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Move the Embassy to Jerusalem By Rovvy Lepor

Posted By on December 5th, 2017

In order to test whether a peace settlement is possible between Israel and the Palestinian Authority, the U.S. embassy must be relocated to Jerusalem as soon as possible. Close to 25 years after the signing of the Oslo Accords, it appears that Israel and the PA are no closer to peace. It is high time that the U.S. takes a different path to test whether the PA is ready to make true peace with Israel or whether this long-winded peace process is no more than a seemingly endless charade.

Israel has repeatedly taken actions in its quest for peace, including multiple transfers of territorial control in the West Bank, total abandonment of Gaza, and a 10-month long building freeze. Little, if any, good has come of it. The Palestinian Authority instead was involved in a murderous intifada against Israel that claimed the lives of roughly 1,000 Israelis, as well as frequent terrorist attacks over the years. The PA also actively seeks a unity pact with the Hamas terrorist organization, and has consistently been involved in incitement to murder and attack Israelis and Jews in all forms of the Palestinian media. This is reminiscent of the verse, “I am peace; but when I speak, they are for war.” (Psalms 120:7)

In addition, the PA and Mahmoud Abbas have refused to even make the most basic of gestures critical to any peace deal. The Palestinian Authority has refused to recognize Israel as a Jewish state, refused to recognize any part of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, and even threatened that if the U.S. recognizes Jerusalem as Israel’s capital (even if that recognition is limited to part of Jerusalem) it would amount to a “complete destruction of the peace process.”

If the U.S. seeks to test the feasibility of the peace process, it must therefore move the embassy to Jerusalem and not hold itself captive to terroristic threats of widespread violence made by the Palestinian Authority and Hamas.

Instead, President Trump should refuse to maintain a decades-old mentality of subservience to threats of radical Islamic terrorism. It is immoral for the world’s #1 superpower to allow itself to be swayed by terroristic threats. Such behavior by the U.S. does nothing to discourage terrorism; on the contrary, it implicitly rewards terrorism by demonstrating that threats of terrorism achieve results.

President Trump demonstrated leadership rarely seen in recent history by delivering a historic speech to leaders of Islamic countries in Saudi Arabia calling for the total defeat of radical Islamic terrorism. He is right.

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Mueller’s FBI Will Never Recover Its Good Name By James Lewis

Posted By on December 5th, 2017

Robert Mueller just fired a senior FBI agent for openly twittering against POTUS Trump. But if Mr. Mueller imagines that firing one guy will restore his shredded credibility to the public, fuggedaboudit. The unprecedented witch-hunt against a newly elected Donald Trump will remain green in the public memory for years to come. The FBI and DOJ will therefore have to live with a huge loss of public credibility. The IRS will never recover among Trump voters.

Elected governments only work as long as they enjoy basic public confidence, and when that is gone — as it is in Italy and Greece — it can take many years to restore. Even if most of our FBI people are honest patriots, a few rotten apples will ruin it for the rest. In Italy, every sane person is expected to run some kind of tax scam, and until recently, the IRS told us that it relied on self-reported income. But high-level corruption sets an example for the whole country, and the Clintons and Obamas have shown us nothing but high-level corruption. The perps may get out of jail free, but the political culture will feel the damage they have inflicted.

Mueller is a partisan hack to end all partisan hacks, and no sane observer believes otherwise. It was Mueller who got Bill Clinton out of trouble for selling missile launching secrets to China, secrets that may now be helping North Korea to aim nuclear-armed missiles at Washington DC and Paris.

That’s the trouble when the Democrats elect major corruptocrats like the Clintons and the Obamas. Half the voters have been profoundly angered by their corrupt shenanigans for years and years. The Clintons came out of the old Dixiecrat Machine in Little Rock, Ark, with ole Bill smokin’ dope and harassing women to the max, and then came Obama…

Obama was mentored by the Godfather of the Chicago Machine, Emil Jones, and Michelle’s dad was a ward boss in Chicago. Can you spell C-O-R-R-U-P-T-I-O-N?

