The Continuing Saga- Emotions Over Brains and Logic. Jorisch's Book receives Good reviews. Trump - Good Policies But Needs To Become Strategic Planner.

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This dude speaks for me and I don't even own a weapon. http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2018/04/im-the-majority.php
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The US and Israeli relationship returns to former status of friendship after 8 turbulent years under Obama. 

One would think this would be a comfort to the Jewish American community , even the ones who are liberal.  I doubt it will move the needle. Why? Because far too many Liberal Jews no longer have strong feelings for Israel. Why?  They are turned off by the increasing power of the Orthodox Israeli community.  Second, liberal Jews cannot shake their distaste for Trump and their irrational connection to the Democrat Party which has actually become their enemy since it has become a threat to America's stability, and security.

It is a continuing  story/saga of emotions over brains and logic.  (See 1, 1a and 1b below.)
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My friend Avi Jorisch's book is reviewed and he will be at our home for a review and signing in early November  as well as speaking under the auspices of the SIRC. (See 2 below.)
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Trump is stirring the pot and this angers a lot of people because they like calm, they, obviously, enjoy America being taken advantage of because they have no self-pride and do not care abut  our borders.

I do not agree with Trump a lot of the time not because of his policies but because of the way he expresses himself, because he is probably not a strategic planner though his ideas are sound. He has a great deal of confidence in his own ability and that is good but he also needs to listen to the ideas of others and to think about what they are telling him.  Otherwise, why did he hire them for Cabinet positions?  He has assembled a pretty good team now so take their advice under advisement.(See 3 below.)
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Maybe one more memo before leave again .  Have a great weekend.
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Dick

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1) U.S. re-ups commitment to Israeli security while Iran tries to settle in Syria | The Jerusalem post

U.S. re-ups commitment to Israeli security while Iran tries to settle in Syria

By HERB KEINON,MICHAEL WILNER

"[Trump] wants to ensure Islamic State terrorists are defeated, but also that other countries in the region and the United Nations step up and help provide stability in Syria."

Israel “categorically rejects” and will not accept Iran’s efforts to remain permanently in Syria, Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman said on Wednesday after the leaders of Iran, Russia and Turkey met in Ankara to talk about Syria’s future.

Liberman, in an Army Radio interview, said that President Hassan Rouhani lashed out after that meeting at the US and Israel, and made clear that Iran intends to stay in the country “forever.”

“They are building settlements in Syria, intend on settling there, and are talking about the infrastructure they want to build,” the defense minister said. “This is categorically unacceptable to us, and we will not accept it.”

Liberman bewailed that Iran, Russia and Turkey were essentially deciding the future of Syria, without a single representative from the US, EU, or the UN around the table.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, meanwhile, spoke with President Donald Trump on Tuesday evening, soon after Trump made clear his intent to withdraw US troops from Syria, though without setting a firm deadline.

The White House issued a statement saying Trump reiterated the US commitment to Israel’s security, and the two leaders agreed to continue “their close coordination on countering Iran’s malign influence and destabilizing activities.”

Netanyahu’s office said that in the call, the prime minister also thanked Trump for America’s support at the UN.

Jerusalem is concerned that a US withdrawal will open the door for Iran to make further inroads in Syria.

Around 2,000 US troops are deployed in northern Syria on a mission to battle the remnants of an Islamic State force that once controlled the area.

Liberman said that the territory under US influence in northern Syria amounts to about onefourth of the country.

Trump agreed in a National Security Council meeting on Tuesday to keep American troops in Syria a little longer, but he wants them out relatively soon, a senior administration official said on Wednesday.

Trump did not approve a specific withdrawal timetable, the official said. He wants to ensure Islamic State terrorists are defeated, but also that other countries in the region and the United Nations step up and help provide stability in Syria, the official said.

“We’re not going to immediately withdraw but neither is the president willing to back a long-term commitment,” the official said.

