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Monday, November 25, 2019

From Ian:

Douglas J. Feith: Israeli Settlements Are a Political, Not a Legal Issue
In his statement about the legality of Israel's West Bank settlements, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo made four main points.
- First, the settlements are not "inherently illegal."
- Second, the West Bank's fate should be determined through negotiations.
- Third, international law "does not compel a particular outcome" in favor of Israel or the Palestinians.
- Fourth, the issue is political in nature, not legal, and attacking the settlements' legality "hasn't advanced the cause of peace."

For 35 years U.S. administrations refrained from repeating President Carter's criticism of Israeli settlements as illegal, Pompeo recounted, but President Obama broke with this policy by taking the Carter position at the UN. President Reagan, who followed Carter, had rejected Carter's view.

President Carter had a strained relationship with Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin and condemnation of Israeli settlements as illegal was supported by a five-page letter dated April 21, 1978, by State Department legal adviser Herbert Hansell.

That letter ignored entirely the rights of Jews under the 1922 Palestine Mandate, which called for "close settlement by Jews on the land." From ancient times until 1949, Jews could lawfully live in the West Bank. Hansell didn't explain when that right was terminated.

As a Middle East specialist on the National Security Council staff, I was asked for a short note on the subject for President Reagan. I said, "The issue is properly a political question, not a legal question." The sovereignty issue "is open and will not be closed until the actual parties to the conflict formally consent to a peace agreement." In the meantime, "there is no law that bars Jews from settling on the West Bank" and no one should be excluded from living there "simply on account of his nationality or religion."

What fuels the conflict is the notion that Israel is a vulnerable, alien presence that lacks roots, legitimacy, and moral confidence. Israel's enemies know that asserting that the Jews have no right to live in the West Bank - an important part of the Jewish homeland - calls into question the Jews' right to have created Israel in the first place.

PMW: The Jews came as "invaders 70 years ago," no evidence of Jews before then
Palestinian Authority policy is to routinely deny the entire Jewish history in the Land of Israel. Jews were never here, the PA says, until they came and “occupied” Palestine in 1948. Palestinian Media Watch has documented that the PA habitually refutes the authenticity of the numerous archeological artifacts and non-Biblical sources that testify to the Jewish presence and nationhood thousands of years ago. The following are three recent examples of this Palestinian denial of Jewish presence and history, showing that the PA’s political message passed on by Palestinian leaders for decades has been successfully adopted and is being repeated even by Palestinian academics.

Riyad Al-Aileh, a Palestinian political science lecturer from Al-Azhar University, stated that Jews only came as ”invaders 70 years ago”:
"The Jews claim that they were in Palestine 2,000 years ago. If we look at the history we will see that they were not in Palestine in the past, but rather only as invaders less than 70 years ago. For these 70 years they have been invaders, like the Hyksos, the Byzantines, the Persians, and [British] colonialism. The Canaanite Palestinian people has since succeeded in defeating those invaders and continue [to live] in this land." [Official PA TV, The Supreme Authority, Nov. 6, 2019]

Echoing this claim, Abir Zayyad, an archaeologist and member of Fatah’s Jerusalem branch, wrongly asserted that “no archaeological evidence” of Jews in Palestine has been found:
“We have no archaeological evidence of the presence of the children of Israel in Palestine in this historical period 3,000 years ago, neither in Jerusalem, nor in all of Palestine.” [Official PA TV, Jerusalem: The Scent of History, Nov. 7, 2019]




Monday, November 18, 2019

From Ian:

Evelyn Gordon: Why the status quo is the least bad option for Palestinians
Even among people who recognize that Israeli-Palestinian peace is currently impossible, a growing number think that Israel must nevertheless quit the West Bank. Israel has a right to defend itself, their argument goes, but not by controlling another people for decades. Instead, it should withdraw to the “internationally recognized border” and protect itself from there, as other countries do.

Forget for a moment that the “internationally recognized border” is an arrant fiction. Forget as well that Israel remains in the West Bank precisely because defending itself from the 1949 armistice lines (the abovementioned fictional border) hasn’t worked very well in either the West Bank—from which Israel partially withdrew in the 1990s before returning the following decade—or the Gaza Strip.

That still leaves another uncomfortable fact: As long as genuine peace remains impossible, Israeli control of the West Bank, despite the undeniable hardships it causes Palestinians, remains the least bad alternative for the Palestinians themselves. As evidence, just compare the Israeli-controlled West Bank to Gaza, which has been free of both settlers and soldiers since August 2005. By almost any parameter, life in the former is far better.

Take, for instance, casualties. According to B’Tselem’s statistics, Israeli security forces killed 5,706 Palestinians in Gaza from September 2005 through August 2019. That’s almost eight times the 756 killed by Israeli security personnel and settlers combined in the West Bank during this period (no Gazans were killed by settlers since there are no settlers there).

Nor is this surprising. Israel’s control of the West Bank means that suspected terrorists can often be arrested rather than killed, though shootouts (with attendant collateral damage) do occur. But in Gaza, where Israel has no troops, it can’t arrest terrorists. Thus the only way to fight terror is through military action, which naturally produces many more casualties among both combatants and civilians.
Daniel Pipes: The Middle East in flux: Eight trends
As ever, the Middle East is monumentally in flux. As usual, most developments are negative. Here’s a guide:
Water replaces petroleum as the key liquid: oil and gas still provide nearly 60% of the world’s energy, but this number is declining and even the wealthiest oil producers are feeling the pinch (“GCC states look to new taxes as oil revenues remain weak”). Contrarily, tensions over water are becoming a major source of international tensions (e.g., Turkey vs. Syria, Ethiopia vs. Egypt) and a driving force of domestic change (the Syrian revolt of 2011). It’s also a potential cause of massive migration; a former Iranian minister of agriculture predicts that water shortages will force up to 70% of the country’s population, or 57 million Iranians, to emigrate.

Anarchy replaces tyranny: of course, some tyrannies remain, notably in Turkey and Iran, but anarchy has become the region’s greater bane, including whole countries (Libya, Yemen, Syria) and parts of others (e.g., Sinai). Though generally less threatening to the outside world, anarchy is an even more miserable personal experience than tyranny, for it lacks guidelines. As a 13th century Koran scholar noted, “A year of the sultan’s tyranny does less harm than a moment of the people’s anarchy.”

The failure of Arab youths’ efforts to make improvements: around 1970, many Arabic-speaking countries began an era of corrupt strongman rule. Starting in Tunisia in December 2010, efforts to overthrow the old order have shaken governments but had few beneficial consequences. In some cases (Libya, Yemen, Syria), they led to civil war; in another (Egypt), they merely brought on a younger strongman. Recent uprisings in Algeria, Sudan, Iraq, and Lebanon have yet to conclude but odds are they, too, will end badly.

The decline of Islamism: after peaking in about 2012, the radical attempt to apply Islamic law severely and in full has lost ground in the Middle East. Several factors account for this: a fear of wild-eyed fanatics like Boko Haram, Shabaab, ISIS, and the Taliban; the dismal experience of Muslim peoples who have lived under Islamist rule (e.g., Egypt in 2012-13); and the fracturing of Islamists (e.g., in Syria) into competing and hostile factions. What might come after Islamism is unclear, but after a century of failure with it and other extremist ideologies (including fascism and communism), an era of anti-ideology might lie ahead.
PMW: PMW Special Report: Israel must implement 2nd half of anti-“Pay-for-Slay” law before the end of 2019
Israel must deduct from transfers to PA in 2019 an additional 241 million shekels - the amount the PA paid to families of terrorist “Martyrs” in 2018

- 5 years ago today, two terrorists murdered 6 Israelis with knives and axes in a synagogue in West Jerusalem. The victims included rabbis, American citizens, and an Israeli Druze policeman. The terrorists were killed during their attack.
- Since the massacre, the PA has paid the families of these terrorist murderers no less than 204,000 shekels (almost $60,000) simply because their relatives murdered Israelis.
- Israeli law demands that Israel deduct from tax transfers to the PA in 2019 the amount that the PA paid in 2018 to terrorist prisoners and to families of dead terrorists – so-called “Martyrs.”
- Since February, the Israeli government has been deducting approximately 41 million shekels each month, 1/12 of the amount the PA paid to terrorist prisoners in 2018, which was 502 million shekels.
- In order to comply with Israeli law, the government must also deduct the full amount paid to families of dead terrorists by the end of 2019.
- This PMW special report shows that the additional amount that Israel must deduct from its tax transfers to the PA in the next two months is at least 241 million shekels – the sum the PA paid to families of dead terrorist “Martyrs” in 2018.
- PMW has calculated that there are at least 5,666 dead terrorists who were killed from September 2000 to the end of 2018 and whose families received an estimated 95 million shekels ($25.4 million) from the PA in 2018.

