Jung un Has Rope Will He Hang Himself? A Was Now Morphs Into A Has Been. More Middle East Commentary.

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Trump has permitted the Palestinians to bury themselves in the sand. (See 1 below.)

Meanwhile: Trump has allowed public pronouncements by Kim Jung un to paint himself into a corner should he not follow through . Consequently, Trump must hang tough, also follow through on his own commitments only after Kim un has demonstrated verified actions in keeping with his words.

Should Kim un revert back to his former self and that of his predecessors then Trump should economically squeeze them and failing that attack.

I believe that is what John Bolton has told Trump. (1b below.)

Also:

Trump has given the E.U a wake up call. (See 1c below.)
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Trump haters continue to assert he is a liar and therefore, cannot be trusted yet, they continue to give Obama a pass and trust him completely. (See 2 below.)
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De Niro is a "was" who has morphed into a has been. (See 3 below.)
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A day on the Gaza front. (See 4 below.)

And:

More Middle East commentary. (See 4a, 4b and 4c below.)
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Dick
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1) Report: Israel, US, Arab states unite to battle Iran, Palestinians out in the cold

A feature published in the New Yorker magazine on Monday chronicles a shifting Middle East landscape in which the imminent Iranian threat overshadows political concerns about the Palestinians.

By: World Israel News Staff

On Monday, The New Yorker published a lengthy feature purportedly presenting the strategy with which “President [Trump], Israel, and the Gulf states plan to fight Iran — and leave the Palestinians and the Obama years behind.”

The piece, titled “Donald Trump’s New World Order,” was researched and written by Adam Entous, a Washington Postcorrespondent specializing in national security, foreign policy and intelligence. It has already generated considerable attention in Israel based on new facts about the relationship between leaders from the US, Israel, and the Arab world. The piece also offers up a bevy of information about officials in the Obama and Trump eras.

Among the piece’s observations is that, “Trump’s team appears unfazed by the feeling among Palestinians that they are being cast aside.” The piece also appears to confirm deep animosity within the Obama administration toward Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, including the obscene epithets that Obama and his advisers allegedly used to describe the Israeli premier.

According the article, the bad blood in the Obama administration went beyond name-calling, with Israeli officials maintaining that “intelligence reports submitted to Netanyahu showed that Obama and his team were secretly orchestrating UN resolutions—a charge that the Americans later denied.” Eventually, the United Nations Security Council passed an anti-settlements resolution due to an unprecedented, Obama-directed abstention during a UNSC vote.

In addition to chronicling the Obama administration’s antipathy for Netanyahu, the New Yorker piece also addresses the Iranian threat, and the shift in strategy that occurred after Trump took office. Notably, the piece reveals the secret relationship between Israel and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), which dates back to Bill Clinton’s first term, in addition to the burgeoning alliance between the Jewish state and Saudi Arabia.

“Israeli and Emirati officials didn’t agree on the Palestinian issue, but they shared a perspective on the emerging Iranian threat, which was becoming a bigger priority for leaders in both countries,” explains Entous.

Iran threat overshadows Palestinian situation (Obama really screwed up the World with his horrible deal and his financing most of the problems going on now!)

The piece goes on to detail the Saudis eventual adoption of a similar position, painting it as part of a larger picture in which Palestinian interests play an increasingly minor role in a geopolitical climate dominated by the threat of a nuclear Iran, whose terror proxies and militia maintain outposts throughout the region, in Lebanon, Israel, Syria and Yemen.

The article also details Saudi Arabia’s willingness to “have a full relationship with Israel,” which has apparently been expressed behind closed doors on multiple occasions. According to the piece, Trump adviser Jared Kushner and Saudi Crown Prince bin Salman “had agreed on the outlines of what they called a Middle East strategic alliance,” with Israel serving as a “silent partner” and the US standing firm against Iran,

The article contains a quote from the Saudi prince, who told the magazine, “I’m going to deliver the Palestinians,” while while Trump “is going to deliver the Israelis.”

In addition to revelations about secret alliances in the Middle East, the article also details Trump’s aversion to Mahmoud Abbas’ anti-Semitic rhetoric, in addition to the president’s dismay at the Palestinian Authority’s refusal to stop paying salaries to terrorists and the families of those killed while committing deadly attacks.

1b) The Ettinger Report

By Cal Thomas

The unprecedented, historic and weird summit (Dennis Rodman might be there) between President Trump and North Korea’s Kim Jong-un, scheduled to begin Tuesday, if there are no surprises, could produce the de-nuclearization of the Korean Peninsula, or just more of the same lies and dissembling from North Korea we have seen before.

These days, world events do not occur in a vacuum.

Former Israeli diplomat Yoram Ettinger advises President Trump to see an interconnection between a potential deal with North Korea and the flawed nuclear deal with Iran made by the Obama administration.

On his blog The Ettinger Report, he writes: ” the overall conduct of both rogue regimes — as far as abandoning or advancing nuclearization, ending or expanding terrorism, subversion and ballistic capabilities — has been immensely impacted by the U.S. negotiation posture. Thus, the less assertive and more eager is the U.S., and the more reluctant it is to use the military option, the less deterred and the more radicalized are Iran and North Korea.”

He goes on to make a point that should be obvious from even a cursory study of history, which is that dictators look for weaknesses in their adversaries and exploit what they find. That Mr.Trump demonstrated strength and resolve when he wrote Mr. Kim a letter, initially canceling the summit after some of Mr.

Kim’s associates threatened the United States, is likely what led to a quick re-scheduling of the event. Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani demonstrated his gift for overstatement when he said Mr. Kim got “back on his hands and knees” begging for the get-together, but with some hubris modification he has a point.

