The GOP’s Border Self-Sabotage
If Trump wins, he’ll regret having urged GOP lawmakers not to enact reforms.
BY KIMBERLEY STRASSEL
Watching Republican lawmakers sit idle as border havoc grows is a bit like watching the DC Universe dawdle as it waits for Superman to save the day. Only Donald Trump never wore tights, and the border is now kryptonite.
Sen. James Lankford (R., Okla.) this weekend unveiled the most substantive policy improvements to border security in a century. Don’t like “catch and release”? The bill largely stops it. Think the current low bar for claiming asylum—“credible fear”—is too easy? The bill would toughen it. Annoyed that President Biden has used “parole” authority to wave a million people through? The bill would end the worst abuses. It would provide money for more detention beds, more agents, a wall and vastly expedited hearings and deportations that promise to diminish incentives to claim asylum.
There was a day when Republicans would have jumped on such border restrictions. To listen to lawmakers’ refrain now, their jobs are no longer relevant. All they need is for Mr. Trump to return to the White House, where he will flash his cape and restore order. He did it before! Mr. Biden could do it now, if only he wanted to.
If only. True, Mr. Biden did have the tools to keep the border in check when he first took office, and today’s chaos is entirely of his making. He dismantled many of Mr. Trump’s most successful enforcement tools, while taking 535 executive actions, many designed to ease asylum claims. He simultaneously broadcast his plans for lax enforcement, inviting hordes to make the dangerous journey. Dismantle it, and they will come. And keep coming.
And that’s the problem: This combination of Biden policies has created a border beast large enough to bedevil the most capable future president. Mr. Trump’s annus horribilis for immigration enforcement was fiscal 2019, when there were caravans and 977,000 encounters. In fiscal 2023, there were nearly 2.5 million—five times the number in a typical Trump year. Meanwhile, what remains of an enforcement system is piecemeal, overworked, backlogged.
That 2019 number represents a painful fact, one the GOP ignores at its peril: Every modern president has struggled with border control, even in better times. Mr. Trump was no exception. In 2019—even with far fewer encounters, and with all his tools—Mr. Trump was forced to “catch and release” (yes, he did that too) 327,000 migrants into the U.S., eight times as many as were routed that year into his Remain in Mexico program (39,000). For comparison, Barack Obama’s catch-and-release numbers were 112,000 in fiscal 2016 and 77,000 in fiscal 2015.
Those figures also undermine claims that Mr. Biden could solve the problem by simply shutting down the border. The right to seek asylum is written into international and U.S. law, while the border facilitates hundreds of billions of dollars annually in trade, including of vital supply-chain materials. Mr. Trump threatened to shut the border several times while in office (and is again promising to do so), but there’s a reason he never fully closed it, allowing “essential” travel and trade even during the pandemic. A real shutdown would immediately be mired in legal battles, while sectors of the economy would take a massive hit.
Presidents can discourage migration by broadcasting that asylum bids will be arduous and unlikely to succeed. But Mr. Trump wouldn’t immediately—or ever—have access to some of the most valuable tools of his first term. The Title 42 public-health power to expel migrants went away when Congress ended the pandemic national emergency in 2023. The Remain in Mexico program was promising but required Mexico’s cooperation, which was reluctant. Mr. Biden shuttered its own scaled-back version of the program, and Mexico has its own reasons not to resurrect it.
Mr. Trump will inherit a problem that could well be insoluble without the sort of enforcement tools Congress is debating now. Here’s the catch: While they could pass now, they won’t under his watch. Should Mr. Trump win, Democrats will immediately oppose them, making it impossible to win the 60 Senate votes necessary to overcome a filibuster.
Not only do progressives prefer today’s immigration influx, they would be only too happy for Mr. Trump to own his own border disaster. His critics will also have the experience of his first term to greet his executive actions with maximum legal and political pain, to bind his efforts in court, and flood the zone with headlines about “cruel” family separations, kids in cages, squalid conditions.
Even Superman tried to have a plan, and most candidates banking on a nomination at some point consider what they will inherit and strategize accordingly. Would Mr. Biden use the tools in the Senate bill to maximum effect? Likely not. But consider what a Republican president could do with them, having for the first time in decades a new arsenal of enforcement provisions. Mr. Trump is doing neither himself nor his party any favors in deep-sixing his best shot at fulfilling the core GOP promise of border security.