ISRAEL Comments turned off

Column One: A credible peace plan, at last Caroline Glick

Posted By on December 5th, 2017

Not only does it secure the future of both Israel and the Palestinians, it enables Arab states like Saudi Arabia to work openly with Israel to defeat their joint Iranian enemy.
Monday, The New York Times published the Palestinian response to an alleged Saudi peace plan. Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman reportedly presented it to PLO chief and Palestinian Authority chairman Mahmoud Abbas last month.

According to the Times’ report, Mohammed told Abbas he has two months to either accept the Saudi proposal or leave office to make way for a new Palestinian leader who will accept it.

The Palestinians and their European supporters are up in arms about the content of Mohammed’s plan. It reportedly proposes the establishment of limited Palestinian sovereignty over small portions of Judea and Samaria. The Gaza Strip, over which the Palestinians have had full sovereignty since Israel pulled its military forces and civilians out in 2005, would be expanded into the northern Sinai, thus providing economic and territorial viability to the envisioned Palestinian state. While the Palestinians would not receive sovereignty over Jerusalem, they would be able to establish their capital in the Jerusalem suburb of Abu Dis.

There are several aspects of the alleged Saudi peace plan that are notable. First, the Palestinians and their many allies insist that it is a nonstarter. No Palestinian leader could ever accept the offer and survive in power, they told the Times. The same Palestinian leaders from Hamas and Fatah, and their allies, also noted that the Saudi plan as reported strongly resembles past Israeli proposals.

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Living with the Palestinian ‘No!’ By Moshe Dann

Posted By on December 5th, 2017

Awaiting a Trump administration “peace plan,” hoping to end the Arab-Israeli conflict, it would be wise to recall foreign minister Abba Eban’s observation that “the Palestinians never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity.” It is important, however, to understand that this persistent failure is not because of poor judgments or unintended mistakes; it is deliberate PLO policy, strategy and ideology.

Rather than lament the absence of a “Palestinian Sadat,” willing to make peace, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu should explain why this false scenario is inevitably doomed to fail. Calling for an Israeli leader like Menachem Begin or Yitzhak Rabin, willing to make territorial concessions, is worse because it keeps the fantasy of a “two state solution” on life support when there have been no vital signs for many years.Arab Palestinian leaders recognized this nearly a hundred years ago, when, led by the pro-Nazi Mufti Haj Amin Husseini, they rampaged in murderous attacks against Jews. After the State of Israel was established, many Israeli Arabs accepted the new reality, but many did not and never will. The reason is simple: Arabs view Jewish success as their defeat. Moreover, unlike Arabs who migrated to what was called Palestine, Jewish nationalism, Zionism, is rooted in a historical and biblical attachment to the land. Nor did local Arabs imitate Zionist institution-building during the 1920s, ‘30s and ‘40s. Jews built hospitals and agricultural settlements; Arabs raided them. Jews built schools and parks; Arabs initiated pogroms.

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Listen to Women—Except . . . Feminists try to shout down even female critics of abortion.By Molly Gurdon

Posted By on December 5th, 2017

Since the Harvey Weinstein scandal broke, the feminist battle cry has been: “Listen to women.” Listen as they tell of sexism and abuse in the workplace. Listen as they accuse men who outrank them. This kind of openness and respect is overdue, but it comes with an asterisk: “Listen to women (unless they’re pro-life).”

Last month, pro-life students at the University of Oxford held a discussion on Ireland’s 2018 abortion referendum. It was disrupted by protesters organized by the Women’s Campaign, a student-union-sponsored group that claims it “advocates for the rights of everyone who identifies as a woman.” The protesters chanted abusive slogans—“pro-life, that’s a lie, you don’t care if women die”—for 40 minutes, preventing anyone else from being heard.

Several organizers faced the protesters, holding makeshift signs that read: “I’m a woman, where is my right to speak?” It’s a good question. If women of childbearing age aren’t allowed to question the ethics of abortion without being bullied and humiliated, who is?

“Bodily autonomy is not up for debate,” the Women’s Campaign said in a statement after the protest. But the claim that abortion is a closed question just isn’t true. Philosophical, legal and scientific discussion of it dates to ancient Egypt and ancient Greece. Within the university, no issue of moral importance should be shielded from examination. Abusing women who try to have such conversations gives the lie to any stated commitment to female empowerment.

