• White House: Syria Preparing Another Chemical Attack - Abby Phillip and Dan Lamothe
  The White House warned Syrian President Assad on Monday that his regime would pay a "heavy price" if it carried out another chemical attack this year. White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer said, "The United States has identified potential preparations for another chemical weapons attack by the Assad regime that would likely result in the mass murder of civilians, including innocent children. The activities are similar to preparations the regime made before its April 4, 2017, chemical weapons attack."  (Washington Post)
• U.S. and Israel Team Up to Fight "Bad Actors" in Cyberspace - Gwen Ackerman
  Israel and the U.S. are starting a high-level partnership to create a bulwark against increasingly sophisticated cyber attackers who target critical national infrastructure. Israel will send representatives from the Israel Security Agency, the foreign affairs, justice and defense ministries, and the military. The aim will be to find and stop cyber attackers "before they reach critical infrastructure, and identify ways to hold bad actors accountable," Tom Bossert, President Trump's homeland security and counterterrorism adviser, said Monday in Tel Aviv. (Bloomberg)
• Palestinians Predict Long Talks with U.S. before Launching Peace Negotiations - Kifah Ziboun
  PLO Secretary Saeb Erakat has said that discussions between Palestinian and U.S. officials will take a long time before the political process can be launched in the region. Erakat confirmed that there are "large" discrepancies between the stances of the two sides over the resumption of the peace process. Palestinian and American officials are set to meet again in Washington in July.
      Palestinian official Wassef Abou Youssef told Asharq Al-Awsat: "The U.S. officials are not honest mediators, but they are completely biased to Israel and its interests. They cater to it above all else."  (Asharq Al-Awsat-UK)

• Israel Attacks Hamas Targets in Gaza in Response to Rocket Fire - Elior Levy
  The Israeli Air Force attacked two Hamas targets on Tuesday in Gaza in response to rocket fire at Israel on Monday. (Ynet News)
• Israel to Introduce New Security Measures at Damascus Gate in Jerusalem - Itsik Saban and Shlomi Diaz
  The growing number of terrorist attacks near Damascus Gate in the Old City of Jerusalem has prompted the Public Security Ministry to present a new plan to revolutionize counterterrorism measures in the area. Damascus Gate has been the scene of 32 terrorist attacks over the past two and a half years.
      The plan includes the deployment of license plate capture cameras; a network of "smart" closed-circuit TV cameras equipped with facial recognition software to identify suspects in real time; placing fortified security posts in strategic locations; and setting up a lighting system to simulate daylight. The plan includes metal detectors and fences to direct pedestrian traffic. "The goal is to minimize terrorist attacks in the area as much as possible, while also minimizing any interference with the fabric of life," a senior officer with the Jerusalem District Police said. (Israel Hayom)
• Europe Must Stop Funding Demonization of Israel - Ben-Dror Yemini
  About a year ago, the Ramallah-based Popular Art Center staged a musical performance titled "No to laying down guns." The European Union funds the center as part of a special project for "increasing Palestinian public awareness of EU core values."
      The Women's Center for Legal Aid and Counseling (WCLAC) receives 2.5 million euros. One of its senior employees, Manal Tamimi, propagates anti-Semitic cartoons, often defines Israel as a Nazi state, and her tweets include content such as "I do hate Israel, I do hate Zionism, I wish a third intifada coming soon and people rise up and kill all these Zionist settlers everywhere."
      The EU would not dare fund such organizations as the Stop the War Coalition in Britain or Code Pink in America. But they do donate to such organizations in Israel. That is a double standard in all its glory. This article wouldn't have been written had Europe been funding bodies that advance peace and reconciliation. (Ynet News)

• The Fallacy of Israeli Intransigence - Michael Doran
  It is a fallacy that Israeli intransigence is the key stumbling block in Arab-Israeli relations, and that, therefore, Israeli concessions are the key factor that will create the conditions for a solution. The Israeli withdrawals from Lebanon in 2000 and Gaza in 2005 should have dispelled this idea forever. Rather than having a calming effect, however, those withdrawals only served to increase the bloodlust of Hizbullah and Hamas.
      Any withdrawal from territory on the West Bank, therefore, must come with ironclad guarantees of Israeli security. Given the unsettled state of the region in general, the advances of the Iranian alliance in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, and Yemen, the persistence of al-Qaeda and ISIS, and the split among the Palestinians between Hamas and Fatah, no Israeli government could take severe risks with respect to Israeli security on the West Bank and still hope to remain in power.
      Israelis are already intensely aware that in a very short period of time they might find themselves peering across the Golan Heights at Iranian soldiers ensconced in Syria. How can the world ask them to take steps that could potentially lead to the Iranian penetration of the West Bank as well?
      The writer, a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute, was a senior director at the National Security Council in the George W. Bush administration. These remarks are from his address at the UN Security Council on June 20, 2017. (Hudson Institute)
• Video: Israel Had No International Border before the 1967 War. New Defensible Lines Needed to Be Negotiated. - Dore Gold
  It's very common to say, "Israel must withdraw to the 1967 borders" - but there are no 1967 borders. The lines Israel inherited from the 1948 war are based on an armistice agreement that states that these are not final borders but cease-fire lines. In 1967 Israel engaged in a war of self-defense and could not be forced to withdraw to the pre-war lines from which it had been attacked.
      UN Security Council Resolution 242 of November 1967 did not call for an Israeli withdrawal to the pre-war lines. British Ambassador Lord Caradon said at the time: "I know the 1967 line, and it's a rotten line. You couldn't have a worse line for a permanent international boundary. It's where the troops happened to be on a certain night in 1948. It's got no relation to the needs of the situation." According to Lord Caradon, an Israeli withdrawal to the 1949 armistice line would not produce a stable diplomatic solution.
      It is unfathomable today for most Israelis to put the country back in the position of being as vulnerable as it was 50 years ago. The writer, president of the Jerusalem Center, served as Israel's ambassador to the UN and director general of the Foreign Ministry. (Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs)

The Harm in Trying: The Downside of the Middle East "Peace Process" - Elliott Abrams (Weekly Standard)

• Among Israelis and Palestinians, there's little optimism about renewed American efforts to negotiate a comprehensive Israeli-Palestinian peace deal. The Trump administration is operating under the assumption that there is no harm in trying, but that conclusion is wrong, as round after round of terrorism should attest.
• To begin with, it is always harmful for the U.S. to fail. When a president devotes himself to any project and fails to pull it off, his influence and that of the U.S. are diminished. With U.S. influence on the wane in recent years, devoting significant effort to a goal that is unlikely to be attained looks like a misplaced priority.
• What's more, the U.S. has been championing the "peace process" since 1991. What this produces is cynicism about peace talks and about peace. Many Israelis see it as a shield protecting Palestinian malfeasance.
• Moreover, when each successive American administration works for a comprehensive peace deal, it tends to neglect the many opportunities to make less dramatic but still consequential real-world progress. If the goal were instead to leave things better than we found them, every incremental bit of progress would be a victory.
• That was the "bottom-up" approach taken by former Prime Minister Salam Fayyad, who thought Palestinian independence required building the institutions of a viable state first.
  
  The writer, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, handled Middle East affairs at the U.S. National Security Council from 2001 to 2009.