By Ted Belman

The significance of this is that the two state solution has been dislodged from its exclusive hold on the discourse. That’s huge. But its not bold enough.

Trump said that an agreement must be reached by the Israelis and the Palestinians. They will never agree. He should have opened the door to have Jordan replace the Palestinians or at least be in the talks.

Israel will not agree to a one state solution in which the Arabs are full citizens and the Arabs won’t agree if they aren’t.
Read more…

By Ted Belman

Trump said he wanted Israel to slow down on settlements and to be flexible.

He said that  he didn’t care if negotiations end in one state or two states. They both supported the outside in approach.
Read more…

By JNS.org

U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson.

(JNS.org) The Israeli legal nongovernmental organization Shurat HaDin is calling on U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson to terminate government funding to the U.S. relief agency, American Near-East Refugee Aid (ANERA), after an investigation by Shurat HaDin found ANERA was “actively assisting” terrorist organizations.

According to the probe, funds transferred to ANERA, including from American charities, the United Nations Development Program and the Christian charity World Vision, are “used to support Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) kindergartens that actively indoctrinate children in hatred and killing of Israeli civilians, as well as other PIJ and Hamas organizations, thus enabling them to finance terrorist activity, which is forbidden by US law.” The former head of World Vision recently plead not guilty to charges it funded the terror groups Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad which operate out of the Gaza Strip.
Read more…

By Jonathan Tobin, TOI

After eight years of barely concealed hostility between the leaders of the United States and Israel, the prospect of a new era of better relations has raised expectations for today’s meeting between President Donald Trump and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. But while Netanyahu is likely to get a warmer welcome at the White House than he ever received from President Barack Obama, not all American Jews are enthusiastic about the anticipated lovefest.

The visit comes at a good time for Netanyahu, who is increasingly under siege at home. Though he need not face the voters again for another year or two, the prime minister is down in the polls to a centrist challenge as well as under serious pressure from his right-wing allies. Just as troubling are a raft of corruption investigations that, although still unproved, are encouraging his foes to start imagining life without him.
Read more…

T. Belman. Israel should reject this out of hand.

TOI

The Wall Street Journal reports that the Trump administration is holding discussions with several Arab states to create a NATO-style alliance with Israel in order to thwart Iran and its Shiite allies.

The report, citing five officials from the Arab countries involved, says the alliance will be on the agenda when Trump and Netanyahu speak later today.

Countries involved would include Saudi Arabia and the UAE, as well as Egypt and Jordan, though Israel’s role would be in intelligence sharing and not combat-related, according to the report.
Read more…

By Bret Stephens, WSJ

Jared Kushner will get his first real taste of Mideast diplomacy this week, when his father-in-law receives Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the White House. Since the 36-year-old former newspaper publisher has been widely touted as the administration’s point man on Israeli-Arab issues, this week’s column humbly offers four rules Mr. Kushner ought to observe in the months and years ahead.

(1) The Clifford Rule. After stepping down as Lyndon Johnson ’s defense secretary in 1969, the late Clark Clifford settled into the life of a Washington superlawyer—the sort of man who, for a price, could open all the right doors for his clients and fix some of their worst problems.
Read more…

T. Belman. Erakat is wrong. Aryeh Eldad, with whom I have been talking, has long backed a plan in which all Palestinians in Judea and Samaria would have Jordanian citizenship, as they do now, and Israeli residency. This is far better than Glick who wants to offer them a path to citizenship and 1.7 million is a very big number of expats. I wrote to Eldad as I still had some questions.

Is there any way to restrict them to areas A and B or could they live any where they want in Israel?

As residents, what economic support and benefits would they be entitled to?

How could that number get reduced over time or perhaps at the beginning?

Could the benefits and entitlements available to them be minimized so that living in Jordan would be more attractive?

Is there any way to prevent Jordan from cancelling their citizenship?

Saeb Erekat tells UK parliament speaker that Israel can’t have ‘apartheid regime,’ will have to allow ‘equal rights for everyone’

BY RAPHAEL AHREN, TOI

The only alternative to the creation of a Palestinian state is a one-state solution in which all Palestinians will get the right to vote, Palestine Liberation Organization Secretary-General Saeb Erekat said Wednesday, hours after a senior White House official appeared to withdraw the US’s traditional support for a two-state solution.
Read more…

By Francisco Gil-White, HIR

During the presidential campaign, many believed Trump when he said that he would combat jihadism and defend Israel. I was always skeptical. But how to reason from the evidence? What policies will be diagnostic of Trump’s direction? In a Foreign Affairs piece published before Trump took his oath (Part 1), I wrote that if Trump were to:

1) dry off and block the channels that supply jihadists with weapons;

2) support the Rojava Revolution in Syria; and

3) expose the ties between PLO/Fatah and Iran

we would know that the new administration really means to oppose jihadism and protect the Israeli state.

