Friday, February 2, 2018

A year after Obama, Dems still looking for replacement

BY AMIE PARNES - 02/02/18 05:59 AM EST 440
   
A year after Obama, Dems still looking for replacement
© Getty Images
More than a year after former President Obama left the White House, the Democratic party is still trying to fill the void and find a leader who can take on President Trump. 
“There's a definite yearning for 'Who's my next great love?’” Democratic strategist Patti Solis Doyle said in describing her party. “And the problem is we're not really loving anyone we see. So we're looking for someone we're not expecting.”
When Oprah Winfrey delivered a powerful speech at the Golden Globes last month, she provided a jolt of excitement to a party still reeling from a stunning 2016 election defeat. And some Democrats fell in love with the idea that the television personality could become their next standard bearer. 
They gloated about the prospects on cable news. Donors phones began to light up. A draft Oprah 2020 effort was quickly launched. 
Winfrey then said that running for president wasn’t something that interested her.
Fast forward to Tuesday, when Rep. Joe Kennedy (D-Mass.) delivered a State of the Union response for his party. It was enough for some Democrats to long for the days of Camelot. 
A #JoeKennedy2020 hashtag quickly emerged on Twitter and a USA Today headline captured the moment: “Rep. Joe Kennedy sounded a LOT like Barack Obama.” 
And that was just January, which also saw Kendrick Lamar suggest Jay-Z run for president while accepting a Grammy.
Over the last year, the flavor of the month has swung wildly, from Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) early in 2017 with her ‘She persisted’ moment, and later with Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) on the heels of the cultural #metoo movement.
Democrats expect to field a crowded primary in 2020 with as many as 30 potential candidates vying for the nomination. Democratic strategists say the bench includes heavy hitters like former Vice President Joe Biden, 2016 primary runner-up Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Sens. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) and Cory Booker (D-N.J.) in addition to Warren and Gillibrand.  
Still, as primary season inches closer, the party’s desire to find anyone who could lead the “resist” movement to the Trump administration and its policies is on full display.
David Wade, the Democratic strategist who served as a longtime senior aide to former Democratic nominee John Kerry, called it “the era of Democratic speed dating.” 
“It seems like every week, Democrats are swiping right on political Tinder trying to find the perfect match to send their hearts aflutter,” Wade said. 
“But politics is like real life, you can't force these things, it just has to happen and it usually happens when you least suspect it.”
Solis Doyle said Trump is the main reason Democrats are anxious.
“People are clamoring so early just because Trump is so bad,” she said. “So we keep looking for that person. 'Who's gonna be the best to battle Trump? Who's charismatic enough? Who can go one-on-one with him in a debate?'” 
Julian Zelizer, a professor of history and public affairs at Princeton University, said it’s not uncommon for the party not in office to search for the right party leader — particularly with more than two years until the Iowa caucuses. 
“But when there is no clear dominant pack of candidates, or the most prominent candidates all come with baggage, then this kind of show-and-tell becomes more pronounced,” Zelizer said.
Trump has also upended the idea of who can run for president, leaving people wondering whether the next party leader will not come from the Senate or a governor’s mansion — but from the entertainment industry or business. 
It’s also possible that the Democratic flames for Winfrey or Rep. Kennedy, who is relatively unknown, shows some weakness.
Zelizer cautioned that the flirtations are “a sign that not everything is right with Democrats as they get ready for 2018 and 2020. 
“Once dominant candidates are in the mix, these kind of pop-up appearances are interesting, but much less serious,” he said. 
Still, the courting of candidates can be a wild ride as recent history has proven, Wade said. "Democrats spent eight years pining for the next Bill Clinton, flirted with really bad boyfriends like John Edwards, and then ended up swooning for Barack Obama, the farthest thing from President Clinton." 
Solis Doyle, who served as campaign manager for Hillary Clinton's 2008 presidential bid, suggested that Democrats just can’t wait to get to 2020, something on display during this week’s State of the Union, where Democratic politicians mostly had to sit there and take it as Trump gave his address flanked by the GOP leaders in Congress. 
She acknowledged liking the speech Kennedy gave in response to the address. "By contrast, I thought he was great. I thought that giving the response in front of an audience was brilliant."
Still, Solis Doyle added, "But one Democratic response does not a savior make."
“We're shopping. We're shopping. We're shopping. But it’s fair to say no one has captured our hearts yet,” she said. 
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Palestinians: Arbitrary Arrests, Administrative Detentions and World Silence