+++
Iran May Be the 2024 Election Spoiler
In 1980 Tehran helped bring down Jimmy Carter. Will it do the same to Joe Biden?
By William McGurn
Forget No Labels and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. If Joe Biden’s bid for re-election is thwarted, the spoiler may well be the Iranians.
They’ve done it before. On Nov. 4, 1979, students in Tehran seized the U.S. Embassy, took Americans hostage, and held 52 of them for 444 days—through the entire presidential election year. It was an ongoing humiliation that advertised Jimmy Carter’s impotence to the world.
Joe Biden was then serving on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. So he had a front-row seat for how the Iranians helped bring about Mr. Carter’s 1980 loss to Ronald Reagan. Other major issues hardening Mr. Carter’s image as a weak president who wasn’t up to the job included inflation and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, which had taken the hapless president by complete surprise.
Iran, Afghanistan and inflation. Does Mr. Biden appreciate the irony? Though the specifics of each issue have changed—unlike Mr. Biden after his bungled exit from Afghanistan, for example, Mr. Carter actually toughened policy after the 1979 Soviet invasion—the sources of trouble are remarkably similar.
Take inflation. Yes, it’s coming down. But Americans remember Mr. Biden first denying it, then assuring us it was “temporary.” Now that it isn’t increasing as fast as it was, the Biden people seem irritated that the public won’t give them credit for solving a problem they created and at first denied. That’s because Americans see the higher prices they are still paying every time they buy a bag of groceries.
Or look at Afghanistan. In August 2021 the American-backed government in Kabul fell because—rejecting the advice of his generals—Mr. Biden ordered a U.S. exit. The withdrawal was a strategic and human horror: 13 American servicemen blown up by a suicide bomber, desperate Afghans falling to their deaths after clinging to departing U.S. planes, helicopters evacuating Americans in images reminiscent of the shameful abandonment of Saigon.
Even worse, the disastrous pullout seems to have been driven by Mr. Biden’s desire to use the 20th anniversary of 9/11 to boast that he was the president who got America out of Afghanistan. That he did, though his approval ratings fell along with Kabul and have never fully recovered.
Now comes Iran. The killing of three American service members in Jordan by Iran-backed Kataib Hezbollah presents Mr. Biden with some politically unpalatable choices. Critics, including this editorial page, warned well before it happened that Mr. Biden’s tepid response to the more than 160 attacks by Iran-backed militants was putting the lives of U.S. troops in the region at greater risk.
On Friday Mr. Biden launched dozens of retaliatory strikes targeting Iranian proxies in Iraq and Syria. Over the weekend that expanded to Houthi targets in Yemen. On Sunday the military announced it had successfully destroyed a Houthi antiship cruise missile preparing to launch in the Red Sea.
As incoherent as all this is, it makes a certain sense if you look at November’s election from the White House’s perspective. While critics see weakness, Mr. Biden may be the most hawkish man in his administration. Already officials and campaign staff have gone public with their objection to Mr. Biden’s backing for Israel. If Iran escalates and the U.S. responds, the chants of “Genocide Joe” from elements in his own party will increase.
And if conflict with Iran ends up affecting the global oil market, all Americans will pay. Remember those stickers on gasoline pumps featuring a smiling Mr. Biden pointing to the price and saying, “I did that”? With fuel prices finally heading down, the last thing Mr. Biden wants is a global oil-supply crisis.
Mr. Biden’s bet on the Iranians has always been the same as Barack Obama’s: If we engaged and got them to sign on to a nuclear deal, we would prevent them from getting a bomb and gradually drag them into normalcy. Mr. Biden may still believe this, just as he apparently believes that a Palestinian state is the answer to Palestinian terror.
But like Jimmy Carter, he is now getting a lesson that such regimes don’t behave normally because they have different priorities. It is doubtful Iran prefers Donald Trump to Mr. Biden. But if Mr. Trump does win in November, Iran will likely have had more to do with it than No Labels.
Personal essay:
They Rattle
I recently read an Op Ed by the brilliant Hoover Historian, Victor Davis Hanson entitled: "Is Biden Malicious, Incompetent or Conniving."
I believe he is all three and a cowardly liar to boot.
His maliciousness is evident by the way he decided to undo most everything Trump accomplished simply because of jealousy and fear of Trump's shadow. Otherwise, why did Biden close down America's energy production the minute he took office? What possible benefit did he think we would gain from this mean spirited act?
