Just a personal observation. Liberals love big government. Government is run by people and people make mistakes. In big government mistakes are generally overlooked along with bureaucrat corruption. Maybe that is why corruption is so rife.
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Trump is off to Davos with a clear message. My responsibility, as president, is "America First."
Would you want a president willing to place America less than first? We had one in Obama.
European leaders may not like the obvious but unless America remains first they have a diminished future. We do not have to rub their faces into this reality but neither should we shrink from this reality.
Europe defies us when it comes to trading with Iran. They defy us when it comes to their support of the PLO. Their countries are historically anti-Semitic and are being over run, if not radically impacted, by the Muslim culture and random terrorism.
Read Elliott Abram's recent book, which I reviewed in several past memos, and it becomes clear a strong and active America remains the world's best hope and we are only nation capable of curbing the negative influences of China, Russia, Iran and N Korea and radical Islamist terrorism.
Obama weakened us, in this regard, and Trump is trying to rebuild and address the damage.
Focus on what Trump is doing and trying to do and less on his tweeting and verbal nonsense and media bias and you might get a more objective sense of what is happening. (See 1 below.
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An Irish journalist speaks out in harsh terms. (See 2 below.)
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Have we become a scandal ridden Republic? (See 3 below.)
And:
Will a scandalous Kerry run in 2020? (See 3a below.)
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Conservative support for Israel increases while liberal/radical support declines as one would expect. (See 4 below.)
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Dick
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1):
George Soros Spent Record Amount Lobbying During Trump’s First Year
Open Society Policy Center poured $16.2 million into lobbying efforts in 2017
By
Liberal billionaire George Soros spent more on lobbying during President Donald Trump's first year in office than he has in any previous year, disclosure forms show.
The Open Society Policy Center, a D.C.-based 501 (c)(4) nonprofit that focuses on domestic and international advocacy efforts and is a separate entity from Soros's Open Society Foundations, poured $16.2 million into lobbying throughout the entirety of 2017.
Soros's group reported spending $4.6 million during the first half of 2017 on its lobbying efforts. During the third quarter, Soros added $1.25 million to the total. Most of the lobbying expenditures—$10.3 million—were spent during the fourth quarter, which spans from October 1 to December 31.
Soros ramped up his efforts as the year progressed by pushing funds toward issues that have been seen as a direct attack on the deep-pocketed financier, such as Hungary's Bill on Foreign Funded Organizations (LexNGO), a crackdown on foreign-funded organizations in that country
Hungary's parliament approved the law that targets foreign-funded NGOs in June of last year, saying they could "threaten the country's political and economic interests and interfere with the functioning of its institutions."
While the legislation does not mention Soros, who was born in Hungary and has given money to a number of NGOs in the country, by name, Hungarian politicians have said that they wanted to "sweep out" organizations tied to the financier, Bloomberg reported.
Soros also pushed funds to lobby on the Restricted First Use of Nuclear Weapons Act of 2017, the National Defense Authorization Act for fiscal year 2018, and the Preventing Preemptive War in North Korea Act of 2017, among others, according to the disclosure forms. The Open Society Policy Center lobbied the Senate, House of Representatives, State Department, National Security Council, and the Department of Defense last year.
"We make different grants each year depending on what is happening in Congress and there was a lot going in 2017: Protecting immigrants and refugees, preserving fairness in the tax code, advocating for criminal justice reform, pressing for disaster relief for Puerto Rico, and promoting a progressive U.S. foreign policy," said Jonathan Kaplan, a spokesman for the Open Society Policy Center.
Between 2002 and 2012, the policy center reported spending a total of $19,120,000 lobbying Congress and agencies, an average of $1.9 million on lobbying per year. The most Soros had spent on lobbying prior to last year was $12.4 million in 2014.
The group's disclosure forms also show that Soros has recruited the help of a number of outside lobbying shops in the past including Orion Strategies, the Mitchell Firm, and Glover Park Group, all D.C.-based firms, on top of its three in-house lobbyists.
