On Iran, Obama Unwound Carter’s Action

Posted on by

It all started with the Iranian hostages, then the Beirut bombings. President Jimmy Carter gave the order to freeze all accessible Iranian assets including military equipment. And so it was done, but Madeline Albright began to pull the threat on behalf of Iran, and Barack Obama continued to do the same in 2009.

There are countless moving parts here, so it is for sure convoluted so perhaps the bullet points here will help. A calculator may be good too.

  • The Supreme Court decided today in a 6-2 ruling on behalf of the victims to free up close to $2 billion in frozen Iranian assets—held in a New York bank for Iran’s central bank, Bank Markazi—to compensate more than 1,000 victims and family members harmed in terrorism incidents traceable to Iran, including the 1983 bombing of a U.S. Marines barracks in Lebanon.   
  • In 2000, in her speech on Friday, March 17, the U.S. Secretary of State, Mrs. Albright, made reference to the Iranian assets that the United States froze in the aftermath of the hostage crisis in 1979. It always had been that any normalization of relations between these two countries had to consider the unfreezing of the Iranian assets. What was never clear was the size and nature of the assets. In her speech, Mrs. Albright indicated that much of the frozen assets were turned over to Iran after 1981. Yet, she also intimated that there is more that was not turned over. The size of the remaining frozen assets has been one mystery. Their nature and location, too, are not clear. At the time of the freeze, reports indicated that the assets consisted of goods purchased by Iran and not delivered by the suppliers, including military supplies, cash and securities on deposit or in trust with various U.S. banks and financial institutions here and their branches and subsidiaries abroad, stock and bonds of United States issuers, real estate, right to interest, dividend, and distribution, contract rights, and other proprietary interests. Read the rest of the shocking summary here.
  • To dovetail the second bullet point above, today, Daily Beast published an item that explains why the legislation introduced to punish Saudi Arabia for any involvement in the 9/11 attacks on the United States should be avoided as noted by some key officials at the Pentagon. Why you ask, the historical house of the United States is not clean either, which too is further explained in the link of the second bullet item. This is for sure still up for debate, however, there are major indications that during Barack Obama’s trip to Saudi Arabia, he is likely reassuring the KSA he will veto any punishing legislation. 
  • We can fully know at all exactly where or how much Iranian money resides in banks around the world and how is brokering business on behalf of Iran, investing for the rogue country, much less skirting sanctions for them as well. You see even China had/has ownership of $22 billion of Iranian funds mostly due to sanctions and to pay for oil. 
  • In 2009, enter Barack Obama and $2 billion for Iran just to come to the table. WSJ:  ” More than $2 billion allegedly held on behalf of Iran in Citigroup Inc. C 2.43 % accounts were secretly ordered frozen last year by a federal court in Manhattan, in what appears to be the biggest seizure of Iranian assets abroad since the 1979 Islamic revolution.  The legal order, executed 18 months ago by the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, is under seal and hasn’t been made public. The court acted in part because of information provided by the U.S. Treasury Department.President Barack Obama has pledged to enact new economic sanctions on Iran at year-end if Tehran doesn’t respond to international calls for negotiations over its nuclear-fuel program. The frozen $2 billion stands at the center of an intensifying legal struggle between Luxembourg’s Clearstream Banking S.A., the holder of the Citibank account, and the families of hundreds of U.S. Marines killed or injured in a 1983 terrorist attack on a Marine barracks in Beirut, Lebanon. Clearstream is primarily a clearing house for financial trades and is a wholly owned subsidiary of Germany’s Deutsche Börse AG. Luxembourg’s bank secrecy laws have helped it grow into a major European financial center.” More here from the WSJ.  
  • So what about this Clearstream Banking operation you say? Well they were a nefarious operation as well. In 2014, The U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) today announced a $152 million agreement with Clearstream Banking, S.A. (Clearstream), of Luxembourg, to settle its potential civil liability for apparent violations surrounding Clearstream’s use of its omnibus account with a U.S. financial institution as a conduit to hold securities on behalf of the Central Bank of Iran (CBI). More here from Treasury.   
  • In January 2016, The U.S. State Department announced the government had agreed to pay Iran $1.7 billion to settle a case related to the sale of military equipment prior to the Iranian revolution, according to a statement issued on Sunday.
    Iran had set up a $400 million trust fund for such purchases, which was frozen along with diplomatic relations in 1979. In settling the claim, which had been tied up at the Hague Tribunal since 1981, the U.S. is returning the money in the fund along with “a roughly $1.3 billion compromise on the interest,” the statement said.
  • Wait, there is the other $100 billion: That’s roughly how much the U.S. Treasury Department says Iran stands to recover once sanctions are lifted under the new nuclear deal.

