By Ted Belman

I attended this lecture today at the JCPA.

Prof. Steven M. Cohen on  Annoyed, Ambivalent and Ashamed: Jewish Liberals, Pro-Israel and Not

Over the last few years, American liberals, both Jewish and not, have adopted less positive images of Israel with consequences for their feelings of attachment. These trends have implications both for understanding younger American Jews today, as well as for contending with BDS sympathizers, be they focused upon ending the occupation or seeking the elimination of the Jewish State of Israel.

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By RICHARD LANDES, The Augean Stables

I was just on a panel at the IDC Herzliya Conference about BDS and Europe. [My remarks made to the panel treated BDS as a cogwar campaign to destroy Israel, one of the most coveted desires of the apocalyptic millennial set (and many other Arabs and Muslims, alas).]

This is the second such discussion I’ve been in (the previous one, on Wednesday past is here in French), and below are some of the thoughts they both have inspired.

If Others Think It’s Our Fault, It Is.

People who identify themselves as “left” consistently pooh-pooh the problem on the one hand, and then turn around to say, “and if we [Israel] weren’t so bad, if our behavior didn’t seem so close to South African apartheid, then we wouldn’t be having these problems.” So on the one hand, “it’s not a big deal,” and on the other hand, “it’s our fault.”
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By Evelyn Gordon, COMMENTARY

If the International Criminal Court ever had any pretensions of being a serious legal institution, they were effectively demolished by yesterday’s ruling overturning Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda’s decision not to investigate Israel’s botched raid on a 2010 flotilla to Gaza. Reading the ruling feels like falling down the rabbit hole straight into the Queen of Hearts’ courtroom, for many reasons. But here’s the one I found most astonishing: In a 27-page document devoted almost entirely to discussing whether the alleged Israeli crimes were grave enough to merit the court’s attention, not once did the majority judges mention one the most salient facts of the case: that flotilla passengers had attacked the Israeli soldiers with “fists, knives, chains, wooden clubs, iron rods, and slingshots with metal and glass projectiles,” causing nine soldiers serious injuries.

That fact appeared only in Judge Peter Kovacs’ dissent. Anyone reading the majority decision would conclude that the soldiers opened fire no reason whatsoever.
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Hareidi soldiers will form a new combat unit, and Hareidim are being integrated into combat support positions.

By Tzvi Ben-Gedalyahu, JP

One of the IDF’s best weapons is the growing number of Hareidi combat soldiers, which is making the army stronger physically and spiritually.

A new combat unit of Hareidi soldiers is being established in the Givati Brigade, whose national religious commander Ofer Winter was promoted last week to take over the Central Command and continue his successful program to integrate of Hareidim into the army, as the JewishPress.com reported here Thursday.

Approximately 45 Hareidim from the ages of 18-12 already have been drafted for a new Tamar unit, and new positions are being opened for Hareidim in combat support units. The first Hareidi soldiers to operate bulldozers are expected to begin serving in four months.
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by Jonathan Spyer, The Jerusalem Post, July 18, 2015

A cartoon in the Saudi daily Al-Watan shows Iran increasing its funding of “terrorism” after the nuclear agreement.

The response in the Arabic-speaking world to the conclusion of a deal between the P5+1 countries and the Islamic Republic of Iran over the latter’s nuclear program has divided along familiar lines.

Among pro-Iranian elements, such as President Bashar Assad of Syria and Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, the news of the deal has, predictably, been met with jubilation. Assad described the agreement as a “historic achievement” and a “great victory.”
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By Daniel Greenfield

As the long slow race to beat Hillary drags on, there will be a thousand conservative stories and blog posts demonstrating beyond a shadow of a doubt that Donald Trump is a hypocrite, that he supported illegal immigrants, Hillary, abortion and higher taxes. And few of them will leave our small bubble.

Trump may indeed be a liar and a hypocrite, though he wouldn’t be the only candidate in the race who has moved to the right or abandoned previous positions, but he understands what the others don’t.
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T. Belman. Whatever Obama wants, Obama gets.  The Iran Deal was not the best he could get but the deal he wanted.

African-American Conservatives

It is not often that I feel compelled to defend President Obama. But in this case I will. The recent nuclear deal with Iran reveals that he is not a poor negotiator but rather an excellent one.

The President has been mocked for his negotiation skills throughout his tenure by the Left and the Right – from people ranging from Paul Krugman to Bob Woodward to Donald Trump. And interestingly the reasons both sides give for their assessment are as similar as they are contrary.

To the Left, Obama is simply too good to be good negotiator. He’s no mere politician, after all. He’s an ideologue! Too filled with idealism, too pure, too above the taint of politics to be talented at negotiation.
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By SUSAN CRABTREE, WASHINGTON EXAMINER

President Obama’s attempt to outmaneuver Congress and win quick United Nations approval for the Iran nuclear agreement is backfiring on him in Congress, and could further erode support among key players.

Key senators were already outraged that the administration was taking the lead in negotiating a deal and sidelining Congress’ traditional role of being directly involved in haggling the finer points of arms control agreements. They were resigned to let the administration handle the negotiations in return for the promise that they would have ample opportunity to review the deal and vote on it.
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T. Belman. In my article Obama believed any deal is better than no deal, I similarly wrote “I must conclude that he has lied all along about what he wanted and was merely saying so as a cover for his true goals.” I went on to describe the true goals much as Greenwald has done.

