By Elliott Abrams

The argument that Israel is becoming increasingly isolated in the world took another blow this month when — for the first time in the history of the United Nations and of Israel — the Israeli ambassador was elected to head one of the U.N.’s permanent committees. This the Legal Committee, also called the Sixth Committee, and its covers the United Nations’ international law operations — which include matters related to terrorism and to the Geneva Conventions.

There was a tough diplomatic fight over this, so it is worth handing out kudos.
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T. Belman.  Yes, this deal marks the end of a feud on humiliating terms for Israel. But one is left to wonder if there is a secret deal in which, 1. Turkey will stop challenging the blockade, 2. Israel will turn against Kurdish independence to satisfy Turkey, 3. Both countries have agreed on red lines regarding Syria. Turkey will now reconcile with Egypt. But the problem is that Turkey is pro Muslim Brotherhood, where as Egypt and Israel, the opposite.  At the end of the day beyond the restoration of diplomatic relations, what will change?

And Two Other Reasons for the Deal

By Steven A Cook, DEFENSE ONE

There are three reasons why the Turks wanted the deal now more than ever. First, the Israelis have a lot of natural gas and Cyprus has a lot of natural gas. There have been signals all year that negotiations to find a solution to the Cyprus problem and reunify the island are promising. It seems that the deal with Israel is connected to the coming gas bonanza in the Eastern Mediterranean.

Second, Ankara’s approach to the Middle East has been an utter failure. Its bid to lead the Middle East after the Arab uprisings was based more on the self-reinforcing myths that AKP elites told themselves than their actual ability to drive events in the region. There was also little chance that Saudis, Egyptians, and Emiratis were going to allow the Turks to play the role they sought. Read more…

By Damon Linker, THE WEEK

It’s perfectly reasonable to worry about what will happen after Britain’s historic vote to break up with the European Union. Will Brexit provoke Scotland and Northern Ireland to secede from the United Kingdom, leading to its dissolution? Will it embolden other members of the EU to bolt? And will those secessionist movements empower unsavory characters who end up being seduced by Vladimir Putin and modeling themselves on his form of authoritarian populism? Will the dire short-term economic consequences of Brexit create chaos and recession in the long term, too?

As I said, lots of reasons to worry.

But what we’ve seen from a wide range of writers and analysts in the days since the Brexit vote is not necessarily worry. It is shock. Fury. Disgust. Despair. A faith has been shaken, illusions shattered, pieties punctured. This is what happens when a life-orienting system of belief gets smashed on the rocks of history.
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What keeps America from protecting itself against radical Islam?

By Andrew C. McCarthy, NATIONAL REVIEW

Editor’s note: The following is adapted from a speech the author delivered this week at the Westminster Institute in McLean, Va. The topic: “Defenseless in the Face of Our Enemies: What Keeps America from Protecting Itself from Radical Islam.”

Two weekends ago in Orlando, Fla., in the wee hours of the morning, a gunman opened fire in a gay nightclub teeming with revelers. After killing and wounding scores of people, he took hostages in a restroom. He began calling police and media outlets, began crafting social-media posts, all for the point of announcing what was already clear to the nightclub denizens who’d heard him screaming, “Allahu Akbar!” — Allah is greater! — as he fired shot after shot: Omar Mateen was a stealth Muslim militant.
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Do failures and lies matter any longer? If you are a prominent Democratic politician, what exactly is the level of wrongdoing that will end your career?

By David French, NATIONAL REVIEW

Instead, with an assist from the media, she’s going to get off scot-free. Do failures and lies matter any longer? If you are a prominent Democratic politician, what exactly is the level of wrongdoing that will end your career? Reading the long-awaited report from the House Select Committee on Benghazi and the associated media coverage, I was struck by the sheer scale of the failures and the deceptions surrounding the terror attack on the Benghazi compound, and by the mainstream media’s dismissiveness.
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Why European leaders cheer accusations of Jews poisoning Palestinian wells.

By Caroline Glick. JPOST

One of the more remarkable aspects of the blood libel sounded by Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas in his address before the European Parliament in Brussels last week is the claim that he ad-libbed the part about rabbis poisoning Palestinian wells.

After refusing to meet President Reuven Rivlin who was also in Brussels last week, Abbas ascended the podium in Brussels and began his custom of demonizing Jewish and Israel. Clearing his throat, the man whose incitement is most responsible for the fact that the Palestinians are the most anti-Semitic people in the world, began his speech by saying, “We are against incitement.”

Then, as is his wont, Abbas proceeded to incite mass murder of Jews by accusing rabbis of ordering the poisoning of Palestinian wells.
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T. Belman. After reading this article on the legal exposure, I am convinced that the settlement had no validity. Nor do I think there was any reason to give anything on Hamas or Gaza. My belief it was driven by the need for a gas deal. Without such a deal, Israel could not justify to enormous investment to transport the gas to Europe.

JE Dyer wrote that the deal was done at the urging of Russia. I posted her comment at bottom of this article.