We cant know if there is more, yet no wonder Iran is dancing in the streets and maintains threatening behavior where Obama continues to tell the region, get along with Iran….they are legitimate. Oh….Obama is working on a personal meeting with Rouhani too.

Intense U.S.-Iran negotiations appear to be underway at this time, on various levels. They have included meetings this week in New York between Iranian Foreign Minister Zarif and U.S. Secretary of State Kerry, and an April 14 Washington meeting between Central Bank of Iran governor Valiollah Seif and U.S. Secretary of the Treasury Jack Lew.[1] According to an April 19 report on the Iranian website Sahamnews.org, which is affiliated with Iran’s Green Movement, President Obama asked to meet with Iranian President Hassan Rohani in two secret letters sent in late March to both Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and President Rohani. According to the report, Obama wrote in the letters that Iran has a limited-time opportunity to cooperate with the U.S. in order to resolve the problems in Syria, Iraq, and Yemen, and promised that if Iran agreed to a meeting between him and Rohani, he would be willing to participate in any conference to this end. The Sahamnews report further stressed that Supreme Leader Khamenei discussed the request with President Rohani, that Rohani said that Iran should accept the request and meet with Obama, and that such a meeting could lead to an end to the crises in the region while increasing Iran’s influence in their resolution. Rohani promised Khamenei that any move would be coordinated with him and reported to him. According to the report, Khamenei agreed with Rohani. The Sahamnews report also emphasized that Khamenei’s recent aggressively anti-U.S. speeches were aimed at maintaining an anti-U.S. atmosphere among the Iranian public, whereas in private meetings he expresses a different position. Courtesy and more from MEMRI here.

 

Keeping America, America? Britain First Action

Posted on by

Does we have the same attitudes? Is this a call to action in America?

Example…is this happening here in America?

Say NO to Labour’s Muslim mayor!

At a funeral in South London, Sadiq Khan, the local Labour MP and now Labour candidate to be mayor of London, shook hands with convicted terrorist Babar Ahmad, a man who has been blamed for inspiring a generation of extremists, including the gang behind the London bombings of July 7, 2005.

The pair exchanged brief pleasantries before Khan moved on. This happened only a few months ago, around the time of Khan’s nomination as Labour’s mayoral candidate.

Sadiq Khan

Khan shared a platform with Yasser al-Siri, a convicted terrorist and associate of hate preacher Abu Qatada, and Sajeel Shahid, a militant who helped to train the ringleader of the London bombings.

Recently, it emerged that his parliamentary assistant posted a series of highly offensive Islamist, homophobic and misogynistic messages online. Shueb Salar also posed for photos with guns.

Khan was also exposed when it was revealed he ‘followed’ two Isis supporters on Twitter. One posted links to propaganda videos; the other is the brother of a man convicted of supporting insurgents in Afghanistan.

Khan’s former brother-in-law, Makbool Javaid, had links with the extremist group Al-Muhajiroun, an organisation that praised the 9/11 attacks and the 7/7 bombings. Javaid appeared at London events alongside some of the country’s most notorious hate preachers, including the now banned cleric Omar Bakri.

Both before and after Khan became an MP, he shared speaking platforms with Stop Political Terror, a group supported by a man dubbed the ‘Bin Laden of the internet’. Anwar al-Awlaki, an imam linked to Al Qaeda, preached to three of the 9/11 hijackers and became the first American to be targeted and killed in a U.S. drone strike.

Stop Political Terror later merged with Cage, a London campaign group that described the notorious ISIS executioner Jihadi John as “a beautiful young man”.

Tony Podesta, Saudis and Hillary, Lobby is a Hobby

Posted on by

 Today, Obama in Erga Palace, Riyadh

EXCLUSIVE: Hillary Clinton Campaign Bundler Is Directly Lobbying For Saudi Arabia

Hat tip Chuck/DailyCaller:

A major Hillary Clinton campaign funder is personally lobbying on behalf of an arm of the Saudi government, federal records show.

