T. Belman. This has serious implications for Israel. When the time comes for Israel to wipe out Hezbollah and its arsenal of 100,000 rockets, she will be confronted by a well armed Lebanese army in addition to being confronted by Hezbollah. Some in the US are trying to ensure that Hezbollah doesn’t get these weapons. Yet on the other hand Hezbollah is seen as an ally in fighting ISIS. Very complicated.

On the other hand, Russia is fighting the anti-Assad forces and is thus aligned with Hezbollah.

Al Monitor

Tiny Lebanon is seeing its fortunes surge on Capitol Hill as fear of the Islamic State (IS) supplants any lingering concerns about Hezbollah.

Congress over the past year has approved more than $1 billion in proposed arms sales for the Lebanese armed forces, including attack aircraft and helicopters. And lawmakers on Sept. 29 cemented Beirut’s status as a key ally with the release of a compromise annual defense bill that puts Lebanon on equal footing with longtime partner Jordan.

The free flow of aid and weapons represents a sea change from the situation five years ago, when Congress briefly held up all military aid following an incident in which Lebanese soldiers shot and killed an Israeli officer on the border. Hezbollah’s political dominance over the following three years caused further hand-wringing on Capitol Hill, but over the past few months Lebanon’s military has emerged as a trusted backstop against Islamist militants of all stripes.
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BY STEVEN SCHEER, REUTERS

When the Leviathan gas field was discovered off the coast of Israel in 2010, it was pitched as a game-changer — a vast energy reserve that would transform the economy and bolster public finances for years to come.

Five years on, poor policymaking, political infighting and a battle between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the antitrust commissioner over a lack of competition mean Leviathan remains undeveloped. Meanwhile, Egypt has made a larger discovery that could make it a more attractive investment.
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By Terresa Monroe-Hamilton

October 2, 2015

USA Transnational Report

Table of Contents

Executive Summary
Preface
Background
The Trailblazers: Namazi & Nemazee
National Iranian-American Council (NIAC)
The Open (Iranian) Society of George Soros
Valerie Jarrett – The Puppetmaster
Complicity of the GOP
Consequences/Conclusions

A PDF version of this document is available here.

Executive Summary

The Iranian nuclear deal is a full capitulation to Iran’s terrorist mastermind Mullahs, and the latest in a series of betrayals of the American people and allies by the Obama administration.

At the highest level of the administration, Barack Obama’s Senior Advisor, the Iranian-bornValerie Jarrett, prioritized rapprochement with the terror state.

Throughout the process and negotiations, she had the backing of billionaire investor (and Obama-backer) George Soros, and his multi-headed network of tax-exempt foundations.

Their efforts were driven by deep-rooted anti-Semitism and personal greed.

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By Pamela Geller

Obama’s surrender to the Russians this week has overturned the order of the Middle East …. and by extension, the world. He relinquished American hegemony in the Middle East after paving the way for a nuclear Iran. Obama’s subordinate role to the Russians in the “deconfliction” talks was stunning. How quickly he turned over the deconfliction codes!  Deconfliction codes keep aircraft or missions apart to reduce the likelihood of so-called friendly fire. Has America ever done that before? “Two prior administrations, one of which was seen to be extraordinarily favourably disposed toward anything Israel, declined to do that” — that is, they declined to turn over the “deconfliction” codes to Israel at the start of the American invasion of the Iraq war and later (source). But when Russia demanded them, Obama jumped.

I don’t think Assad should go (I never have): he kept the Christian and religious minorities safe. On Assad Putin is right. Even a broken clock is right twice a day. But this is much bigger than Assad. Turning the Middle East over to Russia and Iran is one of those terrible moments in history that you can point to shaking your head in horror and say, ‘if only ….’
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Having failed to stop the Iran deal, and ignored by Democrats and Republicans alike, can the once-mighty organization bounce back?

It’s much too soon to predict, with anything approaching precision, the likely ripples of the Iran deal, but one of Washington’s formerly feared hunters now finds itself in the crosshairs: On left and on right, everybody seems to have it in for AIPAC.

