Trump created the first new paradigm for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in a quarter of a century and became the first US president to set aside the principles of the 1993 Oslo Accord.

BY TOVAH LAZAROFF,  JPOST

In diplomatic parlance, nothing says “I love you” more than telling a right-wing Israeli leader that perhaps a Palestinian state isn’t necessary after all.

He could have gone for the more traditional type of Valentine’s Day present. Nothing wrong with champagne, cigars, roses or even chocolates hearts.

But then, US President Donald Trump is hardly the run of the mill politician. Touching the third rail of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict by appearing to disavow a two-state solution is in keeping with his torch and burn attitude to tried and true staples of Washington policies.
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These are the results of Palestinian-Israeli Pulse: A Joint Poll conducted by the Tami Steinmetz Center for Peace Research (TSC), Tel Aviv University and the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research (PSR) in Ramallah, with funding from the European Union (EU).

The formulation of the questions greatly affect the results.

Palestinian-Israeli Pulse
February 16, 2017

SUMMARY. A majority of Israelis and just under half of Palestinians still support the two state solution in principle, but under half on both sides support the detailed framework for its implementation.  However, despite mutual fear, distrust and pessimism regarding the likelihood and feasibility of the two-state solution, a majority of Palestinians and Israelis may support comprehensive peace agreement that ends the conflict if offered additional symbolic or concrete incentives

PressRelease
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Israel has the opportunity to reclaim its nation.

By Daniel Greenfield, FPM

Palestine is many things. A Roman name and a Cold War lie. Mostly it’s a justification for killing Jews.

Palestine was an old Saudi-Soviet scam which invented a fake nationality for the Arab clans who had invaded and colonized Israel. This big lie transformed the leftist and Islamist terrorists run by them into the liberators of an imaginary nation. Suddenly the efforts of the Muslim bloc and the Soviet bloc to destroy the Jewish State became an undertaking of sympathetically murderous underdogs.

But the Palestine lie is past its sell by date.
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Does a comparison of virtuoso pianist Yuja Wang with right-wing celebrity blogger Milos Yiannopoulos explain why we are living in the last days of the West?

By David P Goldman, ASIA TIMES

In the old style of Plutarch’s parallel lives, I should like to compare two transgressive performers, a Western journalist-cum-performance-artist and a Chinese classical pianist. The object of the exercise is to illustrate why we might be living in the last days of the West. Don’t panic, but this is not a drill.

The star and standard-bearer for the most successful conservative website is Milos Yiannopoulos, Breitbart Media’s technology editor. Yiannopoulos describes himself as a “dangerous faggot” with a preference for passive sexual relations with dark-skinned men—proof, as he likes to say, that he is no racist. His commercial success is indisputable: his Youtube page alone has 500,000 followers. The genius of Breitbart Media was to combine the public’s prurient curiosity about sexual freaks with a right-wing political agenda, attacking political correctness with its own exemplars. This post-modern turn in conservative politics was the brainchild of Steve Bannon, without doubt the brightest mind in political media today.
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by WorldTribune Staff, February 15, 2017

Intelligence agencies, national security honchos and former Obama administration officials used leaks to the major media to bring down a man, Michael Flynn, who had the audacity to blow the whistle on U.S. intel failures, analysts say.

Sen. Chuck Schumer last month warned the Trump administration what would happen if it dared take on the CIA. The New York Democrat said that President Donald Trump is “being really dumb” by taking on the intelligence community and its assessments on Russia’s cyber activities.

‘The CIA has gone out of its way to sandbag (Michael) Flynn’ with President Donald Trump being its ultimate target, analysts say.
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Well-funded Organizing for Action promises to crack conservative skulls to halt the Trump agenda.

“No ex-president has ever done this before, sticking around the nation’s capital to vex and undermine his successor. Of course, Obama is unlike any president the United States has ever had”

By Matthew Vadum, FPM

Former President Obama is waging war against the Trump administration through his generously funded agitation outfit, Organizing for Action, to defend his monumentally destructive record of failure and violent polarization.

It is a chilling reminder that the increasingly aggressive, in-your-face Left in this country is on the march.

Acclaimed author Paul Sperry writes in the New York Post:
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PA chairman Abbas says he’s willing to work with Trump administration, blasts Netanyahu for “destroying two-state solution”.

By Elad Benari, INN

The Palestinian Authority (PA) on Wednesday evening reacted to the meeting between U.S. President Donald Trump and Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu.

A statement from PA chairman Mahmoud Abbas’s office said that the PA remains committed to the two-state solution and is willing to work with Trump’s administration to achieve a peace agreement.

At the same time, the statement criticized Netanyahu and claimed that “Israel’s insistence on destroying the two-state solution will lead to more extremism and more instability.”
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By Ted Belman

The significance of this is that the two state solution has been dislodged from its exclusive hold on the discourse. That’s huge. But its not bold enough.

