T. Belman. How plain is that. Israel can’t depend on Russia for anything. Trump is certainly signalling a desire to cooperate with Russia rather than to clash with Russia. This will require agreement on spheres of interest. If the goal of Trump’s outreach is to limit Russia’s designs on Syria, then Israel will benefit. The US and Israel will strengthen each other.

Officials in Moscow did not immediately respond to requests for comment on Russia’s relations with Israel.

REUTERS

Israel should be concerned about the deepening disconnect between Russia’s aims in the Middle East and its own goals, according to a senior Israeli official who held high-level meetings in Moscow last week.

Avi Dichter, chairman of Israel’s foreign affairs and defense committee and the former head of the Shin Bet intelligence agency, said Russia’s views on Iran, Syria’s Bashar al-Assad and the Lebanese militia Hezbollah were in sharp contrast to Israel’s and a growing source of potential conflict.
Read more…

T. Belman. The good news is that Russia joins South Africa, Burundi and Gambia in leaving the court this year..

Kenya, Namibia and Uganda have also indicated they are considering pulling out of the Rome Statute. Both Russia and China have blocked UN moves to refer war crimes in Syria to the ICC for investigation. The US is also under investigation for alleged war crimes in Afghanistan.

Prosecutor says Gaza is occupied and east Jerusalem illegally annexed.

By Yonah Jeremy Bob, JPOST

The recent International Criminal Court Prosecutor’s Office visit to Israel and the West Bank was viewed as a success by the Israeli side, but the optimism may be premature.

On Monday, the ICC Prosecutor’s Office released its annual report, including its second preliminary report on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict regarding alleged war crimes committed by Israelis and Palestinians since June 2014, focused again on Operation Protective Edge in July-August 2014.
Read more…

By Evelyn Gordon, COMMENTARY

If you want to understand why no rational person should take the United Nations seriously, consider the following three facts: Last week, the World Health Organization, a UN agency, named Israel the first country in the world to be awarded its highest ranking for medical emergency response teams deployed overseas. In other words, the organization deemed the Israel Defense Forces its first responder of choice for any disaster worldwide. Two weeks ago, the daily Israel Hayom reported that the UN’s peacekeeping service asked Israel to train its peacekeepers in emergency field medicine; the seminar is expected to take place in the coming weeks. And every year, this same UN labels Israel the world’s worst violator of health rights, the only country deserving of a country-specific condemnation.
Read more…

By Nadav Shragai, ISRAEL HAYOM

[..]
Attorney General Avichai Mendelblit has warned that the bill, should it pass, would be struck down by the High Court of Justice. Mendelblit, who is anything but hostile toward the pioneers of Judea and Samaria, is an expert on international law. When someone like Mendelblit says that the outpost regulation bill is unconstitutional and violates international law, we must take him at his word. The only way this bill can become a reality is if it includes a provision that applies Israeli law to Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria and to Palestinian villages under full Israeli control (villages that make up Area C under the Oslo Accords). The Knesset annexed east Jerusalem and the Golan Heights, but it never passed legislation to apply Israeli laws beyond those areas.
Read more…

Controversial bid to legalize West Bank outposts, deemed indefensible by attorney general, passes preliminary reading 58-50 after gaining full coalition support in last-minute deal

BY RAOUL WOOTLIFF AND MARISSA NEWMAN, TOI

Israeli children play outside their home in the wildcat Amona settlement, West Bank, on September 7, 2016.

In a heated plenary session Wednesday afternoon, the Knesset passed a preliminary reading of a controversial bill legalizing West Bank outposts, with the coalition mustering full support of all its parties thanks to a last-minute deal, despite initial opposition to the move. Opposition legislators said the bill would legalize “daylight robbery” of private Palestinian land.

The so-called Regulation Bill, designed to avert to the court-ordered demolition of the West Bank outpost of Amona by December 25, passed by 58-50 days after it won the backing of coalition ministers, despite efforts by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to delay the vote and repeated statements from Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit that the legislation runs contrary to international law and would be indefensible in the High Court of Justice.
Read more…

T. Belman. Clare Lopez and I have corresponded over the last half dozen years. She has been an ardent reader of Israpundit Daily Digest all this time. She is also an ardent fighter against the Jihadist ideology and all those who support it including the Muslim Brotherhood. The mainstream media have universally come out against her, identifying her as anti-Muslim and a conspiracy theorist, none of which she is. She is exactly what the doctor ordered. Hopefully Trump will give her the nod. If he does, then that means Trump is naming the enemy as the Jihadist ideology. Let’s hope.

