Displaying posts categorized under

FOREIGN POLICY

FOREIGN POLICY, WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Tillerson: Trump Underscores Terror Fight ‘Has Nothing to Do with Religion’ By Bridget Johnson

By on May 21st, 2017

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said in Saudi Arabia today that President Trump’s trip underscores that the commander in chief “is clearly indicating that this fight of good against evil has nothing to do with religion.”

“It has nothing to do with country. It has nothing to do with ethnicity. This is clearly a fight against good and evil,” Tillerson said. “And the president is convinced with all sincerity that when the three great faiths of this world and the millions of Americans who practice these three great faiths – when we unify with our brothers in faith the world over, we can prevail over this – these forces of evil and these forces of terrorism and destabilization.”

Tillerson was speaking at a press availability in Riyadh with Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir after Trump told the Arab-Islamic American Summit that the U.S. and Muslim world “begin a new chapter that will bring lasting benefits to all of our citizens.”

“I stand before you as a representative of the American people to deliver a message of friendship and hope and love. That is why I chose to make my first foreign visit a trip to the heart of the Muslim world, to the nation that serves as custodian of the two holiest sites in the Islamic faith. In my inaugural address to the American people, I pledged to strengthen America’s oldest friendships and to build new partnerships in pursuit of peace. I also promised that America will not seek to impose our way of life on others, but to outstretch our hands in the spirit of cooperation and trust,” Trump said in the speech written by senior advisor Stephen Miller.

“Our vision is one of peace, security, and prosperity in this region and all throughout the world,” Trump added. “Our goal is a coalition of nations who share the aim of stamping out extremism and providing our children a hopeful future that does honor to God… Every time a terrorist murders an innocent person and falsely invokes the name of God, it should be an insult to every person of faith.”

Trump called the war against terrorism “not a battle between different faiths, different sects, or different civilizations.”

“This is a battle between barbaric criminals who seek to obliterate human life and decent people, all in the name of religion,” he said. “People that want to protect life and want to protect their religion.”

Tillerson told reporters that “the context of all of this, where the president begins his journey here at the home of the Muslim faith under the leadership of the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques – this great faith, the Muslims – then to travel to the home of Judaism and then to the great leader of Christianity,” reflects Trump’s message that it’s not about religion.

Tillerson added that he hoped Trump “dispelled the concerns that many might have” about Islamophobia with the speech.

“I think on this trip, I know the entire delegation traveling with the president has gained a much greater appreciation for this region, the rich history, the rich traditions and cultures of this region, and also a much better understanding of the Muslim faith by traveling to this special place, the special place of the two holiest sites. All of this is, I think, useful to us understanding everyone better here, and we hope – we hope people in the Muslim community will make a similar effort to understand the American people’s interest and concerns that they may have,” the secretary of State said. CONTINUE AT SITE

Continue reading →
FOREIGN POLICY, ISRAEL Comments turned off

Trump Wavers on Jerusalem He reneges on a promise to recognize the city as Israel’s capital.

By on May 20th, 2017

Donald Trump made many campaign promises in his run to the Presidency, but none sounded more sincere than his commitment to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. The week of his inauguration he repeated the pledge to an Israeli news outlet, adding, “I’m not a person who breaks promises.”

This promise will go unfulfilled when Mr. Trump visits Israel on his current trip to the Middle East. Administration officials have conveyed in the past week that, once again, the time isn’t appropriate for the move. Mr. Trump hasn’t explained his reversal, so we are left to assume that the reason for reneging is the same one U.S. Presidents of both parties have given back to the Clinton Presidency : The move might imperil the Israeli-Palestinian peace process.

Israelis no doubt will welcome Mr. Trump enthusiastically when he arrives, because he follows after the explicit hostility that Barack Obama displayed toward this important Middle East ally and its prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu. Still, breaking this important public promise is difficult to understand.

Mr. Trump deepened the promise when he named New York lawyer David Friedman as his ambassador to Israel. Mr. Friedman said he would work to renew the bond between the two countries, “and I look forward to doing this from the U.S. Embassy in Israel’s eternal capital, Jerusalem.”

