YNET reports today:

Netanyahu will seek to lower American expectations on the Palestinian issue. The Israeli government is not enthusiastic about talks on a regional intiative by the moderate Arab nations or the new US president’s desire to lead to a peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinians. [previous articles have suggested otherwise.]

Netanyahu will present a policy that supports the establishment of a Palestinian state with an emphasis on its demilitarization and recognition of Israel as a Jewish state. The two will discuss the resumption of peace talks and the US blocking unilateral Palestinian initiatives at the UN.

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Ambassador (ret.) Yoram Ettinger, “Second Thought: a US-Israel initiative”

YouTube 6-minute-video on-line seminar on US-Israel and the Mideast

Video#34 http://bit.ly/2kWV8OS; Entire mini-seminar: http://bit.ly/1ze66dS

1. Israel is urged to concede the historically and militarily most critical mountain ridges of Judea and Samaria, in return for a US, or a multinational, peacekeeping force, as well as US security guarantees or defense pact.

2. In order to be effective, defense pacts, and security guarantees – including peacekeeping monitoring or combat forces – must be reliable, durable, specific and politically/militarily sustainable. It must serve the interests of the foreign entity, which dispatches the force, lest it be ignored or summarily withdrawn.
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Israel is keeping a watchful eye as Hamas and Egypt make a last-ditch attempt to improve relations.

By Zvi Mazel, JPOST

In late January, Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh was in Cairo at the head of an impressive delegation to see what could be done to mend the organization’s rift with Egypt.

He met with the head of the General Intelligence Directorate, Khaled Fawzi, and this was followed shortly by a session with a second delegation, composed of security experts.

Hamas is desperate for the Egyptian blockade of its Gaza border to be lifted. Egypt wants that border to be secure and demands an end to the cooperation between Hamas and terrorists from Ansar Bait al-Maqdis, an organization that pledged allegiance to Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi in 2015 and now calls itself “the Sinai Province of Islamic State.” This is the main stumbling block to a rapprochement between Cairo and Hamas.
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US lawyer opposed to the law but says International Criminal Court set up to deal with genocide, not ‘property disputes’

TOI

American law professor and prominent pro-Israel advocate Alan Dershowitz said that he is opposed to the newly passed outpost bill, but would happily defend Israel in an international court over the law.

“I’m opposed to the statute, I think it is a very bad idea,” Dershowitz said in an interview broadcast Saturday on Israel Radio.

The Knesset late Monday passed the so-called Regulation Law, which enables the appropriation of private Palestinian land for Israeli settlement outposts in the West Bank, in a move the Palestinians condemned as a means to “legalize theft.”
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Russia pushes hard to include Syria’s Kurds in Geneva talks
Turkish Officials Demand Gulen, End of Support to Syrian Kurds During Pompeo Visit
Iran’s Kurds ask Trump administration to list Revolutionary Guard Corps a terrorist group
Politics VIDEO: Kurds to receive more support from US, says Trump Adviser

While campaigning, Trump said he would attempt to bring Turkey and the Kurds together after years of hostilities in order to fight ISIS. Facts on the ground may force the U.S. president down a different path.

By Amir Tibonb, HAARETZ

Last July, in the midst of the presidential election campaign, Donald Trump declared in an interview that he was “a big fan of the Kurds.” Speaking about the fight against ISIS on the ground in Syria, Trump said he hoped there was a way to get the Kurdish forces, which have been supported by the U.S. for the last two years, to join forces with their bitter enemy, the Turkish government.
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By Prof. Hillel Frisch, BESA Center Perspectives Paper No. 410, February 10, 2017

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: Many American detractors of Israel begin by citing that Israel receives the lion’s share of US military aid. The very suggestion conjures the demon of an all-powerful Israel lobby that has turned the US Congress into its pawn. But these figures, while reflecting official direct US military aid, are almost meaningless in comparison to the real costs and benefits of US military aid – above all, American boots on the ground. In reality, Israel receives only a small fraction of American military aid, and most of that was spent in the US to the benefit of the American economy.

Countless articles discrediting Israel (as well as many other better-intentioned articles) ask how it is that a country as small as Israel receives the bulk of US military aid. Israel receives 55%, or $US3.1 billion per year, followed by Egypt, which receives 23%. This largesse comes at the expense, so it is claimed, of other equal or more important allies, such as Germany, Japan, and South Korea. The complaint conjures the specter of an all-powerful Israel lobby that has turned the US Congress into its pawn.
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T. Belman. Bibi has long favoured seeking peace through the Arab states i.e., the outside-in approach. Since they want the maximum Israel withdrawal, it is safe to conclude that Bibi is indeed willing to trade land for peace. He is focused on ending the diplomatic war against Israel and is willing to give up a lot of land to achieve it. Too bad.

