by Eitan Arom / JNS.org

By Michelle Moons, BREITBART

WASHINGTON, D.C. — After almost two months of a federal government hiring freeze, Trump administration officials have released guidance on the President’s plan to “drain the swamp,” with what Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Director Mick Mulvaney described as the first-ever rebuilding of the federal government.

An April 12 memorandum provides guidance to federal agencies tasked with complying with the Reorganization Executive Order entitled “Comprehensive Plan for Reorganizing the Executive Branch” as the January 23, 2017 hiring freeze is lifted.
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By Zach D Huff, BREITBART

Just after the election, Breitbart published ananalysis arguing that President Donald J. Trump was a cause for hope for Kurdish national aspirations. It has been 81 days since the inauguration, so, has the outlook improved for the American-Kurdish alliance?

As the roll-out of a revamped American strategy to bring a swift defeat to the Islamic State (ISIS) continues, the unanswered question of the Kurdish role looms as one of the largest unknowns.

The calculus of the Trump Administration vis-a-vis Kurdish authorities in Iraq and Syria has not been definitively clear, but has become more apparent as facts on the ground are established.
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T. Belman. No easy victory for Trump. Perhaps that’s why he undermined himself by saying he was not going the war in Syria. But what’s he going to do if Putin says “nyet”.

Hopefully that;s Putin’s way of saying “Let the tough negotiations begin.”

By JOSH LEDERMAN, Associated Press

But if Moscow ignores Trump’s entreaties or if Assad uses chemical weapons again, bad options await Trump. He can order more military action, with the danger of an escalating America involvement in a war that has killed hundreds of thousands of people. Or he can hold back and risk losing face like Obama.

MOSCOW (AP) – The Trump administration veered toward deeper conflict with Russia Tuesday as Secretary of State Rex Tillerson arrived in Moscow, gambling that an unpredictable new president armed with the willingness to threaten military action gives the U.S. much-needed leverage to end Syria’s carnage.

Yet there were no guarantees Tillerson’s arguments would prove any more successful than the Obama administration’s failed effort to peel Russia away from its Syrian ally. Tillerson’s mission, coming days after 59 Tomahawk missiles struck a Syrian air base, also carries serious risks: If Russia brushes off the warnings, President Donald Trump could be forced into another show of force in Syria or see his credibility wane.
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DEBKA

It is hard to see US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson coming way from the talks he is holding with Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov in Moscow Wednesday, April 12, with a neatly wrapped diplomatic package for cooling the boiling tensions between their governments. President Vladimir Putin seems more than ready to turn up the heat.

Tuesday, he claimed he had information (no source cited) of a potential incident similar to the alleged chemical attack in Idlib province, possibly targeting the Damascus suburb of Ghouta. Speaking at a joint press conference with Italian President Sergio Mattarella in Moscow, Putin said: “The goal is to discredit the government of Syrian President Assad. We have reports from multiple sources that false flags like this one – and I cannot call it otherwise – are being prepared in other parts of Syria, including the southern suburbs of Damascus. They plan to plant some chemical there and accuse the Syrian government of an attack.”
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T. Belman. This is very well written and very clear. Even so it is a summary of a larger article which may be found at the link.

By Karen Stahl-Don, LLM, MA

Summary: The Legality of Israeli Sovereignty over Judea and Samaria According to International Law

I. Introduction

The purpose of this report is to explain that international law supports Israel’s claim to sovereignty over Judea and Samaria and to debunk the claim that Israel is illegally occupying that land. This report demonstrates that the international community’s pervasive belief that Israeli settlements are illegal under international law contradicts the simplest and most logical reading of the documents through which international law has traditionally been construed. The basic legal historical documents speak the truth to all who choose to read them.

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Move to clarify position amid confusion over White House policy on Damascus and Moscow

by: James Politi in Rome, Kathrin Hille in Moscow and Demetri Sevastopulo in Washington, FT

High quality global journalism requires investment. Please share this article with others using the link below, do not cut & paste the article. See our T&Cs and Copyright Policy for more detail. Email ftsales.support@ft.com to buy additional rights.

Donald Trump said the US would not enter the Syrian civil war, in a bid to clarify his policy in the wake of confusion that followed his missile strike on the regime of President Bashar al-Assad.

