See Also: Turkey — preventing Kurdish independence at all costs

The Kurdish takeover in Manbij and their stated intention to further encroach on ISIS territory raised the stakes for Ankara, which understood that if it doesn’t act now it may find a new Kurdish entity on its border.

By Zvi Bar’el, HAARETZ  Aug 24, 2016

A Turkish army tank and an armored vehicle are stationed near the border with Syria, Karkamis, Turkey, August 23, 2016.

“We will cleanse the area of all the terrorists,” declared Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yildirim on the eve of  the Turkish invasion of Syrian territory near the city of Jarablus. But the Turkish definition of terrorists does not relates solely to Islamic State operatives or Al-Qaida; it also includes, perhaps primarily, the Kurdish rebels in Syrian territory that are considered a threat to Turkey.
Read more…

A Syrian rebel said the fighters were waiting for the signal to enter Jarablus and a second rebel said around 1,500 fighters were now gathered at a location in Turkey.

REUTERS

– Turkish special forces, tanks and jets backed by planes from the US-led coalition launched their first coordinated offensive into Syria on Wednesday to try to drive Islamic State from the border and prevent further gains by Kurdish militia fighters.

Turkish tank units and Syrian rebels backed by the NATO member crossed into northern Syria to push Islamic State out of the border town of Jarablus, military sources said. A Reuters reporter at the border counted six Turkish tanks inside Syria and witnessed intense bombardments.
Read more…

T. Belman. The title and the article is from the Russian perspective.

Russia Insider

On Monday, August 22nd, the United States government — which demands the overthrow of the internationally-recognized-as-legal government of Syria — officially announced that America’s military forces in Syria will continue to occupy Syrian land, no matter what the Syrian government says, and will shoot down any Syrian planes that fly over U.S. forces there and that attack them.

As reported on Monday by Al-Masdar News:

The Pentagon has announced that the USA is ready to down  Syrian and Russian planes that they claim threaten American advisers who by international law are illegally operating in northern Syria.

Read more…

This is the only border area Islamic State still shares with Turkey, and Turkey has wanted a buffer zone as well as a no-fly zone there since last year.

By Seth Frantzman, JPOST

Early Wednesday morning, Turkish special forces – under the command of Lt.-Gen. Zekai Aksakalli – entered Syria to conduct operations against Islamic State. According to local reports, they arrived soon after T-155 self-propelled howitzers had hit 63 targets around the Syrian town of Jarabulus.

The Euphrates Shield operation began from Karkamis, a small border town in a region that has seen numerous crossborder incidents in the last year, including rockets and mortars fired by Islamic State across the border. Turkish media reported that a rocket fired by the terrorist organization hit Karkamis on Tuesday and the town was evacuated.
Read more…

See also: State Department blasts Hevron construction

By Jeff Dunjitz, THE LID

President Obama, Europe and much of the world claim that the Holy Land city of Hevron (Hebron) is occupied territory and they are correct (but not the way they think). Hevron is a Jewish city occupied by the Arabs.

Hevron’s occupation began on a Friday evening in August 87 years ago when a group of Arab terrorists massacred the Jews of the city while the British who ruled over the Holy Land knew what was happening but didn’t lift a finger to prevent the carnage
Read more…

By Paul Eidelberg, President, Israel-America Renaissance Institute

To have moderate Muslims [says Kasem], there must be moderate Islam….For the existence of moderate Muslims, there must be a ‘moderate’ Qur’an, since the life force of Islam is the Qur’an. If the Qur’an cannot be ‘moderated’ (i.e., a moderate Qur’an) then how is it possible to have a moderate Islam, and consequently moderate Muslims? What we perceive as the so-called moderate Muslims may be classified into three groups:

Read more…

Conflating security and defense costs with assistance to settlements distorts reality and masks more serious economic problems.

By Moshe Dann, JPOST

Opponents of the Jewish communbities in Judea and Samaria (“settlements”) charge that they drain our economy, diverting funds that should be spent within the 1949 Armistice (“Green”) Lines. They accuse the government of giving settlers unwarranted discounts and subsidies in the form of building schools and clinics, infrastructure, such as roads, and providing security.