Palestinians: Arbitrary Arrests, Administrative Detentions and World Silence

by Khaled Abu Toameh  •  February 2, 2018 at 5:00 am
  • While Israel uses "administrative detention" as a tool to thwart terrorism, the Palestinian Authority (PA) leadership holds people without trial as a means to silence them and prevent them from voicing any form of criticism against Mahmoud Abbas and other Palestinian leaders.
  • While administrative detainees in Israel are entitled to see a lawyer, receive family visitations and appeal against their incarceration, the Palestinians detained by the PA are denied basic rights. Yet, Israel-obsessed human rights organizations seem uninterested in this fact.
  • Particularly disturbing, however, is not that the PA leadership is acting as a tyrannical regime, but the abiding silence and indifference of the international community and human rights organizations. Those who scream bloody murder about Israel's security measures against terrorism would do the Palestinians a better service by opening their mouths about how human rights are ravaged under the PA.
The Palestinian Authority detains people without trial as a means to silence them and prevent them from voicing any form of criticism against President Mahmoud Abbas and other Palestinian leaders. Pictured: PA President Mahmoud Abbas. (Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images)
For many years, Palestinians and their supporters around the world have been condemning Israel for arresting suspected terrorists without trial.
It turns out, however, that the Palestinian Authority (PA) also has a similar policy that permits one of its senior officials to order the arrest of any Palestinian, regardless of the nature of the offense he or she commits.
Israel holds suspected terrorists in "administrative detention" on the basis of laws such as: Israeli Military Order regarding no. 1651 Security Provisions, Incarceration of Unlawful Combatants Law and Defense (Emergency) Regulations, a law that replaces the emergency laws from the period of the British Mandate of Palestine (1920-1948).
It is worth noting that Israeli citizens, and not only Palestinians, have also been held in "administrative detention" over the past few decades. This means that Israel does not distinguish between a Palestinian and an Israeli when it comes to combatting terrorism.
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First Temple-Era Relics of Possible Royal Estate Found in Jerusalem Hills

February 02 2018

    Israeli authorities inaugurated a nature park on Wednesday near Jerusalem after five years of archaeological excavations at Ein Hanya, the second-largest spring in the Judean Hills and a key site in the history of Christianity. Along with an announcement that the park will open to the public free of charge within months, the Israel Antiquities Authority revealed some major findings at the site, including a column capital typical of royal structures from the First Temple era and one of the oldest coins ever discovered in the Jerusalem area.
    Excavations and conservation and development work were conducted between 2012 and 2016 at the site, which is part of the Rephaim Valley National Park and located beyond the Green Line but within Jerusalem’s municipal boundaries.
    “The result is an extraordinarily beautiful site incorporating archaeology, an ancient landscape and a unique visitor experience,” the IAA said in a statement.
    The new findings were publicized for the first time as senior officials participated in a tree-planting ceremony for the Jewish festival of Tu Bishvat and revealed the new nature park.
    Among those in attendance were Ze’ev Elkin, the minister of environmental protection and of Jerusalem affairs; Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat; and Sevan Gharibian, the grand sacristan of the Armenian Apostolic Patriarchate of Jerusalem, which owns the area.
    The said the most significant finding was a large Byzantine-era system of pools found at the site.
    “This pool was built in the center of a spacious complex at the foot of a church that once stood here. Roofed colonnades were built around the pool that gave access to residential wings,” said Irina Zilberbod, the excavation director for the IAA.
    She added that it was “difficult to know what the pool was used for – whether for irrigation, washing, landscaping or perhaps for baptismal ceremonies.” She also said the pool’s water drained through a network of channels into a “magnificent” nymphaeum — a monument resembling a fountain and consecrated to the nymphs, especially those of springs.
    The archaeologists said a great deal of attention was paid to restoring the nymphaeum fountain structure, including cleaning and replacing stones in its facade based on historic photographs and paintings.
    The statement said that many of the finds were dated to the time of the First Temple, about 2,400 to 2,800 years ago.
    The main find from that period was a fragment of a proto-Ionic column capital, an artistic element typical of structures and estates of the kings in the First Temple period, the IAA said, adding that an image of such a capital appears on the Israeli NIS 5 coin.
    Similar capitals have been found in the City of David in Jerusalem and at Ramat Rahel, where one of the palaces of the kings of Judah was uncovered, the statement said, as well as in Samaria, Megiddo and Hazor, which were major cities in the ancient Kingdom of Israel.
    Archaeologists estimated that the site at Ein Hanya may have been a royal estate during the First Temple period.
    “After the destruction of the First Temple, settlement was renewed at the site in the form of an estate house that was inhabited by Jews,” the IAA said.
    It said that another significant find from that period was a rare silver coin, described as one of the most ancient discovered so far in the Jerusalem area. It is the ancient Greek currency drachma, with the coin “minted in Ashdod by Greek rulers between 420 and 390 BCE.”
    More coins, pottery, glass, roof tiles and multicolored tesserae, or pieces of mosaic, from the Byzantine period were unearthed in the excavation, leading the archaeologists to say that it was during that period (4th–6th centuries CE) that the site reached its zenith.
    “We believe that some early Christian commentators identified Ein Hanya as the site where the Ethiopian eunuch was baptized, as described in Acts 8:26–40,” said the IAA’s Jerusalem district archaeologist, Dr. Yuval Baruch.
    “The baptism of the eunuch by St. Philip was one of the key events in the spread of Christianity,” he said. “Therefore, identifying the place where it occurred kept scholars busy for many generations and became a common motif in Christian art. It’s no wonder that part of the site is still owned by Christians and is a focus of religious ceremonies, both for the Armenian Church and the Ethiopian Church.”
    Reported by: Michael Bachner – The Times of Israel
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    Israeli Poll: Right-Wing, Religious Bloc Opens Up 18-Seat Lead Over Left

