Trump Admin: No State Has Sovereignty Over the City of Jerusalem

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After days of noncommittal statements about the status of Israel’s capital city, the Trump administration has finally come clean about its position on Jerusalem. An administration official told Conservative Review Wednesday that the Trump-led government rejects Israel’s claims to sovereignty over the entirety of its historic capital of Jerusalem.

Conservative Review reached out to the State Department after U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley, a high-ranking administration official, called for the administration to move its embassy in Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.

“I believe that the capital should be Jerusalem and the embassy should be moved to Jerusalem because if you look at all their government is in Jerusalem,” Haley told CBN Tuesday.

Although her comments were received as encouraging by the pro-Israel community, Haley appeared to contradict statements made Tuesday by national security adviser H.R. McMaster and press secretary Sean Spicer. Both officials refused to answer whether the Western Wall (a Jewish holy site that is in Jerusalem and claimed by Israel) is part of Israel. Spicer, for his part, stated that the Western Wall “is in Jerusalem.”

A U.S. official clarified to Conservative Review that the official Trump administration position on Jerusalem is the same as the Obama administration’s. Israel’s claims over Jerusalem are not recognized and should be solved through negotiations with the Palestinians, the official explained.

“The Western Wall is located in Jerusalem. While we certainly recognize the strong connection between the Jewish people and the Western Wall, the holiest site in Judaism, our position on Jerusalem is unchanged,” the administration official tells Conservative Review.

“Since 1948, every administration has taken the official position that no state has sovereignty over the city of Jerusalem. The status of Jerusalem is an issue that should be resolved in final status negotiations between the Israelis and Palestinians,” the official added.

By proclaiming that “no state has sovereignty” over Jerusalem, the Trump administration finds itself in a position that is wholly rejected by a bipartisan consensus of congressional leaders.

The Jerusalem Embassy Act, which was originally passed in 1995 by an almost unanimous consensus in Congress, calls for the United States to move its embassy in Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. Past presidents have put off moving the embassy or even recognizing Israel’s capital, for fear that doing so would incite Muslim nations throughout the region.

Conservative leaders such as Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, and House Freedom Caucus chair Mark Meadows, R-N.C., both released statements yesterday supporting Israel’s claims to Jerusalem. Even Democrat Senator Steny Hoyer, D-Md., called the refusal to include the Western Wall as part of Israel “shocking and offensive.”

On the campaign trail, President Trump pledged to move the “American embassy to the eternal capital of the Jewish people, Jerusalem.” Since becoming president, his advisers have dramatically walked back that position. Some reports indicate that the president is now using the Jerusalem sovereignty issue as a bargaining chip with an eye toward Israel’s negotiations with the Palestinians.

President Trump will arrive in Israel on May 22 and will visit the Western Wall. (For more from the author of “Trump Admin: No State Has Sovereignty Over the City of Jerusalem” please click HERE)

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Officials: US Strike Hits Pro-Assad Forces in Syria

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U.S. officials say an American airstrike has hit pro-Syrian government forces in southern Syria as they were setting up fighting positions in a protected area.

The officials say the strike near Tanf hit a tank and a bulldozer and forces there, but it was not clear if they were Syrian army troops or other pro-government allies.

One official says the pro-regime forces had entered a so-called “de-confliction” zone without authorization and were perceived as a threat to U.S.-allied troops there. The officials say the strike was a defensive move to protect the U.S. allies. It wasn’t clear if U.S. forces were there. (Read more from “Officials: US Strike Hits Pro-Assad Forces in Syria” HERE)

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Shariah Court in Indonesia Sentences Gay Couple to Caning

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An Islamic Shariah court in Indonesia’s conservative Aceh province has sentenced two gay men to public caning for the first time, further undermining the country’s moderate image after a top Christian politician was imprisoned for blasphemy.

