Dear Family & Friends,

Lots of news & special events to cover over 6 days…Especially during Yom HaShoah, the Commemoration of Heroes & Martyrs’ Remembrance Day of the Holocaust.

Especially, Elisha Wiesel’s inspiring speech at the March of the Living in Auschwitz. Elie Wiesel would be so proud of his brilliant son whose mind, soul & spirit learned such deep special Jewish values from his father & his extended family. He is so giving.

B”H, I will celebrate the bris of a third great grandson on Shabbat with family. I’ll be back soon.

So I am now a Savta Raba x 3!!! All the very best, Gail/Geula/Savta/Savta Raba x 3/Mom

1.’Will you be witness to the crimes which occurred here?’ by Elisha Wiesel

2.Shtetls, Ghettos to the Jewish State. Nothing has changed. By Barry Shaw3.“Listen to the survivors & remember their names”: Education Minister Naftali Bennett

4.Islamist Attacks on Holidays by Noah Beck

5.The Screams of Little Girls in Little Palestine by Daniel Greenfield6.Gaza: Let their people go! By Martin Sherman7. CBS data: Jewish population in the world today – similar to that of 19228.Between the US & North Korea: Multiple Perils of “Escalation Dominance”9.What North Korea Should Teach Us about Iranby Alan M. Dershowitz

10. Can Lead World Beyond ‘Crisis’ Of Western Democracy & Capitalism” Claims China

12.Can Israel Be Both A Democratic & Jewish State?

13.’Trump WH has brought a welcome change to US policy’ By David Rosenberg

14.Where will new US Ambassador to Israel live?

15.At UN debate, Arab states heed Haley’s plea to focus on Iran

16.US tells UN Security Council to stop obsessing over Israel

17.President Trump: Formulating Strategy As He Goes Along By Prof. Eytan Gilboa

1.’Will you be witness to the crimes which occurred here?’

Elie Wiesel’s son Elisha speaks at the March of the Living about bearing witness to the horrors & not being silent while atrocities occur.By Elisha Wiesel, Arutz Sheva 4/24/17

Elisha, son of Elie Wiesel – Yoni Kempinski

Speaking at the March of the Living on Monday, Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel’s son Elisha spoke about the importance of bearing witness to the Holocaust and preventing future atrocities from occurring.

In his speech, Elisha said: “In Devarim (Deuteronomy) it says, ‘But beware and watch yourself very well, lest you forget the things that your eyes saw, and lest these things depart from your heart, all the days of your life, and you shall make them known to your children and to your children’s children.’

“My father never forgot. The things he saw stayed with him all the days of his life. He lived to speak of them to me, and to my children. My father was a witness.

“He was a witness to the worst atrocity that man has ever unleashed on fellow man. And he was a witness who believed that to acknowledge the suffering of another – and to have them feel less alone – was an imperative for every human being.

“He spoke for victims around the world: Rwanda, Bosnia, Darfur. The thought that genocides could occur in the wake of the Holocaust haunted him.

“But my father was a witness to more than the Holocaust, he was a witness to the Jewish lives in Eastern Europe which it had claimed.

“He was a witness to his parents’ beliefs and their traditions and their values, some of which continued even in this place, even in that time: the father and son saving crusts of bread for each other, the rabbis condemning G-d at trial & then praying the evening prayer.

“I remember my father followed the instructions each year to lead the Pesach (Passover) Seder as if he too had been there to witness the redemption from Egypt. Can you imagine it? Pesach was the last holiday he spent with his family before they were sent here [to Auschwitz] to die. And still he supplemented the direct memory of the horrors he experienced with the ancestral memory of a people given their freedom.

“He was a witness to a way of life that linked him to his father and his father’s father and all the way back through the generations.

“And my father was also a witness to a miracle, the miracle that was the creation of the State of Israel in his time: a Jewish homeland where his sisters’ children and the Jewish people would never again be left to the world’s mercy.

“He was a witness to all these things.

“What are you a witness to?

“Are you a witness to the crimes that occurred here?

“Will you be silent while history is in danger of being rewritten, while voices in France are now denying the Vichy government’s enthusiasm for the rounding up of Jews?

“Or will you be a witness that history’s lessons are going unheeded, when many in both Europe & the United States want to turn away Muslim refugees fleeing chemical warfare in Syria?

“Will you stand by when African-Americans have reason to be terrified of a routine traffic stop, when Christians are slaughtered in Egypt because they are labeled infidels; when girls in Chad, Somalia, Afghanistan and Pakistan are threatened, raped, or shot for pursuing an education; when homosexuality in Iran is a crime that carries the death penalty? Or will you be a witness to those who live in fear because of the color of their skin, or their gender, or their religion, or their non-belief, or their sexual preference?

“If you are Jewish… Will you wait another generation for another Pew Report to tell us how many Jews are practicing increasingly fewer elements of Judaism in the home, threatening our continued survival as a people with treasured traditions and ethics? Or will you be a witness at the circumcisions, the bar & bat mitzvahs, the Jewish weddings of your children? Will you say kaddish for your parents – & will your children say kaddish for you?

“And if you are of another faith… will you witness and elevate those elements of your tradition which encourage human rights and dignity, as my father did with his?

“Will you turn your back on the history of wars launched & provoked to wipe the State of Israel off the map; to the terror she was subjected to even as she offered land for peace?

“Or will you confront BDS on your college campuses when it holds Israel uniquely accountable for the region’s ills while remaining silent as her enemies teach hatred to children?

“Will you be a witness to the anti-Semitism that lurks just beneath the double standards applied to Israel?

“Will you be a witness to the hope that my father represented through his words and actions? Will you be a witness to small acts of kindness in your immediate life, as well as the larger ones needed on the world stage? Will you teach your children how to be witnesses themselves, how to tell a bully from a victim, how to stand up to a bully when sides must be taken?

“I will be a witness.

“I am here today with my first cousins Steve & Sydney & we are witnesses that we are standing in the place where my father & mother’s families were sent to die simply because they were Jews, packed like animals for the slaughter onto the train while their neighbors watched.

“I am a witness to history & to a generation of heroes, to the veterans of the Allied forces who liberated these camps & put themselves in harm’s way to break the grasp of fascism.

“I am a witness to my father’s deep and undying connection to his people, and to his belief in our collective humanity regardless of ethnicity or borders.

“I am a witness to my children who brought so much joy to their grandfather, to my son in whom my father’s gentle soul lives on & to my daughter, exactly 9 years old today, whose soul throws off the brilliance of a thousand suns. Her name Tziporah bears witness to a little girl of the same age, my father’s sister, sent to the flames here 73 years ago.

“Each Friday night, we light the candles and sing the songs and welcome in the Shabbat together. And my wife and I once again become witnesses that the enemy has failed; we become witnesses that Am Yisrael Chai – we, the Jewish people, live.”

Nothing has changed in attitudes against the Jews in the last 100 years. 4/24/17 Share

Barry Shaw is the Senior Associate for Public Diplomacy at the Israeli Institute for Strategic Studies. He is also the author of ‘Fighting Hamas, BDS and Anti-Semitism.’ From the programs of a hundred years ago to the strain inflicted on Israel today is an eerie similarity.

Jews confined to their Russian shtetls suffered the murders and horrors of Jew haters. [Gail Sez: Grandparents from both my mother’s & father’s families fled from their Shtetls of Kishnev & Radomishyl. Two of their babies were murdered by pogroms.] Polish Jews were herded into ghettoes, ghettoes where their presence was harshly tolerated as a temporary measure by their Nazi masters.