    February 02 2018

      Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud government would be easily reelected if new elections were held today, a new poll shows, giving Netanyahu his fifth term as premier.
      Netanyahu, who was first elected in Israel’s first direct elections in May 1996, was again elected in 2009, 2013, and 2015, giving him three consecutive terms as Prime Minister – four in total. Netanyahu currently holds the record for the longest consecutive term in office, with 8 years and 307 days.
      If he remains in office through the end of the current Knesset’s term – set to end in November 2019 – he will break the record as the longest-serving PM in Israel’s history, a title currently held by David Ben-Gurion, with 13 years and 127 days.
      But even if new elections were called prior to November of next year, Netanyahu would likely easily win a fifth term, a poll released by the Geocartography polling agency Friday shows.
      The poll, published by the Hebrew daily Yisrael Hayom, shows the six coalition factions making a net gain of 3 seats over their present 66 mandates, and a net gain of 2 over the 67 they won in the 2015 election. A minimum of 61 seats are required to form a coalition government.
      According to the poll, the Likud would retain the 30 seats it won in 2015 – a decline of 1 mandate from the previous Geocartography poll, which in January showed the party winning 31 seats.
      The Jewish Home party, led by Education Minister Naftali Bennett, would become the second largest coalition faction with 12 seats, compared to the 8 it currently holds. Last month’s poll showed the party also with 12 seats.
      Finance Minister Moshe Kahlon’s Kulanu party, which campaigned in 2015 as a “center” or “center-right” faction, would fall from 10 seats to 7 according to the latest poll, a decline of 1 mandate since last month’s poll.
      Among the haredi parties, United Torah Judaism would gain one seat, rising to seven mandates – identical to last month’s poll – while Shas would fall from seven to five seats – one seat better than the party’s performance in January’s poll.
      Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman’s Yisrael Beytenu party would win eight seats if elections were held today, twice what the previous Geocartography showed. Yisrael Beytenu won six seats in 2015, but lost one seat when MK Orly Levy-Abekasis split, becoming an independent MK when the party joined the coalition in 2016.
      The four opposition parties would lose a net total of two seats according to the poll, winning a combined 51 mandates.
      The Zionist Union, a joint list of the Labor and Hatnua parties, would fall from 24 mandates to just 13, similar to last month’s poll results. That would result in the lowest number of Labor MKs ever elected to the Knesset, with a delegation of just 11 members. Two of the 13 Zionist Union MKs would come from the Hatnua faction.
      Former Finance Minister Yair Lapid’s Yesh Atid party would rise to a record high of 24, compared to its present 11 seats. The party previously won 19 mandates in 2013. Today’s poll marks a decline, however, compared to last month’s poll, when Yesh Atid reached 26 seats.
      The far-left Meretz faction would gain one seat if new elections were held today, rising to six mandates, while the predominantly Arab Joint List party would plummet to just eight mandates. The Joint List party won 13 seats in 2015, but has declined in strength according to recent polls. Last month’s Geocartography poll put the party at 9 seats. An average of all polls conducted during January gave the Joint List 11 seats.
      Reported by: Israel National News
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      Glick: Time for Greenblatt to Walk Away

      Unless Trump intends to humiliate himself and America and sell Israel down the river like his predecessors did, the peace process will not be resuscitated.

