Philip Gordon says the administration did just enough in Syria to perpetuate the conflict without resolving it.

By Jeffery Goldberg, The Atlantic

A couple of weeks ago, I was talking with Philip Gordon, who held the Middle East portfolio at the National Security Council from 2013 to 2015 (and before that, served as assistant secretary of state for European affairs) about my Atlantic article, “The Obama Doctrine.” The piece tried to explain how the president understands the world, and America’s role in it. (This week, the president is on a tour of the some of the countries he discussed in the article.)

Gordon, a loyal Obama man, is, like his ex-boss, somewhat-to-very fatalistic about the ability of the U.S. to direct the course of events in the Middle East (“realistic,” rather than “fatalistic,” is the term the president prefers). Gordon is known for, among other things, a pithy and concise formula he developed to explain why President Obama, and many of his advisers, are so hesitant to engage fully in the various catastrophes of the Middle East. In Iraq, the Gordon dictum goes, Obama learned that full-scale invasions leading to regime change don’t work; in Libya, he learned that partial interventions leading to regime collapse don’t work; and in Syria he learned that non-intervention also doesn’t work. An unspoken but obvious lesson: Once a president reaches this set of conclusions, can you blame him for wanting to pivot to Asia?
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DEBKA

DEBKAfile’s intelligence sources and its sources in the Gulf report exclusively that US President Barack Obama failed to convince the leaders of the six Gulf Cooperation Council member states, during their April 22 summit in Riyadh, to support his Middle East policy and cooperate with Washington.

Our sources also report that Saudi Arabia, with Turkey’s help, and the US carried out separate military operations several hours before the start of the summit that showed the extent of their differences.
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HANNITY: There Will Be No Contested Convention – Things Are Happening Behind the Scenes (VIDEO) –

Sean Hannity said “things are happening behind the scenes” – there will be no contested convention. There are rumors to the effect that Marco Rubio will endorse Donald J. Trump and pass him his 173 delegates. The Donald already has 846.

Trump said he would consider Marco Rubio for his VP

The facts are hard to swallow, but they are the truth.

By Mordechai Kedar, INN

My dear friends, Jews in Israel and the Diaspora.

I am sorry to tell you that the terror attacks we suffer today and yesterday, a week ago, a month, a year and a decade and century ago, are all part of the same war, the same struggle, the same Jihad waged against us by our neighbors for over a century. Sometimes it is a full scale war with tanks, noise, flames, planes and ships and sometimes it is a war on a slow burner known as “terror” with explosions, stabbings and shots. Each of these is Jihad in Arabic, each is aimed at Jews just for being Jewish.

I regret to remind you of the fact that this war began way before the establishment of the Jewish state declared in 1948. The riots and massacres of 1920, 1921, 1929, 1936-39 et al, were not due to a Jewish state or what our enemies call the “occupation” of 1948, and certainly not because of the 1967 “occupation”. The bloody and cruel massacre of the Jews of Hevron in 1929 was carried out against Jews who were not part of the Zionist movement, quite the contrary. The Palestine Liberation Movement (Fatah) was founded, may I remind you, in 1959 and The Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) in 1964, years before the 1967 “occupation” that was a result of Israel winning the Six Day War.
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By Martin Sherman, ISRAEL HAYOM

More than two years before any Israeli presence in what are now the “occupied territories,” Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser issued a public message: “We shall not enter Palestine with its soil covered in sand, we shall enter it with its soil saturated in blood” (March 8, 1965).

T. Belman. This Haaretz article starts nice enough but quickly degenerates into unbelieveable vitriolic.

And truly, we must ask: Why should a Jewish child in the Jewish state be exposed (and right from the beginning of grade school!) to the Jewish sages and be “encouraged to feel at home with Jewish culture”? What good could come of studying the Jewish calendar, the traditions of various Jewish cultures and Jewish peoplehood? What is Education Minister Naftali Bennett cooking up when he claims that the program is “pluralistic”? Israel,

There is no doubt that behind the pluralistic sweet talk lurks a plot to brainwash these young, defenseless children with Jewish and Zionist indoctrination. They will also be taken on field trips, with no consideration for what it might do to their tender souls, to Zionist heritage and memorial sites.

For the enlightened public, any attempt to have children delve into their culture is a plot to brainwash them with Jewish and Zionist indoctrination.

