The Shiites have a master plan. The Sunnis are in disarray.
In an article last week on Arutz Sheva, I wrote that Syrian President Basher Assad is regaining power with the help of an Iranian Shiite coalition made up of Iranian fighters joined by Hezbollah, Iraqi and Afghan militias. In the near future, I predicted, it is possible that this coalition will try to rid the country of the millions of Sunnis who make up the majority of Syrian citizens, in order to prevent additional rebellions of the type Syria experienced from 1976 to 1982 and has been suffering from for the last six and a half years.
As a result of last week’s article, I was contacted by Sheikh Walid el Azawi, an Iraqi Sunni living in exile in Europe, who heads a party called “The Patriotic 20 Rebellion.” He wanted to tell me the shocking story of the situation in Iraq, where he claims that for years now, Iran is the real ruler and its Ayatollahs dictate Iraqi government policy and actions.
Court rejects claim that LGBTs have protected right to same-sex marriage, rules that law refusing recognition of gay marriage is legal.
Supreme Court Justices Elyakim Rubinstein, Neal Handel, and Anat Baron on Thursday morning unanimously rejected the Israeli Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender Association’s demand that the Jewish state recognize same-sex marriages.
According to the Association, the Basic Law of Human Dignity and Liberty should be interpreted to allow same-sex marriage. At the very least, the petitioners claimed, the law not allowing same-sex marriage should not be constitutional.
Gorka said the simple version of the reason he resigned is that “people like myself, people like Steve Bannon, came into the building because of a very clear agenda, which was the MAGA agenda, Make America Great Again — and, in the last seven months, we’ve seen people who really had nothing to do with MAGA, who weren’t affiliated with the campaign, rise in influence inside the building.”
“The issues that I was brought in to deal with — national security, counterterrorism specifically — weren’t heading in the right direction,” he lamented.
Jordan lost control of Jerusalem in 1967, but is now at the heart of a crisis that threatens to plunge the city into violence
By DOV LIEBER, TOI July 20, 2017,
As tensions ratchet up in Jerusalem’s Old City following Israel’s installation of metal detectors at gates to the Temple Mount in response to a terror attack there, attention has turned to the byzantine warren of authorities that control and manage the ultra-sensitive holy site.
While Israel controls access to the compound, inside its nine gates the Jerusalem Awqaf Department — sometimes called the Islamic Religious Endowments Authority, or simply the Waqf — exerts near total control.
By MARTIN SHERMAN
The Palestinian population is not some hapless victim of the terror groups, but the very crucible from which they emerged
Congress is finally considering legislation to stop the Palestinian Authority from incentivizing violence…This has to stop, and the Taylor Force Act…attempts to do that. As it currently stands, the act would cut U.S. foreign assistance to the West Bank and Gaza in its entirety if the “payments for acts of terrorism against United States and Israeli citizens …do not stop…. There should definitely be no ‘pay to slay’, but…[b]eing smart counts for more than being right. And the smart approach is one that also recognizes that innocent Palestinians…should not be forced to pay for the mistakes of a government they cannot control. – David Makovsky et al“The Smart Way to End ‘Pay to Slay’”, Foreign Policy, August 2, 2017.
Breitbart News Editor-in-Chief Alex Marlow spoke to journalist Mike Cernovich on Breitbart News Daily this morning discussing the Trump presidency, Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump’s influence, and the possibility of President Trump being held under “house arrest.”
Mike Cernovich appeared on Breitbart News Daily today to speak to Breitbart Editor-in-Chief Alex Marlow about issues surrounding the Trump Presidency. Cernovich has a running series of posts called ” Dispatches from Trumpland” that were at the center of their discussion. “There’s some pretty explosive stuff in your report,” said Alex Marlow referencing Cernovich’s recent Trump Dispatches, “and so I just wanted to unpack some of it with you, the first place where it starts in your dispatch is that Trump is on house arrest and you cite John Bolton who people thought was under consideration for National Security Advisor, for Secretary of State who can’t even have access to the President right now and this is a pretty big departure from campaign trail Trump.”
I AGREE.
Ousted Trump adviser also complains of a smear campaign over his ties to a Hungarian nationalist group linked to the Nazis
The “liberal elements” of the American Jewish community have “basically become anti-Israeli,” former White House adviser Sebastian Gorka said in a radio interview.
Gorka, a senior security adviser to US President Donald Trump before leaving the White House last week, said he believes the left wing has attacked him in the media because of his support for Israel.
T. Belman. This article starts with the premise that the hated Iran deal (which was never signed and is no agreement at all) is worth protecting and this crazy man Trump, for nefarious purposes, is out to undermine it. Furthermore, when considering the trouble we are in with N Korea because of a similar deal, you would think that more is to be gained from overturning the deal now and taking further action to destabilize the regime in Iran. This would reverse their gains in Syria and Iraq. Also this regime has only a 15% approval rating.
Trump has signaled he will declare Tehran in violation of the pact despite intel saying otherwise, which some say could lead to the entire deal unraveling
WASHINGTON — Since US President Donald Trump certified that Iran was honoring the nuclear deal in July, he has sent strong signals that he does not plan to do the same again come October, leaving experts unsure of his endgame and warning that such a move could mushroom into the disintegration of the entire pact even if Tehran is holding up its end of the deal.
Israel is a leader in hi-tech, an innovator in cyber warfare, defense technology and electronics. Indian professionalism is unmatched in the world.
