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May 2018

The Gaza Protests By Rich Lowry

The protests aren’t spontaneous and they aren’t’ peaceful.

hey, of course, didn’t begin today. This New York Times article from a couple of weeks ago is a pretty good guide to what we’ve seen.

The protests aren’t spontaneous:

For weeks, Palestinians protesting along the fence between Gaza and Israel have conjured up the idea of swarming across the barrier, a mass of tens of thousands of people too numerous for Israeli soldiers to arrest or even to shoot.

They aren’t peaceful:

Hamas has called the protests peaceful, despite the Molotov cocktails thrown at Israeli soldiers and firebombs attached to kites that are routinely sailed over the fence, setting fires to Israeli farmland. Israel, defending its use of deadly force, has described the protests as riots that could turn into an invasion at any time.

Israeli communities are close to the border, and Israeli forces can’t just allow them to be stormed by armed rioters:

For the first time in five weeks of protests, some reached the second barrier — a sensor-laden fence that marks the edge of Israeli territory — and tried to climb it or pull it down. A few hundred yards beyond it lies the Israeli farming community of Nahal Oz.

The Strzok-Page Texts and the Origins of the Trump-Russia Investigation By Andrew C. McCarthy

Peter Strzok and Lisa Page’s texts shine a highly redacted light on how the Trump-Russia investigation began.

It was July 31, 2016. Just days earlier, the Obama administration had quietly opened an FBI counterintelligence investigation of Russian cyber-espionage — hacking attacks — to disrupt the 2016 election. And not random, general disruption; the operating theory was that the Russians were targeting the Democratic party, for the purpose of helping Donald Trump win the presidency.

FBI special agent Peter Strzok was downright giddy that day.

The Bureau had finally put to bed “Mid Year Exam.” MYE was code for the dreaded investigation of Hillary Clinton’s improper use of a private email system to conduct State Department business, which resulted in the retention and transmission of thousands of classified emails, as well as the destruction of tens of thousands of government business records. Strzok and other FBI vets dreaded the case because it was a go-through-the-motions exercise: Everyone working on it knew that no one was going to be charged with a crime; that Mrs. Clinton was going to be the next president of the United States; and that the FBI’s goal was not to be tarnished in the process of “investigating” her — to demonstrate, without calling attention to the suffocating constraints imposed by the Obama Justice Department, that the Bureau had done a thorough job, and that there was a legal rationale for letting Clinton off the hook that might pass the laugh test.

Scores Killed as Palestinians Protest U.S. Embassy Opening in Jerusalem The violence marks the latest in weeks of Hamas-orchestrated protests in Gaza that Israel says threaten its security By Felicia Schwartz and Rory Jones

JERUSALEM—The U.S. cemented its ties to Israel by opening a new embassy in Jerusalem, as clashes between Palestinian protesters and Israel’s military left dozens dead and added to the Trump administration’s challenges in the Middle East.

The ceremony, held in a large tent beside the new embassy site, was attended by top Israeli and U.S. officials. “This is a great day for Israel, it’s a great day for America,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel told the attendees. “I also believe it’s a great day for peace.”

Some 50 miles away, Israeli military used warplanes to hit targets belonging to Gaza rulers Hamas and fired live ammunition, tear gas and rubber bullets at Palestinian protesters as many of them attempted to breach the fence dividing the Gaza Strip with Israel.
Deadly Move
As the U.S. opened its new embassy in Jerusalem Monday, about 50 miles away more than 50 Palestinian protesters were killed in clashes with the Israeli military in the Gaza Strip.

Protesters used explosive devices, firebombs and flaming kites, according to the Israeli military. Numerous shots were fired, and Gazans burned tires and threw Molotov cocktails at Israeli soldiers.

Gaza officials said 52 protesters were killed—among them a 12- and a 14-year-old—and more than 2,400 were injured. That marked the largest single-day death toll since the Israeli army fought a conflict with Hamas in 2014.

The unrest followed months of tension over President Donald Trump’s decision to move the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem from Tel Aviv, where it has resided since soon after Israel’s 1948 founding. It coincided with a host of anniversaries that Hamas has used to rally support for its cause. The U.S. Embassy opening in Jerusalem—in a city that Palestinians also claim for a future capital—offered a focal point for their anger.

An Israeli military spokesman said Monday that the demonstrations by 40,000 Gazans were larger and more violent than those of the past month and a half of protests on the strip.

