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.
Read more…

HURRIYET DAILY NEWS

The need to transport natural gas found off of Israel to EU markets was one of the main motivations for the normalization deal between Israel and Turkey, reached on June 26.

The numbers tell that the gas factor was more of a pushing factor for Israel than it was for Turkey. It seems that gas from Israel will provide middle term source-diversification for Turkey, besides the more important political meaning that will come with economic interdependence.

An Israeli source, who requested anonymity, told the Hurriyet Daily News that the total reservoir of the Leviathan and Tamar gas fields was estimated to be around 900 billion cubic meters (bcm), some 150 bcm of which is planned for exports. “That could bring in important revenue for the Israeli economy,” the source said. “But because we have not been able to find ways to reach the markets, companies have not yet been able to invest enough to develop the fields further.”
Read more…

By Amb Freddie Eytan, JCPA

• Britain’s exit, or Brexit, from the European Union is first and foremost a severe British domestic problem that its leaders alone must solve with diligence and as soon as possible.
• Although EU leaders have indeed reacted with disappointment and bitterness, after the initial shock they appear to be recuperating. Europe as a whole is slowly regaining its composure. The EU will not come apart quickly. It will apparently continue to represent 27 united countries, in which close to half a billion humans live, with an average GDP of over $30,000 per capita.
• Three cardinal issues led the British to leave the EU:
  • The cumbersome administration and rigid bureaucracy in Brussels.
  • The influx of immigrants from Eastern Europe and, more recently, of refugees from Iraq, Syria, and Libya.
  • The terror attacks committed by European subjects who are inspired by Islamic organizations such as the Islamic State or Al-Qaeda.

  Read more…

Approval for massive extension of Arab neighborhood paves way for future division of city, blocks Jewish development in key area.

By Ido Ben Porat, INN

Givat HaMatos, currently a sparsely populated area with dozens of families living in caravans, has been the center piece of plans to link the Jewish neighborhood of Har Homa to the rest of the city.

With the announcement Sunday, however, of the 600 new Arab units in Givat HaMatos, a continuous stretch of Arab settlement will be created, stretching from Beit Safafa to Sur Baher.

Minister for Jerusalem Affairs, Ze’ev Elkin (Likud) slammed the move, saying that it threatened Jerusalem’s Jewish majority.

“Anyone who is concerned about the Jewish majority in Israel’s capital cannot push a building plan just for Arabs [in Givat HaMatos]. The 600 housing units for the Arab population in Beit Safafa are effectively an Arab part of the future Givat HaMatos neighborhood.”
Read more…

Israel post 1967 confiscated all schoolbooks of incitement, but Israel post 1994 Oslo Accords allowed schoolbooks of war in the PA/UNRWA curriculum, while the Jewish state handed over Israeli owned radio and TV frequencies for use of the PA.

By David Bedein, INN

The new curriculum of the Palestinian Authority and UNRWA are not only laced with hatred, their schools now convey a war education curriculum, with special emphasis on the “values” of martyrdom, Jihad, demonization of Jews, and liberation of Palestine by force of arms. Meanwhile, the praise of anyone who will murder a Jew permeates every aspect of the Palestinian Authority and UNRWA.
Read more…

Instead of stamping out tyrants, the U.N. validates them.

By Josh Gelernter, NATIONAL REVIEW — July 2, 2016

The U.K. has shown its contempt for anti-democratic international unions by leaving the EU. Let’s do the same and leave the U.N.

The U.N. is generally thought of as having evolved from the silly and impotent League of Nations, whose primary achievement was permitting — through naïveté, cowardice, and inaction — the Japanese invasion of China and the start of the Pacific half of the Second World War. Actually, the U.N.’s origins were nobler: It supplanted the League, but it began as an organization of the Allied powers against the Tripartite German–Italian–Japanese Axis.
Read more…

T. Belman. This article published last Sept explains the power of the international community to dictate events in Jerusalem.  Yesterday’s announcement of building plans for Jews and Arabs in Givat Hamatos embraces a compromise solution. The Arabs are to get 600 new units in this area and Jews are to get 260 units in various locations in east Jerusalem and 540 in Maaleh Adumin.  Remember that Lieberman, before entering the government was demanding 2000 unit for Maaleh Adumin. The Arabs scored a major victory in getting the right to build in Givat Hamatos.

By Yoram Ettinger, JEWISH PRESS, Sept 6/15

While the Jewish State benefits from the robust Jewish demographic tailwind of fertility and immigration, Jerusalem, the capital of Israel, is burdened with a Jewish demographic headwind of emigration, which is eroding the current 66% Jewish majority.

