Tag: Donald Trump

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[VIDEO] Ep. 2 We Live In An Upside Down World

I am joined by Dovid Fuchs, entrepreneur and political analyst to discuss the backwards, upside down nature of the world we are living in. After all, Americans voted for a senile political hack that has spent 47 years in Washington doing just about nothing over President Trump who built one of the greatest national economies of all time and made peace possible in the Middle East.

We must accept that the center of power is shifting. It may be scary, but perhaps it is better to just laugh, because at the end it all works out.

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The Donald Trump Negotiations Academy

Trump’s playbook involves doing essentially the opposite of what American and Israeli negotiators have been doing for the past 30 years.

We didn’t learn this week whether North Korea will give up its nuclear weapons. Only time will tell.

But we did learn that US President Donald Trump knows how to negotiate.

All of the negotiations experts insist the opposite is true. “How could they agree to a presidential summit without first guaranteeing its end product?” they sigh, knowingly.

“Trump’s showmanship is dangerous and counterproductive,” they sneer.

“At the end of the day, for this to work, Trump will have to copy Barack Obama’s nuclear deal with Iran,” they insist.

Dennis Ross, who mediated the negotiations between Israel and the PLO that led directly to the largest Palestinian terrorism campaign against Israel in history, and Wendy Sherman, who negotiated Bill Clinton’s horrible nuclear deal with North Korea in 1994 and Obama’s disastrous nuclear deal with Iran in 2015, as well as all their esteemed colleagues have taken up their pens and stood before the cameras and clucked about how Trump’s Singapore show is amateur hour.

But what we actually saw in Singapore, for the first time since Ronald Reagan went to Reykjavik, was a US president who actually knew how to negotiate with America’s enemies.

Indeed, Singapore was the first time a Western leader from any nation has gotten the better of his opponent at the negotiating table.

There are three dangers inherent to the process of negotiating with enemies. And to understand how Trump succeeded where everyone since Reagan has failed, it is important to keep them in mind.

First, you have no guarantee that the other side will agree to a deal.

Trump can make the case for denuclearization to Kim. But he can’t make Kim agree to denuclearize.

Since the US has not defeated North Korea militarily, only Kim can decide whether to go along with Trump or not.

The first inherent danger of negotiating then, is that the other side walks away and – as PLO chief Yasser Arafat did in 2000 – chooses to make war instead of peace. Negotiations give credibility to the other side and may, as a consequence, make war a more attractive option for your opponent after a period of negotiations than it was when the talks began.

The last two dangers inherent to negotiations have to do with the actions of Western negotiators and leaders.

Democratically elected leaders have a greater tendency than dictators to become convinced that their political survival is dependent on their ability to deliver a deal. Once that happens, once a leader believes that the risk of failure is too great to accept, he becomes a hostage of the other side.

In 2000, then-prime minister Ehud Barak believed that his only chance of political survival was to convince Arafat to accept a peace deal with Israel. As a consequence, Barak stayed in the negotiations even after Arafat rejected his offer and tanked the Camp David summit in July. He remained in talks with Arafat and his deputies even after they launched the most murderous terror war Israel had ever seen.

The third danger inherent to negotiating with your enemy is related to the second danger. If a leader believes his future depends on getting a deal, the likelihood that he will accept a terrible deal skyrockets.

Obama made reaching a nuclear deal with Iran the chief aim of his second term. To achieve this goal, Obama abandoned every redline he set for himself. He let Iran continue enriching uranium.

He made no demand that Tehran curtail its ballistic missile development. He agreed to gut the inspections regime to the point of meaninglessness. And so on down the line.

Obama was so averse to coming home empty- handed that he agreed to a deal that far from blocking Iran’s path to a nuclear arsenal, paved Iran’s path to a nuclear arsenal. And he threw in $150 billion in sanctions relief to pay for Iran’s efforts to achieve regional hegemony as a sweetener.

With these risks in mind, we turn to the Singapore Summit. Trump’s playbook involves doing essentially the opposite of what American and Israeli negotiators have been doing for the past 30 years.

Five lessons stand out.

1. Don’t make light of your counterpart’s failings, play them up.

For decades, Israeli negotiators praised Arafat as a man of courage and Abbas as a moderate. Obama and his team praised Iranian President Hassan Rouhani as a moderate. By praising their opponents, the Israelis and Americans justified making concessions to their counterparts, without requiring them to reciprocate. In other words, Israeli and US negotiators put the burden to prove good intentions on themselves, rather than their opponents, who actually had no credibility at all.

Trump took the opposite approach. After North Korea tested an intercontinental ballistic missile last July, Trump called Kim “Little Rocket Man” and a “madman.”



By polarizing Kim and blaming him for the growing danger to US national security, Trump made the case that Kim had to prove his good intentions to Trump, not the other way around, as a precondition for negotiations. Kim was required to release three American hostages and blow up his nuclear test site.

He was the one who needed to prove his credibility. Not Trump.

2. Intimidate, don’t woo, your opponent’s friends.

Trump’s three predecessors all begged the Chinese to rein in the North Koreans. In doing so, Clinton, George W. Bush and Obama handed all the leverage to Beijing. To curb North Korea even temporarily, the Chinese demanded continuous US concessions, and they received them.

Trump on the other hand, threatened China. He linked US-China trade deals to Chinese assistance in curtailing North Korean threats and aggression and agreeing to a US goal of denuclearizing China’s client state.

To prove his seriousness, Trump managed to lob 58 missiles at Syrian targets in retaliation for Bashar Assad’s use of chemical weapons while he was eating dinner with Chinese President Xi Jinping at his golf club in Florida.

