Now back to the world of Jihad 3. (See 1 and 1a below.)
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An idea for Landings residents who are no longer anxious to participate in Savannah's downtown activities.
One of the great successes of Europe is their cities. One of the great tragedies in our country are our cities but many are now undergoing a renaissance.
I began coming to Savannah on a regular basis in 1970 and moved here in 2002. In the '70's Savannah's downtown was a wasteland, a few decent restaurants but nothing like today.
Savannah has become a destination city. Just this week we had the 20th annual Film Festival drawing the likes of Richard Gere, Selma Hayek among other notables, A 5K race, The Ya'll Jewish Food Festival and an LGBT parade.
Parking, traffic and fear of crime has reduced the number of Landings residents who are willing to partake in what is going on downtown and that is a shame, of which, I too am guilty.
Black on black and gang crime remains a serious problem and a stray bullet knows no color. That said, I submit the following suggestion.
Get a group of 4 to 6, drive to one of the empty parking lots, say the JEA and take a LYFT from there. The cost, when divided among the group, will not be much more than the elevated parking fees and extended pay hours and you will be dropped off at your destination.
When the heart of a city dies, the city dies and Savannah has so much to offer. The historic district is one of the nation's largest, the physical beauty of the city is indescribable, the ambiance cannot be beat. The layout of Savannah is amazing, the many parks are wonderful places to sit and observe the passerby's. Our museums and other historic sites are wonderful and the many students add high energy.
I understand the reluctance to get involved in tumult. After all, most of those who live at The Landings have seen and done most of their bucket list and simply want to play golf, tennis and help in a variety of ways, ie tutoring, reading to kids, charity involvement and you name it. Savannah without The Landings would not be the same.
Tomorrow we are raising money at one of our marina's in order to buy a companion dog for a returning vet. We are an amazing community. Savannah is an amazing city. One without the other does not work.
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Brazille spills. Virtuous Hillary or Crooked Hillary? You decide, apparently Brazille has. (See 2 below.)
Will the deception never end? (See 2a below.)
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Is Netanyahu correct? (See 3 below.)
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Kim compares Flake and Gillespie. Guess who comes out smelling better? (See 4 below.)
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Dick
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1) Prepare Yourself for Jihad 3.0
Radical Islamic terrorists will revive their movement. The U.S. needs to focus on defeating the ideology.
Tuesday’s terrorist attack in New York City, committed by an immigrant from Uzbekistan, is a reminder that radical political Islam won’t end with the recent defeat of Islamic State in Raqqa.
Just as the fall of the Taliban in Afghanistan soon after 9/11 did not mark the end of al Qaeda, extremist forces in the Muslim world will continue to resuscitate themselves in other forms, in other theaters. If al Qaeda was Jihad 1.0 in our era, and ISIS was Jihad 2.0, we should now prepare for Jihad 3.0. Islamism will continue to be a U.S. national-security concern for years to come.
The New York attacker, Sayfullo Saipov, did not match the standard profile of a jihadi terrorist. He was likely self-radicalized, did not overtly belong to a major terrorist group, and would not have been denied entry under President Trump’s “travel ban” due to his country of origin.
In trying to re-create an Islamic state, radical Islamists draw inspiration from 14 centuries of history. It is important to understand the various Muslim “revivalist” movements, involving various degrees of violence and challenges to the global order of the time. Contemporary radicals often reach into the past to find models for organization and mobilization
It is not a coincidence that al Qaeda (literally “the base”) tried to establish itself first in Sudan before finding a home in Afghanistan. Both Sudan and the Afghanistan-Pakistan border region had experienced jihad against European powers resulting in short-lived Islamic states in relatively recent times.
ISIS’ choice of Syria and Iraq to declare a caliphate was also a function of the Islamist reverence for historic precedents. Damascus was the capital of the Umayyad Caliphate (661-750), and Baghdad was the base of the Abbasid Caliphate (750-1258).
