Israeli military officials say hermetically sealing up the fence for Palestinians would be a fool’s errand – and that they neutralize security threats much more effectively by other means

Yaniv Kubovich, HAARETZ

The well-known breaches along the security barrier between Israel and the West Bank, and the ease with which Palestinians can enter Israel without permits, have become a familiar recurring subject of debate and rancor following terrorist attacks. But defense officials say the situation is being carefully managed – and that it is not the result of any security failure, as has been widely represented.

Defense officials say the situation involves risk assessments, setting priorities for resources and maintaining a balance between security tensions within the Palestinian Authority.

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T. Belman. The deal that Gantz wants isn’t on the table and will never be achieved. The the use of force.

The defense minister tells a diplomatic gathering that Israel is ‘in a race against time’ as Iran continues to enrich Uranium

Haaretz

Israeli Defense Minister Benny Gantz said Wednesday that “plan B must be activated” should Iran and Western powers fail to strike a nuclear deal.

Speaking alongside Foreign Minister Yair Lapid during a joint briefing of 80 foreign ambassadors in Herzliya, Gantz said that Iran has continued to enrich Uranium to 60 percent purity, raising its stockpile from 10 kilograms to 50 since last August.
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Pfizer hired 1,800 additional full-time employees in the first half of 2021 to deal with “the large increase” of adverse reactions to its COVID vaccine, newly released secret documents reveal. The Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 Vaccine was made available under the Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) on Dec. 11, 2020. By February of 2021, the company was seeing so many safety signals, including in pregnant and breastfeeding mothers, it had to immediately hire 600 employees to process the data.

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By  David Israel, JEWISH PRESS      April 5, 2022

MK Yulia Malinovsky (Israel Beitenu, chaired by Finance Minister Avigdor Liberman) on Monday night tweeted an insulting message to Israel’s Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi David Lau: “The citizens of Israel should not be held hostage to Rabbi Lau’s personal whims. Nowhere in the sources (presumably religious sources – DI) is it written that the chief rabbi is the one who should sign the conversion certificates. To the attention of Rabbi Lau – you are a public servant and the government gave you your authority, and just as it gave it to you, it can also take it away.”

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In pursuit of its utopian omelet, the Left cares little about the millions of middle-class Americans it must break to make it.

By Victor Davis Hanson, AM GREATNESS

The last 14 months have offered one of the rare occasions in recent American history when the hard Left has operated all the levers of federal government. The presidency, the House of Representatives, the Senate, and the permanent bureaucratic state are all in progressive hands. And the result is a disaster that is uniting Americans in their revulsion of elitists whose crazy ideas are tearing apart the fabric of the country.

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T. Belman.  Both options are long shots. What is needed is for Likud to cut a deal with Yamina and New Hope or Israel Beitenu giving them another 13 seats at least. This has a chance of success. This is doable particularly if Bibi agrees to Bennett remaining PM for another year at least.

The opposition has 2 main potential paths to unseat Bennett’s eight-party government. Neither is straightforward, but Idit Silman’s bombshell resignation makes them more plausible

By TAL SCHNEIDER, TOI

Wednesday’s resignation of Yamina MK Idit Silman, the coalition whip, from Naftali Bennett’s eight-party government has thrown Israeli politics back into chaos, depriving the coalition of its parliamentary majority and opening up the possibility of a Likud-led government.

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The Israeli government just lost its majority in the Knesset, but Netanyahu is still far from getting his own majority to replace it. What does the latest drama mean for Bennett, Lapid, Gantz and other key players?

By Anshel Pfeffer, HAARETZ

Can it?

The immediate answer is that the government can, at least for now survive without a majority, as long as there are no additional defectors. Having passed a state budget, the government on paper has another eleven months before the deadline for passing the next budget arrives in March 2023.

Eleven months is a long time in Israeli politics and if the remaining 60 members of the coalition stick together, that is now the realistic life-expectation of this government. Of course, without a majority, it will be unable to pass any serious legislation, but lame-duck governments are no rarity.

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T. Belman. 10 years ago, ” the Shiites and Alawites comprised 15% of Syria’s population, today they represent 40% of the population, and their representation is only expected to increase.”

Terror groups seeking to enlist supporters among Shiite population in Syria have already enlisted a few hundred, report says.

Israel National News   06.04.22 08:47

Syrian borderYitzchak Harari/ Flash 90

With the end of Syria’s civil war, the IDF has identified a new threat brought about by the demographic change and significant growth of the Alawite and Shiite population in Syria.

According to Israel Hayom, the concern is that Iran and Hezbollah will utilize the current situation to enlist supporters and activists from among the Shiite population, similar to what they have done in Lebanon.

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Government loses its majority as Yamina MK leaves coalition. ‘We can form another government without new elections.’

By Hezki Baruch, INN <
>

Idit Silman?????: Yonatan Sindel/Flash90

The Bennett government suffered a major political blow Wednesday morning, with coalition chairwoman Idit Silman announcing her departure from the coalition.

Silman, a member of Prime Minister Naftali Bennett’s Yamina faction, said early Wednesday morning that she will no longer stay in the narrow coalition government, announcing her resignation.