History shows us that these shtetls and ghettoes were gradually reduced in size and denuded of their Jewish population by the ethnic cleansing of their haters. There, Jewish exclusivity did nothing to make them feel safe. On the contrary, a sense of vulnerability and foreboding hovered in the streets and in the homes of the enclosed and entrapped population.

In a real sense, we see this being played out in the Middle East today. Muslim countries expelled their Jews & Israel was the beneficiary. The Jewish State did not feel like a ghetto then. It welcomed its brethren with open arms. It was a positive development. But the Arab nations who banished their Jews did not see it that way. They detested the growing Jewish presence in their region & took violent steps to do away with it. In this, they were in kinship with the Russian & German anti-Semites.

Jewish exclusivity did nothing to make them feel safe. On the contrary, a sense of vulnerability & foreboding hovered in the streets & in the homes of the enclosed & entrapped population. On a promise of a reduced homeland the Jews were deprived of the vast majority of the land for the benefit of the complaining Arabs. This territory became known as Transjordan.

Then, after 7 Arab armies failed to destroy the nascent Jewish State, Israel was persuaded to relinquish further land for peace in the name of a non-existent “harmonious and peace-loving” Palestinian nationhood.

Having lost five wars to eliminate the Jewish presence in the Middle East, the Arabs encouraged and promoted a Palestinian anti-Israel narrative and action campaign. The aim was shudderingly familiar – to pressure the world to force Jews to relinquish territory and property.

Despite an incessant terrorist campaign that left thousands of Israelis dead and more injured, the Arabs, now called “Palestinians”, were projected as victims.

In the delusional spirit of goodwill, Israel signed accords with a determined enemy, withdrew from developed land in Gaza with beautiful homes, rich agricultural infrastructure, and the beginnings of a tourist industry, traumatically removing its population, only to discover they had been tricked and trapped by international forums determined to reduce the Jewish ghetto in the Middle East further into areas of indefensible lines.

Israeli objections are met with diplomatic threats, boycotts & the threat of violence.

As with the shtetl and the ghetto, nobody can assure the Jews of Israel that any withdrawal into vulnerable and over-crowded areas will put an end to the persistent threat of a Final Solution to the Jewish Problem in the Middle East. To any Israeli Jew with grave concerns comes a glib dismissal that Jews now have a strong army, so they can cope with the repercussions.

The international collusion with the Arabs is little different to the collusion of British officials exactly one hundred years ago in Jerusalem, Cairo and Whitehall who, instead of carrying out both British policy and the terms of the League of Nations Mandate to establish the Jewish national homeland, deserted their responsibilities by turning their backs on the Jews they were instructed to assist and, instead, duplicitously encouraged the Arabs to protest the Jewish presence.

What’s going on with false charges of “illegal occupation” & “illegal settlements” if not this?

Today, the effort is to reduce and diminish the Land of Israel further in favor of advancing a Greater Palestine that has failed to contribute any scientific, agricultural or social advancement within its society. Instead, they continue to nurture the age-old anti-Jewish attitude and the perpetuation of anti-Jewish hatred and violence. A Greater Palestine is divided within itself and united only in their determination to inflict further ethnic cleansing on the Jews of Israel.

From the shtetl to the ghetto to the Jewish State, little has changed in attitudes against the Jews in the last century.

6.Gaza: Let their people go! By Martin Sherman

Instead of pouring millions into inoperative desalination plants & rusting sewage treatment works, humanitarian aid should be generous relocation grants to help Gazans find safer, more secure lives elsewhere

“If the borders opened for one hour, 100,000 young people would leave Gaza” – Rashid al-Najja, vice dean, Gaza’s Al-Azhar University; “

…I’d go to Somalia, Sudan — anywhere but here” –Salim Marifi, student,Gaza’s Al-Azhar University, in Al Jazeera, May 6 2015.

“96 percent of water in the Gaza Strip is now undrinkable”– i24 News April 9, 2017.
“Each day, millions of gallons of raw sewage pour into the Gaza Strip’s Mediterranean beachfront … turning miles of once-scenic coastline into a stagnant dead zone” –AP,May 3, 2016.

“Gaza’s sole power plant runs out of fuel” –Times of Israel, April 16, 2017.

The endeavor, spanning almost a quarter century, to transform the coastal enclave of the Gaza Strip into a self-governing Arab entity (or even part of such an entity) has failed.

It has failed resoundingly and irretrievably.

After two-and-half decades of futile effort, the time has come to accept this—and to acknowledge that further pursuit of this ill-conceived objective will only compound the current tragedy—for both Jew and Arab alike.

Incapable and uninterested

Indeed, with the passage of time, it is becoming increasingly clear, that as a collective the Palestinian-Arabs, in general & the Gazan-Arabs, in particular, are totally incapable of & largely uninterested in, creating & sustaining an independent political entity for themselves, by themselves.

Underscoring this dour assessment is the increasingly frequent —and increasingly ominous—flow of reports warning of imminent collapse of virtually all the basic infrastructure in Gaza—electric power, water, sewage and sanitation systems—and the impending catastrophe this is likely to precipitate.

This raises a trenchant question and one which advocates of Palestinian statehood must be forced to confront:Why has a Palestinian state failed to materialize up to now?

This is not a trivial question that can be avoided or circumvented.

After all, it is difficult to identify any other “national liberation movement” that has enjoyed circumstances more benign for their cause than that of the Palestinians-Arabs.

Since the early ’90s, the Palestinians have had:

· Virtually wall-to-wall international endorsement of their claims;

· Almost unanimously supportive coverage in the global mainstream media;

· Generous financial aid – reportedly among the highest per capita in the world; and

· Successive willingly compliant Israeli administrations that not only accepted their claims, but built much of their political credo on that acceptance…and gambled much of their political capital on it.

Yet, despite these bountiful benefits, the Palestinian leadership have produced the most meager and miserable results.

Corrupt kleptocracy or tyrannical theocracy

Other national freedom movements, with far less funding, far less armaments and far less political support, have cast off mighty empires. By contrast, the Palestinian-Arabs have, after decades of “resistance”, not only proved unable to assert their political independence from a tiny mini-state, beleaguered in the region and berated by all and sundry in the international community; but they have failed abysmally to create anything remotely approaching a stable, and productive civil society.

Under Fatah in Judea-Samaria, they have spawned a corrupt kleptocracy.
Under Hamas in Gaza, they have imposed a tyrannical theocracy.
Under neither is there any horizon of hope for a better, more peaceful, more prosperous life for the general public, nor is there any prospect of such hope dawning in the foreseeable future. Both are critically dependent on the (ill-advised) largesse of its alleged “oppressor”, from whom they purportedly strive to liberate themselves.

The magnitude of this failure can be gauged from a recent reportby the Congressional Research Service entitled, “U.S. Foreign Aid to the Palestinians”: “Since the establishment of limited Palestinian self-rule in the West Bank and Gaza Strip in the mid-1990s, the U.S. government has committed more than $5 billion in bilateral economic and non-lethal security assistance to the Palestinians, who are among the world’s largest per capita recipients of international foreign aid.”
The futility of international aid

The report goes on to stipulate the intended objectives of this generous aid: “Successive Administrations have requested aid for the Palestinians in apparent support of at least three major U.S. policy priorities of interest to Congress:

· Promoting the prevention or mitigation of terrorism against Israel from Hamas and other militant organizations;

· Fostering stability, prosperity, and self-governance …that may incline Palestinians toward peaceful coexistence with Israel and a “two-state solution.”