In the runup to the U.S. Embassy opening, Hamas has helped organize weekly protests and threatened to break through the fence dividing the strip with Israel. Fearing a mass infiltration of Israeli territory, Israel has responded with live fire, killing about 100 people since March 30. CONTINUE AT SITE

From Washington to Jerusalem Trump fulfilled a campaign promise that others wouldn’t.

“In a long overdue move, we have moved our embassy to Jerusalem. Every nation should have the right to choose its capital,” Mr. Schumer said in a statement. “I sponsored legislation to do this two decades ago, and I applaud President Trump for doing it.”

What he didn’t say is that while Mr. Schumer talked up his legislation at fund-raising time, he muted his support during the Obama years. The embassy would never have moved without Mr. Trump’s willingness to defy political convention.

The embassy transfer is also a symbolic reaffirmation of U.S. support for Israel. Ties between the two countries frayed during President Obama’s two terms, as Mr. Obama made concluding a nuclear deal with Iran his top—really, his only—Middle East priority. One of Mr. Trump’s projects has been to restore better relations with U.S. allies, and in the Middle East that has meant Israel and the Sunni Arabs in Egypt and on the Arabian peninsula.

This is already paying dividends in confronting Iran’s attempt to build an anti-Israel front in Syria with missiles and Hezbollah militia on the northern Israeli border. Israel struck back hard last week at Iranian positions in Syria after Iran launched missiles toward the Golan Heights. The missiles were intercepted, but Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu used the provocation to do significant damage to Iranian bases.

Legacy of ashes: Obama’s fading accomplishments

Early in the Obama presidency, National Review’s Jim Geraghty observed that all of Barack Obama’s promises come with an expiration date.

By that, Geraghty meant that Obama tended to have strongly held convictions, up until the moment they became politically inconvenient.

It turns out that President Obama’s few accomplishments are just as ephemeral.

Lacking Senate votes to ratify a treaty with Iran, Obama instead made a personal promise to honor the Iran deal. Last week, President Trump reversed that decision.

Obama long claimed he lacked authority to provide amnesty to illegal immigrants brought to the U.S. as children. Then he did it anyway. The so-called Dreamers remain in political limbo, relying on the federal government to continue to ignore the law.

Obama signed the U.S. up for a climate change plan that won’t do anything to slow climate change. Trump took us out of it.

Blocked by Congress, Obama passed his Clean Power Plan by executive order and net neutrality through the FCC. What he did with “a phone and a pen,” Trump is undoing.

Obama’s signature health care law remains in place, but Congress repealed the individual mandate at its core. The damage it did to our health care system remains.

Barack Obama built his castles out of sand. He should not be surprised that they are being washed away by the next tide.

The U.S. embassy move: A powerful message, America will stand by our friends I have long advocated that the United States take this action, and I commend President Trump for fulfilling this campaign promise. By Ted Cruz

Exactly 70 years ago – on May 14, 1948 – Israel’s founding father David Ben-Gurion brought together members of the Jewish People’s Council in the Tel Aviv Museum.

The Zionist movement to rebirth a Jewish state had already been at work for decades. That day Ben-Gurion stood underneath a portrait of the pioneer of that movement, Theodor Herzl, and affirmed the historic right of the Jewish people to the land of Israel.

“The Land of Israel was the birthplace of the Jewish people.Here their spiritual, religious and political identity was shaped. Here they first attained to statehood, created cultural values of national and universal significance and gave to the world the eternal Book of Books.

Smoke & Mirrors: Six Weeks of Violence on the Gaza Border by Richard Kemp

Hamas’s use of actual smoke and mirrors to conceal its aggressive manoeuvring on the Gaza border is the perfect metaphor for a strategy that has no viable military purpose but seeks to deceive the international community into criminalising a democratic state defending its citizens.

The UN and EU, NGOs, government officials and media — primary targets for Hamas — have been willingly taken in. For example a Guardian headline, ‘The use of lethal force to cow nonviolent demonstrations by Palestinians’, blatantly misrepresents the violent reality that has been plain for all to see. Likewise the NGO Human Rights Watch claims that we are seeing a movement to ‘affirm Palestinians’ internationally-recognised right of return’.

In reality these demonstrations are far from peaceful and do not pursue any so-called ‘right of return’. Rather they are carefully planned and orchestrated military operations intended to break through the border of a sovereign state and commit mass murder in the communities beyond, using their own civilians as cover. The purpose: to criminalise and isolate the State of Israel.

Hamas are planning to achieve maximum violence at the Gaza border on either the 14th or 15th May, coinciding with the 70th anniversary of the declaration of the State of Israel, the opening of the US embassy in Jerusalem and the start of Ramadan — a perfect storm.