The Open Society Policy Center hauled in $17 million in contributions in 2015, according to the group's most recent tax forms. During that year, one of the group's largest grant disbursements went to the Advocacy Fund, an organization that helps to navigate "lobbying, political and funding rules to win campaigns for social change," in the amount of $800,000.
The Advocacy Fund is involved with Demos, a New York-based public policy organization whose board of directors is chaired by Amelia Warren Tyagi, the daughter of Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D., Mass.). Indivisible, one of the most prominent anti-Trump groups today, is also listed under the Advocacy Fund's projects.
Gara LaMarche, who was the director of the policy center during the time covered by its most recent tax forms, currently sits on the group's board of directors and is now the president of the Democracy Alliance, a secretive donor club where Soros is a founding partner. The alliance consists of wealthy liberals who each vow to steer hundreds of thousands of dollars in funding to progressive groups.
The Free Beacon attended the group's secretive fall investment conference held last November at the La Costa Resort and Spa in Carlsbad, Calif. and obtained confidential documents at the retreat where the group was planning its next steps in the "resistance."
Soros, along with House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D., Calif.), headlined the event.
Sen. Kamala Harris (D., Calif.), a potential Democratic presidential hopeful for 2020, introduced Soros with a "special videotaped message." Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D., Minn.) also delivered a video message to the group. Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf (D.) and Rep. Ben Ray Luján (D., Minn.), who chairs the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC), were in attendance.
Rep. Maxine Waters (D., Calif.), not listed on the agenda, was also spotted at the resort.
David Brock, the former conservative investigative journalist turned Clinton loyalist and founder of Media Matters for America, was also not listed in the agenda but was present at the gathering.
Brock held his own donor conference at the Turnberry Isle Miami resort in Aventura, Fla., last January where he huddled with more than 100 liberal donors to map out how they would "kick Donald Trump's ass."
The Free Beacon obtained the private and confidential memo Brock handed out to donors at the event outlining his four-year agenda to attack Trump and Republicans using Media Matters, American Bridge, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, and Shareblue.
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2) Kevin Myers (born 30 March 1947) is an Irish journalist and writer. He writes for the Irish edition of the Sunday Times, having previously been a columnist for the Irish Independent and a former contributor to The Irish Times, where he wrote the "An Irishman's Diary" opinion column several times weekly. Until 2005, he wrote for the UK Sunday Telegraph.
His articles criticise left-wing opinion and the "liberal consensus", sometimes incorporating hyperbole, sarcasm and parody.
This essay appeared in The Irish Independent:
Somalia is not a humanitarian disaster; it is an evolutionary disaster. The current drought is not the worst in 50 years, as the BBC and all the aid organisations claim.
It is nothing compared to the droughts in 1960/61 or 73/74.
And there are continuing droughts every 5 years or so.
It's just that there are now four times the population; having been kept alive by famine relief, supplied by aid organisations, over the past 50 years.
So, of course, the effects of any drought now, is a famine. They cannot even feed themselves in a normal rainfall year.
Worst yet, the effects of these droughts, and poor nutrition in the first 3 years of the a child's life, have a lasting effect on the development of the infant brain, so that if they survive, they will never achieve a normal IQ . Consequently, they are selectively breeding a population who cannot be educated , let alone one that is not being educated; a recipe for disaster
We are seeing this impact now, and it can only exacerbate, to the detriment of their neighbors, and their environment as well. This scenario can only end in an even worse disaster; with even worse suffering, for those benighted people, and their descendants.
This essay appeared in The Irish Independent:
Somalia is not a humanitarian disaster; it is an evolutionary disaster. The current drought is not the worst in 50 years, as the BBC and all the aid organisations claim.
It is nothing compared to the droughts in 1960/61 or 73/74.
And there are continuing droughts every 5 years or so.