Yet pro-life women across the West routinely face these kinds of tactics. Earlier this year the pro-life New Wave Feminists were booted as partners in the Women’s March on Washington. In October, Katie Ascough, the president of the student union at University College Dublin, was impeached after removing from a student handbook a page of abortion information that she says was illegal under Irish law. Two months ago, Rachael Harder, a pro-life member of Canada’s Parliament, was blocked from leading the Status of Women Committee. Apparently positions of power are open only to the right kind of women. CONTINUE AT SITE

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The Right Move on Monuments Trump puts an end to a federal land grab in southeast Utah.

Posted By on December 5th, 2017

President Trump announced Monday that he will dramatically reduce the acreage of two national monuments. The order ends excessive federal control of Utah land, allowing residents to protect their own territory and conserve their cultural relics.

Congress passed the Antiquities Act in 1906 to give Presidents emergency authority to prevent the looting and destruction of national treasures. The law said designated monuments should be limited to “the smallest area compatible with proper care and management of the objects,” but Bill Clinton and Barack Obama misapplied this power to carry out a Washington land grab.

Without public comment, the federal government unilaterally seized control of more than 3.2 million acres of southeastern Utah that together constitute the Grand Staircase-Escalante and Bears Ears national monuments. Residents and their elected representatives had minimal influence on the draconian land-use restrictions imposed by Washington bureaucrats. In September, Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke described how the Antiquities Act had been abused “to prevent public access and to prevent public use” of land, harming everyone from cattlemen to cross-country skiers.

Last spring Mr. Trump ordered a review of 27 supersized monuments. The Interior Department made recommendations only after accepting formal public comment. Mr. Trump announced Monday that he would shrink Bears Ears by about 85% and Grand Staircase-Escalante by nearly 46%.

Over the past few days, thousands have marched in Salt Lake to oppose the decision. The Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance denounced the order as “the single most harmful attack any president has ever launched on public lands.” The group claims the Trump Administration acted “at the behest of ideological extremists and dirty energy barons,” adding that the decision is “an insult to the tribes that advocated to protect Bears Ears.”

Calm down, guys. Most of the two million newly undesignated acres are still public lands, subject to rigorous federal and state protections. The Trump Administration increased Native American representation on the advisory Bears Ears Commission.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Mueller’s Credibility Problem The special counsel is stonewalling Congress and protecting the FBI.

Posted By on December 5th, 2017

Donald Trump is his own worst enemy, as his many ill-advised tweets on the weekend about Michael Flynn, the FBI and Robert Mueller’s Russia probe demonstrate. But that doesn’t mean that Mr. Mueller and the Federal Bureau of Investigation deserve a pass about their motives and methods, as new information raises troubling questions.

The Washington Post and the New York Times reported Saturday that a lead FBI investigator on the Mueller probe, Peter Strzok, was demoted this summer after it was discovered he’d sent anti- Trump texts to a mistress. As troubling, Mr. Mueller and the Justice Department kept this information from House investigators, despite Intelligence Committee subpoenas that would have exposed those texts. They also refused to answer questions about Mr. Strzok’s dismissal and refused to make him available for an interview.

The news about Mr. Strzok leaked only when the Justice Department concluded it couldn’t hold out any longer, and the stories were full of spin that praised Mr. Mueller for acting “swiftly” to remove the agent. Only after these stories ran did Justice agree on Saturday to make Mr. Strzok available to the House.

ANTI-SEMITISM Comments turned off

Sexual Harassment: Inexcusable, But No Easy Solutions-Sydney Williams

Posted By on December 5th, 2017

There is no question that some men – not all, but some – feel that money, fame and power give them the right to have whatever they want, including women. Libidos, fed by arrogance, displace decency and respect. Many of these men are vocal in their defense of feminist rights, but disrespectful toward women as individuals. But there are some women – not many, but a few – to whom money, fame and power serve as aphrodisiacs. “Power,” Henry Kissinger once observed, “is the ultimate aphrodisiac.” And so it is, to a few.