Since 30th March Hamas has been orchestrating large-scale violence on the border between Gaza and Israel. The major flare-ups have generally occurred on Fridays, following mosque prayers, when we have repeatedly seen concerted action involving crowds of up to 40,000 people in five separate areas along the border. Violence and aggressive actions, including specific acts of terrorism involving explosives and firearms, have also occurred at other times during this period.

Western Taxpayers Funding Abuse of Palestinians by Bassam Tawil

The new law, known as the Palestinian Cyber Crime Law, comes in the wake of the PA and its supporters continuing falsely to accuse Israel of targeting Palestinian journalists. The PA leadership’s goal is to ensure that leaders are immune from journalistic critique.

Now journalists and Palestinian human rights organizations will not be able to say that the crackdown on public freedoms and freedom of the media is illegal.

The silence of the international community and human rights groups allows Mahmoud Abbas and his allies to get away with assaults on public freedoms and move forward towards creating a dictatorial regime for the Palestinians — one funded with American and European taxpayers’ money.

The last thing the Middle East needs is another repressive Arab regime. It is also the last thing the Palestinians want.

In a move that has angered Palestinian human rights organizations and journalists, the Palestinian Authority (PA) on April 17 approved a new law that restricts freedom of expression and the media. The move is seen by Palestinians in the context of the PA’s effort to silence its critics and suppress public freedoms. Palestinian journalists call it a declaration of war on the media.

ROGER FRANKLIN: HILLARY CLINTON’S ROADSHOW IN AUSTRALIA

Australia has always been generous to those who come here seeking respectability and wealth, as the transported criminals who prospered after being shipped to their innocent new land came to appreciate. It’s a fine tradition — one Foreign Minister Julie Bishop appears keen to honour and to advertise. Hence the Facebook picture above, which Ms Bishop proudly posted this very Saturday morning on her Facebook page after the duo chinwagged about “empowering women”.

Mrs Clinton undoubtedly shares that enthusiasm for the opportunities to be grasped in Australia, as well she might in light of the many hundreds of millions of dollars poured into Clinton charities by Julia Gillard and, more recently, by Ms Bishop herself.

Such warmth! And, perhaps, a just-us-girls briefing as well.

You see, Mrs Clinton will be sitting down with the ABC’s Leigh Sales on Monday for a chat. Being a hugely well paid priestess in the national broadcaster’s temple of truth, the the 7.30 hostess might choose to explore topics like

the Clintons’ involvement with Haiti
running the State Department from an unsecured server in the basement bathroom closet
making 30,000 emails disappear
the remarkable series of coincidences that saw Bill Clinton pocket enormously lucrative speaking fees from companies and nations whose cases and causes were before the State Department, followed by the subsequent granting of those supplicants’ dearest wishes
her campaign’s funding of the so-called Russian Dossier

Daryl McCann: Obama’s Big Idea

Barack Obama’s policy was to ask Iran to show some flexibility, give good relations with America a chance, just as he sought to make nice with Cuba, Russia, China, even the Muslim Brotherhood. Odious but not stupid, the mullahs knew a sucker when they saw one.

Watching President Trump scupper the Iran Deal made me wonder where we would be today if Hillary Clinton had won the 2016 presidential election. I was reminded of fired FBI Director James Comey’s praise for the defeated Democratic nominee at a Town Hall meeting in April of this year: “Hillary Clinton is more meshed in, trained in, respectful of the norms and traditions that I’m so worried about being eroded today.” Lucky, I thought, Donald Trump is not “meshed in, trained in, respectful of the norms and traditions” that constituted the Obama Doctrine.

Barack Obama’s Big Idea was to ask the US’s traditional adversaries – Russia, Iran, Cuba, China, Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood, and so on – to show some flexibility and give good relations with America a chance. His entreaty, however, was interpreted by Uncle Sam’s traditional adversaries – or, should we say, “partners in peace” – to mean the US, the self-identified guilty party in international relations, wanted a second chance. The Islamic Republic of Iran, eventually, decided it would play along with Obama’s “feel good” diplomacy, and entered into negotiations with the P5+1 (UN Security Council members plus Germany).

For the Obama administration, and for virtually every progressive we-are-the-world Westerner, the Iran Nuclear Deal was what we had been waiting for, the moment when hope and change meet and the promise of a global people’s community takes a giant step forward. Older hands warned that this was all a recipe for disaster, as I wrote in “Wiser Men on the Iranian Deal” back in May 2015.