I always thought that introducing Jewish kids to Jewish values and identity was a good thing. The visceral reaction exemplified by this article, demonstrates how big the divide is between nationalists and some leftists.

By Israel Harel, HAARETZ

A front-page headline in Wednesday’s Haaretz announced, “New school program will bring young children to Judaism.” At first glance, a headline announcing a plan to intensify Jewish-national identity in “regular” public schools, not religious ones, is good news.
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By accepting the principle of two-states, successive Israeli leaders have impaled the nation on the horns of an irresolvable dilemma.

By Martin Sherman, JPOST

We cannot solve our problems with the same level of thinking that created them. – Albert Einstein

One does not have to be an Einstein to grasp that Israel cannot solve the problems created by the endeavor to establish a Palestinian state by continuing the endeavor to establish such a state.

Futile and self-obstructive

Sadly, what should be a simple self-evident truth seems to have eluded Israeli political leaders – who for almost a quarter century have impaled the nation on the horns of an irresolvable dilemma. For by ostensibly accepting the principle of a two-state resolution of the conflict with the Palestinian-Arabs, they have, in effect, committed the nation to a policy whose implementation requires concessions too perilous for any responsible government to make.
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By Ted Belman

When Netanyahu ended his meeting with Putin, Netanyahu talked about what he demanded giving the impression that demanding recognition of Israel’s right to keep the Golan was tantamount to Israel keeping it.

Nowhere in all the news reports was there any mention of whether Putin agreed.

Netanyahu has been concerned for some time that pressure would be brought to bear on him and Israel to give it up. What follows are two articles both dated Apr 21 which goes into detail.
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By David Bedien

At a time when officials in the Israel defense establishment have advised the Israeli government to hand over more authority  to the PSF, the Palestinian Security Forces, the time has come to examine if there are inherent dangers of such a move at this time.

Our agency produced a series of studies on the lethal dangers of the PSF,  under the sponsorship of the MIDDLE EAST FORUM, between 2010 and 2013.

Our conclusions, which have proven to be correct, were:
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The insanity of a Palestinian state

By Barry Shaw, INN

Incitement and anti-Semitic hate spewing out of the mouths of Palestinian leaders, empty words designed to perpetuate Palestinian self-promotion as the perennial victim when, in truth, they are only the victims of their own emptiness, the constant eruption of violence against Israelis from Palestinian Arabs raised to hate Jews and destroy Israel.

If anyone is so utterly unworthy of statehood it is the Palestinian Arabs.
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By John Bolton

On June 21, President Obama will attend his last summit with the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), the six oil-producing monarchies on the Arabian Peninsula. Afterward, press handlers will doubtless spin euphemistically that their “mutual exchange of views” was “full and frank.” In plain English, “brutal” (albeit diplomatically polite) would likely be more accurate.

Fundamental strategic misconceptions underlie Mr. Obama’s Middle East actions, including that America should be essentially neutral in the region’s great conflicts; our efforts, over decades, to protect our interests and allies have reduced, not enhanced, peace and security; and a detached, minimalist US role henceforth will permit local actors, without our meddling, to reach their own accommodations more readily. These precepts have caused innumerable foreign policy blunders, including Mr. Obama’s sustained maltreatment of Israel, the Iran nuclear deal, and the failure to suppress the Islamic State (ISIS) and other terrorist threats.
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The US Supreme Court generally defers to the executive on cases delving into foreign policy, especially if Congress stands with the executive.

By Yonah Jeremy Bob, JPOST

Despite improved US-Iran relations, the US Supreme Court on Wednesday gave a historic $2 billion victory to the families of Americans killed in attacks blamed on Iran.

At its January hearing on the issue, the US Supreme Court seemed to be seriously entertaining allowing around $2 billion in frozen of Iranian Bank Markazi’s funds to go to the families, but the 6-2 vote in favor made that possibility which risks major tensions in bilateral relations, including over the terms of the recent nuclear deal, a reality.
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Many are sure that one of Judaism’s central events never happened. Evidence, some published here for the first time, suggests otherwise.

By Joshua Berman, MOSAIC

To this day, no pulpit talk by a contemporary American rabbi has generated greater attention or controversy than a sermon delivered by Rabbi David Wolpe on the morning of Passover 2001. “The truth,” Rabbi Wolpe informed his Los Angeles congregation, “is [that] the way the Bible describes the exodus [from Egypt] is not the way it happened, if it happened at all.”