Trump said that an agreement must be reached by the Israelis and the Palestinians. They will never agree. He should have opened the door to have Jordan replace the Palestinians or at least be in the talks.

Israel will not agree to a one state solution in which the Arabs are full citizens and the Arabs won’t agree if they aren’t.
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By Ted Belman

Trump said he wanted Israel to slow down on settlements and to be flexible.

He said that  he didn’t care if negotiations end in one state or two states. They both supported the outside in approach.
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By JNS.org

U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson.

(JNS.org) The Israeli legal nongovernmental organization Shurat HaDin is calling on U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson to terminate government funding to the U.S. relief agency, American Near-East Refugee Aid (ANERA), after an investigation by Shurat HaDin found ANERA was “actively assisting” terrorist organizations.

According to the probe, funds transferred to ANERA, including from American charities, the United Nations Development Program and the Christian charity World Vision, are “used to support Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) kindergartens that actively indoctrinate children in hatred and killing of Israeli civilians, as well as other PIJ and Hamas organizations, thus enabling them to finance terrorist activity, which is forbidden by US law.” The former head of World Vision recently plead not guilty to charges it funded the terror groups Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad which operate out of the Gaza Strip.
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By Jonathan Tobin, TOI

After eight years of barely concealed hostility between the leaders of the United States and Israel, the prospect of a new era of better relations has raised expectations for today’s meeting between President Donald Trump and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. But while Netanyahu is likely to get a warmer welcome at the White House than he ever received from President Barack Obama, not all American Jews are enthusiastic about the anticipated lovefest.

The visit comes at a good time for Netanyahu, who is increasingly under siege at home. Though he need not face the voters again for another year or two, the prime minister is down in the polls to a centrist challenge as well as under serious pressure from his right-wing allies. Just as troubling are a raft of corruption investigations that, although still unproved, are encouraging his foes to start imagining life without him.
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T. Belman. Israel should reject this out of hand.

TOI

The Wall Street Journal reports that the Trump administration is holding discussions with several Arab states to create a NATO-style alliance with Israel in order to thwart Iran and its Shiite allies.

The report, citing five officials from the Arab countries involved, says the alliance will be on the agenda when Trump and Netanyahu speak later today.

Countries involved would include Saudi Arabia and the UAE, as well as Egypt and Jordan, though Israel’s role would be in intelligence sharing and not combat-related, according to the report.
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By Bret Stephens, WSJ

Jared Kushner will get his first real taste of Mideast diplomacy this week, when his father-in-law receives Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the White House. Since the 36-year-old former newspaper publisher has been widely touted as the administration’s point man on Israeli-Arab issues, this week’s column humbly offers four rules Mr. Kushner ought to observe in the months and years ahead.

(1) The Clifford Rule. After stepping down as Lyndon Johnson ’s defense secretary in 1969, the late Clark Clifford settled into the life of a Washington superlawyer—the sort of man who, for a price, could open all the right doors for his clients and fix some of their worst problems.
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T. Belman. Erakat is wrong. Aryeh Eldad, with whom I have been talking, has long backed a plan in which all Palestinians in Judea and Samaria would have Jordanian citizenship, as they do now, and Israeli residency. This is far better than Glick who wants to offer them a path to citizenship and 1.7 million is a very big number of expats. I wrote to Eldad as I still had some questions.

Is there any way to restrict them to areas A and B or could they live any where they want in Israel?

As residents, what economic support and benefits would they be entitled to?

How could that number get reduced over time or perhaps at the beginning?

Could the benefits and entitlements available to them be minimized so that living in Jordan would be more attractive?

Is there any way to prevent Jordan from cancelling their citizenship?

Saeb Erekat tells UK parliament speaker that Israel can’t have ‘apartheid regime,’ will have to allow ‘equal rights for everyone’

BY RAPHAEL AHREN, TOI

The only alternative to the creation of a Palestinian state is a one-state solution in which all Palestinians will get the right to vote, Palestine Liberation Organization Secretary-General Saeb Erekat said Wednesday, hours after a senior White House official appeared to withdraw the US’s traditional support for a two-state solution.
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By Francisco Gil-White, HIR

During the presidential campaign, many believed Trump when he said that he would combat jihadism and defend Israel. I was always skeptical. But how to reason from the evidence? What policies will be diagnostic of Trump’s direction? In a Foreign Affairs piece published before Trump took his oath (Part 1), I wrote that if Trump were to:

1) dry off and block the channels that supply jihadists with weapons;

2) support the Rojava Revolution in Syria; and

3) expose the ties between PLO/Fatah and Iran

we would know that the new administration really means to oppose jihadism and protect the Israeli state.

