This Time Around, Will Biden Get What The Arab World Is Saying? (Daled Amos)

By Daled Amos

Following the news of Israel's peace agreement with the UAE and Bahrain, we had a laugh at John Kerry's expense when we watched the 2016 video of Kerry assuring his audience that peace between Israel and the Arab world without first resolving the Palestinian question just wasn't possible.

And Kerry knew this because he had, even a week earlier, spoken to "leaders of the Arab community."

It would be interesting to know just what Kerry said to those Arab leaders -- and what exactly they said to him in response.

Did he misinterpret what they said to him?

Did those leaders intentionally mislead Kerry?

It certainly wouldn't be the first incident of an apparent 'miscommunication" between Arab leaders and a member of the US government.

In a recent post, Judean Rose asks: Joe Biden’s First Meeting with Golda Meir: Did it Lead to the Yom Kippur War? The basis for the question is a Twitter thread by Nadav Eyal, Chief International Correspondent for Reshet News.

Once again, Arab officials apparently misled a US politician as to what they were thinking about Israel.

Joe Biden (YouTube screencap)

But apparently, this is not limited to US politicians.

As a matter of fact, Arab leaders have been known to mislead other Arab leaders as well.

In his book The Arab Mind, Raphael Patai tells a story from the eve of the 1948 Israeli War of Independence:

Musa Alami, the well-known Palestinian Arab leader, made a tour of the Arab capitals to sound out the leaders with whom he was well acquainted. In Damascus, the President of Syria told him:

I am happy to tell you that our Army and its equipment are of the highest order and well able to deal with a few Jews; and I can tell you in confidence that we even have an atomic bomb...Yes, it was made locally; we fortunately found a very clever fellow, a tinsmith...(p. 53-54) [emphasis added]

Patai gives another example, this one from the Six Day War, when on the first day (June 5, 1967) the commander of the Egyptian forces in Cairo sent a message to the Jordanian front:

that the Israeli air offensive was continuing. But at the same time, he insisted that the Egyptians had put 75 per cent of the Israeli air force out of action. The same message said that U.A.R. bombers had destroyed the Israeli bases in a counter-attack, and that the ground forces of the Egyptian army had penetrated into Israel by way of the Negev! (p. 109)

If Egypt had been honest with Jordan from day 1, Hussein might not have entered the war, and Jordan would have retained control of Judea and Samaria -- and the Kotel.

But behind these examples of miscommunication, there are issues of Arab culture. 

For example, the story about the tinsmith is pure exaggeration, what Patai refers to as the "spell of (Arabic) language," namely the "prediliction for exaggeration and overemphasis  [which] is anchored in the Arabic language itself" (p. 55)

As for Egypt's deception of Jordan, Patai describes it as wajh, or an attempt to avoid loss of face. In fact, Patai blames King Hussein's years in England for his failure to see this for what it was:

Had Hussein not lost, during his formative years spent in England, the ear for catching the meaning behind the words which is an indispensable prerequisite of true communication among Arabs, he would have understood that a real victory over Israel would have been announced by Amer and Nasser in a long tirade of repetitious and emphatic assertions, and that the brief and for Arabs, totally unusual factual form of the statement betrayed it for what it actually was: a face-saving device, a reference not to a real, but to an entirely imaginary victory. [emphasis in original] (p. 112-3)

But what about Biden and Kerry?

Again, without knowing what each side actually said, it is impossible to know what went on.

But their misunderstanding of their Arab hosts might be due to the Arab concept of shame.

Patai distinguishes between shame, which is "a matter between a person and his society," and guilt which is "a matter between a person and his conscience" -- or as he puts it: "A hermit in a desert can feel guilt; he cannot feel shame."

One of the important differences between the Arab and the Western personality is that in the Arab culture, shame is more pronounced than guilt...What pressures the Arab to behave in an honorable manner is not guilt but shame, or, more precisely, the psychological drive to escape or prevent negative judgement by others. [p. 113]

We tend to associate the Arab concept of shame/honor with of 'honor killings,' but there are implications on a national level too.

In his preface to the 1976 edition of his book, Patai writes that although Egypt lost the Yom Kippur War, the fact that they caught Israel by surprise and were able to initially gain the upper hand, allowed the Egyptians to perceive the war as a victory, and cleared the way for peace negotiations:

A manifestation of this new Arab self-confidence is the willingness to enter into disengagement agreements with Israel. It is, in this connection, characteristic that it is precisely Egypt, the country that won what it considers a victory over Israel, which has embarked on the road of negotiation with her....It is quite clear that the feeling of having demonstrated strengh is for an Arab state a psychological prerequisite of discussing adjustments and reaching understanding with an enemy. [emphasis added] (xxiii - xxv)

How would shame/honor manifest itself in discussions between Arabs and Westerners?

In his 1989 book, The Closed Circle: An Interpretation of the Arabs, David Pryce-Jones writes about

Kenneth Pendar, an American intelligence officer whose task it was to persuade Moroccans to side with the Allies during the last war, expressed the difficulties of conducting a negotiation in which he expected a yes or a no from people unable to commit themselves to either, because they could not tell who would win the war and acquire honor or who would lose and be shamed. [emphasis added] (p. 45)

 Pryce-Jones goes on to quote Henry Kissinger, who complained of the difficulty of negotiating with the Saudis because of their style that was "at once oblique and persistent, reticent and assertive" based on the allocation of honor or shame.

Based on this, one can imagine that Kerry and Biden could each have easily misinterpreted what they heard in accordance with what they wanted to pass on to their respective audiences.

Interestingly, when Patai writes about the confidence the Yom Kippur Was instilled into the Arab world in 1973, he contrasts Egypt -- which considers the Yom Kippur War a victory -- with other Arab countries that either cannot make such a claim or have never fought Israel, and are therefore opposed to negotiation.

That would seem to rule out Jordan and Sudan, on the one hand, and the UAE and Bahrain on the other.

But King Hussein making peace with Israel is not surprising, considering his tenuous control over his country, the majority of whom are Palestinian Arabs. There was leverage the US could apply, even if the peace treaty itself could cause trouble for Hussein at home.

Considering the leverage that the US applied to Sudan, that country also had a lot to gain. But both Egypt and Jordan have a cold peace with Israel and the Arabs in both countries have expressed their hatred of Jews and Israel. It's not clear that the situation in Sudan is any better.

What about UAE and Bahrain?

Some have belittled the Abraham Accords because those 2 countries have never actually been involved in a war with Israel.

But maybe that is the point.

Egypt and Jordan fought against Israel, and whatever the considerations on the government level -- on a national level, Israel remains an enemy in the eyes of the Egyptian and Jordanian people, regardless of the benefits Israel has to offer and are nowhere near normalizing relations. There is an absence of a state of war, but the mood of belligerence persists.

Not so with UAE and Bahrain, which has never fought Israel. 

The intent of the Abraham Accords is not to bring peace in order to end a state of war -- instead the point is to normalize relations, a goal that is conceivable for UAE and Bahrain, but not for Egypt and Jordan, which still cannot go beyond a 'cold peace,' let alone a full, real peace.