I understand his and/or his handler's desire to open America's border because he/they want(s) our nation to eventually be ruled by a single political party. The quickest way to accomplish this, is through connivance and flooding our republic with those who might be loyal and cast votes for the Democrat Party.
Trump was castigated by the mass media when he asserted we had become a dumping ground for some of the world's worst. In truth, Trump was right because opening our borders eliminated selectivity and assured the criminal element would be allowed to take over our cities, communities and increase the level of crime committed indiscriminately by dangerous gangs and war lords..
Biden's incompetency is reflected mainly in his failed foreign policy initiatives like the Afghanistan withdrawal, his vacillating support of Ukraine, his undercutting support of Israel by consistent public assertions they cease their military's efforts short of victory.
As for his pathological lying, that seems to be an affliction which has occurred throughout his life. His demoniac need to blame Trump reaches a psychotic level .
++++++++++++++++++++++++++
I WROTE AN ESSAY ABOUT THIS BEFORE THE WSJ'S OP ED.
Biden’s Worst Energy Decision
His LNG export permit ban looks worse the more you examine it.
The Editorial Board
Congress this week will hold hearings on the permit freeze for new liquefied natural gas (LNG) export projects that President Biden announced two weeks ago. The closer one looks, the more harm this raw political payoff to the climate left will do to U.S. national security and economic interests.
The White House has been whispering to its European allies not to worry about its moratorium’s impact on LNG supply even as it crows to the climate lobby. Progressives are celebrating because they know the putative pause will shrink investment in LNG. Merely read the plaudits from climate potentates on the White House website.
“The Biden administration is listening to the calls to break America’s reliance on dirty fossil fuels,” Sierra Club executive director Ben Jealous proclaimed. “It’s undeniable that LNG export projects are simply not in the public interest and we are confident that if this review is done right, that would end the rubber-stamping of these projects.” Got that, Mr. President?
The Energy Department is required by law to approve permits to export LNG to countries with which the U.S. doesn’t have free-trade agreements if they are in the “public interest.” The department has never rejected a permit. But now the Administration plans to do so by redefining “public interest” to include the potential impact on the climate.
The White House says the pause will only affect a handful of projects that are currently seeking Energy Department permits, but this is dishonest. It will also freeze about a half a dozen projects seeking Federal Energy Regulatory Commission approvals and could halt another dozen or so that have been permitted by previous Presidents.
That’s because the Energy Department in December announced that projects not yet operating will have to reapply for permits if it’s been seven years since they were authorized. So projects in the works could get deep-sixed—even if they have billions of dollars in committed capital and contractual agreements with customers.
The Administration is deliberately creating uncertainty about permit approvals and extensions to chill investment and discourage foreign governments from signing long-term contracts. Why risk investing in or signing a purchase agreement with a Gulf Coast project that may later be killed? Smarter to link up with the Qataris.
That’s what some are already doing. Japanese trading house Mitsui & Co is considering buying a stake in a major Qatar expansion project to ensure stable LNG supply, according to a Reuters report last autumn. Japan’s largest power generator is in talks with Qatar for a long-term supply contract. These are hedges against unreliable U.S. energy policy.
While the Administration downplays the national-security risks of its self-embargo, U.S. allies worry it will make them more vulnerable to geopolitical disruptions. About 20% of the global LNG supply travels through the Strait of Hormuz. LNG cargoes to Europe are now being diverted from the Red Sea because of Houthi missile attacks.
Russian and Iranian proxies could cause LNG prices to spike by attacking one or two large Qatar export facilities. Some countries in Asia might then burn more coal as they did in 2022 when LNG prices shot up. But Europeans are planning to retire coal and nuclear plants in the coming years on the expectation that they will have ample LNG from the U.S.
As for America’s economic interests, a single LNG export project will produce about $600 billion in revenue over its lifespan and create thousands of jobs, including in steel manufacturing and fracking—no government subsidies required.
Venture Global’s Gulf Coast CP2 could supply about 5% of the world’s LNG by 2026 and would have a bigger impact on the U.S. economy than any green energy project. It would also reduce global greenhouse gas emissions by 140 million tons a year—about as much as all container ships in the world produce. But it still needs an Energy Department permit.
