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September 2017

ANTI-SEMITISM Comments turned off

MY SAY: SICK TRANSIT EDUCATION

By on September 21st, 2017

The kiddies are now back at school and both public and private schools will operate under new gender guidelines. Forget grammar and declensions and tenses and hanging participles. Education has went!

Now it is “non-binary” — masculine or feminine — pronouns for students who are gender-nonconforming or who do not prescribe to the gender binary. They may prefer gender-neutral pronouns such as ‘they,’ ‘ze,, xe, hir, hirs and zirs’ or other pronouns.”

And, as the term begins the students have to fill out a form about what their “pronoun identification” is their preference.

Now here is my question:

Why do people want to use gender-neutral pronouns anyway? What’s wrong with gendered pronouns?

Here is a response: (http://motto.time.com/4327915/gender-neutral-pronouns/)

“It’s not that there is something wrong with gendered pronouns; it’s just that the pronouns “he” and “she” come with a certain set of expectations about how someone should express their identity and relate to the world. For many people, gender normativity can get in the way of self-expression—so the words “he” or “she” can feel limiting. “Some people have a gender identity that is non-binary, and conventional pronouns have the effect of assigning them a binary identity,” says Adams.”

Hir does explaint it don’t ze? rsk

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NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Hillary’s New — Ever Lengthening — List of Lies She has no idea why many Americans think ‘Clintonian’ is another way of saying ‘dishonest.’ By Kyle Smith

By on September 21st, 2017

I’ve suggested that Hillary Clinton’s new book, What Happened, would be more accurately titled Why I Should Have Won. But if you wanted to position it as a sequel to her earlier memoir, Living History, you could title it Rewriting History, because What Happened is a recycling bin full of evasions, misleading statements, and flat-out whoppers.

The biggest lie is the one she has told many times before, on her notorious private email server: “As the FBI had confirmed, none of the emails I sent or received was marked as classified.” She has said this many times before and been called on it many times before. The verdict? “That’s not true,” said then–FBI director James Comey. “False,” said PolitiFact. The Washington Post’s strange fact-checking system initially gave her two Pinocchios, then decided to give her the full four.

On top of the lie, Clinton is being misleading in a familiar Clintonian way, because the law doesn’t distinguish between information that is classified by its nature, despite not being marked as such, and information that is marked classified. “Even if information is not marked ‘classified’ in an email, participants who know or should know that the subject matter is classified are still obligated to protect it,” Comey said at his July 5, 2016, press conference. This means that Hillary caused classified information to be removed from secure channels more than 100 times. That’s supposed to be a felony if gross negligence is involved, and it certainly appeared to be in her case.

Moreover, Clinton says again that setting up the private email server was a matter of “convenience.” This isn’t exactly a lie; having her emails subjected to Freedom of Information Act scrutiny in the thick of a presidential campaign could indeed have been inconvenient to Clinton’s aspirations. She suggests, without quite saying so (the obvious evasion will fool no one acquainted with the Clintons’ methods), that setting up the private email server enabled her to carry only one device. That’s nonsense. Clinton isn’t a harried soccer mom who has room for only one phone in her jacket pocket. Secretaries of state have staffers to schlep their stuff around for them, and anyway, “she used many devices,” Comey said.

The “convenience” claim, which she has been making for two and a half years, earned a “three Pinocchios” rating from the Washington Post’s fact-check column last year. We all know the real reason Clinton set up the server: She wanted her emails shielded from potential disclosure. She wanted the authority to decide which ones were private, and she wanted the ability to destroy them. This cost her dearly.

Like her husband, Clinton lies about the big things, and she lies about the small things. It’s absolutely shameless for her to claim, after mentioning that Bill Clinton was despondent when he lost the 1980 Arkansas governor’s race and “practically couldn’t get off the floor,” that her own reaction was: “That’s not me. I keep going.” The world knows that when she lost last November, she hid in her hotel all night instead of giving a concession speech to her crying supporters gathered across town at New York City’s Javits Center.

