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December 2016

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Trump’s New World Order By Ted Belman

By on December 18th, 2016

The first hint of Donald Trump’s vision of a New World Order came when he said in a speech during the primaries that NATO was “obsolete.” The UK Independent wrote about that speech,

As currently constituted, he says, NATO is ill-suited to combating international terrorism, which is for him the world’s “single biggest threat”. He especially objects to the US footing so much of the bill, saying that other allies should “pay up or get out”, and refuses to see the US as the “world’s policeman”. As he told a town hall meeting in Wisconsin: “Maybe NATO will dissolve and that’s OK, not the worst thing in the world.”

As a result of that speech, NATO is currently being drastically overhauled.

President-elect Donald J. Trump spoke by telephone with Taiwan’s president a couple of weeks ago, thereby breaking with nearly four decades of diplomatic practice. Beijing was not pleased. Trump, during the campaign, continually complained about what China does to undermine the US. He has characterized climate change as a “Chinese hoax,” designed to undermine the American economy. He has criticized China for its manipulation of its currency to America’s disadvantage. And he has threatened to impose a heavy tariff on Chinese goods, a proposal that critics said would set off a trade war.

So it would appear that the phone call is part of a negotiating strategy.

On the other hand, Trump has had mostly good things to say about Vladimir Putin. Dick Morris in a recent podcast, said that Trump is trying to do what Nixon did with his China Policy, namely undermine the USSR, only in reverse. Trump is getting ready to put the squeeze on China for a better deal and he wants Putin on his side. Rex Tillerson, Trump’s pick for SoS, is there to grease the wheels among other things.

So, what else is Trump planning?

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GOOD NEWS FROM AMAZING ISRAEL: MICHAEL ORDMAN

By on December 18th, 2016

ISRAEL’S MEDICAL ACHIEVEMENTS

Technion opens new integrated cancer center. (TY Atid-EDI) Israel inaugurated the Technion Integrated Cancer Center (TICC) in Haifa. The center is a first-of-its kind hub for global cancer research, which will expedite the discovery of new diagnostic tools and treatments through a collaborative “bench-to-bedside” approach. http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/220756

Israeli wins $25,000 neuroscience award. (TY Karen) Israel’s Dr. Gilad Evrony was awarded the Eppendorf and Science Prize for Neurobiology by Science magazine and the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Dr Evrony sequences and analyzes the genomes of individual brain cells to detect mutations.
http://www.timesofisrael.com/israeli-american-researcher-wins-25000-prize-for-young-scientists/
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/220303

First US medical center to use Israeli hi-tech scanner. I reported previously (Dec 4) that the US FDA approved the P-ARTIS innovative upright CT proton scanner from Israel’s P-Cure. Now the Northwestern Medicine Chicago Proton Center will be the first in the US to use it for patients being treated for lung cancer.
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/Flash.aspx/375973

Facebook screens live brain surgeries from Israeli hospital. More than half a million viewers have been watching live broadcasts on Facebook of Israeli brain surgeons at Soroka Medical Center in Beersheba removing a benign tumor. The purpose was to promote the work at the new brain center.
http://www.jta.org/2016/12/13/news-opinion/israel-middle-east/facebook-screens-live-brain-surgery-from-israeli-hospital

Israel’s first health informatics program. The Jerusalem College of Technology and the University of Toronto have jointly developed Israel’s first degree program in the field of health informatics. Health informatics involves managing and analyzing data to support the best treatment for patients.
http://www.jct.ac.il/en/jct-university-toronto-collaborate-health-informatics-program

1,000 new defibrillators. In what may be the largest purchase of defibrillators ever made in Israel, volunteer emergency medical services (EMS) organization United Hatzalah recently purchased 1,000 defibrillators – one for each of its volunteers. The aim is that no one in Israel will die from a treatable cardiac arrest.
http://www.jems.com/articles/news/2016/11/united-hatzalah-purchases-1-000-new-defibrillators-to-distribute-among-fleet-of-ems-volunteers.html

ISRAEL IS INCLUSIVE AND GLOBAL

Jerusalem to distribute Xmas trees. Jerusalem’s Municipality continues its tradition of distributing free Christmas trees to the capital’s Christian residents. On Dec. 20, 150 trees will be distributed at the Jaffa Gate Plaza upon presentation of a valid ID card. Christian areas will be decorated and assistance given for fairs etc.
http://www.jpost.com/Breaking-News/Jerusalem-Municipality-to-distribute-150-free-Christmas-trees-475255