In Sudan, Muhammad Ahmad declared himself Mahdi (“the reviver”) and established an unrecognized state from 1885-99 before being defeated by the British. The Mahdists terrorized locals, persecuted religious minorities (notably Coptic Christians), revived the slave trade, and challenged Egypt and its protector, Britain. The death of the movement’s founder in 1885 did not mark the end of jihad.
Eventually, the British defeated the Mahdists militarily with an Anglo-Egyptian force. They also used traditional religious and tribal structures and institutions to challenge Mahdist ideology. Today the Mahdists exist as a Sufi order rather than an extremist group.
Similarly, the Afghanistan-Pakistan border area became the base for the jihad movement of Syed Ahmed Barelvi in 1826. Just as Osama bin Laden moved from Saudi Arabia, giving up a comfortable life, Syed Ahmed came from northeastern Indian nobility. He mobilized funds throughout the subcontinent, moved it through the hawala system, and bought arms to use against the British-aligned Sikh empire along the border of modern-day Afghanistan.
Although he was killed in 1831, ending his short-lived Islamic state, Syed Ahmed’s followers continued their random stabbing campaign against the British for another 70 years. Driving cars or trucks into crowds is today’s equivalent of that terrorist campaign.
Eventually, the British deployed military and intelligence means to defeat the jihadists. They also discredited the terrorists’ beliefs by supporting Muslim leaders who opposed radical ideas.
In the Middle East, the Ottoman Empire had less success in dealing with the Wahhabis, who fought the empire for control over the Arabian Peninsula through much of the 19th century. After creating the modern state of Saudi Arabia in 1932, the Wahhabis modified their approach to international relations, though not their theology. Al Qaeda and ISIS manifest the more radical beliefs of the Wahhabis and, though opposed by the modern state of Saudi Arabia, can be construed as a continuation of their Wahhabi teaching.
The U.S. is not capable of whole-scale changes to Islamic theology, nor is it in America’s purview. And portraying the contemporary struggle as a battle with Islam risks making the world’s Muslim population—1.8 billion people—Islamic State’s recruiting pool.
Islam means different things to different people and has been practiced in many ways among various sects across the world and throughout time. The doctrine of jihad is open to interpretation, much like the Christian notion of “just war.” Muslims who consider Islam a religion, not a political ideology, and who pursue piety, not conquest, remain important partners for the U.S.
The U.S. must re-evaluate its alliances in the Muslim world based on whether or not partners encourage extremism. Saudi Arabia’s recent avowal to teach moderation in religion, emulating the United Arab Emirates’ campaign against radical Islamism, deserves American support, as does Morocco’s decision to work with the Holocaust Memorial Museum to educate its people about the Holocaust and teach tolerance.
On the other hand, Qatar’s support of the Muslim Brotherhood and Turkey’s decision to include jihadi teachings in its school curriculum indicate their support of radicalism.
Above all, the U.S. must focus on defeating radical Islamist ideology, not just its periodic manifestation in terrorist attacks.
Mr. Haqqani, director for South and Central Asia at the Hudson Institute in Washington, D.C., was Pakistan’s ambassador to the U.S., 2008-11.
1a)
Trove of Bin Laden documents reveal Iran's secret dealings with al-Qaeda
A file photograph dated 1998 showing Saudi-born billionaire Osama Bin Laden smiling as he sits in a cave in the Jalalabad region of Afghanistan. Credit: EPA
A newly released trove of documents recovered from Osama bin Laden’s Pakistan compound have revealed “secret dealings” between Iran and al-Qaeda.
Nearly half a million files found on the computer seized in the May 2, 2011, US raid on the al-Qaeda founder's hideout in Abbottabad were released by the CIA on Wednesday.
A never-before-seen 19-page document purportedly written by a senior member of al-Qaeda details an arrangement between Iran and members of the group to strike American interests in "Saudi Arabia and the Gulf."