Read more…

West Bank troop deployments, arrests and roadblocks are like throwing a blanket over a fire. The question is whether the situation will continue after the drive-by shooters are apprehended.

By Amos Harel, HAARETZ

The escalation in Palestinian terror – the murder of 13-year-old Hallel Ariel, the murder of Michael Mark and the wounding of his wife and two of his children, the stabbing of two people in Netanya and the attempted stabbing at the Tomb of the Patriarchs – all within just over 24 hours has led to a harsher-than-usual response.

The army cordoned off Hebron and the surrounding villages and towns, imposed major restrictions on movement to and from the Hebron area, and announced a mass revocation of work permits for residents of Bani Na’im, where Ariel’s murderer lived.
Read more…

Netanyahu’s remarks come after pressure by ministers. In inner cabinet meeting, Defense Minister Lieberman barred army officers from answering Minister Bennett’s questions.

Barak Ravid, HAARETZ

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Sunday that, in wake of the recent attacks, the government will allocate additional aid to fortify the settlements in the West Bank.
“We will make a special effort to strengthen the communities and will propose a special plan for Kiryat Arba at the next cabinet meeting,” Netanyahu said at the start of the weekly cabinet meeting, adding, that he has instructed all government ministries to do their part to help West Bank settlements.

Haaretz has learned that Netanyahu’s remarks on Sunday morning came after some of the ministers pressured Netanyahu during Saturday’s emergency security cabinet meeting. The ministers called for a massive round of construction in the settlements in response to recent terror attacks. Netanyahu promised them that he will examine the issue. Just two weeks ago, the cabinet approved a special allocation of 82 million shekels ($21.3 million) to West Bank settlements, citing security concerns.
Read more…

By Nadav Shragai, ISRAEL HAYOM

The US strategy is to use the Kurds to win back ISIS held territory rather than to impose Kurdish rule on local Arabs.

ARA News

HASAKAH – Western analysts say that it is unlikely that the Obama administration will change its policy towards Syrian Kurds, after an internal memo was signed by more than 50 State Department officials criticizing Obama administration’s policy in Syria and towards the Kurdish YPG forces.

The memo said that “Kurdish YPG fighters cannot – and should not – be expected to project power and hold terrain deep into non-Kurdish areas”. Moreover, the memo says the best way to fight ISIS, is to support the moderate Sunni Arab opposition both against ISIS and the Syrian government.
Read more…

ARA News

The Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan (PDK-I) warned the Iranian Revolutionary Guards that they will respond to any aggression towards their Peshmerga bases.

Senior Iranian military officials have threatened to target PDKI’s bases and refugee camps in Iraqi Kurdistan, as well as to launch missiles against Israel. PDKI officials have responded to these threats, warning Iran that the Peshmerga Forces will respond to Iranian acts of aggression.

The Iranian Brigadier General Hossein Salami said on Friday that Iran would carry out cross-border operations, if the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) in northern Iraq does not ‘adhere to their commitments’ of preventing Iranian Kurdish parties from carrying out cross-border attacks.
Read more…

This is not the exception, but the rule. But for Jihad, there wouldn’t be 1.3 billion Muslims in the world.

By Madeline Brooks, AMERICAN THINKER

On July 1, 2016, ISIS took responsibility for invading an ex-pat café in Dhaka, Bangladesh’s capital, killing at least two and taking twenty hostages.  At the same time, a Hindu priest was hacked to death in his temple. Now the world is paying more attention to this small South Asian country and wondering if Bangladesh is the new hot spot for ISIS, or perhaps al Qaeda.

Whatever the handle used by the Muslim group that committed the latest attacks, there is no doubt that non-Muslim and dissident Muslim Bangladeshi natives have been living with terror at the hands of jihadis.

Jihadis in Bangladesh have been steadily increasing their rapes, murders, land thefts, and public humiliations against all they deem fit to suffer for their cause:  the spread of sharia.  They do this with impunity. Here are some, but by no means all, of the many atrocities committed by them in just the last few months:
Read more…

Is it possible that the tide may be changing, that the ideas at the core of Zionism are about to be less marginalized?

By Daniel Gordis, JPOST

With the Brexit vote in the UK still so recent and so fresh, it’s obviously far too early to know how each of many of the variables will play out.

