Hezbollah remains a powerful foe, but its claim to spearhead the Arab fight against Israel has been dented and its involvement in the Syrian civil war has cost it heavily.

By Jonathan Spyer, JPOST

Speaking at a gathering in southern Lebanon last month, Hezbollah deputy leader Sheikh Naim Qassem reiterated the movement’s readiness for war with Israel. At the same time, the sheikh made clear that war this summer would not take place unless Israel initiates it. In his speech, Qassem, who is considered the chief ideologue of Hezbollah, recalled the “divine victory” of the movement, which brought about Israeli withdrawal from south Lebanon in May 2000. He asserted, in a reiteration of the movement’s muqawama or “resistance” doctrine, that the 2000 withdrawal had begun the period of Israel’s decline. This period, he suggested, will end with the Jewish state’s disappearance.
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Offering high-tech and security know-how in return for diplomatic support, Netanyahu was welcomed like a superpower chief

BY RAPHAEL AHREN, TOI

DIS ABABA, Ethiopia — A life-size stuffed lion greets visitors to the National Palace in Addis Ababa, lying on a red carpet adorned with Stars of David. Always aware of a good frame, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu did not pass up on the opportunity to have his photograph taken with the lion on the sidelines of his meeting with Ethiopian Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn Thursday morning.
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By David M Weinberg, ISRAEL HAYOM

I have just returned from 10 days in Washington, where I encountered administration officials, think tank analysts and Jewish community lobbyists who are profoundly misreading Israel and misunderstanding the changed Middle East.

Most of them think that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is without a grand plan and is just playing petty politics to survive. I tried to explain to them how wrong they were and to articulate a coherent Israeli strategic worldview.

To begin with, I found that senior Obama administration defense officials have convinced themselves that the Israeli security establishment has come around to a benign view of the Western nuclear accord with Iran. Netanyahu is an outlier in his continued negativity toward the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, they told me; he is isolated from his own military-intelligence establishment in this regard, they asserted with self-congratulatory smirks on their faces.
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By Yoram Ettinger, ISRAEL HAYOM

The long-term trends of US-Israel relations do not hinge solely/mostly on US presidents, as has been documented since Israel’s establishment in 1948, and especially since the early 1980s, when – in spite of systematic presidential pressure on Israel – bilateral industrial, commercial, scientific, technological, agricultural, homeland security and defense cooperation have surged beyond expectations.

For instance, President Truman pressured Prime Minister Ben Gurion to end the “occupation” of West Jerusalem and parts of the Negev and Galilee; President Johnson pressured Prime Minister Eshkol to refrain from preempting the concerted Arab attack, reuniting Jerusalem and building in “occupied areas”; President Nixon pressured Prime Minister Golda Meir to end “occupation” and refrain from building in East Jerusalem; President Carter pressured Prime Minister Begin to focus on withdrawal from Judea & Samaria, rather than on peace with Egypt; President Reagan pressured Prime Minister Begin to rescind the application of Israeli law to the Golan Heights and end the hot-pursuit of the PLO in Lebanon; President Bush pressured Prime Minister Shamir to recognize the PLO and refrain from construction in Judea & Samaria.
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THE ISRAEL PROJECT

Lawmakers and experts assembled at a Capitol Hill hearing on Wednesday expressed outrage over the Palestinian Authority’s policy of financially rewarding terrorist attacks against Israelis.The PA provides paychecks for Palestinian terrorists who are imprisoned in Israel, as well as money for their families and the families of those killed while committing acts of terror, thereby providing a strong financial incentive for individuals to perpetrate acts of violence against Israelis.
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By Ron Jager

Denial is defined as a psychological defense mechanism, and was postulated by psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud, in which a person is faced with a fact that is too uncomfortable to accept and rejects it instead, insisting that it is not true despite what may be overwhelming evidence.
One would think that by now, after the Boston Marathon, after Fort Hood, after San Bernardino, after Orlando, after Paris, after Belgium, after 120 years of Islamic terror against the Jewish State, President Obama’s denial and refusal to call a spade a spade – namely that radical Islam is the number one generator of terror throughout the world — would end. But it hasn’t, Obama continues to live in a world of denial.
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The president’s abdication from leadership has unnerved America’s allies and made the world a more dangerous place.

By Kenneth R. Weinstein, HUDSON INSTITUTE, WSJ

As the initial shock of Great Britain’s vote to withdraw from the EU recedes, another withdrawal has been taking place. This withdrawal, albeit more gradual and undertaken with greater stealth, has far deeper consequences. It is the exit of the United States from global leadership and the alliance structure that it built and nurtured over nearly seven decades.

