RUTHFULLY YOURS

Kellyanne Conway, senior adviser to President-elect Donald Trump, said Monday that moving the United Stated embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to the country’s capital — Jerusalem — will be a top priority for the Trump administration.

Conway explained to conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt that not only did Trump make it clear that would be a goal of his as president before the election, but he has talked about it several times since being elected president.

“That is very big priority for this president-elect, Donald Trump,” she said. “He made it very clear during the campaign, Hugh, and as president-elect I’ve heard him repeat it several times privately, if not publicly.”

Most nations do not have their Israeli embassies in Jerusalem. Rather, most countries currently have their embassies in or around the city of Tel Aviv, as most countries still do not recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.

Israel declared Jerusalem to be their capital city in 1949 after Britain finally left the area. Still, much of the land in Eastern Jerusalem, including many holy sites, remains under contention between Israel and the Palestinians.

Many past U.S. presidents, including Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, expressed a desire to move the American embassy to Jerusalem, but never quite followed through on their promises — something Conway said she doesn’t quite understand.

“It is something that our friend in Israel, a great friend in the Middle East, would appreciate and something that a lot of Jewish-Americans have expressed their preference for,” she told Hewitt. “It is a great move. It is an easy move to do based on how much he talked about that in the debates and in the sound bites.”

While the Trump transition team has high praise for Israel, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu made clear on Sunday that the praise goes both ways.

During an interview with CBS’ “60 Minutes” that aired Sunday, Netanyahu said that he knows Trump “very well” and has high hopes of a very close and successful relationship with the U.S. under Trump’s administration — something he hasn’t had under President Barack Obama.

You can listen to audio of Conway’s comments with Hewitt here.

It’s in the nature of nation-states, especially those with pretensions to global influence, to insinuate themselves into the domestic operations of their neighbors near and far, and Vladimir Putin’s Russia has not exactly disguised its ambitions. Just ask the beleaguered residents of Ukraine and the Baltic states. According to the Washington Post, the CIA has concluded with “high confidence” that Russian interference in this year’s presidential election — primarily the thousands of e-mails leaked from the Democratic National Committee and others — was designed to boost Donald Trump’s electoral prospects, not merely to shake Americans’ faith in the integrity of their electoral system. If true — and that’s a big if as of now — Russia is more brazen than one might have thought.

Of course, interfering in an election by exposing sensitive information, as Russia seems to have done, and, say, tampering with Diebold machines are two different things — a distinction that Hillary Clinton partisans have conveniently forgotten. Since the report broke late last week, eminences such as Paul Krugman have called the election “tainted,” high-profile commentators have gone so far as to suggest we have a “revote,” and the Clinton campaign has announced that it supports a demand from ten presidential electors (among them Nancy Pelosi’s daughter) for an intelligence briefing in advance of the Electoral College’s December 19 vote. Needless to say, this is all part of the ongoing effort to find excuses for Clinton’s loss other than Hillary Clinton. Kremlin machinations make for a helpful addition to the list that also includes Madisonian republicanism, James Comey, and “fake news.”

Amid so much panic, it’s worth recalling precisely who has been responsible for America’s foreign policy vis-à-vis Russia for the last eight years. The president-elect is not the one who oversaw the Russian “reset,” or who allowed Russia to gobble up Crimea and invade Ukraine with impunity, or who enabled Putin to prop up the Assad regime in Syria, or who permitted American diplomats to be harassed in Moscow. It’s not Donald Trump who has created a nearly global safe space for Russian adventurism. Additionally, it’s not President-elect Trump and his secretary of state who exchanged classified communiqués over an unsecured e-mail server, and it was John Podesta, not Kellyanne Conway, whose password was . . . “p@ssw0rd.” High-ranking Democrats were laxer about data security than the average Apple store, and now they’re stunned that a foreign power may have exploited those vulnerabilities.

As anyone who’s ever done business with mainland China knows, a fool and his money (or time, or expertise) are soon parted. Contracts aren’t honored, owed monies aren’t paid, a man’s word is not his bond and a contract isn’t worth the pixels it’s printed on. So good for Donald Trump for putting the Red Chinese in their place, and openly flirting with our allies, the Taiwanese, by re-opening the door to a two-China policy:

US president-elect Donald Trump has questioned whether Washington should continue its one-China policy if Beijing does not make concessions on trade and other issues.

“I don’t know why we have to be bound by a one-China policy unless we make a deal with China having to do with other things, including trade,” Trump told Fox News Sunday in response to a question on his taking a phone call from Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen, a move which broke with decades of US diplomatic tradition. The one-China policy recognises that Taiwan is part of China, but the US has remained ambiguous on the issue.

Besides trade, Trump said China was not cooperating with the US on its handling of the yuan, on North Korea, and tensions in the South China Sea.

Even a cursory look at Chinese and Taiwanese history since the end of World War II shows how immoral and short-sighted the bullying “one-China” policy has been. It’s all founded in the communists’ inferiority-complex insistence to be recognized as the legitimate government of China, and therefore of the island of Taiwan, when the Republic of China government fled after its defeat by Mao in 1949.

