ICONOCLAST IN THE PROMISED LAND

How the Israeli people are gauging Trump.

Israelis are greeting US President Donald Trump with cautious optimism. Their optimism stems from President Trump’s iconoclasm. Trump won the US presidential election based on a campaign of rejecting the prevailing narratives on US domestic and foreign policy that have long held sway among the elites. These narratives dictate and limit the boundaries of acceptable discourse in the US. Unfortunately, their relationship with facts and truth was never more than incidental. Indeed, in recent years that incidental link has vanished altogether along a wide swath of policy areas. On the domestic front, the most obvious examples of this disconnect between the prevailing narratives that dictate policies and the facts that guarantee the failure of those policies relate to US immigration policy and US healthcare policy.

American voters elected Trump because whether or not they supported his specific immigration and healthcare policies, they appreciated his willingness to state openly that the policies now in effect are having devastating impacts on American society.

Finally, Trump’s enthusiastic, unqualified support for Israel, his refusal to endorse the establishment of a Palestinian state and his pledge to move the US Embassy to Israel’s capital city Jerusalem were second importance only to his pledge to appoint Supreme Court justices that oppose abortion to his success in winning near wall-to-wall support from evangelical Christian voters.

It was because of his foreign policy iconoclasm that Israelis were, by and large, euphoric when Trump was finally inaugurated in January.

Since then, however, in significant ways, Trump has bowed to the narratives of the establishment. As a result, Israel’s euphoria at his election has been replaced by cautious optimism.

During his speech in Riyadh, in relation to both Iran and Islamic terrorism, Trump kept his promise to base his strategies for dealing with the threats on facts rather than narrative.

As far as Iran was concerned, Trump broke with convention by ignoring the meaningless presidential “elections” in Iran last Friday. Rather than embrace the common delusion that ballots mean something in Iran, when Iranian dictator Ali Khamenei decides who can run for election and decides who wins, Trump concentrated on facts. Iran is the primary engine of terrorism in the region and the world, he explained. Moreover, the world would be a better place, and the Iranian people would be better off, if the regime were overthrown.

On Islamic terrorism, Trump again ignored the advice of his national security adviser H.R. McMaster and refused to embrace the false narrative that Islam has nothing to do with terrorism. Rather, standing before the leaders of the Islamic world, Trump exhorted them to confront “Islamist extremism and the Islamist terror groups it inspires.”

Trump’s decision to make the case outright to the Muslim leaders was all the more astounding because on the eve of his speech, McMaster demeaned his refusal to embrace the narrative that Islam is peace in an interview with ABC News. In McMaster’s insubordinate words, “The president will call [Islamic terrorism] whatever he wants to call it. But I think it’s important that whatever we call it, we recognize that these are not religious people and, in fact, these enemies of all civilizations, what they want to do is to cloak their criminal behavior under this false idea of some kind of religious war.”

McMaster then insisted that despite the fact that his boss continues to talk about “radical Islamic terrorism,” Trump is coming around to embracing the official narrative that Islam is unrelated to Islamic terrorism. “This is learning,” he said.

But while Trump has maintained his fact-based rhetoric on Iran, for instance, his actual policy is very similar to Obama’s. Rather than keep his campaign pledge and cancel the nuclear deal which guarantees Iran a nuclear arsenal in ten years, Trump chose to punt. He certified – wrongly – that Iran is abiding by the terms of the deal even as the Iranians are stockpiling uranium in excess of the amounts permitted under the deal and are barring weapons inspectors from entering their nuclear sites. So too, Trump has kept up Obama’s practice of keeping the public in the dark regarding what was actually agreed to with Iran by refusing to reveal the nuclear agreement’s secret protocols.

In other words, his policies have yet to match his rhetoric on Iran.

But then again, there is reason to give Trump the benefit of the doubt on Iran. It is more than possible that Trump’s visit to Saudi Arabia and Israel is entirely about Iran. After all, Trump has enthusiastically joined the anti- Iran coalition that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu built with the Sunni regimes to try to mitigate the destructive consequences of Obama’s embrace of the ayatollahs. And he seems to be interested in using this coalition to rebuild US power in the Middle East while ending Iran’s unimpeded rise as a nuclear power and regional hegemon, just as Israel and the Sunnis had hoped.

