12/31 Links Pt2: A Jewish prisoner's longing for Zion; 5 reasons why mainstream Jews should drop the Palestinian cause in 2021; How Wikipedia is breeding armies of antisemites

From Ian:

Caroline Glick: A Jewish prisoner's longing for Zion

Pollard paid for that fateful decision with 30 years in prison and another five years of conditional release during which he was barred from moving to Israel.

I asked him back then to describe his life in prison.

"I don't want to go into detail," he responded with a brief, sad sigh. "I will give you an impressionistic description of my life. Life here involves constant noise, endless noise that is impossible to imagine, all the time; constant violence; profanity every conceivable type of profanity. There is no place to be quiet or to find quiet to read. You really have to be disciplined not to be provoked. You need to be disciplined to see when a situation is getting out of hand and to get away as quickly as possible. I have to be ready if my door opens at 2 in the morning."

I asked Pollard what he thought about when he was sitting in his room.

"My dream is to be with my wife, at home in Israel. I am worried about my wife. She is a cancer survivor. But she refused to have chemotherapy because it would have destroyed any chance of having children. Do you have any idea of what it feels like for a husband to have to hear over the phone that his wife has cancer?" he asked in an expression of unending distress and barely disguised desperation.

"I want to come home so that I can be with my wife, my people and my land. That is all I want. I love my nation."

Thirty-five years after his initial arrest, 15 years after I met with him, early on Wednesday morning, Jonathan Pollard finally realized his dream, the dream of a Jewish prisoner longing for Zion.

5 reasons why mainstream Jews should drop the Palestinian cause in 2021

As we close the chapter of an unprecedented year filled with enormous loss and begin a new year with unparalleled opportunity, I believe now is the time to ask bold questions with answers that may be uncomfortable for the mainstream Jewish community in North America. As we made, and now pursue, resolutions for our personal and professional selves, our families and our communities, let us also have the courage to ask the more uncomfortable, more durable – and frankly, more honest questions that we only have the courage to ask in the light of this most challenging year.

How do we engage with Israel? What core policy objectives do we as a community and our organizations seek to achieve? Which organizational policy objectives, written long ago in boardrooms far far away, are still relevant? Which objectives are not relevant? What is achievable? What is not? What is the “needle” – and in what direction do we push it? Which causes embrace all of our identities? And which causes force us as Jews, as Americans, and as Zionists to leave our identities at the door?

I have a resolution.

In 2021, and in the years and decades beyond, the organized Jewish community should abandon its paralyzing, archaic, immoral and dangerous objective of establishing a Palestinian state.

Our world has changed. The Middle East has changed. Israel has changed. The American Jewish community, and its objectives, must too. Suppress your anger, lay down your talking points and hear me out.

1. The Abraham Accords

2. John Kerry’s Middle East is gone – if it ever existed after all

3. No Jewish Organization was actively involved in the Abraham Accords – and likely won’t even be involved in any other breakthrough

4. The Palestinians, and any future potential Palestinian state, would be an organized society and nation whose values and lack of rule of law would be completely antithetical to the Western world

5. The PLO, our alleged partners in peace, incentivize and pay terrorists to kill Jews

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12/31 Links Pt1:Does UNRWA Violate International Law?; Israel’s 2 top int’l law officials take on ICC: Is Gaza ‘occupied’?; Senate Investigation Finds Obama Admin Knowingly Funded al-Qaeda Affiliate

From Ian:

Honest Reporting: Does UNRWA Violate International Law?

UNRWA’s definition of refugee technically violates international law, as it contradicts the 1951 UN Convention and Protocol Relating to the Status of Refugees.

Article 1 of the Convention defines a refugee as: …a person who is outside his/her country of nationality or habitual residence; has a well-founded fear of persecution because of his/her race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group or political opinion; and is unable or unwilling to avail himself/herself of the protection of that country, or to return there, for fear of persecution.

Under Article I(c)(3), a person is no longer a refugee if, for example, he or she has “acquired a new nationality, and enjoys the protection of the country of his new nationality.”

UNRWA’s definition of a Palestinian refugee, which is not anchored in any treaty and thus does not carry the weight of international law, includes no such provision. In fact, UNRWA defines “Palestinian refugees” to include all offspring of male Palestinian refugees from 1948, including legally adopted children, regardless of whether they have been granted citizenship elsewhere.

The United Nations claims on its website that UNRWA’s unusual practice does not violate international law and norms, by pointing out that there are other conflicts in the world where refugee status has continued for successive generations (eg. Afghanistan and Somalia).

However, the United Nations’ claim is not only misleading but objectively wrong. Under the 1951 Convention (1967 Protocol, Article IV Section B), successive generations have refugee status only if it is necessary to maintain what is called “family unity.” For example, imagine that a couple escaped Afghanistan, became refugees in Pakistan, and then had a child. Even though that child never lived in Afghanistan, he or she would nevertheless be granted refugee status in order to keep the family unit from being broken apart by potential developments.

However, under UNRWA’s rules, there is no “family unity” limitation. To the contrary, unlimited future generations may inherit refugee status even when there is no living family connection to pre-1948 British-ruled Palestine and, consequently, there is no danger of tearing apart any family unit. This is no subtle distinction: UNRWA has, knowingly or not, created a financial incentive for host countries to deny Palestinians citizenship, so that the nations in question can benefit from the international aid that comes with hosting people who maintain refugee status in perpetuity.

According to a 2012 report by the United States Senate, under the terms of the 1951 Convention, which applies to all other people in the world, the number of real Palestinian refugees living today is only about 30,000. Yet, according to UNRWA, the number of “refugees” is over 5 million, making Palestinians the only group in the world whose refugee population has increased — and dramatically — over time.

Israel’s 2 top int’l law officials take on ICC: Is Gaza ‘occupied’?

Two of Israel’s top international law officials have published a rare public article to challenge the International Criminal Court prosecution and others who say that Israel still illegally occupies Gaza.

The article, published in the journal Iyunei Mishpat (Legal Studies) recently but being reported now for the first time in English, is important both regarding addressing cases of alleged Israeli war crimes in ongoing fighting with Hamas, as well as regarding what humanitarian obligations Jerusalem has to Gaza, during coronavirus and other periods.

These issues ultimately have major long-term implications at the national security and diplomatic levels, including whether Israel’s naval blockade and other periodic closures of Gaza are legal.

Just as important are the authors: Deputy Attorney-General (International Law) Roy Schondorf and IDF International Law Division chief Col. Eran Shamir-Borer, two officials who have led much of Israel’s handling of ICC issues and humanitarian dilemmas with Gaza.

Schondorf rarely writes publicly or appears in public with the exception of specific conferences or at the Knesset, and Shamir-Borer appears even less often.

It seems that the impetus for their article was to address prior statements by ICC Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda as well as a current article by prominent Israeli prof. Eyal Gross in the same journal, declaring that Israel still legally occupies Gaza, despite having withdrawn in 2005.

Senate Investigation Finds Obama Admin Knowingly Funded al-Qaeda Affiliate

Non-profit humanitarian agency World Vision United States improperly transacted with the Islamic Relief Agency (ISRA) in 2014 with approval from the Obama administration, sending government funds to an organization that had been sanctioned over its ties to terrorism, according to a new report.

Senate Finance Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R., Iowa) recently released a report detailing the findings of an investigation his staff began in February 2019 into the relationship between World Vision and ISRA.

The probe found that World Vision was not aware that ISRA had been sanctioned by the U.S. since 2004 after funneling roughly $5 million to Maktab al-Khidamat, the predecessor to Al-Qaeda controlled by Osama Bid Laden.

However, that ignorance was born from insufficient vetting practices, the report said.

“World Vision works to help people in need across the world, and that work is admirable,” Grassley said in a statement. “Though it may not have known that ISRA was on the sanctions list or that it was listed because of its affiliation with terrorism, it should have. Ignorance can’t suffice as an excuse. World Vision’s changes in vetting practices are a good first step, and I look forward to its continued progress.”

The investigation was sparked by a July 2018 National Review article in which Sam Westrop, the director of the Middle East Forum’s Islamist Watch, detailed MEF’s findings that the Obama administration had approved a “$200,000 grant of taxpayer money to ISRA.”

Government officials specifically authorized the release of “at least $115,000” of this grant even after learning that it was a designated terror organization, Westrop wrote. (h/t MtTB)

From 2009 Tom Getman of World Vision talking to Stephen Sizer (antisemetic priest) about the incoming Obama administration.

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12/30 Links Pt2: Ruthie Blum: 2020 hindsight – Israel’s year in review; Cooperation in innovation can reshape the Middle East; ICRC's Twitter Campaign Shows its Obsession With Israel

From Ian:

Ruthie Blum: 2020 hindsight – Israel’s year in review

US President Donald Trump unveiled his “Peace to Prosperity” plan at the White House, with Netanyahu at his side, in the presence of administration officials and other prominent pro-Israel guests. The details of the “Deal of the Century,” as it had been dubbed, were finally revealed.

Like Trump’s other policies – such as moving the US Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem; recognizing Jerusalem as the capital of Israel; withdrawing from the Iran nuclear deal; recognizing Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights; halting funding to UNRWA, demanding that the Palestinian Authority cease its pay-for-slay policy; and declaring that Israeli settlements are not illegal – his blueprint for resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict was groundbreaking.

Rather than treating the PA’s corruption and violence as a result of Israeli “occupation,” Trump’s team offered Ramallah a carrot but threatened it with a stick. It was exhilarating for most Israelis to witness Washington smash the mold of the failed “land for peace” paradigm. Unfortunately, US President-elect Joe Biden and his appointees are going to revert to the old model of appeasing enemies. In this respect, Israelis may come to look back on 2020 with a twinge of nostalgia.

