Reuters reported on Thursday that Russia was engaged in talks with other global powers on the possibility of turning Syria into a federal state.
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For the astute readers of Breitbart News, last night’s battle in Chicago may come as a shock, but it should come as no surprise.
No other news organization has documented the rise and origins of the groups behind Friday night’s madhouse as thoroughly as the team at Breitbart News. From its origins being exposed in the film Occupy Unmasked before the election cycle to covering and exposing every aspect of the new Black Lives Matter incarnation, we’ve given readers the intellectual ammunition to understand the dangerous rise of the new American left in the Obama era.
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Donald J. Trump announcing his campaign for president in June 2015. He began testing the waters, and laying the groundwork, several years before.Todd Heisler/The New York Times
Donald J. Trump arrived at the White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner in April 2011, reveling in the moment as he mingled with the political luminaries who gathered at the Washington Hilton. He made his way to his seat beside his host, Lally Weymouth, the journalist and socialite daughter of Katharine Graham, longtime publisher of The Washington Post.
A short while later, the humiliation started. Read more…
T. Belman. I agree with Spyer. We sort of have a stalemate. The Assad/Iran/Russian alliance has no stomach for reconquering all of Syria and the opposition forces are not capable of conquering the Alawite enclave. Thus all that remains is to draw a line separating the two sides. Thus Alawite Syria is separated from the rest. Whether this can be accomplished with a federated Syria (unlikely) or a complete break up of Syria into different states remains to be seen. But even if agreement can be reached peace won’t come to the region.
The ceasefire that came into effect in Syria on February 27 is a partial success. Humanitarian convoys have begun to get through to some of the areas besieged by government forces.
The death toll is sharply down.
According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, the civilian death toll in Syria fell by 90 percent last week.
This was accompanied by an 80% decline in deaths among combatants on all sides.
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Sephardic Chief Rabbi Yitzhak Yosef calls killing terrorists “a mitzvah” that will save lives, deter other terrorists.
Israel’s Chief Sephardic Rabbi, Yitzhak Yosef, told listeners during his weekly Torah class that it was a “mitzvah” to kill terrorists during attacks. The Chief Rabbi also said that in the heat of the moment, one should not worry about potential legal problems.
“If a terrorist comes after someone while brandishing a knife, it’s a mitzvah to kill him – [as the Talmudic maxim says] ‘when one comes to kill you, kill him first’. Don’t worry about being taken to court afterwards, or that IDF Chief of Staff will criticize it; don’t worry about that.”
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Ben Carson sipped hot chocolate across the breakfast table from Donald Trump at the businessman’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, Fla., on Thursday morning, still unsure as to whether he’d endorse anyone in the Republican primary.
Over the last week, Carson had spoken by phone to Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio and John Kasich, the other three candidates still in the GOP presidential race. None had stood out to him.
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The just-released Pew Survey (“Israel’s Religiously Divided Society”) contains some fascinating data. While most commentators are making a big deal over the fact that about half of Jewish Israelis agreed that “Arabs should be expelled or transferred from Israel” – a stupid question because it doesn’t distinguish between Arab citizens of Israel and residents of Judea and Samaria, or whether ‘transfer’ is at gunpoint or voluntary with compensation, or many other things – I was more interested in its comparison between Israeli and American Jews.
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Israel has started testing a secret new weapon for defeating the tunnel systems which the Palestinian Hamas and Hizballah are busy digging for surprise attacks against Israel. Western sources reported Friday, March 11, that the new weapon, dubbed the “Underground Iron Dome,” can detect a tunnel, then send in a moving missile to blow it up.
US intelligence sources disclosed only that new weapon is equipped with seismic sensors to detect underground vibrations and map their location before destroying them.
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As Hamas expands its tunnel network in Gaza, Israel, and the United States are collaborating on a clandestine project to thwart the Islamist group’s subterranean advantage.
By Yardena Swartz, FOREIGN POLICY
KHAN YOUNIS, Gaza — Bassem al-Najar has been homeless since August 2014, when Israeli warplanes demolished his house during the 50-day conflict that killed more than 2,000 Gazans and 72 Israelis. Najar lost his brother in the war, and for the next four months, he lived in a U.N. school with his wife and four children, along with 80 other families. They moved into a prefabricated hut, resembling a tool shed, in December 2014, where they expected to live for just a few months until their home was rebuilt. Today, he is still one of an estimated 100,000 Gazans who remain homeless.