We look forward to hearing Administration officials explain to Congress how this remarkably destructive ban is in the public interest.
AND:
How the Rockefellers and Billionaire Donors Pressured Biden on LNG ExportsPresident’s decision to halt new export terminals follows an intense campaign by environmental groups funded by wealthy contributors
Charities controlled by members of the Rockefeller family and billionaire donors were key funders of a successful campaign to pressure President Biden to pause new approvals of liquefied natural gas exports from the U.S.
The Rockefellers, along with other wealthy donors including the philanthropy of Michael Bloomberg, have provided millions of dollars in recent years to front-line environmental groups that are campaigning against fossil-fuel projects, including LNG terminals that have been proposed on the Gulf Coast, according to people familiar with the effort.
Some green funders hadn’t given much attention to the LNG exports until recently, in part because of ambivalence about the role natural gas should play in the energy transition. Plus, some previous campaigns to kill LNG terminals had been unsuccessful, damping some donors’ and large environmental organizations’ appetite for taking on the industry.
The billionaire-backed campaign, starting around four years ago, worked to identify and fund community leaders already campaigning against fossil-fuel projects. The activists buttonholed White House and federal officials in Washington, Houston and Dubai as part of a high-intensity grassroots campaign.
Biden last month effectively froze the approval process for new LNG terminals while his administration takes stock of the country’s newfound status as the world’s largest LNG exporter.
“They got our attention,” a senior Biden administration official said of the activists’ efforts, describing the campaign as intense.
Administration officials said they were influenced by the environmental groups’ push. But the campaign wasn’t the only factor in Biden’s decision to pause new LNG approvals, which they said came amid new research on the emissions from LNG facilities, as well as an interest in better understanding how LNG exports affect the U.S. economy and national security.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
I ALSO WROTE AN ESSAY ABOUT THIS BEFORE THE WSJ'S OP ED.
Overvaluing Hostages Is Israel’s Weakness
The 2011 deal with Hamas that freed Gilad Shalit led to the taking of hundreds more.
Israel’s greatest weakness is its willingness do anything to obtain the release of hostages.
BY MICHAEL SEGAL
Nothing illustrates this better than Israel’s release of 1,027 terrorists and other security prisoners in 2011 in exchange for one hostage, Gilad Shalit. Among those released was Yahya Sinwar, now leader of Hamas in Gaza. Hamas learned that Israeli hostages are hugely valuable and promised a cash bounty for each hostage brought back to Gaza on Oct. 7.
An estimated 80 hostages are alive in Gaza. Some hostage families, prominent Israelis and Western leaders have urged Israel to release its thousands of security prisoners in exchange. Yet the conflict is far from over, and releasing terrorists would lead to more attacks. It would create the impression that Hamas didn’t lose the war and that being captured in the next round is temporary until the next hostage release.
The willingness to pay a high price for captives has deep roots in Jewish tradition. It is discussed in detail in the Talmud, though tempered by the concern that paying too high a price would encourage seizing of more captives. In the Middle Ages, when taking of captives typically involved one-of-a-kind situations, Jewish leaders pushed the cultural imperative even more toward the importance of redeeming captives, with less concern for creating incentives for hostage-taking.
But Jews now have a state, with a longer time horizon and a greater danger that a hostage deal will encourage future hostage-taking. Israel also has an option that wasn’t available to Jews in the Middle Ages: military action. According to news reports, Israel ascertained Mr. Sinwar’s location—in a tunnel under Khan Younis, surrounded by many hostages—though it’s possible he has been moved since.
In the absence of a modest deal similar to the one that resulted in the release of 105 hostages in November, Israel’s best alternative is to go after Mr. Sinwar despite the risk to the hostages, bringing the Gaza war to an end. Hostages would die in the process, though one can imagine clever strategies in which some would survive.
For Israel to negotiate with military action as a credible option, it needs to overcome not only its own cultural attitudes about hostage negotiations, but also an American mindset that seems to have forgotten the importance of winning a war. The U.S. is attacking the rebel Houthis in Yemen but limiting the attacks so as not to topple the Houthis or even endanger their cease-fire with the official government of Yemen. It is a different attitude from that of Gen. Dwight Eisenhower, whose Proclamation No. 1 on entering Germany declared a goal of total victory.
Both Israel and the U.S. need to return to the simple principle that decisive victory is the best way to restore peace.