The burgeoning friendship with neighboring Muslim-Arab countries is a blessing that cannot be overstated. The trouble is that relations with Washington are about to take a turn for the worse.

It is understandable for Israelis to be worried about the future and bemoan the past year. But it is a complete distortion of reality to look upon 2020 as a period of pure chaos on the one hand and paralysis on the other.

Indeed, it’s worth pausing from the hysteria for a moment to acknowledge the miraculous achievements made by the Netanyahu-led government, in spite of months of bitter infighting, during the pandemic. If anything, then, this crazy year was characterized by an insane degree of uncanny multitasking.

Point of No Return: Review of the Year 2020

It's that time of the year again - time to review the highlights and lowlights of 2020.

In the 15 years since Point of No Return has been collecting information on Jews from Arab and Muslim countries, there have been 5,940 posts. This year achieved 426,000 views.

This year will be remembered as the year of COVID-19. It was certainly not the first time that plagues have swept through the Middle East. This year's plague took a heavy toll of Jewish communities.

This year gave Iraqi Jews an excuse to celebrate the 50th anniversary of their airlift to Israel.

But the highpoint of 2020 must be surely the historic peace accords achieved with four Arab countries: the UAE, Bahrain, Sudan and Morocco. This is a teachable moment - to educate about Jewish refugees from the Arab world and Iran. (Some Arabs have already absorbed the lesson. )

For the first time, the rights of Jewish refugees were explicitly mentioned in the Trump Middle East peace plan announced in January. Unfortunately, the media still refuse to give the issue the coverage it deserves.

Numbers of Jews continued to dwindle in Arab countries, except in Dubai, which holds out the promise of an expanding Jewish community, serviced by three rabbis. It was a good year for one particular Jewish family from Yemen, who were given refuge in the UAE.

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12/30 Links Pt1: The Unique Benefits of Israeli-Moroccan Normalization; Trump administration working on another normalization deal in January; Jonathan Pollard arrives in Israel

From Ian:

The Unique Benefits of Israeli-Moroccan Normalization

As with Sadat’s famous visit, normalization with Morocco signals the crumbling of walls shunning and isolating Israel from the rest of the Middle East. Nationally, it is an opportunity to celebrate Moroccan Jewry’s rich heritage, but it is much more than just that. It has often been hoped that Jews from Arab lands would be the natural bridge builders to the wider Arab world. This is the moment in history to elevate Moroccan Israelis to embrace this role.

Furthermore, the national euphoria over normalization must be the catalyst to finally address the social injustices experienced by Mizrahi Jews. With the establishment of direct flights, Israelis with Moroccan backgrounds will be able to freely visit the cities and towns of their grandparents, and the gravesites of great rabbis and family members. We should expect to see a renaissance of Moroccan Jewish culture as educational and family trips become commonplace. The rediscovery of historical roots will result in an empowerment of those who have often felt marginalized, and lead to a psychological and emotional healing, the importance of which cannot be overstated.

The normalization of relations with Morocco has tremendous significance not only for Moroccan Israelis but also for the wider population. It can be anticipated that visits to Morocco will lead to an interest and appreciation of Maghrebi culture not only while touring Rabat, Casablanca and Fez, but also when travelers return home to Jerusalem, Tiberias and Hadera.

While there are obvious trade, defense and intelligence sharing benefits, a fundamental yet under-appreciated factor is that Israelis with Moroccan ancestry can now proudly explore their heritage and freely visit Morocco as welcomed and respected guests. This will bolster and fortify their cultural identity, which in turn will strengthen Israeli society as a whole.

Successful peace agreements require more than the opening of embassies and direct flights. They can only take root if and when the respective populations take an active interest in each other. We are already seeing signs of this and welcome further initiatives to bring Israel and the wider region closer to a lasting peace.

Trump administration working on another normalization deal in January

The US is pushing for another Arab or Muslim state to normalize relations with Israel in the three weeks before US President Donald Trump leaves office, a Trump administration source said on Wednesday.

“We’re working very hard on making it happen,” said the source, who has been involved in negotiations for the Abraham Accords, as the agreements are called. A second Trump administration source confirmed the ongoing efforts.

In the past four months, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Sudan and Morocco have all joined the Abraham Accords establishing – or in the case of Morocco renewing – open and official diplomatic ties with Israel.

Sources in Jerusalem and Washington have said in recent weeks that Indonesia, Mauritania or Oman could be next to join the accords. All three have had a certain level of secret or unofficial ties with Jerusalem in the past. There have also been persistent reports of progress with Pakistan.

Secret ties between Israel and Saudi Arabia have been warming in recent years and months, to the extent that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman met in the Saudi city of Neom earlier this month.

The Trump administration approved the sale of $290 million in precision-guided bombs to Saudi Arabia this week and Israeli officials have speculated that the Saudis would seek maximum benefit from the US in exchange for normalization.

Pence’s final visit to Israel before leaving office is canceled

A planned visit to Israel by US Vice President Mike Pence was called off less than two weeks before he was due to arrive, the US Embassy confirmed Wednesday.

No reason was given for the cancellation, which was first reported by the Ynet news site.

Pence was reportedly scheduled to make a number of stops on a final world trip before leaving office on January 20. Earlier this month, Politico reported that the vice president planned to take off on January 6 — the same day the US Congress is scheduled to confirm President-elect Joe Biden’s electoral victory — visiting a number of countries, including Israel from January 10 to 13.

Though his stop in Israel was never officially confirmed by the US Embassy, the Israel Police and other Israeli authorities had begun preparations for the visit.

Record 152,000 vaccinated in a day, but new cases hit highest rate in months

The Health Ministry on Wednesday said 152,000 coronavirus vaccines were administered the day before, even as Israel recorded its highest number of new COVID-19 cases since early October, in Israel’s race between virus and vaccine.

Government officials had set a goal of vaccinating 150,000 Israelis per day by the end of the week.

“On the way to a million vaccinated!” Health Minister Yuli Edelstein tweeted. “Close to 650,000 in total.”

Israel has ramped up its vaccination campaign amid a third national lockdown, which took effect on Sunday evening to curb a resurgence in infections.

The Health Ministry said 5,583 new coronavirus cases were confirmed Tuesday, the highest daily increase since early October, during the second lockdown.

Along with another 571 cases since midnight, the number of COVID-19 infections since the pandemic began rose to 414,447.

There were 40,929 active cases, including 609 people in serious condition, with 154 on ventilators. Another 169 Israelis were in moderate condition and the rest had mild or no symptoms. A Maccabi Healthcare Services worker handles a test sample at a coronavirus testing site in Modiin, on December 24, 2020. (Yossi Aloni/Flash90)

The death toll stood at 3,292.

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12/29 Links Pt2: Unsettled by Hebron; De Blasio’s Perfect Patsies; Welcome Lipstadt and Eisen to the roster of Holocaust deniers; Reactions to Israeli model being named 2020's 'most beautiful woman' turn ugly

From Ian:

Unsettled by Hebron

No Jews have been as relentlessly maligned as the Jews of Hebron. From the time of their arrival following the 1967 Six-Day War—40 years after the murderous annihilation of its Jewish community by rampaging Arabs—they have become the pariahs of the Jewish people. Their presence in the city where the patriarchs and matriarchs of the Jewish people are entombed, and where King David reigned before relocating his throne to Jerusalem, is deemed to be an unlawful and immoral Israeli intrusion on the Palestinian residents of Hebron.

The most recent contributor to this enduring falsehood is Tamara Neuman, an anthropologist and Research Fellow at the Middle East Institute at Columbia. The first page of her Introduction to Settling Hebron: Jewish Fundamentalism in a Palestinian City displays the misinformation that reveals her embedded bias. Gazing at the Machpelah shrine where, according to the biblical narrative, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Sarah, Rebecca and Leah are entombed, she nonetheless discerns its “staunch witness to the site’s Islamic character.” Muslims, however, first appeared in the seventh century C.E. long after the reign of King Herod, when the towering Machpelah enclosure was built.

It was, for Neuman, “impossible not to notice the deadening effects of the many [Israeli] soldiers deployed throughout a Palestinian urban area”—in translation, the ancient Jewish Quarter that was “established illegally” following the Six-Day War. (Her tour guide was a founder of Breaking the Silence, a renegade group of ex-soldiers who oppose Jewish settlements.) In a repetitive inversion of historical reality, she accuses Jewish settlers of “the remaking of many Palestinian areas into a geography of biblical sites and origins,” as if Palestinians superseded millennia of Jewish habitation in Hebron. In Neuman’s convoluted (and occasionally incomprehensible) rendering, “Jewish settlers establish a putative sense of the real, which arises from the very materiality of the scene.”

Historically myopic, ignoring millennia of Jewish history in Hebron, she can only discern the “colonial backdrop” of a “land takeover” with “Jewish observance and forms of direct violence in order to erase the presence of an existing Palestinian population.” As for erasure, it was Hebron Arabs who murderously obliterated the centuries-old Jewish community in 1929. She imaginatively, but falsely, describes their targeted violence against a tiny community of several hundred Jews and yeshivah students as “anticolonial riots.”

De Blasio’s Perfect Patsies

Are the Jews to blame for spreading COVID-19 throughout New York City? That’s what Mayor Bill de Blasio suggested in an inflammatory tweet back in April, which, in his typical bumbling fashion, he defended for six months before kinda, sorta walking it back.

Never mind all that. The city is serious! It believes in science! Earlier this week, the mayor’s office launched its “NYC Vaccine for All” campaign, announcing that it will begin offering the COVID vaccine soonest. Who will get it first? Naturally, the neighborhoods “hardest hit” by the pandemic, the mayor’s office assured us, 27 of them in total.