Clinton even dismisses a report by “a newspaper” that she “was having séances in the White House to commune directly with Eleanor [Roosevelt]’s spirit.” She states flatly, “I wasn’t.” But pretty much every newspaper reported this, and the reason they all did so was because it came from the single most revered political reporter alive — Bob Woodward, in his book The Choice. And who did Woodward get it from? The New Age psychologist who conducted the sessions with Hillary. The only way the “séance” story is false is if you insist on a semantic distinction between “having conversations with dead people” and “séances,” or maybe a distinction between “having” séances and simply “participating” in them. It’s not an important matter, but it’s a well-known one, for anyone who remembers the 1990s anyway. Lying is an involuntary reflex for the Clintons, like sneezing.

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Allegations of Foreign Election Tampering Have Always Rung Hollow Blaming foreign influence on an election loss has become a habitual practice for unsuccessful presidential candidates, but such allegations have never rung true. By Victor Davis Hanson

By on September 21st, 2017

On her current book tour, Hillary Clinton is still blaming the Russians (among others) for her unexpected defeat in last year’s presidential election. She remains sold on a conspiracy theory that Donald Trump successfully colluded with Russian president Vladimir Putin to rig the election in Trump’s favor.

But allegations that a president won an election due to foreign collusion have been lodged by losers of elections throughout history. Some of the charges may have had a kernel of truth, but it has never been proven that foreign tampering changed the outcome of an election.

In 2012, then-president Barack Obama inadvertently left his mic on during a meeting with outgoing Russian president Dmitry Medvedev. Obama seemed to be reassuring the Russians that if they would just behave (i.e., give Obama “space”) during his re-election campaign, Obama would have “more flexibility” on Russian demands for the U.S. to drop its plans for an Eastern European missile defense system.

Medvedev’s successor, Vladimir Putin, did stay quiet for most of 2012. Obama did renege on earlier American promises of missile defense in Eastern Europe. And Obama did win re-election.

But that said, Obama would have defeated Mitt Romney anyway, even without an informal understanding with Russia.

In 2004, there were accusations that the George W. Bush administration had struck a deal with the Saudi royal family whereby the Saudis would pump more oil, leading to lower U.S. gas prices. Bush supposedly wanted to take credit for helping American motorists and therefore enhance his re-election bid.

Whether the conspiracy theory was true or not, Bush beat lackluster Democratic nominee John Kerry for lots of reasons other than modest decreases in gasoline prices.

During the 1980 presidential campaign, supporters of incumbent president Jimmy Carter alleged that challenger Ronald Reagan had tried to disrupt negotiations for the release of the American hostages being held in Teheran. They claimed that Reagan’s team had sent word to the Iranians that they should keep the hostages until after the election.

The Reagan team countercharged that Carter himself timed a hostage rescue effort near the election to salvage his failing re-election bid.

The truth was that by November, nothing Reagan or Carter did could change the fact that Carter was going to lose by a large margin.

Sometimes challengers have been accused of turning to foreigners for election help.

There were allegations that in 2008, Obama secretly lobbied Iraqi officials not to cut a deal with the outgoing Bush administration concerning U.S. peacekeepers in Iraq. Supposedly, Obama didn’t want a stable Iraq, which might have helped Iraq War supporter and rival candidate John McCain, who had argued that after the surge, Iraq was largely under control.

Such allegations were mostly irrelevant, given that there were plenty of other reasons why McCain lost the election.

There were also allegations that in 1983, Senator Ted Kennedy sent a letter to Russian leader Yuri Andropov, asking him not to overreact to President Ronald Reagan’s hard-nosed anti-Soviet stance. This was supposedly an attempt to undercut Reagan before the 1984 election. Whether the rumor was true or not was immaterial: Reagan beat Democratic nominee Walter Mondale by a landslide.

Recently, another old charge of foreign collusion has been resurrected. Democrats allege that during the 1968 campaign, Republican nominee Richard Nixon opened a back channel to the South Vietnamese to convince them to stall peace talks to end the Vietnam War. Supposedly, Nixon was worried that President Lyndon Johnson might order a halt to the bombing. Then, Johnson opportunistically would start peace talks in order to help his vice president, Hubert Humphrey, defeat Nixon in the election.

