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Will Gaza explode over unpaid utility bill? (See 1 below.)
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Is Mueller stacking the deck so he can nail Trump? How independent is Mueller? (See 2 below.)
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This was sent to a dear neighbor friend and fellow memo reader by his cousin. It makes some interesting analogies but I fear Trump will never be able or allowed to drain the swamp because the inhabiting creatures will not go willingly, are far more entrenched and thus, capable of resisting even a committed president . (See 3 below.)
This from my same friend and fellow memo reader. (See 3a below.)
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Dershowitz and why Abbas has failed his people. (See 4 below.)
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Attorney General Sessions , who I do not personally know but who comes from my birth state of Alabama, in typical southern fashion, was masterful in responding to questions he felt he could appropriately answer. In addition, his responses should put to bed he did nothing by way of colluding with Russians but facts do not deter those engaged in witch hunts.Therefore, I assume the investigations by the Senate will continue and will continue to disgust most fair minded Americans .
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Dick
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1)
HAMAS WARNS OF 'EXPLOSION' AS GAZA ELECTRICITY CRISIS DEEPENS
Hamas indicates that the restriction of electricity could lead to deterioration in the Strip.
Hamas warned of an “explosion” in the Gaza Strip after Israel’s security cabinet decided on Sunday to cut the amount of electricity the country provides to Gaza by 40%.
Last month, the Palestinian Authority told Israel that it would only pay NIS 25 million of the NIS 40m. monthly bill for 125 megawatts.Late Sunday night, Israel ceded to that request, according to security sources.
“The Israeli occupation’s decision to reduce electricity to the strip at the behest of PA President Mahmoud Abbas is catastrophic and dangerous,” Hamas spokesman Abdel Latif al-Qanou said in an official statement.
“It will hasten the deterioration of the situation and its explosion in the Strip.”
The 2 million people in the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip will now have only two to three hours of power a day, down from the four hours of electricity they have lived on since April.
The drop in electricity is part of the PA’s push to pressure Hamas to rescind its control of Gaza. Hamas has ruled the coastal strip since it ousted Fatah in a bloody coup in 2007.
Security sources said that for the last few months, the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories Maj.-Gen Yoav Mordechai unsuccessfully turned to the international community, both organizations and governments, in an effort to raise funds for covering the Gaza energy bill.
A security source said that the civilian impact of the cabinet’s decision would be a drop of about 45 minutes of electricity a day, if Hamas didn’t divert the power for non-civilian use, such as to build tunnels to attack Israel.
Speaking about the cabinet decision in the Knesset on Monday, Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman blamed Hamas for the crisis, saying it had spent tax money on the tunnels, rather than developing the Strip.
For the first time, Gaza residents realize that the current crisis has no connection to Israel and that their money has been stolen from them, Liberman said.
It’s between Fatah and Hamas, and their leaders, PA’s Abbas and the head of Hamas in Gaza, Yahya Sinwar, said Liberman as he addressed a Gaza caucus meeting.
Yesh Atid party head Yair Lapid spoke against the security cabinet’s decision.
“I don’t think anyone is worried that Gaza will turn into the Garden of Eden if it has running water and more than six hours of electricity a day,” Lapid said.
There should be a way to target Hamas without harming the civilians in Gaza, he added.
He warned that bacteria and disease knew no boundaries and that if an epidemic would break out in Gaza as a result of the absence of electricity, it would quickly make its way to Israel.
Prior to the acute electricity crisis, which is now expected to worsen, Gaza residents subsisted on about 12 hours of power a day.
In April, the PA imposed an onerous tax on the diesel fuel needed to operate the Gaza power plant.
The plant, which had provided between 90-120 MW, shut down because it could not afford the tax, which doubled the price of operating the plant.
This left Israel, which provides Gaza with 125 MW, as Gaza’s sole provider of electricity.
Egypt provides 27 MW, but its three electricity lines are rarely operational.
Hamas has said it would purchase fuel only if the PA waives the sizable taxes levied on it. For its part, the PA has said that the taxes are an important source of revenue.
The UN and left-wing NGOs have warned of a humanitarian crisis if the electricity shortage worsens or is prolonged.
The absence of electricity means that water cannot be purified for drinking, untreated sewage spills into the sea and life-saving health services are not available.
On Sunday, the NGO Gisha – Legal Center for Freedom of Movement, wrote a letter to Liberman urging him not to further reduce power.