Hallelujah! So now we have an official record of the hardest hit corners of New York, which means that if the mayor’s criticism was correct, we should find many familiar ZIP codes among those singled out for urgent care. Let us, then, turn to the list and search for the neighborhoods heaviest populated by Orthodox Jews, the clear target of the mayor’s ire.

What about, for example, the venerable 11213, at the heart of which lies 770 Eastern Parkway, Chabad’s headquarters? Nope, not on the list. Maybe 11218, 11219, and 11230, representing Borough Park? Not on the list either. Now, surely that massive Hasidic funeral that drew thousands and spurred the NYPD to launch a criminal investigation led to a massive outbreak that sent the neighborhood right into the hardest-hit list, right? Check again: That funeral was launched from the Yetev Lev D’Satmar yeshiva, ZIP code 11249. Good luck finding it on the mayor’s list. You can play this game with most NYC neighborhoods that are home to vast populations of Orthodox Jews; you won’t find them on the list.

None of this is to say that no Jews live in any of the neighborhoods most distressed by the pandemic. Take a close look, and you’ll find some neighborhoods that do have strong Jewish populations, like the border between Bushwick and Williamsburg, say. But look closely, and the picture grows complicated: Wallabout Street, for example, one of the neighborhood’s main Hasidic thoroughfares, is largely uncovered by the mayor’s announcement. So while a significant number of Williamsburg Jews do live in areas that get vaccine priority, the densest part with the largest Jewish population in Williamsburg isn’t in any of the priority neighborhoods. Neither are the central Satmar shuls, or the popular restaurant Gottleib’s.

This exclusion of the lion’s share of the city’s heavily populated Orthodox Jewish neighborhoods from the mayor’s list suggests that one of two things are true.

The first possibility is that the list is an accurate, science-based representation of the virus’s spread rates and patterns. In that case, the absence of most Orthodox Jewish enclaves from the list means the mayor was being both a criminally irresponsible public official for pinning the plague on one blameless minority group, as well as a filthy anti-Semite for picking on the Jews.

The second possibility hardly portrays de Blasio in a better light. According to the mayor’s office—which did not return Tablet’s request for more information—the vaccine’s distribution will be spearheaded by the Taskforce on Racial Equity and Inclusion, which is chaired by the city’s First Lady, Chirlaine McCray, not a medical doctor. In fact, the only prominent physician on the committee, Dr. Raul Perea-Henze, resigned in September, joining a wave of senior officials departing the grossly inept administration.

US court strikes down pandemic limits on New York’s houses of worship

A federal court of appeals ruled that New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s capacity limits on houses of worship in areas with rising COVID-19 cases constituted a violation of religious liberty.

The ruling on Monday comes after a Supreme Court injunction last month blocked Cuomo from enforcing the rules until the lower court could reevaluate an earlier ruling that upheld state guidelines limiting synagogue attendance to 10 or 25 people.

The case, brought by the Catholic Diocese of Brooklyn and Agudath Israel of America, an advocacy organization representing ultra-Orthodox Jews, was one of the first religious liberty cases to be decided by the court’s new conservative majority. The appeals court ruling was celebrated by Agudath Israel as confirmation that it had achieved a victory for religious liberty.

“The courts have clearly recognized that the restrictions imposed by New York State violate the constitutional rights of those seeking to attend religious worship services,” Rabbi Chaim Dovid Zwiebel, executive vice president of Agudath Israel of America, said in a statement Monday.

The court of appeals did not rule on the constitutionality of percentage capacity limits, which would have impacted smaller houses of worship. Houses of worship in zones with the highest rates of COVID-19, so-called red zones, were subjected to capacity limits of ten people or 25% of building capacity, whichever is fewer. In orange zones, the limit was 25 people or 33% of capacity, whichever is fewer.

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12/29 Links Pt1: Can the Palestinians adjust to changing times?; Saudi Arabia-Israel normalization deal estimated within one year; Abbas’ Fatah enters 2021 flaunting terror with video of past terror-parade

From Ian:

Palestinians: An International "Peace" Conference to Displace Israel

While Abbas is talking to the international community about his desire to achieve a peaceful settlement alongside Israel, his Fatah faction is sending messages to the Palestinians that glorify the "armed struggle" against Israel and that promise a "revolution until victory" -- meaning replace Israel.

The poster chosen by Fatah to celebrate the January 1, 1965 anniversary of the first terrorist attack against Israel depicts a map of "Palestine" superimposed over the entire state of Israel.

It is important to note that Fatah is one of the groups forming the Unified Leadership of the Palestinian Resistance. When the Palestinians talk about "resistance," they are referring to actions such as throwing rocks and firebombs at soldiers and settlers, as well as stabbings, shootings and car-ramming attacks.

Abbas has long been dreaming of a multi-party conference that will impose a solution on Israel. He does not want to hold direct negotiations with Israel.

Abbas claims to the international community that he just wants to establish a Fatah-controlled Palestinian state next to Israel, with the help of the UN, Russia, China, and the European Union.... He does not want Biden and other world leaders to hear the messages of violence that Fatah is spreading (in Arabic), including his pledge to "liberate Palestine."

What Fatah is saying in Arabic is infinitely more important than what Abbas writes in a letter to the UN secretary-general or to any world leader.... Failure to call out the Palestinians for their self-contradictory messages will not advance any cause of peace, but, on the contrary, only further embolden Palestinians to carry out more terrorist attacks and thwart the way to peace.

Jonathan Tobin: Can the Palestinians adjust to changing times?

They'll always have the United Nations. Even as the rest of the world abandons their cause, the Palestinians can still count on the world body to be their faithful ally in their century-old struggle against Zionism. According to UN Watch, the UN General Assembly voted to condemn Israel 17 times during the current session, as opposed to resolutions noting anything happening anywhere else on the planet only six times. The international diplomatic community remains committed to prioritizing the Palestinians' grievances against the Jewish state.

But in the real world outside of the fantasy land of UN resolutions, which have no impact on actual events, the Palestinians find themselves more isolated than ever.

The Arab states, which once sacrificed their national interests, as well as much blood and treasure in the name of the Palestinian cause, have largely abandoned them. The once potent left-wing parties within Israel that championed efforts to create another independent Palestinian state in addition to the one that already exists in all but name in Gaza are now completely marginalized. And not even the most ardent American advocates of a pro-Palestinian policy and the two-state solution have the slightest expectation that the incoming Biden administration will do much to advance those goals.

In other words, after spending the last decades confident in the belief that sooner or later the international community would deliver an isolated Israel—universally branded as a pariah state—to them on a silver platter, it turns out that it is the Palestinians who are the ones without meaningful allies. Israel's critics were sure that it was running out of time to divest itself of the territories in order to prevent a "diplomatic tsunami" against them. But it now seems that the side that has run out of time is the Palestinians.

The Trump administration's successful push for the Abraham Accords meant more than just the fact that the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Sudan and Morocco have normalized relations with Israel. The tacit support for the accords from Saudi Arabia and the refusal of the Arab League to intervene against Israel's new friends demolished the assumption that the Arab world would always back the Palestinians' refusal to make peace indefinitely. And no one in the Arab world or among Israel's foes in the United States thinks even Trump's defeat by Biden will lead to another round of futile peace processing.

250m coexistence initiative only whets the PA appetite for thievery and corruption

The new Stimulus Package which President Trump isn't really keen on, is 'pork' for a people who have trusted their leaders, proven to be most unhalal in their self-induced determination not to abide by any peace initiatives between the Palestinian Arabs and Israel.

$250M. American dollars, in the name of retiring Rep. Nita Lowey (D-NY) is to be spent on co-existence initiatives between Israelis and Palestinian Arabs. To be sure, any monies that the Palestinian Authority leadership ever received, history has shown, has been shifty finger food, also known as, the Palestinian Authority Leadership Treasury.

In 2018, Congress signed off on the Taylor Force Act, prohibiting U.S. Taxpayer Funds from going directly to the Palestinian Autority, which enjoys writing checks to surviving terrorists and the families of those that don't survive their loved ones going to that '72 Virgin Lie In The Sky'.

It was supposed to be NO MORE U.S. 'BREAD' TO THOSE HAVING BRED TERRORISTS.

The Palestinian Arabs have been bereft of a Life Coach from anyone they counted on to lead them. Only America and Israel have ever stepped up to the plate to show the Palestinians humanity.

David Samuel, in his article, "In a Ruined Country: How Yasir Arafat Destroyed Palestine" The Atlantic, September 2005, says: "The Ministry of Finance served most of Arafat's reign as his personal cashbox through the corrupt practices of Arafat's inner circle, so staggeringly large the amounts may exceed half of the total $7B in Foreign Aid-the biggest thief Arafat himself."

The fragmentation of the right ahead of Israel elections and more with @carolineglick https://t.co/xQnglxmaVG

— President Elect Avi Abelow (@AviAbelow) December 29, 2020

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12/28 Links Pt2: "Intersectionality" includes Palestinian Arabs but not minorities persecuted by Arabs;

From Ian:

"Intersectionality" includes Palestinian Arabs but not minorities persecuted by Arabs

Intersectionality is a lie, as Daniel Greenfield shows, adding ithat "It’s not just a lie in its negative hateful aspects, but in its promise of a utopia once the 'white devils' and their 'white privilege' are out of the way."It ignores Black-Black racism in Africa. It ignores minorities persecuted by Arabs.

