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Tuesday, December 08, 2020

12/08 Links Pt1: Three decades to get here: Israel’s leading expert looks back at Gulf ties; Banner Over Busy Tehran Street Reads, ‘Thank You, Mossad’

From Ian:

Seth Franzman: Three decades to get here: Israel’s leading expert looks back at Gulf ties
Around twenty years ago, there were few experts in Israel on the Gulf and a paucity of knowledge about the monarchies and the countries that stretch from Oman to Kuwait. Israel had spent most of its formative years in conflict with powerful states like Egypt in the 1950s, and the Jewish state had relations with countries like Iran and Turkey.

Now things are a bit reversed: Iran is a major threat, Turkey is hostile and the Gulf states offer the promise of peace and prosperity. Among Israel’s leading experts on these states is Yoel Guzansky, a senior Research Fellow at the Institute for National Security Studies. Twenty years ago, he felt the need to concentrate on the Gulf, he says in an interview. There were just a handful of researchers then, mostly gathered around Yossi Kostiner at Tel Aviv University.

“I fell in love with the Arabian Gulf. And I was fortunate enough when I left the [Prime Minister’s] Office that I could start going to the Gulf. I was invited many times with my Israeli passport and it wasn’t a problem – and for a decade I went back and forth, and I met Gulfies in the US and Europe,” he says.

According to Guzansky it’s important to make a distinction between diplomatic and security ties. Israel has had connections in these countries going back many years, but most of this was not public.

For instance, he recounts a story relating to Oman where Omanis thanked him for Israel’s support. “I said what are you talking about? I knew about some of the connections,” but not the depth of the ties. “Israel helped Sultan Qaboos and others, and even the Saudis in the war in Yemen, so the connections are long term,” he says. After the Oslo Accords, a new era began and Israel had limited open ties in the 1990s.


GOP Congress Members Move to Ensure US Embassy in Jerusalem Stays Put
Ahead of the three-year anniversary of US President Donald Trump recognizing Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, more than three-dozen Republican members of Congress have called for language in an upcoming must-pass appropriations bill that would prohibit American funding from being used to move the US embassy in Israel from Jerusalem.

In a Dec. 4 letter, a group of 43 Republicans in the US House of Representatives called on Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) to ensure that the 2021 State, Foreign Operations and Related Agencies bill, primarily funding the US State Department, which oversees embassies, includes language that prohibits funding from “being used to move the United States’ embassy out of Jerusalem.”

Trump recognized Jerusalem as Israel’s capital on Dec. 6, 2017, and moved the US embassy to there from Tel Aviv five months later.

“In a time when we are seeing the increasing normalization of relations between Israel and its Arab neighbors, we must ensure that the United States does not take a step backward by moving the US embassy out of Jerusalem, which is why we seek the prohibition of any FY21 funding in the State, Foreign Operations and Related Agencies bill being used to move the United States’ embassy out of Jerusalem,” wrote the GOP congressional members.


153 UN states call on Israel to 'renounce possession of nuclear weapons’
The United Nations General Assembly called on Israel to “renounce possession of nuclear weapons” in a 153-6 vote on Monday, with 25 abstentions.

Israel was asked “not to develop, produce, test or otherwise acquire nuclear weapons.”

The UNGA further called on the Jewish state “to renounce possession of nuclear weapons and to place all its un-safeguarded nuclear facilities under full-scope Agency safeguards as an important confidence-building measure among all States of the region and as a step towards enhancing peace and security.”

Israel is presumed to be one of the world’s nine nuclear powers, but it has never admitted to the possession of nuclear weapons.

There are eight countries acknowledged to be nuclear powers, five of which having signed the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons. The five signatories are: China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States.

Three additional countries, which are not signatories to the treaty, have admitted to testing and possession nuclear weapons: India, North Korea and Pakistan.

Overall, 191 countries are party to the treaty, including Iran but not Israel.

In New York on Monday, 153 countries called exclusively on Israel to sign the Non-Proliferation Treaty and renounce its weapons in the resolution titled, “The Risk of Nuclear Proliferation in the Middle East.”

