T. Belman. It could have been worse and maybe will be by the time their convention is over. I am pleased that they reaffirmed direct negotiations and came out against BDS. I note that they only affirmed “a two state solution” rather than “the two state solution”.

Now we will wait to see how far they will deviate from this.

By Michael Wilner, JPOST

The Democratic Platform Committee has published its first draft of language on party policy for the Middle East for 2016.

The language, first obtained by The Jerusalem Post earlier last week, was negotiated and affirmed at a meeting of the committee in St. Louis last weekend.

“A strong and secure Israel is vital to the United States because we share overarching strategic interests and the common values of democracy, equality, tolerance and pluralism,” the platform draft reads.
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DEBKA

DEBKAfile’s military sources say there are six reasons why Russia has shifted is reliance in Syria and the Middle East on helicopters rather than on bombers and fighter planes.

1. To adapt is aerial assets to expanded military cooperation with the US air force in Syrian air space. It is possible that we will soon see US and Russian helicopters attacking Syrian terror targets together, especially ISIS. Russian helicopters may even be deployed in support of US special operations forces in this arena.
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T. Belman. I don’t see the tweet as antisemitic. What is suggested is far too subtle to me.

Presumptive Republican presidential nominee’s son-in-law comes under fire by writer for New York newspaper he owns.

JTA, JPOST

Donald Trump’s Jewish son-in-law has been called out by a writer for the New York Observer, a newspaper he owns, for allowing perceived anti-Semitic messaging to be used in his father-in-law’s presidential campaign.

Observer entertainment writer Dana Schwartz published “An Open Letter to Jared Kushner, From One of Your Jewish Employees” on the paper’s website on Tuesday.

Schwartz’s piece was a response to a tweet from Trump’s official Twitter account on Saturday that juxtaposed a picture of Hillary Clinton with a six-pointed star reminiscent of a Star of David over a background of dollar bills. Trump deleted the image, but many found the image to be the latest in a series of messages from his campaign with anti-Semitic undertones.
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JTA. JPOST

A policy adviser to Donald Trump told CNN that the Republican party might be due to assert more support for Israeli settlements, and possibly reject all together the idea of a two-state solution, which has long been a pillar of both Democratic and Republican policy in the region.

David Friedman, a real estate lawyer and bankruptcy expert who Trump has described as one of his advisors on Israel, staked out a position further to the right of the current Republican Party platform ahead of its nominating convention later this month.
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T. Belman. Subsequent to this article the State Department on hearing on Israel’s plan to build a few hundred homes in Jerusalem and Maaleh Adumin, criticized Israel with these words.“If it’s true, this report would be the latest step in what seems to be a systematic process of land seizures, settlement expansions, and legalizations of outposts that is fundamentally undermining the prospects for a two-state solution,”. Nowhere did they claim any Israel actions were illegal no illegitimate. They were just an obstacle to achieving a two State Solution. But Israel has the right to reject a TSS especially one based on the ’67 lines.

BY LUKE BAKER, REUTERS

Ahead of the release last week of a report on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict by the Quartet of Middle East mediators, the word from diplomats was that it would be hard-hitting, especially on Israel and its settlement building.

The United States, the European Union and the United Nations were fed up with Israel’s consistent violation of international law, which views all settlements on occupied land as illegal, diplomats said. While Russia, the fourth Quartet member, might be more restrained, Israel was set for a serious ticking off.
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T. Belman. Africa is experiencing a population boom. It’s population now exceeds 1.2 billion. It contains 54 countries all of whom vote in the UN.

As Bibi says, “Israel is returning to Africa, and Africa is returning to Israel.”

By Herb Keinon, JPOST

ENTEBBE UGANDA: Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Foreign Ministry Director-General Dore Gold talk about a “confluence of interests,” they generally refer to a commonality of interests with the Arab countries in the region that is behind the unprecedented, but discreet, cooperation with them.

That term, however, is also used when explaining why precisely now – nearly 30 years after Yitzhak Shamir was the last sitting prime minister to visit Africa – Israel, as Netanyahu puts it, is returning to Africa, and Africa is returning to Israel.

Interestingly, Shamir’s six-day, four country tour took him to western Africa – Togo, Cameroon, Liberia and the Ivory Coast – while Netanyahu’s five-day, four-country hop takes him to the east: Uganda, Kenya, Rwanda and Ethiopia.
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By Rabbi Baruch Efrati, INN

In contrast to the words of individual rabbis who called on Israel to cooperate with the Reform Movement, our message is a call to stand firm and declare, in the immortal words of the Prophet Isaiah “Your plans will not be realized nor will your words be upheld, because G-d is with us.”

Let us explain our stand on the matter.