Iranian intelligence facilitated the travel of some operatives with visas, while sheltering others.
The author of the file, described as "well-connected," explains that al-Qaeda's forces violated the terms of the agreement of the deal, however, resulting in several men being detained.
Iranian connections to Hizballah and Palestinian militant groups, such as Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad, are well-documented, but its ties to al-Qaeda have until now mostly been shrouded in secrecy.
The timing of the release comes as US President Donald Trump is trying to decertify a bilateral deal agreed with Iran to end its nuclear proliferation programme, which was negotiated by his predecessor Barack Obama and one which he has described as the “worst deal ever made”.
Mr Trump has been keen to portray Tehran as America’s greatest threat and will no doubt seize upon the documents as proof of the Islamic republic’s support for terrorism in the region.
Speaking at a national security seminar organised by the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies in Washington DC last month about the release of the documents, Mike Pompeo, CIA director, said al-Qaeda and Iran have always built "secret and open" ties.
Mr Pompeo attributed the relationship between the two parties to the fact that they view the West as a common enemy, referring to an "ideological consensus" of their cooperation against the West.
He added that the two sides did not fight against each other because they considered the West a greater threat to them.
Mr Pompeo stressed that CIA is still watching these relations, especially with the complexity of the situation in Syria, noting that US intelligence is tracking the terrorist organisations' loss of territories in Syria and Iraq.
His comments have raised alarm bells among critics of Mr Trump's new strategy to counter Iranian influence, wary that hawks like Mr Pompeo may be making a case for war.
The documents also contained a log of bin Laden’s video collection, which included pornographic material, several Hollywood movies and three documentaries about himself.
Two newly-released videos also show scenes from the wedding of bin Laden’s son Hamza, the first picture of the heir apparent as an adult.
The images are not current, but they are much more recent than the photo al-Qaeda is willing to distribute.
According to Thomas Joscelyn and Bill Roggio, scholars from the foundation who were allowed to study the trove before it was made public, it provides new insights.
“The Abbottabad repository confirms that bin Laden was anything but retired when US forces knocked down his door. He was not a mere figurehead,” they write in the Long War Journal.
“During the final months of his life, Osama bin Laden was communicating with subordinates around the globe. Recovered memos discuss the various committees and lieutenants who helped bin Laden manage his sprawling empire of terror.”
With 470,000 files released in one trance, it will likely take weeks for journalists, academics, and other researchers to shift through the documents in the trove and contextualise their significance.
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2)Inside Hillary Clinton’s Secret Takeover of the DNC
2)Inside Hillary Clinton’s Secret Takeover of the DNC
Before I called Bernie Sanders, I lit a candle in my living room and put on some gospel music. I wanted to center myself for what I knew would be an emotional phone call.
I had promised Bernie when I took the helm of the Democratic National Committee after the convention that I would get to the bottom of whether Hillary Clinton’s team had rigged the nomination process, as a cache of emails stolen by Russian hackers and posted online had suggested. I’d had my suspicions from the moment I walked in the door of the DNC a month or so earlier, based on the leaked emails. But who knew if some of them might have been forged? I needed to have solid proof, and so did Bernie.
So I followed the money. My predecessor, Florida Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, had not been the most active chair in fundraising at a time when President Barack Obama’s neglect had left the party in significant debt. As Hillary’s campaign gained momentum, she resolved the party’s debt and put it on a starvation diet. It had become dependent on her campaign for survival, for which she expected to wield control of its operations.
Debbie was not a good manager. She hadn’t been very interested in controlling the party—she let Clinton’s headquarters in Brooklyn do as it desired so she didn’t have to inform the party officers how bad the situation was. How much control Brooklyn had and for how long was still something I had been trying to uncover for the last few weeks.
By September 7, the day I called Bernie, I had found my proof and it broke my heart.
***
The Saturday morning after the convention in July, I called Gary Gensler, the chief financial officer of Hillary’s campaign. He wasted no words. He told me the Democratic Party was broke and $2 million in debt.