It is now evident that even a commitment of this much presidential prestige has been overturned by the U.S. State Department’s famous determination to continue the peace process with the Palestinians to the end of days. The history of this greatest of all diplomatic mirages extends back decades, but let us give the short version of why it won’t happen: The Palestinians claim Jerusalem as the capital of any future state, and the Israelis will never concede that claim.

Given this intractable stand-off, we would argue that Mr. Trump is more likely to break the peace-process gridlock if he makes good on his promise. It might make clear to the Palestinians that the wheels of history are not moving in their favor, and the time has arrived to enter into a credible negotiation with Israel.

The Administration officials who pushed Mr. Trump off his campaign promise no doubt argued that it risks alienating America’s Arab allies in the region. But allies such as Saudi Arabia and Jordan already have recognized that their priority has shifted away from Israel and Palestine and toward the existential threat of Iran’s nuclear program, its push for Shiite-led regional hegemony, and the rise of Islamic State. They are engaging Israel in ways that seemed impossible not long ago.

It has been 22 years since Congress passed the Jerusalem Embassy Act, requiring State to relocate the embassy. Every six months since, a U.S. President has signed a waiver to delay the move. It’s unfortunate see that President Trump, too, has wavered on this commitment. The least he can do for those who believed his campaign promise is to explain why he now believes he can’t keep it.

Continue reading →
FOREIGN POLICY Comments turned off

U.S. Fight Against Islamic State Is Accelerating, Mattis Says Defense secretary says recent changes allow faster decisions on battle tactics By Paul Sonne

By on May 20th, 2017

WASHINGTON—Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said changes in the fight against Islamic State that were approved by President Donald Trump have given the U.S. the ability to move more quickly and forcefully on the battlefield, though the overall strategy remains largely unchanged from the Obama era.

Mr. Mattis said the president had given U.S. military commanders more leeway to make battlefield decisions and approved a tactical shift that directs U.S.-backed troops to focus on annihilating Islamic State rather than waging a war of attrition.

“No longer will we have slowed decision cycles because Washington, D.C., has to authorize tactical movements on the ground,” Mr. Mattis said at a Pentagon news conference, where he appeared alongside Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Joe Dunford and the State Department’s special envoy to the anti-Islamic State coalition, Brett McGurk.

Mr. Mattis said U.S.-backed troops previously were surrounding Islamic State positions and allowing enemy fighters to escape through a designated exit route, because the goal was to oust them from occupied cities as quickly as possible and allow residents to return.

But the effect, the defense secretary said, was essentially to move Islamic State fighters around the area.

“We carry out the annihilation campaign so we don’t simply transplant this problem from one location to another,” Mr. Mattis said.

Mr. McGurk cited the recent capture of the Tabqa dam in Syria by a U.S.-backed alliance of Kurdish and Arab fighters as an example of the new battlefield leeway leading to quicker execution.

“Military people on the ground saw an opportunity to surprise ISIS,” he said. “That happened very fast.”

Apart from the modifications described by Mr. Mattis, the strategy to dislodge Islamic State from Iraq and Syria largely appears to be the same as under the Obama administration, despite Mr. Trump’s criticism of the approach during last year’s presidential campaign.

Gen. Dunford and Mr. McGurk, who both held their positions during the Obama administration, helped execute the original strategy.

Defense Secretary Mattis, right, was joined by the State Department’s special envoy to the anti-Islamic State coalition, Brett McGurk, at the briefing. Photo: Win McNamee/Getty Images

All three of the top U.S. officials emphasized the progress of the campaign since it began in mid-2014. Mr. McGurk said some 55,00 square kilometers (21,000 square miles) had been liberated and 4.1 million people freed from Islamic State control. CONTINUE AT SITE

Continue reading →
FOREIGN POLICY Comments turned off

Mattis Announces New DoD Authority to Act Quickly Against ISIS, Focus on Killing Foreign Fighters By Bridget Johnson

By on May 20th, 2017

ARLINGTON, Va. — As local forces have been squeezing ISIS toward defeat in the group’s Iraqi and Syrian capitals, the Pentagon announced a similar strategy for the U.S. to accelerate its campaign against the Islamic State.

Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Joseph Dunford told reporters Friday that the flow of foreign fighters to the Islamic State that peaked at about 1,500 out-of-town volunteers per month in the caliphate’s heyday has gradually declined to fewer than 100 per month.

The Syrian Democratic Forces — an anti-ISIS, anti-Qaeda, anti-Assad coalition composed of more than 50,000 fighters, female and male commanders, Arabs, Assyrian Christians, Kurds, and other minority ethnic groups such as Circassians, Turkmen and Armenians — launched the Wrath of Euphrates operation at the beginning of November. Since then, the SDF has liberated more than 5,000 square miles of territory in the surgical advance to encircle and choke off Raqqa before moving in.

Last week, after fierce fighting with the SDF in which about 100 SDF fighters were killed, ISIS lost al-Tabqa, a city 35 miles west of ISIS’ capital Raqqa that includes a critical dam on the Euphrates.

Brett McGurk, the State Department’s special envoy to the anti-ISIS coalition since 2015, said he recently met a leader from al-Tabqa, who “described to us the thousands of foreign fighters from as far away as Trinidad and Tobago who terrorize his community, enslaving women, brainwashing children and committing public executions.”

“He also said he believes that most of these foreign fighters are now dead. And he’s working to organize demining initiatives and ensure the streets are safe for people to return and enable the people of Tabqa — the local people of Tabqa to restore their community,” McGurk said, adding Raqqa “will be no different.”

More than 60 countries have been contributing to an INTERPOL database information about citizens known to have fought for ISIS. McGurk said the list is up to 14,000 names “and continues to grow.”

Defense Secretary James Mattis said the U.S. is going to focus on killing remaining foreign fighters in the Islamic State. “Because the foreign fighters are the strategic threat should they return home to Tunis, to Kuala Lumpur, to Paris, to Detroit, wherever. Those foreign fighters are a threat,” he said. “So by taking the time to deconflict, to surround and then attack, we carry out the annihilation campaign so we don’t simply transplant this problem from one location to another.”

“I’ll leave that to the generals who know how to do those kind of things. We don’t direct that from here,” he added. “They know our intent is the foreign fighters do not get out, I leave it to their skill, their cunning, to carry that out.”

The other policy change going into effect after defense officials presented recommendations to President Trump, Mattis said, is the president “delegated authority to the right level to aggressively and in a timely manner move against enemy vulnerabilities.” CONTINUE AT SITE

Continue reading →
FOREIGN POLICY, ISRAEL Comments turned off

U.S. Embassy Relocation Law does not recognize Jerusalem as part of Israel by David Bedein –

By on May 20th, 2017

There is a fundamental misunderstanding, which is that if the US recognizes Jerusalem as capital of Israel, that would mean that the US recognizes Jerusalem as part of Israel.

However, the US embassy relocation legislation does not negate the status of Jerusalem’s status as a Corpus Separatum (Latin for “separated body”) as a term used to describe Jerusalem area in the 1947 United Nations Partition Plan for Palestine. According to that plan, still supported by the US, the city would be placed under international rule as part of any final resolution of the Middle East state of affairs..

As a journalist, I covered events in the US capitol when Congress passed the US embassy Jerusalem relocation bill in October 1995, also known as the “Jerusalem Embassy and Recognition Act”.

There were expectations at the time that the embassy move would mean hat the US would renounce its position, adopted in 1948, that Jerusalem was not to be recognized as a part of Israel and that Jerusalem must be an international zone.

However, the final version of the Jerusalem Embassy and Recognition Act removed all explicit references to Jerusalem as “part of Israel” , without mention that Jerusalem would remain the exclusive capital of Israel.