While the Iran deal brought the absolute best out of smaller and more modestly endowed organizations like The Israel Project or the Foundation for Defense of Democracies—the first campaigned tirelessly in the media, the second scorched Congress with a string of devastating and illuminating testimonies—AIPAC pursued an oddly milquetoast strategy and failed to convert even supportive senators like Cory Booker to the anti-deal cause. Anti-Israel detractors who for the last decade declared that AIPAC was all-powerful are now rushing to declare the lobby irrelevant, and some in Congress—Democrats and Republicans alike—are inclined to agree. What is being perceived as AIPAC’s refusal to run an aggressive campaign against Democrats supportive of the Iran deal is causing some former allies on the right and on the left to ponder whether the formerly formidable organization has any purpose anymore.
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The terrorists must go.

By Daniel Greenfield, FPM

On September 13, 1993, Arafat and Rabin shook hands over the Oslo Accord in the Rose Garden. At the end of this September, the PLO’s Abbas finally officially disavowed the Oslo Accords.

The only reason the 80-year-old dictator of the PLO has a new $13 million palace, even while claiming to be short of funds, a $100 million bank account and a 1,000 member presidential guard is because of the same agreement with Israel that he just disavowed.

The PLO repeatedly violated that agreement by waging war against Israel. Its leaders, Arafat and Abbas, made a mockery of the negotiations. They sabotaged every opportunity to reach an agreement making it clear that they did not want a settlement and they did not want to negotiate.
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Breitbart reports that Obama instructed Kerry and Power not to attend speech. The other US delegates there did not applaud the speech when others did.

By Caroline Glick, JPOST

On Wednesday the Obama administration was caught off guard by Russia’s rapid rise in Syria. As the Russians began bombing a US-supported militia along the Damascus-Homs highway, Secretary of State John Kerry was meeting with his Russia counterpart, Sergei Lavrov, at the UN. Just hours before their meeting Kerry was insisting that Russia’s presence in Syria would likely be a positive development.

Reacting to the administration’s humiliation, Republican Sen. John McCain said, “This administration has confused our friends, encouraged our enemies, mistaken an excess of caution for prudence and replaced the risks of action with the perils of inaction.”

McCain added that Russian President Vladimir Putin had stepped “into the wreckage of this administration’s Middle East policy.”
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By Martin Sherman, JPOST

Full disclosure: This was not the topic I had in mind for this week.

In fact, by late yesterday afternoon I was well into writing a column dealing with something completely different.

But then someone drew my attention to the “Letters to the Editor” section, which was awash with wrathful responses to last week’s Into the Fray column, “Loopy, loopier… Lapid,” which was sharply critical of Yair Lapid, head of the Yesh Atid party.

Hit a painful nerve?

It seems the column hit a painful nerve. Reliable rumors inform me that Lapid, enraged by my critique of him and, apparently believing that, unlike other politicians, he should be immune from censure, however well-founded, attempted to get The Jerusalem Post to publicly distance itself from my views.
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To paraphrase the Bard, there’s something rotten in the state of Norway.

By Giulio Meotti, INN

Primary school children in Paris and Montreuil have just been handed out diaries featuring a map from which Israel has been wiped out and replaced by “Palestine”.

The diaries were produced by the League Against Cancer and distributed by the City of Paris led by a Socialist mayor, Anne Hidalgo, who has always been very friendly with the PLO’s head Mahmoud Abbas.

Everywhere, anti-Semitism is devouring Europe and the West is tired of Israel.

Can someone really explain this crazy European anti-Semitism?
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Prime minister tells General Assembly that since nuclear deal, Iran has only increased support for Hezbollah, Assad and Hamas.

YNET

Netanyahu took to the podium at the United Nations General Assembly on Thursday, a day after Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas accused Israel of being an occupying apartheid state, while threatening to cancel existing agreements with Israel.