“What?” I screamed. “I am an officer of the party and they’ve been telling us everything is fine and they were raising money with no problems.”
That wasn’t true, he said. Officials from Hillary’s campaign had taken a look at the DNC’s books. Obama left the party $24 million in debt—$15 million in bank debt and more than $8 million owed to vendors after the 2012 campaign—and had been paying that off very slowly. Obama’s campaign was not scheduled to pay it off until 2016. Hillary for America (the campaign) and the Hillary Victory Fund (its joint fundraising vehicle with the DNC) had taken care of 80 percent of the remaining debt in 2016, about $10 million, and had placed the party on an allowance.
If I didn’t know about this, I assumed that none of the other officers knew about it, either. That was just Debbie’s way. In my experience she didn’t come to the officers of the DNC for advice and counsel. She seemed to make decisions on her own and let us know at the last minute what she had decided, as she had done when she told us about the hacking only minutes before the Washington Post broke the news.
On the phone Gary told me the DNC had needed a $2 million loan, which the campaign had arranged.
“No! That can’t be true!” I said. “The party cannot take out a loan without the unanimous agreement of all of the officers.”
“Gary, how did they do this without me knowing?” I asked. “I don’t know how Debbie relates to the officers,” Gary said. He described the party as fully under the control of Hillary’s campaign, which seemed to confirm the suspicions of the Bernie camp. The campaign had the DNC on life support, giving it money every month to meet its basic expenses, while the campaign was using the party as a fund-raising clearinghouse. Under FEC law, an individual can contribute a maximum of $2,700 directly to a presidential campaign. But the limits are much higher for contributions to state parties and a party’s national committee.
Individuals who had maxed out their $2,700 contribution limit to the campaign could write an additional check for $353,400 to the Hillary Victory Fund—that figure represented $10,000 to each of the 32 states’ parties who were part of the Victory Fund agreement—$320,000—and $33,400 to the DNC. The money would be deposited in the states first, and transferred to the DNC shortly after that. Money in the battleground states usually stayed in that state, but all the other states funneled that money directly to the DNC, which quickly transferred the money to Brooklyn.
“Wait,” I said. “That victory fund was supposed to be for whoever was the nominee, and the state party races. You’re telling me that Hillary has been controlling it since before she got the nomination?”
Gary said the campaign had to do it or the party would collapse.
“That was the deal that Robby struck with Debbie,” he explained, referring to campaign manager Robby Mook. “It was to sustain the DNC. We sent the party nearly $20 million from September until the convention, and more to prepare for the election.”
“What’s the burn rate, Gary?” I asked. “How much money do we need every month to fund the party?”
The burn rate was $3.5 million to $4 million a month, he said.
I gasped. I had a pretty good sense of the DNC’s operations after having served as interim chair five years earlier. Back then the monthly expenses were half that. What had happened? The party chair usually shrinks the staff between presidential election campaigns, but Debbie had chosen not to do that. She had stuck lots of consultants on the DNC payroll, and Obama’s consultants were being financed by the DNC, too.
When we hung up, I was livid. Not at Gary, but at this mess I had inherited. I knew that Debbie had outsourced a lot of the management of the party and had not been the greatest at fundraising. I would not be that kind of chair, even if I was only an interim chair. Did they think I would just be a surrogate for them, get on the road and rouse up the crowds? I was going to manage this party the best I could and try to make it better, even if Brooklyn did not like this. It would be weeks before I would fully understand the financial shenanigans that were keeping the party on life support.
***
Right around the time of the convention, the leaked emails revealed Hillary’s campaign was grabbing money from the state parties for its own purposes, leaving the states with very little to support down-ballot races. A Politico story published on May 2, 2016, described the big fund-raising vehicle she had launched through the states the summer before, quoting a vow she had made to rebuild “the party from the ground up … when our state parties are strong, we win. That’s what will happen.”
