Eretz Israel is our unforgettable historic homeland...The Jews who will it shall achieve their State...And whatever we attempt there for our own benefit will redound mightily and beneficially to the good of all mankind. (Theodor Herzl, DerJudenstaat, 1896)

We offer peace and amity to all the neighbouring states and their peoples, and invite them to cooperate with the independent Jewish nation for the common good of all. The State of Israel is ready to contribute its full share to the peaceful progress and development of the Middle East.
(From Proclamation of the State of Israel, 5 Iyar 5708; 14 May 1948)

With a liberal democratic political system operating under the rule of law, a flourishing market economy producing technological innovation to the benefit of the wider world, and a population as educated and cultured as anywhere in Europe or North America, Israel is a normal Western country with a right to be treated as such in the community of nations.... For the global jihad, Israel may be the first objective. But it will not be the last. (Friends of Israel Initiative)

Wednesday 30 November 2016

David Singer: Carter Threatens Chaos for Obama, Trump and US Foreign Policy

Here's the latest article by Sydney lawyer and international affairs analyst David Singer.

He writes:

Former US President Jimmy Carter has urged current President Barack Obama to:
* betray another former President – George Bush,
* destroy America's reputation for integrity and trustworthiness and
* thwart President-elect Donald Trump in attempting to resolve the 100 years old conflict between Arabs and Jews

In an op-ed piece in the New York Times Carter has proffered the following advice to Obama as his eight year term of office is ending:
"The simple but vital step this administration must take before its term expires on Jan. 20 is to grant American diplomatic recognition to the state of Palestine, as 137 countries have already done, and help it achieve full United Nations membership."
 The following calamitous consequences for American foreign policy would ensue should Obama accept Carter's irresponsible advice:

1. President Bush's 2003 Roadmap and 13 years of American diplomacy would be trashed.
Endorsed by the United Nations, European Union and Russia and accepted by Israel (with14 reservations) and the then Palestinian Authority (since disbanded on 3 January 2013) – the Roadmap provides for:
 "A settlement, negotiated between the parties," that "will result in the emergence of an independent, democratic, and viable Palestinian state living side by side in peace and security with Israel and its other neighbors"
 2. Obama would break Bush's following written commitment made to Israel on 14 April 2004:
"The United States remains committed to my vision and to its implementation as described in the roadmap. The United States will do its utmost to prevent any attempt by anyone to impose any other plan."
3. Any such State would not be "democratic" – its current "President" now being in the 11th year of a four year term – whilst two separate claimants – the PLO and Hamas – engage in a bitter internecine struggle to become the recognised Government of the Palestinian Arabs despite elections not having been held to legitimise the authority of either since 2007.

4. Carter's following call in May 2015 will remain unimplemented and a distant pipe dream:
"We hope that sometime we'll see elections all over the Palestinian area and east Jerusalem and Gaza and also in the West Bank"
5. Obama will break his pledge to Israel to require any such State to first recognise Israel as the homeland of the Jewish people.

6. Obama would be recognising a State which has no legal basis for existence in international law since it fails to comply with the provisions of customary international law as expressed in the Montevideo Convention 1934.

7. Full United Nations membership under Article 4 of the UN Charter is only open to peace-loving states which accept the obligations contained in the present Charter.

No such State is "peace loving" nor would it ever accept the obligations contained in article 80 of the Charter preserving the rights vested in the Jewish people under the League of Nations Mandate for Palestine to reconstitute the Jewish National Home in Palestine

Ironically Carter hit upon the clue to finally resolving the conflict when addressing Jordan and Jordan's late monarch King Hussein in another op-ed in Time magazine on 11 October 1982:

“Hussein is personally courageous but an extremely timid man in political matters. That timidity derives almost inevitably from the inherent weakness of Jordan. As a nation it is a contrivance, arbitrarily devised by a few strokes of the pen”

Jordan  – 78 per cent of former Palestine – originally designated as part of the location for the Jewish National Home – still remains the key to resolving the Jewish-Arab conflict.