What has perceived weakness in both the Clinton and Obama administrations produced? Mr. Ettinger, who remembers more than these administrations would like us to forget, writes: “Since the July 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (the Iran Nuclear Agreement), the Ayatollahs have radicalized and intensified their military involvement in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and Yemen, as well as their subversive and terrorist operations, aiming to topple all pro-U.S. Arab regimes in the Persian Gulf, the Arabian Peninsula (primarily Saudi Arabia and Bahrain), Jordan and Egypt, as well as multitude of pro-Western regimes in Asia and Africa, and entrenching their anti-U.S. presence in Latin America.”

Furthermore, he notes, “Since July 2015, The Shia’ Ayatollahs have escalated their subversive efforts to annex the Saudi-supported island of Bahrain, which they consider an Iranian province, where a 70 percent Shia’ majority is ruled by the Sunni House of Khalifa. In the process, Tehran has smuggled military systems to its terrorist network in Bahrain.”

It is why Ronald Reagan’s slogan (and more than a slogan) “peace through strength” worked and why peace through appeasement never does.

Iran behaves as if the nuclear agreement with the U.S. gave it a green light to step up its support of terrorism. Iran is already tops in that category.

Mr. Ettinger concludes his analysis with this: “Since July 2015, the Ayatollahs have bolstered their military assistance to the anti-Saudi Houthi (mostly Shia’) rebels in Yemen. They consider Yemen — Saudi Arabia’s southern neighbor — a platform to launch missiles into Saudi Arabia, in an attempt to destabilize and topple the House of Saud. Simultaneously, the Ayatollahs have expanded their incitement of — and subversive initiatives in — the oil-rich, Shia’-dominated regions of Al Hassa’ and Qatif in the eastern part of Saudi Arabia.”

One hopes Mr. Trump has done at least a quick study of history — past and more recent — and is learning that only strength deters dictators from their ambitious goals. Any agreement with North Korea should be treated with the same skepticism one would have when dealing with Satan himself.

• Cal Thomas is a nationally syndicated columnist. His latest book is “What Works: Common Sense Solutions for a Stronger America” (Zondervan, 2014).

Ambassador (ret.) Yoram Ettinger, Jerusalem, Israel, "Second Thought: US-Israel Initiative"  

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1c) America's Europe Problem

By Peter Skurkiss

What with President Trump blowing up the recently concluded G-7 summit in Canada, it is likely that the Europeans now know that Trump's 'Make America Great Again' rhetoric is not idle talk. This is a shock for Europe, especially with the G-7 meeting coming soon after America's imposition of steel and aluminum tariffs and its withdrawal from the Obama-Iran nuclear deal. It is hard for Europeans to believe that America is willing to depart from the script of the last 70 years.

That script was basically that the United States would maintain international order at its own cost and allow its markets to be open to allies without the expectation that their markets would be equally open to American exports.

Europe (and others) flourished under such treatment. Their defense expenditures were at bargain basement prices and the door to the massive U.S. market was open wide. America benefited, too, as such a strategy was needed to contain and ultimately defeat the USSR. But the Cold War ended 30 years ago. What was good for the U.S. then is a millstone around America's neck now.

Under this post-WWII arrangement, Europe enjoyed continuous trade surplus with the U.S. In 2016 it was $92 billion, of which $65 billion was with Germany alone.  Such surpluses were not on account of the superiority of European products. After all, America leads the world by a large margin in innovations. No, the trade surpluses were due to tariffs and other barriers Europe has erected to our exports with the tacit approval of the Clinton-Bush-Obama administrations.

Europeans see the status quo in trade as inviolable. It's what they've grown accustomed to. And Europe needs this asymmetric relationship to continue as it helps underpin their massive welfare states. When Trump rants about the trade imbalance, Europe's strategy is to admit to it behind closed doors and then negotiate.

This would involve talking the issue to death, after-which the U.S. would be granted some symbolic but meaningless concessions, and life would go on as usual. This is Europe's treasured multilateral approach. Trump, however, knows the game that's afoot, and he's opted for a unilateral opening to sensitize the Europeans and others of the need for meaningful change.

The Europeans, the globalists, and those wedded to the past can tout Europe as an American ally all they want, but the fact is there are a number of inherent incompatibilities between us and them. This by itself will limit how close the two sides can get in terms of trade and foreign policy issues. Americans are from Mars, and Europeans are from Venus. Each has its own interests and worldview. With that in mind, the trade dispute is understandable.

For the foreseeable future, it can be expected that the U.S. and Europe will move further apart, not to become enemies, but the close alliance beween the two were during the Cold War era is over. This readjustment  is painful. America is unburdening itself. The cost will fall on others, hence the squeals from Angela Merkel, Emmanuel Macron, and others. 

It would be a mistake to blame Donald Trump for this. The drift has been happening since the end of the Cold War in 1988. At most, Trump is accelerating the process, a process that will continue after he's out of office. If you don't believe this, look at the 2016 election. Both candidates in the Democrat primary were against what is called 'free trade.' Bernie Sanders was more outspoken than Hillary Clinton, but even Hillary spoke against Bill Clinton's North American Free Trade Agreement  (NAFTA)   and was vocally critical of the Barack Obama-negotiated Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP).

And looking ahead to 2020, name a likely presidential candidate who will support “free trade.” Those making noise about it now include Jeff Flake, John Kasich, Paul Ryan, and Joe Biden. How likely is it that any of such a group will have traction with voters? The fact is that it's America itself which has turned from the system it created in the aftermath of WWII. The view is that system has served its purpose, and it is now not worth the cost of maintaining. It's time to move on. As Trump has said, the U.S. will no longer be the piggy bank for the world. I do not think Europe has fully internalized this reality yet, but in time they will.

