trump’s inclination has been to leave the agreement, he’s allowed his daughter, White House adviser Ivanka Trump, to set up an extensive review process,”
Don’t you hate being called a ‘denier?” Me neither. In fact, I view this appellation as an affirmation of my own independent scepticism, a divergent path from that taken by the herd. In today’s” legacy media” every weather phenomenon is seen as an indication of climate change, or global warming, as it was once called until facts rendered that term inoperative.
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By Pamela Geller – on May 5, 2017
There is conspiracy theory and there is conspiracy fact. This is fact. The scrubbing, censoring and whitewashing the widespread violence by Muslim migrants is policy. And it’s not just the Netherlands. It’s EU-wide.
I am surprised that the police would bribe the enemedia. The press has already submitted to Islamic law and rarely runs news stories that might cast Islam or its adherents in a negative light.
When thousands of girls were sexually attacked by Muslim migrants on New Year’s Eve, the CCTV cameras were erased, police reports were destroyed or wiped from the crime record, and the media ignored the biggest story of 2016. What media outlet in the US was the first outlet to report the NYE mass sex attacks? The Geller Report.
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By Lucian Wintrich, GATEWAY PUNDIT
Former diplomat Richard Grenell, an early supporter of now-President Donald J. Trump, was cast aside by Rex Tillerson for a major NATO post; instead, the position was awarded to one of the leading voices in the #NeverTrump movement, Kay Bailey Hutchison. Highly qualified, Richard Grenell, was the former spokesperson for the US ambassador to the United Nations.
Richard Grenell was also the longest serving US spokesman at the United Nations. He is a FOX News Foreign Policy contributor. Richard is pro-life and pro-Second Amendment. Grenell joined the Trump campaign trail early helping, before many others, shape policy issues. Based on his background, resume, and involvement with the campaign, Grenell was reportedly offered the NATO post in January of this year.
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Why did Jews move to the right in Canada but not in the US?
For forty years, Republican operatives have been consistently frustrated in their energetic and well-funded efforts to win the support of Jewish voters for their presidential candidates. Looking toward the first battle of the post-Obama era in 2016, battered conservative activists might take encouragement and inspiration from the surprising success of their Jewish counterparts north of the border.
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By Shoula Romano Horing, AMERICAN THINKER
As a great supporter of President Trump, I was saddened to see the leader of the free world welcome to the White House the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, who has been a tyrant, Holocaust denier and the cofounder of modern Islamic terrorism. What is the most disturbing is the fact, that this meeting has elevated the untrustworthy Abbas’s prestige and credibility and made him relevant at the time when he is a weakened political figure who is unpopular among his own people and the moderate Sunni states who see the Palestinian issue as an obstacle to getting closer to Israel and America in a united front against Iran.
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By Mort Klein and Daniel Mandel, ZOA
Last Tuesday, coinciding with Israel’s 69th Independence Day, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) passed a resolution entitled ‘Occupied Palestine.’ The resolution denies Israel any sovereign claim to its own capital city, Jerusalem, and falsely describes Israel as the city’s “occupying power” and speaks of the “cultural heritage of Palestine and the distinctive character of East Jerusalem.”
Clearly, the intention of the UNESCO resolution is to achieve internationally the direct repudiation of Israel’s Jewish history and sovereignty in favor of Arab claims.
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By Valarie Greenfield, AMERICAN THINKER
I am not a rabbi, but I know that throughout Jewish history, many holidays begin with “They tried to kill us, but we survived. Let’s eat.” As history continues to repeat itself, “they” still want to kill us, and by allowing undocumented immigrants from any country into the U.S., we are inviting danger for dinner.
Recently, almost 2,000 American rabbis wrote a letter to President Trump and congressional officials to “ensure that our refugee program be maintained and strengthened, not halted, paused or restricted.” Although Jews are known for tikkun olam, repairing the world, this request does not use our Jewish noodle – only our bleeding heart. If President Trump and Congress admit unidentified immigrants, they will be derelict in their most important duty: to keep America safe.
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T. Belman. Glick is absolutely correct.Surely Trump knows all this. So why did he do it? Did Obama holdovers convince him or is he giving Abbas the rope to hang himself? Trump and Tillerson must now focus on Iran, N Korea, Russia and Syria. His embrace of Abbas and the peace process is just filling space while he attends to his real problems. Secondly, Abbas, will be out of office within 2 years. Why start negotiations with him for real at this time. The fall of Abbas will give rise to the Jordan is Palestine option. In the meantime, Abbas will discredit himself as a peace partner making it possible for Trump to come up with an alternate solution.
David Horovitz has a different take in Trump’s welcome for Abbas is so warm he might have been hosting an Israeli leader. In gracious remarks, US president makes clear he considers PA president to be part of the solution, not part of the problem.. That will be the day. He is so wrong.
Israel is the most immediate casualty of Trump’s decision to embrace Abbas and the PLO, because the PLO is Israel’s enemy.
By all accounts, US President Donald Trump is a friend of the Jewish state.
It is due to Trump’s heartfelt support for Israel and the US-Israel alliance that his meeting Wednesday with PLO chief Mahmoud Abbas at the White House is most discouraging.
By meeting with Abbas, and committing himself to working toward achieving a peace deal between Abbas and his PLO and Israel, Trump undermines Israel.