Yet the states kept less than half of 1 percent of the $82 million they had amassed from the extravagant fund-raisers Hillary’s campaign was holding, just as Gary had described to me when he and I talked in August. When the Politico story described this arrangement as “essentially … money laundering” for the Clinton campaign, Hillary’s people were outraged at being accused of doing something shady. Bernie’s people were angry for their own reasons, saying this was part of a calculated strategy to throw the nomination to Hillary.
I wanted to believe Hillary, who made campaign finance reform part of her platform, but I had made this pledge to Bernie and did not want to disappoint him. I kept asking the party lawyers and the DNC staff to show me the agreements that the party had made for sharing the money they raised, but there was a lot of shuffling of feet and looking the other way.
When I got back from a vacation in Martha’s Vineyard, I at last found the document that described it all: the Joint Fund-Raising Agreement between the DNC, the Hillary Victory Fund, and Hillary for America.
The agreement—signed by Amy Dacey, the former CEO of the DNC, and Robby Mook with a copy to Marc Elias—specified that in exchange for raising money and investing in the DNC, Hillary would control the party’s finances, strategy, and all the money raised. Her campaign had the right of refusal of who would be the party communications director, and it would make final decisions on all the other staff. The DNC also was required to consult with the campaign about all other staffing, budgeting, data, analytics, and mailings.
I had been wondering why it was that I couldn’t write a press release without passing it by Brooklyn. Well, here was the answer.
When the party chooses the nominee, the custom is that the candidate’s team starts to exercise more control over the party. If the party has an incumbent candidate, as was the case with Clinton in 1996 or Obama in 2012, this kind of arrangement is seamless because the party already is under the control of the president. When you have an open contest without an incumbent and competitive primaries, the party comes under the candidate’s control only after the nominee is certain. When I was manager of Al Gore’s campaign in 2000, we started inserting our people into the DNC in June. This victory fund agreement, however, had been signed in August 2015, just four months after Hillary announced her candidacy and nearly a year before she officially had the nomination.
I had tried to search out any other evidence of internal corruption that would show that the DNC was rigging the system to throw the primary to Hillary, but I could not find any in party affairs or among the staff. I had gone department by department, investigating individual conduct for evidence of skewed decisions, and I was happy to see that I had found none. Then I found this agreement.
The funding arrangement with HFA and the victory fund agreement was not illegal, but it sure looked unethical. If the fight had been fair, one campaign would not have control of the party before the voters had decided which one they wanted to lead. This was not a criminal act, but as I saw it, it compromised the party’s integrity.
***
I had to keep my promise to Bernie. I was in agony as I dialed him. Keeping this secret was against everything that I stood for, all that I valued as a woman and as a public servant.
“Hello, senator. I’ve completed my review of the DNC and I did find the cancer,” I said. “But I will not kill the patient.”
I discussed the fundraising agreement that each of the candidates had signed. Bernie was familiar with it, but he and his staff ignored it. They had their own way of raising money through small donations. I described how Hillary’s campaign had taken it another step.
I told Bernie I had found Hillary’s Joint Fundraising Agreement. I explained that the cancer was that she had exerted this control of the party long before she became its nominee. Had I known this, I never would have accepted the interim chair position, but here we were with only weeks before the election.
Bernie took this stoically. He did not yell or express outrage. Instead he asked me what I thought Hillary’s chances were. The polls were unanimous in her winning but what, he wanted to know, was my own assessment?
I had to be frank with him. I did not trust the polls, I said. I told him I had visited states around the country and I found a lack of enthusiasm for her everywhere. I was concerned about the Obama coalition and about millennials.
I urged Bernie to work as hard as he could to bring his supporters into the fold with Hillary, and to campaign with all the heart and hope he could muster. He might find some of her positions too centrist, and her coziness with the financial elites distasteful, but he knew and I knew that the alternative was a person who would put the very future of the country in peril. I knew he heard me. I knew he agreed with me, but I never in my life had felt so tiny and powerless as I did making that call.