The late Faisal Husseini , who then headed the PLO Jerusalem committee, was present in Washington at the time , as was Yossi Beilin, then deputy foreign minister of Israel –

Both Husseini and Beilin endorsed the wording of Jerusalem Embassy and Recognition Act in 1995, as it was passed into law, which , as enacted, stated:

(1) Jerusalem should remain an undivided city in which the rights of every ethnic and religious group are protected.

(2) Jerusalem should be recognized as the capital of Israel.

Continue reading →
FOREIGN POLICY, ISRAEL Comments turned off

McMaster’s Western Wall evasion :Ruthie Blum

By on May 19th, 2017

In a press briefing at the White House on Tuesday — ahead of U.S. President Donald Trump’s trip to Saudi Arabia, Israel and Europe — National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster stammered when asked by a journalist if his boss believes that the Western Wall in Jerusalem is “part of Israel.”

“Part of what? I’m sorry,” McMaster replied, leaning forward, as if he had not heard the question. He did, however, answer the first half of the query: about whether Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will be accompanying Trump on his visit to the Jewish holy site in the Israeli capital.

“No … I don’t … no Israel leaders will join President Trump to the Western Wall. He’s going to the Western Wall mainly in connection with the theme to connect with three of the world’s great religions. And to advance, to pay homage to these religious sites that he’s visiting, but also to highlight the theme that we all have to be united against what are really the enemies of all civilized people. And that we have to be joined together in a … in a … with an agenda of, of tolerance and moderation.”

This was his first evasion. His second came a few minutes later, when a different reporter pressed him to answer the original question about whether the U.S. administration considers the Western Wall part of Israel.

“Oh, that sounds like a policy decision, for, for … and you know, uh,” he said, laughing uncomfortably. “And that’s the president’s intention. … The president’s intention is to visit these sites to highlight the need for unity amongst three of the world’s great religions.”

McMaster’s refusal to state that the Western Wall is Israeli was highly significant, as it came in the wake of a scandal surrounding the issue. A day earlier, two officials from the U.S. Consulate in Jerusalem — later named as Obama administration leftovers David Berns and Jonathan Shrier — snapped at the Israeli team assisting in the preparations for Trump’s visit for asking about the possibility of Netanyahu and/or local film crews accompanying the president to the holy site, saying: “It’s none of your business. It’s not even part of your responsibility. It’s not your territory. It’s part of the West Bank.”

The outcry from Netanyahu’s office was quick to follow, as was a swift denial from the White House. “The comments about the Western Wall were not authorized communication and they do not represent the position of the United States and certainly not of the president,” a senior administration official told The Times of Israel.

Continue reading →
FOREIGN POLICY, ISRAEL Comments turned off

Secretary Tillerson’s political correctness Ambassador (Ret.) Yoram Ettinger

By on May 19th, 2017

While the election of President Trump represented a setback to political-correctness, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson’s interview on May 14, 2017 NBC’s Meet the Press reflected the State Department’s political correctness on US-Israel and US-Arab relations, the Palestinian issue and the relocation of the US Embassy to Jerusalem.

The interview may have sent a message of US procrastination on the relocation of the US Embassy to Jerusalem, the ancient core of Judaism and Jewish history, which inspired the early US Pilgrims and Founding Fathers. Procrastination would be interpreted by Arabs as US retreat in the face of Arab pressure and threats, eroding the US posture of deterrence, triggering further pressure and emboldening anti-US Islamic terrorism.

Secretary Tillerson embraced the State Department’s zero-sum-game philosophy. He assumes that enhanced US-Israel relations undermine US-Arab relations. However, since 1948, and especially in recent years, US-Israel geo-strategic cooperation has surged dramatically, simultaneously with expanded US-Arab security cooperation, and unprecedented counter-terrorism cooperation between Israel and Saudi Arabia, the Gulf States, Jordan and Egypt, despite the lack of progress on the Palestinian front.