"The left claims that it’s fighting for equality. What it’s actually fighting for is a tribal society where the notion of equal rights for all is as alien as it is in Iraq, Rwanda and Afghanistan, where democracy means tribal bloc votes and where the despotism of majority rule invariably ends in terror and death."

Why does intersectionality include Palestinian Arabs but not minorities persecuted by Arabs like Yazidi in Iraq, the Copts in Egypt or the Bantus in Somalia? Why does it ignore Black-Black racism in Africa where dozens of different Black ethnic groups opress and persecute other minority Black ethnic groups? Discussed here are examples of discrimination and ethnic conflict in countries like Lybia, Sudan, Somalia, Nigeria, Rwanda, Ethiopia, Mauritania and Uganda.

In discussing slavery and state racism, our host Biram, president of the IRA (Initiative de Résurgence du mouvement Abolitionniste de France-Mauritanie), emphasised the ‘the ideological and religious foundations of slavery and racism with the state in Mauritania’....Biram returned to the central facts around slavery in Mauritania, notably the practice of guardianship – women and children are left to the cruelty of men and women, heartless masters with neither faith or reason.

"...'Where is the compassion of this community calling itself Muslim? What human values form their identity? What goes on in the heads of those men and women who exercise such cruelty, barbarism and cynicism? The inhumanity of these practices challenges our very confidence in what’s human when humanity is capable of undertaking such acts. An ideological, military and police machinery is consistently mobilised to this effect. There has never been any form of respite for the men, women and children assigned to the deadly status of slaves.'

"'Mauritanian society is deeply slavery-oriented and as such has produced deeply unjust inequalities. Certain techniques involving humiliation, torture and even being put to death are employed in the aim of keeping slaves dependent on their masters through fear, shame and submission.

"Biram explained this in strong terms; the master recognizes no right to a dignified life or free black existence as human beings. As a result, children and women remain without protection or security, being at the mercy of arbitrary, cruel and unbearable Moorish masters who defy contemporary humanity through the use of barbarous and wicked treatment and the denial of the most basic of rights. ... This system is rooted in an enduring ideological base, one which constitutes an untouchable and immutable dogma and which gives rise to a logic of extermination and annihilation of the moral and ethical character of black people.

"...Mauritania as a racist and slave state must be overcome for the purpose of building a fair, free and egalitarian Mauritanian society. This Mauritania will be one in which citizens have the rights of citizenship, rather than one in which black people are reduced to indignity under Moorish oppression..."

Black Lives Matter could make a difference in the lives of people of color if it tried to change the situation in the countries described above instead of rioting in the USA. It might do even more good if it told the Palestinian Arab advocates to fight Arab persecution of minorities and leave democratic Israel out of the equation..

Teacher with Mediterranean and Jewish heritage left bewildered as his trade union insists he's black Jason Wardill, who is a design technology teacher, was surprised to be invited by the National Education Union (NEU) to a meeting of black teachers last year.

A teacher has voiced his bewilderment after his Left-wing trade union insisted he was black.

Jason Wardill, who is a design technology teacher, was surprised to be invited by the National Education Union (NEU) to a meeting of black teachers last year.

Mr Wardill, 42, is of Mediterranean and Jewish heritage and has been trying to stop his union referring incorrectly to his ethnicity ever since – with no success.

He says he feels its actions are 'discriminatory' against other ethnicities and religions.

The NEU – which has been at the forefront of the campaign to keep schools closed during the pandemic – says it treats black as a political term rather than a signifier of African heritage.

Therefore the term includes 'all members who self-identify as black, Asian and any other minority ethnic groups who do not identify themselves as white'.

When Mr Wardill – who now works as an area site manager for an academy trust in Lincolnshire – contacted it to say he was not black, the NEU informed him that since he did not consider himself white, he had to be registered as such.

He told the Daily Mail: 'It made me feel pretty helpless. BAME would be absolutely fine, as it encompasses everything.'

The union has been accused of putting political battles before the interests of pupils, bragging that it had 'made the running in this crisis' when schools across the country were shut and children's education was in tatters.

Mr Wardill said when he registered to join the union and was asked for his ethnicity, he ticked 'mixed other' because it was 'the only option available for me'.

'Jewish was an option in the religion section only, which leads me to believe the NEU doesn't recognise Jewish as a race. They only appear to recognise it as a religion,' he commented.

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12/28 Links Pt1: Understanding the lobby against Israel’s new relations in the Gulf; Moroccan delegation arrives in Israel; IDF: Our subs sail everywhere; Iran: Our response to any attack will be strong

From Ian:

'Abrahamic' instead of 'Judeo-Christian'

Upcoming elections in the Netherlands and Germany in 2021 will test the strength of the radical right, which has a distinct vision of European identity. In contrast to those who view democratic values as essentially secular and universal, and not tied to specific cultural or religious roots, radical right parties typically say these values are anchored by the heritage of European or western civilization. And they claim that this heritage is being threatened by non-European cultures, particularly Islamic culture.

My research into the international political world views of radical right parties reveals their widespread references to the "Judeo-Christian" roots of European values. The manifesto of the Alternative for Germany declares that the party:

"Opposes Islamic practice which is directed against our liberal-democratic constitutional order, our laws, and the Judeo-Christian and humanist foundations of our culture."

Comparable claims can be found from Marine Le Pen in France and Nigel Farage in the UK.

What do these politicians mean by Judeo-Christian? This term's definition is fuzzy at best, and historical analysis shows that it has long been used and abused for political ends.

Though the Jewish roots of Christianity are clear, Jews were pariahs in pre-modern Christian Europe. As Europe gradually left behind the identity of "Christendom" from the 18th century onwards, efforts to make Jews a legitimate part of European society were a political struggle, resisted by religious conservatives and anti-Semites. In 19th-century Europe, Jews were still commonly grouped with Muslims as non-European "Semites" or "Orientals."

It was in mid-20th century America, especially after the Holocaust, that the idea of the west as Judeo-Christian gained wide acceptance. When President Dwight Eisenhower referred to the Judeo-Christian roots of "our form of government," he chose words that embraced different Christian denominations and Jews within a shared civic identity – one which contrasted with anti-Semitic and godless ideologies of fascism and communism.

Seth Frantzman: Understanding the lobby against Israel’s new relations in the Gulf

THE CAMPAIGN against Israel’s relations with the Gulf uses several talking points. Initially, they claimed that the new relationship was somehow aiding “authoritarians.” This talking point was used by people who don’t condemn “authoritarians” in Doha, Tehran or Ankara. This illustrates how much charlatanism is behind the “authoritarians” talking point. Ankara’s regime is the largest jailer of journalists in the world and sentences opposition politicians to decades in prison on mythical “terror” charges. If there is an authoritarian axis in the Middle East it is the Tehran-Ankara axis and its allies.

Another argument against the Israel-Gulf ties is made by those who oppose Saudi Arabia. Of particular interest here is that most of those who make this argument are not people who historically cared that Saudi Arabia was an absolutist monarchy and conservative Kingdom. Their dislike of Riyadh is primarily anger at palace intrigue in which their allies in the Kingdom were pushed out when Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman rose to power.

The arguments against Saudi Arabia don’t stand up to scrutiny because they are ostensibly made by people on “human rights” grounds when those very same voices didn’t speak out about human rights as recently as five years ago. Thus, “human rights” and “authoritarianism” became methods of critique of the new Israel-Gulf ties by those who are silent about authoritarian human rights abuses throughout the region.

The critique of Israel-Gulf ties hangs on several interrelated issues. First, the anti-Israel agenda of the 1960s and 1970s has not gone away. The dispute between the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and the Brotherhood, backed by Turkey and Qatar, is another layer. The Gulf crisis between Saudi Arabia and Qatar in 2017 is part of the issue. In addition, the pro-Iran crowd opposes the peace deals. These voices have ample platforms, from pro-government media in Turkey to Qatar, which mostly serve as English-speaking or Arabic platforms to influence the region and the world.

The emptiness of this critique, which reveals its more complex agenda, hangs on the fact that in no other case in the world are “authoritarian” regimes critiqued for merely having diplomatic relations with other states. For instance, the same voices who have poured cold water on the new peace deals, don’t have an issue with the UAE or Israel having relations with Denmark or China. They just don’t think the UAE and Israel should have relations with each other because they are hostile to both the UAE and Israel and have had to find some reason to excuse that hostility to make it appear legitimate.

The campaign against the peace has had its effect, either by downplaying the importance of the new peace or by sniping at it from various angles. An unprecedented level of new engagement between Israel and the UAE, in particular, has not received the attention it deserves partly because of ingrained biases against both states. Understanding the reasons for this is important because it helps explain some of the challenges that these countries – and their allies – face in the region and globally.

Moroccan delegation arrives in Israel

A Moroccan diplomatic delegation was in Israel on Monday for the first time since normalization between the countries was announced earlier this month.

The delegation, which landed in Israel on Sunday night, plans to work towards reopening the Moroccan liaison office in Tel Aviv, which it has held onto for the past 20 years since Rabat cut official ties. Israel has also retained its closed office in Morocco.

During last week’s visit to Rabat by the Israeli-US delegation led by National Security Advisor Meir Ben-Shabbat and White House Special Adviser Jared Kushner, the countries committed to reopening the offices within two weeks, which would mean next week.

Morocco is also expected to prepare for a high-level delegation to come to Israel at a later, yet to be determined date.

The Moroccan diplomats have meetings scheduled at the Israeli Foreign Ministry, but they do not have any public events or statements on their agenda.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu invited Morocco's King Mohammed VI to visit Israel, in a phone conversation over the weekend.

Jerusalem Symphony Orchestra records Moroccan national anthem

Immediately following the announcement of the Israel-Morocco normalization agreement, the Jerusalem Symphony Orchestra (JSO) recorded the National Anthem of Morocco in honor of the historic agreement.