Trump’s linkage of US-China trade to North Korean denuclearization has paid off. Xi cut off North Korean coal exports to China and limited fuel shipments from China to North Korea. A month later, Kim announced he wanted to meet with his South Korean counterpart.

3. Make it easy for your side to walk away from the table and hard for the other side to jump ship.

Trump accomplished this goal through a series of moves. First, he and Defense Secretary James Mattis threatened to destroy North Korea. Second, Trump coupled the threats with the largest increase in defense spending in memory. Third, Trump has repeated, endlessly, that he has no idea whether talks with Kim will lead to an agreement, but he figures it’s worth a shot. Finally, after Kim insulted National Security Adviser John Bolton, Trump canceled the summit.

Not only did Trump’s polling numbers not suffer from canceling the summit, they improved. As for Kim, Trump’s nixing the summit taught him two lessons. First, he learned the price of failure.

Second, Kim learned that unlike his predecessors, Trump doesn’t fear walking away. Indeed, he’ll walk away over something that none of his counterparts would ever dream of jumping ship for. If Kim wants to negotiate with Trump, he will respect Trump’s choices.

4. Appoint hard-line negotiators.

Kim’s attack on Bolton was reasonable from his perspective. Ever since Clinton signed his failed nuclear deal with Kim’s father in 1994, Bolton has been the most outspoken critic of nuclear diplomacy with North Korea in Washington. Bolton opposed – rightly – every diplomatic initiative and agreement every administration adopted with Pyongyang. There is literally no one in Washington more skeptical of the chances that an agreement with North Korea will succeed than Bolton.

And there he was on Tuesday, sitting at the negotiating table in Singapore.

For the past generation, American and Israeli leaders engaging in negotiations with their enemies have given their opponents a say – indeed, they have routinely given them veto power – over the members of their negotiating teams. US and Israeli leaders used their team roster as yet another tool to appease the other side. This, while ignoring the concerns of their domestic constituencies.

Trump took the opposite approach. After setting up the talks in a manner that minimizes the cost of walking away from the table for him and maximizes the cost for Kim, he chose negotiators that would both minimize the chance of reaching a bad deal and assuage and encourage his constituents that he can be trusted. Both Trump’s supporters and detractors know that so long as Bolton is at the table, the chance of the US agreeing to a bad deal is fairly close to zero. Trump’s rising poll numbers and the fact that the majority of Americans support his negotiations with Kim show that his efforts have paid off politically.

5. Take control of the clock.

Reporters in Singapore were shocked when Trump informed them Tuesday afternoon that he and Kim were about to sign an “agreement.” But sure enough, shortly thereafter, they were shepherded into a grand hall for a formal signing ceremony.

A quick look at the “agreement” showed that there was really nothing there beyond platitudes.

Trump’s many critics were quick to take him to task for his “deal” because it was purely aspirational.

But they missed the point. The point wasn’t to reach a serious agreement. The point was to sign a piece of paper that said “Agreement” on it.

By signing the piece of paper, Trump took all time pressure off of himself and his team. They have their deal. He signed it. In a ceremony with a fancy fountain pen. They have all the time they need now to do what it takes to get Kim to cough up all of his nukes.

On the other hand, time is working against Kim.

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said on Wednesday that the economic sanctions on North Korea will remain in place until after North Korea has denuclearized in a verifiable manner. In other words, assuming Kim cares about his economy and is in this for the money, Kim will want to reach a deal and implement it as quickly as possible.

Trump’s critics in the US ratcheted up their attacks against his summitry with Kim on Wednesday and Thursday. But everything they say just discredits them. Trump is only dealing with a nuclear armed North Korea because all of his predecessors enabled Pyongyang’s nuclear armament through feckless diplomacy. He’s only there to try a new approach because their old approach gave Kim the theoretical ability to nuke New York.

And now that he’s actually negotiating, it is clear that what they really fear is not that he will fail like they did. They fear that he will succeed, like only he – a loudmouthed real estate mogul and reality show star from Queens who couldn’t care less what they think of him and happened to write a book called The Art of the Deal – can do.

Originally Published in the Jerusalem Post.

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After North Korea Comes Iran

Prime Minister Netanyahu said the following after President Trump’s historic summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.

“I commend US President Donald Trump on the historic summit in Singapore. This is an important step in the effort to rid the Korean peninsula of nuclear weapons.

President Trump has also taken a strong stand against Iran’s efforts to arm itself with nuclear weapons and against its aggression in the Middle East. This is already affecting the Iranian economy. President Trump’s policy is an important development for Israel, the region and the entire world.”

The outcome of the summit in Singapore has already drawn a warning from Iran to North Korea.

“We don’t know what type of person the North Korean leader is negotiating with. It is not clear that he would not cancel the agreement before returning home,” Iranian government spokesman Mohammad Bagher Nobakht was quoted as saying by IRNA new agency.

Nobakht questioned Trump’s credibility. “This man does not represent the American people, and they will surely distance themselves from him at the next elections,” he said.



As it stands, Trump has returned home and the deal appears to still be standing.  In fact Trump has said he wants a new “real” deal with Iran.

“I hope that, at the appropriate time, after the sanctions kick in — and they are brutal what we’ve put on Iran — I hope that they’re going to come back and negotiate a real deal because I’d love to be able to do that but right now it’s too soon to do that,” Trump said.

The real game behind this summit was two-fold.  The first was to denuclearize the Korean peninsula, which both China and the USA have a serious interest to do and the second and perhaps real reason why Trump and his team took this unprecedented step to meet with the North Korean dictator was to disconnect it from Iran.  This isolates the Islamist regime in Tehran.

