By Lt. Col. (res.) Dr. Shaul Bartal, BESA       May 23, 2023

BESA Center Perspectives Paper No. 2,198, May 23, 2023

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: In the past year, we have seen a crumbling of the Palestinian Authority’s level of control over the West Bank. The PA is seen by many Palestinians as a corrupt organization that no longer represents their interests. Recent events in Nablus and Jenin suggest the possibility of a change in the status quo and an end to the PA-Israel order.  
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Since 1967, it has been searching for a formula to achieve a comprehensive peace in the Middle East. It has failed because it underestimates Arab antisemitism and intransigence.

By Mitchell Bard, IH

The US State Department was determined to prevent the establishment of a Jewish state, opposing both partition and recognition. After it failed, diplomats spent decades trying to prevent the development of an alliance. Before the Trump administration, much of its effort was devoted to forcing Israel back to the 1949 armistice lines. Now, State wants to return to the partition idea, fantasizing about creating a Palestinian state that it knows will seek to replace the Jewish state.
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What cannot go on, will not go on and all the absurdities of the present will end with a bang not a whimper.

By Victor Davis Hanson, AM GREATNESS<
>

A sign of a civilization in headlong decline is its embrace of absurdities. Unfortunately for the United States, we are witnessing an epidemic of nihilist nonsense. Here are a few examples:

Reparations 

How could a dysfunctional state like California even contemplate $800 billion in reparations?

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‘The Golden Path: Maimonides Across Eight Centuries,’ a Yeshiva University exhibit, shows the far-reaching impact of one of the Middle Age’s most prolific Torah scholars

By CATHRYN J. PRINCE, TOI    23.5.23

Clockwise from left: Arthur Szyk, Maimonides, New Canaan,1950, Watercolor and gouache on paper. (Collection of Yeshiva University Museum, gift of Louis Werner); Moses Maimonides’ Commentary on the Mishnah, Egypt, after 1168. (The Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford); Guide of the Perplexed, Barcelona, 1347 or 1348, by Moses Maimonides. (The Royal Danish Library, Copenhagen/ all images from the Yeshiva University Museum exhibition ‘The Golden Path: Maimonides Across Eight Centuries’)<

NEW YORK — In 1784, three years after the American Revolution, New York City cantor Hendla Jochanan van Oettingen composed a prayer for the well-being of Gen. George Washington and Gov. DeWitt Clinton. That prayer may have been lost to history — had it not been for the way van Oettingen knitted Maimonides’ 13 Principles of Faith together with the newfound freedom of the original 13 states.

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By Jack Cashill, AM THINKER

Two enduring aphorisms emerged from the Watergate affair, both directed at then-president Richard Nixon. The one at the outset of the investigation was delivered in the form of a question: “What did he know and when did he know it?” The second came at the end in the form of a warning to future presidents: “The cover-up is worse than the crime.”

Thanks to the Durham report, we know the date that then-president Barack Obama learned about what John Durham calls the “Clinton Intelligence plan.” If CIA Director John Brennan’s notes are to be believed, that date was August 3, 2016.

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By Daniel Greenfield, 22 May 10:12 PM

The largest mob lynching in the South was of Italians.

The 1891 lynching of 11 Italians in New Orleans, after a roundup of over 1,000 Italians, grew out of an internal conflict among Louisiana Democrats and was praised by progressives of the era.

“These sneaking and cowardly Sicilians, the descendants of bandits and assassins,” the New York Times editorial board railed. “Lynch law was the only course open to the people of New Orleans.”

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MK Simcha Rothman tells INN the opposition is not negotiating in good faith in the talks at the President’s Residence.

Israel National News 22.5.23

The chairman of the Knesset Constitution and Law Committee, MK Simcha Rothman, believes that the judicial reforms he and Justice Minister Yariv Levin proposed has not been completely dropped from the government’s agenda despite the ongoing negotiations to pass a different version of the reforms at the President’s Residence.

“I believe that the reform is not finished, it will be implemented, and also that the coalition and its leaders do not plan to allow endless time wasting in negotiations that lead nowhere,” Rothman said in an interview with Israel National News – Arutz Sheva.