In November 2017, Mordechai Kedar wrote The Ten Commandments for Israeli negotiations with Saudi Arabia, which he described as "immutable principles" for negotiating with Saudi Arabia "and any other Arab nations who wish to live in peace with the Jewish State."

One of those principles is the need for normalizing relations as opposed to just making peace:

10. Peace with the Saudis must entail more than just a ceasefire with an attached document ("Salaam" in Arabic) . Israel agreed to that in the case of Egypt and Jordan as a result of the ignorance of those running the negotiations on Israel's side.

Israel must insist on complete normalization ("sulh" in Arabic), which includes cultural, tourist, business, industrial, art, aeronautical, scientific, technological, athletic and academic ties and exchanges, etc. If Israel participates in international events taking place in Saudi Arabia, the Israeli flag will wave along with those of other countries, and if Israel is the victor in any sports competition in Saudi Arabia, the Hatikva anthem will be played, as it is when other countries win medals. Israeli books will be shown at book fairs, and Israeli products officially displayed at international exhibitions taking place in Saudi Arabia.

An economic document, whose details I am not in a position to elaborate, but which must be an addendum to the agreement, is to be based on mutual investments and acquisitions as well as a commitment to non- participation in boycotts. [emphasis added]

This is what we are seeing now.

A foreshadowing for what is possible is in another comment by Patai, where he addresses the "Arab street" that today we are told is supposedly ready at any moment to rise up in protest, yet whose anger Trump has somehow been able to avoid these past 4 years:

The volatility of Arab reaction to the October War was paralleled four years later by the rapid evaporation of Arab wrath over President Satat's initiative in establishing direct contact with Israel. This was observed by Fuad Moughrabi, professor of political science and co-editor of the Arab Studies Quarterly, in 1980:

The Arab world reacted strongly and passionately to Sadat's visit to Jerusalem. But contrary to what many had expected, the intensity of the reaction was not followed by any concrete, effective steps to neutralize the conseqauences of the visit. Sadat did the unthinkable and got away with it. (p. 339)

Moughrabi wrote this in 1980.

Sadat was assassinated in 1981 -- by the extremist Muslim Brotherhood.

Back then, Arab opposition to Sadat was not directed against the idea of peace, but against the Camp David Accords themselves, which removed Egypt as a participant in the war against Israel -- a war which was supposed to benefit the cause of the Palestinian Arabs.

Today, with the Arab support for the Palestinian Arab cause at its lowest ebb, there are genuine prospects for continuing what the Trump administration started.

That is, assuming that this time around Biden actually listens to what the Arab leaders are saying.

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Nixon, Rabin and Trump: Unfinished Business In The Middle East (Daled Amos)

What is the hardest part of brokering a peace agreement?

-- Sometimes, it's just getting the two sides to sit down in the same room.

-- Other times, the problem is getting the two sides just to talk.

-- Even then, there is the problem of getting them to negotiate and be willing to make concessions.

And then there is the problem when you just run out of time.

Following the Yom Kippur War, in which Egypt and Syria were nearly victorious, a unique possibility for peace between Israel and Egypt presented itself. Nixon's airlift of crucial arms during the war was critical to Israel's victory -- and created an opportunity.

Richard Nixon. Public domain

Seeking to take advantage of this opportunity, in June 1974, Nixon became the first US president to visit Israel while in office.

As Rabin explained in a press conference after Nixon returned to the US:

"Ever since the airlift of the Yom Kippur War, the Arabs have come to understand that America will not allow Israel to be weakened. A defeat of Israel is a victory for the USSR. Paradoxically, this is what has raised America's prestige in the Arab world, and has given Washington leverage. Today in the Middle East, Moscow is a synonym for instability and war, Washington for stability and negotiation." (Yehuda Avner, The Prime Ministers, p. 270)

Yitzhak Rabin. Public domain

This leverage as an honest broker would make it possible for the US to go beyond being a supporter of Israel's interests, and show that it was a strong and reliable ally to address the interests of the Arab world as well.

Meanwhile, Nixon began discussing with Egypt's Sadat the possibility of a final settlement, going step-by-step. On June 25, Nixon wrote to Sadat:

Mr. President, I am convinced that we have witnessed in recent months a turning point in the history of the Middle East -- a turning toward an honorable, just, and endurinable peace -- and have ushered in a new era in U.S.-Arab relations. A direction has been set, and it is my firm intention to stay on the course we have chartered. (p. 271)

Two months later, Nixon resigned.

The following month, Rabin was meeting with President Ford -- and Kissinger -- to continue what Nixon had started. The following year, in March, Kissinger came to the Middle East to conduct his "shuttle diplomacy," bouncing back and forth between Israel and Egypt. Kissinger pressured Rabin on a withdrawal from the Sinai, especially from the Mitla and Gidi passes, while Rabin wanted Sadat to commit himself to a "termination of the state of belligerency" with Israel.

Kissinger's efforts failed -- and he blamed Israel.

In the end, however, another attempt was made, culminating in an interim agreement known as Sinai II.

Just to get an idea of what Rabin was up against, here is an excerpt from the notes of a conversation between Sadat and Foreign Minister Fahmi with Ford and Kissinger. The context is the early warning stations in the Sinai that Rabin wanted to retain -- and Sadat's idea of a compromise, where they would be manned by US troops. Note the highlighted portions.

The term "honest broker" is overrated.

In any event, Rabin too ended up resigning because of the 'scandal' surrounding his wife, who had retained a bank account from the years when Rabin was Israel's ambassador to the US from 1968 to 1973. After that, the Israeli law forbidding citizens from holding bank accounts abroad came into play. However, another law prevented Rabin from resigning outright once the date for the next elections has been set. Instead, Rabin withdrew from the race as leader of the Labor Party, to be replaced from Shimon Peres to face Menachem Begin.

Begin became prime minister -- and it was during his term that a peace treaty with Egypt was signed. 

Rabin felt his role in making that peace treaty possible was never acknowledged, but at the same time he understood that was the way of things.

In his memoirs, Rabin wrote:

When President Sadat made his historic visit to Jerusalem on 19 November 1977 I was no longer prime minister. Yet that visit -- and the subsequent moves toward achieving a peace treaty -- could never have come about were it not for the course my government adopted in signing the 1975 interim agreement. That our policy provoked the anger of Likud has not prevented Mr. Begin's government from reaping the fruits of our labors. Of course, that is how things should be, since the quest for peace is not a contest between political parties...The 1975 agreement with Egypt was never meant to be an end in itself. As its title implies, it was designed to advance the momentum toward peace, and in that sense it achieved its purpose. [emphasis added] (quoted in The Prime Ministers, p.302)

Begin benefited from the foundation set by Nixon and the groundwork laid by Rabin, both of whom left their work unfinished. 

But that was not the last we heard from Rabin.

After serving as prime minister from 1974 to 1977, Rabin became prime minister again in 1992.

And he was still focused on peace. In 1994, he received the Nobel Peace Prize for his part in the Oslo Accords, along with Shimon Peres and Arafat. Rabin also signed a peace treaty with Jordan that same year.

