A ‘win-win-win’ deal for the U.S., Saudi Arabia and Israel will be far from simple. From Republican and Democratic hostility towards the Saudis to Riyadh’s sky-high price for normalization with Israel, it’s not even clear it’s feasible

By Alon Pinkas, HAARETZ

Let’s start with the bottom line: curb your exaggerated enthusiasm. As enticing and lucrative as “The United States meditated an Israeli-Saudi peace agreement” sounds – and it does – political realities make it impossible and unattainable under current conditions.

Now let’s get heretical and consider the following premise: Such a deal would be very good to have, even dramatic, but it would not be transformational for any of the sides in this particular triangle. In fact, the costs incurred may outweigh the potential effectiveness.

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By Jonathan Gault, AM THINKER

Image: Counting mail-in ballots. YouTube screen grab.

The foundation of a free society is, of course, self-government, and the foundation of self-government is when the citizens of that society, via the electoral process, choose who governs them. Therefore, it is essential not only for elections to be fair and competitive but, more importantly, that there is a perception that they are fair. In the United States, this is no longer the case, but the Supreme Court has cleared the path for eradicating the worst fraud and changing the perception.
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T. Belman. Germany together with its churches are the biggest funder of the Palestinian “resistance” according to Tuvia Tenenbom.

The German government is funding an “anti-Hate Speech NGO” that defends anti-Semites in German courts.

By Collin McMahon, INN  1.8.23

Germany’s BundestagiStock

The Israeli Ambassador to Germany Ron Prosor has urged the German government to ban PFLP front group Samidoun from fund-raising in Germany. Likud MK Ariel Kallner and NGO Im Tirtzu have criticized German government funding for anti-Israel NGOs and for defending terrorists in Israeli court. Now it seems the German government is funding an “anti-Hate Speech NGO” that defends anti-Semites in German courts. What’s the story?

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by Steve Apfel, GATESTONE   •  August 1, 2023

President Joe Biden and Secretary of State Antony Blinken are supposedly qualified to give Israel’s coalition government a lecture on judicial probity and democracy? (Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images)

• In the war of words over Israel’s judicial reform, irrespective of the rights and wrongs of the disputants, the word “democracy” appears to have suffered a bit of a roughing-up.
• “… Biden was wrong to intervene in the debate over Netanyahu’s proposed judicial reforms…. otherwise, Israeli officials may start commenting on Hunter Biden’s plea deal.” – Former National Security Advisor John Bolton, Twitter, July 31, 2023.
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T. Belman. Everything Biden is telling the world about normalization is propaganda and untrue. The author starts his first paragraph with “There are rumors swirling around …” and the second paragraph with “Many believe that that…”.  So its all speculation on his part.

Our salvation lies in the Jordan Option.

Until the Palestinians prove that they can effectively govern themselves, Israel cannot agree to any Saudi demands to cede more land to the Palestinian Authority.

 By  Jason Shvili, ISRAEL HAYOM 31.7.23

There are rumors swirling around about a possible deal that would see Israel and Saudi Arabia normalize relations. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has long sought to expand the Abraham Accords to include the Saudis. Indeed, Saudi Arabia normalizing relations with Israel would be a huge deal that could reshape the Middle East. But most experts are saying that such a deal would depend on Israel making numerous concessions to the Saudis in exchange for normalization.
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The Harris Dilemma

By Victor Davis Hanson, AM GREATNESS 31.7.23

Imagine if Gavin Newsom was currently Vice President amid the final meltdown of the Biden family consortium.

Does anyone doubt that Biden would then either be forced to resign by Democratic politicos (for reasons in addition to his escalating dementia), or would be impeached and perhaps abdicate Nixon-style?

The presence of the now predictable mediocrity of Kamala Harris and the impossibility, given her race and gender, of removing her, for now is about all that keeps a cognitively declining Biden still in office. The Left fears what she could do as president to the Democratic Party; conservatives are terrified of what she could do to the country.
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by Amir Taheri, GATESTONE  •  July 30, 2023

• The Islamic Republic has been asking to be admitted into the BRICS group [Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa] club since 2010 when the “Supreme Guide” Ayatollah Ali Khamenei announced his intention to create a “New World Order” through a triple alliance of Iran, China and Russia.
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U.S. military aid is making IDF generals place Washington’s interests above Israel’s

BY CAROLINE B. GLICK, TABLET

At the height of Operation Protective Edge, Israel’s seven-week war with Hamas in the summer of 2014, then President Barack Obama imposed an embargo on a shipment of Hellfire missiles to Israel after the Pentagon approved the transfer.

A senior Obama administration told the The Wall Street Journal at the time that Israel could no longer expect automatic resupply of critical munitions in wartime. The decision to embargo the Hellfire missiles, the official averred, amounted to “the United States saying ‘the buck stops here. Wait a second … It’s not OK anymore.’”
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T. Belman. I do not believe that this government will agree to postpone annexation until 2028 as the article suggests.