But is this true? Adding up all government allocations over the Green Line, they include building the separation fence/wall (NIS 18 billion), the 2005 withdrawal from the Gaza Strip (NIS 15b.), the development of the Iron Dome rocket defense system and added protection for communities near Gaza. None of this was done to help settlers. Jews were encouraged and assisted by the government to build communities in the Gaza Strip and northern Samaria; they cannot be faulted for what happened.
Read more…

T. Belman. Kahlon, the minister of finance said, “The banks, the contractors, and extremely strong interest groups share a great concern about a change in the housing prices trend.” I reject the suggestion by Horowitz that the government keeps the prices high to encourage people to live in J&S.

Op-ed: Tackling rocketing house prices with new taxes and various harebrained schemes, the government seems to be ignoring the obvious solution: free up more land. Or has the goal all along been to encourage people to move to settlements?

By David Horowitz, TOI

Israel’s housing market has become completely insane. Israelis simply cannot afford to buy their own homes, and rental prices are soaring to lunatic heights too. In some areas of Tel Aviv, prices of homes have doubled in the past two-three years alone. A reasonably well-lit, 60-square-meter (645 square-foot), two-bedroom apartment in a fairly central Jerusalem neighborhood will cost you half a million dollars, if you’re lucky. A little more in Tel Aviv. These are prices that, when contemplated from the vantage point of an Israeli family with two breadwinners bringing in an about average combined salary of 20,000 shekels a month (a little more than $5,000), dispatch home ownership into the realm of science fiction. A Globes survey found that it takes 191 average Israeli salaries to buy a five-room apartment, compared to an OECD average of 96. And that was in 2012.
Read more…

By Christine Williams, JIHAD WATCH

“The Daily Mail and the New York Post continue to build on the damning case against Hillary Clinton’s top aide Huma Abedin that the mainstream media continues to ignore.”

It is bizarre that Muslim anti-Americanism could have infiltrated at the highest levels, bringing with it acceptance of opposition to patriotism and to the Western principle of equality for women. But that is exactly what has happened, due to the stealth jihadis’ alliance with leftists. Westerners tolerate mind-boggling propaganda and statements that would be not tolerated if spoken against Muslims or, in fact, any other minority group (except, unfortunately, Jews).
Read more…

By Sarah N. Stern, AMERICAN THINKER

The media and much of the Republican establishment have caught on to only part of a story about a shady deal that the Obama administration made with the Islamic Republic of Iran, a deal that took a rather labyrinthine and bizarre form. What they are talking about is bad enough, which involves paying a ransom for hostages, opening up Americans to kidnappings and imprisonment whenever they travel abroad.

The part of the story that they are missing, however, is that what the administration did was highly illegal, according to statutes we still have on our books.

On August 3rd, a story broke that an unmarked cargo plane loaded with $400 million in foreign currency landed in Tehran as part of a United States payment to Iran. Coincidentally this happened the very same day that three American hostages were released.
Read more…

By Jack Hellner, AMERICAN THINKER

There are pundits out in the media world who act as if the race is over and that this August lead by Hillary is almost impossible to overcome. That seems to be greatly exaggerated.

The current Real Clear Politics average has Hillary’s average lead at only 5.5%

On July 26, 1988, Dukakis was up 18%.

Bush won the general election by almost 9% and won around 80% of the electoral vote.
Read more…

By Moshe Feiglin, JEWISH LEADERSHIP

The two people more responsible than anyone else for the fact that the Nation of Israel cannot sleep soundly at night are Former PM Ehud Barak and PM Binyamin Netanyahu. They really do not have to leak secret information about each other, as they did last week, for us to understand that. Both of them are the greatest security catastrophe that Israel has ever known.