“The diminished supply of electricity has serious and far-reaching implications: 100 million liters of untreated sewage are pumped into the Mediterranean Sea daily,” Gisha wrote.
“Water desalination stations cannot operate; sewage cannot be pumped away from residential areas; generators are overextended; entire hospital wings are shut down during blackouts, and people who rely on life-saving equipment are at risk,” Gisha explained.
The UN has made similar remarks but has not offered an alternative.
Adam Rasgon and Gil Hoffman contributed to this report.
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2)Robert Mueller Stocks Staff with Democrat Donors
by Brendan Kirby
Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich sparked a mini-meltdown in the media Monday with a tweet challenging the fairness of the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election.
Gingrich, who also appeared on “The Laura Ingraham Show,” pointed to the early hires special counsel Robert Mueller has made.“Republicans are delusional if they think the special counsel is going to be fair,” he tweeted. “Look who he is hiring.check fec [sic] reports. Time to rethink.”
He's not wrong about the donations. Four top lawyers hired by Mueller have contributed tens of thousands of dollars over the years to the Democratic Party and Democratic candidates, including former President Barack Obama and President Donald Trump's 2016 opponent, Hillary Clinton.
One of the hires, Jeannie Rhee, also worked as a lawyer for the Clinton Foundation and helped persuade a federal judge to block a conservative activist's attempts to force Bill and Hillary Clinton to answer questions under oath about operations of the family-run charity.
Campaign-finance reports show that Rhee gave Clinton the maximum contributions of $2,700 in 2015 and again last year to support her presidential campaign. She also donated $2,300 to Obama in 2008 and $2,500 in 2011. While still at the Justice Department, she gave $250 to the Democratic National Committee Services Corp.
Rhee also has contributed to a trio of Democratic senators: Mark Udall of New Mexico, Chris Van Hollen of Maryland, and Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island.
James Quarles, who worked on the Watergate investigation as a young prosecutor, has an even longer history of supporting Democratic politicians. He gave $1,300 to Obama in 2007 and $2,300 in 2008. He also gave $2,700 to Clinton last year.He has supported a number of other Democratic candidates, including Van Hollen, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), former Rep. John Spratt (D-S.C.), former Vice President Al Gore, 2004 presidential candidate John Kerry, former Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.), and Colorado congressional candidate Gail Schwartz.
In addition, Quarles gave money to former Sen. John Walsh (D-Mont.) and three current Democratic senators — Ron Wyden of Oregon, Ed Markey of Massachusetts, and Robert Menendez of New Jersey. He chipped in $300 to the DNC Services Corp. $300 in 2012.Quarles did donate to a couple of GOP politicians — $250 to then-Sen. George Allen (R-Va.) in 2006 and $2,500 to Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah) in 2015.
Andrew Weissmann, a former Justice Department lawyer who now is at Jenner & Block, contributed $2,300 to Obama in 2008 and $2,000 to the DNC Services Corp. in 2006. Weissmann served as chief of the Justice Department's criminal fraud section and worked on the Enron fraud case.
A fourth lawyer on Mueller's staff, Michael Dreeben, donated $1,000 to Clinton 2006 and $250 to Obama in both 2007 and 2008. He was deputy solicitor general and has appeared many times before the Supreme Court.
Media pundits generally dismissed concerns over the Democratic Party ties of the staff Mueller is building. Several Trump critics noted that Gingrich previously had tweeted that Mueller was a "superb choice to be special counsel" and that his reputation was "impeccable for honesty and integrity."
Journalist Paul Vale, who has written for the Huffington Post and The Times of London, tweeted, "Boiled cabbage Gingrich lays out the White House plan to discredit career lawman Mueller — all in the service of his babbling paymaster."
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++CNN anchor John King on Monday asked the network's chief congressional correspondent, Manu Raju, if it should be a concern."No, because Bob Mueller is the one who's in charge of this investigation and will ultimately decide how to proceed, and there is some oversight over him by [Deputy Attorney General] Rod Rosenstein, even though there is a special counsel," he said.
3)By Michael Master
Our home is in a community of 2,000 homes located on the Intracoastal Waterway in North Carolina. Everything lives here. Alligators. Water moccasins. Rattle snakes. Sea hawks. Egrets. Giant blue heron. Mosquitoes… blood sucking mosquitoes. We’ve watched from our back porch as dolphins chased sailboats and motorboats up the intercostal and watched the moon rise over the ocean to cast its glowover the Intracoastal.
When the community decided to drain the swamp in the center of the community, it was a big deal.