The same inconsistency and lack of clarity about Trump’s intentions and his level of willingness to reject the establishment narrative on foreign policy is even more blatant in everything related to Israel and the Palestinian war against it.

During his speech in Riyadh, Trump repeated the obnoxious practice of his predecessors and left Israel off the long list of countries that are afflicted by terrorism. The notion at the heart of that deliberate snub is that terrorism against Israel is somehow different and frankly more acceptable, than terrorism against everyone else.

During his brief visit to Israel, Trump will also go to Bethlehem to meet with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas. This will be the two men’s second meeting in less than a month. By insisting on meeting with Abbas during his lightning visit to Israel, Trump signals that he agrees with the narrative view that the US cannot support Israel without also legitimizing and supporting the PLO and its terror funding kleptocracy, the Palestinian Authority.

Finally, even when Trump has adopted a position that repudiates the establishment’s line, the fact is that the establishment’s members dominate his foreign policy team. And as a consequence, they do everything they can to dilute the significance of his moves.

This was clearly in evidence in relation to Trump’s decision to visit the Western Wall on Monday. In the week that preceded his visit, embassy officers angrily rejected Israel’s request that Netanyahu join Trump during his visit to the Jewish holy site, insisting that the Western Wall isn’t in Israel.

In so acting, these Obama holdovers were backed by McMaster, who refuses to admit that the Western Wall is in Jerusalem, and by his Israel-Palestinians director at the National Security Council, Kris Bauman, who served on Obama’s anti-Israel foreign policy team and supports US recognition of Hamas.

In other words, even when Trump tries to embrace fact over narrative, his failure to populate his foreign policy team with iconoclasts like himself has made it all but impossible for him to abandon the anti-Israel narrative guiding US policy. None of this means that Israelis have lost hope in Trump. To the contrary. They have enormous hope in him. But they recognize that so long as the same hostile false narrative about Israel, and the establishment that clings to it dominate Trump’s thinking and policies, the promise of his presidency will not be met.

Originally published by the Jerusalem Post

Jerusalem Day: Connecting Heaven to Earth

To recognize the true significance of Yom Yerushalayim – the day on which the Jewish people liberated Jerusalem from foreign rule – one must work to develop a deep vision of Emunah. In D’at Tvunot, Rabbi Moshe Ḥaim Lutzatto teaches us to see HaShem authoring history – to appreciate a Divine plan unfolding and to understand everything we encounter in our lives through the context of a greater goal that transcends yet includes all creatures, places and events. All of Creation, with all of its multiplicity and variety, is actually one organic whole that appears fragmented from the untrained human perspective. Due to our myopic perception, man tends to see everything as disconnected – and often even opposing – forces. But when we learn to view the world from the Divine perspective we become capable of relating to everything we encounter – with all of their unique functions and distinctions – as exceptional pieces of one giant amazing puzzle.

The study of Emunah is learning to see the Divine light in its unity before its having been distilled into multiplicity from the human perspective – to see not only the seemingly fragmented branches but also the unified roots. The study of Emunah helps us to recognize the One that precedes and transcends the individual parts yet is at the same time revealed through them, thereby giving them their true significance and purpose in our world.

Because we exist within the framework of time, history seems from the human perspective to flow in a long process of events. But from the perspective of HaShem – who creates the framework of time and is clearly not bound by it – history exists as one giant light. What we might perceive to be disconnected events with hundreds of years and thousands of miles between them are actually interdependent expressions of a singular Divine theme in which HaShem’s Oneness is revealed to all of Creation.

Everything in Creation possesses a spiritual back end that manifests itself in our world through a tangible vehicle that expresses its inner content. Everything we encounter on the terrestrial plane possesses a spiritual counterpart in the celestial realm. And a central component of the Hebrew mission requires us to reveal the kedusha inherent in our world through actualizing concrete material expressions for our deepest spiritual values and ideals. Israel is not so much tasked with spiritualizing the material but rather materializing the spiritual in order that the Torah’s loftiest concepts attain full expression in our reality.