By Abe Greenwald, COMMENTARY

If you think the United States just struck a poor nuclear deal with Iran, you’re right; but if that’s your key takeaway, you’re missing the point. Iran’s nuclear program was last on the list of the Obama administration’s priorities in talking to Tehran. The administration readily caved on Iran’s nukes because it viewed the matter only as a timely pretense for achieving other cherished aims. These were: (1) preventing an Israeli attack on Iran; (2) transforming the United States into a more forgiving, less imposing power; (3) establishing diplomacy as a great American good in itself; (4) making Iran into a great regional power; and (5), ensuring the legacies of the president and secretary of state as men of vision and peace.
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By Martin Sherman, JPOST

You’re absolutely right that John McCain has not talked about my Muslim faith – Barack Hussein Obama to ABC’s George Stephanopoulos, September 7, 2008

I also know that Islam has always been a part of America’s story – Barack Hussein Obama, Cairo, June 4, 2009

Islam has always been part of America – Barack Hussein Obama, the White House, August 11, 2010

Islam has been woven into the fabric of our country since its founding – Barack Hussein Obama, the White House, February 18, 2015

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White House moving to circumvent Congress on deal

BY: Adam Kredo, FREE BEACON

Sen. Ted Cruz (R., Texas) is moving to block future State Department funding and nominees unless President Barack Obama guarantees that Congress will have the authority to fully review a recently inked nuclear accord with Iran before the deal is approved by the United Nations, according to a copy of a letter obtained by the Washington Free Beacon.

Cruz, a vocal opponent of the administration’s diplomacy with Iran, maintains that the White House is seeking to circumvent congressional review of the deal by going straight to the U.N.

Such a move could lift key sanctions on Iran before Congress has had the chance to fully review and vote on the deal.
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Quick vote to be held under a procedure that will expose Israel to isolation if it speaks out against adopting the Iran deal.

By Mark Langfan, INN

In a diplomatic blitzkrieg, the Obama Administration has set this coming Monday at 9 a.m. EST for a vote at the UN Security Council (UNSC) in New York on the adoption of the Iran nuclear deal, which was announced by the world’s leading powers and the Islamic Republic of Iran in Vienna on Tuesday.

A terse announcement by the New Zealand delegation which assumed the monthly rotating UNSC’s Presidency for July revealed the vote session.

“The Iran JCPOA (Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action) resolution is now under silence and its adoption has been scheduled for Monday 20 July at 9 a.m.,” read the announcement on the Iran deal vote.
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The Iranian threat to expunge Israel is not a joke to be treated with indulgence.

By Giulio Meotti, INN

The Palais Coburg, the luxurious hotel in Vienna where the West signed the agreement on the nuclear issue of Iran, is located in a particular square. It is named after Theodor Herzl, the founder of Zionism.

History has a more developed sense of irony than the Western leaders who capitulated to Tehran. Because a nuclearized Iran would mean the end of Zionism.

We don’t know if Iran will actually manufacture the Islamic nuclear bomb. We don’t know if Israel will use its military power to stop it. But we certainly know that the world has just abandoned the State of Israel and the Jewish people.
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By Anne Bayefsky

As part of their attempt to sell the Iran deal as something other than a catastrophe for America international peace and security, President Obama and John Kerry are now invoking the United Nations. The Obama administration raced straight from Vienna to the Security Council, awaiting nothing from Capitol Hill. What’s going on?

It has now been 4,397 days – dating to June 2003 – since the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) first reported that Iran was in breach of its legal obligations under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).
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International Criminal Court overrules prosecutor, rules 2-1 to order probe of Israel’s interception of 2010 Gaza Flotilla; absurdly cites U.N. Human Rights Council as authority

 Read full text of today’s ICC opinions:  Majority Decision [PDF]  |  Dissenting Opinion [PDF]

The following analysis by law professor Avi Bell appears in today’s Times of Israel.

By Prof. Avi Bell

The Pre-Trial Chamber of the International Criminal Court, for the first time in its history, has ordered the ICC Prosecutor to pursue an investigation she has decided to close.

The Chamber ruled that the Prosecutor was wrong to close the preliminary investigation into war crimes charges against Israel for crimes allegedly committed in boarding the Mavi Marmara and other vessels during the flotilla incident of 2010.

The ruling of the Pre-Trial Chamber is remarkable.
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THIS IS A DRAMATIC DEBATE NO ONE SHOULD MISS. UNFORTUNATELY THE BRITISH FM IS LYING ABOUT THE DEAL JUST AS OBAMA LIES ABOUT IT.

By Ted Belman

Some suggest that Obama was naive or misguided or a poor negotiator to end up with such a bad deal. Normally this would be true if one believed that Obama really wanted what he said he wanted. But I don’t believe that anyone could be so inept. I must conclude that he has lied all along about what he wanted and was merely saying so as a cover for his true goals.

At one point in negotiations, Iran was down for the count. Rather than delivering a coup de gras by tightening sanctions, Obama released sanctions and money thereby resuscitating Iran.  Who does that? Certainly not someone who wanted to win.

We must conclude that the most important thing for Obama was to reach a deal, any deal, no matter what.
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T, BELMAN. THIS SHOULD BE A NO-BRAINER FOR HIM.

THE HILL

Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) is facing one of the most challenging decisions of his 40-year political career.

The Senate Democratic leader-in-waiting is under heavy pressure from the Obama administration and liberals to support the president’s Iran nuclear deal. But the new accord is also testing his longtime allegiance to pro-Israel causes.

It’s a tough call for Schumer, who represents many Jewish constituents in New York. Groups opposed to the Iran deal plan to spend tens of millions of dollars on a lobbying campaign to quash it, according to an official at one Jewish group.
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