Tuesday, November 12, 2019

From Ian:

Labour candidate says her song ‘From the River to the Sea’ ISN’T antisemitic
Labour’s candidate for the Conservative-held marginal seat of St Ives has defended her band’s song accused of calling for Israel’s destruction from charges of antisemitism.

Alana Bates, who is standing in next month’s general election, is a bassist in The Tribunes, a self-described “radical-political alternative rock four-piece band” formed in 2015.

The song, uploaded to Spotify in 2018, is entitled From the River to the Sea, a controversial phrase often used at anti-Israel demonstrations to call for the country’s destruction.

“With no justice, there’s no peace / troops out of the middle east / with no justice, there’s no peace / get out of the middle east,” the song states.

“Justice should not have to wait / Israel’s an apartheid state / Justice should not have to wait / Israel is a racist state,” it continues.

Later, the song calls on listeners to support the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions movement, saying “ethnic cleaning and the rest, support BDS.”

Independent Cornwall councillor Tim Dwelly said the song was “repulsive racism” and called for Bates’ immediate expulsion from Labour.

Dwelly, a former member of Labour, tweeted: “Her band sings that Palestine should be ‘one state’. Israel should be ‘out of the Middle East’, is a ‘racist state’. Repulsive racism. She should be expelled by Labour immediately.”

Bates told Jewish News the song had been removed from online platforms on the advice of the Labour Party.


Lib Dem candidate apologises over tweet comparing Gaza to ‘Nazi ghettos’
A Liberal Democrat candidate has apologised over a tweet sent in 2014 comparing Gaza to “Nazi ghettos in which Jews were trapped”.

Wera Hobhouse, 59, most recently served as the Lib Dems’ climate change spokesperson. Elected to represent Bath in 2017, she is standing in next month’s general election.

She told Jewish News: “I abhor antisemitism with every fibre of my being. My mother’s brothers and sisters had to flee the Holocaust because they were Jewish, and it destroyed their families. I had an uncle imprisoned in Dachau, and a great uncle murdered because he was mentally ill.

“This was the reality for my family in Nazi Germany, and we still live with the trauma. However, I apologise unreservedly for any offence I have caused. Looking back at these tweets I realise that trying to discuss hugely serious issues via 140 characters is a mistake.”

She tweeted in 2014 that “#gaza seems to remind terribly of Nazi ghettos in which Jews were trapped during Holocaust. For what reason do we remember Holocaust?”

Another tweet sent the following year read: “‘Israel cynically using memory of the Holocaust’. ‘Never again this suffering to anybody not just Jews’ #bbcthebigquestion.”
Here’s a List of 100 Members of Congress Supporting CAIR
Ahead of the Council of American-Islamic Relations’ 25th Anniversary Gala event last Saturday, the Muslim Brotherhood-linked organization boasted that “120+” members of Congress had sent them letters of support.

We never saw those letters, however, thanks to Clarion reader Viola Rose, we were directed to a list of 100 members of Congress who voiced their support of CAIR in 2018. The list was published by the Investigative Project on Terrorism, along with the letters of support.
You can see the list and the letter by clicking here

The list includes Democrat presidential candidates Cory Booker, Kamala Harris and Amy Klobuchar. Ninety-seven out of the 100 names on the list were Democrats; three were Republican.

CAIR’s gala event took place November 9, 2019, at the Grand Hyatt hotel in Washington, D.C., and featured Congresswoman Ilhan Omar and Islamist activist and sharia-apologist Linda Sarsour.

CAIR describes itself as “America’s largest Islamic civil liberties group,” but in 2007, the U.S. government labeled CAIR an unindicted co-conspirator in the trial of the Holy Land Foundation for financing the Hamas terrorist group.

In November 2014, CAIR was designated as a terrorist organization by the United Arab Emirates along with a host of other Muslim Brotherhood entities.

CAIR was listed among “individuals/entities who are/were members of the U.S. Muslim Brotherhood’s Palestine Committee and/or its organizations.” The Palestine Committee is a secret body set up to advance the Brotherhood/Hamas agenda in the U.S.

The FBI subsequently severed official contacts with the group, saying it “does not view CAIR as an appropriate liaison partner.”

Yet members of Congress – either ignorantly or intentionally — continue to endorse CAIR.

Monday, November 04, 2019

From Ian:

Poll: Almost 50% of UK Jews will 'seriously consider' leaving if Corbyn wins elections
Britain's Jewish community so deeply concerned by the prospect of Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn winning the next general election that community leaders have launched a campaign to undermine his premiership candidacy.

A recent poll by the Jewish Leadership Council, a British-Jewish advocacy group, found that 47% of British Jews would "seriously consider" emigrating if Corbyn is elected prime minister.

Some 87% of British Jews believed Corbyn to be anti-Semitic, and 90% said they will not vote for Labour, the poll found.

UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson called the general elections, set for Dec. 12, following his failure to push the Brexit deal through Parliament. Johnson's promise to have the UK leave the European Union by Oct. 31 had been a key element in the Conservatives' leadership bid, which brought him to power in July.

Corbyn has been repeatedly lambasted for his failure to tackle anti-Semitism within Labour. In 2018, the party received 863 complaints of anti-Semitism but took action in only 101 of those cases. Worse, Labour members who have publicly made statements such as "Jews are the problem" have remained in the party despite complaints against them.


According to the Jewish Chronicle, prominent British Rabbi Jonathan Romain has even taken the unprecedented step of urging congregants to vote against Labour, warning that a Corbyn-led government "would pose a danger to Jewish life as we know it."

"I should stress that the problem is not the Labour Party itself, which has a long record of fighting discrimination and prejudice, but the problem is Jeremy Corbyn. Corbyn-led Labour, has at best, let antisemitism arise within its ranks, or at worst, has encouraged it," Romain wrote in a letter to the 823 families who are members of his Berkshire shul.

"This has never happened under any previous Labour leader … so the finger of responsibility really does seem to point to Jeremy Corbyn. I am therefore suggesting we should each put aside all other considerations and vote for whichever party is most likely to defeat Labour in whatever constituency we are in – even if we would never normally vote for that party."

Israel Advocacy Movement: Why vote Labour?
In the upcoming election, a vote for Labour is a vote for:
☠️ Terrorism supporters
🇻🇪 An economy like Venezuela
🚫 Racism
A vote for Labour is a vote for insanity… watch the election video Labour don't want you to see.


Jewish Caller Tells Maajid Nawaz He Would Emigrate If Corbyn Elected
A Jewish caller told Maajid Nawaz that he would close his business and leave the UK if Jeremy Corbyn were to become Prime Minister because of anti-Semitism.

David, from Hendon, said: "I will leave the country as soon as Corbyn comes in, God forbid that he should.

"I will not stay in a country where anti-Semitism is now accepted because I think, brilliantly, he and his PR people just didn't answer really, just deflected old accusations.

Now people are fed up with hearing the word so it's almost as if it's accepted and whether that's the case or people are actually anti-Semitic in this country... I hope not but I'm beginning to have my doubts."

He also explained that he would shut down his business of 53 people.

He said: "I will leave, I will close down all of my businesses which I can. I've been nervous of this, I'm in the position where I'll be able to close them down.

"These people won't be employed anymore and that's fine. I'm looking after myself and I'm sure people, some of your viewers or listeners will be saying 'good riddance, let's get rid of the guy'.

But there are hundreds of people like me, and not all of them are Jewish, there are hundreds of wealthy people who have built up businesses who know that in the end Mr. Corbyn will take it all away from us because he doesn't appreciate people who work hard."


From Ian:

PMW: The missing billions of the Palestinian Authority
Since its creation, the Palestinian Authority has received tens of billions of dollars of international aid. Just since 2011, the European Union, the United States, and other countries have provided the PA with hundreds of millions of dollars and euros of aid.

While the PA has constantly complained about its financial difficulties, scrutiny of the PA’s own financial records for the years 2011 - 2018, shows that the PA transferred from its coffers over 7 billion shekels to the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), some of which was then given to terrorist organizations. In that same period, the PA also spent over 440 million shekels to fund its non-functioning institutions.

Funding to the PLO and internationally designated terrorist organizations

The PLO, which is also headed by PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas, is an umbrella organization for several Palestinian groups. The largest and most dominant member is Abbas’ Fatah party. Other members include groups designated as terror organizations by the US and the EU such as the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) and the Palestinian Liberation Front. PLO members are entitled to and receive funding from the PLO.

