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Our daughter, Amy, and mother of the bride, me. Emily and Lynn.
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This is an article responding to those who attack Trump and Republicans for the tax cut claiming it favors the rich etc. Their's is a regurgitating ploy involving politics of envy and encouraging class warfare.
As I have pointed out in previous memos when a small per cent pay 90% any tax relief is going to favor those who pay the most tax unless you totally exclude them which is discrimination through taxation and economically unwise. (See 1 below.)
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My friend and fellow memo reader blogs about Israel's expanding economy. (See 2 below.)
More Middle East updates. (See 2a, 2b, 2c and 2d below.)
Meanwhile, this stands to reason. (See 2e below.)
Finally, time will tell and perhaps we will know soon. (See 2f below.)
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Apparently, Soros continue to expand his tentacles from funding campaign of local attorney generals to funding public media censorship . (See 3 below.)
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Brigette Gabriel delivers a powerful history lesson. I heard her speak at the large Baptist Church on Waters Avenue across from Memorial Hospital in Savannah several years ago.
1400 shocking years of Islam in 5 minutes - Muslims are scared of this!!!
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Dick
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1) The Myth of American Inequality
Taxes and transfers in the U.S. put its income distribution in line with its large developed peers.
By Phil Gramm and John F. Early
America is the world’s most prosperous large country, but critics often attempt to tarnish that title by claiming income is distributed less equally in the U.S. than in other developed countries. These critics point to data from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, which ranks the U.S. as the least equal of the seven largest developed countries. American progressives often weaponize statistics like these to urge greater redistribution. But the OECD income-distribution comparison is biased because the U.S. underreports its income transfers in comparison to other nations. When the data are adjusted to account for all government programs that transfer income, the U.S. is shown to have an income distribution that aligns closely with its peers.
The OECD measures inequality by determining a country’s “Gini coefficient,” or the proportion of all income that would have to be redistributed to achieve perfect equality. A nation’s Gini coefficient would be 0 if every household had the same amount of disposable income, and it would approach 1 if a single household had all of the disposable income. The current OECD comparison, portrayed by the blue bars in the nearby chart, shows Gini coefficients for the world’s most-developed large countries, ranging from 0.29 in Germany to 0.39 in the U.S.
How Unequal?
But there are variations in how each nation reports income. The U.S. deviates significantly from the norm by excluding several large government transfers to low-income households. Inexplicably, the Census Bureau excludes Medicare and Medicaid, which redistribute more than $760 billion a year to the bottom 40% of American households. The data also exclude 93 other federal redistribution programs that annually transfer some $520 billion to low-income households. These include the Children’s Health Insurance Program, Temporary Assistance for Needy Families and the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children. States and localities directly fund another $310 billion in redistribution programs also excluded from the Census Bureau’s submission.
This means current OECD comparisons omit about $1.6 trillion in annual redistributions to low-income Americans—close to 80% of their total redistribution receipts. This significantly skews the U.S. Gini coefficient. The correct Gini should be 0.32—not 0.39. That puts the U.S. income distribution in the middle of the seven largest developed nations—the red bar on the chart.
The OECD measures inequality by determining a country’s “Gini coefficient,” or the proportion of all income that would have to be redistributed to achieve perfect equality. A nation’s Gini coefficient would be 0 if every household had the same amount of disposable income, and it would approach 1 if a single household had all of the disposable income. The current OECD comparison, portrayed by the blue bars in the nearby chart, shows Gini coefficients for the world’s most-developed large countries, ranging from 0.29 in Germany to 0.39 in the U.S.
This means current OECD comparisons omit about $1.6 trillion in annual redistributions to low-income Americans—close to 80% of their total redistribution receipts. This significantly skews the U.S. Gini coefficient. The correct Gini should be 0.32—not 0.39. That puts the U.S. income distribution in the middle of the seven largest developed nations—the red bar on the chart.
Gini scores for other countries in the OECD ranking also might shift with better data: The OECD doesn’t publish transfers by income level for other countries. But the change in income distribution for other countries would likely be less drastic. The poorest fifth of U.S. households receive 84.2% of their disposable income from taxpayer-funded transfers, and the second quintile gets 57.8%. U.S. transfer payments constitute 28.5% of Americans’ disposable income—almost double the 15% reported by the Census Bureau. That’s a bigger share than in all large developed countries other than France, which redistributes 33.1% of its disposable income.
The U.S. also has the most progressive income taxes of its peer group. The top 10% of U.S. households earn about 33.5% of all income, but they pay 45.1% of income taxes, including Social Security and Medicare taxes. Their share of all income-related taxes is 1.35 times as large as their share of income. In Germany, the top 10% pay 1.07 times their share of earnings. The top 10% of French pay 1.1 times their share.
If the top earners pay smaller shares of income taxes in other countries, everybody else pays more. The bottom 90% of German earners pay a share of their nation’s taxes on income 77% larger than that paid by the bottom 90% of Americans. The bottom 90% in France pay nearly double the share their American counterparts pay. Even in Sweden—the supposed progressive utopia—the top 10% of earners pay only 5.9% of gross domestic product in income-related taxes, 22% less than their American peers. The bottom 90% of Swedes pay 16.3% of GDP in taxes on income, 77% more than in the U.S.
Even these numbers understate how progressive the total tax burden is in America. The U.S. has no value-added tax and collects only 35.8% of all tax revenues from non-income-tax sources, the smallest share of any OECD country. Most developed countries have large VATs and collect a far larger share of their state revenue through regressive levies.
When all transfer payments and taxes are counted, the U.S. redistributes a larger share of its disposable income than any country other than France. Relative to the share of income they earn, the share of income taxes paid by America’s high earners is greater than the share of income taxes paid by their peers in any other OECD country. The progressive dream of an America with massive income redistribution and a highly progressive tax system has already come true. To make America even more like Europe, these dreamers will have to redefine middle-income Americans as “rich” and then double their taxes.
—Mr. Gramm, a former chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, is a visiting scholar at the American Enterprise Institute. Mr. Early served twice as assistant commissioner at the Bureau of Labor Statistics and is president of Vital Few LLC.
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2)Israeli Economy Continues to Expand
By Sherwin Pomerantz
With all the frustrating issues that we face daily in Israel, it is probably a good idea, on ce in a while, to look on the bright side and relish what has been accomplished.
Since its founding in 1948, Israel’s population has surged from 806,000 to 8.84 million, and the state has absorbed some 3.2 million immigrants over those years as well.
Economically, over the past 20 years, Israel’s governments have adhered to a policy of fiscal restraint that gives the nation credibility with foreign investors and lowers financial costs. Moody’s and S&P recently raised long range economic forecasts to “positive” with annual economic growth expected to surpass 3% for the foreseeable future.
Coupled with its responsible fiscal approach, the country has also become a world high tech power. In the 20-year period 1997-2017, 16,000 high-tech companies were set up, of which 8,000 are currently active. The nation has 505 cybersecurity companies, which have raised some $5.6 billion (by some accounts this represents 2/3 of worldwide investment into cybertech R&D over the last few years making Israel a major center of such development).. In addition, there are 1,487 life sciences companies operating here that have raised $13.5 billion.
According to data recently released by the IVC Research Center, over the course of its history, Israel has had $143 billion worth of exits, of which $132 billion were mergers and acquisitions and $11 billion were initial public offerings. Just this week Pepsico agreed to purchase Israel’s SodaStream for $3.2 billion in cash, among the largest buyouts in Israeli history. So the saga continues.
Israeli venture capital funds raised some $20 billion in 1997-2017 and the industry has some 1,800 female high-tech entrepreneurs, of which 490 are active CEOs and entrepreneurs. Add to that the 365 currently active foreign R&D centers in Israel as well as the 356 currently active Israeli incubators and accelerators and it becomes clear why the country is known far-and-wide as the Start-up Nation.
Israel had a gross domestic product (GDP) per capita of some $5,000 when the state was established in May 1948. The Gross Domestic Product per capita in Israel was US$38,427 in 2017, when adjusted for purchasing power parity (PPP). The GDP per Capita, in Israel, when adjusted for Purchasing Power Parity is equivalent to 187 percent of the world's average. GDP per capita PPP in Israel averaged US$26,787 from 1990 until 2017, reaching an all-time high in 2017 against a record low of US$19,760 in 1990. Today’s GDP per capita today is, therefore, close to the median of other developed OECD countries, according to data compiled by the Bank of Israel.
Israel’s economy grew 3.4% in 2017, and has averaged 3.3% annual growth since 2000, higher than in many OECD countries, partly driven by strong population growth as well (Israel is one of the few countries in the West whose birth rate is well above replacement levels). The economies of OECD countries, by contrast, grew at an average rate of 2.4% in 2017, while growth in the US was 2.3% for the same period.
Israeli tech companies raised a record $5.2 billion in 2017 and there were $23 billion worth of company exits, defined as merger and acquisition deals and initial public offering of shares. As well, some 94 Israeli companies are listed on the NASDAQ exchange.
In spite of its smallness, (the country is about the size of the State of New Jersey) Israel has emerged as a regional economic power, and remains an attractive destination for exports from foreign countries
In 2017 Israel imported approximately US$55b worth of products.
· Consumer goods imports were US$13.7b (24% furniture & electronic equipment, 19% food and beverages, 16% clothing and footwear, and 14% transportation equipment).
· Raw Material imports were US$28.5b (36% for machines and the electronics industry with 17% for the chemical industry).
· Investment Goods imports were US$12.1b (70% machinery and equipment, 16% passenger cars and 13% trucks, pickups and buses).
Regarding current market potential, as consumers, Israelis respond to advertising and branding. Shopping is a popular pastime and Israelis are interested in purchasing quality items, even if that means paying a higher, albeit reasonable, price. After-sales services and warranties are also mandatory, as Israeli consumers consider warranties to be a guarantee of the quality of the product. Israelis have a high purchasing power that is partly limited by soaring housing prices in the country. Nonetheless, consumer price inflation remains below official targets (0.2% in 2017 while the official target was between 1-3%), as part of the Israeli government measures to cut costs of living, which in return favor internal market dynamics.
Israeli consumers also like new products. Israeli legislation promotes national products but Israeli consumers are also quite interested in online shopping. According to the Israel Internet Association, 75% of Israelis (95% of total Internet users) shop online, making them the most connected shoppers in the world. Furthermore, 79% of online Israeli shoppers have made purchases from foreign websites, according to a study conducted by PayPal and Ipsos.
In short, Israel remains an interesting and exciting market for continued development and it is in the interests of foreign exporters to be open minded about opportunities here.
