Archive for the ‘Trump and Israel’ category

Merry Christmas and Happy Hanukkah

December 25, 2016

Merry Christmas and Happy Hanukkah, Dan Miller’s Blog, December 25, 2016

(The views expressed in this article are mine and do not necessarily reflect those of Warsclerotic or its other editors. — DM)

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We were delighted with the “surprising” election outcome this year and look forward to a reawakened America under President Trump. He — and the rest of us — have an Augean stable to muck out. We hope for a revitalized and far better America than we have seen for the past eight years and for a better world for all, with no more disgraces of this sort:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=crEicBxcfwA&t=0s

Desire for a “two state solution” does not mean that there would be one state for the Jews and another for the Palestinians, living separately but in peace and harmony. Palestinian hatred for non-Muslims would not permit Israelis to live at peace in their separate state. Ultimately, if the Palestinians are successful, it would mean one Palestinian state with no Jews and few if any Christians.

Gaza, which had been controlled by the Palestinian Authority’s Fatah, has been controlled by Hamas since 2007. Despite an annual population growth rate of  2.91% (2014 est.), there are now few Christians.

In 2006, there were 5,000 Christians living in Gaza when hard-line Hamas took power from the more moderate Fatah party. Ten years later, there are just 1,100 left. . . .

In Israel, where Arab Christians have comparatively more opportunities than their Palestinian counterparts, the Christian population has stayed stable. The Christian population grew by about 5,000 in the past 20 years. Today Christians in Israel number 164,700, about 2 percent of the population, a similar ratio to past decades.

If the Palestinian Authority permits free and fair Palestinian elections throughout Israel, Hamas is quite likely to displace the PA as Israel’s “partner for peace.” Hamas is funded and otherwise supported by The Islamic Republic of Iran.

This violence is brought to you by the Religion of Peace and tolerance:

To end on a humorous but nevertheless sad note,

Again, Merry Christmas and Happy Hanukkah, with hopes for a better, more peaceful world with less hatred.

xmas2016

Ruff, Dan, Sunshine and Jeanie

The UN vote teaches much but changes nothing and affects even less

December 25, 2016

The UN vote teaches much but changes nothing and affects even less, Israel National News, Rabbi Prof. Dov Fischer, December 25, 2016

The so–called “Two-State Solution” died years and years ago.  No one told Obama that he helped kill it by siding so unilaterally with Arab demands against Israel.  Obama induced Mahmoud Abbas almost a decade ago to stop talks with Israel, leaving Obama and Hillary, succeeded by Kerry, to do the dirty work.  As a result, stasis ensued, and Jews continued moving in. There now are more than 750,000 Jews in Judea and Samaria, including Jews living in East Jerusalem.  The Arabs will not allow them to remain there, and Israel cannot logistically relocate them.  Israel could not even relocate or successfully re-employ 10,000 Jews from Gush Katif who were forcibly uprooted and displaced during Ariel Sharon’s Gaza give-away.  Israel cannot remove 800,000 people, place them in alternate homes and find them productive jobs.  It is logistically impossible.  Only Adolf Hitler could remove a million Jews from their homes and ‘resettle’ them. 

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1.  The U.S. Jewish organization J Street applauded the move, saying the resolution advances the goal of a two-state solution, also a longtime U.S. objective. “This resolution conveys the overwhelming support of the international community, including Israel’s closest friends and allies, for the two-state solution, and their deep concern over the deteriorating status quo between Israelis and Palestinians and the lack of meaningful progress toward peace,” the organization said.

2.  Obama will be out in 28 days.  Had Hillary Clinton been elected, this United Nations vote now would launch a real long-term headache.  Not a disaster, but a real headache.  Nothing ever can obstruct the will of G-d, certainly not those in Migdal Bavel — the Tower of Babel — but they still can cause headaches.  However, Hillary instead is an asterisk to history.  A minuscule small asterisk, best remembered as a Public Liar who lost two “Can’t Miss” elections, first to Obama and then to Donald Trump.