Trump does not believe he can get anything out of the Ayatollah’s who are driven by Shiite messianic ideology.  Kim Jong Un, while a brutal dictator does not appear to have an issue with Western cultural entertainment.  Can we say Dennis Rodman?

However, the Ayatollahs, firmly believe their purpose is to bring the Mahdi and destroy the world.  No amount of basketball and hotels will change this.  Meaning, there is no real ability to create a personal connection between them and the Trump team.

So what is next?

Trump will continue to isolate the regime in Tehran and make it clear he intends to back Israel, Saudi Arabia, and the other Gulf allies.  He will also attempt to turn Russia against Iran by guaranteeing Putin that he will keep control of Western Syria in return for Putin backing Iran’s abandonment of Syria and allotting the Syrian Kurds their own state or let’s call it proto-state.

Why would Putin go for this?

He historically does not like or trust Iran and it may well be that Trump will also relax US opposition to Russia’s annexation of Crimea and its growing control southeast Ukraine, otherwise known as the Donbass.

The USA will continue to isolate Iran militarily and economically. Will the regime in Tehran fold?  Probably not, but unlike North Korea, there is enough people in Iran that are educated and will eventually make it clear to their leaders that times up.

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Trump’s North Korea Strategy Is Terrifying Iran

Originally Published on Breitbart
The North Korean media reported Sunday that Syrian President Bashar Assad is due in Pyongyang for an official state visit with North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un.

Much of the instant media commentary regarding the announcement claimed that it is nothing more than a testament to the deep, long-standing ties between the two isolated nations, whose rogue behavior has caused both to be shunned by the international community.

With the planned summit with President Donald Trump back on for June 12, Kim is about to score North Korea’s greatest diplomatic achievement since the hermit kingdom was established in the aftermath of the Korean armistice in 1952.

Last week, Kim received a visit from Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, who invited him to come to a summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin later this year. Kim has had two meetings with South Korean President Moon Jae-In, and has had two meetings with Chinese President Xi Jinping, in just the past three months.

Assad, for his part, just met with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Sochi on May 17. His forces and their Iranian/Hezbollah/Shiite militia allies have retaken the outskirts of Damascus, and so largely ensured the survival of his regime. Assad has made clear that his next moves will be to seize southern Syria along the Israeli and Jordanian border regions of Quneitra and Daraa from rebel forces. He also has his sights on the U.S.-allied Kurdish held areas in eastern Syria.

In other words, things are looking good for both men. Why would they risk their newly held credibility by meeting with one another? Kim will certainly score no points with Trump for meeting with the man the president referred to recently as “a monster.”

The answer, in a word, is: Iran.

In September 2007, the Israeli air force destroyed a nuclear reactor in Deir Azzour in Syria. The reactor was constructed by North Korea and paid for by Iran.

The Israeli operation placed Iran’s nuclear cooperation with North Korea in stark relief. Many Israeli officials viewed the Syrian reactor as an extension of the Iranian program. Iran constructed the Syrian reactor, they told reporters, as a means to replicate and expand its own capabilities.

According to an Israeli official who was intimately engaged in discussions with the Bush administration regarding the Syrian nuclear reactor both before and after the Israeli airstrike, rather than use the revelations of Iranian-North Korean nuclear cooperation to pressure Iran and North Korea to come clean about their collaborative efforts, and the extent of their nuclear cooperation, then-Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice sought to silence discussion of the issue.

Rice, who opposed the Israeli operation in Syria, was engaged at the time in nuclear talks with both Iran and North Korea. Rice was not interested in highlighting either regime’s role in building the Syrian reactor, because she apparently hoped to appease both.

Due to Rice’s efforts, little attention has been paid publicly to the issue of Iran’s nuclear ties to North Korea. But the fact that those ties exist is an undisputed fact.

Consequently, with North Korea apparently actively engaged in discussions of its nuclear program with Washington, the Iranian regime is likely in a state of panic about what Kim and his representatives are telling the Americans about their work with Iran.

And that is where Assad comes in.

If the North Korean media report of his planned visit is accurate, and if Assad soon shows up in Pyongyang, he won’t be there to show the world that he has friends, too.

Assad will be in Pyongyang as an emissary of the Iranian regime, which wants to find out what Kim is planning — and hopefully, coordinate policy with him before his June 12 meeting with Trump.

Iran’s apparent effort to coordinate its operations with its longtime partner, and its fear that North Korea may be in the process of selling out to the Americans, is not happening in a vacuum. The Trump administration is implementing an across-the-board strategy to isolate Iran from its economic and strategic partners.

In some cases, like Trump’s diplomacy with Pyongyang, and the decision to abandon the Iran nuclear deal, the U.S. is implementing its strategy directly. In other areas, the U.S. is using Israel to implement its strategy of isolating Iran.

If North Korea is Iran’s chief Asian partner, Assad and Putin are Tehran’s most important allies in the Middle East. Russia built Iran’s Bushehr nuclear reactor. Russia has sold advanced weapons systems to Iran. Since 2015, Russia has been Iran’s chief partner in preventing Assad’s defeat in Syria, and in winning back regions of Syria that rebel forces had successfully seized control over during Syria’s seven-year war.

But for the past several weeks, backed by air strikes against Iranian targets in Syria, Israel has been leading a diplomatic effort aimed at Putin to convince the Russian leader to attenuate, with the goal of ending his alliance with Iran in Syria. As Dore Gold, former director general of Israel’s Foreign Ministry, outlined in a policy paper this week, Israel has been making the case to Putin that now that the Syrian war is petering out, with the Assad regime in control over wide expanses that were previously held by rebel forces, Iran’s plans and interests are no longer aligned with Russia.