America's relationship with Europe has been unusually rocky lately. Main points of friction have been President Trump and his withdrawal from both the Paris Climate Accord and the Obama-Iran nuclear deal. Neither of these were ever in America's best interest nor were they ever submitted to Congress let alone approved. Yet Europe had its prestige wrapped up in them.

Israel is always a sore point with the Europeans. Moving of the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem and the U.S. veto for the motion of condemning Israel for the Gaza flair up have aggravated the situation.

Europe's meager spending on NATO has been a chronic problem for years, but more so since President Trump has made it high visibility issue. Here, the U.S. is mystified and now weary as to why wealthy Europe hardly lift a finger to defend itself while for their part the Europeans are sick and tired of being hectored about it.

What is the European mindset that drives such divisions? Knowing the answer can go a long way in understanding why Europeans act as they do and what to expect from them in the future as it related to America.,

There are at least two aspects of the European mindset worth discussing. The first and most obvious is the power gap between us and them. The United States is a tower of strength while Europe is relatively weak -- so weak that it's a military pygmy.

Naturally, strong powers view the world quite differently from weak ones. From their vantage point, Europe thinks America is too confrontational, too militaristic, and too dangerous. Time and time again, Europe has shown a high tolerance towards malevolent states whereas the U.S. hasn't. This history stretches back from the USSR in the Cold War and Iraq's Saddam Hussein to the mullahs in Iran today. This appeasement attitude vexes the U.S. It springs from weakness and leads to denial.

The Europeans feels they cannot do much of anything about situations outside of the Continent. Or even within, as the Europeans couldn't even act on the ethnic cleansing in Kosovo and the Balkans without the U.S. taking.

Robert Kagan, in Of Paradise and Power, gives a nifty analogy to describe the situation:

A man armed only with a knife may decide that a bear prowling the forest is a tolerable danger, inasmuch as the alternative -- hunting the bear armed only with a knife -- is actually riskier than lying low and hoping the bear never attacks. The same man with a rifle, however, will make a different calculation of what constitutes a tolerable risk. Why should he risk being mauled to death if he doesn't have to? This perfectly normal human psychology has driven a wedge between the United States and Europe.

To wit, those who have the ability to solve problems are more likely to attempt fixes than those who lack the skill and capability to do so. The Europeans know but are loath to admit that when danger or a disaster arises, the U.S. is expected to do something about it. This goes not just for confronting a rogue regimes like Iran and North Korea but also for natural occurrences like the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami. America is viewed as the ultimate enforcer of world order.

This then raises a logical question. Although Europe is weak, why don't the Europeans at least support U.S. efforts when trying to address dangers instead of throwing up roadblocks? Part of the answer is pride. Many in Europe remember the glory days when Europe set the pace for the rest of mankind. True, that was centuries ago, but the afterglow remains. Since the European Union cannot participate as an equal partner with the U.S., they often opt to sit on the sidelines and Monday morning quarterback as a way of claiming superiority.

If it sometimes seems as if Europeans are trying to diminish the U.S. and constrain it, that's because they are. This is a symptom of the current mindset throughout Western Europe. It flows from the bitter experience Europe had in the first half of the 20th Century. Because of the horrors of WWI and WWII, things like nationalism, military power, and unilateralism have become an anathema to the European elite. These, however are among the characteristics that also define the U.S. You see the problem? And if the European grandees honestly studied their history, they'd see that is was military weakness, not strength, that gave Hitler the green light to march and it was brute military strength that stopped him..

Kagan sums up the European mindset:

Europe's relative weakness has understandably produced a powerful European interest in building a world where military strength and hard power matter less than economic power, an international order where international law and international institutions matter more than the power of nations, where unilateral action by powerful states is forbidden, where all nations regardless of their strength have equal rights and are equally protected by commonly agreed-upon international rules of behavior.

The Europeans want Utopia. They may be our allies but that does not divert from the fact that they fear, envy, and even hate U.S. prowess. This helps explain why Europe is impassioned with institutions like the United Nations the International Court of Justice in the Hague, the World Trade Organization and the like. According to Kagan, the principle objective of European foreign policy is 'mulitlateralising' the U.S., that is, to constrain America to the point of near paralysis with the need for consensus before acting. That's great for Europe but not for America.

Poll after poll has shown that Europeans view the U.S. as the greatest threat to world peace. How can that be? Again, it goes back to the European mindset. "From the European perspective, the United States may be a relatively benign hegemon, but insofar as its actions delay the arrival of a world order more conducive to the safety of weaker powers, it is objectively dangerous.

Another reason for the divergence between the U.S. and Europe is "America's power and willingness to exercise that power -- unilaterally if necessary -- constitutes a threat to Europe's sense of mission" to spread its Utopian ideas worldwide. Unilateral action by the U.S. such as dealing with Iran "is an assault on Europe's new ideals, a denial of their universal validity." Subconsciously it causes Europe to further doubt itself.

There you have it. To Europe, America is dangerous because she's powerful (and Europe is not). The supreme irony here is that Europe would not be able to afford its fantasies of how the world could possibly work if it weren't for American power. A quick review is in order.

The U.S. saved Europe in WWI and WWII and again in the Cold War. Since the end of WWII, America is still defending Europe to this very day. The U.S. is also the linchpin for European prosperity by having our markets open to them and by protecting the vital maritime trade routes from all disruptions. And needless to say, the Europeans’ precious EU could never have formed if it weren't for the U.S. presence in Europe. That is what the induced the French lamb to lie down with the German wolf.  By any objective accounting, American power has been a huge blessing to an often ungrateful Europe.