3.  It was a miracle that Donald Trump ever was elected.  Even on Election Day the exit-poll reports were that he was in big trouble in Florida and elsewhere.  The miracle goes back generations.  His grandfather never wanted to be in America in the first place, but the Kaiser would not let him back in after the grandfather traveled to America without paying a mandatory fee that permitted people to leave and then to return.  So the grandfather got stuck in America against his will.  Two generations later, Trump emerges as President of the United States.  Before that, his elegant and refined daughter converts to Judaism and undertakes to live a Modern Orthodox Jewish life, and she marries into an Orthodox family with long-standing ties to Israel and with demonstrated sympathies to Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria.

President-elect Trump has been a friend of Israel and of Jews all his life.  He has been awarded for his friendship, has been a Grand Marshall of an Israel Day Parade, has donated to Bet El.  He surrounds himself with Orthodox and non-Orthodox Jews who are deep and committed friends of Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria.  His front-line non-Jewish supporters, including Rudy Giuliani, Mike Huckabee, Dr. Ben Carson, Steve Bannon, and others are huge supporters of Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria, and they all support moving the American embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.  Mr. Trump is very close with Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, and he deeply admires scrappy, strong men who do not back down in the face of adversity.

4.  Obama now goes out — along with Kerry — with exactly the legacy they have earned but camouflaged from the public’s view.  By acting against Israel, Obama revealed his enmity and small churlish pettiness in his last month of the eight years, so that all could see and know what so many liberal Jews refused to acknowledge.  His legacy with the Jews is sealed, and his churlish pettiness will define him for the rest of his life as Jimmy Carter’s anti-Semitism has defined him.

5.  If Mr. Trump contemplated wavering on fulfilling his pledge to move the embassy, as so many other American Presidents before him have done, now he himself will be self-motivated to move the embassy — “just because” — because that is how Donald Trump is in the core of his being: “You push me, and I hit you back twice as hard.”  That is Donald Trump.  Thus, the short-term anti-Israel moment in which Israel’s enemies exult will guarantee Israel a much more satisfying long-term result.  This U.N. vote virtually assures that President Trump will move the embassy to Jerusalem.

6.  Notably — and excellently for those who love Israel — the U.N. vote also equates East Jerusalem completely with all the rest of Judea and Samaria, putting all Jewish communities there in the same category.  This is excellent because even most of the Israelis who are prepared to compromise on parts of Judea and Samaria are not prepared to compromise on East Jerusalem.  Although people anticipated that President Trump would move the embassy to West Jerusalem if he would honor his promise, this vote even may induce Trump miraculously to move the embassy to East Jerusalem.  I do not know whether he would go that far, but now he might.

7.  If Prime Minster Netanyahu wants to remain in office and not see the utter break-up of his coalition, this U.N. vote will induce the Israeli Government to expand Jewish populating of Judea and Samaria (“West Bank settlements”) as a response of defiance, particularly once Trump is in.

8.  The U.N. voted in 1975 that Zionism is Racism.  In time, they voted to retract the measure because it cost them dearly.  Mr. Trump is the sort, and he has the Republican Congress to back him, to cut American dollars to the United Nations so significantly — and he already believes that America spends far too much on too many overseas commitments — and that itself may be useful.

9.  More than 70 percent of American Jews voted foolishly for Hillary against Trump.  G-d blessed Israel that, at her time of need, there is a Christian community in America — the conservative Evangelicals — who back Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria fully and who made clear to Mr. Trump that, along with religious and social issues dear to them (and, by the way to Orthodox Jews) — opposition to abortion, issues regarding the traditional family, Government interference in religion — they insist on supporting Israel, support moving the embassy to Jerusalem, and support the Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria (the so-called “Jewish settlements in Occupied Palestine”).

10.  The so–called “Two-State Solution” died years and years ago.  No one told Obama that he helped kill it by siding so unilaterally with Arab demands against Israel.  Obama induced Mahmoud Abbas almost a decade ago to stop talks with Israel, leaving Obama and Hillary, succeeded by Kerry, to do the dirty work.  As a result, stasis ensued, and Jews continued moving in. There now are more than 750,000 Jews in Judea and Samaria, including Jews living in East Jerusalem.  The Arabs will not allow them to remain there, and Israel cannot logistically relocate them.  Israel could not even relocate or successfully re-employ 10,000 Jews from Gush Katif who were forcibly uprooted and displaced during Ariel Sharon’s Gaza give-away.  Israel cannot remove 800,000 people, place them in alternate homes and find them productive jobs.  It is logistically impossible.  Only Adolf Hitler could remove a million Jews from their homes and ‘resettle’ them.

