By Dr Uri Edelman, ISRAEL HAYOM

I was a young officer on the southern front during the Yom Kippur War. The term “Third Temple” was a nickname used by the country’s pioneers — who came to build and rebuild themselves in the State of Israel. The term was deeply ingrained in the collective national memory after then-Defense Minister Moshe Dayan’s bleak assessment of the situation at the war’s onset. At the time, instead of breathing courage and steadfastness into a nation fighting for its life, he conveyed the panic and dread that had overcome him, unnerved in his hour of weakness.

The Right People, the Right Positions APRIL 17/17

By Matthew Kroenig, FOREIGN AFFAIRS

Media coverage of U.S. President Donald Trump’s foreign policy has been overwhelmingly negative. Analysts have seized on early policy missteps, a supposed slowness [1] in staffing the national security bureaucracy, and controversial statements [2] and actions as evidence that Trump’s foreign policy is already failing.

But the critics have gotten a lot wrong and failed to give credit where credit is due. The Trump administration has left behind the rhetoric of the campaign trail and has begun to adopt foreign policies that are, for the most part, well suited to the challenges ahead. Trump inherited a crumbling international order from President Barack Obama [3], but he has assembled a highly capable national security team to help him update and revitalize it. Many of the controversial foreign policy statements that Trump has made as president have, in fact, been consistent with established U.S. policy. Where he has broken with tradition, it has often been to embrace much-needed change.
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DEBKAfile Exclusive Analysis April 22, 2017, 8:25 AM

The Syrian shells exploding on the Golan were ringing in Israel’s ears on Friday, April 21, when US Secretary of Defense James Mattis flew out after talks with Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman. The IDF spokesman accounted for the first mortar shell dropping on northern Golan as an accidental stray from the fighting in Syria. When the shelling continued, it was countered by an Israeli strike on a Syrian military target on the other side of the Golan border.

DEBKAfile’s military sources report that this incident, far from inadvertent, followed on the surreal scene Thursday of a Hizballah officer taking reporters on a “tour” of Israel’s defense lines and proudly pointing a finger across the border to “explain” how the Zionist enemy was reduced to defense..
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By Jeff Dunetz, THE LID

Iran resistance group the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) who was the first to reveal other elements of the Iran nuclear program revealed on Friday that the rogue regime has not stopped its nuclear weapons program despite the P5+1 nuclear deal negotiated by former secretary of state Kerry, and former President Obama.

The engineering unit for the regime’s nuclear weapons program is called the Organization of Defensive Innovation and Research known by its Persian acronym SPND. The information was gathered by the network of the main Iranian opposition movement, the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran, through assets within the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), the Defense Ministry, and SPND, and so on. It shows that following the establishment of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) in 2015, not only has the unit remained in place and active, it is now clear that in some fields its activities have even expanded.

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Judicial Watch Sues State Department and USAID for Records about Funding and Political Activities of George Soros’ Open Society Foundation – Macedonia

USAID website reports it gave $4,819,125 in taxpayer money to Soros’s Open Society Foundation – Macedonia between from 2012 to 2016 

(Washington, DC) – Judicial Watch announced today that it filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit against the Department of State and the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) for records and communications relating to the funding and political activities of the Open Society Foundation – Macedonia.  The Macedonia organization, part of George Soros’ Open Society Foundations, received nearly $5 million from USAID from 2012 to 2016. The lawsuit was filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia (Judicial Watch v. U.S. Department of State and the U.S. Agency for International Development (No. 1:17-cv-00729)).
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By Ted Belman

Making a difference at UN wrt Israel.

Leading from the front in the ME.

Failed
– to move Embassy (though it may happen in a few months)
– to designate Muslim Botherhood as terrorist organization
– to approve settlement construction
– to scrap the Iran Deal (In fact he gave them a freebie by declaring they were not in default)
– to work over Abu Mazen in public. (What is he saying to him in private?)
– to clear the swamp sufficiently. What is Comey still doing there for instance.