Celestial Jerusalem as a spiritual ideal represents the absolute good from beyond this world and the eternal Divine values constantly driving history forward toward its goal. Terrestrial Jerusalem here on earth is the physical expression of the celestial Jerusalem above. What may appear to the human eye as merely an ancient mountain city is actually the uniquely designed conduit that reveals HaShem’s Oneness to mankind and enables the flow of Divine energy and blessing into our world (Tanḥuma Pekudei 1).

HaShem swore that His Shkhina would not enter celestial Jerusalem above until the Jewish people enters terrestrial Jerusalem below (Zohar 3:15b).

Knesset Yisrael – the unique spiritual organism revealed in this world through millions of bodies in space and time called Jews – is the national receptacle that receives and expresses the Divine Ideal. What the Land of Israel – and specifically Jerusalem – is in geographic form, the Nation of Israel is in human form. The famed kabalist of Ḥevron, Rabbi Avraham Azulai, teaches in the Ḥesed L’Avraham that the size of the window through which Divine blessing enters our world directly depends on how much of Eretz Yisrael is under Hebrew governance. Jerusalem is the bridge connecting the physical and spiritual realms – the portal between our corporeal realty and the world beyond. And that portal connecting celestial and terrestrial Jerusalem is only open for blessing to enter our world when the human and geographic manifestations of the Divine Ideal unite – when the Nation of Israel possesses political sovereignty over Jerusalem.

Our Sages explain (Megillah 29a) that when Israel is exiled from our land, the Shkhina is also exiled and that only when the Jewish people returns to Eretz Yisrael does the Divine Presence return. When the Children of Israel were separated from Jerusalem, HaShem’s Ideal for this world could not be perceived as unified here on earth. Mankind lacked the ability to fully connect to our inner Source. In such a situation, reality appeared not as one Divine light but as fragmented individual components separate from one another and history became viewed as merely a series of disconnected events.

But when the Hebrew Nation returned to Jerusalem on the 28th of Iyar, the expression of His Ideal became unified with all Creation, establishing the conditions for the fulfillment of the verse that “HaShem will be One and His Name will be One” (ZEKHARIA 14:9).

According to the holy Zohar (3:93), this verse refers to the unification of His Ideal with the reality we experience. Israel’s liberation of Jerusalem ushered in a new historic era for mankind in which the bridge linking this world to the world beyond is back in place. The portal through which Divine blessing enters our world is once again open.

Malkhut Yisrael on earth is the material vehicle that receives and expresses the Divine Kingdom above. The core of this realm, where our ability to perceive and experience our connection to HaShem is strongest, is the Judea region – including and surrounding Jerusalem. We therefore have unique laws and customs exclusively pertaining to this region, such as the commandment for a Jew to rend his garment upon seeing the cities of Judea destroyed – a mitzvah that does not apply to cities in any other portion of our country. And according to both the Beit Yosef and the Mishnah Brurah on the Shulḥan Arukh (Oraḥ Ḥaim section 561), the term “destroyed” is legally defined as being under foreign rule. This means that a Jew who sees a physically ruined and uninhabitable city in a free Judea is not commanded to tear his garment but he would be commanded to do so upon seeing a Judean city under gentile sovereignty – even if that city is fully developed and abounding with vibrant Jewish life. And indeed, following the liberation of Jerusalem in the Six-Day War, Rabbi Zvi Yehuda HaKohen Kook ruled that although our Holy Temple is not yet rebuilt, we no longer rend our garments upon seeing the Temple Mount.

While the return of the Jewish people to the city that had been the central focus of our tears, dreams and tefillot for thousands of years would be sufficient to warrant the establishment of a new festival (complete with Hallel), Yom Yerushalayim actually commemorates so much more. The 28thof Iyar is the day on which the bridge linking heaven and earth was restored and the portal through which Divine blessing enters our world was reopened. Yom Yerushalayim inaugurates a new historic era in which the Shkhina is no longer in exile and all of mankind can recognize and experience its inner connection to the timeless and boundless ultimate Reality that creates all, sustains all, empowers all and loves all.