By Jonah Jeremy Bob, JPOST

[..]
That is right. As with many things legal, the deal is not entirely clear-cut and the flotilla is not entirely over.

The asterisk involves the controversial sea battle on May 31, 2010 between members of the Turkish NGO known as the IHH Humanitarian Relief Foundation and IDF commandos.

In that encounter off the coast of Gaza, the naval commandos killed nine IHH activists who attacked them when they boarded the MV Mavi Marmara to stop the ship from running Israel’s blockade of the Gaza Strip.
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By Jonah Jeremy Bob, JPOST

If the government does not get Hamas expelled from Turkey as part of the impending deal, Shurat Hadin will try to block it by going to the High Court of Justice, it threatened on Monday.

The NGO sent a threatening letter to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the cabinet as part of a last-ditch effort to have the expulsion of Hamas included in the deal.

From Monday’s news conferences and the information provided to the public, Turkey agreed that Hamas would not be allowed to plan terrorist operations from its territory, but did not agree to expel its political wing.
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BLOOMBERG

TransCanada Corp. is seeking to recoup $15 billion for the Obama administration’s rejection of the Keystone XL oil pipeline, in a legal claim that highlights how foreign companies can use trade deals to challenge U.S. policy.

The Calgary-based pipeline operator filed papers late Friday seeking arbitration under the North American Free Trade Agreement, arguing that TransCanada had every reason to believe it would win approval to build Keystone XL. Instead, President Barack Obama last November determined that the pipeline, which would have carried Canadian oil sands crude to the U.S. Gulf coast, wasn’t in the national interest. In response, TransCanada in January vowed to use arbitration provisions in Chapter 11 of Nafta to recover costs and damages.
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By Evelyn Gordon, COMMENTARY

The Israel-Turkey reconciliation agreement announced this week is an object lesson in the importance of being willing to walk away from negotiations. For six years, the Israeli chattering classes and the international community urged Israel to simply accept Turkey’s terms, arguing that Ankara wasn’t going to soften its demands and that Israel desperately needed good relations with Turkey, whatever the price. But it turns out neither part of that argument was true: Turkey proved to need Israel far more than Israel needed it, and consequently, it eventually reduced its demands significantly. The current deal is thus much better than what Israel would have gotten had it caved in and signed earlier.
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T. Belman. Keinon is saying look what Erdogan was demanding and then he points out what he failed to achieve. When the demands were made Turkey was flying high and now it is laid low. I disagree with this analysis. First Israel was in the right morally and legally in taking the action it did. Netanyahu may have felt that protecting the soldiers involved from being sued for damages or criminally prosecuted in international courts was worth $20 million.

Steinitz in support, said, “It is feared that warrants for their [the IDF soldiers] arrest will be issued, in order to end the saga and protect the soldiers sent to thwart the flotilla, we must pay the amount to remove the threat,” “ It is not pleasant but it is a moral obligation.” If there is no substance to such a worry then there is no justification for paying compensation. If there is real exposure then perhaps it is worth it to settle. But why go further? Why give Turkey anything on Gaza? Giving them some concession validate their original grievance. If making the oil deal is what drove this, a gas deal could be struck without diplomatic relations. Netanyahu is not being honest with us.

Even Turkey will be hard pressed to present this accord as bringing Israel to its knees.

By Herb Keinon, JPOST

In 2013, after Prime MInister Benjamin Netanyahu phoned his Turkish colleague Recep Tayyip Erdogan and – at the urging of US President Barack Obama – apologized for “operational errors” in the Mavi Marmara incident, the Turks were anything but gracious.

Indeed, billboards erected in Ankara at the time seemed designed to rub Israel’s nose in the apology: “Israel apologized to Turkey,” they exclaimed. “Dear prime minister [Erdogan], we are grateful that you let our country experience this pride.”
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Majority of Israelis oppose deal with Turkey

Poll reveals just one third of Israelis approve of Turkey reconciliation agreement to be signed on Tuesday.

Former Likud minister says there is absolutely no justification for Israel paying compensation to families of Marmara Islamists.

INN

Former Likud minister Gideon Sa’ar on Monday night called on Israeli ministers to stop what he termed the “bad agreement” with Turkey.

Under the agreement, officially announced by Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu earlier on Monday, Israel will provide $20 million in compensation to the families of jihadists killed aboard the Mavi Marmara ship, which in 2010 attempted to violently break Israel’s blockade on Hamas-ruled Gaza. That is in addition to the official Israeli apology and a deal to allow Turkish humanitarian aid into Gaza via Israel.

In exchange, relations between the two one-time allies will return to normal, and talks will commence on a potentially lucrative natural gas deal.
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HIGHLY RECOMMENDED

By Manuel Muniz, Europe’s World, June 24, 2016

On 23 June, the British people voted to leave the European Union. Against all odds and, above all, against all reason, one of Europe’s most moderate and pragmatic of peoples has decided to disregard overwhelming evidence that such a decision would have negative consequences for the country.

