By MAX FISHER, NYT

WASHINGTON — The Trump administration is delaying its plans to issue two executive orders that would reduce funding to the United Nations and begin a process to review and potentially cancel certain multilateral treaties, according to current and former officials briefed on the matter.

Both draft orders were submitted to the National Security Council for approval, but the council’s advisers were granted less than an hour and a half to review them, though this process normally takes weeks. Federal agencies were granted similarly brief windows for review.

Federal officials that were asked to review the documents balked at their contents, warning they required legal vetting.

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By Jeff Dunitz, THE LID

President Trump on Friday signed sweeping new orders tightening refugee and visa policies including suspending almost all refugee admissions for four months and indefinitely barring entry for some Syrians. Trump said the new measure was intended “to keep radical Islamic terrorists out of the United States of America.” The executive order also suspends visa entry into the U.S. from seven terror-prone countries: Syria, Iran, Iraq, Somalia, Libya, Sudan and Yemen.
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A look at 11 influential members of the tribe who will be working alongside the new president.

BY JOSEFIN DOLSTEN/JTA

American Jews are watching the beginning of Donald Trump’s presidency with both fear and hope.

Many have expressed worries about some of his supporters’ ties to the so-called “alt-right” movement, whose followers traffic variously in white nationalism, anti-immigration sentiment, anti-Semitism and a disdain for “political correctness.” Those fears intensified when Trump named as his chief strategist Stephen Bannon, the former chairman of Breitbart News, a site Bannon once referred to as a “platform” of the alt-right. Trump’s strongly conservative Cabinet picks also back policies on health care, the environment, abortion and civil rights often diametrically opposed to the views of most Jewish voters.
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Instead of the fixation on an independent Palestinian state, the new administration should look east to the Hashemite Kingdom as a stabilizing influence on Palestinian politics.

By Hillel Frish and  Yitzhak Sokoloff, JPOST

IN HIS first meeting with President Donald Trump, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is likely to stake out common ground on the issues that have most troubled American-Israeli relations during the last eight years, namely Iran, and Israel’s settlement policy in Judea and Samaria. Particularly in light of the recent Security Council Resolution 2334 labelling Israel’s settlement activity illegal, he will need to seek American support for renewed Israeli building in Jerusalem and the blocs, and a renewal of the guarantees of the “Bush letter.”
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President looks to scale back U.S. involvement in activities outside the national interest

Edmund Kozak, Polizette

President Trump is reportedly preparing an executive order that will significantly reduce U.S. involvement in the United Nations.

The draft order, “Auditing and Reducing U.S. Funding of International Organizations,” would terminate funding completely for any international organization that meets one or more of several criteria.

The criteria include those that recognize the Palestinian Authority or PLO, fund abortion, or work to circumvent sanctions against Iran or North Korea. The order also calls for “at least a 40 percent overall decrease” in funding to international groups overall.

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By JENNIFER STEINHAUER, NYT

President Trump greeted Speaker Paul D. Ryan as he and Vice President Mike Pence attended a retreat for congressional Republicans in Philadelphia on Thursday. Credit Doug Mills/The New York Times

PHILADELPHIA — From the time Donald J. Trump became their candidate until he took the oath of office, congressional Republicans treated his policy pronouncements — largely out of step with Republican dogma — as essentially a distraction. He would talk. They would drive the policies.

But now, the question of whether congressional Republicans would change President Trump or Mr. Trump would change them has an early answer. Mr. Trump cheerfully addressed the group here at their policy retreat on Thursday, and they responded with applause to many proposals they have long opposed.
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By Ben Shapiro, THE DAILY WIRE

Thursday, media outlets across the international spectrum ran with the story that top level State Department officials had quit rather than serve under President Trump. “In the latest display of disquiet among civil servants in Washington over the arrival of the new commander-in-chief, the four top senior officials at the equivalent of America’s foreign ministry, announced that they were standing down,” reported The Independent (UK). “People are quitting the State Department because of Trump,” Business Insider headlined.