So there is no “Two-State” solution because, except for displacing a few families in Amona, who will one day live in even better homes, it will not happen anyway because Israel is not going to put a million Jews in cattle cars and ship them to camps of concentration. Israel simply does not have alternate housing and employment for a million people.  It simply will not happen because it now is logistically impossible.

11.  Israel made major concessions in past negotiations, reaching agreements under Clinton and George W. Bush to make major concessions in return for American assurances and guarantees that included assurances that America would recognize the legality of certain major populations of Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria.

Today’s experience at the U.N. marks America reneging fundamentally on its pledged commitments made in these deals, thus nullifying the legal binding of those deals.  It also reminds Israel that only she can watch out for her survival because other countries have their own interests, and government leaderships change.  Even President Trump will not be forever, though he does have four years ahead with a good chance of eight years if he jump-starts the economy successfully, and there is a reasonably good chance for some extra time afterwards with Vice President Mike Pence succeeding him in eight years if the Republicans rule properly, effectively, and generously.

12.  It is particularly satisfying the Myth of Obama in the American Jewish community to be exposed and remembered.  Israeli Jews already “had his number” eight years ago. This is an effete who characterized the Radical Islamist terrorist murders of Jews in France, in the immediate aftermath of the Charlie Hebdo murders, as having been the result of some violent people attacking a “random grocery store.”  That world view accorded with Obama characterizing the Radical Islamist murders at Fort Hood as “workplace violence.”

American Jews, more than others, need to remember whom they supported and what he and his ilk are.  Jews also need to know now that Charles Schumer, Democrat Senator from New York and the Democrats’ Senate Minority Leader, is not their savior but rather is their deep embarrassment, and Schumer has no influence on matters concerning Israel’s survival. He is utterly useless. Likewise, the Orthodox Jew in Obama’s cabinet — Jack Lew, Obama’s Secretary of the Treasury — could not influence the day. He, too, was utterly useless, and it is valuable that he be remembered that way, now that his uselessness has been exposed.

In the end, Jews need to know who their friends are, who their obvious enemies are, who their covert enemies are, and most importantly, as we embark on commemorating the Hanukkah miracle in the Beit Hamikdash — the Holy Temple — Jews need to know that their survival is in the hands of G-d.

13.  I conclude as I began.  J Street is an organization supported in no small measure by George Soros. There has been some public discussion the past ten days in America as to whether it is fair to call the pathetic self-hating back-stabbers in J Street “worse than Kapos.”  The record will show that, on the day that Obama ineffectually took one last swipe at Israel, J Street issued the statement it did.  Res Ipsa Loquitur.  The thing speaks for itself.

Why Obama Has Hurt the Palestinian People Far More Than Israel

December 24, 2016

Why Obama Has Hurt the Palestinian People Far More Than Israel, PJ MediaRoger L. Simon, December 24, 2016

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By allowing and indeed instigating – it was apparently entirely his decision – the United States to “abstain” from the UN Security Council’s censure of Israel on the settler issue Barack Obama has certainly hurt Israel, but he has hurt the Palestinian people far more.

Obama’s action was entirely one of moral narcissism, coming as it did from his longtime pseudo-leftist distaste for Israel (see the Khalidi Tape) augmented by personal pique at its leader, Benjamin Netanyahu, leavened by self-regarding, actually quite destructive, virtue signaling. Obama’s unresolved anger about Donald Trump’s victory was undoubtedly also part of the mix.

The destructive aspect is the most significant in the long run, though it’s questionable whether the lame duck president sees it or even cares.  Obama has encouraged Palestinian irredentism.  He has given their leaders and the misbegotten Palestinian people a propaganda victory they don’t need that misleads them into thinking they have been following the right path.

Over the more than two decades since the Oslo Accords, the Palestinians have been given several chances at a two-state solution and have rejected all of them.  In all those cases over ninety percent of what they asked for was on the table.  In the instance of Ehud Barak and Arafat, some say it was a hundred percent. Arafat famously walked away – to Bill Clinton’s great, and in this case justifiable, chagrin.