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EDUCATION Comments turned off

Why I Won’t Give $10 to Harvard By G. David Bednar

By on September 21st, 2017

My 30th Harvard College reunion is in October. I plan to attend to see good friends and share great memories. Harvard asked for a donation. When I did not respond, they asked for a smaller one. Finally, the alumni office asked for just $10 as a sign of support.https://amgreatness.com/2017/09/20/wont-give-10-harvard/

But I will not give $10 to Harvard and want to explain why.

Re-Inventing the Past
The headlines from American campuses raise concern and often strain credulity. My hope on reading these stories is always that my school will set a standard to which others might repair. Recent examples prove Harvard has not.

The Harvard Office of Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion recently distributed a “placemat guide for holiday discussions on race and justice with loved ones” to help students reform their parents’ bigoted views. Last week, the university extended a fellowship to a dishonorably discharged, 17-count felon and traitor to the nation. Disbelief followed by widespread indignation ensured the rescinding of the placemats and the invitation to Chelsea Manning. But astonishment lingers at the void of common sense, or mutated presumptions, necessary for them to have occurred in the first place.

The equally Orwellian Presidential Task Force on Inclusion and Belonging decided that the word “Puritans” (Harvard’s founders belonged to that sect) must be excised from the lyrics of the school’s 181-year-old anthem. The Task Force made the 1984 analogy unmistakable by adding, “an endorsed alternative” would be created, “the goal is to affirm what is valuable from the past while also re-inventing that past to meet and speak to the present moment.”

In late 2015 Harvard removed the title “house master” from what are essentially residential advisers, a title that reflected Harvard’s Oxford and Cambridge roots. The administration announced that although “what came before was not wrong” as the “academic context of the term has always been clear,” and even though the tradition was “beloved” by many alumni, the university would nevertheless abolish the title because “the general feeling” is that it “causes discomfort.”

Harvard joined the mania for erasing disfavored historical references, removing the Royall Crest at the Law School. Harvard also authorized its first “Black Commencement” in 2017. Organizers explained the event was “not about segregation” but “building a community.” Wouldn’t a single, unified graduation do that? How can anyone who abhors racial division in America see separate graduations as a step forward?

To wide alarm, the administration announced it would withhold scholarship support and prohibit students from becoming team captains or leaders of student organizations if they joined finals clubs (private organizations similar to fraternities and sororities). Harry Lewis, former dean of the college and a computer science professor, called the plans “dangerous new ground” and “a frightening prospect.”

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Israel To Arm Apache Helicopters With Its Own Spike Missiles How Obama’s betrayal during the 2014 Gaza War made it possible. Ari Lieberman

By on September 21st, 2017

Following Israel’s lightning Six-Day War victory over the Arabs, Israel’s military leaders determined that the time was ripe for the acquisition of a new tank to meet the challenges of the modern battlefield. The Soviets had begun supplying the Arabs with more modern T-62 tanks and Israel needed to maintain its qualitative edge.

After conducting extensive tests and trials and examining alternatives, the Israelis determined that the British Chieftain tank, Britain’s own successor to the venerable Centurion, would be best suited for Israel’s needs. In 1968 Britain’s Ministry of Defense agreed to the sale but the following year, the British Foreign Office, which had always maintained hostility toward the Jewish State, nixed the deal.

Israel was outraged and its prime minister, Golda Meir, personally visited London to persuade Prime Minister Harold Wilson to change his mind, but to no avail. The Foreign Office was to have the last word on the matter. To add insult to injury, the British had agreed to sell Chieftain tanks to Israel’s enemies, including Libya!

Britain’s perfidious conduct turned out to be a blessing in disguise, for it planted the seeds for the development of the Merkava tank, Israel’s own indigenously designed creation. In 1978, the Merkava was unveiled to the world and has undergone continuous improvements since that time. It is currently the mainstay of Israel’s vaunted armored corps, and is rated to be among the finest tanks in the world.

Throughout its history, Israel has had to endure similar betrayals. For example, up until 1967, France had been Israel’s principle supplier of jet fighters but just prior to the Six-Day War, it imposed an arms embargo on Israel. Israel had already placed an order for 50 Mirage V fighters, which it had paid for in full but the French refused to deliver them and like the British, ended up selling them to Israel’s enemies. That betrayal planted the seeds for the development of Israel’s indigenous Kfir fighter bomber, which saw combat during Operation Peace for Galilee and saw service with the U.S. Navy, and the air forces of Columbia and Sri Lanka.