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Ministers Shaked and Levin spearhead new legislation to apply Israeli law in Judea and Samaria.
Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked (Jewish Home) and Tourism Minister Yariv Levin (Likud) are advancing revolutionary new legislation which seeks to apply sovereignty over Judea and Samaria.
At the moment, due to the fact that Israeli law does not apply in Judea and Samaria, the army Head of Central Command, which is the official sovereign entity in Judea and Samaria, applies some of the laws on Jewish residents in Judea and Samaria by means of orders signed by the General.
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Promoting Jordan as the Arab Palestinian state is consistent with international law and would resolve the problem of national self-determination both for Arabs living in Judea and Samaria and for those in Israel.
The problem with “the two-state solution” —creating a sovereign independent Palestinian state west of the Jordan River—is that a Palestinian state already exists east of the Jordan River; it’s called Jordan. Its population is predominantly “Palestinian” and it is located in the eastern part of what was once called “Palestine.” Demographically and geographically, therefore, Jordan is a Palestinian state.
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By Evelyn Gordon
Speaking at official ceremonies marking Israel’s Independence Day, both President Reuven Rivlin and Knesset Speaker Yuli Edelstein warned of the dangers of internal rifts in Israeli society. Yet, in fact, the run-up to Independence Day provided eloquent evidence that two of Israel’s deepest internal schisms are slowly healing.
One piece of evidence was a poll published two weeks before Independence Day showing that 74 percent of Israeli Arabs feel “comfortable” in Israel–an astounding figure for members of a minority whose kin have been at war with their country since its inception. Another was the unprecedented effort by Haredim (ultra-Orthodox Jews) to mark Israel’s Memorial Day, which they have traditionally shunned.
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By Ted Belman (First published Dec 7/17)
Former Minister of Defense for Israel, Moshe Yaalon, just wrote a major opinion piece United States Policy in the Middle East: The Need for a Grand Strategy which was published by Institute for National Security Studies in which he claimed:
“The first year of the Trump administration has been characterized by the lack of clear policy guidelines vis-à-vis the Middle East. The great hopes that many countries in the region hung on the change of administration and a new proactive president in the White House have slowly been eclipsed by a sense of confusion, given United States behavior that shows little consistency and no clear strategic objectives.”
Yaalon, who has been out of office now for two years doesn’t know what is going on. To the contrary, the Trump administration does have a grand strategy, grander than you might image.
Many countries in the region, including Israel, Saudi Arabia and Egypt have never been more hopeful about what they understand to be his strategic objectives and his plans for achieving them.
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By Martin Sherman
The Humanitarian Paradigm, advocating funded emigration of Palestinian-Arabs appears the most plausible method for achieving the goals of the Israel Victory Caucus
The major issue is not [attaining] an agreement, but ensuring the actual implementation of the agreement in practice. The number of agreements which the Arabs have violated is no less than number which they have kept – Shimon Peres, Tomorrow is Now (Hebrew), 1978
Even if the Palestinians agree that their state have no army or weapons, who can guarantee that a Palestinian army would not be mustered later to encamp at the gates of Jerusalem and the approaches to the lowlands? And if the Palestinian state would be unarmed, how would it block terrorist acts perpetrated by extremists, fundamentalists or irredentists? – Shimon Peres, The New Middle East, 1993
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Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas during a past UN General Assembly address. Photo: Screenshot.
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas offered a strong signal on Wednesday that he would abandon the strategy he pursued in recent years seeking unilateral statehood recognition at international fora in place of peace talks with Israel.
At a joint White House press appearance with US President Donald Trump, Abbas — speaking through a translator — indicated that he would no longer favor unilateralism over negotiations.
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New legislation, which would have special status as a basic law, designed to ensure Israel is officially “a nation-state of the Jewish people” • MK Avi Dichter says such law is essential because Israel’s enemies are trying to deny its Jewish character.
By Gideon Allon, ISRAEL HAYOM
The Ministerial Committee for Legislation is expected to discuss Sunday a new bill that would define Israel as a Jewish state. The bill, “Basic Law: Israel as the Nation-State of the Jewish People,” was introduced by Likud MK Avi Dichter, who is the head of the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee. It has already garnered support from 11 MKs in the coalition.
According to the bill, the goal of the new measure is to “preserve Israel’s status as the nation-state of the Jewish people by having its values as a Jewish and democratic state become an integral part of its basic laws.”
Israel is finally taking a constructive position in its own defense
BY CAROLINE B. GLICK MAY 2, 2017 03:09
Tuesday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu adopted a new strategy for managing Israel’s diplomatic relations with the West. Long in the making and increasingly urgent, Israel’s new strategy is very simple. Foreign governments can either treat Israel in accordance with international diplomatic norms of behavior, or they can continue to discriminate against Israel.
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Israel was seriously dismayed Wednesday, May 3, when first reports reached Jerusalem about the telephone conversation between Presidents Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin Tuesday, during which Trump agreed to consider Putin’s plan for “de-escalation zones” in Syria, in place of the American security zones proposal. The Russian president’s plan includes the posting of Iranian military officers as co-monitors for those zones, one of which is to be located on the Syrian-Israeli border.
President Trump described the conversation as “Very good.”
The four “de-escalation zones” proposed would be situated at: Read more…
