An Israeli-Palestinian crisis sparked by irresponsible actions, combined with an Israeli drift away from liberal values, could reshape a decades-long relationship between the U.S. and Israel

By Alon Pinkas, HAARETZ   Dec 2, 2022 8:40 pm IST

Benjamin Netanyahu and then-Vice President Joe Biden in Jerusalem in 2010.Credit: Ronen Zvulun/Reuters

It’s fashionable in the punditocracy and in the incoming Israeli opposition that a crisis in U.S.-Israel relations is inevitable. Not a day has gone by since the election without a report on “U.S. concerns,” “the administration is warning privately,” “Israeli policies will be watched vigilantly” or “Washington is unhappy.”

Perhaps. The ingredients are definitely there, but for a visible crisis to erupt, an Israeli policy has to be perceived as provocative. Forecasting a crisis without such evidence is speculation and political expediency.

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by Dexter Van Zile, Focus on Western Islamism, November 25, 2022

Published originally in one part under the title “Former Salafist Umar Lee: Middle East Islamism Is in Decline.”

See Part II: The Akh-Right and Antisemitism.

Umar Lee grew up in a Baptist family before converting to Islam at the age of 17. Living as a teenager in North St. Louis, Lee was keenly aware of — and troubled by — America’s racial divide, which he hoped to transcend by converting to Islam. “I was attracted to Islam by black men — the lectures of the Nation of Islam, rappers, and the legacy of Malcolm [X],” he wrote in his recent memoir, In Malcolm’s Path: A Journey Through Community Chaos, Muslim Fundamentalist Fantasy, and The Tragedies of America (2020).

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Dr. Jonathan Turley

Likud leader assails outgoing PM for urging municipalities to fight educational dictates of homophobic MK, reportedly warning IDF general of far-right attempts ‘to gain control’

By TOI STAFF      Today,

A composite image of incoming prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu (right) and outgoing prime minister Yair Lapid leading their respective Likud and Yesh Atid faction meetings at the Knesset, on November 8, 2021. (Olivier Fitoussi/Flash90)

Prime Minister-designate Benjamin Netanyahu on Friday censured outgoing prime minister Yair Lapid for “attempting to incite rebellion among military officers and local authorities against the elected government.”

His comments came after Lapid urged local authority leaders not to cooperate with an extremist far-right member of the incoming government on educational issues, and after he was reported to warn a military general earlier this week against allowing the far-right “to gain control over the military.”

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White House has been subtle in expressing concern over far-right’s rise, but Democrat close to president says administration working behind the scenes to push back

By JACOB MAGID, TOI Today, 3:58 am

A Democratic US senator on Thursday said the Biden administration has been working to try to limit the influence far-right lawmakers Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben Gvir will have in the expected next Israeli government.

While the White House has sought to be more subtle and tight-lipped about its discomfort with the rise of the Religious Zionism and Otzma Yehudit party leaders, Democrat Chris Van Hollen, who is seen to have a close relationship with US President Joe Biden, described Washington’s concerns more bluntly.

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Herzl would recognize all too well the tragic fantasy of assimilation. Op-ed.

By Melanie Phillips

(JNS) A perverse feature of the Jewish people is that they make one particular mistake over and over again. They are persecuted. They frantically try to assimilate into their host community in the belief that this will avert future persecution. They are persecuted again. They frantically assimilate again.

This week saw the publication of the first collected works of Theodor Herzl, the founding father of modern Zionism. The set initiated the Library of the Jewish People, a new series of works by classic Jewish writers issued by the Koren publishing house.

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by Steve Kramer

A new coalition to govern Israel will emerge in December. There’s been a hue and cry over the right wing/religious makeup of the coalition, especially from foreign governments. Among these fears are possible changes to Israel’s judicial system, especially its highest court. I believe that some changes are required to reduce the power of non-elected justices and return it to Israel’s elected members of Knesset.