No question we have a reason to be proud of what we have accomplished and appreciate the creativity of our people that has brought us to this point. May it continue.
Sherwin Pomerantz is a 34 year resident of Jerusalem, CEO of Atid EDI Ltd., a Jerusalem-based business development group and past national president of the Association of Americans & Canadians in Israel.
2a) BOLTON: NO QUID PRO QUO FOR EMBASSY MOVE TO JERUSALEM
Bolton's comments following Trump's remarks that Israel will pay a high price in talks for Jerusalem recognition.
BY HERB KEINON, MICHAEL WILNER IN WASHINGTON
US President Donald Trump’s comments in West Virginia on Tuesday that Israel would have to pay a high price in negotiations with the Palestinians for the move of the US Embassy to Jerusalem does not represent a change of American policy, US National Security Adviser John Bolton said Wednesday.
Bolton, speaking at a news conference at the King David Hotel, said that Trump is a “deal maker,” and that he and anyone else would expect the Palestinians to say after the embassy move, “So, we didn’t get that one, we’ll get something else.”
The “fundamental point,” Bolton said, “is that ultimately this is something the parties are going to have to agree on. One of the most cogent things I’ve ever heard about the Middle East was something that Secretary of State Jim Baker said during the George H. W. Bush administration: ‘We can’t want peace more than the parties themselves.’”
The parties, Bolton said, will need to “talk about it between themselves and see what, if anything, the price of that [the Jerusalem move] was.”
Bolton added that the embassy move “in and of itself brings reality to a negotiation that honestly – for decades – has been conducted in an air of unreality.”
On Tuesday evening during a campaign rally in Charleston, Trump – to loud cheering – mentioned his recognizing Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and the move of the embassy as one of his achievements. He said this was “a good thing to have done,” because it took Jerusalem off the table in future peace talks.
“And you know what? In the negotiation, Israel will have to pay a higher price because they won a very big thing – but I took it off the table,” Trump said. “They could never get past the fact of Jerusalem becoming the capital. Now it’s off the table – there’s nothing to negotiate. But they [the Palestinians] will get something very good ‘cause it’s their turn next. Let’s see what happens.”
The president has made similar comments before. “We have taken Jerusalem, the toughest part of the negotiation, off the table,” Trump wrote on Twitter in January, “but Israel, for that, would have had to pay more.”
Bolton, on the last of three days of intensive talks here, said that it was a “sad outcome” for the Palestinian people that “all they got now is a choice between Hamas and the Palestinian Authority.”
If Hamas cared more about the people of Gaza than their own political priorities, “we wouldn’t have a lot of these troubles” that are plaguing the area, he said.
“There are a lot of prospects, really, to find ways here to resolve some of these problems and give the people of Palestine – who have been used as agents by radical leaders over the years for their own political purposes – to give them and their families a chance for a decent life going forward,” he added.
Bolton said that is the objective of the long-awaited US peace plan that Trump is overseeing, and that he hopes this will be evident when the US rolls out the plan. He gave no indication, however, of when that might be.
2b)
Islamic State leader Baghdadi resurfaces, urges supporters to keep up the fight
By Liz Sly, Bureau chief
BEIRUT — The Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi resurfaced on Tuesday to deliver a message marking the Muslim Eid al-Adha holiday in which he urged his followers to keep up the fight and to wage lone-wolf attacks in the West.
References in the audiotaped speech to recent developments in the Syrian war and to the spat between Turkey and the United States over a detained American pastor suggest that he was alive at least until very recently, despite a new spate of rumors earlier this month that he had died of injuries suffered in airstrikes.
There was no immediate confirmation that the voice delivering the 54-minute address was Baghdadi’s, but the holiday speech is in keeping with the periodic outreaches by the self-proclaimed “caliph” of the vast territories once controlled by the Islamic State. His last message was on Sept. 28 last year, and this one was similar in its tone, language and exhortations.
Baghdadi did not directly address the fact that the Islamic State has now lost around 95 percent of the lands it seized in 2014, but he acknowledged that there have been setbacks. “Seditions and hardships [are] increasing to their darkest night being cast over the people of Islam,” he said.
“The scale of victory or defeat . . . is not tied to a city or village,” he said. America might have boasted of its “so-called victory in expelling the [Islamic] State from the cities and countryside in Iraq and Syria, but the land of God is wide and the tides of war change,” he added.
The message comes as the United States and its Syrian Kurdish allies prepare for what they hope will be a final offensive against one of the last and most significant pockets of Islamic State-controlled territory near the Iraqi border in Syria, where it is thought Baghdadi is most likely to be hiding.
A second Islamic State-
controlled area exists nearby in the remote desert of eastern Syria that is surrounded by Syrian government forces, backed by their Russian and Iranian allies.
Yet, although it now seems likely that the so-called caliphate will soon be entirely vanquished, there are also signs that the Islamic State is succeeding in reinventing itself as a guerrilla insurgency. An escalation of small-scale attacks in Iraq in recent weeks has raised concerns that the group may survive beyond its eventual territorial defeat. Two recent reports by the United Nations and the U.S. government suggest there may still be 30,000 Islamic State fighters or supporters in Iraq and Syria.
Much of Baghdadi’s speech was focused on descriptions of the decline of American influence around the world, for which he claimed credit on behalf of the Islamic State, and its war of attrition against the United States.
America “is living the worst period of its contemporary history,” he said, attributing this to two decades of U.S. war against Muslims. He cited the resistance of countries such as Russia, Iran and Turkey to the Trump administration’s policy of imposing sanctions against its foes as evidence that America is a waning power, “held in contempt” even by its allies.
Any setbacks suffered by the Islamic State are to be blamed on the Sunni Muslims, the sect the Islamic State claims to represent, who have collaborated with the West, Baghdadi said, citing recent defeats for moderate, Western-backed rebels in Syria as evidence.
He also urged Islamic State supporters in the West to carry out more of the kind of lone-wolf attacks that have periodically set nerves on edge in the United States, Europe and Canada.
“Carry out an attack that breaks their heart, and rip them apart,” he said. “Either with gunfire, or a stab to their bodies, or a bombing in their countries.”
“Do not forget about running people over on the roads,” he added.
2c)
Fatah leaders arm themselves ahead of Abbas's possible departure
It is reported that senior PA officials such as Jibril Rajoub and the head of Palestinian General Intelligence Service, started to affiliate themselves with armed gangs in the West Bank to wield leverage in case battle over position of next PA leader turns violent; Two possible scenarios—establishment of several centers of power without a centralized leader, or chaos that would benefit Hamas.
Elior Levy 08.23.18
Senior leaders and officials in Fatah have reportedly started to align themselves with various armed groups in the West Bank, in preparation for a possible departure of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, and a possible violent struggle over his position.
When Abbas departs, there will be two possible scenarios at play—the Palestinians will either divide the positions of power among themselves, or instigate violent conflicts and riots.
The group of senior Fatah officials in question are those who see themselves as worthy candidates to be the next Palestinian leader, taking over at least one of Abbas's three positions—the president of the Palestinian Authority, the chairman of the PLO and the chairman of Fatah.
The alliances with armed factions are supposed to provide the candidates with firing power in the event that the impending succession war will involve violence and the use of weapons.
Among Fatah officials who have already attained the support of armed gangs: Jibril Rajoub, who also serves as chairman of the Palestinian Football Association, Head of Palestinian General Intelligence Service Majed Faraj, Mahmoud al-Aloul, who is deputy chairman of Fatah and Tawfik Tirawi, who was head of Palestinian General Intelligence in the West Bank during the Second Intifada. Some of them have already begun collecting weapons for their relatives.
The majority of the armed gangs are positioned inside the West Banks's refugee camps, and are comprised of refugees from the al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades, the military wing of Fatah during the Second Intifada.
Tirawi, for example, has a great influence over refugees in the Balata camp in Nablus. Faraj, who grew up in the Deheishe Refugee Camp in Bethlehem, is still considered a powerful figure in the camp. Rajoub has power centers in the Hebron area and Ramallah, and al-Aloul, a former leader of the militant faction of Fatah, Tanzim, still maintains extensive ties with various sources group.
There are a few scenarios for the day after Abbas is gone. One possible development is that a stable Fatah coalition will be established in which the positions of power will be divided among several leaders, and will no longer be the sole responsibility of one leader, as was the case during the rule of Yasser Arafat and Abbas.
The second scenario is that the political situation will revert back to the Second Intifada days, when inner conflicts between the Palestinian groups deteriorated into violent clashes and chaos in the streets. Hamas might benefit from such a scenario and gain power in the West Bank, while Fatah members are fighting among themselves.
Mahmoud Abbas, whose health is deteriorating, still maintains his hardline positions, which, for the moment, isolate Ramallah from other power centers. Abbas sees the United States trying to destroy his life's work—his insistence on negotiations and diplomatic and non-armed confrontations with Israel.
As far as he is concerned, the Americans have taken the Jerusalem (and the recognition of the city as Israel's capital) and refugees (with UNRWA's significant budget cuts) issues off the table, and are now trying to split the Palestinian arena into two, while delivering Gaza on a silver platter to Hamas.
Sources in Fatah's leadership fear that Abbas's "all or nothing" policy, as seen in his stubborn boycott of the US administration, will turn the Palestinians into a nonentity. There are senior Palestinian officials who try to convince him to soften his positions, but for the time being, to no avail.
On Wednesday, Abbas continued his aggressive line against Washington, condemning the PLO's statement to President Donald Trump's speech in which he said that "Israel will have to pay a higher price, because they won a very big thing…They never got past Jerusalem. We took it off the table. We don’t have to talk about it anymore.”
The PLO responded by saying that Trump's remarks is indicative of the "persistent biased policy toward the Israeli side, and the continued delusions of the American administration according to which, the 'deal of the century' can be made without declaring Jerusalem as the capital of the Palestinian state."
Hamas also criticized the US president's comments. "Trump's statements that Jerusalem is no longer on the negotiating table are impertinent and dangerous.
"The right response would be to revoke the Palestinian Authority's recognition of the State of Israel, and cease all security coordination with Israel. The authority should also break all contacts, including security contacts, with the American administration," Hamas concluded.
2d)
BOLTON DEFENDS ISRAELI STRIKES
IN SYRIA AGAINST IRANIAN TARGETS
Bolton added that what is central to US policy in Syria is not only to defeat of the Islamic State and the elimination of its territorial caliphate, but also to deal with Iran’s presence.