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The first openly anti-Semitic process began in modern Russia
By Emil Shleimovich

What is wrong with the thesis “fascists are in power in Ukraine”? BBC fact check

How are fakes about “Ukrainian Nazis” made? Fact-checking DW

By Catherine Wesolowski | Vitaly Kropman, DAILY WIRE   11/29/2022

Russian propaganda continues to spread information that Ukraine is “full of Nazis” by posting supposedly available evidence on the Internet. Fact-checking DW verified three such claims.

Note: These are Russian Language sites. Use Google translate to English.

PRAGER U

By J.M. Phelps, EPOCH TIMES  21.5.23

Military vehicles carrying DF-21D intermediate-range anti-ship ballistic missiles participate in a military parade at Tiananmen Square in Beijing on September 3, 2015, to mark the 70th anniversary of victory over Japan and the end of World War II. China kicked off a huge military ceremony marking the 70th anniversary of Japan’s defeat in World War II on September 3, as major Western leaders stayed away. (GREG BAKER/AFP via Getty Images)

Two former military officials are sounding the alarm that the depletion of U.S. munitions as a result of Washington’s support of Ukraine could end up benefitting China. This is occurring as the communist regime is modernizing its military posing a grave threat to the United States, they say.

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T. Belman. Israel should also retake the southern 5 miles of Gaza so that she is in charge of the southern border not Egypt.

We must set a clear goal for our security forces to stop the terrorists’ buildup as well as disrupt it, making it a major objective for the “campaign between the wars.”

 By  Meir Ben Shabbat, TOI  15.5.23

To truly transform the situation, Israel would have to carry out a major and protracted operation deep inside Gaza. The cost might not be worth it. The alternative to such a campaign is the repeated cycles Israel and the Palestinians engage in. The drawbacks are clear and plenty, but if we want to make the most of those rounds of hostilities we have to use the relative periods of calm they provide to engage in a methodic, low-profile campaign to stop the terrorists from getting more powerful.

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Jerusalem committee gives first okay for proposal, advanced by the city together with right-wing groups, to build 400 new homes for Jewish residents in Palestinian town

By SHALOM YERUSHALMI, TOI  Today, 7:45 am

A general view of the security barrier and the town of Abu Dis, just outside Jerusalem. February 02, 2020. (Olivier Fitoussi/Flash90)

Plans for 400 new homes inside a Palestinian neighborhood straddling the West Bank and East Jerusalem were given the go-ahead by the Jerusalem District Planning and Building Committee last week, paving the way for Israel to drastically expand a Jewish enclave in the heart of the town.

The proposal for a new neighborhood in Abu Dis, a Palestinian town sliced in half by the West Bank security barrier, was given the green light after the committee found that it had met threshold conditions for initial approval, the Times of Israel’s Hebrew sister site Zman Yisrael reported Sunday.

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UTJ, Likud agree to compromise on funding for the haredi sector, paving way for passage of state budget.

Israel National News      May 22, 2023, 1:38 PM (GMT+3)

Smotrich (l), Netanyahu (c), GoldknopfNoam Revkin Fenton & Yonatan Sindel / Flash90

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, and the United Torah Judaism party reached an agreement Monday afternoon on additional funding for yeshiva students, ending the ongoing coalition crisis and paving the way for passage of the state budget this week.<

According to the agreement, 250 million shekels will be allocated to stipends for yeshiva students, while budget bills proposed by Smotrich will remain unchanged.

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National Security Minister and police commissioner visit Israeli-Arab town during crackdown on ‘protection’ racket.

Israel National News     May 22, 2023, 

Ben-Gvir (2nd from left) visits Tuba-ZangariyyeSpokesperson<

Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir visited the Israeli-Arab town of Tuba-Zangariyye early Monday morning, together with the Police Commissioner Kobi Shabtai, as part of a special operation in northern Israel targeting Arab gangs extorting businesses with protection rackets.

Sixteen people have been arrested thus far on suspicion of extortion as part of the raids in multiple Arab towns in the Galilee

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AMERICANS FOR PEACE AND TOLERANCE

Sunday, May 14, was the 75th anniversary of the establishment of Israel.

For the Arabs, the day marks the failure of their effort to destroy the Jewish state and slaughter its people. Like any war, the conflict resulted in the creation of refugees. Ignoring the historical facts and steeped in an “honor-shame” culture, the Arabs viewed this failed genocide as a catastrophe, or nakba in Arabic.
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by Bassam Tawil, GATESTONE>  •  May 22, 2023 at 5:00 am