I believe that Trump is already showing his colors, and that he will do none of these things. But that is for a later article. For the purposes of this piece, let us give Trump the benefit of the doubt and ask ourselves: What is a reasonable prior? In other words, even supposing that Trump really had meant what he promised, what was the probability that he could get it done?
Read more…

Sources: Former Obama officials, loyalists planted series of stories to discredit Flynn, bolster Iran deal

By Adam Kredo, NEW BEACON

The abrupt resignation Monday evening of White House national security adviser Michael Flynn is the culmination of a secret, months-long campaign by former Obama administration confidantes to handicap President Donald Trump’s national security apparatus and preserve the nuclear deal with Iran, according to multiple sources in and out of the White House who described to the Washington Free Beacon a behind-the-scenes effort by these officials to plant a series of damaging stories about Flynn in the national media.

The effort, said to include former Obama administration adviser Ben Rhodes—the architect of a separate White House effort to create what he described as a pro-Iran echo chamber—included a small task force of Obama loyalists who deluged media outlets with stories aimed at eroding Flynn’s credibility, multiple sources revealed.
Read more…

T. Belman. I wrote to Yishai Feisher to congratulate him on getting this article published by the NYT and to take him to task regarding his population number.

You wrote, “Today, the estimated number of Arabs living in Judea and Samaria is 2.7 million, though some researchers dispute the data and argue that the figure is far lower.” Please stop saying it like that.

Instead say “Today, the estimated number of Arabs living in Judea and Samaria is 1.7 million.”

Yoram Ettinger writes that the number 1.75 million is “well documented”. In this article he goes on to support his contention and explains why the higher number is wrong. Stop saying it is 2.7. Be comfortable quoting 1.75 as fact.

Yishai replied that he wrote 1.75 as the number but the NYT insisted on changing it.

By YISHAI FLEISHER, NYT

Israeli housing in front of an Arab settlement last month in Amona, West Bank.CreditChris Mcgrath/Getty Images

HEBRON, West Bank — Last week, Israel’s Parliament passed a controversial bill that allows the government to retroactively authorize contested West Bank Jewish communities by compensating previous Palestinian land claimants. Opposition parties warn that this law could open Israel to prosecution at The Hague, and the chief Palestinian negotiator, Saeb Erekat, said, “Israel’s Parliament has just approved a law to legalize theft of Palestinian land.” This theme has been echoed recently at the Paris peace conference, in a United Nations Security Council resolution and by a major policy speech by then Secretary of State John Kerry, which all condemned settlements.

Read more…

NEWS FROM ASSEMBLYMAN DOV HIKIND

HIKIND TO SCHUMER: KEITH ELLISON IS A TOXIC CHOICE FOR DNC CHAIR 

‘SENATOR SCHUMER, PULL THE PLUG ON YOUR SUPPORT FOR ELLISON. HE WILL BE A DISASTER FOR THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY.’ 

ONLINE PETITION DRIVE LAUNCHED ON CHANGE.ORG ASKING TO OPPOSE ELLISON

Brooklyn, NY, February 14, 2017…Assemblyman Dov Hikind (D-Brooklyn) launched an online petition addressed to Senator Charles E. Schumer today, calling on him to rescind his support for Congressman Keith Ellison to be the next Chair of the Democratic National Committee.
Read more…

T. Belman. This was first published on January 20/17. Did he get it right? The second article in the series will be posted tomorrow.

Francisco Gil-White is someone that I have known since shortly after 9/11. During the Iraq war that followed, when everyone was calling for Bush to “teach Iran a lesson” for killing American soldiers in Iraq, Gil-White wrote in Feb 2006, Will the US attack Iran? in which he predicted that the US would not attack Iran. He of course was right. In Sept 2016, he updated the article and published US and Iran: Friends of Foes

 Israeli patriots expect him to be. After all, he postures as an enemy of Iran and ISIS. But, what evidence will be diagnostic that Trump really is delivering on his Mideast promises?

By Francisco Gil-White, HIR

Plus ça change, plus ça devient le même.
The more it all changes, the more it becomes the same again.)

In his campaign, Donald Trump denounced indiscriminate immigration of Muslims and Barack Obama’s and Hillary Clinton’s presumed reluctance to confront the Islamic State (ISIS), Iran, and jihadist terrorism more generally. Excited Israeli patriots now await a tough line against jihadism in the Middle East and elsewhere. They dare to imagine a great US policy turnaround: a pro-Israeli Donald Trump.

My students and readers want to know what I make of him. Is he for real? Will anything change? DEBKAfile researchers say it will:

“Not much can be ascertained about President-elect Donald Trump’s administration future policies for the Middle East – any more than for most other parts of the world, except that his starting points are likely to be diametrically opposed to those of Barack Obama.”[1]
Read more…

The EU’s post-nationalism and globalism can’t withstand the Jewish State

By Joseph Puder, FPM

Typical of the European Union (EU) practice, condemning Israel takes precedence over major developments elsewhere, including Iran’s dangerous testing of ballistic missiles that can carry nuclear warheads. The latest episode eliciting EU condemnation was Israel’s “regularization law.” Israel’s satellite TV, I-24 reported on February 7, 2017 that, “The European Union condemns the recent adoption of the ‘regularization law,’ foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini said, arguing it crosses a new dangerous threshold by legalizing under Israeli law the seizure of Palestinian property rights.”
Read more…

DEBKA

Michael Flynn’s abrupt resignation as National Security Adviser Monday night, Feb. 13, was a crippling blow to Donald Trump’s foreign policy strategy, less than a month after he entered the White House. Flynn was the architect and prime mover of the president’s plans for close cooperation with Russian President Vladimir Putin. He was brought down by misinforming Vice President Mike Pence – and very likely the president too – on the content of the conversation he held with the Russian ambassador before Trump’s inauguration.