It’s been known for months that the Center for Studies and Media Affairs at the Saudi Royal Court, an arm of the Saudi regime, has been paying the Podesta Group to lobby lawmakers and federal agencies on its behalf. The Intercept reported the relationship last year. And The Hill reported on Tuesday that the Saudi government was paying the Beltway lobbyist $140,000 a month for its services.

But documents recently published by the Department of Justice under the Foreign Agents Registration Act show that Clinton campaign financier Anthony Podesta is one of the several lobbyists at his firm personally handling the Saudi account.

The 72-year-old is one of the Clinton campaign’s most prolific bundlers, though it would be hard to tell just from the lobbyist disclosure report he’s required to file. The document, filed on March 11, shows Podesta gave $10,000 to the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee and $2,700 to New York Rep. Gregory Meeks.

 

But the lobbyist-rainmaker has bundled a much larger sum of cash from among his circle of wealthy friends and business associates. Campaign finance disclosures show he raised $35,560 for Clinton in the first quarter of 2016. That’s on top of the $130,900 he raised for the campaign last year.

Podesta also has family ties to the Clinton campaign. His brother John is Clinton’s campaign chairman. He served as Bill Clinton’s chief of staff for a time in the 1990s and as an adviser to President Obama. The Podesta brothers started their eponymous lobbying outfit in 1988.

The Saudi Royal Court’s contact with the Podesta Group is part of a sprawling effort to prevent passage of a law that would allow victims of terrorism to sue foreign governments which have aided and abetted terrorists.

A recent “60 Minutes” report has renewed interest in claims that classified documents contained in the 9/11 Commission report show that Saudi government officials had ties to some of the 9/11 hijackers. Fifteen of the 19 terrorists were from Saudi Arabia.

According to The Hill, the oil-rich nation, which is considered an ally of the U.S., doled out $9.4 million in all of 2015 to prevent passage of the bill, which is co-sponsored in the Senate by New York Sen. Chuck Schumer and Texas Sen. John Cornyn, a Democrat and Republican, respectively.

As The Intercept noted in an article last month, the Podesta Group has helped the Saudis manage public relations during other high-profile cases.

Following the execution in January of Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr, the firm put The New York Times in touch with a Saudi commentator named Salman al-Ansari who claimed that the Shi’ite cleric was a terrorist. Nimr was a vocal critic of the Saudi royal family and had called for free elections there.

The Times report reads:

“We are speaking of a terrorist person,” said Salman al-Ansari, a Saudi commentator provided by the Podesta Group, a public relations firm working for the Saudi government.

Mr. Ansari accused Sheikh Nimr, who was in his mid-50s, of organizing a “terrorist network” in Shiite areas in eastern Saudi Arabia and compared him to a Qaeda ideologue who sanctioned the killing of security forces.

The Saudis have hired several other firms besides the Podesta Group, including BGR Group, DLA Piper, Hogan Lovells, and Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman. They have also threatened to use the power of the purse to quash the 9/11 bill. The royal family has reportedly told U.S. officials that it will sell off $750 billion in U.S. Treasuries if the law is passed. The Obama administration has said it opposes such a bill because it will open Americans up to legal problems overseas.

While Clinton has said she supports Schumer’s bill she has not made its passage a priority on the campaign trail, even as she’s been campaigning in New York, where the 9/11 terrorists slammed airplanes into the World Trade Center.

During an interview with her friend George Stephanopoulos on ABC’s “The Week” on Sunday Clinton said that she did not know anything about Schumer’s legislation. But after some quick criticism, her campaign scrambled to release a statement saying that she did back the measure.

On Monday while campaigning with Schumer, Clinton said she supported the bill. But she was less clear on whether she believes that the Obama administration should declassify the 28 pages contained in the 9/11 report that reportedly show links between the hijackers and the Saudi government.

“I think the administration should take a hard look at them and determine whether that should be done consistent with national security,” Clinton said.

(RELATED: Hillary Clinton Softens Position On Declassifying 28 Pages In 9/11 Report)

That’s a not-so-subtle shift from 2003 when, as a New York senator, Clinton signed a letter with other senators demanding that President George W. Bush declassify the pages.

Clinton has other financial ties to the Saudis. The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has donated between $10 million and $25 million to Clinton’s family charity, the Clinton Foundation. Another group called Friends of Saudi Arabia has given the Clinton Foundation between $1 million and $5 million. And two members of the Saudi royal family have given a total of between $200,000 and $500,000 to the organization.