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by DR. ROBIN MCFEE September 29, 2015

Putin asserts it is difficult to defeat ISIS without the current Syrian government. Whether that government is a puppet of Iran and Russia, is currently irrelevant. Putin is correct. Syria could act as a magnet to draw in ISIS fighters, and a kill box within which to defeat them, or at least eliminate a not insignificant number of their fighters.

Putin has doubled down on Syria in recent days. No news there. He has had bases in that beleaguered nation for years. He is in a good position to weaken ISIS in the process – to a far greater degree than the US has been willing to do.
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Moshe Ya’alon to expand Etzion settlement area south of Jerusalem to include former church compound next to al-Aroub

BY RAOUL WOOTLIFF AND JUDAH ARI GROSS, TOI

Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon (left), with Efrat Mayor Oded Ravivi (right) in the Etzion Bloc settlement on September 30, 2015 (Gershon Elinson/Flash90)Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon (left), with Efrat Mayor Oded Ravivi (right) in the Etzion Bloc settlement on September 30, 2015 (Gershon Elinson/Flash90)WRITERSRaoul Wootliff

Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon has reportedly decided to expand the West Bank settlement bloc of Gush Etzion south of Jerusalem to include a compound Israelis hope to turn into a new settlement.

The move comes after Ya’alon approved construction on the site in June and will allow for the creation of a new settlement on the land, which formerly housed a Christian-run hospital, Army Radio reported Thursday.
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T. Belman. I have read a number of reports on this speech at the WSJ, NYT, Guardian etc.. They all misrepresent what the Oslo Accords provides. The Accords do not assure the PA of statehood and do not make mention of the armistice lines. They do not restrict settlement construction in Area C. They do not call for a divided Jerusalem. What it does do among other things, is stipulate that all final status issues are to be resolved by negotiations. The only reason that these issues have not been resolved is because the PA was unwilling to negotiate and unwilling to compromise which is the essence of negotiations.

So long as Oslo applies, there is little pressure on Israel to give the Arabs citizenship. That’s a good thing. Plus 90% of the Arabs are totally ruled by the PA. That’s also a good thing except that the PA violates Oslo by inciting to violence. Israel chooses not to do anything about it.

Unfortunately the world community blames Israel for the impasse.

‘Our patience has come to an end,’ PA leader declares to UN, calling on world to recognize Palestinian state; Netanyahu blasts ‘deceitful’ speech

BY ITAMAR SHARON AND SARA MILLER, TOI

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas said Wednesday that the PA would cease to abide by agreements signed with Israel, including the 1993 Oslo accords, claiming Israel had shown that it, too, was no longer committed to them.

“So long as Israel refuses to commit to the agreements signed with us, cease settlement construction and release prisoners, Israel has left us no choice but to insist that we will not remain the only ones committed to these agreements,” Abbas told the UN General Assembly in New York.
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By Malcolm Dash

To lose our country by a scrupulous adherence to the written law, would be to lose the law itself, with life, liberty, property and all those who are enjoying them with us; thus absurdly sacrificing the ends to the means. – Thomas Jefferson, September 20, 1810

Israel, like any vibrant functioning democracy, needs a strong, independent judiciary – to interpret the law, not to make it.

“In Israel, the negative impact of the judicialization of politics on the Supreme Court’s legitimacy is already beginning to show its mark. Over the past decade, the public image of the Supreme Court as an autonomous and impartial arbiter has been increasingly eroded… the court and its judges are increasingly viewed by a considerable portion of the Israeli public as pushing forward their own political agenda…” – Prof. Ran Hirschl, Towards Juristocracy: The Origins and Consequences of the New Constitutionalism, Harvard University Press, 2004.
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T. Belman. Yes, Russia’s main goal is to establish a foothold in a reduced Syria. A secondary goal is to fight ISIS so that the movement doesn’t spread to the Caucasus. To what degree Russia will curtail weapons transfers to Hezbollah is yet to be seen. Russia will want to use Hezbollah to fight ISIS. It will also support the Kurds who wish to fight ISIS. The Implications of Russia’s Syria Intervention for Turkey. Will Russia’s move ruin Erdogan’s plan for Syria?. Russia will probably allow weapons to be transferred to Hezbollah as a pressure point on Israel to get concessions from it.

