I HAVE ALWAYS BELIEVED THAT THIS “BIRTH CERTIFICATE” WAS A CRIMINAL FORGERY.

By Prof. Paul Eidelberg (written in 2006)

Some ten years ago, the left-wing Israel Democracy Institute reported that 62% of Israeli Jews would like to see the government actively encourage Arabs to leave Israel. Professor Arian Asher of the IDI said that this statistic indicates a “general lack of tolerance of Israeli Jews toward Israeli Arabs.” He concluded that “Israeli democracy has not developed a strong sense of egalitarianism and community.”

The IDI findings were deplored even by Avigdor Lieberman’s reputedly right-wing Israel Beiteinu party, a party which advocated revoking the citizenship of Israeli Arabs who do not pledge allegiance to the state. No party actively advocated their immigration.
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T. Belman. I see no need for or good from groups like AIPAC or ADL or J Steet having access. Their policies are to the left of Trump so they will be holding him back rather than urging him forward.

“Jewish power is like a muscle. If you exercise it right you build it up, if you abuse it, you destroy it.”

By Danielle Ziri, JPOST

Through out the last year and a half of a heated presidential campaign in the United States, American Jewish organizations, like much of the general US population, have been divided when it came to their views of the candidates, and particularly of president-elect Donald Trump.

Most recently Jewish organizations clashed over the appointment of former executive chair of Breitbart News, Steve Bannon, as Trump’s chief strategist.
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Brookings Institution survey also asserts growing American support for punitive measures against Israel over settlements, and a plurality backing pressure by Obama on Israel at UN

TOI STAFF

Most Democrats consider Israel to be a burden to the United States, according to the published findings of a poll released by the Brookings Institution on Friday.

The survey found a clear majority of Americans (76%) said Israel was “a strategic asset” to the US, its authors said. At the same time, they said, “a majority of Democrats, 55%, say that Israel is also a burden”; among Republicans, 24% consider Israel a burden. Fifty-two percent of Independents do not consider Israel a burden and 41% think it is.
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And he thinks Netanyahu is a coward. Meet Knesset Member Bezalel Smotrich, who envisions a Greater Israel where the Palestinian Authority doesn’t exist and who believes Reform Jews and LGBT people are living a lie.

By Ravit Hecht, HAARETZ

Bezalel Smotrich, a first-time Knesset member from the Bayit Hayehudi party, already has earned himself a reputation as one of the most brilliant and influential members of the house. He is proud to be the Knesset’s right-wing bellwether, and is perceived as radical even within the national-religious milieu from which he emerged – the settlement movement. In the brief year and a half since he was sworn in, Smotrich has succeeded in guiding the direction of his party (through his leadership of the struggle to prevent the dismantling of the Amona outpost in the West Bank, and to pass the so-called formalization bill), and even that of the government.
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The only thing likely to prevent Obama from harming Israel at the Security Council at this point is a clear message to the UN from the incoming Trump administration.

By Caroline Glick, JPOST

Israel’s coalition crises over the settlements regulation bill is not a normal power struggle between overweening politicians. It is not popularity contest between Finance Minister Moshe Kahlon and his Kulanu Party and Education Minister Naftali Bennett and his Bayit Yehudi Party.

It is also not about contenders for the helm challenging Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s political primacy.

The settlement regulation bill proposes to extend the authority of the Military Government in Judea and Samaria to seize privately owned land. That authority is now limited to seizure for military purposes. The bill would allow the Military Government to seize land for the purpose of private construction as well.
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Anonymous

There are 3,141 counties in the United States.
Trump won 3,084 of them.
Clinton won 57.

There are 62 counties in New York State.
Trump won 46 of them.
Clinton won 16.
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By Center for Security Policy

(Washington, D.C.): Since its founding in 1993, the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) has presented itself publicly as a benign Muslim American “civil rights organization.”  From that time to this, however, the United States government has known that CAIR actually is an entity founded by the Muslim Brotherhood’s Palestinian franchise: Hamas, a group officially designated since 1994 as a terrorist organization.