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The former state is gone and will never return. A regime of sorts survives in Damascus, but it takes its orders from Iran
Approximately five years have elapsed since the popular protest against Bashar Assad’s regime began in Syria — a protest that spiraled into a blood-drenched civil war that has claimed the lives of nearly half a million people. After years of battle, murder, massacre, and even attacks with chemical weapons, no end seems to be in sight.
Five years in, the only thing that can be said with any certainty (this is the Middle East, after all) is that Syria in its former guise — a state with clearly defined borders and a single government based in Damascus — is no more. It has passed from the world, (evidently) never to return. What remains is an area of land that is split, torn, and divided among hundreds of groups of armed men fighting against one another and working hard to wipe out anything that might be left of it.
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T. Belman. Very disturbing. Anyone who cares about Israel and really knows this woman, would reject her out of hand. She is a known antisemite and always has been. In addition she had no compunction to scream at us in support of Obama’s dictates.
Democratic front-runner leads Republican contender Trump by 15 points, even drawing 25% of right-wing voters
TOI
Israelis favor Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton to succeed US President Barack Obama, but narrowly say Israel’s interests would be better served if controversial Republican candidate Donald Trump was to be voted in as the next commander-in-chief, according to a new poll.
The survey, commissioned by the Walla news site and carried out Thursday, found 38 percent of Israelis supporting a Clinton victory in the November 2016 race for president, followed in second place by Trump with 23%.
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Why do they go out of their way to deny the undeniable Jewishness of Jesus according to their own biblical commentaries?
Its that crazy Christian time of year in Bethlehem when traditional beliefs are thrown out of the church window. March 7-10 will see the fourth rendering of that anti-Israel libel “Christ at the Checkpoint” played out yet again.
It is bad enough when devious Arab Islamic leaders, including Holocaust-denier Mahmoud Abbas, head of the Palestinian Authority, speak at Christmas time of Jesus the “Palestinian messenger,” but it is something completely different when church leaders call Jesus a Palestinian.
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Two weeks ago, Saudi Arabia listed Hezbollah as a terrorist organization and canceled its $3 billion aid package to the Lebanese military.
By Caroline Glick, JPOST
Lebanon’s Hezbollah scouts carry their parties flag while marching at the funeral of 3 Hezbollah men
This week we learned that Lebanon is no more. It has been replaced by Hezbollah’s Iranian colony in Lebanon.
Two weeks ago, Saudi Arabia listed Hezbollah as a terrorist organization and canceled its $3 billion aid package to the Lebanese military. The Gulf Cooperation Council followed suit. Rather than support the move by his sponsors and allies, Saad Hariri, the head of the anti-Hezbollah March 14 movement, flew to Syria to meet with Hezbollah leaders.
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Israel’s city centers will very soon see knots of soldiers armed with special rapid response weapons and gear for scotching Palestinian terrorist attacks before they deteriorate into rampages. Some of them will hide behind sandbag walls. Their deployment reflects the decision to persist in Israel’s defensive strategy as articulated in a special security forum summoned by Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu Tuesday and Wednesday, March 8-9, in the face of surging Palestinian terror.
Other members of the forum are Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon, Public Security Minister Gilead Erdan, Shin Bet Director Yoram Cohen, Police Commissioner Ronnie Alsheikh and assorted security experts and evaluators.
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Dispute over Lebanon marks latest foreign-policy rift to emerge between Washington and Riyadh
By JAY SOLOMON and DANA BALLOUT, WSJ
The Obama administration is pressuring Saudi Arabia not to take further steps to punish Lebanon economically in retaliation for the growing political power amassed in Beirut by Hezbollah, the Iranian-backed Lebanese militant and political group, U.S. and Arab officials said.
The dispute over Lebanon marks the latest foreign-policy rift to emerge between Washington and Riyadh, decades-old allies, particularly concerning the regional role played by Iran and its proxies.