Obama should reject Carter's latest disastrous advice and leave Trump to try and end the long conflict which has eluded all American presidents.

Tuesday 29 November 2016

Brothers Grim, Marching as to War (video)

To the delight of the leftist media, including the BBC, a Holocaust survivor approaching 90 years of age has made an impassioned plea for tolerance of migrants pouring into Europe and a condemnation of its rightwing opponents.  Her focus was on Austria, birthplace of a certain genocidal monster, and her message is to that extent understandable.  But that doesn't, of course, mean that her message is valid or relevant in general to what is occurring in Europe.

The many worried Europeans, Jew and non-Jew, who fear that today's mass Muslim migration into Europe, made up as it largely is of men of military age unaccompanied by women and children, is less a resettlement of peaceable refugee families than an invasion force resistant to assimilation, contemptuous of Western freedoms, and aiming for the islamification of Europe, with all that portends for future generations, will not take reassurance from this footage.

It was apparently taken in Hanau, a town east of Frankfurt-am-Main perhaps best known as the birthplace of the Brothers Grimm.

It purports to show a contemporary group of brothers grim, a bunch of Muslims in camouflage gear, looking like a fledgling military unit in training as they stride through the town.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xo-2RJIwUto

Sunday 27 November 2016

With Funds from Screen Australia, an anti-Israel Narrative

Australia's publicly-funded national broadcaster, the ABC, Australia's answer to the BBC, is like Al Beeb itself, obligated to be objective in its presentation of news and current events.  Again like the BBC, it is dominated by leftists and a leftist mindset prevails in the dissemination and discussion of news items, with virtual impunity.  Where the BBC has openly biased-against-Israel correspondents like Jeremy Bowen and Jon Donnison the ABC has the egregiously brazen journalist-activist Sophie McNeill.

One of the latest examples of the ABC's bias can be seen in a very recent News 24 interview with the American-educated Palestinian filmmaker Mai Masri, who's in Australia in connection with the Palestine Film Festival.  What's troubling about the interview is the partisan ambience of the news presenters (one in particular) in conducting the interview with Ms Masri, to the delight of anti-Israel groups like this one:


But it's not the ABC's anti-Israel bias with which this present post is primarily concerned, but rather a fresh source of on-screen activity.

It's greatly to be hoped that the leaders of relevant Australian Jewish communal organisations are watching closely the development of an initiative that, if it goes ahead as planned, seems set to demonise Israel on screens in this country and elsewhere.

The initiative in question is a doco (that's Aussie speak for documentary) to be called From Under the Rubble, written and directed by Anne Tsoulis, who, like cinematographer Fadi Hossam Hanona, is co-producer.

Blurbs tell us that the doco
"is a powerful story that puts a human face to war and gives voice to the civilian perspective.
The overwhelming majority of collateral damage in conflict zones are dead and wounded women and children who far outnumber the casualties incurred on the combatants.
We live in a time when women and children have limited protection under international law. Zeinat Samouni and her seven children live with the shocking memory of what happened to their family during Operation Cast Lead that saw the father and four year old brother, along with forty-eight other Samouni family members killed and many more injured.
The psychological damage and trauma does not end. It continues on with each ensuing conflict. Zeinat's six year old daughter, Ansam, and her siblings have now lived through three wars. When the bombings begin, Zeinat blocks the windows and tells her children it is only a storm and what they hear is thunder and lightning.
From Under the Rubble is Zeinat and her childrens' personal experience of what happened in the week that the IDF came to their farming region to set up their base during Operation Cast Lead from January 2nd - 7th 2009. Their story will be told through the use of archival footage, footage shot in present Gaza and an animation that the Samouni children created as party of their trauma recovery therapy. The documentary will juxtapose the innocent perspective of children with the harsh realities of war. Through their personal story we as filmmakers want to give an insight of the plight of women and children, not just in Gaza, but in conflict zones throughout the world. This story belongs to them all."
 The film's editor, Ken Sallow, has stated that the intention "is not to make a political diatribe, but a humanist film about survival".