BY HERB KEINON
Israel has struck in Syria in recent months “every time Iran has brought missiles or other threatening weapons” into the country, US National Security Adviser John Bolton said on Wednesday. He added that he viewed those strikes as “a legitimate act of self-defense.”
Bolton’s comments came at a press conference on the final day of a three-day visit here dominated by talks with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other top Israeli officials about Iran and Syria.
Bolton revealed that in discussions he had with Russian President Vladimir Putin three weeks before Putin and US President Donald Trump met in Helsinki, the Russian leader told him that Russian and Iranian interests were not the same in Syria, and that he would be “content to see the Iranian forces all sent back to Iran.”
“It was not a question of where they would be inside Syria,” Bolton said, referring to the current 85-km. buffer zone from the Israeli border, from where Moscow said it has pushed back Iranian forces and Shia militias.
“We were talking about the complete return both of regular and irregular Iranian forces,” Bolton said, adding that Putin said he could not do it himself.
“So the point was that perhaps joint US-Russian efforts might be sufficient. Now I don’t know if that is right either, but it is certainly one of the subjects I will be talking about with my Russian counterpart in Geneva tomorrow.” Bolton is scheduled to meet with Nikolai Patrushev for follow-up talks to the Trump-Putin summit last month.
Saying that Syria is “extraordinarily complicated” because there are so many different actors involved there, Bolton said that what is central to US policy there is not only the defeat of Islamic State and the elimination of its territorial caliphate, but also to deal with Iran’s presence there.
Bolton said that when the Obama administration set out on its anti-Islamic State campaign, it did not foresee “that Iran obviously had a strategic plan to create an arc of control from Iran through the Shia areas in Iraq and Syria, linking them up with Hezbollah in Lebanon. That is not something we want to see.”
Bolton noted that since Trump came to power, the US has acted twice militarily in Syria when Syrian President Bashar Assad used chemical weapons, and that as Assad gets ready for another offensive campaign in Idlib province, there should be no ambiguity: the US will respond if he uses chemical weapons again.
Regarding Iran, Bolton said that “regime change” there is not America’s policy, but “what we want is massive change in the regime’s behavior.” He said that the premises of the Obama administration’s policy regarding Iran – that if the nuclear issue were solved, Iran would behave like a “normal country” – have proven completely wrong.
Iran’s economy has been mismanaged for years, Bolton said, adding that the 2015 nuclear deal “mitigated the effects of this management of the economy, and gave the regime new life. It gave this regime – which has been the central banker of international terrorism since 1979 – new assets that could be used for its nuclear weapons program, for its ballistic missiles program, for its terrorist support activities, for its conventional military activities.”
Bolton said the lifting of the sanctions under the deal gave the Iranians a feeling that they had a “free hand” in the region. “By bringing the hammer down again and reimposing American sanctions, we have seen a profound negative effect on Iran – I think more significant than we would have predicted.”
Bolton said that what is significant about the demonstrations taking place now in Iran is that they are not organized but, rather, “just regular people saying they are fed up with the government.”
Bolton said that he briefed Netanyahu and other senior Israeli officials during his talks here on “the whole range of issues connected to Iran.”
This included US talks with Europeans to encourage them to increase pressure on Iran; efforts to make sure that various countries around the world that have been dependent on Iranian oil have other sources, “so we can drive exports down to zero”; and efforts to enforce the sanctions more stringently – with less waivers – than was done under the Obama administration.
BOLTON, IN an interview with Reuters, said that the Trump administration is not discussing possible US recognition of Israel’s sovereignty over the Golan Heights.
“I’ve heard the idea being suggested, but there’s no discussion of it, no decision within the US government,” he said. “Obviously, we understand the Israeli claim that it has annexed the Golan Heights – we understand their position – but there’s no change in the US position for now.”
Netanyahu asked the US to recognize Israeli sovereignty over the area in February 2017, but has not publicly been actively lobbying over the issue.
In July the House Subcommittee on National Security held a hearing on the matter under the title: “A new horizon in US-Israel relations: From an American embassy in Jerusalem to potential recognition of Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights.”
The purpose of the hearing, according to an announcement put out by the subcommittee, was “to discuss the potential for American recognition of Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights, in furtherance of US national security interests.”
2e)
The OECD measures inequality by determining a country’s “Gini coefficient,” or the proportion of all income that would have to be redistributed to achieve perfect equality. A nation’s Gini coefficient would be 0 if every household had the same amount of disposable income, and it would approach 1 if a single household had all of the disposable income. The current OECD comparison, portrayed by the blue bars in the nearby chart, shows Gini coefficients for the world’s most-developed large countries, ranging from 0.29 in Germany to 0.39 in the U.S.
This means current OECD comparisons omit about $1.6 trillion in annual redistributions to low-income Americans—close to 80% of their total redistribution receipts. This significantly skews the U.S. Gini coefficient. The correct Gini should be 0.32—not 0.39. That puts the U.S. income distribution in the middle of the seven largest developed nations—the red bar on the chart.
Gini scores for other countries in the OECD ranking also might shift with better data: The OECD doesn’t publish transfers by income level for other countries. But the change in income distribution for other countries would likely be less drastic. The poorest fifth of U.S. households receive 84.2% of their disposable income from taxpayer-funded transfers, and the second quintile gets 57.8%. U.S. transfer payments constitute 28.5% of Americans’ disposable income—almost double the 15% reported by the Census Bureau. That’s a bigger share than in all large developed countries other than France, which redistributes 33.1% of its disposable income.
The U.S. also has the most progressive income taxes of its peer group. The top 10% of U.S. households earn about 33.5% of all income, but they pay 45.1% of income taxes, including Social Security and Medicare taxes. Their share of all income-related taxes is 1.35 times as large as their share of income. In Germany, the top 10% pay 1.07 times their share of earnings. The top 10% of French pay 1.1 times their share.
If the top earners pay smaller shares of income taxes in other countries, everybody else pays more. The bottom 90% of German earners pay a share of their nation’s taxes on income 77% larger than that paid by the bottom 90% of Americans. The bottom 90% in France pay nearly double the share their American counterparts pay. Even in Sweden—the supposed progressive utopia—the top 10% of earners pay only 5.9% of gross domestic product in income-related taxes, 22% less than their American peers. The bottom 90% of Swedes pay 16.3% of GDP in taxes on income, 77% more than in the U.S.
Even these numbers understate how progressive the total tax burden is in America. The U.S. has no value-added tax and collects only 35.8% of all tax revenues from non-income-tax sources, the smallest share of any OECD country. Most developed countries have large VATs and collect a far larger share of their state revenue through regressive levies.
When all transfer payments and taxes are counted, the U.S. redistributes a larger share of its disposable income than any country other than France. Relative to the share of income they earn, the share of income taxes paid by America’s high earners is greater than the share of income taxes paid by their peers in any other OECD country. The progressive dream of an America with massive income redistribution and a highly progressive tax system has already come true. To make America even more like Europe, these dreamers will have to redefine middle-income Americans as “rich” and then double their taxes.
—Mr. Gramm, a former chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, is a visiting scholar at the American Enterprise Institute. Mr. Early served twice as assistant commissioner at the Bureau of Labor Statistics and is president of Vital Few LLC.
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2)Israeli Economy Continues to Expand
The purpose of the hearing, according to an announcement put out by the subcommittee, was “to discuss the potential for American recognition of Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights, in furtherance of US national security interests.”
2)Israeli Economy Continues to Expand
By Sherwin Pomerantz
With all the frustrating issues that we face daily in Israel, it is probably a good idea, on ce in a while, to look on the bright side and relish what has been accomplished.
Since its founding in 1948, Israel’s population has surged from 806,000 to 8.84 million, and the state has absorbed some 3.2 million immigrants over those years as well.
Economically, over the past 20 years, Israel’s governments have adhered to a policy of fiscal restraint that gives the nation credibility with foreign investors and lowers financial costs. Moody’s and S&P recently raised long range economic forecasts to “positive” with annual economic growth expected to surpass 3% for the foreseeable future.
Coupled with its responsible fiscal approach, the country has also become a world high tech power. In the 20-year period 1997-2017, 16,000 high-tech companies were set up, of which 8,000 are currently active. The nation has 505 cybersecurity companies, which have raised some $5.6 billion (by some accounts this represents 2/3 of worldwide investment into cybertech R&D over the last few years making Israel a major center of such development).. In addition, there are 1,487 life sciences companies operating here that have raised $13.5 billion.
According to data recently released by the IVC Research Center, over the course of its history, Israel has had $143 billion worth of exits, of which $132 billion were mergers and acquisitions and $11 billion were initial public offerings. Just this week Pepsico agreed to purchase Israel’s SodaStream for $3.2 billion in cash, among the largest buyouts in Israeli history. So the saga continues.
Israeli venture capital funds raised some $20 billion in 1997-2017 and the industry has some 1,800 female high-tech entrepreneurs, of which 490 are active CEOs and entrepreneurs. Add to that the 365 currently active foreign R&D centers in Israel as well as the 356 currently active Israeli incubators and accelerators and it becomes clear why the country is known far-and-wide as the Start-up Nation.
Israel had a gross domestic product (GDP) per capita of some $5,000 when the state was established in May 1948. The Gross Domestic Product per capita in Israel was US$38,427 in 2017, when adjusted for purchasing power parity (PPP). The GDP per Capita, in Israel, when adjusted for Purchasing Power Parity is equivalent to 187 percent of the world's average. GDP per capita PPP in Israel averaged US$26,787 from 1990 until 2017, reaching an all-time high in 2017 against a record low of US$19,760 in 1990. Today’s GDP per capita today is, therefore, close to the median of other developed OECD countries, according to data compiled by the Bank of Israel.
Israel’s economy grew 3.4% in 2017, and has averaged 3.3% annual growth since 2000, higher than in many OECD countries, partly driven by strong population growth as well (Israel is one of the few countries in the West whose birth rate is well above replacement levels). The economies of OECD countries, by contrast, grew at an average rate of 2.4% in 2017, while growth in the US was 2.3% for the same period.
Israeli tech companies raised a record $5.2 billion in 2017 and there were $23 billion worth of company exits, defined as merger and acquisition deals and initial public offering of shares. As well, some 94 Israeli companies are listed on the NASDAQ exchange.
In spite of its smallness, (the country is about the size of the State of New Jersey) Israel has emerged as a regional economic power, and remains an attractive destination for exports from foreign countries
In 2017 Israel imported approximately US$55b worth of products.
· Consumer goods imports were US$13.7b (24% furniture & electronic equipment, 19% food and beverages, 16% clothing and footwear, and 14% transportation equipment).