While international donors have demanded that the PA show financial transparency, the PLO is not subject to any financial regulation or demands of transparency. Accordingly, it is impossible to know what happens with billions of dollars of donor money the PA has given and continues to give today to the PLO.

Only on sporadic occasions are the financial workings of the PLO exposed. In June 2018, a senior PFLP official, Maher Mazhar, complained that the PFLP was not getting its monthly allocations from the PLO.

Denying the claim of the PFLP, PLO Executive Committee member and Fatah Central Committee member Azzam Al-Ahmad confirmed that Abbas and the Palestinian National Fund - the financial branch of the PLO - are responsible for funding the PFLP, and stressed that the allocations had not been stopped:

“PLO Executive Committee member [and Fatah Central Committee member] Azzam Al-Ahmad denied that the allocation from the Palestinian National Fund to any Palestinian organization, including the Popular Front [for the Liberation of Palestine] (PFLP), has been stopped. In a telephone conversation with Al-Ahmad from Amman, he said: ‘There is no truth to the rumors that [PA] President Abbas or any other party has stopped the allocation to the PFLP.” [Ma’an, (Independent Palestinian news agency), June 17, 2018]
The delusional one-state solution
Events like the Jaffa Riots of 1921 (95 dead) and the Riots of 1929 (249 dead) were a common fixture. When all out war inevitably emerged in 1948 due to Arab rejection of a Jewish state, it ended with the permanent exile of up to 90% of Palestinians from Israeli-controlled territory. Nothing unusual here. Population transfers are a common result of intrastate ethnic conflict. Those wishing to alleviate Palestinian hardship should consider this when contemplating a situation that would result in a power struggle similar to what emerged following the British Mandate.

And a power struggle it will be. One-staters envision shared governance between Jews and Arabs, who will work together under a liberal democratic framework, but the Palestinians have proven unable to do this even amongst themselves. Two years after Israel withdrew from Gaza, Hamas overthrew the PLO and instituted a totalitarian Islamist regime.

Things are not much better in the West Bank, where President Mahmoud Abbas is now in his 15th year of a four-year term. The “occupation” cannot be blamed. After all, pre-state Israel somehow managed to uphold democratic norms under the brutality of the British Mandate. Democracy is simply not presently part of the Palestinian lexicon.

The same goes for the “liberal” part of “liberal democracy.” Polls by the nonpartisan Pew Research Center show that the Palestinians hold beliefs vehemently at odds with an inclusive society. A majority support honor killings, and 93% of the population harbors antisemitic views, according to the Anti-Defamation League.

Before the one-state solution as envisioned by Palestinian advocates is even discussed, Palestinians have a very long way to go. Looking at examples from the broader region, there’s good reason to believe that an Israeli-Palestinian utopia will forever remain a pipe dream.

Understandably, as US President Donald Trump continues to delay his vision for resolving the conflict, ideas counter to the mainstream two-state solution will be discussed. Some are worse than others, but few are as bad as the one-state solution.
Trump’s Middle East shake-up led to killing of al-Baghdadi
As it turns out, the killing of both Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi and his heir apparent, Abu Hassan al-Muhajir, was a direct result of Trump’s shake-up of the pre-existing order in northern Syria and northern Iraq. While it should be obvious, it bears repeating: the media and the American people are not privy to the vast trove of intelligence the commander in chief has at his fingertips. This is particularly important in the complex and multidimensional Middle East, where alliances and verbal agreements are the rule, rather than the exception.

We think in black-and-white terms, but the truth is often closer to gray and white, or black and gray. I have many theories as to just how our US special forces pulled off this miraculous assault against the No. 1 terrorist in the world, but overall, I would venture that what it boils down to is that the president caught al-Baghdadi off-guard.

Al-Baghdadi was no doubt celebrating America’s pullout from the region and got careless. Essentially, it flushed him out into the open. He was planning a new barrage of terror, especially against the Kurds and Yazidis. What he was not prepared for was the determination and steadfastness of Trump. He miscalculated regarding our president and suffered the consequences.

By taking out al-Baghdadi and al-Muhajir, Trump has now sent the clearest message yet to all of our enemies, including Iran and North Korea, that he means business. This was and is a major turning point in his presidency, and it is a crying shame that he can’t seem to get one iota of credit for it from his political opponents.

In the final analysis, the American people will ultimately decide how much credit to give him. I am a firm believer they will be much kinder and wiser judging his record in hindsight.

Sunday, October 20, 2019

From Ian:

To whom does the land of Israel belong?
The League of Nations 1923 “Any attempt to negate the Jewish People’s right to Palestine, Eretz-Israel, and to deny them access and control in the area designated for the Jewish People by the League of Nations is a serious infringement of international law. The Origin and Nature of the “Mandate for Palestine”

The entire point of this written exercise is to arm the Jewish People of Eretz Israel with Biblical, Historic and Legal facts, in order to combat the lies of their enemies. An enemy who have illegally migrated, and invaded into the Jewish State of Eretz Israel.

By constantly attacking and criticizing Israel, the West has emboldened Islamitic terrorists to attack even the Western nations within their own boarders. Since the Western World is in need of leaders, these nations take the cowardly way out, they try to appease their violent Islamitic enemy, by blaming Israel for their unwillingness to make peace. When at every step Israel is trying to move forward, they are met with murder, terrorism, lies and deceit, and a very frightened and useless Western World.

IT IS ALL ONE BIG LIE

Vladimir Lenin – “ A lie told often enough becomes the truth.”

Joseph Goebbels – “ If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually believe it.”

Hitler – “ If you tell a big enough lie and tell it frequently enough, it will be believed.”

Isa Blagden writer, – “If a lie is only printed often enough it becomes a quasi-truth and if such a truth is repeated often enough, it becomes an article, of belief, a dogma and men will die for it.(The Crown of Life,1869 )

Lying is a weapon of choice, used Against the Jewish people of Eretz Israel

The same lying sinister forces were at work against the Jewish people in the past. They were actively at work in the time of Ezra and Nehemiah 2,500 years ago when the Jewish remnants returned from the Persian Empire, to rebuild and resettle Jerusalem and the Jewish territories.

These ungodly lying forces are alive and well today working through Arab leaders both inside and outside of Israel. Deceit and Lying are a major strategy used by the Islamic Jihadists who wish to destroy the Israel of today. They are aided by the “politically correctness” of the Left Wing Western World, which is another way of saying, they are Anti-G-d, Anti-Semitic, and Anti- Judaeo Christian Ethics

Jonathan S. Tobin: Why America can't escape the Middle East
As Obama discovered after his withdrawal from Iraq and humiliating "red line" fiasco in Syria, the price of dishonor can be quite high.

Having washed his hands of those countries and punted their fate to Iran and Russia, it wasn't long before a new threat arose. The establishment of IS and its so-called caliphate in large portions of Syria and Iraq was the logical consequence of Obama's policies. As that terror group expanded the territory under its control, and videos of the hideous atrocities it committed went viral, Obama had little choice but to reverse course and commit to fighting IS.

Trump made an issue of the failure of Obama's half-hearted campaign against the Islamic State and vowed to defeat the group. And that's exactly what he did after winning the 2016 election. But with IS largely, but not completely defeated, he has now reverted to his instinctual isolationism, vowing to avoid any more involvement in Syria and leaving the Kurds to their own devices after years of promises from Washington that they would not be abandoned.

Some Americans outside the Beltway, including some supporters of Israel, have no problem with what he's done in Syria because they are blind supporters of the president. Others share his ignorance of a complex conflict and see no reason why Americans should be part of it.

As Obama found out after the atrocities perpetrated by the Islamic State aroused the anger of the public, Trump or his successor will have to respond to Turkish atrocities or those of the next Islamist terror group that will fill the vacuum he is creating by withdrawing US forces.

Islamist terror is an international problem, and not just something the Israelis and the Arabs have to worry about. Israel can defend itself, but actions that make its neighborhood even more dangerous undermine its security. Beyond that, allowing Turkey and Iran to do as they like in the region ultimately harms everyone, including Americans who have yet to absorb the fact that their safety is no longer ensured by the oceans that separate them from other continents. Unfortunately, Republicans and Democrats who still imagine Americans can simply go home and avoid further involvement in the Middle East's wars are engaging in magical thinking rather than supporting a coherent strategy.
In latest sign of thaw, Israel sending official to anti-Iran summit in Bahrain
A senior official is confirmed to attend a security conference in Bahrain on Monday, a source in the Gulf country told The Times of Israel, in the latest significant sign of warming ties between parts of the Arab world and Israel.