The White House issued a statement saying that the military mission “to eradicate ISIS in Syria” is coming to a rapid end, with the terrorist organization “almost completely destroyed.”

“The United States and our partners remain committed to eliminating the small ISIS presence in Syria that our forces have not already eradicated,” the statement read. “We will continue to consult with our allies and friends regarding future plans. We expect countries in the region and beyond, plus the United Nations, to work toward peace and ensure that ISIS never reemerges.”

A day earlier, however, Trump doubled down on his off-thecuff comment last week vowing to bring US troops home from Syria, a statement that rattled the Pentagon, concerned Israeli leadership and alarmed embattled Arab allies.

At a press conference at the White House with the leaders of the three Baltic states on Tuesday, Trump said, “I want to get out – I want to bring our troops back home. I want to rebuild our nation.”

Liberman said that regardless of Washington’s decision, Israel must continue to preserve the redlines it has established in Syria.

Meanwhile, Turkey, Iran and Russia pledged on Wednesday to accelerate efforts to bring stability to Syria, underlining their joint commitment to the country a day after Trump raised the prospect of withdrawing US troops.

A statement by the three countries after a summit meeting in Ankara said they were determined to “speed up their efforts to ensure calm on the ground” in Syria.

Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani said developments in Syria, where the Syrian Army and its allies have driven back rebels in recent years, showed that the United States had “failed to topple the Syrian government” of President Bashar Assad.

The US and Israel “wanted to fuel insecurity in order to maintain their own interests, but they have gained no success,” Rouhani told a news conference after talks with Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Russia’s President Vladimir Putin. He added, however, that he believed US forces would stay in Syria.

Reuters contributed to this report.

1a) The US Is Now Supporting Israel in Both Word and Deed

By Dr. Mitchell Bard 

It seems that every day another story appears claiming that support for Israel is eroding in the United States. These reports are often based primarily on the author’s dissatisfaction with some aspect of Israeli policy.

The objective indicators, however, reveal that American support for Israel is robust and improving. We can see the evidence in surveys, legislation, official statements, and activities on the local, state, and federal level.

Public sympathy for Israel is at a record high (64%) and so is its favorability rating (74%) in the latest Gallup poll. Given this broad-based support, it is not surprising that Congress has responded by providing Israel with record amounts of aid.

Although it was lost in most of the reporting on the $1.3 trillion budget passed by Congress last month, the bill contained $3.1 billion in military aid to Israel, $705.8 million for US-Israel missile defense cooperation, and $47.5 million for US-Israel anti-tunnel cooperation. That’s a record package of nearly $3.9 billion.

The military aid was the first installment of the new $38 billion memorandum of understanding approved by the Obama administration. While the amount of that agreement was hailed for being a record high, Obama added several conditions aimed at weakening AIPAC’s influence and preventing Israel from seeking additional aid from Congress. It appears that Congress does not see itself as bound by those terms, however, and with urging from AIPAC, increased the appropriation for Israel’s missile defense program by $105 million and anti-tunneling technologies by $5 million compared to last year’s budget.

The spending bill also included the landmark Taylor Force Act, which requires the United States to cut aid to the Palestinian Authority if it does not end the “pay-to-slay” policy of paying salaries to terrorists in Israeli prisons, as well as stipends to the families of dead terrorists.

What also merits attention is the bipartisan support in Congress for Israel. We do not see the bitter partisan divide on Israel-related matters that is paralyzing policymakers on so many other issues. Despite the partisan gap in polls and suggestions that Democrats are abandoning Israel, Democrats in Congress worked with their Republican colleagues to ensure passage of the pro-Israel legislation.

Donald Trump’s decision to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and move our embassy there from Tel Aviv was a game-changer. It ended the nonsensical policy of pretending that Israel did not have a capital. It also sent a powerful message to the Palestinians that Jerusalem will remain united under Israeli sovereignty and any future Palestinian state will have its capital elsewhere. This decision, moreover, was consistent with legislation passed by Congress in 1995.

