T. Belman. Trump is positioning the US so that it can negotiate with Russia from a position of strength.

DEBKA

The Pentagon announced Tuesday, March 6, that a US armored convoy was deployed around the disputed northern Syrian town of Manbij, and in an unusual move, released a video depicting the convoy and its men.

A US military spokesman tweeted that the US deployment was a deliberate action taken to assure that forces within the US-led coalition deterred aggression and kept the focus on defeating ISIS.

Affirming that the US-led coalition was aware of the location of Russian-backed Syrian forces, Pentagon spokesman Captain Jeff Davis told reporters Monday.
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Daniel Johnson and Tzipi Hotovely

(Tzipi Hotovely © Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Daniel Johnson ©Francesco Guidicini)

Daniel Johnson: One of the issues that I know you’ve been very much embroiled in is this question of whether Israeli law will apply to the West Bank. This is clearly in the interests of not just settlers but Arabs too, Palestinians as well, so how are we going to resolve that and how are you going to present this to the world not as a bid to move the goalposts, but simply as doing justice?
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By Cliff Kincaid, RENEW AMERICA

By Ted Belman

After Lieberman’s startling remarks last week concerning a rupture in in our relationship with the US should we annex Judea and Samaria in whole or in part and the Women of Green’s disavowal of what he said, the US clarified yesterday.

“We are not going to speak publicly about the details of private communications between governments,”

“President Trump is committed to working with Israel and the Palestinians on a comprehensive peace deal that will allow both sides to live in the peace and security they deserve,”

“The administration needs to have the chance to fully consult with all parties on the way forward. We are just getting that process started. As the president has said, he would like to see a ‘level of reasonableness of both parties,'”

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By Yehudit Katsover and Nadia Matar

The heads of Women in Green have severe criticism for Minister Lieberman’s words against the application of sovereignty and assert that he bases his position on misleading data, ignoring the changes in the Middle East and the American administration.

Women in Green responds with severity to the words this morning of Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman in the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee against the vision of sovereignty.
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T. Belman. This needs clarification from a known source on the Trump team. As I have said before, the litmus test is permission to build. That is currently being held up. Building is way more important than the US moving its embassy. So much for Kushner and Friedman and Greenblatt. It may well be that the world community can force a solution on us which is akin to the Kerry parameters. Trump has yet to do anything that would assure us that we will get more land than the former administration was willing to give us.

Avigdor Lieberman says Israel should clearly state it has no intention of imposing Israeli law on West Bank.

By Jonathan Lis, HAARETZ

The U.S. administration told Israel that annexing the West Bank would lead to an immediate crisis between the two countries, Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman told lawmakers on Monday.

“We received a direct message… imposing Israeli sovereignty [on the West Bank] would mean an immediate crisis with the new administration,” Lieberman told the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee. “The coalition should clearly state that there is no intention to impose [Israeli] sovereignty.”
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By Alexander Markovsky

In his first speech to members of NATO, American Secretary of Defense Mattis said, “Americans cannot care more for your children’s future security than you do.”  This echoes his boss Donald Trump’s campaign statement, “Number one it (NATO) was obsolete, because it was designed many, many years ago.” Normally, a new president can count on the backing of his own party, but on this issue there is a rare consensus on both sides of the aisle in support of the existing policies.

The core divergence of geopolitical views is this:

• Supporters of NATO see American commitments as implicitly limitless and irreversible. They insist that the arrangements have worked well for the United States, and any attempt to challenge them is not in America’s national interests. Ideologically, adherence to existing commitments defines our national interests.

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by Noah Beck, Special to IPT News

Hamas operatives burst into the Associated Press (AP) Gaza bureau during the 2014 war with Israel, angered by a picture shot by an AP photographer. Gunmen threatened the AP staff, which never reported the incident.

The incident shows that Hamas can control what journalists report, and what they don’t, former AP Middle East reporter Matti Friedman says in a new documentary, “Eyeless in Gaza.”

Producer Robert Magid’s 50-minute film, which is screening via pay-per-view online, examines the flaws and challenges in reporting on the 50-day war.
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T. Belman. This article covers the case against the law quite well but hardly addresses the case for them.