Regarding Trump’s comment on the one-China policy, Renmin University international relations professor Pang Zhongying said the administration may play up the Taiwan issue, which could cause friction with Beijing. “It’s likely that Trump will use Taiwan to demand concessions from Beijing. The situation will be tricky,” he said. CONTINUE AT SITE

The consensus in Israel is that the relationship between the Jewish state and the United States is going to improve in a Trump administration, says former Israeli ambassador to the U.S., Zalman Shoval.

On a recent visit to Washington, D.C., Shoval told me that he believes Donald Trump and his cabinet picks so far have a more “realistic” view of the Middle East than President Obama, who from his first days in office, “perhaps before, believed it was his calling to fix once and for all, all matters between the U.S. and the Arab and Muslim worlds, as expressed in his Cairo speech. … This gives Trump in the hearts and minds of more than a few Israelis a head-start.”

Shoval said he believes the issue of a Palestinian state — the objective of U.S. foreign policy over several administrations — has become less concerning than the regional and international threat posed by a nuclear Iran. He likes recent statements by secretary of defense-designate Gen. James Mattis about the way forward in dealing with an unstable Iran, believing Mattis recognizes that as important as it is to defeat ISIS, the real threat in the Middle East is Iran.

It’s not only the nuclear deal that bothers Shoval, though he believes Iran will eventually have a bomb, unless it is stopped. It is also bothersome that Iran continues with its terrorist activities, subsidizing anti-American and anti-Israel groups around the world because radical mullahs think their god has ordered them to do so. That makes any kind of diplomatic agreement with nations Iran regards as “infidels” impossible.

Even when the battle for Mosul is over and victory has been declared over that ISIS stronghold, Shoval believes, “what it really will mean is that the Iranians and the Shia are going to be the real victors. They will continue their attempts to build a territorial corridor all the way to the Mediterranean along with Hezbollah, which is not only a threat to Israel, but also something the so-called moderate Arab states look at with a great deal of concern.”

In his rant at the Saban Forum denouncing Israel for the lack of peace, John Forbes Kerry claimed that the Islamic terrorists who run Fatah are pacifists. “We have a leader of a not-perfect entity, the Fatah, who is committed to nonviolence.”

Here’s a sample of Fatah’s commitment to non-violence courtesy of Palestinian Media Watch.

The Fatah song emphasizes that Fatah’s “oath” is to destroy Israel, saying “free the state from the hands of the Zionists,” and that this will be done through violence, terror and killing:

“Slice open the enemy’s chest, slice it”
“Shoot the Dashka (machine gun) and the cannon”
“The Fatah man… fires the mortar and the machine gun”
“Strike, mortar, strike!”

And just in case there’s any ambiguity…

“I have no love other than the love of the rifle.”
“The sound of the rifles gives us joy”
“Bullets! Sing for us”

That’s real commitment to non-violence. Maybe Kerry should be the one to be committed.

In his 2016 State of the Union address, President Obama summarized his achievements. That same night, the White House issued a press release touting Obama’s accomplishments.

Now that he will be leaving, how well did these initiatives listed in the press release actually work out?

“Securing the historic Paris climate agreement.”

The accord was never submitted to Congress as a treaty. It will be ignored by President-elect Trump.

“Achieving the Iran nuclear deal.”

That “deal” was another effort to circumvent the treaty-ratifying authority of Congress. It has green-lighted Iranian aggression, and it probably ensured nuclear proliferation. Iran’s violations will cause the new Trump administration to either scrap the accord or send it to Congress for certain rejection.

“Securing the Trans-Pacific Partnership.”

Even Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton came out against this failed initiative. It has little support in Congress or among the public. Opposition to the TTP helped fuel the Trump victory.

“Reopening Cuba.”

The recent Miami celebration of the death of Fidel Castro, and Trump’s victory in Florida, are testimonies to the one-sided deal’s unpopularity. The United States got little in return for the Castro brothers’ propaganda coup.

“Destroying ISIL” and “dismantling al Qaeda.”

We are at last making some progress against some of these “jayvee” teams, as Obama once described the Islamic State. Neither group has been dismantled or destroyed. Despite the death of Osama bin Laden, the widespread reach of radical Islam into Europe and the United States remains largely unchecked.

“Ending combat missions in Afghanistan and Iraq.”

The Afghan war rages on. The precipitous withdrawal of all U.S. peacekeepers in 2011 from a quiet Iraq helped sow chaos in the rest of the Middle East. We are now sending more troops back into Iraq.

“Closing Guantanamo Bay.” The recent Miami celebration of the death of Fidel Castro, and Trump’s victory in Florida, are testimonies to the one-sided deal’s unpopularity. The United States got little in return for the Castro brothers’ propaganda coup.

“Destroying ISIL” and “dismantling al Qaeda.”