Russia wants stability in Syria to ensure its continued control over the Tartus naval base and the Kheimnim air base near Latakia. Assad gave Moscow the bases in exchange for Moscow’s military assistance in saving his regime from destruction.

Iran, on the other hand, has made no attempt to hide the fact that now that the war is winding down, it expects to use its position in Syria, where it controls some 80,000 forces, to pivot to war against Israel. Israel has responded to Iran’s threats by attacking Iranian military positions in Syria. And Israel has also made clear that if it is forced to go to war against Iran in Syria, the government will order the Israel Defense Forces to destroy the Assad regime.

In other words, the Israelis are saying to the Russians: If you do not rein in Iran in a serious way, and block the chance of war, the Assad regime that gave you your port and air base will disappear, and you will need to hope that the next regime, whatever it is, will let you keep the bases. In giving full backing to Israel’s military operations in Syria, the Trump administration has signaled to Moscow that the U.S. will back Israel in the event of such a war.



Understanding that Israel is coordinating all of its actions with the Trump administration, Russia has given partial support to Israel’s position. Over the past two weeks, Putin and Lavrov have made a series of statements calling for the withdrawal of foreign forces from Syria, and stating explicitly that Russia expects Iranian-controlled forces to withdraw from the border area with Israel. The border areas, the Russians have said, should be manned only by Syrian regime forces. Moreover, they have said, Russia is willing to deploy police forces to the border areas to ensure that no Iranian-controlled forces are deployed in those areas.

Israel, while thanking Russia for its recognition of Israel’s concerns, has insisted that Russia demand all Iranian-controlled forces withdraw from Syria. The U.S. backs that demand, which Secretary of State Mike Pompeo stated explicitly during his speech on the administration’s Iran policy at the Heritage Foundation last week.

So far, there is ample evidence that Russia is not speaking with one voice on Iran. On the one hand, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights announced Wednesday that Iranian and Hezbollah forces were preparing to withdraw from the border area with Israel.

On the other hand, while insisting that all Iranian-controlled forces abandon the border zones with Israel, the Russians are also telling Assad that as the “sovereign” in Syria, he has the power to decide whether foreign forces will operate in the country and where they will deploy. Shortly after Putin called for all foreign forces to withdraw from Syria, Russian and Iranian forces jointly constructed 17 fixed military posts around Idlib province.

And perhaps most damningly, on Thursday, Israel’s Hadashot news channel reported that Hezbollah forces along the border with Israel were sighted donning Syrian military uniforms.

But whether Putin is lying or telling the truth about his attenuation of his ties with Tehran, what is clear enough is that Russia’s warm embrace of Israel, including Putin’s decision not to block Israel’s air assaults against Iran’s military assets in Syria, is setting off alarm bells in Tehran.

Whereas a year ago, the Iranians believed their alliance with Putin was stable, today they are forced to worry that he will stab them in the back to improve his relations with Washington. And now, with Putin making at least an artificial separation between Syrian regime forces and Iranian-controlled Shiite forces, the Iranians also need to worry, if only at the margins, that Assad may feel he needs to distance himself from his Iranian sponsors.

The U.S., for its part, is doing everything it can both to reinforce this Iranian paranoia and to prod Moscow away from Tehran. The administration is working both indirectly, through Israel, and directly, through discussions of a summit between Trump and Putin.

It is far too early to know if the Trump administration’s strategy for isolating Iran and destabilizing its alliances will be successful. But both the announcement of Assad’s planned visit to Pyongyang, and the noises the Russians are making on Syria, indicate that Moscow is attenuating its ties with Tehran. Those are encouraging signs of progress.

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Trump Puts the Screws on North Korea and Iran

News today that President Trump decided to pull out of his much vaunted summit with North Korean despot Kim Jong Un sent shockwaves around the world.  US markets dipped on the news.  Once Trump pulled out of the JCPOA (aka Iran nuclear agreement) this should not have been a surprise to anyone.  There has been overwhelming evidence for some time now that Iran and North Korea have been working together.  Iran was essentially helping North Korea financially with all the oil cash it began to receive in order for North Korea to test Iranian advances in their nuclear program.

Ultimately Trump understands that a true hardline approach is needed with these actors.  As China threatens Taiwan and Iran moves towards resuming nuclear development in order to reach full breakout, North Korea’s true intentions never matched their photo ops.



With Israel and Jordan increasingly cornered by Iran and Hezbollah, the Trump administration sees war on the horizon.  In a situation with war against Iran, having North Korea play games with diplomacy is downright dangerous.  The Trump administration has decided to take a hardline against North Korea and thus be ready for the coming hot war on the verge of breaking out.

In the months to come watch for Iran to make moves against Israel by way of Hezbollah, while it directly pushes against Saudi Arabia.  Kim Jong Un is now embarrassed. With China threathening Taiwan and Iran on the move, North Korea has nothing holding it back from going all in.




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Is Trump Preparing to Slay the Palestinian Fairy Tale?

With rumors flying that President Trump is readying the release of his long awaiting Israel-Palestinian peace plan, obersvers have noted the non-commitment there still is to the two-state paradigm.  Trump Assistant Victoria Coates can be heard below  insisting that the administration “is not committed to the two-state formul” and explains that it means “whatever the sides want.”




So what is Trump planning to release?