Islam in Israel – facts and figures. (TY Bennett) Excellent summary of Israel’s 1.454 million Muslim population. E.g. It highlights just how free religion is, with a 500% growth in the number of mosques since 1988 (from 80 then to 400 now).
https://israelforeignaffairs.com/2016/06/behind-the-headlines-facts-and-figures-islam-in-israel/

Why is Israel treating wounded Syrians? (TY BIG) This video was produced by Mohammad Magadli & Mohammad Al-Kassim. It features Moslems who cannot understand why Israel is treating Syrian wounded.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jgdjoi0KFBQ

Twice as much water for Jordan. (TY Bennett) Israel’s national water carrier Mekorot is to build a new pipeline from Lake Kinneret (Sea of Galilee) to Jordan. It will provide Jordan with 100 million cubic meters of water annually, roughly double the volume Israel currently supplies to the kingdom.
http://www.thetower.org/4298-israel-set-to-double-annual-water-supply-to-parched-kingdom-of-jordan/

Hands-free Smartphone reaches 1200 users. Latest news on Israel’s Sesame Enable smartphone for the disabled (see previous) is that it now has reached more than 1,200 customers globally, including in Saudi Arabia and Lebanon, in the three years since it was set up. See video of the phone’s paralyzed co-founder.
http://www.timesofisrael.com/hands-free-phone-opens-worlds-for-paralyzed-users/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=no4ks4INcL0

Helping Ugandan children. Project TEN, a project of the Jewish Agency for Israel, has set-up its third volunteer center in Africa. Partnering with a coalition of organizations, the center in Namulanda, Uganda (between Kampala and Entebbe) will focus on education, healthcare, agriculture, and the arts.
http://www.jewishpress.com/news/breaking-news/return-to-uganda-by-jewish-peace-corps/2016/12/11/

Israel welcomes new Turkish Ambassador. Mekin Mustafa Kemal Okem presented himself to Israel’s President Reuven Rivlin in Jerusalem and officially assumed the post of Turkey’s first ambassador to Israel in five years. He hailed a “new beginning” in bilateral ties and called the Jewish state Ankara’s “partner and friend.” http://www.timesofisrael.com/taking-up-post-turkish-envoy-hails-new-start-with-friend-israel/

What Israel can do for Rajasthan. (TY Karen) Israel’s MASHAV has three centers of excellence in the Indian State of Rajasthan. They are working on producing high-quality seedlings, intensifying cultivation, better irrigation and fertilization. Israel can also help increase milk production, crop shelf-life and pest control.
http://swarajyamag.com/insta/israels-best-practice-ideas-that-can-exponentially-increase-the-dairy-output-of-rajasthan

PM visit to Muslim Azerbaijan. Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu and Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev signed bilateral agreements governing tariffs, agricultural cooperation, and to advance further cooperation in science, technology, health, trade, and other economic matters. http://www.thetower.org/4292-netanyahu-israels-ties-with-azerbaijan-symbolize-muslims-and-jews-working-together/

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How the US should engage China and Russia World stability depends on a strong America that is economically vibrant and technologically superior By David P. Goldman

By on December 18th, 2016

Russia, China and America never will be friends; at best they will be peaceful competitors rather than warlike adversaries. To maintain the former rather than the latter circumstance is the proper goal of American policy.

It would be dangerous for America to pursue the Wilsonian (and neo-conservative) vision of internal transformation of Russia and China, with the goal of turning them into American-style democracies.

The second-most dangerous thing America could do would be to abandon the world stage. World stability depends on a strong America, that is, an America that is economically vibrant and technologically superior.

It is whimsical to speak of a Russian-Chinese-American “alliance” in the sense of the European “Holy Alliance” after the Napoleonic Wars. America, Russia and China never will be allies. China and Russia can be “equal partners” with America, provided that America is more equal than China and Russia. By this I mean that China and Russia are powers that have legitimate interests that deserve consideration, so long as America retains a decisive edge in military technology – something that cannot now be taken for granted.

Relatively speaking, America’s big stick has shrunk noticeably, and there is a temptation to speak loudly by way of compensation.

Misconceptions about Russia and China abound and could have tragic consequences. Democracy is integral to American culture, which (as I have tried to show) flows from our self-conception as an almost-chosen people. Individualism is stamped indelibly on our national character, and our national avatar is the lone pilgrim.