It's just that there are now four times the population; having been kept alive by famine relief, supplied by aid organisations, over the past 50 years.
So, of course, the effects of any drought now, is a famine. They cannot even feed themselves in a normal rainfall year.
Worst yet, the effects of these droughts, and poor nutrition in the first 3 years of the a child's life, have a lasting effect on the development of the infant brain, so that if they survive, they will never achieve a normal IQ . Consequently, they are selectively breeding a population who cannot be educated , let alone one that is not being educated; a recipe for disaster
We are seeing this impact now, and it can only exacerbate, to the detriment of their neighbors, and their environment as well. This scenario can only end in an even worse disaster; with even worse suffering, for those benighted people, and their descendants.
Eventually, some mechanism will intervene, be it war, disease or starvation.
So what do we do? Let them starve?
What a dilemma for our Judeo/Christian/Islamic Ethos; as well as Hindu/Buddhist morality. And this is beginning to happen in Kenya, Ethiopia and other countries in Asia, like Pakistan.
Is this the beginning of the end of civilisation?
AFRICA is giving nothing to anyone outside Africa -- apart from AIDS and new diseases.
Even as we see African states refusing to take action to restore something resembling civilisation in Zimbabwe, the Begging bowl for Ethiopia is being passed around to us out of Africa, yet again.
It is nearly 25 years since the famous Feed The World campaign began in Ethiopia, and in that time Ethiopia's population has grown from 33.5 million to 78+ million today.
So, why on earth should I do anything to encourage further catastrophic demographic growth in that country?
Where is the logic? There is none.
To be sure, there are two things saying that logic doesn't count.
One is my conscience, and the other is the picture, yet again, of another wide-eyed child, yet again, gazing, yet again, at the camera, which yet again, captures the tragedy of children starving.
Sorry. My conscience has toured this territory on foot and financially.
Unlike most of you, I have been to Ethiopia; like most of you, I have stumped up the loot to charities to stop starvation there.
The wide-eyed boy-child we saved, 20 years or so ago, is now a low IQ, AK 47-bearing moron, siring children whenever the whim takes him and blaming the world because he is uneducated, poor and left behind.
There is no doubt a good argument why we should prolong this predatory and dysfunctional economic, social and sexual system but I do not know what it is.
There is, on the other hand, every reason not to write a column like this.
It will win no friends and will provoke the self-righteous wrath of, well, the self-righteous hand wringing, letter writing wrathful individuals; a species which never fails to contaminate almost every debate in Irish life with its sneers and its moral superiority. It will also probably enrage some of the finest men in Irish life, like John O'Shea, of Goal; and the Finucane brothers, men whom I admire enormously.
So be it.
But, please, please, you self-righteously wrathful, spare me mention of our own Irish Famine, with this or that lazy analogy.
There is no comparison.
Within 20 years of the Famine, the Irish population was down by 30%. Over the equivalent period, thanks to western food, the Mercedes 10-wheel truck and the Lockheed Hercules plane, Ethiopia's population has more than doubled.
Alas, that wretched country is not alone in its madness.
Somewhere, over the rainbow, lies Somalia, another fine land of violent, AK 47-toting, khat-chewing, girl-circumcising, permanently tumescent layabouts and housing pirates of the ocean.
Indeed, we now have almost an entire continent of sexually hyperactive, illiterate indigents, with tens of millions of people who only survive because of help from the outside world or allowances by the semi-communist Governments they voted for, money supplied by borrowing it from the World Bank!
This dependency has not stimulated political prudence or common sense.
Indeed, voodoo idiocy seems to be in the ascendant, with the president of South Africa being a firm believer in the efficacy of a little tap water on the post-coital penis as a sure preventative against AIDS infection.
Needless to say, poverty, hunger and societal meltdown have not prevented idiotic wars involving Tigre, Uganda, Congo, Sudan, Somalia, Eritrea etcetera
There is no comparison.