· Meeting humanitarian needs…”

Seen against the grim realities today, this aid has failed miserably in achieving any, and all, of its declared goals!

The motivation for terror attacks against Israel by Hamas & other Palestinian-Arab terror organization have been neither prevented nor mitigated. Indeed, with Hamas still actively engaged in enhancing its offensive capacities—bothunderground tunnel networks & overhead missile capabilites—there are few illusions in Israel that a fourth round of fighting is merely a question of“when”, not “if”

Neither stability, nor prosperity, nor effective self-government have been in any way significantly fostered. Indeed, quite the reverse seems to be the case. Thus, despite decades of generous international goodwill, all the Palestinian-Arab leadership has managed to create is an untenable, divided entity, crippled by corruption and cronyism, with a dysfunctional polity, incapable of holding even municipal elections; and a feeble economy that, with its minuscule private sector and bloated public one, is utterly dependent on external support.

Moreover, humanitarian needs have not been met in any meaningful manner. If anything, the opposite seems true with the entire civilian infrastructure system teetering on the cusp of collapse.

Powers outages, undrinkable water, untreated sewage

With perennial power outages, undrinkable water supplies, failing sanitation services & awash in uncontrolled & untreated flows of raw sewage, life for many in Gaza is becoming unbearable.

Earlier this month, the media abounded with dire warnings of an impending shut down of power supplies in Gaza. One headline proclaimed Gaza Electricity Crisis Deepens as Sole Power Plant Shuts Down; while another declaredGaza’s Sole Power Plant Runs Out of Fuel

The shutdown would leave many with barely four hours of electricity a day and would impact virtually all walks of life.

One member of Gaza’s Chamber of Commerce warned that factories will be forced to shut down, because the owners cannot afford to run generators as an alternative source of electricity: “The continuing stoppage of the Gaza power plant for 20 hours a day foreshadows a real catastrophe that might affect the basic food security of the people as well as the health and education sectors,” he lamented.

The power shortages have also crippled the operation of a new desalination plant and sewage treatment plant and undermines the regular operation of sanitation services.

Significantly, the reasons for the shutdowns are not related to Israel’s security quarantine of Gaza, but rather to intra-Palestinian quarrels between the Fatah-controlled Palestinian Authority and Hamas in Gaza; and to Hamas’s own priorities in the use of electrical power .

Indeed, senior figures in Hamas put the blame squarely on Mahmoud Abbas and the Fatah for imposing exorbitant taxes on fuel imports into Gaza – seehereandhere.

Moreover, several reports indicate Hamas has deprived Gaza’sdesalinationandsewage plants of electricity, opting to use the available power for other purposes—such as Gaza’s luxury hotels, which cater for the enclave’s wafer thin affluent class.

Calamitous consequences

The grave results of this dysfunctional governance are not difficult to discern.

iTV Newsreportedthat both international and Israeli bodies “estimated that some 96% of water in the Gaza Strip is now undrinkable after the collapse of the enclave’s main aquifer”.

Al Jazeera carried an account of the appalling conditions that inadequate sewage treatment has brought, from a local farmer in Wadi Gaza, a valley in the central Gaza Strip:“Farming is ruined. The plants are diseased. There are flies, worms & it is spreading.” The report added: “Animals and birds were soon replaced by swamps of sewage, swarming flies and thriving bacteria. Residents began to suffer from an increase in allergies, inflammation, fevers and weakened immunity. Disease-ridden mosquitoes feasted on the community at night. The stench was overpowering.”

Thus, with much of the sewage conveyance pipes in a state of disrepair, leaking into the coastal aquifer, Gaza’s sole source of natural water; with the aquifer itself being depleted at three times its recharge rate from rainfall; with massive flows of untreated sewage flowing directly into the sea, making the beaches and swimming a distinct health hazard, future prospects for the average Gazan look bleak indeed—with little hope for improvement on the horizon.

Accordingly, it is hardly surprising to learn that polls conducted by Palestinian institutes consistentlyshowthat almost half (and occasionally more than half) of the Gazans would like to emigrate—even without there being a tangible economic incentive offered.

The only real “reconstruction” in town

Of course, many of Israel’s detractors will attempt to lay the blame for this dismal situation on the “Occupation” and the “Siege”. But, this is merely a flimsy pretext that is sounding increasingly hollow. After all, as we have seen previously, virtually the entire crisis is a result of intra-Palestinian decisions regarding resource allocation and taxation.

Indeed, the validity of this contention is bolstered by examining just how the Palestinian-Arabs in Gaza have chosen to invest their energies and divert their resources.

Last year, high level Israeli sourcesrevealedthat Hamas was seizing over 90% of cement supplies entering into Gaza for its own purposes, such as construction of terror tunnels.

But Hamas’s efforts were not confined to underground terror installations. The organization invested considerable effort in replenishing and enhancing its overhead weaponry.

Thus, last December, Hamas Political Bureau Member, Fathi Hammad, proudlyinformedAl Aksa TV :“..our Jihadi, ‘Izz Al-Din Al-Qassam units have become an army, Allah be praised…This army has its own industry. Incidentally, we are now ready to sell our missiles to Arab countries. These are advanced missiles. If you look into the missile or weapon industries of developed countries, you will find that Gaza has become the leading manufacturer of missiles among Arab countries…”

Showing commendable commercial enterprise, he went onto propose a new export industry for the beleaguered enclave “We are prepared to sell them (to Arab countries) – so that they will launch them against the Jews…”

Significantly, according the Guardian, IDF assessment shows that by the beginning of this year, Hamas’s “military capabilities had been restored to their pre-2014 war strength”—which is, of course, an impressive feat of “reconstruction”

So, despite Israeli restrictions, it appears that, where mobilizing against the hated “Zionist entity” is concerned, Gazans seem able to find the ingenuity and productive energies that evidently elude them in other fields of endeavor.

The need to restructure humanitarian aid

The current situation in Gaza, and the accompanying misery, are the direct result of the misguided attempt to foist statehood on the Palestinian-Arabs.

It was Albert Einstein who famously said that one could not solve a problem with the level of thinking that created it.

The problem of Gaza was, irrefutably, created by the belief that land could be transferred to the Palestinian-Arabs to provide them a viable opportunity for self-governance.

Accordingly, the problem of Gaza cannot be solved by persisting with ideas that created it – i.e. persisting with a plan to provide the Palestinian-Arabs with land for self-governance. This concept must, therefore, be abandoned for any lasting solution to be possible.

Clearly then, persisting with humanitarian aid, as in the past, will yield essentially similar results to those of the past. Any improvements in the humanitarian conditions will be at best marginal, probably imperceptible.

The only real way to alleviate the humanitarian crisis in Gaza is to offer the Gazans what they really want – a better life elsewhere, out of harm’s way, free from the clutches of the cruel, corrupt cliques, who have lead them from disaster to disaster for decades.

Thus, rather than pouring millions into inoperative desalination plants and rusting sewage treatment works, the aid should be in the form of generous individual relocation grants to allow non-belligerent Gazans to seek a safer, more secure future elsewhere, outside the “circle of violence” that inevitably awaits them if they stay.

