[CORRECTION: The AJC just wrote to me to tell me they attended.]

More and more Jewish groups are backing out of the high-profile Hanukkah party; even White House Jewish liaisons refused invites to be honored at the Trump Hotel bash.

By Debra Nussbaum Cohen (New York), HAARETZ

NEW YORK – Malcolm Hoenlein may be standing in a largely empty, ornate Trump International Hotel ballroom late Wednesday afternoon during the Conference of Presidents’ now-infamous Hanukkah party.

It is well known that eight of the Conference of Presidents’ left-of-center member organizations, including the Union for Reform Judaism and National Council of Jewish Women, pulled out of the event. They cited reasons ranging from the fact that the party is being co-hosted by the embassy of Azerbaijan, a Muslim-led country with a questionable human rights record, to the fact that it is being held in a new hotel property owned by the president-elect, which raises questions about the appearance of trying to curry favor with him.

What has not been known, until now, is that several of the Conference’s centrist member groups – core constituents including the ADL, the American Jewish Committee, Hadassah and Jewish Federations of North America – are also refusing to attend the party.
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T. Belman. This article is silent whether his edict applies to illegal Arab construction in Area C. Apparently not.

Prime Minister Netanyahu orders that the law be enforced over illegal Arab construction without double standards.

By Ido Ben Porat, INN

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu has held two discussions in the last two weeks concerning the enforcement of the law when it comes to illegal construction in the Arab sector, it was reported on Thursday.

The meetings attended by Internal Security Minister Gilad Erdan, Police Commissioner Roni Alsheikh, and other officials.

During the discussions, Netanyahu instructed the relevant officials to work to issue demolition orders for the illegal structures, located in Arab towns in northern and southern Israel, as well as in eastern Jerusalem.
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President-elect to nominate attorney David Friedman as U.S. ambassador to Israel. Friedman: I look forward to serving from Jerusalem.

By Elad Benari, INN

U.S. President-elect Donald Trump will nominate attorney David Friedman as U.S. ambassador to Israel, the transition team said in a statement on Thursday, according to Reuters.

Friedman served as Trump’s advisor on Israel affairs during the election campaign.

“(Friedman) has been a long-time friend and trusted advisor to me. His strong relationships in Israel will form the foundation of his diplomatic mission and be a tremendous asset to our country as we strengthen the ties with our allies and strive for peace in the Middle East,” Trump said in the statement.
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As the bloody battle raged over Aleppo last week, a high-ranking Israeli security official offered an analysis of the northern front (along the borders with Syria and Lebanon) from Israel’s perspective in a conversation with Al-Monitor.

By Ben Caspit, al MONITOR

“The predominant story of the past two years is Russian involvement in the region,” the source began, speaking on condition of anonymity. “It is now possible to define this involvement as dramatic. It has changed the direction of events. This provides Israel with a big advantage, but it also presents a significant difficulty.
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By MARTIN SHERMAN

Once you utter the “magic password,” endorsing the two-state principle, you are immediately welcomed into ‘polite society’, invited to participate in prestigious events & expound on your “progressive perspectives” – no matter how detached from reality they may be.

While there is, at best, only a slim chance for a comprehensive permanent status agreement in the foreseeable future, the conflict will eventually be resolved, and once it is, the package deal will be very similar to the Clinton Parameters, based on the principle of two states for two peoples…President Obama should present his blueprint for what a two-state solution should look like, including: an end to the conflict; boundaries based on the June 4, 1967 lines with mutually agreed-upon land swaps, notably incorporating the main settlement blocs within Israel’s territory; the rehabilitation of Palestinian refugees primarily within the Palestinian state; Jewish Yerushalayim [Jerusalem] and Arab Al Quds as capitals, with a special regime in the “Historic Basin” surrounding Jerusalem’s Old City guaranteeing freedom of worship; a robust security framework safeguarding Israel’s security, and a demilitarized Palestine state.

– Gilead Sher, Head of Center for Applied Negotiations, Institute for National Security Studies, Obama’s Last Chance To Bring Lasting Peace To Israel”, Newsweek, December 9, 2016.
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http://www.podcastone.com/program?action=viewProgram&programID=843

By EFRAIM COHEN,  New York Sun

US Consulate, Jerusalem

Could President-elect Trump be the leader who finally moves the American Embassy in Israel to Jerusalem? He promised during his campaign to implement the Jerusalem Embassy Act of 1995, which calls for Jerusalem to be recognized as the capital of the State of Israel and for the Embassy to be established in that city.