Within 20 years of the Famine, the Irish population was down by 30%. Over the equivalent period, thanks to western food, the Mercedes 10-wheel truck and the Lockheed Hercules plane, Ethiopia's population has more than doubled.
Alas, that wretched country is not alone in its madness.
Somewhere, over the rainbow, lies Somalia, another fine land of violent, AK 47-toting, khat-chewing, girl-circumcising, permanently tumescent layabouts and housing pirates of the ocean.
Indeed, we now have almost an entire continent of sexually hyperactive, illiterate indigents, with tens of millions of people who only survive because of help from the outside world or allowances by the semi-communist Governments they voted for, money supplied by borrowing it from the World Bank!
This dependency has not stimulated political prudence or common sense.
Indeed, voodoo idiocy seems to be in the ascendant, with the president of South Africa being a firm believer in the efficacy of a little tap water on the post-coital penis as a sure preventative against AIDS infection.
Needless to say, poverty, hunger and societal meltdown have not prevented idiotic wars involving Tigre, Uganda, Congo, Sudan, Somalia, Eritrea etcetera
Broad brush-strokes, to be sure.
But broad brush-strokes are often the way that history paints its gaudier, if more decisive, chapters. Japan, China, Russia, Korea, Poland, Germany, Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia in the 20th century have endured worse broad brush-strokes than almost any part of Africa. They are now -- one way or another -- virtually all giving aid to or investing in Africa, whereas Africa, with its vast savannah’s and its lush pastures, is giving almost nothing to anyone, apart from AIDS.
Meanwhile, Africa's peoples are outstripping their resources, and causing catastrophic ecological degradation.
By 2050, the population of Ethiopia will be 177 million; the equivalent of France, Germany and Benelux today, but located on the parched and increasingly Protein-free wastelands of the Great Rift Valley.
So, how much sense does it make for us actively to increase the adult population of what is already a vastly
over-populated, environmentally devastated and economically dependent country?
How much morality is there in saving an Ethiopian child from starvation today, for it to survive to a life of brutal circumcision, poverty, hunger, violence and sexual abuse, resulting in another half-dozen such wide-eyed children, with comparably jolly little lives ahead of them?
Of course, it might make you feel better, which is a prime reason for so much charity!
But that is not good enough.
For self-serving generosity has been one of the curses of Africa. It has sustained political systems which would otherwise have collapsed.
It prolonged the Eritrean-Ethiopian war by nearly a decade.
It is inspiring Bill Gates' program to rid the continent of malaria, when, in the almost complete absence of personal self-discipline, that disease is one of the most efficacious forms of population-control now operating.
If his program is successful, tens of millions of children who would otherwise have died in infancy will survive to adulthood, he boasts.
Oh good: then what? I know, let them all come here (to Ireland) or America (or Australia).
But broad brush-strokes are often the way that history paints its gaudier, if more decisive, chapters. Japan, China, Russia, Korea, Poland, Germany, Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia in the 20th century have endured worse broad brush-strokes than almost any part of Africa. They are now -- one way or another -- virtually all giving aid to or investing in Africa, whereas Africa, with its vast savannah’s and its lush pastures, is giving almost nothing to anyone, apart from AIDS.
Meanwhile, Africa's peoples are outstripping their resources, and causing catastrophic ecological degradation.
By 2050, the population of Ethiopia will be 177 million; the equivalent of France, Germany and Benelux today, but located on the parched and increasingly Protein-free wastelands of the Great Rift Valley.
So, how much sense does it make for us actively to increase the adult population of what is already a vastly
over-populated, environmentally devastated and economically dependent country?
How much morality is there in saving an Ethiopian child from starvation today, for it to survive to a life of brutal circumcision, poverty, hunger, violence and sexual abuse, resulting in another half-dozen such wide-eyed children, with comparably jolly little lives ahead of them?
Of course, it might make you feel better, which is a prime reason for so much charity!
But that is not good enough.
