The US administration is now saying that it will announce its plan for peace in the Middle East, also known as the "Deal of the Century," after the April 9 election in Israel . The unseen plan has already been rejected by Palestinian leaders, who continue to denounce it as a "conspiracy aimed at eliminating the Palestinian cause and rights."
In light of the Palestinians' vehement opposition to the "Deal of the Century," it is already clear that the plan will not solve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas will hardly accept a plan that he has repeatedly referred to as a US "conspiracy" and the "Slap of the Century." In one of his recent speeches, Abbas said: "We will not accept the 'Deal of the Century' and we will not accept a situation where the US is the sole broker in the peace process."
Abbas has turned US President Donald Trump and his senior advisers into enemies of the Palestinians. Abbas and Palestinian Authority officials have been boycotting the US administration since December 2017, when Trump recognized Jerusalem as Israel's capital. Abbas and his associates have since been using harsh language to condemn Trump's senior advisers, especially US Ambassador David Friedman, and special envoys Jared Kushner and Jason Greenblatt. Abbas himself has called Friedman a "son of a dog." Palestinian officials and media outlets regularly refer to Kushner, Friedman and Greenblatt as "Zionist extremists" and "settlers."
Palestinian leaders have incited their people against the Trump and his advisers to the point where it would be almost impossible for them even to be seen meeting with any US official. In recent months, Abbas has been quoted as saying that he does not intend to end his life as a "traitor." The comment also means that it would also be impossible to accept any peace plan presented by the current administration.
Abbas knows that the American plan will not give him everything he is asking for. He wants, among other things, a full Israeli withdrawal to the 1949 armistice lines, including east Jerusalem.
His rivals in Hamas and other Palestinian groups, on the other hand, want to see Israel replaced by an Islamic state, where some Jews may be permitted to live as a minority under Muslim rule.
In short, Hamas rejects Israel's existence on what they claim to be totally Muslim-owned land.
Anyone who thinks that the Palestinians may change their mind about the "Deal of the Century" -- either before or after the Israeli election -- is living in an illusion. There is no reason why Abbas should not be taken seriously when he says he does not intend to end his life as a "traitor." One has to give him credit for at least being honest. He is all too aware that the moment he accepted the "Deal of the Century," he would go down in history and in the eyes of Palestinians -- as well as many Arabs -- as having sold them out, and, of all people, to the "colonizers."
All that is left for the Trump administration to do is to try and persuade the Arab states to abandon the Palestinians and to continue focusing on the regional threat from Iran. If the US completes its pullout from Syria, Iran will successfully complete its long-desired "land-bridge" to the Mediterranean through Yemen, Syria and Lebanon. This encirclement of the area will position Iran, via its proxies, to be the hegemon controlling the region, as it has clearly been trying to bring about. Russia, of course, is standing in the wings, thanks to the gift that then US President Barack Obama handed Putin in 2011 by pulling American troops out of Iraq.
The US could also agree to urging the Arab and Muslim world to continue normalizing its ties with Israel. This mission, though, could easily turn out to be "mission impossible."
Arab foreign ministers who attended the recent US-sponsored conference in Poland on peace and security in the Middle East are now facing strong condemnations from many Arabs. The ministers are being denounced for appearing in public with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during the Warsaw summit. They are being accused by Arabs of promoting normalization with the "Zionist enemy."
Earlier this week, Palestinian and Arab activists launched an online campaign, under the title, "Normalization is Treason," to condemn the Arab officials who participated in the Warsaw summit.
Notably, Abbas's Fatah faction and Hamas have joined one another in the campaign against the Arabs who reportedly support normalization with Israel and have begun using the exactly same language to voice their condemnation.
Mahmoud al-Aloul, deputy chairman of Fatah (headed by Abbas), said that Arab normalization with Israel is a "stab in the back of the Palestinians."
PLO Secretary-General Saeb Erekat also condemned attempts to promote normalization between the Arab states and Israel as a "stab in the back of the Palestinians."