Something wrong?  Of course.  Maybe the Palestinians, at least their leaders, didn’t and don’t really want a two-state solution. Those leaders have been on a gravy train, in many instances having become billionaires via international aid during the negotiations. They have had less than zero incentive to make a deal, especially since they suspected their more bloodthirsty brothers and sisters would kill them if they did.  (A recent investigation shows that Arafat may actually have been poisoned by a competing Palestinian leader.  We all know what happened to Gaza after the Israelis left voluntarily, when Hamas turned what was supposed to be the next Singapore into a free-fire zone.)

Meanwhile, the Palestinian people have been ginned up by those leaders – and jihadists world wide – to hate the Jewish people and dream of the Jewish state being pushed into the sea. Interesting in all this is the supposedly terminal settler issue. Palestinian Authority president  Abu Abbas has declared that no Jews would be allowed to live in a future Palestinian state, while a million and a half Arabs already live in Israel.  Is that, as Obama would say, “fair”? Since 1948, the entire Islamic world has virtually achieved Hitler’s goal of being Judenrein.

Nevertheless, the destruction of Israel is less likely than ever to occur, yet Obama decided to give at least tacit encouragement to that tired dream and give the Palestinians a false victory through his last minute chastisement of Israel.  He did this in full knowledge that Donald Trump would take an opposite position within weeks. Obama’s action was basically a “grandstand play,” but not a harmless one because it undermined what Trump and his people may ultimately be trying to do more quietly.  The Palestinians need nothing more than”tough love,” solid inducement to look at their situation realistically rather than through the highly-neurotic, always self-destructive lens of victimhood.

It’s no surprise that Trump is now calling for reduced US financial support for the UN.  Did Obama want that?  Did he really care about that either or was that all too just for show?

So Obama moves off stage as he has always been – the Moral Narcissist in Chief.  His entire presidency has been about him, and on a global stage.  And they say Trump is the narcissist.

Five Ways Trump Could Avenge the Anti-Israel UN Vote

December 24, 2016

Five Ways Trump Could Avenge the Anti-Israel UN Vote, BreitbartJoel B. Pollak, December 23, 2016

trump-israel-640x480SAUL LOEB/AFP/Getty

President-elect Donald J. Trump hinted on Friday, via Twitter, that “things will be different after Jan. 20” at the United Nations.

He was reacting to President Barack Obama’s decision to betray Israel and to allow an anti-Israel resolution at the UN Security Council to pass. The resolution regards all Israeli settlement — including East Jerusalem, the Old City, and Hebron — as illegal. It was a sneak attack by lame-duck Obama. Here is what Trump may have in mind as a response.

1. Signing a congressional declaration that the UN Security Council resolution is not United States policy. Congress could quickly pass, and President Trump would sign, a declaration that the previous administration had no mandate to allow the UN Security Council resolution to pass. The declaration could affirm prior U.S. policy that some areas in the West Bank will always be under Israeli control — or it could even leave the status of the West Bank open to potential Israeli annexation.

2. Immediately move the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem. The Trump transition team has been hinting that moving the U.S. embassy would be a high priority. Now there is absolutely no reason to delay. The entire case against moving the embassy had been that the U.S. should not take unilateral action outside negotiations between the two parties. But Obama just undermined his own argument by unilaterally taking the Palestinians’ side over settlements. Moving the embassy is now a no-brainer.

3. Cut off funding to the Palestinian Authority. President Obama kept U.S. taxpayer dollars flowing to the Palestinians even though the Palestinian Authority has continued to support terrorists and incite hatred against Israelis and Jews. By pushing for unilateral measures at the UN, the Palestinian leadership has also thrown away the bilateral premise of whatever remained of the peace process. They have never faced consequences for their hostility to peace. They should face them now.

4. Defund the United Nations, in whole or in part. The UN is dependent on American taxpayers for some 22% of its general budget. International diplomats, bureaucrats and miscreants live the high live in Manhattan and elsewhere while passing resolutions and running programs directly contrary to the interests of the United States. The Trump administration and Speaker Paul Ryan will find plenty of fat to cut — and could target funding that would support Friday’s awful resolution.

5. Announce a presidential visit to Israel. Trump should visit Israel — and include the Old City, and even Hebron, to show that the new administration regards Jerusalem as Israel’s eternal, undivided capital; and that the religious rights of all people to access holy sites in the West Bank must be undisturbed under any dispensation. After Obama’s perfidy, Trump would be greeted as a hero throughout the country.