Given the recent events surrounding his decertification of the Iran deal, moving the embassy to Jerusalem, the Gaza riots, as well the Palestinian Authorities response to all of this, it would seem improbable that Trump is banking on the kleptocracy and mafia of Mahmoud Abbas’s Fatah to be able to commit to a peace plan.

With all of the noise in the past week there has been one country conspicuously quiet and that is Jordan. The fact is, Trump’s non-committal to a two-state paradigm appears to be setting the stage for the only real solution to the Israel-Palestinian conundrum and that is the “Jordan is Palestine” model with some tweaks.

The original Palestinian Mandate was made up what is today Israel (both pre 1967 and post 1967) and Jordan.  While the Balfour declaration said that the Jews deserved a homeland in Palestine clearly meaning both sides of the Jordan River, the British ended up splitting the Mandate in two along the Jordan River (although originally it as supposed to be 10 km East of the Jordan River).  The East side became Trans Jordan and was given to the Hashemites in 1922 as a reward for their help during World War One.  The Hashemites were originally from Mecca and were chased out by the House of Saud.

In 1922, Abdullah, the emir and soon to be King of (Trans) Jordan was placed in power over a people not his own and effectively came to rule a majority population of Palestinian Arabs. Jordan today is a shaky monarchy having need to keep the Palestinian population from gaining too much power in order to survive.  This is why the current King Abdullah often uses Israel as a scapegoat to hide his own policies.  This strategy is no longer working.

Trump’s plan appears to be in favor of some sort confederation between the Hashemite Kingdom in Jordan as a Palestinian entity and an autonomous area in most of Areas A and B in Judea and Samaria. Area C would be retained by Israel.   When it comes to Jerusalem the current situation appears to be the best way to make all sides happy.  Jordan would still hold onto its custodial rights over the Muslim and Christian holy sites in the Old City of Jerusalem and Israel would retain security control.

Essentially a combination of the Jordan is Palestine model and Naftali Bennett’s plan seen below. The difference being Jordan would control A and B as noted above, while Bennett leaves it in the hands of the Palestinian Authority.



Why do I think this is the plan?  Because Trump wants a deal and yet he wants a deal that works.  Relying on the Palestinian Authority to sign or even uphod a deal is pointless. Doing so would destablize both Israel and Jordan. By basing his deal on the peace deal already agreed to by Israel and Jordan, Trump would effectively be ending the Palestinian-Israel conflict simply by recognizing history and reality.

So if this plan makes sense, why hasn’t it been tried before? The answer lies with the King of Jordan.  Up until now he has always used the Palestinian issue as a distraction. The King fears that an acceptance of the “Jordan is Palestine” model would effectively doom his regime in a rapid fashion.

The Trump team appears to understand that and is perhaps readying some sort of carrot for the royal family. It remains to be seen what that is

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JERUSALEM EMBASSY OPENING: Ezra, Nechemia, and Our Present Day Return from Babylon

Today’s opening of the US embassy in Jerusalem is far more than just a simple political act, being carried out by a unique president attempting to show he keeps his promises.  It is a recognition that something is happening. This something is the march to a global Redemption, a rectification on international, national, and intranational levels.

No other embassy opening would elicit such a delegation as this one, because whether one is a believer or not in a G-D centered reality, it is unmistakable that we are once again living in momentous times. Redemption does not happen in miracles that are completely revealed, rather through the historical movements and radical decisions of kings and leaders of nations inspired to G-D’s will.  We see this most clearly in the books of Ezra and Nechemia, where it took successive rulers such as Kings Koresh, Daryavesh, and Achashverosh (Cyrus, Darius, and  Xerxes) and so on to aid in G-D’s plan in bringing the Jews back home.  The Temple was not built in an instant, but rather building started and stopped multiple times over the 150 years of the return.

While the Jews often times fell short of their promises to G-D to guard the covenant, it was surprisingly the non-Jewish rulers who exhorted the Jewish leaders to teach their people the ways of G-D.

Today’s embassy opening is an expression of the counterintuitive nature of the Redemption.  We often long for it to happen in an almost other worldly way, but fail to recognize that we are actually living in it at the moment. The Talmud teaches that after the third redemption there will be no other exile and it appears we are already at that moment.  In fact, if the paradigm is played in a parallel manner as the return from Babylon, we have been riding the redemptive wave for quite some time.

It was after all King Artaxerxes of Persia who supported Nechemia in his desire to rebuild Jerusalem. Nechemia, then travelled from Persia, with an armed contingent of Persian soldiers who entered Jerusalem. Despite opposition to the endeavor from the non-Jewish occupiers, Nechemia stood strong and took control of Jerusalem, eventually rebuilding its walls.

Nechemia 6:16: “And it came to pass, when all our enemies heard thereof, that all the nations that were about us feared, and were much cast down in their own eyes; for they perceived that this work was wrought of our God.”

Along side Nechemia, was Ezra the Scribe who led the redaction of the Bible and returned the Jewish people to the ways of G-D.

Nechemia 8:2: “And Ezra the priest brought the Law before the congregation, both men and women, and all that could hear with understanding, upon the first day of the seventh month.”

Nechemia 8:3: “And he read therein before the broad place that was before the water gate from early morning until midday, in the presence of the men and the women, and of those that could understand; and the ears of all the people were attentive unto the book of the Law.”

Nechemia 8:5: “And Ezra opened the book in the sight of all the people–for he was above all the people–and when he opened it, all the people stood up.”

Nechemia 8:6: “And Ezra blessed the LORD, the great God. And all the people answered: ‘Amen, Amen’, with the lifting up of their hands; and they bowed their heads, and fell down before the LORD with their faces to the ground.”