The court, whose sentencing Wednesday coincided with International Day Against Homophobia and Transphobia, said the men, aged 20 and 23, would each be subjected to 85 lashes for having sexual relations. One of the men wept as his sentence was read out and pleaded for leniency.

The chief prosecutor, Gulmaini, who goes by one name, said they will be caned next week, before the holy Muslim month of Ramadan starts about May 25. (Read more from “Shariah Court in Indonesia Sentences Gay Couple to Caning” HERE)

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President Trump, Vice President Pence Raise Pastor Brunson’s Case Three Times With Turkey’s President

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I just received a call from the Vice President’s office. President Trump and Vice President Pence raised the case of American Pastor Andrew Brunson three times today with Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.

This is exactly what we asked the President to do and is a major sign of significant progress toward bringing Pastor Andrew home.

Pastor Andrew – a U.S. citizen – has been wrongfully imprisoned in Turkey for more than seven months because of his Christian faith. Today, Turkish President Erdogan met with President Trump at the White House. Last week, I urged the President and the Vice President when I met with them in the White House to raise Pastor Andrew’s case with Turkish leaders. Today, they did just that, raising his plight directly to President Erdogan. (Read more from “President Trump, Vice President Pence Raise Pastor Brunson’s Case Three Times With Turkey’s President” HERE)

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Danish Teen Converts to Islam, Plans Terror Attack

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A Danish court on Tuesday convicted a teenage girl of attempted terrorism for planning bomb attacks against two schools.

Holbaek District Court judge Peder Christensen says the 17-year-old, who wasn’t identified, was also convicted of assaulting an employee in the juvenile incarceration facility where she had been held during the trial.

Christensen said the girl had converted to Islam and intended to carry out attacks, including one on a Jewish school, when she was 15. He said she possessed chemicals to make the explosive known as TATP. It also appeared she had online contacts with radical militants. (Read more from “Danish Teen Converts to Islam, Plans Terror Attack” HERE)

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Expert Who Beat Cyberattack Says He’s No Hero

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A young British computer expert credited with cracking the WannaCry cyberattack told The Associated Press he doesn’t consider himself a hero but fights malware because “it’s the right thing to do.”

In his first face-to-face interview, Marcus Hutchins, who works for Los Angeles-based Kryptos Logic, said Monday that hundreds of computer experts worked throughout the weekend to fight the virus, which paralyzed computers in some 150 countries.

“I’m definitely not a hero,” he said. “I’m just someone doing my bit to stop botnets.” (Read more from “Expert Who Beat Cyberattack Says He’s No Hero” HERE)

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In New Russia Stir, White House and Allies Call Leaks to Media Real Problem

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President Donald Trump’s Oval Office conversation with two Russian officials last week was “wholly appropriate,” national security adviser H.R. McMaster said Tuesday, expanding on his previous explanation about classified information shared by the president.

When Trump met with the Russians, McMaster said, he was in the room along with deputy national security adviser Dina Powell and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson.

“None of us felt in any way that conversation was inappropriate,” McMaster told reporters in the White House press briefing room.

Trump talked with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak about the Islamic State and aviation safety issues in what McMaster said was the “context” of a broader conversation about security and terrorism.

“That conversation was wholly appropriate to the conversation and wholly appropriate with the expectations of our intelligence partners,” McMaster said, adding, “The president in no way undermined sources or methods in the course of this conversation.”

The Washington Post first reported the conversation and concerns about it among some intelligence officials.

McMaster said the “real issue” is the threat to national security by those leaking classified information to The Washington Post and other media outlets.

“It’s incumbent on all of us to bring in the people with the right mandate and the right authorities to take a look at how this leak occurred and how other breaches may have occurred as well,” he said.

White House press secretary Sean Spicer told reporters during an off-camera briefing that there is “clearly a pattern” of agenda-driven leaks within the government.

Trump’s sharing of the information with the Russian officials, Spicer added, was appropriate because it was about “a common threat and one we have a common goal in eradicating.”