Historically, G-d fearing Jews approached the Zionist Movement in one of two ways. Some turned their back on the Zionists because most of the new movement’s adherents were not religious. They placed prime importance on negating anything secular, thereby protecting their communities, but also ignoring earthshaking Jewish national developments. Rabbi Kook, zts”l, did not respond that way, but sought to join the Zionists, to be involved and try to raise the spiritual level of our people, of every sector, by imbuing their endeavors to return to Zion with an aura of holiness.
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THE BASTARDS. THEY HAVE NO JURISDICTION OVER WHAT HAPPENS IN JUDEA AND SAMARIA.

State Department uses unusually strong language in condemning Israel’s plans to build in Maale Adumim and in Jerusalem.

By Elad Benari, INN

The State Department on Tuesday issued a scathing condemnation of Israel’s plans to build new housing units in Maale Adumim and in Jerusalem.

“If it’s true, this report would be the latest step in what seems to be a systematic process of land seizures, settlement expansions, and legalizations of outposts that is fundamentally undermining the prospects for a two-state solution,” said State Department spokesman John Kirby of the plans, which were announced Sunday following last week’s terrorist attacks against Israelis in Judea and Samaria.

“We oppose steps like these, which we believe are counterproductive to the cause of peace. In general, we’re deeply concerned about settlement construction and expansion in East Jerusalem and the West Bank,” he charged in his daily press briefing.
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By Andrew C McCarthy, NATIONAL REVIEW

There is no way of getting around this: According to Director James Comey (disclosure: a former colleague and longtime friend of mine), Hillary Clinton checked every box required for a felony violation of Section 793(f) of the federal penal code (Title 18): With lawful access to highly classified information she acted with gross negligence in removing and causing it to be removed it from its proper place of custody, and she transmitted it and caused it to be transmitted to others not authorized to have it, in patent violation of her trust. Director Comey even conceded that former Secretary Clinton was “extremely careless” and strongly suggested that her recklessness very likely led to communications (her own and those she corresponded with) being intercepted by foreign intelligence services.

Yet, Director Comey recommended against prosecution of the law violations he clearly found on the ground that there was no intent to harm the United States.
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By SABRINA TAVERNISE, NEW YORK TIMES

Turkish flags and an image of Mr. Erdogan at a rally in Istanbul to mark the 563rd anniversary of the city’s conquest by Ottoman Turks. Credit Murad Sezer/Reuters

ISTANBUL — Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, strode onto a stage a month ago looking down upon a sea of a million fans waving red Turkish flags. They were celebrating the 15th-century conquest of Istanbul by the Ottoman sultan Mehmed II, the golden moment of Turkey’s Muslim ancestors triumphing over the Christian West.

“The conquest means going beyond the walls that the West thought were impervious,” Mr. Erdogan said as the crowd roared. “The conquest means a 21-year-old sultan bringing Byzantium to heel.”
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T. Belman. Actually the Turks have no choice but to follow her advice, namely, cut a deal with the Kurds. The Kurdish birthrate in Turkey is about double the national average. It is estimated that in 20 years, half the men of military age will be Kurds. If the Turks try to suppress them, they will lose.

In its obsession over the Kurdish movement, Ankara has enabled the rise of Islamic State.

By ASLI AYDINTASBAS, WSJ

Last week, I was on an inbound flight to Istanbul when terrorists at Ataturk Airport blew themselves up, killing 44. My plane was diverted, and upon landing in Ankara I called a friend and we had a drink. It wasn’t that I wasn’t saddened by the attack, but like most people in Turkey I’ve grown dangerously accustomed to living with violence and death.

Between Islamic State and Kurdish separatists, across Turkey over the past year there have been 15 bombings and suicide attacks, resulting in nearly 300 deaths. In the country’s southeast, where the collapse of peace talks last summer gave way to a Kurdish insurgency, the government claims it has killed 6,900 Kurdish militants. Military and security personnel have suffered about 600 casualties, and civilians killed in the crossfire between government forces and the Kurdish separatists have numbered a few hundred more.
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‘Anything short of them fully recognizing her conversion will bring us to the Supreme Court’

Nicole, who was converted by Ivanka Trump’s rabbi, Haskel Lookstein, talks with The Times of Israel ahead of her Wednesday appeal in Jerusalem

Nicole and Zohar are just your typical American-meets-Israeli Jewish love story. And as is the case with countless American immigrants to Israel, their path through religious bureaucracy to a joyous huppah has turned rocky and nigh-impassable.

“It’s a nightmare,” Nicole told The Times of Israel this week.
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Overall support tilts in favor of pullout if peace achieved; over 40% want only Jews to vote on withdrawal referendum

TOI

If a referendum were held today on an Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank excluding major settlement blocs, a majority of Jews, 52 percent, would vote against such a withdrawal, according to a major poll of Israeli public opinion.