Globalists and those wedded to the past can tout Europe as an American ally all they want, but the fact remains that there are inherent incompatibilities between us and them that will limit the closeness.

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2) No Two Ways About It: Obama Lied About Iran Deal

According to a new report from the Senate’s Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, the Obama administration lied to the American people about the kind of financial access Iran would have to our banks in the run-up to the disgraceful nuclear agreement. The committee’s report reveals that Obama granted Iran a license that would allow the Islamic theocracy to access U.S. financial systems…even after promising the public that this would not be a part of the deal. The deception is just the latest evidence that President Obama and his cohorts sank to unimaginable lows in trying to secure this deal, all in an effort to shore up a foreign policy legacy that is now, we gleefully report, in shambles.

“On Feb. 24, 2016, the Treasury Department issued a specific license to Bank Muscat to authorize the conversion of Iran’s rials to euros through ‘any United States depository institution,’” the report says. “Even after the specific license was issued, U.S. government officials maintained in congressional testimony that Iran would not be granted access to the U.S. financial system.”

In comments to Fox News, Sen. Rob Portman (R-OH) said there was no question that the president and his officials were deceptive in presenting the deal to the public.

“The Obama administration during the negotiation of the Iran deal misled the American people,” Portman said. “I think they did so because they were desperate to get a deal.”

Ultimately, the financial transaction outlined in the report never took place. American banks rejected the Obama administration’s efforts to pressure them into converting Iran’s money, forcing Iran to rely on a European bank to do the deed. According to the subcommittee, American financial institutions did not want word getting out that they were helping Iran get their hands on $5.7 billion in frozen assets, much less that they were violating U.S. sanctions to do so.

According to the AP, however, even that aspect of the agreement was not without its shady side. After the administration failed to convince American banks to violate (the administration’s own) sanctions, Obama officials “fanned out across Europe, Asia, and the Middle East trying to convince banks and businesses they could do business with Iran without violating sanctions and facing steep fines.” How did the Obama administration come to serve as Iran’s PR agency? Well, it was all part of the same terrible deal that allowed Iran to put a halt to their nuclear enrichment for a few years, with only limited inspection authority, in the name of striking a blow for world peace!

President Trump made the right call last month when he pulled the U.S. out of this terrible agreement, but the damage Obama did when he handed billions to this terrorist state can never fully be undone.

He wanted to cement his foreign policy legacy, and by god, he did just that.

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3)

De Niro and friends have run out of things to say.

By Dov Fischer -

Back in my yeshiva high school days during the 1970s, there were two teachers who most impacted my life: Rabbi Dardac of blessed righteous memory, who taught Torah and Jewish laws and customs, and Mr. Joseph Strum, my freshman-year English teacher. Mr. Strum imbued me with a love of the English language and of writing. (So you can blame him for my columns.) Along the way, he once opined that the only awards show on television worth watching was the Tony Awards. Consequently, I started watching and never again missed another Tony Awards.  I started going to the theater — musicals, dramatic performances — and in time became a loyal subscriber to several theatrical seasons.

I have not watched an Oscars or Emmy Awards program for years.  Let Meryl Streep worship Harvey Weinstein as “God” — to a standing ovation by the lemmings… lemmings… in the echo chamber… chamber — and let her demand a pardon for child-rapist Roman Polanski, thus winning another standing ovation by the lemmings… lemmings… in the echo chamber… chamber — but I have better things to do, like watch the grass grow. Yet I continued watching the Tony Awards.

I am not homosexual, and I must say that I feel, by now, quite invaded by the degree to which so much of the Tony Awards becomes moral lecturing about LGBTQ advocacy. For me it is common sense and a matter of basic human decency that all people must be treated fairly and equally. I do not care about their skin color, their country of origin, their accents, how they worship (except for Streep, who apparently genuflected to Harvey Weinstein as her God), or how they love. I do not care. I do not want to hear that a person is heterosexual either.  Sexual behavior and orientation is a private matter, not for others to invade into my family room. If gay people today really were facing the kind of low-level discrimination that I face, even now, as an Orthodox Jew, I still would not want to hear about it. Yes, there was a time, not long ago, when the matter of gay-bashing, even murder of innocents, really was a serious civil issue that demanded societal attention. But now the time has come to preserve equality and rights that have been won and to let the Tonys be about celebrating achievement. And I speak as someone who privately, outside the limelight, has been a counselor, a mentor, a rabbinic pastor to gay people who have turned to me and continue doing so for assistance and support when no one else would give the time of day. Yet the time has come to let the Tony Awards be about celebrating the theater.

This season a new invasion took place at The Tonys. Even as all the entertainment echo chambers from Hollywood to Broadway reverberate with liberal mantras, these recent seasons — since the Plague of Obama — have seen a new level of liberal triumphalism at the awards shows, like in the mainstream media and in academia, where liberals surround themselves exclusively with other liberals and with closet conservatives who fear exposing their true beliefs because they will get fired and blacklisted for life as only liberals can do to people with incorrect views. And the target these days is President Donald J. Trump.  That targeting reached its latest nadir at this year’s Tonys when Robert De Niro spoke the words “F – – –  Trump” onstage and got rewarded by the lemmings… lemmings… lemmings in the echo chamber… chamber… chamber with a thunderous standing ovation.