Judicial Watch, a conservative watchdog on government, was drafting a request under the Freedom of Information Act to investigate the matter, said Tom Fitton, the group’s president. Fitton said he agrees that the leaking should be a matter for concern.

“The president conveyed information to the Russian ambassador [and foreign minister] that he felt was appropriate,” Fitton told The Daily Signal in a phone interview, adding:

The real question is, who illegally leaked classified information? … Let’s say Russia could have drawn conclusions from this information. What if they didn’t figure it out? They sure will now, thanks to The Washington Post and New York Times.”

Trump made a significant issue during the presidential campaign of the potential compromise of classified information because Hillary Clinton conducted official business as secretary of state over a private email server.

Last July, the State Department determined it wouldn’t make 22 emails on Clinton’s private server public because they were “top secret” and contained highly classified information. This raised clear legal questions about her sending and receiving classified information.

“There is no comparison. Clinton kept classified information on an illegal server and spread that classified information around,” Fitton said. “The most die-hard anti-Trump people can’t allege he broke the law. She clearly did.”

It’s a difficult comparison to make, said Craig Shirley, a presidential historian whose most recent book is “Reagan Rising.”

“Both sides will be dug in with no appreciable loss or gain,” Shirley told The Daily Signal in a phone interview, adding:

Trump supporters will continue to say Hillary endangered national security more with her email server. Democrats will continue to say Trump endangered national security more by sharing with the Russians. Both sides will just keep wailing and it’s probably irrelevant, aside from what the public’s mind comes up with.

National leaders typically keep secrets even from strategic partners or allies, Shirley added. During the storied close alliance between President Ronald Reagan and British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, he said, “They still didn’t reveal everything to each other.”

Shirley dismissed the media’s constant comparing of Trump’s actions with the Watergate scandal. But, he said he sees similarities between Trump and former President Richard Nixon in that Trump and his White House lose control of the storyline and spend so much time reacting:

I more fully reject the comparison between Donald Trump and Ronald Reagan. Reagan never went out of his way to make enemies. Nixon did go out of his way to make enemies, and eventually had no one left. Trump needs to stop going out of his way to make enemies.

Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, a liberal watchdog group, said Trump’s sharing of the classified information with the Russians is part of a larger independent investigation that must occur.

“The president’s action raises serious questions about his relationship with Russia,” spokesman Jordan Libowitz told The Daily Signal in an email. “We know that there is Russia-related business in his tax returns; it’s time that he reveals to the American people just what his business interests with Russia are.”

Presidential historians note that executive privilege regarding high-level conversations is broad.

Ideally, a process would exist for a president to declassify and share information, but such a process isn’t required, said Lee Edwards, a distinguished fellow in conservative thought at The Heritage Foundation.

Edwards said he isn’t sure of a specific parallel, but noted that Reagan, against the advice of his advisers and Cabinet, wrote a letter to Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev seeking dialogue.

He said House and Senate intelligence committees have legitimate questions to review as to whether Trump’s sharing of information put the intelligence agents of the U.S. or its allies in harm’s way.

“If The Washington Post story is true, it’s possible that President Trump did inadvertently compromise [an] important intelligence source,” Lee told The Daily Signal in a phone interview. “That would make it complicated for whatever the nation, [whether] Israel or Saudi Arabia, that might have provided the information.” (For more from the author of “In New Russia Stir, White House and Allies Call Leaks to Media Real Problem” please click HERE)

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Migrants in Sweden Suspected of Converting to Christianity to Get Asylum

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The Swedish migration agency is handing out pop quizzes on the Bible to make sure migrants aren’t converting to Christianity to receive asylum.

Risk of persecution because of one’s religious faith can boost a person’s chances of gaining asylum. The Swedish migration agency is making unannounced visits to asylum seekers to quiz them on the Bible and make sure their conversions are genuine.