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Irving, West, the Black Israelites, the Nation of Islam and their ilk have no choice but to demonize the Jews, because Jewish endurance and legitimacy expose the fraud at the heart of their invented identity. 

By Caroline Glick,

(JNS) On Monday night, an Egyptian television reporter covering the World Cup tournament in Doha, Qatar was assaulted by an angry mob and forced to leave the games to avoid being lynched. The mob assaulted him because they mistook him for an Israeli reporter.

Qatari officials were reportedly embarrassed by the incident. They weren’t embarrassed about the crowd’s violent anti-Semitism, though. The Qataris were embarrassed because their officials hadn’t believed the poor Egyptian when he insisted he was one of them. And so, they stood by as the mob gave him the “Israeli treatment.”

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Israel’s Ambassador to the UN denounces rapper’s latest comments: All of the lights must be turned off on this despicable antisemite.

Israel National News

Ambassador Gilad ErdanAlexi Rosenfeld

Israel’s Ambassador to the UN, Gilad Erdan, on Thursday blasted rapper Kanye West’s latest antisemitic comments, which he made in an interview with Alex Jones of Infowars.

In a tweet, Erdan called for West to no longer be given a platform to make such comments.

“All of the lights must be turned off on this despicable antisemite. Kanye West’s deplorable comments today endanger Jews around the world,” he wrote.

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By Ted Belman

Everyone is reporting on Kany West’s latest pronouncement about Hitler on an interview with Alex Jones.

“I see good things about Hitler,” West, who also goes by Ye, told Jones during the bizarre appearance on the Infowars Network, alongside Holocaust denier Nick Fuentes. “Every human being has value that they brought to the table, especially Hitler.”

“I like Hitler,” he added later, and called himself a Nazi.

I can’t help but feel that there an overlap between what he said and what Candace Owen said on the matter of Hitler.

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Religious Zionist Party to be given control over settlements, Finance Ministry, Immigration Ministry.

By David Rosenberg, INN

Smotrich and Netanyahu

The Religious Zionist Party signed a coalition agreement with the Likud Thursday night, giving the Likud three coalition deals, with two more agreements needed before it can form a majority government.

Under the agreement, Religious Zionist Party chief Bezalel Smotrich will initially serve as Finance Minister.

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COVID-19

By Marina Zhang, EPOCH TIMES Dec 1 2022

A medical worker treats an intubated unvaccinated 40 year old patient who is suffering from the effects of Covid-19 in the ICU at Hartford Hospital in Hartford, Connecticut on January 18, 2022. (Photo by Joseph Prezioso / AFP) (Photo by JOSEPH PREZIOSO/AFP via Getty Images)

Data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) showed that vaccinated and boosted people made up most of the COVID-19 deaths in August.

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Ruthie Blum, an award-winning columnist and author, talks with the founder and publisher of State of Tel Aviv, Vivian Bercovici, about the right-wing perspective post-election #5, including why the incoming government can be seen as a good thing, what’s right-wing about it and her thoughts on the controversy surrounding judicial reform.

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T. Belman. Only Israel can put an end to this. This is what happens when we seek to maintain the status quo.  We must destroy the Palestinian narrative.. It does great harm to us at the UN and its promotion of antisemitism. To do this we must get off the fence and destroy their hope and thus their cause.

UN General Assembly votes 90-30 in favor of commemorative event marking what the Arabs view as the “catastrophe” of Israel’s establishment.

The Elad Benari, INN    Dec 1, 2022, 

United Nations headquartersiStock

The UN General Assembly voted on Wednesday in favor of holding a commemorative event in honor of the 75th “Nakba Day”, in conjunction with Israel’s Independence Day.

“Nakba Day” is what the Palestinian Arabs call Israel’s Independence Day, and on that day, they mark what they view as the “catastrophe” of the establishment of the State of Israel, often through violent protests.