Furthermore, the tone of discourse toward Israel has completely changed. The prior administration made no secret of its disdain for Israel’s prime minister, routinely criticized Israel publicly, minimized threats to Israel, refused to pressure the Palestinians and rarely censured them. By contrast, President Trump has developed a close relationship with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, withheld public criticism, acknowledged Iran’s threat to Israel, and shown no hesitation in condemning the Palestinians for their acts of violence and intransigence.

Nowhere is the change more obvious than the State Department, where spokespeople in the last administration seemed to relish every opportunity to bash Israel, culminating in Secretary of State John Kerry’s final speech. During that speech, Kerry ignored all the trouble spots in the world to focus solely on attacking Israel. Obama’s UN ambassador often joined the jackals seeking to isolate and demonize Israel, and abstained on a Security Council resolution that served that purpose.

Now, the State Department openly supports Israel. While Secretary of State Rex Tillerson was largely silent on issues related to Israel, UN Ambassador Nikki Haley has been Churchillian in her forthright speeches denouncing America’s enemies and supporting our friends. Finally, we have someone defending US interests and Israel with the vehemence and resolve of Daniel Patrick Moynihan and Jeanne Kirkpatrick (and, during his brief term, John Bolton). Just last week, Haley opposed a UN resolution seeking the usual one-sided investigation of Israel over events in Gaza, and has also condemned the anti-Human Rights Council for its ongoing Orwellian attacks on the Jewish state.

Support for Israel at the state and local levels is reflected by many academic, cultural, and governmental exchanges. Governors, mayors, university presidents, and other officials travel to Israel to sign agreements for greater cooperation, trade, and tourism. Law enforcement, first responders, and others concerned with security regularly share expertise with their Israeli counterparts. In addition, states have not waited for federal legislation (which is still pending) to act against the antisemitic boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) campaign. A few days ago, Governor Rick Scott signed anti-boycott legislation, making Florida the 24th state to outlaw certain BDS activities.

Ironically, while many Jews are talking about divisions between American Jewry and Israel, the relationship between the two countries is stronger than ever. Some of the improvement can be attributed to policies of the Trump administration and the current Congress — but ties have been growing steadily stronger over the last 70 years despite occasional hiccups that usually have more to do with the chemistry of political leaders or particular policies than the actual day-to-day relations between the two peoples and government institutions.

The special alliance between Israel and the United States remains firmly rooted in shared values and interests.

Dr. Mitchell Bard is Executive Director of the American-Israeli Cooperative Enterprise and author/editor of 24 books including The Arab Lobby and the novelAfter Anatevka: Tevye in Palestine.

The opinions presented by Algemeiner bloggers are solely theirs and do not represent those of The Algemeiner, its publishers or editors. If you would like to share your views with a blog post on The Algemeiner, please be in touch through our Contact page.

1b) Mossad Chief "100 Percent Certain" Iran Seeks Nuclear Bomb (AP-VOA News)

Yossi Cohen, the head of Israel's Mossad intelligence agency, told a recent closed meeting of senior officials in Jerusalem, "I am 100% certain that Iran has never abandoned its military nuclear vision for a single instant. This [nuclear] deal enables Iran to achieve that vision."

"That is why I believe the deal must be completely changed or scrapped. The failure to do so would be a grave threat to Israel's security."

He called the nuclear deal a "terrible mistake" that allows Iran to keep key elements of its nuclear program intact and will remove other restraints in a few years.

"Then Iran will be able to enrich enough uranium for an arsenal of nuclear bomb s," Cohen said.

He added that the decision to lift sanctions on Iran has resulted in "significantly increased" aggression by Iran, and noted Iran's continued development of long-range ballistic missiles.