What Spicer’s Comments on the Western Wall Really Mean for Jerusalem

The above footage of White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer trying to explain the status of the Western Wall needs to be seen in the context of Trump’s larger peace initiative.  President Trump is certainly serious about reaching a peace deal between Israel and the Palestinian Arabs and as a consummate deal maker he realizes the Old City is a deal breaker for both sides.  The hint in Spicer’s comments when he says the Western Wall is clearly in Jerusalem, yet balks on whether that means it is in Israel hold the key to Trump’s ultimate deal.

President Trump may very well be willing to take the Old City of Jerusalem off the table and by doing so making a “peace” deal very possible.  By creating a special committee to run the old City of Jerusalem as was proposed by Olmert, the rest of the agreement is about land swaps in connection to Judea and Samaria in order to ensure there are no meaningful evictions of Jews. Making Jerusalem international will not go over well in Israel, but it has precedent when Israel’s first Prime Minister agreed to its international status as part of the Palestine Partition Plan that never bore fruit. This regime was known as the Corpus separatum.

No doubt Trump and his team are aware of this and will remind the Israeli government of this fact.  This however will be a mistake as the true agreement Ben Gurion signed onto only made Jerusalem international for 10 years in which time the city would vote on its future.  Given the fact it had a clear Jewish Majority before 1948, it would have decided to become part of Israel.

Spicer’s comments should be an alarm to pro-Israel supporters, because attempting to internationalize Jerusalem will not only fail, it will lead to massive blood shed on both sides.

JEWS UNDER ATTACK: Jewish House Near Lions Gate Firebombed

Although deep inside what even Arabs consider to be a dangerous part of Jerusalem’s Old City do to rival Arab clans, Jews have returned to their former property near to the Lions Gate. Despite the isolation from the other burgeoning Jewish areas that have continued to grow througout the Old City, the reacquired building has undergone significant renovations in the past few months.  With two liveable rooms and more to be renovated the, the house near the Lions Gate provides hope that the Jewish return to the entire Old City will continue to all parts of the ancient walls.

With the Lions Gate property showing increased Jewish presence the Arab neighbors have now decided to stop more Jewish residents from moving in.  Over the past week Arab neigbors have violently firebombed the front entrance to the house in the hopes Jewish residents will flee, but the opposite has occurred.

The Lions Gate property is key to continuing the returning of stolen Jewish property throughout Jerusalem’s Old City.  Where Jews move into, safety and security can be established once there is a critical mass. The Lions Gate property will lead to more properties and they will connect the last area once void of Jews to the growing Jewish areas on the main street running from the Western Wall to Damascus Gate.

Redemption occurs in steps.  The Lions Gate property like those Jewish properties in other parts of the Muslim Quarter have become beacons of light, shining the pathway to redemption in a sea of darkness.  Now is the time to strengthen the lights of the Jewish return to Jerusalem.

Comey, Jerusalem, and the Deep State Machine

With the firing of Jim Comey as the Director of the FBI, President Trump may have set up a very serious conflagration with both his revealed enemies and those embedded throughout the Deep State. It’s true, Trump could have waited as others urged him to do, but the President doesn’t see the world that way.  He clearly understands that the globalist apparatus is stacked against him. The battle over Jim Comey represents something deeper.  This Trump understands.  The issue is a runaway and faceless bureaucratic dictatorship that has engulfed the United States populace. This bureaucracy is at war with the common person.  Trump wants to knock it down and Comey is only the beginning. The challenge for Trump is something more. Draining the swamp requires the ability to get your message out.

A perfect example of this is the confusing message coming out of the White House concerning moving the US embassy to Jerusalem or meetin with Abbas, a known terrorist turned suit wearing mafia leader.. There is no doubt Trump is a backer of Israel.  His circles of friends and family makes that clear, yet his allowance of Gen. McMaster as his main foreign policy adviser has allowed for a pro-Arabist position to wind its way into the Oval Office.  Yet, this embedding of an Arabist in the highest rungs of Trump’s White House is a strategy the Deep State employs in order to ensure its management over the United States.

The Deep State retains control of the United States by its consistent severance of the American connection to the G-D of Israel. Its pro-Arabist positions are in direct contradiction to the vision the Founding Fathers saw of an America deeply rooted in helping the Jewish people return and revitalize their homeland. By uprooting this bond, the American culture is weakened and the populace becomes servile followers to the government.