Ya’alon: We made it clear to Russia that Israel will continue to protect its interests

James Lewis writes in Russia is the New Hegemon that Russia is “.. rescuing the Saudis and Israel from Iranian aggression”. It remains to be seen.

Analysis: Russian president seeks to enhance his country’s influence in the region through his alliance with Assad: A dangerous gamble, but Israel need not worry for the moment.

By Ron Ben-Yishai, YNET

Monday’s speeches at the UN General Assembly meeting revealed the true desires of Vladimir Putin and Barack Obama.

The US president wants to end his time in office without another war and without having to send more US troops to fight on foreign land.

He doesn’t want to resolve conflicts but to prevent them by diplomatic means, and if he can’t prevent them – he’d like to handle them in a way that minimizes the damage. He sees the US as a world leader and its number one superpower – for one, because it’s military is the largest and most advanced in the world, but mostly because its recovering economically, while rivals Russia and China are slowly deteriorating.
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By Anne Bayefsky, NATIONAL REVIEW

The parade of dictators and despots taking the U.N. stage on Monday, as the organization marks its 70th anniversary, was nothing short of spectacular. As were the lies they told without batting an eye to a friendly and respectful audience. U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has his hand out for an additional $20 billion this year, so let’s look at what American taxpayers are getting for their large chunk (one-quarter) of the U.N’s bills.

Xi Jinping, President of China, said “we must endeavor to meet” the goals of “democracy and freedom.” Meanwhile, he is an iron-fisted ruler of an undemocratic state where 1.3 billion people languish without civil and political rights.

Vladimir Putin, President of Russia, said that without the U.N. — “unique in its legitimacy” — “we would be left with no other rules than the rule of force.” This from a megalomaniac who gobbled up Crimea and now occupies other parts of Eastern Ukraine by force. Putin also said, “Everything that contravenes the U.N. Charter must be rejected.” Except apparently Chapter 1, article 1, which commits the organization to maintaining international peace and security and suppressing acts of aggression.
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By Elliott Abrams, NATIONAL REVIEW

President Obama’s U.N. speech today is filled with nice lines that unfortunately bear no relationship to his seven years of foreign policy — and in some cases, no relationship to reality. The speech had several strong paragraphs about freedom, human rights, and democracy. For example, Obama said: “I believe a government that suppresses peaceful dissent is not showing strength. It is showing weakness, and it is showing fear. History shows that regimes who fear their own people will eventually crumble.” But his administration has in fact steadily reduced American programs supporting human rights and democracy, and reached out to tyrannies such as Iran and Cuba — delaying the day when they will “eventually crumble.”

He spoke of the nuclear non-proliferation regime as one of the “principal achievements” of the United Nations, but of course that regime has been endangered by his awful Iran deal more than by any other development in decades. (And in what sense were nuclear non-proliferation agreements negotiated by the United States an achievement of the U.N., anyway?)
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T. Belman. The reason Obama didn’t make mention of the conflict in his UN speech is because he wants to achieve this deal on a back channel rather than noisily. Netanyahu’s willingness is probably the reason that Obama has been sweet talking Netanyahu after the bitter fight on the Iran Deal. This is what I surmise. I have no inside info.

By Ben Caspit, Al Monitor

After meeting in Paris with four former Israeli ambassadors Sept. 21, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas reportedly said that he would be willing to meet with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The problem, he said, was that a “third party” was preventing such a meeting from taking place. The Palestinian leader meant the Americans, more specifically, Secretary of State John Kerry, who will meet Netanyahu Oct. 1 in New York.

While American sources claimed Abbas’ statement was “inaccurate,” senior Palestinian and Israeli officials alike confirmed that the Americans were not enthusiastic about such a meeting taking place. They believe it would be explosive and cause the situation to deteriorate even further. The Americans have learned from experience. They bear the battle scars of countless disappointments. They would therefore prefer to spend time preparing for such a meeting, honing positions, coordinating expectations and going for a sure thing.
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