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2)

In spirit of Jewish tradition, Israeli tech casts global ‘rays of light’ From Iron Dome to medical marijuana, 'Thou Shalt Innovate: How Israeli Ingenuity Repairs the World' says sabra hardheadedness has helped foster 'a kinder, gentler world' The Times of Israel By Shoshanna Solomon As Israel gears up to celebrate its 70 years of independence later this month, the nation is taking stock of its achievements, from democratic milestones to cinematic, political, security and artistic breakthroughs. So it is very fitting that a new book lays out how Israeli technologies are making a global impact. “Thou Shalt Innovate, How Israeli Ingenuity Repairs the World,” is written by Washington-based Avi Jorisch, a senior fellow at the American Foreign Policy Council who specializes in Islamic history and philosophy. He also authored four previous books, including one tracing the financing of terror and another on the Hezbollah’s official television station, Al-Manar. The idea for the book on Israeli innovation “started to germinate in 2014,” said Jorisch in a phone interview. Born to a family of Holocaust survivors with close historical, cultural and religious ties to Israel, he was raised in New York City but spent years living and studying in Israel. Jorisch was in Israel in the summer of 2014 during the Gaza war when Hamas Islamic militants were blasting rockets into Israel. It was then that he witnessed firsthand, as he rushed to a shelter carrying his son, how Israel’s Iron Dome missile defense system managed to keep the onslaught at bay by intercepting the missiles. “For the next seven weeks, the sirens blasted as this scene repeated itself. The fear never went away, but my family, like the rest of Israel, found comfort in the Iron Dome. I marveled at this invention,” wrote Jorisch. Soon after that, “almost by chance” he started noticing other Israeli innovations, that, he said, were helping to make “a real difference in fostering a kinder, gentler world.” He noticed that in traffic accidents, emergency responders riding ambucycles — motorbikes refitted as ambulances — were quick to appear; his Jerusalem gardener brought his to attention a drip irrigator that saved water; and a colleague of his with Parkinson’s began undergoing deep brain stimulation with a device designed by an Arab couple from Nazareth to help mitigate his symptoms. Thus he set off on a mission to find the Israeli technologies that are making a difference. He was overwhelmed by what he found. “I did not know the full extent of the impact Israeli tech was having around the world. It did come as a surprise to me,” Jorisch said. For his book Jorisch selected 15 technologies and their entrepreneurs in fields as varied as drugs, drip irrigation, solar power, defense, agriculture and cybersecurity.  “I chose the 15 because they spoke to me in a fundamental way,” he said in the interview. “They stirred me and they inspired me.” And they are making a difference in this world, he said. At the end of the book, in an appendix, Jorisch lists what he says are Israel’s 50 greatest technological contributions to the world. “I could have very easily kept going to 100, 200, 300,” he said. Finding technologies that were having an impact on the world was not the challenge, he explained; what was challenging was whittling that list down to 15. Among his 15 innovations are the Check Point Software Technologies firewall that protects enterprises from cybersecurity breaches; Harry Zvi Tabor’s solar water heating system; and Raphael Mechoulam’s discovery of the chemical structure of marijuana, which enabled the creation of medications to treat a variety of conditions. Also included is the work of Michel Revel, who got the blessing of the Chabad Lubavitcher rebbe, Menachem Mendel Schneerson, to study foreskins, leading to the development of Rebif, a key drug to treat multiple sclerosis; Shlomo Navarro’s Grain Cocoon, a hermetically sealed bag to preserve grains and rice; and Yossi Leshem’s mapping of the billion birds that fly over Israel, to avoid collisions with airplanes. His work is today a global standard to help stop birds from crashing into planes. Based on interviews with over 100 people, including, when possible, the innovators themselves, policy makers, engineers, VC officials and think tank members, the book tells us the story behind the innovations and the innovators — how the ideas became a reality and how these  technologies are being used today globally. A common thread emerges from these stories: the reader realizes that these companies and products were developed through a magical combination of chance, hardheadedness and determination in the face of skeptics, a will to succeed, identification of a need, personal motivation and finding the right partner. The importance of army service in