The producer, John Moore, has averred:
"I am delighted to have recently come on board to work with Anne and Fadi on seeing this important documentary come to fruition.  From Under The Rubble takes a very personal POV [point of view], looking at the conflict through the experiences of one Palestinian family. It is a big responsibility telling such an emotive story in the context of such a highly contested conflict.  There is however a lot of material to inform our work as the war has been critiqued by an independent UN team in the Goldstone Report and several books have been written about it including by Australian philosopher Raymond Gaita.  I hope we can do justice to both sides of the conflict"
A UN team?  The Goldstone Report?  Don't they realise that the UN is deeply, probably irredeemably, hostile to Israel?  Don't they know that the Goldstone Report is flawed and largely discredited, repudiatd by Richard Goldstone himself?  Er, they probably do.  (If Mr Moore is sincere in hoping to do justice to both sides of the conflict he will surely insist on these facts being made clear in the documentary.)

I've seen the trailer, and there's nothing in it that suggests that the documentary will be anything other than a showcase for the anti-Israel narrative.

It features the Israel-vilifying Dr Mads Gilbert.

It features  children's drawings from Gaza, expertly animated.  (The pictures in question remind me of those that British activist Rod Cox has exhibited to appreciative anti-Israel audiences up and down the UK; I've seen those, and they bear a degree of sophistication, if you take my meaning.)

It features a quote on Cast Lead by Amnesty International.

There are in existence  drawings by Israeli children traumatised by Hamas rockets.  There's no indication that they will be shown.

 There's no indication that reference will be made to Israeli victims of Hamas terror.

There's also no indication that mention will be made of Hamas's evil policy of situating its weapons and fighters in civilian areas.

A further hint that the documentary is likely to be a prime piece of anti-Israel propaganda is the fact that it's being spruiked on social media by delighted anti-Israel activists in Australia.

Among its funders are Screen Australia and the South Australian Film Corporation.


Screen Australia is the federal government's principal funding agency for this country's screen production industry and, since it's an official body and has generously contributed towards the making of this documentary (which apparently costs $A250,000 to make), it is surely incumbent upon pro-Israel organisations and politicians in Australia to insist on a fair representation of Israel's case.  At the very least, the Israeli ambassador to Australia should be given the chance to appear.

Anne Tsoulis has written:
'....For me, part of the process of making this documentary is also to work with filmmakers in Gaza to help them build up their skills and to assist them to have a voice on an international platform.
I went to Gaza and was overcome by the warmth and resilience of its people.  Zeinat Samouni is a lioness, and the mother of all mothers.  What she and her children have had to endure defies the imagination.   Every day is a struggle for her to feed her children.  Evey day is a struggle for her to deal with their emotional trauma, let alone her own that she has suffered.  Being a widowed single mother makes it even more difficult for her with the stigma attached.  Her last words to me when I left Gaza were, "Anne, don't forget us."  The words are etched into my brain and makes me determined to make this documentary.  Her children stole my heart - they are my children now too.'
And Fadi Hossam Hanona has observed that the documentary
"must show the world what is happening here ... Every day here is a struggle for us."
If so, Hamas can be largely blamed for that.

As we read in the producer's comments quoted above, the documentary "takes a very personal POV".

But as he also states "I hope we can do justice to both sides of the conflict". 

That should be honoured in the observance, not in the breach.

Thursday 24 November 2016

David Singer: Trump Triumph Requires Direct Negotiations Between Jordan and Israel

Here's the latest article by Sydney lawyer and international affairs analyst David Singer.

He writes:

President-elect Donald Trump has used his greatest media critic – the New York Times – to reiterate his determination to broker a deal to end the 100 years old Jewish-Arab conflict – suggesting his son-in law Jared Kushner might be just the person to advance Trump's declared mission.

