If Republicans don’t hang together, this will probably end with another game of government-shutdown roulette, and another omnibus bill that obviates the President’s spending veto. Congress’s budget process is broken, but Congress doesn’t want to fix it because it works for the spenders, if not for taxpayers. Better hope the economy keeps growing enough to fund national defense.

Many Democrats are pushing have-your-cake-and-eat-it-too spending plans that almost perfectly mirror Republicans’ have-your-cake-and-eat-it-too tax cuts. It has apparently become a race for who can show the most bad faith and callous disregard for America’s future economic well-being. This race will not end well.

It’s a fool’s errand to predict how the budget wars will pan out. Trump’s blueprint won’t go anywhere, but he may very well get much of what he asks for in terms of defense… We can, however, be relatively certain that government spending will go up. Washington’s addiction to allocating other people’s money is just too powerful a sensation to beat.

It takes two-thirds of the Senate to vote to convict a president on impeachment charges and remove him from office. Democrats not only do not have two-thirds of the Senate on their side, they don’t even have a majority. As it stands now, the impeachment of Trump would do nothing to cast him from office. What would be the point? As the saying goes: “If you come at the king, you best not miss.”

The best argument for impeachment is, ironically, the case for national unity. Americans ought to be able to agree that, while all opinions are open to debate, some behavior really is out of bounds. An impeachment trial can’t be won? Well, the Republican Party may be obedient now, but there is just enough Never Trumping among those who were once the staunchest of conservatives to make it clear that the difference between constitutional conservatism and thuggishness is real and can be argued for, and maybe even partly won.

…this very reasonable approach may not be acceptable to members and voters who believe that Trump should be held accountable — and now. Polls show about three-quarters of Democratic voters favor impeachment already. Nearly half the country believes Trump has committed crimes while in office. Freshman Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) made waves in January by telling supporters that the House should “impeach the motherf—–.” Rep. Brad Sherman (D-Calif.) has introduced articles of impeachment.

New Zealand and Australia have obligingly complied with the ban, blocking the use of Huawei’s equipment in 5G networks… Other countries – notably Japan and Germany – have proved less compliant… The UK’s position is interestingly enigmatic: the National Cyber Security Centre (part of GCHQ) says that any risk posed by involving Huawei’s technology in UK telecoms projects can be “managed”.

If Trump really wants the US to win through competition, he needs to tone down the fearmongering and let Huawei—and other Chinese companies such as ZTE and Xiaomi—come in and compete on equal terms, with their intense competition driving American innovation forward.

Those moves will not, however, accelerate 5G deployment in the United States. The Chinese government aggressively coordinates and promotes 5G activity, which is proceeding at a breakneck pace. China Tower, for example, added 460 wireless tower sites per day in 2017, more than ten times the rate of American companies, according to a report by Deloitte.

Every time a Jewish leader grandstands against the anti-Semitic canard of “dual loyalty,” I groan.

Not because this trope is not real. For all of Jewish history, anti-Semites have justified persecution by claiming Jews are more loyal to each other than their home countries… No, what frustrates me is how Jewish leaders—from local rabbis to the American Jewish Committee—condemn legitimate criticism of Israel by people like Rep. Ilhan Omar as “dual loyalty,” while simultaneously making allegiance to Israel a requirement for American Jewish life.

Why do American Jews feel such an attachment to Israel (though sadly, not as much as before)? Contrary to analogies I’ve been reading, it is not comparable to Irish Americans longing for Ireland or Italian Americans caring about Italy. For us, the commitment is not merely ethnic or ancestral, it is also spiritual and existential. It is not a matter of dual loyalty, in fact, but dual love. It’s a relationship that should not cause inner conflict or embarrassment, but great pride.

…there is no contradiction in possessing more than one – indeed, maybe several – layers of identity, each of which exerts a pull of loyalty but happily coexists with the others…

Of course there are large proportions of many national populations that are more monocultural and homogeneous. For them, questions of identity and loyalty are likely to be less complex. For others, however, trying to insist on the supremacy of one alone is inevitably going to be reductionist, and simply fail to deal with the circumstances and histories of individuals with more varied backgrounds and life stories.

the civil rights of the Arabs in Israel do not include national rights: Ben-Zion Dinur, the third minister of education in Israel on behalf of Mapai, used to say: “The Arabs have all the rights in the Land of Israel and no right to the land of Israel.” They do not have the rights of a national minority. Therefore, when Rotem Sela writes, “Israel is a state of all its citizens,” one must hope that it’s because she does not understand the subtleties. All Israeli citizens are entitled to equal rights as individuals. But the State of Israel is not “a state of all its nationalities” as Tibi wants. In other words, a bi-national state.

So what are these rights to national self-determination they don’t have?

…All Israelis are equal but, according to Netanyahu’s stated understanding of the nation-state law, evidently, some are more equal than others.

After Sela’s post generated a flood of violent and threatening responses, Gadot backed her on Instagram account, which boasts of 28.2 million followers: “Love thy neighbor as thyself,” the actress wrote.

“This isn’t a matter of right or left, Jewish or Arab, secular or religious. It’s a matter of dialog, of discussing peace and equality and our tolerance toward one another. The responsibility for sowing hope and light for a better future for our children is ours. Rotem, sister, you are an inspiration to us all.”

Tourism Minister Yariv Levin makes it clear that Jerusalem is a special case. “The Western Wall and the Old City Basin, beyond the historical and religious significance, are Israel’s number one tourist attraction, and the reality today is that access to this place simply does not exist, there are huge traffic jams, there are no parking spaces, no buses even where to take people down. In addition to a solution to a transportation problem, we want to create a much more varied and interesting tourist experience, including what I think is very important and it is a tourist experience at night, Israel is full of things you can do on the day, but one of the challenges is a special experience at night…”

In historic cities, it is accepted that the values of landscape and preservation should be protected, and not sacrificed in favor of gimmicks and innovations that are foreign to the city’s historical character. The difficulty in dealing with the congestion caused by tourist traffic is a familiar phenomenon in many historic cities in the world, but none of them has so far built a cable car. In Venice, for example, it is inconceivable to build a cable car to overcome the transportation problems and inefficiencies of gondolas and sea buses. Why, then, is there such a disparaging attitude in Jerusalem to defending its historical uniqueness – a world cultural asset entrusted to us?

A tiny religious sect is emerging as a major impediment for a controversial plan to connect modern Jerusalem and its historic Old City with a cable car network.

Other objections — from Palestinian residents, environmentalists, urban planners and archaeologists — have so far been unable to halt the project. But the Karaite Jewish community’s concern that the cable car will desecrate its ancient cemetery may provide the biggest hurdle of all to government planners.