the evolution of entrepreneurs is another common denominator that surfaces from the tales Jorisch recounts, as is the role of the government, which had the insight to back some of the developments through its incubator programs. The idea of drip irrigation came to Simcha Blass one day in the early 1930s, when he went to visit a friend at his home in Karkur, a town near Haifa. He noticed, as they were sharing a meal outside, that among similar trees in a row, one tree was bigger than others, even though they all were supposedly treated in the same way. “Intrigued, Blass started looking around,” Jorisch wrote in the book. “What he found surprised him: the topsoil was completely dry, but a dripping faucet in the area had soaked the root system underneath the tall tree. He started digging and found an onion-shaped wet zone that kept the ground moist, with almost no surface evaporation.” Drip irrigation is now used by farmers worldwide to improve their crops. Another story recounts how a cop on a motorcycle gave Eli Beer a ticket for speaking on his cellphone while stuck in traffic, annoying Beer but giving him the idea of providing first responders with refitted motorcycles to help them weave through traffic to get to emergencies faster than ambulances, triggering the founding of the United Hatzalah emergency service. Check Point Software’s founder, Gil Shwed, who, after his army service in the elite 8200 intelligence unit, refused to go to college, much to the chagrin of his parents, had the foresight to realize in the 1990s — when the internet was still used mainly by governments and universities — that the web would one day be “something huge.” And when that would happen, users would need protection. “Israel is far more than just producing great startups. It has mature companies that are making the world better,” Jorisch said in the interview. “There is no single narrative that defines the State of Israel. But there is no denying that the country has extraordinary innovators who are bound together not by religion, money and stature, but rather by a desire to save lives and make the world a better place. It is an extraordinary story that needs to be told. It is not a story people focus on; it is certainly not the first thing most people think about when they focus on Israel.” This push to do good, Jorisch said in the book, is entrenched in Jewish culture. “Whoever saves a live, it is considered as if he saved an entire world,” according to the Mishnah in Sanhedrin, the Jewish oral tradition. And Judaism believes that the purpose of human beings is to make the world a better place. The Jewish prayer of Aleinu, recited three times a day, instructs worshipers to repair the world, among other things, the book explains. “Israel is the combination of a 3,000-year tradition that basically instructed us, day in and day out, to repair the world and make the world a better place,” Jorisch said. And thus Israel, he said, “is the combination of 3,000 years of history meeting modern day tech.  And that is the story I wanted to focus on.” There is no doubt “Thou Shalt Innovate” is a feel-good book, full of hope and inspiring stories that likely will make its way to the shelves of many of those who bought the book “Start-Up Nation” by Dan Senor and Saul Singer, which records Israel’s economic success and the creation of the nation’s startup ecosystem. “Israel is a complicated country, but this is the best that it has to offer,” Jorisch said in the interview. The book, he said “is not about technology; it is a book about impact. All of these technologies have already had impact.” And if Israel has already contributed so much to the world, “imagine what the country would look like if it were not mired in war and constantly needing to defend itself and its borders,” Jorisch wrote in his book. The book, released by Gefen Publishing House Ltd., is available on Amazon and is also on sale in the US at Barnes & Noble. As policy makers, engineers, doctors and other professionals globally look for ways to solve challenges, “they should look to Israel to either find existing answers or innovate new solutions,” Jorisch wrote in the preface to his book. As importantly, Jorisch continued, “as countries around the world try to elucidate Israel’s innovative ‘secret sauce’ for their own populations and economies, they should look to the essence of Israeli culture for guiding principles. ‘Thou Shalt Innovate’ is a tale about Israelis who have chosen hope and healing over death and destruction. In a part of the world that has more than its share of darkness, these stories are rays of light.” +++++++++++++++++++++++++ 3)Trump Is Cutting Old Gordian Knots - Victor Davis Hanson The proverbial knot of Gordium was impossible to untie. Anyone clever enough to untie it would supposedly become the king of Asia. Many princes tried; all