      2.2.2018 
       
      Commentary
       
       Caroline Glick 
       
      3
      On Tuesday in Bethlehem, the Palestinians demonstrated the choice the Americans now face in their dealings with Fatah – the supposedly moderate PLO faction that controls the Palestinian Authority and the PLO. President Donald Trump and his advisers can play by Fatah’s rules or they can walk away.

      On Tuesday a delegation of diplomats from the US Consulate in Jerusalem came to Bethlehem to participate in a meeting of the local chamber of commerce. When they arrived in the city, Fatah members attacked them. Their vehicles with diplomatic license plates were pelted with tomatoes and eggs by a mob of protesters calling out anti-American slogans.
      After the Americans entered the hall where the meeting was scheduled to take place, some of the rioters barged in. They held placards condemning America and they shouted, “Americans Out!”

      Some of the demonstrators cursed the Palestinians present, accusing them of treason for participating in a meeting with Americans. According to the news reports, the scene became tense and violent. The American officials beat a speedy retreat. As they departed the city, the Fatah rioters continued attacking their cars, kicking them and throwing eggs at them, until they were gone.

      The attack on Tuesday was a natural progression.

      On Saturday, Fatah members in Bethlehem-area UN camps convened to carry out a very public “people’s tribunal.” Trump and Vice President Mike Pence were tried for “racism” and “bias” against the Palestinians.
      The “tribunal” found them guilty and sentenced the president and vice president to death by hanging. Their bodies, the “judges” decided, were to be burned.

      In the event, the crowd burned effigies of Trump and Pence.

      The implication of the “trial” was clear. Americans like Israelis should be killed.

      The burning effigies themselves were a natural consequence of PLO and Fatah chief and Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas’s call last month for Trump’s “house to be destroyed.”

      That is, both the assault on the consular officers Tuesday and the riot on Saturday were simply Abbas’s followers carrying out his orders. He put the Americans in his crosshairs. And they are pulling the trigger – for now, with effigies and eggs.

      It isn’t hard for Abbas to set his people against the Americans. Palestinians hate Americans.

      As a 2014 Pew Survey showed, Palestinians are more anti-American than any people on earth. Seventy-six percent of Palestinians consider the US their enemy. Pakistan came in second place with 64% of respondents saying that the US is their enemy.

      Palestinian anti-Americanism is notable given that the US has given more assistance to the Palestinians than any country other than Israel. Americans have spent the last 25 years pressuring Israel to make more and more concessions to the Palestinians.

      In large part, anti-Americanism among Palestinians redounds to two things. First, incitement. For 25 years, the US-financed PA has used all the tools at its disposal to indoctrinate the Palestinians to hate America almost as much as they hate Israel.

      Second, like the Iranian regime, the Palestinians view the US and Israel as two sides of the same coin. And indeed, their hatred for the US is the mirror image of Israelis’ love for it.

      While the Palestinians topped the list of people who view the US as their enemy, Israel topped the list of nations that view the US as their partner. Ninety percent of Israelis view the US as their partner.

      All Abbas needed to do was call for Trump’s house to be destroyed and mobs of Fatah members were only too happy to go into the streets and burn the president in effigy.

      Trump, for his part, seems more than willing to walk away from the whole business. Over the past week Trump threatened to cut off all US aid to the Palestinians three times. In his appearance with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at Davos last week, Trump made clear that he wouldn’t be overly upset if the peace process disappears.

      “I can tell you that Israel does want to make peace,” Trump said.

      The Palestinians, he continued, are “going to have to want to make peace too, or we’re going to have nothing to do with it any longer.”

      When asked about the implications of his recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital for prospects for peace, Trump turned to Netanyahu and said, “You [Israel] won one point, and you’ll give up some points later on in the negotiation, if it ever takes place. I don’t know that it ever will take place.”

      Jason Greenblatt, Trump’s chief peace negotiator, seems less sanguine at the concept that the peace process is over.

      At a meeting in Ramat Gan this week with ambassadors from EU member states, one of the ambassadors asked Greenblatt whether Jerusalem is still a subject for negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians, or whether, as Trump said in Davos, the issue is settled and is in Trump’s words, “off the table.”

      Greenblatt reportedly answered that Trump mischaracterized the situation at Davos. Jerusalem is still a topic for negotiation between the sides, as Trump made clear in his December 6, 2017, declaration recognizing Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, Greenblatt said.