Ironically, from this dark moment in U.S.-Israel relations, a new light may shine.

UNSC resolution promotes Mid East war

December 24, 2016

UNSC resolution promotes Mid East war, DEBKAfile, December 24, 2016

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The United States did not abandon Israel by its abstention from vetoing the UN Security Council resolution condemning settlements that was passed Friday, Dec. 23, 2016.

The one who abandoned Israel was US President Barack Obama – and not for the first time. During his eight years in office, Obama let Israel down at least three times on issues that jeopardized its security:

One of the first consequences of his 2011 “Arab Spring” initiative was the overthrow of Hosni Mubarak as Egyptian president and his direct promotion of the Muslim Brotherhood’s takeover of power in Cairo.

Four years later, Obama turned his back on Israel to award Iran favored status. Iran was allowed to retain the infrastructure of its military nuclear program as well as continuing to develop ballistic missiles, with the help of an infusion of $250 billion in US and European sanctions relief.

The horror of the carnage in Syria overshadowed the fact that President Obama allowed Tehran to pump Revolutionary Guards forces into the country through Iraq in order to fight for the brutal Assad regime. The president made no effort to halt the influx of pro-Iranian Shiite groups, including the Lebanese Hizballah, into Syria, as though it was perfectly natural and his policies had nothing to do with bringing Israel’s arch-foes to its back door.

In 2015, too, when Obama tried to wash his hands of the Middle East at large, he opened the war for the Islamic State and its leader Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi to walk in and commandeer large swathes of Iraq and Syria virtually unopposed.

From those vantage points, the jihadists sent out a tentacle to Egyptian Sinai – close to another Israeli border.

Of late, the Obama has claimed he was not aware of ISIS’ potential for expansion, implying that US intelligence was at fault.

All the same, Obama never tired of emphasizing that he had done more than any US president before him to support Israel’s security, mainly in the form of advanced US weapons systems supplied for its defense. Because of the close military and intelligence ties between the two countries, no voice was raised to contradict him.

It is now time to point to the hypocrisy of the incumbent president’s posture: Had he invested less in granting benefits and free rein to the Jewish state’s closest enemies, Israel would perhaps have been less dependent on American hardware.

In the latest UN Security Council resolution, Israel is reprimanded on the score that “all Israeli settlement activities in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including east Jerusalem, are illegal under international law and constitute a major obstacle to the achievement of peace on the basis of the two-state solution.”

Before anyone else, Barack Obama and his Secretary of State John Kerry are in a position to attest to the falseness of this equation.

On Nov. 25, 2009, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu announced that Israel would impose a 10-month freeze on construction in the West Bank and east Jerusalem as a concession to ease the US peace initiative. Israel gave way further on its demand for direct negotiations, when Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas dug his heels in against meeting Israeli officials face to face. John Kerry was forced to engage in shuttle diplomacy.
Even after those concessions for peace, the Obama initiative fell flat when it came up against Palestinian resistance.

The departing US president seems determined to use his last weeks in office to teach the Israeli prime minister a painful lesson he won’t forget in a hurry after his White House exit on Jan. 20.

But he is getting it wrong one more time. The UN SC resolution will soon be reduced to a piece of paper. The Palestinians will wave it gladly in the face of the international community, but Israel won’t remove a single settlement or stop building new housing estates in Jerusalem. The Prime Minister’s Office made it clear that Israel is not bound by the resolution and rejects it.
The only concrete result will be to make peace more elusive than ever

The notion that Donald Trump will come riding to Israel’s rescue as soon as he moves into the Oval Office is foolish. He was elected to rebuild America as a global power. That would necessarily include restoring US influence in the Middle East, but how he proposes to accomplish this is not generally known.

If he decides to call on Israel for support and assistance, it stands to reason that he will introduce radical changes in Obama’s steps – especially the nuclear deal with Iran and the peace process with the Palestinians.

Not all those changes can be achieved peacefully. They may well entail the use of military force by the United States and Israel. In this sense, Security Council Resolution 2334 may turn out to be the real obstacle to peace, tending rather to promote belligerence in the Middle East, because the Palestinians and other hardliners and rejectionists will use the resolution as their justification for bashing Israel and more acts of terror.