The bond between the Founding Fathers of the United States is clear. After all John Adams said the following to Mordecai Manuel Noah, one of the most influential Jews of his time:

“Farther I could find it in my heart to wish that you had been at the head of a hundred thousand Israelites … and marching with them into Judea and making a conquest of that country and restoring your nation to the dominion of it. For I really wish the Jews again in Judea an independent nation.” \

John Quincy Adams followed in his Uncle’s footsteps by declaring to the same Mordechai Manuel Noah:

“[I believe in the] rebuilding of Judea as an independent nation.”

The Deep State’s war on Jerusalem is connected to its desire to erase the constitutional pillars of the United States, whose foundations were built from the Jewish commonwealths of more than two thousand years ago.

The misinformation about Donald Trump’s intentions in Israel are part of the globalist media’s game as well as the Deep State war against the people pf Israel and the common person in America. Those of us who love liberty and believe in the prophetic vision of the Bible, must stand and urge President Trump to beat back the Deep State by rejecting the “Palestinian” claim on Jerusalem and the Land of Israel.  If Trump wants to push back on the Comey’s of the world he must strengthen Israel’s hand to be able to spread its sovereignty over its entire Land.

[watch] Far-Left and Arab Students Disrupt Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat’s Hebrew U Lecture

Video credit: David Kozlovsky

Far-Left and Arab students disrupted Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat’s lecture last night (Wednesday) at Hebrew University, holding signs and shouting derogatory slogans at the mayor.

Once the lecture began, a number of protesters stood up and began to shout at the mayor, referring to Jerusalem as an occupied city.

“We will not bow our heads to the violence and incitement of the radical Left,” said Barkat. “It is unfortunate that those who claim to promote the values of freedom of expression try to silence those who don’t agree with them.”

Once the protesters were removed, Barkat delivered his speech as planned and added: “There is one law in Jerusalem – for Jews and Arabs alike. We will continue to work, without prejudice or exemptions, to ensure law and order in Israel’s united capital.”

Barkat’s lecture was delivered within the framework of Im Tirtzu’s Seminars for Zionist Thought, the largest Zionist academic extra-curricular program in Israel.

The Seminars for Zionist Thought is the flagship academic program of the Zionist advocacy group Im Tirtzu, which was established to impart pro-Israel and Zionist knowledge to Israeli students and to combat the growing phenomenon of anti-Zionism in Israeli academic curriculum.

Im Tirtzu CEO Matan Peleg said that this hostile disruption crossed a red line and called on the Education Minister Naftali Bennett to demand from the university president to take action against the protesters.

“What happened tonight was a disgraceful attempt to silence free speech,” said Peleg. “Im Tirtzu has never been deterred by the radical-Left and will never be deterred by them in the future. We will continue running the Seminars for Zionist Thought on campuses throughout the country and will continue to provide students with pro-Israel knowledge from the leading Zionist lectures in Israel.”

GEN. MATTIS IS COMING: Palestine or Israel?

As far as Israel’s relations with the US generally and the Pentagon specifically are concerned, moving the US embassy to Jerusalem is of secondary importance.

On Friday, US Secretary of Defense James Mattis will visit Israel as part of a tour of the region that will bring him to Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Djibouti. The declared purpose of Mattis’s trip is to “reaffirm key US military alliances, engage with strategic partners in the Middle East and Africa, and discuss cooperative efforts to counter destabilizing activities and defeat extremist terror organizations.”

Ahead of his visit, Mattis should spend some time considering the hunger strike being carried out by the Palestinian terrorists imprisoned by Israel. A serious consideration of the strike will tell him more about the nature of the Palestinian conflict with Israel than a hundred “expert” briefings.

There are several important things for Mattis to consider in relation to the strike.

The first thing he needs to note is that all of the terrorists on strike are members of the Fatah terrorist group.

This fact should signal to General Mattis that Fatah is not a normal political party. In fact, it is a terrorist organization that has a political party.

The second thing Mattis needs to consider about the strike is that it is supported by the international Left.

To understand why, Mattis needs to recognize the Fatah tautology.

But first, a bit of background.

