Business leaders are making a push for moderation — and meeting with some success.

By JOSH DAWSEY and BEN WHITED, POLITICO

Wall Street titan Stephen Schwarzman has recently taken on a new, informal job: counselor to the president.

The CEO of Blackstone Group, who has known Trump for years, has become so close to the president that the two sometimes talk several times a week, covering everything from Chinese trade to tax policy to immigration.

White House and New York business officials say Schwarzman was critical to Trump keeping the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, also known as the Dreamers program, with Trump making the decision after a call with the hedge fund billionaire. The two also recently chatted at Mar-a-Lago about a possible reorganization of the White House, two people familiar with the meeting say, though the conversation didn’t include specific names.
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S. Arabia is set to support an extension of the production cuts when OPEC next meets on May 25

By Benoit Faucon, WSJ

OPEC said Wednesday its output had kept falling in March as members tightened compliance to agreed cuts, but said U.S. producers were enjoying a revival thanks to higher oil prices.

The 13-member Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries committed last year to cut about 1.2 million barrels of oil a day in a bid to bring a vast global oversupply of crude back in line with demand and raise petroleum prices.

The agreement helped raise oil prices about 20% after it was announced on Nov. 30. Russia and 10 other non-OPEC producers also pledged to trim another 558,000 barrels a day.
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By ELMIRA BAYRASLI, NYT

Turkish democracy is on life support. On April 16, Turks will vote on 18 amendments to their country’s Constitution, including whether to abolish the office of the prime minister and transfer its powers to the president.

Pushing for a “yes” vote is President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. A presidential system would not only give Mr. Erdogan more authority to appoint judges and ministers, and control budgets, but also allow him to rule for two more terms — until 2029 — and it would solidify Turkey’s shift to authoritarianism. But even if a “no” vote is preferable, it may not be enough to save the Turkish republic from Mr. Erdogan’s damage.

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By Prof. Eyal Zisser, ISRAEL HAYOM

This coming Sunday, Turkish citizens will partake in a national referendum, set in motion by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, over several constitutional amendments that would augment his powers as president.

At hand are a series of technical adjustments, primarily geared toward granting Erdogan the authority to declare a state of emergency and dissolve the Turkish parliament, as well as appoint the prime minister and cabinet. These changes would shift Turkey from a parliamentary system of government, similar to Israel and Europe, to a presidential system, similar to the United States, in which the president wields considerable power. We must keep in mind, however, that Turkey is not the United States and does not have the same tradition of democracy; nor does it have the same organized system of checks and balances to limit the president’s power.
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The idea is to ‘remove the threat by not having civilians there,’ officer says.

By Malcolm Dash, IISS

Contingency plans, “Codenamed ‘Safe Distance,’  would see up to 250,000 civilians cleared out of border communities if they come under major attack by Hamas or Hezbollah” according to an Israeli officer.

It’s difficult to avoid cynicism when examining the latest, “contingency plans to evacuate up to a quarter-million civilians from border communities to protect them from attacks from Hamas, Hezbollah or other terror groups”. Whom the gods would destroy they first make mad is a line from a poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1875), it seems that the IDF Chiefs of Staff have become unhinged or plain “mad”. Why they are not imbued with the rich traditions of the IDF of victory and deterrence rather than its new penchant for withdrawal and “evacuation” i.e. surrender to the initiatives of the enemy?
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When the state points out the violations and seeks to demolish the illegal construction, it becomes the bad guy.

BY JOSH HASTEN, JPOST APRIL 13, 2017

Following a legislative initiative over a decade in the works, the Knesset last week passed the “Kaminitz Law,” granting the state greater authority when it comes to enforcement with regard to construction violations throughout the country.

The legislation, known as amendment 109 of the Planning and Building Law, which passed 43-33 in a special session held during the Knesset’s Passover recess, is a game changer.

Defense of the indefensible
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By John Hayward, BREITBART

Frank Gaffney, Center for Security Policy president, joined SiriusXM host Alex Marlow on Wednesday’sBreitbart News Daily to discuss Gaffney’s warning that things can get worse in Syria.