Almost the entirety of the country’s intellectual, economic and political establishment had explicitly opposed Brexit. There had been letters by Nobel laureates detailing the cost to UK research of a ‘Leave’ vote, a public statement by over 250 academics to the same effect, the official opposition of most British businesses as well as an avalanche of expert reports indicating the significant economic cost of leaving the world’s largest single market. In political terms, the ‘Remain’ campaign had the formal support of the country’s four largest political parties, of the Tory-led national government and of a plethora of international leaders, including the President of the United States.
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by Rabbi Dr. Daniel M. Zucker

For the past thirty-seven years the United States of America has been approaching its policies toward the Islamic Republic of Iran with an almost messianic hope that the Khomeinist government of Iran can be weaned away from its anti-Western stance by a combination of sticks and carrots. Successive administrations from Carter to Obama have sought to find just the right combination in order to sway Tehran away from Ruhollah Khomeini’s doctrine of rigid opposition to “Gharbzadegi” (“Westoxification”). But every attempt to “open up” Iran to a friendlier stance toward the West in general and the United States in particular has been rebuffed.

Why? Has Washington DC simply not found the correct formula yet? Is the correct ratio of carrots to sticks simply too complicated to be applied successfully to the Islamic Republic of Iran? Do we need a political “Einstein” to calculate the breakthrough theorem? Or is something else at play here?
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The report presented to the Israali cabinet also focuses on the demographics of Israel’s capital, concluding that the government should consider new measures to ensure a Jewish majority in Jerusalem.

By DANIELLE ZIRI, JPOST

NEW YORK – The liberal, Reform, Conservative and secular parts of the American Jewish community may become more distant from Israel as the country’s demography becomes more Orthodox and nationalistic, according to a report presented to the Cabinet on Sunday.

Results from the 12th Annual Assessment of the Situation and Dynamics of the Jewish People, put together by The Jewish People Policy Institute, were offered by JPPI Co-Chairman Ambassador Dennis Ross and President Avinoam Bar-Yosef.
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By Ted Belman

Yesterday I met an 80 year old guy named Yossi, who was very well connected politically and was a close friend of former PM Olmert. He also headed a movement to enhance Jerusalem. He seemed to know everyone who was anyone.

Yossi started out by telling me that he considered Netanyahu a coward because he is afraid to make a move. I told him that the right agrees accept that the Right want him to make a move to the right and the Left otherwise.
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By M.K. BHADRAKUMAR, ASIA TIMES

If there is a tide in the affairs of men, as Brutus said in William Shakespeare’s play Julius Caesar, it must be the same in the affairs of nations, too.

At Tashkent, Russian President Vladimir Putin hinted he is insightful enough to recognize new opportunities in Britain

Less than a week ago, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization was creeping toward the borders of Russia and relentlessly provoking it, but the tide abruptly turned on Friday. Eurasian politics will never be the same again after Brexit.
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DEBKA

An unforeseen trickle-down effect of Britain’s decision to leave the EU last week is evident in the reaction of Arab governments, which have begun shying away from their reliance on the US or Europe to lead the war on ISIS, DEBKAfile’s sources report. They are coming to see the US-led coalition as weakened and predict that Britain will draw down or remove its forces from the anti-jihadist arenas in the near future. Officials in several Arab capitals are now discussing the possibility of ending their boycott of Syrian President Bashar Assad and cooperating militarily with his regime against the terrorists – an option which just a few days ago would have been unthinkable.
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The real purpose and the real effect of Hillary Clinton’s scandalous email practice is not widely understood and for good reason

By Joel Golovensky MIDA

I spoke to a friend who was a high ranking official in the Bush administration to try and understand what is involved. He is not a fan of of Hillary’s, no doubt, but he is a highly respected, professional attorney who can analyze issues without succumbing to personal prejudice. He explained that the exposure of highly confidential documents is very serious but, in his view, this is only a part of the sordid behavior.. “Anyone who has ever worked at the higher rung of government understands the gravity of conducting all official business on a server not under government control. If one can analogize to how an office functioned before the electronic-email age, what Hillary did is akin to filing all her State Department documents and correspondence in her garage. The purpose was not just convenience at the expense of exposing the material to theft or unauthorized access, but rather the goal was for her alone to decide what documents and correspondence will be turned over to the government, what will not, and to thus shape the history and appraisal of her role.”
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By Tabitha Korol

“Everything is under control,” assured Anita Gray, director of the local office of the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), about the infamous, anti-Semitic assistant professor Joy Karega.  “Oberlin’s president is coordinating efforts with us.”  Assuming there was nothing more to be done at this point, I asked about their involvement in the immigration process from the Middle East, about hijra, invasion by migration.  “There are a few, but not many,” she replied. When I asked for specifics, she answered, “No, but you can check the ADL website.”

I did so that evening, and emailed Gray the next day about the anti-Semitic comments on the site.  I asked who replies to them or if they’re just left on the site.  She wrote, “You can take a horse to water but you can’t make it drink.”   OK. I recalled having learned that bit of wisdom as a child, but she used it to evade my question.
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