Draining the swamp was messy. The swamp was about 10 football fields, about 6 feet deep, with lots of creatures living in it. It was a dangerous swamp. Not one that you would walk or swim. You would not dare sit next to it in the dark of a moonless night. If not the snakes, then the mosquitoes would eat you alive.
As the water level decreased, the creatures were exposed. As the water level disappeared, all that was left was 3 feet of yucky black mud and the roots to dying cypress trees. The fish, snakes, frogs, rats, and birds were all stranded in the yucky mud.
Those creatures of the swamp fought for their lives as the swamp disappeared. The fish flopped around in the black mud looking for some water for life. The frogs croaked incessantly all night while their young pollywogs were stranded lifeless at the top of the black mud. Snakes slithered in every direction in the black mud in search of food. The rats that live in hollows all along the water abandoned their nests while the birds that feed off the swamp creatures also abandoned the area.
Finally, the mud dried out. No more snakes. No more rats. No more fish. No more frogs. No more mosquitoes. And no more birds that feed off those creatures of the swamp.
That same thing is happening to the political swamp in America. Trump is draining the swamp. His picks for his cabinet are all swamp drainers. Yeah, 3 are from Goldman Sachs. 3 of 23. Practically all of his cabinet have executive experience (military, or government, or private sector)… and it is the executive branch, after all, isn't it?
The mud is becoming visible as all the creatures who live in the swamp are fighting for their lives. Government employees at the IRS, EPA, and Education are flapping in the mud like dying fish. The lobbyists are slithering here and there looking for government funds like the snakes in the mud ... especially those who wrote Obamacare. The liberal media cartel is chirping and croaking all the time like frogs trying to reverse the draining. The tax and spend politicians are dying off like the blood sucking mosquitoes. The political appointees of Obama are fleeing DC for other jobs like the birds who lost their meal tickets. And the information leakers like Comey and Lynch are looking for new places to nest like the rats that left the swamp. Soon, all that will remain will be the dying institutions like public education as the dying cypress trees of our society.
Everyone who lived off the swamp is praying for rain. Election rain so Democrats might win some elections from Republicans since the Democrats suffered such horrible defeats during the 8 years of Obama. Impeachment rain so the professional politicians can get rid of Trump as the swamp drainer. Low approval rating rain so the media can claim they were correct about Trump. Virtual rain, fake rain, so pundits can claim that Trump is not making any progress even though the results say the opposite.
Draining the swamp is messy, muddy. But the mud will soon dry. Democrats just lost special elections in Arkansas and Omaha after sinking millions into them. Democrats might grab an election here or there in places like Georgia where the demographics are changing to black communities, but not without millions and millions of campaign money… and Democrats cannot afford to do that for all the elections in 2018. Democrats must defend 23 Senators in 2018 as compared to 10 for Republicans and Democrats must win 25 seats in the US House from Republicans and then win back 900 state legislative seats and 14 governorships. If Georgia is an example, that will cost Democrats hundreds of millions to try.
SCOTUS will be rendering its decisions about Trump executive orders just before the 2018 elections… and more than likely, SCOTUS will rule against the Obama appointed judges who live in the lower court swamps. SCOTUS will help Trump.
Comey is gone. Lynch is in trouble. Clinton is back in trouble. The Clinton Foundation donors are talking. Clapper and Yates both said that there is no evidence of collusion between Trump and the Russians.
Schumer is gasping for rain like one of those stranded fish. His Republican swamp buddies like McCain will abandon him as he dies… a rat leaving the swamp even though they shared an apartment together. His Wall Street swamp buddies cannot help him. The Washington Post and The New York Times and CNN and NBC are all trying to seed the clouds. But none of it is producing enough rain to help Schumer stop Trump from draining the swamp.
Draining the swamp is loud. Listen to all the hysterical liberal media cartel who are trying to make it rain in order to save the swamp where they live. Chanting. Lies. Rain dances. But no real rain is coming. Only fake rain. The swamp will soon be dry. And when it is, then the next task to make America great again can begin.
3a)
The most memorable moment from the trip in Israel of President Trump and the First Lady was probably that moment at the entrance to the house of President Rivlin.
"Nechama Rivlin, President Rivlin’s wife, welcomed the First Lady Melania Trump at the door. As they were about to walk inside, Nechama whispered to Melania that
she will do her best to catch up with the walking pace, but she might be a bit slower because of her medical condition which requires her to use an oxygen tank.
Melania took her hand, looked at her and said: “We’ll walk at any pace you choose”.