Arranged for the symphony orchestra and choir by Israeli composer and conductor Nizar El-Khater, the rendition of the anthem was performed at the Jerusalem Theater.

The Jerusalem Symphony and the Israeli Kehilot Sharot choir were joined via teleconference by Moroccan singers, a truly unique experience in honor of the normalization deal between the two countries.

3 VOIX De L’espoir (Three Voices of Hope), a Moroccan musical collective helped produce the event.

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12/27 Links: Moroccan-Israeli peace faces multiple security challenges; Israel, No more Arab-Israeli peace deals if Biden mollifies Iran; UAE collaborating to eliminate UNRWA

From Ian:

Dore Gold: Moroccan-Israeli peace faces multiple security challenges

For much of the modern era, the Arab world has sought ways to provide legitimacy to its political leadership. That led it down the road of highly ideological politics based on promoting unity schemes even with the use of force, experimenting with Arab socialist doctrines, and maintaining at all costs the Arab-Israel conflict.

A few brave leaders were prepared to break with this paradigm and reached peace with Israel, such as president Sadat of Egypt and King Hussein of Jordan. Most recently, King Hamad of Bahrain and Sheikh Zayed of the UAE have joined. Peace with Israel was not a risk-free strategy, and some of these leaders’ enemies were prepared to threaten them with assassination attempts and increased political turmoil. But they persisted nonetheless in the path of peace.

Now King Mohammed VI has bravely moved the Kingdom of Morocco into the circle of states making formal peace with Israel. It is a move that is not without risks for the Moroccans.

The security challenges that they face primarily emanate from the area of the former Spanish colony of the Western Sahara, where an insurgency campaign is being waged by guerrillas from the Polisario Front against the Moroccan security forces, with the support of Algeria. Morocco had valid claims to this disputed territory; many tribes in the area had been historically linked to the Moroccan monarchy.

The stakes in this conflict were considerable. The Polisario, which is also backed by the Iranian regime, seeks to undermine the territorial integrity of Morocco itself.

In 2018, Morocco presented documents to the Iranian government proving that Tehran was now arming and training the Polisario with the help of Hezbollah. The weapons supplied included shoulder-fired anti-aircraft missiles like the SAM-9 and SAM-11. As a result, Morocco cut its diplomatic ties with Iran. It turned out that the Iranians were using their embassy in Algiers as a conduit to the Polisario.

This was part of a pattern that the Iranians were following in Africa, seeking to infiltrate the continent by backing military moves of allies they sought to cultivate.

Brian Hook: No more Arab-Israeli peace deals if Biden mollifies Iran

US President-elect Joe Biden will not be able to pursue Israeli-Arab normalization deals if he softens America’s stance against Tehran, former US special representative for Iran Brian Hook told i24 News.

“If the Biden administration pursue a policy of accommodating Iran and alienating our partners in the region, there will be no more peace agreements that are made,” Hook said.

He spoke less than a week after Israel announced a normalization deal with Morocco, the fourth under the US brokered Abraham Accords. The focus of those deals has been Israeli-Arab peace and expanded regional economic opportunity.

But the deals have also been viewed as the backbone of a new and very public regional alliance between Israel and its Arab neighbors against Iran.

The United Arab Emirates was able to secure an agreement with the US to purchase advanced F-35 fighter jets, concurrent with its peace deal with Israel that was ratified in October. A normalization deal with Bahrain was ratified in November and a deal with Sudan has been agreed on but not ratified.

Israel, UAE collaborating to eliminate UNRWA - report

Israel and the United Arab Emirates are working together to eliminate the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees (UNRWA) without solving the issue of Palestinian refugees, the French newspaper Le Monde has reported.

The report alleged that this has been underway since Israel and the UAE announced normalization between them in August.

According to the report, Emirati officials are considering an action plan intended to gradually eliminate UNRWA, without making this development conditional on a resolution of the refugee problem. This is despite the UAE having been a major source of funding to UNRWA in 2018 and 2019, along with Qatar and Saudi Arabia, to offset US President Donald Trump's halting of funds to the agency, which brought it to the brink of bankruptcy.

"In doing so, Abu Dhabi would be rallying to a long-standing demand from Israel, which insists that the agency is obstructing peace by nurturing refugees in the dream of returning to the lands from which their parents were driven in 1948," a tweet of a portion of the report said.

UNRWA was established 70 years ago to supply aid to Palestinian refugees, and its mandate is renewed every three years.

Last year in November, the UN General Assembly approved the extension of UNRWA’s mandate for three more years, only a week after its commissioner-general Pierre Krahenbuhl resigned over a UN ethics report alleged mismanagement and abuses of authority among senior officials of the agency, after which Israel called for UNRWA’s closure.

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12/26 Links: Normalizing with Israel, Arab states look to gain powerful ally in Washington; How Israel, the US combined media, military power to prevent war

From Ian:

Normalizing with Israel, Arab states look to gain powerful ally in Washington

Israel’s perceived muscle in Washington’s halls of power was already legion in some circles before the Trump administration’s transactional approach to international relations put it on steroids. Suddenly arms, support for controversial moves, or other types of backing could be had for the price of normalization with Israel, or even just talks.

A source who served as an adviser to President-elect Joe Biden’s campaign said that Arab state’s understanding of Israeli clout in Washington “is a little exaggerated,” but that the Trump administration “did little to dispel the perception” by tying the United States’ bilateral relations with other countries to the question of Israel normalization.”

David Makovsky, a scholar at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, said that Arab states realized that the Trump administration’s approach meant that they could get top dollar for normalization, even on matters unconnected to Israel. Plus, by going with Israel, they were “purchasing… political risk insurance [for] a post-Trump era because peace with Israel has broad support.”

Jerusalem wasn’t only happy to come along for the ride, but may have even been in the driver’s seat, lobbying Washington on behalf of Arab states willing to make nice.

According to an Axios report, it was a team of former Israeli officials who first came up with the proposal offering US recognition of Moroccan sovereignty in the disputed territory of Western Sahara in exchange for Rabat agreeing to normalize ties with the Jewish state.

The news site also reported that Israeli officials lobbied their US counterparts in favor of Washington removing Sudan from its blacklist of state terror sponsors in exchange for Khartoum agreeing to establish diplomatic relations with Israel.

Saudi Arabia, which has thus far held off on normalizing with Israel, may also be looking to take advantage of the opportunity to get Israel in its corner, the Arab diplomat who spoke to The Times of Israel speculated.

He referenced recent reports that during Netanyahu’s covert visit to Saudi Arabia last month, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman pushed the Israeli premier to assist in Riyadh’s efforts to smooth over its ties with Washington, seemingly dangling normalization with the Jewish state in exchange.

However, Makovsky argued that normalization with Israel will not be “a get-out-of-jail-free card because these countries will still have to answer for their [human rights-related] issues.”

“It’s helpful, but not necessarily decisive,” he said, suggesting that Biden would move away from the Trump formula for pushing Arab states to normalize with Israel.

2020: The year Sudan ended its isolation and looked to peace with Israel

For Sudan what was important was being removed from US sanctions and being listed as a country that had hosted or supported terrorists. In the 1990s the US carried out airstrikes against an alleged Al Qaeda linked site in Sudan. IN the last decades there were also accusations of weapons trafficking by Iran and Hamas-affiliates through the country. Hamas is supported by Iran and Turkey’s regime and has roots in the Brotherhood.

“Sudanese circles expect the final peace agreement between Khartoum and Tel Aviv [sic] in Washington to be signed soon, following two military and political visits by Israeli-American delegations to Sudan, which settled the terms of the expected treaty,” the article says. These visits have not been widely reported. The article quoted political analyst Jamil al-Fadil, saying that the transitional authority has taken a bold and courageous step in peace with Israel, given the complications in the internal domestic level. This is “punctuated by disparities resulting from old psychological ideological positions that are outdated and overtaken by the Palestinians themselves.” What this means is unclear although it implies that the old guard of Brotherhood-linked groups oppose the deal.

The analyst believes that Sudan has gone down the right path and it is in line with the reality of the transformations taking place in the region. Of interest the article asserts that this new posture in the region was the result of “the emergence of a new alliance imposed by the Turkish-Iranian expansion in the region.” Sudan was once the site of the Arab League meeting after the 1967 war that put forward the infamous “three nos” against Israel, saying there would be no recognition of Israel. Now that is changing and stability will increase, the article says.

“Political analyst, Hajj Hamad Muhammad Khair, said he believes that the basis of international relations is common interests, so where are they found, the parties will go forward to establish them,” the article notes. Muhammad Khair said, "Sudan and Israel do not have common borders or previous relations, and are now proceeding to establish new relations. Therefore, we commend the steps taken by the transitional government to that end." He added, "The government succeeded in separating the path of the relationship with Israel from the file of removing Sudan from the list of terrorism, and it linked peace with Tel Aviv [sic] with the approval of Parliament. This is a correct way and position." Nevertheless any international agreement needs to be approved by the legislative bodies, in addition because there is an internal law to boycott Israel that needs to be canceled by Parliament. Expectations are that parliament will move to cancel it.

This will complete the “episodes of breaking the international isolation for Khartoum, as it was preceded by a decision to remove the country from the list of countries sponsoring terrorism, as well as the positive interaction of the international community with Sudan following the success of its popular revolution, which in turn contributed in this direction.” Sudan is now on a new path, the article illustrates.

Netanyahu has ‘friendly’ call with king of Morocco, invites him to visit Israel

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke on the phone with Morocco’s King Mohammed VI on Friday for the first time since the two countries agreed to re-establish diplomatic relations earlier this month.