This should be the real humanitarian effort to effectively eliminate the suffering in Gaza. This should be the call to the international community:Let their people go!

Martin Sherman is the founder and executive director of the Israel Institute for Strategic Studies.

Gaza: Let their people go! By Martin Sherman

News – Maariv by Yuval Begin, Moshe Cohen

On the eve of Holocaust Martyrs ‘and Heroes’ Remembrance Day, the Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS) today published data on the number of Jews in the world and their distribution in various countries. The data, updated for 2015, indicate that today there are 14.411 million Jews living in the world – a population similar to that of 1922. The largest Jewish population is in Israel, with a population of 6.335 million.

© Provided by Jerusalem Post Group

The world’s second largest Jewish population is 5.7 million people in the United States. 460,000 Jews live in France, 388,000 in Canada, 290,000 in Britain, 181,000 in Argentina, 180,000 in Russia, 117,000 in Germany and 113,000 in Australia.

8.Between US & North Korea: Multiple Perils of “Escalation Dominance”by Prof. Louis René Beres4/19/17 Source: israeldefense.co.il

When all pertinent factors are taken into account, US President Donald Trump could undertake selective military action against North Korea. In response, Pyongyang – then having no realistic option to launching certain forms of armed reprisal – could strike American military forces in the region, and/or certain other carefully chosen targets in Japan or South Korea. Whatever North Korea’s preferred configuration of selected targets, Kim Jong Un’s retaliatory blow would likely be designed to NOT elicit any unacceptably massive (possibly nuclear) American counter-retaliations.

This reasoned conclusion, of course, would depend, inter alia, upon the Korean dictator’s own willing adherence to rational decision-making, and also on certain largely unpredictable synergies between President Kim’s discernible level of rationality, and the reciprocally rational calculations of President Trump.

If, for example, Mr. Trump should cast ordinary caution to the winds with his own “preemptive” strike (a defensive attack that would promptly be justified by Washington as a legitimate expression of international law-enforcement, or “anticipatory self-defense”), the North Korean response, whether rational or irrational, could be “disproportionate.” In that prospectively unstable case, one rife with potential for a more continuously unfettered competition in risk-taking, any contemplated introduction of nuclear weapons into the volatile mix might not be dismissed out of hand.

At that point, moreover, such introduction would not have to originate on the American side. This sobering inference is unassailable, or “true by definition” because North Korea has already displayed certain conspicuous forms of nuclear weapons capability. Furthermore, in such rapidly escalating circumstances, Mr. Trump, in view of his own generally favored ‘argumentum ad bacculum’ stance, might settle upon a “mad dog” strategy vis-à-vis President Kim. (Years ago, Moshe Dayan, as Israel’s Minister of Defense, had urged “Israel must be seen as a mad dog, too dangerous to bother.”)

Here, the American leader would depend upon an untested strategy of pretended irrationality, or what I have called in my own books & monographs over the past half-century, the “rationality of pretended irrationality.” Significantly, any such belligerent dependence, while intuitively sensible & compelling to Mr. Trump, could still backfire & open up an irreversible path to fully unstoppable escalation.

If, on the other hand, President Donald Trump’s defensive first strike against North Korea were recognizably less than massive, a fully rational adversary in Pyongyang could then likely determine that his own chosen reprisal should be correspondingly “limited.” But if Mr. Trump’s consciously rational and systematically calibrated attack upon North Korea were wittingly or unwittingly launched against an irrational enemy leadership, the plausible response from Kim Jong Un could then be an “all out” retaliation. In any event, such a presumably unanticipated response, whether nuclear or non-nuclear, would be directed at some as yet undeterminable combination of US, South Korean & Japanese targets.

Cumulatively, of course, it could inflict very substantial harms.

For the moment, at least, any North Korean missile attack against US interests & personnel, whether a first-strike or reprisal, would have to exclude the American homeland. This same limiting prediction, however, cannot be made in reference to any considered South Korean or Japanese targets. On the contrary, any North Korean attack against South Korea or Japan would target primarily those countries’ vulnerable military assets, but could also include a meaningful number of “soft” civilian populations & certain corollary infrastructures.

Even if it is being played only by rational adversaries, any advancing strategic “game” between Washington & Pyongyang would demand each contestant to strive relentlessly for “escalation dominance.” It would then be in the manifestly unpracticed internal dynamics of such rivalry that the grievous prospect of mutual catastrophe could sometime arise. Looking ahead, this unwanted outcome could be produced in unexpected increments of escalation by one or both of the two national “players,” or, instead, by any sudden quantum leap in destructiveness undertaken by North Korea and/or the United States.

It’s all bewilderingly complex & essentially also unprecedented. In facing off against each other for escalation dominance, therefore, even under the most ideal assumptions of mutual rationality, both President Trump & President Kim Jong Un would have to scrupulously concern themselves with possible miscalculations, errors in information, unauthorized uses of strategic weapons, mechanical or computer malfunctions & assorted nuances of cyber-defense/cyber-war.

One final observation. Mr. Trump & Mr. Kim would need to continuously bear in mind that it is scientific nonsense to assign mathematical probabilities to unique events. Because an authentic nuclear exchange between North Korea & the United States would represent precisely such a singular event – one with utterly unforeseen intersections, interactions & “synergies” – no one can predict with any reassuring degrees of accuracy whether such a conflict (an asymmetrical conflict) would be more or less probable. Indeed, should President Trump ever decide to strike North Korea preemptively on the optimistic assumption that his generals have already “got everything covered,” he would promptly be reminded of the classic military warning issued by Carl von Clausewitz.

Long before military planners could even imagine a nuclear war, the great Prussian general and strategist had cautioned leaders about “friction,” or “the difference between war on paper, and war as it actually is.” Accordingly, nuclear brinksmanship between Washington and Pyongyang would take place in uncharted waters, and thus require both participating presidents to steer an unalterably steady course between escalation dominance and national survival.

Can we now reasonably assume that Mr. Trump and Mr. Kim are up to meeting such very demanding, implicitly cooperative, and thoroughly untried expectations? If not, some of America’s principal allies, especially Israel, could consider themselves impacted by the outcome. To be sure, once the nuclear firebreak had actually been crossed in northeast Asia, certain critical strategic re-calculations and re-calibrations would take place almost immediately in Tel Aviv.

Louis René Beres is Emeritus Professor of International Law at Purdue. He lectures & publishes widely on Israeli security & nuclear strategy.

9.What North Korea Should Teach Us about Iranby Alan M. Dershowitz 4/19/17 Source: Gatestoneinstitute.Org

We failed to prevent N. Korea from developing nuclear weapons. As a result, our options to stop them from developing a delivery system capable of reaching our shores are severely limited.

The hard lesson from our failure to stop North Korea before they became a nuclear power is that we MUST stop Iran from ever developing or acquiring a nuclear arsenal. A nuclear Iran would be far more dangerous to American interests than a nuclear North Korea. Iran already has missiles capable of reaching numerous American allies. They are in the process of upgrading them and making them capable of delivering a nuclear payload to our shores.