Because I not only am Jewish, an Orthodox rabbi, but also have a graduate degree in History with my thesis having been written on an aspect of 1930s Nazism and fascism, I have, shall we say, more than a passing interest in Hitlerism. When ignorant individuals who have no knowledge of history and are particularly ignorant of Hitler and the Nazis ascend stages to compare this contemporary or that one to Hitler, they manifest the vastness of hollow space on all sides of their Eustachian tube. Their heads are bereft of gray matter. As a student of history, let me tell you what a Hitler-like Nazi-like President of the United States would have done these past 500 days:

He would have had Chuck Schumer put into a concentration camp. He would have had medical experiments done on Nancy Pelosi and Maxine Waters. He would have had Robert Mueller and his entire investigatory team murdered in the middle of the night, the same night, with long knives. Lisa Payne and Peter Strzok would be in concentration camps now, working twenty-hour days for the Bayer Aspirin or Ford Motor companies, businesses who in the 1940s got rich off Nazi-provided slave labor. Jeff Sessions would have been fired.  Writers at the Washington Post and New York Times would be dead or in concentration camps. Instead of wrangling with Jeff Bezos, the Government would now own Amazon. And CNN. And Time-Warner. Several or all of the four Democrat Supreme Court justices would be in concentration camps or dead. Not only would ten million illegals have been rounded up by now, but they would not necessarily have been deported because they, too, would be in cattle cars now, en route to concentration camps, gas chambers, and ovens for the Final Solution of the border issue. There would be no haggling and negotiating for votes in the House or Senate; rather, the Congress would have been disbanded, the Constitution suspended, and we now would be invading Mexico instead of negotiating over NAFTA and steel and aluminum tariffs. And — for snarky extreme-right conservatives who might be mumbling “Hmmm, not so bad” — many of those snarky conservatives, too, now would be dead or en route to ovens because their neighbors may have ratted them out in order to grab their houses after their arrests. And, yes, their kids also would be dead.

Imbeciles like Robert De Niro, who nevertheless remains one of my favorite actors ever — because I distinguish a person’s art from his intellect — have absolutely no idea what it means to have a President who is a fascist, a Nazi. And may they live in such ignorance for the rest of their blissful lives, particularly if they keep giving us performances like those in The Godfather, Bang the Drum Slowly, The Deer Hunter, Goodfellas, Cape Fear, Analyze This — and so many others that they would consume the space of this page. May De Niro ever live ignorant of what a real fascist in the White House would be like. May we all.

At the Tony Awards, De Niro forgets that the psychopath in Taxi Driver or Cape Fear is just a scripted act, and he now simply is standing on a stage of live make-believe talking to a room full of like-“minded” clapping seals who themselves all are make-believe: Make believe makeup to hide what their faces and complexions actually look like in real life when they wake up and look in the mirror. With make-believe body parts augmented by chemicals imported from Silicon Valley. With make-believe voices that, lovely though they be, are synthesized and amplified and mixed by machines to sound different from what they sound like when real. With clothes tailored to hide and camouflage what is real.

In this environment, when De Niro stands up and says “F – – – Trump” to the approving hoots and squeals of joy echoed from clapping seal to clapping seal (who themselves do not clap until they see the higher-regarded tier-one seals clapping to cheer the profanity, giving it their seal of approval), he may feel validated and vindicated within… within… within… the echo chamber… chamber… chamber. Yet he does himself and his cause a great disservice. That disservice stems from the English language historically having a certain very few words that are so offensive, so outside the universe of permitted utterance, that they remain available to convey, in an emergency, only the most intense opprobrium a mouth can utter. It is the word meant for Hitler. But when words like that are employed to attack a law-abiding, duly elected President of the United States, who — though he fulminates on Twitter — comports his every day in the White House in complete harmony with the Constitutional restraints that limit his options, the word loses its meaning.

“F – – -” has lost its meaning, the meaning it had when I grew up.  Similarly, when I was growing up, there was one more word that was even more forbidden than that one; it was so proscribed that many of us did not even know the word existed and surely had no idea what it meant. It was the “C” word. Nowadays, that word can be used by a “comedian” to describe the daughter of the President of the United States. This “comedian” herself has no import. I did not even know her name, much less that she had a TV show, much less know what television station airs the show, nor know what days or times. A “comedian” in an era of too many unfunny “comedians” who lack wit, timing, sprite insight, originality — and who basically get their laughs from clapping seals… seals… seals in the echo chamber… chamber… chamber, only when they attach a filthy one-syllable profanity to the persona of someone associated with conservative views.

In this culturally wretched cesspool, “F – – -” has lost its meaning. “C – – -” has lost its meaning. The words are repeated too often, too blithely, too perfunctorily. And the cost to our society is that we no longer have any words left in our lexicon for use to signal the cavalry if the day ever comes when a real Hitler arises here.

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4) A day on the front lines of the Gaza riot war

Seen from up close, the events on the Gaza border are clearly war, and despite criticism of its tactics, the IDF knows exactly where and why it is shooting. Its goal is to protect Israelis living near the border while minimizing Gazan casualties.

IDF troops on the Israeli side of the Gaza border, Friday   Photo: Reuters

No Israeli soldier shoots live ammunition without a green light from the brigade commander. Meanwhile, incendiary kites and improvised explosives constantly fly toward the troops, and Hamas operatives constantly try to incite the masses of Gaza protesters into breaching the border fence and infiltrating Israel, while the terrorist leaders stay safely back.

This has been the reality for soldiers and officers deployed on the Gaza border for several weeks now. As they move from one position to another under the oppressive sun, they have one goal in mind: to protect the Israeli communities next to the Gaza border.