***** Obama and the Saudis, The Long Divorce

WashingtonInstitute: Obama will meet King Salman in Riyadh on April 20, during what will likely be his final trip to Saudi Arabia during his presidency. Such meetings between national leaders are usually used for discussions about common interests rather than detailed agendas. The common question is: Are the allies on the same metaphorical page? But with the United States and Saudi Arabia today, it will be more interesting to see whether they can plausibly suggest they are still reading from the same book.

Although the upcoming visit is being touted as an effort in alliance-building, it will just as likely highlight how far Washington and Riyadh have drifted apart in the past eight years. For Obama, the key issue in the Middle East is the fight against the Islamic State: He wants to be able to continue to operate with the cover of a broad Islamic coalition, of which Saudi Arabia is a prominent member. For the House of Saud, the issue is Iran. For them, last year’s nuclear deal does not block Iran’s nascent nuclear status — instead, it confirms it. Worse than that, Washington sees Iran as a potential ally in the fight against the Islamic State. In the words of one longtime Washington-based observer: “Saudi Arabia wanted a boyfriend called the United States. The United States instead chose Iran. Saudi Arabia is beyond jealousy.”

Despite the possible pitfalls, both sides will have assembled lists of “asks” for the visit. These will probably be expressed in side meetings, given the king’s increasing delegation of his powers to Crown Prince Muhammad bin Nayef, known as MbN, and particularly his son, Deputy Crown Prince Muhammad bin Salman, aka MbS. Besides the Islamic State and Iran, the topics are likely to include Yemen, where the kingdom is increasingly bogged down, though there is hope for peace talks. The crucial interlocutor will be MbS, the 30-year-old who is increasingly expected to become king sooner rather than later — though the notional succession currently in place would first hand the crown to his cousin, MbN. MbS is known for touting his vision of a modernized Saudi Arabia with an economy that has moved beyond oil.

Obama’s attitude toward Saudi Arabia does not seem to have changed since his 2002 speech, and his comments about the kingdom’s rulers will be an elephant in the room during these talks. The president’s criticism of America’s “so-called allies” is a recurring theme in Jeffrey Goldberg’s cover story for the Atlantic, “The Obama Doctrine.” The 19,000-word article begins with Obama’s retreat from his “red line” after Bashar al-Assad’s forces used sarin gas against civilians in 2013 — an event that shocked U.S. allies in the Middle East and forced them to reconsider what U.S. security guarantees actually meant, but which the president described as a decision that made him “very proud.”

Why Obama decided to give the interview now — rather than, say, in April 2017 — is a mystery to many, who see it as damaging his diplomatic credibility. The profile will cast a dark cloud over Obama’s meetings in Riyadh and make the platitudes of his public statements less convincing. Counterterrorism cooperation, for instance, will be a key element in the talks — but in the Atlantic, Obama questioned “the role that America’s Sunni Arab allies play in fomenting anti-American terrorism,” Goldberg wrote, and “is clearly irritated that foreign-policy orthodoxy compels him to treat Saudi Arabia as an ally.”

When Malcolm Turnbull, the new Australian prime minister, last year asked Obama, “Aren’t the Saudis your friends?” Goldberg writes: “Obama smiled. ‘It’s complicated,’ he said.”

Obama’s skepticism appears to have permeated his entire administration. It’s gotten to the point where Saudi officials fear that the administration prefers their rivals in Tehran to their longstanding ally. “In the White House these days, one occasionally hears Obama’s National Security Council officials pointedly reminding visitors that the large majority of 9/11 hijackers were not Iranian, but Saudi,” Goldberg wrote. When the author observed to Obama that he wasn’t as likely as his predecessors to instinctively back Saudi Arabia in a dispute with Iran, Goldberg continued, Obama “didn’t disagree.” More here from the WashingtonInstitute.

 

 

 

PP Organ Sales, Pure Profit, Congressional Hearing

Posted on by

Report: Planned Parenthood Organ Sales Are ‘Pure Profit’

Congressional panel says abortionists incur no costs for organ harvesting

FreeBeacon: Planned Parenthood abortion clinics profit from the sale of aborted baby organs, according to new documents released by a congressional committee investigating the organization’s practices.