Contrary to conventional Western wisdom, the pro-US Arab regimes distinguish between challenges which are primary (e.g., the Iranian threat) and secondary/tertiary (e.g., the Palestinian issue). Therefore, when the machetes of Iran’s Ayatollahs and other Islamic terrorists are at their throats, the pro-US Arab regimes recognize that Israel is the only reliable “life insurance agent” in the Middle East, regardless of the Palestinian issue.

Secretary Tillerson insinuated that the relocation of the US Embassy to western Jerusalem – which is within the boundaries of pre-1967 Israel – could undermine the peace process between Israel and the Palestinians. Thus, he provided tailwind to the 69-year-old Department of State’s view – which contradicts the position of the American people and their representatives in the House and Senate – that there is no legitimacy to Israel’s sovereignty over any part of Jerusalem. It radicalizes the Arabs, forcing them to outflank the US from the maximalist side, deluding themselves that they have nothing to lose and time is, supposedly, on their side.

Continue reading →
FOREIGN POLICY, ISRAEL, WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

How to Solve the Palestinian Problem …and bring peace to the Middle East. Daniel Greenfield

By on May 19th, 2017

In 1990, there were half as many Palestinians as Kuwaitis in Kuwait. Two years later there were almost none.

With the support of the international community, some 700,000 Kuwaitis expelled hundreds of thousands of Palestinians from their country. If they had not done it, basic arithmetic shows that the Palestinians would have outnumbered Kuwaitis in Kuwait in a generation.

The Palestinians of Kuwait were kidnapped, tortured and killed. “Kill a Palestinian and Go to Heaven,” became the slogan. When Kuwait was “liberated”, tanks and armored vehicles were sent into the Hawally suburb of Kuwait City known as Little Palestine. Half the buildings were knocked down by bulldozers. Some detained Palestinians were buried in mass graves. The vast majority, including those who had been born in Kuwait, were deported or forced to flee a land they had lived in for a generation.

The violent ethnic cleansing of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians went mostly unremarked. While the Kuwaitis were ethnically cleansing their Palestinians, they continued to fund Palestinian terror against Israel and condemn Israel for violating the human rights of those they were deporting.

And the world shrugged.

President George H.W. Bush defended Kuwait’s actions. “I think we’re expecting a little much if we’re asking the people in Kuwait to take kindly to those that had spied on their countrymen that were left there,” he said. This was in the same press conference in which he condemned Israeli “settlements.”

A year later, Israel expelled 400 Hamas members. Every human rights organization was outraged. The State Department “strongly” condemned Israel. And Israel was forced to take them back.

The Kuwaiti Nakba isn’t much remembered. There are no rallies full of old women clutching house keys to lost homes in Hawally. They had made a bad bet by backing Saddam Hussein. And paid the price for it.

Kuwait refused to allow Palestinian Authority leader Abbas to visit until he apologized for supporting Saddam. And apologize he did. “Yes, we apologize for what we have done,” the terror boss whined.

The PLO has yet to apologize to Israel for the Muslim settler role in the attempted 1948 genocide of the indigenous Jewish population and the thousands who were maimed and murdered by its terrorists.

Continue reading →
FOREIGN POLICY, ISRAEL Comments turned off

Behind the Scenes of the Trump Administration’s Tug-of-war Over the Israel Embassy Move by Barak Ravid and Amir Tibon

By on May 19th, 2017

Keep the embassy in Tel Aviv or move it to Jerusalem? The issue has turned into a fierce struggle between Trump’s advisers and his top cabinet members. He has until June 1 to decide.

A large whiteboard hangs in the office of Steve Bannon, U.S. President Donald Trump’s strategic advisor. In closely packed lines of black marker, it lists Trump’s campaign promises – a kind of to-do list. One of the first goals in the foreign affairs and defense category is moving the U.S. Embassy in Israel to Jerusalem.

Two competing groups of senior Trump administration officials have been waging war over this issue for over four months, beginning during the transition period before Trump took office. On one side are some of his closest senior political advisors and appointments; on the other are leading cabinet ministers and most of the professional civil servants.

