UN Watch Briefing
Secretary-General Antonió Guterres rejected a report published by ECSWA, a Beirut-based agency of the world body that is comprised of 18 Arab states, which accuses Israel of “apartheid.”
The report’s chief author is Richard Falk, a former UN official who was condemned repeatedly by the UK and other governments for antisemitism.
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With a growing dependence on China and Russia and budding geopolitical ambitions, Tehran is willing to make sacrifices
[..]The Iranian regime is ready to sacrifice the most urgent needs of its internal economy in favor of its ambitions in Syria. Iran cut development spending to just one-third of the intended level as state income lagged forecasts during the three quarters ending last December, according to the country’s central bank. Iran sold US$29 billion of crude during the period, up from $25 billion the comparable period last year. The government revenues from oil of US$11 billion (655 trillion rials) were just 70% of official forecasts, and tax revenues of US$17.2 billion came in 15% below expectations.
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A review of the mistaken analyses and erroneous conclusions of the US State Department with respect to the Middle East region.
1. In 2011, the Department of State welcomed the Arab Tsunami, which has displaced millions of people and murdered hundreds of thousands – and keeps raging – as an Arab Spring, youth revolution, Facebook revolution and a transition towards democracy.
2. In 2011, the State Department recommended the toppling of Gaddafi in Libya, in spite of Gaddafi’s transfer of Libya’s nuclear infrastructure to the US in 2003, and irrespective of his fierce battle against Islamic terrorism. The toppling of the ruthless Gaddafi transformed Libya into the largest, lawless platform of Islamic terrorism in the Middle East, spilling over into Africa, Europe and the rest of the world, severely undermining the US national and homeland security.
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The new president’s approach to Iran, Syria, and Israel looks a lot like the old president’s—because the same people are implementing it
After excoriating Barack Obama’s foreign policy, including his realignment in the Middle East, Trump has yet to nominate any officials below the cabinet level at the State Department or the Pentagon, which means there is no one to formulate Trump’s own foreign policy, never mind implement it. To fill the growing vacuum at the center of American power, the Trump White House is now handing over key foreign-policy positions to Obama administration re-treads who handled the very same portfolios under the previous president. Trump’s tough-as-nails “America first” foreign policy is starting to look like Obama Lite—the exact same policies, implemented by the exact same people. Increasingly, members of Congress are starting to notice—and they’re getting angry.
On Tuesday, Defense Secretary James Mattis withdrew his pick for a top Pentagon spot, Anne Patterson’s ambassadorship to Egypt. Patterson’s dealings with the Muslim Brotherhood rankled top Republican lawmakers, and made her perhaps the least popular American in all of Egypt—and Mattis was compelled to take her name off the board.
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BESA Center Perspectives Paper No. 427, March 16, 2017
By Rene Louis Beres
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: Although concerns about a Trump confrontation with a nuclear North Korea are widespread, there has been little corollary discussion of crisis implications for other parts of the world. Yet there are important spillover implications to be considered, specifically with reference to the Middle East and Israel’s nuclear strategy.
It appears increasingly plausible that President Donald Trump’s first major test in strategic crisis management will come from North Korea. The spillover effects of any such test, a complex challenge that may or may not have a nuclear dimension, could rapidly involve other countries, including several powerful states in the Middle East.
Context is vital. All world politics ultimately comprise a single integrated system of states. What happens in any one geographic area, therefore, can quickly affect another.
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By Isi LiebLer,
We try to rationalize that the anti-Zionist behavior of individual Jews does not justify anti-Semitic bigotry.
However, the crass political exploitation of their Jewish identity by American leaders of purportedly “nonpartisan” mainstream Jewish organizations is unprecedented. Today, in what must be described as self-destruction, a substantial number of irresponsible leaders of the most successful and powerful Jewish diaspora community seem to have gone berserk and are fueling anti-Semitism.
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‘If You Aren’t Sitting At The Table, You Are Being Eaten At The Table’
By: Yigal Carmon and A. Savyon and Anna Mahjar-Barducci*MEMRI
On March 7, 2017, the chiefs of staff of the U.S., Russian, and Turkish militaries met in Antalya, Turkey to discuss security problems in Syria and Iraq. Conspicuous in its absence at the meeting was any Iranian representation whatsoever. According to a Russian Defense Ministry report, Chief of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Russia Gen. Valery Gerasimov, Chief of the General Staff of the Turkish Armed Forces Gen. Hulusi Akar, and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff of the U.S. Armed Forces Gen. Joseph Dunford were at the Antalya meeting.[1]
Source: Russia Defense Ministry
This report reviews evidence of Russia’s recent rapprochement with the U.S. and Turkey at the expense of Iran, and the implications for Iran and the U.S.