The terrorists’ strike is the brainchild of convicted mass murderer, Fatah leader and darling of the international Left, Marwan Barghouti.

Barghouti is serving five life sentences in prison for murdering five Israelis. Israeli authorities believe Barghouti was directly responsible for 37 murders, but were only able to convict him on five counts.

Barghouti’s role in the killings goes far beyond the terrorist attacks he directly ordered.

From 2000 until his arrest in 2002, Barghouti was the commander and mastermind of the Palestinian terror war that began in September 2000 after Fatah leader Yasser Arafat rejected Palestinian statehood at Camp David.

In other words, hundreds of Israelis are dead today because of Barghouti.

But for the Left, none of this matters. For the Left, Barghouti is a hero.

The Left insists Barghouti is a moderate and a peacemaker and that Israel should release him and let him take over Fatah and the PLO from octogenarian Mahmoud Abbas.

They insist this because of the Fatah tautology.

According to the tautology, Fatah is “moderate” and “pro-peace.” Barghouti is a leader of Fatah. Therefore Barghouti is moderate and pro-peace.

Since Fatah is “moderate” and “pro-peace,” it isn’t a terrorist organization. And since it isn’t a terrorist organization, its terrorists are moderate peace-activists.

So despite the protests of irritating Israeli terrorism victims, and the verdict of the court, Barghouti isn’t a terrorist and none of the terrorists he commanded are terrorists.

None of them are terrorists because they are members of Fatah. And Fatah is a moderate, pro-peace party. So they are moderate peace activists.

Under this tautological reasoning, it makes sense for the US to give nearly a billion dollars a year in aid to the Fatah-controlled Palestinian Authority. It makes sense for the Pentagon to train Palestinian “security forces” who double as Fatah terrorists. It makes sense for the US to turn a blind eye to the fact that the PA spends more than $300 million, or more than 7% of its donor-financed budget, to pay salaries to terrorists in Israeli prisons and their families.

After all, the Palestinians can’t be incentivizing terrorism.

They’re from Fatah and Fatah is a moderate peace party.

The Fatah tautology is what informed The New York Times’ decision to publish an op-ed by Barghouti in its Sunday edition in support of the prisoners’ strike.

Not surprisingly, Barghouti slandered Israel repeatedly in his essay.

Also not surprisingly, in its tagline the Times described Barghouti as a “Palestinian leader and parliamentarian.”

It would be bad enough if this circular reasoning was relegated to the fever swamps of the Left.

But it isn’t.

Numbered among Fatah’s most fervent supporters are Mattis and his fellow generals at the US Military’s Central Command.

Mattis arrives in Israel with a public record replete with anti-Israel statements that indicate he swallowed the Fatah tautology hook, line and sinker.

In 2013, shortly after retiring from his post as Centcom commander, General Mattis resonated Barghouti and his leftist supporters when he blamed Israel for the absence of peace.

Speaking at the Aspen Institute Mattis said that the US must make the establishment of a state run by Fatah terrorists – on land Israel controls, that it requires for its national security and that it has sovereign rights to – a key US goal.

In his words, “We’ve got to find a way to make the twostate solution that Democrat and Republican administrations have supported. We’ve got to get there, and the chances for its starting are starting to ebb because of the settlements and where they’re at, they’re going to make it impossible to maintain the two-state option.”

Also echoing Barghouti’s libels, Mattis said that if Israel continues to allow Jews to live where they have rights to live and property rights to build then it will become an “apartheid” state.

Mattis is reputedly a very smart, well-read man. And yet, his claims show that despite his intelligence, he has a stunning lack of intellectual curiosity about Israel and the Palestinians and their positions in the wider Middle East.

Lest we give in to the temptation to believe that Mattis’s ignorant, tautological thinking was simply a function of his service in the Obama administration, during his Senate confirmation hearings as President Donald Trump’s nominee to serve as Defense Secretary, Mattis doubled down.

When asked point blank to name Israel’s capital, Mattis refused to acknowledge that Jerusalem is the capital of Israel. Instead, he stunned lawmakers when he proclaimed that Tel Aviv is the capital of the Jewish state.

Mattis’s hostile view of Israel and the Palestinians isn’t surprising. And the reason it isn’t surprising isn’t because Mattis is a member in good standing of the lunatic Left. He’s not.