A senior Foreign Ministry official working on regional security and counter-terrorism, whose name was withheld by Israel’s military censor for security reasons, will represent Israel at the Working Group on Maritime and Aviation Security.

Starting Monday, the two-day event is expected to deal mainly with efforts to thwart the Islamic Republic’s growing regional aggression. Delegates are set to discuss the protection of vessels in the Persian Gulf from Iranian attacks, as well as the prevention of the smuggling of weapons and weapons of mass destruction and the protection of civil aviation.

The meeting, co-hosted by Bahrain, the US and Poland, is part of the so-called Warsaw Process, which started with the Ministerial to Promote a Future of Peace and Security in the Middle East that took place in the Polish capital earlier this year. That conference, co-sponsored by Poland and the US, was originally billed as part of global efforts to counter Iran, but was later toned-down and instead focused on the vaguer goal of seeking stability in the Middle East.

The Foreign Ministry did not deny that it was sending a representative to Manama for the conference on maritime and aviation security. In a terse statement sent to The Times of Israel, the ministry said: “Israel participates in the post-Warsaw process.”

Thursday, October 17, 2019

From Ian:

The Dream Palace of the Americans - Why Ceding Land Will Not Bring Peace
The Trump administration’s Middle East policies have been roundly attacked by the U.S. foreign policy establishment. There are various lines of criticism, including ones concerning its approaches to Egypt, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Syria, but the administration’s gravest sin is generally held to be its support for Israel. By moving the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem, blessing Israel’s annexation of the Golan Heights, and other gestures, the Trump team is said to have overturned half a century of settled U.S. policy, abandoned the Palestinians, and killed the two-state solution.

These are serious charges. But on close inspection, they turn out to say more about the hysteria of the prosecutors than the guilt of the defendant. Some of President Donald Trump’s policies are new, some are not, and it is too early to see much impact. So why all the hue and cry? Because the administration openly insists on playing power politics rather than trying to move the world beyond them. Trump’s real crime is challenging people’s illusions—and that is an unforgivable offense.

THE ROAD TO 242
Israel’s conflict with the Arabs has long functioned as a screen onto which outsiders project their own psychodramas. Actual Middle East politics, meanwhile, churns on relentlessly, following the same laws of political physics as politics everywhere else: the strong do what they can, and the weak suffer what they must.

The United States entered the regional geopolitical game in earnest during World War II, drawn in by the strategic importance of the oil recently discovered under the Arabian Desert and elsewhere. With postwar power came regional responsibility, however, and Washington eventually had to decide how to deal with the messy residue of the British mandate for Palestine.

Dore Gold: American Withdrawal and the Future of Israeli Security
America's withdrawal from the Middle East validates the long-standing Israeli view that it must not rely on external guarantees, but rather do what's necessary to defend itself, by itself. This applies especially to the discussion over Israel's retention of the Jordan Valley.

Israel captured the valley and the rest of the West Bank from Jordan in the 1967 Six-Day War. UN Security Council Resolution 242 did not insist upon a full Israeli withdrawal to the old armistice lines. Britain's Ambassador to the UN at the time, Lord Caradon, who helped draft 242, commented on PBS: "We all knew - the boundaries of '67 were not drawn as permanent frontiers."

Immediately after the Six-Day War, Israeli Deputy Prime Minister Yigal Allon, who in 1948 had served as the commander of the pre-state Palmach strike force, became the architect of a string of mostly agricultural settlements in the Jordan Valley and along the hills that dominate it. Today, nearly 30 Israeli communities are situated in this area. Allon's map became known as the Allon Plan.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) are structured around mostly reserve units. To match the quantitative superiority of its neighbors, Israel has to mobilize its reserve forces, which requires up to 48 hours. The terrain Israel captured in the West Bank, particularly in the Jordan Valley, provided Israel with a formidable barrier for the first time that would allow the IDF to buy the precious time it needed to complete its reserve call-up. The lowest parts of the Jordan Valley and its mountain ridge form a virtual strategic wall 4,500 feet high.

Even after the Oslo Agreements were signed in 1993, Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin reiterated a vision for a final peace settlement that kept the Jordan Valley under Israel: "The security border of the State of Israel will be located in the Jordan Valley, in the widest meaning of that term." What he had in mind was Israel continuing to control the high ground along the eastern slopes of the mountain ridge that descended down to the Jordan River.

The Jordan Valley is to the West Bank what the Philadelphi Route was to Gaza. This refers to the border zone between Gaza and Egyptian Sinai. After Israel's Gaza Disengagement in 2005, Palestinian rocket attacks on Israel shot up as Palestinian terror organizations smuggled enormous quantities of rockets through tunnels under the border into Gaza. Three wars resulted from this escalation in Palestinian rocket fire.

Israeli public opinion has clearly internalized the importance of the Jordan Valley for Israeli security. In the last decade, as many as 81% of Israeli voters agreed that in any peace arrangement Israel must preserve its sovereignty over the Jordan Valley.
Khaled Abu Toameh: Why Are Palestinians 'Disappearing' in Saudi Arabia?
The Geneva-based Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor (Euro-Med), a youth-led independent organization that advocates for human rights across Europe and the Middle East, said it has collected names of about 60 Palestinians detained by the Saudi authorities in recent months

Euro-Med said it considers the "practices of the Saudi authorities a flagrant violation of the requirements of justice, which guarantees everyone the right to a fair trial, including knowing charges against and the right to defense and access to a lawyer... [and] affirms that the relevant authorities do not comply with the international legal rules that guarantee the simplest rights of litigation for any individual..."

The Saudi authorities have offered no explanation for the widespread campaign targeting Palestinians in the kingdom. It appears that PA President Mahmoud Abbas and his officials in Ramallah fear that any criticism of this behavior would jeopardize the financial handouts and political support they receive from Saudi Arabia.... For Palestinian leaders, Saudi money and political backing far outweigh the fate of a few dozen Palestinians held without trial in an Arab country.

It is only Palestinians who are held by Israel for terrorist-related crimes who Abbas and his friends remember to mention in their endless litanies of complaints.

Saturday, October 12, 2019

From Ian:

Ben-Dror Yemini: The two faces of antisemitism
Today's Europe has two faces. On the one hand, the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) decided last week, almost without mentioning Israel, that Holocaust denial is not a part of freedom of speech or a human right.

The petitioner, Udo Pastörs, is a member of the German far-right NPD party, who was already convicted for his inciteful language in court.

On the other hand, anti-Semitism continues to run rampant and this Yom Kippur, it led to an anti-Semitic attack on a German synagogue.

What is antisemitism? This is the hottest topic in Germany these days.

Last week, neo-Nazis marched the streets of Dortmund, calling for the Palestinians to destroy Israel.

Meanwhile, there is a debate about whether the BDS campaign is antisemitic. The German Bundestag already decided a few months ago that the answer was yes.

So did many other European countries that adopted this definition of antisemitism.

Extreme left circles, also from Israel, campaign against the decision and against the definition.

The debate intensified following a series of decisions linking political or racist positions with freedom of expression and creativity.

What would have happened if a city in Germany were to award a prize to Pastörs for his literary work, and only afterwards did it turn out he was an activist in an antisemitic movement?

CAMERA: Rolling Stone Continues to Promote BDS
The antisemitic movement to boycott, divest from, and sanction Israel has gained a lot of traction in the music industry, thanks in large part to the activities of Roger Waters. BDS activists frequently threaten and harass musicians who schedule concerts in Israel, in an effort to intimidate them into cancellations. Irish singer Sarah McTernan told the Irish Sun, after she participated in the 2019 Eurovision contest in Israel, “Oh my God, I got threats, I got letters. Horrendous stuff online with someone threatening to do something to me. I had hundreds and hundreds of people messaging me saying the most horrible stuff. I got a few ­sinister threats.” Singer Eric Burdon told Israel Hayom in 2013, after cancelling and then rescheduling a performance, “it wasn’t my decision to cancel the show, but that of my manager, following numerous threatening emails, she was scared for my life.”

Prior to 2019, the music magazine Rolling Stone resisted being drawn down this road. In March of this year, however, the publication put BDS supporter Congresswoman Ilhan Omar on its cover, and did a glamour photo shoot and video with her as well as three other Congresswomen. In May, the magazine uncritically quoted the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel, without any rebuttal, in its coverage of Madonna’s Eurovision performance in Israel. In August, in an article having nothing to do with music, Rolling Stone called BDS a movement that “aims to put economic pressure on the nation in order to force the nation to give equal rights to Palestinians.” (After contact from CAMERA, the magazine changed it to the only slightly better, “aims to use economic pressure to push the nation for large-scale changes in its policies related to Palestinians.”)

