Al MONITOR

Mustafa Akyol writes that despite protests throughout the United States and worldwide over the Trump administration’s executive order restricting access to the United States from seven predominantly Muslim countries, “the same solidarity did not come from some of the Middle Eastern governments that often claim to be the defenders of the faith,” including Saudi Arabia, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates and Turkey, which, Akyol added, “not only has political expectations from Trump but also has a political elite that has a curious adoration for the new American president.”
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“This government is not afraid Iran will walk away from the deal, so it has more freedom… this advantage allows it to put pressure on Iran” and to respond to Iranian provocations.

BY YONAH JEREMY BOB, JPOST

The Trump administration’s strong response to Tehran’s missile test and other provocations related to the nuclear deal over the past week is finally sending the right deterrent message to Iran, two Israeli experts on Iran told The Jerusalem Post.

“The Trump administration responded that this [Iran’s actions] is unacceptable. We will respond. US National Security Adviser Michael Flynn put Iran on notice and then there were sanctions. This is exactly what the US should have been doing from Iran’s first provocation,” Emily Landau, INSS head of the Arms Control and Regional Security Program said on Sunday.
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By Mudar Zahran, JPOST  JUNE 2014

The concept of a Palestinian state in Jordan is not new. In fact, Jordan was created based on the Faisal-Weizmann agreement by which Jews agreed to give away 78 percent of the British Mandate for Palestine to the Hashemites to establish a homeland for the Palestinian Arabs.

The Hashemites have never kept their promise. Even today, the UNHCR reports that Jordan’s Palestinian majority is still treated as “refugees” by Jordan’s king.

Still, the concept of a Palestinian Jordan – and a Jewish Israel – has come back to life after the Arab Spring.
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By Jonathan Tobin, ISRAEL HAYOM

By Adam Kredo, NEW BEACON

A senior adviser to Sen. Ted Cruz (R., Texas) who played a critical role in crafting his national security agenda—including efforts to stop the Iran nuclear deal and designate the Muslim Brotherhood organization as a terrorist entity—has been tapped by the Trump National Security Council to serve as senior director for strategic assessments, a role that encompasses the fight against terrorist forces, the Washington Free Beacon can exclusively reveal.

Victoria Coates, a top Cruz aide and his longtime confidante, has departed the senator’s office to serve as senior director for strategic assessments in the new White House NSC, a role that will see Coates managing long-term threats to the United States.

Coates worked for former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and former Texas Gov. Rick Perry before joining the Cruz office in 2013. She also is an art historian who recently published a book on the history of democracy.
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BY BEN LYNFIELD, JPOST

A call by construction Minister Yoav Galant to “concentrate” Israeli Negev Beduin into “permitted areas” is raising fears among Arab leaders of further demolition operations to follow the January 18 police action in Umm al-Hiran that destroyed 10 houses and left a policeman and Beduin teacher dead in disputed circumstances.

“What is needed is to concentrate the Beduin settlement into permitted areas where there will be building for height and quality of life,” Galant said Tuesday while on a tour of the South. “But this must be accompanied by vacating other territories. What is happening is that they receive territory, move into it but don’t leave the area they must vacate. This has to end.”
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DEBKA

Eight armies are fighting for dominance in Yemen, a country of 25 million inhabitants: The Iranian-backed Houthi insurgents, together with a breakaway force, are battling the army loyal to President Abdulrabbuh Mansur Hadi, which is supported by Saudi, Egyptian and UAE military forces and their hired legion of Colombian mercenaries.

Iranian Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) elements, most acting as advisers to the Houthi rebels, intervene actively from time to time. Last October, they conducted missile attacks on US vessels on the Red Sea from shore batteries. In response, the US Navy on October 9 and 12 knocked out those batteries and the radar stations that were manned by IRGC teams.
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Thursday’s announcement shows that Netanyahu has lost whatever period of honeymoon grace he might have had with the Trump administration.

BY TOVAH LAZAROFF, JPOST

One has to ask.

If US President Donald Trump isn’t worried about antagonizing countries like Mexico and Australia, why would he hesitate to anger Israel as well?

Trump isn’t a president who shies away from fights. On the contrary, he revels in them.
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The reality is an Arab bloc fraught with bitter disagreement on key issues.

BY JONATHAN SPYER, JPOST

In recent years, it has become customary in much analysis of the Middle East emerging from Israel to divide Middle Eastern countries into a series of alliances or “camps.”

These camps are identified in a variety of ways. But the most usual depiction notes a tight, hierarchical bloc of states and movements dominated by the Islamic Republic of Iran. An alliance of “moderate” states opposed to Iran and including Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, United Arab Emirates and Israel is seen as the principal adversary and barrier to the hegemonic ambitions of the Iran-led bloc.
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DEBKA

Donald Trump ended his second week as president Friday, Feb. 3, by demonstrating his resolve to cut Iran down to size. This is his main preoccupation in the Middle East to the exclusion of all other Middle East issues.

After Trump personally warned the Islamic Republic that it was “playing with fire,” the US Treasury released a fresh round of anti-Iran sanctions, targeting 13 individuals and 12 entities, some based in the UAE, Lebanon and China. In the next hours, the USS Cole destroyer was posted to the Red Sea’s Bab al Mandeb Straits, after Iran-backed Yemeni Houthi rebels began planting mines in the strategic waterway and oil route chokepoint.
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The US president’s measure has had precisely the result he intended, giving succour to those engaged in an existential war against jihadist elements

By SPENGLER, ASIA TIMES

Critics of President Trump’s temporary travel ban on seven Muslim nations should remember the Chinese proverb, “Kill the chicken and let the monkey watch.”

