The Trump administration secured a key victory yesterday at the hostile United Nations, as Holocaust-denying, kleptocratic, jihad-subsidizing Palestinian Authority (PA) chieftain Mahmoud Abbas failed to rally sufficient support to merely force a U.N. Security Council vote on a Palestinian draft resolution that would have rejected the Trump administration&#8217;s recently unveiled <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/trumps-deal-of-the-century-for-israel-palestinians-a-realistic-plan-with-arab-states-backing-it">&#8220;deal of the century&#8221; peace plan</a>.
The Security Council vote assuredly would have been vetoed by the United States, a permanent member, but the failure to even successfully garner support to stage a symbolic vote represents a monumental embarrassment for Abbas, the PA successor to unrepentant terrorist Yasser Arafat — himself a mentee of <a href="https://www.timesofisrael.com/full-official-record-what-the-mufti-said-to-hitler/">Hitler ally Haj Amin al-Husseini</a>, the former grand mufti of Jerusalem. The diplomatic effort to stymie the symbolic vote, halting it dead in its tracks, thus also represents a clear win for the Trump administration&#8217;s United Nations diplomatic team. The United Nations, of course, is a body <a href="https://unwatch.org/2019-un-general-assembly-resolutions-singling-out-israel-texts-votes-analysis/">infamously hostile to the Jewish state</a> and infamously <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/pro-palestinian-frauds-unrwa-called-out-lying-josh-hammer">mollycoddling of the Palestinian-Arab cause</a>.
Abbas is speaking today at a special meeting of the U.N. Security Council. He had initially hoped to stage a Security Council vote on the &#8220;deal of the century&#8221; to follow his speech.
&#8220;This is a significant setback for Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas,&#8221; Barak Ravid <a href="https://www.axios.com/palestinian-mahmoud-abbas-security-council-vote-81c12553-d692-4a77-a122-10dd7cc141ff.html">opined</a> yesterday for Axios. &#8220;The postponement follows efforts from Jared Kushner and other administration officials over the last few days to dilute the text of the resolution and prevent a vote.&#8221;
&#8220;U.S., Israeli, and Palestinian officials say the text had to be softened because several Security Council members wanted to avoid a confrontation with the U.S.,&#8221; Ravid continued. &#8220;Several sentences that referred directly to the Trump plan were removed.&#8221;
According to Ravid, PA officials still hope to bring the condemnatory resolution up for a Security Council vote later this week.
&#8220;There was immediate speculation that the delay was a backhanded way of pulling the resolution because it lacked the requisite support of nine members for passage,&#8221; The Jerusalem Post <a href="https://www.jpost.com/International/US-suggests-amendments-for-UNSC-resolution-on-Trump-peace-plan-617115">reported</a>. &#8220;Otherwise, it would have been considered that the resolution had failed. The delay comes amid U.S. pressure to soften the language of the resolution towards the U.S. and Israel. A U.S. source with direct knowledge of the negotiations between the members of the Security Council told the Post earlier on Monday that if the resolution would get a vote, a number of countries are expected to abstain.&#8221;
&#8220;The softening of the language comes after U.S. special envoy Jared Kushner’s briefing with [Security Council] members last Thursday,&#8221; the Post continued. &#8220;Kushner was accompanied by Trump&#8217;s assistant and special envoy for international negotiations Avi Berkowitz, and U.S. envoy Brian Hook. The source added that &#8216;there are numerous countries who are considering abstaining&#8217; if the wording is not changed.&#8221;
The U.S. has historically often used its permanent seat the Security Council to veto anti-Israel measures — a trend <a href="https://www.timesofisrael.com/choosing-not-to-veto-obama-lets-anti-settlement-resolution-pass-at-un-security-council/">notably bucked in December 2016 by the outgoing anti-Israel Obama administration</a>, with respect to U.N. Security Council Resolution 2234.
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RELATED: <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/hammer-at-pairagraph-trumps-israel-palestinian-peace-plan-is-fair-and-just-part-1">Hammer At ‘Pairagraph’: Trump’s Israel-Palestinian Peace Plan Is Fair And Just (Part 1)</a>
RELATED: <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/hammer-at-pairagraph-trumps-israel-palestinian-peace-plan-is-fair-and-just-part-2">Hammer At ‘Pairagraph’: Trump’s Israel-Palestinian Peace Plan Is Fair And Just (Part 2)</a>

United Nations Building

Abbas Embarrassed: Trump Admin Secures Key Victory At Hostile United Nations

Benjamin Netanyahu

Foreign Policy

Israel

Jared Kushner

Mahmoud Abbas

Middle East

Palestinians

Trump Administration

United Nations

After a raucous campaign rally in New Hampshire, President Trump on Monday took an unannounced trip to Dover Air Force Base to take part in a somber “dignified transfer ceremony” for two 28-year-old soldiers killed in Afghanistan.
After a brief prayer inside a C-17 transport plane, the president and Vice President Mike Pence stood at attention in a light rain as two U.S. flag-draped transfer cases were carried down the plane&#8217;s ramp by six members of the military wearing white gloves. The cases contained the remains of Sgt. 1st Class Antonio R. Rodriguez, of Las Cruces, New Mexico, and Sgt. 1st Class Javier J. Gutierrez, of San Antonio, Texas, who both died Saturday in a firefight in Nangarhar Province.
Also attending the ceremony were people traveling with the president, including daughter Ivanka Trump and her husband Jared Kushner, National Security Adviser Robert O’Brien, Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy and Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz.
“These were fallen heroes and we were close by and the president wrapped his rally early so he could come,” O&#8217;Brien told the press on board Air Force One.
Also in attendance were James C. McConville, Chief of Staff of the Army, SGM Michael Grinston, Sergeant Major of the Army, Maj. Gen. John Brennan, commander of 1st Special Forces Command, CSM Tomas Sandoval, Command Sergeant Major, 1st Special Forces Command, and Col. Matthew Jones, 436th Airlift Wing Commander, among others.
The scene was emotional. Eli Stokols, a reporter for the Los Angeles Times, was in the media pool for the event and filed this in a report to other journalists:
<blockquote>At 11:03 in a light rain, the marshaler directed the vehicle with the family members of both transfers onto the tarmac and it pulled to a stop. One family member broke away toward the C-17 carrying the two transfers and was wailing as other family members and a soldier gathered her on the bottom of the rear ramp.
A few moments later once the family members were beneath a canopy, the Army carry team emerged from our right and walked behind the transfer vehicle up the ramp into the rear of the C-17 aircraft. VPOTUS and POTUS followed.
After a prayer inside the aircraft out of our view, VPOTUS and POTUS walked out and stood at attention. When the carry team brought the first flag-draped transfer, SFC Javier J. Gutierrez, down to the tarmac, they saluted as the six white gloved members of the carry team walked past with the flag-draped remains and loaded it into the waiting vehicle.
Then, the same carry team did an about face and walked back up into the C-17. After another short prayer, they came out carrying the second flag-draped transfer, SFC Antonio R. Rodriguez, again passing VPOTUS and POTUS, who stood at attention, both saluting with their right hands.
When both transfers were loaded, the back doors of the vehicle were closed and the van drove away. As the carry team and official party walked past the family, POTUS gave a low thumbs up, pumping his right fist below his waist as they walked out of view at 11:31.</blockquote>
The White House said it was the first time since 2009 that the president and vice president have attended a dignified transfer together.
O’Brien also said dignified transfer ceremonies and Trump&#8217;s visits to wounded veterans at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Maryland are the “toughest” duty of being president.
After the ceremony, Trump wrote on Twitter: &#8220;Just returned to White House from Dover. Very sad!&#8221;

US-AFGHANISTAN-CONFLICT-TRUMP

Trump Flies Unannounced To Dover AFB After N.H. Rally To Pay Respects To Two Soldiers Killed In Afghanistan

Afghanistan

Donald Trump

Ivanka Trump

U.S. Air Force

U.S. Army

After the unveiling of President Donald Trump’s proposed peace plan in the Middle East, numerous Senate Democrats took time out of their busy schedule to lecture him about Middle East politics. <a href="https://www.vanhollen.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/Van%20Hollen%20Letter%20MidEast%20Peace%20Plan.pdf">The letter they wrote</a> is historically ignorant and dangerous, which is compounded by the fact that it was signed by three leading current presidential candidates; Bernie Sanders (I-VT), Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), and Amy Klobuchar (D-MN).
“Dear President Trump,” the letter begins, “We write to express our profound concern regarding your decision to release a one-sided Israeli-Palestinian plan forged without any Palestinian involvement or support.”
Right off the bat, Senate Democrats ignore the fact that the Palestinians have been invited to the negotiations on numerous occasions. The most prominent one was June 2019, when there was a U.S.-led peace conference in Bahrain that was boycotted by the Palestinians. They thought that a boycott would stop the conference, but Jared Kushner, the point-man for the Trump administration in this process, pushed forward.
Trump&#8217;s peace plan would ultimately give the Palestinians a state, as well as funds to help get that state up and running. The 1947 U.N. partition plan, which the Arab world outright rejected in choosing instead to declare all-out war on the nascent Jewish state, did not include $50 billion. In fact, the world mostly stood by and watched while the Jewish state was attacked from every direction.
Senate Democrats&#8217; letter espouses significant falsehoods, claiming that this plan “paves the way for full or partial Israeli annexation of the West Bank.” But there has never been much support for a call to fully annex Judea and Samaria, as that would include giving citizenship to millions of Palestinian-Arabs — many of whom call for the destruction of the state of Israel.
Senate Democrats also, un-ironically, claim that this plan “undermine[s] existing U.S. policy regarding the unilateral annexation of Crimea, eastern Ukraine.” In case the Democrats forgot, Russia invaded Crimea when the Obama administration withheld crucial military aid to the Ukranians. That was not a defensive war; it was an attack by Russia. Comparing that act with Israel winning territory in the 1967 Six-Day War, which was a defensive war, is patently insane. Additionally, Russia immediately annexed Crimea, whereas Israel limited its annexation to the city of Jerusalem — the eternal capital of the <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/hill-the-jewish-nation">Jewish nation</a>. Contrast that to 1948, when Jordan took over that same territory, annexed it, and left the Palestinian people in refugee camps to linger and suffer until Israel militarily defeated Jordan in 1967&#8217;s defensive conflict.
Senate Democrats also conveniently ignore the last 73 years of history when they claim that “this proposal violates the Palestinians’ right to self-determination.” The Palestinians could have asserted their right to self-determination any time from 1947 through today. They can declare a state and nobody will mind. In fact, many Israelis would welcome it. In 2000, then-Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak offered to Yasser Arafat the Gaza Strip, 95% of the West Bank, 5% of Israel, half of Jerusalem (including the Temple Mount), and Israeli citizenship for 50,000 Palestinians. Arafat walked away without a counteroffer and instead <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/hammer-vox-lies-about-israel-again">launched the Second Intifada</a>. Democrats ignore that the Palestinians could have exercised their “right to self-determination.” Instead, they are choosing to stay as they are.
The Democrats complain about the proposed borders, referring to it as a “disconnected series of Palestinian islets.&#8221; They claim that this “would betray the vision of a sovereign Palestinian state.” Again, Palestinians could have had a say in this process. They chose not to. Additionally, the only “vision” that the Palestinians have of a Palestinian state is one that encompasses all of Israel and does not include any Jews.
The Democrats then have the audacity to accuse President Trump of interfering in the upcoming Israeli election, claiming that the timing “raises disturbing questions about [Trump&#8217;s] intention to intervene in the Israeli election process.” This accusation is audacious for multiple reasons. First, the Democratic Party at-large is currently in the middle of an impeachment of President Trump that <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/democrat-impeachment-manager-admits-that-impeachment-is-about-2020-election">Democrats themselves claim</a> is intended to prevent him from winning re-election. Second, this is the third Israeli election in the last year, so this wouldn’t affect much of anything. Third, Benny Gantz, Netanyahu’s chief political rival, endorsed this plan and <a href="https://www.timesofisrael.com/gantz-says-hell-bring-trump-peace-plan-before-knesset-for-vote-next-week/">is bringing it up for a parliamentary vote</a>. Finally, it is ironic that Senate Democrats are accusing Trump of interfering with Israeli elections when <a href="https://thehill.com/policy/international/236565-netanyahu-pollster-obama-role-in-election-larger-than-reported">Obama did that</a> in 2015 — and nobody cared.
Democrats continue their letter with their old and tiresome “President Trump isn’t a normal president” routine. “Your administration has already reversed decades of bipartisan U.S. policy on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict,” it reads. “Previous presidents of both parties successfully maintained the respect of both Israelis and Palestinians for the United States’ role as a credible player in difficult negotiations.” But policies that haven’t worked for 50 years should be changed. Democrats think that if they try the same thing over and over — that &#8220;thing&#8221; being caving to terrorists — there will be different results. That is the definition of insanity. Trump’s only change from the standard “two-state solution” is that it recognizes the fact that Israel is the only actor that actually wants peace.
The Democrats are making the same mistakes with the Palestinians that they did with the Iranians: The assumption that everyone wants the same thing. They do not. Palestinian leadership wants to destroy Israel. Democrats either don’t know that, or simply don’t care.
 
Moshe Hill is a political analyst and a Chovevei Zion Fellow. His work can be found on <a href="https://www.ahillwithaview.com">aHillwithaView.com</a>, <a href="https://facebook.com/aHillwithaView">facebook.com/aHillwithaView</a>, and on Twitter <a href="https://twitter.com/TheMoHill">@TheMoHill</a>.