New administration is considering an ‘outside-in’ approach favored by Netanyahu, according to NY Times

BY ERIC CORTELLESSA, TOI

WASHINGTON — Determined to make the elusive Israeli-Palestinian peace deal, US President Donald Trump is deliberating bringing in Arab states and embracing the “outside-in” approach to peacemaking that has been endorsed by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, according to The New York Times. (See Below)

An article Thursday said that both Trump and his Jewish son-in-law Jared Kushner — who has been designated the point man for the Mideast peace process — have found the idea appealing after meeting with a number of Arab leaders since the president assumed office in January.
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T. Belman. Because of Trump’s remarks this week as to whether settlements are helpful or not to achieving peace. everyone has something to say about it. At the outset let me clarify “peace” is not the same as “a peace agreement.” The peace agreement that Obama sought so ardently, if achieved, would not have achieved peace. It was a prescription for war. Maintaining the status quo is more conducive to peace, primarily because Israel is in full control of Area C which includes the Jordan Valley. Accordingly, if Trump supports Israel’s retention of area C, it would certainly be conducive to peace and the settlements would not be an obstacle. In fact they would help solidify the peace. So the object of the exercise should be to achieve peace and not a peace agreement.

Furthermore Trump should not be so quick to seek the approval of the Arab world because they would demand too much. What ever he agrees to with Israel will alienate them but it won’t matter because they need the US and Israel, notwithstanding. The Palestinians are way down on their list of priorities.

Trump also said “there’s limited land left”, implying that that is the reason Israel should’t build new settlements. True, but sure that should lead Trump to broaden the discussion to include Jordan which has four times the land mass of Israel and a smaller population. A peace agreement and peace will only come about if Jordan is factored in.

In closing, I am very happy that he is getting a lot of advice and is considering his options.

President Trump praises Netanyahu but says ‘settlements won’t advance peace’.

By David Rosenberg, INN

On Friday, Israel Hayom published an interview with President Donald Trump, the first he has granted to an Israeli media outlet since taking office in January.

The interview was released just hours after President Trump dined with Israel Hayom owner and GOP donor Sheldon Adelson at the White House Thursday evening.
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“Next week can be the beginning of a new era in Israel’s relations with the US. But to make the most of this unprecedented opportunity, Israel needs to recognize its role as America’s ally.”

BY CAROLINE B. GLICK, JPOST

Less than a week after he was inaugurated into office, President Donald Trump announced that he had repaired the US’s fractured ties with Israel. “It got repaired as soon as I took the oath of office,” he said.

Not only does Israel now enjoy warm relations with the White House. When Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu arrives in the US capital next week, he will be greeted by the most supportive political climate Israel has ever seen in Washington.
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The Islamic Republic’s theocrats have failed to convince their youth to go forth and multiply, limiting the nation’s shelf life as a strategic ally

By David Goldman, ASIA TIMES

Iran is dying, and no one knows it better than Vladimir Putin, who worked successfully to raise Russia’s fertility rate, unlike Iran’s theocrats, who have failed to persuade Iranians to have children.

Russia’s relationship to the only Shi’ite state of significance is less an alliance than a dalliance, motivated by Moscow’s fear of Sunni radicalism and its desire to establish a strategic beachhead in the Middle East.

But Iran is a depreciating asset whose value will disappear within a 20-year horizon. The question is not whether, but at what price Russia will trade it away.

Less than a week before D.C. trip, it’s unclear what Netanyahu will tell Trump on Palestinian issue. Bennett, meanwhile, is pushing him to drop two-state-solution from the agenda.

By Barak Ravid, HAARETZ

The security cabinet is expected to meet on Sunday to discuss policies Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will present at his meeting with U.S. President Donald Trump at their first meeting next Wednesday.

The cabinet meeting will take place less than a day before Netanyahu departs for Washington. Education Minister and Habayit Hayehudi chairman Naftali Bennett is urging Netanyahu to present a policy that does not include the establishment of a Palestinian state.
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By MARTIN SHERMAN

Any initiative to apply Jewish sovereignty to Judea-Samaria  without a  clear plan for dramatic reduction of its Arab population will imperil Jewish sovereignty over all  territory west of the Jordan

“One might expect that any support for a single state among Israeli Jews would come from the far Left… Recently, proposals to grant Israeli citizenship to Palestinians in the West Bank, including the right to vote for the Knesset, have emerged from a surprising direction: right-wing stalwarts… We should watch how this debate develop…and encourage it carefully”. – Ali Abunimah, “Israeli Right embracing one-state?” Al Jazeera. 

The road to hell is paved with good intentions.– An aphorism of uncertain origins, sometimes attributed to Samuel Johnson (1709-1784)
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Experts contend reducing low-skill, low-education chain migration could also boost wages

by Brendan Kirby, PoliZette

A bill offered by a pair of Senate Republicans this week to reduce immigration could save taxpayers $1.7 trillion, according to back-of-the-envelope calculations by a scholar at The Heritage Foundation.