In the summer of 2014, Israel was forced to go to war yet again, this time with the genocidal Arab terrorist group, Hamas. Hamas has deliberately placed its military infrastructure adjacent to civilian areas, cynically exploiting Gaza’s civilian population as human shields. In some instances, Hamas appallingly used UNRWA schools to store weapons and as a platform to fire rockets and mortars at Israel. Israel quickly identified the sources of fire and retaliated in measured fashion with precision guided munitions, neutralizing the threats.

Barack Obama, who had always harbored deep-seated hostility and resentment toward Israel, tried to force Israel into accepting a lopsided ceasefire agreement brokered by the pro-terrorist regimes of Qatar and Turkey. To facilitate this goal, he adopted a series of measures aimed at pressuring Israel. He ordered the State Department to issue a travel advisory against Israel. The following day, his Federal Aviation Administration issued a directive prohibiting U.S. carriers from flying to or from Israel’s Ben Gurion International Airport after a rocket launched by Hamas fell harmlessly about a mile south of Tel Aviv airport. These directives were insidiously designed to inflict economic harm on Israel.

But Obama did not stop there. While Hamas was firing rockets at Israeli cities and digging tunnels for the ghoulish purpose of kidnapping kindergarten-aged children, he ordered the Department of Defense to withhold shipments of Hellfire missiles to Israel. Israeli Apache attack helicopters utilized the Hellfire missile in support of ground operations and where pinpoint precision was required.

It was an unprecedented move. While Israel was at war with a genocidal enemy committed to its destruction, Obama decided to withhold vital military equipment in an effort to place Israel at a military disadvantage.

Despite his best efforts to harm Israel, the Israelis decidedly won the 2014 Gaza War and taught Hamas a lesson it would soon not forget but Israel drew lessons of its own. It realized that Obama was at best, an unreliable ally and Israel could potentially be held hostage to the irrational whims of an unfriendly administration in times of war.

Following the Gaza War, the Israeli company Rafael, maker of the battle-tested and proven Spike precision missile, was asked by the government to modify the Spike so that it could be integrated with the Apache platform. Rafael obliged and soon after, Israeli Apaches were photographed equipped with the NLOS (Non-Line Of Sight) variant of the Spike.

Both the Spike and the Hellfire are precision guided but the Spike possesses capabilities lacking in the Hellfire. It has a range of up to 25 km, surpassing the Hellfire’s and renders the Apache less vulnerable to anti-aircraft defenses. The Non-Line Of Sight option means the target can be hit without the operator actually seeing the target and the missile can be guided via a laser designator or real-time wireless data link. The operator can also abort the mission after launch or change targets. This is an important feature that enables the operator to limit collateral damage should civilians suddenly appear or alternatively, to direct the missile toward a more valuable or dangerous target. The dynamic and fluid nature of the modern battlefield makes this feature invaluable.

During his tenure, Obama’s relationship with the Mideast’s only democracy was at best, acrimonious, and often times marred by petty feuds initiated by Obama or his shills, who took their cues from their boss. But Israel owes Obama a debt of gratitude for it was his misguided petulance during the Gaza conflict that produced the successful marriage between the Apache and the Spike NLOS, thus providing Israel with an even greater qualitative edge over its enemies.

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EDUCATION Comments turned off

Exposing SJP as a Terrorist Front at UC-Berkeley Berkeley campus is one of the “Top Ten Worst Schools that Support Terrorists.” Sara Dogan

By on September 21st, 2017

Editor’s note: The David Horowitz Freedom Center today announced the University of California-Berkeley as the first school named in its new report on the “Top Ten Worst Schools that Support Terrorists.” Coinciding with the release, the Freedom Center placed posters on Berkeley’s campus exposing the links between Students for Justice in Palestine and the terrorist organization Hamas, whose stated goal is the destruction of the Jewish state.

As revealed in recent congressional testimony, Students for Justice in Palestine is a campus front for Hamas terrorists. SJP’s propaganda activities are orchestrated and funded by a Hamas front group, American Muslims for Palestine, whose chairman is Hatem Bazian and whose principals are former officers of the Holy Land Foundation and other Islamic “charities” previously convicted of funneling money to Hamas. The report and posters are part of a larger Freedom Center campaign titled Stop University Support for Terrorists. Images of the posters that appeared at UC-Berkeley may be viewed at www.stopuniversitysupportforterrorists.org.