In late 1995, Rabin described to Yehuda Avner his view of the Middle East, a description that 25 years later sounds familiar:

Number one: Israel is surrounded by two concentric circles. The inner circle is comprised of our immediate neighbors—Egypt, Jordan, Syria, and Lebanon, and, by extension, Saudi Arabia. The outer circle comprises their neighbors—Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, Sudan, Yemen and Libya. Virtually all of them are rogue states, and some are going nuclear.

Number two, Iranian-inspired Islamic fundamentalism constitutes a threat to the inner circle no less than it does to Israel. Islamic fundamentalism is striving to destabilize the Gulf Emirates, has already created havoc in Syria, leaving twenty thousand dead, in Algeria, leaving one hundred thousand dead, in Egypt, leaving twenty-two thousand dead, in Jordan, leaving eight thousand dead, in the Horn of Africa—the Sudan and Somalia—leaving fourteen thousand dead, and in Yemen, leaving twelve thousand dead. And now it is gaining influence in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.

Iran is the banker, pouring millions into the West Bank and Gaza in the form of social welfare and health and education programs, so that it can win the hearts of the population and feed religious fanaticism.

Thus, a confluence of interest has arisen between Israel and the inner circle, whose long-term strategic interest is the same as ours: to lessen the destabilizing consequences from the outer circle. At the end of the day, the inner circle recognizes they have less to fear from Israel than from their Muslim neighbors, not least from radicalized Islamic powers going nuclear.

Number three: the Arab-Israeli conflict was always considered to be a political one: a conflict between Arabs and Israelis. The fundamentalists are doing their level best to turn it into a religious conflict—Muslim against Jew, Islam against Judaism. And while a political conflict is possible to solve through negotiation and compromise, there are no solutions to a theological conflict. Then it is jihad—religious war: their God against our God. Were they to win, our conflict would go from war to war, and from stalemate to stalemate. [emphasis added] (p. 707)

The context for this description of the Middle East is Rabin's response to Avner's question as to why he shook Arafat's hand at the signing of the Oslo Accords:

He and his PLO represent the last vestige of secular Palestinian nationalism. We have nobody else to deal with. It is either the PLO or nothing. It is a long shot for a possible settlement, or the certainty of no settlement at all at a time when the radicals are going nuclear.

With the growing threat of Islamic fundamentalism, negotiating with secular Palestinian Arabs made sense to Rabin.

Neither he -- nor then-President Clinton -- saw the potential in negotiating and working with other Arab states within those concentric circles. There's no reason they would, when all the contemporary thinking was focused on the Palestinian Arabs as a key to peace, a cold peace in line with the peace treaties signed with Egypt and Jordan with no thought of normalization. According to that thinking, it is either the Palestinian Arabs or nothing.

The Middle East achievements of the Trump administration this year took Rabin's outline and acted on it.

What Rabin might have further accomplished, we will never know.

He was stopped again, this time by a bullet, from pursuing peace.

But like Nixon and Rabin, Trump too will not be pursuing his vision for peace to its full extent.

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What is "The Jewish vote"? (Daled Amos)

This past election, once again the perpetual question that inevitably came up was about 'the Jewish vote': which candidate won it -- and why does it even matter? The Democrats consistently brag that they own the Jewish vote, while the Republicans just keep on claiming that they are just on the verge of acquiring it.

This bipartisan fight over the Jewish vote can be traced back to Herbert Hoover.

In their 2012 book "Herbert Hoover and The Jews," Rafael Medoff and Sonja Wentling propose that the Jewish vote became a thing in the leadup to the 1944 presidential election, when Roosevelt ran for his 4th term, against Thomas Dewey. 

A review of that book notes that in contrast to Franklin Delano Roosevelt, it was Hoover -- 10 years after he was voted out of office -- who stood up for European Jews. Hoover publicly advocated for the US to open its doors to Jewish refugees and repeatedly spoke out for Jews during the Holocaust years.

The book also reveals that although, at the time, Rabbi Stephen Wise and the Jewish leadership were wary of Republican politicians in general and of Hoover in particular, Republicans such as

Hoover himself, Senator Robert Taft and Congresswoman Clare Boothe Luce espoused strongly pro-Zionist and pro-rescue planks that were incorporated into the Republican convention’s 1944 platform. Only this threat to their monopoly of the “Jewish vote,” Medoff and Wentling argue, forced FDR and the Democrats to adopt similar planks, which have ever since remained unshakable for both parties. [emphasis added]

But why would anyone ever bother with the Jewish vote to begin with? After all, for a voting bloc, there is not a lot to recommend it:

o  Jews are about 1.5% of the American population

o  That percentage is about half of what it was 50 years ago
o  And this percentage is continuing to shrink
o  As a bloc, it is not even unified -- with religious Jews tending to vote Republican and non-religious voting Democratic
o  While the vast majority of Jews support Israel, come election time Israel does not rank as a major issue

So what is the big deal?

In a 2016 video, Jonathan Sarna, a professor of American Jewish history at Brandeis, listed some of the reasons why politicians vie over the Jewish vote, even despite its small size:

o  Despite their small numbers, Jews turn out to vote in high numbers -- according to one estimate, 85% of all eligible Jews vote in presidential elections

o  Jews historically contribute large amounts of money to political parties -- both Democratic and Republican.
o  Jews happen to live in key states that presidential candidates want to carry, such as Florida
o  There are indications that the Democratic party is moving away from Israel, which may present an opportunity for Republicans to capture more of the Jewish vote

Four years earlier, in a 2012 article, Shmuel Rosner added another reason why politicians consider  is important, and why the attention to the Jewish vote is out of proportion to its numbers:

One would say it's the influence that Jews have in the media and their solid presence in notable positions. Others would point to their presence in celebrity circles and the arts, while still others would look to the over-representation of Jews in American politics, as advisors, consultants, pollsters, analysts and elected officials.

But you can really just call it the bellwether factor. Jews are seen as major political players because they believe that their vote really counts, because they project self-importance. They might not tip elections, but they appear as if they can. 

Going further back to 2010, Pew Research found indications that the perpetual prediction of Republican gains among the Jewish vote might actually be happening:

The religious landscape is far more favorable to Republicans than was the case as recently as 2008. Half of white non-Hispanic Catholics (50%) currently identify with or lean toward the Republican Party, up nine points since 2008. Among religiously unaffiliated voters, who have been stalwart supporters of Democrats in recent elections, 29% currently identify with or lean toward the Republican Party, up from 25% in 2008 (the proportion identifying as Democrats has fallen seven points since then). And 33% of Jewish voters identify with or lean toward the Republican Party, up from 20% in 2008. [emphasis added]

In a different article, Rosner finds indications that Jews are not actually trending Republican -- they are trending libertarian, meaning that losses in the Democratic share of the Jewish vote are not necessarily translating straight into Republican gains.

But either way, Democrats cannot take the Jewish vote for granted anymore -- despite what they may say publicly.

In 2006, a Washington Post featured an article Future of Orthodox Jewish Vote Has Implications for GOP, based not only on the conservative views of Orthodox Jews, but also on their higher birth rate.

To which Jill Jacobs, executive director of T'ruah, responded:

I’m not quite ready to buy this prediction. After all, who’s to say whether today’s Orthodox babies will grow up voting Republican, Democratic, Green, or Libertarian. (or whether today’s Orthodox babies will stay Orthodox, become Renewal rabbis, or even succumb the Jews for Jesus subway ads) Still, it’s an interesting assumption that Orthodox communities will always produce kids and adults who vote according to Jewish self-interest, narrowly defined.