The U.S. House Select Panel on Infant Lives released a preview of its findings after a months-long review of internal documents obtained from the nation’s top abortionist, as well as organ procurement companies and buyers. The panel concluded that abortion clinics incur no additional costs in harvesting organs obtained from an already-aborted baby and that the sale or transfer of those organs represented “pure profit” for the clinic.

“The [abortion clinic] has no costs so the payments from the [procurement business] to the [abortion clinic] are pure profit,” the report concludes. “All costs are born by the [procurement business] or the customer. The payments from the customer to the PB exceed its cost by a factor of 300 to 400 percent.”

Pro-life activists said those practices run counter to federal law, which bars clinics from profiting off of the sale of baby body parts.

“The abortion industry sells baby hearts, livers, brains, hands and other organs procured by a middleman company inside their facilities at no cost or effort to the facilities themselves. The facility receives upfront fees that can amount to five-figure sums every month and then the procurement companies resell organs for tens of thousands more—depending on the child’s characteristics,” Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of the Susan B. Anthony List, said in a release. “The documents make clear there is absolutely no cost to the abortion clinic so that all monies received go to their bottom line.”

The scandal began after investigators with the pro-life Center for Medical Progress released a series of videos capturing top Planned Parenthood officials discussing the group’s fetal organ sales in the summer of 2015. One top official was caught on camera saying that clinics generate a “fair amount of income” from the sales.

The committee’s conclusions stand in contrast to Planned Parenthood’s repeated denials that it made any money from the sale of organs. The group claimed that all payments were to recoup costs. The abortionist announced last year it would no longer accept any payments from researchers or procurement companies for baby body parts.

Planned Parenthood did not return a request for comment.

The congressional panel will hold a hearing Wednesday morning to discuss the report.

***** The law: 42 U.S. Code § 289g–2 – Prohibitions regarding human fetal tissue

(a) Purchase of tissue

It shall be unlawful for any person to knowingly acquire, receive, or otherwise transfer any human fetal tissue for valuable consideration if the transfer affects interstate commerce.
(b) Solicitation or acceptance of tissue as directed donation for use in transplantation

It shall be unlawful for any person to solicit or knowingly acquire, receive, or accept a donation of human fetal tissue for the purpose of transplantation of such tissue into another person if the donation affects interstate commerce, the tissue will be or is obtained pursuant to an induced abortion, and—
(1) the donation will be or is made pursuant to a promise to the donating individual that the donated tissue will be transplanted into a recipient specified by such individual;
(2) the donated tissue will be transplanted into a relative of the donating individual; or
(3) the person who solicits or knowingly acquires, receives, or accepts the donation has provided valuable consideration for the costs associated with such abortion.
(c) Solicitation or acceptance of tissue from fetuses gestated for research purposes

It shall be unlawful for any person or entity involved or engaged in interstate commerce to—
(1) solicit or knowingly acquire, receive, or accept a donation of human fetal tissue knowing that a human pregnancy was deliberately initiated to provide such tissue; or
(2) knowingly acquire, receive, or accept tissue or cells obtained from a human embryo or fetus that was gestated in the uterus of a nonhuman animal.
(d) Criminal penalties for violations

(1) In general

Any person who violates subsection (a), (b), or (c) shall be fined in accordance with title 18, subject to paragraph (2), or imprisoned for not more than 10 years, or both.
(2) Penalties applicable to persons receiving consideration

With respect to the imposition of a fine under paragraph (1), if the person involved violates subsection (a) or (b)(3), a fine shall be imposed in an amount not less than twice the amount of the valuable consideration received.
(e) Definitions

For purposes of this section:
(1) The term “human fetal tissue” has the meaning given such term in section 289g–1 (g) of this title.
(2) The term “interstate commerce” has the meaning given such term in section 321 (b) of title 21.
(3) The term “valuable consideration” does not include reasonable payments associated with the transportation, implantation, processing, preservation, quality control, or storage of human fetal tissue.

Russia/Germany Join Abbas Against Israel

Posted on by

In 2014: Hamas Issues ‘Terrorism 101 Handbook’

Manuals discovered by IDF give how-to tips for terror
****
BDS:  The Boycott/Divest/Sanctions (BDS) Movement against Israel was formally launched in 2005, but really began gathering momentum as a result of the Second Intifada of 2000 and the UN’s World Conference Against Racism in 2001.This Report documents and dissects the BDS’ impact across a broad front of battlefields in the western world. These include economic struggles in corporate boardrooms and among trade unions, BDS’ “academic jihad” against Israel on campuses, the pressure on entertainment and cultural figures to cancel appearances in Israel, and efforts to gain support for BDS from important religious institutions.