Unlike predecessors who made similar promises right up to Election Day only to abandon those promises once in office, Mr. Trump has continued to stand by his word. Now the question is how best to keep that promise while the new president still enjoys the ever-shorter honeymoon period of a new administration.
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By Sangwon Yoon, BLOOMBERG

Henry Kissinger, the 93-year-old foreign policy guru to world leaders, isn’t slowing down. On Wednesday he weighed in on Donald Trump’s pick of Exxon Mobil Corp. chief Rex Tillerson as the top U.S. diplomat, the importance of the ‘One-China’ policy and the president-elect’s decision to take a phone call from Taiwan’s leader.

Speaking to the Committee of 100, a non-profit that works on improving U.S.-China relations, Kissinger dismissed criticism that Tillerson’s work winning contracts with Russia for Exxon disqualifies him for the State Department job.
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How one deal in Iraq from Tillerson’s past could complicate his future

By SIDDHARTHA MAHANTA, The ATLANTIC

Donald Trump’s nominee to be America’s chief diplomat, doesn’t technically have any government experience. Yet as CEO of ExxonMobil, he led for nearly 11 years what journalist Steve Coll once described as a “vast corporate state within a state”—a powerful company that earned $32 billion in revenue in 2014. His responsibility there, Tillerson told Charlie Rose in 2013, was to manage risk, especially given that Exxon operates “in a lot of countries where the geopolitics are complex.” Doing so required its own kind of diplomacy. “[My] risk management responsibility is … to develop important relationships. … When you’re going to make significant commitments you have to look the head of state of that country eyeball to eyeball and say to them I’m going to make this commitment. And I’m counting on you to meet your commitments because I will be here a long time.”
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DEBKAfile Exclusive Report December 14, 2016,

Rex Tillerson, Chairman an CEO of Exxon Mobil, was named this week as the next administration’s Secretary of State to execute the tough foreign policies charted by president-elect Donald Trump, including his decision to stiffen the nuclear accord signed with Iran as soon as he moves into the White House on Jan. 20.

DEBKAfile reports this exclusively from New York and its intelligence sources.

While campaigning for the presidency, Trump called the accord “the worst deal” ever.
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His life is threatened, but he is found guilty of discrimination. That is today’s Europe.

By Giulio Meotti, INN

The lowest point in Geert Wilders’ life in hiding was when he was forced to live in a state prison, the Zeist, after the killing of Theo van Gogh. Wilders lost his freedom and since then, for ten years, he lives under police protection 24/7. Wilders could go to a restaurant with his wife, but the police would check it first. When they go to the cinema, they enter through the back door. Now a Dutch court has found him guilty of “discrimination” for having called to close the Netherlands to Muslim migrants.
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Brig.-Gen. (res.) Yossi Kuperwasser, JCPA

During the election campaign, Donald Trump affirmed that immediately upon entering the White House he would “renegotiate the “disastrous” and “horrible” nuclear agreement with Iran. (Vice President-elect Mike Pence called for “ripping up the Iran deal” during the election campaign.) Since the elections Mr. Trump has not addressed the issue, and many believe he may change his stance – to paraphrase Israeli leaders, “What you see in power is different from what you see in campaigns.”

The president-elect actually has three options:
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THE DISCUSSION STARTS AT 27 MINUTES

I URGE YOU TO TAKE ISSUE WITH THE MANY THINGS HE SAYS THAT RANKLE,

Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) President Morton A. Klein released the following statement:

A Muslim-Jewish organization could be a wonderful idea – if it had the right goals and the right partners – namely, Zionist Jews and Reformist Muslims dedicated to ending BDS; ending rampant harassment and attacks on Jewish students by organized radical Islamist groups such as Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP); ending fear-mongering exaggerated “Islamophobia” claims; ending radical Islamist terrorism against Israel, Jews, Christians, fellow Muslims and the West; and promoting Arab and Muslim recognition of and peaceful co-existence with the Jewish State.

Unfortunately, the new “Muslim-Jewish Advisory Council” (MJAC), established by the American Jewish Committee (AJC) and by the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), six days after the election of President-elect Donald Trump, has the wrong goals and the wrong – or no – real partners, and could legitimize and mainstream radical Islamists. Read more…

While the labelling guidelines prompted a rift between Israel and the EU, their economic effect is minimal.