90 countries voted in favor of the measure, with 30 voting against and 47 abstaining.

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T. Belman. Biden just doesn’t let up. I am looking forward to our future government ignoring Biden or his various envoys. It should be fun.

By  Ariel Kahana and Reuters,  ISRAEL HAYOM

Hady Amr | File photo: US State Department

The top US official on Palestinian affairs reaffirmed on Wednesday that Washington wanted to reopen its Jerusalem consulate for Palestinians even as a new right-wing government prepares to take office in Israel.

Hady Amr was appointed US Special Representative for Palestinian Affairs two weeks ago, a position created by President Joe Biden. He was previously deputy assistant secretary of state for Israeli and Palestinian affairs in the Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs within the US Department of State.

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Donald John Trump is a Philosemite.

by Rabbi Dov Fischer, THE SPECTATOR

Mara Largo

I begin with certain definitions:

1. The Jew-hater formerly known as Kanye West now prefers to be called “Ye.” Therefore, for the duration of this article, I shall call him “Kanye.”

2. The White Supremacist, Holocaust-mocking Jew-hater who was ancillary to the unfortunate dinner at Mar-a-Lago has compared Jews murdered in the death camps to baked cookies. Therefore, for the duration of this article, I shall call him by the name “Biscuit.”

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By Olivia Murray, AM THINKER

Edvard Grieg’s masterpiece, In the Hall of the Mountain King, is truly ageless. Created in service to famed Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen for his magnum opus, Peer Gynt, the music is now used as the background sound for many a meme — the accelerando really sets the stage for a climactic crescendo.

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T. Belman. What a disgusting smear job by Horovitz. First of all, Smotrich and Ben Gvir are courageous patriots not “toxic provocateurs”. He is right to say, “What we are witnessing, in short, is a moment of destiny for Israel, a moment of drastic, fateful, fundamental change.”  Thank G-d for that.

Israel is changing from a liberal democracy ruled by the bureaucratic swamp to a patriotic democracy ruled by the Knesset.

The centre-left has been in charge since Israel’s declaration and have brought Israel disaster after disaster, namely giving the Temple Mount to the Jordanian Wakf, not extending Israeli sovereignty to Judea and Samaria after the ’67 War according to Ben Gurion’s Law, in  perpetrating the Oslo Accords which included the introduction of Arafat and his 40,000 terrorists into Israel, disengaging from Gaza resulting in being inundated from time to time with thousands of rockets, all in the name of chasing peace at any cost.

It is time for “fundamental change”. Israelis voted for it. I predict that Smotrich  and Ben Gvir will do much to correct the errors of the centre-left and they will not destroy democracy in Israel.

He is giving toxic provocateurs more power than they could have imagined and is set to take a wrecking ball to our judiciary. It’s a recipe for disunity and national weakness

By DAVID HOROVITZ, TOI    Today, 10:50 am

Day after day, as he negotiates the staffing and agenda for his incoming coalition, Benjamin Netanyahu is openly preparing to turn Israel from a remarkable democracy, the only one in the region — with all the healthy strains of a powerful political echelon rubbing up against the brakes of a liberal judiciary — into something approaching untrammeled rule by a narrow, relatively homogeneous, hardline majority.

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Pair urge president to withdraw military support to Netanyahu’s coalition government if Palestinians are expelled or land annexed

By Chris McGreal, THE GUARDIAN

Two former senior US diplomats have made a highly unusual call for the Biden administration to cut weapons supplies to Israel if the incoming far-right government uses them to annex Palestinian land, expel Arabs or finally kill off the diminishing possibility of a Palestinian state.

Daniel Kurtzer, a former US ambassador to Israel under George W Bush, and Aaron David Miller, a US Middle East peace negotiator during several administrations, have called for what they described as an “unprecedented and controversial” break from America’s largely unconditional military and diplomatic support for Israel if “the most extreme government in the history of the state” pursues the stated aims of some of its members.