Dr. Segal is a neurologist and neuroscientist
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++
U.S. officials were hammering out the finer details of what they hoped would be the most momentous Middle East peace deal in a generation.
The war in Gaza has changed that calculation for Riyadh, officials said.
After Blinken held talks with the crown prince in Riyadh on Tuesday, the kingdom said it had “communicated its firm position to the U.S. administration that there will be no diplomatic relations with Israel unless an independent Palestinian state is recognized” within the West Bank and Gaza “with East Jerusalem as its capital,” Saudi Arabia’s Foreign Ministry said.
.jpg)
+++
Make Iran Fear America Again
Tehran plays Biden like a piano. He urgently needs to seize the initiative.
By Walter Russell Mead
As “Master and Commander,” the 2003 movie based on Patrick O’Brian’s extraordinary historical novels, reminded us, the key to victory in the Age of Sail was to have an advantage that sailors called the “weather gage.” Thanks to the wind’s direction, one side could dictate the timing and pace of the battle. When you wanted to engage the enemy fleet, the wind allowed you to approach. When you wanted to back off, the wind prevented the enemy from closing in.
What’s clear in the Middle East these days is that Iran has the weather gage. Iran can spark a crisis whenever and wherever it wants and can also de-escalate at will. From Iraq to Lebanon and Gaza to the Red Sea, Iran and its proxies can create an instant crisis anywhere, forcing the U.S. to respond on Iran’s timetable. Even when, as over this weekend, Team Biden responded to Iranian attacks with force, Tehran was essentially in control. Rather than thinking about how to deliver an unmistakable message that will restore deterrence across the Middle East, the administration struggled to find a Goldilocks retaliation strategy: strong enough so centrists don’t call it weak at home, weak enough so that Iran won’t escalate in return.
If the U.S. can’t seize the political and military initiative from Team Tehran, Iran will continue playing the Middle East like a piano, and President Biden will keep dancing to Tehran’s tune for the rest of his time in office.
Literature offers another useful image to capture the state of American Middle East policy in this new era of tension and war. Think of the elderly King Théoden in J.R.R. Tolkien’s “The Lord of the Rings,” staring into his memories as the shadows gather around his endangered realm. The counselors of decline whisper the logic of despair into his aging ears. Saruman, they say, referencing the dangerous wizard building armies and fortifications near Théoden’s frontiers, has limited goals and you can work with him. Besides, Saruman is irresistible, and you can’t defeat him. Yes, his warg and orc allies can be a little rough around the edges, but at the end of the day, détente with Saruman offers your best hope for regional peace.
Throughout the Obama era, and again during the Biden years, the defeatists and Iran apologists whispered and spun. At the same time, the bloody-fingered allies of the ayatollahs wrought havoc across the Middle East, subjugating Lebanon, subverting Iraq, wrecking Syria, immiserating Yemen and equipping Hamas for its ruinous war. Meanwhile, the mullahs continued their drive for nuclear weapons and missiles. According to one prominent analyst, they could make a bomb within days and a respectable nuclear arsenal within a few weeks or months.
In Tolkien’s world, King Théoden woke up from the spell he was under in the nick of time, dismissed his turncoat counselor, Wormtongue, and led his country back into the light. Will Mr. Biden wake up and realize how much danger the U.S. and our allies face in the Middle East? Does he realize that the newly energized and rallying forces of radical jihadist ideology and international terror are aligned with Iranian state power? And that unless they are definitively defeated, they will boil out across the region and the world, endangering Americans at home and further diverting resources and attention from our struggles against the growing ambitions and capabilities of great-power rivals like Russia and China?
At the moment, Mr. Biden seems half-awake. Yes, he has banished many of the phantoms and fantasies that the Washington Wormtongues once declared to be obvious truths. He now realizes that Saudi Arabia and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman aren’t pariahs. The Houthis are bad actors whom Washington and its allies need to restrain. The energy transition isn’t making Middle East oil and gas irrelevant to world politics. Hamas is an ISIS-class terrorist group whose existence threatens regional peace. Iran isn’t interested in serious talks with the U.S. and is the chief force behind the regional crisis.
But this is only the beginning. As long as Iran thinks it can provoke crises and wars across the region without risking a devastating American response, the mullahs will make Mr. Biden dance to their tune. Until the president realizes he needs to gain the weather gage in the contest with Iran, the awakening process is only half complete.