Beyond dropping a theological bombshell, the sermon ushered in a new era, one in which synagogue-attending Jews could increasingly expect to be confronted with the findings of academic study of the Bible. To Rabbi Wolpe, intellectual honesty mandated that, with respect to the exodus in particular, these findings be not only confronted but embraced, and it was the duty of spiritual leaders like himself to help the faithful assimilate them.
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by Abraham Cooper and Harold Brackman, JEWISH JOURNAL

Vice President Biden, speaking at J Street a few days ago, voiced the Obama Administration’s “overwhelming frustration” — at Israel for the lack of Mideast peace.

Well, “frustration” seems to be the Middle East’s middle name these days. Has the Administration or the Media bothered to inquire about the “overwhelming frustration” of millions of displaced Syrians, ethnically cleansed Iraqi Christians, disappearing Yazidis, and dare we say it: the citizens of Israel.

Many Israelis are “overwhelmingly frustrated” by the world’s stony silence, as their fellow citizens were  literally being stabbed in the back by (primarily) young Palestinian terrorists.
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T. Belman. George Bush was frightened silly by Saudi threats just after he took office, to “go their own way”. But the tables have turned. The US is easily within range of oil independence and has begun to distance themselves from SA. Their embrace of Iran was in part intended to play one against the other.

As a result of the US distancing themselves from both Saudi Arabia, including Egypt, and Israel, these countries have been cooperating with each other for their mutual benefit.

How the U.S.-Saudi relationship grew cold under Barack Obama’s watch.

By Simon Henderson, FOREIGN  POLICY

The initial defining moment of President Barack Obama’s attitude toward Saudi Arabia, for many people, was when he bowed to King Abdullah as he shook his hand at the London G-20 summit meeting in April 2009. The gesture, which the White House vehemently denied was a bow at all, was variously interpreted as the new president groveling toward an important ally, or an early sign of Obama’s capacity to charm.
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By Ted Belman

The US chose to fight Israel’s declaration that the Golan will remain in Israel forever by saying that it will be on the table in peace negotiations with Syria. Dr Gabi Avital, in his article, Israel and Golan Heights are inseparable, points out that this was a big mistake particularly when the Golan represents only 6/10 of one percent of Syria’s land mass, at least before it had been rent asunder. Israel can live without a peace agreement with Syria but she can’t live without the Golan. Peace for peace is all she will offer.

Why would both the US and Russia stir this pot up again?

Elliot Abrams, in his article, Biden’s untimely assault on Israel, made mincemeat out of VP Biden, Read more…

By Yoram Ettinger, ISRAEL HAYOM

While Thomas Paine’s “Common Sense” — a pamphlet partially based on the teachings of the Biblical Moses, the judge Gideon and the prophet Samuel — cemented the 1776 American Revolution against the British crown, the Passover story cemented the Jewish revolution (against the Egyptian crown), Jewish nationhood and the Jewish state. The Passover legacy contributed to the foundation of the culture, justice and liberty of the United States, and to the American people’s special attitude toward the Jewish state.
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T. Belman. Herzog was right. Bennett was wrong. If the Zionist Union wants to be seen as a Zionist party, it must fight for Zionism, not the Arabs and not for Israel as a state of all its citizens. Yachimovitch pointed out what our Declaration of Independence said regarding equal rights. It is time that that part of the declaration be excised. There are distinctions to be made. Bennett should have left well enough alone. His Zionist credentials are clear enough and he fights for more equality for the Arabs. But why fight Herzog on this point unless you don’t want the Zionist Union to be a Zionist party.

Opposition leader takes flak, including from some in his own party, after saying Labor should shed left-wing image

BY RAOUL WOOTLIFF, TOI

Opposition leader Isaac Herzog doubled down Wednesday on a controversial statement the day before saying that to win over more of the Israeli public his Labor Party had to stop giving the impression that “we are always “Arab-lovers.”

Responding to a barrage of criticism from both within Labor and across the political spectrum, Herzog suggested on Twitter Wednesday morning that anyone unhappy with his statements should consider leaving the party.
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DEBKA

Iran held its annual military parade on April 17 to mark National Army Day.

DEBKAfile’s military and Iranian sources said it was the most unimpressive in recent years. Iran usually displays its most advanced missiles and other weapons systems, but this year it only showed components of the S-300 antiaircraft system acquired from Russia, demonstrating that Moscow had held back on the entire missiles and will apparently continue to do so in the near future.
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