Trump's legendary deal-making prowess sets him apart from all preceding American presidents – from Richard Nixon to Barack Obama, Democrats and Republicans, liberals and conservatives alike – who have tried to end this intractable conflict and earn themselves an honoured place in the annals of history.

Instead, their legacy of failure remains a silent reminder that presidential power and prestige is of little value in moving Jews and Arabs to achieve a historic reconciliation.

Kushner possesses the firepower to advance Trump's agenda following this ground-breaking message from Trump's advisor Jason Greenblatt – co-chairman of the Trump campaign’s Israel Advisory Committee: 
“It is certainly not Mr. Trump’s view that settlement activities should be condemned and that it is an obstacle for peace, because it is not an obstacle for peace.”
Trump's position runs counter to the view expressed by the international community that Jews have no legal right to live in Judea and Samaria (the West Bank) – an area comprising some 4 per cent of
have no legal right to live in Judea and Samaria (the West Bank) – an area comprising some 4 per cent of the former territory of Palestine - a claim that remains untested in any court of law.

Such conclusion ignores the rights vested in the Jewish People to reconstitute the Jewish National Home in Judea and Samaria under Article 6 of the League of Nations Mandate for Palestine and Article 80 of the United Nations Charter.

To call the international community's position "a travesty of justice" is an understatement.
The harm such flawed viewpoint has caused in prolonging this long-running conflict is inestimable.

Kushner will also be fortified by the following commitment made by President Bush to Israel in his letter dated 14 April 2004  – overwhelmingly endorsed at the time by the Congress by 502 votes to 12:
"In light of new realities on the ground, including already existing major Israeli populations centers, it is unrealistic to expect that the outcome of final status negotiations will be a full and complete return to the armistice lines of 1949, and all previous efforts to negotiate a two-state solution have reached the same conclusion. It is realistic to expect that any final status agreement will only be achieved on the basis of mutually agreed changes that reflect these realities."
Israel's current negotiating partner, the Palestine Liberation Organisation, has consistently refused to accept the inevitability of any territorial subdivision of Judea and Samaria since the Bush-Congress pronouncement. There appears to be no chance of any change of heart by the PLO to please a Trump administration.

Trump will therefore need to find another Arab interlocutor to replace the PLO to negotiate with Israel on the allocation of sovereignty in Judea and Samaria. Sovereignty there has remained unresolved since Brexit 1948 - the year Great Britain pulled out of Palestine and left the United Nations to deal with the consequences of the invasion of Western Palestine the very next day by the armies of six neighbouring Arab States.

Jordan was the last Arab State to occupy Judea and Samaria between 1948 and 1967.

Jordan and Israel – at peace since 1994 – both enjoy longstanding American financial and diplomatic support – which can be leveraged by a deal-driven Trump to induce Jordan joining Israel as its negotiating partner on the territorial carve up of Judea and Samaria.

Without this diplomatic breakthrough Trump's dream of pulling off the deal of the century will remain just a dream.

Wednesday 23 November 2016

NUTS & a Nice Pair (videos)

Outrageously, since the education of children is in their members' care, Britain's left-dominated National Union of Teachers has been on the  anti-Israel trail for some time (as I showed here), and, here's one of the latest NUT members  who's keen to pass the anti-Israel message on:
'A teacher is organising a special awareness and fundraising evening after returning from a harrowing trip to Palestine.  Julia Simpkins, secretary of the Bolton-branch of National Union of Teachers (NUT), travelled with a 12-strong delegation to the country to find out about the conditions the Palestinians are forced to endure.  She said: "The NUT takes a delegation twice a year to Palestine so we can see what is happening and raise awareness of the issues back home and get support for the people."  .... Bolton Socialist Club is organising a Palestinian weekend at Bolton Socialist Club this week, starting Friday, with activities speakers and entertainment. Money raised will go towards helping Palestinian women go to university. On Sunday people will be embarking on a sponsored walk from Turton Tower at 10am.  Ms Simpkins said: ".... Israel does not want the Palestinian people there...."
The people who swallow Palestinian propaganda wholesale, and are probably likely to fall for this example in Bolton "'cos a teacher told me so" might have benefited from a pair of simple videos such as these, from the Jerusalem Institute of Justice, had not Pallywood and its fans infected them first.



