By Dore Gold, ISRAEL HAYOM

General David Petraeus is the best known top American officer from the Iraq War. There are only a few in the U.S. who know more about internal developments in Iraq than he does. After all, he was commander of the successful “surge” in U.S. forces in Iraq in 2007-2008 that changed the tide of the war and crushed the Iraqi branch of al-Qaida, which was the forerunner of the Islamic State group.

Petraeus was subsequently appointed head of the CIA by the Obama administration, a position from which he had to resign in 2012 as a result of a personal affair. Given his background, when he grants an interview to a major newspaper like the Washington Post about what is currently happening in Iraq and in the Middle East in general, his words can have enormous influence on the centers of power from Cairo to Riyadh.
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BY: Adam Kredo, NEW BEACON

LAUSANNE, Switzerland—Efforts by the Obama administration to stem criticism of its diplomacy with Iran have included threats to nations involved in the talks, including U.S. allies, according to Western sources familiar with White House efforts to quell fears it will permit Iran to retain aspects of its nuclear weapons program.

A series of conversations between top American and French officials, including between President Obama and French President Francois Hollande, have seen Americans engage in behavior described as bullying by sources who spoke to the Washington Free Beacon.

The disagreement over France’s cautious position in regard to Iran threatens to erode U.S. relations with Paris, sources said.
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It’s a problem for Jeb Bush

BY: Matthew Continetti, NEW BEACON

Jeb Bush is cleaning up a mess he helped create. It’s a distraction from what he’d rather be doing, which is building an “aura of inevitability” around his soon-to-be presidential campaign. He’s spent the past week distancing himself from the speech that one of his foreign policy advisers, former secretary of State James Baker, delivered to the annual meeting of J Street, the liberal fringe group that pushes tough policies against Israel.

Baker’s speech couldn’t have come at a worse time. The Obama administration is in the midst of a campaign to demonize Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, greeted Netanyahu’s election victory with abuse and threats to abandon Israel to the anti-Semites at the U.N., and is hurtling toward a flawed nuclear agreement with Iran. Having a former high-ranking Republican official tell moldy anecdotes and agree that Israel is responsible for the standstill in the peace process only legitimized J Street and suggested a division in GOP ranks when there isn’t any. The speech risked confirming the suspicions of conservatives and Republicans that Bush isn’t really one of them. Two advisers to national political figures appeared at the J Street conference: White House chief of staff Denis McDonough and James Baker. Surely this White House is company the Bush crew doesn’t want to keep.
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T. Belman. No biggie. If the US can agree to a 10 year sunset clause, it can agree to Iran getting the bomb a few years earlier. What difference does it make?

Limited options for Congress as Obama seeks to bypass lawmakers

BY: Adam Kredo, FREE BEACON

LAUSSANE, Switzerland—The Obama administration is giving in to Iranian demands about the scope of its nuclear program as negotiators work to finalize a framework agreement in the coming days, according to sources familiar with the administration’s position in the negotiations.

U.S. negotiators are said to have given up ground on demands that Iran be forced to disclose the full range of its nuclear activities at the outset of a nuclear deal, a concession experts say would gut the verification the Obama administration has vowed would stand as the crux of a deal with Iran.

Until recently, the Obama administration had maintained that it would guarantee oversight on Tehran’s program well into the future, and that it would take the necessary steps to ensure that oversight would be effective. The issue has now emerged as a key sticking point in the talks.
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T. Belman. Goldberg has a good thought here. The best way to counter a UN imposed solution in favor of the PA is to destroy the PA. Israel just has to stop protecting them and stop subsidizing them and stop supplying them with necessities. Let them find their own electricity and water. Israel will be accused of not abiding by the humanitarian provisions of the FGC but we are accused of violating it by building houses. But then again we should embrace the Levy Report which holds that the FGC does not apply.

If Obama is rethinking his position on Israel, we can do the same.

By Steve Golberg, INN

Ever since Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s stunning, decisive victory in Israel’s elections, the Obama Administration has been issuing warnings that it is reassessing its previous support for Israel in the international community. Bitterly disappointed at the outcome of the election, President Obama and his spokespeople claim that their reassessment is the result of Netanyahu’s statements on the eve of the election that apparently repudiated his previous support for the two-state solution. Their delicate feelings were also hurt by the Prime Minister’s truthful statement on the day of the election that foreign sources were bringing Israeli-Arabs to the voting booth “en masse” in a coordinated effort to defeat him.
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Netanyahu’s remark that Arabs were being bused ‘in droves’ to polls by foreign-funded NGOs may have been abrasive and inelegant, but is was neither racist nor invalid.