Amb. Bolton on US abstention from UN Israel vote

December 24, 2016

Amb. Bolton on US abstention from UN Israel vote, Fox News via YouTube, December 23, 2016

Israel Official: Obama Administration Secretly Worked With Palestinians to Craft ‘Shameful’ UN Resolution

December 23, 2016

Israel Official: Obama Administration Secretly Worked With Palestinians to Craft ‘Shameful’ UN Resolution, BreitbartAaron Klein, December 23, 2016

obamaohMark Wilson/Getty

TEL AVIV — The Obama administration secretly worked with the Palestinian Authority to craft a “shameful” United Nations resolution behind Israel’s back, an Israeli official told reporters on Friday.

The official told Breitbart Jerusalem by email:

“President Obama and Secretary Kerry are behind this shameful move against Israel at the UN. The US administration secretly cooked up with the Palestinians an extreme anti Israeli resolution behind Israel’s back which would be a tailwind for terror and boycotts and effectively make the Western Wall occupied Palestinian territory. President Obama could declare his willingness to veto this resolution in an instant but instead is pushing it. This is an abandonment of Israel which breaks decades of US policy of protecting Israel at the UN and undermines the prospects of working with the next administration of advancing peace.”

The official sent the same quotes to major news agencies, including Reuters and the Associated Press. He spoke as four UN Security Council members met on Friday to discuss how to advance the anti-Israel resolution despite Egypt’s decision to delay the vote on the draft that it introduced. The draft was originally scheduled for vote yesterday, but was delayed following criticism from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and President-elect Donald Trump.

After the meeting, diplomats said the UN will move forward with the vote, which is expected to take place Friday at about 3 p.m. Eastern (10 p.m. in Jerusalem).

The text of the resolution repeatedly and wrongly refers to the West Bank and eastern sections of Jerusalem as “Palestinian territory occupied since 1967.”  In actuality, the Palestinians never had a state in either the West Bank or eastern Jerusalem and they are not legally recognized as the undisputed authority in those areas.

Jordan occupied and annexed the West Bank and eastern Jerusalem from 1948 until Israel captured the lands in a defensive war in 1967 after Arab countries used the territories to launch attacks against the Jewish state.  In 1988 Jordan officially renounced its claims to the West Bank and eastern Jerusalem.

The text of the resolution declares that the Israeli settlement enterprise has “no legal validity and constitutes a flagrant violation under international law and a major obstacle to the achievement of the two-state solution and a just, lasting and comprehensive peace.”

It calls for Israel to “immediately and completely cease all settlement activities in the occupied Palestinian territory, including East Jerusalem.”

As the Committee for Accuracy for Middle East Reporting in America (CAMERA) pointed out in an email blast, international law does not make Israeli settlements illegal.

CAMERA notes:

Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Conventions, which is relied upon by those who claim the settlements are illegal, does not apply in the case of the West Bank. This is because the West Bank was never under self-rule by a nation that was a party to the Convention, and therefore there is no “partial or total occupation of the territory of a High Contracting Party,” as Article 2 of the Convention specifies. Moreover, even if it did apply, by its plain terms, it applies only to forcible transfers and not to voluntary movement. Therefore, it can’t prohibit Jews from choosing to move to areas of great historical and religious significance to them.

If the resolution is brought to a vote in its current form and Obama fails to veto, the resolution would contradict a Bush administration commitment to allowing some existing Jewish settlements to remain under a future Israeli-Palestinian deal.

That U.S. commitment, which the Obama administration has repeatedly violated by condemning settlement activity, was reportedly a key element in Israel’s decision to unilaterally evacuate the Gaza Strip in 2005.

The UN draft resolution text states that “cessation of all Israeli settlement activities is essential for salvaging the two-State solution,” and it “calls for affirmative steps to be taken immediately to reverse the negative trends on the ground that are imperiling the two-State solution.”

In 2004, just prior to the Gaza evacuation, President Bush issued a declarative letter stating that it is unrealistic to expect that Israel will not retain some Jewish settlements in a final-status deal with the Palestinians.

The letter stated:

In light of new realities on the ground, including already existing major Israeli populations centers, it is unrealistic to expect that the outcome of final status negotiations will be a full and complete return to the armistice lines of 1949, and all previous efforts to negotiate a two-state solution have reached the same conclusion. It is realistic to expect that any final status agreement will only be achieved on the basis of mutually agreed changes that reflect these realities.