“How many books are in the New Testament?” and “What is the difference between Orthodox and Protestant churches?” are examples of questions converts have to answer.

Immigration lawyers have criticized the measure, but the agency defends the questions as knowledge true Christians should know.

“There are reasonable demands that the [asylum] applicant should have certain knowledge based on what they’ve told us and how they’ve gained knowledge of the Bible,” Carl Bexelius of the Swedish migration agency told state broadcaster SVT in an article published Saturday. “This knowledge should be there naturally, and it shouldn’t be something they need to read up on.” (Read more from “Migrants in Sweden Suspected of Converting to Christianity to Get Asylum” HERE)

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How Instability in the Taiwan Straits Strains the US Position in Asia

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While the eyes of the world are focused on security developments on the Korean Peninsula, two recent events should resharpen attention on the Taiwan Straits.

The Chinese launched a new aircraft carrier, and President Donald Trump indicated that he would check with Chinese President Xi Jinping before he would take another phone call from the president of Taiwan.

The new ship, whose name is as yet unknown, marks China’s first domestically produced aircraft carrier. It joins the Liaoning, China’s first aircraft carrier. Remarkably, the Liaoning itself only joined China’s fleet in 2014; before that, China had no experience even operating an aircraft carrier.

In short, China has joined the ranks of carrier navies in less than five years. This reflects the broader overall growth of the People’s Liberation Army Navy, as China has added a range of new surface combatants (including air defense destroyers), many new submarines, and an array of logistics and support ships that will allow the PLA Navy to operate for sustained periods far from its shores.

Most recently, the PLA announced a fivefold expansion of the PLA Navy’s Naval Infantry force—its counterpart to the U.S. Marines.

This expanding set of naval capabilities, including an improved ability to conduct forced entry operations and expeditionary warfare, directly affects Taiwan. Beijing’s hostility towards the island has increased substantially with the election of President Tsai Ing-wen in 2016.

Tsai’s Democratic Progressive Party was founded on the concept of promoting Taiwanese independence. Tsai has been very careful not to push that aspect in her policies, but this has done little to mollify Beijing.

Instead, Beijing has repeatedly insisted that, to maintain cordial relations between Beijing and Taipei, Tsai must explicitly endorse the so-called “1992 Consensus.” Intended to allow the two sides to engage in dialogue while bypassing the political status of Taiwan, the very meaning of this phrase is now debated.

The People’s Republic of China claims this “consensus” essentially accepts the idea that there is only a single China, and the entities on both sides of the Taiwan Straits are part of that China.

Tsai’s reluctance to submit to Beijing’s demand to use the phrase should not be surprising since it fundamentally contradicts a foundational aspect of the Democratic Progressive Party. Also, the party won massive victories in the 2016 election cycle, not only taking the presidency of Taiwan, but also control of the Legislative Yuan, Taiwan’s Congress, or parliament. Tsai almost certainly could not politically survive the abandonment of a cornerstone Democratic Progressive Party position by acceding to Beijing’s demands.

Unfortunately, Taiwan’s overall political situation appears to have been weakened by Trump’s comments. In an interview with Reuters, when asked if he would speak with Tsai again, Trump responded by saying: “I think [Xi Jinping’s] doing an amazing job as a leader and I wouldn’t want to do anything that comes in the way of that. So I would certainly want to speak to him first.”

The statement has roiled U.S.-Taiwan relations, as it appears to suggest that the administration is willing to grant China an implicit veto on whether to have contact with Taipei. That no sitting American president has spoken directly with the government in Taipei since 1979 is irrelevant; the optics on the statement suggest that the U.S. is granting China the ability to determine American actions.

In reality, the United States can, and should, conduct an independent foreign policy with regards to Taiwan. This is the spirit of the Taiwan Relations Act, which is a key document governing U.S.-Taiwan relations. In fact, when it comes to arms sales, it is specifically stated that:

The president and the Congress shall determine the nature and quantity of such defense articles and services based solely upon their judgment of the needs of Taiwan, in accordance with procedures established by law.