The NGO petition to the High Court of Justice is the second one to be filed against the law.

BY TOVAH LAZAROFF, YONAH JEREMY BOB, JPOST,

The Settlements Regulation Law” could place individual Israeli politicians, military personnel and civilians before the International Criminal Court at The Hague on charges of war crimes, 13 NGOs told the High Court of Justice on Sunday.

The 13 organizations, led by Yesh Din and Peace Now, issued the warning as part of their 63-page petition to the High Court against the law, which was passed on February 6.
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By Joel B Pollak, BREITBART

Democrats’ efforts to raise suspicions about alleged — and, thus far, imaginary — links between President Donald Trump’s campaign and the Russian government may have backfired spectacularly.

The spotlight is now on President Barack Obama and his administration’s alleged surveillance of the Trump campaign, as well as his aides’ reported efforts to spread damaging information about Trump throughout government agencies to facilitate later investigations and, possibly, leaks to the media.

On Sunday morning, the White House released a statement indicating that the president would ask the congressional committees investigating Russian hacking theories to add the question of “whether executive branch investigative powers were abused in 2016.”
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T. Belman. For all we know, Netanyahu is meeting with Putin as Trump’s emissary.

While I am at it, many in the US think of Putin as the devil who must be opposed yet at the same time they get in bed with far worse like Saudi Arabia, Turkey,etc. I’ll take Russia any day.

DEBKA

Constantly bombarded by allegations that his campaign associated with Russian intelligence, US President Donald Trump has held back from going through with his original plan for teaming up with Moscow in Syria for the important campaigns of wiping out the Islamic State and relieving Syria of Iran’s iron grip.

His entire Middle East policy is up in the air, while he grapples with domestic foes. The much talked-of US coalition with its regional allies, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan and Israel, is also in abeyance.
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Do Jews have to make common cause with people who want to kill them?

By Bari Weiss, TABLET

In the week leading up to the presidential election, like hockey players who refuse to shave during the playoffs, the women of the Weiss family lived in their “Pussy Grabs Back” T-shirts. For months, our family texts had buzzed day and night with emoji-laden reactions to the latest Trump outrage, while my mother waged a very personal campaign against the Republican candidate. When the first Tuesday in November was upon us, my dad, who has a giant poster of William F. Buckley in his office, bowed to shalom bayit and wrote in Steph Curry.
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by ANDREW C. MCCARTHY, NATIONAL REVIEW,  March 5, 2017 8:12 AM

President Trump’s early Saturday morning tweeting has exploded to the forefront an uncovered scandal I’ve been talking about since early January (including in this weekend’s column): The fact that the Obama Justice Department and the FBI investigated associates of Donald Trump, and likely Trump himself, in the heat of the presidential campaign.

To summarize, reporting indicates that, prior to June 2016, the Obama Justice Department and FBI considered a criminal investigation of Trump associates, and perhaps Trump himself, based on concerns about connections to Russian financial institutions. Preliminary poking around indicated that there was nothing criminal involved. Rather than shut the case down, though, the Obama Justice Department converted it into a national-security investigation under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). FISA allows the government, if it gets court permission, to conduct electronic surveillance (which could include wiretapping, monitoring of e-mail, and the like) against those it alleges are “agents of a foreign power.”
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T. Belman. Wise says that well meaning friends of Israel reject the one state solution because “immediately or shortly thereafter create an Arab-majority state, ridding the country of its Jewish identity. Furthermore, it has been said, failure to grant full citizenship to all residents of the West Bank would turn Israel into an “apartheid state.”

Some well meaning friends do believe this but there are other well meaning friends who don’t want Israel to be home to an Arab population that amounts to 35% of Israel’s population, citizens or not. They prefer to fight for a solution that supports compensated emigration for Arabs. What they will settle for in the end remains to be seen. Perhaps a staged process. Perhaps, a combination of Wise’s One State Solution which is supported by Glick with a compensated emigration plan proposed by Moshe Feiglin. His plan allows for some citizenship. Martin Sherman’s plan allows for no citizenship.