Yeah, and who's to say whether the Democratic party will some day stand idly by as the radical left progressives of their party openly attacked not only Israel but also accuse Israel's supporters of dual loyalty?

Then there is the argument on how to even define, and measure, the Jewish vote.

Yossie Hollander, chairman of the Israeli Institute for Economic Planning, claims Contrary to popular belief, most US Jews support Trump.

His reasoning?

No one is counting the Jewish vote correctly because they are overlooking certain components of the American Jewish population:

o  Israelis who emigrate to the US and are citizens with voting rights -- estimates of the size of this group range from 600,000 to one million. Pollsters do not know how to reach and measure this group and manage to measure only a very small percentage of it.

o  The ultra-Orthodox -- while people talk about them as a political component of the Jewish vote, Hollander writes that because the percentage of their children is relatively higher compared to the average population, the number of eligible voters is not the same ratio as in other populations, and so they end up not being surveyed.

o  Immigrants from the former Soviet Union and their children -- there are about 350,000 of them and for a variety of reasons, they are rarely surveyed.

o  The "Southwest Belt" -- Over the past 30 years, there has been massive immigration in US population centers from the north to areas in Orange County California, San Diego County, Nevada, Arizona, Texas, Atlanta, and Florida. Jews are part of this migration, and as a result, the Jewish communities there are growing rapidly, mostly in conservative areas. According to Hollander, most polling models still use the old population model. 

That is a criticism of the methodology behind the polls.

 Compare that with political consultant Jeff Ballabon, who takes a more sociological approach and compares the Jewish vote with the Irish vote.

Ever notice that no one talks about politicians going after "the Irish vote?"

To be statistically meaningful or politically relevant, a characteristic must impact voting behavior. For example, there are almost 35 million Americans of Irish descent, but it’s been decades since presidential campaigns engaged in sustained Irish voter outreach. That’s because it’s long been difficult to distinguish anything sufficiently unique – identifiably Irish - about their political behavior. Most vote precisely as their education, profession, income, and zip code alone would predict. The exceptions tend to be active, practicing Catholics who elevate concerns relevant to their faith...

The use of the term “Jewish” interchangeably to mean both ethnicity (like “Irish”) and faith (like “Catholic”) obfuscates it, but the same phenomenon is true for America’s Jews.  [emphasis added]

According to Ballabon, a large segment of American Jews, like Irish Americans, are arguably not uniquely Jewish in their own political behavior:

The American Left seethes with enmity towards President Trump and is thoroughly wedded to the Democrats. The vast majority of Jews who follow suit proudly confirm that they do so as progressives with universal concerns; not parochially – not as part of a “Jewish Vote.” Even when they profess concern over antisemitism, it’s glaringly limited to those alleged by progressives to be malefactors. [emphasis added]

Whether radical groups put the word "Jewish" in their name or name their group after a popular saying in Pirkei Avot, that often appears to be the full extent of their identification with their fellow Jews.

Meanwhile, as for the latest fight for bragging rights to the Jewish vote, the results of this last presidential election seem to validate that the Jewish vote is no longer limited to being a Democratic cheerleading squad.

While Biden easily got the majority of the Jewish vote -- there are indications that Trump improved his numbers for the Jewish vote, which made it possible to win the state of Florida, where an AP exit poll indicated he received 43% of the Jewish vote compared to 56% for Biden. Nationally, exit polls indicated Trump received the highest percent of the Jewish vote for a Republican in decades (30%), while the Jewish vote for Biden was low for a Democrat (68%).

There are hints that the conservative element of the Jewish vote may finally be coming into its own -- and the same Jewish vote that helped Biden in some states was successfully siphoned off by Trump to win others.

But at what cost is the Jewish vote being split?

Jonathan Tobin writes that Jews in America are among Trump’s fiercest opponents – but also his most fervent supporters:

For Jewish liberals, Trump is an ally of antisemites and a proto-authoritarian whose character and conduct, statements mark him as a unique threat to democracy. They can’t understand why even one Jew would consider voting for him.

...It’s not for nothing that the Jewish Democratic Council has produced ads that more or less accuse Trump of being a Nazi and, despite the offensive nature of these analogies, have found them resonating with many liberal Jews.

Tobin points out that Jews, like the rest of America, are divided into 2 political cultures which feed off of different circles on social media -- circles that usually don't include the other side. The overwhelming majority of non-Orthodox Jews identify with the social justice agenda of the Democratic Party and think it forms the core of Judaism and place it higher as a priority than support for Israel. On the other hand, Orthodox Jews, and non-Orthodox Jews who identify as politically conservative, see support for Israel as a decisive issue.

At home, the Orthodox and conservative groups don't see Trump’s embrace of nationalism as a threat. Instead, they see it as the best way to defend Jews against the antisemitism of the intersectional left which is assuming a more prominent and vocal role in the Democratic Party. 

Even Jews who are members of the same, educated classes who find Trump so offensive, share the distrust that the working-class has for the mainstream media that made it their mission to defeat him, working together with the liberal social media to censor conservative views and unflattering stories about Democrats.

The choice boils down to how much value you place on having a president who may be flawed, but is historically pro-Israel and supportive of a conservative political agenda, as opposed to the cherished hope of Trump opponents: that a moderate liberal like Biden can restore a sense of pre-2016 normalcy, while also keeping in check the Democrats’ radical wing.

In comparison with everything we hear about the need to address the divide between American Jews and Israelis, this developing rift within the Jewish community itself, as reflected by the split in the Jewish vote, is being overlooked. 

But it is unlikely to go away.

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Dragging Them Across The Finish Line: Cunningham, Biden And Abbas (Daled Amos)

A couple of weeks ago, Stacey Matthews -- who also writes under the pseudonym Sister Toldjah -- wrote a post for Legal Insurrection, NC Gov. Roy Cooper Caught on Hot Mic Telling Joe Biden They’ll Drag Cal Cunningham Over Finish Line. Cunningham is the Democratic Senate nominee for North Carolina who, despite a scandal, may win his election anyway.

That is the opinion of North Carolina's Democratic Governor Roy Cooper, who was overheard on a hot mic as he assured Joe Biden:

“I think we’re gonna all get across the line. I think Cal’s gonna get across the line, too. I know that’s frustrating. We’ll get him across.” [emphasis added]

There was a time when scandals had consequences, but Cunningham is laying low for the duration of his campaign and may just win.

Speaking of Joe Biden, there is no clear indication of what effect the questions surrounding his son Hunter will have on the presidential election. Like Cunningham, Joe Biden has not mounted a counter-attack against the accusations.

Then again, why should he?

The only thing getting more attention than the apparent scandal surrounding Biden's son, is the transparent attempt of the media -- both social and mainstream -- to bury the issue.

Writing last week about Glenn Greenwald's resignation from The Intercept, which Greenwald helped found, Matt Taibi reports on pressure for journalists to help the Democrats cross the finish line:

In the last few weeks I’ve heard from multiple well-known journalists going through struggles in their newsrooms, with pressure to avoid certain themes in campaign coverage often central to their worries. There are many reporters out there — most of them quite personally hostile to Donald Trump — who are grating under what they perceive as relentless pressure to publish material favorable to the Democratic Party cause.