When I hung up the call to Bernie, I started to cry, not out of guilt, but out of anger. We would go forward. We had to.
Donna Brazile is the former interim chair of the Democratic National Committee. Excerpted from the book Hacks: The Inside Story of the Break-ins and Breakdowns that Put Donald Trump in the White House to be published on November 7, 2017 by Hachette Books, a division of Hachette Book Group. Copyright 2017 Donna Brazile.
2a) A Deceptive New Report on Climate
True, the U.S. has had more heat waves in recent years—but no more than a century ago.
By
The world’s response to climate changing under natural and human influences is best founded upon a complete portrayal of the science. The U.S. government’s Climate Science Special Report, to be released Friday, does not provide that foundation. Instead, it reinforces alarm with incomplete information and highlights the need for more-rigorous review of climate assessments.
A team of some 30 authors chartered by the U.S. Global Change Research Program began work in spring 2016 on the report, “designed to be an authoritative assessment of the science of climate change.” An early draft was released for public comment in January and reviewed by the National Academies this spring. I, together with thousands of other scientists, had the opportunity to scrutinize and discuss the final draft when it was publicized in August by the New York Times . While much is right in the report, it is misleading in more than a few important places.
One notable example of alarm-raising is the description of sea-level rise, one of the greatest climate concerns. The report ominously notes that while global sea level rose an average 0.05 inch a year during most of the 20th century, it has risen at about twice that rate since 1993. But it fails to mention that the rate fluctuated by comparable amounts several times during the 20th century. The same research papers the report cites show that recent rates are statistically indistinguishable from peak rates earlier in the 20th century, when human influences on the climate were much smaller. The report thus misleads by omission.
This isn’t the only example of highlighting a recent trend but failing to place it in complete historical context. The report’s executive summary declares that U.S. heat waves have become more common since the mid-1960s, although acknowledging the 1930s Dust Bowl as the peak period for extreme heat. Yet buried deep in the report is a figure showing that heat waves are no more frequent today than in 1900. This artifice also appeared in the government’s 2014 National Climate Assessment, which emphasized a post-1980 increase in hurricane power without discussing the longer-term record. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration recently stated that it has been unable to detect any human impact on hurricanes.
Such data misrepresentations violate basic scientific norms. In his celebrated 1974 “Cargo Cult” lecture, the late Richard Feynman admonished scientists to discuss objectively all the relevant evidence, even that which does not support the narrative. That’s the difference between science and advocacy.
These deficiencies in the new climate report are typical of many others that set the report’s tone. Consider the different perception that results from “sea level is rising no more rapidly than it did in 1940” instead of “sea level rise has accelerated in recent decades,” or from “heat waves are no more common now than they were in 1900” versus “heat waves have become more frequent since 1960.” Both statements in each pair are true, but each alone fails to tell the full story.
Several actions are warranted. First, the report should be amended to describe the history of sea-level rise, heat waves and other trends fully and accurately. Second, the government should convene a “Red/Blue” adversarial review to stress-test the entire report, as I urged in April. Critics argue such an exercise would be superfluous given the conventional review processes, and others have questioned even the minimal time and expense that would be involved. But the report’s deficiencies demonstrate why such a review is necessary.
Finally, the institutions involved in the report should figure out how and why such shortcomings survived multiple rounds of review. How, for example, did the National Academies’ review committee conclude that the chapter on sea level rise “accurately reflects the current scientific literature on this topic”? The Academies building prominently displays Einstein’s dictum “one must not conceal any part of what one has recognized to be true.”
Mr. Koonin was undersecretary of energy for science during President Obama’s first term and is director of the Center for Urban Science and Progress at New York University.
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3)Netanyahu: World Powers Appear To Fixing The Iran Deal
By Tovah Lazaroff
LONDON – Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has shifted his strategy in opposing the Iran nuclear deal, pushing instead to sway its signatories to change the agreement rather than scuttle it.