Only one problem: these guys didn’t quit. They were fired. 
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Kifah Ziboun and Nazir Majli  Asharq Al Awsat  27 January 2017

Ramallah, Tel Aviv – The Palestinian Authority strongly rejected on Thursday a set of conditions presented by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for the resumption of peace talks, including the recognition of Israel as a Jewish State and the continuous security control over areas located between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean.

The Palestinian Authority described the conditions as “insignificant and unworthy of a response”.

In this regard, Palestinian Foreign Affairs Minister Riyad Malki said: “These are onerous conditions; [Netanyahu] will not find a single Palestinian, who will be ready to deal with them.”
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British Prime Minister Theresa May used her speech in Philadelphia to needle the new Trump administration on a number of issues ranging from globalism to climate change, Islam, and even to defending the European Union.

By Raheem Kassam, BRIETBART

Mrs. May began her speech at the Republican Retreat in Philadelphia with a brief history of Anglo-American relations, invoking the spirit of the Founding Fathers of the U.S. as well as expressing gratitude towards America’s involvement in the World Wars of the 20th century.

But her speech was also littered with politically correct terms, as well as left and centre-left talking points regarding international institutions, Islam, and radical Islamic terrorism, the latter of which she called “Islamist extremism”.
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Why do liberals embrace illiberal players in the Arab-Israeli conflict?

By Noah Beck, INN

Support for Israel among Democrats has plummeted in recent years, a new Pew poll shows, with about as many – 31 percent – saying they sympathize more with the Palestinians than with Israel, which garnered 33 percent support.

By contrast, 74 percent of Republicans surveyed sympathize more with the Jewish state. That is the widest partisan gap since 1978.

A similar poll last year found a deep divide within the party, with conservative and moderate Democrats favoring Israel over the Palestinians by 53-19 percent.
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Netanyahu’s mantra this week has been that he doesn’t wish to surprise Trump with a big Israeli initiative.

BY CAROLINE B. GLICK, JPOST

Over the past week, we were given new evidence of what many assumed for years. Former president Barack Obama and his administration weren’t interested in bringing peace to the Middle East. They were interested in harming Israel.

Last Friday, Makor Rishon published an interview with former Foreign Ministry director general Dore Gold. Gold told the paper that Obama’s national security adviser Susan Rice once said, “Even if Israel and the Palestinians reach an accord, it’s possible that the US will oppose it.”

Rice said the US would oppose any deal that it felt didn’t do justice to the Palestinians.
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DEBKA

Syria stands on the threshold of dramatic changes that will directly impact on the strategic and military situation along the Syrian borders with Israel and Jordan, DEBKAfile reports exclusively. They derive from a deal struck this week by US President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin to establish US, Russian and Turkish security zones in Syria. This scheme will transfer military control of the country to those three powers. Each of them will be responsible for a zone whose borders will be defined and agreed upon by Washington, Moscow and Ankara.

As part of this arrangement, all forces from the Iranian military, the pro-Iranian Shiite militias and Hizballah will be required to leave Syria.
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By MARTIN SHERMAN

Will the Israeli leadership remain captive to old molds of thought—thus proving a constraint rather than a catalyst, impeding rather than inducing, the opportunities the Trump administration may  afford?

There is a tide in the affairs of men,
Which taken at the flood, leads on to fortune.
Omitted, all the voyage of their life is bound in shallows and in miseries.
On such a full sea are we now afloat.
And we must take the current when it serves, or lose our ventures.

– William Shakespeare, in Julius Caesar, Act IV, Scene 3.

If I am not for myself, who is for me?…And if not now, when?