We'll soon see how successful that pressure has been.

Putting domestic politics aside, there is an apparent effort, on an international level, to help an old favorite finally cross the finish line.

Al-Monitor is reporting that Palestinian international peace conference gaining traction

In an exclusive interview with Al-Monitor, the Permanent Observer of Palestine to the United Nations, Riyad Mansour, sounded upbeat about the interest of the world community in participating in the suggested conference due to take place after the inauguration of a new US president in 2021.

The Security Council discussions revealed near-unanimous support for the initiative presented by Abbas at the UN General Assembly on Sept. 25. [emphasis added]

France has come out in support of The Abraham Accords, saying that while preferring a two-state solution, they are open to other possibilities, if both sides agree.

Germany hosted a meeting between Israeli and Emirati diplomats last month and pledged its continued support.

The US of course is fully in support of The Abraham Accords and has made a point of letting Abbas know that the Palestinian Authority is no longer going to get a free ride.

Nevertheless, according to Al-Monitor:

Comments at the Security Council session showed that France, Germany, Belgium, China and others all spoke in support of the conference. Even the United States and Israel, who are opposed to the idea, were forced to engage with the concept and take it seriously in their deliberation.

Just what "forced to engage" means is not clear.

If you follow the link, it is clear the US and Israel are not 'forced' -- they are clearly and justifiably skeptical:

U.S. Ambassador Kelly Craft was skeptical that a conference would produce results, but said the Trump administration, Israel’s closest and most important ally, was open to the possibility raised by Abbas.

“We have no objection to meeting with international partners to discuss the issue. But I have to ask, how is this different than every other meeting convened on this issue over the past 60 years?” she asked the council.

Israel’s new U.N. Ambassador Gilad Erdan opposed the Palestinian call, accusing Abbas of refusing “every peace offer made by the state of Israel” and attacking Israel’s recent agreements with the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Sudan instead of viewing them as “a new opportunity to kick-start negotiations.”

The fact is that there is no indication that there is anything new being offered here. 

Is this a serious attempt to achieve a two-state solution or just an attempt to help Abbas out of a jam, 'saving' him from having to make the kinds of concessions required for peace, and failing to do so -- proving how irrelevant he really is?

What makes all of this possible of course are the presidential elections this week.

This conference is only feasible if Biden becomes president, since he would be expected to support this old, failed approach to peace.

Joe Biden, as Obama's vice president, would never have seen the potential of diplomacy that would focus on the benefits of normalizing relations between Israel and Arab countries. During the Obama administration, their foreign policy achievements were restoring diplomatic relations with Myanmar and Cuba while strengthening Iran.

As president, Biden (and Kamala Harris) would be amenable to the insistence of the progressive wing of the Democratic party to take up the cause of the Palestinian Arabs -- something not at the top of the agenda of the Gulf states.

Also, there is every reason to believe that Biden, and Harris would push for relaxing sanctions on Iran and for the re-establishment of the Iran deal in one form or another which would only set much of the Arab world on edge and help to push many of those Arab countries into the arms of Israel, to begin with.

The future of the Middle East will depend to a great extent on this week's elections and on Europe's old habits and knee-jerk response to the region, as it attempts to save Abbas and the Palestinian Authority from the changing Arab world.

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When The Media Extols Evil: Hitler, Farrakhan and Ahlam Tamimi (Daled Amos)

By Daled Amos

On October 17, Natalie Hopkinson -- an associate professor at Howard University -- wrote a glowing opinion piece in The New York Times on antisemite Louis Farrakhan. Entitled The Women Behind the Million Man March, the article recounts the role played by Cora Masters Barry, wife of then DC Mayor Marion Barry, in mobilizing the women who played a significant role in the success of the march.

Hopkinson notes that

A key supporter of the event was Marion Barry, who had just returned to the Washington mayor’s office after a stint in federal prison. [emphasis added]

Nothing, however, is mentioned of Farrakhan's Jew-hatred and homophobia.

As Bari Weiss put it

If you read the oped and knew nothing about Farrakhan, you would think he was a gentleman.

When criticism was made of this whitewash of Farrakhan, Hopkinson responded by reminding her critics that she is a 'scholar':

But Hopkinson was just warming up, falling back on Black oppression and negating the oppression of others:

Rafael Medoff, the founding director of The David Wyman Institute for Holocaust Studies, compares Hopkinson's depiction of Farrakhan with the New York Times interview that Anne O'Hare McCormick did in 1933, Hitler Seeks Jobs for All Germans.

Medoff points out that Hitler did not waste any time persecuting Germany's Jews once he took office:

During Hitler’s first months in power, there was extensive coverage in the American press of his anti-Jewish policies, such as the mass firing of Jews from their jobs, public burnings of books by Jewish authors, and sporadic anti-Semitic mob violence. To counter this negative attention, Hitler in July 1933 granted Anne O’Hare McCormick of the New York Times his first exclusive interview with an American reporter since becoming chancellor of Germany.

To her credit, McCormick did in fact take the opportunity to ask about Germany's treatment of its Jews -- but did not follow up when her subject replied:

"It is true we have made discriminatory laws, but they are directed not so much against the Jews as for the German people, to give equal economic opportunity to the majority.

"You say the Jews suffer, but so do millions of others. Why should not the Jews share the privations which burden the entire nation?

According to Medoff, unlike Hopkinson's devotion to Farrakhan, there is no indication that McCormick was actually sympathetic to her subject and his views.

But the fact remains that in both cases, favorable pieces in The New York Times contributed to positive images for their subjects -- and only McCormick bothered to attempt a balanced article.

These days, whitewashing hate -- especially hatred of Jews -- seems to be in style.

This month, Jordan deported terrorist Nizar Tamimi, husband of Hamas terrorist Ahlam Tamimi, the mastermind of the Sbarro massacre. He is now in Qatar. Meanwhile, Ahlam Tamimi, whom Jordan has refused to extradite to the US despite their extradition treaty, risks the possibility of being apprehended and being turned over to the US if she leaves to join her husband.

What is a terrorist to do?

You turn to the media -- in this case, the always obliging BBC, whose program 'Trending' featured a whitewashing of the terrorist couple by BBC Arabic’s Rania ‘Attar:

Not once during the entire 6 minutes of broadcast could one detect the slightest hint of criticism towards either of the two from BBC Arabic. The social media solidarity campaign supporting them was uncritically portrayed as a matter of freedom of speech for the weak and persecuted. No less notable were the selective omissions from the couple’s violent history: the programme referred to Ahlam as though she was merely “accused of involvement” in the Jerusalem bombing (despite her own public admission of the crime) and failed to mention the reason for Nizar’s imprisonment at all.

The programme, entitled “#Jordan: Ahlam_Tamimi_Your_Voice_is_Loud_and_Clear”, was hosted by BBC Arabic’s Rania ‘Attar; one of Trending’s regular presenters. Describing the Tamimis as “freed detainees from Israeli prisons”, ‘Attar told her audience how the two met in the halls of an Israeli military court, got engaged while in prison and married once they were both released in the 2011 Gilad Shalit prisoner exchange, against a background of sentimental pictures of their newfound life in Amman, Jordan.

