T. Belman. I re-titled this article because that’s the way I see the “carrots and sticks” plan. What ever happened to Bibi’s reciprocity demands? The fact that we haven’t conditioned this plan on a quid pro quo tells us all we need to know. The government has no intention of claiming sovereignty of these lands, in whole or in part, now or in the future.

The Defense Minister’s Plan: One Hand Gives, the Other Topples

INSS Insight No. 849, August 25, 2016

By Kobi Michael , Udi Dekel Kobi MichaelUdi Dekel, INSS

On August 17, 2016, Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman unveiled his “carrot and stick” plan as a response to the wave of terrorism in the West Bank. The plan rests on four pillars: (a) a distinction between the population involved and the population not involved in terrorism; (b) positive reinforcement for the latter population through infrastructure and economic development and a generous attitude to work permits in Israel; (c) sanctions and restrictions in areas from which terrorists set out and where violent incidents occur; and (d) an appeal to the Palestinian public in the West Bank, which bypasses the Palestinian Authority instead of using the existing coordination channels. This latter element constitutes a direct challenge to the PA and its leadership. However, it is best for the Israeli government to develop the other components of the “carrot and stick” plan in order to leverage its economic and infrastructure logic, and translate it into a plan of action likely to lead to a positive change, including in the social sphere in the Palestinian arena.
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Donald Trump Closes in on Hillary Clinton in Wake of Campaign Shift

By Matthew Boyle, , BREITBART

New York — In the wake of a series of campaign shuffles—and bold moves—by 2016 GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump, the race for the White House has narrowed in a series of just-published recent polling.

What the media had declared an insurmountable lead for Democratic nominee Hillary Rodham Clinton in the dog days of summer has nearly vanished as Trump surges back into contention.

A new Economist/YouGov poll out on Wednesday has Trump back within three points of Clinton, which is essentially a tie because it’s inside the survey’s 4.1 percent margin of error. That poll, conducted with 1,300 general population respondents—from whom registered voters were culled—from Aug. 19 to Aug. 23, found Trump at 44 percent and Clinton at 47 percent in a two-way race. In the four-way race adding Green Party candidate Jill Stein and Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson, Clinton’s four-point lead over Trump is still inside the margin of error. The four-way race found Clinton at 42 percent, Trump at 38 percent, Johnson at six percent, and Stein at four percent.

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By Ben Caspit, AL MONITOR

The most recent chapter in a series of meetings that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been holding with journalists and other media representatives in Israel took place Aug. 23. His audience consisted of ultra-Orthodox journalists, representatives of a vibrant press that serves more than a million people. The briefing lasted 5½ hours, with a “cigar break” in the middle. Netanyahu may have the most challenging job in the world, but he acted as if he had all the time in the world.

The prime minister has held a number of meetings like this one over the past few weeks, with journalists from Israeli public radio, Army Radio, the editorial boards of Haaretz and Channel 2 and right-wing and independent-leaning journalists. There may be more to come. He has held dozens of hours of these “briefings,” in which he delivers a spiel to his audience, and it has been more amazing than ever.
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T. Belman. I will be posting each of the Parts at the rate of one a day. These articles written by VIPs and renowned scholars devastate Islam more comprehensively than anything in print. It is intended that this series come to the attention of Trump’s committee to Study Islamic Terrorism, when formed.

By  Prof. Paul Eidelberg, President, Israel-America Renaissance Institute, Jerusalem and Philadelphia

CONTENTS
Part I. Introduction
Part II. Identifying the Enemy
Part III. A Former Muslim Shows How to Combat the Enemy
Part IV. An Insider’s View of ‘Moderate’ Muslims
Part V. Beyond Multicultural Relativism
Part VI. The Theological Basis of Today’s Crisis
Part VII. Islamophobia: Facts and Fictions
Part VIII. Islamic Bellicosity and Blood Lust
Part IX. Blood Lust (cont’d)
Part X. Iran and Necrophelia
Part XI. Islamic Imperialism
Part XII. Islam: A Cult of Hatred, Especially of Jews
Part I. Introduction
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By Karen McQuillan, AMERICAN THINKER

See Also: Turkey — preventing Kurdish independence at all costs

The Kurdish takeover in Manbij and their stated intention to further encroach on ISIS territory raised the stakes for Ankara, which understood that if it doesn’t act now it may find a new Kurdish entity on its border.

By Zvi Bar’el, HAARETZ  Aug 24, 2016

A Turkish army tank and an armored vehicle are stationed near the border with Syria, Karkamis, Turkey, August 23, 2016.

“We will cleanse the area of all the terrorists,” declared Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yildirim on the eve of  the Turkish invasion of Syrian territory near the city of Jarablus. But the Turkish definition of terrorists does not relates solely to Islamic State operatives or Al-Qaida; it also includes, perhaps primarily, the Kurdish rebels in Syrian territory that are considered a threat to Turkey.
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A Syrian rebel said the fighters were waiting for the signal to enter Jarablus and a second rebel said around 1,500 fighters were now gathered at a location in Turkey.