The Israel-Gaza border fence has been the site of riots for 11 consecutive weekends, and Hamas has made every effort to bring the Gaza masses right up to the fence. Hamas is calling the protests “million-man”  demonstrations, although in fact only a few tens of thousands are showing up.

Still, that is a lot of people. And as we Israel Hayom reporters make our way toward the forces posted along the fence, we spot dozens of burning kites and balloons rigged with explosives in the smoky sky.

Hamas promised hundreds of kites, and it has kept its promise. During the protests, they launch these flaming kites, hoping they will land and cause harm. In the hot, dry climate, these kites turn into fire machines, and they have burned thousands of acres of Israeli farmland and forests. The roads near the border are full of fire trucks and JNF jeeps trying to prevent fires. But it's a hard job, and a tree that was alive and breathing one moment bursts into flames the next.

Through the smoke, one can see the mosques of Gaza. The closer you get to the fence, the blacker the smoke appears. The Israeli soldiers, who are being harshly judged by the entire world every day, tell us, “We can barely see anything. Everything's black.”

Reuters     
Palestinians riot at the Gaza border fence on Friday

Despite what people may think, the IDF guidelines for using live fire mean that the command chain – as high as the brigade commander – must give snipers a green light before they can pull the trigger. Tear gas is used to keep the crowds away from the fence, but it also affects our own troops, making their eyes burn. They don't have the privilege of washing their faces. They move between posts, facing angry protesters, and exercise an impressive level of restraint. They are aware of the huge responsibility they shoulder. Their goal is to protect residents of the Gaza periphery while simultaneously minimizing harm to innocent bystanders. But Hamas is sending the protesters on a suicide mission.

When the enraged mob armed with axes and knives reaches the fence, the criticism aimed at the IDF here and throughout the world suddenly seems incomprehensible and baseless. This is a war, and the soldiers and their commanders can account for the exact number of bullets fired, and where.

Protecting, not killing

The troops are not trying to kill; they are protecting the residents of nearby communities. A throng of protesters approaches the fence, shouting jubilantly – a sign that the fence is on the verge of being breached. Seven soldiers run toward them, using tear gas. Like a school of fish in the sea, the rioting mass suddenly changes course to try its luck elsewhere. There are about 3,000 protesters at this flashpoint, and the number of soldiers facing them appears minuscule.

The mentality prevalent here is different. For Hamas, casualties represent success. The blinking ambulance lights illuminate a collective loss of sanity. In the Western world, ambulances save lives, but on the other side of the fence, Hamas unscrupulously uses children and often the infirm, sending them charging toward the fence. I wonder if there can be hope for a place where ambulances bus sick people to the fence, instead of to hospitals.

Europe, which is so quick to judge Israel, cannot see from there the things that we see from here.


4a)

The Bad Iranian Deal Was Always Going to Get Worse By Victor Davis Hanson

Posted by Ruth King

The more we learn about it — as Iranian and Obama-administration deceptions are uncovered — the more we know it was a disaster from the start.

When Donald Trump withdrew from the so-called Iran deal in early May, almost all conventional wisdom in Washington was aghast.

The Left thought nullification would fast-track Iranian proliferation, incite more Iranian terrorism and adventurism, estrange our allies, and alienate a possible new friend.

Many on the conservative side (aside from Never Trumpers who are against anything Trump is for, including their own prior policies) thought it would have been wiser to back out slowly, or at least to have waited first for the duplicitous Iranians to get caught in clear violations, or to coordinate a joint withdrawal with the Europeans.

Few of these critics ever quite understood that the deal was already a stinking corpse, long overdue for burial. Iranian cunning and the strategic thinking about the asymmetrical deal had always aimed at the following trajectory:

Ostensibly postpone a bomb now, at a time when the regime was facing growing unrest and near bankruptcy from sanctions — and thus was in no position anyway to build an arsenal of bombs and missiles.

Keep occasionally cheating to ensure the apparatus for bomb-making was successfully hibernated — and therefore easily restarted at a future date.

Enjoy hundreds of billions of dollars in new commercial income over the next ten to 15 years to quiet domestic unrest, and to bank enough cash to go fully nuclear in the future.

Forge the so-called Shiite Crescent to the Mediterranean, by dominating Bashir al-Assad’s weak Syria, exploring anti-Sunni possibilities in Yemen, and bulking up Hezbollah’s Lebanon, while stocking a huge arsenal of preemptive missiles based near Israel. Hope that Iran’s regional strategic stature would only improve over the next decade.

Expect natural breakthroughs in technology to make future bomb-making easier and cheaper when the accord expired.

There is no wonder, then, why almost every news story about the Iran deal has confirmed the wisdom of getting out of it.

1) On the eve of Trump’s decision to withdraw from the deal, Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s dramatic televised disclosures of captured Iranian documents more or less confirmed the obvious: Iran never had any intention of forgoing its nuclear-bomb-making efforts, as implied by prior politicized national-intelligence estimates. The only mystery was why Iran had carefully recorded evidence of its own deception. In eerie fashion, it was almost as if at some future date Iran had planned to add insult to injury by reminding its mugged partners just how gullible they had been. Or perhaps some Iranian diplomatic grandees feared that in revolutionary Tehran, any purported appeasers would have been tried for treason, so they needed documentary evidence that they had been patriotic cheaters all along.