“The Syria situation is one that is fraught with peril, as I see it, for the United States at this particular moment in time,” Gaffney explained. “Because President Trump seems sorely tempted – and I think that tempting is not simply a function of the usual suspects, people who have been horrified by the humanitarian crisis there, the people there who think that it will be resolved, or at least diminished, by bringing Heaven knows how many refugees from Syria here and the like – but now from his own national security team that we must get involved, we must inject ourselves into the crisis in Syria.”
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Officials say Kushner taking unprecedented role to interfere in foreign policy matters

By Adam Kredo, NEW BEACON

White House Senior Adviser Jared Kushner is leading an unprecedented effort to meddle in the White House’s National Security Council, causing mayhem for senior staff who say the president’s son-in-law is interfering in key foreign policy debates, according to Trump administration officials who spoke to the Washington Free Beacon.

Kushner has taken aggressive action to micro-manage the NSC, overshadowing even recently installed National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster, according to sources both inside and outside the White House who described Kushner’s behavior as highly unusual and damaging to the country’s national security infrastructure.
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by Eitan Arom / JNS.org

By Michelle Moons, BREITBART

WASHINGTON, D.C. — After almost two months of a federal government hiring freeze, Trump administration officials have released guidance on the President’s plan to “drain the swamp,” with what Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Director Mick Mulvaney described as the first-ever rebuilding of the federal government.

An April 12 memorandum provides guidance to federal agencies tasked with complying with the Reorganization Executive Order entitled “Comprehensive Plan for Reorganizing the Executive Branch” as the January 23, 2017 hiring freeze is lifted.
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By Zach D Huff, BREITBART

Just after the election, Breitbart published ananalysis arguing that President Donald J. Trump was a cause for hope for Kurdish national aspirations. It has been 81 days since the inauguration, so, has the outlook improved for the American-Kurdish alliance?

As the roll-out of a revamped American strategy to bring a swift defeat to the Islamic State (ISIS) continues, the unanswered question of the Kurdish role looms as one of the largest unknowns.

The calculus of the Trump Administration vis-a-vis Kurdish authorities in Iraq and Syria has not been definitively clear, but has become more apparent as facts on the ground are established.
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T. Belman. No easy victory for Trump. Perhaps that’s why he undermined himself by saying he was not going the war in Syria. But what’s he going to do if Putin says “nyet”.

Hopefully that;s Putin’s way of saying “Let the tough negotiations begin.”

By JOSH LEDERMAN, Associated Press

But if Moscow ignores Trump’s entreaties or if Assad uses chemical weapons again, bad options await Trump. He can order more military action, with the danger of an escalating America involvement in a war that has killed hundreds of thousands of people. Or he can hold back and risk losing face like Obama.

MOSCOW (AP) – The Trump administration veered toward deeper conflict with Russia Tuesday as Secretary of State Rex Tillerson arrived in Moscow, gambling that an unpredictable new president armed with the willingness to threaten military action gives the U.S. much-needed leverage to end Syria’s carnage.

Yet there were no guarantees Tillerson’s arguments would prove any more successful than the Obama administration’s failed effort to peel Russia away from its Syrian ally. Tillerson’s mission, coming days after 59 Tomahawk missiles struck a Syrian air base, also carries serious risks: If Russia brushes off the warnings, President Donald Trump could be forced into another show of force in Syria or see his credibility wane.
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DEBKA

It is hard to see US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson coming way from the talks he is holding with Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov in Moscow Wednesday, April 12, with a neatly wrapped diplomatic package for cooling the boiling tensions between their governments. President Vladimir Putin seems more than ready to turn up the heat.

Tuesday, he claimed he had information (no source cited) of a potential incident similar to the alleged chemical attack in Idlib province, possibly targeting the Damascus suburb of Ghouta. Speaking at a joint press conference with Italian President Sergio Mattarella in Moscow, Putin said: “The goal is to discredit the government of Syrian President Assad. We have reports from multiple sources that false flags like this one – and I cannot call it otherwise – are being prepared in other parts of Syria, including the southern suburbs of Damascus. They plan to plant some chemical there and accuse the Syrian government of an attack.”
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T. Belman. This is very well written and very clear. Even so it is a summary of a larger article which may be found at the link.

By Karen Stahl-Don, LLM, MA

Summary: The Legality of Israeli Sovereignty over Judea and Samaria According to International Law

I. Introduction

The purpose of this report is to explain that international law supports Israel’s claim to sovereignty over Judea and Samaria and to debunk the claim that Israel is illegally occupying that land. This report demonstrates that the international community’s pervasive belief that Israeli settlements are illegal under international law contradicts the simplest and most logical reading of the documents through which international law has traditionally been construed. The basic legal historical documents speak the truth to all who choose to read them.