President Trump Meets With Israeli PM Netanyahu At The White House

HILL: Senate Democrats’ Response To Trump’s Peace Plan Is Historically Ignorant

Amy Klobuchar

Bernie Sanders

Democratic Party

Elizabeth Warren

On Thursday night, supermodel Karlie Kloss responded to jabs made at her expense due to her relation to the Kushners.
Kloss is married to Joshua Kushner, who is the brother of Jared Kushner, prominent White House advisor and husband to eldest Trump daughter Ivanka Trump.
Joining Bravo host Andy Cohen on &#8220;Watch What Happens Live,&#8221; Kloss was asked about an apparent jab &#8220;Project Runway&#8221; contestant Tyler Neasloney made earlier this month about the supermodel&#8217;s familial connection to the Kushners. After he designed a widely panned dress, Neasloney suggested Kloss could wear it to a &#8220;dinner with the Kushners.&#8221;
The remark elicited a meme-able stunned look from Kloss, as well as gasps from fellow contestants.
Neasloney, who was sent home, later apologized for the comment. “I want you to know that I’m not a jerk; I’m professional,” he told Kloss. “What I said earlier had no hidden agenda, no meaning, no nothing like that.”
WATCH:
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“I cannot see Karlie wearing it anywhere, honestly.”
“Not even to dinner with the Kushners?”<a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/ProjectRunway?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#ProjectRunway</a> <a href="https://t.co/O9qJbrC2ZN">pic.twitter.com/O9qJbrC2ZN</a>
&mdash; Ξvan Ross Katz (@evanrosskatz) <a href="https://twitter.com/evanrosskatz/status/1213090381665095680?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 3, 2020</a></blockquote>
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“I was honored to be one of the first memes of the decade. But honestly, the real tragedy of this whole thing is that no one is talking about how terrible that dress was. That’s why he went home,&#8221; the supermodel brushed off the controversy to Cohen, according to <a href="https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2020/01/karlie-kloss-dinner-with-the-kushners">Vanity Fair</a>. &#8220;No, I would not wear that dress to any dinner,&#8221; she added.
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However, Kloss was unable to skirt the political issue, as Cohen pressed about an inside look into her politics.
“Andy, I’m sure I’m not the only person in this country who does not necessarily agree with their family on politics,&#8221; Kloss responded. &#8220;I voted as a Democrat in 2016, and I plan to do the same in 2020.&#8221;
“It was 2012 [when we met], it was a different world,” she later added, referring to meeting her now-husband. “My man and I have been through a lot together. I’m so proud that he’s my partner. It’s not been easy, but it’s worth it. I would make that same decision a million times again.”
As noted by Vanity Fair, the supermodel opened up to British Vogue last year about the political mix within the Kushner family.
&#8220;I choose to focus on the values that I share with my husband, and those are the same liberal values that I was raised with and that have guided me throughout my life,” the 27-year-old said.
Kloss, an open liberal, has promoted abortion facility Planned Parenthood in the past. In response to passed pro-life legislation in 2019, for example, the model took to Instagram to ask her fans to support to the abortion mill.
“I want to talk to you about what’s happening in my beloved home state of Missouri and around the country,&#8221; Kloss said, according to <a href="https://www.democracynow.org/2019/6/11/headlines/model_karlie_kloss_asks_fans_to_support_planned_parenthood_in_abortion_ban_fight">Democracy Now</a>. &#8220;We are in an urgent public health crisis. And for the first time since Roe v. Wade, more than 1.1 million women of reproductive age in Missouri could be left without access to a single health center in their state that provides safe abortion care. Across the country, these bans are attacking our rights to own our decisions that affect our bodies and our health.”
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WATCH:
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On tonight&#39;s <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/WWHL?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#WWHL</a>, supermodel <a href="https://twitter.com/karliekloss?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@KarlieKloss</a> addressed the viral Kushner moment from this season of <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/ProjectRunway?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#ProjectRunway</a> <a href="https://t.co/Ud0pFdNxgd">pic.twitter.com/Ud0pFdNxgd</a>
&mdash; WWHL (@BravoWWHL) <a href="https://twitter.com/BravoWWHL/status/1218017600136978432?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 17, 2020</a></blockquote>
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Karlie Kloss

Supermodel And Ivanka Sister-In-Law Karlie Kloss Responds To Political Jabs

Senior White House Adviser Jared Kushner has endured significant criticism from the media, Democrats, and from factions of the political Right for his presence in the Trump administration. However, many of the criticisms that Kushner has faced fall apart upon a close examination of facts and reality.
The biggest criticism that Kushner has faced from factions of the political Right during his time in the Trump administration is that he is too liberal. Many of the criticisms that he is too liberal are based off the fact that Kushner tries to work with as many parties as possible when working to solve an issue, as maximum cooperation is the easiest way to achieve success.
Those who claim that Kushner is too liberal often overlook many of the victories that he has secured for Trump which often fall directly in line with causes that conservatives champion. Those victories include:
<ul>
<li>Kushner played a decisive role in Trump&#8217;s 2016 victory: Trump, who has <a href="https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2018/feb/28/trump-faster-reagan-accomplishing-conservative-age/">proven</a> to be much more conservative than beloved former Republican President Ronald Reagan, won in 2016 thanks in large part to Kushner. Forbes <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/stevenbertoni/2016/11/22/exclusive-interview-how-jared-kushner-won-trump-the-white-house/#65bec9c73af6">reported</a> in 2016 that Kushner&#8217;s role in running the Trump campaign&#8217;s data operation &#8220;eventually tipped the states that swung the election.&#8221;</li>
<li>Kushner is among the biggest pro-Israel advocates in the White House: Any notion that Kushner is liberal is quickly dispelled by the pro-Israel agenda that he has advocated for in the White House. Kushner&#8217;s pro-Israel advocacy comes at a time when far-left extremists have <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/ocasio-cortez-omar-tlaib-take-democrats-anti-ryan-saavedra">normalized</a> anti-Semitism into the Democratic Party. The New York Times <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/11/us/politics/jared-kushner-israel.html">reported</a> that Kushner&#8217;s advocacy for pro-Israel policy positions stems in part from his family surviving the Holocaust and Nazi persecution. Growing up, Kushner learned about how his family had been persecuted by Nazis and thus learned that protecting Israel was essential to the survival of the Jewish people. The Times notes that Kusher has played a key role in shaping Trump&#8217;s policy agenda with regard to Israel. Kushner also played a <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/11/opinion/jared-kushner-trump-anti-semitism.html">key role</a> in Trump&#8217;s recent executive order that protects Jewish students from anti-Semitism.</li>
<li>Kushner has been tasked with securing Trump&#8217;s biggest campaign promise: The construction of the border wall: Securing the Southern border and building a border wall to stop the massive flow of illegal aliens into the United States was Trump&#8217;s biggest promise during 2016. However, Trump&#8217;s promise has been stalled due to large partisan opposition and Democrat-appointed far-left activist judges who have issued numerous injunctions and rulings in effort to stop the administration. Trump has since turned to Kushner and <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/jared-kushners-new-assignment-overseeing-the-construction-of-trumps-border-wall/2019/11/25/b175cad4-0d63-11ea-a49f-9066f51640f6_story.html">instructed</a> his son-in-law to make sure that it gets done.</li>
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Another criticism that Kushner has faced is that he does not possess enough relevant work experience to hold the position that he currently holds in the White House. However, Kushner&#8217;s business experience in real estate has helped him to secure trade deals that were central to the Trump administration, including:
<ul>
<li>Kushner was a key player in securing the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA): U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-trade-nafta-kushner-insight/how-trumps-son-in-law-helped-salvage-the-north-american-trade-zone-idUSKCN1MC04M">told</a> reporters in October 2018: “I’ve said before, and I’ll say again, this agreement would not have happened if it wasn’t for Jared.”</li>
<li>Kushner is a key player in securing new trade deals with China: After seeing how Kushner was successful in securing USMCA, Trump <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trade-china-kushner/jared-kushner-trumps-son-in-law-takes-bigger-role-in-china-trade-talks-idUSKBN1Y80IA">instructed</a> him to work on getting a new trade deal secured with China, which Kushner was <a href="https://www.foxbusiness.com/markets/trump-us-china-phase-one-trade-deal-signing-january">successful</a> in achieving.</li>
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A third criticism that Kushner has faced is kind of combination of the first two criticisms. Kushner has had to deal with critics who have claimed that he does not have the political experience necessary to navigate the partisan nature of Washington, D.C., and does not understand what the Republican Party needs because he was supposedly too liberal. Again, Kushner&#8217;s track record silences his critics:
<ul>
<li>Kushner was a key player in securing Trump&#8217;s victory in 2016: As previously mentioned in this report, Kushner played a key role in Trump winning in 2016. Forbes reported in 2016: &#8220;A year ago he had zero experience in politics and about as much interest in it. Suddenly he sits at its global center. &#8230; No resources at the beginning, perhaps. Underfunded throughout, for sure. But by running the Trump campaign&#8211;notably, its secret data operation&#8211;like a Silicon Valley startup, Kushner eventually tipped the states that swung the election. And he did so in manner that will change the way future elections will be won and lost.&#8221;</li>
<li>Kushner worked with Democrats and Republicans to secure criminal justice reform, which expanded the tent of the Republican Party: The New York Times reported that Kushner was the &#8220;administration’s driving force behind the bill.&#8221; The bill&#8217;s passage has increased Trump&#8217;s approval rating among the black community, which is a key demographic for the Democrat Party. Recent polling from Emerson and Rasmussen Reports <a href="https://www.theepochtimes.com/trump-approval-among-blacks-above-34-percent-emerson-polls-shows_3155737.html">shows</a> that Trump&#8217;s approval rating sits at 34%, which is up significantly from the 8% of black voters who <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/election-us-2016-37922587">voted</a> for Trump over Hillary Clinton in 2016.</li>
<li>Kusher was deemed as such an asset to the Trump campaign in 2016 that he was asked to help Trump&#8217;s re-election campaign in 2020: The Washington Post <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/adviser-son-in-law-and-de-facto-campaign-manager-how-kushner-is-trying-to-help-trump-win-in-2020/2019/07/26/6e8d6dd4-a1ad-11e9-bd56-eac6bb02d01d_story.html">reported</a> last year that Kushner was Trump&#8217;s &#8220;hidden campaign hand&#8221; and that when campaign manager Brad Parscale wanted to talk fundraising strategy for the campaign that the first person he went to was Kushner. In his unofficial advisory role to the campaign, Kushner has instructed senior political advisers to the campaign to provide to him a 10-year plan for how Republicans can win over inner city voters, which demonstrates his keen political foresight in understanding where the GOP needs focus its energy to dominate the political landscape for future generations.</li>
</ul>
The other area that Kushner has dealt with criticism is in negative press over things he advised Trump on, which he was criticized over at the time but later turned out to be right on the issue.
By far the biggest criticism that Kushner has had to deal with was his support of Trump&#8217;s decision to fire former FBI Director James Comey, which eventually led to the appointment of Special Counsel Robert Mueller.
While the decision was controversial at the time, in hindsight it was the correct move as Comey has since been found to have been an utter disgrace to the FBI with his leadership and for allowing his agency to engage in criminal conduct against Trump through its doctoring of evidence in the FISA process.
Wall Street Journal columnist Kimberley Strassel summarized Comey&#8217;s time at the FBI by highlighting just a few of the damaging things that had been revealed about him, including the fact that he was &#8220;fired for cause; found guilty of &#8216;insubordinate&#8217; acts (IG on Clinton case); found guilty of &#8216;dangerous&#8217; behavior (IG on memo leak); in charge of an FBI that deceived the FISA court.&#8221;
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Let&#39;s hope upcoming <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/FoxNews?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#FoxNews</a> interview w/ <a href="https://twitter.com/Comey?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@comey</a> proceeds from reality that he was: fired for cause; found guilty of &quot;insubordinate&quot; acts (IG on Clinton case); found guilty of &quot;dangerous&quot; behavior (IG on memo leak); in charge of an FBI that deceived the FISA court.
&mdash; Kimberley Strassel (@KimStrassel) <a href="https://twitter.com/KimStrassel/status/1205160001318223872?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">December 12, 2019</a></blockquote>
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Strassel&#8217;s tweet preempted Comey&#8217;s recent interview on Fox News where anchor Chris Wallace <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/chris-wallace-shreds-disgraced-former-fbi-director-james-comey-in-devastating-interview?itm_source=parsely-api">sliced and diced</a> him on national television.
Kushner&#8217;s successes for the administration, while often ignored by the media, have been noticed by all the right people in Trump world.
One of Kushner&#8217;s biggest defenders is the president&#8217;s eldest son, Donald Trump Jr., who said, &#8220;Jared has defied his critics every step of the way. They attacked him on the campaign, but he never wavered and helped my dad build an innovative campaign operation unlike anything that’d ever existed before—and we won. The attacks have continued in the West Wing but he’s kept delivering for the President’s agenda, and for the American people.&#8221;
Rep. Lee Zeldin (R-NY) also championed Kushner&#8217;s work, saying, &#8220;Jared has been a consistent, principled fighter not just for the president’s agenda, but most importantly for America. Intelligent and determined, his presence in the West Wing has been critically important and effective.&#8221;
David Friedman, U.S. Ambassador to Israel, also spoke highly of Kushner, saying, &#8220;For decades the conventional wisdom was that there were limits on how much the U.S. could support Israel, notwithstanding that Israel was America’s greatest friend and ally in the Middle East. Jared broke that flawed paradigm: we worked together to properly realign and strengthen the U.S. relationship with Israel while Jared simultaneously helped to guide and strengthen our other relationships in the region.&#8221;
&#8220;Jared disproved the &#8216;zero sum game&#8217; theory that a stronger relationship with Israel meant a weaker U.S. presence in the Gulf,&#8221; Friedman added. &#8220;He showed that the U.S. can be stronger on all fronts.&#8221;
Cliff Sims, former campaign aide and former Special Assistant to the President, said, &#8220;From criminal justice reform to the USMCA to overhauling the VA, when Jared puts his focus and energy into something, his track record shows he gets it done. It’s hard to take his critics seriously when the results so easily prove his effectiveness.&#8221;
A source close to former White House strategist Steve Bannon added, &#8220;Most of the negative press that Jared got hit with after the election came from Steve Bannon and his allies. We now know that Steve was pushing lies. Steve ended up losing a lot of friends and Jared earned a whole new army of allies. I guess Steve isn’t the brilliant strategist that he fancies himself.&#8221;
Another crucial champion is Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk, who is close with the Trump administration and focused on making the Republican Party attractive to young voters.
&#8220;Jared has been relentless in helping fulfill the president’s agenda,&#8221; Kirk said. &#8220;He has done more for this country in three short years than the entire entrenched political class has done in the last 40 years.&#8221;

