Russian presence in Syria usually limits Israel while restraining Assad, Hezbollah and Iran. Israel’s recent actions, however, could provide Hassan Nasrallah with the justification he needs for the next war

By Amir Oren, HAARETZ

On March 10 this year, the Israel Air Force intelligence chief traveled to meet a European counterpart. They discussed the situation in the Middle East, the fighting in Syria and Russia’s involvement there. They separated with a handshake and mutual compliments. Each went his own way and the following week was astonished to hear Russian President Vladimir Putin announce the withdrawal of his forces from Syria. There was no sign of it coming; no organization predicted this turn of events; and the West is still wondering whether Putin himself knew prior to his declaration that he would say what he did.
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By Ellen Nakashima and Adam Entous, WaPo,

In a secure meeting room under the Capitol last week, lawmakers held in their hands a classified letter written by colleagues in the Senate summing up a secret, new CIA assessment of Russia’s role in the 2016 presidential election.Sitting before the House Intelligence Committee was a senior FBI counterintelligence official. The question the Republicans and Democrats in attendance wanted answered was whether the bureau concurred with the conclusions the CIA had just shared with senators that Russia “quite” clearly intended to help Republican Donald Trump defeat Democrat Hillary Clinton and clinch the White House.

For the Democrats in the room, the FBI’s response was frustrating — even shocking.
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Does the Regulation Bill presage Israeli annexation of parts of the West Bank? Will the Supreme Court strike it down? How will the world react?

By Raphael Ahren, TOI

It is not yet law, it has gone through multiple changes, but the so-called Regulation Bill, which the Knesset approved in a preliminary reading late Monday, is understandably drawing immense attention both within and far beyond the borders of Israel.

On Monday evening, opposition leader Isaac Herzog warned it sets the stage for nothing less than “national suicide,” while Jewish Home head Naftali Bennett championed it as paving the path to expanding Israeli sovereignty into the West Bank.
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By Larry Johnson, NO QUARTERS USA

There are two basic types of espionage activity–Covert refers to an operation that is undetected while in progress, but the outcome may be easily observed. Killing Bin Laden is a prime example of a “covert” operation. A Clandestine Operation is something that is supposed to be undetected while in progress and after completion. For example, if the U.S. or Russia had a mole at the top of the National Security bureaucracy of their respective adversary, communicating with that mole and the mole’s very existence would be clandestine.

So, the alleged Russian meddling in our election–was it covert or clandestine?
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T. Belman. +972 is a a far left site and is very supportive of the Palestinians. It gives the impression that but for the refusal of COGAT to issue permits,building without permits wouldn’t be happening. What it fails to stress is that Israel is under no legal obligation to issue such permits and is fully within her rights to not permit illegal Arab construction.

I am left with the querstion, why is there only about 1.5 persons displaced for every house demolished.

Israel ramped up its practice of demolishing Palestinian structures in the West Bank this year, destroying more than twice as many as it did in 2015.

By Roth, +972 MAG

The number of Palestinian structures Israel has destroyed in the West Bank and East Jerusalem has passed the 1,000 mark for the year, according to data from the UN humanitarian agency. As of the end of November, Israeli authorities had demolished 1,051 structures, displacing 1,569 Palestinians.

This represents, with a month of the year left to go, a doubling of the equivalent number from 2015, during which Israel demolished 544 Palestinian structures in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, displacing 757 Palestinians.
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NYT

By Janet Levy AMERICAN THINKER

According to a recently published Heritage Foundation report, the 2017 Index of U.S. Military Strength, Russia poses a “formidable” and “aggressive” threat to the vital interests of the United States. The report states, “Russia seeks to maximize its strategic position in the world at the expense of the United States. It also seeks to undermine U.S. influence and moral standing, harasses U.S. and NATO forces, and is working to sabotage U.S. and Western policy in Syria.”