The two leaders congratulated one another on the agreement brokered by US President Donald Trump, which included the White House agreeing to recognize Moroccan sovereignty over the disputed Western Sahara region.

During the “warm and friendly” conversation, Netanyahu extended an invitation for King Mohammed VI to visit Israel and the two agreed to continue contacts in order to advance the normalization agreement in the weeks ahead, the Prime Minister’s Office said.

“The leaders congratulated each other over the renewal of ties between the countries, the signing of the joint statement with the US, and the agreements between the two countries,” according to the statement from Netanyahu’s office.

“In addition, the processes and mechanisms to implement the agreements were determined,” it added.

The Moroccan king’s royal office issued a statement saying that, in his conversation with Netanyahu, the monarch recalled “the strong and special ties” between the Jewish community in Morocco and the monarchy, and reiterated “the consistent, unwavering and unchanged position of the Kingdom of Morocco on the Palestinian issue and the pioneering role of the kingdom in promoting peace and stability in the Middle East.”

On Wednesday, Morocco’s tourism minister announced that direct flights will begin operating between Israel and Morocco within two or three months.

Moroccan delegation to visit Israel to advance normalization deal

A delegation from Morocco will visit Israel next week to work on advancing diplomatic ties, following the countries’ recent agreement to establish full relations, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Saturday.

The sides will discuss reopening liaison offices, establishing embassies and launching direct flights between the countries, Netanyahu said in a video statement.

The delegation will touch down in Israel on Sunday, according to the Walla news site.

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12/25 Links Pt2: 'Israel, the West must stand with persecuted people' - Bernard Henri Le´vy; Melanie Phillips: A stunning ruling against religious freedom

From Ian:

'Israel, the West must stand with persecuted people' - Bernard Henri Le´vy

It began with a phone call. Bernard-Henri Lévy and I were speaking while I sat in my car, returning from getting hummus in central Jerusalem. The pandemic was raging and winter weather was beginning in Jerusalem. He wanted to speak about the recent war in Armenia and the Kurds.

The last time I’d seen the French philosopher, who is also a filmmaker, activist and the author of more than 30 books, was in Erbil in 2017 during the Kurdistan region’s referendum. Tall and impeccably dressed, he was at the Rotana Hotel there during the first voting in the momentous attempt by the Kurdish region to offer its people a chance at independence.

Much has changed now. Turkey has prodded Azerbaijan into a war with the Armenians in Nagorna-Karabakh and Ankara has occupied the Kurdish region of Afrin in Syria. Israel has made a far-reaching peace with two Gulf Arab states, Sudan and Morocco (with even Pakistan reportedly considering it). Morocco is dear to Lévy’s heart.

Lévy’s work as an intellectual and writer is uniquely intertwined with humanitarian activism. His books include The Virus in the Age of Madness (2020), The Empire and the Five Kings (2019) and American Vertigo: Traveling America in the footsteps of Tocqueville (2005). In June 1992, Lévy convinced French president François Mitterrand to make his surprise-journey to Sarajevo. Lévy was appointed by French president Jacques Chirac to head a state mission to Afghanistan and he supported the intervention by France and the US in Libya in 2011. Since 2015, Lévy has been supportive of the Kurds, first in the fight against ISIS and later through his documentary film, Peshmerga, which premiered as an official selection of the Cannes Film Festival.

In 2018, following the abandonment of the West after the 2017 Kurdish referendum and the Turkish attack on Afrin, Lévy co-founded with environmentalist and philanthropist Thomas Kaplan the US-based nonprofit Justice for Kurds (JFK), of which Kaplan is the chairman and Lévy is president. Since its creation, JFK is the main base of Mr. Lévy’s humanitarian commitments.

Bernard-Henri Lévy has always been a devoted Zionist, he says. His book The Genius of Judaism (2017) looks at the exceptionalism of Israel and Jewish thought. His recent reporting has been published in The Wall Street Journal and in European outlets such as Der Stern, La Repubblica, L’Espresso, Kathimerini, Novoe Vremya and Paris-Match.

I spoke to Lévy about a variety of regional issues. Given his background and knowledge of Morocco, Israel, the Kurdish regions and the great changes in the region and the world, his responses provide a critical window into the issues affecting the Middle East and the West today.

Melanie Phillips: A stunning ruling against religious freedom

This argument over ritual slaughter has gone on in Europe for many years. At its base, it reflects the priority over humans that’s now given to animals with a corresponding rise in ignorance, sentimentality and hypocrisy over their welfare.

That moral confusion is one of the outcomes of the prevailing dogma of universalism, which has caused much of Europe increasingly to reject the precepts of the Hebrew Bible. That in turn accounts for the secularism and hostility to religion upon which the EU itself is based.

The EU prides itself on the core Enlightenment values of liberalism and tolerance. Those values, however, emerged from British thinkers whose values were framed by the Bible.

In continental Europe, by contrast, the Enlightenment was fuelled by a vicious hatred of religion and the belief that reason could only be advanced if religion was suppressed.

It is that European strain of universalist Enlightenment thinking that forms the values of the European Union. It has also given rise to the west’s predominant ideology of moral and cultural relativism, which has propelled the rise of paganism and the veneration of the animal and natural world at the expense of humanity. And that now has Jewish and Muslim religious practices squarely in its sights.

At the start of 2020, Europeans joined other nations of the world in marking the 75th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, vowing “never again.”

At the end of this horrible year, the custodians of the European Jewish graveyard have instead demonstrated all too bleakly just what they think that means for the values of freedom and tolerance so many have given their lives to defend.

Caroline Glick: The Israeli left is far from dead

Even when the "anyone-but-Bibi" camp doesn't have the requisite number of Knesset seats to form a government, so entrenched are its right-wing members in their hatred for Netanyahu that they still empower the left. Following the April and September 2019 elections, Lieberman prevented the formation of a government and forced the country into the second and third round of elections by refusing to join a Netanyahu-led coalition.

And following the third round of elections, former Netanyahu aides and current "anyone-but-Bibi" right-wing politicians Zvi Hauser and Yoaz Hendel who broke away from two parties to join the Blue and White list, were willing to block their leftist Blue and White party from forming a post-Zionist government with the Joint Arab List. But they weren't willing to leave Blue and White to join Netanyahu to form a right-wing government. And as a result, Netanyahu was compelled to form a coalition with Blue and White.

Blue and White's position in the outgoing government didn't give its leaders Benny Gantz and Gabi Ashkenazi the power to implement their leftist policies. But it did give them the power to block Netanyahu and Likud from advancing their rightist policies which Hauser and Hendel ostensibly support. Gantz and Ashkenazi torpedoed Netanyahu's plan to apply Israel's sovereignty to the Israeli communities in Judea and Samaria and the Jordan Valley, in accordance with US President Donald Trump's Middle East peace plan. This week, Gantz and Ashkenazi blocked Netanyahu from bringing the young Israeli communities in Judea and Samaria to the government for formal approval. Blue and White's Justice Minister Avi Nissenkorn has worked assiduously to expand the powers of his leftist partners in the judiciary and the state prosecution while ruling out the implementation of the Likud's agenda of legal reform.

Given the left's success in seizing and wielding power through its partners in the deep state and its enablers in the "anyone-but-Bibi" right, it is clear that the polls that give a significant majority of Knesset seats to right-wing parties obscure more than they reveal. The left remains the only power that competes with the Likud for power. And if Likud and its coalition partners do not win 61 seats in the upcoming elections, the left will continue to control the national agenda regardless of what the public thinks.

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12/25 Links Pt1: ‘We Do Not Live in Fear’: Israeli Women Encourage Running in Memory of Esther Horgen; 'Recognizing Jerusalem as Israel's capital caused an explosion – of peace'

From Ian:

‘We Do Not Live in Fear’: Israeli Women Encourage Running in Memory of Esther Horgen

Israelis woke up on Monday to the horrible news that the lifeless body of 52-year-old Esther Horgen, a mother-of-six from the community of Tel Menashe in Samaria, was found at around 2 am in a forest near her home after she went for a power walk on Sunday afternoon and never returned. Her husband, Benjamin, alerted security officials when she didn’t make it back.

On Thursday, JNS reported that Israel’s Shin Bet security service arrested a Palestinian suspect from the Jenin area in connection with the murder. Details of the investigation remain under a gag order.

Police are trying to assess whether the incident was a nationalistically motivated terror attack. The Samaria Regional Council said the murder was without a doubt an act of terror, saying Horgen’s skull had been crushed with police believing the weapon to have been a rock.

Friends and family gathered in Tel Menashe on Tuesday to pay their final respects to Horgen before she was laid to rest.

Ora Oziel, a neighbor and close friend, told JNS that her family and the Horgens shared a Shabbat meal together last Friday night, just 48 hours before Esther went on her ill-fated jog. She said that Esther, who was a life coach, marriage counselor and specialist in Jewish psychology, “was full of life.”

“She loved the beauty of nature and of human beings, both on their inside and outside,” added Oziel.

Thousands march to honor Israeli woman murdered in suspected terror attack

Thousands of people took part in a march on Friday in memory of an Israeli woman murdered in a suspected terror attack while out on a run earlier this week in the Reihan forest near her home in the West Bank settlement of Tal Menashe.

The march took place in the forest where Esther Horgen, 52, a mother of six, was killed on Sunday. Her body was found in the early hours of Monday, having apparently been violently murdered. Horgen had gone out for an afternoon run and did not return, whereupon her husband, Benjamin, notified the police.

Samaria Regional Council Chairman Yossi Dagan called on Friday for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to greenlight new housing construction in the settlement as a response to the murder.

