By Jean Patrick Grumberg, THE GELLER REPORT –  March 20, 2021

T. Belman. This potential alliance is skin deep and ignores more fundamental differences.

For years, Turkey would say one thing to Moscow and Tehran while telling Washington’s Iran hawks that Turkey was “against Russia and Iran.”

By SETH J. FRANTZMAN, JPOST   MARCH 20, 2021

Presidents Hassan Rouhani of Iran, Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey and Vladimir Putin of Russia hold a joint news conference after their meeting in Ankara, Turkey April 4, 2018  (photo credit: UMIT BEKTAS / REUTERS)

Iran’s Foreign Minister Javad Zarif was very content during a trip to Turkey on Friday. He said it was productive and smiled alongside his Turkish counterpart Mevlut Cavusoglu. He said it was a “wonderful” trip where he spoke with his “brother Cavusoglu.”

The trip signals the growing alliance that Turkey and Iran have in the region.

Read more…

By Wang He, EPOCH TIMES      March 20, 2021

Anchorage, the largest city in Alaska, recorded a temperature as low as -18 degrees Celsius (nearly zero degrees Fahrenheit) in the early morning. A two-day high-level talk between the United States and China has just ended in this frigid place. The high pitch of the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) “wolf warriors” howl and the weak U.S. response, in contrast, are really worrying.

In short, the U.S. side fell into four traps set ingeniously by the CCP during the talks.

First, the holding of high-level talks between the United States and China is itself a CCP trap.

Read more…

T. Belman. Noem had my full support til now.  To my mind, to not support this bill is political suicide.  Yet the poll indicates only 53% support the bill. Unbelievable.

By Rebecca Downs, TOWNHALL

Conservative female icon, Governor Kristi Noem (R-SD), shocked her base on Friday when she sent a bill back to the state legislature which would ban biological males from competing in sports against females.After initially expressing hesitation on Thursday in an interview with The Argus Leader, Noem also spelled out her concerns on Friday in a lengthy twitter thread.

The full letter with the governor’s suggestions is available through the state news website.

The legislation, HR 1217, “An Act to promote continued fairness in women’s sports,” would “prohibit biological males from competing in women’s sports,” as the American Principles Project (APP) explained on their website in support of the legislation.

BY SAMUEL ALLEGRI, EPOCH TIMES     March 20, 2021

Arizona legislators have ordered a recount of 2.1 million ballots for the 2020 presidential election, this time to be done by hand.

The Arizona Senate, which is controlled by Republicans, released a statement confirming their intent to do another audit of the ballots from Maricopa County, the state’s most populous county.

The Arizona State Senate statement released on Thursday says that they will conduct a “broad and detailed” audit, adding that they will test voting machines, scan ballots, look for IT breaches, and perform a hand count.

Read more…

06:10 First Point: Old CCP Methods To Act Tough In Front of US
11:05 Second Point: Does Biden and Blinken Have Ties To China
13:57 Third Point: Aggression IS THE ACT
17:15 Fourth Point: Follow Pompeo’s Path; Don’t Repeat the Embarrassment

By Caroline Glick

Two weeks ago, a bus filled with veteran Israeli generals from the Bithonistim, a grassroots national security organization, slowly made its way up the slopes of Mt. Ebal in Northern Samaria to visit a biblical-era site that was severely damaged by a Palestinian Authority contractor in late January.

They came to draw the public’s attention to the strategic implications of the war the Palestinians are waging against Jewish history.

Read more…

By Ray DiLorenzo, CFP

Deception in any war or battle is one of the greatest tools of any military commander.

One of the keys to Japan’s success in the Pearl Harbor attack was convincing the American government that they had not changed their strategy of a defensive posture, a very Sun Tzu tactic. When the Japanese did attack Pearl Harbor, the Japanese carriers arrived from the Northwest, while our forces were looking to the Southwest. When the newly operational radar station at Opana Point in Oahu detected a large group of planes arriving from the Northwest, an officer decided it was a squadron of B-17s due to arrive from San Francisco, 2,000 miles to the Northeast. A little geography knowledge would have served him well.
Read more…

By Daniel Pipes, BESA

Saddam Hussein (left) and Hafez Assad (center), image via Syrian Observatory for Human Rights

BESA Center Perspectives Paper No. 1,971, March 19, 2021

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: “Either we unite or we fight”: kaleidoscopic coalitions and enmities are one of the Middle East’s most distinctive political features, recognized by locals and clear to analysts. This extreme political volatility results from the tribal ethos. Until tribalism dies out, Middle Eastern politics will continue to be characterized by amorality, fluidity, temporariness, inconsistency, and contradiction.