This isn’t just a Middle East problem. Great powers, lesser powers and terror groups are watching America’s response to the escalating series of aggressive moves by Iran and its “axis of resistance.” If stability is ever to return, it must begin with a psychological revolution in the Middle East. Iran must learn to fear Mr. Biden more than he fears Iran.
This is the standard by which we should measure the success of the president’s retaliatory strikes in the Middle East. Did the strikes restore America’s power to deter? Have they changed the balance of fear in the Middle East?
If so, then peace and calm might begin to return. If not, Team Biden is merely pounding sand.
Personal essay:
Biden seems totally oblivious his appeasement pronouncements are highly likely to bring about that, which he professes, he seeks to avoid, ie. an expanding war. Why? Because Iran remains the real culprit and cares not what others deliver upon their surrogates. Consequently, Biden tragically is missing the true target.
Biden has a history of mucking up virtually everything diplomatically critical. Others, far more prominent and public figures, have espoused no less, one of whom is a former respected Secretary of Defense.
.jpg)
Furthermore, I suspect others currently control the actions or inactions of our physically and mentally challenged president.
Until Iran is dealt a serious nose bloody blow that also damages them economically, the Ayatollahs will continue to correctly conclude America is a pitiful Gulliver and Biden a rapacious weakling. To make matters worse, Biden's pusillanimity may eventually force Israel to do what Biden fails to and thus, exposes them to an additional dose of anti-Semitic hatred and for having a lethal intent.
Israel has no desire to be forced to defend themselves against further wars, to submit their children to endless rocket attacks, to the constant necessity of defending their homes, to perpetually disrupting their longing for a tranquil life, to undertaking exorbitant costs for defensive military expenditures.
The Torah commanded the Israelites to: "Beat your swords into plowshares -hooks: let the weak say, I am strong."
Time and again, corrupt leadership of the Palestinian's has been offered olive branches only to reject it or demand the unobtainable as alternative responses . Arafat shook hands and followed his insincere act with a host of wanton "intifadas."
This is the same persistent Palestinian leadership which has enriched themselves at the expense of peace, educating future generations to love rather than hate and to be rewarded for acts of martyrdom.
What drives demonic hatred of Jews? Is it jealousy? Is it based on anything rational or even remotely justified? How many thousands of years is anti-Semitism sustainable and, if so, show me the benefits it has brought the world and least of all Jews?
America is currently undergoing another challenging period of social indigestion based on a variety of reasons, none of which make sense. We are being enticed to renounce the vast benefits of freedom, our geographical and God given blessings of resources provided our blessed nation. For what? Promised specious rewards? None of these questionable offerings equate. Meanwhile, far too many seem willing to exchange the bird in the hand for historically proven failures.
+++
Personal Essay:
I listened to Maria Bartiromo's Sunday's interview of former President Trump (Feb. 4.)
It was refreshing to finally hear a president answer every question and in a more or less direct manner. There were a few questions she asked, I would have rephrased in a more penetrating manner but overall the interview was revealingly solid
A recent Op Ed by John Bolton, which I posted, suggested Trump was a danger to America and, to the degree Trump allows his narcissistic ways to cause him to lose sight of the dangerous capabilities of our adversaries, I cannot dispute what Bolton wrote.
That said, Trump does mean what he says and yet, also leaves enough unsaid so as to leave adversaries unsure what to really expect. .
Should Trump be the GOP candidate, as seems plausible and he gets my vote. I believe everything could be much improved notwithstanding, the rabid D.C elitist Trump Haters continuing efforts to undermine his every act. Why? Because they are losers who hate losing. They hate this country. A Marxist government is what they seek.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
U.S. officials were hammering out the finer details of what they hoped would be the most momentous Middle East peace deal in a generation.
The war in Gaza has changed that calculation for Riyadh, officials said.
After Blinken held talks with the crown prince in Riyadh on Tuesday, the kingdom said it had “communicated its firm position to the U.S. administration that there will be no diplomatic relations with Israel unless an independent Palestinian state is recognized” within the West Bank and Gaza “with East Jerusalem as its capital,” Saudi Arabia’s Foreign Ministry said.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Cease-Fire Emerges as Key to Israeli-Saudi NormalizationU.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s trip to region comes amid stalled hostage talks with Hamas
By Summer Said and Vivian Salama
The Biden administration believes it is still possible to broker a historic normalization deal between Saudi Arabia and Israel, but the window for an agreement is closing with fighting still under way in Gaza and the U.S. presidential campaign ramping up.