For self-serving generosity has been one of the curses of Africa. It has sustained political systems which would otherwise have collapsed.
It prolonged the Eritrean-Ethiopian war by nearly a decade.
It is inspiring Bill Gates' program to rid the continent of malaria, when, in the almost complete absence of personal self-discipline, that disease is one of the most efficacious forms of population-control now operating.
If his program is successful, tens of millions of children who would otherwise have died in infancy will survive to adulthood, he boasts.
Oh good: then what? I know, let them all come here (to Ireland) or America (or Australia).
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3) If any of these five scandals got half the attention Watergate did, each would be considered the worst in American history.
By Jack Kelly
By Jack Kelly
SCANDAL #1
Senior officials of the FBI, including Director James Comey, Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, Counter Intelligence Chief Bill Priestap, Deputy Counter Intelligence Chief Peter Strzok and legal counsel James Baker…and senior officials in the Department of Justice, including Attorney General Loretta Lynch, Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates, James Carlin, director of the National Security Division, and Bruce Ohr, chief of the Organized Crime and Racketeering section:
(1) Concealed that Hillary Clinton and aides committed a felony — gross negligence in handling classified information – multiple times, endangering national security.
(2) Illegally surveiled the Trump campaign and the Trump transition team.
(3) Provided confidential information to the Clinton campaign.
(4) Leaked classified information, and
(5) Collaborated with Fusion GPS, to prepare a dossier implying, falsely, Trump “colluded” with Russians to defeat Hillary.
This breathtaking abuse of power arguably is a seditious conspiracy under 18 USC 2384, punishable by up to 20 years in prison.
SCANDAL #2
The Obama administration approved in 2010 the sale of 20 percent of U.S. uranium reserves to a company controlled by Russians, despite the fact “the FBI had gathered substantial evidence that Russian nuclear industry officials were engaged in bribery, kickbacks, extortion and money laundering.”
Uranium One is a Canadian mining firm whose biggest shareholder is the Russian nuclear giant Rosatom. The sale was approved after Rosatom and Uranium One execs donated millions to the Clinton Foundation.
The sale was approved by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, which is chaired by the Secretary of the Treasury, includes the Attorney General, the Secretaries of State, Defense, Homeland Security, Commerce, and Energy, and the U.S. Trade Representative.
Justice did not inform other members of CFIUS of the criminal activity the FBI found. Obama Justice threatened to jail FBI informant William Campbell if he told Congress about what he uncovered.
SCANDAL #3
The Iranian-backed terror group Hezbollah makes upwards of $1 billion a year in the U.S. from smuggling drugs and weapons, and money laundering.
The Drug Enforcement Administration launched Project Cassandra in 2008 to map Hezbollah’s networks, from the Middle East to Latin America to here.
When DEA was ready to roll up the networks, senior officials in Obama Justice refused to file charges against the major players. A crackdown on Hezbollah could jeopardize Obama’s nuclear deal with Iran.
“They serially ripped apart this entire effort that was very well supported and resourced, and it was done from the top down.”
SCANDAL #4
Pakistanis working as IT techs for Democrats made thousands of “unauthorized” logins on the House computer network.
Rep. Debbie Wasserman-Schultz, D-FLA, who also headed the Democratic National Committee (2011-2016), hired Imrin Awan in 2005. Other House Dems hired Imrin’s brothers Abid and Jamal, Imrin’s wife Hina Alvi, and Abid’s wife Natalia Soya.
The Awan clan had access to the computer files and emails of 44 Members, including some on the Intelligence and Foreign Affairs Committees. The Awans didn’t have – and couldn’t have gotten – the security clearances required to gain access to files from those committees. Imrin also had access to the DNC’s computer files.
The Awans were locked out of the House computer system Feb. 2, 2017. Imrin and Hina were arrested in July and charged with bank fraud. Their Democrat employers were remarkably slow to fire them. Were the Awans blackmailing them?