Despite the clear return of the Jewish people to Israel, the world has questioned, pushed back, and attempted to uproot our presense in the Land of our forefathers until “G-D inspired another world leader” to end the doubt. Is it any wonder why the “Palestinians” have no desire to discuss peace?  They like the antagonists to Ezra and Nechemia 2,500 years ago know it is all about Jerusalem. A nation that has come home to fulfill the words of the prophets cannot be uprooted.

Redemption is not a singular event, but rather a Divine flow revealed in clear moments in history.  Trump’s embassy move is a signal that the next stage of the Redemption is now unfolding. To be sure, our antagonists are not going anywhere any time soon, but by declaring Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, the Trump administration has weakened the ability of today’s “Sanballat the Horonite, and Tobiah the servant, the Ammonite, and Geshem the Arabian” from scoffing at our return.

Nechemia said the following to them:  ‘The God of heaven, He will prosper us; therefore we His servants will arise and build; but you have no portion, nor right, nor memorial, in Jerusalem.‘ [Nechemia 2:20]”

Our enemies are beginning to understand that we are living in a similar situation.  We have many challenges ahead, and yet by understanding the greatness of our current time period we can meet them with the same success as we are finding today.

Yesterday was Yom Yerushalayim (Jerusalem Day).  The following words spoken by Prime Minister Netanyahu at the Mercaz HaRav Yeshiva connect to our national realization that we are in fact home in our capital:

“We promise every day that Jerusalem will not return to the status it had 51 years ago, no longer a torn city, but one connected, united city, not a city with barbed wire and minefields. Not a city with enemy crosses on its walls, but a vibrant city, a faithful vision,” said Netanyahu, who received a standing ovation.

“We are guarding the Temple Mount, the Western Wall, as well as the other sanctuaries of Israel that returned to us in the miraculous Six Day War, headed by Rachel’s Tomb and the Tomb of the Patriarchs. These places are our roots, they contain the point of truth of our right to live as a free nation in its homeland,” he continued.

“What is Jerusalem for us? It’s not just a physical and tangible place. Jerusalem is the source of the faith and hope that strengthened us in difficult times. In the shadow of the Inquisition, the pogroms, the ghettos, in the camps we said one sentence: Next year in Jerusalem.

“We returned to Jerusalem and we are building it, all of it, and even when there was no progress on the horizon, we stuck to the dream, and today the IDF soldiers are standing at the foot of the Western Wall, declaring allegiance to our army and our country. We returned home and we are determined to keep our home forever.”

It is important to note that today is Hebron Day, commemorating the liberation of Hebron one day after Israel returned to Jerusalem. Our Patriarchs and Matriarchs lie “slumbering” in the Ma’arat HaMachpela.  Our roots are the key to our future. It is our connection to our past that enabled us to recognize that our return is not just a mere product historical outcomes, but rather a Divine decree now being carried out in reality.

As the days of the Mashiach draw near, our understanding that we are living in moments that are unforgettable can never be forgotten. President Trump’s embassy move is a recognition that we are now experiencing the words of the prophets spoken over 2,500 years ago.

 

 

 

 

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Netanyahu’s finest hour

Originally Published in the Jerusalem Post.

At the start of his cabinet meeting on Wednesday, President Donald Trump discussed his announcement Tuesday afternoon that he is removing the US from his predecessor Barack Obama’s nuclear deal with Iran and reinstating the nuclear sanctions that were suspended with the deal’s implementation in January 2016.

European and other international leaders responded angrily to Trump’s move. The EU’s foreign policy commissioner Federica Mogherini was downright indignant.

Apparently unaware that the US is a more important EU ally than Iran, Mogherini insisted, “The European Union is determined to preserve it. Together with the rest of the international community, we will preserve this nuclear deal.”

The liberal US media outlets were also aghast. Commentators joined the chorus of former Obama administration officials condemning Trump and insisting his move will isolate the US from the international community.

Trump brushed off his critics by noting, “You saw [Prime Minister] Benjamin Netanyahu get up yesterday and talk so favorably about what we did.”

In other words, as far as Trump is concerned, Israel’s support is just as valuable as Mogherini’s. He’s perfectly willing to suffice with Israeli support. Having Israel in his corner means that the US is not isolated.

From moving the US Embassy to Jerusalem, to walking away from the nuclear deal which guaranteed Iran’s eventual acquisition of nuclear weapons and financed its regional aggression and terrorism sponsorship, to unconditionally supporting Israel’s military operations against Iranian positions in Syria, Trump has demonstrated that he is the most pro-Israel president in US history. No other president comes close.

The difference between Trump and his predecessors is that Trump accepts Israel on its own terms. He doesn’t expect Israel to do anything to “earn” American support. So long as Israel is in America’s corner, he respects the Jewish state as America’s ally.

Trump has earned all the credit for transforming the US-Israel relationship into a full-blown strategic relationship. But it was another leader that prepared the groundwork for his actions.

That leader is Netanyahu.

For many Republicans, Netanyahu is the most important foreign leader of our times. In the ranks of their esteem he ranks a close second to Winston Churchill. Netanyahu’s high standing is all the more remarkable given that Israel has no British Empire behind it. In the vast scope of things, Israel is a tiny country with no coattails.

Republicans aren’t the only ones who admire him. World leaders from Russian President Vladimir Putin to Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi to Chinese Premier Xi Jinping welcome him to their capitals like a visiting monarch. Sandwiched between two major Israeli air assaults on Iranian military assets in Syria Tuesday and Wednesday night, Netanyahu flew to Moscow. He stood next to Putin in Red Square as the Red Army Band played “Hativka” during the parade marking the 73rd anniversary of the Allied victory over Nazi Germany.