– Hillel the Elder, Ethics of the Fathers, Ch. 1:14.
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By WALTER RUSSELL MEAD and SEAN KEELEY, AMERICAN INTEREST

8. Israel

This year there’s a new name on our list of the Eight Greats: Israel. A small country in a chaotic part of the world, Israel is a rising power with a growing impact on world affairs. Although 2016 saw the passage of yet another condemnation of Israel at the United Nations, this time in the Security Council thanks to an American decision to abstain rather than veto, overall the Jewish state continues to develop diplomatic, economic and military power and to insert itself into the heart of regional politics.
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Buoyed by Trump’s ascent to power, here are the plans that could create irrevocable facts on the ground.

By Nir Hasson, HAARETZ

Benjamin Netanyahu visiting the East Jerusalem settlement of Har Homa,

Following Donald Trump’s ascent to power, several significant plans for building beyond the Green Line, in and near Jerusalem, are ready to be implemented soon, a paper prepared by the Ir Amim NGO says.

The plans could create irrevocable facts on the ground and effectively eliminate any options for a two-state solution, for a Palestinian capital in Jerusalem, or for retaining Palestinian continuity between the city and the West Bank, the NGO says.
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T. BELMAN. This article is very soft on the MB. Much more could be said to condemn them. The fact that Erdogan, who is also an Islamist supports them is no recommendation. The US should ban them without delay and deport their members. This ban should include CAIR.

Trump administration taking radically different approach than Obama, Bush; designation could trigger unexpected consequences

By Yaroslav Trofimov, WSJ

Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood supporters run from tear gas fired by police in Cairo in August 2013 during a police crackdown that the Brotherhood said killed hundreds of the group’s supporters.

In the immediate aftermath of the Arab Spring, the Muslim Brotherhood and its affiliates were winning elections across the Middle East—a testament to the Islamist movement’s popular appeal.

Now, President Donald Trump’s administration is considering declaring the Brotherhood a terrorist organization, something that could trigger a slew of unexpected consequences across the region.
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It is important to remind ourselves that so much of the international perception of Israel is being refracted through the prism of the globalist/ nationalist divide.

BY DOUGLAS ALTABEF, JPOST

Volumes have been filled on trying to understand the position of Israel in the world today, particularly its cold friendship with the Obama-led United States and its varying degrees of hostility with the European Union.

There have been explanations touching upon particular Israeli policies and personalities, and of course the combination of the two. Settlement construction, opposing the Iran deal, insufficient concessions to the Palestinians, brazen attempts to court public and legislative support, the list goes on, and the bill of particulars is long.
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Council of Europe’s Parliamentary Assembly adopts resolution slamming Israel for humanitarian crisis in blockaded Palestinian enclave

By TOI

A European inter-governmental group accused Israel of engaging in “apparently systematic unlawful killings” of Palestinian civilians in the buffer zone areas between the Gaza Strip and Israel over the past several years, and of exacerbating a humanitarian crisis in the blockaded Palestinian enclave.

The Council of Europe’s Parliamentary Assembly, also known as PACE, voted on Tuesday in favor of a resolution, based on an internal report on the humanitarian situation in the Hamas-ruled Palestinian enclave, which charges Israel with “excessive and intentional force without justification against Palestinian civilians in the buffer zone, including against farmers, journalists, medical crews and peaceful protesters, [which] runs blatantly counter to human rights principles and the international law-enforcement standards.”
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The Trump administration is preparing two executive orders that are likely to cause an earthquake in the Middle East.

By Hana Levi Julian, JEWISH PRESS

The New York Times reported Wednesday in a breaking story that the staff of U.S. President Donald J. Trump is preparing an executive order that would terminate funding for any United Nations agency or other international organization that gives full membership to the Palestinian Authority or the Palestine Liberation Organization.

In addition, the order terminates funding for programs or activities that fund abortion or circumvent sanctions against Iran or North Korea.

According to the report, the draft order also calls for terminating funding for any organization that is “controlled or substantially influenced by any state that sponsors terrorism” or is held responsible for persecution of marginalized groups, or systematic violation of human rights.
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