by George Rasley, ConservativeHQ.com Editor

This week the Obama holdovers that have been foolishly allowed to remain in the White House and our national security and foreign policy departments scored a double victory in their ongoing coup against President Trump.

And in the process of undermining the President they gravely undermined his strategy to defeat the Islamic State and its campaign of terrorism against the West.

The first victory was to advance their effort to poison the relationship between the United States and Russia by revealing that the President, using his clear constitutional authority, had shared intelligence with the Russians about Islamic State plans to use laptop computer bombs against airliners.

During the recent presidential campaign, then-candidate Donald Trump said on a number of occasions that one of the goals of his strategy against the Islamic State would be to engage the Russians more actively in the fight.

And, in their faux outrage at the President’s decision to share intelligence with the Russians the Leftwing media and their enablers on Capitol Hill seem to have forgotten that it is the Russians who have suffered one of the most devastating Islamic State airliner bombings.

Metrojet flight 9268 was just 23 minutes into its journey from Egypt’s Sharm el-Sheikh resort to St Petersburg when it was blown out of the sky on October 31, 2015 killing all 224 passengers and crew on board.

An Egyptian faction of the Islamic State, Wilayat Sinai, immediately claimed responsibility for what was then the worst aviation disaster in Russian history.

It is worth noting that in another worldwide war against an implacable and inhumane enemy the United States and Russia shared intelligence and fought against the common enemy.

However, President Trump’s opponents are so lacking in American patriotism and simple humanity that helping the Russians prevent another devastating airliner bombing, saving the lives of innocent Russian civilians and getting the Putin government engaged more actively in the war against the Islamic State must give way to the politics of undermining – at any cost – President Trump.

The second costly victory the Obama holdovers in our government won in their coup against President Trump was to continue the Obama policy of undermining and isolating Israel by revealing that the intelligence that the President shared with the Russians allegedly came from the Israelis.

To advance the national interest, the President has the constitutional authority to share intelligence with whomever he chooses, however, leaking the sources or methods of intelligence gathering to the media is a crime.

And pursuing such leakers should be a top priority of the FBI and our domestic intelligence services, as President Trump made clear to now-former FBI Director James Comey.

But this isn’t the only act undermining the US – Israel relationship that Obama holdovers perpetrated this week.

Largely unreported in the US establishment media, but reported with great indignation in the Israeli press, was the comment by a “senior US official” that Jerusalem and the Western Wall of the Second Temple is not part of Israel.

According to an Israeli TV report, the angry exchanges began when the Israeli team working with the American delegation asked whether Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu could accompany President Trump when he visits the Western Wall, a key expected stop on his May 22-23 visit to Israel and the West Bank.

No serving US president has ever visited the Western Wall, and the US delegation reportedly rejected the request for Prime Minister Netanyahu to join the visit, saying it would be “a private visit” by the president and that he would go on his own. The Israelis then asked whether a TV crew providing live coverage of the Trump visit could film there.

At this point, the Israeli TV report said, a senior American official rudely responded: “What are you talking about? It’s none of your business. It’s not even part of your responsibility. It’s not your territory. It’s part of the West Bank.”

This of course is directly contrary to President Trump’s campaign promise to move the US Embassy to Jerusalem and was a brazen insult to our closest Near Eastern ally and the only democracy in the Near East.

These comments led to vociferous protests by the Israelis, with the discussion descending into shouting, and the Israelis reminding the US team that the Western Wall and adjacent area “is territory holy to Israel.”

In a statement reported by Israeli Channel 2 TV, an official at the Prime Minister’s Office said that “the comment that the Western Wall is part of the West Bank was received with astonishment” but that “Israel is certain that the comment contradicts President Trump’s policy as expressed in his fierce opposition to the latest UN Security Council resolution” — a reference to UNSC Resolution 2334 from last December, which rejected Israeli rights in Jerusalem and which Trump publicly opposed.

Ironically, noted The Times of Israel, the angry exchanges were reported soon after Trump’s ambassador to Israel, David Friedman, arrived in the country and went immediately to the Western Wall, where he said he prayed for the president and for the success of next week’s visit. “We’re a bit tired, but we wanted to come straight to the holiest place in the entire Jewish world, the ‘Kotel Hama’aravi,’ the Western Wall, so we straight came here,” Friedman said in a filmed statement provided by the US Embassy, flanked by his wife Tammy and his daughter Talia.

It is not clear if Trump will use his trip to the region to unveil specific plans concerning peace talks, however, The Times of Israel says the timing of the visit — coinciding with Jerusalem Day, when Israel will celebrate 50 years since capturing the east of the city during the 1967 Six Day War — has sparked speculation that he might use the trip make a major announcement regarding the city.

With this timing in mind, spiking the promised embassy move and poisoning the security cooperation between the US and Israel were high on the agenda of the Obama holdovers and their allies in the media and on Capitol Hill. And, to the detriment of our success in the war the Islamic State has declared on America, it looks like they have largely succeeded.

President Trump’s policies of engaging the Russians in the fight against the Islamic State and rebuilding the relationship with Israel that Obama all but destroyed are entirely sensible and consistent with his campaign promises. However, until the President rids himself of those officials and advisers who do not share his goals the internal coup against him will continue to the detriment of our war with the Islamic State and the broader success of his administration.