When Ehud Barak was prime minister, he caved in to (former radio broadcaster and current Labor party MK) Shelly Yechimovitz and The Four Mothers movement. The Four Mothers was a leftist movement that advocated complete retreat from Lebanon, where Israeli forces were on constant alert to keep terrorists and missiles away from Israel’s borders. Yechimovitz used her popular talk show at Israel’ public service radio to push the Four Mothers’ agenda on a daily basis. In a populist move, Ehud Barak ordered the IDF to flee the security strip it had been maintaining in southern Lebanon, abandoning Israel’s allies there to the ‘mercy’ of the Hizballah and leaving valuable military equipment to be scooped up by the terrorists.
Read more…

Ted Belman. INSS is a left wing think tank associated with left wing Tel Aviv U and the military.

In the summary he writes “The Israeli government should therefore make a concerted effort in the existing circumstances to reach understandings with the Obama administration on questions involving the peace process and the settlements. This would likely assist Netanyahu’s efforts to persuade the American administration to block movement toward a UN Security Council resolution on the Israeli-Palestinian political process”.

This is bizaar. Better to be have to deal with such a UNSC resolution, if it happens, than to cut a deal with Obama that will be more binding and little different from the resolution.

A UNSC resolution will be a Chapter VI resolution and therefore not binding. I can’t imagine a Chap VII resolution , which is binding, being passed while Obama is still President. Ultimately if such a resolution is passed, it could mandate sanctions or military force. Both such actions have to be done by member countries. The US Congress would never agree to either. The way I see it, no one would.

Can the UN legally impose a solution on Israel?

SUMMARY
The Obama administration nears the end of its tenure frustrated by its failure to advance the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, and it appears that by the end of its term, it seeks to have laid the groundwork for a new framework regarding the process. The Israeli government should therefore make a concerted effort in the existing circumstances to reach understandings with the Obama administration on questions involving the peace process and the settlements. This would likely assist Netanyahu’s efforts to persuade the American administration to block movement toward a UN Security Council resolution on the Israeli-Palestinian political process. Indeed, the Israeli government must understand the far-reaching consequences that can result from a new Security Council resolution, which would create a new political-strategic situation that is almost certainly irreversible and very troublesome for Israel.

By Zaki Shalom, INSS
Read more…

By Prof Paul Eidelberg, President, Israel-America Renaissance Institute

[Note from the present author: While researching this essay, I discovered, in the January 7, 2008 issue of FrontPageMagazine.com (FP), a most courageous and candid interview of a former Muslim, Dr. Abul Kasem. Born and educated in Bangladesh, Kasem had authored hundreds of articles and several books exposing Islam. For example, he contributed to Leaving Islam: Apostates Speak Out, and Beyond Jihad: Critical Views From Inside Islam. Kasem was interviewed FP’s Managing Editor, Dr. Jamie Glazer, a Ph.D.in history who coauthored (with David Horowitz) The Hate America Left (in which Horowitz reveals the “unholy alliance” between the Left, steeped in atheism, and Islam). Without further ado, let’s go directly to FP’s opening query of Dr. Kesem.]

FP: Tell us a bit about your spiritual and intellectual journey.
Read more…

Nobody. Or at least not all of it. Grasp that and you can see a clear strategy for the West.
By Jonathan Spyer, ME FORUM

The long civil war in Syria is still far from conclusion. Any real possibility of rebel victory ended with the entry of Russian forces last autumn — but while the initiative is now with the Assad regime, the government’s forces are also far from a decisive breakthrough. So who, if anyone, should the UK be backing in the Syrian slaughterhouse, and what might constitute progress in this broken and burning land?
Read more…

Can Trump Win? Here’s The Latest From All The Key Polls Aug 21

Trump courts minority voters

When I listen to his speeches I am encouraged to think he will win. But most Americans don’t listen or listen with deaf ears.

By Niall Stanage, THE HILL

This year’s extraordinary election campaign is redrawing the political map, leaving experts debating whether the shift is a one-off or a more permanent change.