The much-criticized measure was a warning to the governments of the Gulf States, Turkey and Pakistan, who walk a fine line between support for Western counter-terrorism efforts and concessions to jihadists. It has had precisely the result that the White House intended, as a Dubai security official indicated on January 29. As Reuters’ Zawya.com reported:

Dubai’s deputy chief of police and public security, Lieutenant General Dhahi Khalfan Tamim, has praised US President Donald Trump’s recent decision to temporarily ban citizens from seven Muslim-majority states, saying in a series of tweets it was a ‘preventive measure’ to safeguard the country.
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After Jerusalem District Court dismisses claim of Arabs living in Jewish-owned east Jerusalem home and orders their eviction, Supreme Court overturns ruling and stays eviction • Judge says eviction would cause “irreparable, tremendous harm” to residents.

By Yair Altman, ISRAEL HAYOM

The Supreme Court on Thursday overturned a Jerusalem District Court ruling ordering the eviction of Arabs who live on a Jewish-owned property in the east Jerusalem neighborhood of Beit Hanina.

Last month, Jerusalem District Court Presiding Judge Aharon Farkash ordered that the home be evicted by Feb. 12, but the Arab residents illegally squatting on the property appealed to the Supreme Court.

Supreme Court Justice Yoram Danziger overturned Farkash’s ruling and said that “the home in question is the residents’ only place of residence and an eviction order would effectively mean throwing them out on the street.”

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By Joel Pollack, BREITBART

The mainstream media are abuzz with reports that President Donald Trump has come out against Israeli settlements. The New York Times was exultant: “Trump Embraces Pillars of Obama’s Foreign Policy,” it crowed.

That kind of story serves two propagandist purposes. First, it provides a kind of justification for Obama’s betrayal of Israel at the UN Security Council over settlements last month; second, it nods at the old NeverTrump claim that Trump would never keep his word to conservatives.

There’s just one problem: the story is false.
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By Dr. Robert R. Owens, CFP

Just look at the hysterical reaction to President Trump’s long anticipated executive order to limit the admission of refugees from seven countries.

How do leaders in Muslim countries see it? According to United Arab Emirates Foreign Minister Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed, “The vast majority of Muslims and Muslim countries have not been affected by this ban. This is a temporary ban that will be reviewed within three months. It’s important to take these points into account.”

If it was about religion, why then were not most populous Muslim nations Indonesia, India, Pakistan and Egypt included?
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By Melanie Phillips, JPOST

Why are so many Jews currently getting some crucial things so desperately wrong? President Trump’s immigration order has provoked worldwide hysteria to which Jewish leaders in the US and Britain have unfortunately contributed.

With the exception of the Zionist Organization of America which strongly supported the order, lay and religious US Jewish bodies have denounced it with some comparing it to restrictions on Jewish refugees fleeing Nazism.

In Britain, the Board of Deputies President Jonathan Arkush said it was a “message taken as a gesture of evil intent toward Muslims or people just because of the country they live in.”
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Proposed bill would limit the power of the Supreme Court to order the eviction of entire Jewish communities from their homes.

ARUTZ SHEVA

MK Mickey Zohar introduced in the Knesset an new Basic Law to limit the power of the Supreme Court to order the eviction of entire Jewish communities from their homes as was the case in Amona this week.

Under the bill, titled ‘Basic Law: Standing,’ lawsuits claiming developed land as privately owned could only be brought by the individual or individuals claiming ownership of the land, and not by a third party.

The Basic Laws function as Israel’s constitution.
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For anyone who believes that the US Constitution is not a Sharia-compliant document, the issue of largescale Muslim immigration to the US is a grave problem.

By Martin Sherman

In order to protect Americans, the United States must ensure that those admitted to this country do not bear hostile attitudes toward it and its founding principles.  The United States cannot…admit those who do not support the Constitution, or those who would place violent ideologies over American law…[T]he United States should not admit those who engage in acts of bigotry or hatred (including “honor” killings, other forms of violence against women, or the persecution of those who practice religions different from their own) or those who would oppress Americans of any race, gender, or sexual orientation… -Executive Order, Protecting The Nation From Foreign Terrorist Entry Into The United States,  January 27, 2017.

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Unlike his predecessors, Trump is serious about winning. To do so, he is even willing to take the radical step of accepting Israel as an ally.

BY CAROLINE B. GLICK, JPOST

The PLO is disoriented, panicked and hysterical. Speaking to Newsweek this week, Saeb Erekat, PLO chief Mahmoud Abbas’s chief conduit to Israel and the Americans, complained that since President Donald Trump was sworn into office, no administration official had spoken to them.

“I don’t know any of them [Trump’s advisers]. We have sent them letters, written messages. They don’t even bother to respond to us.”
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By Baruch Gordon, INN

Prime Minister Binyamin “Bibi” Netanyahu is rightfully praised by all as a politician of unmatched skill who artfully engages in political machinations designed to weaken his strongest political competitors both in his own party and rival parties. There are multiple examples of this maneuvering, which I skip over to get to the point. The man is, no doubt, a genius in this realm.

According to the polls, the two politicians who pose the greatest threats to Bibi to replace him as prime minister are Yesh Atid Leader Yair Lapid and Jewish Home Party Leader Naftali Bennett.

Bibi is using Amona to weaken and destroy Bennett.
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BY KENNETH R. TIMMERMAN, THE HILL

In a panic over their unexpected losses in November, Senate Democrats have declared war on Donald Trump.

It’s not just Senate Democratic Leader Charles Schumer’s (N.Y.) pledge to filibuster the new Supreme Court nominee, Neil Gorsuch, before his name was even announced, although that was indicative of a dangerous new tone that I have never witnessed in 30 years of covering Washington politics.

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