The Awans have ties to the Pakistani ISI, and to Hezbollah. Natalia Soya is Russian. Over the last 15 years, how many secrets may they have provided to our enemies?
SCANDAL #5
The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives let guns “walk” to Mexican drug cartels.
The ostensible purpose of Operation Fast and Furious, begun in November, 2009, was to track guns from straw purchasers in the U.S. to the cartels. But once they crossed the border, ATF made no effort to trace the guns. They’ve been used to shoot more than 300 Mexicans, U.S. Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry, and ICE Agent Jaime Zapata.
The real purpose of Fast and Furious was to build support for gun control in the U.S., many think. The only ATF agents punished for this fiasco were whistleblowers who told Congress about it.
Senior Justice Dept. officials lied to Congress about Fast and Furious, stonewalled requests for documents. In April, 2016, a federal judge ordered DOJ to produce them.
Most Americans don’t know about these scandals because the MSM haven’t reported them. This may be the biggest scandal of all.
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3) The most difficult task facing President Trump in draining a swamp much deeper, wider, and more fetid than we imagined is how to get the truth past the MSM Bodyguard of Liars?
A related task is how to get Americans – most of whom are decent, trusting souls, but who are not well informed, or very smart – to grasp the mind-boggling scale of the evil deeds of the Leftist Elite.
Those who’ve voted for Democrats will learn everything they’ve believed is a lie. The cognitive dissonance will be enormous. As Mark Twain said: “It’s easier to fool someone than convince them they’ve been fooled.”
President Trump, and as yet unsung heroes Michael Horowitz and “Stealth Jeff” Sessions have prepared the battlefield about as well as it can be done.
The plan is to present the evidence in ways the MSM have to cover, and to flood them with so much they won’t have time to spin it.
Horowitz, the DOJ inspector general, was able quietly to gather a damning amount of evidence — 1.2 million pages of documents – because POTUS and “Stealth Jeff” sent the MSM chasing the rabbit that was the Mueller investigation. It wasn’t until it was too late to cover their tracks that the black hats in FBI/DOJ learned they were the targets of the real investigation.
Horowitz delivered the first batch of those 1.2 million pages to the House Intelligence and Judiciary Committees last Friday (1/12). Chairmen Devin Nunes and Bob Goodlatte will leak juicy bits, hold hearings, demand a special prosecutor be appointed. Stealth Jeff “reluctantly” will agree. (The Justice Department can’t prosecute wrongdoing by the Justice Dept.)
After Nunes, Goodlatte and Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley titillate us for a few weeks, (but before a Special Prosecutor is named), the entire IG report will be made public.
The Horowitz report probably will deal with Fast and Furious too, because that’s the scandal that prompted his investigation.
It won’t take long for the Special Prosecutor to issue indictments, because Horowitz already has enough evidence to send malefactors to Leavenworth. (If he’s healthy and sober enough, I hope the SP will be Rudy Giuliani.)
Meanwhile, Stealth Jeff will revoke immunity for Hillary aides Cheryl Mills and Huma Abedin, because they lied to the FBI. A news cycle or so later, Mills and Abedin will be indicted for mishandling classified information.
Sessions said last month he’d take another look at Uranium One, the Hillary email scandal, the Clinton Foundation, and Project Cassandra.
An indictment in the Uranium One scandal was made public last Friday. That indicates the investigation was reopened months ago.
When Stealth Jeff says he’s thinking about doing something, he’s already done it. As a U.S. attorney breaking the back of the KKK in Alabama, Sessions was called the Silent Assassin.
The Storm has begun. It’ll grow exponentially over the next few weeks, likely will culminate with Hillary, Bill, maybe even Zero wearing orange jumpsuits.
It’ll be a year or more before that happens. It takes time to work up the food chain, and to prepare public opinion for what, just two months ago, was unthinkable.
Be patient. Justice will be done because POTUS and his allies have taken the time to build strong cases, to diminish the credibility of our enemies, to prepare the battlefield for the wild ride ahead.