By Martin Sherman, JPOST

Zionism is nothing more – but also nothing less – than the Jewish people’s sense of origin and destination in the land linked eternally with its name. It is also the instrument whereby the Jewish nation seeks an authentic fulfillment of itself. And the drama is enacted in 20 states comprising a hundred million people in 4 1/2 million square miles, with vast resources. The issue therefore is not whether the world will come to terms with Arab nationalism. The question is at what point Arab nationalism, with its prodigious glut of advantage, wealth and opportunity, will come to terms with the modest but equal rights of another Middle Eastern nation to pursue its life in security and peace – Abba Eban, Israel’s former UN ambassador and foreign minister, 1975
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T. Belman. This is a great summary and an accurate view of the Obama’s intentions. Glick’s answer is to extend sovereignty either to all of J&S as she proposed, or to Area C only as Bennett proposed. In addition Israel rally the US forces against Obama’s rapprochement with Iran. It can be done, she says.

Our current situation is unpleasant. But it isn’t the end of the world.

By Caroline Glick, JPOST

On Wednesday, the Jerusalem Municipality announced it is shelving plans to build 1,500 apartments in the Har Homa neighborhood. Officials gave no explanation for its sudden move. But none was needed.

Obviously the construction of apartments for Jews in Jerusalem was blocked in the hopes of appeasing US President Barack Obama.

But is there any reason to believe he can be appeased? Today the White House is issuing condemnations of Israel faster than the UN.

To determine how to handle what is happening, we need to understand the nature of what is happening.
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Vic Rosenthal writes

[..]

This smells like much more than a fit of pique provoked by Netanyahu’s congressional appearance and his election rhetoric (speaking of rhetoric, compare Iran’s “death to America” chants). Obama has been trying to distance the US from Israel from the day that he came into office, and Netanyahu’s interference in Obama’s plan to align the US with Iran against Israel and the Sunni Arabs has only amplified his desire.

Obama seems to have made a considered decision to turn US policy on its head in the Middle East, abandoning traditional allies and making new ones. The most generous explanation is that the president thinks that an Iranian empire can be a stabilizing force, a bulwark against Islamic extremism. He seems to believe that if Iran is allowed to crush its Sunni enemies, take control of the region’s oil reserves, obtain nuclear capability (and by the way destroy Israel), then the region will be in good hands, and the US can safely withdraw to concentrate on domestic issues.
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His new doctrine: Downgrade ties to Israel and the Saudis while letting Iran fill the vacuum left by U.S. retreat.

By Max Boot, WSJ

Let’s connect the dots.

Data point No. 1: President Obama withdrew U.S. forces from Iraq in 2011 and is preparing to leave Afghanistan by the end of 2016, even while keeping a few more troops there this year and next than originally planned.

Point No. 2: The Obama administration keeps largely silent about Iran’s power grab in Iraq, Syria and Yemen, even going so far now as to assist Iranian forces in Tikrit, while attempting to negotiate a nuclear deal with Tehran that would allow it to maintain thousands of centrifuges.

Point No. 3: Mr. Obama berates Benjamin Netanyahu for allegedly “racist” campaign rhetoric, refuses to accept his apologies, and says the U.S. may now “re-assess options,” code words for allowing the United Nations to recognize a Palestinian state over Israeli objections.
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THE JEWISH CHRONICLE (UK), March 26, 2015

Netanyahu aides say Israel-US relationship is a write-off — and Iran, not the Palestinian issue, is to blame

Senior advisers to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu have described the relationship between the Obama administration and the Israeli government as irreparable.

The war of words between the two leaders over the last few days has focused on Mr Netanyahu’s remarks on the establishment of a Palestinian state and Israel’s Arab citizens, but officials in Jerusalem say they are convinced the real reason for the crisis is the difference of opinion on Iran.

The view among Mr Netanyahu’s advisers is that President Barack Obama is adamant that Iran must be engaged as a regional ally, and that this is leading to a US-Israel rift that will continue until at least the end of his presidency in January 2017.
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Obama revenge for Netanyahu’s Congress talk? 1987 report on Israel’s top secret nuclear program released in unprecedented move.

By Ari Yashar, Matt Wanderman, INN

In a development that has largely been missed by mainstream media, the Pentagon early last month quietly declassified a Department of Defense top-secret document detailing Israel’s nuclear program, a highly covert topic that Israel has never formally announced to avoid a regional nuclear arms race, and which the US until now has respected by remaining silent.

But by publishing the declassified document from 1987, the US reportedly breached the silent agreement to keep quiet on Israel’s nuclear powers for the first time ever, detailing the nuclear program in great depth.

The timing of the revelation is highly suspect, given that it came as tensions spiraled out of control between Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and US President Barack Obama ahead of Netanyahu’s March 3 address in Congress, in which he warned against the dangers of Iran’s nuclear program and how the deal being formed on that program leaves the Islamic regime with nuclear breakout capabilities.
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President Barack Obama is steering U.S. foreign policy toward an alliance with Iran, shunning traditional U.S. allies such as Israel, Egypt, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia. Col. Allen West speaks with Fox Business host Stuart Varney.