Russia and China are not like us, and Russians and Chinese do not see the world the way we do. Russia and China are not nation-states but multi-ethnic empires. In that respect they bear a certain resemblance to the United States, which is a multi-ethnic republic rather than a nation-state in the usual sense of the word.

To construct a state from different ethnicities – a one, out of many -requires a culture with some universalizing character. The peculiar ways in which Russia and China were unified is the key to their character.

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Europe: Christmas Shoppers in Jihadist Crosshairs by George Igler

By on December 18th, 2016

In Ludwigshafen, Germany, a “‘strongly radicalized” 12-year-old boy “of Iraqi heritage” planted a bomb at a Christmas market at the end of November.

Previously, the festive shopping tradition of Christmas markets had become “potent symbols of freedom,” with Germany’s Interior Minister, Thomas de Maizière, urging people to stick to unserem Leben — “our way of life.”

In Birmingham, England, the Christmas market has concrete barriers installed to deter vehicular suicide bombers. According to the head of Britain’s foreign intelligence service, the magnitude of the terrorism faced by the UK is “unprecedented.”

French security forces thwarted attacks planned for December 1, against Disneyland Paris and the Christmas market on the main thoroughfare of the French capital, the Champs-Elysée.

With a pro-Sharia (Islamic law) advocate now secretary of state in the Berlin regional senate, and other Muslims even refusing to shake the hand of the German President Joachim Gauck at events designed to promote integration, Germany’s “way of life” is changing fast.

As the winter nights lengthen, an even darker shadow is falling across the run-up to the Christmas holidays in several European nations. Families in markets and shopping districts across the continent are buying presents in the knowledge that jihadists mean to target them.

On November 21, the U.S. Department of State cited a “heightened risk of terror attacks” in an advisory statement set to expire only on February 20, 2017.

“Credible information,” quotes Newsweek, prompted a warning to American travellers to “exercise caution at holiday festivals, events, and outdoor markets,” given planned attacks by Al-Qaeda and ISIS.

Those attending “large holiday events, visiting tourist sites, using public transportation, and frequenting places of worship, restaurants, hotels, etc.” were likewise urged to exercise vigilance.

On December 16, German media reported that:

“a 12-year-old boy was suspected of planning two different bomb attacks in the western German city of Ludwigshafen. The German magazine ‘Focus’ said he had first tried to target a Christmas market at the end of November, before placing a backpack with explosives near a high-rise building containing both city hall and a shopping center.”

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“The Crescent Must be Above the Cross” Muslim Persecution of Christians: September, 2016 by Raymond Ibrahim

By on December 18th, 2016

Three Christians were sentenced to be flogged for sipping wine during a communion Mass. “In a shock move,” however, “oppressive officials in Tehran have charged the three with ‘acting against national security’ for taking part in the Christian ritual.” — Iran.

“One begins to wonder if Catholic priests have become an endangered species.” Clergyman discussing latest murder of priest. — Nigeria.

“We are at a breaking point. People can’t put up with any more of this.” — Christian bishop, Egypt.

“They said all Christians should be killed. They said we were evil demons and made Pakistan impure.” — Christian survivor of Muslim mob attack, Pakistan.

Officials arrested 27 Christians — including several women and children — for the crime of “conducting Christian prayers” and being “in possession of Bibles.” — Saudi Arabia.

In September 2016, a group of escaped ISIS sex slaves finally revealed the true fate of Kayla Mueller — the 26-year-old American aid worker in Syria whom ISIS had reported dead more than a year ago. Her former fellow captives said Mueller had “refused to deny Jesus Christ despite being repeatedly raped and tortured.” In February 2015, ISIS claimed their captive had been killed during a Jordanian airstrike and sent photos of her dead body in a white burial shroud, apparently as a sign of respect. One former sex slave said that Mueller “put others before herself,” and once even refused a chance to escape with the other girls because she thought her American appearance would stand out and endanger the others.

Kayla Mueller was a 26-year-old American Christian aid worker in Syria. The Islamic State abducted her, and repeatedly raped and tortured her, then claimed that she was killed during a Jordanian airstrike. Above, Mueller is shown before her enslavement and death (left), and during her captivity (right), taken from an ISIS propaganda video.