Saudi Arabia won’t agree to move forward until a cease-fire is in place, but talks to halt the conflict have stalled, according to U.S. and Saudi officials.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who is traveling in the Middle East this week, is pushing a normalization deal in talks with Saudi and Israeli officials, as part of a broader effort to end the Gaza war, isolate Iran, and stabilize the region.
Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman told Blinken that a cease-fire would have to be reached as soon as possible before progress is possible on normalization, Saudi officials said.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Wednesday rejected Hamas’s terms for a cease-fire in Gaza, after the Palestinian militant group called for the release of thousands of prisoners along with other concessions.
President Biden Thursday night said the U.S. is pushing for pause in the fighting in Gaza.
The “conduct of the response in the Gaza Strip has been over the top,” Biden said. “I’m pushing very hard now to deal with this hostage cease-fire. I’ve been working tirelessly on this deal…because I think if we can get the delay—the initial delay—I think we would be able to extend that so that we could increase the prospect that this fighting in Gaza changes.”
A White House push for a normalization deal was gathering momentum before the war in Gaza. For Saudi Arabia, the daily images of dead and dying Palestinian women and children have galvanized Arab opposition to Israel’s war, making Riyadh wary about diplomatic recognition unless Israel halts the war and agrees to a renewed path to creation of a Palestinian state, analysts said.
An Israel-Saudi deal is part of a broader postwar blueprint the administration is pushing that includes reconstruction of the shattered Gaza Strip with financial support from Arab governments and installing a revamped Palestinian Authority to govern the enclave after Israel withdraws, a plan that remains fraught with obstacles.
For Israel, the goal of defeating Hamas, whose deadly Oct. 7 attack launched the Gaza conflict, has become Netanyahu’s priority and made him reluctant to make the deeper concessions Riyadh is demanding in return for recognition.
For the Biden administration, the U.S. presidential race has added a new urgency to the normalization effort, with the White House eager for a foreign policy achievement to outdo that of his likely opponent, former President Donald Trump, whose administration forged similar diplomatic deals between Israel and other Arab countries.
“You can see the path forward for Israel and for the entire region,” Blinken said in a press conference in Tel Aviv Wednesday when asked about diplomatic recognition of Israel by Saudi Arabia. But, he added, “Going down that path, pursuing it, requires hard decisions.”
Before Oct. 7, U.S. officials believed that they could secure a normalization deal by offering the Saudi crown prince inducements he cared more about than a Palestinian state, including closer defense ties with the U.S. and assistance with Saudi Arabia’s civilian nuclear program.
U.S. officials were hammering out the finer details of what they hoped would be the most momentous Middle East peace deal in a generation.
The war in Gaza has changed that calculation for Riyadh, officials said.
After Blinken held talks with the crown prince in Riyadh on Tuesday, the kingdom said it had “communicated its firm position to the U.S. administration that there will be no diplomatic relations with Israel unless an independent Palestinian state is recognized” within the West Bank and Gaza “with East Jerusalem as its capital,” Saudi Arabia’s Foreign Ministry said.
Personal Essay:
Is The Hamas War God Scripted?
MEANWHILE, THE INFLUX OF TALENTED AND AGGRESSIVE
IN AMERICA, FOOTBALL COACHES SEARCH FOR PLAYERS WHOSE TALENT WILL
Meanwhile, I SEE BIBI, AS ISRAEL'S VERSION OF TRUMP IN MANY WAYS.
THERE ARE THOSE WHO ACTUALLY BELIEVE NETANYAHU IS PROLONGING THE
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Final essay:
Are we now paying the rice for our current mush brain type education versus our previous education which consisted of solid content? I believe it is but there is more to the story.
Over 50 years ago Professor Moynihan warned expanded government welfare would do irreparable harm. His own party rejected his thesis which ultimately proved prophetic.
As the distance between America's socio economic classes widened, the black segment of our population was particularly harmed. The family structure of our nation has been disrupted. Church connection has diminished. Food stamps and other demeaning dependencies have expanded, particularly among the black community.
Johnson's "Great Society" and "War On Poverty," did not bring the promises intended and welfare expanded in an uncontrolled manner.