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In While House meeting with defense minister and deputy crown prince, U.S. president tries to enlist Saudi Arabia’s support for efforts to achieve regional solutions.
By Barak Ravid and Amir Tibon, HAARETZ
U.S. President Donald Trump told the Saudi defense minister, Deputy Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, during a meeting at the White House, he has a “strong desire” to achieve a comprehensive, just and lasting settlement of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the White House said in a statement Wednesday.
Trump made the comments as his special envoy, Jason Greenblatt, has continued to conduct talks in Israel and with officials from the Palestinian Authority in an effort to restart peace talks on the conflict.
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T. Belman. Help me out here. I seem to recall that the US had a deal with M16, the British spy agency to do the spying on Israel in the US that the US was barred from doing.
Fox News commentator Judge Andrew Napolitano dropped a bombshell Tuesday when he said that former President Barack Obama may have used a foreign spy agency to surveil President Donald Trump, a move that would have basically eliminated any trail leading back to the former president’s administration.
During an interview on Fox News‘ “Fox & Friends,” Napolitano said that Obama bypassed American spy agencies and obtained transcripts of Trump’s conversations from Britain’s Government Communications Headquarters, which is the equivalent of the U.S. National Security Agency.
“Three intelligence sources have informed Fox News that President Obama went outside the chain of command — he didn’t use the NSA, he didn’t use the CIA, he didn’t use the FBI and he didn’t use the Department of Justice,” Napolitano said.
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‘There’s no blank check from Trump for construction in the settlements and that was known from the first minute he entered the White House,’ says Israeli official.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu expects to reach understandings with the United States within a few weeks on curbing construction in the settlements, according to an Israeli official.
Although the understandings with U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration are likely to include Israeli willingness to impose significant restrictions on construction in West Bank settlements, the Prime Minister’s Bureau believes that this will not weaken the coalition.
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By Hillel Frisch,
BESA Center Perspectives Paper No. 425, March 15, 2017
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: Reintegrating into the Jordanian state is an economic imperative for the Arab inhabitants of the Palestinian Authority. Only by once again becoming citizens of Jordan will they be able to challenge the economic stone wall imposed by domestic Jordanian economic lobby groups barring West Bank exports. A two-state solution would lead, not to an economy of peace, but to an economy of violence as lobby groups in both Israel and Jordan shut out the Palestinian state’s exports. The Palestinian state would inevitably react by threatening and committing violence to extract the international aid to which the PA has become accustomed.
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The Trump administration is threatening to withdraw from the UN Human Rights Council, citing the body’s “biased agenda against Israel.”
The Trump administration is threatening to withdraw from the U.N. Human Rights Council, citing among other things the intergovernmental body’s “biased agenda against Israel.”
Secretary of State Rex Tillerson sent a letter this week to nine nonprofit groups opposed to withdrawal — including one affiliated with the American Jewish Committee — in which he explained that the United States may quit the council unless it makes reforms, Foreign Policy reported.
In the meantime, Tillerson said the U.S. would “reiterate our strong principled objection to the Human Rights Council’s biased agenda against Israel.”
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Jewish Home MK Smotrich warns that Netanyahu is drawing up a diplomatic move that will result in Palestinian state.
MK Bezalel Smotrich (Jewish Home) on Tuesday evening warned that Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu is drawing up a diplomatic move that will result in the establishment of a Palestinian state.
“In recent weeks, there have been too many indications that the Prime Minister is quietly cooking up a process that will lead to the establishment of Palestine,” Smotrich wrote on Facebook.
“All this talk about a ‘deal’ and a regional peace conference, the freezing of construction outside the blocs (those who do not build outside the blocs essentially say that the State of Israel is not going to remain there), and the reports about a ‘deal’ that Trump proposed to Abbas for negotiations in return for a construction freeze; reports in Haaretz on contacts between Netanyahu and Herzog to establish a unity government based on the renewal of the ‘political process’; Netanyahu’s desire to build an ‘Iran bypass route’ with moderate Arab states in which the price Israel will have to pay in order to build this axis will be on the settlement front,” he continued, listing what he perceived as indications of Netanyahu’s move.