Meanwhile, here is another nice pair, an imam from Leicester and a vicar from London saying nice things to and about one another.

First, in an ad:


 And secondly, in an Al Jazeera live broadcast:

https://www.facebook.com/aljazeera/?hc_ref=PAGES_TIMELINE

All very jolly and civilised.  Hard on the face of it to begrudge. There's even a jocular reference to chicken soup.

But, it's (well, both, actually, ad and video, that is) recommended by our old mate, and anything our old mate recommends should probably ring alarm bells in every Zionist noddle.

I have no idea whether the clergyman featured shares Sizer's hostility towards Zionism, but speaking generally the trouble is that more and more and more Christians are allying with Muslims and tending to squeeze Jews (anti-Israel ones excepted) out of the equation.

That, of course, has a deleterious impact on the cause of Israel.

I guess it's an instance of what is often referred to as "Chrislam".

Perhaps the extraordinarily forthright critic of Sizerism Jacob Prasch would have a word for it.

Tuesday 22 November 2016

Kiwi Muslim Preacher: "Jews are using everybody because their protocol is to rule the world" (video)

My previous post shows Hamas leader Mahmoud al-Zahar indulging in antisemitic fantasies.

Here, now, is Fijian-born Shaykh Dr Mohammad Anwar Sahib indulging in an anti-Jewish hate speech of his own.


This Salafist, educated at Saudi Arabia's Madinah University and, inter alia, a specialist in da'wah (see this warm introduction for him at a conference in Kiwiland in which he talks on the subject "How to please your husband" which runs into three videos in all), is currently the President of the At Taqwa Mosque in Manukau, Auckland, and is also secretary of the Federation of Islamic Associations of New Zealand (FIANZ) Ulama Council and FIANZ Advisory Board.

The old fellow has form in the anti-Jew, anti-Christian, anti-women stakes.

This latest hate speech of his has been roundly condemned by the New Zealand Human Rights Commission.  See more here 

Says Stephen Goodman, president of the NZ Jewish Council:
"That a senior member of FIANZ, an organization we have worked with over many years, is openly and repeatedly preaching such sentiments is deeply concerning. There is no place for this sort of hate-based rhetoric in New Zealand civil society."
I guess that's why many Jews in the West, condemned of course by the holier-than-thou leftist Jewish brigade, are have the temerity to suggest that mass Muslim migration to western countries is not a very good idea.

Marching against the Zionist Entity in Auckland

Funny (funny peculiar not funny ha ha), though,  that the leftist feministas who infest the anti-Israel movement and scream against Donald Trump's denigration of women don't speak out more strongly against Muslim hardcore misogynists like him.

Innit.

Hamas Leader on "Possible Jew" Trump & "Jewish Money" (video)

"Trump loves the Jews ... He should ask his father where he came from ... I do not rule out the possibility he is a Jew ... He loves the Jewish  religion, and the most important thing in the Jewish religion is money ..."

So says Hamas leader Mahmoud Al-Zahar in ranting that "Jewish money" is the key to US decision-making:



Broadcast on Al-Jazeera (Qatar), 9 November.
Just released with translation by Memri.org
Video owned by MEMRITV Institution
Disclaimer:
The Middle East Media Research Institute is a not-for-profit press monitoring and analysis organization with headquarters in Washington, DC

Sunday 20 November 2016

"This is the Day of the Shahids ... The Sky is Pregnant With Rage, It is Time for a Downpour" (video)

In Melbourne, "the world's most liveable city" (so it's claimed), Palestinian flags fly from poles in the downtown area as well as being held by members of the large crowd marking "Palestinian National Day" on 15 November.