Hamas's military wing, Izaddin al-Qassam, has also endorsed the rhetoric of its political rivals, Aloul and Erekat. Abu Obaidah, a spokesman for Hamas, warned that normalization with Israel is a "stab in the back of the Palestinian resistance. Normalization is a betrayal of the blood of thousands of our martyrs."
While Fatah and Hamas clearly agree that normalization with Israel is a stab in the back, one group of Palestinian Islamic scholars begs to differ. The scholars disagree with the phrase "stab in the back" not because they support peace and normalization with Israel. Instead, these scholars believe that normalization between Arabs and Israel is a "stab in the heart" -- the front, not the back -- of the Palestinians
Under the current circumstances, when Arabs are being widely shamed and condemned for sitting in the same room with an Israeli prime minister, it is hard to see how the Trump administration will be able to convince Arab states and leaders to normalize their relations with Israel. Some of these Arab leaders may be privately telling US administration officials things they like to hear about peace and coexistence with Israel. The very same leaders, however, are fully aware of the opposite sentiments, not only in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, but throughout the Arab world.
For decades now, not only Palestinian leaders but Arab ones as well, have been radicalizing their people against Israel. Using every available platform, including mosques, media outlets and United Nations organizations, these leaders, with the collaboration of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation, have demonized Israel. They have poisoned the hearts and minds of their people with the hate that exists towards Israel all over the Arab world. To promote normalization with Israel, a leader must prepare his people for the possibility of peace with Israel. Meanwhile, Arab leaders are doing the exact opposite -- which is why some of them are currently being denounced as traitors and pawns in the hands of Israel and the US. It would be wise for President Trump's advisers, if they wish to grasp what is really going on in the Arab world, to listen to the voices of the Arab street.
Money For Nothing: The Green New Deal - Todd Strandberg -
The new Socialist representative for Congress, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, has become a gift from heaven to conservative bloggers. She recently co-authored what is being called "The Green New Deal (GND)." When the document came out, it was widely praised by the mainstream media and a host of Democratic leaders.
This plan is bold in calling for a massive transformation of our society, but the goals and timeline are absolutely insane. There is no way they could be implemented with our current technology and resources.
Within 10 years the GND calls for us to move America to 100% clean and renewable energy and decommission every nuclear plant. Other widely derided lines included a call for "high-speed rail at a scale where air travel stops becoming necessary"; expanding public transit "with goals to replace every combustion-engine vehicle"; "economic security for all who are unable or unwilling to work"; and a goal to "fully get rid of farting cows and airplanes."
I'm just stunned that such an idiotic plan could have been issued by a member of congress. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez should be sitting in a corner wearing a dunce hat for producing a document with such faulty math. The starting cost would have been at least $30 trillion. Economists are concerned that we just passed $22 trillion for our national debt, so it would be pure folly to have a plan that calls for about doubling this number.
My favorite part is the proposal to give free money to people "unwilling to work." The Norwegian government just ended a program that gave out cash to people for doing nothing. The trial program found that the free money didn't make people more willing to work; it just made them happier.
Sen. Tom Cotton only sees red in the Green New Deal document. He blames the news media for engaging in a "Stalin-like" cover-up of the freshman New York congresswoman's plan. Cotton, a Republican from my home state of Arkansas, said in a radio interview on "The Hugh Hewitt Show" that the document revealed a liberal ambition to "have the power and the control of those Americans' lives to implement their radical vision for humanity."
Cotton said it was "remarkable" how many Democratic presidential candidates "had leapt onto a proposal that was going to confiscate every privately owned vehicle in America within a decade, and ban air travel so we could all drive or ride around on high-speed light rail, supposedly powered by unicorn tears."