Jack Kelly was the Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Air Force during the Reagan years.
3a) KERRY TO ABBAS CONFIDANTE: 'STAY STRONG AND DO NOT GIVE IN TO TRUMP'
BY BEN CASPIT/MAARIV
The former US Secretary of State also surprised his interlocutor by saying he was seriously considering running for president in 2020.
While the White House confirms that since the "Jerusalem Declaration" there has been a complete disconnect between the Palestinian Authority and the Trump administration, it turns out that the previous administration actually maintains contact with PA officials. Ma'ariv reported that former US Secretary of State John Kerry met in London with a close associate of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, Hussein Agha, for a long and open conversation about a variety of topics. Agha apparently reported details of the conversation to senior PA officials in Ramallah. A senior PA official confirmed to Ma'ariv that the meeting took place.
Agha is one of Abbas's closest associates and one of the veteran peacemakers with Israel. He conducted the "London Track," secret negotiations held from 2010 to 2013 between the emissaries of Netanyahu, attorney Yitzhak Molcho and Brigadier General Mike Herzog, under the supervision and presence of Dennis Ross. Agha also authored with Yossi Beilin the Beilin-Abbas agreement in the 1990s. He is considered a staunch supporter of the peace process, very close to Abbas, and maintains an extensive network of contacts with many elements, including Israelis.
During the conversation, according to the report, Kerry asked Agha to convey a message to Abbas and ask him to "hold on and be strong." Tell him, he told Agha, "that he should stay strong in his spirit and play for time, that he will not break and will not yield to President Trump's demands." According to Kerry, Trump will not remain in office for a long time. It was reported that within a year there was a good chance that Trump would not be in the White House.
Kerry offered his help to the Palestinians in an effort to advance the peace process and recommended that Abbas present his own peace plan. "Maybe it is time for the Palestinians to define their peace principles and present a positive plan," Kerry suggested. He promised to use all his contacts and all his abilities to get support for such a plan. He asked Abbas, through Agha, not to attack the US or the Trump administration, but to concentrate on personal attacks on Trump himself, whom Kerry says is solely and directly responsible for the situation.
According to the report, referring to the president, Kerry used derogatory terms and even worse. Kerry offered to help create an alternative peace initiative and promised to help garner international support, among others, of Europeans, Arab states and the international community. Kerry hinted that many in the American establishment, as well as in American intelligence, are dissatisfied with Trump's performance and the way he leads America. He surprised his interlocutor by saying he was seriously considering running for president in 2020. When asked about his advanced age, he said he was not much older than Trump and would not have an age problem.
In a report on the conversation, Agha said that Kerry appears to be "crazy about things," very energetic, and someone who is yearning to help realize the dream of peace between Israelis and Palestinians. Kerry explained, according to the report, that even in the Republican Party they do not know what to do with Trump and are very dissatisfied with him and that patience and breathing time are needed to get through this difficult period.
Kerry offered his help to the Palestinians in an effort to advance the peace process and recommended that Abbas present his own peace plan. "Maybe it is time for the Palestinians to define their peace principles and present a positive plan," Kerry suggested. He promised to use all his contacts and all his abilities to get support for such a plan. He asked Abbas, through Agha, not to attack the US or the Trump administration, but to concentrate on personal attacks on Trump himself, whom Kerry says is solely and directly responsible for the situation.
According to the report, referring to the president, Kerry used derogatory terms and even worse. Kerry offered to help create an alternative peace initiative and promised to help garner international support, among others, of Europeans, Arab states and the international community. Kerry hinted that many in the American establishment, as well as in American intelligence, are dissatisfied with Trump's performance and the way he leads America. He surprised his interlocutor by saying he was seriously considering running for president in 2020. When asked about his advanced age, he said he was not much older than Trump and would not have an age problem.