Elliott Abrams, the Deputy National Security Adviser for Global Democracy Strategy during Bush’s second term, was instrumental in brokering understandings between the U.S. and Israel on settlements. In a June 2009 piece published by the Wall Street Journal, Abrams accused the Obama administration of “abandoning” those U.S.-Israel understandings by taking positions critical of all settlement activity.

Abrams wrote:

There were indeed agreements between Israel and the United States regarding the growth of Israeli settlements on the West Bank … principles that would permit some continuing growth. … They emerged from discussions with American officials and were discussed by Messrs. Sharon and Bush at their Aqaba meeting in June 2003. … The prime minister of Israel relied on them in undertaking a wrenching political reorientation – the dissolution of his government, the removal of every single Israeli citizen, settlement and military position in Gaza, and the removal of four small settlements in the West Bank. … For reasons that remain unclear, the Obama administration has decided to abandon the understandings about settlements reached by the previous administration with the Israeli government. We may be abandoning the deal now, but we cannot rewrite history and make believe it did not exist.

Trump and Sisi discuss Middle East peace

December 23, 2016

Trump and Sisi discuss Middle East peace, Israel National News, Elad Benari, December 23, 2016

trumpandsisiTrump and Sisi meet in New YorkReuters

“The presidents agreed on the importance of affording the new U.S. administration the full chance to deal with all dimensions of the Palestinian case with a view of achieving a full and final settlement,” he added.

Sisi recently praised Trump and said he expected greater engagement in the Middle East from his administration.

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Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi on Thursday night spoke with U.S. President-Elect Donald Trump, Sisi’s office said, according to Reuters.

The call came hours after the UN Security Council postponed indefinitely a vote on Egypt’s draft resolution denouncing Israeli “settlements”.

“During the call they discussed regional affairs and developments in the Middle East and in that context the draft resolution in front of the Security Council on Israeli settlement,” said Sisi’s spokesman, Alaa Yousef.

“The presidents agreed on the importance of affording the new U.S. administration the full chance to deal with all dimensions of the Palestinian case with a view of achieving a full and final settlement,” he added.

Thursday’s vote on the UN Security Council resolution was reportedly postponed after Sisi instructed his nation’s delegation to push for a delay in the vote.

Trump had earlier called for the United States to veto the resolution, as it has traditionally done with similar proposals. American officials indicated that the Obama administration was planning to abstain from voting or even to vote yes.

Sisi recently praised Trump and said he expected greater engagement in the Middle East from his administration.

The Egyptian President has also been at the forefront of the effort to resume talks between Israel and the Palestinian Authority, having several months ago urged Israelis and Palestinian Arabs to seize what he said was a “real opportunity” for peace and hailed his own country’s peace deal with Israel.

The comments were welcomed by Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, who stressed that “Israel is ready to participate with Egypt and other Arab states in advancing both the diplomatic process and stability in the region.”

Palestinian Authority (PA) chairman welcomed Sisi’s call as well, saying he welcomed the Egyptian president’s efforts to achieve peace and establish a Palestinian state.

Egypt scuttles UN vote on Israeli settlement after Trump warning

December 23, 2016

Egypt scuttles UN vote on Israeli settlement after Trump warning, Washington Examiner, Joel Gehrke. December 22, 2016

Trump’s statement might have had the greatest influence on the Egyptian decision, beyond Netanyahu’s lobbying or other American statements. “Diplomats in Tel Aviv speculating that Sisi didn’t cave because of Israel, but rather because he didn’t want to piss off incoming president,” Economist correspondent Gregg Carlstrom tweeted.

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Egyptian officials scrapped a plan to proceed with a United Nations Security Council vote condemning the construction of Israeli settlements, following pushback from Israeli officials and President-elect Trump.

“Egypt requested the vote’s delay to permit them to conduct an additional meeting of the Arab League’s foreign ministers to work on the resolution’s wording,” Haaretz reported, citing Western diplomats. But the vote might be postponed “indefinitely,” according to the report.