Mattis’s ignorance is understandable because he hails from the US Military’s Central Command. The Pentagon’s area command responsible for the Middle East has one debilitating problem. It is a problem that guarantees that Centcom officers will fail to understand the Middle East and fail to win America’s wars in the region.

Centcom’s problem is that it deliberately does not include Israel.

As far as Centcom is concerned, Israel is not part of the Middle East. Israel is in Europe.

Centcom officers speak only to Arabs. And their Arab counterparts insist that Israel is the problem.

Rather than critically analyze this claim, Centcom officers internalize it.

Rather than notice and get irritated by the fact that due to their Arab colleagues’ antisemitism the US is forced to pretend that Israel is located on a completely different continent, Mattis and his underlings adopted their reason-bereft prejudice.

Rather than rebel against their inability to communicate directly with their Israeli counterparts and insist that they be permitted to bring the US’s closest ally in the Middle East into their regional plans and analyses, Centcom officers have embraced the irrational and strategically catastrophic view that the main source of instability in the Middle East are the Israeli communities located beyond the 1949 armistice lines.

Mattis’s visit will take him to Jerusalem, rather than Tel Aviv. No doubt Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will mention that Jerusalem is Israel’s capital and express his enthusiastic support for moving the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.

But as far as Israel’s relations with the US generally and the Pentagon specifically are concerned, moving the US embassy to Jerusalem is of secondary importance.

The most important contribution Israel can make to the US war against “extremist terrorism” and to the Trump administration’s efforts to “reaffirm key military alliances,” is for Netanyahu to insist that the Trump administration stop accepting the bigoted dictates of the Arabs. He must insist that Israel be integrated into Centcom. Only when the American officers responsible for determining US policies in the Middle East recognize that Israel is part of the Middle East will they have the cognitive capacity to understand the realities of the region. And the first reality that will become clear to them is that despite the Fatah tautology, Fatah is a terrorist organization, and an extremist one at that.

Originally Published in the Jerusalem Post under the title: Gen Mattis and the Fatah tautology  

Can One Man Make a Difference? Just Ask Israel

Donald Trump has been President for just over 5 weeks. Yet on many fronts there is little doubt a new era has been birthed. One of the most obvious is relations with Israel compared to the previous 8 years under Barack Obama.

From the beginning of the Obama administration he was determined to put the US on a different path with regard to the Muslim world. Indeed, the first foreign leader he called was Mahmoud Abbas, President of the Palestinian Authority. Obama even made a point of telling Abbas his was the first call to a foreign leader, emphasizing his intent to signal a new direction for the US.

Obama furthered his effort at a new direction by making his first international speech in Cairo. During his address he lamented about how the Palestinians suffer “daily humiliation under occupation,” and criticized Israel for building “settlements.”

Plus, throughout his two terms, it was clear Obama did not like Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu.

Right up to the bitter end the Obama administration went out much like it began, with a slap at Israel. The final kick in the stomach was UN resolution 2334, which singled out Israel’s construction of “settlements” as the main obstacle to peace.  The US was intimately involved in the language of the resolution, yet not a word was mentioned about ongoing Palestinian terrorism and murder of innocent Israeli civilians. As a permanent member of the UN Security Council, the US has veto power and could have killed the resolution. However, knowing this would be his last opportunity to make a statement against Israel, Obama directed the US to abstain from the voting, thus allowing it to pass, cementing his legacy as the most anti-Israel US President.

One Door Closes, Another Opens

Contrast this against the early stages of the Trump administration. Throughout his campaign he made it clear that the US had treated (Israel) its best Middle East ally terribly.  Since taking office the difference can only be described as startling.

For example, he has called the Iran nuclear deal “the worst deal ever negotiated,” and has already imposed new sanctions on Iran.

His Secretary of State Rex Tillerson criticized former Secretary of State John Kerry for how he handled Israeli-Palestinian issues. “Israel is, always has been, and remains our most important ally in the region” according to Tillerson. He characterized UN resolution 2334 as an effort to “coerce” Israel to change course, further stating, “that will not bring a solution.”