Jared Kushner, Senior Advisor to the President of the United

Jared Kushner’s Successes In Trump White House Puts His Critics To Shame

&#8220;The Germans will never forgive the Jews for Auschwitz.&#8221; – Zvi Rex, Israeli psychiatrist
Last month, Jason Greenblatt, who is the Trump administration&#8217;s special representative for international negotiations and, along with Jared Kushner, a co-leader of the administration&#8217;s <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/49232/fleisher-end-100-year-arab-israeli-war-yishai-fleisher">yet-to-be-unveiled comprehensive proposal</a> for Israeli-Palestinian peace, <a href="https://usun.usmission.gov/remarks-at-a-un-security-council-open-debate-on-the-middle-east-9/">addressed</a> the United Nations Security Council. In a <a href="https://www.timesofisrael.com/greenblatt-peace-plan-wont-be-based-on-fictions-of-international-consensus/">paradigm-shifting</a> speech, Greenblatt assailed the longstanding consensus of much of the morally relativistic &#8220;international community&#8221; — for which the anti-Semitic dullards of Turtle Bay serve as quintessential proxies — in no uncertain terms. Whereas the <a href="https://unwatch.org/un-general-assembly-shames-21-resolutions-israel-six-rest-world/">institutionally anti-Israel</a> U.N. Security Council has long tried its best to unilaterally impose a &#8220;two-state solution&#8221; from the outside in — based on a fundamental misunderstanding of international law with respect to <a href="https://mosaicmagazine.com/response/israel-zionism/2019/07/the-many-incoherences-and-hypocrisies-of-international-law-on-jerusalem/">eastern Jerusalem</a> and <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/11948/breaking-down-israeli-occupation-myth-elliott-hamilton">Judea and Samaria</a> — Greenblatt rebutted that &#8220;if there is to be such a solution, only the parties themselves, through direct negotiations, can work this out.&#8221;
Later in the speech, Greenblatt reiterated, &#8220;Both Israel and the Palestinians have asserted a claim to certain land. This is an unresolved dispute and it will only be through direct negotiations between the parties that we have a chance of resolving that dispute and achieving a comprehensive peace.&#8221;
Greenblatt&#8217;s speech is well worth watching in full:
<div class="embed video fluid-video"><iframe src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/cyWt1_irJNI" width="560" height="315" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen"></iframe></div>
Common sense, right? Alas, perhaps not to anti-Israel, sycophantically pro-Palestinian Europeans on the U.N. Security Council.
As Reuters <a href="https://af.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idAFKCN1UI1ZQ">highlighted</a>, Germany, France, and Russia did not exactly respond favorably to Greenblatt&#8217;s address. That would be the same Germany that refuses to recognize all of Hezbollah as a terrorist organization and is <a href="https://www.breitbart.com/middle-east/2019/03/08/caroline-glick-germanys-love-affair-with-iran-about-more-than-greed/">leading the European effort to undermine</a> President Trump&#8217;s decision to exit the catastrophic Iran nuclear deal, the same France whose insane immigration policies have led to crisis levels of Islamist-inspired anti-Semitism, and the same Russia that de facto allies itself with the genocidal Jew-hating mullahs in Tehran to prop up a murderous madman tyrant in Damascus.
&#8220;For us, international law is not menu a la carte,&#8221; <a href="https://af.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idAFKCN1UI1ZQ">said</a> Germany&#8217;s U.N. ambassador, Christoph Heusgen. &#8220;Security Council resolutions are international law, they merely need to be complied with,&#8221; oh-so-helpfully <a href="https://af.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idAFKCN1UI1ZQ">added</a> Russia&#8217; U.N. ambassador, Vassily Nebenzia.
Greenblatt <a href="http://www.jpost.com/American-Politics/Greenblatt-hits-back-at-Germany-UN-resolutions-are-not-way-to-make-peace-598135">pushed back</a> this week against the European backlash, publishing a <a href="http://www.welt.de/debatte/kommentare/article198179335/UN-Debatte-Mit-Verlaub-Herr-Botschafter-Heusgen.html?wtrid=onsite.onsitesearch">German newspaper op-ed</a> that firmly but diplomatically rebuked Heusgen. &#8220;With respect, Ambassador [Heusgen] &#8230; we clearly stated that a solution cannot be forced upon the parties, and the only way ahead is direct negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians,&#8221; Greenblatt wrote. &#8220;Our point was that collectively, U.N. Security Council resolutions passed with the intent of providing a framework for resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict have failed to create progress.&#8221; Greenblatt also excoriated the Europeans&#8217; insistence on the U.N. as a focal point of the peace process, coupled with their own failure to recognize the U.N.&#8217;s institutional anti-Israel bias, as &#8220;disingenuous.&#8221;
At the risk of stating the obvious: Good for Greenblatt and good for the Trump administration.
Hamas, a <a href="http://www.dailywire.com/news/44732/hammer-israel-must-destroy-hamas-once-and-all-josh-hammer">genocidal Islamist jihadist outfit</a> set not merely on eliminating Israel but also set on killing every Jew in the world, currently controls the Gaza Strip. So-called &#8220;moderate&#8221; Fatah, which directly subsidizes murderous (and <a href="http://twitter.com/MicheleChabin1/status/1159797725199831040">celebrated</a>!) jihad against Israeli Jews, is currently led by <a href="http://www.thetower.org/article/how-holocaust-denial-shaped-mahmoud-abbas-worldview/">Holocaust-denying</a> kleptocratic chieftain Mahmoud Abbas. Much as Ezra Klein&#8217;s Vox would imagine it to be otherwise, there is <a href="http://thefederalist.com/2014/07/17/voxs-motto-should-be-explaining-the-news-incorrectly-repeatedly/">no bridge</a> connecting Gaza with Judea and Samaria. There is approximately zero appetite whatsoever among either the Palestinian-Arab leadership or the Palestinian-Arab populace to forfeit the so-called &#8220;right of return&#8221; — a <a href="http://www.dailywire.com/news/43792/pro-palestinian-frauds-unrwa-called-out-lying-josh-hammer">legally risible</a> claim that would demographically destroy Zionism itself. There is approximately zero appetite whatsoever right now among either the Palestinian-Arab leadership or the Palestinian-Arab populace to recognize Israel as a Jewish and secure state within any cognizable boundaries at all.
In short, those, like the Europeans and the global pro-Palestinian/pro-&#8220;international community&#8221; Left, who insist that Israeli-Palestinian peace can be imposed from the outside in, are simply not living in the real world. There are endless unresolved issues that can truly, only be finalized via direct negotiations between the two sides. The only reasonable conclusion is that such quixotic insistence on an outside-in imposition is hardly motivated by genuine concern for the establishment of a durable, lasting peace — the facts and reality on the ground make such calls, in the present, fanatical to the point of lunacy. On the contrary, such calls for an &#8220;international community&#8221;-imposed solution are ultimately reflective of Europeans&#8217; loathing for Israel. Perhaps there is something fundamentally sinister here, too. Zvi Rex, the above-quoted Israeli psychiatrist, was likely onto something.
In any event, good for Jason Greenblatt and the Trump administration. The jury may still be out on the administration&#8217;s yet-to-be-unveiled comprehensive peace proposal, but the jury is very much in on the administration&#8217;s continued efforts to stand up for Israel and rebuke bullying Israel-haters at the U.N. The Trump administration is in the right — and the Europeans are in the wrong.

White House adviser on Israel Jason Greenblatt speaks during

HAMMER: The Trump Administration Is Right. The U.N. Can Never Dictate An Israeli-Palestinian Peace Deal.

Europe

Germany

“Peace to Prosperity” was the name of the economic “workshop” organized by Jared Kushner, Jason Greenblatt and Steven Mnuchin in Bahrain. The topic was bettering the Palestinian economy with the hope of creating a more congenial atmosphere for co-existence between Israel and the Palestinian-Arabs living in Judea and Samaria (the West Bank) and Gaza.
The event was plush, with Gulf Arabs dressed in pristine white tunics and <a href="https://www.haaretz.com/middle-east-news/.premium-in-bahrain-air-of-israeli-arab-normalization-and-a-message-to-iran-1.7410754">where</a> “Israeli and Arab businessmen openly mingled at the non-alcoholic cocktail parties.&#8221; Fortune magazine <a href="https://fortune.com/2019/06/30/bahrain-summit-middle-east/">described</a> the global gathering: “Over 300 top delegates came from 30 countries, from Australia and Argentina; Dubai and Delhi; Nigeria and Norway; and even such unlikely pairings as Saudi Arabia and Qatar or Greece and Turkey.”
Almost all observers agreed that there was hope in the air.
Palestinians Are Not Buying What Jared Kushner Is Selling
However, while some Palestinian-Arab business leaders did come to Bahrain, the Palestinian Authority (PA) boycotted the event, and Time magazine summarized their feeling with the <a href="https://time.com/5617713/kushner-deal-century-manama-palestinians/">headline</a>: “Palestinians Are Not Buying What Jared Kushner Is Selling.”
Indeed, judging by the lack of progress in actual Israeli-Palestinian relations, the conference was an ostensible failure. But, as is often true in the Middle East, there was an unspoken agenda at the Bahrain “workshop” — and seen by that light, the gathering was a monumental success.
The Subtext of Bahrain: Normalization of Israel
While the Palestinian-Israeli conflict was the context of the Bahrain gathering, the subtext, and maybe bigger story, was the normalization of Israel among the elites of the Arab states.
First, there was the welcoming atmosphere for all participants, which should not be taken for granted since Israelis, until very recently, were barred from entering Bahrain at all.
Then, Bahraini Foreign Minister Khalid bin Ahmed Al Khalifa <a href="https://www.timesofisrael.com/bahrain-fm-to-times-of-israel-israel-is-here-to-stay-and-we-want-peace-with-it/">spoke</a> with Israeli press on the sidelines of the workshop and told them: “Israel is a country in the region &#8230; and it’s there to stay, of course &#8230; we want better relations with it, and we want peace with it.”
Later, in a classic Middle East double-speak, the same Al Khalifa, when talking with the Saudi-owned Al-Arabiya news channel <a href="https://www.timesofisrael.com/bahrains-khalifa-says-interviews-to-israelis-nowhere-near-normalization/">said</a>: “There are those who say this is normalization. This is not normalization. This is not even a step toward normalization.”
But it was too late: The normalization cat was out of the bag.
Tracks for Regional Peace in Abu Dhabi 
The Bahrain workshop was soon followed by yet another high-level meeting between Israeli officials and Gulf state leaders. Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz took part in a U.N. climate conference in Abu Dhabi and met with an unnamed “senior U.A.E. official” to discuss “regional issues and relations between the countries” — a victory in and of itself, given that Israel and the U.A.E. do not maintain formal diplomatic ties.
The meeting focused on “the need to deal with the Iranian threat and Iran’s support for terrorism in the region.” The two officials also discussed cooperation and economic ties, and finally, Katz presented his “Tracks for Regional Peace” initiative — a proposal to link Israel’s rail network through Jordan to Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states.
If accepted, the plan would open up the region for travel, give Arab states access to Israel’s Mediterranean ports, and grant Israel trade access to the Arab world.
The message out of Abu Dhabi was the same as the one out of Bahrain — Israel’s normalization in Arab eyes.
The End of the 100-Year War
The Arab world has been fighting against the existence of a Jewish State since the British empire in 1917 issued the famous Balfour Declaration, which stated that &#8220;His Majesty&#8217;s government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people.&#8221;
In the failed hopes of destroying the small Jewish State, many wars have been fought and much blood has been spilled in the last century. But today, there are three reasons why powerful Arab states are looking to bury the hatchet with the people they attempted to destroy not so long ago:
The first reason is the grudging recognition that Israel has simply been victorious. The Arabs have failed to destroy Israel, and the Jewish State is flourishing in almost every parameter, successfully settling its people on the land that it claims.
The second reason is connected to the first — “if you can&#8217;t beat &#8217;em, join &#8217;em.” Many Arabs have begun realizing that since the war against the Jews hasn&#8217;t brought any real results, except regional stagnation, they ought to shift gears out of war and into business and prosperity.
And the third — and most visceral — reason that Arabs states are looking favorably upon Israel is the Iranian threat.
Everyone knows Iran endangers Israel, but Shiite Iran is much hungrier to take over the lands of the Sunni Arabs and the holy cities Mecca and Medina in Saudi Arabia than it is to enter into a nuclear standoff with the Jewish State. For a long time, Gulf Arabs relied on the U.S. for defense, but now, with a sense that America is less interested in being their bodyguard, the Arab eyes are, ironically, looking to the military power of Israel for their protection. The enemy of my enemy, as it is said, is my friend.
For many Arabs, it is obvious that the century-long war against Israel has yielded nothing. So instead of the war and the resulting stagnation, regional prosperity is the new focus. Additionally, the only regional force that can contain the aggressiveness of Iran is Israel.
Therefore, regional realignment and the normalization of Israel is now in the Arab world&#8217;s collective interest.
Those Who Never Miss an Opportunity
Israel’s former representative at the U.N., Abba Eban, said years ago that “the Palestinians never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity,” and Bahrain workshop was no different.
The PA boycotted the event, threatened anyone who would support it, and heartlessly refused to discuss a $50 billion plan to alleviate the suffering of its own governed people.
For the PA/PLO and Hamas, war with Israel is their raison d&#8217;etre — and a key fundraising strategy from patrons like Qatar, Iran, and some European countries who pay for the continued war on Israel in the guise of “humanitarian” assistance.
But for many Arabs states, the Palestinians have become a group who stands between them and normalization with Israel — something which would give them regional prosperity and personal security — and the end of the failed 100-year war.
Yishai Fleisher is the International Spokesman of the Jewish community of Hebron and an Israeli broadcaster.