The international machinations of the current Russian government are not all that different from domestic strategies pursued within Russia, according to David Satter, former Moscow correspondent for the London Financial Times and longtime observer of Russia and the former Soviet Union. Author of three previous books on Russia and the Soviet Union and an advisor to Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty, Satter has written a new, eye-opening account of recent internal, Russian intrigues in his book, The Less You Know, The Better You Sleep: Russia’s Road to Terror and Dictatorship Under Yeltsin and Putin (Yale University Press, 2016, pp. 240, $20.07)
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By Daniel John Sobieski, AMERICAN THINKER

T. Belman. Yesterday, I asked a few friends what happened that the Government finally passed this momentous Bill? This article answers that question but from a left wing perspective.

The crisis over the evacuation of Amona has achieved the impossible, bringing together Prime Minister Netanyahu and Habayit Hayehudi leader Naftali Bennett. There’s far less unity in Zionist Union, though.

By Yossi Verter, HAARETZ

Few remember, but legislation to expropriate Palestinian land and legalize unauthorized outposts came up for a vote in the Knesset four and a half years ago. Exactly the same bill and, then as now, it was submitted by MKs from the National Religious Party (known these days as Habayit Hayehudi). Then, too, the prime minister was Benjamin Netanyahu, and he threatened sanctions against ministers and deputy ministers who breached coalition discipline. Back then, he threatened to fire anyone who supported the bill. This week, acting through coalition whip MK David Bitan, he punished MK Benny Begin (Likud) – who voted against the bill and the party line – by temporarily removing him from the Knesset Constitution, Law and Justice Committee.
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By Daniel Greenfield

The specter of identity politics is haunting the left. It shows up at teary-eyed election parties in Berkeley, debates over craft beers in Williamsburg and the editorial pages of the big opinion shaper papers.

No less an icon of the left than Bernie Sanders has been grumbling that his movement needs to reconnect with working people again. He even tentatively denounced identity politics. “It is not good enough for somebody to say, ‘I’m a woman, vote for me.’” Bernie bears a grudge. That’s obvious. But the old Socialist has a history of spouting the old Socialist working class denunciations of immigration.

Bernie is really arguing that the Democrats ought to emphasize class more and race less. Similar left-wing squeaks have popped up in a handful of editorials. But they aren’t likely to travel very far.
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Israeli Air Force’s Golden Eagle squadron has been preparing for the advanced stealth fighter jet’s arrival for over a year • “The F-35 has incredible capabilities, but here too, the pilot in the cockpit is the one who triumphs,” squadron commander says.

By Lt. Col. Yotam, commander of the IAF’s Golden Eagle squadron

Two F-35 Adir fighter jets will land at Nevatim Airbase on Monday, bringing to a close more than a year and a half of preparations and an even longer process involving multiple departments and organizations in Israel’s defense establishment.

As soon as I accepted to the role of squadron commander, I was tasked with making the most important decisions, such as who would be joining me on this fascinating journey of acquiring Israel’s new fighter jets. We will make the rest of the decisions together, and they will be influenced by the quality of the people, their diversity, and their vision.

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—Misrepresenting Two-Statism

By MARTIN SHERMAN

Oslo failed not because Israelis built crèches, kindergartens and schools across pre-1967 lines, but because Palestinian-Arabs blew up Israeli cafes, buses and malls inside those lines

Raise your hands… how many of you believe in a two-state solution, believe two states is critical? …Okay, it’s the vast majority of people here. How many of you don’t, are willing to say so? There’s one hand up… — Secretary of State John Kerry, at the 2016 Saban Forum, asking for a show of hands from the audience in support of a two-state agreement.

Last week, the annual Saban Forum took place, as usual, in Washington in early December — albeit in what appeared to be a somewhat diminished format relative to the past two years.