The BBC host continued with the latest developments in the couple’s story, explaining that Jordan had not renewed “detainee” Nizar’s permit to reside in the kingdom with his wife (herself a Jordanian citizen), resulting in his expulsion to Qatar earlier this month. She then quoted Nizar’s brother Mahmoud who claimed that the decision to expel the husband was related to the American extradition request currently pending against his wife and that the family considers it an indirect Jordanian acquiescence to American dictates.

Next it was explained what had triggered the social media campaign which gave the programme its hashtag-style name. Last Tuesday a radio host was supposedly documented censoring Tamimi as she was on air, making her plea to King ‘Abdullah II to let her husband back into Jordan. The Jordanian-Palestinian solidarity campaign which followed used the hashtag “#Ahlam_Tamimi_Your_Voice_is_Loud_and_Clear”. Among the many comments shown, ‘Attar featured those that praised Tamimi as a woman “of great value” and “honour”, whose story should be heard by “everyone”.

The host concluded the programme with a full, uncensored video of Ahlam Tamimi addressing the King for a second time. Only afterwards were viewers made aware of what ‘Attar referred to as “the main landmarks of Ahlam’s life”, with the following statements being used to elaborate on her terrorist activity:

“First woman to join al-Qassam battalions, Hamas’s military wing […]

“She was accused of involvement in the ‘Sbarro’ restaurant bombing in Jerusalem […]

“In 2013, American Department of Justice ranked her on the list of ‘most dangerous wanted terrorists’, under the accusation of conspiring to kill Americans in the ‘Sbarro’ restaurant bombing in Jerusalem”

While the program was first broadcast on October 8th, protests against the program finally led to its being removed from Facebook, Twitter and YouTube on October 16th and from the BBC Arabic website itself on October 19th.

A BBC spokesperson later told The Jewish News:

Following an editorial review we found that this segment was in breach of our editorial guidelines and we removed the clip from our digital platforms last week. We accept that the segment should not have been shown and apologise for the offence caused.

This example of BBC moral deafness is matched only by Sarah Montague, the presenter of BBC’s Radio 4 Today program. Back on August 12, 2001, Montague called Arnold Roth -- whose daughter was one of Tamimi's victims. The family was sitting Shiva.

Montague asked whether Roth would be willing to come onto Radio 4 Today by phone the following morning to be in a two-sided interview with a man called al-Masri, the father of the human bomb [who carried out the Sbarro massacre]. This would enable the audience to hear “the two sides” of the atrocity. [emphasis added]

Two sides?

Only if you believe that a terrorist who targets children in a pizzeria is another man's freedom fighter.

But how about if you just hijack airplanes?

On August 29, 1969, Leila Khaled was a member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), the terrorist group that hijacked TWA Flight 840 from Rome to Tel Aviv, diverting it to Damascus.

On September 6, 1970, Leila Khaled and an accomplice, attempted to hijack El Al Flight 219 from Amsterdam to New York City as part of a series of almost simultaneous hijackings carried out by the PFLP:

Soon after takeoff, [pilot Uri] Bar-Lev and his co-pilot got word that two terrorists were hijacking the plane. They had shot and gravely wounded an El Al flight attendant and had put a gun to the head of another, demanding to be let into the cockpit, which Bar-Lev had immediately locked.

Bar-Lev saved the passengers by putting the plane into a steep dive. Khaled was captured -- and later released by Great Britain in a hostage exchange.

Fast-forward to 2020.

On September 23, Leila Khaled was scheduled to give a talk at San Francisco State University, entitled “Whose Narratives? Gender, Justice, & Resistance.” Khaled was helpfully described as a "Palestinian feminist, militant and leader."

In the end, the talk was stopped by Zoom and Facebook, right at the point where Khaled said "people have the right to fight those who occupy their land by any means possible, including weapons," and despite multiple attempts to hold the talk online since then, so far it has continued to be (mostly) blocked.

Associate professor Rabab Abdulhadi, director of the Arab and Muslim Ethnicities and Diasporas Initiative (AMED) was to be the moderator -- and at this point, Abdulhadi's comments defending having a terrorist speak to the students is predictable:

Abdulhadi claimed the outrage over her invitation to Khaled was manufactured by the "Israel Lobby Industry," and said opposition to her was "catering to donors, catering to the right-wing agenda and catering to Islamophobia." Abdulhadi doubled down on her comments later on in the video, stating that the university president "only talked to Zionists, only talked to one brand."

"The university is participating in a very discriminatory, racist, defamatory, smearing campaign by the Zionist bullies and their right-wing, neoliberal and wealthy allies," Abdulhadi said. She also claimed the talk with Khaled was only canceled because of the university's desire to retain wealthy Jewish donors, alleging the school's president told donors she would "crush the Palestinians" and "crush AMED studies."

The reason for the opposition to giving a podium to a terrorist is stated in a September 17 letter from 86 organizations, a letter Abdulhadi avoids addressing:

We fully acknowledge that faculty members like Prof. Abdulhadi have every right, as private citizens, to express anti-Zionist views and engage in anti-Zionist activism. However, we believe Abdulhadi's continuous and intentional use of her SFSU position and the name and resources of the University to indoctrinate students with her own personal animus towards the Jewish state and its supporters and to promote anti-Israel activism, does not constitute a legitimate use of academic freedom, but an abuse of it.

The full letter points to a few of Abdulhadi's AMED activities, such as:

In 2013, AMED co-sponsored an on-campus event that involved students using stencils to create placards and T-shirts with the image of a keffiyeh-clad Leila Khaled holding an AK-47 rifle accompanied by the message, “Resistance is Not Terrorism,” and other stencils with the message, “My Heroes Have Always Killed Colonizers.” In the wake of public outrage over the event’s unambiguous lionizing of a convicted terrorist and promotion of terrorism against Israel, Prof. Abdulhadi defended the event as a legitimate use of academic freedom. [emphasis added]

The BBC's fawning coverage of Hamas terrorist Ahlam Tamimi and Abdulhadi's manipulation of terrorist hijacker Leila Khaled as a resistant icon is reminiscent of the episode of Rasmea Odeh, who was convicted in 1970 and imprisoned in Israel for 10 years for the supermarket bombing in Jerusalem which killed 2 Hebrew University students --  Edward Joffe and Leon Kanner. 

Odeh later lied about her conviction when she entered the US and was eventually convicted of immigration fraud and deported from the US -- but not before she became a cause celebre and described by The Rasmea Defense Committee as an “icon of the Palestine liberation movement.”

It is one thing to give Hitler a pass, or to whitewash Farrakhan -- but in the case of Ahlam Tamimi, BBC Arabic deliberately hid facts from its audience, such as Tamimi's pride when she actually admitted to the murder of innocent schoolchildren.

 And in the cases of Leila Khaled and Rasmea Odeh, there is an attempt to go a step further and to not only use terrorists to energize protest against Israel but also use their public appearances to encourage outright hatred.

Taken in the context of the increase in antisemitic rhetoric from within the progressive wing of the Democratic party and the rise in the number of antisemitic attacks by radicals on both the right and the left, Jews will continue to be a target in the US.