While serial harassers of women, like bullies everywhere, should be dealt with severely, we live in a country where due process is law and accused are considered innocent until proven guilty. There is risk when the media are more interested in ratings and political advocacy than truth. Accusations without proof are the stuff from which revolutions are wrought. Angelo Codevilla, a professor emeritus of international relations at Boston University and a man who spent eight years on the Senate staff observed the play between politicians and staff: access to power was on one side and the offer of sex on the other. “Innocence, he wrote, was the one quality entirely absent on all sides.” That may be true, but the sides are not equally paired; leverage lies with those who wield power.

Nevertheless, we must not let disclosures of dalliances turn into witch hunts, McCarthyism, or, God forbid, Puritanism. Interestingly, the majority of those charged have been men of the Left who have visibly and vocally supported feminism and women’s rights, all the while treating female subordinates as sex objects. While many of us conservatives have derived a sense of schadenfreude watching deviant hypocrites like Matt Lauer, Garrison Keillor and Charlie Rose being hoisted on petards of their own making, there should also be an acknowledgement of “there but for the grace of God go I…” In some cases, accusations go back decades, providing little opportunity for rebuttal. It is one person’s word against another’s. Stones are cast, with little attention paid to those doing the tossing.

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MY SAY: IS JUSTICE BLIND WHEN IT COMES TO THE CLINTONS?

Posted By on December 4th, 2017

Sessions won’t take sides on GOP demands for Clinton probe. Trump allies have been clamoring for a new investigation of a 2010 deal that transferred some U.S. uranium production capacity to a company with Kremlin links.
Sessions said appointing a separate special counsel to investigate Clinton would require “a factual basis”.
In a heated exchange with Jim Jordan, a Republican congressman from Ohio who asked what it would take to appoint a special counsel to investigate allegations against Clinton, Sessions said: “We will use the proper standards, and that’s the only thing I can tell you.
“You can have your idea, but sometimes we have to study what the facts are, and to evaluate whether it meets the standards it requires.”
A fiery Jordan continued to allege misconduct by Clinton. Citing additional reports that her campaign and the Democratic National Committee funded the Fusion GPS dossier into Trump’s ties to Russia, Jordan maintained it “looks like” there was enough evidence to warrant naming a second special counsel.
Sessions tersely responded: “I would say ‘looks like’ is not enough basis to appoint a special counsel.”
Sessions later sought to clarify his comments, stating: “I did not mean to suggest I was taking a side one way or the other on that subject.”

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Flynn’s Plea Bargain A Near-Nothing Burger With no smoking gun, the anxious Left’s euphoria is premature. Matthew Vadum

Posted By on December 4th, 2017

Former National Security Advisor Michael T. Flynn’s endlessly hyped plea bargain does not signal the beginning of the end for the Trump administration, no matter how ardently the mainstream media and left-wing political hacks want it to be so.

It is merely an inevitable consequence of the perjury traps set by the corrupt Washington swamp-dwelling Special Counsel Robert S. Mueller III and sprung by otherwise law-abiding Trump operatives. Mueller was appointed May 17 by Rod J. Rosenstein, in his capacity as acting Attorney General by virtue of Attorney General Jeff Sessions’ self-initiated recusal in the Russian electoral interference investigation.

The euphoria on the Left is premature.

The Flynn matter is an inconvenient bump in the road with bad political optics in the short term, not a harbinger of Armageddon. It may even constitute an admission by Mueller that this is all he has against the Trump administration and that he is running out of options as a prosecutor.

For now at least, there is still no evidence President Trump covered up a crime, either before or after taking office, or even that there was an underlying crime to be covered up. But the longer this runaway wrecking ball of an investigation into the Left’s utterly unsubstantiated Russia-Trump electoral collusion conspiracy theory goes on, the greater the likelihood that well-intentioned Trump administration officials will get caught up in its merciless machinery.

There is no underlying crime. There is no indication an underlying crime of any kind whatsoever will ever be discovered. “Collusion” is not a crime, but if it were former President Barack Obama and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, whose family and family foundation were enriched by the Russians, would presumably be guilty of it for letting the Russians run wild. Obama’s infamous hot-mic statement to then-Russian President Dmitri Medvedev to wait until after the 2012 election for action on missile defense is evidence of a kind of collusion, if not treason, against the United States.