FLEISHER: The End Of The 100-Year Arab-Israeli War

Iran

Qatar

Saudi Arabia

Steve Mnuchin

Don&#8217;t fault Jared Kushner for attempting to make peace between Arabs and Israelis. To the contrary, he should be praised for the effort. But if history is a guide, his <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/politics/trumps-mideast-peace-plan-hinges-on-50b-investment-offers-palestinians-deal-of-the-century">&#8220;deal of the century&#8221;</a> is dead on arrival.
Palestinian Authority&#8217;s unelected President Mahmoud Abbas rejected out-of-hand Kushner&#8217;s proposal to use $50 billion to build a peaceful Palestinian Authority. This is not a negotiating strategy, but a conscientious decision.
The Arab/Israeli dispute is not about territory, boundaries, or finances. If the Israelis were Muslims, exercising the same policies with the same geographic divisions, there would be no dispute.
The Arab/Israeli conflict is about one thing: Jews.
When <a href="http://www.palestinefacts.org/pf_1948to1967_jordan_annex/">Jordan grabbed</a> the Arab part of the British Mandate of Palestine in 1948, there was no outrage. Although Jordan&#8217;s land grab was illegal, Britain and Pakistan even recognized Jordan&#8217;s sovereignty.
The rest of the world demurred. Jordan was not demonized for preventing Palestinian self-determination. There were no demonstrations on college campuses for Palestinian independence.
Jordan is a Muslim country that took over another Muslim entity.
The sole issue of the dispute is that Israel is a Jewish state. Under hardline interpretations of Islamic law, land, once Islamic, is Islamic forever. Militant nationalists and fundamentalist Muslims believe that Israel&#8217;s very existence is unacceptable, non-negotiable, and forever a mark of shame in a culture of honor.
In Western culture, our temporal orientation is forward &#8212; toward a better future. The past is nostalgic, not sacred. We might respect the Founding of our republic, but we don&#8217;t want to return to the 18th century. The Founding is celebrated, not worshiped. It is an icon of politics, not of religion.
Osama bin Laden spoke of the return of Islam to Andalusia, Muslim Spain. As he noted, &#8220;All in all, we request of Allah &#8230; that the umma should regain its honor and prestige, should raise again the unique flag of Allah on all stolen Islamic land, from Palestine to <a href="http://www.danielpipes.org/blog/2007/10/dreaming-of-al-andalus">Andalus</a>.&#8221;
This what many Islamists believe.
In the late 1930s, the British Peel Commission conceived of a salamander of a Jewish state along the coast that easily could have been overtaken by the Arabs. The Arabs said no.
In 1948, in response to the initial U.N. partition plan, the Arabs not only said no &#8212; they also invaded the fledgling Jewish state and declared a war of genocide.
After the Six Day War, the Israelis offered to negotiate their conquest of the territories. The Arabs met in Khartoum and issued the infamous three &#8220;No&#8217;s&#8221;: No negotiations, no recognition, no peace.
At Camp David, Arafat shocked the assembled observers by spurning Ehud Barak&#8217;s offer of a Palestinian state. Only his subsequent apologists have managed to interpret this as anything less than a reversal of his own negotiating position.
In 2008, Israel&#8217;s then-prime minister Ehud Olmert <a href="https://www.jns.org/erekat-olmert-offered-abbas-more-than-the-entire-west-bank/">offered Abbas 110%</a> of the land he requested. Abbas said no.
The Palestinians want nothing less than the elimination of the Jewish state, either by a war of attrition that evolves into a larger conflict or by Israel being overrun by four generations of refugees who claim a &#8220;right to return&#8221; and will destroy Zionism demographically.
This situation has festered for more than 71 years. If the Palestinians do not want the $50 billion (six times the 2016 GDP) that the &#8220;deal of the century&#8221; promises, then perhaps there is another use for the money.
The Palestinians have uttered the same refrain from the beginning of the conflict. They are not going to change their position.
Arabs who are Israeli citizens could choose to remain in Israel, and the others could be resettled among the lands from which 850,000 Jews were evicted in the broader Arab world. As my Jewish Iraqi grocer in the German Colony of Jerusalem once told me, &#8220;I was dispossessed of 50 hectares in Iraq. Let them settle Palestinians on my land.&#8221;
After World War II, for her security needs, Russia changed the boundaries of Central and Eastern Europe and the nationalities of tens of millions of people.
Sometimes an intractable problem calls for a difficult solution.

Abraham H. Miller is an emeritus professor of political science, University of Cincinnati, and a distinguished fellow with the news and public policy group <a href="https://salomoncenter.org">Haym Salomon Center</a>. Follow him <a href="https://twitter.com/salomoncenter">@salomoncenter</a>.

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MILLER: The ‘Deal Of The Century,’ D.O.A.

Bahrain is set to be the center of the Middle East on June 25-26 when the country&#8217;s capital, Manama, hosts an economic investment conference intended to inject wealth into the Palestinian economy and lay the foundation for President Donald Trump&#8217;s upcoming &#8220;deal of the century&#8221; proposal between Israel and the Palestinians. The Bahraini &#8220;Peace to Prosperity&#8221; economic workshop announced on May 19 is a dual effort between the U.S. and Bahrain to <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/joint-statement-united-states-america-kingdom-bahrain/">&#8220;galvanize support for potential economic investments and initiatives&#8221;</a> and <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/joint-statement-united-states-america-kingdom-bahrain/ents and initiatives">&#8220;facilitate discussions on an ambitious, achievable vision and framework for a prosperous future for the Palestinian people and the region.&#8221;</a>
Participating countries include Jordan, Egypt, Morocco, and a large contingent of the Gulf Cooperation Council &#8212; Bahrain, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates. Global powers Russia and China will not partake in the conference. Israel is yet to be formally invited to the summit, with senior adviser Jared Kushner <a href="https://www.timesofisrael.com/two-weeks-out-from-bahrain-summit-israel-said-yet-to-receive-official-invite/">reportedly</a> delaying an official invitation until the list of Arab states in attendance is finalized.
Notably boycotting the workshop is the Palestinian Authority, which, despite being the focal point and ultimate beneficiaries of the event, rejects the legitimacy of the conference because <a href="https://www.nad.ps/en/media-room/press-releases/dr-saeb-erekat-manama-economic-meeting">&#8220;Palestine&#8217;s full economic potential can only be achieved by ending the Israeli occupation,&#8221;</a> according to Dr. Saeb Erekat, a Palestine Liberation Organization diplomat. Various Palestinian trade organizations &#8212; accounting for nearly <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-05-23/palestinian-business-groups-say-they-won-t-go-to-bahrain-summit">80% of the Palestinian GDP</a> &#8212; have likewise declined invitations to attend, similarly objecting due to the lack of promise of <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-05-23/palestinian-business-groups-say-they-won-t-go-to-bahrain-summit">&#8220;freedom and sovereignty for Palestinians.&#8221;</a>
The Palestinian leadership and major trade organizations are outright refusing to even entertain an influx of wealth into their impoverished land &#8212; as though a revitalized economy is a detriment to the well-being of the Palestinian people. Given the utter impossibility of the Palestinians&#8217; demand of full control over all of the territory between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea, the unwillingness of the Palestinian leadership to hear out the economic plan at the summit appears to be deeply cynical.
What government would blatantly reject a plan intended to augment the country&#8217;s economic standing? None, excepting the Palestinian leadership, because to do so is possibly the most obvious disservice to Palestinian denizens and industry alike. Yet for the Palestinians, this is part of a much larger play.
The Palestinian &#8220;struggle,&#8221; which has garnered so much favor among mainstream media and international supporters, thrives exclusively on the plight of the Palestinians and the intense suffering that continues to be passed off as an outcome of alleged Israeli interventionism and discrimination. To the Palestinian leadership, a revitalized economy and regional stability would run wholly counter to the messages of despair at the hands of Israelis and would distract from their prime objective of the destruction of Israel altogether. As evidenced by their attempt to <a href="https://www.jpost.com/Arab-Israeli-Conflict/Palestinians-urge-Egypt-Jordan-to-reconsider-going-to-US-led-conference-592252">block</a> the summit, the Palestinian government does not strive for a better society. Instead, the Palestinian government mobilizes its populace and the international community against Israel &#8212; at Palestinians&#8217; own expense.
Due to this, terrorism in Palestinian society is incentivized instead of the promotion of beneficial public works programs. Anti-Semitism, furthermore, is a state-sponsored cause. Rather than fund secular schooling for Palestinians, the Palestinian Authority commits significant resources to the delegitimization of Israel in school settings. Only <a href="http://www.thetower.org/article/the-palestinian-textbook-fiasco/">7% of photographs</a> in Palestinian textbooks recognize any Israeli claim to territory. A U.S. State Department-funded study revealed that <a href="http://www.thetower.org/article/the-palestinian-textbook-fiasco/">87% of Palestinian books</a> depict Israel and Israelis in a negative characterization, and almost all &#8212; excepting a singular instance &#8212; depict Judaism in a negative light. The Palestinian education system demonstrates another facet of its over-arching hatred and incompetence: Educational advancement is sacrificed for indoctrination and hatred.
The Palestinian Authority also directly funds terrorist activities and diverts sizable quantities of funds from beneficial government activities in order to do so. In March 2018, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas <a href="https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/palestinian-authority-payments-to-terrorists">approved</a> the allocation of $360 million &#8212; 7% of the GDP of the government &#8212; towards the compensation of terrorists and families funneled through two government institutions: The Commission of Detainees and Ex-Detainees Affairs and the Fund for Families of Martyrs and the Injured. Since 2013, these payments have in sum <a href="https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/palestinian-authority-payments-to-terrorists">exceeded $1.5 billion</a>. In 2017, these payments accounted for a whopping <a href="https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/palestinian-authority-payments-to-terrorists">49.6% of the foreign humanitarian aid</a> received by the Palestinian Authority.
The persistent pattern of the Palestinian Authority to slander and physically harm Israelis has culminated in the outright rejection of the Bahrain summit. No proposal for peace or economic prosperity will satisfy the Palestinian leadership. Ideals of rejectionism and confrontation with Israelis are so firmly engrained in Palestinian society, reaching children in schools and accounting for immense amounts of the national economy. The fundamental fault for a continued conflict lies not with Israel or with any particular United States plan, but with a culture of bigotry and state-sponsored incitement adopted by the Palestinians.

PHILLIPS: Upcoming Bahrain Summit Yet Again Showcases Palestinians’ Refusal To Negotiate