By Michael L Wise, ALGEMEINER

There is now almost unanimous rejection of the “two-state solution” — the creation of a sovereign Palestinian state on any part of the former west bank of the Hashemite Kingom of Transjordan (Judea and Samaria). Regional violence and terror has made it clear to almost all objective observers that a Palestinian state would ultimately fall into the hands of terrorist entities such as Hamas, Fatah, ISIS, Hezbollah or al-Qaida, and would result in a catastrophic conflict.

The “one-state” alternative, according to which Israel declares sovereignty over Judea and Samaria, would — say both well-meaning friends of Israel and its enemies — immediately or shortly thereafter create an Arab-majority state, ridding the country of its Jewish identity. Furthermore, it has been said, failure to grant full citizenship to all residents of the West Bank would turn Israel into an “apartheid state.”
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By Barak Ravid, HAARETZ,  Mar 05, 2017

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu sent opposition leader Isaac Herzog a document six months ago containing a joint declaration for spurring a regional peace initiative and anchoring an Israeli unity government ? before backtracking weeks later.

Netanyahu sent the document to Herzog seven months after a secret peace summit in Aqaba, Jordan, reported by Haaretz two weeks ago.

The document reflected a willingness by Netanyahu for territorial compromise in a two-state solution with the Palestinians and a reining in of construction in the settlements.
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By Heshmat Alavi, AMERICAN THINKER

The recent dust storms that wreaked havoc in southwest Iran signaled only one of the many crises the mullahs are facing less than three months before critical elections. Tehran has been hit with severe blows during the Munich Security Conference, contrasting interests with Russia, the recent escalating row with Turkey, and most importantly, a new U.S. administration in Washington.

These crises have crippling effects on the mullahs’ apparatus, especially at a time when Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei sees his regime facing a changing balance of power in the international community, and is faced with a major decision of selecting the regime’s so-called president.
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By Hassan Mahmoudi, AMERICAN THINKER

Iran’s rulers are attempting to end their country’s international isolation. But there are innumerable obstacles for them, beginning with the goon-like activity of  Iran’s Revolutionary Guard (IRGC) along with its expeditionary arm, the al-Quds Force. There are also problems with Iran’s proxiees, the Iran-allied Shia militias in Iraq, Syria, Yemen and Lebanon, all of which are meddling in neighboring countries such as Bahrain and Saudi Arabia. And “state-sponsored terrorism” remains as policy, as strong as ever. But the most important obstacle is the political unrest inside Iran.
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YA’ALON ANNOUNCES INTENTION TO RUN FOR PRIME MINISTER, FORM NEW PARTY

Former Kulanu minister to run for head of Labor
Avi Gabai, who joined Labor just two months ago, announces he will run for the position of its chairman.

Ex-Shin Bet chief Avi Dichter now says he will seek leadership of governing party if premier steps down

Feiglin’s Zehut Party is now official and raring to go.

Previewing political comeback, Sa’ar says he’ll return to Likud

T. Belman. Francisco Gil-White published PLO/Fatah and Iran: The Special Relationship. Iran supported the PLO both before and after the revolution. Israel ignores this at her peril. Be sure to read this article and watch the video.

“With Everything From Stabbing And Vehicular Attacks To Launching Rocket”

MEMRI: March 2, 2017 Special Dispatch No.6809

A March 1, 2017 article in the Lebanese daily Al-Akhbar about PLO Ambassador to Iran Salah Al-Zawawi included excerpts of an interview with him focusing on the PLO-Iran relationship. Al-Zawawi also stressed in the interview that armed struggle using all means was a legitimate path to liberating Palestine “from the river to the sea.”
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Hamas newspaper 4 March 2017

Gaza,(Alresalah.ps)– Member of Hamas’s political bureau Khalil al-Hayya has reiterated his Movement’s rejection of any idea about resettling the Palestinians in other countries or providing them with an alternative homeland.

The Hamas official made his remarks during a ceremony held in Gaza to celebrate the 20th founding anniversary of al-Resalah newspaper.

“We refuse any substitute for Palestine in the Sinai or Jordan, even if the whole world was given in exchange for it,” Hayya said in a speech during the event.
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