By Nigel Wilson, AL JAZEERA

A year after the European Union issued labelling guidelines for products imported from illegal Israeli settlements based in the occupied territories, the economic effect on settlements businesses appear to be minimal, according to analysts.

“What’s actually happened, and I think part of it is due to ferocious Israeli pushback, is that there’s very little follow up on the guidelines,” said Hugh Lovatt, Israel/Palestine project coordinator at the European Council on Foreign Relations.

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T. Belman. Dershowitz mounts a vigourous defense to Sklaroff’s allegations and scores lots of points. I want to focus only on his position that “Israel remain a bipartisan issue”.  Is he suggesting that Israel should change its policy to be more in line with the policies of the Democratic Party (DP) which supports the TSS with the armistice line as the border?  Is he suggesting that Israel shouldn’t get the best deal possible from Trump for fear of alienating the DP? Is he suggesting that the DP would punish Israel for doing so if and when it gets back into power?

Israel has not left the DP so much as the Party has left, in fact abandoned, Israel. Just what does keeping it a bipartisan issue mean in practice?

By Alan Dershowitz, INN

In his ad hominem attack on me – he calls me a dybbuk – Robert Sklaroff tells me to stop “declar[ing] that [I] support Israel.” His reason for attacking me is that I want support for Israel to remain a bi-partisan issue in American politics.

A simple fact-check of Sklaroff’s defamatory statements would demonstrate that virtually every one of his accusations is a malicious lie, as I will now show.

He claims that I place my loyalty to “progressives” above “fealty to Israel and world Jewry.”  He says that because he ignorantly ignores what I have been writing for years.  If he had simply opened my most recent book, Electile Dysfunction, he would see that I have taken the exact opposite position.  I rail against the so-called “progressive” wing of the Democratic Party, who I call the repressives: [These quote progressives] “are often not the progressive “good guys” whom I looked up to in my youth; they are repressive bullies and bigots who disguise their anti-Jewish, anti-Israel, anti-Christian, and anti-American bigotry as a quest for social justice.
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By Moshe Ya’alon, former Min of Defense in Israel, INSS

[…]

Furthermore, the vacuum in the Middle East, which steadily diminished US deterrence and influence in the region, was filled by Iran, Turkey, the Islamic State, and Russia.

Iran
Iran is the country that gains the most from the nuclear agreement (the JCPOA) signed by Tehran and the world powers in the summer of 2015.

a. Iran retains its ability to manufacture uranium-enriched fissile material and a nuclear bomb within less than a decade and a half, without breaching the agreement. The significance of this is that it retains its military nuclear option.
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DEBKA

Islamic State forces pushed their assault forward to retake the central Syrian town of Palmyra Monday, Dec. 12. By evening, they had entered the big Russian-Syrian T-4 air base outside the town, carrying off substantial quantities of Russian armaments. Reporting this, DEBKAfile’s military sources add that the booty they snatched included different types of ground-to-ground missiles as well as anti-tank and anti-air rockets.
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The end of American exceptionalism is bad news for Europe

T. Belman. And I thought that Trump’s victory heralded the return to American exceptionalism which is defined as  “In its classic forms, American exceptionalism refers to the special character of the United States as a uniquely free nation based on democratic ideals and personal liberty.” The Left denigrates Trump’s victory calling Trump a “populist demogogue”.  Trump will reverse American Europeanization and that’s a good thing., but not for Europe according to this article.

By Dimitar Bechev, POLITICO, Nov 29/16

Donald Trump’s victory in the U.S. presidential election has left a trail of political debris in its wake. At the top of the long list of casualties is the cherished myth of American exceptionalism. At first glance, perhaps this could be a good thing. We Europeans have always wanted the opportunity to make America behave more like us. But now the joke’s on us.
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Hillel is a tragedy and a disgrace. But it’s the tragedy and disgrace of the American Jewish establishment which has nearly run out of time to make a final choice between Judaism, the Jewish people and the left.

By Daniel Greenfield

While Jewish students are terrorized on campus, Hillel CEO Eric Fingerhut took on another mission.

“The Hillel family will watch out for our Muslim brothers and sisters on campus,” the failed Democratic pol declared. And he added, “As we hope they will watch out for us.”

There is as much hope of campus hate groups like the Muslim Students’ Association, which has a long history of terrorizing Jews on campus, doing that as there was for Fingerhut in his 2004 Ohio Senate bid which he lost with one of the worst showings by a Democratic Senate candidate in the state. But after taking Ohio Democrats down with him, Fingerhut moved on to tanking Hillel.

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