By Anna Kaplan, Forbes Staff   May 7/22

Affinity Partners, a new private-equity fund started by Jared Kushner, plans to invest money from Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund in Israeli businesses, the Wall Street Journal reported Saturday, marking the first time the giant Saudi fund has invested in Israel, with which the Saudi government does not have a formal diplomatic relationship.

KEY FACTS

Affinity Partners has selected at least two Israeli startups to invest in, people familiar with the plans told the Journal.

Affinity Partners has raised more than $3 billion, which includes a $2 billion commitment from the Saudi Public Investment Fund.

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I’m tired of this. I’m tired of seeing our so-called leaders taking our flag, washing out the blue and only leaving the white of surrender.

By JONATHAN POLLARD,  JPOST          May 6/22

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SOLDIERS DANCE at the 74th anniversary Independence Day ceremony, at Mount Herzl, Wednesday night. (photo credit: YONATAN SINDEL/FLASH90)

I am privileged this year to celebrate our Independence Day as a free person in the Land of Israel. After enduring 35 years of prison and house arrest due to my actions as an Israeli agent, my love for this country and its wonderful citizens has only increased with each and every day that passes. More than anything else, though, I am deeply grateful to God for all our brave soldiers, who in their devotion to the survival of our country allow the miracle of our national rebirth to reoccur every day of the year.

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In the event of intensified fighting in Syria, Assad will likely turn to Iran rather than Russia for support.<
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By Nikola Mikovic,  ARAB WEEKLY       07/05/2022

Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad (R) receives Iran’s Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian in Damascus, March 23, 2022. (AFP)

Russia’s military debacle in Ukraine will have serious consequences for Moscow’s geopolitical position. Unable to defeat one of the poorest countries in Europe, the Kremlin will now have a hard time preserving its traditional allies in the Russian sphere of influence.

This is especially true in Syria, which has been under Moscow’s strategic umbrella since the Soviet era. For instance, Turkey’s recent decision to close its airspace to Russian aircraft transiting to Syria,viewed as applying pressure on Moscow over its war in Ukraine, will affect Russian military capabilities in Syria, where more than 63,000 Russian troops have deployed.

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T. Belman. “key bases” only. Doesn’t mean that Russia is abandoning Syria.

DEBKA  May 6/22

Russian units deployed to Syria are assembling at the air bases of  Hmeimim, Qamishli, Deir e-Zor and T4, ready for some to transfer to the Ukraine warfront. DEBKAfile’s military sources report that the Russians are handing over key bases to Iran’s Revolutionary Guards and Hizballah.

by Majid Rafizadeh, GATESTONE  •  May 7, 2022

Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi delivers a speech in Tehran, on January 3, 2022. (Photo by Atta Kenare/AFP via Getty Images)

• These US rewards to Iran for terrorism, destabilizing the region, treating its own people with brutality and cheating on 2015 nuclear deal would significantly increase Iran’s revenues; these, in turn, will doubtless be funneled into the pockets of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), the Quds Force and their militia and terror groups including Hamas, the Houthis and Hezbollah for still more expansionism and terror.

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MAY 6/22

FALLOUT WILL BE A DIVIDED EUROPE. GREECE AND CYPRESS ARE SUPPORTING RUSSIA TO COUNTER AMERICAN SUPPORT  FOR TURKEY

MAY 4/22

Ukraine Is Going to Win

America’s heavy weapons will make the difference against the Russians

By Charles Lipson, The SPECTATOR

The climactic battle for Ukraine is being fought in the east, on the dangerous, open terrain of the Donbas. Since it will be won with heavy, long-range firepower, Russia ought to have a huge advantage. After all, it has spent decades building a military meant to overwhelm its enemies with vast numbers of tanks, troops and artillery, fighting on terrain just like this.
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T. Belman. I agree with Mearsheimer 100%. The US should align with Russia to stand against China.

I co-wrote with Alexander Maistrovoy, Contemplating a US-Russia Alliance 5 years ago.  

Mearsheimer wrote Bound to Fail: The Rise and Fall of the Liberal International Order 3 years ago.

Like anti-Zionists, the Putinistas call their enemies Nazis in order to pose as heroic

By Melanie Phillips May 6

“Stop your cruel oppression of the Jews”: Theodore Roosevelt admonishes the Russian Czar; Emil Flohri, 1904

Russia’s foreign minister, Sergey Lavrov, caused outrage earlier this week after he was asked on Italian TV how Russia could claim to be “de-Nazifying” Ukraine when its president, Volodymyr Zelensky, is Jewish.

Lavrov replied: “I could be wrong, but Hitler also had Jewish blood. That [Zelensky is Jewish] means absolutely nothing. Wise Jewish people say that the most rabid antisemites are usually Jews.”