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By Ted Belman
There is the possibility that Trump’s current moves with Abbas are a distraction covering what he really intends.
Remember he said he doesn’t believe in telling ISIS what his military plans are. Warfare as you know involves a great deal of deception.
Trump is the master of the art of the deal. He must know that a frontal assault on the peace process will not accomplish anything. The last thing he wants is to do what Kerry did and fail yet that is what it appears he is doing.
My article The Ultimate Alternate Solution, has got to appeal to him because it is out of the box thinking and really has a great chance of happening. The odds of him succeeding with it are many times higher than the odds of getting a two state deal with Abbas.
Yael Lempert is staying on at the White House, while Michael Ratney is still at the State Department ? though it’s not yet clear if this is for the long term.
Two career diplomats who served in senior positions related to the American policy on Israel and the Middle East under the Obama administration are currently filling an important role establishing the new administration’s policy on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Yael Lempert, who was in charge of Israel and the Palestinians in Obama’s National Security Council, has been asked to remain at the White House for now, despite originally planning to return to the State Department.
Meanwhile, the State Department has announced that Michael Ratney, the U.S. consul general in Jerusalem from 2012 to 2015, is currently in charge of the Israeli-Palestinian file at the department.
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T. Belman. Trump is betraying Israel. He is not living up to his campaign rhetoric. If Trump won’t let us build in the settlement blocks, which everyone knows we will keep, he knifed us in the back. Israel must push for what it wants and not be hostage to obtaining his approval.
Now that Trump is making his moves in the peace process, we are better able to understand why he picked Mattis and McMaster for his cabinet.
Israel wants blessing for construction within settlement ‘city limits’ — potentially tripling enterprise, Army Radio reports, but Washington only on board with East Jerusalem building
After more than five hours of talks between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Trump administration envoy Jason Greenblatt on Monday, at which President Trump’s public call to rein in settlement building was discussed, very wide gaps remain between the sides. The complex bid to coordinate positions will now be taken up by Greenblatt and Israel’s Ambassador to Washington Ron Dermer, Israel’s Army Radio reported on Tuesday.
In principle, Israel wants to be able to build anywhere within the “city limits” (t’hum hashiput) of all settlements, potentially tripling the settlement enterprise, the radio report said. For its part, the Trump administration has thus far indicated only that building in East Jerusalem Jewish neighborhoods such as Pisgat Ze’ev, Neve Yaakov and Gilo can continue. As regards US support for any settlement expansion outside Jerusalem — be it at isolated settlements or inside the major settlement blocs — “there’s a problem,” the radio report said.
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The ignominious collapse of the Democratic claims and insinuations that Donald Trump was improperly connected to the Russian government has de-escalated the Democrats’ campaign against the president — from a frenzied assault seeking impeachment and removal for a cause to be named later, to guerrilla war. Russian collusion has vanished down the same deep hole as the charges of sexism, racism, and a will to autocracy.
It is widely believed that press reports in the New York Times and other outlets accustomed to receiving and amplifying anti-Trump leaks from within the administration (a thoroughly illegal process), as well as an aside of Democratic representative Adam Schiff of California, to the effect that the House Intelligence Committee would want to know about the surveillance of the Republican campaign, confirm that there was such surveillance. Most intelligence-agency directors in the latter Obama era have volunteered that there was no evidence of such collaboration.
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The PLO is the Siren that drowns US administrations.The PLO is the Siren that drowns US administrations.
US President Donald Trump is losing his focus. If he doesn’t get it back soon, he will fail to make America great again or safe again in the Middle East.
After holding out for a month, last week Trump indicated he is adopting his predecessors’ obsession with empowering the PLO.
This is a strategic error.
There are many actors and conflicts in the Middle East that challenge and threaten US national interests and US national security. Iran’s rise as a nuclear power and regional hegemon; the war in Syria; Turkey’s abandonment of the West; and Russia’s regional power play all pose major threats to US power, security and interests. The Muslim Brotherhood, Islamic State, Hamas and other Sunni jihadist movements all threaten the US, Europe and the US’s Sunni allies in the region in a manner that is strategically significant to America.
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