An ISIS-related plot to butcher Christians with chainsaws in a Belgian shopping center was exposed in September after authorities interrogated a Muslim youth. The teen — the son of a man being described as a “radical imam” — was arrested for calling for the execution of Christians while walking down a street. Theo Francken, a Belgian official, said:

“I already signed the order to remove the Imam from Belgian soil. But he appealed the decision, so I can only hope for a quick sentence. Clearly radicalism runs in the family.”

Speaking for the first time about the slaughter of the 86-year-old French priest Jacques Hamel, eyewitness Guy Coponet — who was himself stabbed several times, including in the neck, and was not expected to survive — revealed how the jihadi murderers also forced him to hold a camera and record them slitting the throat of the elderly priest: “They even checked the quality of the image and that I wasn’t trembling too much. I had to film the assassination of my friend Father Jacques!” He said the assailants planned on using the video as propaganda, “which would allow them to earn their fame as a ‘martyr’ of Allah.”

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Michael Gove :Left’s hatred of Israel is racism in disguise Critics of the Jewish state cannot bear the fact that it is a beacon of western values in a sea of tyranny and despotism *****

By on December 17th, 2016

Michael Andrew Gove is a British Conservative politician, who was Secretary of State for Education from 2010 to 2014 and Secretary of State for Justice from 2015 to 2016. He has been the Member of Parliament for Surrey Heath since 2005. He is not Jewish. God bless him!!!!!rsk

How do you know if someone’s an anti-Semite? They don’t all perform stiff-arm salutes for the camera and offer interesting 140-character thoughts about race theory on Twitter. Although those are helpful clues, as the American alt-right, Hezbollah and Iran’s leadership prove.

But anti-Semitism isn’t a prejudice restricted to the likes of Richard Spencer, Hassan Nasrallah and Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. As befits the world’s oldest and most durable hatred, it has many more adherents and has taken many different forms.

In medieval times, when individuals made sense of their world through the prism of faith, anti-Semitism was a religious prejudice. In the 19th and early 20th centuries – the age of Darwinism – anti-Semitism clothed itself in the white coat of the scientist. Biological metaphors were deployed to modernise hate. The Jews were carriers of “racial contamination” who had to be eliminated as a pathological threat to humanity’s future.

That belief led to history’s greatest crime. The extermination of six million powered by hatred of one thing – Jewish identity. It should have been the case that anti-Semitism died in the furnaces of the Holocaust. But the hatred survived. And, like a virus, mutated.

Anti-Semitism has moved from hatred of Jews on religious or racial grounds to hostility towards the proudest expression of Jewish identity we now have – the Jewish state.

No other democracy is on the receiving end of a campaign calling for its people to be shunned and their labour to be blacklisted. The Boycott, Disinvestment and Sanctions movement is a growing force on our streets and campuses. Its campaigners argue that we should ignore ideas from Jewish thinkers if those thinkers come from Israel and treat Jewish commerce as a criminal enterprise if that business is carried on in Israel.

This is anti-Semitism, impure and simple. It is the latest recrudescence of the age-old demand that the Jew can only live on terms set by others. Once Jews had to live in the ghetto, now they cannot live in their historic home.

It is to this country’s eternal credit that we rejected centuries of prejudice one hundred years ago and pledged to extend to the Jewish people the rights enjoyed by Germans and Italians, Japanese and Mexicans – the right to a land they could call their own. The Balfour Declaration in 1917 was followed in 1948 with the creation of the state of Israel. Since then, that state’s success has been near miraculous.

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A Trumpian Israeli initiative: Caroline Glick

By on December 17th, 2016

US President-elect Donald Trump won’t even take office for another month, but he has already killed the status quo.

During the election, Trump trounced the untouchable consensus on NATO’s post-Cold War purpose. Questioning the purpose of an alliance formed to fight a war that ended 25 years ago is indisputably a reasonable thing to do. But until Trump came around, no one did.

Since November 7, Trump has continue to reject accepted wisdom. For 44 years no US president would speak with the president of Taiwan. And then President-elect Trump took a call from Taiwan’s President-elect Tsai Ing-wen.

It’s not clear where Trump stands on either NATO or Taiwan. But it is eminently apparent that by ignoring protocol, Trump expanded his maneuver room in his dealings with NATO and China.

Then of course, there is Jerusalem. Since 1948 the US has refused to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital – or even as part of Israel. This policy of non-recognition – embodied by the US refusal to transfer the US embassy to Jerusalem – has been maintained by a bipartisan consensus despite the fact that for the past 20 years, US law has required the State Department to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and move the embassy to Jerusalem.