· Raw Material imports were US$28.5b (36% for machines and the electronics industry with 17% for the chemical industry).
· Investment Goods imports were US$12.1b (70% machinery and equipment, 16% passenger cars and 13% trucks, pickups and buses).
Regarding current market potential, as consumers, Israelis respond to advertising and branding. Shopping is a popular pastime and Israelis are interested in purchasing quality items, even if that means paying a higher, albeit reasonable, price. After-sales services and warranties are also mandatory, as Israeli consumers consider warranties to be a guarantee of the quality of the product. Israelis have a high purchasing power that is partly limited by soaring housing prices in the country. Nonetheless, consumer price inflation remains below official targets (0.2% in 2017 while the official target was between 1-3%), as part of the Israeli government measures to cut costs of living, which in return favor internal market dynamics.
Israeli consumers also like new products. Israeli legislation promotes national products but Israeli consumers are also quite interested in online shopping. According to the Israel Internet Association, 75% of Israelis (95% of total Internet users) shop online, making them the most connected shoppers in the world. Furthermore, 79% of online Israeli shoppers have made purchases from foreign websites, according to a study conducted by PayPal and Ipsos.
In short, Israel remains an interesting and exciting market for continued development and it is in the interests of foreign exporters to be open minded about opportunities here.
No question we have a reason to be proud of what we have accomplished and appreciate the creativity of our people that has brought us to this point. May it continue.
Sherwin Pomerantz is a 34 year resident of Jerusalem, CEO of Atid EDI Ltd., a Jerusalem-based business development group and past national president of the Association of Americans & Canadians in Israel.
2a) BOLTON: NO QUID PRO QUO FOR EMBASSY MOVE TO JERUSALEM
Bolton's comments following Trump's remarks that Israel will pay a high price in talks for Jerusalem recognition.
BY HERB KEINON, MICHAEL WILNER IN WASHINGTON
US President Donald Trump’s comments in West Virginia on Tuesday that Israel would have to pay a high price in negotiations with the Palestinians for the move of the US Embassy to Jerusalem does not represent a change of American policy, US National Security Adviser John Bolton said Wednesday.
Bolton, speaking at a news conference at the King David Hotel, said that Trump is a “deal maker,” and that he and anyone else would expect the Palestinians to say after the embassy move, “So, we didn’t get that one, we’ll get something else.”
The “fundamental point,” Bolton said, “is that ultimately this is something the parties are going to have to agree on. One of the most cogent things I’ve ever heard about the Middle East was something that Secretary of State Jim Baker said during the George H. W. Bush administration: ‘We can’t want peace more than the parties themselves.’”
The parties, Bolton said, will need to “talk about it between themselves and see what, if anything, the price of that [the Jerusalem move] was.”
Bolton added that the embassy move “in and of itself brings reality to a negotiation that honestly – for decades – has been conducted in an air of unreality.”
On Tuesday evening during a campaign rally in Charleston, Trump – to loud cheering – mentioned his recognizing Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and the move of the embassy as one of his achievements. He said this was “a good thing to have done,” because it took Jerusalem off the table in future peace talks.
“And you know what? In the negotiation, Israel will have to pay a higher price because they won a very big thing – but I took it off the table,” Trump said. “They could never get past the fact of Jerusalem becoming the capital. Now it’s off the table – there’s nothing to negotiate. But they [the Palestinians] will get something very good ‘cause it’s their turn next. Let’s see what happens.”
The president has made similar comments before. “We have taken Jerusalem, the toughest part of the negotiation, off the table,” Trump wrote on Twitter in January, “but Israel, for that, would have had to pay more.”
Bolton, on the last of three days of intensive talks here, said that it was a “sad outcome” for the Palestinian people that “all they got now is a choice between Hamas and the Palestinian Authority.”
If Hamas cared more about the people of Gaza than their own political priorities, “we wouldn’t have a lot of these troubles” that are plaguing the area, he said.
“There are a lot of prospects, really, to find ways here to resolve some of these problems and give the people of Palestine – who have been used as agents by radical leaders over the years for their own political purposes – to give them and their families a chance for a decent life going forward,” he added.
Bolton said that is the objective of the long-awaited US peace plan that Trump is overseeing, and that he hopes this will be evident when the US rolls out the plan. He gave no indication, however, of when that might be.
Bolton, speaking at a news conference at the King David Hotel, said that Trump is a “deal maker,” and that he and anyone else would expect the Palestinians to say after the embassy move, “So, we didn’t get that one, we’ll get something else.”
The “fundamental point,” Bolton said, “is that ultimately this is something the parties are going to have to agree on. One of the most cogent things I’ve ever heard about the Middle East was something that Secretary of State Jim Baker said during the George H. W. Bush administration: ‘We can’t want peace more than the parties themselves.’”
The parties, Bolton said, will need to “talk about it between themselves and see what, if anything, the price of that [the Jerusalem move] was.”
Bolton added that the embassy move “in and of itself brings reality to a negotiation that honestly – for decades – has been conducted in an air of unreality.”
On Tuesday evening during a campaign rally in Charleston, Trump – to loud cheering – mentioned his recognizing Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and the move of the embassy as one of his achievements. He said this was “a good thing to have done,” because it took Jerusalem off the table in future peace talks.
“And you know what? In the negotiation, Israel will have to pay a higher price because they won a very big thing – but I took it off the table,” Trump said. “They could never get past the fact of Jerusalem becoming the capital. Now it’s off the table – there’s nothing to negotiate. But they [the Palestinians] will get something very good ‘cause it’s their turn next. Let’s see what happens.”
The president has made similar comments before. “We have taken Jerusalem, the toughest part of the negotiation, off the table,” Trump wrote on Twitter in January, “but Israel, for that, would have had to pay more.”
Bolton, on the last of three days of intensive talks here, said that it was a “sad outcome” for the Palestinian people that “all they got now is a choice between Hamas and the Palestinian Authority.”
If Hamas cared more about the people of Gaza than their own political priorities, “we wouldn’t have a lot of these troubles” that are plaguing the area, he said.
“There are a lot of prospects, really, to find ways here to resolve some of these problems and give the people of Palestine – who have been used as agents by radical leaders over the years for their own political purposes – to give them and their families a chance for a decent life going forward,” he added.
Bolton said that is the objective of the long-awaited US peace plan that Trump is overseeing, and that he hopes this will be evident when the US rolls out the plan. He gave no indication, however, of when that might be.
2b)
Islamic State leader Baghdadi resurfaces, urges supporters to keep up the fight
By Liz Sly, Bureau chief
BEIRUT — The Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi resurfaced on Tuesday to deliver a message marking the Muslim Eid al-Adha holiday in which he urged his followers to keep up the fight and to wage lone-wolf attacks in the West.
References in the audiotaped speech to recent developments in the Syrian war and to the spat between Turkey and the United States over a detained American pastor suggest that he was alive at least until very recently, despite a new spate of rumors earlier this month that he had died of injuries suffered in airstrikes.
There was no immediate confirmation that the voice delivering the 54-minute address was Baghdadi’s, but the holiday speech is in keeping with the periodic outreaches by the self-proclaimed “caliph” of the vast territories once controlled by the Islamic State. His last message was on Sept. 28 last year, and this one was similar in its tone, language and exhortations.
Baghdadi did not directly address the fact that the Islamic State has now lost around 95 percent of the lands it seized in 2014, but he acknowledged that there have been setbacks. “Seditions and hardships [are] increasing to their darkest night being cast over the people of Islam,” he said.
“The scale of victory or defeat . . . is not tied to a city or village,” he said. America might have boasted of its “so-called victory in expelling the [Islamic] State from the cities and countryside in Iraq and Syria, but the land of God is wide and the tides of war change,” he added.
The message comes as the United States and its Syrian Kurdish allies prepare for what they hope will be a final offensive against one of the last and most significant pockets of Islamic State-controlled territory near the Iraqi border in Syria, where it is thought Baghdadi is most likely to be hiding.
A second Islamic State-
controlled area exists nearby in the remote desert of eastern Syria that is surrounded by Syrian government forces, backed by their Russian and Iranian allies.
controlled area exists nearby in the remote desert of eastern Syria that is surrounded by Syrian government forces, backed by their Russian and Iranian allies.
Yet, although it now seems likely that the so-called caliphate will soon be entirely vanquished, there are also signs that the Islamic State is succeeding in reinventing itself as a guerrilla insurgency. An escalation of small-scale attacks in Iraq in recent weeks has raised concerns that the group may survive beyond its eventual territorial defeat. Two recent reports by the United Nations and the U.S. government suggest there may still be 30,000 Islamic State fighters or supporters in Iraq and Syria.
Much of Baghdadi’s speech was focused on descriptions of the decline of American influence around the world, for which he claimed credit on behalf of the Islamic State, and its war of attrition against the United States.
America “is living the worst period of its contemporary history,” he said, attributing this to two decades of U.S. war against Muslims. He cited the resistance of countries such as Russia, Iran and Turkey to the Trump administration’s policy of imposing sanctions against its foes as evidence that America is a waning power, “held in contempt” even by its allies.
Any setbacks suffered by the Islamic State are to be blamed on the Sunni Muslims, the sect the Islamic State claims to represent, who have collaborated with the West, Baghdadi said, citing recent defeats for moderate, Western-backed rebels in Syria as evidence.
He also urged Islamic State supporters in the West to carry out more of the kind of lone-wolf attacks that have periodically set nerves on edge in the United States, Europe and Canada.
“Carry out an attack that breaks their heart, and rip them apart,” he said. “Either with gunfire, or a stab to their bodies, or a bombing in their countries.”
“Do not forget about running people over on the roads,” he added.
2c)
Fatah leaders arm themselves ahead of Abbas's possible departure
It is reported that senior PA officials such as Jibril Rajoub and the head of Palestinian General Intelligence Service, started to affiliate themselves with armed gangs in the West Bank to wield leverage in case battle over position of next PA leader turns violent; Two possible scenarios—establishment of several centers of power without a centralized leader, or chaos that would benefit Hamas.
Elior Levy 08.23.18
Senior leaders and officials in Fatah have reportedly started to align themselves with various armed groups in the West Bank, in preparation for a possible departure of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, and a possible violent struggle over his position.
When Abbas departs, there will be two possible scenarios at play—the Palestinians will either divide the positions of power among themselves, or instigate violent conflicts and riots.
The group of senior Fatah officials in question are those who see themselves as worthy candidates to be the next Palestinian leader, taking over at least one of Abbas's three positions—the president of the Palestinian Authority, the chairman of the PLO and the chairman of Fatah.