An eloquent image on a t-shirt in the crowd:


Is this what they mean by "Free Palestine" and comparable phrases, chalked by attendees, including quite young kids rigged out in keffiyehs, on a board provided for supportive messages and slogans?

In her speech, which amid whoops of delight heaped extravagant praise on BDS, poet and playwright Samah Sabawi, whose play City by the Sea  was accepted for inclusion in the Victorian Certificate of Education curriculum earlier this year (a development broken by li'l ol' Daphne here long before the press and Jewish communal big boys woke up to the fact), appeared to strike a martial note or two:

... [T]his flag we raise is not meant to represent Armani suits and Ramallah mansions.
It is not meant for powerless ministries and cowardly leaders who have reduced the ceiling of our aspirations to breadcrumbs and begging bowls....  
This here is our flag, the people’s flag,
This is the flag that wraps the countless coffins after the bombs fall,
This is the flag that dries the tears of mothers in hospital corridors,
This is the flag of the shahids, of the refugees, of the prisoners and the besieged....
The clouds have gathered over Palestine for so long,
The sky is pregnant with rage;
It is time for a downpour,
For there are not enough days left in the calendar for all the commemorations
Not enough minutes of silence for all our martyrs ....
That makes this earlier much-hyped but evidently not well attended event in Adelaide look positively child's play:


 Which indeed it seems to have been:


Gone Missing: Sizer's Books

Over at Harry's Place, John Bevan has written several posts about Stephen Sizer.  His latest concerns Sizer's British publisher IVP's "encouraging" recent decision to withdraw his titles from their lists. 

The American publisher has not yet done so, and, suggests Bevan in the course of his must-read piece, "If you’re based in the US, why not contact them?"

Observes Bevan, inter alia, and with the relevant links:
'...though it may seem churlish, questions can surely be asked about IVP’s initial role in editing Sizer’s books, particularly Christian Zionism: Roadmap to Armageddon? (2004). How was it that they missed the following things?
- On pp. 21-22 of Christian Zionism: Roadmap to Armageddon? Rev Sizer approvingly cites the late Dale Crowley, who was strongly linked to Holocaust denial and the American far right. Rev Sizer refers to him simply as a “religious broadcaster” and omits any reference to his unsavoury connections.
- On p. 234, Rev Sizer claims that, in the 1930s, various Zionist leaders collaborated with the Nazis. This is similar to Ken Livingstone’s notorious claim that Hitler was “supporting Zionism” in 1932 – a statement for which Ken Livingstone remains suspended from the Labour Party. Interestingly, both Ken Livingstone and Rev Sizer rely on the same “source”, Lenni Brenner. The claim and the source are demolished here (briefly) and here (at greater length).
- Footnote 170 on p. 251 insinuates that Israel was complicit in 9/11.
- Rev Sizer has an unfortunate tendency to misrepresent other Christian writers, notably Zhava Glaser and Walter Riggans.
 Whilst some of those things might not be immediately obvious to those unfamiliar with the American far-right or the nature of contemporary anti-Zionism/antisemitism, they can be uncovered with just a little research. On the other hand, the misrepresentations of Zhava Glaser and Walter Riggans should have been easy to spot...'
Hat tip: Ian

Friday 18 November 2016

Has Sizer's Bishop Been a Party Pooper?

At the time I'm writing the news hasn't caught up with the Vicar of Virginia Water's Christ Church site, but the launch of his brand new Peacemaker Mediators charity advertised for 3 December has been cancelled.

In what seems a low key fashion, a new date for this event has been announced, and as in the case of the old one, anybody who wants to go must RSVP.

The betting is that the Bishop of Guildford read the Riot Act to our old chum, telling him that he can't go ahead with this venture until after his retirement on Easter Sunday.


Quite right too.