When Trump promised to move the US embassy to Jerusalem, his words were greeted with cynicism.

But then this week his senior advisor Kellyanne Conway said Trump is serious about moving the embassy to Jerusalem.

In one fell swoop, the 68 year old consensus is gone.

35 years ago, on December 14, 1981, Israel took a Trump-like step. Israel took a wrecking ball to received wisdom.

That day, the Knesset passed the Golan Heights Law. Then prime minister Menachem Begin decided on the initiative the day before. In less than 24 hours, the law when from an idea in Begin’s head into the law books.

The Golan Heights law cancelled the Military Government and Civil Administration that had governed the area since 1967 and replaced them with Israeli law and administration.The Reagan administration was livid. Begin had neither asked Ronald Reagan for permission nor given Reagan a head’s-up on what he was about to do.

Begin was clearly operating on the basis of the “It’s better to ask for forgiveness than for permission” protocol.

In the event, the Americans weren’t really mad.Reagan prevented the UN Security Council from sanctioning Israel for its action.

The Syrian regime did nothing. The Arab world yawned.

Israel was spared international condemnation in large part because of the way Begin explained the purpose of the law.

The day before the Knesset passed Begin’s law, the Syrian regime announced it would prefer to fight Israel for 100 years than live at peace with it. That statement, like hundreds of similar ones over the 13 years since Israel took over the strategic plateau reinforced yet again, the basic truth that Israel would be responsible for the Golan Heights for a long, long time.

After the law was passed, Begin and his advisors insisted its purpose was administrative. Israel couldn’t wait for a hundred years to register births and deaths and marriages, they explained. The Syrian legal code, through which the Military Government administered the areas was unsuited to a modern democracy. There was no way to protect the rights of Golan residents so long as Syrian law was the law of the land.

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How about a Little Art of the Deal for Iran? Trump should send Obama’s JCPOA to the Senate. By Andrew C. McCarthy

By on December 17th, 2016

or his part, Trump has been ambiguous, perhaps strategically so, on how he intends to handle the Iran deal, variously suggesting that he would tear it up, restructure it, or — in a significant departure from the Obama administration — hold the mullahs to its strict letter.

I would propose a different tack: Trump should treat the Iran deal the way it should have been treated all along — as a treaty.

Doing so would help President Trump accomplish two critical objectives in one fell swoop. First, without necessarily dismantling any benefits Obama may have secured, Trump would lawfully transfer to himself the power to renegotiate the deal on better terms — the signature skill on which he built his successful White House bid. Second, he would reverse a perilous constitutional setback that purports to create American legal obligations through international proceedings in which powers hostile to the United States — Russia, China, and Iran itself — weigh in, but the American people’s elected representatives are frozen out.

It cannot be stressed enough that the Iran deal is not law, at least for the most part (more on that caveat momentarily). An international agreement becomes legally binding on the American people only if it is ratified as a treaty or enabled by ordinary legislation. Neither is true of the JCPOA. It is therefore a mere executive agreement that may be canceled at any time. The fact that Obama signed it and got it endorsed by the United Nations Security Council is insufficient, under our Constitution, to create legal obligations. Indeed, that is why there is rampant speculation about what Trump might do — had the agreement been ratified or statutorily enacted, there would be nothing to discuss.

There is a complication (isn’t there always?). When the Obama administration signed the JCPOA, Congress did not do what it should have done — namely, either (a) nothing at all or (b) pass a “sense of the Senate” or “sense of Congress” resolution affirming that, for an international agreement to be legally binding, the Constitution requires the president to present it to the Senate for approval or seek legislation implementing its terms. Instead, Congress foolishly enacted legislation — the Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act (INARA) — which allowed the president to claim a legislative imprimatur with only one-third support from Congress.

I will not rehash the demerits of INARA — I have already done that repeatedly and at length (see here and follow the links). It is not my intention here to provoke more debate with Senate Foreign Relations Committee chairman Bob Corker, who says he is a staunch opponent of the Iran deal. I am proposing a way for Senator Corker to lead a meaningful opposition.

INARA is relevant for present purposes because, as I have previously explained, it arguably repealed sanctions against Iran’s nuclear program. Although the language is less than clear, I believe the courts would see it that way.

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Child Marriages in Muslim Societies Still Destroying Lives By Robert Jones

By on December 17th, 2016

The recent death of a “child bride” in Turkey is yet another reminder of the plight of children forced to marry in Muslim societies.