The alliances with armed factions are supposed to provide the candidates with firing power in the event that the impending succession war will involve violence and the use of weapons.
Among Fatah officials who have already attained the support of armed gangs: Jibril Rajoub, who also serves as chairman of the Palestinian Football Association, Head of Palestinian General Intelligence Service Majed Faraj, Mahmoud al-Aloul, who is deputy chairman of Fatah and Tawfik Tirawi, who was head of Palestinian General Intelligence in the West Bank during the Second Intifada. Some of them have already begun collecting weapons for their relatives.
The majority of the armed gangs are positioned inside the West Banks's refugee camps, and are comprised of refugees from the al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades, the military wing of Fatah during the Second Intifada.
Tirawi, for example, has a great influence over refugees in the Balata camp in Nablus. Faraj, who grew up in the Deheishe Refugee Camp in Bethlehem, is still considered a powerful figure in the camp. Rajoub has power centers in the Hebron area and Ramallah, and al-Aloul, a former leader of the militant faction of Fatah, Tanzim, still maintains extensive ties with various sources group.
There are a few scenarios for the day after Abbas is gone. One possible development is that a stable Fatah coalition will be established in which the positions of power will be divided among several leaders, and will no longer be the sole responsibility of one leader, as was the case during the rule of Yasser Arafat and Abbas.
The second scenario is that the political situation will revert back to the Second Intifada days, when inner conflicts between the Palestinian groups deteriorated into violent clashes and chaos in the streets. Hamas might benefit from such a scenario and gain power in the West Bank, while Fatah members are fighting among themselves.
Mahmoud Abbas, whose health is deteriorating, still maintains his hardline positions, which, for the moment, isolate Ramallah from other power centers. Abbas sees the United States trying to destroy his life's work—his insistence on negotiations and diplomatic and non-armed confrontations with Israel.
As far as he is concerned, the Americans have taken the Jerusalem (and the recognition of the city as Israel's capital) and refugees (with UNRWA's significant budget cuts) issues off the table, and are now trying to split the Palestinian arena into two, while delivering Gaza on a silver platter to Hamas.
Sources in Fatah's leadership fear that Abbas's "all or nothing" policy, as seen in his stubborn boycott of the US administration, will turn the Palestinians into a nonentity. There are senior Palestinian officials who try to convince him to soften his positions, but for the time being, to no avail.
On Wednesday, Abbas continued his aggressive line against Washington, condemning the PLO's statement to President Donald Trump's speech in which he said that "Israel will have to pay a higher price, because they won a very big thing…They never got past Jerusalem. We took it off the table. We don’t have to talk about it anymore.”
The PLO responded by saying that Trump's remarks is indicative of the "persistent biased policy toward the Israeli side, and the continued delusions of the American administration according to which, the 'deal of the century' can be made without declaring Jerusalem as the capital of the Palestinian state."
Hamas also criticized the US president's comments. "Trump's statements that Jerusalem is no longer on the negotiating table are impertinent and dangerous.
"The right response would be to revoke the Palestinian Authority's recognition of the State of Israel, and cease all security coordination with Israel. The authority should also break all contacts, including security contacts, with the American administration," Hamas concluded.
2d)
BOLTON DEFENDS ISRAELI STRIKES
IN SYRIA AGAINST IRANIAN TARGETS
IN SYRIA AGAINST IRANIAN TARGETS
Bolton added that what is central to US policy in Syria is not only to defeat of the Islamic State and the elimination of its territorial caliphate, but also to deal with Iran’s presence.
BY HERB KEINON
Israel has struck in Syria in recent months “every time Iran has brought missiles or other threatening weapons” into the country, US National Security Adviser John Bolton said on Wednesday. He added that he viewed those strikes as “a legitimate act of self-defense.”
Bolton’s comments came at a press conference on the final day of a three-day visit here dominated by talks with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other top Israeli officials about Iran and Syria.
Bolton revealed that in discussions he had with Russian President Vladimir Putin three weeks before Putin and US President Donald Trump met in Helsinki, the Russian leader told him that Russian and Iranian interests were not the same in Syria, and that he would be “content to see the Iranian forces all sent back to Iran.”
“It was not a question of where they would be inside Syria,” Bolton said, referring to the current 85-km. buffer zone from the Israeli border, from where Moscow said it has pushed back Iranian forces and Shia militias.
“We were talking about the complete return both of regular and irregular Iranian forces,” Bolton said, adding that Putin said he could not do it himself.
“So the point was that perhaps joint US-Russian efforts might be sufficient. Now I don’t know if that is right either, but it is certainly one of the subjects I will be talking about with my Russian counterpart in Geneva tomorrow.” Bolton is scheduled to meet with Nikolai Patrushev for follow-up talks to the Trump-Putin summit last month.
Saying that Syria is “extraordinarily complicated” because there are so many different actors involved there, Bolton said that what is central to US policy there is not only the defeat of Islamic State and the elimination of its territorial caliphate, but also to deal with Iran’s presence there.
Bolton said that when the Obama administration set out on its anti-Islamic State campaign, it did not foresee “that Iran obviously had a strategic plan to create an arc of control from Iran through the Shia areas in Iraq and Syria, linking them up with Hezbollah in Lebanon. That is not something we want to see.”
Bolton noted that since Trump came to power, the US has acted twice militarily in Syria when Syrian President Bashar Assad used chemical weapons, and that as Assad gets ready for another offensive campaign in Idlib province, there should be no ambiguity: the US will respond if he uses chemical weapons again.
Regarding Iran, Bolton said that “regime change” there is not America’s policy, but “what we want is massive change in the regime’s behavior.” He said that the premises of the Obama administration’s policy regarding Iran – that if the nuclear issue were solved, Iran would behave like a “normal country” – have proven completely wrong.
Iran’s economy has been mismanaged for years, Bolton said, adding that the 2015 nuclear deal “mitigated the effects of this management of the economy, and gave the regime new life. It gave this regime – which has been the central banker of international terrorism since 1979 – new assets that could be used for its nuclear weapons program, for its ballistic missiles program, for its terrorist support activities, for its conventional military activities.”
Bolton said the lifting of the sanctions under the deal gave the Iranians a feeling that they had a “free hand” in the region. “By bringing the hammer down again and reimposing American sanctions, we have seen a profound negative effect on Iran – I think more significant than we would have predicted.”
Bolton said that what is significant about the demonstrations taking place now in Iran is that they are not organized but, rather, “just regular people saying they are fed up with the government.”
Bolton said that he briefed Netanyahu and other senior Israeli officials during his talks here on “the whole range of issues connected to Iran.”
This included US talks with Europeans to encourage them to increase pressure on Iran; efforts to make sure that various countries around the world that have been dependent on Iranian oil have other sources, “so we can drive exports down to zero”; and efforts to enforce the sanctions more stringently – with less waivers – than was done under the Obama administration.
BOLTON, IN an interview with Reuters, said that the Trump administration is not discussing possible US recognition of Israel’s sovereignty over the Golan Heights.
“I’ve heard the idea being suggested, but there’s no discussion of it, no decision within the US government,” he said. “Obviously, we understand the Israeli claim that it has annexed the Golan Heights – we understand their position – but there’s no change in the US position for now.”
Netanyahu asked the US to recognize Israeli sovereignty over the area in February 2017, but has not publicly been actively lobbying over the issue.
In July the House Subcommittee on National Security held a hearing on the matter under the title: “A new horizon in US-Israel relations: From an American embassy in Jerusalem to potential recognition of Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights.”
Bolton’s comments came at a press conference on the final day of a three-day visit here dominated by talks with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other top Israeli officials about Iran and Syria.
Bolton revealed that in discussions he had with Russian President Vladimir Putin three weeks before Putin and US President Donald Trump met in Helsinki, the Russian leader told him that Russian and Iranian interests were not the same in Syria, and that he would be “content to see the Iranian forces all sent back to Iran.”
“It was not a question of where they would be inside Syria,” Bolton said, referring to the current 85-km. buffer zone from the Israeli border, from where Moscow said it has pushed back Iranian forces and Shia militias.
“We were talking about the complete return both of regular and irregular Iranian forces,” Bolton said, adding that Putin said he could not do it himself.
“So the point was that perhaps joint US-Russian efforts might be sufficient. Now I don’t know if that is right either, but it is certainly one of the subjects I will be talking about with my Russian counterpart in Geneva tomorrow.” Bolton is scheduled to meet with Nikolai Patrushev for follow-up talks to the Trump-Putin summit last month.
Saying that Syria is “extraordinarily complicated” because there are so many different actors involved there, Bolton said that what is central to US policy there is not only the defeat of Islamic State and the elimination of its territorial caliphate, but also to deal with Iran’s presence there.
Bolton said that when the Obama administration set out on its anti-Islamic State campaign, it did not foresee “that Iran obviously had a strategic plan to create an arc of control from Iran through the Shia areas in Iraq and Syria, linking them up with Hezbollah in Lebanon. That is not something we want to see.”
Bolton noted that since Trump came to power, the US has acted twice militarily in Syria when Syrian President Bashar Assad used chemical weapons, and that as Assad gets ready for another offensive campaign in Idlib province, there should be no ambiguity: the US will respond if he uses chemical weapons again.
Regarding Iran, Bolton said that “regime change” there is not America’s policy, but “what we want is massive change in the regime’s behavior.” He said that the premises of the Obama administration’s policy regarding Iran – that if the nuclear issue were solved, Iran would behave like a “normal country” – have proven completely wrong.
Iran’s economy has been mismanaged for years, Bolton said, adding that the 2015 nuclear deal “mitigated the effects of this management of the economy, and gave the regime new life. It gave this regime – which has been the central banker of international terrorism since 1979 – new assets that could be used for its nuclear weapons program, for its ballistic missiles program, for its terrorist support activities, for its conventional military activities.”
Bolton said the lifting of the sanctions under the deal gave the Iranians a feeling that they had a “free hand” in the region. “By bringing the hammer down again and reimposing American sanctions, we have seen a profound negative effect on Iran – I think more significant than we would have predicted.”
Bolton said that what is significant about the demonstrations taking place now in Iran is that they are not organized but, rather, “just regular people saying they are fed up with the government.”
Bolton said that he briefed Netanyahu and other senior Israeli officials during his talks here on “the whole range of issues connected to Iran.”
This included US talks with Europeans to encourage them to increase pressure on Iran; efforts to make sure that various countries around the world that have been dependent on Iranian oil have other sources, “so we can drive exports down to zero”; and efforts to enforce the sanctions more stringently – with less waivers – than was done under the Obama administration.