“We call on the prime minister to announce on Sunday that construction in Tal Menashe will be doubled as a Zionist response to the killing. We will not stop marching,” Dagan was quoted by Ynet as saying at the gathering.

IDF troops map house of suspected murderer of Esther Horgen

IDF soldiers entered the Palestinian village of Tura early Friday in order to map the house of the terrorist suspected of murdering Esther Horgen, the IDF Spokesperson's Unit reported.

The process of mapping the house was done in order to examine the possibility of demolishing the house, in case the suspected killer is found guilty.

Horgen, a woman in her 50s, was found dead on Monday in the Reihan Forest, close to her home in the settlement of Tal Menashe, after she had been out jogging.

Horgen’s body was found on the side of a path in the forest and showed signs of violence, including to her head. Her family reported her missing on Sunday. She is survived by her husband, Benyamin, and six children. Her youngest child celebrated his bar mitzvah three months ago.

A suspect in the murder of Horgen, who was killed in the northern West Bank in an alleged terrorist attack, was arrested in a joint operation by the Police, the IDF, and the Border Police on Thursday.

On Thursday, at around noon, intelligence units found that the suspect was staying at his mother’s house in the village of Toura, near Jenin. The Yamam (Israel Police National Counter Terrorism Unit) then arrived at the scene and with assistance from intelligence drones, the suspect was located on a rooftop and was later apprehended. He was taken questioning by the Shin Bet.

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12/24 Links Pt2: Daniel Pipes: Arabs and Muslims increasingly accept Israel even as the global left rejects it; HRW's Anti-Israel Agenda; UN Watch: The Top 10 Worst UN Actions of 2020

From Ian:

Daniel Pipes: Arabs and Muslims increasingly accept Israel even as the global left rejects it

That four Arab states in four months normalized relations with Israel is a remarkable development that opens the possibility that the Arab states’ war with Israel, which began in 1948, is winding down.

But there is more good news, less visible and also potentially momentous: a change taking place among the people who constitute Israel’s ultimate enemy, its Arab citizens. This sector may finally begin to end its self-imposed political isolation and recognize the Jewish state.

First, some background: About 600,000 Arabs fled as Israel came into existence, including most of the educated, leaving 111,000 behind, mostly peasants. That rump population then multiplied many through the decades, supplemented by a steady influx of immigrants (in what I call the “Muslim aliya”); Israel’s Arabs now number 1.6 million, or about 18% of the country’s population.

That population long ago escaped its rural confines, having become educated, mobile and connected. By now, it has included a supreme court judge and a government minister, ambassadors, businessmen, professors and many others of distinction.

Despite this impressive progress, the community has consistently voted for radical and anti-Zionist representation in Israel’s parliament, the Knesset. While its members (MKs) have differed sharply among themselves in ideology, dividing into Palestinian nationalist, pan-Arab nationalist, Islamist and leftist, all reject Israel’s Jewish nature.

Gerald M. Steinberg: Human Rights Watch's Anti-Israel Agenda

Human Rights Watch (HRW) was founded as Helsinki Watch by the late Robert Bernstein in 1978, and has grown to become one of the most influential international NGOs active in this arena. However, the organization and its leaders have been strongly criticized, including by its own founder, Bernstein, for acting against its original mission, and for deep-seated political and ideological bias.

The influence of HRW is reflected in its intense involvement in the UN and the International Criminal Court. Its Israel-focused activities are fundamentally different from its role on other topics and countries on HRW's agenda, and contrast strongly with norms of universality and political neutrality.

The History of Soviet Jewish Hijackers—and Why It Matters

On Dec. 24, 1970, the Leningrad municipal court issued verdicts in the cases of 11 defendants in a case that would transform the Jewish world, the State of Israel, and the Soviet Union itself. The court sentenced two defendants, Mark Dymshits, age 43, a former military pilot, and Eduard Kuznetsov, age 30, a dissident who had already done seven years in the gulag, to death by firing squad. Seven defendants, ages 21 to 30, were sentenced to 10 to 15 years in labor camps, with two receiving shorter sentences. Their crime: attempting to hijack a Soviet airplane in order to escape to Israel. With two exceptions, all the defendants were Jews.

The story of the Leningrad hijacking plot is one of the most powerful stories of Jewish courage and commitment in the last half century of diaspora history. It turns the narrative about passive, silent Soviet Jews on its head, shining a spotlight on the true heroes of the struggle for Soviet Jewry—Soviet Jewish activists themselves. Most important, it offers profound lessons about the meaning and value of Jewish identity, and the need to struggle for it, at a time when such lessons are needed more than ever.

Today, it is American Jews who are being conditioned, in ways subtle and overt, to give up slices of their identity. It is American Jews who are facing an onslaught of anti-Semitic attitudes in their political and cultural homes and workplaces. It is American Jews who are being asked to reject their connection to Israel and proclaim themselves to be “privileged” and “white”—and many are meekly or reluctantly falling into line. The story of these Soviet Jews who responded to anti-Semitic attitudes, assimilationist pressures, and vicious anti-Israel and “anti-Zionist” propaganda not by retreating or keeping quiet but by flinging their windows wide open and screaming for all the world to hear is no longer simply part of history, but also a beacon.

The Leningrad plot was as brazen as it was hopeless. Few of its participants believed they would ever get off the ground, let alone fly across the Soviet border. Most viewed their chief objective not as reaching their preliminary destination—the Swedish town of Boden—but in drawing the world’s attention to the virtual prison that the Soviet Jews found themselves in. Their desperate action and defiant words touched the hearts of millions, moving world leaders to act on their behalf and propelling the nascent movement for Soviet Jewry into high gear.

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12/24 Links Pt1: US begins to label settlement products as ‘Made in Israel’; The Collapse of Palestinian Grand Strategy; Palestinian arrested in suspected terrorist killing of Israeli mother of six

From Ian:

US begins to label settlement products as ‘Made in Israel’

US Customs and Border Protection on Wednesday said an order requiring goods made in Israeli-controlled areas of the West Bank to be labeled as “Made in Israel” has come into effect.

The policy shift was announced by US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo in November following an unprecedented visit to a West Bank settlement, where he visited a winery. It’s unclear whether the incoming Biden administration will uphold the order.

Since 1995, US policy has required products made in the West Bank and Gaza to be labeled as such. That directive was republished in 2016 by the Obama administration, which warned that labeling goods as “made in Israel” could lead to fines. Prior to the Oslo Accords, however, all products manufactured in these areas were required to mention Israel in their label when exporting to the United States.

With Pompeo’s newly announced rules, which he said were “consistent with our reality-based foreign policy approach,” all producers within areas where Israel exercises authority — most notably Area C under the Oslo Accords – will be required to mark goods as Israeli-made.

“This document notifies the public that, for country of origin marking purposes, imported goods produced in the West Bank, specifically in Area C under the Israeli-Palestinian Interim Agreement (the Oslo Accords), signed on September 28, 1995, and the area known as ‘H2’ under the Israeli-Palestinian Protocol Concerning Redeployment in Hebron and Related Documents (the Hebron Protocol), signed January 17, 1997, must be marked to indicate their origin as ‘Israel,’ ‘Product of Israel,’ or ‘Made in Israel,'” the US Customs notice said.

Goods manufactured in Palestinian-controlled areas of the West Bank will be marked as made in the West Bank, while Gaza-produced items must indicate they were made in the Palestinian coastal enclave, the order added, rejecting any joint “West Bank/Gaza” labels that had been permitted since 1997.

The new guidelines were effective as of Wednesday, though importers were given a 90-day grace period to implement the changes.

Perhaps the most important apart in the Israel labelling rule published today: "@StateDept
further advised that it recognizes that Israel has disengaged from Gaza and that Gaza and the West Bank are politically and administratively separate and should be treated accordingly."

— Eugene Kontorovich (@EVKontorovich) December 24, 2020

Eugene Kontorovich: Trump Was Right To Recognize Moroccan Sovereignty Over Western Sahara

The Trump administration has achieved yet another success in brokering peace between Israel and the Islamic world, with the recent announcement of normalized relations between Israel and Morocco. The U.S. benefits greatly from good relations between two of its long-standing Middle East allies—and as part of the arrangement, the U.S. agreed to recognize Moroccan sovereignty over the disputed territory of Western Sahara. There is nothing unusual about adding "sweeteners" to such deals: The Carter administration, for example, made Egypt one of the largest non-NATO recipients of U.S. aid as a result of the Camp David Accords between Cairo and Jerusalem.

But the Western Saharan recognition has come under attack from those who had long supported unsuccessful policies for resolving the conflict. Former National Security Advisor John Bolton and Former Secretary of State James Baker both penned op-eds lambasting President Trump's move. These criticisms claim that the recognition is a radical departure from both U.S. policy and international law norms. Neither claim has any basis.

First, some background. Western Sahara had never been an independent state; rather, it was a Spanish colony until 1975, when Spanish rule crumbled at the end of the Franco regime. Morocco promptly took control of Western Sahara as the Spanish were on their way out, leading to a three-way conflict with Mauritania and the Algeria-backed Polisario guerrilla group. Morocco prevailed and has administered the territory as its "southern provinces" ever since.

The United Nations has described Morocco's presence as an "occupation" in a couple of resolutions. But much of the international community, including the United States, has taken a more ambiguous position, describing the territory as "disputed" between Morocco and the Polisario, which claims to govern an independent state that it calls the Sahrawi Arabic Democratic Republic. Newsweek subscription offers >

The double-barreled attack on the deal by Baker and Bolton seems designed to give an opening for the Biden administration to renege on the deal, and to cite senior Republican officials as support. But Baker and Bolton are hardly disinterested in this matter. Baker had served as a UN special envoy for the Western Sahara issue and was the author of the latest failed peace plan for the area: a "two-state solution" known as the Baker Plan. Bolton worked for Baker on these issues at the State Department.