“Netanyahu will not change his longstanding and principled stance on the Palestinian issue” for the sake of normalization with Saudi Arabia

By  Ariel Kahana, ISRAEL  HAYOM 31.7.23

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced Sunday that “we will one day be able to have railways connect Saudi Arabia and Israel,” just hours after a New York Times piece suggested that the kingdom was expecting the Jewish state to make significant concessions to the Palestinians as a precondition for normalization.

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By Alexander G. Markovsky, AM THINKER

Right before the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Mark Milley told lawmakers that Kiev could fall within 72 hours if a full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine takes place. But why, if the US expected Ukraine to collapse, didn’t NATO stop the impending conflict by admitting that NATO had no intention of having Ukraine join the alliance? Then, Moscow’s security concerns emanating from NATO’s eastward expansion would be addressed, and Putin would have had no reason to attack Ukraine.
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by Bassam Tawil, GATESTONE  •  July 31, 2023

• Recently, the [Hamas] movement claimed responsibility for a number of terror attacks targeting Jewish soldiers and civilians in the West Bank. Hamas, in addition, continues to call on Palestinians to step up terror attacks with the declared intention of liberating all of “Palestine,” from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea, and replacing Israel with an Iranian-backed terror state.

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For 50 years, he has been a malign force in American politics and foreign policy.

by Bruce Thornton, FPM

Last week 24 House Republicans introduced the No Taxpayer Funding for Climate Zealots Advancing Radical Schemes Act which if passed will defund our “climate czar” John Kerry’s office. This federal feed-bag is beyond political accountability to the voters or Congress, but at least the taxpayers will not be footing the bill for his emissions-spewing, global gallivanting to promote suicidal climate policies.

A Congressional rebuke would be a fitting end to Kerry’s public career––one marked by thoughtless adherence to leftish Democrat shibboleths, new-world-order received wisdom, and bad policies dangerous to our national security and interests.

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By Victor Davis Hanson

It is easy to birth conspiracy theories.

All that is required is chronic government stonewalling of reasonable requests for transparency. Then add in high officials serially lying under oath, along with the blatantly unequal application of the law. Institutionalize arguments from authority of politicians and bureaucrats who refuse to adjudicate arguments empirically.

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By Matthew Boose, AM GREATNESS 28.7.23

The basic contours of the Biden family’s corruption scandal have been known for years, but the details have been suppressed. What the public knows, it knows despite the efforts of the media, the Democrats, and the “intelligence community” to bend, twist, and bury the truth. For instance, it is no secret that Biden pressured Ukraine to fire a prosecutor who was investigating his son’s business partners. In fact, Biden bragged about it. But in the conventional narrative, Biden was doing this not out of personal interest, but as part of an institutional effort to root out corruption. This is the kind of obtuse, self-serving nonsense that passes for “journalism” today.

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BY CHRISTINE DOUGLASS-WILLIAMS 28.7.23

The Biden administration has again condemned Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir’s visit to the Temple Mount, while Saudi Arabia called the visit a “provocation to all Muslims around the world.”

Back in January, Senator Ted Cruz ripped Biden’s condemnation of an earlier Ben-Gvir visit to the Temple Mount, stating an undeniable and simple truth:

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T. Belman. This law,  approved by an 11 person panel of the SC,  “does not negate Israel’s character as a democratic state.” It was also held to be declarative only, i.e., it didn’t create rights or law. But there is not agreement on this.

Wikipedia. “Jewish and democratic state” is the Israeli legal definition of the nature and character of the State of Israel. . But what does it mean in practice. Which of the two, trumps the other?

Wikipedia

Basic Law: Israel as the Nation-State of the Jewish People, informally known as the Nation-State Bill  or the Nationality Bill,^[1] is an Israeli Basic Law which specifies the nature of the State of Israel as the nation-state of the Jewish people. The law was passed by the Knesset—with 62 in favour, 55 against, and two abstentions—on 19 July 2018 (7 Av 5778),^[2][3] and is largely symbolic and declarative in nature.^{[4][5][6][7][8][9]} However, it was met with sharp criticism internationally, including from several prominent Jewish American organizations,^{[10][11][12][13][14][15]} and has been branded as racist and undemocratic by some critics.^[16][17]

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T. Belman. NYT reports that Biden Administration checking whether Israel’s opposition parties would work with govt. to achieve normalization deal.

The reason for this is that Biden is demanding that Israel support of the Two-State Solution if it wants normalization to occur. The current Israel government is unwilling to do it and thus the need for a Unity Government.

He is also demanding that the Saudis financially support the PA which they are currently not doing.

In my opinion, he will not succeed in his machinations.

By JACOB MAGID and TOI STAFF   29 July 2023,

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US President Joe Biden hinted on Friday at possible progress in a potential normalization deal between Israel and Saudi Arabia, a day after senior White House officials travelled to Jeddah for talks on an agreement that would reportedly include a massive boost in security ties between Riyadh and Washington, and significant Israeli concessions to the Palestinians aimed at keeping prospects for a two-state solution alive.>
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