A senior Israeli official who heard from one of Trump’s advisors said that before Trump’s January 20 inauguration, there was a fierce argument over whether a pledge to move the embassy should be included in his inaugural address. The Prime Minister’s Office awaited the speech with a mix of anticipation and trepidation, but discovered that the opponents won out, and the embassy move was dropped from the speech.

The battle is expected to continue even after Trump’s visit to the Middle East, right up until June 1 – the date on which the presidential waiver signed by former U.S. President Barack Obama six months ago, which froze the embassy’s move to Jerusalem, will expire.

According to several people familiar with the administration’s internal debates – both in Israel and America, all of whom asked to remain anonymous – the group urging Trump to refuse to sign the waiver and finally move the embassy is headed by Bannon himself. A number of these sources told Haaretz that Bannon doesn’t see the embassy move as a promise by Trump to Israel, but as a promise to the president’s right-wing nationalist base that put him in the White House.

“He understands that many of the president’s voters want to see this promise kept,” said a former senior U.S. official who is in touch with the current administration.

Another dominant figure in the group pushing for the embassy move is new U.S. Ambassador to Israel David Friedman. During the campaign, it was Friedman who, in interviews with both the American and the Israeli media, repeatedly stressed Trump’s promise to move the embassy. Last December, when Trump appointed him as ambassador, he said he would work to strengthen ties between America and Israel, “and look forward to doing this from the U.S. embassy in Israel’s eternal capital, Jerusalem.”

Ever since Trump took office on January 20, Friedman has been pushing the president to keep his promise. In an interview with the daily Israel Hayom this week, Freidman said he gave the president his personal opinion on the matter. But two administration officials said Friedman did much more than that. “Friedman is working on the embassy issue all the time,” one said.

Friedman, who submitted his credentials to Israeli President Reuven Rivlin this week, immediately began preparing senior Israeli officials for the possibility that his efforts will fail and Trump will decide not to move the embassy at this stage. “Even if it doesn’t happen now, it will happen later,” he told one of his Israeli interlocutors. “Don’t press. Give us time.”

Continue reading →
FOREIGN POLICY Comments turned off

Trump’s Goes to Saudi Arabia and Jerusalem By Rachel Ehrenfeld

By on May 19th, 2017

On his way to Riyadh, President Trump should watch Noam Chomsky’s TV interview on May 17, talking about Saudi Arabia. Chomsky’s observation of the Desert Kingdom might help remind the President who the Saudis really are. “Saudi Arabia is the center of radical Islamic extremism” Chomsky stated. “The spread of Saudi extremist Wahhabi doctrine over the Sunni world is one of the real disasters of the modern era. It’s a source of not only funding for extremist radical Islam and the jihadi outgrowths of it, but also, doctrinally, mosques, clerics, schools, madrassas (where you study just Qur’an), is spreading all over the huge Sunni areas from Saudi influence,” he added.

Trump, however, is not going to Saudi Arabia to pick a fight. His advisors explained that the President’s goal is tp show his support to the Sunni Muslim world.

According to National Security Advisor H.R. McMaster, the President’s speech at the opening ceremony of yet another Saudi center “for fighting radicalism and promoting moderation,” would incredibly focus on “a peaceful vision of Islam to dominate across the world.” (added emphasis).

We will have to wait until the President deliver his speech. But based on what McMaster’s briefing, Trump’s speech is likely to echo President Obama’s speech on June 4, 2009, in Cairo, in which he falsely attributed “tolerance and racial equality” to Islam, and whitewashed Islamic terrorism, claiming: “Islam is not part of the problem in combating violent extremism – it is an important part of promoting peace.” While the leaders of some 50 countries with a Muslim majority would no doubt be delighted, this is strange coming from a U.S. General who spent years leading the battle against violent Sunni and Shia Muslim extremists in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The Trump administration’s effort to help a Sunni coalition against ISIS and Iran is important, because “We all have the same enemy and we all want the same thing.”Is there no one in the administration to remember and remind Trump what happened when the U.S. helped the Sunni Taliban to defeat the former Soviet Union? Al Qaeda happened.

Continue reading →