States expected to be hotly contested battlegrounds, such as Colorado, Virginia and even North Carolina, are shifting into the Democratic column, according to recent polls. Erstwhile Republican strongholds such as Georgia, Arizona and Utah are now competitive.
Read more…

T. Belman. This clarifies a great deal. The houses in question aren’t just anywhere in Area C but are “spill over” from Areas A and B.  What should happen is that Areas A and B should be enlarged to include the lands that these houses sit on.  Such lands would constitute less than 1% of Area C. Israel could decide which areas to re-designate as A or B.

The benefit for Israel is that Area C, which Bennett wants to annex, would then only contain 60,000 Arabs rather than 200,000 as some allege.

As part of its efforts to take over the Palestinian Authority, Hamas unexpectedly decided to run in the West Bank municipal elections; this led Israel to scramble for an action plan to thwart Hamas’s ambitions, including legalizing illegal Palestinian homes in Area C and building a new Palestinian city, but these measures could still be too little too late, and Israel might have to deal with armed Hamas militants right on the Green Line.

By Alex Fishman, YNET

While Israel’s leadership is busy exhausting itself arguing over Hamas’s tunnel digging in Gaza in 2014, they are missing—or perhaps ignoring—a major threat the terror organization is preparing in the West Bank. This political threat, which very well might pose obstacles to Israel’s operations in the West Bank, can’t be destroyed using technological measures.

Hamas is about to take over the municipal centers of power in the West Bank in a legal and democratic way in several weeks time as part of its plan to take over the entire Palestinian Authority—but we, as we always do, may have missed the train yet again.
Read more…

Despite the magnitude of the assault, Israel clearly made an effort to avoid hitting civilians. Both sides would apparently still prefer to avoid another large-scale conflict.

By Amos Harel, HAARETZ

Israel’s bombing of the Gaza Strip on Sunday night was exceptional. The air force attacked a relatively large number of targets in the heaviest offensive since the end of the last Hamas-Israel war two years ago.

Neither Israel nor Hamas have said exactly what was attacked, though both sides presumably know. It’s reasonable to assume that aside from considerations of deterrence, Israel decided to seize a tactical opportunity to deprive Hamas of operational assets. The launch of a rocket at Sderot by a Palestinian terrorist group provided sufficient justification for doing so.
Read more…

T. Belman. Since only 39% of Israel Jews support the 2SS with its current parameters, the deal must be considerably sweetened for it to gain acceptance. This is not going to happen no matter who mediates peace. Since only 20% of Israeli Jews accept a 1SS with equal rights, Glick’s solution is a non-starter.

This support will only decrease, as the left, who in the main support the 1SS, dwindle in numbers as the right grows stronger.

Thus a new paradigm must be cultivated. If the Palestinians won’t accept permanent autonomy, they will be left with the choice between the status quo and compensated emigration.

While thin majority of both Israelis and Palestinians two-state accord in theory, fewer back an agreement under current terms

ISRAEL DEMOCRACY INSTITUTE

Only a small majority of Palestinians (51%) and Israelis (59%; 53% of Jewish Israelis and 87% of Arab Israelis) supports a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

So reports the new Palestinian-Israeli Pulse: A Joint Poll, published today by the Israel Democracy Institute (IDI) in Jerusalem and the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research (PSR) in Ramallah, with funding from the European Union (EU) and in partnership with and support from theKonrad-Adenauer Stiftung in Ramallah and Jerusalem.
Read more…

The first thing that we see is the megalomaniacal nature of Soros’s philanthropic project. No corner of the globe is unaffected by his efforts. No policy area is left untouched.

By Caroline Glick, JPOST

Major media outlets in the US have ignored the leak of thousands of emails from billionaire George Soros’s Open Society Foundation by the activist hacker group DCLeaks. The OSF is the vehicle through which Soros has funneled billions of dollars over the past two decades to non-profit organizations in the US and throughout the world.

According to the documents, Soros has given more than $30 million to groups working for Hillary Clinton’s election in November, making him her largest single donor. So it is likely the case that the media’s support for Clinton has played some role in the mainstream media’s bid to bury the story.
Read more…