And so they walked, slowly, gracefully and proudly, hand in hand.
That, is the moment I choose to cherish. That silent gesture has neither any political significance nor any colorful tone to it, but it is everything.
It is the hope we yearn for when we speak of peace;
It is the kindness we wish to protect when we speak of defeating terror;
It is the dignity we want to teach when we speak of stopping hate;
It is the friendship we pray for when we speak of our unbreakable bond;
In other words, this gesture encompasses everything that is good, kind and human."
- George Deek from The Jewish Standard
4) Why Won't Abbas Accept “Two States for Two Peoples”?
By Alan M. Dershowitz
- Over the years, and to the current day, they continue to want no state for the Jewish people more than they want a state for Palestinian Arabs.
- The general idea of a two-state solution – which Abbas has nominally supported – does not specify that one state would be for the Jewish people and the other one for the Arabs.
- When the Palestinian leadership and people want their own state more than they want there not to be a state for the Jewish people, the goal of the 1947 U.N. Resolution – two states for two peoples – will be achieved. A good beginning would be for Abbas finally to agree with the U.N. Resolution and say the following words: “I accept the 1947 U.N. Resolution that calls for two states for two peoples.” It's not too much to ask from a leader seeking to establish a Palestinian Muslim state.
There is a widespread but false belief that Mahmoud Abbas is finally prepared to accept the two-state solution proposed by the U.N. in November 1947 when it divided mandatory Palestine into two areas: one for the Jewish People; the other for the Arab People. The Jews of Palestine accepted the compromise division and declared a nation state for the Jewish people to be called by its historic name: Israel. The Arabs of Palestine, on the other hand, rejected the division and declared that they would never accept a state for the Jewish people and statehood for the Palestinian people. They wanted for there not to be a state for the Jewish people more than for there to be a state for their own people. Accordingly, they joined the surrounding Arab armies in trying to destroy Israel and drive its Jewish residents into the sea. They failed back then, but over the years, and to the current day, they continue to want no state for the Jewish people more than they want a state for Palestinian Arabs. That is why Abbas refuses to say that he would ever accept the U.N. principle of two states for two peoples. I know, because I have personally asked him on several occasions.
In a few months, Israel will be celebrating the 70th anniversary of the historic U.N. compromise, but the leaders of the Palestinian Authority still refuse to accept the principle of that resolution: two states for two peoples.
President Trump, for his part, has expressed an eagerness to make “the ultimate deal” between the Israelis and the Palestinians. This has propelled discussions about the dormant peace-process back into the spotlight. Shortly before travelling to the Middle East – where he met with Prime Minister Netanyahu in Israel and President Abbas in Bethlehem – Trump invited the Palestinian leader to the White House. Abbas was last at the White House in March 2014 shortly before the Obama administration's shuttle diplomacy efforts –led by Secretary of State John Kerry – fell apart.
Leading up to his meeting with President Trump in Washington, Abbas said to a German publication: “We're ready to collaborate with him and meet the Israeli prime minister under his [Trump's] auspices to build peace.” He then went on to voice his support for a two-state solution, saying, “It's high time to work on the requirements for it.” This was interpreted as a willingness on Abbas' part to accept the idea of a state for the Jewish people. Generally speaking, the international community supports the idea of resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict with two-states for two-peoples: a state for the Jewish people alongside a state for the Palestinians. Yet presenting Mahmoud Abbas as a supporter of the two-states for two people formulation is to deny truth. The general idea of a two-state solution – which Abbas has nominally supported – does not specify that one state would be for the Jewish people and the other one for the Arabs. Over the years President Abbas has expressed a commitment to a two-state solution – stating that he supports an Arab state along the 1967 borders with East Jerusalem as its capital – but has so far refused to accept the legitimacy of a nation state for the Jews existing by its side.
Consider President Abbas' own words. In a 2003 interview he said: “I've said it before, and I'll say it again: I will never recognize the Jewishness of the state, or a 'Jewish state.'” When asked about Israel being the nation state of the Jewish people (in the context of Ehud Olmert's generous peace proposal in 2008) the PA leader said: “From a historical perspective, there are two states: Israel and Palestine. In Israel, there are Jews and others living there. This we are willing to recognize, nothing else.” And in a later interview with the Al-Quds newspaper Abbas reiterated this refusal to recognize that Israel is the nation state of the Jewish people:
“We're not talking about a Jewish state and we won't talk about one. For us, there is the state of Israel and we won't recognize Israel as a Jewish state. I told them that this is their business and that they are free to call themselves whatever they want. But [I told them] you can't expect us to accept this.”