I believe that Trump is already showing his colors, and that he will do none of these things. But that is for a later article. For the purposes of this piece, let us give Trump the benefit of the doubt and ask ourselves: What is a reasonable prior? In other words, even supposing that Trump really had meant what he promised, what was the probability that he could get it done?
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Sources: Former Obama officials, loyalists planted series of stories to discredit Flynn, bolster Iran deal

By Adam Kredo, NEW BEACON

The abrupt resignation Monday evening of White House national security adviser Michael Flynn is the culmination of a secret, months-long campaign by former Obama administration confidantes to handicap President Donald Trump’s national security apparatus and preserve the nuclear deal with Iran, according to multiple sources in and out of the White House who described to the Washington Free Beacon a behind-the-scenes effort by these officials to plant a series of damaging stories about Flynn in the national media.

The effort, said to include former Obama administration adviser Ben Rhodes—the architect of a separate White House effort to create what he described as a pro-Iran echo chamber—included a small task force of Obama loyalists who deluged media outlets with stories aimed at eroding Flynn’s credibility, multiple sources revealed.
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T. Belman. I wrote to Yishai Feisher to congratulate him on getting this article published by the NYT and to take him to task regarding his population number.

You wrote, “Today, the estimated number of Arabs living in Judea and Samaria is 2.7 million, though some researchers dispute the data and argue that the figure is far lower.” Please stop saying it like that.

Instead say “Today, the estimated number of Arabs living in Judea and Samaria is 1.7 million.”

Yoram Ettinger writes that the number 1.75 million is “well documented”. In this article he goes on to support his contention and explains why the higher number is wrong. Stop saying it is 2.7. Be comfortable quoting 1.75 as fact.

Yishai replied that he wrote 1.75 as the number but the NYT insisted on changing it.

By YISHAI FLEISHER, NYT

Israeli housing in front of an Arab settlement last month in Amona, West Bank.CreditChris Mcgrath/Getty Images

HEBRON, West Bank — Last week, Israel’s Parliament passed a controversial bill that allows the government to retroactively authorize contested West Bank Jewish communities by compensating previous Palestinian land claimants. Opposition parties warn that this law could open Israel to prosecution at The Hague, and the chief Palestinian negotiator, Saeb Erekat, said, “Israel’s Parliament has just approved a law to legalize theft of Palestinian land.” This theme has been echoed recently at the Paris peace conference, in a United Nations Security Council resolution and by a major policy speech by then Secretary of State John Kerry, which all condemned settlements.

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NEWS FROM ASSEMBLYMAN DOV HIKIND

HIKIND TO SCHUMER: KEITH ELLISON IS A TOXIC CHOICE FOR DNC CHAIR 

‘SENATOR SCHUMER, PULL THE PLUG ON YOUR SUPPORT FOR ELLISON. HE WILL BE A DISASTER FOR THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY.’ 

ONLINE PETITION DRIVE LAUNCHED ON CHANGE.ORG ASKING TO OPPOSE ELLISON

Brooklyn, NY, February 14, 2017…Assemblyman Dov Hikind (D-Brooklyn) launched an online petition addressed to Senator Charles E. Schumer today, calling on him to rescind his support for Congressman Keith Ellison to be the next Chair of the Democratic National Committee.
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T. Belman. This was first published on January 20/17. Did he get it right? The second article in the series will be posted tomorrow.

Francisco Gil-White is someone that I have known since shortly after 9/11. During the Iraq war that followed, when everyone was calling for Bush to “teach Iran a lesson” for killing American soldiers in Iraq, Gil-White wrote in Feb 2006, Will the US attack Iran? in which he predicted that the US would not attack Iran. He of course was right. In Sept 2016, he updated the article and published US and Iran: Friends of Foes

 Israeli patriots expect him to be. After all, he postures as an enemy of Iran and ISIS. But, what evidence will be diagnostic that Trump really is delivering on his Mideast promises?

By Francisco Gil-White, HIR

Plus ça change, plus ça devient le même.
The more it all changes, the more it becomes the same again.)

In his campaign, Donald Trump denounced indiscriminate immigration of Muslims and Barack Obama’s and Hillary Clinton’s presumed reluctance to confront the Islamic State (ISIS), Iran, and jihadist terrorism more generally. Excited Israeli patriots now await a tough line against jihadism in the Middle East and elsewhere. They dare to imagine a great US policy turnaround: a pro-Israeli Donald Trump.

My students and readers want to know what I make of him. Is he for real? Will anything change? DEBKAfile researchers say it will:

“Not much can be ascertained about President-elect Donald Trump’s administration future policies for the Middle East – any more than for most other parts of the world, except that his starting points are likely to be diametrically opposed to those of Barack Obama.”[1]
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