BOLTON, IN an interview with Reuters, said that the Trump administration is not discussing possible US recognition of Israel’s sovereignty over the Golan Heights.
“I’ve heard the idea being suggested, but there’s no discussion of it, no decision within the US government,” he said. “Obviously, we understand the Israeli claim that it has annexed the Golan Heights – we understand their position – but there’s no change in the US position for now.”
Netanyahu asked the US to recognize Israeli sovereignty over the area in February 2017, but has not publicly been actively lobbying over the issue.
In July the House Subcommittee on National Security held a hearing on the matter under the title: “A new horizon in US-Israel relations: From an American embassy in Jerusalem to potential recognition of Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights.”
The purpose of the hearing, according to an announcement put out by the subcommittee, was “to discuss the potential for American recognition of Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights, in furtherance of US national security interests.”
2e)
Calculating the ‘price’ of U.S. supportThose on the Israeli right need to understand that even a friendly U.S. administration isn’t going to write them a blank check.
It’s likely that even U.S. President Donald Trump’s most ardent pro-Israel supporters were stopped in their tracks when they heard or read his remarks delivered on Tuesday night in West Virginia.
On a day when the political world was transfixed by the criminal convictions of two former high-ranking Trump aides, the president delivered one of his typical stream-of-consciousness speeches that covered a host of topics, including Middle East policy.
While speaking of his decision to keep his promise to move the U.S. embassy to Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, Trump also made it clear that it was part of a broader strategy to broker peace with the Palestinians. Trump indicated that as a result of this gift to Israel, the Jewish state would have to “pay a higher price” in the talks that he hopes will follow the unveiling of the peace plan that has been drafted by presidential son-in-law and senior adviser Jared Kushner and other administrative staff.
“If there’s ever going to be peace with the Palestinians, then this was a good thing to have done. We took it off the table. In past negotiations, they never got past Jerusalem. Now Israel will have to pay a higher price because it’s off the table. The Palestinians will get something very good, because it’s their turn next,” said the president.
That means that if Israel is going to retain an undivided Jerusalem as its capital, the “something very good” that is coming to the Palestinians is undoubtedly an offer of an independent state in the West Bank.
The question is whether that will turn out to be too high a price for Israel to have paid. To some Israelis, the answer to that question is an adamant “yes.”
Many on the Jewish right have assumed that the two-state option was a dead letter. After so many Palestinian rejections of peace and with hundreds of thousands of Jews living across the “green line,” the idea of Trump resurrecting the concept is a bitter blow.
And yet, it’s likely that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu isn’t losing too much sleep about any of this.
That’s not just because John Bolton, Trump’s National Security Advisor, who by coincidence was visiting Israel this week, sought to downplay the idea that the embassy relocation was a quid pro quo for future concessions to the Palestinians when asked about it the next morning.
As Netanyahu already knows, the party that will really decide how high the price Israel will pay for Jerusalem or anything else in a putative peace deal isn’t Trump, Bolton or Kushner. It’s Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas.
If Netanyahu isn’t all that worried, it’s because Abbas has never been serious about peace. He walked away from past offers that were more generous than anything he could get from Trump and Netanyahu. The compromises that would be required in signing a peace deal of any kind would make Abbas and his Fatah Party vulnerable to attacks from his Hamas rivals.
Abbas made that clear when his spokesman said that the only compensation the P.A. wants from the United States is a declaration that eastern Jerusalem will be the capital of a Palestinian state—something that Trump has again said he has taken off the table. No serious observer thinks the Trump plan has any chance of success.
But that doesn’t mean Israelis should ignore Trump’s comments.
For many on the Jewish right, the Trump administration has been a new golden age, especially after the eight tense years of the Barack Obama presidency. Trump has kept his promise on Jerusalem, and the Palestinians’ angry refusal to deal with his foreign-policy team has encouraged some Israelis to believe that they have a blank check from America that they can spend as they please.
That has led some of Netanyahu’s coalition partners to think they can push through a partial or complete annexation of the West Bank that would forever end any prospect of a Palestinian state. Some in Netanyahu’s cabinet were also laboring under the delusion that Trump would recognize Israel’s annexation of the Golan Heights, especially since no one in their right mind is even thinking of handing the strategic plateau back to a Syria occupied by Iran and Hezbollah.
They’re wrong on all counts.
Even in the improbable event of a serious negotiation with Abbas, Trump is unlikely to seriously pressure Netanyahu. As the president has indicated, he will never be more interested in a deal than the parties involved, so as long as the Palestinians aren’t interested, the Israelis have little to be concerned about.
By the same token, the notion that Trump is going to foreclose even the theoretical chance of a two-state deal is a fantasy. He is too interested in maintaining good relations with Sunni Arab states like Saudi Arabia and Egypt to acquiesce to the dreams of the Israeli right and overturn a status quo that at least preserves the chance of peace in the future. As Bolton indicated, the same is true about the Golan.
The diplomatic balance of power has shifted in Israel’s favor, but not so far as to allow the United States to approve of the extension of full Israeli sovereignty over the territories. That’s a complication that even Trump wants no part of. Unlike some of his political allies, Netanyahu seems to know this and will tread carefully so as not to endanger relations with a friendly president.
Like the remarks about a “high price,” that understanding is a bitter disappointment to some who thought Trump would realize all of their dreams about annexation. Even the most favorable American administration is not going to tell the Arab world that the Palestinians will never get a state outside of the one they already have (in all but name) in Gaza. Yet rather than attack Trump for this message, the Jewish right needs to sober up. Trump has gone farther than any other U.S. president to support Israel’s position, but he is never going to give them everything they want.
Jonathan S. Tobin is editor in chief of JNS — Jewish News Syndicate. Follow him on twitter at: @jonathans_tobin.
2f) The Cost Of Admission To Trump's Peace Negotiations
It’s likely that even U.S. President Donald Trump’s most ardent pro-Israel supporters were stopped in their tracks when they heard or read his remarks delivered on Tuesday night in West Virginia.
On a day when the political world was transfixed by the criminal convictions of two former high-ranking Trump aides, the president delivered one of his typical stream-of-consciousness speeches that covered a host of topics, including Middle East policy.
While speaking of his decision to keep his promise to move the U.S. embassy to Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, Trump also made it clear that it was part of a broader strategy to broker peace with the Palestinians. Trump indicated that as a result of this gift to Israel, the Jewish state would have to “pay a higher price” in the talks that he hopes will follow the unveiling of the peace plan that has been drafted by presidential son-in-law and senior adviser Jared Kushner and other administrative staff.
“If there’s ever going to be peace with the Palestinians, then this was a good thing to have done. We took it off the table. In past negotiations, they never got past Jerusalem. Now Israel will have to pay a higher price because it’s off the table. The Palestinians will get something very good, because it’s their turn next,” said the president.
That means that if Israel is going to retain an undivided Jerusalem as its capital, the “something very good” that is coming to the Palestinians is undoubtedly an offer of an independent state in the West Bank.
The question is whether that will turn out to be too high a price for Israel to have paid. To some Israelis, the answer to that question is an adamant “yes.”
Many on the Jewish right have assumed that the two-state option was a dead letter. After so many Palestinian rejections of peace and with hundreds of thousands of Jews living across the “green line,” the idea of Trump resurrecting the concept is a bitter blow.
And yet, it’s likely that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu isn’t losing too much sleep about any of this.
That’s not just because John Bolton, Trump’s National Security Advisor, who by coincidence was visiting Israel this week, sought to downplay the idea that the embassy relocation was a quid pro quo for future concessions to the Palestinians when asked about it the next morning.
As Netanyahu already knows, the party that will really decide how high the price Israel will pay for Jerusalem or anything else in a putative peace deal isn’t Trump, Bolton or Kushner. It’s Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas.
If Netanyahu isn’t all that worried, it’s because Abbas has never been serious about peace. He walked away from past offers that were more generous than anything he could get from Trump and Netanyahu. The compromises that would be required in signing a peace deal of any kind would make Abbas and his Fatah Party vulnerable to attacks from his Hamas rivals.
Abbas made that clear when his spokesman said that the only compensation the P.A. wants from the United States is a declaration that eastern Jerusalem will be the capital of a Palestinian state—something that Trump has again said he has taken off the table. No serious observer thinks the Trump plan has any chance of success.
But that doesn’t mean Israelis should ignore Trump’s comments.
For many on the Jewish right, the Trump administration has been a new golden age, especially after the eight tense years of the Barack Obama presidency. Trump has kept his promise on Jerusalem, and the Palestinians’ angry refusal to deal with his foreign-policy team has encouraged some Israelis to believe that they have a blank check from America that they can spend as they please.
That has led some of Netanyahu’s coalition partners to think they can push through a partial or complete annexation of the West Bank that would forever end any prospect of a Palestinian state. Some in Netanyahu’s cabinet were also laboring under the delusion that Trump would recognize Israel’s annexation of the Golan Heights, especially since no one in their right mind is even thinking of handing the strategic plateau back to a Syria occupied by Iran and Hezbollah.
They’re wrong on all counts.
Even in the improbable event of a serious negotiation with Abbas, Trump is unlikely to seriously pressure Netanyahu. As the president has indicated, he will never be more interested in a deal than the parties involved, so as long as the Palestinians aren’t interested, the Israelis have little to be concerned about.
By the same token, the notion that Trump is going to foreclose even the theoretical chance of a two-state deal is a fantasy. He is too interested in maintaining good relations with Sunni Arab states like Saudi Arabia and Egypt to acquiesce to the dreams of the Israeli right and overturn a status quo that at least preserves the chance of peace in the future. As Bolton indicated, the same is true about the Golan.
The diplomatic balance of power has shifted in Israel’s favor, but not so far as to allow the United States to approve of the extension of full Israeli sovereignty over the territories. That’s a complication that even Trump wants no part of. Unlike some of his political allies, Netanyahu seems to know this and will tread carefully so as not to endanger relations with a friendly president.
Like the remarks about a “high price,” that understanding is a bitter disappointment to some who thought Trump would realize all of their dreams about annexation. Even the most favorable American administration is not going to tell the Arab world that the Palestinians will never get a state outside of the one they already have (in all but name) in Gaza. Yet rather than attack Trump for this message, the Jewish right needs to sober up. Trump has gone farther than any other U.S. president to support Israel’s position, but he is never going to give them everything they want.
Jonathan S. Tobin is editor in chief of JNS — Jewish News Syndicate. Follow him on twitter at: @jonathans_tobin.