Egypt

White House senior adviser and presidential son-in-law Jared Kushner, who is helping the president devise and (one expects) eventually unveil his much-ballyhooed &#8220;<a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/jared-kushner-aims-build-support-deal-century-mideast-trip-n1011281">deal of the century</a>&#8221; for Israeli-Palestinian peace, is in the news this week for some recent comments made in an <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-06-03/kushner-questions-whether-palestinians-can-govern-themselves">interview with Axios</a>. In the <a href="https://www.axios.com/jared-kushner-palestinians-governing-peace-plan-096fed18-0059-468e-9b4b-da94e559cab8.html">interview</a>, Kushner equivocated on the purported urgency of Palestinian statehood and seemed to question whether the Palestinian-Arab populace is presently deserving of an autonomous state to call its own. As <a href="https://www.conservativereview.com/news/dossier-no-palestinians-not-ready-statehood/">summarized</a> by Jordan Schachtel of Conservative Review:
<blockquote>
&#8220;The hope is that they over time will become capable of governing,&#8221; Kushner said in an interview broadcast on HBO on Sunday.
&#8220;There are some things the current Palestinian government has done well, and there are some things that are lacking,&#8221; Kushner added. &#8220;And I do think that in order for the area to be investable, for investors to want to come in and invest in different industry and infrastructure and create jobs, you do need to have a fair judicial system, you need to have freedom of press, freedom of expression, tolerance for all religions.&#8221;
</blockquote>
A people that needs more &#8220;time&#8221; to &#8220;become capable of governing&#8221; is, by definition, not capable of governing in the present. And a people that is deemed incapable of governing in the present is necessarily undeserving of a state in the present.
For this bit of <a href="https://www.jpost.com/Opinion/No-Holds-Barred-The-10-year-klepto-dictatorship-of-Mahmoud-Abbas-386752">axiomatic</a> <a href="https://global100.adl.org/#country/west-bank-and-gaza/2014">truth-telling</a>, Kushner was lambasted by all the usual suspects. This was a &#8220;condescending slur,&#8221; <a href="https://www.haaretz.com/us-news/.premium-jared-kushner-just-killed-the-palestinian-peace-camp-1.7317109">bellowed</a> Muhammad Shehada at far-left Haaretz! &#8220;Kushner very clearly hasn&#8217;t spoken to a single Palestinian if this is what he thinks,&#8221; <a href="https://twitter.com/jvplive/status/1135503030764429312">tweeted</a> the self-hating ignoramuses of the egregiously misnamed <a href="https://jewishvoiceforpeace.org/jvp-supports-the-bds-movement/">jihadist apologists</a> at &#8220;Jewish Voice for Peace.&#8221;
But Jared Kushner is clearly correct. And it is easy to understand why.
Let&#8217;s start with irredeemable, ubiquitous, genocidal Jew-hatred. A landmark global 2014 survey from the left-leaning Anti-Defamation League (ADL) found that 93% of the Palestinian-Arab population in the &#8220;West Bank&#8221; Judea and Samaria and the Gaza Strip harbors anti-Semitic views. That is an astonishing statistic, and makes the Palestinian-Arab population more virulently anti-Semitic than the population of any actual nation-state polled by the ADL. Of course, this makes sense, given that Palestinian-Arab media is deeply and systemically anti-Semitic: State-run Palestinian Authority television <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/47808/palestinian-arab-media-teaches-kids-how-shoot-jews-josh-hammer">teaches children how to shoot Jews</a> and even <a href="http://palwatch.org/main.aspx?fi=1100">lauds Hitler</a>. Furthermore, Palestinian textbooks &#8212; even those that have been <a href="https://www.jpost.com/Arab-Israeli-Conflict/Palestinian-text-books-in-UNWRA-schools-reportedly-teach-of-killing-Jews-472012">blessed with legitimacy</a> by the wretched hive of Jew-hating scum and Western values-bashing villainy known as the <a href="https://theresurgent.com/2016/12/27/destroy-the-united-nations/">United Nations</a> &#8212; teach children arithmetic by invoking the number of Jews killed during the jihadist outbursts of the First and Second Intifadas.
Against this educational backdrop, it makes a good deal of sense that leading Palestinian-Arab activists, such as BDS <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/46068/hammer-yes-united-states-was-right-deny-entry-bds-josh-hammer">co-founder Omar Barghouti</a>, <a href="https://jewishjournal.com/opinion/126186/">deny</a> that Jews have any right to self-determination in their ancestral homeland and <a href="https://www.amazon.com/New-Intifada-Resisting-Israels-Apartheid/dp/1859843778">laud</a> the sustained jihad of the Second Intifada &#8212; which killed over a thousand Israeli Jews and maimed many thousands more &#8212; as merely reflective of &#8220;the heroism and costs of the resistance.&#8221; It also ought to make a good deal of sense that the <a href="https://www.jpost.com/Opinion/No-Holds-Barred-The-10-year-klepto-dictatorship-of-Mahmoud-Abbas-386752">venal</a> and <a href="https://www.jpost.com/Middle-East/Mahmoud-Abbas-admits-PA-pays-terrorists-watch-581863">jihad-funding</a> troglodyte who is presently in the 15th year of his four-year term as Palestinian Authority chieftain, Mahmoud Abbas, has <a href="http://www.thetower.org/article/how-holocaust-denial-shaped-mahmoud-abbas-worldview/">long trafficked in overt Holocaust denialism</a>. Comically, it is Abbas &#8212; who is a <a href="https://www.jpost.com/Opinion/No-Holds-Barred-The-10-year-klepto-dictatorship-of-Mahmoud-Abbas-386752">true kleptocratic thief</a> in every sense of the word &#8212; who is publicly held out by the Jew-hating &#8220;international community&#8221; as a purported Palestinian &#8220;moderate,&#8221; in contradistinction to the <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/46714/hammer-designating-muslim-brotherhood-terrorist-josh-hammer">Muslim Brotherhood-franchised</a> Sunni sharia supremacist <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/44732/hammer-israel-must-destroy-hamas-once-and-all-josh-hammer">jihadist death cult</a> in the Gaza Strip known as Hamas.
The truth is that there has never existed a Palestinian-Arab leader who has shown even the faintest interest in recognizing a secure and sovereign Jewish state somewhere between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea. On the contrary, PLO/Palestinian Authority leadership has <a href="https://www.timesofisrael.com/abbas-admits-he-rejected-2008-peace-offer-from-olmert/">consistently rejected</a> generous peace offers from Israel and continues to insist on the so-called Palestinian <a href="http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/249247">&#8220;right of return&#8221;</a> &#8212; a farcical idea, born out of the even more farcical <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/47585/trump-administration-takes-controversial-hamas-josh-hammer">UNRWA &#8220;refugee&#8221; definition</a>, that would utterly destroy Zionism itself. As for Hamas? Well. Its <a href="http://avalon.law.yale.edu/20th_century/hamas.asp">founding organizational charter</a> calls for the death of Israel and the murder of every Jew in the world.
What a lovely group of people the Palestinian-Arabs are.
The simple reality is that the Palestinian-Arabs are not anywhere remotely close to being deserving of their own state. They not only fail to reject jihadism &#8212; they actively embrace and inculcate it as a virtuous way of life. They not only fail to recognize Israel as a Jewish state &#8212; they seek to destroy it via both the sword and intellectually disingenuous &#8220;right of return&#8221; demographics alike. They not only do not invest in the societal building blocks of rudimentary economic and civil institutions &#8212; they actively invest, instead, in the <a href="https://www.timesofisrael.com/think-tank-terrorists-to-be-paid-as-pa-allots-nis-1-2b-for-inmates-martyrs/">subsidization of Jew-killing jihadi</a> &#8220;martyrs.&#8221;
In truth, the restive Palestinian-Arab populace is among the least sympathetic in the entire world. There is a good reason why so many of the Arab world&#8217;s leading nations, such as Saudi Arabia, are <a href="https://www.timesofisrael.com/saudi-paper-urges-palestinians-to-look-at-trump-peace-plan/">increasingly unsympathetic</a> to purported Palestinian plight and are instead interested in <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-43632905">forging covert geopolitical ties</a> with Israel. In the grand geopolitical scheme of things, the failure of the Palestinian-Arabs to carve their own terror state out of the Jewish biblical heartland of Judea and Samaria morally ranks somewhere far below the comparably uninteresting sovereignty disputes involving Western Sahara and Turkish-occupied Northern Cyprus. Indeed, the legal reality is also that, under any cognizable principles of international law, Israel has the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AYZBjoeeehg">unambiguously superior legal claim</a> to control of Judea and Samaria.
Good for Jared Kushner for stating the obvious. But the fact that his comments are even controversial in the slightest ought to be deeply disturbing to anyone who lives and operates in the real world.

HAMMER: Jared Kushner Is Right. Palestinians Do Not Deserve A State.

Anti-Semitism

Last Thursday, President Donald Trump <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/47296/president-trump-unveil-merit-based-immigration-emily-zanotti">unveiled</a> the rough details of an incipient White House-spawned immigration initiative. Politico, citing Capitol Hill sources who had been personally lobbied by White House ombudsman Jared Kushner on the plan, had also <a href="https://www.politico.com/story/2019/05/07/jared-kushner-immigration-plan-1309708">previously outlined</a> many of the same substantive talking points.
Here is how conservative policy analyst Rachel Bovard <a href="https://amgreatness.com/2019/05/19/trumps-immigration-pitch-has-real-merit/">summarizes</a> the key tenets of the Trump/Kushner immigration plan:
<blockquote>
<ul>
<li>
Instituting a merit-based system to address the 1.1 million people who come here legally each year, with a points system that emphasizes education, employment prospects, age, and English language ability.
</li>
<li>
Eliminating the diversity lottery, and restricting family-based immigration (a.k.a. chain migration) by limiting family members a citizen can sponsor to just the nuclear family (spouses and children under age 18).
</li>
<li>
Placing physical barriers at 33 key points along the border, which are identified as key crossing points for illegal drugs and human trafficking.
</li>
<li>
Modernizing ports of entry, and ensuring that all vehicles and people are screened.
</li>
<li>
Reforming asylum procedures and closing loopholes, as the president said Thursday, to make sure frivolous claims are not displacing legitimate ones.
</li>
</ul>
</blockquote>
On paper, this plan looks somewhere between good and excellent. While it does not include the <a href="https://www.congress.gov/bill/115th-congress/senate-bill/354">RAISE </a><a href="https://www.congress.gov/bill/115th-congress/senate-bill/354">Act</a>&#8216;s reduction in the total number of legal immigrants or otherwise address our temporary guest worker visa program that has <a href="http://www.aei.org/publication/new-immigration-bill-has-one-terrible-flaw/">societally balkanizing effects</a> via the legal codification of a distinctively second-tier labor class, there is much to be applauded in this proposed outline. Re-orienting legal immigration from chain migration to a merit-based system is not only utterly logical &#8212; it is also what effectively every other industrialized first-world nation does. The closing of asylum loopholes and cracking down on <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/46457/amidst-unprecedented-border-crisis-united-nations-josh-hammer">bogus &#8220;credible fear&#8221; assertions</a> at our border is also salutary and long-overdue. So while I am <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/46959/hammer-be-very-skeptical-jared-kushners-new-josh-hammer">cynical enough about immigration legislation</a> to still warn conservatives to dutifully ensure that the final legislative product matches the White House&#8217;s talking points, intellectually honest immigration hawks must still be pleased, overall, with what we have thus far seen.
The problem is that the timing for this legal immigration-centric legislative policy push, coming <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/46992/crisis-cbps-april-border-numbers-further-reveal-josh-hammer">amidst an unprecedented mass illegal alien infringement</a> upon our sovereignty at our porous southern border, is truly bizarre. Why is the White House using scarce political capital and lobbying resources to promote a legislatively <a href="https://www.newsweek.com/nancy-pelosi-says-trumps-immigration-plan-dead-arrival-1428461">quixotic and therefore wholly symbolic</a> piece of legal immigration policy at a time when we are facing a full-on illegal immigration <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/45822/hammer-customs-and-border-protections-insane-march-josh-hammer">assault</a> the likes of which we haven&#8217;t seen in over a decade &#8212; and potentially ever? As Daniel Horowitz <a href="https://www.conservativereview.com/news/kushner-immigration-plan-good-one-still-distraction/">wrote</a> in his analysis of the plan, &#8220;It&#8217;s like a person who has a leak in his roof, but then a river floods his basement. While the roof was certainly important to focus on the day before, it is a moot issue unless he deals with his basement first.&#8221;
It is worth re-emphasizing the dire nature of the full-on migrant crisis &#8212; with all of the accompanying gang, drug, and crime problems that inevitably accompany the cartel-centric trafficking rings that guide the largely-Central American migrants up through Mexico &#8212; currently transpiring at our southern border. As U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) <a href="https://www.cbp.gov/newsroom/stats/sw-border-migration">noted in its April numbers</a>, total border apprehensions between points of entry in April rose 6.62% over March&#8217;s <a href="https://www.cbp.gov/newsroom/national-media-release/cbp-releases-march-statistics-southwest-border-migration">already-record-shattering pace</a>. Astoundingly, April&#8217;s apprehension total of 98,977 was a full 94.04% higher than the monthly total from the beginning of the federal government&#8217;s fiscal year, in October 2018. In other words, apprehensions between points of entry along the border have nearly doubled in just the first seven months of the current fiscal year. While March already represented a &#8220;<a href="http://www.cbp.gov/newsroom/national-media-release/cbp-releases-march-statistics-southwest-border-migration">system-wide emergency</a>,&#8221; in the words of CBP Deputy Commissioner Robert E. Perez, April represented &#8220;an unprecedented and unsustainable situation.&#8221;
<div class="embed tweet">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en">
<a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/CBP?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#CBP</a> is experiencing an unprecedented and unsustainable situation at the Southwest border. In April, CBP apprehended or deemed inadmissible 109,144 individuals along the SWB. Details here: <a href="https://t.co/ru9AsalgPb">https://t.co/ru9AsalgPb</a> <a href="https://t.co/kzfTpfPNP8">pic.twitter.com/kzfTpfPNP8</a>
&#8212; CBP (@CBP) <a href="https://twitter.com/CBP/status/1126214086839214083?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">May 8, 2019</a></blockquote>
</div>
We live in a country where a whopping <a href="https://www.ussc.gov/sites/default/files/pdf/research-and-publications/annual-reports-and-sourcebooks/2018/FY18-Annual-Report-and-Sourcebook.pdf">43% of all federal offenses</a> are committed by non-citizens, but U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has nonetheless <a href="https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2019/may/8/feds-release-168k-illegal-immigrant-family-members/">released</a> 168,000 illegal aliens into the interior just since December, and CBP itself <a href="https://twitter.com/USBPChief/status/1126261497179574272?s=20">released</a> another 33,000 into the interior just from March through May. The more illegal aliens we let abscond into the interior, the more the message gets back to Central America that we don&#8217;t enforce our own immigration laws, the more that migrants desire to make the dangerous trek north, and the more that the cartels, criminal rings, and trafficking organizations are empowered. Through the inaction and listlessness of our political elites, our crisis metastasizes further and turns into a self-fulfilling prophecy. Why on earth are conservatives not focusing like a laser beam on that?
This whole legal immigration-centric policy initiative therefore amounts to a misdirection, a distraction, and a misuse of political priorities. As I <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/46959/hammer-be-very-skeptical-jared-kushners-new-josh-hammer">wrote</a> two weeks ago:
<blockquote>
The current situation at our southern border is past the point of crisis level. We are inundated daily with largely-bogus asylum claims that are perversely goaded by the pernicious <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/45997/whole-world-knows-quotation-perfect-snapshot-our-josh-hammer">dissemination of inaccurate information</a> throughout Central America&#8217;s &#8220;Northern Triangle.&#8221; Policymakers ought to be focused like a laser beam upon <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/42539/hammer-border-wall-nice-interior-enforcement-nicer-josh-hammer">ramping up interior enforcement</a>, amending the <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/46601/hammer-why-did-dhs-abort-its-re-writing-infamous-josh-hammer">deeply flawed</a> Flores consent decree with respect to illegal alien detention policy, and, at least for now, <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/45394/hammer-trump-would-be-right-fully-shut-down-us-josh-hammer">fully shutting off</a> our southern border until we regain <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/42306/conservative-favorite-rep-chip-roys-maiden-floor-josh-hammer">operational control</a> of it and become a sovereign and secure nation once again. To the extent the White House feels the need to touch legal immigration at all and dangle possible legislative compromises for open-borders Democrats and infamously wobbly Republicans, it ought to initially focus on cutting overall numbers and resuscitating the moribund RAISE Act.
</blockquote>
Trump should instead focus on invoking his <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/8/1182">8 U.S.C. § 1182(f)</a> power &#8212; which &#8220;exudes deference to the President in every clause,&#8221; as Chief Justice John Roberts described it in the &#8220;travel ban&#8221; case of <a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/17pdf/17-965_h315.pdf">Trump v. Hawaii</a> &#8212; to temporarily <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/45394/hammer-trump-would-be-right-fully-shut-down-us-josh-hammer">shut off all immigration whatsoever</a> right now at our southern border. He should <a href="https://www.conservativereview.com/news/heres-secret-trump-power-end-judicial-amnesty-today-current-law/">vow to enforce</a> the already-on-the-books provisions of the <a href="https://www.uscis.gov/sites/default/files/ocomm/ilink/0-0-0-10948.html#0-0-0-1113">Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996</a>, which would affirmatively preclude much of the <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/44510/hammer-judicial-arrogance-existential-threat-our-josh-hammer">judicial malfeasance</a> and mandated catch-and-release that we see ordered from our unelected black-robed masters.
Good for the White House for floating a meritorious immigration proposal. But it is the wrong time, and it is the wrong use of political capital, for such an effort. Before we care about who comes over the border, we first need to make sure we even have a border.

HAMMER: Trump’s Legal Immigration Plan Is Solid. But It Misdirects Attention From Our Illegal Immigration Crisis.