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It's not Arab fathers' Middle East any more, either (Daled Amos)

By Daled Amos

After writing my last post, Not your father's Middle East, I came across an article in Al-Monitor -- For Arab youth, the future is in the Gulf. It makes the same point made by Zvi in the comments to my post, namely that the Arab youth wants change, and sees the UAE as the example to follow in that direction.

Earlier this month, a Dubai public relations company acdaa-bcw, published a survey of Arab youth -- here defined as being between the ages 18 to 24, which according to the report number over 200 million people.

According to the survey, it is

the largest of its kind of the region’s largest demographic, and covers five of the Gulf Cooperation Council states (Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Saudi Arabia and the UAE), North Africa (Algeria, Egypt, Libya, Morocco, Sudan and Tunisia), and the Levant (Jordan, Iraq, Lebanon, Palestinian Territories, Syria and Yemen). [p. 6]

In the survey, Afshin Molavi, a Senior Fellow at the Foreign Policy Institute of the Johns Hopkins University, writes that the results of the survey remind him of the fall of the Soviet Union, after which:

the historian John Lukacs famously said, “the isms have all become wasms.” I am reminded of this line as I reflect on the 12th Annual ASDA’A BCW Arab Youth Survey, a remarkable annual barometer of youth sentiments across a vital part of the world. For many young Arabs, it seems, the idea of an ‘-ism’ - an all-encompassing ideology to solve their problems - seems almost as anachronistic as a landline telephone. Pragmatism, not ideological ‘isms’, rules the day among young Arabs, and in an era of pandemic-driven insecurity and political upheaval, this essential fact offers us hope for the region’s future. [p. 28]

Time will tell whether Molavi's comparison pans out, but the poll results do indicate a potentially dynamic shift in where the Middle East is headed.

And in the survey, the model that the Arab youth point to as the example for a better life and a better future is the United Arab Emirates -- for the 9th straight year.

Al-Monitor points to the events that would have formed the experiences of those who took the poll, and what they would have missed:

The oldest of the Arab youth cohort would have been born in 1996. This means they missed the Iranian revolution and the Iran-Iraq war, the Egyptian and Jordanian peace agreements with Israel, the first Palestinian intifada, and the Lebanese and Algerian civil wars, and probably have only the vaguest memories, if any at all, of Saddam Hussein’s tyranny in Iraq and his overthrow in 2003 or the second intifada, to name just a few of the seminal events that shaped the region.

This cohort’s formative memories are instead of the Arab Spring uprisings of 2011, the wars in Syria, Yemen and Libya, the coronavirus pandemic, and governing elites who seem to be doing more than fine themselves and stay in power for really long periods of time, but are unable to provide jobs, pick up the trash or keep the electricity running for the citizens they supposedly serve.

That Arab Spring may have fizzled, but it did have an effect -- and young Arabs may be protesting again against the status quo:

Following the events of the Arab Spring, when young Arabs in many countries took to the streets, calling for reforms and an end to corruption, four nations witnessed a change in government – Egypt, Libya, Tunisia and Yemen. Eight years later, 2019 recorded a similar surge in youth-led protests, especially in Algeria, Iraq, Lebanon and Sudan, once again, leading to changes in leadership. 

When asked specifically, to young people in these four nations, 82 per cent of young people in Lebanon, 89 per cent each in Algeria and Iraq, and 88 per cent in Sudan said they supported the anti-government protests. 

Young Arabs in Iraq (82 per cent) are most optimistic that the protests will lead to real positive change. [p. 19]

The survey also covers how young Arabs feel about the Palestinian issue:

One in four (25 per cent) young Arabs said resolving the Palestinian-Israeli conflict must be a top consideration, while encouraging technological innovation was cited as a key driver of progress by more than one in five (22 per cent) young Arabs. [p. 25]

When asked to rank their priorities, corruption and jobs ranked as more important, while defeating terrorism was equally important.

So what about the Abraham Accords?

The survey does not cover reaction to the Abraham Accords. Al-Monitor also points out that 

The survey took place before the UAE normalized ties with Israel, but the guess here is that that decision is unlikely to dent the positive perception of the Emirates among youth. The Palestinian issue still holds sway in Egypt, Jordan and Lebanon as a top foreign policy priority, not so in the Gulf, where concerns about Iran dominate, according to polling by David Pollack of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy last year.

That is likely true.

In any case, events seem to be leading in a direction that will bring prosperity -- and peace -- in the Arab world.

There was a time when we thought of Arab in-fighting as a good thing, as something that kept the Arab world divided and less of a threat against Israel. But real peace in the Arab world, especially the kind that sees Israel as an ally for peace and prosperity -- and not just as a military ally against the Iranian threat -- could be even better for Israel in the long term.

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Not your father's Middle East (Daled Amos)

  

What do the UAE and Bahrain get out of the Abraham Accords?

Putting aside an ally against the threat of Iran there are benefits in terms of trade and commerce.

And technology.

WIRED quotes Kushal Shah, of the consulting company Roland Berger on how the UAE, already an innovation hub in the MidEast, benefits from the agreement:

“The Israel tech sector is super advanced, so obtaining some of that knowhow—the sharing of studies, research and development—will help expand and improve the UAE’s talent pool. Education for the UAE tech sector will be massive. The post-grad learning opportunities are substantial.”

But while Israel is an acknowledged leader in global technology, it's not as if Israel is late to the game.

Yehoshafat Harkabi wrote a doctoral thesis a month before the outbreak of the 1967 Six Day War. It was later published and then appeared in English as Arab Attitudes To Israel. In a chapter on Israel, he has a section on Favourable and Ambivalent References.

In the introduction to his book, Harkabi writes:

The Arab attitude to Israel is, of course, affected by the vicissitudes of time and war can certainly change public attitudes and make descriptions of previous situations out of date. It seems, however, that my description of the attitude is still valid. [p. xv; all quotes are from the English edition]

Let's see if Harkabi is right.

He writes that the many pejorative Arab statements he quotes in his book are not the whole story. Instead, there were statements made in the Arab world that praised Israel and presented it as a model to be imitated. In 1955, no less than Nasser himself recommended in a speech in Gaza:

All I ask of you is to persevere, and unite, and act, and be patient, and take an example and a lesson. [emphasis added; p. 337]

A lesson in what?

Harkabi sums it up that in the Arab praises of Israel,

major prominence is given to her efficiency and modernity, her achievements in technology and science, her thorough planning instead of improvisation. Israel stands for dynamic enterprise and achievement. [emphasis added]

Of course, these compliments are not for the sake of praising Israel, but rather to point out attributes that the Arabs should imitate -- especially the Palestinian Arabs. Harkabi refers to Arnold Hottinger's book, The Arabs: Their History, Culture and Place in the Modern World where he writes of the Palestinian Arabs that they view Israel's victory in 1948 as being because of her modernity, an ideal to be imitated.

This recognition of Israeli accomplishments in science and technology even led to arguments among the Arabs themselves.

In 1962, The Syrian prime minister, Nazim al-Qudsi spoke to students and noted the high percentage of engineers and physicians in Israel -- and emphasized the need for Syria and other Arab countries to follow suit. For that, he was severely criticized by Cairo Radio and the Egyptian press.