2f) The Cost Of Admission To Trump's Peace Negotiations
United States President Donald Trump asserted Tuesday that Israel would need to pay a hefty price in any future peace negotiations because of his decision to recognize Jerusalem as Israel's capital and move the American Embassy to the holy city. The US leader added that the Palestinians would soon "get something very good…because it's their turn."
Hours later at a news conference in Jerusalem, US National Security Adviser John Bolton qualified that there was never any quid pro quo attached to the mission's relocation and poured cold water on the notion that President Trump's statements constitute or portend a change in American policy.
"As a deal-maker, as a bargainer, [the president] would expect, you would expect, I would expect, that the Palestinians would say, 'okay, so we didn't get that one, now we want something else," Bolton reasoned in front a packed room of journalists. "But the fundamental point is that ultimately this is something that the parties are going to have to agree on."
In response, Dr. Abdullah Abdullah, former Palestinian Authority deputy foreign minister and current Chairman of the Political Committee of the Palestinian Legislative Council, dismissed President Trump's rhetoric as "hollow promises."
"We are not that naive enough to be lured by Trump, who destroyed the peace process altogether and [disqualified] the US as a mediator in the negotiations," he stressed to The Media Line. "The only thing that the Americans can do is to reverse the decision to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of the Jewish people. The Palestinians are interested in their national rights in their country with its capital.
"We started our movement in 1965 to rebuild our right to self-determination," Dr. Abdullah affirmed, "and we will continue struggling by all legitimate means to regain our sovereignty."
The development comes after President Trump's point men on the peace process, senior adviser Jared Kushner and head negotiator Jason Greenblatt, last week reinforced Washington's commitment to re-launching talks; this, while stressing that neither the Israelis nor the Palestinians will be entirely satisfied with their 18-months-in-the-making proposal.
To this end, President Trump has multiple times this year intimated that Israel will need "pay more" in any negotiations. Speaking in January alongside Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, the US leader stated, “You won one point [on Jerusalem], and you’ll give up some other points later.” Notably, Israeli Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman previously acknowledged that the government had to "be prepared" to make concessions following the embassy move, explaining that “there is no free lunch.”
Perhaps, then, Bolton was merely sugar-coating a self-evident fact—that Israel will need to make "painful" compromises in order to achieve peace. But observers opine that this is far from revolutionary or unexpected. What is surprising to many, however, is the White House's inclination to allow PA President Mahmoud Abbas an apparent victory given his unequivocal condemnations of Trump administration policies.
Indeed, Abbas has effectively been boycotting Washington since the Jerusalem declaration, and on numerous occasions has rejected out-of-hand the yet-unveiled American peace proposal. In the interim, the PA boss cursed President Trump by wishing that, “may your house be destroyed," and referred to US Ambassador to Israel David Friedman as a “son of a dog.” Palestinian officials have labelled Greenblatt a "Zionist," and called for US Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley to “shut up.”
Only one week ago, the White House threatened to bypass the PA altogether if it means reaching a cease-fire deal between Israel and Hamas that might allow for the Gaza Strip's reconstruction.
Given Abbas' conduct, coupled with the ongoing intra-Palestinian divide between the PA-controlled West Bank and Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip, Bolton's affirmation that President Trump "brings reality to a negotiation that for decades has been conducted in an Arab unreality" raises an obvious question: namely, is the White House being clear-eyed or operating with eyes-wide-shut by pursuing the "deal of the century?"
Dr. Yossi Beilin, an architect of the 1993 Oslo Accords, hopes that President Trump envisions an even-handed process, "because the Palestinians are very worried about the peace plan and view it as something pre-arranged with Netanyahu. If this is the case, they will not be involved.
"If there is something of importance for the Palestinians then this is different," he elaborated to The Media Line. "I don't know exactly what the threshold is but if, for example, the US administration called for parts of [eastern] Jerusalem to become the capital of a Palestinian state or [sought] to compensate or allow a symbolic number of Palestinian refugees to return to Israel—then this could act as a platform for talks."
Dr. Beilin believes that it is still possible to reach an all-encompassing settlement, and warns that whoever succeeds Abbas is unlikely to be as moderate. "We know more or less what a solution will look like and this can be implemented in the West Bank. Right now it would be hard to include Gaza [in the equation], but it is nevertheless important to get the terms down on paper and explain how the [end-game] can be reached."
Gilead Sher, a Senior Research Fellow and head of the Center of Applied Negotiations at Israel's Institute for National Security Studies, is less convinced that the prevailing environment is favorable to achieving an end-of-claims pact and thus foresees President Trump promoting a step-wise process. "Based on my understanding, the [White House] plan focuses on the rehabilitation of Gaza and ending the security crisis more than on resolving the broader Israeli-Palestinian conflict," he conveyed to The Media Line. “The focus might be on ensuring that the conditions for a future [comprehensive] accord be maintained without necessarily venturing into this territory."
One of the first things that could be done, in his estimation, is to delineate Israel's future borders, effectively resolving another final-status issue. The "Gaza powder keg" must also be addressed immediately, "in order to suppress the violence and improve the humanitarian situation for the people. This, under a very strict monitoring mechanism that ensures that in a few months or years there will be no new round of acute fighting.
"If I were to advise President Donald Trump," Sher concluded, "the 2014 cease-fire agreement devised by the Egyptians [that ended the war between Israel and Hamas] is a very good place to start. Add to that the 2011 reconciliation deal between [Abbas' ruling] Fatah [faction] and Hamas and you might not have to re-invent the wheel."
Assuming a piecemeal approach—that is, implementing whatever intermediary steps, even baby ones, that are presently possible—would, in fact, constitute a change of course. The past three American administrations, those of Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama, all set their sights on the grand prize, to no avail.
As a result, there is a growing sense of dejection on both sides, as evidenced by this week's passing without any fanfare of the twenty-fifth anniversary of the formalization of the Oslo Accords. Completed on August 20, 1993 and signed the following month during a ceremony at the White House, the agreement was hailed as a milestone, with Rabin, Arafat and then-Israeli foreign minister Shimon Peres the next year sharing the Nobel Peace Prize.
But the ensuing era has been defined by little peace, a lot of violence, and even more diplomacy, with President Trump the latest to jump into the ring. And while he repeatedly has voiced an intention to forge the "ultimate deal," past events suggest that a less-is-more approach may be required to gradually untangle the web of intricacies inherent to the conflict.
Should the White House instead choose to "go-big or go-home," then history calls for the limiting of expectations, even while hoping for the best and, most importantly, preparing for failure.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
3) Soros-FundedSocialMedia Censorship Plan Revealed
United States President Donald Trump asserted Tuesday that Israel would need to pay a hefty price in any future peace negotiations because of his decision to recognize Jerusalem as Israel's capital and move the American Embassy to the holy city. The US leader added that the Palestinians would soon "get something very good…because it's their turn."
Hours later at a news conference in Jerusalem, US National Security Adviser John Bolton qualified that there was never any quid pro quo attached to the mission's relocation and poured cold water on the notion that President Trump's statements constitute or portend a change in American policy.
"As a deal-maker, as a bargainer, [the president] would expect, you would expect, I would expect, that the Palestinians would say, 'okay, so we didn't get that one, now we want something else," Bolton reasoned in front a packed room of journalists. "But the fundamental point is that ultimately this is something that the parties are going to have to agree on."
In response, Dr. Abdullah Abdullah, former Palestinian Authority deputy foreign minister and current Chairman of the Political Committee of the Palestinian Legislative Council, dismissed President Trump's rhetoric as "hollow promises."
"We are not that naive enough to be lured by Trump, who destroyed the peace process altogether and [disqualified] the US as a mediator in the negotiations," he stressed to The Media Line. "The only thing that the Americans can do is to reverse the decision to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of the Jewish people. The Palestinians are interested in their national rights in their country with its capital.
"We started our movement in 1965 to rebuild our right to self-determination," Dr. Abdullah affirmed, "and we will continue struggling by all legitimate means to regain our sovereignty."
The development comes after President Trump's point men on the peace process, senior adviser Jared Kushner and head negotiator Jason Greenblatt, last week reinforced Washington's commitment to re-launching talks; this, while stressing that neither the Israelis nor the Palestinians will be entirely satisfied with their 18-months-in-the-making proposal.
To this end, President Trump has multiple times this year intimated that Israel will need "pay more" in any negotiations. Speaking in January alongside Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, the US leader stated, “You won one point [on Jerusalem], and you’ll give up some other points later.” Notably, Israeli Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman previously acknowledged that the government had to "be prepared" to make concessions following the embassy move, explaining that “there is no free lunch.”
Perhaps, then, Bolton was merely sugar-coating a self-evident fact—that Israel will need to make "painful" compromises in order to achieve peace. But observers opine that this is far from revolutionary or unexpected. What is surprising to many, however, is the White House's inclination to allow PA President Mahmoud Abbas an apparent victory given his unequivocal condemnations of Trump administration policies.
Indeed, Abbas has effectively been boycotting Washington since the Jerusalem declaration, and on numerous occasions has rejected out-of-hand the yet-unveiled American peace proposal. In the interim, the PA boss cursed President Trump by wishing that, “may your house be destroyed," and referred to US Ambassador to Israel David Friedman as a “son of a dog.” Palestinian officials have labelled Greenblatt a "Zionist," and called for US Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley to “shut up.”
Only one week ago, the White House threatened to bypass the PA altogether if it means reaching a cease-fire deal between Israel and Hamas that might allow for the Gaza Strip's reconstruction.
Given Abbas' conduct, coupled with the ongoing intra-Palestinian divide between the PA-controlled West Bank and Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip, Bolton's affirmation that President Trump "brings reality to a negotiation that for decades has been conducted in an Arab unreality" raises an obvious question: namely, is the White House being clear-eyed or operating with eyes-wide-shut by pursuing the "deal of the century?"
Dr. Yossi Beilin, an architect of the 1993 Oslo Accords, hopes that President Trump envisions an even-handed process, "because the Palestinians are very worried about the peace plan and view it as something pre-arranged with Netanyahu. If this is the case, they will not be involved.
"If there is something of importance for the Palestinians then this is different," he elaborated to The Media Line. "I don't know exactly what the threshold is but if, for example, the US administration called for parts of [eastern] Jerusalem to become the capital of a Palestinian state or [sought] to compensate or allow a symbolic number of Palestinian refugees to return to Israel—then this could act as a platform for talks."
Dr. Beilin believes that it is still possible to reach an all-encompassing settlement, and warns that whoever succeeds Abbas is unlikely to be as moderate. "We know more or less what a solution will look like and this can be implemented in the West Bank. Right now it would be hard to include Gaza [in the equation], but it is nevertheless important to get the terms down on paper and explain how the [end-game] can be reached."