The sponsors of the bill, Sens. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) and David Perdue (R-Ga.), have not estimated the fiscal impact of the proposal. But they cite models projecting that the result of eliminating an immigration diversity visa program and prohibiting new citizens from sponsoring their extended family members would reduce legal immigration by about 4.3 million people over the first 10 years.
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Prof. Paul Eidelberg

The prescient George Orwell saw treason in the Left’s corruption of language, something comparable to what we now almost innocently term “political correctness,” which in reality is a denial of evil.

This denial covers cowardly fear, the fear of facing the dangers and sacrifices required in the struggle against evil. Such fear is a consequence of the hedonism and self-indulgence fostered in the consumerism of contemporary life, which is so far removed from the original struggle involved in the break-away of mankind from the set ways and authoritarianism of the old Christian order.

It should be obvious that intellectual/moral cowardice and physical cowardliness have accompanied the ascendancy of commercial democracy. This modern democracy replaces commercial competition for armed conflict. Hence, what is called “political correctness” combines the democratic fear of truth and of death underlying the Liberal West’s reluctance to recognize Islam as the embodiment of evil.
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by Michael Freund

After Monday’s passage of the law aimed at regulating certain land issues in Judea and Samaria, Israel’s ostensible friends in Europe wasted little time before lambasting the Jewish state in remarkably harsh terms. Mustering all the vitriol at their disposal, which appears to be boundless when the subject is Israel, the leaders of the Continent went on a rhetorical rampage that was as obscene as it was offensive.

As usual, it was the European Union’s High Representative for Foreign Affairs, Federica Mogherini, who scaled the heights of hyperbole when she called the law “new and dangerous,” as though resolving land disputes through compensation was an entirely unheard-of concept in modern law. But then Mogherini went further, declaring that “the Israeli parliament has legislated on the legal status of land within occupied territory which is an issue that remains beyond its jurisdiction.”
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ANALYSIS / The West Bank has always meant both a homecoming to the landscapes of the Bible and a potentially disastrous intertwining with a foreign people
The settlements grow apace, peace remains stalled and Israel’s intentions seem a genuine mystery in Western capitals. Yet the question has a surprisingly simple answer, one which hasn’t changed since 1948

BY HAVIV RETTIG GUR, TOI

May 15, 1967, the night before Israel’s nineteenth Independence Day, in a small religious seminary in downtown Jerusalem, an elderly rabbi with a black hat and a venerable, wispy white beard was admonishing his disciples.

The rabbi, Zvi Yehuda Kook, would come to be recognized as the spiritual father of the West Bank settlement movement. But this was still weeks before the Six Day War, and Israel had yet to conquer the West Bank.

In his unusually emotional sermon that night, Kook recalled another “famous night,” the fateful night of November 29, 1947, when news reached Israel of the United Nations vote to partition the land then known as Palestine into a Jewish state and an Arab one.
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Despite sustained attacks in the media, majority of voters support president’s executive orders

by Kathryn Blackhurst, LifeZette

Despite the mass hysteria origination from the mainstream media and leftist activists, 55 percent of American voters approve of President Donald Trump’s executive orders that revoked funding from sanctuary cities and imposed a temporary travel ban, according to a Morning Consult/Politico poll released Wednesday.

Since the president initiated executive action to crack down on illegal immigration, boost border security, and promote national security in the fight against terrorism, liberals have gone into hysterics and decried Trump’s “Islamaphobia” and “anti-immigrant” beliefs. The hyperbole and wall-to-wall negative coverage in much of the media seems to have done little to deter ordinary Americans from supporting Trump’s efforts.
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By Leslie Stoffel –

“In politics stupidity is not a handicap.” Napoleon Bonaparte

“One of the penalties for refusing to participate in politics is that you end up being governed by your inferiors.” Plato

The Prime Minister of Canada will be holding a vote on February 16, 2017, Motion M103, that if passed, will enact Islamic Blasphemy Laws in Canada creating a defacto Sharia compliant state on the Northern border of the United States.
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DEBKA

Moscow signaled on Wednesday, February 8, that it has started – or is about to start – supplying precision weapons to the Syrian military in order to boost its capabilities against the Islamic State organization.

It came in an announcement by Ilyas Umakhanov, deputy chairman of the Russian Federation Council, who said, “Russia will continue an asymmetrical response (to terrorism) in Syria, which may include the regrouping of forces and means…and of course the supply of high-precision weapons to the Syrian government.”
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T. Belman.  The harshness with which the Trump administration reject criticism is unfathomable.  Why is Trump doing this? Friends don’t do this to friends.

The way a resolution to restate Jewish focus of Holocaust was shot down sends unmistakable signal when it comes to new rules of power in D.C, Jewish community and, by extension, Israel.

By Allison Kaplan Sommer, HAARETZ

Any hope of a congressional repudiation of the White House Holocaust Remembrance Day statement that left out Jews and anti-Semitism fell victim to partisan politics on Tuesday.

A proposed resolution in the House of Representatives would have contravened the White House statement, declaring “the indisputable fact that the Nazi regime targeted the Jewish people in its perpetration of the Holocaust and calling on every entity in the executive branch to affirm that fact.”
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