What explains his meteoric rise? How is it possible that an Israeli politician from the political Right, a man castigated for decades by the local and Western leftist elites as a fanatic and an extremist, is so revered today?

To understand Netanyahu’s success, a comparison with the late Shimon Peres is in order. Until his death, the same elites who revile Netanyahu revered Peres as the greatest Israeli statesman of all time.

Peres had a clear formula for statesmanship. He identified the interests of key actors – first and foremost, the Europeans – and he adopted them.

Consider his central foreign policy initiative, the Oslo peace process with the PLO.

Since the 1970s, the Europeans sought to legitimize the PLO – at Israel’s expense. In 1993, then-foreign minister Peres turned their goal into an ideology of peace and adopted it as his own.

On Monday, Labor MK Eitan Cabel said that if the late Yitzhak Rabin had known the toll the Oslo process would take on Israel, he never would have adopted it.

In his words, “From my dealings with [Rabin], in my view, if he had known the price the State of Israel would pay for the Oslo agreements, he never would have agreed to them.”

Peres, of course, was different. As the Israeli casualties of his peace process mounted from the tens to the hundreds to the thousands, and as Israel’s international position sunk ever lower, Peres became more dogmatic in its defense.

For his efforts, Peres was personally glorified by the A-list crew of European and American elites. They came to his extravagant birthday parties and had their photos shot embracing him. But none of his triumphs were shared with the country.

Netanyahu, has a different approach to diplomacy. Netanyahu identifies Israel’s national interests. Then he scans the international community for actors with aligned interests. He uses his considerable power of persuasion to convince those actors to achieve common goals.

The discrepancy between the two men’s approaches is nowhere more apparent than in their divergent moves to develop ties with the Arab world.

Peres viewed the Arab world from a European perspective. The EU views the Arab world as a monolithic presence moved only by Israel’s willingness to give Jerusalem to the PLO. So long as Israel refuses to give up Jerusalem, the Arabs will reject the Jewish state. Once Israel has conceded its eternal capital – and Judea and Samaria along with Gaza – the Arabs will be placated in one fell swoop and immediately embrace Israel as a neighbor and friend.

This view, which Peres gave voice to in his book The New Middle East, bears no relationship whatsoever to the realities of the Middle East.

Consequently, rather than embrace his vision, the Arabs viewed it as a Jewish conspiracy to take over the Arab world.

In stark contrast, Netanyahu has built his regional strategy on the real Middle East. During the Obama years, Netanyahu realized that Obama’s policies toward Iran and the Muslim Brotherhood imperiled Sunni Arab states no less, and perhaps even more, than they imperiled Israel.

Netanyahu developed relations with Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the UAE on the basis of these shared concerns and shared interests in diminishing the deleterious consequences of Obama’s policies. Although Netanyahu’s moves are unlikely to generate extravagant signing ceremonies with doves and balloons, they did bring about a situation where the Saudis, Egyptians and the UAE sided with Israel against Hamas, Qatar and Turkey during Operation Protective Edge in 2014.

That united front prevented Obama from coercing Israel into accepting Hamas’s cease-fire terms in the war.

So too, the relationships Netanyahu built formed the basis of a united Israeli-Arab front opposing Obama’s deal with Iran.

Now with Trump in the White House, Netanyahu’s regional policies have fomented a strategic transformation of the US’s system of alliances in the Middle East. Whereas in 1990, then-president George H.W. Bush built a coalition of Arab states against Iraq at Israel’s expense, in 2017, Trump reframed the US’s alliance structure to one based on the common Israeli-Sunni front against Iran and the Muslim Brotherhood.

Throughout Obama’s eight years in office, politicians from the Left accused Netanyahu of destroying Israel’s alliance with the US. Yesh Atid leader Yair Lapid, for instance, chastised Netanyahu in 2015 insisting, “Your understanding of America is obsolete and irrelevant and it is causing damage to the State of Israel.”

Netanyahu did understand America though. He understood the Obama administration was incurably hostile to Israel and that Obama viewed Israel as the main obstacle to achieving his goals in the Middle East. Netanyahu understood that under those circumstances, he had to find partners inside the US – in Congress and among the general public – to lessen the damage Obama was causing Israel.

Netanyahu’s approach to the US during the Obama years, and indeed, during the Clinton administration as well, was to recognize that the administration, while a key actor, is just one actor in a much wider American society, which is by and large deeply supportive of Israel. This insight informed Netanyahu’s decision to bring his opposition to Obama’s nuclear diplomacy with Tehran to the American people directly, through his address before a joint session of Congress in March 2015.

Netanyahu was reviled and attacked brutally by the Israeli and American Left for his move. Both groups insisted that he was undermining and even destroying US ties with Israel.

But the truth was that to a significant degree, Netanyahu’s speech in March 2015 safeguarded and protected the US alliance with Israel.

Netanyahu recognized that the White House’s propaganda campaign on behalf of Obama’s nuclear deal was even more dangerous to Israel than the deal itself. Obama’s campaign centered on delegitimizing all of the deal’s critics, by castigating them as Israeli agents and warmongers. If Obama’s efforts had succeeded, US support for Israel would have crashed, as that support would have been effectively rendered toxic and somehow treasonous.

Netanyahu’s address to Congress stopped Obama’s efforts in their tracks. He preserved the political legitimacy of opposition to the Iran deal and of support for Israel. His speech presented a clear case for how the nuclear deal harmed America’s national interests and how support for Israel advanced America’s national interest. Although Netanyahu’s speech represented the most significant substantive challenge Obama’s foreign policy ever suffered, Netanyahu offered nothing but praise for Obama in his address. In so doing, Netanyahu insulated himself and Israel from charges that he was hostile to Obama or in any way disrespectful of the presidency.