Saturday, December 05, 2020

12/05 Links: The Time Is Now for Saudi Arabia To Normalize Relations With Israel; ‘Israel has tape of slain Iran nuke chief talking about building five warheads’

From Ian:

Richard Goldberg: The Time Is Now for Saudi Arabia To Normalize Relations With Israel
Here's a news flash for Saudi Arabia: Presumptive President-elect Joe Biden is looking to fundamentally restructure the U.S.-Saudi relationship. The only way for Riyadh to stop what's coming might be to normalize relations with Israel right now.

Biden's nominee for secretary of state, Tony Blinken, reportedly held regular calls with far-left foreign policy activists during the presidential campaign and expressed an openness to cutting off arms sales to Saudi Arabia. In an interview shortly before the election, Blinken announced that a Biden administration would "undertake a strategic review of our bilateral relationship with Saudi Arabia to make sure that it is truly advancing our interests and is consistent with our values." Translation for Riyadh: Buckle up for a rough ride.

Absent a seismic shift—like a normalization agreement with Israel—the Saudis should prepare for the worst. Congress has the votes to send a bill to the president's desk to halt U.S. arms sales to the kingdom. Such a bill passed the Senate just last year, when Republicans held a wider margin than they will in 2021—and before the kingdom angered a number of oil state Republicans by crashing the price of oil and pummeling the U.S. energy industry. This time around, when that same bill reaches the Oval Office, there will be nobody to veto it.

The incoming State Department brass will also likely reopen an investigation into the 2018 killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul to determine whether U.S. human rights sanctions should be imposed on Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, or "MbS," as he is known. To preserve the bilateral relationship, the Trump administration shielded MbS from direct sanctions retribution in 2019—a decision likely to be reversed in a Biden administration.

Against the backdrop of a complete reset in U.S.-Saudi relations, President-elect Joe Biden is also making it clear that he will press for a full re-entry into the Iran nuclear deal without any preconditions. He could very well turn back the clock four years and flood the Islamic Republic with billions of dollars in sanctions relief, which would enable Tehran to recapitalize both its Revolutionary Guard and its sprawling terror operations throughout the Middle East. Biden could renew American support for the enrichment of uranium on Iranian soil and acquiesce to the expiration of international restrictions on transferring advanced arms to the mullahs.
Seth Frantzman: Saudi Arabia at Bahrain conference: Normalization with Israel possibility
Saudi Arabia said it remains open to fully normalize ties with Israel and join the Abraham Accords. According Saudi Arabia Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan it was critically important to get Palestinians and Israelis back to the negotiating table that delivers a Palestinian state within the “lines that are globally understood to eventually constitute a Palestinian state.” The remarks were made at the International Institute for Strategic Studies Manama Dialogue Conference which is taking place from December 4 to 6.

Saudi Arabia’s foreign minister says that Palestinian statehood would deliver peace and noted the King Fahad peace initiative at Fez in 1982 and 2002 Saudi plans have suggested full normalization in the past with Israel. “Israel will take its place in the region but in order for that too happen and for that to be sustainable we need for the Palestinians to get their state and settle that situation.”

The remarks were made at the annual and important conference that is held in Bahrain. The conference took place this year at the Ritz Carlton in Manama. Israel participated openly for the first time with several participants and press releases from the conference said Foreign Minister Gabi Ashkenazi was scheduled to address the event virtually.

According to Al-Arabiya the remarks by the foreign minister are part of the speculation that Saudi Arabia could follow the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain to join the Abraham Accords. In November reports indicated that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu travelled to Saudi Arabia, although Riyadh denied he met the Crown Prince. Saudi Arabia is seeking to repair its image in Washington with the incoming administration of President-elect Joe Biden. It has also hinted that it may be open to some mending of fences with Turkey and Qatar. Turkey and Qatar are allies and Saudi Arabia led other Gulf states to break relations with Doha in 2017. Turkey sent troops to Qatar. Turkey has been openly opposed to Saudi Arabia and Qatar has used its media to try to undermine global support for Riyadh.
Jonathan S. Tobin: Biden makes the Netanyahu-Gantz divorce necessary
This isn’t what Israelis want to hear right now, but it’s nonetheless true. They need to hold another election. The prospect of a new administration in Washington is cause for concern, even if it may not prove to be the end of the world. But the challenge that this will pose requires Jerusalem to speak with one voice.