Gilead Sher, a Senior Research Fellow and head of the Center of Applied Negotiations at Israel's Institute for National Security Studies, is less convinced that the prevailing environment is favorable to achieving an end-of-claims pact and thus foresees President Trump promoting a step-wise process. "Based on my understanding, the [White House] plan focuses on the rehabilitation of Gaza and ending the security crisis more than on resolving the broader Israeli-Palestinian conflict," he conveyed to The Media Line. “The focus might be on ensuring that the conditions for a future [comprehensive] accord be maintained without necessarily venturing into this territory."
One of the first things that could be done, in his estimation, is to delineate Israel's future borders, effectively resolving another final-status issue. The "Gaza powder keg" must also be addressed immediately, "in order to suppress the violence and improve the humanitarian situation for the people. This, under a very strict monitoring mechanism that ensures that in a few months or years there will be no new round of acute fighting.
"If I were to advise President Donald Trump," Sher concluded, "the 2014 cease-fire agreement devised by the Egyptians [that ended the war between Israel and Hamas] is a very good place to start. Add to that the 2011 reconciliation deal between [Abbas' ruling] Fatah [faction] and Hamas and you might not have to re-invent the wheel."
Assuming a piecemeal approach—that is, implementing whatever intermediary steps, even baby ones, that are presently possible—would, in fact, constitute a change of course. The past three American administrations, those of Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama, all set their sights on the grand prize, to no avail.
As a result, there is a growing sense of dejection on both sides, as evidenced by this week's passing without any fanfare of the twenty-fifth anniversary of the formalization of the Oslo Accords. Completed on August 20, 1993 and signed the following month during a ceremony at the White House, the agreement was hailed as a milestone, with Rabin, Arafat and then-Israeli foreign minister Shimon Peres the next year sharing the Nobel Peace Prize.
But the ensuing era has been defined by little peace, a lot of violence, and even more diplomacy, with President Trump the latest to jump into the ring. And while he repeatedly has voiced an intention to forge the "ultimate deal," past events suggest that a less-is-more approach may be required to gradually untangle the web of intricacies inherent to the conflict.
Should the White House instead choose to "go-big or go-home," then history calls for the limiting of expectations, even while hoping for the best and, most importantly, preparing for failure.
Hours later at a news conference in Jerusalem, US National Security Adviser John Bolton qualified that there was never any quid pro quo attached to the mission's relocation and poured cold water on the notion that President Trump's statements constitute or portend a change in American policy.
"As a deal-maker, as a bargainer, [the president] would expect, you would expect, I would expect, that the Palestinians would say, 'okay, so we didn't get that one, now we want something else," Bolton reasoned in front a packed room of journalists. "But the fundamental point is that ultimately this is something that the parties are going to have to agree on."
In response, Dr. Abdullah Abdullah, former Palestinian Authority deputy foreign minister and current Chairman of the Political Committee of the Palestinian Legislative Council, dismissed President Trump's rhetoric as "hollow promises."
"We are not that naive enough to be lured by Trump, who destroyed the peace process altogether and [disqualified] the US as a mediator in the negotiations," he stressed to The Media Line. "The only thing that the Americans can do is to reverse the decision to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of the Jewish people. The Palestinians are interested in their national rights in their country with its capital.
"We started our movement in 1965 to rebuild our right to self-determination," Dr. Abdullah affirmed, "and we will continue struggling by all legitimate means to regain our sovereignty."
The development comes after President Trump's point men on the peace process, senior adviser Jared Kushner and head negotiator Jason Greenblatt, last week reinforced Washington's commitment to re-launching talks; this, while stressing that neither the Israelis nor the Palestinians will be entirely satisfied with their 18-months-in-the-making proposal.
To this end, President Trump has multiple times this year intimated that Israel will need "pay more" in any negotiations. Speaking in January alongside Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, the US leader stated, “You won one point [on Jerusalem], and you’ll give up some other points later.” Notably, Israeli Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman previously acknowledged that the government had to "be prepared" to make concessions following the embassy move, explaining that “there is no free lunch.”
Perhaps, then, Bolton was merely sugar-coating a self-evident fact—that Israel will need to make "painful" compromises in order to achieve peace. But observers opine that this is far from revolutionary or unexpected. What is surprising to many, however, is the White House's inclination to allow PA President Mahmoud Abbas an apparent victory given his unequivocal condemnations of Trump administration policies.
Indeed, Abbas has effectively been boycotting Washington since the Jerusalem declaration, and on numerous occasions has rejected out-of-hand the yet-unveiled American peace proposal. In the interim, the PA boss cursed President Trump by wishing that, “may your house be destroyed," and referred to US Ambassador to Israel David Friedman as a “son of a dog.” Palestinian officials have labelled Greenblatt a "Zionist," and called for US Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley to “shut up.”
Only one week ago, the White House threatened to bypass the PA altogether if it means reaching a cease-fire deal between Israel and Hamas that might allow for the Gaza Strip's reconstruction.
Given Abbas' conduct, coupled with the ongoing intra-Palestinian divide between the PA-controlled West Bank and Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip, Bolton's affirmation that President Trump "brings reality to a negotiation that for decades has been conducted in an Arab unreality" raises an obvious question: namely, is the White House being clear-eyed or operating with eyes-wide-shut by pursuing the "deal of the century?"
Dr. Yossi Beilin, an architect of the 1993 Oslo Accords, hopes that President Trump envisions an even-handed process, "because the Palestinians are very worried about the peace plan and view it as something pre-arranged with Netanyahu. If this is the case, they will not be involved.
"If there is something of importance for the Palestinians then this is different," he elaborated to The Media Line. "I don't know exactly what the threshold is but if, for example, the US administration called for parts of [eastern] Jerusalem to become the capital of a Palestinian state or [sought] to compensate or allow a symbolic number of Palestinian refugees to return to Israel—then this could act as a platform for talks."
Dr. Beilin believes that it is still possible to reach an all-encompassing settlement, and warns that whoever succeeds Abbas is unlikely to be as moderate. "We know more or less what a solution will look like and this can be implemented in the West Bank. Right now it would be hard to include Gaza [in the equation], but it is nevertheless important to get the terms down on paper and explain how the [end-game] can be reached."
Gilead Sher, a Senior Research Fellow and head of the Center of Applied Negotiations at Israel's Institute for National Security Studies, is less convinced that the prevailing environment is favorable to achieving an end-of-claims pact and thus foresees President Trump promoting a step-wise process. "Based on my understanding, the [White House] plan focuses on the rehabilitation of Gaza and ending the security crisis more than on resolving the broader Israeli-Palestinian conflict," he conveyed to The Media Line. “The focus might be on ensuring that the conditions for a future [comprehensive] accord be maintained without necessarily venturing into this territory."
One of the first things that could be done, in his estimation, is to delineate Israel's future borders, effectively resolving another final-status issue. The "Gaza powder keg" must also be addressed immediately, "in order to suppress the violence and improve the humanitarian situation for the people. This, under a very strict monitoring mechanism that ensures that in a few months or years there will be no new round of acute fighting.
"If I were to advise President Donald Trump," Sher concluded, "the 2014 cease-fire agreement devised by the Egyptians [that ended the war between Israel and Hamas] is a very good place to start. Add to that the 2011 reconciliation deal between [Abbas' ruling] Fatah [faction] and Hamas and you might not have to re-invent the wheel."
Assuming a piecemeal approach—that is, implementing whatever intermediary steps, even baby ones, that are presently possible—would, in fact, constitute a change of course. The past three American administrations, those of Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama, all set their sights on the grand prize, to no avail.
As a result, there is a growing sense of dejection on both sides, as evidenced by this week's passing without any fanfare of the twenty-fifth anniversary of the formalization of the Oslo Accords. Completed on August 20, 1993 and signed the following month during a ceremony at the White House, the agreement was hailed as a milestone, with Rabin, Arafat and then-Israeli foreign minister Shimon Peres the next year sharing the Nobel Peace Prize.
But the ensuing era has been defined by little peace, a lot of violence, and even more diplomacy, with President Trump the latest to jump into the ring. And while he repeatedly has voiced an intention to forge the "ultimate deal," past events suggest that a less-is-more approach may be required to gradually untangle the web of intricacies inherent to the conflict.
Should the White House instead choose to "go-big or go-home," then history calls for the limiting of expectations, even while hoping for the best and, most importantly, preparing for failure.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
3) Soros-FundedSocialMedia Censorship Plan Revealed
The internet purge of conservatives by tech giants has taken a sinister turn.
A newly-released confidential memo by George Soros-funded advocacy groups reveals Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and Apple's punitive actions mirror a plan concocted by Soros to wrest power away from President Trump. (WorldNetDaily)
A confidential, 49-page memo for defeating Trump by working with the major social media platforms to eliminate “right-wing propaganda and fake news” was presented in January 2017 by Media Matters founder David Brock at a retreat in Florida with about 100 donors, the Washington Free Beacon reported at the time.
On Monday, the Gateway Pundit blog noted the memo’s relationship with recent moves by Silicon Valley tech giants to “shadow ban” conservative political candidates and pundits and remove content.
The Free Beacon obtained a copy of the memo, “Democracy Matters: Strategic Plan for Action,” by attending the retreat.
The memo spells out a four-year agenda that deployed Media Matters along with American Bridge, Shareblue and Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) to attack Trump and Republicans.
A recent study found that new Facebook algorithms have adversely affected the traffic of conservative websites.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
The internet purge of conservatives by tech giants has taken a sinister turn.
A newly-released confidential memo by George Soros-funded advocacy groups reveals Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and Apple's punitive actions mirror a plan concocted by Soros to wrest power away from President Trump. (WorldNetDaily)
A confidential, 49-page memo for defeating Trump by working with the major social media platforms to eliminate “right-wing propaganda and fake news” was presented in January 2017 by Media Matters founder David Brock at a retreat in Florida with about 100 donors, the Washington Free Beacon reported at the time.
On Monday, the Gateway Pundit blog noted the memo’s relationship with recent moves by Silicon Valley tech giants to “shadow ban” conservative political candidates and pundits and remove content.
The Free Beacon obtained a copy of the memo, “Democracy Matters: Strategic Plan for Action,” by attending the retreat.
The memo spells out a four-year agenda that deployed Media Matters along with American Bridge, Shareblue and Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) to attack Trump and Republicans.
A recent study found that new Facebook algorithms have adversely affected the traffic of conservative websites.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
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