2) To swing the deal, the Obama administration sent advisers around the banking world to facilitate Iranian efforts to convert their released embargoed funds into Great Satan currency — a warping of the American financial system that was ostensibly illegal at the time. In other words, the Obama administration for some strange reason more or less went beyond the requirements of the Iran deal and used the U.S. government to help undermine its own restrictions on facilitating Iranian commerce and banking — while keeping the entire sordid mess quiet as they hectored skeptics of the deal as naïve or conspiratorial. Such habitual Obama-administration deception and conniving may explain why former secretary of state John Kerry this May so publicly and nonchalantly met Iranian representatives overseas, apparently seeing nothing wrong in the attempt to undermine the very policies of his own president. Old habits die hard.

3) Recently, we’ve seen more of the same Iranian self-congratulation for their own powers of deception — this time relating to the September 11 attacks. After the cancellation of the Iran deal, Iran’s state-controlled television mysteriously released the Farsi-language confessionals of one Mohammad-Javad Larijani. He is a supposed “international-affairs assistant” who conceded that Iranian intelligence officers had intentionally given the 9/11 al-Qaeda murderers safe transit through the Islamic Republic before 9/11. The natural logic is that only thanks to Iran’s complicity did the World Trade Center implode. One wonders to what degree Larijani’s bizarre boast is true or the sick and spiteful baiting of a sore loser — or whether the Obama administration knew of such rumored Iranian 9/11 involvement in 9/11 at the time of the Iran deal. In any case, Iran made official what most knew from 1979 onward: It has been in a perpetual war with the United States, whom it fears and hates.

4) Given the Iranian sense of inferiority and its tic of goading its hated Great Satan rival, expect more such disclosures in the future, as Iran now tries to humiliate the U.S. for its prior stupidity as recompense for its inability to leverage our imbecility any further.

5) With a wink and nod, Iran also announced that its supposedly mothballed nuclear facility at Natanz will restart uranium enrichment with new centrifuges, but for now theoretically in accordance with the Iran deal. We are supposed to think that the trustworthy Iranians would not have done that, or would not have been capable of doing that, had Trump just kept up the nonproliferation charade. Or is it worse than that? Are they again hinting that they the deal was so bad and their proliferation efforts so easily jump-started, that they have always had only contempt for those so stupid to take them at their word?

As Trump saw, contradictions always doomed the agreement.

For all practical purposes, the U.S. after 2015 was a de facto partner of the Iranian regime and quite astonishingly assumed that the American-hating, anti-Semitic regime ‘could be a very successful regional power.’

The deal, after all, was a monstrosity born out of desperation for an Obama signature legacy. Or was it a product of an ahistorical, naïve, and therapeutic view of human nature — assuming that even theocrats and thugs view generosity as outreach to be reciprocated in kind rather than as abject proof of weakness to be exploited to the fullest? Or worse still, the deal was the manifestation of an unhinged view of the Middle East. For Obama, a revolutionary Shiite and Persian Iran was justified in seeking parity in the Middle East and attempting to carve out a legitimate sphere of influence. The ascendance of such an Iranian crescent, at least in the view of the Obama administration, would “check” the influence of both democratic Israel and the so-called more moderate authoritarian Sunni regimes in the Gulf and Egypt and Jordan. To believe in such a yarn, Obama would have to have believed either in some sort of dramatic and looming Iranian revolution to overthrow the mullahs, or an absurd theocratic enlightenment, or that whatever Iran did would not be as pernicious as what its enemies in the Middle East were doing. No matter: For all practical purposes, the U.S. after 2015 was a de facto partner of the Iranian regime and quite astonishingly assumed that the American-hating, anti-Semitic regime “could be a very successful regional power.”

Where do we go from here?

The cards are all still in U.S. hands.

Sanctions will increasingly strangle the regime, despite the protest of profit-hungry but otherwise largely disarmed and colluding European regimes.

Israel has a more or less free hand to conduct preemptive strikes against the Iranian arsenal in Syria and Lebanon that are posed to strike the Jewish state.

Any possible North Korea deal will probably curtail the transfer of Chinese and North Korean nuclear technology to the Iranian regime.

Trump is already triangulating with Russia, and one element of such art of the deal-making could be a quid pro quo flipping of Russia from Iran and expelling them from Syria.

Given strong U.S. economic news, radical increases in U.S. energy development, and determination to recalibrate missile defense, America will get stronger in the years ahead as Iran grows weaker.

For the next two-and-a-half years, Iran is stuck with Donald Trump. If it tries to hijack another U.S. boat or sends another missile near an American carrier, Trump and defense secretary James Mattis will not react the same way Barack Obama did. Rather, they are likely to take military steps to preclude the Iranian ability ever again to replicate the aggression — a fact known to Iran, to the delight of its enemies and to the worry of its few friends.

The Iran deal was born in deceit, sold through deception, and kept alive by willful blindness.

Finally, if Iran makes serious new efforts to nuclearize, Egypt and Saudi Arabia may match Iran bomb for bomb. Iran would be facing three unpredictable Middle Eastern nuclear powers, in a neighborhood full of existing nuclear, volatile nations: China, India, Pakistan, and Russia.

The Iran deal was born in deceit, sold through deception, and kept alive by willful blindness. The more we were told it could not be nullified, the more malodorous it became. Nothing since its death has proven it wise; everything has confirmed it really was, in the words of Trump, “a “disaster.”

A final note. The looming “Korean deal” should be approached by employing the very opposite methodology used in Obama’s Iran deal: Be prepared to walk away; assume North Korea will cheat; do not separate its terrorist behavior or ballistic missiles from its promises to denuclearize; and focus on its nuclear patrons, without which there could be no North Korean bomb; expect even a denuclearized North Korea to remain an enemy of the U.S; do not invest presidential stature in the mercurial whims of a thug.