Look at the sub title to this article right below. Can you imagine that Lopez had the temerity to accuse Huma Abedin of supporting the Muslim Brotherhood. My God.

Clare Lopez once accused Clinton aide Huma Abedin of supporting the Muslim Brotherhood

By Gabriel Samuels, THE INDEPENDANT

Donald Trump is reportedly considering appointing as his deputy security advisor the vice-president of a think-tank that has said Muslims are infiltrating the American government.

Clare Lopez, who works for the Center for Security Policy in Washington and is a former CIA operative, has reportedly been shortlisted by Mr Trump’s advisors as an option for the role.
Read more…

The media were working for the Democrats.

By Conrad Black, NATIONAL REVIEW

There is little more to be said about the election result. Though my preference was known to readers and has been favored by the voters, I am disconcerted by the divisions that have arisen among former allies, especially between thoughtful conservatives. I always feared that the arrival of neoconservatives en masse in the Republican party in the Carter years, while it made the Reagan Republicans the party of ideas, did not really influence many voters. I thought that my friends Norman Podhoretz and Irving Kristol and others had scored a free goal with the generally uncontested assertion that they had moved a good many voters indirectly.
Read more…

By Rush Limbaugh

by Jeff Dunetz, THE KID

With the appointment of Steve Bannon to a senior position in the Trump administration, the media talons came out. The man is a white supremacist and an anti-Semite said the critics. Always looking for a good story I set out to do some research, but there was nothing, no anti-Semitic incidents, no racist or white supremacist incidents.

Apparently the claims of Antisemitism came from the mouth of his ex-wife during a very contentious divorce. According to that ex-wife they were looking for schools to send their daughters, when they checked out the Archer School for Girls:
Read more…

By Yishai Fliesher, ALGEMEINER

Op·por·tu·ni·ty: a set of circumstances that make it possible to do something.

Trump·or·tu·ni·ty: A set of circumstances created by the improbable victory of Donald Trump, which make it possible to achieve progress on many issues in the US and the world, especially relating to Israel and the Middle East.

Just as the world seemed to be progressing towards a post-national, post-family, post-God globalism, three stunning upsets proved that there was a rebellion afoot against those values.
Read more…

By Ted Belman

Lord knows, Trump has many enemies sworn to bring his downfall. He needs all the help he can muster.

Why not cut a deal with the master of the deal, whereby Israel foregoes the aid in exchange for the approval of our right to massively build in Judea and Samaria.

In Israel’s Trump Card, Gil Weinreich writes,

“What Israel needs most of all today is to take a page from your playbook and increase domestic building – it’s hard for average Israeli wage earners to afford housing, something that can be greatly relieved through development of inland towns and cities in Judea and Samaria. Externally, we need reliable allies based on shared interests. Together, let us turn a new page in our relationship based on our shared values and shared interests rather than shared resources, though we will never forget that America – alone among the nations of the world — was there for us when we most needed her.”

Read more…

“Instead of slanders, Jews should offer up prayers of Thanksgiving.”
BY DAVID P. GOLDMAN , PJ MEDIA

The hysteria in the Establishment is astonishing: today’s email blast from the usually staid Financial Times begins, “Donald Trump has chosen Reince Priebus, the establishment head of the Republican National Committee, as his chief of staff, while naming Steve Bannon — his campaign chair who ran Breitbart News, a website associated with the alt-right and white supremacists — as his chief strategist and counsellor.”

To claim that Breitbart is associated with white supremacists is a despicable lie, but the FT feels compelled to say such things because polite opinion requires ritual anathemas of Trump. And the liberal Jewish website The Forward writes, “The reaction was quick and furious from Jews and anti-hate groups. The Anti-Defamation League, which stays out of partisan politics and vowed to seek to work with Trump after his election, denounced Bannon as ‘hostile to American values.'” The Forward headline asks, “Will Steve Bannon bring anti-Semitism into Trump’s inner circle?”
Read more…

T. Belman. The Left is doing its utmost to smear Bannon as an antisemite. This article from the Jewish Journal struggles to make the case but in my opinion fails miserably. The case relies upon anonymous accusations which prove nothing.  It talks of five things you have to know. but as you read each of the five things there is no evidence of antisemitism except potentially his alleged remarks regarding Jews when choosing a middle school for his girls. Come now, is that the best you got.