Speaking to Fox News, the US president said America was “not going into Syria”. His remarks followed days of confusion over how the US intends to proceed with respect to the war-torn country and also towards Moscow, which supports the regime in Damascus.
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By Conrad Black, NY SUN

[…]

No one expects that the attack last week will reform Mr. Assad’s behavior (it is only seven years since Hillary Clinton called him “a reformer”), but it has sent the message that the long night of delusional altruism and deliberate weakness in American foreign and security policy is over. It has also helped create the only circumstances in which relations between the United States and Russia can be put back on a sound foundation after the shambles of the Obama-Biden-Clinton “reset.”

I wrote here several weeks ago of the promising meeting of the chairmen of the joint chiefs of staff of the United States, Russia, and Turkey, on March 9, and of the emerging policy of Turkey replacing Iran as a power in Syria and of a division of government within Syria between Assad and the Western-sponsored secular moderates. For this to have any possibility of success, Russia will have to grasp the fact that the goodwill and cooperation of the United States is worth more to it than its obscene friendship with Iran, insofar as such a quarrel among thieves could be so described.
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U.S. intelligence confirms that the Syrian regime used sarin gas on civilians, declassified report says, accusing the Syrian and Russian governments of seeking to confuse the international community with disinformation

HAARETZ

The White House is accusing Russia of taking part in a cover-up of the chemical weapons attack in Syria last week.
According to a declassified report released Tuesday, U.S. intelligence confirms that the Syrian regime used sarin gas on civilians, and that the Syrian and Russian governments are seeking to confuse the international community by disseminating “false narratives.”

The report emerged as U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson arrived in Moscow for what is increasingly being billed as the most important political meeting to take place in Russia this year.
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BY JOSH LEDERMAN, TOI

Russian President Vladimir Putin (L) meets with Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in Tehran on November 23, 2015 (AFP/Sputnik/Alexei Druzhinin)

UCCA, Italy (AP) — US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson issued an ultimatum to Russia on Tuesday: Side with the US and likeminded countries on Syria, or embrace Iran, militant group Hezbollah and embattled Syrian leader Bashar Assad.

Tillerson, who landed in Moscow on Tuesday afternoon following urgent meetings in Italy with top diplomats, said it was unclear whether Russia had failed to take seriously its obligation to rid Syria of chemical weapons, or had merely been incompetent. But he said the distinction “doesn’t much matter to the dead.”

“Russia has failed to uphold the agreements that have been entered into under multiple United Nations Security Council resolutions,” Tillerson said. “These agreements stipulated Russia as the guarantor of a Syria free of chemical weapons.”
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So long as Palestinian rejectionism runs rampant, debates about one-, two-, and three-state solutions are for naught.

By Daniel Pipes, MOSAIC

Daniel Polisar of Shalem College in Jerusalem shook the debate over Palestinian-Israeli relations in November 2015 with his essay, “What Do Palestinians Want?” In it, having studied 330 polls to “understand the perspective of everyday Palestinians” toward Israel, Israelis, Jews, and the utility of violence against them, he found that Palestinian attackers are “venerated” by their society—with all that that implies.

He’s done it again with “Do Palestinians Want a Two-State Solution?” This time, he pored over some 400 opinion polls of Palestinian views to find consistency among seemingly contradictory evidence on the topic of ways to resolve the conflict with Israel. From this confusing bulk, Polisar convincingly establishes that Palestinians collectively hold three related views of Israel: it has no historical or moral claim to exist, it is inherently rapacious and expansionist, and it is doomed to extinction. In combination, these attitudes explain and justify the widespread Palestinian demand for a state from “the river to the sea,” the grand Palestine of their maps that erases Israel.
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It starts at 12 minutes

My friend Yishai Fleisher on March 30 faced off against a radical-left J Street representative at Temple Emanuel of Beverly Hills, and successfully defended Israel at a debate in Temple Emanuel of Beverly Hills.

By Itamar Marcus PMW, April 8, 2017:

In defiance of the US, which is demanding that the Palestinian Authority completely stop financial rewards to families of terrorist “Martyrs” (Shahids), the PA is now raising the payments to the “Martyrs’” families. These PA payments include lifetime monthly allowances to families of suicide bombers, and other murderers who were killed during or after committing their crimes.