Consider the following three episodes, which occurred over the course of a century:

Read more…

Unintended consequences of the Supreme Court decision to recognize non-Orthodox conversion will trump all promises to the contrary.

By Rabbi Prof. Dov Fischer, INN    , Mar 17 , 2021

Reform Jews in Poland

I recently published on these pages regarding the Bagat”z (Israeli Supreme Court) fiasco that saw secular judges entangle themselves in Judaic law, as they ruled that Judaically meaningless non-Orthodox “conversions” of non-Jews to “Judaism” should suffice to gain a non-Jew Israeli citizenship. If you did not read that piece, please do. It is foundational to what follows here.

In the aftermath of the Bagat”z ruling, a group of “50 Liberal Orthodox Rabbis” disseminated an “open letter” that got reported in some Israeli and other Jewish media. In their letter, they endorsed the Bagat”z ruling. The names of the signers included many of the “Open Orthodox” Left — a denomination that, akin to Reform and Conservative, is outside of normative Orthodox Judaism.

Read more…

L. Goudsmit. Political medicine, not medical science drives public policy on the coronavirus.

I trust science, not scientists.

BY MARK TAPSCOTT, EPOCH TIMES

A little-noticed peer-reviewed study published last October by a science and public health journal claims the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) ignored federal laws and regulations when it changed how the government counts deaths from COVID-19, caused by the CCP virus, also known as the novel coronavirus.

“All federal agencies are required to submit notification for data collection, publication, or analysis to the Federal Register BEFORE gaining approval from the U.S. Office of Management and Budget’s Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OMB/OIRA) to ensure they are in compliance with the Information Quality Act (IQA) and the Paperwork Reduction Act (PRA) and therefore, approved to implement the proposed changes,” the authors said in the study published by the Journal of Science, Public Health Policy and Law.

Read more…

L. Goudsmit. The inscrutable Chinese are not so inscrutable. Their 100 year communist plan to rule the world is very simple. Find your enemy’s weakness, exploit it, pretend to be a friend, then go in for the kill shot. President Trump was the obstacle to China’s 100 year plan. China has been exploiting American greed for decades, the kill shot was China’s participation in the stolen 2020 election. Now the communist Chinese are in a position to manipulate the corrupt, China-centric puppet president they helped install. The United States has become a vassal state to communist China with the help of greedy corrupt Democrats, RINOS, big-Pharma, globalist megalomaniacs like Gates and Soros, and the globalist media all financially tied to communist China. Follow the money – always follow the money. Do you miss President Trump yet?

By  Ryan Saavedra, DW

The Biden administration struggled during its first face-to-face meeting with communist China this week, which happened on U.S. soil, as the Chinese turned what was supposed to be an affair only lasting several minutes into a “public blowup” that lasted more than an hour.
Read more…

PM’s Likud projected to win 30-32 seats, and to clinch 60 along with declared and potential partners; 51% don’t want him as PM, but he’s still far more popular than his challengers

By TOI STAFF         19 March 2021, 

A man walks near an election campaign poster showing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Jerusalem on March 18, 2021 (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)

Final polls aired by Channel 12 and Channel 13 Friday ahead of Tuesday’s national election showed Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on the cusp of clinching a ruling majority as the race draws to a close, though he is still not guaranteed one.

Channel 12’s survey showed Netanyahu’s Likud gaining momentum, with the party having gained three seats in the past week. And while a majority of respondents, 51 percent, do not want him to continue as prime minister, he is far more popular than any other single candidate.