Israeli settlement construction drew condemnation from the State Department earlier this year, in addition to the rebukes of more customary critics, raising fears in Israel and among congressional Republicans that President Obama might not veto a resolution on the matter in the waning days of his presidency. President-elect Trump stated his opposition to the resolution, as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was lobbying Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi to drop the resolution.

“The resolution being considered at the United Nations Security Council regarding Israel should be vetoed,” Trump said in a statement. “As the United States has long maintained, peace between the Israelis and the Palestinians will only come through direct negotiations between the parties, and not through the imposition of terms by the United Nations.”

House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., also called on the Obama administration to veto it.

Trump’s statement might have had the greatest influence on the Egyptian decision, beyond Netanyahu’s lobbying or other American statements. “Diplomats in Tel Aviv speculating that Sisi didn’t cave because of Israel, but rather because he didn’t want to piss off incoming president,” Economist correspondent Gregg Carlstrom tweeted.

Egypt is a temporary member of the UN Security Council, which is dominated by five permanent members — the United States, the United Kingdom, Russia, China, and France — which have the authority to veto council resolutions. Obama used that authority to block a similar resolution condemning Israeli settlements in 2011, but his administration’s increasingly public frustration with the failure of talks between Israel and the Palestinians raised the possibility that he wouldn’t veto it this time around.

Secretary of State John Kerry acknowledged the appeal of a change in policy when asked about a potential resolution to be authored by French diplomats. “If it’s a biased and unfair and a resolution calculated to delegitimize Israel, we’ll oppose it,” he said at the Haim Saban Forum on December 4. “But it’s getting more complicated now because there is a building sense of what I’ve been saying to you today, which some people can shake their heads, say, well, it’s unfair.”

Kerry emphasized that the Israeli settlements in disputed territory are not the cause of violence, but he argued that were nonetheless a “barrier” to an ultimate peace that was being tolerated by the Israeli government. “I’ll tell you why I know that: because the left in Israel is telling everybody they are a barrier to peace, and the right that supports it openly supports it because they don’t want peace,” Kerry said.

Trump Gave Money to “West Bank” Settlement

December 19, 2016

Trump Gave Money to “West Bank” Settlement, Power Line, Paul Mirengoff, December 19, 2016

The Washington Post reports that in 2003, Donald Trump gave $10,000 to “institutions in one of Israel’s oldest and most steadfast West Bank settlements.” He made the donation in honor of David Friedman, who is now Trump’s pick to be U.S. ambassador to Israel.

I wish I had known about this before. It would have made me more supportive of Trump.

Trump’s donation was used to support schools in the Beit El settlement. According to the Post, he has donated money to many Jewish schools (yeshivas) in Israel and the U.S.

Beit El was founded in 1977. It is located on the outskirts of Ramallah, a major Palestinian population center. Approximately 1,300 Jewish families live there.

Israeli settlements are a bugaboo of the American left and of some on the center-right, as well. They are an impediment to a “peace” agreement, they say.

But Israel is a vibrant, dynamic, and growing society. The notion that its population should have remained confined to land within the pre-1967 borders in the hope that a peace agreement might one day be reached is ridiculous. One might just as well have expected Americans to confine themselves to the original 13 colonies.

The term “West Bank settlements” gives the game away. The settlements are no more on West Bank than the rest of Israel is. There is no natural barrier between the settlements on the outskirts of Jerusalem and Jerusalem itself. There is no significant natural barrier between the Beit El settlement Trump supported and the Mediterranean Sea.

The Mediterranean Sea is what most Palestinians want to drive Israeli Jews into.

Israel shouldn’t be pressured into assisting Palestinians in this quest by ceding control of the West Bank. And, security concerns aside, it shouldn’t be pressured into abandoning places where its citizens have lived for nearly 40 years (in the case of Beit El).

The only salient facts about the pre-1967 borders are: (1) they were untenable and (2) they were swept away by Israel’s military victory. Losing a war has consequences. There is no exception for losing a war intended to obliterate a nation.

But let’s return to president-elect Trump. Remember when mainstream media stalwarts accused him of running an anti-Jewish campaign in order to appeal to the “alt-right”? I wonder what the “alt-right” will make of Trump’s donations to Jewish educational institutions in the U.S. and Israel.

It’s time for a narrative shift. Hence forward, until further notice, the liberal MSM will no longer portray Trump as Jew-baiting. He will now be deemed fanatically pro-Jewish.