Then, on Friday of last week, Rolling Stone continued this unfortunate trend of promoting BDS’s goals in its coverage of the Grammy-nominated singer and songwriter Demi Lovato’s trip to Israel. (“Demi Lovato Apologizes for Accepting Controversial Trip to Israel,” Brittany Spanos, October 4, 2019.)

The change in direction appears to coincide with Rolling Stone’s coming under the full ownership of Penske Media, a company that, in February of 2018, sold a $200 million stake to the Saudi Arabian company Saudi Research and Marketing Group. SRMG is headquartered in Riyadh and is majority-owned by the Saudi government.
Co-founder of Extinction Rebellion reportedly shared social media posts dismissing Labour antisemitism and defending Ken Livingstone
Gail Bradbrook, a former biophysicist and co-founder of the climate protest group, Extinction Rebellion, reportedly shared social media posts dismissing Labour antisemitism as a “smear” and defended offensive comments by Ken Livingstone.

According to The Sun Dr Bradbrook shared a post in 2016 that described claims that certain comments made by Mr Livingstone were antisemitic as “ridiculous” and “scurrilous” and that “you will hopefully then agree that what is happening is part of a massive project to manipulate public opinion against, and to destroy the popular progressive movement supporting, Jeremy Corbyn.” The post went on to say that “Corbyn represents a threat to the stranglehold the Netanyahu right-wing Israeli extremists have over any mainstream media coverage of the oppressive Israeli occupation of the little left-over scraps of Palestine.”

Another post reportedly said that Mr Corbyn’s critics “smear him with sexism, misogyny and antisemitism by finding sexist or antisemitic comments by a handful of his millions of supporters”.

The Sun, which broke the story, quotes Dr Bradbrook as saying: “I’m not interested in getting involved in a discussion that is clearly an attempt to create division. Antisemitism is a huge problem across the whole of society and I’m longing for a time when all of us are safe.”

Previously it was also reported that a Facebook page administered by Dr Bradbrook entertained numerous conspiracy theories, linked to a blog which quoted from the infamous antisemitic tract The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, and contained a post expressing solidarity with disgraced Labour MP Chris Williamson a day after he was suspended for claiming Labour had been “too apologetic” over antisemitism.

Thursday, October 10, 2019

From Ian:

Germany's Jews are once again easy prey
At least two people were killed in a carefully planned terrorist attack on a synagogue in the German city of Halle on Yom Kippur, an attack that followed an earlier attempt to attack a synagogue in Berlin ahead of Rosh Hashanah.

This is Germany in 2019. And this is no longer a phenomenon that can be diminished or treated as a passing wave. This is an epidemic.

Germany is once again a dangerous place for Jews. All efforts to deny this reality, whether from the authorities, local Jewish leadership, or recent Israeli immigrants, crumble in the face of the terrible day-to-day reality, which is the product of an industry of repudiation and denial. Barely a week passes without violent assaults on Jews in the country. In Berlin alone, over 400 anti-Semitic attacks were reported in the first half of 2019. We can assume the actual figure is higher since not every attack is reported to the authorities.

Jews, with kippot on their heads and Stars of David around their necks, speaking Hebrew, cannot feel safe outside of their homes and cannot convene in Jewish institutions without fearing that either on their way there or back, something bad will happen to them. And now, we can add another element of fear to this trepidation: Even if meticulous safeguards are in place, an attack can be carried out inside a Jewish institution, synagogue, or community center. Luckily, in these two most recent incidents, these safeguards proved relatively effective.

The attack in Halle is the result of the failure of German authorities; it is the result of the incomprehensible forgiveness that the country's law enforcement chooses to show the perpetrators of attacks against Jews, which in recent years have been largely carried out by either members of Arab and Muslim immigrant communities. Although the perpetrator of the Halle attack was a member of the radical Right, the day-to-day physical threat to Jewish security in Germany is sacrificed at the altar of Germany's policy of appeasement toward Arab-Muslim anti-Semitism. And when they are able to attack Jews as they please, other radicals get the sense the spilling of blood is permissible so long as the targets are Jews.

Antisemitism, the Western heart of darkness
"Neo-Nazis in Halle", where a gunman tried to break into the synagogue and commit a massacre of Jews during Yom Kippur. We are in Germany, after all! And in Germany Jews are in danger, again. Every week we have headlines about Jews being attacked in Berlin, Munich, Frankfurt, for wearing a kippah, speaking Hebrew, sporting a Star of David.

But we now have to go much deeper and try to figure out how and why antisemitism is not only an Islamic sport, but the Western heart of darkness.

Halle is in the former East Germany, where antisemitism is much stronger than in the Western party. Alternative für Deutschland is the largest party in the former East Germany, Pegida (the movement against Islamization) was born there, as the most important popular protests against immigration took place there.

Why? Because the society is collapsing. 50 years of Communism, materialism, dictatorship and atheism didn't help the population. “The 'social infrastructures' have collapsed: schools, hospitals, sports and recreational facilities and cultural institutions have had to close”. Die Zeit, the first German weekly, last June dedicated a special to the most disruptive phenomenon in the former East Germany: depopulation. “Migration to the West was not the only thing that altered East German demography. After 1990, the birth rate fell by almost half”.

Monday, October 07, 2019

From Ian:

Jonathan S. Tobin: Whatever Happened to the Palestinian ‘Diplomatic Tsunami’?
At the United Nations, where once-hardened ex-generals like Barak quaked about the prospect of the world uniting to force Israel to accept a Palestinian state, the situation for the Jewish state’s foes is particularly dismal. It’s true that many UN agencies, like its Human Rights Council, are still cesspools of antisemitism and hypocrisy, focusing almost exclusively on bogus attacks on Israel while ignoring real human-rights catastrophes in countries around the world.

But as is the case elsewhere, the diplomatic isolation that Barak and so many others feared never happened. Indeed, as Israeli Ambassador to the United Nations Danny Danon recently wrote, the world body is no longer the “home court” for those who oppose Israel. The majority of member states joined the United States and Israel in condemning Hamas terrorism in the past year. In a variety of steps, both large and small, Israel’s presence there has become normalized.

At the same time, the Palestinians have become more of an afterthought. It’s probably better for Abbas that even the Palestinians’ usual cheerleaders on the left paid no attention to his recent address at the UN General Assembly, where he spoke of his devotion to democracy and his plans to hold an election. Abbas is so devoted to democracy that he is currently serving the 15th year of a four-year term as president of the PA, to which he was elected in 2005. No one takes his talk of finally holding another vote seriously, since there is no way he would risk being defeated by his more radical Islamist rivals in Hamas, who currently rule Gaza.

The Arab and Muslim worlds may still be hotbeds of antisemitism and may have successfully exported their Jew-hatred to the West in the form of the BDS movement. However, Arab states have effectively dropped the Palestinian cause as a priority and instead are increasingly looking to Israel as an ally against Iran. Though they still pay some lip service to the Palestinian cause, the governments of Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and Egypt have little interest in creating another failed and unstable Arab state for the Palestinians.

To note these facts is not to deny that the ongoing conflict with the Palestinians is not going away and remains a serious problem. But as long as both the PA and Hamas are stuck in the mindset of their century-long war on Zionism, peace will have to wait until the Palestinians are ready to accept the legitimacy of a Jewish state.

The fact that the “tsunami” that so many Jews feared has fizzled into the BDS flop that can only intimidate someone like Lovato demonstrates that the conventional wisdom peddled by Israel’s noisy critics shouldn’t be taken seriously. Those who listen to the counsels of despair in 2011 have turned out to be as confused as a second-tier pop star.
FM confirms initiative to sign ‘historic’ non-aggression pact with Arab states
Foreign Minister Israel Katz on Sunday confirmed that he has been advancing non-aggression treaties with several Arab countries in the Gulf, a “historic” démarche he said could end the conflict between Jerusalem and those states.

“Recently I have been promoting, with the backing of the prime minister, a diplomatic initiative to sign ‘non-aggression agreements’ with the Arab Gulf states,” Katz wrote on Twitter.

“It’s a historic move that will end the conflict and enable civilian cooperation until the signing of peace agreements,” he said, in what appeared to be a tacit acknowledgement that no Arab country is currently willing to establish full diplomatic relations with the Jewish state as long as the Israeli-Palestinian conflict remains unresolved.