Read more…

by Dr. Joseph Mercola

STORY AT-A-GLANCE

• The WHO has turned global health security into a dictatorship, where the director general has assumed sole power to make decisions by which member states must abide
• According to a long-term World Health Organization insider, Bill Gates’ vaccine alliance, GAVI, is directing the WHO
• GAVI is headquartered in Switzerland. In 2009, GAVI was recognized as an international institution and granted total blanket immunity, including immunity against criminal sanctions. It is also exempt from paying taxes
• In 2017, Gates asked to be part of the WHO’s executive board — like a member state — because of his funding. While the “one-man nation-state of Gates” was not officially voted in, it appears he may have been granted unofficial power of influence
• Swissmedic, the Food and Drug Administration of Switzerland, has entered into a three-way contract agreement with Gates and the WHO. It appears other WHO member states have entered into this three-way agreement as well

Read more…

BRI is the acronym for Belt Road Initiative.

Last week’s fleeting, yet existential diplomatic crisis with Jordan reflects the changing nature of relations between Jerusalem and Amman in the era of the Abraham Accords.

By  Caroline B. Glick, ISRAEL HAYOM   03-19-2021 

According to media reports in Israel and the US, last Thursday, Israel’s ties with Jordan stood on the brink of the abyss. But then, five to 10 minutes passed and everything went back to normal.

Last week’s fleeting, yet existential crisis of relations with the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan disappeared without a trace. But before we forget all about it, it is important to consider what happened in some depth. Doing so will help us to understand the nature of Israel’s relations with Jordan in the era of the Abraham Accords, which all but ended the Arab-Israeli conflict.

Two events fomented the crisis. First, last Wednesday Jordanian Crown Prince Hussein was supposed to visit the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. Arrangements for the visit, including those related to Hussein’s security detail were assiduously discussed and agreed upon by Israeli and Jordanian officials ahead of time. But as became clear when Hussein and his entourage arrived at the Allenby Bridge Crossing to enter Israel, the Jordanians decided to ignore the agreements. Hussein was accompanied by a personal security force much larger and better armed than anything Israel had agreed to.

Read more…

Russia needs the Saudis to influence the Syrian opposition but bin Farhan told him that Syria must return to the Arab fold (i.e. cut ties with Iran) to facilitate a political settlement

MEMRI

Sergei Lavrov meets Muhammad R’ad: (Source: Mid.ru)

On March 15, 2021, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov held a meeting with the head of the Hizbullah parliamentary faction Muhammad R’ad. The Russian Foreign Ministry laconically announced “We confirm the fact of the meeting”[1] At the meeting, Lavrov told R’ad that Russia backed the speedy formation of a Lebanese government under Rafiq Al-Hariri as well the return of refugees to Syria, many of whom are in Lebanon .[2]

Russia has taken note of the tenth anniversary of the Syrian fighting. and the Duma Defense Committee announced that 112 Russian soldiers had died since Russia launched its military operation in Syria on September 30, 2015.[3] Russia would like to see a political settlement in Syria that would ratify the success of this military mission. Part of attempts to accelerate a political process in Syria was the formation of a new format comprised of Russia-Turkey and Qatar. During Lavrov’s March 10 visit to Doha, he was joined the next day by Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu. On March 11, Lavrov held talks with the Emir of Qatar Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani and Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs of Qatar Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al Thani. Later, the foreign affairs ministers of Russia, Turkey and Qatar had a meeting following which they announced:  “Russia, Turkey and Qatar also expressed their intention to actively participate in international efforts aimed to ensure the secure and voluntary return of Syrian refugees and internally displaced people to their homes.” [4]

Read more…

With the Biden administration having re-empowered Palestinian aggressors against Israel, Kushner has shown that he doesn’t grasp the significance of what he helped achieve with the Abraham Accords.

By Melanie Phillips, INN , Mar 19 , 2021 

(JNS) Jared Kushner, the son-in-law of President Donald Trump, was a senior foreign-policy adviser in the Trump administration. Now an op-ed by Kushner published in The Wall Street Journal has caused jaws to drop.

Kushner was a key mover behind the Abraham Accords between Israel and the Gulf States. This agreement, brokered by Trump, was the most significant move towards peace in the Middle East for the best part of a century.

In parallel, Trump’s U.S. withdrawal in May 2018 from the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, coupled with the re-imposition of sanctions and more severe ones later added, was gradually bringing the fanatical and genocidal Iranian regime to its knees.

Read more…