Its fundamentalist religious leaders would be willing to sacrifice millions of Iranians to destroy the “Big Satan” (United States) or the “Little Satan” (Israel). The late “moderate” leader Hashemi Rafsanjani once told an American journalist that if Iran attacked Israel with nuclear weapons, they “would kill as many as five million Jews,”& if Israel retaliated, they would kill fifteen million Iranians, which would be “a small sacrifice from among the billion Muslims in the world.” [1.7 Billion Muslims in the world – Read our “WinstonIsraelInsight.org :GW]] He concluded that “it is not irrational to contemplate such an eventuality.” Recall that the Iranian mullahs were willing to sacrifice thousands of “child-soldiers” in their futile war with Iraq. There is nothing more dangerous than a “suicide regime” armed with nuclear weapons.

The deal signed by Iran in 2015 postpones Iran’s quest for a nuclear arsenal, but it doesn’t prevent it, despite Iran’s unequivocal statement in the preamble to the agreement that “Iran reaffirms that under no circumstances will Iran ever seek, develop or acquire nuclear weapons.” (Emphasis added).

Recall that North Korea provided similar assurances to the Clinton Administration back in 1994, only to break them several years later — with no real consequences. The Iranian mullahs apparently regard their reaffirmation as merely hortatory and not legally binding. The body of the agreement itself — the portion Iran believes is legally binding — does not preclude Iran from developing nuclear weapons after a certain time, variously estimated as between 10 to 15 years from the signing of the agreement. Nor does it prevent Iran from perfecting its delivery systems, including nuclear tipped inter-continental ballistic missiles capable of reaching the United States.

If we are not to make the same mistake with Iran that we made with North Korea, we must do something now – before Iran secures a weapon – to deter the mullahs from becoming a nuclear power, over which we would have little or no leverage.

Congress should now enact legislation declaring that Iran’s reaffirmation that it will never “develop or acquire nuclear weapons” is an integral part of the agreement and represents the policy of the United States. It is too late to change the words of the deal, but it is not too late for Congress to insist that Iran comply fully with all of its provisions, even those in the preamble.

In order to ensure that the entirety of the agreement is carried out, including that reaffirmation, Congress should adopt the proposal made by Thomas L. Friedman on 22 July 2015 and by myself on 5 September 2013. To quote Friedman:

“Congress should pass a resolution authorizing this and future presidents to use force to prevent Iran from ever becoming a nuclear weapons state … Iran must know now that the U.S. president is authorized to destroy – without warning or negotiation – any attempt by Tehran to build a bomb.”

I put it similarly: Congress should authorize the President “to take military action against Iran’s nuclear weapon’s program if it were to cross the red lines….”

The benefits of enacting such legislation are clear: the law would underline the centrality to the deal of Iran’s reaffirmation never to acquire nuclear weapons, and would provide both a deterrent against Iran violating its reaffirmation and an enforcement authorization in the event it does.

A law based on these two elements — adopting Iran’s reaffirmation as the official American policy and authorizing a preventive military strike if Iran tried to obtain nuclear weapons — may be an alternative we can live with. But without such an alternative, the deal as currently interpreted by Iran will not prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons. In all probability, it would merely postpone that catastrophe for about a decade while legitimating its occurrence. This is not an outcome we can live with, as evidenced by the crisis we are now confronting with North Korea. So let us learn from our mistake and not repeat it with Iran.

Alan M. Dershowitz, Felix Frankfurter Professor of Law, Emeritus, at Harvard Law School & author of Taking the Stand: My Life in Law & Electile Dysfunction: A Guide for the Unaroused Voter.

10. Can Lead World Beyond ‘Crisis’ Of Western Democracy & Capitalism” Claims Chinaby Evelyn Cheng 4/19/17 Source: CNBC.COM

China’s government newspaper is using Donald Trump’s presidency to promote China as an alternative to the “crisis” of Western democracy and capitalism. — “Western-style democracy has played a progressive role in history, but right now it has heavy drawbacks,” Han Zhen, Communist Party secretary of the Beijing Foreign Studies University, wrote in a Chinese editorial in the People’s Daily.

The article and two similar pieces filled up a full page in the government paper and blamed Western democracy and capitalism for global troubles such as the financial crisis and populist movements in the U.S. and Europe. In this context, the editorials said, China could show the benefits of “socialism with Chinese characteristics.”

Beijing is trying to enter what it sees as a leadership gap created by worries around Trump, said Scott Kennedy, director of the Project on Chinese Business and Political Economy at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.- “I think they’re just trying to take advantage of what looks like a disorderly transition in the U.S. & a great anxiety around the world about what a Trump administration looks like,” Kennedy said.

The commentary pieces follow other recent statements that criticize Western democracy as a concept. Chinese commentators in state-run media said the US showed the “dysfunction of democracy” and said “the U.S. needs political reform.”

This weekend’s editorials continue Beijing’s efforts to demonstrate that China’s communist version of business, economic & political development are a viable alternative for the world at large.

Last week, Chinese President Xi Jinping also played up his country’s role as a promoter of globalization during his speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. Xi was the first Chinese head of state to attend the annual gathering of elites.

‘Democracy isn’t meant to be efficient’ – But China has a litany of its own struggles, if only on the financial side.

State ownership of many industries has led to inefficient growth fueled by high levels of debt that China must reckon with. A years-long attempt to shift the economy away from manufacturing to consumption has hit setbacks as reform efforts stall & China’s overall economy stagnates. GDP grew in 2016 at its slowest pace in 26 years, a report said Friday. China is trying to keep the yuan from weakening as capital is bleeding out of the country.

Meanwhile, Xi must set the stage for his own consolidation of power at a Communist Party congress this fall.

“When you have a country like China whose growth is slowing with massive debt, with concerns of its neighbors as it moves to become more powerful, I don’t know if it’s the right time for China to be strongly promoting its system relative to others,” Kennedy said.

“Democracy isn’t meant to be efficient. … It’s meant to reflect diversity, have checks & balances on power & proceed in a manner where everyone has a say,” Kennedy said.

4/19/17 Author(s): DDO Staff Source: Demdigest.Org DDO Staff

Russia is using cyber-hacks and “weaponizing misinformation” to undermine the West, the U.K. warned today.

“Today we see a country that, in weaponizing misinformation, has created what we might now see as the post-truth age. Part of that is the use of cyber-weaponry to disrupt critical infrastructure and disable democratic machinery,” said defence secretary, Sir Michael Fallon:

Fallon also accused the Russian government of routinely lying. “There is a special Russian word for this. Not maskirovka, the old deception perpetrated by its intelligence agencies, but vranyo, where the listener knows the speaker is lying and the speaker knows the listener knows he is lying but keeps lying anyway.”

The warning came after a U.S. Senate subcommittee announced an investigation into Russia’s alleged hacking.

“Our goal is simple — to the fullest extent possible we want to shine a light on Russian activities to undermine democracy,” said Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) and Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) — who oversee the Judiciary Committee’s subpanel on crime and terrorism.

Russia ‘Weaponizing Misinformation’ To ‘Disable’ Western Democracy

Author(s): DDO Staff Source: Demdigest.Org DDO Staff

Russia is using cyber-hacks and “weaponizing misinformation” to undermine the West, the U.K. warned today.

“Today we see a country that, in weaponizing misinformation, has created what we might now see as the post-truth age. Part of that is the use of cyber-weaponry to disrupt critical infrastructure and disable democratic machinery,” said defence secretary, Sir Michael Fallon:

Fallon also accused the Russian government of routinely lying. “There is a special Russian word for this. Not maskirovka, the old deception perpetrated by its intelligence agencies, but vranyo, where the listener knows the speaker is lying and the speaker knows the listener knows he is lying but keeps lying anyway.”

