By David Bedein, BEFORE ITS NEWS

Over the past several weeks, we have been following several stories regarding incitement in UNRWA’s school curriculum and UNRWA’s connection to Hamas. One of the few constants we run into that The Israel Civil Administration , also known as COGAT (Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories) seemed to always side with UNRWA or defend it, and went out of its way to defend UNRWA in an article on its site as soon as UNRWA declared that it would change its curriculum to one that teaches peace and tolerance.

Despite the fact that UNRWA has in the past lied about potential changes to its curriculum, when, for example, UNRWA officials raised funds for a holocaust curriculum, COGAT couldn’t be bothered to do its due diligence and investigate the rumors, and instead took UNRWA’s word for it.
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by Jonathan Schanzer, New York Post

Secretary of Defense James Mattis is on a Mideast tour to “continue efforts to strengthen regional security architectures.” While his meetings in Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Israel are likely to attract most of the press coverage, his discussions in Qatar Saturday could be the most consequential.

Since August 2014, US-backed coalition aircraft have flown tens of thousands of sorties to bomb ISIS. Almost all of them are commanded out of the sprawling, high-tech al-Udeid air base in Qatar. In other words, the base is crucial to our war efforts.

But it comes with serious baggage. The Treasury Department’s top terrorism-finance official, Adam Szubin, stated last year that Qatar has demonstrated “a lack of political will .?.?. to effectively enforce their combating terrorist financing laws.” In February, Daniel Glaser, who had only recently stepped down as assistant secretary of the Treasury, stated that “designated terrorist financiers” are “operating openly and notoriously” in the country.
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By Ilya Arkhipovs, Yuliya Fedorinova and Stepan Kravchenko, BLOOMBERG

• Russia building trade links after Kiev imposes blockade
• White House seems ‘uninterested,’ Russian diplomat says

Vladimir Putin is seizing on mixed signals from the U.S. to quietly tighten Russia’s grip on two rebel regions of Ukraine, burying hopes for a European-brokered peace deal and relief from sanctions anytime soon.
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Anti-Zionist who praised terrorist murderer, hailed stone throwers as ‘courageous’ tapped to give commencement address at public NY college.

By Rosenberg, INN

A radical left-wing activist and advocate for Sharia law in the United States has been selected as his year’s commencement speaker at a New York City college.

Linda Sarsour, 37, who helped organize the Women’s March in Washington in January and was arrested protesting outside of Trump Hotel in New York, was tapped by the City University of New York (CUNY) Graduate School of Public Health and Health Policy to address this year’s graduating class.

An aide to the school’s dean confirmed in a statement that Sarsour had been chosen to speak at the commencement, The Daily Caller reported.
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By Dr. Eric R. Mandel

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By Vic Rosenthal

This isn’t the first time I’ve written this, and it won’t be the last unless something changes.

Marwan Barghouti is in the news again, calling for a hunger strike to “resist” the “abuse” of Palestinians imprisoned in Israel. The New York Times also made news by publishing an op-ed by Barghouti with a note that he is a “Palestinian leader and parliamentarian,” but failing to include the fact that he was imprisoned after a conviction for five terrorist murders. He was accused of being involved in many more, but the state chose to prosecute him only for the ones for which the evidence was strongest. After all, five life sentences should be enough to keep him off the street, shouldn’t they?
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Erdogan is expected to pay a state visit to Washington in the coming weeks.

BY CAROLINE B. GLICK, JPOST

According to Michael Anton, one of President Donald Trump’s top foreign policy aides, the chief characteristic of Trump’s foreign policy is unpredictability.

On the surface, unpredictability is a great advantage.

Keeping US enemies guessing, at least to some degree, about how the US will respond to hostile acts expands Washington’s maneuver room.
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By MARTIN SHERMAN

Instead of pouring millions into inoperative desalination plants & rusting sewage treatment works, humanitarian aid should be generous relocation grants to help Gazans find safer, more secure lives elsewhere

“If the borders opened for one hour, 100,000 young people would leave Gaza”  –  Rashid al-Najja, vice dean, Gaza’s Al-Azhar University; “

…I’d go to Somalia, Sudan — anywhere but here” –  Salim Marifi, student, Gaza’s Al-Azhar University, in Al Jazeera, May 6 2015.

“96 percent of water in the Gaza Strip is now undrinkable” –  i24 News  April 9, 2017.
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Jim Mattis, in Saudi Visit, Calls for Political Solution in Yemen because it can’t be won militarily

TOI

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia — Defense Secretary Jim Mattis called on Wednesday for a political solution in Yemen between Sunni Arabs, supported by a Saudi-led coalition, and Iranian-backed Houthis, but he stopped short of publicly warning America’s Sunni allies against a planned bombing campaign targeting the port city of Al Hudaydah.

Human rights officials have warned that bombing Al Hudaydah could lead to a humanitarian crisis in Yemen, and Mr. Mattis’s remarks were in line with those of many officials in the region that the Saudi coalition’s war against the Houthis, begun two years ago, cannot be won militarily.
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By Osama Al Sharif, AL MONITOR

Jordan could be preparing for joint military operations with US and British special forces against Islamic State (IS) militants in southern Syria following King Abdullah’s meeting with President Donald Trump at the White House on April 5. The talks dealt with a number of issues but centered on the US-led fight against the terrorist group, the creation of safe zones in Syria and Jordan’s role in both. In his interview with The Washington Post the same day, the king alluded to Jordan’s readiness to deal with threats to the kingdom’s northern borders, saying that “non-state actors from outside coming toward our border are not going to be tolerated.”
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By LTG. John “Mick” Bednarek, USA (ret.) and LtGen Kenneth Glueck, USMC (ret.) – REAL CLEAR DEFENSE