The list of such pronouncements from the man at the head of the Palestinian Authority goes on and on. Not only has Abbas refused to accept the formulation “Jewish state,” he adamantly refuses to accept the more descriptive formulation “nation state of the Jewish people.”
Abbas is of course committed to Palestine being a Muslim state under Sharia Law, despite the reality that Christian Palestinians constitute a significant (if forcibly shrinking) percentage of Palestinian Arabs. Article 4 of the Palestinian Basic Law states that:
1. Islam is the official religion in Palestine. Respect and sanctity of all other heavenly religions shall be maintained.
2. The principles of Islamic Shari'a shall be the main source of legislation.
Writing for the New York Times on the advent of the 50th anniversary of the Six Day War, Israel's former Ambassador to Israel, Michael Oren said: “The conflict is not about the territory Israel captured in 1967. It is about whether a Jewish state has a right to exist in the Middle East in the first place. As Mr. Abbas has publicly stated, 'I will never accept a Jewish state.'”
Oren argues that until Abbas and other Palestinian leaders can say the words “two states for two peoples,” no reasonable resolution will be reached.
The Palestinian leader's conditional support for a peaceful resolution is also undermined by his own actions. For years, the Palestinian Authority– first under the leadership of Yasser Arafat and now under the 82-year-old Abbas – has perpetuated a vile policy of making payments to terrorists and their families.
According to the official PA budget, in 2016 the Palestinian Authority directed $174 million of its total budget in payments to families of so-called “martyrs,” and an additional $128 million for security prisoners — terrorists in Israeli prisons.
Abbas claims to be a man of peace yet in reality he incentivizes, rewards and incites terrorism.
It must also be remembered that Israel has offered to end the occupation and settlements in 2000-2001. These generous peace initiatives would have established a demilitarized Palestinian state. In 2008, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert made an even more generous proposal by offering the Palestinians 97% of the West Bank but Mahmoud Abbas did not respond. For the past several years, the current Israeli government has offered to sit down and negotiate a two-state solution with no pre-conditions — not even advanced recognition of Israel as the nation state of the Jewish people. Yet no substantive negotiations have taken place.
Some of the blame rests on the shoulders of Barack Obama. By applying pressure only to the Israeli side, not to the Palestinians, Obama consistently disincentivized Abbas from embracing the two-states for two-peoples paradigm. This came to a head in December when Obama allowed the U.S. not to veto the inane U.N. Resolution, under which the Western Wall and other historically Jewish sites are not recognized as part of Israel. (Recall that U.N. Resolution 181 mandated a “special international regime for the city of Jerusalem,” and Jordan captured it illegally. Israel liberated Jerusalem in 1967, and allowed everybody to go to the Western Wall.)
It is a tragedy that the international community – headed by the U.N. – encourages the Palestinian Authority's rejectionism, rather than pushing it to make the painful compromises that will be needed from both sides in reaching a negotiated two-state outcome. Indeed, just a few days ago the U.N. once again demonstrated that it is a barrier to the peace-process. In his address at the U.N. General Assembly marking the 50th anniversary of the Six Day War and Israel's “occupation” of the West Bank, U.N. Secretary General, Antonio Guterres said:
“In 1947, on the basis of United Nations General Assembly resolution 181, the world recognized the two-state solution and called for the emergence of 'independent Arab and Jewish states.' On 14 May 1948, the State of Israel was born. Almost seven decades later, the world still awaits the birth of an independent Palestinian state.”
Guterres failed to acknowledge that “the reason the world still awaits the birth of an independent Palestinian state” is because the Arabs rejected the U.N. partition plan, which would have given them their own state, committing instead to seven decades of undermining Israel's legitimacy.
When the Palestinian leadership and people want their own state more than they want there not to be a state for the Jewish people, the goal of the 1947 U.N. Resolution – two states for two peoples – will be achieved. A good beginning would be for Abbas finally to agree with the U.N. Resolution and say the following words: “I accept the 1947 U.N. Resolution that calls for two states for two peoples.” It's not too much to ask from a leader seeking to establish a Palestinian Muslim state.
Alan M. Dershowitz is the Felix Frankfurter Professor of Law, Emeritus, at Harvard Law School and author of “Taking the Stand: My Life in the Law” and “Electile Dysfunction: A Guide for the Unaroused Voter.”
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