The warning came after a U.S. Senate subcommittee announced an investigation into Russia’s alleged hacking.

“Our goal is simple — to the fullest extent possible we want to shine a light on Russian activities to undermine democracy,” said Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) and Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) — who oversee the Judiciary Committee’s subpanel on crime and terrorism.

12.Can Israel Be Both A Democratic & Jewish State?

4/19/17 From: kehilanews.comNote: First Published in the Kehila News (kehilanews.com)1/4/17

The highly charged debate over whether Israel can be both democratic & Jewish represents a clash of Western post-Christian, Islamic & Judeo-Christian world views. Each of the 3 narratives has historically embraced elements of the other, but polarization is raising the question: Which position represents truth & which should Israel follow in order to usher peace into the region?

The Western post-Christian position represented by U.S. Sec. of State John Kerry would like 2 states living side by side in peace. The radical Islamic position represented by Hamas supports one Jew-free Islamic state. The Judeo-Christian position represented by Israel’s Education Minister Naftali Bennett supports one Jewish state democratically accommodating all ethnicities.

Kerry questioned a fundamental premise of the State of Israel that it is both Jewish & democratic. He argued that it is unreasonable for the Jewish half of a single state to shape the nation in terms of religion, legal & socio-cultural matters, the military, economy, education & language. In a single state, where a large percentage of the population would be Arab, Kerry would presumably prefer a pluralistic framework where the values of each competing group were compromised in order to reach consensus & cooperation.

“Today, there are a similar number of Jews & Palestinians living between the Jordan River & the Mediterranean Sea. They have a choice. They can choose to live together in one state or they can separate into two states,” Kerry asserted in a recent speech. “But here is a fundamental reality. If the choice is one state, Israel can either be Jewish or democratic. It cannot be both. It won’t ever really be at peace. Moreover, the Palestinians will never fully realize their vast potential in a homeland of their own with a one-state solution.”

Kerry perhaps failed to realize that the Islamic worldview would not coexist with a competing Jewish worldview, even as neighboring states. Islam under Sharia Law, which is what Gaza’s Hamas government advocates, has at best only a highly subservient place for the unconverted living in Muslim lands. Proposals for a future Palestinian state do not include a single Jew much like Adolf Hitler’s Final Solution of ‘Judenfrei’ states.

Furthermore, Islam’s ultimate goal is for the entire region to be Islamic, making Kerry’s position appear hopelessly naive.

The Obama administration long held Turkey as a model of a modern, Westernized, tolerant, pluralistic, moderate, secularized, Muslim-majority nation. However, Turkey’s current leadership has been described by Mid East expert Joel Richardson as increasingly “Hitler-esque.” It seems core Islamic values of domination, discrimination & submission ultimately rise to the surface so pure Islam & democracy can no more mix than oil & water.

So can Israel be Jewish and democratic & include a substantial Muslim population?

Ex-Chief Justice Aharon Barak’s minimal definition of “a Democratic State” is:

“Recognition of the sovereignty of the people manifested in free and egalitarian elections; recognition of the nucleus of human rights, among them dignity and equality, the existence of separations of powers, the rule of law, and an independent judiciary system.”

Currently Israel’s Arab Christian and Druze population provide a model of minority groups thriving in the State of Israel and benefitting from such a system. One prominent Druze leader recently described the UN’s criticism of Israel’s treatment of his community as “laughable.” For Nazareth-based Greek Orthodox priest Gabriel Nadaf, Israel’s democratic principles are well founded in law, but its Jewish principles do not go far enough.

“It is important to clarify in law to the citizens of the state, who maybe have forgotten this, to our neighbors, and to the entire world, that it is not worthwhile for them to err. The Jews have returned home & established their national state. They are no longer temporary residents in the Land of Israel,” he wrote in 2014.

A substantial number of Arabs prefer to live with the freedoms & opportunities the State of Israel provides. A 2015 poll by the Palestinian Center for Public Opinion, in the West Bank, found 52% of Palestinians living in Israeli-ruled East Jerusalem would prefer Israeli citizenship with equal rights, while 42% would prefer to be citizens of a Palestinian state. Following recent wildfires in Israel a Muslim who helped rebuild a fire-damaged synagogue stated: “Jews & Arabs live together in Haifa, & there is no discrimination. We must continue with this co-existence & promote peace.”

Under David’s reign as King we find a model of non-Jews thriving in a Jewish state. For example, Obed-Edom the Gittite, from the Philistine city of Gath, received G-d’s blessings after taking care of the Ark of the Covenant & subsequently rose to positions of responsibility in Israel. However, he had clearly rejected the traditional gods of his heritage in favor of the G-d of Israel. Followers of other gods wouldn’t have such an opportunity.

Thus, an uncompromising Jewish interpretation of statehood differs in key points from the modern-day pluralistic, multi-faith understanding of democracy: Jewish democracy is subservient to the principle of a Bible-based theocracy. For Bennett, who told Kerry to “pick up your Bible and read it,” only one god can shape the future of Israel. As Ireland and Greece declare their Christian faith in their constitutions, Bennett wants Israel to maintain its Jewish faith.

Lawmakers have attempted to pass a “Jewish State bill,” currently shelved. The bill would affirm “personal rights of all citizens according to the law,” while communal rights would need to be aligned with Jewish values. Minority groups would not have the right to national determination. Critics of the bill have called it undemocratic, while proponents see it as safeguarding democracy.

The total number of Jews in the world is, conservatively, just over 14 million. The prophet Micah spoke of the return of all Jews to the land of Israel, which would maintain a Jewish majority.

“I will surely gather all of you, Jacob; I will surely bring together the remnant of Israel.
I will bring them together like sheep in a pen, like a flock in its pasture; the place will throng with people.” Micah 2:12

The real battle is not about whether Israel can be both democratic and Jewish, but about the claims of three competing world views: post-Christian Western, Islamic and Judeo-Christian – and for Kingship of Israel. The King himself will one day usher in true and lasting peace after much opposition & conflict.

“The One who breaks open the way will go up before them; they will break through the gate & go out. Their King will pass through before them, the Lord at their head.” Micah 2:13

13.’Trump WH has brought a welcome change to US policy’ By David Rosenberg,21/04/17 14:15PM Netanyahu praises Trump administration for change in US policy towards Iran during meeting with Defense Secretary Mattis.

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PM Netanyahu meets with Secretary of Defense James Mattis – Amos Ben Gershom/GPO

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu met with US Defense Secretary James Mattis in Jerusalem Friday morning to discuss joint US-Israeli efforts to stabilize the region and address strategic threats including the Iranian regime and the ISIS terror group.

In a joint press briefing at the beginning of the meeting, Netanyahu praised the Trump administration’s shift in policy towards Iran and its client state, Syria, calling it a “welcome change”.

“We sense a great change in the direction of American policy,” said the Prime Minister. “We know that the very clear and forthright words, Mr. Secretary, that you had to say about Iran, this follows very strong and forthright words on the part of President Trump and very forthright deeds against the use of chemical weapons by Iran’s proxy, Syria. This has been appreciated around the world and in our region. I think this is a welcome change, a strategic change of American leadership and American policy.