Evidence of CAIR’s true character as a U.S.-based instrument for political warfare and fundraising for Hamas – and the federal government’s certain knowledge of the truth – did not come to light until the largest terrorism financing trial in the nation’s history: the 2007-2008 Holy Land Foundation prosecution.  In the course of that trial, FBI Agent Laura Burns testified about, and helped explain, the transcripts of wiretap surveillance conducted in the course of two planning sessions leading up to the organizational meeting of CAIR held in Philadelphia in October 1993 and during the meeting itself.  Specifically, she presented proof that CAIR’s mission was to assist “Sister Samah,” its founders’ hardly opaque code-name for Hamas, as the prospect of its terror designation loomed.
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Dan Shapiro says Washington will maintain ‘long-term policy’ of not supporting measures that force an agreement

TOI

US ambassador to Israel, Dan Shapiro, said Thursday that Washington would oppose one-sided initiatives for a peace deal between Israelis and Palestinians, amid fears in Jerusalem that President Barack Obama would make a last-ditch effort for a peace push, possibly at the United Nations, in the last weeks of his administration.

“We will always oppose one-sided initiatives,” Shapiro told Army Radio, adding that this “is a long-term policy. Whenever there were one-sided initiatives, we opposed them in the past and we will always oppose them.”
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T. Belman. Yesterday and today I posted a number of articles that made the point that Jewish Americans must get on the train if they want to avoid irrelevancy. Daniel Gordis argues it is happening. But he continues to believe that Trump is the person that the media have portrayed him to be. He said “I was stupefied that so many American Jews could just ignore what Trump had said about women, people with disabilities, African Americans, war heroes and Gold Star families. Or that they were no longer bothered that the future leader of the United States had refused to say he would accept the outcome if he lost.” Hey Gordis, get over it. He is not the ogre you believe him to be. His actions and future policies will be good for all those groups. American Jews should drop their belief in their own moral superiority and see the world through different lenses.

As numerous American Jews now climb down from the ‘never Trump’ tree they face a test.

By Daniel Gordis, JPOST

It did not take long for the winds to shift. American Jews, prominent and otherwise, who had expressed disdain for Donald Trump and had, ostensibly, shared the widespread revulsion at his many campaign utterances, have decided that it’s time to get on the winning side of history.

In meeting after meeting, email after email, friends and colleagues are telling me that the horrified opposition is not where they plan to situate themselves for the foreseeable future. For American Jews, and for Israel, they say, “We’ve simply got to work with this guy.”
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T. Belman. The author attacks Trump for his appointees for the same reasons that we support them. Regarding Trump’s financial appointees from Goldman Sachs (Mnuchin and Cohn) and Rothschild Inc (Ross), he calls out Trump for being hypocritical for having bashed Wall Street in general and Goldman Sachs in particular during the campaign. And forget not that Bannon is also from Goldman Sachs. I am not troubled by this at all. It is important that the finance appointees be the best and the brightest with considerable experience. I have more confidence in them than I would in appointees from any other place. And I do believe that they will be loyal to Trump’s stated mission.

The U.S. president-elect’s switcheroo of Goldman Sachs from satanic bogeyman to steward of America’s finances ranks in the Guinness book of chutzpah.