ADL CEO Jonathan Greenblatt called him “hostile to core American values.” the article says. Greenblatt I am sure assumes that American values are his values and that anyone who reject these values is unAmerican. The election of Donald Trump who espoused contrary values proves otherwise. The values of the left have been rejected as American values.

Finally the author refers to Breitbart as “a site steeped in conspiracy theories that has featured the white supremacist, anti-Semitic ideologies of the so-called alt-right.”, without giving proof thereof.

By Ben Sales, JTA

On Sunday, President-elect Donald Trump appointed Stephen Bannon to be his chief strategist. Before joining Trump’s campaign, Bannon was the chairman of Breitbart News, a site steeped in conspiracy theories that has featured the white supremacist, anti-Semitic ideologies of the so-called alt-right. Bannon has also been accused of making anti-Semitic remarks himself.
Read more…

By Ted Belman

On Nov 13/16 HAARETZ reported, “Hate Crimes Skyrocket After Trump’s Win. In the few days since Trump’s been elected, there have been more reports of hate crimes than in the past six months combined.”  That may well be so but what caught my attention was the language used to attack Trump in order to blame him.

“Trump “has emboldened people who have very demeaning ideas about a lot of segments of our population. By being xenophobic, and racist, he has vindicated people who hold those beliefs. A lot of these incidents are pro-Trump people telling people of color,’ you don’t belong here, get out.’”

Read more…

By Robert Knight, THE WASHINGTON TIMES

It looks like Hillary Clinton will finish with slightly more popular votes than President-elect Donald Trump, who won a clear majority of Electoral votes last Tuesday.

Predictably, Democrats are clamoring to abolish the Electoral College, which the Founders created as part of the separation of powers and a hedge against mob rule.
Read more…

UK, France, Hungary are no-shows as continent’s foreign ministers gather to consider ramifications of US election

By Danny Kemp, TOI

BRUSSELS, Belgium (AFP) – European Union foreign ministers insisted on Sunday they expected good relations with Donald Trump, after a crisis meeting that Britain, France and Hungary snubbed in a move that exposed rifts over the US president-elect.

The ministers said they wanted more details about Republican Trump’s plans following his shock election win, which has sparked anxiety in Europe due to his campaign-trail rhetoric questioning US commitment to the continent.
Read more…

DEBKA

Half a dozen long convoys of trucks carrying US arms, hurriedly put together by US military headquarters in Baghdad, have crossed the border in the last three days on their way to the Syrian Kurdish PYD-YPG militia, DEBKAfile military and intelligence sources report exclusively Monday, Nov. 14. The deliveries were expressly ordered by President Barack Obama in a radical turnaround from his five-year refusal to supply Kurdish fighters with American weaponry, least of all anti-air and anti-tank missiles.
Read more…

By Lahav Harkov, JPOST

Ministers from Likud party rebelled against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday night by voting in favor of a bill to authorize illegal homes in West Bank settlements and outposts.

After a day of political drama, the Ministerial Committee for Legislation moved the bill forward to the Knesset, so it could be voted on in time to save the Amona outpost, which the High Court of Justice has ordered demolished by December 25.
Read more…

T. Belman. So much for AIPAC and Hillel.

by Lea Speyer and Rachel Frommer, ALGEMEINER

A program slated for Monday, featuring a lecture by renowned American-Israeli writer Caroline Glick — author, most recently, of The Israeli Solution: A One-State Plan for Peace in the Middle East — has lost the sponsorship of Jewish and pro-Israel student groups at the University of Texas at Austin fearful about how her message might anger anti-Zionists on campus, The Algemeiner has learned.

“Some people are concerned Glick may not be the best representative for what we are trying to accomplish — that is, promoting our message and advocating for Israel,” Eliav Turk, who sits on the board of both Texans for Israel and AIPAC on Campus, told The Algemeiner. “There are fears she may alienate student groups and minorities we are trying to attract, which have traditionally taken a non pro-Israel stance.”
Read more…