Saudi Arabia in February said it had suspended $3 billion in military aid for the Lebanese armed forces. A group of oil-rich Arab states, led by Riyadh, placed restrictions on their citizens visiting Lebanon, and suggested additional financial penalties could be imposed on Beirut.
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But warns of religious extremism which fuels calls for new boycotts of Israel
ECI announced on Thursday its next Annual Policy Conference which will take place in Brussels on April 21. The aim of the conference is to promote closer EU-Israeli cooperation at a time when both sides are seeking to rebuild relations after a disruptive period of diplomatic conflict.
EU-Israeli relations hit an all time low in November 2015 after the EU issued an “EU Interpretative Notice on Labelling of Goods from the territories administered by Israel since 1967”. The notice was however renounced by the President of the European Parliament Martin Schulz as “counterproductive” as it leads to higher unemployment among Palestinians.
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By Ted Belman
I correspond with a high ranking military/intelligence officer who began his career in the Reagan Administration and who was stationed throughout his service in Saudi Arabia. He is still going strong.
I told him our biggest fear is what Obama will do to hurt us in the waning months of its administration. He replied:
Israel has every right to be concerned. Past history shows that if Israel makes a concession to the United States, the US pockets the concession and does not demand that the other parties live up to their obligations.
Israel should fully change its current planning/approval situation which is stupid and self-defeating . Israel should establish construction health and safety standards and turn over permitting to the local authorities. Then, the local authorities could build. The Prime Minister could “ implore them not to build” and these public non-bonding entreaties would fulfill his international “obligations”. [Actually, Israel went in the other direction. There used to be local planning bodies which were independent but then under pressure Bibi reigned them in and ordered them not to move plans forward.]
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T. Belman. This question is an odd one. The thought of transferring or expelling Arab Israelis from Israel is a thought that virtually anyone entertains. There is no discussion on the issue. On the other hand there is a discussion on whether to pay the Arabs to voluntarily leave Judea and Samaria. But even in that case, far less than 50% of Israelis support the idea.
The (huge) holes in the Pew survey
By Nathan Jeffat, JEWISH CHRONICLE
Every opinion pollster hopes that their survey will generate a strong headline, and when Pew released its magnum opus on Israel this week, it certainly got its wish. One in two Israeli Jews want to see Arabs chased out of their country, it seems from the figures.
There is a worrying strain in Israeli society that believes in forcing Arabs to leave, but one in two Jewish citizens — seriously? This is off the chart compared to past surveys on similar topics. What, exactly, were people asked?
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France is stepping away from earlier assertions that it would “automatically” recognize a Palestinian state if a Paris-hosted international conference fails to revive Israeli-Palestinian peace talks.
“There is never anything automatic,” French Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault said Wednesday at a news conference in Cairo, according to Agence France Press. “France will present its initiative to its partners. It will be the first step; there is no prerequisite.”
Ayrault’s predecessor, Laurent Fabius, angered Israel in January when, after proposing the conference, he said France would recognize a Palestinian state if the talks failed.
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T. Belman. Islam is conquering Europe because Islam is totalitarian and antidemocratic. It forces its will on the people and the country. It has done this for 1300 years. Liberal democracies with their democracy, tolerance and embrace of multiculturalism doesn’t stand a chance. By supporting these values they are in effect baring their necks to the Islamic knife.
Israel, on the other hand is resisting the liberalism of the West and its own left. Instead it has demonstrated its will to fight and to preserve itself. Of course there are many in Israel who try to undermine such resolve by calling for their definition of democracy and acceptance of the other. Israel is fighting because Jews care to preserve their religion, culture, land, values and separateness. All these things are an anathema to the West.
Jewish tribalism and nationalism will defeat Islamic imperialism. European universalism will not.
Europeans do not see a future for themselves so have no reason to resist an Islamic takeover.
Several years ago, Sociology professor at the University of Louvain, and member of the Royal Academy of Belgium, Felice Dassetto published a new book entitled “The Iris and the Crescent”, in which he showed that Islam is becoming the most practiced belief system in Belgium, eclipsing Christianity.
A new study of religious attitudes among Francophone Belgians, conducted by the Observatory of Religion and Secularism, confirms what Dassetto wrote. In Brussels, practising Catholics today amount to 12% of the population and some 19% are active Muslims.
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