Muhammad Sbeihat, the Secretary-General of the National Association of the Martyrs’ Families of Palestine, which is the PLO organization dealing with the PA’s payments to “Martyrs’” families, explained last week:

“In the upcoming period the allowances of the Martyrs’ families will be linked to the cost of living index, which will cause an improvement in these allowances, if only slightly.
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THE GUARDIAN

Forget the warm handshake. Take with a pinch of salt Donald Trump’s talk of his “very, very, great relationship” with Xi Jinping. The idea that Washington has ceased to harbour deep suspicions of Beijing just because the presidents of the world’s two biggest economies shared pleasantries over steak in Florida is fanciful.
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Threat comes after UK Defence Secretary demands Vladimir Putin rein in President Bashar al-Assad

By Jon Sharman , THE INDEPENDENT

Russia and Iran have warned the US they will “respond with force” if their own “red lines” are crossed in Syria.

Following Friday’s cruise missile strike on a Syrian airbase, in retaliation for the chemical attack on Khan Sheikhoun earlier in the week, the alliance supporting Syrian President Bashar al-Assad made a joint statement threatening action in response to “any breach of red lines from whoever it is”.
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By Carol Morelo, WaPo

Officials in the Trump administration on Sunday demanded that Russia stop supporting the Syrian government or face a further deterioration in its relations with the United States.

Signaling the focus of talks that Secretary of State Rex Tillerson is set to have in Moscow this week, officials said that Russia, in propping up Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, bears at least partial responsibility for Wednesday’s chemical attack on villagers in Idlib province.
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T. Belman. Both sides are committing war crimes. So to act against one side and for its moral depravity and not the other is hypocritical. On the other hand, attacking one side or the other for strategic reasons is acceptable. Til now the US stayed out of the war preferring to stand by as both sides knock themselves out. Except that many problems ensued for the west and Russia Iran and Hezbollah have become stronger.

The US must now decide who should win the war. I believe that it is not in the interests of America or Israel that Russia and Iran should solidify their hold on all of Syria. It is more imperative now that Trump should talk with Putin, not less, to win his support for the ouster of Assad, Hezballah and Iran from Syria. To win his support for this Crimea should be ceded to Russia and agreement found for the Ukraine so sanctions can be lifted.

If this missile attack succeeds in acheiving such a result, it was worth it.

By Daniel Pipes, ME FORUM

The Obama Administration rightly stayed out of Syria through six painful, grisly years of civil war there. Yes, the fighting has cost hundreds of thousands of lives and displaced millions. Yes, the uncontrolled migration of Syrians to Europe caused deep problems there. Yes, the Kurds are sympathetic. Yes, Barack Obama made a fool of himself when he declared the Assad regime’s use of chemical weapons a “red line” and proceeded not to enforce it.

Despite all this, it was right not to intervene because Iranian- and Russian-backed Shi’ite pro-government jihadis are best kept busy fighting Saudi-, Qatar-, and Turkish-backed anti-government Sunni jihadis; because Kurds, however appealing, are not contenders for control of the whole of Syria; and because Americans have no stomach for another Middle Eastern war.
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By Gil Hoffman, JPOST

Syrian dictator Bashar Assad must go, and Israel must help convince the international community to bring him down, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s former No.2 in the Likud, Gideon Sa’ar, told The Jerusalem Post Sunday.

In his first interview with a print newspaper since he returned to politics following a two-and-a-half year hiatus, Sa’ar explained why he has the best chance to succeed Netanyahu as prime minister.

During his timeout from politics, Sa’ar conducted in-depth research of the Syrian issue at the Institute for National Security Studies, adding to the knowledge he gained in the security cabinet.
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Michael Savage Turns on Trump, Says Syrian Gas Attack Was False Flag Operation

False Flag: How the U.S. Armed Syrian Rebels to Set Up an Excuse to Attack Assad

The Intelligence Confirms The Russian Account On Syria – Zero Hedge

False Flag: How the US Armed Syrian Rebels to Set Up … – Zero Hedge

Ron Paul: Chemical Attack in Syria May Have Been False Flag

Assad Is the Victim of a False Flag from the CIA – Dave Hodges – The .

WHAT’S THE EVIDENCE SYRIA LAUNCHED ATTACK?

 Exclusive: Joseph Farah isn’t convinced Assad was behind recent sarin tragedy