Hamas’s link to BDS

Leading expert testifies to Congress over the terror group leading the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement.

Terror finance expert describes ‘network’ of ex-fundraisers in organizations linked to Hamas and key pro-boycott organization

ToI: WASHINGTON — The US should boost transparency of nonprofit organizations in order to shed light on ties between a key pro-boycott organization and defunct charities that were implicated in funding Hamas, analyst Jonathan Schanzer of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies told members of Congress during testimony Tuesday afternoon when two subcommittees of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs met to discuss current threats to Israel.

During testimony, experts including Schanzer highlighted regional nonstate actors such as Iran and the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement (BDS) as key threats to Israel.

The chairman of the Subcommittee on Terrorism, Nonproliferation and Trade, Ted Poe, described the BDS movement as “a threat which seeks [Israel’s] ultimate destruction.”

Schanzer, a former terror finance analyst for the US Treasury, presented open-source research conducted by his group, the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies which highlighted a network linking Hamas supporters with the leadership of the BDS movement.

The research tracked employees of three now-defunct organizations – the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development, Kind Hearts Foundation for Humanitarian Development and the Islamic Association for Palestine — all of which were implicated by the federal government for terrorism finance, specifically of Hamas. A federal court found that the Holy Land Foundation had sent some $12 million to Hamas over the course of a decade

The research yielded what Schanzer described as “a troubling outcome” – with seven key employees of these organizations now associated with the Illinois-based organization American Muslims for Palestine.

Schanzer told members of Congress that the latter is “arguably the leading BDS organization in the US, a key sponsor of the anti-Israel campus network known as Students for Justice in Palestine.” The organization, he said, provides money, speakers, training and even “apartheid walls” to SJP activists on campus, for the annual Israel Apartheid Week events.

“The overlap between AMP, Holy Land, Kind Hearts and the Islamic Association for Palestine is striking,” said Schanzer, but noted that “our open source research did not indicate that AMP or any of these individuals are currently involved in any illegal activity.”

“The BDS campaign may pose a threat to Israel, but the network I describe here is decidedly an American problem,” he warned. Americans for Justice in Palestine raises money as a transparent 501c3 tax-exempt non-profit, which then provides funds for AMP which has the usually temporary designation of a corporate non-profit – a status that is usually transitional en route to a tax-exempt 501c3 organization.

“There appear to be flaws in the federal and state oversight of non-profits charities,” Schanzer complained. Although advocating for increased transparency, Schanzer said that he had a sense from talking to former colleagues that the Treasury was less invested in uncovering charities serving to fund terror networks than in the past.

“BDS advocates are free to say what they want, true or false, but tax advantaged organizations are obliged to be transparent,” Schanzer told the panel. “Americans have a right to know who is leading the BDS campaign and so do the students who may not be aware of AMP’s leaders or their goals.”

The BDS movement was not the only threat cited by the witnesses, who included former peace negotiator and Washington Institute for Near East Policy Distinguished Fellow David Makovsky, American Enterprise Institute Scholar Michael Rubin and the Brooking Institution’s Tamara Coffman Wittes.

Makovsky warned that the current stagnation of peace initiatives could feed further into BDS advances in the US.

The former negotiator warned “that the movement could metastasize beyond college campuses” if there is no peace solution on the ground – after noting that “under the current leadership” he did not envision peace efforts “succeeding in the near future.”

Makovsky said that he was “rather skeptical regarding efforts to put forward parameters at the UNSC,” warning that they “would be interpreted by both sides as an imposed solution and could serve as a baseline for defiance rather than bringing the parties closer.”

“We need to find a way to maintain the viability of a two-state outcome even if we can’t implement a two-state solution today,” he offered.

Makovsky suggested that it was not just the US but also European countries that could provide critical leverage in encouraging the Palestinians to jettison their anti-normalization policy and stop providing funds to families of jailed terrorists.

“The US needs to sensitize our European partners to these issues – given the closeness between Europeans and Palestinians, it would carry weight if the Europeans would practice the same tough love they have urged the United States to administer when it comes to Israel but they are reluctant to do when it comes to our Palestinian friends,” he said.