Trump’s Ambassador the UN Nikki Haley has already come out swinging against the overwhelming anti-Israel sentiment which dominates the organization. After attending her initial Security Council meeting and witnessing the absurd obsession it has with Israel she said “the United States will not turn a blind eye to this anymore. “ Additionally she stated “the United States is determined to stand up to the UN’s anti-Israel bias.” She went on to say “we will never repeat the mistake of resolution 2334 and allow one-sided Security Council resolutions to condemn Israel.” Haley called the UN’s double-standards “breathtaking.”

In fact President Trump is so upset at how unfairly Israel is treated by the UN, there is some discussion that the US may be considering withdrawing from the UNHRC. Could anyone imagine Obama doing this?

Trump has also indicated he will move the US Embassy to Jerusalem. However, this is still under discussion.

In another clear effort to demonstrate US-Israel relations have changed Trump invited Prime Minister Netanyahu to a meeting at the White House. (He also invited Netanyahu to his inauguration)The chemistry between the two of them was obvious and in stark contrast to the strained relations with former President Obama.

Let the Parties Decide for Themselves

During a press conference Trump moved the peace process in a heretofore new direction by backing off the long-standing US policy pushing for a two-state solution. He made it clear the position of the United States is to have the two parties negotiate a solution between themselves, saying “I want the one both parties want,” referring to a deal.

This doesn’t suggest the US is against a two-state solution, because Trump has indicated he would be fine with it.  However, in a clear departure from the Obama administration’s attempts to strong arm Israel, the Trump administration is saying let the two sides negotiate their own deal.

Such a stand by the US sends a blunt message to the Palestinians that Israel has every right to expect them to come to the table without pre-conditions, and has the freedom to tell the Palestinians what their conditions are for a resolution to the conflict, without being bullied by the US. Abbas has made it known he isn’t happy about this by stating his commitment to a two state solution and demanding the world recognize Palestine. In my view Abbas missed a golden opportunity to demonstrate some flexibility and strike a deal during the 8 years of the Obama administration, which was clearly more favorable toward the Palestinians.

For example, he could have urged Abbas to amend the charter of his Fatah Party by eliminating the language requiring Israel’s destruction, as a gesture toward being a genuine peace partner. Moreover, he could have cut off US aid because Abbas uses US money to pay huge salaries to terrorists who have murdered Israelis. These are just two examples of how Obama could have been more even handed with the Palestinians. He did neither of these.

On several occasions Obama tried to almost force Israel to accept a two state solution. He showed more interest in promoting self-determination and dignity for the Palestinians, than understanding Israel’s obvious need for security and a genuine peace partner willing to recognize Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state.

While it is still very early in the administration of Donald Trump, there is little doubt as Bob Dylan once sang “the times they are a-changin’.

View more of Dan Calic’s articles on his Facebook page.

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Arab Squatters in Jerusalem Leave Evidence That Their Apartment Originally Belonged to Jews

On el Khaladiya, the heart of Northern Jewish Quarter, another former Jewish home has been restored to Jewish hands.  The Supreme Court shot down the claims of the Arab occupants that the home had been theirs.  For the time being only the store front which covers over the former home behind it has been returned.  The older Arab woman who tried to defend her right to live there can remain above for the next ten years if she really does move in.

El Khaladiya street was once known as Hebron Street and was the main street of the Jewish Quarter in pre 1948 Jerusalem’s Old City.  Starting in 1920 and until the Jewish residents of Jerusalem’s Old City were expelled by the Jordanians in 1948 a series of Arab pograms allowed byt the British pushed the indigenous Jews into small quarter of the Old City.

Now with the recent reacquisition of the latest property, El Khaladiya feels more and more like another Jewish Quarter.

Despite the claims of the squatters, Jewish students from nearby Yeshivas that have started renovating the property found a piece of evidence that proves Jews were the original occupants of the building, a hole for fastening the mezuza to the doorpost of the apartment, which was covered up by the squatters.

“This entire street was once Jewish.  What we see here is the court righing an historic injustice,” Rabbi Ben Packer said as he pointed out other properties about to be handed back to the original Jewish owners.

Mezuzah Hole, once covered to hide the original Jewish presence
Volunteer pointing out the mezuza hole.