Clear political slant
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By Evelyn Gordon, MOSAIC

In 2015, following lengthy negotiations, President Barack Obama concluded an executive agreement marking the accomplishment of a cherished policy goal: the nuclear deal with Iran known as the JCPOA. Also in 2015, after similarly lengthy negotiations, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu concluded an agreement realizing a long-cherished policy goal of his own: a deal enabling development of Israel’s largest natural-gas field by a private American company and its Israeli partner. Both agreements included a commitment by the respective governments to refrain from adverse legislative action over the next ten to fifteen years: in Obama’s case, action to reinstate nuclear sanctions against Iran; in Netanyahu’s case, action to alter the regulatory regime for natural gas to the disadvantage of the private energy companies.
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Hezbollah has deployed at least a thousand fighters to Iraq where they are fighting alongside Iranian forces and Shi’ite militia, which Hezbollah trains.

By Caroline B Glick, JPOST

Israel officials are thrilled with the national security team that US President-elect Donald Trump is assembling. And they are right to be.

The question now is how Israel should respond to the opportunity it presents us with.

The one issue that brings together all of the top officials Trump has named so far to his national security team is Iran.
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It is not only the IDF Chief Rabbi’s appointment that the Supreme Court sees itself authorized to postpone, it is also ready to destroy Eretz Yisrael and ruin the lives of Jewish families. Israel must make a choice.

By Shifra Hoffman, INN

It seems surreal, to say the least, that after the traumatic expulsion of thousands of Jews from their homes in Gush Katif, that Israel, the Jewish homeland, has been ordered by the Supreme Court to destroy Amona, a so-called ‘settlement’ in Eretz Yisrael and to expel the brave and devoted Jewish families who have lived there for decades from their homes .

Never mind that each new expulsion emboldens the implacable Arab enemies, whose raison d’etre is to destroy Israel entirely, to continue their nefarious terrorist attacks against innocent Israeli Jewish men women and children!

Never mind that countless Arabs who claim Jewish homes were built on “their property”(sic) are squatters who migrated to Israel seeking employment after the Jewish State was reborn, in 1948.
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AND FOR THE ANSWER
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Habayit Hayehudi hails historic change: Israelis in Judea and Samaria are now official residents • Joint Arab List MK: Palestinians who sell land to Jews deserve to die • AG applies property dispute law to Judea and Samaria, legalizing dozens of homes.

Yair Altman and Israel Hayom Staff

Habayit Hayehudi: The outpost regulation law should be called the “Beginning Law,” because this is just a beginning | Photo credit: Reuters

The outpost regulation bill, which allows the government to grant permits to contested Judea and Samaria settlements, passed its first Knesset reading on Wednesday evening, with a vote of 58 to 51.
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PEOTUS is stacking his cabinet with friends of the Jewish State, but the geopolitical realities of Iran, Russia, Syria, Saudi Arabia, and ISIS may complicate his Middle East policy, whatever it turns out to be

By Lee Smith, TABLET

[..]
The first item on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s list when he talks to President-elect Donald Trump will be the strategic threat posed by the Iranian nuclear program and consequently the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, which all but guarantees an Iranian breakout within 15 years. “The problem of how to deal with this deal is something I will discuss with President Trump when he takes office,” Netanyahu told a Saban Forum audience in Washington by satellite video this weekend. “Iran has actually become an even more aggressive power.”

There is no doubt that Netanyahu sees Trump as a much more sympathetic listener than his predecessor, Obama. It is no secret that one of the men closest to Trump, his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, is adamantly opposed to what Netanyahu described this weekend as a “bad” deal. Indeed, Trump has stacked his national security cabinet with figures on the record for their opposition to the Iran Deal, like secretary of defense nominee Gen. James Mattis, national security adviser Gen. Mike Flynn, and Rep. Mike Pompeo, who shortly before being named nominated for CIA director tweeted “I look forward to rolling back this disastrous deal with the world’s largest state sponsor of terror.”
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By Carlotta Gaul, NYT

KABUL, Afghanistan — Fifteen years, half a trillion dollars and 150,000 lives since going to war, the United States is trying to extricate itself from Afghanistan. Afghans are being left to fight their own fight. A surging Taliban insurgency, meanwhile, is flush with a new inflow of money.

With their nation’s future at stake, Afghan leaders have renewed a plea to one power that may hold the key to whether their country can cling to democracy or succumbs to the Taliban. But that power is not the United States.
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