Previous public knowledge existed regarding the Summers-Epstein connection, The New York Times reported. Summers had pursued Epstein funding for a poetry organization headed by his spouse, Elisa New, a retired professor of literature at Harvard.

The post Former treasury secretary disgraced in Epstein scandal, steps down from positions appeared first on www.israelhayom.com.

Warren said that "the continued expansion of Israeli settlements and the increasing normalization of proposals for Israel to annex parts or all of the West Bank are the most immediate dangers to the two-state solution."

Follow Israel Hayom on Facebook and Twitter

"I will reverse the Trump administration's new policy on settlements, which upends 40 years of bipartisan precedent, and make clear that Israeli settlements violate international law," she continued. "And if Israel's government continues with steps to annex the West Bank, the US should make clear that none of our aid should be used to support annexation."

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) reiterated his stance that he would condition US assistance on Israel not annexing or expanding settlements.

Billionaire Tom Steyer said he would condition US assistance to Israel on settlements, in addition to pledging to reverse Trump's relocation in May 2018 of the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.

Entrepreneur Andrew Yang, former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg and former Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick said the US embassy should remain in Jerusalem.

"The status of Jerusalem should remain a part of any negotiated two-state solution, and we should be mindful of both Palestinian and Israeli negotiators before deciding where the embassy should be," said Yang.

Former US Vice President Joe Biden, former South Bend, Ind., Mayor Pete Buttigieg, Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) and Sen. Michael Bennet (D-Colo.) have already stated they'd keep the embassy in Jerusalem, while Warren said last week that the embassy should be decided in negotiations between the Israelis and the Palestinians.

Sanders said that moving the embassy back to Tel Aviv "would be on the table if Israel continues to take steps, such as settlement expansion, expulsions and home demolitions, that undermine the chances for a peace agreement."

On Iran, Buttigieg, Klobuchar, Sanders, Warren and Steyer reiterated they would re-enter the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, which the Trump administration withdrew from in May 2018, while Bennet and Bloomberg said they would re-enter the agreement without preconditions.

Yang and Patrick said they "would seek a 'grand bargain' to resolve nuclear, missile and counterterrorism disagreements." In August, Yang said in a debate that "we have to re-enter that agreement and renegotiate the timelines because right now the timelines don't make sense."

Reprinted with permission from JNS.org

The post Warren: I will reverse Trump administration's new policy on settlements appeared first on www.israelhayom.com.

The American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) issued an "unequivocal apology" to congressional Democrats on Saturday over a Facebook ad slamming the "radicals" in the party as anti-Semites.

The ad in question, paid for by AIPAC, said that they were "pushing their anti-Semitic and anti-Israeli policies" down Americans' throats.

Follow Israel Hayom on Facebook and Twitter

The organization apologized and said that it deeply appreciated the support for Israel in the ranks of the Democratic Party and regretted the poor wording of a message that, however, "alluded to a genuine concern of many pro-Israel Democrats about a small but growing group ... working to erode the bipartisan consensus."

The matter of US-Israeli relations is one of the divisive issues in the current political debate in the Democratic Party, with some of the candidates in the Democratic presidential nomination contest – Bernie Sanders, Elisabeth Warren and Tom Steyer – hinting they were open to limiting US aid to Israel.

The restrictions would kick in should Israel push forth with the settlements, thus turning the aid into a point of leverage.

Warren also said she was willing to skip this year's AIPAC conference when responding to a question that slammed the organization over an alleged "unholy alliance" it is supposedly "forming with Islamophobes and anti-Semites and white nationalists."

Joe Biden, however, said that the idea of limiting or conditioning US military aid to Israel was "absolutely outrageous."

This article was originally published by i24NEWS.

The post AIPAC apologizes to Democrats after Facebook post backfires appeared first on www.israelhayom.com.

This debate in Iowa is a critical one, as it's the last chance for candidates to go head-to-head before February's Iowa caucuses. Inevitably, things got heated.

Follow Israel Hayom on Facebook and Twitter

While the candidates were able to unify on some issues like their disdain for President Donald Trump and his foreign policy regarding Iran, some very clear schisms within the party became evident on Tuesday. 

