Ankara’s move against Kurdish-held Manbij has brought rare agreement between Moscow and Washington – and US troops into the fray

BY SARAH EL DEEB, TOI

BEIRUT (AP) — Turkey achieved a milestone in its goals in Syria: It established a foothold in the heart of the country’s north after driving Islamic State militants away from its borders and seizing al-Bab, one of the extremist group’s major strongholds and a major supply route.

But Turkey’s determination to also push back the Kurds is alienating the other big players in Syria — Russia and the United States — and threatens to undermine the fight against IS in the imminent assault on Raqqa.

Ankara’s threats to attack the nearby town of Manbij, held by US-backed Kurdish-led forces, prompted Washington to deploy new troops in the area to prevent Turkish advances. Turkey’s Syrian allies have been fighting the Kurds around the town, reportedly with Turkish cover, raising the possibility of friction with the Americans.
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An aspect of the election result is the hysterical reaction by liberal segments of the Jewish community, which can be seen as an act of infamy.

By Aviel Sheyin-Stevens, INN

After the election of perhaps the most pro-Israel U.S. administration in history, American Jews seem to have lost the plot. When Donald Trump was elected president of the U.S., many Jews sat shiva to mourn Hillary Clinton’s defeat as if it was a death in the family, making religion out of politics. A number of Conservative and Reform synagogues held special mourning services to bewail the advent of fascism in America. One prominent Conservative rabbi in New York compared the Trump victory to the rise of Nazism prior to the Holocaust. The essence of politics is persuasion; not hysterics.
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Daughter of US president and her family celebrate Jewish festival with traditional cookies

TOI

Ivanka Trump, the daughter of US President Donald Trump, marked the Jewish holiday of Purim over the weekend by posting a picture of her and her children making the traditional hamantaschen cookies.

“After-school fun making hamantaschen for Purim with Arabella and Joseph,” Trump posted to her Instagram account on Friday.
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Education secretary hails Agudath Israel for meeting both ‘academic and religious needs’ of Jewish community

TOI

WASHINGTON — Education Secretary Betsy DeVos praised Orthodox Jewish schools as a model for publicly funded education.

“I applaud Agudath Israel for their leadership and commitment to providing their community with access to educational options that meet the academic and religious needs of their families,” she said Wednesday after meeting with leaders of the Haredi Orthodox Agudath Israel of America at the Department of Education in Washington.

“I look forward to continuing to work with Agudath Israel of America, the Orthodox Jewish community and all who believe that every child, regardless of where they live or their family’s income, should have an equal opportunity to a quality education,” she said.
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Libyan national oil corporation says contract with Rosneft to redevelop oilfields lays groundwork for further investment\

THE GUARDIAN

Russia has significantly boosted its involvement in Libya by signing a potentially major contract to help redevelop Libyan oilfields.

The head of the Libyan national oil corporation (NOC) signed a cooperation agreement with Rosneft, the Russian oil giant, which NOC said on Tuesday “lays the groundwork for investment by Rosneft in Libya’s oil sector”.

“The agreement envisages the establishment of a joint working committee of the two partners to evaluate opportunities in a variety of sectors, including exploration and production,” an NOC statement said.
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By Chriss W Street, BREITBART

Fitch Credit Ratings has declared that the profitable doubling of U.S. oil drilling over the last 9 months means the reemerging U.S. shale boom is a potent threat to Saudi Arabia — despite the Saudis declaring a price war in 2014.

According to the Fitch report released on March 7, “The recovery in US drilling activity will drive up shale oil production in the second half of 2017, offsetting a portion of recent oil price gains.” The rating agency’s comment follows an effort by Saudi Arabia that began in October 2014 to drive the price of oil down from over $100 a barrel in an effort to kill the U.S. shale boom.
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By Matthew Continetti, NATIONAL REVIEW

Beware mission creep in Syria The Islamic Caliphate announced in 2014 by Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the head of ISIS, is approaching the end of its short and terrible life.

Iraqi forces, supported by Americans, have reclaimed the eastern half of Mosul and are retaking the western one. Kurdish militias in Syria, also backed by the United States, are homing in on the ISIS capital of Raqqa. Word came this week that a contingent of Marines has been deployed in Syria to position heavy artillery for the fight ahead. “We expect that within a few weeks there will be a siege of the city,” a militia spokesman tells Reuters.

ISIS doesn’t have a chance. American air and ground forces, working with local proxies, are about to terminate its existence as a state. “Crushed,” to paraphrase President Trump. A just — and popular — cause.
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DEBKA

Two close US allies, Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan, traveled to Moscow on Thursday and Friday (March 9-10), to press very different cases relating to Syria before Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Netanyahu chose to tackle the Russian leader on Iran, although he was recently welcomed at the White House as a close friend of US President Donald Trump and leader of a country strongly supported by the United States. He is regarded by the administration as the only Israeli politician capable of taking Israel through to a breakthrough in ties with the Arab world and a deal with the Palestinians. Whether this support will survive the personal attacks on Netanyahu and the investigations conducted against him remains to be seen.
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T. Belman. You have to wonder why Trump appointed Mattis, McMaster and Tillerson.
Mattis thinks that Israel’s capital is Tel Aviv and supports the failed TSS. McMaster thinks Islam is a religion of peace. Tillerson also supports the TSS. Friedman and Kushner reject the TSS. This is a prescription for a fractious cabinet.

BY RAYMOND IBRAHIM, PJ MEDIA

The riots against Murray and Yiannopoulis alerted non-Jewish Americans to the intellectual and moral decay of their campuses.

BY CAROLINE B. GLICK, JPOST

An acrid stench of repression is spreading through America.

