By Abnan Abu Amer, Al Monitor

Relations between Israel and the Palestinian Authority have been witnessing a political deadlock since the negotiations sponsored by US Secretary of State John Kerry stopped in April 2014.

In November 2014, Amin Maqboul, the secretary-general of Fatah’s Revolutionary Council, revealed that an official Israeli threat was made to the Palestinian Authority of a total invasion and military control of Ramallah.

Tension escalated between both parties and relations seem to have reached a dead end following the announcement of the Israeli elections’ results in March, which resulted in the formation of the most extreme right-wing coalition in Israeli history, led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
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By Akiva Eldar,  Al Monitor

Let’s start from the end. Even in 2015, which marks the 10th anniversary of the target date set by the 2003 Road Map of the Quartet (European Union, United States, United Nations and Russia) for ending the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the flag of Palestine will not be flying outside UN headquarters in New York. French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius, the man who cooked up the proposed resolution turning the Palestinian Authority (PA) into a Palestinian state, and sought to serve his stew to the UN Security Council, has decided to put his initiative on the back burner, if not in the deep freezer. Israelis who spoke to him at the end of his lightning visit to Jerusalem and Ramallah on June 22 got the impression that the French diplomat had come to the grim conclusion that there are no serious buyers for the initiative on either side.

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Kurdish Official Confirms Coordination With Arab Countries to Counter ISIS

Germany Delivers New Weapons to Kurds

As Iraq splinters, Kurds’ own unity put to test

US Strikes Help Kurdish Militia Reclaim Ain Issa in Syria

CAMERA Snapshot

Ever hear the story about the cub reporter sent to cover a city council meeting who comes back empty-handed? “Nothing to report,” he tells his city editor. “City hall burned down.”

In that manner, major U.S. news media covered U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman General Martin Dempsey’s June trip to Israel. Dempsey made a headline-worthy prediction about Iran while visiting Israel Defense Forces Chief of Staff Gadi Eizenkot and Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon on June 9, 2015, Dempsey’s comments about Iran using sanctions relief to fund its terrorist activities and imperial ambitions has gone unnoticed by The New York Times, The Washington Post, and other major media outlets.
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Channel 2 analyst Ehud Yaari says agreement will be signed early next week after US drops demand for snap inspections; Obama faces challenge of securing Congress’ approval

TOI

A deal has been reached between the world powers and Iran over the latter’s nuclear program after a series of major American concessions, Ehud Yaari, the Middle East affairs commentator for Israel’s Channel 2 television, said Friday night. “It is done. It is done,” he said, and will be signed “early next week.”

The aim of the agreement is to put a negotiated end to a 13-year standoff with Iran over its suspect nuclear program and to block its pathway to developing a nuclear bomb in exchange for lifting biting global sanctions. Israel’s leadership has relentlessly opposed the emerging agreement, with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warning that it will pave Iran’s path to a nuclear arsenal.

According to Yaari, Israel’s most respected Middle East analyst, the deal was reached because the Americans “have made a series of capitulations over the past two to three weeks in almost every key aspect that was being debated.”
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See also: The mutually-beneficial, two-way-street US-Israel ties
An Israel-like ally in the Persian Gulf would’ve reduced, dramatically, the US military involvement in the Gulf.

By Yoram Ettinger, CFP

In recent years, Israel has evolved from a supplicant—benefitting from US generosity—to a strategic partner, benefitting vital US national security interests. From a national security consumer, Israel has been transformed into a national security producer.

In 2014, General Chuck Krulak, former Commandant of the US Marine Corps, remarked that “the formulation of US battle tactics is based on the Israeli book.”

In March, 2007, General John Craddock, the Supreme Commander of NATO, told the House Armed Services: “In the Middle East, Israel is the closest ally of the US, consistently supporting our interests through security cooperation.”
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T. Belman. Agreed. More than anything the dominance of the orthodox in Israel serves to alienate American Jewry. Including Shas and UTJ in the coalition was a huge step backwards. For reasons best known to Netanyahu, he sealed a deal with them before talking to any one else. He should have cut a deal with Liberman and Lapid or even Herzog to avoid bringing Shas and UTJ into the government.

Bibi should have made a deal with American Jewry to support his right wing policies in exchange for Israel accepting some measure of pluralism. Israel must partner with them rather than exclude them.

