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Sunday Reads: Steve Bannon’s book club, The new red-line with Iran, Netanyahu’s flattery for Amona

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February 5, 2017
White House senior advisor Steve Bannon attends as U.S. President Donald Trump signs executive orders in the Oval Office at the White House in Washington, U.S. January 28, 2017. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst

US

Marc Tracy crossed paths with Steve Bannon and found it interesting that he was reading David Halberstram:

Mr. Bannon was carrying a book, and when an incoming president’s guru is reading a book, you should find out what it is. I walked by and peeked. It was “The Best and the Brightest,” David Halberstam’s 1972 history of the strategic errors and human foibles that birthed the disastrous American involvement in the Vietnam War. It begins with John F. Kennedy’s transition to the White House, in December 1960.

Now I really knew it was him.

Adam Chandler writes about Trump’s non-policy on Israeli settlements:

Four days after Donald Trump’s inauguration, the Israeli government announced that it would build 2,500 new housing units in the West Bank. In another era—as in anytime before two weeks ago—this kind of announcement would have immediately drawn censure from the State Department and perhaps even the president. Instead, the White House said nothing. Palestinian officials, international observers, and some Israelis were dismayed. On the Israeli right, there was jubilation: “We’re going back to normal life in Judea and Samaria” Israeli Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman said in a statement, referring to the West Bank by its biblical names.

Israel

Yossi Shain writes about the growing ideological disparity between American Jewry and the Israeli government:

There is a big, dangerous gap between the passionate embrace US President Donald Trump is receiving from the Israeli government and the great amount of hatred towards him among liberal elements and many in the American political center. This situation could create an even bigger split among American Jewry, which mostly votes Democrat.

Mazal Mualem criticizes the Israeli right’s “flattery fest” for Amona:

During the late afternoon of Feb. 2, as harsh images of the violent evictions from the Amona outpost and reports of wounded police officers flooded the media, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu delivered a speech in the West Bank settlement of Ariel, at a memorial for Ron Nahman, the town’s former mayor. Having avoided the Amona eviction for a few weeks, Netanyahu took advantage of the forum to talk about it. During the eviction, activists threw cleaning liquids, acid, oil and glass bottles at the police, but anyone expecting to hear Netanyahu disavow their shameful actions, never mind condemn them, was soon disappointed.

Middle East

Derek Chollet thinks that the US will come to regret the new red-line with Iran:

As some of my Shadow Government colleagues have correctly observed, there is a good reasons for calling out Iran’s destabilizing behavior, even if the Trump administration could have done so more artfully and with a greater chance of bringing other countries along (including Russia). But the challenge for Trump now will be similar to what Obama faced: By sending such a message, every step over the line on Iran’s part can be portrayed as a test of manhood — with the press, national security hawks, and certain allies goading the president into action.

Saeed Kamali Dehghan believes Trump is playing into the hands of Iranian hardliners:

Iranians have paid a high price for the inflammatory statements of their statesmen, but they have paid a bigger price for the ignorance of the opposite side to domestic politics in Iran, its lack of knowledge about the country’s history. Trump’s behaviour only plays into the hands of hardliners in Iran, particularly those who want to show the president, Hassan Rouhani, was wrong to find peace with the west.

For nearly 38 years, Iranian leaders have failed to convince their people that the US, which they call “the Great Satan”, was their “enemy” too. Trump’s first fortnight in office suggests that he may do that job for them.

Jewish World

Alon Pinkas believes that American Jews are just not that into Israel:

There is a false and misleading premise, adopted conveniently by most Israelis and some in the American Jewish community according to which American Jews wake up in the morning, spend their productive day and go to sleep at night thinking about Israel and what they have done for it today. That was never the case.

Sue Eisenfeld visits some of America’s most endangered Jewish communities:

I have traveled to more than 10 dead and dying Jewish communities, mostly in the Deep South, some of which are too-far gone or too-long dead for JCLP to work with. What is heartbreaking is witnessing the remains of Jewish life where there is still something left to save, if only a savior would appear. These are places where the synagogue has been torn down or sold or is having trouble staying afloat due to a dwindling population, or where the old Jewish cemetery — once on the outskirts of town and now in the middle of a development that doesn’t necessarily value it — has only one person, or no one, left to care for it and pay for maintenance or restoration.

 

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