Appointed these apologists for Islam to Cabinet
– Gen McMaster
– Gen Mattis
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By Sherkoh Abbas and Robert Sklaroff, AMERICAN THINKER

Now that President Trump concluded that the Syrian gas attack “crossed many, many lines” and reacted accordingly, he must formulate a battle-plan to convert dynamic “talk” into ongoing “walk.”

In the process, he should recognize that it is in America’s best interest to recognize Kurdistan as a sovereign state and to deduce how to proceed thereafter based upon the historic, military, economic, religious and political implications of this overdue stance.
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By David Bedein, BEFORE ITS NEWS

Over the past several weeks, we have been following several stories regarding incitement in UNRWA’s school curriculum and UNRWA’s connection to Hamas. One of the few constants we run into that The Israel Civil Administration , also known as COGAT (Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories) seemed to always side with UNRWA or defend it, and went out of its way to defend UNRWA in an article on its site as soon as UNRWA declared that it would change its curriculum to one that teaches peace and tolerance.

Despite the fact that UNRWA has in the past lied about potential changes to its curriculum, when, for example, UNRWA officials raised funds for a holocaust curriculum, COGAT couldn’t be bothered to do its due diligence and investigate the rumors, and instead took UNRWA’s word for it.
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by Jonathan Schanzer, New York Post

Secretary of Defense James Mattis is on a Mideast tour to “continue efforts to strengthen regional security architectures.” While his meetings in Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Israel are likely to attract most of the press coverage, his discussions in Qatar Saturday could be the most consequential.

Since August 2014, US-backed coalition aircraft have flown tens of thousands of sorties to bomb ISIS. Almost all of them are commanded out of the sprawling, high-tech al-Udeid air base in Qatar. In other words, the base is crucial to our war efforts.

But it comes with serious baggage. The Treasury Department’s top terrorism-finance official, Adam Szubin, stated last year that Qatar has demonstrated “a lack of political will .?.?. to effectively enforce their combating terrorist financing laws.” In February, Daniel Glaser, who had only recently stepped down as assistant secretary of the Treasury, stated that “designated terrorist financiers” are “operating openly and notoriously” in the country.
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By Ilya Arkhipovs, Yuliya Fedorinova and Stepan Kravchenko, BLOOMBERG

• Russia building trade links after Kiev imposes blockade
• White House seems ‘uninterested,’ Russian diplomat says

Vladimir Putin is seizing on mixed signals from the U.S. to quietly tighten Russia’s grip on two rebel regions of Ukraine, burying hopes for a European-brokered peace deal and relief from sanctions anytime soon.
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Anti-Zionist who praised terrorist murderer, hailed stone throwers as ‘courageous’ tapped to give commencement address at public NY college.

By Rosenberg, INN

A radical left-wing activist and advocate for Sharia law in the United States has been selected as his year’s commencement speaker at a New York City college.

Linda Sarsour, 37, who helped organize the Women’s March in Washington in January and was arrested protesting outside of Trump Hotel in New York, was tapped by the City University of New York (CUNY) Graduate School of Public Health and Health Policy to address this year’s graduating class.

An aide to the school’s dean confirmed in a statement that Sarsour had been chosen to speak at the commencement, The Daily Caller reported.
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By Dr. Eric R. Mandel

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By Vic Rosenthal

This isn’t the first time I’ve written this, and it won’t be the last unless something changes.

Marwan Barghouti is in the news again, calling for a hunger strike to “resist” the “abuse” of Palestinians imprisoned in Israel. The New York Times also made news by publishing an op-ed by Barghouti with a note that he is a “Palestinian leader and parliamentarian,” but failing to include the fact that he was imprisoned after a conviction for five terrorist murders. He was accused of being involved in many more, but the state chose to prosecute him only for the ones for which the evidence was strongest. After all, five life sentences should be enough to keep him off the street, shouldn’t they?
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Erdogan is expected to pay a state visit to Washington in the coming weeks.