Just announced: Government to form Jewish denominations roundtable

By Jonathan Tobin, COMMENTARY

When Israel’s current government was formed this spring after the March Knesset elections, there were a number of clear winners and losers in terms of the country’s political rivals. But one of the big losers from the reshuffling of Prime Minister Netanyahu’s cabinet was the overwhelming majority of American Jews who do not identify with Orthodox Jewry. Since then, a number of incidents have occurred in which government officials have made statements that have further alienated the many Diaspora Jews who bitterly resent the way their denominations are treated as non-Jewish religions rather than equal partners in the Jewish future. To date, Netanyahu, like his predecessors in both Likud and Labor, have tried to mollify American Jews with conciliatory statements. But after the latest such insult, it is clearly time for him to do more. Israelis on the left and the right, secular as well as religious need to come to grips with the fact that attacks on pluralism are more than an annoying public relations problem. They constitute a strategic problem for the Jewish state that needs to be addressed.
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By Ted Belman

The Jewish National Fund (JNF) commissioned a poll on elite attitudes toward Israel conducted by Frank Luntz.

World Net Daily reported:

Political consultant Frank Luntz says a new survey of elite Democrats shows three-quarters believe Israel has too much influence on U.S. foreign policy, with half of them believing the Jewish state is racist.

The survey shows Democratic opinion elites are now backing Arab Palestinian demands and turning away from Israel.

“Israel can no longer claim to have the bipartisan support of America,” Luntz said. “Israel has won the hearts and minds of Republicans in America, while at the same time it is losing the Democrats.”

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By Adam Kredo, FREE BEACON 

VIENNA—The White House is targeting Jewish groups in its latest push to blunt congressional criticism of an Iran deal that observers expect to be sealed in the coming days, according to a recording of a strategy conference call obtained by the Washington Free Beacon and experts familiar with the call.

The White House’s liaison to the Jewish community on Monday advised dozens of progressive groups to push a poll commissioned and distributed by the liberal fringe group J Street, which has been defending a deal with Iran.
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By Vic Rosenthal

My post about Michael Oren and American Jews last week brought many comments and emails. Some liked it, but the ones that didn’t either didn’t like my tone (“bitter, negative, polarized”) or felt that I was being unfair to those who did continue to support Israel.

I’m sorry about the tone, but I can’t pretend I don’t feel strongly about this. While I’m not happy that otherwise nice Scandinavians don’t support us, it hurts much more when unfair criticism comes from our own people. And I should note that there are some American Jews that really do care about Israel, who work hard to counteract anti-Israel propaganda and to inform and influence policymakers about issues that are critical for us. But they are a minority.
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Paradoxically, indeed perversely, the policies of Israel’s peace laureates have not only made peace increasingly remote, but Israel increasingly untenable.

By Martin Sherman, JPOST

Poor Menachem [Begin]… I got back… the Sinai and the Alma oil fields, and what has Menachem got? A piece of paper. – Anwar Sadat, on the peace agreement with Israel, 1980

In the name of Allah…believe me, there is a lot to be done.The jihad will continue… together, shoulder to shoulder, until victory… till Jerusalem, to Jerusalem, to Jerusalem. – Yasser Arafat, on Oslo Agreements, 1994

In the last four decades, three Israeli prime ministers have won the Nobel Peace prize: Menachem Begin, Yitzhak Rabin and Shimon Peres (who, at the time, was foreign minister). Paradoxically, indeed perversely, the geo-political situation that the policy for which the prestigious prize was awarded has not only made peace increasingly remote, but is making Israel’s existence increasingly untenable.
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Manigut Yehudit has just issued a 32 report on the cost.

According to it:

The Oslo Process has cost Israel to date at least 933 Billion NIS.

FOR A FREE COPY OF THE REPORT GO HERE – wait for the article to appear

It won’t help the West to live in denial. There is a state out there that has to be destroyed just as Nazi Germany had to be destroyed.

By Mordechai Kedar, INN

The organization called Daesh appeared on the Middle Eastern stage in the middle of 2014, although it was founded 14 years earlier as the Iraqi arm of Al Qaeda. The world paid the organization scant attention until it suddenly began to take over wide areas of northwestern Iraq and eastern Syria with record speed. At first, international attention focused mainly on the videos in which the organization’s soldiers were seen butchering foreign journalists.and even now, the world considers this group of Jihadists a terrorist organization, despite the fact that in June 2014, that organization declared itself a state, “Islamic State” and began calling its leader a Caliph.
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T. Belman. Consistent, yes, but two surprises; 1) Bush’s endorsement of a Palestinian state and Obama’s endorsement of the ’67 lines plus swaps. Supporters of Israel keeping J&S or most of it should not loose sight of the fact that America has been very consistent in denying us that right and even in ratcheting up the pressure to relinquish it. We tend to minimize how difficult it is to stand up to the pressure. We must give Netanyahu a little more slack. The ME is changing. Demographics are changing. The EU and the US are changing but we must remain steadfast.