Katz further confirmed that he presented his plan to several Arab foreign ministers during his visit to New York last week at the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly. He also discussed the proposal with the US administration’s outgoing special envoy for the peace process, Jason Greenblatt, Katz said.

“I will continue to work to strengthen Israel’s standing in the region and around the world,” he pledged.

Katz’s tweet included a link to a report aired Saturday night by Channel 12, which first revealed the existence of the potentially groundbreaking initiative.
PMW: Fatah attempts to hide its terror promotion from Facebook
In fact PMW's reports show that Fatah does all of that and worse on its Facebook page, and PMW has pointed this out to Facebook more than once. Yet Facebook continues to leave the platform open for Fatah's terror promotion.

Fishman further explained that Facebook finds that governments and academics are acting too slow in terms of designating who are "terrorist actors" and therefore designates such themselves:
"We [Facebook] designate terrorist actors ourselves. This is pretty unique, but the reason we do this is because although there are a variety of lists of terrorist organizations in the world that are maintained by academics, that are maintained by governments, we find that academics and governments act too slowly. They don't actually maintain comprehensive lists in real time, and the expectation on us by our users and by the community globally is that we are able to respond to these things in near real time."

One can only marvel at the speed with which Facebook claims that it responds to terror promotion when looking at its inaction in the face of PMW’s thorough documentation. Nine months ago Facebook was supplied by PMW with explicit evidence that Fatah’s mission includes terror and violence. Yet in its statement to the Jerusalem Post last week Facebook said:
"We have received reports about potentially violating content on this page and, as we do with all such reports, are in the process of reviewing that content to determine whether it violates our policies."

Facebook boasting would be laughable, if its behavior was not life-threatening. Facebook claims to have a policy according to which “there may be no praise, support, or representation of a terrorist organization, a terrorist actor, a terrorist event,” and boasts ‘we are able to respond to these things in near real time.”

In the case of Fatah, Facebook has failed repeatedly to deal with the terror promotion on its platform. Despite being provided with the evidence, Facebook did nothing to remove Fatah’s terror glorifying and promoting posts. While their actions were no more than piece-meal, it appears that even Fatah accepted PMW’s claim that many of their posts contained terror glorification and promotion and decided to take them down.

Facebook removes terror promotion in “real time,” except when the murder of Israelis is being celebrated and promoted. For Israelis a full nine months is necessary and Facebook is still “in the process of reviewing that content,” that clearly celebrates and promotes terror.

While Facebook is bragging about fighting terror, Palestinian terror is being embedded in the hearts and minds of the next generation of potential terrorists, thanks to Facebook.

PA wipes peace agreements from schoolbooks, encourages incitement and intolerance
The Palestinian Authority has removed any mention of past agreements with Israel from their school textbooks, with the exception of the Oslo Accords, which are mentioned in far less detail than in previous editions of the schoolbooks, according to a new report by Yedioth Aharonot.

The new curriculum, which has been progressively implemented throughout the past three years, and the textbooks in particular, are studied between 1st and 12th grades in the West Bank, the Gaza Strip, east Jerusalem and refugee camps. They, unlike their previous editions, make no mention of the historical Jewish presence in Israel, and speak about every quarter in Jerusalem's Old City – except the Jewish Quarter.

The portions of the textbooks that do mention the Oslo Accords portray Israel in a negative light, claiming that "the Zionist occupation was forced to recognize the PLO after the First Intifada in 1987."

In addition, the old textbooks contained the full contents of the letter written in 1993 by then-PA chairman Yasser Arafat to then-Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Rabin, which detailed the values of peace between the Palestinians and the Israelis.

The new textbooks, however, censor the part in which Arafat writes that the declaration of principles "is the beginning of an era of coexistence in peace without violence and any action that may risk the peace."

The few times in which Israel is mentioned throughout the rest of the textbooks are in parentheses, a habit typically taken on to claim the illegitimacy of the state by extremist organizations such as Hamas and the Islamic Jihad, according to Mako.

Saturday, October 05, 2019

From Ian:

Bari Weiss' revolutionary anti-antisemitism action plan
I am intellectually curious about Weiss’s thoughts on the fourth pillar of antisemitism that contaminates Western Europe: Guilt-defensiveness antisemitism.

The Israeli psychoanalyst Zvi Rex famously remarked, with biting sarcasm, that “The Germans will never forgive the Jews for Auschwitz.”

Based on my nearly 20 years of writing and analyzing contemporary antisemitism in Continental Europe, I posit that Rex’s formulation about German society punishing Jews because of the memory of the Shoah, which infuses pathological guilt into many Germans, needs to be updated.

In a modernized version of Rex, one might say that Western Europeans will never forgive Israel for the Holocaust. In short, that Western European countries such as France, Sweden, Austrian, Italy and others that were complicit in the Shoah are intensely focused on imposing discipline and punishment on Israel because of their guilt associated with Holocaust. What other plausible explanation exists for Western Europe’s relentless attacks on Israel and its singling out of Israel, only Israel, for a punitive demarcation of its products from the disputed territories in the West Bank and the Golan?

There has been progress recently in Germany in the fight against contemporary antisemitism, Weiss notes, for example the Bundestag decision to classify the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions campaign targeting Israel as anti-Semitic.

However, there is still the problem that John le Carré described so forcefully in his novel The Little Drummer Girl (1983), when the Palestinain terrorist Khalil says, “We have many friends in Germany. But not because they love Palestinians. Only because they hate Jews.”

A 2017 German government study revealed that nearly 33 million Germans, out of a total population of 82 million, are infected with contemporary antisemitism–that is hatred of the Jewish state.

The report said, in a section titled “Agreement with Israel-related antisemitism,” that 40% of Germans who were polled approved of the following statement: “Based on Israel’s policies, I can understand people having something against the Jews.”
Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer to headline J Street conference
The two most powerful Democratic politicians in America, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, will headline the annual conference of J Street, the liberal Israel lobby.

The conference, which drew 3,000 people last year, is among the most prominent liberal Jewish gatherings of the year. It will take place in late October, and Pelosi and Schumer will speak on the night of Oct. 28. Pelosi recently launched an impeachment inquiry of President Donald Trump.

Schumer’s presence at the conference is especially notable because he has established a reputation as a traditional pro-Israel voice in the Senate. He is a perennial speaker at the annual conference of the pro-Israel lobby AIPAC, which is to the right of J Street. He also voted against President Barack Obama’s Iran nuclear agreement in 2015, a deal that J Street strongly supported.

J Street advocates for an end to Israel’s occupation of the West Bank, and has been a frequent Trump critic. Its affiliated political action committee, JStreetPac, raised $5 million for more than 100 Democratic candidates in the 2018 midterm elections.

“At a time when many of our core values are under threat both in Israel and here at home, J Street is proud to stand with so many allies who are defending democracy and working towards a better future,” J Street President Jeremy Ben-Ami said in a statement.

Swastikas in NJ Schools Symptom of Deeper Challenge of Antisemitism, Bigotry, Democratic Congressman Says
New Jersey is experiencing a “huge increase” in antisemitic activity and “every tool” needs to be used to combat the trend, the congressman representing the state’s 5th electoral district declared on Friday.

Democratic Rep. Josh Gottheimer was speaking on a conference call arranged to address a spate of swastika daubings and other antisemitic offenses in New Jersey public schools in recent weeks.

Highlighting the growing threat posed by white supremacist groups across the state, Gottheimer emphasized that his office was actively assisting security enhancement at religious institutions.

“We’re working together with our communities and our religious institutions by providing them with non-profit security grants,” Gottheimer said.

Grants of over $1 million this year have assisted synagogues, mosques, temples and other religious buildings with extra lighting, better locks and other safety measures.


Thursday, September 26, 2019

From Ian:

Natan Sharansky: Why BDS Fails the 3D Test on Anti-Semitism
To distinguish between legitimate criticism of Israel and anti-Semitism, 20 years ago I formulated the 3D test for anti-Semitism. The three Ds are demonization, delegitimization, and double standards - the three main tools that anti-Semites employed against Jews throughout history. This test shows that the same tools are being used today against the collective Jew - the Jewish State.

Many who support the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement may do so out of a naive belief that it is working to achieve a solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. But the movement takes it cue from the BDS National Committee based in Ramallah in the West Bank. It has one goal: the destruction of the State of Israel - a goal cleverly masked behind the veneer of fighting for human rights.

When caricatures against Israeli leaders repeat the worst anti-Semitic caricatures of Czarist Russia or Nazi Germany, depicting Israelis as crucifying Palestinians and portraying Palestinians as living in Nazi death camps - that is demonization.