By Chemi Shalev, HAARETZ

[..] Like with any president, Trump’s cabinet choices are a reflection of his plans and wishes. Because we are dealing with a chief executive whose true beliefs, insofar as these exist, aren’t quite clear, his choices of cabinet secretaries and White House aides provide clues as to where he’s heading. And so far, Trump’s picks are giving a much starker view of his presidency than might have been expected. On national security and foreign affairs, Trump’s team is hawkish if not belligerent, extremely anti-Muslim and moderately pro-Putin, although Thursday night’s report that Trump had chosen General James Mattis as Secretary of Defense will temper that impression; in the social arena and in the so-called “culture wars,” Trump’s picks are right wing radicals with Tea Party inclinations who want to change the face of America; and in economics and finance, Trump’s choices are about as far away as one can get from the populist anti-Beltway and anti-Wall Street slogans that got him elected in the first place.
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“General Mattis has notably and indisputably distinguished himself in advocating for a more robust US military posture to counter, contain and deter Iran, even at the peril of his military career…

JTA

President-elect Donald Trump said he would nominate as defense secretary Gen. James Mattis, a pick that has already stirred controversy among right-wing pro-Israel groups, with some lamenting the choice and others praising it.

“We are going to appoint ‘Mad Dog’ Mattis as our secretary of defense,” Trump said Thursday at his first post-election rally, in Cincinnati, and using the nickname for the retired Marines general.
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By Sean Durns, Times of Israel

“There can be no higher law in journalism than to tell the truth, and to shame the devil,” U.S. commentator Walter Lippman once said. How then, did the U.S. media cover a man responsible for some of the most evil and heinous acts in recorded history: Adolf Hitler?

Press coverage of the German dictator defies a simple and neat summary, as the U.S. media was not, and has never been, a monolithic entity and coverage of Hitler naturally changed over time. Nonetheless, some patterns can be discerned from a cursory glance at the early years of Nazi rule.

Upon Hitler’s ascension to power in 1933, some U.S. news outlets did not see a devil, but rather, much needed stability being brought to a country that had been in economic and social upheaval since before the Great War.
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Ambassador (ret.) Yoram Ettinger, “Second Thought: US-Israel Initiative”

1. According to a Bloomberg study: “An examination of foreign capital flow into Israel shows a near tripling from 2005 when the so-called BDS was started…. Israel’s economy is expected to grow 2.8% in 2016, compared with 1.8% for the US and the EU.  In 2015, Israel’s industrial high-tech exports rose 13%, from 2014, to $23.7BN…. Israeli startups raised $3.76BN last year from non-Israeli investors, the highest annual amount in a decade…. Foreign investors spent an additional $5.89BN acquiring Israeli start-ups, including a Chinese $510MN purchase of Israel’s Lumenis, followed by a US private equity firm’s $438MN buyout of ClickSoftware Technologies….”
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By MARTIN SHERMAN

Last week’s fires did little to illuminate much of the unknown still shrouding another conflagration that flared up, almost a year and a half ago. 

I feel a sense of shame, and even more, a sense of pain…at the murder of a small baby. Pain that from my people, there are those who have chosen the path of terrorism, and have lost their humanity…To my great sorrow, until now it seems we have been lax in our treatment of the phenomena of Jewish terrorism…

– Reuven Rivlin, President of Israel, August 1, 2015, the day after the lethal arson in Duma, perpetrated by persons, whose identity and ethnicity have yet to be determined. 

Last week, fires raged across Israel, some close enough to my home for me to smell the smoke. According to official sources, a good number of the fires were the result of deliberate arson, which, fortunately, seemed to have caused no fatalities—although this could hardly be presumed to have been the perpetrators intent.
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By Alex Markovsky, RED STATE

How did this political apprentice blindside the country and deliver what Bill O’Reilly described as “the greatest political upset the planet has ever seen”?

In order to understand Donald Trump, the pundits and his political opponents read and re-read his dazzling book, The Art of the Deal, looking for the secrets of Trump’s successes in business, his ambitions and moral flaws. This was the folly, which led them to a critical misconception about Donald Trump.

Instead of reading The Art of the Deal by Donald Trump they should have read The Art of War by Sun Tzu, a Chinese warrior-philosopher who wrote it two thousand years ago. Sun Tzu taught that the central importance in war is deception. “Even though you are competent, appear incompetent. Though effective, appear ineffective. One with great skill appears inept.” “Wear them down by fight, foster disharmony, use their anger and pride against them,” advised Sun Tzu. We all remember the midnight tweets, “Lying Ted,” “Low Energy” and “Crooked Hillary.”
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By Victor Davis Hanson//National Review

The broken record of racism/sexism/homophobia plays on and on and on.