The headlines confirm Iraq and Syria remain the current center of gravity in the U.S.-led coalition’s fight against ISIS. Yet, even as the group’s core territory constricts, the coalition still will need to neutralize ISIS combatants wherever they are and halt the spread of their dangerous ideology. American officials designing this larger campaign are looking to Jordan as a key contributor. It is a steadfast and strategically important ally, fully committed to this fight despite the increasing pressure it faces. King Abdullah’s visit to Washington last week was a good start, but more must be done to strengthen cooperation with a critical partner in the joint effort against ISIS.
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MEMRI

An article by the leader of the liberal Russian party Yabloko, Grigory Yavlinsky, titled “Russia’s Deadlock in Syria” was posted on his party’s website on April 13, 2017.[1] In his article, written in the aftermath of the chemical weapons attack on Khan Sheikhun and the American retaliatory strike on the Shayrat base, Yavlinksy flayed Putin’s policy in Syria. He claimed that Assad was a loose cannon who controlled Russia more than Russia controlled him despite Russia’s costly investment in the Syrian regime. Furthermore, Russia’s policy had left it without reliable allies in the region, while alienating the Trump administration in which Russia had placed such high hopes.

Russia, argued Yavlinsky, had pressing needs at home and could not financially sustain a quagmire in Syria, while simultaneously overextending itself in Ukraine, Libya, and conducting an arms race with the Americans.   In sum, the military involvement in Syria would soon resemble the tragedy of the Soviet Union’s involvement in Afghanistan and if Russia sought to avoid a recurrence of that nightmare it had to withdraw immediately from Syria. We republish Yavlinsky’s article below:

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As far as Israel’s relations with the US generally and the Pentagon specifically are concerned, moving the US embassy to Jerusalem is of secondary importance.

BY CAROLINE B. GLICK, JPOST

On Friday, US Secretary of Defense James Mattis will visit Israel as part of a tour of the region that will bring him to Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Djibouti. The declared purpose of Mattis’s trip is to “reaffirm key US military alliances, engage with strategic partners in the Middle East and Africa, and discuss cooperative efforts to counter destabilizing activities and defeat extremist terror organizations.”

Ahead of his visit, Mattis should spend some time considering the hunger strike being carried out by the Palestinian terrorists imprisoned by Israel. A serious consideration of the strike will tell him more about the nature of the Palestinian conflict with Israel than a hundred “expert” briefings.
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T. Belman. The UN will have a lot to say over the self inflicted harm by these prisoners yet nothing much to say about the state induced harm to prisoners in Islamic jails. Treatment of political prisoners in Iran and S. Arabia.

UN says it’s following the developments in the hunger strike by more than 1,000 terrorists in Israeli prisons.

Barghouti put in solitary confinement in another prison

By Ben Ariel, INN

The United Nations on Tuesday said it was following closely the hunger strike by more than 1,000 terrorists in Israeli prisons.

“We are obviously aware of the situation and following the developments closely,” said UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric, according to AFP.

The terrorist prisoners, led by archterrorist Marwan Barghouti, launched the hunger strike on Monday to press for demands such as better medical services and access to telephones.
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T. Belman. I question the idea that we have an obligation to prevent a man from committing suicide. Liberals are so quick to say its not his choice to end his life whereas they staunchly defend the right of a woman to end the life of her yet to be born baby. Think about it. Why the different standard? If the woman has the right to kill her baby because after all “its her body”, why does a prisoner not have the same right over his body.

Ethics aside, does it serve our interests to allow a hunger strike to wrest concessions from us or are we better off taking no responsibility and letting them all die a slow death until the hunger strike itself dies .

Rabbi Yuval Cherlow, head of Ethics field at Tzohar Rabbinical Organization, speaks with Arutz Sheva about terrorist hunger strike.

By Shimon Cohen, INN

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DEBKA

The US Mediterranean fleet is moving into position ready for a decision to launch Tomahawk cruise missiles for a crushing assault on the Islamic State’s mountain strongholds in central Sinai, DEBKAfile’s military and counterterrorism sources report.

This would be the second American strike in a month against a Middle East target, after 59 cruise missiles destroyed one-fifth of the Syrian air force at the Shayrat air base on April 7 in response for Assad’s chemical attack on Syrian civilians.
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The United Nations Agenda 2030 of Sustainable Development is not going away and its goals are relatively close to completion, now to include the forced flood of international migrants around the globe and the obliteration of national borders

By Dr. Ileana Johnson Paugh, CFP

In case you were wondering about the planned invasion of Europe and other developed nations, including the United States, wonder no more. Today, The International Organization for Migration, a United Nations Migration Agency, funded partially and generously with your taxpayer dollars for 65 years, is holding an International Dialogue on Migration in New York, on April 18-19, with the theme, “Strengthening International Cooperation on and Governance of Migration towards the Adoption of a Global Compact for Safe, Orderly, and Regular Migration in 2018.”
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BY Mike Hais, JEWISH JOURNAL

Every four years, in an attempt to maximize their share of the “Jewish vote,” the major political parties include language in their national platforms expressing support for Israel as America’s truest ally and only democracy in the Middle East. Often that expression contains a pledge to move the U.S embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.

The belief that the political and even national allegiance of many Jewish Americans is driven by devotion to Israel extends beyond party politicians to a sizable share of the U.S. public. A 2016 survey conducted by the Marttila Strategies polling firm indicates that although anti-Semitism has declined significantly in the United States over the past half-century,  since at least the mid-1960s, about a third of Americans have believed the anti-Semitic dual loyalty canard  that Jews are “more loyal to Israel than to America.”
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