2020 Election

Illegal Immigration

Immigration

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE)

Republican Party

Southern Border

U.S. Customs and Border Protection

It&#8217;s not illegal to talk to someone who lives or works in Russia, but you wouldn&#8217;t know that if you were reading The New York Times last Friday.
The newspaper published an article titled &#8220;Mueller Report Shows Depth of Connections Between Trump Campaign and Russians,&#8221; and details in a massive chart all of the contacts &#8212; no matter how insignificant or one-sided &#8212; Trump campaign officials had with Russians. The lede paragraph of the Times article makes it clear they want it to look like the Trump campaign colluded with Russia, as it states: &#8220;Donald J. Trump and 18 of his associates had at least 140 contacts with Russian nationals and WikiLeaks, or their intermediaries, during the 2016 campaign and presidential transition, according to a New York Times analysis.&#8221; (Emphasis original.)
&#8220;At least 140 contacts&#8221; sounds like a lot, but the Times counted many insignificant contacts to boost its number.
The paper doesn&#8217;t note that none of these contacts were illegal, and gives no context &#8212; such as, whether they had as many contacts with the Chinese or the British, or whether the &#8220;contact&#8221; was utterly meaningless. For example, one of the &#8220;contacts&#8221; between Donald Trump Jr. and a Russian happened when &#8220;a Russian social media executive&#8221; reached out to him to discuss &#8220;setting up a campaign page.&#8221; No further details are given.
Did Jr. respond? What does this mean?
Another &#8220;contact&#8221; &#8212; this one counted against President Donald Trump&#8217;s son-in-law Jared Kushner* &#8212; was an introduction to the Russian ambassador. Kushner was likely introduced to a lot of ambassadors. It&#8217;s not uncommon and it&#8217;s not illegal.
Many of the &#8220;contacts&#8221; happened during the transition period, when it&#8217;s common for officials for the incoming administration to meet with foreign leaders and ambassadors to get the lay of the land. It&#8217;s part of the continuation of government. A new administration doesn&#8217;t just come in and start figuring things out; they spend the months between the election and inauguration doing this legwork.
All of Gen. Michael Flynn&#8217;s contacts with Russians, according to the Times, happened during this period, yet they&#8217;re portrayed as seedy. Many of Roger Sone&#8217;s contacts were with WikiLeaks, which until 2016 was an outlet loved by the Democrats for their exposure of information that hurt Republicans. Now it&#8217;s an agent of the Russian government and a very bad group.
On Twitter, the Times used Special Counsel Robert Mueller&#8217;s report to bolster their conspiracy claims, explaining &#8220;We scrubbed through the Mueller report and found at least 30 new instances where Trump and his associates had contacts with Russians.&#8221;
&#8220;Pick up today&#8217;s print NYTimes for a two-page graphic that lays out all 140+ contacts,&#8221; the outlet added, with a picture of a chart that might as well be posted to a conspiracy theorist&#8217;s wall.
<div class="embed tweet">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en">
We scrubbed through the Mueller report and found at least 30 new instances where Trump and his associates had contacts with Russians.
Pick up today&#8217;s print NYTimes for a two-page graphic that lays out all 140+ contacts. <a href="https://t.co/Z18L9UnVPW">pic.twitter.com/Z18L9UnVPW</a>
&#8212; NYT Graphics (@nytgraphics) <a href="https://twitter.com/nytgraphics/status/1119332817446625281?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 19, 2019</a></blockquote>
</div>
Nothing in the Times report is illegal, it&#8217;s all meant to make it look like Trump and his associates skated on the collusion narrative.
It&#8217;s likely that Hillary Clinton&#8217;s campaign had a lot of contacts with Russians as well, and both campaigns probably met with many other foreign nationals. The Times just can&#8217;t admit that the two years it spent beating the &#8220;collusion&#8221; drum were for nothing, and is now just spouting conspiracy theories.
*Jared Kushner owned the New York Observer when I was brought on as a contributor.

New York Times Tries To Keep Collusion Narrative Alive, Reports On Trump-Russia Contacts From Mueller Report

Donald Trump Jr.

New York Times

Russia

On Friday, U.S. Vice President Mike Pence visited Auschwitz, along with Senior Advisor to the President Jared Kushner, Polish President Andrzej Duda, and Polish First Lady Agata Kornhauser-Duda. Pence, who was formerly Governor of Indiana and a U.S. Congressman from Indiana, is an evangelical Christian with a long history of philo-Semitism and a consistent promotion of a pro-Israel U.S. foreign policy. This was Pence&#8217;s first trip to Auschwitz, which is perhaps the single most iconic of all the Nazis&#8217; sundry concentration camps and death camps. Over 1.1 million people died at Auschwitz &#8212; the vast majority of them Jews.
The Times of Israel <a href="https://www.timesofisrael.com/us-vice-president-mike-pence-makes-his-first-auschwitz-visit/">reports</a> on Pence&#8217;s visit:
<blockquote>
Pence toured an exhibition hall that includes human hair and personal belongings of the victims before a wreath-laying at the Death Wall in a courtyard where prisoners were executed. Many of those shot there were Poles who were part of the underground resistance against the German occupation.
The two couples walked side-by-side to the wall for the wreath laying. The Pences held hands and the vice president adjusted a banner reading &#8220;From The People of the United States of America.&#8221;
Kushner was among a second group that then approached the wall and wreaths.
The second part of the visit took them to the nearby satellite camp of Birkenau, the site of the murder of Jews from across Europe. Pence knelt and bowed his head, placing his hand on a historic red train car on the train tracks used to bring Jews to their deaths there.
The couples also placed candles at a memorial to the Holocaust victims, with Pence wearing a Jewish skullcap. Poland&#8217;s chief rabbi recited a prayer to the dead.
</blockquote>
Pence came to Auschwitz from Warsaw, where he <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/14/world/europe/pompeo-pence-us-iran.html">appeared and spoke</a> at a U.S.-sponsored conference about the Middle East. The Daily Wire <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/43443/big-israel-netanyahu-praises-excellent-meeting-josh-hammer">reported</a> on the conference on Wednesday. Pence did not equivocate in his condemnation of the <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/43339/hammer-iranian-revolution-forty-years-old-stand-josh-hammer">terrorist Iranian regime</a> at the Warsaw conference, accusing the ruling mullocracy of <a href="https://www.timesofisrael.com/us-vice-president-mike-pence-makes-his-first-auschwitz-visit/">openly advocating</a> &#8220;another Holocaust.&#8221; While in Warsaw, Pence visited other Holocaust-era Jewish commemoration sites, including the site of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising.
<div class="embed tweet">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en">
Karen and I were deeply moved by Birkenau and Auschwitz. It was a scene of unspeakable tragedy, reminding us of what tyranny is capable of. <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/NeverAgain?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#NeverAgain</a> <a href="https://t.co/Ogp8eZEL5R">pic.twitter.com/Ogp8eZEL5R</a>
&#8212; Vice President Mike Pence (@VP) <a href="https://twitter.com/VP/status/1096504043378302981?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 15, 2019</a></blockquote>
</div>
Pence&#8217;s visit to Auchwitz <a href="https://dailycaller.com/2019/02/15/mike-pence-auschwitz-wreath/">follows closely</a> his public <a href="https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2019/02/13/vp_mike_pence_at_minimum_rep_ilhan_omar_should_be_removed_from_foreign_afairs_committee.html">condemnation</a> of Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) for her <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/43290/bipartisan-condemnation-erupts-over-ilhan-omars-hank-berrien">recent anti-Semitic comments</a>. &#8220;.@IlhanMN tweets were a disgrace &amp; her apology was inadequate,&#8221; Pence tweeted. &#8220;Anti-Semitism has no place in the United States Congress, much less the Foreign Affairs Committee. Those who engage in anti-Semitic tropes should not just be denounced, they should face consequences for their words.&#8221;
<div class="embed tweet">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en">
.<a href="https://twitter.com/IlhanMN?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@IlhanMN</a> tweets were a disgrace &amp; her apology was inadequate. Anti-Semitism has no place in the United States Congress, much less the Foreign Affairs Committee. Those who engage in anti-Semitic tropes should not just be denounced, they should face consequences for their words.
&#8212; Vice President Mike Pence (@VP) <a href="https://twitter.com/VP/status/1095507111415607296?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 13, 2019</a></blockquote>
</div>
The Vice President <a href="https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2019/02/13/vp_mike_pence_at_minimum_rep_ilhan_omar_should_be_removed_from_foreign_afairs_committee.html">elaborated</a> in comments to MSNBC&#8217;s Andrea Mitchell:
<blockquote>
Representative Omar&#8217;s tweets were a disgrace. Anti-Semitism has no place in the United States Congress or anywhere in our country or the free world. I think it was right for Democrat leaders to condemn those remarks but I think it&#8217;s important that people that articulate anti-Semitic views are also held accountable. The Republican leadership was right to condemn Steven King&#8217;s remarks and also to remove him from the committee. There were consequences to what he said, and unless Representative Omar resigns from Congress, at minimum Democrat leaders should remove her from the House Foreign Affairs Committee. I served on that committee for more than a decade Andrea, one of the things that always united that committee was strong support for our relationship with Israel and a strong condemnation of anti-Semitism. The truth is anti-Semitism is not just wrong, it&#8217;s dangerous and Polish Jews during the Nazi occupation experienced that in one of the darkest chapters in human history. I&#8217;ll be at the Warsaw ghetto tomorrow, my wife and I will pay our respects at Auschwitz on Friday. It&#8217;s important that the leaders in the Congress take a firm stand against anti-Semitism rhetoric and I think it requires consequences in this case.
</blockquote>

Vice President Pence Makes His First Visit to Auschwitz

Holocaust

Mike Pence

Poland

A new <a href="https://morningconsult.com/2019/01/30/most-voters-oppose-another-shutdown-national-emergency-for-trumps-wall/">Morning Consult poll</a> released Wednesday found that Americans aren&#8217;t looking forward to a &#8220;shutdown, part 2,&#8221; but the White House is reportedly looking for a grand, &#8220;major&#8221; compromise deal on immigration with only three weeks left until the budget deadline.
The poll found that a majority of Americans &#8212; 53% &#8212; believe a second shutdown is a mistake, even if the White House believes the threat of a second showdown is enough to motivate lawmakers to come to the bargaining table. They&#8217;re also not fans of President Donald Trump&#8217;s plan to declare an &#8220;emergency&#8221; at the United States&#8217; southern border and order the military to build a border wall without Congressional approval for funding.
<blockquote>
Fifty-three percent of respondents in the poll of 1,997 registered voters said Trump should not shut down the government or declare a national emergency if lawmakers don&#8217;t fund his wall, while about a quarter of voters (24 percent) said he should declare an emergency. Only 9 percent said Trump should shut down the government.
</blockquote>
The best hope Trump has on the issue of an &#8220;emergency order&#8221; are Republican voters, who support the measure by a plurality. Around 47% of Republicans believe illegal immigration is enough of an emergency to justify going around a Congress unwilling to part with the $5 billion it would take to start the project &#8212; even if the last shutdown cost them at least twice as much as simply funding the wall.
That isn&#8217;t stopping the Trump White House from crafting an ambitious plan to handle immigration in the three weeks between possible shutdowns. According <a href="https://www.axios.com/jared-kushner-immigration-plans-government-shutdown-f5e144d4-5342-4509-a56e-627eb1a8a9c1.html">to a report from Axios</a>, which has been closely monitoring the White House&#8217;s immigration strategy, top Trump administration officials want a &#8220;major&#8221; immigration bargain, and White House senior adviser Jared Kushner is already holding meetings in anticipation of formulating that exact plan.
&#8220;They would like to try and replicate at some level a bipartisan coalition on immigration issues, something paired with border security as well,&#8221; one source, who attended a White House meeting on the issue, told Axios.
The White House is reportedly modeling the big immigration deal on its recent criminal justice reform effort, which brought both Democrats and Republicans together to begin progress on an issue that has dogged both parties for decades. The hope is that a similar coalition can build on shared goals to solve immigration &#8212; the single largest issue facing congress in recent memory.
Axios reports that Kushner will join &#8220;Vice President Mike Pence and Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen to negotiate immigration on behalf of the White House,&#8221; and that their team has been given a wide berth to conduct meetings and investigations and craft deals.
It won&#8217;t be easy; already many in Trump&#8217;s brain trust are telling the president, vice president, and advisers that Trump&#8217;s key constituents aren&#8217;t interested in a grand immigration bargain that subverts the president&#8217;s 2016 campaign promises &#8212; particularly the border wall. Others don&#8217;t believe putting a three-week time limit on the issue will motivate lawmakers to come to the table. Instead, they&#8217;re pushing a longer-term agreement, with short term concessions to achieve budget passage.
The White House will have to figure out its position very soon. Negotiations on the budget deal will begin in the Senate early next week.