Just over one-third of Israeli Jews, or 36%, would support a withdrawal “in principle,” according to the June 2016 Peace Index, a monthly study of Israelis’ views on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, among other issues.
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Country’s high-tech industry a model of success • Sector faces a shortage of 10,000 engineers • Israel to issue hundreds of work visas to foreigners a year • New programs aim to boost Israeli Arab, ultra-Orthodox presence in high-tech.

Reuters and Israel Hayom Staff

An employee works at Internet data firm SimilarWeb at their offices in Tel Aviv, July 4 | Photo credit: Reuters

In the high-tech hub of Tel Aviv, where companies have been responsible for groundbreaking advances like the USB flash drive, Or Offer never thought it would be hard to find workers for his fast-growing Internet data firm SimilarWeb.

But an alarming lack of engineers, technicians and even doctors, which is jeopardizing Israel’s place among the world’s technological elite, sent him looking abroad.
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Anger grows as Baghdad residents accuse Iraqi government of failing to protect them after ISIL attack kills over 200.

ALGAZEERA

Anger is growing in Baghdad over the government’s failure to protect civilians, after a devastating bombing in a crowded commercial area in the Iraqi capital killed more than 200 people, including many children.

The powerful explosion early on Sunday came near the end of the Islamic holy month of Ramadan, when the streets were filled with young people and families out after sunset.

The death toll from the blast in Karada, a predominantly Shia neighbourhood in central Baghdad, rose to over 200 on Monday morning, as the bodies of more victims were pulled from the rubble.
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T. Belman. The PA takes very seriously any denial of their right to “resistance”. It also thinks that no matter what they do, they will get a pass from the international community.

If only Israel were so resolute..

Ramallah has had enough of the international group’s ‘pro-Israel’ bias, reflected in its latest report, London-based daily says

BY DOV LIEBER, TOI

The Palestinian Authority has decided to cut ties with the Middle East Quartet, Arab media reported on Tuesday.

The London-based pan-Arab newspaper Al Hayat reported that Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas decided to stop working with the Quartet — the United States, European Union, Russia and the United Nations — following a series of disappointments in Ramallah in the group’s work.

Abbas reportedly informed the central committees of both the Palestinian Liberation Organization and his party Fatah of the decision. The decision was confirmed to the paper by Fatah Central Committee member Mohammed Ashtiya.
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BY DAVID P. GOLDMAN, ASIA TIMES JUNE 20/16

Traditional Chinese characters for peace

“Russian-Chinese axis” will dominate the Middle East with Israel as its western anchor: That scenario was floated June 15 in Russia Insider, a louche propaganda site that often runs the work of fringe conspiracy theorists and the occasional anti-Semite. But the author in this case was the venerable Giancarlo Elia Valori, president of Huawei Technologies’ Italian division, a veteran of past intelligence wars with a resume that reads like a Robert Ludlum novel.

Writes Prof. Valori:
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‘Israel needed a staging ground and Kenya was the only stable democracy at that time’

The country’s logistical role in Operation Entebbe cemented continued security cooperation with Israel, which is still bearing fruit today

BY LILIAN MUENDO, TOI

Entebbe hostages come home, July 4, 1976. (IDF archives)

NAROBI — On the night of July 3, 1976, three troop transport planes, alleged to have been Israeli C-130 military aircraft, reportedly landed at Nairobi airport.

The airport lounge is said to have been turned into a makeshift field hospital, complete with operating table, anesthetic equipment and oxygen canisters, and regular Kenya army troops and members of the General Services Unit (GSU) moved in to secure the airport area.

Later that night, the three aircraft carrying Israeli commandos took off from Nairobi’s JKIA for the slightly over one-hour flight to Entebbe, flying via Kenya with secret permission from the Kenyan government.
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A common cause – the battle against radical Islamic terrorism – bonds Israel and all the countries threatened by it.

By Moshe Arens, HAARETZ Jul 04, 2016 3:27 AM

Significant changes are taking place in Israel’s relations with countries near and far. In the immediate neighborhood, Cyprus and Greece, both members of the European Union, have established close economic and political relations with Israel. And now Turkey, a major Middle East player, will be normalizing relations with Israel.

That, no doubt, is a prelude to closer economic and political relations based on common interests in the area, notwithstanding the differences that exist between Turkey and Cyprus and Greece, and Turkey’s position on the Palestinian issue. A political and economic bloc is taking shape, which may include military cooperation as well in due time that will profoundly influence the course of events in the Middle East in the years to come.
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Diplomats in Washington and Ankara hopeful that crisis can be resolved after four decades of division and acrimony

THE GUARDIAN

Turkey and the US have agreed that a political settlement may be possible this year in Cyprus, the Mediterranean island divided for four decades.

Turkish foreign minister Mevlut Cavusoglu met the US secretary of state, John Kerry, in Washington, and both diplomats were upbeat about chances for a deal.

“We have also some good news from the eastern part of the Mediterranean, I mean Cyprus,” Cavusoglu said ahead of their meeting.
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