The Collapse of Palestinian Grand Strategy

The Palestinian quest for an internationally imposed “solution,” which would not require them to negotiate a compromise deal with Israel, has failed. Palestinian leaders may attempt this again after Joe Biden becomes US president, but this will fail yet again, since the collapse of their past strategy is due to much more than the policies of the Trump Administration. Indeed, evolving regional and global realities allow for a new Israeli peace initiative, which can preserve the underlying principles of the Trump outline for peace.

During the US presidential transition period, Israel faces a challenge and an opportunity regarding the Palestinians. The challenge may result from a Palestinian attempt to co-opt the incoming US Administration and revive its “grand strategy” of international coercion against Israel. However, the underlying assumptions of that strategy are now largely passe. The attempt to isolate Israel and boycott it in the international community, and thus force it into surrender, have thoroughly failed. This is not simply the result of President Trump’s policies (although they contributed to this outcome). Palestinian failures, rather, reflect a profoundly changed landscape, regionally and globally.

Foundational aspects of the regional order have changed. There has been a breakthrough towards peace and normalization with three Arab countries. Moreover, the Arab League (under Egypt’s guidance) refused to consider the Palestinian complaint against “normalizers” and the Abraham Accords. Even European position(s) towards Israel are showing signs of reconsideration, against the background of a violent challenge by Islamist terror.

Rather than reduce the prospects for peace and stability, these developments make them more likely. Many countries around the world want to engage with Israel. Consequently, the Palestinians would be wrong to assume that their strategy of isolating Israel can be revived with Trump’s departure.

JINSA PodCast: Sanctions, Sanctions, Sanctions

What makes for a good sanctions regime? Is regime change a reasonable policy goal for a sanctions regime? Does COVID-19 change the calculus for economic sanctions? What changes to the U.S. sanctions regime, if any, might we expect during the transition from the Trump Administration to the Biden Administration with regards to Iran, Russia, and China? The Hon. Stephen Rademaker, former Assistant Secretary of State for International Security and Nonproliferation, joins The National Security Digest to offer his assessment of the U.S. sanctions approach. Mr. Rademaker currently serves as Senior Of Counsel at Covington in D.C, as well as a Senior Advisor to JINSA’s Gemunder Center and a Member of JINSA’s Iran Policy Project.

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12/23 Links Pt2: To fight anti-Semitism, the UN must first define it; Europe’s Highest Court Gives Its Approval to Attempts to Outlaw Jewish and Muslim Life

From Ian:

To fight anti-Semitism, the UN must first define it

The United States “must deal with the insanity at the center of the Human Rights Council — persistent and egregious anti-Israel bias,” U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Kelly Craft declared last Monday. She criticized the council for targeting Israel more than any other country in the world. Craft is right about the U.N.’s anti-Israel bias, but an effective response to the problem begins with recognizing that this bias is rooted in plain anti-Semitism.

It is the kind of anti-Semitism that manifests itself in double standards. The council obsesses over Israel to the point of distraction and deems it a pariah, all the while turning a blind eye to genuinely oppressive regimes, such as those in Beijing, Tehran, or Damascus.

The International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance has recognized that such double standards constitute anti-Semitism as much as other manifestations such as Holocaust denial and symbols like the swastika. The IHRA is a joint initiative of dozens of governments, mainly European, committed to Holocaust education and combating anti-Semitism. Its definition of anti-Semitism has been adopted by more than 25 countries, the European Parliament, and even the English Premier League.

The Human Rights Council may be the U.N. body that has most often engaged in IHRA-defined anti-Semitism. The UNHRC maintains agenda item seven, which requires the council to review Israel’s human rights record at every meeting. No other country is singled out in this way. In fact, resolutions targeting Israel far outnumber those leveled against China, Iran, Syria, and North Korea combined. The UNHRC also supports a special rapporteur whose mandate is limited to investigating alleged Israeli crimes but not Palestinian ones.

In 2016, the council called for the creation of a database of all businesses conducting activities in or related to Israel’s settlements. The list is intended to intimidate companies out of operating in the West Bank, even though they are legally allowed to do so, and even though no such list exists for any other conflict zone around the world, from Russian-occupied Ukraine to the Turkish-dominated northern Cyprus.

Meanwhile, the U.N. General Assembly maintains a special committee to investigate accusations of Israeli abuses. It also has a committee and a division dedicated to advocating for Palestinians, which in practice has mainly entailed denunciations of Israel. The U.N. maintains no analogous bodies dedicated to defaming any other country.

Of course the BDS supporting and Assad loving @MaxBlumenthal would like to defund @elliecohanim’s position ... it would make it easier for him to keep spreading his vile Jew hatred. https://t.co/9eIMznf0ji

— Arsen Ostrovsky (@Ostrov_A) December 23, 2020

4th Anniversary of Anti-Israel UN Security Council Resolution 2334 Can you guess who played a major role?

This December 23rd is the fourth anniversary of the infamous United Nations Security Council Resolution 2334, which declares that “the establishment of settlements by Israel in the Palestinian territory occupied since 1967, including East Jerusalem, has no legal validity and constitutes a flagrant violation under international law.” The Obama-Biden administration broke with the longstanding practice of both Democratic and Republican administrations to protect Israel from one-sided, anti-Israel United Nations resolutions when it refused to veto Resolution 2334 and abstained instead. Biden was reportedly involved behind the scenes in pushing the resolution forward for approval, including purportedly pressuring Ukraine to vote for the resolution rather than abstain. Biden has not expressed any regret since then for his participation in the Obama-Biden administration’s decision to sell out Israel.

Resolution 2334 demands that “Israel immediately and completely cease all settlement activities in the occupied Palestinian territory, including East Jerusalem.” Resolution 2334 also calls on all nations “to distinguish, in their relevant dealings, between the territory of the State of Israel and the territories occupied since 1967.” According to the resolution, “East Jerusalem” (including the Western Wall in the Old City) is specifically considered a part of the so-called Palestinian "territories occupied since 1967" that are supposed to be off limits for any nation's dealings involving Israelis. When it comes to the resolution’s call to prevent “acts of terror” and “to refrain from provocative actions, incitement and inflammatory rhetoric,” the resolution refers elliptically to “both parties.”

As a 2017 Harvard Law Review article noted, “the resolution’s legal language vindicates the Palestinian story of dispossession and could facilitate prosecutions of Israeli officials at the ICC [International Criminal Court].” The article went on to say that “2334’s legal rhetoric entrenches the PA’s [Palestinian Authority] maximalism.”

Resolution 2334 remains in effect to this day. However, despite what the resolution’s supporters continuously assert, it is not legally binding under the UN Charter because it was not passed under the provisions of Chapter VII of the Charter. The resolution is not self-enforcing and would require a further resolution to impose sanctions or other punitive measures, which the Trump administration would surely have vetoed.

The question now is whether Joe Biden as president will return to the Obama-Biden administration’s support of the anti-Israel resolution and its distancing from our closest ally in the Middle East. The answer is most likely yes, despite Biden’s claims of unwavering support for Israel’s security. Biden, his Secretary of State-designate Tony Blinken and incoming chief of staff Ron Klain are adamantly opposed to Israel’s settlement activities.

David Singer: Trump’s two-state solution should not be trashed

Kerry was at pains to point out that America had nothing to do with drafting Resolution 2334: "The United States did not draft or originate this resolution, nor did we put it forward. It was drafted by Egypt – it was drafted and I think introduced by Egypt, which is one of Israel’s closest friends in the region, in coordination with the Palestinians and others… In the end, we did not agree with every word in this resolution. There are important issues that are not sufficiently addressed or even addressed at all. But we could not in good conscience veto a resolution that condemns violence and incitement and reiterates what has been for a long time the overwhelming consensus and international view on settlements and calls for the parties to start taking constructive steps to advance the two-state solution on the ground."

Abstaining on - rather than vetoing - Resolution 2334 - when it did not address or sufficiently address important issues - was irresponsible.

Kerry showed how (intentionally?) out of touch the outgoing Obama-Biden administration was with President-elect Trump’s intentions: “President Obama and I know that the incoming administration has signaled that they may take a different path, and even suggested breaking from the longstanding U.S. policies on settlements, Jerusalem, and the possibility of a two-state solution. That is for them to decide. That’s how we work. But we cannot – in good conscience – do nothing, and say nothing, when we see the hope of peace slipping away… This is a time to stand up for what is right. We have long known what two states living side by side in peace and security looks like. We should not be afraid to say so.”

Kerry specifically recounted Israel’s former Prime Minister Peres telling him: “The original mandate gave the Palestinians 48 percent, now it’s down to 22 percent. I think 78 percent is enough for us.”

That was Revisionist history and pure rubbish: The original mandate gave the Arabs 78% – and that is what they have, 78% (Jordan) - and promised the Jews a national home in the remaining 22% - down to 17% (Israel until the Six Day War) The remaining only 5% comprised Gaza, Judea and Samaria.

Trump’s Peace Plan provides a detailed and comprehensive two-state solution, which was intended as a starting negotiation point: i>Israel: with its current borders extended to include sovereignty over 30% of Judea and Samaria immediately A demilitarised Palestinian Arab State comprising Gaza and 70% of Judea and Samaria on condition it renounces terror and is willing to make peace with the Jewish State, with a four year testing period before its establishment.

Trashing Trump’s Plan going forward and going back to square one would be the height of folly.

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