A Damascus Radio commentator snapped back:

Qudsi drew the attention of the Arab nation to the truth: Israel our enemy is not--as Nasserist propaganda describes her--weak and unstable in her social structure; she is a State with various possibilities and human potential. By revealing this truth, Qudsi is stimulating the Arabs to comprehensive action and progress in all fields. [p. 337]

Aref al-Aref, a journalist, historian and former mayor of East Jerusalem, wrote in his book The Disaster about how Jews study and delve into matters. Similarly, Walid Qamhawi -- who later led the Palestinian National Fund -- praises Israel numerous times in his book Disaster and Reconstruction. [p. 338]

So, no, Israel did not just suddenly appear on the world stage as a modern leader in technology.

And it's not as if the Arab world is only now recognizing that fact and wanting to emulate it -- the same attitude of admiration for Israeli technological prowess existed back then too.

So why is it only now that countries in the Arab world, including those who already have covert relations with Israel, willing to step forward to sign agreements -- and even normalize relations -- with Israel?

One reason, of course, is the threat of Iran

But another reason is how the Middle East has changed.

In the course of a wide-ranging interview he did back in August with Yishai Fleisher, Dr. Mordechai Kedar explains the Abraham Accords against the background of Middle East history over the past 30+ years.

Dr. Kedar notes how radical leaders such as Abdul Nasser of Egypt, Hafez Al-Assad of Syria, Saddam Hussein of Iraq and Muammar Gaddafi of Libya once dominated the Middle East, under the aegis of the then Soviet Union and wanted to unite the Arab world.

In such a situation, more-traditional Arab countries such as Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Kuwait and Oman felt under threat from these radical leaders who considered those countries as counter-revolutionaries because they stuck with the old traditions and did not actively partake in their attacks on Israel.

But now, over the past 10 years, things have changed.

The Arab countries that once were in the forefront, no longer are.

o  Syria is suffering from a bloodbath

o  Iraq is dysfunctional
o  Libya is a swamp of problems
o  Egypt has its own problems with the Nile, rapid population growth and unemployment

Under such conditions, the dream of Arab nationalism has been a failure.

And Israel is not the enemy anymore.

Egypt made peace, albeit a cold one, with Israel.

Likewise, Jordan has a 'cold' peace with Israel.

Between Egypt and Jordan on the one hand, and these dysfunctional states on the other, Saudi Arabia and the other traditional countries feel free to pursue their own interests -- and those interests include living in peace, developing their countries and preparing the day when their oil runs out.

That means working with those countries that are leading the way in progress.
And that means working with Israel.

That segment begins at 22:54 below automatically.

  

That is quite a change.

But this is not to say that the road to real peace is certain and secure.

It is not.

Dr. Kedar points out that during the 1990's, both Qatar and Tunisia had good relations with Israel to the extent that Israel opened commercial offices in those countries flying the Israeli flag. Those were not embassies, but they were still official.

Both countries canceled their agreements with Israel following the outbreak of the second intifada.

An agreement can be breached.

It remains to be seen whether the Abraham Accords will meet expectations.

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Gal Gadot: Famous Movie Star -- And Lightning Rod For Anti-Israel Haters (Daled Amos)

By Daled Amos

Movie star Gal Gadot is not a controversial movie actress, but she has attracted some controversy.

It started with Gadot's title role in the 2017 movie Wonder Woman, when it became an issue whether Gadot was white or a woman of color.

For its part, ComicBook.com alerted its followers that There IS A Person Of Color In The Lead Role:

Wonder Woman hits theaters tonight in some places, but there seems to be a misconception out there about the film's lead character, and it's frankly a bit absurd. So consider this a PSA -- if you will -- for those who have called out concerns about there being no person of color in the film.

It might come as a shock, but there are people of color in the film, and one of them is in the lead role.

Yep, with a quick google search, it turns out that Gal Gadot is not actually Caucasian, but is in fact Israeli. [emphasis added]

 

Gal Gadot. Youtube screencap

Now Gadot is taking on a new and very different role -- and again there is controversy, this time over her being cast in the lead role of a movie about Cleopatra.

Here is one typical reaction:

Typical of the response to the mistaken impression that Cleopatra was an Arab is an article in The Jerusalem Post -- which notes that Cleopatra was Greek, not Arab.

(On a side note, the article also points out that the above Sameera Khan is a former journalist for RT, who left the network after her enthusiastic praise for Stalin’s gulags)

But for me, the interesting part about the outcry for an Arab to portray Cleopatra is that it illustrates the lack of awareness of the actual connection of Egypt with Arabs and Islam -- and of Arab conquest and colonization both inside and outside the Middle East.

In his book, The Crisis of Islam, Bernard Lewis, touches upon the change in Egyptian identity after the Arab conquest: 

There can be few, if any, nations with a better claim to nationhood--a country sharply defined by both history and geography, with a continuous history of civilization going back for more than five thousand years [than Egypt]. But Egyptians have several identities, and for most of the last fourteen centuries, that is, since the Arab-Islamic conquest of Egypt in the seventh century and the subsequent Islamization and Arabization of the country, the Egyptian identity has rarely been the predominant one, yielding pride of place to the cultural and linguistic identity of Arabism and for most of their history, to the religious identity of Islam. [p. 19]

In another of his books, What Went Wrong? Lewis outlines in more detail the many other Muslim conquests:  

o  Seventh century: Muslim armies advancing from Arabia conquer Syria, Palestine, Egypt, and North Africa, all then part of Christendom

o  Eighth century: Muslim forces conquer Spain and Portugal and invade France

o  Ninth century: Muslims conquer Sicily and invade Italy, sack Ostia and Rome

o  Thirteenth century: the Tatars of the Golden Horde conquer Russia. After the Khan of the Golden Horde and his people convert to Islam. Russia, and much of Eastern Europe, are subject to Muslim rule -- until the late fifteenth century. Meanwhile, the Ottoman Turks conquer Anatolia, capture the ancient Christian city of Constantinople, invade and colonize the Balkan peninsula, and threaten the very heart of Europe, twice reaching as far as Vienna. [pages 4, 6]

 That's some list:

• Syria (then under Christendom)
• Palestine (then under Christendom)
• Egypt (then under Christendom)
• North Africa (then under Christendom)
• Spain
• Portugal
• France
• Sicily
• Sacking Rome
• Russia 
• Anatolia
• Constantinople
• Balkans
• Vienna

We know that the Muslim invasion of Europe was turned back, as Lewis himself describes tongue-in-cheek:

But again European Christendom was able to oust the invaders and again, now more successfully, to counter-attack against the realms of Islam. By this time the jihad had become almost entirely defensive--resisting the Reconquest in Spain and Russia, resisting the movements for national self-liberation by the Christian subjects of the Ottoman Empire, and finally as Muslims see it, defending the very heartlands of Islam against infidel attack. This phase has come to be known as imperialism. [Crisis, p35-36. emphasis added]

Apparently, Zionism is not the first nationalist self-liberation movement to be labeled 'imperialist' by the Muslim world.

As for the movie itself, will there be nearly as much excitement when they announce who will play the part of Marc Anthony?

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