REUTERS

– Turkish special forces, tanks and jets backed by planes from the US-led coalition launched their first coordinated offensive into Syria on Wednesday to try to drive Islamic State from the border and prevent further gains by Kurdish militia fighters.

Turkish tank units and Syrian rebels backed by the NATO member crossed into northern Syria to push Islamic State out of the border town of Jarablus, military sources said. A Reuters reporter at the border counted six Turkish tanks inside Syria and witnessed intense bombardments.
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T. Belman. The title and the article is from the Russian perspective.

Russia Insider

On Monday, August 22nd, the United States government — which demands the overthrow of the internationally-recognized-as-legal government of Syria — officially announced that America’s military forces in Syria will continue to occupy Syrian land, no matter what the Syrian government says, and will shoot down any Syrian planes that fly over U.S. forces there and that attack them.

As reported on Monday by Al-Masdar News:

The Pentagon has announced that the USA is ready to down  Syrian and Russian planes that they claim threaten American advisers who by international law are illegally operating in northern Syria.

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This is the only border area Islamic State still shares with Turkey, and Turkey has wanted a buffer zone as well as a no-fly zone there since last year.

By Seth Frantzman, JPOST

Early Wednesday morning, Turkish special forces – under the command of Lt.-Gen. Zekai Aksakalli – entered Syria to conduct operations against Islamic State. According to local reports, they arrived soon after T-155 self-propelled howitzers had hit 63 targets around the Syrian town of Jarabulus.

The Euphrates Shield operation began from Karkamis, a small border town in a region that has seen numerous crossborder incidents in the last year, including rockets and mortars fired by Islamic State across the border. Turkish media reported that a rocket fired by the terrorist organization hit Karkamis on Tuesday and the town was evacuated.
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See also: State Department blasts Hevron construction

By Jeff Dunjitz, THE LID

President Obama, Europe and much of the world claim that the Holy Land city of Hevron (Hebron) is occupied territory and they are correct (but not the way they think). Hevron is a Jewish city occupied by the Arabs.

Hevron’s occupation began on a Friday evening in August 87 years ago when a group of Arab terrorists massacred the Jews of the city while the British who ruled over the Holy Land knew what was happening but didn’t lift a finger to prevent the carnage
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By Paul Eidelberg, President, Israel-America Renaissance Institute

To have moderate Muslims [says Kasem], there must be moderate Islam….For the existence of moderate Muslims, there must be a ‘moderate’ Qur’an, since the life force of Islam is the Qur’an. If the Qur’an cannot be ‘moderated’ (i.e., a moderate Qur’an) then how is it possible to have a moderate Islam, and consequently moderate Muslims? What we perceive as the so-called moderate Muslims may be classified into three groups:

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Conflating security and defense costs with assistance to settlements distorts reality and masks more serious economic problems.

By Moshe Dann, JPOST

Opponents of the Jewish communbities in Judea and Samaria (“settlements”) charge that they drain our economy, diverting funds that should be spent within the 1949 Armistice (“Green”) Lines. They accuse the government of giving settlers unwarranted discounts and subsidies in the form of building schools and clinics, infrastructure, such as roads, and providing security.

But is this true? Adding up all government allocations over the Green Line, they include building the separation fence/wall (NIS 18 billion), the 2005 withdrawal from the Gaza Strip (NIS 15b.), the development of the Iron Dome rocket defense system and added protection for communities near Gaza. None of this was done to help settlers. Jews were encouraged and assisted by the government to build communities in the Gaza Strip and northern Samaria; they cannot be faulted for what happened.
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T. Belman. Kahlon, the minister of finance said, “The banks, the contractors, and extremely strong interest groups share a great concern about a change in the housing prices trend.” I reject the suggestion by Horowitz that the government keeps the prices high to encourage people to live in J&S.

Op-ed: Tackling rocketing house prices with new taxes and various harebrained schemes, the government seems to be ignoring the obvious solution: free up more land. Or has the goal all along been to encourage people to move to settlements?

By David Horowitz, TOI

Israel’s housing market has become completely insane. Israelis simply cannot afford to buy their own homes, and rental prices are soaring to lunatic heights too. In some areas of Tel Aviv, prices of homes have doubled in the past two-three years alone. A reasonably well-lit, 60-square-meter (645 square-foot), two-bedroom apartment in a fairly central Jerusalem neighborhood will cost you half a million dollars, if you’re lucky. A little more in Tel Aviv. These are prices that, when contemplated from the vantage point of an Israeli family with two breadwinners bringing in an about average combined salary of 20,000 shekels a month (a little more than $5,000), dispatch home ownership into the realm of science fiction. A Globes survey found that it takes 191 average Israeli salaries to buy a five-room apartment, compared to an OECD average of 96. And that was in 2012.
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By Christine Williams, JIHAD WATCH

“The Daily Mail and the New York Post continue to build on the damning case against Hillary Clinton’s top aide Huma Abedin that the mainstream media continues to ignore.”