An Israeli government with the prime minister’s office at odds with both the defense and foreign ministries is a luxury the Jewish state might have been able to afford as long as President Donald Trump was in the White House, and the U.S.-Israel relationship was one rooted in close cooperation and a common vision about strategic issues. But with President-elect Joe Biden about to take office with a foreign-policy team committed to the failed Middle East policies of the Obama administration, Israel’s margin for error is about to be reduced. Even if that means that Israelis must suffer through the agony of a fourth election inside of two years, a divorce between unity government partners Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Benny Gantz has become a necessity.

After having held three inconclusive elections inside of a year, yet another trip to the ballot box would seem to be the last thing the Jewish state needs. In April and September of 2019, and then again in March of this year, Israelis headed to the polls to elect a Knesset. Each time resulted in a stalemate with neither Netanyahu nor his chief rival—Blue and White Party leader Gantz—able to muster a majority.

The standoff finally ended in April of this year, when Gantz split his party by joining a unity government with Netanyahu. Doing so made no political sense for him since the only point of Blue and White was to topple the prime minister rather than to enact different policies. Indeed, on all of the important war and peace issues, Gantz tried to run to the right of Netanyahu. But realizing the futility of the continued stalemate and responding patriotically to the crisis that the coronavirus pandemic presented to the nation, he decided that throwing in with his nemesis was the right thing to do.

Thursday, December 03, 2020

12/03 Links Pt1: Joe Biden’s Dream of a Worse Iran Nuclear Deal; WB goods to be labeled Israeli in Bahrain; U.N. Targets Israel in 5 Resolutions, Rest of the World 0

From Ian:

Noah Rothman: Joe Biden’s Dream of a Worse Iran Nuclear Deal
In the final days of the Obama administration, it was fashionable for the deal’s defenders to dismiss its critics by contending that Iran was in full compliance with the terms of the accords. But those critics did not disagree. Their problem was always that “full compliance” was not difficult to achieve.

Iran provided inspectors access to declared nuclear sites but not military sites where illicit activities were likeliest to occur. A subsequent agreement allowed inspectors the opportunity to access suspect sites but only with at least 24-days-notice—enough to dispose of the evidence of small-scale work on components related to a bomb. But functionally, that 24-day timeline could be reset by Iran, which could stretch the delays out for weeks—ample time to deceive inspectors.

The IAEA routinely insisted that they had ample access to sites like Natanz and Fordow, though the uranium-enriching centrifuges at those sites were only mothballed and could be quickly restored (as they were last year). But inspectors were blocked from accessing sites like the Parchin military complex, where Iran allegedly conducted nuclear explosives and hydrodynamic testing before bulldozing the area and layering it with asphalt. To satisfy observers unnerved by Iran’s intrigues, Tehran was allowed to use its own inspectors to take environmental samples from around Parchin. Shocking though it may be, neither the Iranians nor the IAEA inspectors who checked their work found anything untoward.

The IAEA also insisted that it regularly conducted snap inspections of various civilian and military sites, but Western diplomats noted that nearly all of those inspections were of places like university laboratories or manufacturing plants with little sensitive intelligence value. When pressed by the former UN Ambassador Nikki Haley in 2017 to reinspect some suspicious military sites to satisfy the Trump administration’s concerns, the IAEA declined—insisting, correctly, that the terms of the deal required a specific and credible basis to request such intrusive inspections.

The deference afforded to Iran didn’t end there. In 2018, a spectacularly successful Israeli intelligence operation recovered a cache of documents related to the Iranian weapons program that clearly illustrates the extensive work the Islamic Republic had done in pursuit of a fissionable device. Those documents were hidden away, presumably to be pulled out of storage after the deal had expired and Iran’s pursuit of a nuclear weapon had been fully legitimized. But Iran was under no obligation to disclose those documents, even though it had repeatedly claimed (and former secretary of State John Kerry affirmed) that all of Iran’s past nuclear-weapons work was on the table.