While America’s eyes are focused on the battle to defeat ISIS in Syria and terrorist attacks in Europe, at colleges across the United States a coalition of terrorist-linked organizations are waging a propaganda war to destroy the Jewish state, annihilate the Jewish people and fan the flames of hatred for America as Israel’s “protector.” Led by Students for Justice in Palestine, the Muslim Students Association, and Jewish Voice for Peace, these organizations do not launch rockets at Israeli civilian targets or dig terror tunnels under Israeli kindergarten classrooms. But they spread propaganda and take money and marching orders from those who do. Their mission is to whitewash actual terrorist attacks and promote the genocidal lies of terrorist organizations, specifically Hamas, whose stated goal is the destruction of the Jewish state.

In conducting these malevolent campaigns, these campus allies of the terrorists can count on the funding and protection of American universities like the University of California, who allow them to use their authority and prestige to lend this genocidal offensive an aura of respectability. The hatred that is an inevitable aspect of these campaigns has inspired an epidemic of anti-Semitic attacks on Jewish students, 59% of which – according to one study – are attributable to the anti-Israel lies spread by these campus groups, namely that Israel is built on stolen Arab land and is an “apartheid state.”

The primary collegiate member of the Hamas terror network is Students for Justice in Palestine whose principal founder is Hamas supporter Hatem Bazian, a Palestinian professor at UC-Berkeley. Bazian co-founded Students for Justice in Palestine in 2001 to support the Second Palestinian Intifada, which introduced suicide bombing into the attacks on Israel’s citizens in September 2000.

In his book American Jihad, terrorism expert Steven Emerson quotes Bazian’s exhortations at an American Muslim Alliance conference at which Bazian endorsed the infamous Hadith calling for the slaughter of the Jews, and advocated for the establishment of an Islamic state in Palestine: “In the Hadith, the Day of Judgment will never happen until you fight the Jews. They are on the west side of the river, which is the Jordan River, and you’re on the east side until the trees and stones will say, ‘Oh Muslim, there is a Jew hiding behind me. Come and kill him!’ And that’s in the Hadith about this, this is a future battle before the Day of Judgment.”

Every successful terrorist campaign has a political as well as a military arm. The IRA terrorist organization was aided and abetted by its sister organization, Sinn Fein, a parliamentary party which advanced the terrorists’ agendas through propaganda and political support. Hamas operates in a similar fashion, relying on Students for Justice in Palestine and its key campus allies – the Muslim Students Association and Jewish Voice for Peace – to advance its sinister agendas. It does so with Hamas’s organizational support and funding through an intermediary organization, American Muslims for Palestine, whose creator is also Hatem Bazian. Hatem Bazian currently serves as the chair of AMP’s board. In 2009, Bazian founded the Islamophobia Research and Documentation Project at the University of California’s Center for Race and Gender. Thus, the University of California also lends its prestige and resources to a program designed by a terrorist agent to discredit critics of Islamic terrorism as “Islamophobes.”

Other key board member officers of American Muslims for Palestine were formerly board members of the Holy Land Foundation, the largest Muslim charity in America until it was exposed in trial as a front for Hamas. American Muslims for Palestine has copied the Holy Land Foundation model. In recent testimony before the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Jonathan Schanzer, who worked as a terrorism finance analyst for the United States Department of the Treasury from 2004-2007, and now serves as the Vice President of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies (FDD), described how Hamas funnels large sums of money and provides material assistance to Students for Justice in Palestine through AMP for the purpose of promoting BDS campaigns and disseminating Hamas propaganda on American campuses.

According to his testimony, “At its 2014 annual conference, AMP invited participants to ‘come and navigate the fine line between legal activism and material support for terrorism.’” He further classified AMP as “arguably the most important sponsor and organizer for Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), which is the most visible arm of the BDS campaign on campuses in the United States.” He revealed that AMP “provides speakers, training, printed materials, a so-called ‘Apartheid Wall,’ and grants to SJP activists” and “even has a campus coordinator on staff whose job is to work directly with SJP and other pro-BDS campus groups across the country.” Furthermore, “according to an email it sent to subscribers, AMP spent $100,000 on campus activities in 2014 alone.”