So much so that New York Post debate analyst and the founder of Bluejacket Strategies, a public affairs firm in New York, Peter Kauffmann, declared, "Preseason is over. The Democratic race got real tonight, and these candidates started to realize that only one of them is leaving Iowa with a W."

Warren vs. Sanders

The debate got personal between the two progressive candidates. After the Warren campaign leaked a report saying that Sanders didn't believe a woman could be elected president, the septuagenarian senator flatly denied he made the comment.

"As a matter of fact, I didn't say it," Sanders said. "How could anybody in a million years not believe that a woman could become the president of the United States?"

Warren though, calmly issued a swift and effective rebuttal against Sanders and the other male candidates, saying, "Look at the men on this stage. Collectively, they have lost ten elections. The only people on this stage who have won every single election that they've been in are the women. Amy and me," referring to Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar.

The tension between the two appeared to continue even after the debate as Sanders approached Warren to shake her hand, only to have Warren clasp her hands together in what looked like an intense conversation between the two. 

To make matters even more uncomfortable, fellow candidate Tom Steyer looked on and was largely ignored by the two senators.

"I don't know what they were saying," Steyer told MSNBC. "Whatever they were going on between each other, I was trying to get out of the way as fast as possible."

Elizabeth Warren with some words for Bernie Sanders #DemocraticDebate pic.twitter.com/2varfDM9AG

— Jordan Dajani (@JordanDajani) January 15, 2020

Sanders vs. Biden

Meanwhile, Sanders and Biden squared off regarding the 2002 Iraq War. Sanders attacked Biden for voting for what he called the "worst blunder in modern history."

Biden replied saying that voting for the war was a mistake and one he tried to fix as vice president. 

"It was a mistake and I acknowledged that, but the man who argued against the war, Barack Obama, picked me to be vice president … and turned to me and asked me to end the war," Biden said, neglecting to mention that his efforts to withdraw troops from Iraq weren't entirely successful.

With only two weeks to go until that fateful caucuses, candidates know they have to strike a delicate balance between criticizing their opponents and being civil.

"We're down to the end here. That means there's pressure on everybody to try to show off, to be smart, to point out their opponents' weaknesses," Stuart Rothenberg, a political analyst and senior editor of Inside Elections with Nathan Gonzales, told TIME. "But you don't want to go too nasty right at the end here. You don't want to look mean spirited. That's not Midwestern nice."

The post Left begins to eat itself at presidential debate appeared first on www.israelhayom.com.

In her comments to The Hill published on Sunday, Warren said Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was pushing for expansion, which she said was inconsistent with the two-state solution.

Follow Israel Hayom on Facebook and Twitter

"It is the official policy of the United States of America to support a two-state solution, and if Israel is moving in the opposite direction, then everything is on the table," she said.

The Massachusetts senator is the current front-runner in the Democratic race, speeding past Joe Biden as the Ukraine crisis seems to have taken a toll on his backing.

She is also the second Democrat in this race to voice approval for cutting aid to Israel, after Pete Buttigieg, trailing way behind Warren in polls, said in June he could cut the military aid over full West Bank annexation.

In the run-up to the September general election, Netanyahu pledged to annex swathes of land in the West Bank if elected – echoing a similar statement made before the spring elections.

Earlier, in March, the Trump administration formally recognized the Golan Heights as part of Israel, making the US the first country to do so.

This article was originally published by i24NEWS.

The post Elizabeth Warren says open to cutting aid to Israel over settlements appeared first on www.israelhayom.com.

"I think that we ought to get out of the Middle East," Warren said in a Democratic presidential debate during a discussion of President Donald Trump's decision to pull troops out of Syria.

Follow Israel Hayom on Facebook and Twitter

"I don't think we should have troops in the Middle East," she added.

Warren has advocated shrinking the US footprint overseas and has said she wants to withdraw troops from Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria. But a call to pull back from all of the Middle East would appear to go a step further.

In a statement after the debate, Warren spokeswoman Alexis Krieg said the candidate "was referencing combat troops, not those stationed in the Middle East in noncombat roles."

"She believes we need to end the endless wars. That means working to responsibly remove US troops from combat in the Middle East, and using diplomacy to work with allies and partners to end conflicts and suffering in the region," Krieg said.

US forces, including air and naval forces, have been based in the Middle East for decades, in part to ensure a free flow of oil from countries such as Saudi Arabia that have long been an energy lifeline to some Western countries.