failed. When Alexander the Great arrived, he was challenged to unravel the impossible knot. Instead, he pulled out his sword and cut through it. Problem solved. Donald Trump inherited an array of perennial crises when he was sworn in as president in 2017. He certainly did not possess the traditional diplomatic skills and temperament to deal with any of them. In the last year of the Barack Obama administration, a lunatic North Korean regime purportedly had gained the ability to send nuclear-tipped missiles to the U.S. West Coast. China had not only been violating trade agreements, but forcing U.S. companies to hand over their technological expertise as the price of doing business in China. NATO may have been born to protect the European mainland, but a distant U.S. was paying an increasingly greater percentage of its budget to maintain NATO than were its direct beneficiaries. Mexico keeps sending its impoverished citizens to the U.S., and they usually enter illegally. That way, Mexico relieves its own social tensions, develops a pro-Mexico expatriate community in the U.S. and gains an estimated $30 billion a year from remittances that undocumented immigrants send back home, often on the premise that American social services can free up cash for them to do so. In the past, traditional and accepted methods failed to deal with all of these challenges. Bill Clinton's "Agreed Framework," George W. Bush's "six-party talks" and the "strategic patience" of the Obama administration essentially offered North Korea cash to denuclearize. American diplomats whined to China about its unfair trade practices. When rebuffed, they more or less shut up, convinced either that they could not do anything or that China's growing economy would sooner or later westernize. Europeans were used to American nagging about delinquent NATO contributions. Diplomatic niceties usually meant that European leaders only talked nonstop about the idea that they should shoulder more of their own defense. Mexico ignored U.S. whining that our neighbor to the south was cynically undermining U.S. immigration law. If America protested too much, Mexico usually fell back on boilerplate charges of racism, xenophobia and nativism, despite its own tough treatment of immigrants arriving into Mexico illegally from Central America. In other words, before Trump arrived, the niceties of American diplomacy and statecraft had untied none of these knots. But like Alexander, the outsider Trump was not invested in any of the accustomed protocols about untying them. Instead, he pulled out his proverbial sword and began slashing. If Kim Jong Un kept threatening the U.S., then Trump would threaten him back and ridicule him in the process as "Rocket Man." Meanwhile, the U.S. would beef up its own nuclear arsenal, press ahead with missile defense, warn China that its neighbors might have to nuclearize, and generally seem as threatening to Kim as he traditionally has been to others. Trump was no more patient with China. If it continues to cheat and demand technology transfers as the price of doing business in China, then it will face tariffs on its exports and a trade war. Trump's position is that Chinese trade duplicity is so complex and layered that it can never be untied, only cut apart. Trump seemingly had no patience with endless rounds of negotiations about NATO defense contributions. If frontline European nations wished to spend little to defend their own borders, why should America have to spend so much to protect such distant nations? In Trump's mind, if Mexico was often critical of the U.S., despite effectively open borders and billions of dollars in remittances, then he might as well give Mexico something real to be angry about, such as a border wall, enforcement of existing U.S. immigration laws, and deportations of many of those residing illegally on U.S. soil. There are common themes to all these slashed knots. Diplomatic niceties had solved little. American laxity was seen as naivete to be taken advantage of, not as generous concessions to be returned in kind. Second, American presidents and their diplomatic teams had spent their careers deeply invested in the so-called postwar rules and protocols of diplomacy. In a nutshell, the central theme has been that the U.S. is so rich and powerful, its duty is to take repeated hits for the global order. In light of American power, reciprocity supposedly did not matter -- as if getting away with something would not lead to getting away with something even bigger. Knot cutters may not know how to untie knots. But by the same token, those who struggle to untie knots also do not know how to cut them. And sometimes knots can only be cut -- even as we recoil at the brash Alexanders who won't play by traditional rules and instead dare to pull out their swords. ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++