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EU: Delusions without Borders by Judith Bergman

By on September 21st, 2017

Many migrants simply refused to leave, disappeared, or their home countries refused to receive them.

The European Commission published a “report card” on the EU member states’ “progress” in taking the allocated quotas of migrants. Even Sweden, on the brink of societal collapse from the influx of migrants, was told that it was only “close” to reaching its quota.

ISIS apparently has at its disposal some 11,000 stolen blank Syrian passports that it could put to use in order to smuggle its terrorists into Europe under fake identities; at the same time, more European ISIS fighters are expected to return to Europe. Why does the EU want to make it easy for them?

On September 13, the President of the European Commission, the executive arm of the European Union, Jean Claude Juncker gave his State of the Union Address to the European Parliament, saying:

“Last year… Europe was battered and bruised by a year that shook our very foundation. We only had two choices. Either come together around a positive European agenda or each retreat into our own corners… I argued for unity. I proposed a positive agenda to help create … a Europe that protects, empowers and defends… Over the past twelve months, the European Parliament has helped bring this agenda to life. We continue to make progress with each passing day… In the last year, we saw all 27 leaders… renew their vows… to our Union. All of this leads me to believe: the wind is back in Europe’s sails.”

Most EU citizens probably wondered what EU Juncker was talking about. The EU Juncker inhabits does not appear to be the same one most Europeans live in.

Jean Claude Juncker, President of the European Commission, gives his State of the Union Address to the European Parliament on September 13. (Image source: European Parliament)

This past year in Europe, a terrorist attack was attempted every seven days, on average. Juncker delivered his speech just two days before yet another terrorist attack, this time on the London underground, perpetrated by an 18-year old migrant. The European Commission, however, does not appear particularly concerned with such matters. Juncker mentioned terrorism only very briefly toward the very end of his long speech, almost as if it were an afterthought:

“The European Union must also be stronger in fighting terrorism. In the past three years, we have made real progress. But we still lack the means to act quickly in case of cross-border terrorist threats. This is why I call for a European intelligence unit that ensures data concerning terrorists and foreign fighters are automatically shared among intelligence services and with the police”.

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Trump Vows to Abbas to ‘Devote Everything Within My Heart and Soul’ to Peace Deal By Bridget Johnson

By on September 21st, 2017

President Trump said he’s looking at “maybe, ultimately, peace in the whole of the Middle East” before a bilateral meeting today with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly.

Trump called it a “great honor” to meet with Abbas and his team, “who have been working very hard with everybody involved toward peace.”

“I think we have a pretty good shot — maybe the best shot ever — and that’s what we’re looking to do,” he said. “And I just want to thank you for all of the time, all of the meetings, all of the work. It’s a complex subject; always been considered the toughest deal of all. Peace between Israel and the Palestinians — the toughest of all.”

“But I think we have a very, very good chance, and I certainly will devote everything within my heart and within my soul to get that deal made. Our team is expert; your team is expert. Israel is working very hard toward the same goal, and I must tell you, Saudi Arabia and many of the different nations are working also hard.”

Trump added, “We’ll see if we can put it together. Who knows? Stranger things have happened. But I think we have a good chance, and it’s a great honor to have you with us.”

Abbas said he was “very delighted” to meet again with Trump. “And if this is any proof to anything, it means — it attests to the seriousness of Your Excellency, Mr. President, to achieve the deal of the century in the Middle East during this year or in the coming months, God willing,” he added.

“And we are very certain that you, Mr. President, are determined to reach real peace in the Middle East. And this gives us the assurance and the confidence that we are on the verge of real peace between the Palestinians and the Israelis,” he said. “And I would not be giving away any secrets if I say we have met with your brave and active delegation more than 20 times since your ascension to power in the White House. And if this is any indication to anything, it indicates how serious you are about peace in the Middle East.”

Abbas pledged that Washington “will find utmost seriousness on our part to achieve peace, because peace serves our interests and the interests of the Israeli people.”