By Zalman Shoval, ISRAEL HAYOM

“Regardless of what the United States does, Israel’s diplomatic isolation will increase unless there is a general settlement. Western Europe is more interested in its own economic stability than in the security of Israel. Black Africa has already broken with Jerusalem, and Japan and most of Asia will break diplomatic relations with Israel if the present trend continues. Without a fundamental change, Israel then will wind up in an international diplomatic ghetto, with the United States as its only friend. Even in the United States, Israel’s position will not be secure unless she changes her policy . … This may be Israel’s last chance to make a peace that won’t be imposed upon her.”

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Likud, Yisrael Beytenu agree to back each other’s candidates for prestigious panel, effectively gain control of committee’s work • Likud expresses hope that move will pave Yisrael Beytenu’s way to coalition, but latter says decision was made on merit.

Mati Tuchfeld and Israel Hayom Staff

T. Belman. Israel is preparing to defeat them underground rather than destroy them above ground with the inevitable collateral damage. To do this Israel has developed technology for mapping tunnels and Robots that can enter the tunnels and search for explosives and booby traps. The goal is to enter the tunnels and move through them to the command centers.

BY MITCH GINSBURG, TOI

Israel faced a changed enemy in the summer of 2014.

Five years after its last major conflict in Gaza and two years since an aerial campaign that caught Hamas unawares, Israel squared off in July against a Hamas that still used civilians as cover, still sought to fire sporadic rockets, and still believed that as long as it kept up the fight, despite the destruction on its territory, it could declare victory.

But the enemy Israel faced in Operation Protective Edge was different from the one that fled underground during 2008-2009’s Operation Cast Lead.
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T. Belman. I smell capitulation to the left or to the EU. Hamas is not interested in the economic well being of its inhabitants. Attacking Israel is not about improving economic conditions. So in what way does easing the economic plight of Gazans deter being attacked in the future. It doesn’t make sense. What’s going on here. What are our leaders preparing us for?

The only reason Hamas may want a hudna is to rebuild their military strength.
No improvement in their economic life should be enabled unless and until they agree to disarm and allow inspections.

How can our leaders complain about a bad deal with Iran when they are contemplating one with Hamas.

Move will strengthen Gaza’s economy and help achieve long-term quiet, senior defense officials say.

By Amos Harel, HAARETZ

Senior Israel Defense Forces officers have recommended to Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon that the opening of border crossings between Israel and the Gaza Strip be expanded.

One recommendation would allow thousands of Palestinians to travel abroad by entering Israel via the Erez crossing and leaving the country to Jordan via the Allenby Bridge. Another would permit merchandise into Gaza through the Karni crossing and expand use of the Kerem Shalom crossing. In addition, permits would be issued for Palestinians from the Gaza Strip to work in Israeli communities near the border.
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By Yaakov Lappin, JPOST

The IDF has drawn up a new combat doctrine to deal with Hamas, based on the destruction of its military wing, a senior military source said Tuesday, speaking one year after Operation Protective Edge.

The new doctrine is the fruit of internal investigations into last summer’s fighting. The probes centered on issues such as training, intelligence, underground combat capabilities, urban warfare, and the overall use of firepower. The IDF concluded that a central objective would be to shorten the length of any future engagement with Hamas.

The new concept, created together with the Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency), calls for eliminating the Izzadin Kassam Brigades military wing if war erupts again in the South.
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Morality aside, anti-Arab rhetoric is counterproductive at a time when the Arab public is moving away from its radical leaders

By Evelyn Gordon

The presence of an Arab Knesset member aboard last week’s flotilla to Gaza made media headlines. But much less attention was paid to the fact that Basel Ghattas’s decision was controversial even within his own Balad party – the most extreme of the three parties comprising the Joint Arab List.

Indeed, a “key activist in Balad” told Haaretz last month that he opposed Ghattas’s decision on several grounds. First, the flotilla had enough high-profile international activists, so Ghattas’s presence contributed nothing. Second, it would merely provide an excuse for right-wing incitement against Israeli Arabs. And third, “Arab society in Israel has quite a few challenges that require the presence of the MKs in Israel and not on the flotilla.”
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T. Belman. Even if an Iran deal is concluded and it delays an Iranian bomb 10 years, it will put $150 Billion into Iran’s coffers within one year, If only 10% of this sum is used to support Iran’s terrorist proxies, the ME will be drastically affected to say nothing about the existential threat it will pose for Israel.

By Eliezer Sherman, ALGEMEINER

One of the ramifications of finalizing the nuclear deal with Iran would be a shifting of the balance of Middle East power in Tehran’s favor, wrote longtime State Department negotiator Dennis Ross in Politico on Monday.

If negotiators emerge from their chambers in Vienna with a finalized deal — and right now the deadline has been postponed for the second time to July 10 — and sanctions are phased out according to Iranian compliance, then within six to 12 months Iran could receive up to $150 billion in frozen assets, wrote Ross.
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