The US Navy's 5th Fleet, for example, is headquartered at Bahrain, and the Air Force operates aircraft, including fighter jets, bombers, and intelligence-gathering planes, at bases in Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, and Kuwait.

The US also has about 5,200 troops in Iraq to support Iraqi security forces overrun by the Islamic State group in 2014. Those troops are not engaged in direct combat.

The number of US troops in Syria has shrunk this year from about 2,000 to about 1,000, and Trump last week directed that the 1,000 leave to avoid getting caught between invading Turkish forces and a Syrian Kurd group that had been partnering with the US to fight IS.

Warren, who serves on the Senate Armed Services Committee, has long argued that the US military is overcommitted in the Middle East and mired in conflicts that sap America's strength.

Reducing or ending US involvement in Middle East wars, however, is different than ending the US military presence in the region. Those forces are intended as a deterrent to potential enemies such as Iran and Russia and as reassurance to allies such as Israel.

Ever since President Jimmy Carter in 1980 declared that the US would use force, if necessary, to stop any outside power from gaining control of the Persian Gulf – the so-called Carter Doctrine – America has made that area a key focus of its military strategy.

The post Campaign: Warren's call to exit Middle East referred to combat troops appeared first on www.israelhayom.com.

Two IfNotNow activists approached Warren, who was campaigning in New Hampshire, with one of them, University of Michigan student Becca Lubow, telling her, "We really love the way you're fighting corruption. We'd really love it if you also pushed the Israeli government to end occupation."

Follow Israel Hayom on Facebook and Twitter

"Yes, yes. So I'm there," responded Warren swiftly, followed by taking a picture with the activists.

"Our members in New Hampshire just asked @ewarren if she would commit to pressuring the Israel to stop their 52 year military Occupation over the Palestinian people," tweeted IfNotNow. "She said YES."

IfNotNow issued a press release stating that Warren "responded to the question with a firm 'Yes.'"

"In the past, Warren has regularly spoken of Israel as a strong ally in a tough neighborhood and has appeared at [American Israel Public Affairs Committee] events and used right-wing talking points," continued the press release. "But as her career has gone on, her views on the issue have grown to be farther in line with her progressive values," according to the press release, which cited the senator's support for the 2015 Iran deal and criticism of the US Embassy in Israel's relocation to Jerusalem as examples.

The Warren campaign, which includes IfNotNow co-founder Max Berger as director for progressive partnerships, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The Jewish Democratic Council of America softly refuted IfNotNow's posture toward the conflict and getting candidates to speak out against the so-called "occupation," without mentioning the encounter its activists had with Warren.

"There's a very different approach from [IfNotNow] and ours, the Jewish Democratic Council of America," said JDCA executive director Halie Soifer on i24NEWS on Tuesday, adding that there's "consensus among the Democratic candidates on key issues such as support for a two-state solution, support of the US-Israel relationship and opposition to the global BDS [boycott, divestment and sanctions] movement."

Soifer said that "by embracing a two-state solution, they are already distinguishing themselves from the policies put forward by this administration, which is even neglecting to reference a two-state solution in its so-called peace plan."

"There's a consensus. There's no need to create divisions where they're otherwise do not exist," continued Soifer. "That's just playing into the Republican narrative. [US President] Donald Trump would like nothing more than to see Democrats divided on issues related to Israel and the reality is that those divisions don't exist, so let's not try to create them."

However, the Republican Jewish Coalition did not hold back any punches as it blasted Warren.

"Sen. Warren has aligned herself with the rapidly growing left-wing, anti-Israel base of her party," said RJC executive director Matt Brooks. "Her comments quoted yesterday may have helped solidify her 'progressive' credentials for that base, but at the expense of our ally Israel and the prospects for a negotiated peace between Israel and the Palestinians.

"The United States' role in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is to be an honest broker, not to condemn the only democracy in the Middle East," he continued. "Peace can only be achieved by a negotiation between the two parties, not through US pressure on Israel."

Brooks added that Warren's comments "will not win her points with voters who support a strong and secure Israel and a stable Middle East."

This article was originally published by i24NEWS.

The post US presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren supports call to pressure Israel to 'end occupation' appeared first on www.israelhayom.com.