When the legitimacy of the Jewish State is denied and, in the language of some of the founders and key promoters of BDS, there is no place for a Jewish state in the Middle East in any borders - that is delegitimization. Indeed, the movement's leader, Omar Barghouti, has said unequivocally: "Most definitely, we oppose a Jewish state in any part of Palestine.''

When the Jewish State is singled out for criticism that not even the vilest dictatorship is subject to and it is held to standards that not even the most vibrant democracy is judged by - those are double standards.
The United Nations Delegitimizes BDS
The United Nations’ Special Rapporteur on freedom of religion or belief, Ahmed Shaheed, just released a report titled, “Combatting Antisemitism to Eliminate Discrimination and Intolerance Based on Religion or Belief.” Sadly, it came as no surprise to read about the proliferation of antisemitism across the globe, and about its multiple sources from across the political spectrum.

But when I read the Rapporteur’s recommendation that the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA)’s “Working Definition of Antisemitism” be regarded as a source of guidance for identifying future acts of antisemitism, I recognized that a new chapter in the opposition to the BDS campaign against Israel had arrived.

As noted in the report, the IHRA’s Working Definition defines antisemitism as “a certain perception of Jews, which may be expressed as hatred toward Jews.” The definition continues: “Rhetorical and physical manifestations of antisemitism are directed toward Jewish or non-Jewish individuals and/or their property, toward Jewish community institutions and religious facilities.”

The report also provides the definition’s multiple examples of “contemporary antisemitism in public life, the media, schools, the workplace, and in the religious sphere” — two of which could have been taken from the BDS playbook. They include:
Denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination, e.g., by claiming that the existence of a State of Israel is a racist endeavor.

Applying double standards by requiring of [Israel] a behavior not expected or demanded of any other democratic nation.


In concert, these two examples clearly reveal the antisemitic nature of the BDS campaign.


Howard Jacobson on his new novel, dwindling irony and anti-Semitism in the UK
So where do British Jews go?
It would be nice to be rooting for the opposition, but I can’t root for Jeremy Corbyn or for Jeremy Corbyn’s party. What’s the more terrible? This is something that all the Jews I know say: What’s more terrible, Boris Johnson and his cynicism or Jeremy Corbyn and his rigid anti-Semitic ideology? He doesn’t think he’s an anti-Semite. He doesn’t call himself as an anti-Semite, but he’s an anti-Semite. Everything he says, everything he does, all these predilections, all the things he doesn’t notice. It’s anti-Semitism. So we can’t want him to win.
He doesn’t call himself an anti-Semite, but he’s an anti-Semite. Everything he says, everything he does, all these predilections… It’s anti-Semitism

I wouldn’t say it’s a perilous time for Jews, but it’s an anxious time for Jews.

Is the anti-Semitism people talk about in the UK as bad as it seems from the outside looking in?
Well, I mean, it’s not as though I go out onto the streets and fear for my life. I shouldn’t say that because I’m gonna get knifed today, but I don’t. I go around, I appear in public, I say things and I don’t get attacked for them. I’m not on Twitter, otherwise I might discover that people are abusing me roundly all the time. And there are places, of course, where people are attacked. There are places where if you were an Orthodox-looking Jew, and you’ve got a kippah and you’ve got your tzitzit [fringes], then you could be attacked, and some are attacked.

It’s an intellectual tone that’s discomforting. You never know how these things move from the opinion makers, the intellectuals, the politicians, the universities down into the mob. I think we can call them a mob again; they’re behaving like a mob. The universities are hotbeds of that form of anti-Semitism which claims it isn’t anti-Semitism, and says it’s anti-Zionism, which is nonetheless anti-Semitism. Those who say “I’m an anti-Zionist, I’m not an anti-Semite,” I will not admit that distinction. If they say “I don’t like Israel’s foreign policy, I don’t care for Netanyahu,” fine. That’s not anti-Semitism.

To not see the necessity of Zionism, or to refuse to see the necessity of Zionism, and to think of it as an ideology of cruelty, you have to be an anti-Semite, you have to be uneducated and ignorant. Then once you’ve been shown the truth, to persist in the idea, as Corbyn does, that “Zionism is a racist endeavor” — that’s the phrase that Corbyn likes — I think that’s a deeply anti-Semitic thing to say.

Wednesday, September 25, 2019

From Ian:

PMW's great success: Fatah’s terror promoting Facebook page closed
Following Palestinian Media Watch's two major reports and a two-week public pressure campaign, Fatah’s terror promoting Facebook page is closed as of this morning. PMW's campaign started in February this year when we released a detailed report about Fatah’s Facebook page documenting its terror glorification and incitement to violence during 2018. The report showed that Fatah’s content was in direct violation of Facebook’s guidelines. Inexplicably, Facebook refused to close the page at that time.

PMW followed up with a new report released earlier this month, documenting the terror promoting content on Fatah’s Facebook page during the first 6 months of 2019, which was likewise sent to Facebook. In addition, PMW also launched a public social media campaign with many partner organizations worldwide, developed by volunteers at ACT-IL, which was aimed at Facebook's directors, urging them to close down Fatah’s page. The campaign included daily tweets and Facebook posts showing Fatah’s terror promoting content on Facebook, and also included a public campaign through which individuals and organizations sent a pre-written letter of protest to Facebook. Thousands of ACT-IL activists from 74 countries and other PMW partner organizations sent thousands of emails to Facebook's policy directors, and made thousands of reports directly on the page through Facebook.

As of this morning Fatah's Facebook page is down.

PMW thanks ACT-IL and their thousands of volunteers and the many other partners, organizations, and individuals who joined PMW in this project to close down Fatah's Facebook page. With your help we eliminated the terror promotion, and saved lives.

Already yesterday, Fatah was alarmed by PMW’s campaign. Fatah posted three different items about the campaign against its Facebook page, refusing to refer to Palestinian Media Watch by name, preferring to call us "the occupation," a term it often uses to refer to Israel.

Fatah posted copies of PMW’s posts calling to close the Fatah page, in which they accused PMW of inciting against them and asked its followers to “support the page”:

David Singer: Netanyahu and Liberman Could Cut Deal if Rivlin Plan Fails
Liberman’s party did not form Government with 60 other members of the Right last April after Netanyahu refused to accept a bill drafted by Liberman calling for ultra-orthodox Jews to do military service. Netanyahu was captive to the ultra-orthodox Jews comprised in the Right bloc who threatened to bolt if he wavered. Liberman’s continuing insistence that his military service bill be legislated was countered by United Torah Judaism MK Yakov Asher declaring this the best possible get-out-the-vote campaign the religious parties could wish for.

The religious parties failed big time.

Netanyahu is now in an easier political position to agree to Liberman’s demand than he was in April – the latest voting results showing:
1. Liberman’s vote increased from 173004 to 309688 – an increase of 136684.
2. The combined votes of the religious parties – Shas and United Torah Judaism – increased from 507324 to 598522 – an increase of only 91198.
3. Likud’s vote decreased from 1140370 to 1111535 – a drop of 28835

The turnout of ultra-orthodox voters opposing Liberman’s bill did not match the turnout of new voters supporting Liberman’s bill and those Likud voters changing their votes for possibly the same reason. The religious parties are now on far weaker ground to oppose Liberman’s reform as they are locked in to a single negotiating bloc containing 55 members - presumably acting by majority vote.

Cutting a deal between Netanyahu and Liberman remains an option to prevent Israel going through this electoral agony for a third time if Rivlin’s call fails.

Friday, September 20, 2019

From Ian:

Caroline Glick: The strategic cost of Israel’s political instability
When Yisrael Beytenu Chairman Avigdor Lieberman abruptly resigned his position as defense minister last November and started the countdown to the Knesset elections in April, he plunged Israel into a state of political instability. Following the April elections, by refusing to serve in a government led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and so forcing Israel into a second election, Lieberman prolonged the instability he instigated.

Tuesday’s elections ended in deadlock. Neither major party can form a governing majority. And so, there is no end in sight for the instability Lieberman provoked and prolonged.

Israel’s prolonged political volatility and uncertainty have had a disastrous impact on Israel’s strategic flexibility. Indeed, it has induced strategic paralysis. Israel cannot respond in a meaningful way to threats or take advantage of strategic opportunities that present themselves.

The implications of this dire state of affairs were brought to bear twice in one day during the campaign. In a press conference last Tuesday, Netanyahu announced his intention to apply Israeli sovereignty to the Jordan Valley after the elections. Netanyahu’s announcement included the revelation that US President Donald Trump supports the move. American officials backed his claim after the fact.