Most Americans Don’t Want Another Shutdown, But White House Is Determined To Ink ‘Major’ Immigration Deal

Immigrants

U.S. Senate

According to Democratic House Intelligence Committee member Rep. Jackie Speier (CA), the House Democrats are going to use their newly-acquired power to begin targeting President Trump and his inner circle, starting with Donald Trump Jr.
During a panel discussion at the Woman&#8217;s National Democratic Club Tuesday night, Rep. Speier revealed who the first target of the intelligence committee&#8217;s investigation would be: Donald Trump Jr., the Washington Examiner&#8217;s <a href="https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/washington-secrets/house-democrats-to-subpoena-donald-trump-jr-first-russia-investigation">Paul Bedard</a> reports.
&#8220;There are a number of persons that testified before the committee that I feel were not telling the truth,&#8221; she said. Among them is Trump&#8217;s son who spoke to the GOP majority intelligence committee about his much-reported meeting in Trump Tower with the Russia-connecting lawyer during the 2016 campaign.
Trump Jr. denied any &#8220;collusion&#8221; allegations and dismissed the media as a run of the mill oppo-research-type attempt to get some dirt on Hillary Clinton that turned out to be a waste of time. Trump Jr. spoke with the Republican-led committee privately on December 6, 2017. White House senior adviser and Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner met with the committee a few months earlier, in July 2017. The committee wrapped up its collusion investigation, finding no evidence of it, but Speier told CNN that the Democrats are committed to cranking it back up.
&#8220;Those documents were never subpoenaed by the Republicans and so they were able to just produce a whitewashed report that probably was written by someone on the presidential staff,&#8221; said Speier, Bedard reports. &#8220;I think it was truly a disturbing series of events over the last two years.&#8221;
She went on to predict that the Democrats would be able to prove the ever-elusive Trump campaign &#8220;collusion&#8221; with Russia. &#8220;I think in short order we&#8217;re going to see all of the dots connected in a way that shows that there were people that were treasonous, there were people that were clearly conspiring to affect the election with the Russians, and it will go down in history as one of the real black eyes in our country,&#8221; she said.
Speier has brought up the plan to go after Trump&#8217;s son in the past, including on <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2018/12/07/politics/jackie-speier-donald-trump-jr-jared-kushner-cnntv/index.html">CNN</a> in early December, when she said that Democrats would subpoena Trump Jr. as well as Kushner once they took power if the two men didn&#8217;t agree to meet.
&#8220;We will certainly subpoena their records,&#8221; Speier told CNN&#8217;s &#8220;Right Now.&#8221; &#8220;I think they will be subpoenaed if they don&#8217;t come voluntarily. We will try to make as many hearings as possible public.&#8221;
&#8220;Rep. Adam Schiff, the likely incoming chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, told CNN&#8217;s Wolf Blitzer in October that he wants to bring in witnesses and pursue records regarding Russian money laundering and Trump&#8217;s businesses,&#8221; CNN noted at the time.
&#8220;We want to hear from I think a number of people that we have already interviewed,&#8221; Speier said. &#8220;All of the phone bills and phone calls made and all of the direct messages and the emails that were never subpoenaed need to be subpoenaed for the primary persons that were part of the Trump orbit and campaign.&#8221;

House Democrats Going After Trump’s Son First, Says Intelligence Committee Member

On Thursday, late-night host Jimmy Kimmel continued his steady stream of Donald Trump-themed monologues, with a series of partisan takes on the most recent Trump news. While his audience enthusiastically applauded most of his jabs at Trump, one missed the mark with a segment of the audience, who responded with groans to the host going out of his way to drop a sexual joke about Trump&#8217;s daughter.
Referencing recent reports that one of the leading candidates to replace Gen. John Kelly as Trump&#8217;s chief of staff is none other then Trump&#8217;s son-in-law and key adviser Jared Kushner, Kimmel decided to work in a sexual reference to his wife, Ivanka.
&#8220;I guess the thinking of [Trump] is: if he&#8217;s good enough to screw my daughter, he&#8217;s good enough to screw the country,&#8221; said Kimmel.
The response from the usually quick-to-laugh audience was mixed, some groaning loudly at the tasteless joke.
&#8220;I hope he hires Jared,&#8221; Kimmel added, attempting to move on quickly. &#8220;I hope he hires Jared and then he fires Jared so we go through the whole thing.&#8221;
The sexual joke followed a series of other predictably Trump-disparaging quips that conveniently highlighted as much of the bad reports surrounding the president as he could muster in the brief monologue.
Among the topics he ran through was Trump canceling the annual White House holiday party for the press, which Kimmel used as a means of fantasizing about Trump canceling the Republican Party altogether, an idea that got big cheers from his audience. If Trump were to hold the party for the press, suggested Kimmel, it would end up like the bloody &#8220;red wedding&#8221; from &#8220;Game of Thrones.&#8221;
Describing Trump as &#8220;Old Yeller,&#8221; Kimmel then commented on him &#8220;barking up quite a storm on Twitter this morning&#8221; about his former lawyer Michael Cohen&#8217;s claim that he sent illegal &#8220;hush money&#8221; payments to Trump&#8217;s alleged former mistresses at Trump&#8217;s direction. Kimmel then read through part of one of Trump&#8217;s tweets:
<blockquote>
I never directed Michael Cohen to break the law. He was a lawyer and he is supposed to know the law. It is called &#8216;advice of counsel,&#8217; and a lawyer has great liability if a mistake is made.
</blockquote>
&#8220;That&#8217;s actually true,&#8221; said Kimmel, who appeared to be struggling at times to get through the monologue. &#8220;He didn&#8217;t tell Michael Cohen to break the law. He paid him to break the law.&#8221; Kimmel then offered a flashback of Trump saying he didn&#8217;t know about the $130,000 NDA payment to Stormy Daniels.
&#8220;First it was I never had sex with those women, then it was I never paid those women, now it&#8217;s I assumed it was legal to pay those women,&#8221; said Kimmel. &#8220;Next week he&#8217;ll say he didn&#8217;t know they were women, that&#8217;s why he asked them to take off their clothes.&#8221; His crowd liked that joke much more than the Ivanka reference.
Kimmel then moved on to the newly announced investigation into Trump&#8217;s inaugural committee, which spent a record $103 million and is now reportedly under scrutiny for potential redirection of funds. For that Trump-damaging story, Kimmel worked in a joke dissing the committee for only being able to land &#8220;Three Doors Down.&#8221;
Video below via &#8220;Jimmy Kimmel Live&#8221;:

<div class="embed video fluid-video"><iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen frameborder="0" height="588" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/xrFvn_3CNMk" width="1044"></iframe></div>

WATCH: Jimmy Kimmel Cracks Sexual Joke About Ivanka Trump, Gets Shamed By Some Of His Audience

Jimmy Kimmel

In Wednesday&#8217;s episode of &#8220;<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/podcasts/38799/ep-259-9-questions-robert-mueller">The Michael Knowles Show</a>,&#8221; Michael explains how Ivanka&#8217;s <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/38626/progressives-pounce-ivanka-trumps-use-private-ashe-schow">email</a> issue does not compare to Hillary&#8217;s. 
&#8220;Ivanka&#8217;s emails! Oh no! They&#8217;ve got us now,&#8221; he joked. &#8220;You know, the Democrats. They get so excited on every little stupid issue. They think &#8216;Oh we got you now!&#8217; They wear those little shirts that say It&#8217;s Mueller time! Cool. Cool guy. Yeah. Great. This is the end of the Trump presidency!&#8221;
&#8220;How many times have they said this is the end of the Trump presidency?&#8221; he continued. &#8220;For about 4 times a day since November 9th, 2016. Now they&#8217;re saying that Ivanka Trump, who&#8217;s not only Trump&#8217;s daughter, but also a staffer in the White House, is guilty of the same thing that Hillary Clinton is guilty of because she used her personal email account to carry on some government business.&#8221;
After playing a clip of Ivanka Trump saying that there was no &#8220;equivalence,&#8221; Knowles broke down how the two circumstances are different. 
&#8220;There is no comparison. There actually is not equivalency. I think the left genuinely thinks there is, because they never understood the Hillary Clinton scandal in the first place,&#8221; he said. Knowles pointed out that former Secretaries of State Colin Powell and John Kerry both used private accounts to conduct business, but it was the actions of the Clinton team afterwards that were so egregious. 
&#8220;If Hillary were using a Gmail account, that wouldn&#8217;t be the problem,&#8221; he said. &#8220;It&#8217;s that she was using a private email server. When she was appointed Secretary of State, she set up a private email server in her home that would store all of those emails. Why would she go through the trouble of doing that? It was a completely unsecured server. The emails would have been much safer on government servers.&#8221;
Knowles offered an explanation: &#8220;She did it to avoid public disclosure laws. She did it avoid record keeping laws. She did it to burn the records of whatever business dealings she was doing while she was Secretary of State.&#8221;
Video and transcript below:
<div class="embed video fluid-video"><iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/ZPjcSXsjYbk?start=1620" width="560"></iframe></div>
<blockquote>
Ivanka&#8217;s emails! Oh no! They&#8217;ve got us now.
You know, the Democrats. They get so excited on every little stupid issue. They think &#8216;Oh we got you now!&#8221; They wear those little shirts that say It&#8217;s Mueller time! Cool. Cool guy. Yeah. Great.
This is the end of the Trump presidency!
How many times have they said this is the end of the Trump presidency? For about 4 times a day since November 9th, 2016.
</blockquote>
<blockquote>
Now they&#8217;re saying that Ivanka Trump, who&#8217;s not only Trump&#8217;s daughter, but also a staffer in the White House, is guilty of the same thing that Hillary Clinton is guilty of because she used her personal email account to carry on some government business.
(Plays Ivanka Clip)
</blockquote>
<blockquote>
There is no comparison. There actually is not equivalency. I think the left genuinely thinks there is, because they never understood the Hillary Clinton scandal in the first place.
The Hillary Clinton scandal is not that she used her personal email account sometimes to send emails. Virtually everybody does that in the government. Donald Trump uses his cell phone sometimes when he shouldn&#8217;t, and he carries it on him and people are worried that people an listen in. Colin Powell did this. He used a private email account. John Kerry used a private email account, but we didn&#8217;t go after all those guys in the way that we went after Hillary Clinton. Why?
</blockquote>
<blockquote>
Because the email account itself is not the problem. If Hillary were using a Gmail account, that wouldn&#8217;t be the problem. The problem is not that Hillary was using a private account. It&#8217;s that she was using a private email server. When she was appointed Secretary of State, she set up a private email server in her home that would store all of those emails.
Why would she go through the trouble of doing that? It was a completely unsecured server. The emails would have been much safer on government servers.
She did it to avoid public disclosure laws. She did it avoid record keeping laws. She did it to burn the records of whatever business dealings she was doing while she was Secretary of State.
</blockquote>
<blockquote>
And what business dealings was she doing? Well we know of a few of them. We know that the Saudi Regime gave her at least 25 million dollars when she was Secretary of State. That is a bribe. That is pay for play. They gave money to that foundation. Why did they do it? Because the Saudi Royal family is so charitable? Out of the goodness of their heart? Saudi Arabia, the greatest exporter of radical Islamic terrorism in the world? Saudi Arabia, the royal family that just chopped up that Islamist guy in Turkey, that cut him up while he was alive? I don&#8217;t think that they&#8217;re the sweetest most charitable people in the world. They were playing to play. They were bribing the Secretary of state.
So what else was going on?
</blockquote>
<blockquote>
We know that Hillary Clinton was involved in approving the sale of uranium to Russian interests while she was Secretary of State, while her slush fund, her foundation was receiving a ton of money from those very interests.
What else? What else was she doing? We don&#8217;t know, because not only did she avoid record keeping laws, federal record laws, she burned the server. Bleached it. She completely wiped it so that nobody could get in there and look at those emails.
</blockquote>
<blockquote>
By the way, you can never permanently delete files.
</blockquote>
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Knowles: Ivanka’s Email Scandal Is A Nothingburger Compared To Hillary’s