By coming to Washington and preserving the legitimacy of Obama’s opponents, Netanyahu blocked Obama from securing the support of either a majority of US lawmakers or a majority of the US public for his nuclear accord. His speech was the foundation of the Republican Party’s rejection of Obama’s deal. It created the political space for Democratic lawmakers to oppose their president’s most important foreign policy initiative.

If Netanyahu had not deliver his speech, opposition to the nuclear deal might not have become the consensus view of the Republican presidential candidates in the 2016 primaries. If Netanyahu not ensured the continued legitimacy of opponents of the nuclear deal, Trump might not have promised to abandon it.

Trump is the only person who decides his policies and so he has earned the admiration of the people of Israel, who are rightly moved by his extraordinary, unprecedented acts of friendship and support since entering office. But the man who set the conditions that afforded Trump the opportunity to transform the US-Israel relationship into a fullboard alliance is Netanyahu.

Israel is now reaping the rewards of Netanyahu’s visionary statesmanship. For his efforts, over the course of 30 years, Netanyahu has roundly earned the ever growing acknowledgment at home and abroad that he is the greatest statesman in Israel’s history.

 

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ISRAEL STRIKES SYRIA: Residents in Israel’s North Are Told to Prepare for Retaliation

A few moments ago, Israeli planes struck multiple Iranian targets south of Damascus.  These strikes occurred soon after Israeli officials warned Israeli citizens in the north of the country to open their bomb shelters as the government was expecting Iranian retaliation to Trump pulling out of the Iran deal. Reports are indicating the IAF destroyed an advanced Iranian communications base.  Considering Israel is bracing for an Iranian attack, this appeared to be a premtive strike.

There have been reports that Israel has begin to call up a select number of reserves as well as placing a heavy amount of anti-missile batteries on the Golan.

Prime Minister Netanyahu had this to say on President Trump pulling the USA out of the Iran deal:

“Israel fully supports President Trump’s bold decision today to reject the disastrous nuclear deal with the terrorist regime in Tehran. Israel has opposed the nuclear deal from the start because we said that rather than blocking Iran’s path to a bomb, the deal actually paved Iran’s path to an entire arsenal of nuclear bombs, and this within a few years’ time. The removal of sanctions under the deal has already produced disastrous results. The deal didn’t push war further away, it actually brought it closer. The deal didn’t reduce Iran’s aggression, it dramatically increased it, and we see this across the entire Middle East. Since the deal, we’ve seen Iran’s aggression grow every day- in Iraq, in Lebanon, in Yemen, in Gaza, and most of all, in Syria, where Iran is trying to establish military bases from which to attack Israel.”

With Iran now in control of Lebanon and free reign in Syria, Israel has no choice but to take the initiative.  By striking at the Syrian capital, Israel sends a clear message: “We’re ready to fight.” Of course Iran may now choose to respond, placing much of Israel in danger.

 

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Will This Week Change The World As We Know It?

There are moments when we feel something pivotal about to begin. Since September 11th, 2001 when we saw the attack that destroyed the Twin Towers in New York City, the world has increasingly been moving towards an unmanageble level of chaos. Standard geopolitical structures appear to be collapsing, morals crumbling, and the once uni-polar post cold war world order has been rendered no more.

So why this week?

First let me make it clear, that I have never been someone who believes or espouses a Redemption process, which is immediate, but rather I have constantly striven to explain that the events of the End of Days are meant to occur over a period of time. The word “day” in the Bible can also be explained as a block of time as it is often used allegorically.  End of Days is plural on purpose. This connotes an actual process of time.

With this being said, the pressures within the world have now reached the point of explosion and this week appears to be the moment where all things erupt.

Make no mistake, I can be wrong and I hope I am, because the Final Redemption can come in many forms, but the next seven days appear to be setting up a war which many assumed would come eventually, but always hoped it would be sometime when they could better process its fallout.

So now let’s take a look at this week:

Today at 2pm eastern standard time, President Trump will announce his final decision on whether the US recertifies the JCPOA or better known as the Iran nuclear agreement or not. Most observers assume the President will not recertify the deal, thus reestablishing sanctions on Iran’s fragile economy.

May 10th begins the 51st commemoration according to the Hebrew calendar of the Six Day War.

May 12th is Jerusalem Day and it is also the official final day that the US has to recertify the Iran deal.

May 14th is the dedication of the new US embassy in Jerusalem.  The Arab street has promised to hold violent protests.

May 15th is Nakba day, which is the day the “Palestinians” protest over the establishment of the third Jewish Commonwealth of Israel.

While these events are going on, the Iranians are moving troops and missiles into their newest colony of Lebanon and strengthening their hold over southern Syria. Russia has also delivered more weapons to the Assad regime and warned Israel not to harm Russian interests even if there is a conflict with Iran.

It is true there has been a Jerusalem Day every year since 1968 and there have been “Nakba” rallies ever since the “Palestinians” decided they were some sort of people, but the mix of Iranian expansion, Trump’s decision on the JCPOA, and the embassy move has the region and the world on edge.

These times are filled both with wonder and chaos as we approach that moment when a more perfect world order is ushered in.  Until then we have no one to hold responsible on how these events affect us other than ourselves.  Our actions can elicit divine mercy, creating a smooth transition to a better world or one which causes the chaos that already abounds to increase to terrifying levels. This week will be remembered forever, but how events play out is in each of our hands.

The choice is ours.