In a report on the conversation, Agha said that Kerry appears to be "crazy about things," very energetic, and someone who is yearning to help realize the dream of peace between Israelis and Palestinians. Kerry explained, according to the report, that even in the Republican Party they do not know what to do with Trump and are very dissatisfied with him and that patience and breathing time are needed to get through this difficult period.
It is reasonable to assume that the Netanyahu government will use the details of this conversation to prove the ancient theory that John Kerry is "obsessed and messianic" and pro-Palestinian. It is not certain that this thesis stands the test of reality. It should be remembered that Kerry is an old friend of Netanyahu and a consistent supporter of Israel for decades. He believes that a genuine peace process is essential for both sides, and for the survival of the State of Israel, and that the two-state solution is the only realistic option that will enable Israel to continue to maintain its character as a Jewish democratic state. It is indeed obsessive on Kerry's part, this 'obsession' was once permitted, but has recently become almost illegitimate and post-Zionist.
Agha preferred not to respond. Kerry's response could not be obtained
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4) The Pew Research Center reported today that: “The partisan divide in Middle East sympathies, for Israel or the Palestinians, is now wider than at any point since 1978. Currently, 79% of Republicans say they sympathize more with Israel than the Palestinians, compared with just 27% of Democrats.”
While support for Israel among all Americans remains strong and has not varied much since 1978, the composition of that support has shifted significantly. The share of Republicans sympathizing more with Israel has risen from 50% to 79% in just the last 16 years, while Democrats’ support of Israel fell from 38% to 27%.
4) The Pew Research Center reported today that: “The partisan divide in Middle East sympathies, for Israel or the Palestinians, is now wider than at any point since 1978. Currently, 79% of Republicans say they sympathize more with Israel than the Palestinians, compared with just 27% of Democrats.”
While support for Israel among all Americans remains strong and has not varied much since 1978, the composition of that support has shifted significantly. The share of Republicans sympathizing more with Israel has risen from 50% to 79% in just the last 16 years, while Democrats’ support of Israel fell from 38% to 27%.
RJC Executive Director Matt Brooks said:
Today’s Pew report reconfirms a trend that Pew and other public opinion polls have reported for years: support for Israel is strong and growing in the Republican Party, while it is declining among Democrats.
We saw the Democrats’ views on Israel implemented by the Obama administration, which put “daylight” between the U.S. and our chief ally, Israel, while pursuing a disastrous Middle East policy that contributed to the rise of ISIS, to the humanitarian crisis in Syria, and to Iran moving closer to its goal of nuclear weapons. We’ve seen the rise of the BDS movement across college campuses and efforts to delegitimize Israel in the public square, led and supported by Democrats across the party spectrum.
Now President Trump has put the U.S.-Israel alliance back on a strong footing and reasserted American resolve to stand with Israel. The new Pew poll reflects a deep partisan divide on that question too. Nearly half of Democrats (46%) think President Trump favors Israel too much and 21% think he’s striking the right balance, while a large majority of Republicans (73%) think Trump is striking the right balance.
The numbers are telling and clear: Democrat support for Israel is weakening, while Republican support for Israel continues to rise.
We saw the Democrats’ views on Israel implemented by the Obama administration, which put “daylight” between the U.S. and our chief ally, Israel, while pursuing a disastrous Middle East policy that contributed to the rise of ISIS, to the humanitarian crisis in Syria, and to Iran moving closer to its goal of nuclear weapons. We’ve seen the rise of the BDS movement across college campuses and efforts to delegitimize Israel in the public square, led and supported by Democrats across the party spectrum.
Now President Trump has put the U.S.-Israel alliance back on a strong footing and reasserted American resolve to stand with Israel. The new Pew poll reflects a deep partisan divide on that question too. Nearly half of Democrats (46%) think President Trump favors Israel too much and 21% think he’s striking the right balance, while a large majority of Republicans (73%) think Trump is striking the right balance.
The numbers are telling and clear: Democrat support for Israel is weakening, while Republican support for Israel continues to rise.
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