Although retired Lt. Gen. Keith Kellogg takes over as acting NSA, the White House is urgently considering a permanent replacement to fill Flynn’s large shoes. Former CIA Director David Petraeus’ name has come up, but his indiscretions over state secrets still count against him. Vice Admiral Robert Harward, a former Navy SEAL, is a strong contender, although more may emerge.
Read more…

By Alan Baker, Institute for Contemporary Affairs

• The phrase “two-state solution” is repeated daily by international leaders and organizations. However, the phrase is bandied about without a full awareness of its history or of the practical aspects of its implementation in the realities of the Israeli-Palestinian dispute.
• It is accepted that a situation in which a neighboring Palestinian state would be politically and economically unstable and open to manipulation by terror elements could never be acceptable to Israel and would constitute a threat to Israel’s security.
• It is accepted that a unified Palestinian leadership must be able to speak in the name of the entire Palestinian people and capable of entering into and fulfilling commitments. Such a situation does not exist at present.

Read more…

By Yehudit Katsover and Nadia Matar, Women in Green

‘The Time and the Mindset are Ready for Sovereignty. The Time has Come for Action’

Ministers, public figures and more than a thousand supporters of sovereignty participated in the Fourth Sovereignty Conference of the Women in Green movement, just before Netanyahu’s flight to his meeting with the American president, Donald Trump.

More than a thousand supporters of the vision of sovereignty crowded into the conference hall on Sunday night (12.2.17) at the Crowne Plaza Hotel in Jerusalem, where the Fourth Sovereignty Conference was held
led by the Forum for Sovereignty and the Women in Green movement. Ministers, MKs, public figures, spiritual leaders and even representatives of the Arabs of Judea and Samaria, who support the process of the application of Israeli sovereignty over Judea and Samaria, took part in the conference.
Read more…

The only way to get the UN to think twice before it attacks Israel is for Israel to stop acting like a chump.

BY CAROLINE B. GLICK, JPOST

MK Tzipi Livni is apparently well regarded at the UN. According to media reports, UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres called Livni and offered her the position of under-secretary-general.

Guterres’s offer to Livni is supposed to be a trade-off. Livni will receive the appointment in exchange for the US canceling its veto of his plan to appoint former Palestinian Authority prime minister Salaam Fayyad to serve as his envoy to Libya.

There are three basic problems with this proposed trade. First there is the problem with Fayyad.
Read more…

By Gary Willig, INN
US President Donald Trump will not use the term ‘two states’ during his meeting with Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu this Wednesday, White House sources reported.

The sources also said that Trump wants to be the President who achieves peace between Israel and its Arab neighbors. The report by Channel 10 also stated that Trump would not pressure Netanyahu regarding construction in Judea and Samaria.

Marc Zell, head of Republicans Overseas Israel, says US will not condemn Israel over settlement policies, will move embassy to Jerusalem.

INN

Attorney Marc Zell, the head of Republicans Overseas Israel, spoke with Arutz Sheva on the eve of the departure of Prime Minister Netanyahu to Washington to meet with US President Donald Trump. Zell said that it will be an extraordinary meeting “between leaders who respect one another.”

Will he condemn the settlement activity in Judea and Samaria?

The president looks to Israel to define its own strategic interests when it comes to building in Judea and Samaria or anywhere else. While the US may have its own opinions and interests when it comes to the helpfulness of settlements in promoting peace or coexistence, the US will ultimately say that whatever Israel deems important for its own security and future will be acceptable to the US. This means that the US will not condemn Israel over its settlement policies -this is an amazing statement, a huge turnaround in US foreign policy which we’ve been awaiting for 50 years.
Read more…

After years of tense relations, Netanyahu most coveted meeting in D.C.

By Adam Kredo, NEW BEACON

After years of tense relations with the United States under former President Barack Obama, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is emerging as one of the most prominent international personalities, according to multiple sources who told the Washington Free Beacon that Democrats, Republicans, and high-level White House officials are clamoring for a sit down with the Israeli leader when he arrives in town on Tuesday.

Senior officials across party lines hope to let Netanyahu know that America has Israel’s back and that years of tension during the Obama administration is just water under the bridge, according to both congressional sources and those close to the Trump administration.

Netanyahu’s schedule is already packed with powwows between President Trump, senior administration officials, and a cast of leading lawmakers on Capitol Hill from both sides of the aisle.
Read more…