Trump's economic policies began to lift the bottom of our society and this is why he should gain a larger per cent of the black and Hispanic vote which could tip the scales in his favor. The key is, Trump needs a workable plurality in Congress to truly be effective for 2 plausible reasons:
a)Trump has 4 years and becomes a lame duck the day of re-entering office,
and
b) Rabid D.C elites will continue to do everything in their power, as before, to insure Trump fails. The D.C Elites seek the power Marxism provides. They, prefer Communism to that of a free people. Levin was prescient in writing: " Why Democrats Hate America."
I repeat the insightful words of POGO: "The Enemy Is Us!"
+++
Super Bowl ticketsNeed some help here. Perhaps you know someone.
A good friend of mine has 2 tickets for the 2024 Super Bowl between the San Francisco 49ers and the Kansas City Chiefs hosted at Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas. Both tickets are for box seats. He paid $8,000 for both tickets, but he didn't realize last year when he bought them, it was going to be the same day as his wedding.
If you are interested, he is looking for someone to take his place. It's at St Anthony's Church in Seattle @ 3pm. Her name is Ashley, she is 5'6 about 130 lbs, loves to dance and is an excellent cook. She'll be the one in the white dress
ACTUALLY TICKETS ARE NOW $5000 A PIECE. HE WILL THROW HIS BRIDE IN FOR NOTHING.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
From 'Insanity' to Bye-bye: Texas A&M Closes Qatar Campus – with MEF's Help
PHILADELPHIA Milstein Writing Fellow Benjamin Weinthal's reporting on Texas A&M University's dangerous research agreement with Qatar has helped push the university Board of Regents to close its Qatar campus (known as TAMUQ) by 2028.
Texas A&M is one of six American universities with all-expenses-paid campuses in Qatar, the major funder of the U.S.-designated terrorist organization Hamas. The others are Carnegie Mellon, Cornell's Weill Medical College, Georgetown, Northwestern, and Virginia Commonwealth.
Weinthal quoted a report by the Institute for the Study of Global Antisemitism & Policy (ISGAP) asserting that "Qatar has acquired full ownership of more than 500 research projects at Texas A&M, some of which are in highly sensitive fields such as nuclear science, artificial intelligence, cybersecurity, biotech robotics, and weapons development." He added that the Qatar Foundation, controlled by that country's ruling al-Thani family, "owns all intellectual property developed at TAMUQ."
Mark Welsh, Texas A&M's president, began with a full-throated defense of the university's Qatar campus, dismissing Weinthal's reporting on Jan. 31 with "That's insanity. That's irresponsible." On Feb. 1, he quickly conceded that "any concerns that have been expressed I think are fair concerns."
On Feb. 8, the university's board voted 7-1 vote to shutter its Doha campus. Welsh followed this with a statement the same day listing only domestic reasons for the move, saying that "this decision was made after thoughtful discussion about the need to focus the university on its land-, sea- and space-grant mission."
But in a statement released Feb. 8 by Texas A&M (and reissued Feb. 9 by TAMUQ), the board attempted to deny that outside pressure forced it to pull out of Qatar: "The Board of Regents decided to reassess the university's physical presence in Qatar in fall 2023 due to the heightened instability in the Middle East. Thursday morning, Regents discussed the topic with Welsh and other top administrators in executive session."
This sleight-of-hand omits that Qatar-supported Hamas's attack on Israel caused that "heightened instability." And that the board back then deemed it insufficient reason to end its presence in Qatar. In fact, external pressure – ISGAP's report, Weinthal's report – forced Texas A&M to make this major change.
Qatar Foundation responded on Feb. 9 by blaming Texas A&M's decision on a "disinformation campaign aimed at harming" its interests. "At no point," it lamented, "did the Board attempt to seek out the truth from the Qatar Foundation before making this misguided decision."
"Texas A&M's decision to cut its ties to Qatar is long overdue," observed Weinthal on hearing the news. "For twenty long years, it gave advanced technological and scientific research to a government whose public support of Hamas terrorists enabled the Oct. 7 massacre."
"U.S. national security is endangered when universities put financial gain ahead of national interests," added Campus Watch director Winfield Myers. "The five other American universities with Doha campuses should take notice and immediately terminate their agreements with Qatar."
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
No comments:
Post a Comment