And (hat tip: Ian) Sizer's books have met a snag: see John Bevan's post here

Wednesday 16 November 2016

David Singer: Palestine – Brexit 1922 Key To Trump Resolving Arab-Jewish Conflict

Here's the latest article by Sydney lawyer and international affairs analyst David Singer.

He writes:

President-elect Donald Trump has lost no time in stressing his desire to end the Arab-Jewish conflict which has seen many proposals in the last 100 years fall by the wayside as a result of unrelenting Arab rejection to any Jewish State in former Palestine.

The first such proposal came in 1922 when Great Britain went back on its promise made to the Jewish people in 1920 at both the San Remo Conference and the Treaty of Sevres - by restricting the reconstitution of the Jewish National Home in only 22 per cent of the territory of Palestine covered by the League of Nations Mandate for Palestine ("Brexit 1922").

The Jews reluctantly accepted this proposal but the Arabs were not prepared to accept self-determination in only 78 per cent of Palestine today called Jordan. They wanted the remaining 22 per cent today called Israel, Judea and Samaria (the West Bank) Jerusalem and Gaza and have maintained this position until today.

Proposals to end the conflict recommended by:
* the 1937 Peel Commission,
* the 1947 United Nations Partition Resolution,
* the 1993 Oslo Accords,
* the 2002 Bush Roadmap and
* Israeli offers in 2000/1 and 2008
have been consigned to the dustbin of history.

For President-elect Trump, resolving this conflict becomes the ultimate deal maker's challenge to accomplish.

Trump lost no time in making his intentions very clear just three days after his stunning presidential victory:
"As a deal maker, I’d like to do… the deal that can’t be made. And do it for humanity’s sake.”
To understand how Trump might pull off this deal one need look no further than the views of John Bolton a controversial front runner with Rudy Giuliani to be Trump's Secretary of State.

In an op-ed piece in the Washington Times on 16 April 2014 Bolton presciently wrote:
"Instead of pursuing the misguided notion of “two states,” U.S. policymakers should instead ask what other solutions are possible that would provide Palestinians with personal dignity and security, economic growth and the prospect of living under a responsible, responsive government.
Concededly, there is no perfect alternative, but the most attractive prospect is to attach the disparate Palestinian communities in the West Bank and Gaza Strip to their neighboring contiguous Arab states, Jordan and Egypt, respectively. We might call this a “three-state solution.”
After the late 1940s collapse of the League of Nations’ Middle East mandates, Jordan successfully governed the West Bank until the 1967 Arab-Israeli War. Today, Israel, Jordan and Palestinians should draw new West Bank boundaries embodying Security Council Resolution 242’s “land for peace” formula.
Jordan could, with relative ease, resume sovereignty over those portions of the West Bank not incorporated into Israel"
Jordan part of the problem must undoubtedly become part of the solution.

Bolton, however, conceded:
"Gaza is a harder problem, but incorporating it into Egypt is clearly a better solution than allowing it to remain the headquarters for Hamas and other terrorist groups."
An easier solution could see Gaza connected to the West Bank by an overhead expressway or underground road containing adequate security safeguards.

Trump possesses the firepower to broker a successful deal by:
* offering continued - and perhaps increased - funding to Egypt and Jordan and
* providing guarantees to defend Egypt and Jordan's territorial integrity against Islamic State and others who might seek to intimidate and undermine their sovereignty.
Trump can indeed drain the swamp of Arab hatred and rejectionism and succeed where so many others have failed.

Brexit 2016 was the precursor to Trump's presidential triumph.

Brexit 1922 can serve as the foundation for Trump to pull off the deal of the century.

