Wall Street Journal reported on Friday: “Inside the Trump Team’s Push on Israel Vote That Mike Flynn Lied About,” which stated: “Transition team’s bid to scuttle U.N. vote criticizing Israel was intense. Jared Kushner, Mike Flynn and Nikki Haley all made calls.”

The New York Times reported Sunday: “Kushner’s Financial Ties to Israel Deepen Even With Mideast Diplomatic Role,” which states: “The deal, which was not made public, pumped significant new equity into 10 Maryland apartment complexes controlled by Mr. Kushner’s firm.”

ALI ABUNIMAH, director at electronicintifada.net, @AliAbunimah

Abunimah is co-founder of the Electronic Intifada website and just wrote the piece “What Michael Wolff’s Fire and Fury says about Trump’s collusion with Israel,” which states: “Since Donald Trump excommunicated Steve Bannon over comments he made in Michael Wolff’s new book Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House, American media have spoken of little else.

“The president declared that his former strategist and the boss of far-right Breitbart News had ‘lost his mind’ for saying that a meeting Donald Trump Jr. and presidential son-in-law Jared Kushner held with a Russian lawyer during the 2016 election campaign was ‘treasonous.’

“The row has given new life to the dubious, unproven and often spectacularly false media-driven claims of ‘hacking’ and ‘collusion’ between Russia and Trump to steal the election from Hillary Clinton.

“Yet hollow as it has turned out to be, ‘Russiagate’ remains the central narrative of the self-styled Democratic and liberal ‘resistance.’

“However, the special counsel probe by Robert Mueller has indeed uncovered some collusion between the Trump team and a foreign power: Israel.

“In a plea agreement last month for making false statements to the FBI, Trump’s former national security adviser Michael Flynn admitted that he had contacted foreign governments during the final weeks of the Obama administration to try to derail a U.N. vote condemning Israeli settlements.

“This possibly illegal effort to undermine the policy of the sitting administration was done at the direction of Kushner and at the request of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

“Yet mainstream pundits have shown little concern, just as they have shown little interest in any further revelations about what we might well call Israelgate coming out of the Wolff book.

“It turns out that Fire and Fury contains evidence that Trump’s policy is not so much America First as it is Israel First.

“Wolff recounts an early January 2017 dinner in New York where Bannon and disgraced former Fox News boss Roger Ailes discussed cabinet picks.

“Bannon observed that they did not have a ‘deep bench,’ but both men agreed the extremely pro-Israel neocon John Bolton would be a good pick for national security adviser. ‘He’s a bomb thrower,’ Ailes said of Bolton, ‘and a strange little fucker. But you need him. Who else is good on Israel?’

“’Day one we’re moving the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem. Netanyahu’s all in,’ Bannon said, adding that anti-Palestinian casino billionaire Sheldon Adelson was on board too.

“’Let Jordan take the West Bank, let Egypt take Gaza. Let them deal with it. Or sink trying,’ Bannon proposed. ‘The Saudis are on the brink, Egyptians are on brink, all scared to death of Persia.’

“Asked by Ailes, ‘Does Donald know’ the plan, Bannon reportedly just smiled.

“Bannon’s idea reflected ‘the new Trump thinking’ about the Middle East: ‘There are basically four players,’ writes Wolff, ‘Israel, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Iran. The first three can be united against the fourth.’ Egypt and Saudi Arabia would be ‘given what they want’ in respect to Iran, and in return would ‘pressure the Palestinians to make a deal.’” Abunimah’s books include The Battle for Justice in Palestine.