Fifteen-year-old Derya B., who was living in the province of Bitlis in eastern Turkey, gave birth to her first child at home in early December, according to Turkish newspaper Haberturk. One week after the birth, she was hospitalized — ironically on October 11, the International Day of the Girl — due to a severe headache, nausea, and vomiting. She was held in the intensive care unit of the hospital for two days. Derya eventually died of a cerebral hemorrhage.

Derya had been married off to a relative in an “imam wedding” (a non-official, Islamic wedding) last year in Mutki, a village in Bitlis, when she was 14.

Dr. Aydan Biri, an expert in gynecology, told Haberturk that factors that increase maternal death can be direct or indirect:

The death of Derya constitutes indirect maternal death. It is dangerous for child brides to get pregnant. The death rate in adolescent pregnancies is higher. Blood pressure, premature birth, and early interventionist birth are commonplace in child pregnancies. And the pregnancies of children, whose body organs are not completely developed, end, more often, in death.

Derya is only one of the millions of victims of child marriages in the Muslim world. A total of 232,313 girls, aged 16 and 17, were married in Turkey between 2010 and 2015 alone, according to the official figures of the Turkish Ministry of Family and Social Policy.

Islamic tradition records that Muhammad, the founder of Islam, who is considered al-Insān al-Kāmil (the perfect human) and uswa hasana (an excellent model of conduct) by Muslims, married Aisha when she was 6 and consummated his marriage with her when she was 9.

He was 54 years old.

As scholar Robert Spencer puts it:

Islamic apologists in the West routinely deny that Muhammad married a child or that Islamic law sanctions child marriage. In reality, few things are more abundantly attested in Islamic law than the permissibility of child marriage.

Many Islamic countries, adds Spencer:

… make Muhammad’s example the basis of their laws regarding the legal marriageable age for girls.

Similarly, Umar ibn al-Khattab, the second caliph of Islam, married Umm Kulthum bint Ali, granddaughter of Muhammad and the daughter of Caliph Ali, when she was between 10 and 12 years old and he was around 47. CONTINUE AT SITE

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Report: RNC Security Stopped Russian Hackers From Infiltrating Networks By Debra Heine

By on December 17th, 2016

Russian hackers tried to breach the computer networks of the Republican National Committee but failed to get past their security defenses, the Wall Street Journal reported Thursday evening. According to U.S. officials briefed on the intrusion, the hackers used the same techniques that allowed them to successfully infiltrate the Democratic National Committee, suggesting that they had intended to compromise Republicans, too. People close to the investigation said that only one email account linked to a long-departed RNC staffer was targeted, indicating a less aggressive effort, however.

The disclosures came as a political furor grows over suspected Russian hacking of U.S. political organizations. The Central Intelligence Agency has concluded that Russian hackers, whom analysts say work for that country’s military and intelligence apparatus, stole emails from the DNC, as well as another Democratic organization and the chairman of Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign, to harm her candidacy and boost Republican Donald Trump’s chances of winning. Russia has denied the allegations.

The possibility that Russians tried and failed to infiltrate the RNC doesn’t necessarily conflict with the CIA’s conclusion. A senior U.S. official said analysts now believe what started as an information-gathering campaign aimed at both parties later took on a focus of leaked emails about Mrs. Clinton and Democrats.

This news contradicts what the the New York Times reported last week — namely, that senior administration officials had concluded with “high confidence” that the RNC systems had been penetrated by the Russians but they didn’t release any of their information because they only wanted to burn Hillary Clinton.

President Barack Obama said in an NPR interview Thursday that the U.S. is considering retaliatory moves against Russia. “I think there is no doubt that when any foreign government tries to impact the integrity of our elections, that we need to take action, and we will,” he said. “At a time and a place of our own choosing. Some of it may be explicit and publicized; some of it may not be.”

The WSJ continues:

Until now, few details had been disclosed about the nature of the targeting of Republican organizations, especially the flagship Republican National Committee, where hackers sent so-called phishing emails last spring to an email address there. Those emails were quarantined by a filter meant to detect spam as well as potentially malicious traffic that may carry viruses or trick recipients into divulging passwords, two officials said.

A third person familiar with the investigation said RNC staff members didn’t realize they had been the target of spies until June, after Democratic committee leaders revealed that hackers had successfully gained a foothold inside their networks. Once inside, they reportedly were able to access a trove of DNC opposition research on Mr. Trump, then a candidate. CONTINUE AT SITE

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