The JCPOA was never designed to prevent Iran from achieving nuclear-nation status. It was only aimed at dragging that process out while reshuffling the region’s geopolitical deck in Iran’s favor and ultimately providing a patina of legitimacy to Tehran’s nuclear ambitions. Any talk about exhuming and reanimating this agreement that glosses over its weak verification regime suggests that the Biden administration, like the Obama administration, will settle for any deal—even a bad one. When Iran is on the ropes, it’s Joe Biden who is committed to negotiating from a position of weakness.


Iran's Mullahs Want the "Nuclear Deal", So Does Biden
Iran's mullahs love the nuclear deal because of its fundamental flaws, especially the sunset clauses that remove restrictions on Iran's nuclear program after the deal expires soon. The nuclear deal, rather than preventing Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons, as it was falsely touted to do, in fact paves the way for Tehran to become a legitimized nuclear state.

With the nuclear deal, the regime would gain global legitimacy, making it even more difficult to hold Iran's leaders accountable for any malign behavior or terror activity across the world.

Finally, Iran's ruling clerics want immediately to rejoin the nuclear deal because it would again alienate other governments in the Middle East and inevitably lead to a worsening of relations between the US and its traditional allies, especially Israel, Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states.

This flawed deal, in favor of Iran, failed to recognize the rightful concerns of other countries in the region about Iran's potential nuclear capability, missile proliferation or funding of violent proxies -- both within and next door to their territories.
Iran’s Guardian Council Approves Law on Hardening Nuclear Stance, Halting UN Inspections
Iran‘s Guardian Council watchdog body approved a law on Wednesday that obliges the government to halt UN inspections of its nuclear sites and step up uranium enrichment beyond the limit set under Tehran’s 2015 nuclear deal if sanctions are not eased in two months.

In retaliation for the killing last week of Iran‘s top nuclear scientist, which Tehran has blamed on Israel, Iran‘s hardline-dominated parliament on Tuesday approved the bill with a strong majority that will harden Iran‘s nuclear stance.

The Guardian Council is charged with ensuring draft laws do not contradict Shi’ite Islamic laws or Iran’s constitution. However, the stance of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who has the last word on all matters of state, is not known.

“Today in a letter, the parliament speaker officially asked the president to implement the new law,” Iran‘s semi-official Fars news agency reported.

Under the new law, Tehran would give two months to the deal’s European parties to ease sanctions on Iran‘s oil and financial sectors, imposed after Washington quit the pact between Tehran and six powers in 2018.

In reaction to US President Donald Trump’s “maximum pressure” policy on Tehran, Iran has gradually reduced its compliance with the deal.

The law pushed by hardline lawmakers would make it harder for US President-elect Joe Biden, who will take office on Jan. 20, to rejoin the agreement.

Thursday, November 26, 2020

11/26 Link Pt1: Why Palestinians Owe Arabs an Apology; Pompeo: "Many More Nations Will Ultimately Recognize Israel as the Rightful Homeland of the Jewish People"

From Ian:

Al Arabiy: Fight against Islamist terror must begin with opposing extremist ideas
Look at who were the top figures in the Muslim world from different countries that came out and issued provocative and reprehensible statements subtly or overtly justifying the terrorists in the recent weeks. All of them belonged to one ideological spectrum, albeit minor differences between them – political Islam. While religion as faith always elevated human beings to heights of nobility and grace, religion as ideology unleashed mindless violence on a genocidal scale.

We stand with the victims of all terror attacks. We disagree with the controversial cartoons, and, as a Muslim, I am offended by them but I can realize the underlying politics, ongoing exploitation and manipulation that are pursued behind this issue for political purposes. Linking the Prophet Muhammad, who represents a great sanctity amongst Muslims and is far too great to have his name and status exploited in cheap politicized campaigns, to violence and politicization is unacceptable.

Terrorist attacks are not Islam, they are the Islamist interpretation of Islam, and will always deserve our unqualified condemnation, and whole-hearted support in uprooting its terror.