BY CAROLINE B. GLICK, JPOST

According to Michael Anton, one of President Donald Trump’s top foreign policy aides, the chief characteristic of Trump’s foreign policy is unpredictability.

On the surface, unpredictability is a great advantage.

Keeping US enemies guessing, at least to some degree, about how the US will respond to hostile acts expands Washington’s maneuver room.
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By MARTIN SHERMAN

Instead of pouring millions into inoperative desalination plants & rusting sewage treatment works, humanitarian aid should be generous relocation grants to help Gazans find safer, more secure lives elsewhere

“If the borders opened for one hour, 100,000 young people would leave Gaza”  –  Rashid al-Najja, vice dean, Gaza’s Al-Azhar University; “

…I’d go to Somalia, Sudan — anywhere but here” –  Salim Marifi, student, Gaza’s Al-Azhar University, in Al Jazeera, May 6 2015.

“96 percent of water in the Gaza Strip is now undrinkable” –  i24 News  April 9, 2017.
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Jim Mattis, in Saudi Visit, Calls for Political Solution in Yemen because it can’t be won militarily

TOI

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia — Defense Secretary Jim Mattis called on Wednesday for a political solution in Yemen between Sunni Arabs, supported by a Saudi-led coalition, and Iranian-backed Houthis, but he stopped short of publicly warning America’s Sunni allies against a planned bombing campaign targeting the port city of Al Hudaydah.

Human rights officials have warned that bombing Al Hudaydah could lead to a humanitarian crisis in Yemen, and Mr. Mattis’s remarks were in line with those of many officials in the region that the Saudi coalition’s war against the Houthis, begun two years ago, cannot be won militarily.
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By Osama Al Sharif, AL MONITOR

Jordan could be preparing for joint military operations with US and British special forces against Islamic State (IS) militants in southern Syria following King Abdullah’s meeting with President Donald Trump at the White House on April 5. The talks dealt with a number of issues but centered on the US-led fight against the terrorist group, the creation of safe zones in Syria and Jordan’s role in both. In his interview with The Washington Post the same day, the king alluded to Jordan’s readiness to deal with threats to the kingdom’s northern borders, saying that “non-state actors from outside coming toward our border are not going to be tolerated.”
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By LTG. John “Mick” Bednarek, USA (ret.) and LtGen Kenneth Glueck, USMC (ret.) – REAL CLEAR DEFENSE

The headlines confirm Iraq and Syria remain the current center of gravity in the U.S.-led coalition’s fight against ISIS. Yet, even as the group’s core territory constricts, the coalition still will need to neutralize ISIS combatants wherever they are and halt the spread of their dangerous ideology. American officials designing this larger campaign are looking to Jordan as a key contributor. It is a steadfast and strategically important ally, fully committed to this fight despite the increasing pressure it faces. King Abdullah’s visit to Washington last week was a good start, but more must be done to strengthen cooperation with a critical partner in the joint effort against ISIS.
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MEMRI

An article by the leader of the liberal Russian party Yabloko, Grigory Yavlinsky, titled “Russia’s Deadlock in Syria” was posted on his party’s website on April 13, 2017.[1] In his article, written in the aftermath of the chemical weapons attack on Khan Sheikhun and the American retaliatory strike on the Shayrat base, Yavlinksy flayed Putin’s policy in Syria. He claimed that Assad was a loose cannon who controlled Russia more than Russia controlled him despite Russia’s costly investment in the Syrian regime. Furthermore, Russia’s policy had left it without reliable allies in the region, while alienating the Trump administration in which Russia had placed such high hopes.

Russia, argued Yavlinsky, had pressing needs at home and could not financially sustain a quagmire in Syria, while simultaneously overextending itself in Ukraine, Libya, and conducting an arms race with the Americans.   In sum, the military involvement in Syria would soon resemble the tragedy of the Soviet Union’s involvement in Afghanistan and if Russia sought to avoid a recurrence of that nightmare it had to withdraw immediately from Syria. We republish Yavlinsky’s article below:

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