“We have common values and also common dangers. The common dangers are based on the twin threats of militant Islam – the Shiite extremists led by Iran and the Sunni extremists led by Daesh [ISIS]. We are committed to thwarting these dangers as we are committed to seize the common opportunities and great opportunities that I think are before us, Mr. Secretary, because of the understanding of many of our Arab neighbors as to the commonality of the threat but also as to the opportunities of the future.”

Secretary of Defense Mattis warned that regional allies would need to unite to confront both ISIS and the Iranian regime.

“The 2 dangers that face Israel & all of the other nations in the region that are trying to maintain a stable & peaceful & prosperous region are those that I’m here to discuss with the Prime Minister, especially the week before Holocaust remembrance,” said Mattis.

“I think it’s important that we remind ourselves that if good people don’t band together then bad people can do a lot of damage in this world. We’re committed to stopping that & doing whatever it takes to pass on peace & freedom to the next generation.”

14.Where will new US Ambassador to Israel live?By Orly Harari4/20/17

As Trump administration mulls embassy move, David Friedman to work from Jerusalem residence, entertain official guests in the capital.

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As the Trump administration continues to weigh a possible move of the US embassy from Tel Aviv to the Israeli capital of Jerusalem, newly-sworn in Ambassador to Israel David Friedman is settling into his new job – and looking for a new house.

While the Ambassador already owns a private residence in Jerusalem’s Talbiya neighborhood, State Department officials ruled out his request to work out of the home, saying that it does not meet the logistical requirements necessary for the Ambassador’s office or residence, where foreign officials are received for official events.

Nevertheless it appears Ambassador Friedman will be working in the Israeli capital, not the US Embassy in Tel Aviv as is customary.

Since his appointment as Ambassador to Israel, Friedman has requested that he work in Jerusalem, where the US maintains several facilities operated by the US Consulate.

According to a report by Channel 10, aides to the ambassador and Jerusalem city officials are currently searching for a new residence in the city.

The report claims that officials involved in the search are strongly considering properties in the Katamon neighborhood.

15.At UN debate, Arab states heed Haley’s plea to focus on Iran

Arab states agree to US request to focus more time on Iranian threat, less on Israel Israeli-Arab conflict.

JTA, 21/04/17 07:38 e

Nikki Haley – Reuters

JTA – A number of Arab states heeded the plea by Nikki Haley, the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, to focus more in a Middle East debate on the threat posed by Iran than on the Israeli-Arab conflict.

Haley, this month the president by rotation of the U.N. Security Council, convened a council session on the Middle East.

“How one chooses to spend one’s time is an indication of one’s priorities,” she said in her opening remarks.

“The same is true for the UN Security Council,” she said. “The Israel-Palestinian issue is an important one, deserving of attention. But that is one issue that surely has no lack of attention around here. The incredibly destructive nature of Iranian & Hezb‘Allah activities throughout the Mid East demands much more of our attention. It should become this Council’s priority in the region.”

All U.N. member states — not just the 15 on the council — were invited to deliver short addresses on the Middle East.

The plea appeared to resonate with a number of states joining the debate, including the United Arab Emirates & Saudi Arabia, as well as European states & some in Africa, incl. Ethiopia.

These states did not ignore the Israeli-Arab issue & were often critical of Israel, but the greater part of their addresses looked to the threat posed by Iran and its allies in the region, with a special focus on Syria, where a Sarin gas attack killed 89 civilians earlier this month. Western states have blamed the Assad regime, allied with Iran, for the attack.

The UAE envoy, for instance, said that Iran’s involvement in other regional conflicts posed “an existential threat to the Middle East.”

Other nations, including Leftist governments in South America like Venezuela, as well as South Africa, focused more on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The South African envoy said the Security Council “should not stray away from the core issue” when discussing the region.

Haley has repeatedly said the United States will no longer tolerate anti-Israel bias at the body, a key difference between the Trump administration and its predecessor, the Obama administration, which sought to tamp down anti-Israel bias through quiet diplomacy.

Haley was behind successful efforts earlier this year to get the U.N. Secretary General, António Guterres, to withdraw a report by a U.N. affiliate that was heavily biased against Israel, comparing it to apartheid-ridden South Africa.

16.US tells UN Security Council to stop obsessing over Israel

US Ambassador Nikki Haley says Iran ‘chief culprit’ in Middle East conflicts, too much attention paid to Arab-Israeli conflict. AFP, 4/20/17 Share

Nikki Haley – Reuters

The US on Thurs. urged the UN Security Council to devote less attention to the Arab-Israeli conflict & make Iran’s “incredibly destructive” activities a priority in the Middle East.

US Ambassador Nikki Haley branded Iran the “chief culprit” of conflicts in the Middle East & vowed to work with Washington’s partners to demand Iran comply with UN resolutions.

Haley cited Iran’s support for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, weapons supplies to Huthi rebels in Yemen, training of Shiite militias in Iraq and the presence of the Tehran-backed Hezb’Allah militia in Lebanon as destabilizing.

“The Israel-Palestinian issue is an important one, deserving of attention. But that is one issue that surely has no lack of attention around here,” Haley told the monthly council meeting on the Middle East.

“The incredibly destructive nature of Iranian and Hezb’Allah activities throughout the Middle East demands much more of our attention.”

“It should become this council’s priority in the region.”

Haley’s remarks came a day after US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson branded the Iran nuclear deal a failure and two days after President Donald Trump ordered a review of the lifting of sanctions under the agreement.

The council holds a monthly meeting on the Middle East and the Arab-Israeli conflict. Haley has repeatedly accused the top UN body of being biased against Israel.

Describing the monthly meetings as “Israel-bashing sessions,” Haley said the debates “do nothing” to address differences but were instead pushing Israel and the Arabs further part.

Trump’s administration has fiercely criticized the government of ex-president Barack Obama for refusing in December to use its UN veto to block an anti-Israel resolution.
A vocal supporter of Israel, Haley has branded the resolution, which was adopted after the United States abstained, a “terrible mistake.”

Donald Trump, photo by Gage Skidmore via Flickr Creative Commons

BESA Center Perspectives Paper No. 451, April 25, 2017

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY:Winds of war are blowing in the international arena & the rhetoric of threats is intensifying. Notwithstanding the claims of critics and opponents of Trump, he has begun to formulate a strategy while responding to threats and crises in Syria and North Korea. The sides are now treading at the edge of the abyss. This approach could achieve effective deterrent results, but also entails considerable risks. Trump has decided to fight the forces of violence and terror in the world, joining forces with allies and using a variety of military and diplomatic measures. If his strategy succeeds, it could stabilize the world order and improve Israel’s strategic position.

The winds of war are beginning to swirl around the world. A check of Google reveals a considerable spike in searches for the term “Third World War”. Crises are besetting the difficult, conflict-ridden regions of the world & complicating relations between the world powers. Those crises have been precipitated by uses & demonstrations of force, including Assad’s chemical-weapons attack on citizens of his country; a retaliatory US strike on the base from which Assad’s planes took off for that attack; a US strike with a particularly deadly bomb on an ISIS stronghold in Afghanistan; threats & warnings of forceful responses by all sides; a military parade, ballistic-missile test & preparations for a large nuclear test by North Korea, with maneuvers & dispatch of large naval forces to the area by the US; consultations & diplomatic meetings at senior levels, particularly in Washington & Moscow; & verbal sparring in the Security Council, along with psychological warfare.