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Move to clarify position amid confusion over White House policy on Damascus and Moscow

by: James Politi in Rome, Kathrin Hille in Moscow and Demetri Sevastopulo in Washington, FT

High quality global journalism requires investment. Please share this article with others using the link below, do not cut & paste the article. See our T&Cs and Copyright Policy for more detail. Email ftsales.support@ft.com to buy additional rights.

Donald Trump said the US would not enter the Syrian civil war, in a bid to clarify his policy in the wake of confusion that followed his missile strike on the regime of President Bashar al-Assad.

Speaking to Fox News, the US president said America was “not going into Syria”. His remarks followed days of confusion over how the US intends to proceed with respect to the war-torn country and also towards Moscow, which supports the regime in Damascus.
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By Conrad Black, NY SUN

[…]

No one expects that the attack last week will reform Mr. Assad’s behavior (it is only seven years since Hillary Clinton called him “a reformer”), but it has sent the message that the long night of delusional altruism and deliberate weakness in American foreign and security policy is over. It has also helped create the only circumstances in which relations between the United States and Russia can be put back on a sound foundation after the shambles of the Obama-Biden-Clinton “reset.”

I wrote here several weeks ago of the promising meeting of the chairmen of the joint chiefs of staff of the United States, Russia, and Turkey, on March 9, and of the emerging policy of Turkey replacing Iran as a power in Syria and of a division of government within Syria between Assad and the Western-sponsored secular moderates. For this to have any possibility of success, Russia will have to grasp the fact that the goodwill and cooperation of the United States is worth more to it than its obscene friendship with Iran, insofar as such a quarrel among thieves could be so described.
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U.S. intelligence confirms that the Syrian regime used sarin gas on civilians, declassified report says, accusing the Syrian and Russian governments of seeking to confuse the international community with disinformation

HAARETZ

The White House is accusing Russia of taking part in a cover-up of the chemical weapons attack in Syria last week.
According to a declassified report released Tuesday, U.S. intelligence confirms that the Syrian regime used sarin gas on civilians, and that the Syrian and Russian governments are seeking to confuse the international community by disseminating “false narratives.”

The report emerged as U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson arrived in Moscow for what is increasingly being billed as the most important political meeting to take place in Russia this year.
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BY JOSH LEDERMAN, TOI

Russian President Vladimir Putin (L) meets with Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in Tehran on November 23, 2015 (AFP/Sputnik/Alexei Druzhinin)

UCCA, Italy (AP) — US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson issued an ultimatum to Russia on Tuesday: Side with the US and likeminded countries on Syria, or embrace Iran, militant group Hezbollah and embattled Syrian leader Bashar Assad.

Tillerson, who landed in Moscow on Tuesday afternoon following urgent meetings in Italy with top diplomats, said it was unclear whether Russia had failed to take seriously its obligation to rid Syria of chemical weapons, or had merely been incompetent. But he said the distinction “doesn’t much matter to the dead.”

“Russia has failed to uphold the agreements that have been entered into under multiple United Nations Security Council resolutions,” Tillerson said. “These agreements stipulated Russia as the guarantor of a Syria free of chemical weapons.”
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So long as Palestinian rejectionism runs rampant, debates about one-, two-, and three-state solutions are for naught.

By Daniel Pipes, MOSAIC

Daniel Polisar of Shalem College in Jerusalem shook the debate over Palestinian-Israeli relations in November 2015 with his essay, “What Do Palestinians Want?” In it, having studied 330 polls to “understand the perspective of everyday Palestinians” toward Israel, Israelis, Jews, and the utility of violence against them, he found that Palestinian attackers are “venerated” by their society—with all that that implies.

He’s done it again with “Do Palestinians Want a Two-State Solution?” This time, he pored over some 400 opinion polls of Palestinian views to find consistency among seemingly contradictory evidence on the topic of ways to resolve the conflict with Israel. From this confusing bulk, Polisar convincingly establishes that Palestinians collectively hold three related views of Israel: it has no historical or moral claim to exist, it is inherently rapacious and expansionist, and it is doomed to extinction. In combination, these attitudes explain and justify the widespread Palestinian demand for a state from “the river to the sea,” the grand Palestine of their maps that erases Israel.
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