After the Democratic equality-of-opportunity agenda was largely realized (Social Security, Medicare, overtime, a 40-hour work week, disability insurance, civil rights, etc.), the next-generation equality-of-result effort has largely failed.

What is left of Democratic ideology is identity politics and assorted dead-end green movements as conservation has become radical environmentalism and fairness under the law is now unapologetic redistributionism. The 2016 campaign and the frenzied reaction to the result are reminders that the Left is no longer serious about formulating and advancing a practical agenda. In sum, for now it is reduced to a party of teeth-gnashers.
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T. Belman. Beinart gets it right except along the way he makes reference to the “naked embrace of anti-Muslim bigotry” by Trump and the ZOA. He makes no allowance for the fact that their anti Muslim stance is not motivated by bigotry but by self defense of both their culture and our lives. Any Muslim who loves us and our values is welcome in Trump’s America. But the left, who believe in the equality of all cultures, will have none of that.

Besides, 80% of Muslims harbour antisemitic feelings according to all surveys. Why should we allow them into our midst.

Crushed between rising extremes, the establishment’s wish to stay liberal but support Netanyahu is no longer sustainable.

By Peter Beinart, HAARETZ  | Nov. 30, 2016

To understand what American Jewish politics will look like in the age of Donald Trump, look closely at what happened at New York’s Grand Hyatt Hotel on the evening of Sunday, November 20. Inside the hotel, the Zionist Organization of America held its annual gala. Never heard of the ZOA? You’re not alone. For decades, it has been overshadowed by its larger and more moderate “Pro-Israel” rival, AIPAC. But in the Trump era, ZOA’s influence is set to grow for three reasons.
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Insisting that Trump’s campaign manager isn’t an anti-Semite, Aaron Klein claims that women, gays and immigrants will benefit from a Donald Trump presidency.

By Dafna Maor, HAARETZ

Aaron Klein, Donald Trump and Steve Bannon. Eyal Toueg; Mandel Ngan / AFP; Evan Vucci / AP

Aaron Klein, Israeli bureau chief for Breitbart News – the mouthpiece of the so-called alt-right movement and the media outlet most closely identified with President-elect Donald Trump – seems troubled by the idea that, now that Trump has won, he’s part of the establishment.
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T. Belman. During his campaign, Trump went so far as to say that he would defeat both Islamic radicals and the Islamic ideology He also said he would label the Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist organization. But did he mean it? So far, his picks, Gen Flynn, KT McFarland and Gen. Mattis suggest he meant it. But, not only have we heard nothing more about banning the MB and cleansing the government of its members, he appointed Betsy Devos as Secretary of Education. She is a supporter of Common Core which whitewashes Islam and she funded ANTI-ISRAEL, Pro-Muslim curriculum in America’s Public Schools. She also supports extremist Muslims who aid and abet Islamic terrorist groups, bring terrorism-supporting Muslim illegal aliens into the United States, and boycott Israel. This according to Debbie Schlussel.

So is he going to kick them out of the country or is he going to embrace them.

A parliamentary inquiry into the group played down the group’s radical ideology and activities.

By Con Coughlin, WSJ Nov. 30, 2016

Ever since Britain joined the Obama administration in 2011 to demand the removal of Hosni Mubarak, the British government has faced a difficult dilemma about how to handle the Muslim Brotherhood, the party that took over following the Egyptian president’s downfall.

Moderate, pro-Western Arab states, including Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, have long regarded the Muslim Brotherhood as a radical Islamist organization. Under pressure to ban the movement, David Cameron, Britain’s prime minister at the time, in 2014 authorized a government inquiry into Muslim Brotherhood activities.
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