When asked how she planned to pay for her massive program, AOC pointed out that large parts of the Federal budget operated from deficit spending. Her Green New Deal would be an investment that would eventually pay for itself. Steven Rattner, who was an adviser to the treasury department during the Obama administration, offered a rare gift of clear thinking on the calls for massive spending on social programs in a New York Times op-Ed:
"Medicare for all. The Green New Deal. Free college tuition. With each new entrant into the Democratic presidential sweepstakes comes a fresh cascade of ambitious social programs to entice and excite would-be supporters. The list of pay-fors, to use a bit of Washington jargon, grows more slowly. They'll pay for this how again? Tax the rich; tax the rich - or take cover behind a convenient bit of progressive dogma: Don't worry about the fiscal impact because America's rising budget deficits and debt levels don't much matter.
"That's a scary drift of thought, and it should set off alarm bells for all Americans. Vast increases in debt will ultimately compromise Washington's ability to maintain its current array of spending programs, let alone add new ones, and threaten our standard of living."
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., made a brilliant political move by announcing he's bringing the Green New Deal resolution to a vote. Sen. Ed Markey, D-Mass, one of the co-authors of the plan, said the vote was "nothing but an attempt to sabotage the movement we are building." Markey doesn't want a vote on his sprawling blueprint for the future because he knows voters would reject its massive cost.
It would be easy to say that the Green New Deal is just another example of how the world has become overrun with madness and ignorance. It is an exercise in buffoonery, but evil is the primary driving force. The Democrats don't care if the math doesn't work for their plan. They want the power it gives them. Any hint of doubt is smothered in deception and lies. By the time they've convinced the public to join their side, they've completely lost track of reality and will do the will of him who specializes in deception.
"But evil men and seducers shall wax worse and worse, deceiving, and being deceived" (2 Timothy 3:13).
Where to get accurate news - Bill Wilson - www.dailyjot.com
CBS News Foreign Correspondent Lara Logan recently said she was committing professional suicide by calling out the mainstream media for its liberal bias. Logan said, among other things, that news reports based on single, anonymous government sources were an abandonment of journalistic standards. She said, "That's not journalism...Responsibility for fake news begins with us. We bear some responsibility for that, and we're not taking ownership of that and addressing it. We just want to blame it all on somebody else." She said that the media has abandoned its pretense or at least the effort to be objective. This is nothing that we didn't already know, but it raises the question of what many want answered.
Where do you go for accurate news? This question has been raised by many Daily Jot readers. The truth of the matter is, I don't know. Most news sources that I know of are biased in some way. Some would say that Fox News is a good place to get balanced news. I quit watching Fox News years ago because of the noise it generates in the name of fair and balanced. When we see that Fox reporters are no different than the mainstream, they have become the mainstream. Yes, they have conservative commentators that might get your blood boiling, but that is not news, it is commentary. Fox News programs appear to me to be slightly better than the mainstream, but still reflect bias.
Others say Breitbart is a great place to get unbiased news. But Breitbart is also biased toward a conservative slant. You have to take care to go to the source of their articles and check them out. For example, Breitbart reported continuously about how NFL stadiums were nearly empty during games, complete with pictures of empty seats. NFL official statistics (not cited in the story) on attendance, however, showed a slight increase. Those pictures may have been taken during halftime or pregame. Breitbart also headlined that the NFL paid Colin Kaepernick upwards of $80 million in a collusion settlement. There was absolutely no sourcing to this story. It was irresponsibly based on another reporter's anonymous conversation with a "league source." These are examples that I know first hand, but there are many others I have caught over the years.
I use several sources for news. Among the best, I find, is Drudge. Drudge essentially reposts stories from all media reports. Then you need to check the sources and find other stories that report on the same topic to compare. I do the same with Breitbart. The Middle East Media Research Institute, Capitol Hill Prayer Partners, Koenig's International News are very good. I generally do not use any news site exclusively without verifying the facts from other sources. Discerning the truth takes effort. Does the point of the story match up with Biblical principles? Does more than one credible source corroborate the story? Does the story meet the "straight face" test, i.e. is it believable? Does the reporter or the sources have an agenda? These are all questions that need to be answered to find balanced reporting. Bottom line is the warning Christ gave us in Matthew 24:4, "Take heed that no man deceive you."
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