This “Amexit” is not simply defined by the Obama administration’s retreat from Afghanistan and Iraq, or its unwillingness to enforce the “red line” in Syria, to arm Ukraine, or to confront Chinese and North Korean aggressions. Nor is it only America’s diminished engagement with longstanding allies.
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Does AIPAC intend to remain a pro-Israel organization? Or will it opt to become a softer version of J Street and work to hollow out Republican support for Israel.

By Caroline B. Glick, JPOST

Later this month, Republicans and Democrats will hold their respective conventions. Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton will officially become the presidential nominees.

Ahead of the conventions, both parties selected delegates to draft their platforms. The Democratic platform committee convened late last month.

As soon as the delegates to the Democratic platform committee were named, it was clear that the party’s support for Israel would come under assault.
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By Baraq Araz, TOI

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu inspects an honor guard in Nairobi, Kenya, on July 5, 2016 (Kobi Gideon / GPO).

As a proud Israeli who loves speaking of and for my country, it’s utterly refreshing to arrive in a place where, at the mention of my nationality, I am met with smiles, and welcomed warmly. This is no dream — it’s my experience in Africa.

Over the past two and a half years, I have been engaging in business development as the chief of staff of a private holdings and investment group currently in its fourth decade of operations there (and whose managing partner also serves as Rwanda’s honorary consul in Israel). In over 30 months, I have travelled around the continent more times than I can recall, having visited about a dozen countries and having met with public officials and business leaders from about a dozen more. This is the reality I am met with, each and every single time. Indeed it is a stark contrast from my preceding eight-year military service, most of which I served as a spokesman (including that of IDF operations in the West Bank, no less), constantly facing criticism and derision.
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Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu: American position on settlement construction is unacceptable • “We are ready at all times to hold direct negotiations without preconditions with our neighbors,” Netanyahu says.

Israel Hayom Staff

Construction in Jerusalem [Archive] | Photo credit: Yonatan Sindel

A day after a U.S. State Department spokesman criticized Israeli construction in Judea and Samaria and east Jerusalem, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu fired back on Tuesday, calling the U.S. position “unacceptable.”

Speaking at a joint press conference with Rwandan President Paul Kagame in Kigali, Netanyahu said, “We are familiar with the American position. It is not new. It is also not acceptable to us.
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A center-left separatist insurgency, based in northern Iraq, has taken to fighting Iran’s Revolutionary Guard.

THE DAILY BEAST

In an unprecedented escalation in the last two decades, Iranian Kurdish rebels have broke a unilateral ceasefire with a series of attacks against the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps in the mountainous Kurdish cities in northwestern Iran.

A series of ongoing attacks by Kurdish rebels from the Kurdistan Democratic Party in Iran (KDPI) on the Revolutionary Guard, dozens from both sides have been killed. (Exact numbers are difficult to come by given competing claims.)
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By Lea Speyer, ALGEMEINER

America’s credibility in the Middle East has been destroyed since the signing of the Iran nuclear deal a year ago, a former US ambassador to Iraq and Turkey asserted on Tuesday.

In his analysis, titled, “The JCPOA’s Regional Impact: Sinking Confidence in the U.S. Balancing Role,” James F. Jeffrey — the Philip Solondz Distinguished Fellow at the DC-based think tank the Washington Institute for Near East Policy — wrote that the nuclear deal has emboldened Tehran and “even enabled Iran’s hegemonic quest.” As a result, he claimed, regional powers — such as Saudi Arabia, the Gulf States, Turkey and Israel — now perceive US leadership as “weak,” posing heightened risks of “descent into greater chaos.”
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By EVELYN GORDON, COMMENTARY

On Monday, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon predictably assailed Israel’s announced decision to build 800 new apartments in Ma’aleh Adumim and eastern Jerusalem. He noted that just four days earlier, the Middle East Quartet (i.e. the U.S., EU, UN and Russia) had issued a report deeming settlement construction an obstacle to peace. What Ban didn’t mention is that just a few days before that report came out, a leading Israeli leftist expert on the settlements published a comprehensive rebuttal of this claim, providing facts and figures showing that the settlements effectively aren’t growing at all.

This juxtaposition begs an obvious question: If the world is going to accuse Israel of “massive settlement construction” that “threatens the two-state solution” when even leading leftists admit this is a lie, why should Israel continue to pay the very real price exacted by freezing settlement construction?
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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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