Visiting Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at Ben-Gurion airport before his departure after an historic three day visit to Israel. (photo credit:KOBI GIDEON/GPO)
During Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Israel visit, he and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu noted the importance of realizing the full potential of the India-Israel partnership and they asked their respective staffs to draw up concrete plans to implement their vision for cooperation in a range of areas by the first week of January.
Both countries have endorsed the vision to work cooperatively not only for their mutual benefit, but for the good of the other parts of the world, too. As Netanyahu said, “We are talking about also cooperation in Third World countries by joining forces in various areas.”
T. Belman. After reading this article carefully it is not clear if UNIFIL is tasked with reversing all violations to date or is just to stop new ones.
UN Security Council approves resolution requiring UNIFIL to take action against Hezbollah.
Israel’s Ambassador to the United Nations, Danny Danon, on Wednesday welcomed the adoption of a new UN Security Council resolution regarding the mandate of the United Nations Interim Forces in Lebanon (UNIFIL).
According to the decision made upon the annual renewal of this mandate, UNIFIL is now required to expand its reports to the Security Council and take deliberate action against Hezbollah’s violations.
UNIFIL’s presence on the ground will increase significantly, and troops will be required to tour the Hezbollah-controlled areas of southern Lebanon. UNIFIL must also report all instances of Hezbollah’s violations and attempts to deny access immediately.
By Hamidreza Azizi, AL MONITOR
For more than six years, the regional rivalry between Iran and Turkey and their support of different sides of the Syrian civil war have been major obstacles to finding a political solution to the Syrian conflict. However, the recent rapprochement between Tehran and Ankara has renewed hopes for the political process to proceed toward a unified solution — one that seemed highly unlikely even a month ago.
Iranian Chief of Staff Maj. Gen. Mohammad Bagheri’s official visit Aug. 15 to Turkey, during which he held various meetings with high-ranking Turkish officials, including President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, was widely interpreted by observers as the beginning of a new era in Tehran-Ankara relations. Indeed, Bagheri’s position as a military and not a political official could be considered a sign that the meetings were about coordination at the operational level, rather than political discussions.
By Ken Masugi, AMERICAN GREATNESS
Amid the turbulence of the past few weeks, it has been President Trump who has kept his head while others have lost theirs.
Trump may be the one man in America who can detoxify racial relations—I mean actually do it, not exploit them in the mode of Black Lives Matter or Al Sharpton.
The Kremlin’s arrangement with the Syrian Kurds only adds more complexity for U.S. troops trying keep the focus on ISIS.
BY Joseph Trevithick. WAR ZONE. AUGUST 29, 2017
Read carefully and you may realize that the word ‘occupation’ is being misused in leftist circles.
Most people consider the Arab occupation of parts of Israel simply an issue of national pride and not terribly significant. While it would be nice to liberate the Jewish lands under foreign control, it’s not essential. Let foreigners control the Temple Mount, Gaza, Shechem, Beit Lehem and other Jewish areas.
Who cares if Jews are too afraid to walk around inside their own country in places like Um El Fachem, Rahat and dozens of other Arab settlements. Who cares if we can’t visit the Mount of Olives, the oldest Jewish cemetery in the world, unless we have a police escort? We don’t need to go to those places. It’s enough if we stay within the confines of Tel Aviv, West Jerusalem, and other majority Jewish areas.
By Shoula Romano Horing, AMERICAN THINKER
As an Israeli who supports Trump and attended Trump’s inauguration to celebrate his win, I read with a heavy heart the reports leaking out of the White House that Sebastian Gorka did not resign but was forced out of his position as a security advisor to the President by General H.R. McMaster and General John Kelly.
Mr. Gorka is the seventh Trump loyalist McMaster has forced out in recent months from the President’s National Security Team. All have been attempting to carry out President Trump’s campaign promises to combat Iranian and radical Islamist terrorist threats, and to support Israel and the U.S.-Israel alliance.
In a scathing August 24 New York Times op-ed, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a Somali-born feminist, author, scholar and former Dutch parliament member, lamented that the far-left Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) “has hit the jackpot” in huge donations in the aftermath of the violence in Charlottesville. Hirsi Ali noted that Apple pledged $1 million to the SPLC; JP Morgan Chase & Co. half a million; George and Amal Clooney $1 million.
While Hirsi Ali condemned Nazism, white supremacy and racial bigotry as having no place in a civilized society, she made it clear that contributing to the SPLC is the wrong way to combat this poison.
By Lt Col Mordechai Kedar
BESA Center Perspectives Paper No. 573,
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: The ethnic Sunni-Shiite rift parallels the Saudi-Iranian political rift, the Wahhabi-Muslim Brotherhood ideological rift, and the historic rift between Turkey and Saudi Arabia. Tensions over Islamic hegemony arising from these rifts are likely to come to a boil at the 2017 Hajj.
Wednesday, August 23, 2017, is the first day of Zhu–l-Hijjat, the Muslim month in which two important events take place: the pilgrimage to Mecca, one of the most central of the five Islamic commandments; and the Holiday of the Offering, Id al-Adha, with which it comes to an end. This month is notable in the Muslim world as a result of its religious content, but also due to the political aspects that accompany that content.
For the past nine months, every Saturday night protesters have gathered outside Mandelblit’s apartment building in Petah Tikva to demand that he indict Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
The big story in Israel over the past several weeks has been the protests outside the home of Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit, which have grown in size and bitterness over the past month..
For the past nine months, every Saturday night protesters have gathered outside Mandelblit’s apartment building in Petah Tikva to demand that he indict Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