Conservatism

Hillary Clinton

John Kerry

Michael Knowles

On Saturday, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/17/style/ivanka-trump-jared-kushner.html">The New York Times</a> ran a piece attacking Jared Kushner and his wife Ivanka, titled, &#8220;Are Jared and Ivanka Good for the Jews?&#8221;
The very question that the Times poses would be ripped up and down for being anti-Semitic if it were posed by the political Right. Unlike Jared and Ivanka, the Times has genuinely been bad for the Jews &#8212; for decades.
First, let&#8217;s take a look at how the article was framed, then a look at some of the numerous times the Times was truly bad for the Jewish people.
The Times wrote, &#8220;To some Jews, the couple serves as a bulwark pushing the Trump administration toward pro-Israel policies, most notably <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/14/us/politics/trump-jerusalem-embassy-middle-east-peace.html?module=inline">the decision to move the U.S. embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem</a>. To many others, they are the wolves in sheep&#8217;s clothing, allowing Mr. Trump to brush aside criticism that his words have fueled the uptick in violent attacks against Jews.&#8221;
Rather suspiciously, the Times spends a great deal of time quoting those who oppose Jared and Ivanka, and barely any direct quotes from those who support them. Some quotes from the anti-Jared and Ivanka crowd:
<blockquote>
&#8220;For Jews who are deeply opposed to Donald Trump and truly believe he is an anti-Semite, it&#8217;s deeply problematic that he&#8217;s got a Jewish son-in-law and daughter. How can that be?&#8221;
</blockquote>
<blockquote>
&#8220;We, as Jews, are forced to grapple with the fact that Jared and his wife are Jewish, but Jared is participating in acts of Chillul Hashem.&#8221;
</blockquote>
&#8220;Chillul Hashem&#8221; literally means to desecrate God&#8217;s name.
Another example:
<blockquote>
&#8220;Inconceivable that Jared could stay affiliated with the administration after Pittsburgh.&#8221;
</blockquote>
Yet another: Kushner is Trump&#8217;s &#8220;fig leaf.&#8221;
Another example:
<blockquote>
&#8220;They certainly won&#8217;t be banned, but I don&#8217;t think most synagogues would give them an aliyah.&#8221; An aliyah is an honor given during the reading of the Torah during the week or on the Sabbath.
</blockquote>
Now, to the crux of the matter: some of the Times&#8217; nearly century-long record of anti-Semitism (although there are many more stories with an anti-Israel bias not covered here):
1. The Times buried the story of the Holocaust in World War II. As Laurel Leff, author of &#8220;<a href="https://www.amazon.com/Buried-Times-Holocaust-Important-Newspaper/dp/0521607825/ref=as_at?creativeASIN=0521607825&amp;linkCode=w50&amp;tag=thedailybeast-autotag-20&amp;imprToken=Vzx.2cFx8X3N8YZXFKiSqg&amp;slotNum=0">Buried by the Times: The Holocaust and America&#8217;s Most Important Newspaper</a>,&#8221; noted, in March 1944, the Times buried a report from the Jewish National Committee in Poland which read, &#8220;Last month we still reckoned the number of Jews in the whole territory of Poland as from 250,000 to 300,000. In a few weeks no more than 50,000 of us will remain. In our last moment before death, the remnants of polish Jewry appeal for help to the whole world. May this, perhaps our last voice from the abyss, reach the ears of the whole world.&#8221; That desperate appeal ran on page four in the middle of a report on discussions in the British House of Commons. As Leff noted, the Holocaust never was made the lead story in all the years it was taking place, and when it did make the front page, the stories obscured the fact that most of the victims were Jews.
2. During the Second Intifada in 2000, on the eve of Rosh HaShanah, Tuvia Grossman, an American student at a yeshiva in Jerusalem, was in a taxi headed for the Western Wall. The taxi took a shortcut through an Arab neighborhood, where roughly 40 Arabs surrounded the taxi, broke the windows, and dragged Grossman out, then beat him, stabbed him once in the leg, and smashed his head with rocks. Grossman still ran to a nearby gas station, where he collapsed. An Israeli policeman wielding a club protected him, while brandishing the club against the Arabs. A freelance photographer took a picture of Grossman bleeding and crouched under the policeman, who was shouting and waving his club. The Times viciously captioned the picture, &#8220;An Israeli policeman and a Palestinian on the Temple Mount.&#8221; After Grossman&#8217;s father sent a letter to the Times with the true story, the Times offered a correction, but still would not say that Grossman was a Jew or describe the beating. It took three more days for the Times to give all the information, but by that time the world had been given the false story for a week.
3. In 2013, the Times published <a href="https://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/03/09/on-questioning-the-jewish-state/?src=recg">an opinion piece</a> that argued that saying Israel did not have a right to exist was not an anti-Semitic statement. The author wrote, &#8220;My view is that one really ought to question Israel&#8217;s right to exist and that doing so does not manifest anti-Semitism.&#8221;
4. In 2014, when Times opinion editor Matt Seaton was asked why the Times would not cover stories about Palestinian racism while they consistently ran stories about Israeli racism, he <a href="http://blogs.timesofisrael.com/new-york-times-editor-admits-lower-standard-for-palestinians/">responded</a> that the Times opinion pages would cover Palestinian racism as &#8220;soon as they have [a] sovereign state to discriminate with.&#8221; As The Times of Israel noted, &#8220;The editor&#8217;s stunning admission that he considers Palestinians exempt from scrutiny due to their stateless existence followed the publication of yet another Op-Ed which accused Israeli society as being racist.&#8221;
5. In 2015, The New York Times ran a story titled, &#8220;<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/09/09/us/politics/lawmakers-against-iran-nuclear-deal.html">Lawmakers Against the Iran Nuclear Deal</a>,&#8221; which showed a chart of Democrats in Congress who opposed the nuclear agreement. That story featured a separate column in the chart which noted which congressional Democrats who opposed the deal were Jewish and which were not. Additionally, Jewish lawmakers and those who represented a district with a larger Jewish population than the U.S. average were <a href="http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2015/09/nyt-quietly-removes-list-of-jewish-lawmakers.html?gtm=bottom&amp;gtm=top">highlighted in yellow.</a>
6. Also in 2015, covering a speech at the U.N. by Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas, the Times displayed its egregious bias against Israel again, as <a href="https://www.christianpost.com/news/blatant-anti-israel-bias-at-the-new-york-times-146745/">The Christian Post</a> noted: &#8220;The article, by Rick Gladstone and Jodi Rudoren, noted that &#8216;Mr. Abbas accused Israel of having systematically violated these pacts&#8217; without mentioning the many violations of the Oslo Peace Accords by Palestinians. In an article exceeding 1,000 words, the reporters made not even one reference to Palestinian terrorism, a basic historical fact that is essential to any fair and balanced understanding of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Indeed, since the Oslo Peace Accords, there have been 22 years of Palestinian terrorist attacks &#8212; including <a href="http://www.mfa.gov.il/mfa/foreignpolicy/terrorism/palestinian/pages/suicide%20and%20other%20bombing%20attacks%20in%20israel%20since.aspx">140 suicide bombings</a> &#8212; which have <a href="http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Terrorism/victims.html">murdered over 1,500 Israelis</a> (in U.S. population terms, about 60,000 people killed) and made Israeli compliance with a complex and risky &#8216;peace&#8217; agreement even harder.&#8221;
7. In June 2016, the Times ran an <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/01/opinion/everybody-into-the-pool.html">op-ed condemning</a> a New York City public pool for having hours where only women were allowed in order to accommodate Orthodox Jewish women. Yet in February 2016, the Times <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/29/world/americas/in-toronto-a-neighborhood-in-despair-transforms-into-a-model-of-inclusion.html">lauded</a> a Toronto pool as a &#8220;model of inclusion &#8220; that had a weekly women&#8217;s swim to accommodate Muslim women.
8. In May, 2018, <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/ny-times-accused-of-anti-israel-bias-in-coverage-of-mideast-violence">reporting</a> on the attempted infiltration into Israel from Gaza in which most of those killed by the IDF were members of the terrorist group Hamas, some of whom disguised themselves as protesters to infiltrate, with at least three instances of armed Hamas gunmen trying to carry out attacks, the Times did not mention those claims until the 42nd paragraph of its main story.

8 Times The NY Times Was Bad For The Jews

Jews

Over the weekend, 11 people were murdered in cold blood in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania when a man screaming &#8220;all Jews must die&#8221; shot up the Tree of Life Synagogue, committing the worst anti-Semitic attack on American soil in our nation&#8217;s history.
President Donald Trump attended memorial services for those slain in the attacks and made his rounds to the grieving community on Tuesday. He was accompanied by the First Lady and his daughter and son-in-law Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner, both Orthodox Jews and White House advisors.
On his way out of an area hospital to visit survivors, the president and his family were greeted by nurses and doctors immensely grateful for his presence following the attack. In the rare behind-the-scenes footage, which was provided by Pittsburgh resident <a href="https://twitter.com/sheryl_mascio">Sheryl Mascio</a> <a href="https://dailycaller.com/2018/10/31/protesters-trump-not-welcome-hospital/">according</a> to The Daily Caller, hospital employees and the First Family engage in heartwarming exchanges with one another.
&#8220;There he is!&#8221; one hospital employee can be heard on video when Trump first appears in the hallway. &#8220;Thank you, Mr. President!&#8221; numerous voices yell.
President Trump stops dead in his tracks and makes his way over to the staffers.
&#8220;Oh my God,&#8221; one employee gasps.
&#8220;Thank you all very much,&#8221; says the president. &#8220;Great job.&#8221;
&#8220;No, thank you, sir,&#8221; replies a male staffer. &#8220;Thank you. We love you,&#8221; others respond.
After one employee asks to shake the president&#8217;s hand, POTUS and FLOTUS take turns shaking all the staffers&#8217; hands, each exchanging thanks for one another.
&#8220;This guy just got out of the operating room,&#8221; quipped Trump, gesturing to a surgeon. &#8220;A few hours ago, yeah,&#8221; he replied.
&#8220;See, and Trump shakes your hand; there&#8217;s no problem,&#8221; the president answered, drawing laughter.
In another warm and comical moment, a male hospital employee yells, &#8220;I love you, Ivanka!&#8221;
President Trump responding in typical fashion: &#8220;Nobody ever heard of this guy,&#8221; he said, gesturing to Jared. Naturally, more laughter erupted.
The First Daughter thanked the entire staff for their hard work before walking out with the rest of the family.
&#8220;I wanted you to see the President tonight at UPMC in Pittsburgh visiting the survivors of the shooting as the nurses and [doctors] were waiting to see him,&#8221; Mascio told The Daily Caller.
Despite the fact that President Donald Trump quickly denounced the grotesque act of hate and all forms of anti-Semitism in the immediate aftermath of the massacre, and the reality that the shooter was explicitly anti-Trump and announced that he did not vote for Trump in 2016, the media worked overtime to push blame for the horrific mass shooting at the president&#8217;s feet.
Journalist Julia Ioffe, for instance, was invited onto CNN after accusing Trump of inciting the massacre. While on air, she offensively <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/37737/watch-leftist-claims-trump-has-radicalized-more-ryan-saavedra">claimed</a> Trump has &#8220;radicalized so many more people than ISIS ever did.&#8221;
News outlets and media figures hyped opposition to Trump from so-called &#8220;Jewish leaders&#8221; to help boost the anti-Trump narrative. Daily Wire Editor-in-Chief Ben Shapiro, who happens to be the biggest target for anti-Semitism online by a long shot, thoroughly <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/37703/media-tout-jewish-leaders-pittsburgh-telling-trump-ben-shapiro">debunked</a> this on Monday. Shapiro pointed out that these &#8220;Jewish leaders&#8221; touted by the media are really left-wing activists at Bend The Arc, a group run by Alexander Soros, the son of Democrat mega donor George Soros.
CNN host Alisyn Camerota &#8203;even <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/37729/watch-cnn-anchor-tries-fails-get-tree-life-rabbi-emily-zanotti">asked</a> Tree of Life Rabbi Jeffrey Myers in the wake of the massacre about his feelings on Trump visiting his synagogue, after continuously failing to bait the rabbi into trashing Trump. &#8220;The President of the United States is always welcome. I&#8217;m a citizen. He&#8217;s my president. He is certainly welcome,&#8221; replied Myers, no doubt shocking Camerota.
The Trump family receiving a warm welcome from local hospital employees is just another example of the holes in the mainstream media&#8217;s anti-Trump narrative.
WATCH:
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POTUS, FLOTUS, Ivanka and Jared take a moment to thank the staff at the hospital In Pittsburgh treating the shooting victims. <a href="https://t.co/iS7UXA8ZI8">pic.twitter.com/iS7UXA8ZI8</a>
&#8212; Mike (@Doranimated) <a href="https://twitter.com/Doranimated/status/1057796751556374528?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">November 1, 2018</a></blockquote>
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WATCH: Rare Footage Of Trump Interacting With PA Hospital Workers Busts Mainstream Media’s Narrative

Melania Trump

Pennsylvania

Terrorism

House Intelligence Committee member Rep. Joaquin Castro (D-TX) promoted a conspiracy theory without any evidence on Friday, saying that Jared Kushner may have been behind the apparent murder of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi.
&#8220;Jared Kushner may have, with U.S. intelligence, delivered a hit list, an enemies list, to the crown prince, to MBS, in Saudi Arabia and that the prince may have acted on that, and one of the people he took action against is Mr. Khashoggi,&#8221; Castro said on CNN.
CNN&#8217;s Poppy Harlow offered some mild pushback to Castro&#8217;s claims, saying, &#8220;Just to be clear Congressman, we don&#8217;t have, I just want to be clear for our viewers, we do not have that reporting. I&#8217;m not sure where you are getting that from.&#8221;
&#8220;But there has been reporting to the effect,&#8221; Castro said, doubling down on his conspiracy theory. &#8220;I&#8217;ve seen reporting to that effect &#8230; that needs to be investigated.&#8221;
WATCH:
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Democratic Rep. Joaquin Castro: &#8220;Jared Kushner may have, with U.S. intelligence, delivered a hit list, an enemies list, to the crown prince, to MBS, in Saudi Arabia and that the prince may have acted on that, and one of the people he took action against is Mr. Khashoggi.&#8221; <a href="https://t.co/4z1xYmSrDn">pic.twitter.com/4z1xYmSrDn</a>
&#8212; Ryan Saavedra (@RealSaavedra) <a href="https://twitter.com/RealSaavedra/status/1053361654899986432?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 19, 2018</a></blockquote>
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Castro&#8217;s baseless conspiracy theory was met with widespread condemnation on social media from members of the press and the Trump administration.
&#8220;.@JoaquinCastrotx&#8217;s allegation is an outrageous slanderous lie without a shred of proof, it&#8217;s reprehensible for a sitting Congressman and supposed &#8220;news&#8221; outlets to continue citing an article that used unnamed sources and was completely debunked,&#8221; White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders wrote on Twitter.
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.<a href="https://twitter.com/JoaquinCastrotx?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@JoaquinCastrotx</a>&#8217;s allegation is an outrageous slanderous lie without a shred of proof, it&#8217;s reprehensible for a sitting Congressman and supposed &#8220;news&#8221; outlets to continue citing an article that used unnamed sources and was completely debunked.<a href="https://t.co/xf2Zhitg8B">https://t.co/xf2Zhitg8B</a>
&#8212; Sarah Sanders (@PressSec) <a href="https://twitter.com/PressSec/status/1053364495458951169?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 19, 2018</a></blockquote>
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&#8220;This has to be among the most irresponsible accusations ever leveled without a whit of evidence for it, one obviously reflecting full-blown TDS,&#8221; conservative pundit Hugh Hewitt wrote.
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This has to be among the most irresponsible accusations ever leveled without a whit of evidence for it, one obviously reflecting full-blown TDS. <a href="https://t.co/9hrXhIYFuF">https://t.co/9hrXhIYFuF</a>
&#8212; Hugh Hewitt (@hughhewitt) <a href="https://twitter.com/hughhewitt/status/1053342069375283200?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 19, 2018</a></blockquote>
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&#8220;This is so wildly irresponsible I don&#8217;t even know where to start,&#8221; Observer columnist John Schindler <a href="https://twitter.com/20committee/status/1053313942859276288">wrote</a>. &#8220;Castro is on the HPSCI. He publicly blamed the IC here. He needs to be removed from the Committee immediately.
Castro later tried to claim that he &#8220;did not intend to accuse&#8221; Kushner of potentially being behind the apparent murder, even though that is exactly what he said on CNN.
&#8220;To be clear, I did not intend to accuse @jaredkushner of orchestrating anything,&#8221; Castro wrote on Twitter. &#8220;Based on press reporting, I&#8217;m asking for Congress to open an investigation of whether any US Intelligence was shared with Saudi Arabia that led to political persecution or killing of #Khashoggi&#8221;
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To be clear, I did not intend to accuse <a href="https://twitter.com/jaredkushner?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@jaredkushner</a> of orchestrating anything. Based on press reporting, I&#8217;m asking for Congress to open an investigation of whether any US Intelligence was shared with Saudi Arabia that led to political persecution or killing of <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Khashoggi?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#Khashoggi</a> (1/7) <a href="https://t.co/31vUT7bEUc">https://t.co/31vUT7bEUc</a>
&#8212; Joaquin Castro (@JoaquinCastrotx) <a href="https://twitter.com/JoaquinCastrotx/status/1053321789806387201?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 19, 2018</a></blockquote>
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