We are at last making some progress against some of these “jayvee” teams, as Obama once described the Islamic State. Neither group has been dismantled or destroyed. Despite the death of Osama bin Laden, the widespread reach of radical Islam into Europe and the United States remains largely unchecked.

“Ending combat missions in Afghanistan and Iraq.”

The Afghan war rages on. The precipitous withdrawal of all U.S. peacekeepers in 2011 from a quiet Iraq helped sow chaos in the rest of the Middle East. We are now sending more troops back into Iraq.

President Barack Obama on Tuesday defended his strategy for combating terrorism, despite the emergence on his watch of the Islamic State group and the expansion of the conflict in Syria.

Mr. Obama, in a national-security speech delivered just weeks before he leaves the White House, repeatedly drew a contrast between his ideas and those of Republican President-elect Donald Trump while making a case for why his successor should adhere to his approach, which was shaped by his early decision to scale back America’s military presence overseas. Mr. Obama also pointed to his administration’s ban on torture, including waterboarding, and to his longtime effort to close the detention facility in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

“We have to take a long view of the terrorist threat, and we have to pursue a smart strategy that can be sustained,” Mr. Obama said at MacDill Air Force Base in Florida. “We can get these terrorists and stay true to who we are.”

Mr. Obama said the clearest evidence his strategy has succeeded is that “no foreign terrorist organization has successfully planned and executed an attack on our homeland, and it’s not because they didn’t try.”

Attacks in Europe have rattled Americans, as have several apparently Islamic State-inspired shootings in the U.S. Mr. Trump campaigned on being tougher on Islamic State and suggested the vetting of Muslims in the country.

A Trump transition spokesperson didn’t respond to a request for comment on Mr. Obama’s speech.

While he didn’t mention Mr. Trump by name, Mr. Obama had a clear message for his successor on foreign policy. He argued for using diplomacy before military power, pointing to the deal with Iran to restrain its nuclear program, which Mr. Trump has said is deeply flawed.

He also said the U.S. doesn’t impose religious tests and that “protecting liberty” is something the U.S. does for all Americans, not just some. Mr. Trump has proposed curbs on immigration by Muslims.

On closing Guantanamo Bay, one of Mr. Obama’s earliest and unfulfilled promises, Mr. Obama said the “politics of fear” has kept the facility open and that until Congress changes course on its refusal to allow the transfer of detainees to U.S. prisons, “it will be judged by history.”

“And I will continue to do all I can to remove this blot on our national honor,” Mr. Obama said.

Matthew Levitt, who was deputy assistant secretary for intelligence and analysis at the Treasury Department during the George W. Bush administration, said that beside Mr. Obama’s digs at Mr. Trump, “the speech was most interesting for what it left out: any real answer to the fact that terrorist threats are worse now than when he came to office, according to most intelligence officials.” CONTINUE AT SITE

According to the mainstream media, foreign policy experts and Democrats, President-elect Donald Trump made a serious error when he accepted a phone call from Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen congratulating him on winning the 2016 presidential election. Trump’s critics apparently believe Mr. Trump is not allowed to speak with the president of one of the world’s leading democracies and a close friend of the United Stats because the Chinese government forbids this.

Sorry, but China does not tell American officials who they can and cannot talk to. Despite the 1979 decision to open diplomatic relations with China and withdraw diplomatic relations with Taiwan, America and Taiwan remain close friends. We sell Taiwan billions of dollars in military hardware. America may have an unofficial relationship with Taiwan, but this does not mean our leaders should shun or insult Taiwan’s president.

Trump’s critics claim his decision to accept Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen’s congratulatory phone call indicates he does not understand foreign policy. I disagree. This was an act of leadership by a president-elect who plans to enact a new U.S. foreign policy that rejects President Obama’s failed foreign policy of retreat, appeasement and leading from behind.

The Donald Trump-Tsai Ing-wen phone call also could reflect an intention by the Trump administration to reevaluate America’s relationship with Taiwan and possibly upgrade relations. Such a move is long overdue. Taiwan is by any measure a thriving democracy and an independent state. Although the United States in 1979 recognized that China and Taiwan believe in a “one China” policy, the U.S. government has never officially endorsed this position. Instead of a U.S. embassy or consulate in Taipei, the United States maintains a nonprofit center known as the American Institute in Taiwan (AIT), which operates as a barely unofficial embassy. Trump advisers are right in considering whether it is time to reevaluate U.S.-relations with Taiwan and the AIT. These advisers include China expert Peter Navarro, who contributed to the Center for Security Policy’s recent book on the growing threat from China, Warning Order: China Prepares for Conflict, and Why We Must Do the Same.

Instead of piling on Donald Trump for taking a phone call from the leader of a U.S. ally, Trump critics should be focusing on how the lack of global leadership by Barack Obama created a power vacuum in the Asia-Pacific region that emboldened China to engage in belligerent actions to seize control of almost the entire South China Sea. This action is endangering the economies and security of America’s friend and allies in the region and also threatens freedom of navigation in a crucial sea area.