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By Terry Titcomb, AM THINKER

This is what sticks in my craw: Billions of our taxpayer dollars being sent to fuel a war in which the US has no national security interest. Even Obama said as much in 2016. All that money to buy weapons, pay the salaries and pensions of corrupt Ukrainian government officials. And to fight disinformation? While our own cities are decaying and millions of Americans are out of work? AYFKM? All for another proxy war to weaken Russia. And to fill the coffers of the deep state war machine. And all the while, the Washington bureaucrats and their lap dogs in the media spout their lies and talking points as if they were Gospel. This war should be called “The Great American Propaganda War.”
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by Gordon G. Chang, GATESTONE  •  May 6, 2022

MOSCOW, RUSSIA – JUNE 24: The Yars mobile intercontinental ballistic missile launcher and a Tigr-M (Tiger) armored vehicle during a Victory Day military parade in Red Square marking the 75th anniversary of the victory in World War II, on June 24, 2020 in Moscow, Russia. The 75th-anniversary marks the end of the Great Patriotic War when the Nazi’s capitulated to the then Soviet Union. (Photo by Sergey Pyatakov – Host Photo Agency via Getty Images )[/caption]

Russia has a nuclear doctrine known as “escalate to deescalate” or, more accurately, “escalate to win,” which contemplates threatening or using nuclear weapons early in a conventional conflict. It cannot be a good sign that Russia, China, and North Korea at the same time are threatening to launch the world’s most destructive weaponry. Pictured: Mobile intercontinental ballistic missile launchers at a military parade in Moscow, Russia, on June 24, 2020. (Photo by Sergey Pyatakov – Host Photo Agency via Getty Images )

• Russia has a nuclear doctrine known as “escalate to deescalate” or, more accurately, “escalate to win,” which contemplates threatening or using nuclear weapons early in a conventional conflict.
• It cannot be a good sign that Russia, China, and North Korea at the same time are threatening to launch the world’s most destructive weaponry.

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“it seems to me to be perfectly rational, healthy, and normal to fear an ideology that is likely to curtail or eliminate my liberties if it prevails.”

BY Ibn Warraq, JIHAD WATCH

(Talk given at seventh Inbarah Conference in Trier , Germany, 4 MAY 2022 by Warraq speaking on behalf of Muslims who no longer believe in God.)

Good afternoon, welcome to the seventh Inarah Conference. My name is Ibn Warraq. I played, as Dr Markus Gross has adumbrated, a modest part in helping launch the Inarah Institute and the attendant Inarah conferences. I fear some of you may now have an irresistible urge to rush for the exit, since I remain, in the words of Lady Caroline Lamb referring to Lord Byron, “mad, bad, and dangerous to know.”

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“So that’s a level of really a Truth and Reconciliation Committee; it’s a level of Nuremberg Trials.”

BY ZACH HEILMAN, RED VOICE    May 5/22

According to data being released by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, close to 60% of adults and 75% of children have been infected by COVID-19. On top of that data, in December, it was reported that 34% of Americans have antibodies formed against the virus. With COVID-19 still present all over the globe, pharmaceutical companies like Pfizer and even the Biden administration have continued to push for more COVID-19 assistance. To date, the federal government has spent over $3 trillion fighting the virus. And when sifting through all the data collected, Dr. Naomi Wolf admitted that corruption and fraud is on the scale of the Nuremberg trials.
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With new tensions between Israel and Russia over the conflict in Ukraine, Israel might not enjoy as much freedom to operate against Syria. Here are the different scenarios.

By SETH J. FRANTZMAN, JPOST   May 3/22

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An IAF fighter jet is seen taking off amid the Vered Hagalil drill in Israel’s North.

Israel and Russia have had an amicable understanding regarding Syria since Moscow intervened in the Syrian civil war in 2015. Under former prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, that relationship was important and was managed in a complex and cautious way.

That does not mean Netanyahu’s management of the Russia issue always worked; there was criticism by Moscow of Israeli actions in Syria, but the relations continued nonetheless.
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By Ted Belman

600 Civilians Were Killed by a Russian Airstrike on Mariupol Theater, Evidence Shows
Testimonies by survivors reveal the magnitude of death and destruction at Ukraine’s Mariupol theater where civilians were sheltering

The Byline was AP dated May 4/22

I googled the story and found a WSJ article dated Mar 25/22

300 People Killed in Mariupol Theater Airstrike, Officials Say
I also searched Rumble and found a video in which a survivor testified on Mar 21/22 the Ukrainian army blew it up and were keeping everybody hostage.

https://rumble.com/vy2p73-march-21-2022.html