It was clear hostile countries would soon try to test Donald Trump, a president lacking political & international experience who had made many blunt warnings, some contradictory, about his foreign and defense policy. His emphasis on “America First” seemed to suggest that he would take the US into some form of isolationism, leading adversaries to infer they could push the envelope. But Trump’s reactions, including two surprise military strikes, have turned the tables.

In the crises involving Iran, Syria & North Korea, the administration has explicitly warned its adversaries: “Don’t test us!” Vice President Mike Pence, who visited South Korea a few days ago, counseled North Korea “not to test [Trump’s] resolve” & added “all options are on the table,” including military force, to ensure North Korea cannot launch nuclear-tipped missiles at the US. Although Obama, too, often declared that “all options are on the table”, America’s enemies did not believe him. In the wake of Trump’s strikes in Syria & Afghanistan & dispatch of large forces to Korea, the use of that phrase by him & by others in his administration sounds much more credible.

Iran was the first to test Trump’s mettle. It conducted a ballistic missile test a few days after he entered the White House, violating Security Council Resolution 2231 of July 2015, which endorsed the nuclear agreement with Tehran. Trump responded with warnings and with new sanctions on Iranian senior officials involved in developing the missiles and in terror. Assad was also testing Trump with the chemical attack in the Idlib area. He might have thought that Trump, like Obama, would do nothing. North Korea, too, posed a challenge to Trump when it tested ballistic missiles and prepared to test more destructive nuclear bombs.

Trump’s critics claim he has no strategy & his actions are arbitrary & incoherent. They have dubbed his policy one of “no strategy”. Indeed, Trump & his senior officials have made contradictory statements. For example, before Assad’s chemical weapons attack, White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer said that “with respect to Assad, there’s a political reality we have to accept.” He added “the US has profound priorities in Syria & Iraq & we’ve made it clear that counterterrorism, particularly the defeat of ISIS, is foremost among those priorities.” After the attack, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson declared “no change in the orders of priority of the US”.

Yet Nikki Haley, US ambassador to the UN, asserted there had, in fact, been a change & the US wanted a new regime in Syria. Trump spoke of understandings & cooperation with Russia, yet entered into a fierce dispute with Putin over Assad’s behavior. Trump had also characterized China as an adversary during the campaign, but now regards it as a partner in reining in North Korea.

Trump’s opponents have responded by ascribing his moves to extraneous motives, such as his desire to throw off the investigations of his associates’ ties with Russia, to distract from his failure to get Congress to revoke Obamacare, or to paper over his alleged lack of achievements as his one hundredth day in office approaches. But when the adversaries of the US challenge it, evasion of the challenge exacts a high price. Trump’s policy of swift and striking response thus reflects foreign and domestic considerations, not only personal interests.

Opponents also protested that before using force, Trump should have consulted with Congress. They pointed to Obama’s conduct during the crisis over Assad’s 2013 use of chemical weapons, when Obama planned retaliatory strikes but put the decision in Congress’s hands. There are, however, two problems with that contention. First, the War Powers Resolution of 1973 allows a president to use force without congressional approval for 60 days, and he has another 30 days to withdraw forces. He need only inform Congress of the use of force within 48 hours. Trump acted exactly in accordance with this law. Second, in 2013, when Obama transferred the decision to Congress, he was not seeking approval to attack Assad but the opposite. His object was to avoid an operation, as quickly became clear.

The facts on the ground indicate at least the beginnings of strategic thought. What mainly emerges is a return to the position of leadership and involvement that Obama had renounced. Trump defines interests and uses various means to realize them. The chatter about whether or not Trump has a strategy displays widespread confusion about goals and means.

The goals are: destroying ISIS and Islamic terror, ending the war in Syria, reining in North Korea’s nuclear program, and stopping Iran. The means Trump is employing include military operations, threats and warnings, diplomacy, and psychological warfare. To achieve an optimal effect, he is using a combination of these tools.

In Syria, Trump declared that ISIS had to be destroyed first, and then the civil war could be dealt with. After the chemical attack, he adopted a new, two-pronged strategy: a simultaneous struggle against ISIS and the Assad regime. This strategy was evident in the strikes on Assad’s army and on ISIS fighters in Afghanistan.

The strategy that is emerging is aimed at deterring enemies and encouraging cooperation among the world powers. Trump is pressuring Russia to keep Assad in check, and China to keep North Korea in check. Trump invited Chinese president Xi Jinping to meet with him at his private estate in Florida, and later spoke with him by telephone. He asked him to curb North Korea’s nuclear program but warned that, if nothing was done, the US would act on its own. Tillerson met in Moscow with his Russian counterpart, Sergey Lavrov, and with Putin. He both expressed and received a good deal of criticism. Trump also met with NATO secretary Jens Stoltenberg, and, notwithstanding his own past statements, emphasized NATO’s importance. Presumably, the world powers now understand each other better.

American military operations and measures do not stand by themselves. They were planned with great precision, almost certainly well before they were executed. Apart from the damage they inflicted, they conveyed messages. The retaliation against Assad’s chemical attack conveyed messages to Assad himself, to Russia, and to the states that are developing weapons of mass destruction. The message to Assad is that he has to stop his attacks on civilians; the message to Russia is that it cannot do as it pleases in Syria; and the message to states like Iran and North Korea is that the US is prepared to use force to prevent the development & use of nuclear weapons.

The choice of the largest nonnuclear bomb in the American arsenal (the MOAB, or Massive Ordnance Air Blast), which had never before been used operationally, to strike an ISIS stronghold was part and parcel of psychological and communications warfare. It was meant to reinforce the message of American resolve to act against provocative enemies, even with very powerful weapons. The same pertains to the sending of large naval forces, including destroyers carrying Tomahawk missiles like those used against Syria, to the Korean theater, accompanied by warnings that if North Korea keeps developing nuclear weapons and intercontinental missiles to deliver them, and China’s efforts do not bear fruit, the US will respond with a preemptive strike. Last week’s revelations of a test by the US of a nuclear-type bomb was a further signal to North Korea’s unstable leader Kim Jong-Un. These moves have transmitted unmistakable messages.

It may be hard to put confidence in the erratic and inexperienced Trump. But his lineup includes three generals of great talent and military experience: Defense Secretary James Mattis, National Security Adviser Herbert McMaster, and Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly. All three have held senior command positions in all the arenas where the US has fought in recent decades. Mattis and McMaster verge on being military geniuses. Their fingerprints can be seen in the choice of limited means to attack Assad’s army and ISIS. These men, who know what war is and what price it can exact, will not allow Trump to conduct an adventurous military policy. History, however, including that of the Arab-Israeli conflict, is replete with wars that no one wanted and that erupted nonetheless.

The US and its adversaries are at the edge of the abyss. It will require great skill in crisis and risk management, as well as a large degree of rational decision-making, to avoid sliding into it. The potential for deterrence and cooperation among the world powers is still greater than that of the eruption of a Third World War.

President Trump has decided to confront the forces of violence, terror, and disorder in the world while working together with allies and using various military and diplomatic means. Persistent yet flexible implementation of a coherent strategy could stabilize the world order and improve Israel’s strategic position.

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This article is based on articles the author published inIsrael Hayomon April 7 & inYNET & Globeson 4/18/17. rof. Gilboa is an expert on the US, director of the Center for International Communication, and a senior research associate at the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies of Bar-Ilan University.

BESA Center Perspectives Papers are published through generosity of Greg Rosshandler Family