This has long been taken to mean that the United States will not consult with China before determining what items to sell Taiwan. It should not be consulting with Beijing on other aspects of U.S.-Taiwan relations either. Undermining and diluting the understandings that link the U.S. and Taipei will prove as counterproductive for long-term regional stability as undermining the security and economic ties between the U.S. and key allies such as South Korea and Japan. (For more from the author of “How Instability in the Taiwan Straits Strains the US Position in Asia” please click HERE)

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North Korea’s Missile Launch a ‘Litmus Test’ for Trump and South Korean Leader

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President Donald Trump will speak again to the newly elected South Korean president—who during his campaign advocated more direct engagement with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. That was before North Korea’s ballistic missile test over the weekend.

Trump talked by phone to South Korean President Moon Jae-in on Wednesday, the same day the country’s liberal leader was sworn into office.

Asked if the administration will advise against South Korea’s engagement in light of the missile test, White House press secretary Sean Spicer declined to get ahead of Trump’s next conversation with the new leaders.

“The president looks forward to having a new conversation with the new president and discussing the way forward, but I’m not going to get ahead of him on that,” Spicer told The Daily Signal during the press briefing.

The test missile reportedly flew more than 430 miles and reached an altitude of 1,245 miles before landing in the sea between North Korea and Japan, demonstrating that it could be used to target U.S. military bases in the Pacific.

North Korea’s launch will be a “litmus test” for both Trump and Moon, Bruce Klingner, senior research fellow in Asian studies at The Heritage Foundation, told The Daily Signal in a phone interview.

On one front, Klingner wonders if Trump will get ahead of China in seeking more sanctions on North Korea.

“Trump has been effusive in his praise for China,” he said, but added, “China is doing less than meets the eye. So will Trump hold back on sanctions?”

He continued:

Moon wanted less sanctions and more engagement. North Korea, as with [U.S. President Barack] Obama in 2009, showed they will act no differently with a liberal progressive than they did with his conservative predecessor [President George W. Bush].

The missile test should prompt caution for South Korea’s peace ambitions, said Anthony Ruggiero, senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a national security think tank.

“Governing is different than campaigning. North Korea also gets a vote. North Korea responded to Moon Jae-in’s outstretched hand with a ballasted missile test,” Ruggiero told The Daily Signal Monday.

Beyond sanctions, there are few diplomatic options to contain North Korea, and the United States will have to take the lead, Ruggiero said.

“China and Russia will not put the level of necessary pressure on North Korea, only the Trump administration [will],” he said. “This will not serve as a wake-up call for Russia.”

Over the weekend, Spicer issued a statement saying North Korea’s test missile hit close to Russia, and that “the president cannot imagine that Russia is pleased.” During the briefing, he again brought up the key United Nations Security Council member nations that haven’t been cooperative in pushing sanctions—China and Russia.

“There is no question that North Korea continues to threaten the United States, our allies, Japan, South Korea, and its neighbors, including both China and Russia,” Spicer said. “We are calling on all of those folks in the region, in particular, China and Russia, to do everything they can in terms of sanctions to help resolve the situation and bring stability to the peninsula.”

North Korea likely has the capacity for an electromagnetic pulse that could target the United States, said Clare Lopez, vice president for research and analysis the Center for Security Policy, a national security think tank. She said she doesn’t believe the U.S. civilian power grid could withstand such an attack if the regime is able to launch over the continental United States.

As for South Korean, Lopez said she believes the new government assuredly understands the threat.

“I can’t imagine the South Korean leadership is naïve about North Korea,” Lopez told The Daily Signal. “The new president might want to express a diplomatic ambition, but I can’t believe he is oblivious to the existential threat of the North.” (For more from the author of “North Korea’s Missile Launch a ‘Litmus Test’ for Trump and South Korean Leader” please click HERE)

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