Last Thursday, conservative political scientist Charles Murray from the American Enterprise Institute was attacked by a leftist mob at Middlebury College.

Murry was invited to Middlebury by the college’s AEI club. He was to discuss his new book, Coming Apart, which discusses the plight of white working class Americans. Middlebury’s liberal political science professor Allison Stanger was set to ask him questions about his work.
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By Avi Shlaim*

in Louise Fawcett ed.,  International Relations of the Middle East, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2005, 241-61.

Overview

By MARTIN SHERMAN

The perception of Liberman as an abrasive hardliner is due more to his blunt statements regarding the loyalty of Israeli-Arabs, rather than to any territorial intransigence regarding the Palestinian question

Anyone who wants to apply Israeli sovereignty to Judea and Samaria needs to understand that such a step will bring immediate repercussions from the new US government…We received a direct – not indirect – message: ‘Apply sovereignty and you will be cutting ties with the new government.’ – Defense Minister, Avigdor (Yvette) Liberman, March 5, 2017 

“We do not want to turn our friends into enemies…[John] Kerry …is a true friend of Israel and he is leading the process correctly.” -Foreign Minister, Avigdor (Yvette) Liberman, February 7, 2015 Read more…

By David Bedein, TOI June 13, 2013

Most recently, US Secretary of State Kerry passionately called for the renewal of talks with the PLO. Former President Clinton, who hosted the PLO – Israel ceremonies on the White House lawn twenty years ago, is en route to Jerusalem for high profile lectures where he will call also call for for renewal of negotiations. And Shimon Peres, Israel’s president, who served as Israel’s foreign minister at the outset of negotiations with the PLO two decades ago, is about to convene thousands of dignitaries at a conference at the President’s mansion that will call to jump start negotiations with the PLO.

Veteran observers of middle east politics may ask: what is there to negotiate about?

Indeed, there an item on the table that is hardly a minor detail: The Palestinian Liberation Organization DID NOT RATIFY the Oslo Accord after Arafat and Abbas signed the accord on the White House lawn.
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By Ariel Bolstein, ISRAEL HAYOM

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s meeting with Russian President Vladmir Putin in Moscow Thursday takes place at an interesting time.

Russia, which has exhausted its military moves in Syria, is searching for a future strategy that will allow it to integrate into the world of U.S. President Donald Trump. Russia has paid a high price for its confrontation with the West. True, as a result of the United States’ geopolitical retreat under former U.S. President Barack Obama, Russian influence has grown on a few fronts, primarily in the Middle East, but this achievement is not worth much without American recognition of Russia’s new-old status as a world power. The changing of the guard in Washington provided Moscow with a unique opportunity to turn the page on its relationship with the West, but the significance of such a change would also mean concessions on its part.
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By David M Weinberg, ISRAEL HAYOM

by Steven A. Cook March 6, 2017 ( originally published in SALON)

In Washington, whenever the idea of Kurdish independence from Iraq comes up, all kinds of experts, former diplomats and officials declare, “Never going to happen.” Without fail, the assertion is always backed up with an elegant and well-informed statement of the serious challenges facing Iraqi Kurds, leading to the conclusion that a declaration of independence is “not rational.”

Yet there remains the possibility that Iraqi Kurds may decide to make, perhaps in the near future, a decision that would be entirely rational. This gap is linked to the difference between what analysts think Kurds should do — based on these observers’ calculations of Kurdish politics and interests — and the way Kurds and their leaders actually look at the world. It is a problem that can leave American officials surprised by “unexpected” events and behind the curve on developing appropriate policies.
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BESA Center Perspectives Paper No. 422, March 9, 2017
By Ariel Ben Solomon, March 9, 2017

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: Arab MKs, left-wing NGOs, and local Bedouin leadership have decided to resist state attempts to regulate the hundreds of illegal Bedouin settlements in the Negev. This will be difficult to counter, as radical Arab nationalists and the Islamic Movement are infiltrating and co-opting the Bedouin conflict as a tool against the state. Israel should continue to enforce the law and negotiate with Bedouin families while remaining realistic about the endeavor’s long-term goals. Failure to do so will consign the Negev to lawlessness.
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By J. E. Dyer, LIBERTY UNYIELDING

Breaking news this evening (8 March) is that U.S. Marines have been deployed into Syria to provide artillery support for the battle against ISIS in Raqqa, the city in eastern Syria that has served as the guerrilla-terrorists’ capital and stronghold for more than four years.

Few details have been released as yet about this force deployment.  It is clearly part of a major push to ramp up the fight against ISIS in Syria – a push of unprecedented scope and combat momentum.  Heretofore, U.S. troops have operated in Syria in small numbers, and without concentration of force.  In the last few days, 100 Army Rangers have inserted into Syria, and the Marine deployment ratchets the level and nature of U.S. involvement up significantly. Read more…

DEBKA

EXCLUSIVE:  DEBKAfile’s military and intelligence sources disclose that elements of the 75^th Ranger Regiment have arrived in Syria for the Trump administration’s first direct military operation in Syria: the long-delayed offensive to capture Raqqa from the Islamic State. The plan was put before the US, Russian and Turkish chiefs of staff who were getting together for the first time on Tuesday, March 7, in the Turkish town of Antalya, as revealed earlier on this site.

Rangers Regiment troops, which will spearhead the Raqqa attack, flew in from Fort Lewis air base, Washington, to the US air facility in Rmeilan, near the Syrian Kurdish town of Hasaka, equipped with light Striker tanks. More tanks and heavy equipment reached the Syrian base overland from Iraqi Kurdistan.
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