      Greenblatt’s statements over the past several days paint a picture of an administration unclear on what to make of the Palestinian response to Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem. On the one hand, they continue to maintain that peace can only be based on reality and therefore, recognizing Jerusalem was necessary for peace to ever be achieved.

      Along these lines, at his meeting with the European ambassadors, Greenblatt also told them that their insistent condemnation of construction in Israeli communities in Judea and Samaria as an obstacle to peace is wrong. Construction of housing in the settlements has no impact on prospects for peace, he insisted, rightly.

      The last time any US envoy said anything approaching Greenblatt’s reported remarks was 2003.

      But then, Greenblatt wouldn’t let go of the hope that the Palestinians are interested in cutting a peace deal.

      Speaking in Brussels at a donor conference for the Palestinian Authority, Greenblatt repeated over and over that the US is committed to the peace process.

      Then there was his fawning message to PA “Prime Minister” Rami Hamdallah, who participated in the conference.

      The sole reason the conference in Brussels was convened was to raise tens of millions of dollars for Hamdallah to shove into bank accounts controlled by Abbas and his kleptocrat underlings. It would have been rather odd if Hamdallah wasn’t there to beg in person.

      And yet, Greenblatt didn’t treat Hamdallah’s presence in the meeting room as no big deal. He didn’t call him out publicly for the dangerous assault by Fatah activists against US diplomats in Bethlehem the day before.

      Instead Greenblatt gushed, “I am particularly pleased to see you Prime Minister Hamdallah – I hope, as a sign of the Palestinian Authority’s continued commitment to the process which we have undertaken together. Despite our differences, we remain committed to continue working together to use our best efforts to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.”

      Given the fact that the day before Fatah members attacked US diplomats in Bethlehem, and four days earlier they burned Trump and Pence in effigy, it would have been reasonable for Greenblatt to publicly excoriate Hamdallah and the PA for their actions.

      The fact that Greenblatt failed to call him to account, but rather gushed at Hamdallah’s presence like a teenage girl over a rock star, shows that the Americans are still unclear why the Palestinians have taken a sword to their relations with Washington.

      Greenblatt, like his colleagues at the consulate and the State Department, don’t understand what is happening because they think that the peace process is about negotiating. But that’s never been what the peace process has been about. If it were about negotiating then the Palestinians would have been held accountable for their breaches of every commitment they ever made to Israel. But they have never been held to account. Only Israel has been held to account.

      Indeed, Israel has been attacked despite the fact that it has upheld all of its commitments.

      Meantime, the Palestinians have never honored any of their commitments to Israel – or to the US. They never canceled or amended the PLO Charter that calls for Israel’s annihilation. They never ended their incitement to murder Israelis. They never ended their sponsorship or finance of terrorism. They never extradited terrorists who murdered Americans to the US to stand trial. They certainly never extradited terrorists to stand trial in Israel. Indeed, they have never recognized Israel’s right to exist.

      As far as the Palestinians are concerned, the peace process is a process of unconditional Israeli surrender to all of their terms. The role of the US as the sponsor of the peace process is to coerce Israel to make concessions that together will lead to its unconditional surrender. And for the better part of the past quarter century successive US administrations have played by the Palestinians’ rules.

      But then Trump showed up. When Trump recognized Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, he took something away from the Palestinians. That has never happened before. And now, reports that the administration is considering holding the UN’s Palestinian refugee agency UNRWA to the same definition of “refugee” as the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees means another Palestinian high card is in danger. If Trump carries out his threat, then the only Palestinians who will be eligible for refugee status will be the 20,000 Palestinians who left Israel between 1947 and 1949. In one fell swoop, Trump would wipe out the Palestinian demand to destroy Israel through mass immigration of five million foreign-born Arabs to its territory – in the framework of peace.

      In an interview with Fox News, chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat was asked what the administration can do to placate the Palestinians’ anger and convince them to renew their contacts with Washington. Erekat said the only thing the US can do is cancel its recognition of Jerusalem. Meaning only unconditional American surrender to Palestinian demands will bring America back into the PLO’s good graces.

      At the entrance to Jericho a sign is hanging saying that Americans and dogs are not welcome. Signs on shop windows in Ramallah and Jericho inform all US and British visitors thinking of coming inside that they are required to apologize for their governments’ policies.

      It’s time for Greenblatt to understand that the peace process is over. And unless Trump intends to humiliate himself and America and sell Israel down the river like his predecessors did, the peace process will not be resuscitated. The longer he and his colleagues pretend away the truth, the more they imperil themselves and empower a people that will be more than happy to move beyond eggs and tomatoes and effigies and banners.
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