It is bizarre that Muslim anti-Americanism could have infiltrated at the highest levels, bringing with it acceptance of opposition to patriotism and to the Western principle of equality for women. But that is exactly what has happened, due to the stealth jihadis’ alliance with leftists. Westerners tolerate mind-boggling propaganda and statements that would be not tolerated if spoken against Muslims or, in fact, any other minority group (except, unfortunately, Jews).
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By Sarah N. Stern, AMERICAN THINKER

The media and much of the Republican establishment have caught on to only part of a story about a shady deal that the Obama administration made with the Islamic Republic of Iran, a deal that took a rather labyrinthine and bizarre form. What they are talking about is bad enough, which involves paying a ransom for hostages, opening up Americans to kidnappings and imprisonment whenever they travel abroad.

The part of the story that they are missing, however, is that what the administration did was highly illegal, according to statutes we still have on our books.

On August 3rd, a story broke that an unmarked cargo plane loaded with $400 million in foreign currency landed in Tehran as part of a United States payment to Iran. Coincidentally this happened the very same day that three American hostages were released.
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By Jack Hellner, AMERICAN THINKER

There are pundits out in the media world who act as if the race is over and that this August lead by Hillary is almost impossible to overcome. That seems to be greatly exaggerated.

The current Real Clear Politics average has Hillary’s average lead at only 5.5%

On July 26, 1988, Dukakis was up 18%.

Bush won the general election by almost 9% and won around 80% of the electoral vote.
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By Moshe Feiglin, JEWISH LEADERSHIP

The two people more responsible than anyone else for the fact that the Nation of Israel cannot sleep soundly at night are Former PM Ehud Barak and PM Binyamin Netanyahu. They really do not have to leak secret information about each other, as they did last week, for us to understand that. Both of them are the greatest security catastrophe that Israel has ever known.

When Ehud Barak was prime minister, he caved in to (former radio broadcaster and current Labor party MK) Shelly Yechimovitz and The Four Mothers movement. The Four Mothers was a leftist movement that advocated complete retreat from Lebanon, where Israeli forces were on constant alert to keep terrorists and missiles away from Israel’s borders. Yechimovitz used her popular talk show at Israel’ public service radio to push the Four Mothers’ agenda on a daily basis. In a populist move, Ehud Barak ordered the IDF to flee the security strip it had been maintaining in southern Lebanon, abandoning Israel’s allies there to the ‘mercy’ of the Hizballah and leaving valuable military equipment to be scooped up by the terrorists.
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Ted Belman. INSS is a left wing think tank associated with left wing Tel Aviv U and the military.

In the summary he writes “The Israeli government should therefore make a concerted effort in the existing circumstances to reach understandings with the Obama administration on questions involving the peace process and the settlements. This would likely assist Netanyahu’s efforts to persuade the American administration to block movement toward a UN Security Council resolution on the Israeli-Palestinian political process”.

This is bizaar. Better to be have to deal with such a UNSC resolution, if it happens, than to cut a deal with Obama that will be more binding and little different from the resolution.

A UNSC resolution will be a Chapter VI resolution and therefore not binding. I can’t imagine a Chap VII resolution , which is binding, being passed while Obama is still President. Ultimately if such a resolution is passed, it could mandate sanctions or military force. Both such actions have to be done by member countries. The US Congress would never agree to either. The way I see it, no one would.

Can the UN legally impose a solution on Israel?

SUMMARY
The Obama administration nears the end of its tenure frustrated by its failure to advance the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, and it appears that by the end of its term, it seeks to have laid the groundwork for a new framework regarding the process. The Israeli government should therefore make a concerted effort in the existing circumstances to reach understandings with the Obama administration on questions involving the peace process and the settlements. This would likely assist Netanyahu’s efforts to persuade the American administration to block movement toward a UN Security Council resolution on the Israeli-Palestinian political process. Indeed, the Israeli government must understand the far-reaching consequences that can result from a new Security Council resolution, which would create a new political-strategic situation that is almost certainly irreversible and very troublesome for Israel.

By Zaki Shalom, INSS
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By Prof Paul Eidelberg, President, Israel-America Renaissance Institute

[Note from the present author: While researching this essay, I discovered, in the January 7, 2008 issue of FrontPageMagazine.com (FP), a most courageous and candid interview of a former Muslim, Dr. Abul Kasem. Born and educated in Bangladesh, Kasem had authored hundreds of articles and several books exposing Islam. For example, he contributed to Leaving Islam: Apostates Speak Out, and Beyond Jihad: Critical Views From Inside Islam. Kasem was interviewed FP’s Managing Editor, Dr. Jamie Glazer, a Ph.D.in history who coauthored (with David Horowitz) The Hate America Left (in which Horowitz reveals the “unholy alliance” between the Left, steeped in atheism, and Islam). Without further ado, let’s go directly to FP’s opening query of Dr. Kesem.]

FP: Tell us a bit about your spiritual and intellectual journey.
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Nobody. Or at least not all of it. Grasp that and you can see a clear strategy for the West.
By Jonathan Spyer, ME FORUM

The long civil war in Syria is still far from conclusion. Any real possibility of rebel victory ended with the entry of Russian forces last autumn — but while the initiative is now with the Assad regime, the government’s forces are also far from a decisive breakthrough. So who, if anyone, should the UK be backing in the Syrian slaughterhouse, and what might constitute progress in this broken and burning land?
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