After promising to make Bayit Yehudi a senior partner in government, Source: Netanyahu Planning to Keep Jewish Home in the Opposition

After Bibi promises to bui9ld thousands of homes in Jerusalem, Government freezes construction of 1,500 units in Jerusalem’s Har Homa

Netanyahu tries to calm tensions with Bennett as coalition talks begin\

DEBKA

Saudi Arabia, its Gulf allies and Egypt underlined their breach with Washington over its Iran policy as two separate air operations went forward early Thursday, March 26, in Iraq and Yemen.

The US launched its first air strikes against Islamic State positions in the Iraqi city of Tikrit to help the Iranian-commanded Iraqi operation which had failed to dislodge the jihadis in two weeks of fighting, while the warplanes of Saudi Arabia and its Gulf allies joined by Egypt began bombing Yemeni cities to halt the Iran-backed Houthi rebellion.
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BY HAVIV RETTIG GUR, TOI

Coalition talks got underway Thursday in the Knesset as the Likud party made its first official bid to cobble together a coalition amid competing interests between various potential partners.

Party officials are meeting with each potential coalition partner’s negotiating team to hear their expectations and hopes for the next government.

Each party has two hours to make its initial case. Likud’s four-member team is spending as much as 11 hours Thursday hearing and challenging the other parties’ demands.
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Regavim is sponsoring a bus tour to allow you to actually see this massive illegal building in Area C and Jerusalem. In the end, there is nothing like seeing it for yourself.

Date and time: Wednesday, April 8th, Hol Hamoed Pesach, from 1:30 to 4:30 PM.

Location: Buses will depart from and return to the Inbal Hotel, Jerusalem.

Cost: 100 NIS or $25. 

An expert will accompany each bus; detailed maps will be provided, as will water.  Bring your own food.

For information: Dr. Jan Sokolovsky,  drjan43@gmail.com

To Register online by April 3,  http://www.regavim.org.il/en/events/Pesach

Saudi envoy to US says airstrikes against Houthi rebels launched to defend legitimate government of Yemen.

ALGEZEERA

Saudi Arabia and a coalition of regional allies have launched a military operation in Yemen against the Houthi rebels, who deposed the US-backed Yemeni president last month.

Adel al-Jubair, Saudi ambassador to the US, said on Wednesday that a coalition consisting of 10 countries, including the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), had begun airstrikes at 7pm Eastern time.

“The operation is to defend and support the legitimate government of Yemen and prevent the radical Houthi movement from taking over the country,” Jubair told reporters in Washington.
Saudi Arabia said that five Muslim countries including Egypt and Pakistan wanted to participate in the Gulf-led military coalition
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T. Belman. I told Arlene Kushner that I believe that Obama, by blaming Bibi for killing prospects of peace, is in fact laying the ground work to resort to the UN. He is in effect justifying the move away from negotiations to the UN who, he expects will attempt to impose a solution on Israel

The Guardian (no friend of Israel’s to put it mildly)

A hard-hitting EU report on Jerusalem warns that the city has reached a dangerous boiling point of “polarisation and violence” not seen since the end of the second intifada in 2005.

Calling for tougher European sanctions against Israel over its continued settlement construction in the city – which it blames for exacerbating recent conflict – the leaked document paints a devastating picture of a city more divided than at any time since 1967, when Israeli forces occupied the east of the city.

The report has emerged amid strong indications that the Obama administration is also rethinking its approach to Israel and the Middle East peace process following the re-election of Binyamin Netanyahu as Israel’s prime minister.

According to reports in several US papers, this may include allowing the passage of a UN security council resolution restating the principle of a two-state solution.
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By Arlene Kushner

Before we take a look at the broader situation , I share two announcements:

This Friday, March 27th, at noon, there will be a press conference and a “Keep Iran Nuclear Free” rally, at 780 Third Avenue (between 48th & 49th Streets) in Manhattan. This is in front of the offices of the Manhattan offices of New York Senators Chuck Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand, to urge these Senators to commit to overriding President Obama’s expected veto of two important pending bills on the issue of Iran.

The Bipartisan Nuclear Weapon Free Iran Act of 2015, sponsored by Senators Kirk and Menendez, imposes new sanctions on Iran if international negotiators fail to reach a deal by June 30 on Tehran’s nuclear program.  Fourteen Senators, including Senator Schumer co-sponsored the bill.

The Bipartisan Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act of 2015, sponsored by Senators Corker, Menendez, Graham and Kaine, mandates that the president must submit the text of any agreement with Iran to Congress; prohibits the administration from suspending congressional sanctions for 60 days, during which Congress would hold hearings and review the agreement; provides for Congressional oversight; and requires assessments and certifications of Iranian compliance.

Every vote is needed.
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