“The goal that I have in mind is not keeping or eliminating the deal. It’s improving the deal and correcting its main flaws,” Netanyahu told his British counterpart, Prime Minister Theresa May, on Thursday, when the two met at 10 Downing Street in London.
Netanyahu has embarked on a series of conversations with world leaders after finding they are more open to fixing rather than nixing it.
It was a markedly different tone from the past, when his focus was solely on pushing the world powers to reject the deal.
Netanyahu’s conversation with May followed talks he had with Russian President Vladimir Putin and German Chancellor Angela Merkel.
He also plans to discuss the matter with French President Emmanuel Macron.
After meeting May, Netanyahu told reporters that flaws in the accord can be fixed if the six world powers that are signatories to the deal – the US, Great Britain, Germany, France, China and Russia – agree to take policy steps outside the confines of the agreement, which would counter some of the worst problems in the text.
The more the signatories agree on these issues, the more change is possible, he said. Since the needed changes are outside the confines of the agreement, they do not need to be negotiated with Iran, Netanyahu added.
These changes include the issues of inspections and “sunset clauses,” the portion of the agreement regarding Iran’s ability to enrich uranium and develop centrifuges, which automatically expires after a set time.
The problem with the deal, Netanyahu said, is that if Iran does nothing and keeps to the agreement, it will be able to produce nuclear weapons.
He said the six nations could also take steps to counter the Islamic Republic’s ballistic missile program, which is not part of the deal. In the past, Netanyahu has spoken of the need to impose sanctions to make this happen.
US President Donald Trump has agreed with Netanyahu that the deal is bad.
The other five signatories, including May, hold that the accord is critical for regional security. Netanyahu believes the deal ensures Tehran will have nuclear weapons.
But Trump’s decision last month to decertify the deal, a move that could pave the way for Congress to reimpose sanctions on Iran, appears to have softened the attitude of the other signatories when it comes to fixing the deal.
Netanyahu told reporters he felt that he and May have come closer on these issues.
At the start of their meeting, May explained to Netanyahu that she remained committed to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action.
Netanyahu said if May wants to hold on to the deal, she must act to fix it to ensure Iran won’t become a nuclear power.
“I think that those who want to keep the deal should cooperate in correcting the deal. I have some concrete ideas which I look forward to discussing with you,” Netanyahu told May.
“The threat that we all see is a resurgent Iran that is bent not only on dominating the region but bent on developing nuclear weapons.”
He explained that as a result of this threat, “Many Arab countries now see Israel not as an enemy, but as their indispensable ally in the battle against militant Islam.”
According to 10 Downing Street, May “reiterated the UK’s continued strong support for the JCPOA nuclear accord and the view that we share with our E3 [French and German] partners that it is critical for regional security.”
Netanyahu and May both agreed that the deal must be enforced and the international community must work together to halt Iran’s destabilizing activities in the region, including its support for Hezbollah and Syria.
They also agreed that ISIS must be defeated in Syria and Iraq, the British prime minister’s office added.
Separately, Netanyahu said he was pushing to bring Jonathan Pollard to Israel, a move the US has prohibited, even though he was released from jail after serving a 30-year sentence for passing classified information to Israel.
“It’s a complex legal problem, we have been working on it since his release,” Netanyahu said.
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4) A Tale of Two Republicans
Ed Gillespie takes a far more constructive approach to Trump than Jeff Flake does.
By Kimberley A. Strassel
Jeff Flake last week took to the Senate floor to proclaim that since he would not be “complicit or silent” in the Trump presidency, he will not seek re-election. The first-term Arizona senator bemoaned that as a “traditional Republican,” he had a “narrower and narrow path” to office in this Trump world.