This was a stunning development. No US administration has ever supported Israel’s right to assert its sovereign rights in Judea and Samaria without Palestinian permission until now.

But the media and Netanyahu’s political opponents on the left and right ignored this basic fact and instead derided his statement as nothing more than a cheap election stunt to rally his base.

In a way, they were right. After all, all Netanyahu did was make a promise. But it was due to Israel’s strategic paralysis that he had no other option.
Where did Bibi go wrong? - analysis
‘Six things does the Lord hate,” observed King Solomon, and “seven are an abomination unto him” (Proverbs 6:17-19). Three of those – “a proud look, a lying tongue,” and “him that sows discord among brethren” – add up to Bibi Netanyahu’s moral meltdown and political demise.

Pride made Israel’s longest-serving prime minister misjudge the mainstream electorate’s size, priorities and feelings, which under his sleepy radar traveled steadily from respect through doubt to wrath.

The social discord he sowed as a matter of ploy and habit needs no elaboration, nor does the “lying tongue” he deployed while libeling almost everyone, from judges and cops to the entire press.

At this writing it is too early to say that Netanyahu’s 37-year public career is over. It is not too early to say that a critical mass of the electorate this week announced the beginning of its end.

Having entered this election with 41 lawmakers (Likud’s 35, Finance Minister Moshe Kahlon’s four, and Moshe Feiglin’s equivalent of two) Netanyahu lost a fifth of this original electorate. Yes, in terms of parliamentary blocs we face a cloud that will take time to scatter, but on the personal level this poll produced a resounding vote of no confidence in a leader who lost touch with his nation and task.

NETANYAHU MISJUDGED the voters on three planes: the social, the institutional and the ideological.

Socially, he assumed that average Israeli Jews see Israeli Arabs as fair game. In his superficial reading of Israeli society – a binary us-and-them dichotomy between “the Left” and “the Right” – the former are ready to give “the Arabs” everything and for no price, while the latter trust not one Arab, will cheer any anti-Arab broadside, and will prize whoever delivers it.
Appeasement vs. incitement: two takeaways from the Israeli election
We don’t yet have a prime minister candidate, nor a clear path to a government. Both will take some time. But there are already valuable and useful lessons that have emerged from this week’s election.

The first relates to Israel’s Arab population. For years, the Arab Knesset members focused on nationalistic issues in the parliament, serving as the mouthpiece of the Palestinian Authority in decrying “the occupation,” criticizing the Israel Defense Force, and not indicating any desire to be partners in the leadership of Israel.

Arab MK’s would not even recommend anyone to be prime minister lest they be accused of having any association with Jewish candidates from Zionist parties. The recognition that their representatives would not be working for their interests and needs, and would not even consider joining a government which is where real societal reforms can be made, played a significant role in the low Arab voter turnout in past elections.

But in this election, MK Ayman Odeh, chairman of the Joint Arab List, changed course. He gave an interview in Yediot Aharonot just a few weeks ago in which he said, “I want to lead Arab politics from a politics of protest to a politics of influence. We are 20% of Israel’s population, and we are needed to bring equality, democracy and social justice to Israel.”

While Odeh ruled out the possibility of joining a Netanyahu-led government, he presented four conditions for entering a Gantz-led government:

“The first is the construction of a new Arab city and redoing the rules to allow for more Arab construction and stopping demolitions in Arab areas. Second is a government focus on fighting crime in Arab areas, including an operation to gather all the weapons that people own in the Arab population. Third is in the welfare realm including building a public hospital in an Arab city, and raising stipends for the elderly. Finally, there must be direct negotiations with the Palestinian leaders to bring an end to the occupation and to establish a Palestinian state, alongside canceling the Nation-State Law.”

The first three conditions focus on needs also relevant to the Israeli community and could be easily accepted by Benny Gantz. While the last condition is more complicated, the very fact that their leader is placing real day-to-day issues on the table as a possible entry into a government energized much of the Arab population, making them feel that it was worthwhile to vote to try to place their representatives in positions of influence. And that led to a larger Arab turnout than usual, which enabled them to stay in double-digit mandates despite the high turnout throughout the country.

Saturday, September 07, 2019

From Ian:

JPost Editorial: A changed paradigm
Greenblatt helped change the conversation from one that was just about placing blame on Israel to one that recognized that the Palestinians were just as much to blame for the lack of progress in the peace process, if not more.

The economic summit held in Bahrain in June which was attended by Israelis – including our own Herb Keinon – showed how Greenblatt could skillfully break down barriers and help realign the Middle East with an understanding that Israel is a partner to countries in the Gulf, not an adversary.

On the other hand, Greenblatt’s role and outspoken support of Israel led Palestinians to believe that the US was no longer an “honest” broker in the region. That alone may have buried the so-called “Deal of the Century”.

What will happen with that plan now remains to be seen. Greenblatt might have been the key convener and author of the plan, but it has other architects, including Jared Kushner and Friedman. Will it really come out as the administration says it will after Israel’s election? Will it succeed in bringing the sides together? Or will it automatically be rejected by Abbas’s intransigent government in Ramallah?

Ultimately, no matter how detailed and comprehensive a deal it is, it will face two major problems from the outset. The first is that any peace plan needs to have presidential involvement, without which it will be difficult, if not impossible, to bring the two sides to the table. Trump, who is already deep into his re-election campaign, does not appear to be the type willing to invest the time, effort and personal resources.

The second problem is in Jerusalem and Ramallah, where the leaders – Benjamin Netanyahu and Abbas – do not seem interested in negotiating or working on a resolution to the conflict. Netanyahu is never in a rush to get involved in a peace process and Abbas seems to prefer to wait for November 2020 and see who wins the presidential elections. Why rush into something if Trump might be out of the Oval Office in a year?

Greenblatt has played a positive role in this process. As much as he has done though, no one can want peace more than the sides themselves.

PA: Greenblatt resignation is Trump's "opportunity to rethink" peace plan
Jason Greenblatt, US President Donald Trump’s special envoy for Middle East peace, has announced he’ll be leaving his post.

According to administration officials, Greenblatt’s departure will wait until the US rolls out the political part of its long-awaited peace plan between Israel and the Palestinians sometime after the Israeli national election on September 17. It unveiled the plan’s financial segment last June during a conference in Bahrain.

Greenblatt has been a main pillar of President Trump’s Mideast team. He has worked alongside Trump’s powerful son-in-law and senior adviser, Jared Kushner, and US Ambassador to Israel David Friedman.

His resignation could throw the future of the troubled peace initiative – it has already been rejected by the Palestinian Authority – into a swirl of ambiguity. The team itself has come to be viewed by the Palestinians as an extension of Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s policies.

The PA has yet to officially respond to the news, but a high-ranking official in Ramallah told The Media Line he hoped that Greenblatt’s departure would create an “opportunity” for the White House to “rethink” its policy toward the Palestinians.

“His resignation,” the official said, asking to remain unnamed, “is a result of the growing conviction by the US administration that implementing the plan as originally conceived is not going to be easy. This does not mean that America will abandon attempts to pressure the Palestinian side, but Greenblatt's flight means he does not trust all the promises he and his team have made.”
Juan Cole: Michigan's Pontificator-in-Chief
Becoming a recognized authority in any field is an admirable achievement. Yet when professors pontificate on matters far beyond their expertise, the results can be risible. That's particularly true of academics whose track record in their own field leaves much to be desired.

Which brings us to Juan Cole, Exhibit A for professorial puffery and purple prose.

Breitbart has taken note of the University of Michigan Middle Eastern history professor's latest foray into a subject well beyond his competence: climate science. Never one for wise counsel when hysteria will do, Cole called on Florida Governor Ron DeSantis to resign in the wake of Hurricane Dorian because "his inaction on fossil fuels will literally sink Florida."

Moreover, Cole believes studying the Middle East qualifies him for informed comment on the underground liquid gold that made the region rich: oil and, now, natural gas. To boot, being above ground and partaking of the climate on a daily basis, he fancies himself a meteorologist extraordinaire, able to leap logic in a single blog post – a skill at which we'll concede he excels. And if that's not enough, since Florida will "literally sink," we must add geology to his conquests.

As for Breitbart, Cole wasted no time responding to its article by labeling the conservative publication "far, far rightwing reused toilet paper," a "brown shirt rag," and a "racist piece of excrement" that makes "fascist sh** up, riffing on Mein Kampf." One might suspect Cole is a bit fixated on the scatological (calling Freud), but at least the implements at hand are recyclable.

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