The Palestinian leader said Rosh Hashanah and the Islamic New Year, which begins Thursday evening, falling “together within a 24-hour period” indicates “it means that we can coexist peacefully together.”

“Once again, Mr. President, we count on you,” Abbas added.

Trump thanked Abbas for the “very great sentiment, frankly” and told the Palestinian leader “you have millions of people rooting for you, that I can say.” CONTINUE AT SITE

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Tillerson Backs Off Asking Israel to Return $75 Million in Aid By Karl Herchenroeder

By on September 21st, 2017

WASHINGTON – Israel will not have to return $75 million in U.S. security aid, as the State Department announced last week that Secretary Rex Tillerson will not push for a clawback.

According to reports, Tillerson was considering asking Israel to return $75 million in U.S. security aid, which Congress approved in 2016. President Trump has pitched himself as the most pro-Israel president ever, and the White House announced in May a $75 million commitment of support for Israel’s missile defense program. That amount would be in addition to funds committed through President Bush’s 10-year agreement reached with Israel in 2007.

The Obama administration secured their own deal with Israel in 2016, but President Obama’s memorandum of understanding prohibited Israel from requesting additional aid. The terms of the deal dictate that Israel return any funds that exceed the amount included Bush’s MOU for fiscal years 2017 and 2018.

Many lawmakers criticized Obama’s stipulation, saying that it ties the hands of Israel and the U.S. and limits response to potential emergency situations in the turbulent Middle East region. Congress signed off on the $75 million package for Israel during government-funding negotiations at the end of 2016.

“They’re going to get the money. … Israel is an important, trusted ally of the United States,” State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert told reporters at a press briefing. “That hasn’t changed and that won’t change. We have a strong relationship with Israel.”

The potential clawback drew criticism from Sens. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) and Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), who one week ago penned a letter to Tillerson asking that he drop the consideration. The senators argued that the $75 million return would “damage the U.S.-Israel security relationship, diminish Israel’s qualitative military edge in the region, and send a terrible message to allies and adversaries alike regarding the steadfastness of U.S. commitments.”

Cotton and Rubio cited the “flawed” Iran nuclear deal signed by the Obama administration, which freed up more than $100 billion in frozen assets for Iran – one of three countries the State Department has designated as state sponsors of terrorism. The lawmakers also pointed out that there are no other security-related MOUs that carry stipulations like the one Obama included, a provision that encroaches “on Congress’s core constitutional power to determine the national security interests of the United States and how best to use public funds to defend those interests.”

“If the United States were to seek those funds back at this time, it would send a message of irresolution to our strongest ally in the Middle East. And the move would be duly noted by our mutual adversaries in the region,” the letter reads.

Zionist Organization of America president Morton Klein said in an interview on Friday that Trump has been a disappointment.

“I thought he was going to be the greatest pro-Israel president we’ve ever had,” Klein said. “I said that after he was elected, and now I’ve said publicly that I’ve spoken too soon, that he’s refused to move the embassy to Jerusalem.” CONTINUE AT SITE

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London Tube Bomber Was Part of ‘Deradicalization’ Program By Patrick Poole

By on September 21st, 2017

The UK’s “known wolf” terror problem has just gotten worse.

As I reported here at PJ Media earlier this week, the still-unnamed 18-year-old Iraqi refugee who tried to set off an IED on the London underground last Friday had been arrested two weeks before the attack at the Parsons Green station where the device went off. But today information was revealed that the bombing suspect was part of the UK’s “deradicalization” program.

The BBC reports:

The 18-year-old arrested man is thought to have lived in a foster home owned by Ronald and Penelope Jones in Sunbury-on-Thames.

He is thought to have moved to the UK from Iraq aged 15 when his parents died.

The BBC has learnt that he had been referred to an anti-extremist programme before his arrest.

It is not known who made the referral and when – or how serious the concerns were.

Sources did not name the flagship Prevent programme, but it is thought that this is the mostly likely case as the referral for help was at local authority level.

Prevent is managed and delivered locally by multi-agency teams of social workers, police officers and other specialists.

Other media are identifying the program the bombing suspect was involved with as PREVENT.

While some critics, this reporter included, have noted the ineffectiveness of the PREVENT “countering violent extremism” (CVE) program, some in the Muslim community have attacked it for “Islamophobia”:

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