The speech earned Mr. Flake all the plaudits you’d expect, from all the usual suspects. Conservative Never Trumpers and the media “resistance” believe the president is destroying the Republican Party, the country, democracy and the universe—in that order. Those who join in their daily denouncements of Mr. Trump receive standing ovations. Those who don’t are falsely accused, to quote Mr. Flake in his speech, of “complete and unquestioning loyalty” and duly excommunicated from “moral” conservative society.
Yes, Mr. Trump is a wrecking ball; and yes, conservatives have a right and a duty to worry about the damage he may do to the Republican Party and its principles. Where the Never Trumpers err is in insisting that the only response is full-on resistance, shaming and utter denunciation. Not only is that approach simplistic, it is a proven loser.
Mr. Flake is a case in point. Among elected officials, he is rivaled perhaps only by Ohio Gov. John Kasich as loudest Never Trumper. The senator doesn’t like the president’s views on trade or immigration (join the club). But like Mr. Kasich, he has rarely bothered to spell out specific areas where he disagreed with Mr. Trump, or to note the significant points of agreement (deregulation, judges, etc.). His is a blanket condemnation. In Mr. Flake’s new book, “Conscience of a Conservative,” he compares Mr. Trump’s politics to a “late-night infomercial.”
This sweeping reproof was a sign to Trump supporters in Arizona that Mr. Flake either didn’t know or didn’t care why they support this president. So they wrote him off—much as he wrote off Mr. Trump. Mr. Flake was never going to get Democratic support, and once he alienated half of his state’s Republican voters, of course his path to re-election was narrow. Mr. Flake blew himself out of office, and he is now in a much poorer position to make any difference in the shape of Washington policies or the future of his party.
Contrast this approach to that of Ed Gillespie, whom the Never Trumpers are branding a sellout. The longtime (traditional) Republican nearly won a Senate seat in Virginia three years ago and now is running for governor in the only Southern state Hillary Clinton carried last year. Virginia is a swing state for Republicans—much tougher than Arizona. Its voters are down on Mr. Trump, and Mr. Gillespie faces a well-funded Democratic candidate in Lt. Gov. Ralph Northam.
Yet the latest polls suggest Mr. Gillespie could pull this off. He’s broadened his path to office by employing the very different strategy of attempting to navigate—and where possible, unite—the GOP’s Trump and non-Trump factions.
Consider his dual approach to immigration and crime. Mr. Gillespie’s Senate campaign was a model in 2014 for its outreach to immigrants, and he is building on that now with a heavy pitch of inclusivity to minority communities. He’s released ads in Spanish and Korean and is stressing his pro-jobs agenda to the state’s growing Asian-American community. All this is crucial to the GOP’s future, reassuring to moderate voters, and utterly un-Trumpian.
On the flip side, Mr. Gillespie has taken a strong line against illegal and criminal aliens. His ads accusing Mr. Northam of being soft on the international MS-13 crime gang prompted Never Trumpers to accuse him of catering to a nativist Trump base. But MS-13 has engaged in brutal murders, and is of concern to Trump voters and Northern Virginia suburbanites alike. And it is true that Mr. Northam cast a tie-breaking Virginia Senate vote in favor of sanctuary cities.
On both policy and political grounds, this is a smart and reasonable way to straddle the party’s different factions. And the recognition of Trump voter concerns about illegal-alien crime is likely the best means by which (traditional) Republicans give themselves the running room to push for more compassionate immigration reform for folks like the Dreamers. Which is what Mr. Flake claims he wants.
The Never Trumpers are also accusing Mr. Gillespie of cowardice for failing to disown the president. Why should he? Mr. Gillespie has diligently focused his campaign on the local jobs-and-economy issues that matter most to Virginians. Beyond that, he has offered criticism of specific Trump actions and praise of others. Call them as you see them. That’s a fair approach in the age of Trump.
The important part: It gives Mr. Gillespie a fighting chance—and, should he win, a powerful perch from which he can help navigate his party through the Trumpian gales. It all might not be as cathartic as an emotional Senate speech. But it will go a lot further to help conservatism survive this presidency.
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