What will happen to currency markets? Is the post-World War II order really dissolving? Will the European Union crumble? On the Israel front, uncertainty prevails as well. Would a divided European continent, presumably often internally at odds, be less monolithically hostile to Israel? Will Europe’s newfound uncertainties dislodge its capitals from their obsessive preoccupation with a conflict that they have no capacity to influence or to settle? One thing, though, is clear, even if Brexit’s detractors refuse to acknowledge it: Brexit is actually a profound validation of the very premise of Zionism.
Read more…

T. Belman. When I read about this new policy, I wondered why only deduct the same amount. Why not deduct twice as much, for instance. Secondly this is money that belongs to the PA. We simply collect it on their behalf. We have no right to withhold it. In the past we announced that we were going to apply this money to the outstanding bill for electricity that we supply. After universal condemnations, we relented and gave them most of the money we withheld.

By Evelyn Gordon, COMMENTARY

Note: After this article was published, Israel announced that it would in fact start deducting salaries paid to terrorists from its tax transfers to the Palestinian Authority

The brutal terror attack in which a teenaged Palestinian murdered a 13-year-old Israeli in her own bed early this morning—an Israeli who was also an American citizen—is a perfect example of why a piece of legislation now moving through Congress is essential. The bill won’t end the Palestinian Authority’s abhorrent practice of paying generous salaries to the perpetrators of such murders. But it will at least stop it from doing so on the U.S. taxpayer’s dime.
Read more…

T. Belman. Finally the motivation behind the deal is being exposed. What I find surprising is that Syria and the Kurds are not mentioned. What does this deal mean for the future of Syria and the Syrian/Iran axis?

DEBKAfile Exclusive Report June 27, 2016,

The reconciliation agreement announced Monday, June 27 for restoring full normalization between Israel and Turkey after six years of animosity will restart intelligence and security cooperation between the two countries and entail joint military exercises, and investments in energy and defense.

Debkafile’s security experts evaluate the deal as offering a valuable and timely increment for Israeli’s national interests on eight scores:

1. It fits neatly into the current joint Saudi-Egyptian bid for Israel to bolster their emerging alliance with Turkey that is designed for drawing a Sunni line against Iran’s expansionist moves in the Horn of Africa, the Red Sea, the Straits of Aqaba and in uncomfortable proximity to the Mediterranean shores of Israel and Egypt.
Read more…

AL MONITOR

ERBIL, Iraq — The leader of a major Iranian Kurdish party has vowed to gradually step up his group’s fight against Iranian security forces, as the group ends almost two decades of a unilateral cease-fire with Iran after a series of recent clashes between the two sides.

The Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan’s (PDKI) armed wing, known as the peshmerga, have clashed with Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) on at least five occasions over recent weeks, resulting in dozens of casualties on both the IRGC andPDKI sides — although both parties dispute the counts.
Read more…

by Hussein Ibish, The Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington

Notwithstanding the range of views within the Gulf Cooperation Council, the Gulf Arab states are largely committed to the ouster of the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and the reduction, if not elimination, of Iranian influence in Syria. Saudi Arabia and Qatar, in particular, are convinced that the strategic future of the Middle East, and specifically the role of Iran, will be determined by the outcome of the Syrian conflict. They believe that if Iran and its allies prevail and the current Syrian regime survives unreconstructed it will open the door for further inroads by Tehran into the Arab world and the eventual creation of a Persian mini-empire in the region. They are even concerned that Iranian destabilization efforts will intensify within the GCC states, particularly Bahrain, Kuwait, and Saudi Arabia’s Eastern Province.
Read more…

Turkey’s simultaneous reconciliation agreements with Russia and Israel provide a rare chance to design a new Middle Eastern policy.

By Zvi Bar’el, HAARETZ

The attack at Ataturk Airport in Istanbul this week, apparently by the Islamic State, clearly shows how Turkey has become a secondary front of the war in Syria. It was the seventh mass terror incident this year and probably won’t be the last, because Turkey is one of the countries that have been marked by ISIS as enemies, both militarily and ideologically.

As long as Turkey was helping ISIS personnel move through its territory into Syria, providing medical aided to ISIS wounded and, in the best case, turning a blind eye to oil deals between ISIS and Turkish producers, the country had immunity.
Read more…

Ted Belman. The whole purpose of this Report is to legitimate the efforts of the EU and the US to force Israel to release her hold on Area C. Now in the name of the report, they will up the pressure on Israel to allow Arab building there and to freeze Jewish building. Keep in mind that they have no authority to do so.

The report says Palestinians must act against terrorism, while Israel must stop settlement construction.

By Barak Ravid , HAARETZ

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry (L) and EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini hold a joint press conference in Brussels, June 27, 2016. John Thys, AFP

The foreign ministers of the Quartet on the Middle East – the United States, Russia, the European Union and the United Nations – asserted in a report released on Friday afternoon that the current track taken by the Israelis and Palestinians has distanced the possibility of a two-state solution, creating a situation in which a one-state reality has taken root.
Read more…