Added by Daphne: Soon-to-be Vice-President Pence's  stirring pro-Israel speech, on behalf he himself and Donald Trump, during the presidential campaign:

Tuesday 15 November 2016

"The Roth[s]childs Won The US Election": British Greens politician

Anti-Israel Welsh Greens leader Pippa Bartolotti, another British leftist manifesting the antisemitism that's now rife and respectable on that side of politics:


Meanwhile, Senator Tom Cotton on how Trump can dump the Iran deal:

Sunday 13 November 2016

Melanie Phillips on Trump's Triumph (video)

 Melanie Phillips, calling Trump's triumph "a kind of populist revolution," inter alia defends him from perceptions of antisemitism and racism, likening the present outrage on the part of the left to the smears of "xenophobia" and "racism" that dogged pro-Brexit voters determined to preserve their culture and restrict illegal immigration.  Historian Simon Schama takes issue ... but Melanie reminds him of the terrible antisemitism on the part of leftists that has exploded under "respectable" non-controversial administrations ...


(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GSEnq40AX0I)

Thursday 10 November 2016

David Singer: Trump Must Confirm Bush-Congress Commitments To Israel

Here is the latest article by Sydney lawyer and international affairs analyst David Singer.

He writes: 
 

Donald Trump's stunning presidential victory coupled with the Republican Party retaining control of the Congress presents Trump with the opportunity to restore America's tarnished reputation and integrity by affirming he will honour the commitments made to Israel by President Bush in his letter dated 14 April 2004  overwhelmingly endorsed by the then Congress by 502 votes to 12.


Those Bush-Congress commitments were seriously undermined by President Obama and his two Secretaries of State Hillary Clinton and John Kerry just one of many American disastrous policy failures in the Middle East during Obama's term of office.


The Bush-Congress Commitments were crucial to:
* Israel's unilateral, unconditional and complete disengagement from Gaza in 2005 and
* Israel's agreement to resume negotiations with the Palestinian Authority as publicly declared by Israel's then prime minister Ehud Olmert at the international conference called by President Bush in Annapolis in 2007.
 "In the course of the negotiations, we will use previous agreements as a point of departure. U.N. Security Council Resolutions 242 and 338, the road map, and the letter of President Bush to the prime minister of Israel dated April 14, 2004."
Israel has expressed concern that President Obama and current Secretary of State John Kerry might be planning to further undercut the following Bush Commitment at the United Nations or in the international arena during the period leading up to Trump and the new Congress being installed into power on 20 January 2017.
Israel has

"... the United States remains committed to my vision and to its implementation as described in the roadmap. The United States will do its utmost to prevent any attempt by anyone to impose any other plan"
Obama and Kerry have not leapt to defend Israel's refusal to take part in an international conference currently being planned by France in December designed to depart from the clear negotiating guidelines laid down in the Bush Roadmap and Bush's 2004 letter as subsequently clarified at the Annapolis Conference.

Obama has remained mum on using America's power of veto at the the UN Security Council to resist any efforts to depart from the terms of the Bush Roadmap or substitute some different negotiating process outside the Roadmap and the Bush-Congress endorsed commitments.

President-elect Trump made his views clearly known on America upholding commitments to its allies during the election campaign:

"... your friends need to know that you will stick by the agreements that you have with them. You’ve made that agreement, you have to stand by it and the world will be a better place.”


 Senator Marco Rubio, who unsuccessfully challenged Trump for Republican Party presidential nominee but who has now been reelected to the Senate for a further term by a large majority, pledged during that campaign:

"I will revive the common-sense understandings reached in the 2004 Bush-Sharon
letter and build on them to help ensure Israel has defensible borders"
Trump has been withering in his criticism of Obama's conduct towards Israel:

"Israel, our great friend and the one true democracy in the Middle East has been snubbed and criticized by an administration that lacks moral clarity."

Moral clarity demands that Trump immediately inform Obama that no action should be undertaken by Obama between now and January that would in any way depart from or undermine the commitments made by former President George Bush and the Congress to Israel in 2004.


Trump also needs to unequivocally state that his Administration intends to fully uphold those Bush-Congress commitments.


Draining the swamp and making America great again will be given a huge impetus if Trump makes these policy declarations without obfuscation or delay.