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““The bottom line,” he said, “is a harsh indictment against Prime Minister Naftali Bennet’s government. Not only are they assisting the P.A. to reward terror—to reward terrorist murderers—they are doing so in a manner that breaches both the letter and the spirit of the law.””

The law requires that any withheld tax payments made by Israel to the Palestinian Authority must deduct the amount that the P.A. paid in the previous year to terrorists or their families.

BY ISRAEL KASNETT, jns

(April 5, 2022 / JNS) Israeli Defense Minister Benny Gantz continues to flout Israeli law and transfer money to the Palestinian Authority, according to the Jerusalem-based Kohelet Policy Forum. The problem, according to Kohelet, is that Israeli law prohibits money transfers to the P.A. as a consequence of its “pay-for-slay” policy that awards Palestinian terrorists with money for killing Israelis.

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BE SURE TO READ THE COMMENTS

T. Belman. The US can threaten to withhold its veto at the UNSC or to greatly reduce its import or Israeli goods (26% of Israel’s total exports). In response Israel can approach either Russia or China to replace the US . The US takes Israel for granted and thus bullies Israel. Saudi Arabia and UAE are in the same boat and already approaching China and Russia. Israel has to play this card and stand together with the UAE and Saudi Arabia.

Ambassador (ret.) Yoram Ettinger, “Second Thought: a US-Israel Initiative”  April 5, 2022,

According to Sigmund Freud’s psychoanalytic theory, reality testing is the ability to see a situation for what it really is, rather than what one hopes or fears it might be.

The Ben Gurion doctrine

Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, pressures Israel to refrain from sharing with the co-equal US Congress its own concerns about the adverse impact of the US policy toward Iran on the national security of the US and Israel.
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T. Belman. Orban’s victory in Hungary will give Le Pen another boost.

President Emmanuel Macron’s belated entry into the campaign and his focus on Ukraine have left him vulnerable to a strong challenge from the right.

NYT     April 4, 2022

PARIS — At last, Emmanuel Macron stepped forth. The French president entered a vast arena this weekend, plunged into darkness and lit only by spotlights and glow sticks, before a crowd of 30,000 supporters in a domed stadium in the Paris suburbs.

T. Belman. Singer keeps suggesting that the border between Israel and Jordan be changed. Mudar and I take the position that the Jordan R remain as the border and that Arabs west of the river be incentivized to emigrate to Jordan.

We both agree that there should only be one Arab state from the Mandate lands.

He neglects to mention that Abdullah II is partial to the Muslim Brotherhood, ISIS and Iran. He has been a trouble maker in Israel from day one.

Jordan & Israel can end the 100 years old Jewish-Arab conflict. Can Abdullah do it? Op-ed.

By David Singer , INN    05.04.22 07:00

Dry Bones: Abdullah hesitates…Y Kirschen

It took Jordan’s King Abdullah II just a 10 minute helicopter flight from Jordan to Ramallah on 26 March to meet Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) leader Mahmud Abbas in Ramallah – itself only 15 minutes’ drive from Jerusalem – Abdullah’s first trip to Judea and Samaria (‘West Bank’) since 2017.

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T. Belman. Mead sets out three options for Biden; escalate, capitulate or freeze the conflict. He argues against capitulating by saying “A Russian victory would inflict a massive blow to American prestige and the health of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, especially if the West were seen as forcing Ukraine to surrender to Russian demands.”

I disagree with this assessment..  Biden has repeatedly said it is up to Zelinskyy to curt a deal. That being the case, if  Zelinskyy cuts a deal, US and NATO don’t loose much face by endorsing it because they have both backed away from the conflict.

By Walter Russell Mead, WSJ      April 4, 2022 6:28 pm ET

We are only six weeks into Vladimir Putin’s war against Ukraine, but the conflict has already settled into a familiar pattern. Both sides often go into wars with a theory of victory, and it is only when both theories fail that the true shape of the conflict begins to appear. In the Second Punic War (218-201 B.C.), Hannibal thought that if he could get an army into Italy and win some conspicuous victories, the other Italian city-states, restless under Roman rule, would revolt and enable him to break Roman power for good. The Romans thought that their superior legions with their fighting spirit and discipline would quickly show Hannibal who was boss.

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T. Belman. European dependency on Russian energy is so great that Russia is calling all the shots. And NATO can’t change that. So it is easy to conclude that NATO is of no value. In fact a negative force causing problems.

Biden himself made certain that there would not be an alternate supply by,
1. Shutting down US production,
2. Pulling the plug on the pipeline from Israel to Greece and
3. Alienating the Gulf States by getting in bed with Iran.

The best solution is to disband NATO and amalgamate Russia into Europe.

T. Belman. I said the same thing, though not near as well, in my article  Unifying Theory

Supporters of NATO’s war on Yugoslavia have no right to talk about law, sovereignty or borders

By Nebojsa Malic, RT

The remains of a building that was bombed by NATO in 1999 in Belgrade, Serbia. © Pierre Crom / Getty Images

Pretty much everyone who has spent the past month moralizing about the sanctity of borders, sovereignty of countries, and how unacceptable it was for great powers to “bully” smaller neighbors – thinking of Russia and Ukraine – paused on Thursday to sing praises to a woman that championed all of those things back in 1999. Except since it was NATO doing them to Yugoslavia, Madeleine Albright was a hero and an icon, obviously.

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