4b)

Shin Bet chief reveals Israel has prevented 250 terror attacks in 2018

By YONAH JEREMY BOB

Using traditional and new big data abilities, the Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) has prevented 250 terror attacks so far in 2018, Director Nadav Argaman told a group of visiting interior security ministers at a closed session of a Jerusalem international conference on terror hosted by Public Security Minister Gilad Erdan.

Though Argaman's presentation was closed to the public, the Shin Bet provided a summary to the media.

Argaman said that the agency had succeeded in blocking major terror attacks involving suicide bombings, kidnappings and shootings.

The Shin Bet chief said that especially big data abilities had helped the agency to hone in on lone wolf attackers in a way that had been impossible before Israeli intelligence advanced its abilities in massively tracking postings on social media.

He said that the Shin Bet was striking the right balance between continuing its effective human intelligence collection programs and new cyber intelligence gathering abilities, and that one of his flagship issues had been to stay ahead of the curve in using technology to fight terror.

Previously, Argaman has disclosed that the Shin Bet's technological workforce under him has jumped from single digits to representing around one-quarter of the work force.



Argaman also emphasized that importance of “strategic cooperation with our international partners in Israel and overseas as well as with the Israeli hi-tech community and other civilian bodies.”

In May, the Jerusalem Post exclusively obtained an article by Argaman written in an intelligence journal in which he wrote that while the Shin Bet was using big data in powerful ways to fight terror, that “the world of big data and cyber confronts the intelligence community with more complex challenges than ever before.”

He wrote in that article that, “looking forward, our enemies are not stagnant, as the world of big data develops and broadens and technology is becoming more advanced every minute.”

In December, Argaman told the Knesset’s Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee that the agency had thwarted over 400 terrorist attacks in 2017, including 13 suicide attacks and 8 kidnappings, as well as 1,100 potential lone-wolf attacks.

He further noted at that time that in 2017, 54 attacks were successfully carried out, in comparison with 108 successful attacks in 2016.

In 2016, the Shin Bet stopped 344 major attacks, meaning the total number of thwarted and successful attacks was similar for 2016 and 2017, but the security agency succeeded in thwarting more of them in 2017.

The major improvement was seen in the 400 potential lone-wolf attacks prevented in 2016, compared to 1,100 such potential attacks in 2017.

Those numbers, however, are the subject of much debate.

Law enforcement and intelligence officials in several countries have told The Jerusalem Post that while Israel is a pioneer in discerning and stopping potential lone-wolf attackers before they launch an attack, the line between busting people for social media posts that are free speech and those that are dangerous incitement is a fine one.

Some of those officials refuse to use such statistics to boost their credibility when reporting to their own legislative bodies, viewing the category of “potential attacker” as being too amorphous. Sometimes the Shin Bet thwarts potential attackers by arresting them, but sometimes it counters them on social media or has a serious sit-down talk and merely issues a warning.

4c)

In a first, Haley proposes U.N. General Assembly vote to condemn Hamas

By MICHAEL WILNER

WASHINGTON — The Trump administration is responding to a scheduled Wednesday vote in the UN General Assembly condemning Israel's recent actions in Gaza with a counter-vote, in which the 193-nation body would separately vote to condemn Hamas.

The General Assembly is set to vote on an Arab-backed resolution on "protection of the Palestinian civilian population," after a similar measure, drafted by Kuwait, was vetoed by the US in the Security Council last week. After that vote, the US' envoy to the UN, Nikki Haley, proposed a second resolution that would condemn Hamas' recent rocket firings on Israeli territory.

The US resolution failed, as well.

Now Haley will execute a similar tactic, offering an amendment to the Arab-backed resolution that will receive a referendum before the full resolution is put to a vote. A letter from Haley sent to fellow ambassadors and obtained by The Jerusalem Post explains her rationale.

The Arab-backed text is "fundamentally imbalanced" and "ignores basic truths about the situation in Gaza," Haley wrote. "In particular, the draft places all responsibility for the current situation on Israel."

The US amendment, she said, "deserves a vote in the General Assembly. It is not controversial; the amendment is a simple condemnation of behavior we should all recognize as harmful to the Palestinian people. Obstructing a vote on this amendment would be the same as failing to condemn Hamas."

The measure not only condemns Hamas, but also "demands that Hamas cease all violent activity and provocative actions," including its construction of military infrastructure used to infiltrate the Jewish state.

Over 120 Palestinians have died in protests on Gazan side of the Israeli border in recent weeks, prompted by a series of events, including Nakba Day and the relocation of the US embassy in Israel to Jerusalem. Israeli and Hamas officials alike say that the majority of casualties were Hamas officials, but the Arab-backed resolution characterizes IDF actions in Gaza as "excessive, disproportionate and indiscriminate force," and declines to mention Hamas' role.

"'Hamas' is not mentioned even once in the text," Haley continued. "This omission should be unacceptable to all Member States, given that Hamas fired over 100 rockets at Israel last month, provoked violent uprisings, and obstructed the flow of humanitarian aid to the Palestinian people."

Haley's decision to propose the amendment carries some diplomatic risk. A resulting vote that fails to condemn the militant organization might play into Hamas' messaging at home, that the organization holds some legitimacy in the United Nations. Sources tell the Post they expect the vote to fail but for there to be a large number of abstentions.

"We welcome the American amendment condemning the terrorists of Hamas," said Danny Danon, Israel's ambassador to the UN, in a statement. "It is despicable for any country to even consider to vote for a resolution condemning Israel while refusing to support the condemnation of Hamas."

"Such behavior is hypocritical at best," Danon continued, "and at worst amounts to openly emboldening an internationally recognized terrorist organization responsible for the deaths of countless of innocent people."

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