Yale Zussman's Latest Recommendations

Hi Folks,

 

It's been a while since my last package, but with the approach of the Jewish New Year, I thought this would be a good time to send my latest set of recommendations:

 

The Biden Administration's Secret Capitulation to Iran's Regime
by Majid Rafizadeh 
June 17, 2023
https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/19727/capitulation-to-iran

 

My comment: Biden is repeating the errors Obama made in 2015, which raises the question of what Obama's actual goal was:  It matters a great deal whether Obama was pursuing a halt to Iran's nuclear weapons program -- we now know he didn't succeed on this -- and was willing to pay a financial price to get there, or whether providing money to Iran was the actual objective and nominal limitations on one of its weapons programs, however important, was just a smokescreen to protect him from a charge of treason.
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Ehud Barak agreed to give up part of Temple Mount, Old City
JNS
Jun 19, 2023
https://www.jns.org/jns/topic/23/6/19/296380/

Details of the Camp David discussions in 2000.
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Palestinian state -- consistent with US interests?
Ambassador (ret.) Yoram Ettinger
July 5, 2023 
bit.ly/44cJNfV

 

The dilemma faced by the Palestinians is that their "nation" was established to serve as a pawn in the Muslim war against the Jews. That war has failed, and with the onset of the Islamic Revolution in Iran and the Islamist wave among Sunnis, Muslim countries have re-evaluated the concept of a war against the Jews, leaving the Palestinians to "twist slowly in the wind." They could escape their fate by acknowledging that the war against the Jews has failed, but if they admit that, they lose whatever leverage they have had with the their Muslim brethren and acknowledge that their narrative is a lie. Ettinger addresses the consequences for the US of buying into that narrative.
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Iran's Mullahs Escalating Aggression in Latin America, Middle East
by Majid Rafizadeh
July 22, 2023 
https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/19820/iran-escalating-aggression

 

Iran seeks to become a major arms exporter enabling "bad actors" everywhere to increase their aggression. Meanwhile, Biden threatens Israel for seeking to stop Iran's activities.  See the first item, above.
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Iran’s Ayatollas poke the US in the eye
Ambassador (ret.) Yoram Ettinger
July 26, 2023
https://bit.ly/4752HXS

 

Outlines the Iranian threat in Latin America, including a threat to close, or destroy (by rendering the locks inoperative), the Panama Canal by the end of 2023. Two questions: Does anyone in either Washington or Tehran recognizes that doing so is a casus belli; it's essentially what Egypt did in 1967 to set off the Six Day War? Will the Biden Administration respond, and if so, how? 
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Refuse-to-serve: Biased Israeli media is not reporting the full story - opinion
By DAVID M. WEINBERG 
The Jerusalem Post
JULY 21, 2023
https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-751860

 

As Weinberg tells it, the real story of reservist refusal to serve due to the judicial reform is biased media coverage. Refusal announcements get wide coverage, denunciation of those refusals gets close to none. If this sounds familiar, it is because Americans have faced the same problem since Obama maneuvered our media into serving as a "Ministry of Truth" for him.
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The 1993 Oslo Accord dismissed the writing on the wall
Ambassador (ret.) Yoram Ettinger
September 6, 2023
https://bit.ly/3r1wJeY

 

Ettinger itemizes the clues that the Oslo process would lead to disaster, and how Shimon Perez deluded himself into thinking that the basic issues in the conflict could be ignored.

 

I note that the Oslo Accords were a triumph for an approach to foreign policy that ignores ideological and theological dimensions in favor of what are termed "real" factors. If the Palestinians were interested in resolving their "real" problems, like a bad economy, poor governance, and perpetual refugee status, they would seek to replace the permanent UNRWA with a short-term agency that undertook to resettle them and address their other "real" problems.  In this effort, Israel would be an interested and important factor.  Instead, the Palestinian cause remains dedicated to three theological concepts: Preserving the notion that no territory can be removed from the Muslim waqf, reinstating the dhimma so Muslims can continue to treat Jews and others as third-class "citizens," and validating Islamic supersessionism.  Jewish success in winning a state for themselves by force of arms violates all three.  Without addressing these beliefs, there is likely no progress to be made in the conflict.

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Let me close by  wishing my Jewish readers a Shanah Tovah U'Mtukah, a Good and Sweet New Year.

 

--Yale