That is precisely the spirit with which our Foreign Minister Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan participated at the unity rally where hundreds of thousands of the French people and tens of world leaders gathered in Paris in 2015 to condemn terror attacks on the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo killing of hostages in a restaurant and a Jewish supermarket.

The sad truth, however, is that we are exactly where we were five years ago because nothing was done to curb the murderous Islamist propaganda in Europe. It is high time European authorities paid closer and urgent attention to the tumor spreading far and wide in their midst. As for the UAE, we are clear-headed in our opposition to extremism and terrorism in all forms and speak out against them without the ‘ifs’ and ‘buts’ customary in some circles. We believe that opposition to extremist ideas, alongside promotion of cultural and religious tolerance and harmonious coexistence, is the only way to root out the scourge of terrorism.


Khaled Abu Toameh: Why Palestinians Owe Arabs an Apology
The Palestinian decision to renew ties with Israel comes at a time when the Palestinian media is continuing to condemn other Arabs for engaging in normalization with Israel.

"They [the Palestinians] were trampling on the pictures of our leaders. But we have not seen them trampling on the pictures of Abbas." — Emirati social media user BintUAE1900, Twitter, November 18, 2020.

Several Palestinians and Arabs took to social media to demand sarcastically that the PA withdraw its ambassador from Ramallah to protest its own decision to "normalize" relations with Israel.

The PA leadership's decision to restore ties with Israel and return the Palestinian ambassadors to the UAE and Bahrain is viewed by some Palestinians as an apparent attempt to cozy up to a possible new US administration under the presumptive new President-elect Joe Biden. Abbas is also likely hoping that in return, the US and some Gulf states will resume pouring money into the PA coffers -- for a start.
Alan Baker: Belgium Supports Illegal Construction in the West Bank and Then Demands Compensation
Belgium is providing financial and political support and sponsorship to illegal Palestinian construction projects in Area C of the West Bank and is demanding compensation for Israel’s dismantling of these illegally constructed buildings.

The Oslo Accords between the PLO and Israel provide that Area C is under the sole administration and control of Israel, pending negotiation of a permanent status agreement between them.

In supporting and financing such illegal construction, Belgium openly admits to undermining the internationally accepted Oslo Accords, to which, as a member of the European Union, Belgium is a signatory as a witness. As such, Belgium is openly supporting endeavors by the Palestinian leadership and hostile organizations aimed at undermining and obstructing Israel’s legal and security control in Area C with a view to influencing the outcome of any future negotiation between the parties.

Belgium’s own national legislation prohibits illegal building in violation of its Belgian planning and zoning regulations and enables the destruction of structures built without the requisite permits.

In openly supporting and encouraging illegal building in Area C, in condemning Israel’s actions to prevent such illegal building, and in its demand for compensation, Belgium is acting with audacity and hypocrisy.

Belgium has a sad history of political and legal activity aimed at undermining the legitimacy of Israel’s security policies, including active support for organizations acting against the legitimacy of Israel and a failed attempt in its courts to accuse a former Israeli defense minister and senior military officials of involvement in war crimes.

Wednesday, November 25, 2020

11/25 Links Pt1: 2020 brought us COVID-19, but it also brought a new Middle East; Can Biden Renew Foreign Aid to Palestinians While Still Adhering to Taylor Force Act?

From Ian:

JPost Editorial: 2020 brought us COVID-19, but it also brought a new Middle East
In Israel, too, media reviews of 2020 will surely not place it in a positive light, especially given the loss of nearly 3,000 lives to COVID-19 and the havoc that the pandemic has wrought on people’s livelihoods and the country’s economy. In addition, 2020 has proven to be yet another year of political dysfunction and instability.

But not all has been dismal. This year will also go down in Israeli history as the one when the Jewish state took enormous strides, via peace and normalization treaties with the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Sudan, to further break out of its long regional isolation.

For a few weeks back in September, it seemed to be raining peace agreements. And on Sunday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met in Neom, Saudi Arabia, with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) and US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.

No, this was not the first time that senior Israeli and Saudi officials have met, nor did the meeting lead to any dramatic announcement regarding the establishment of formal ties. But that the meeting was leaked to the public – and it beggars belief that this would have happened without the consent of all the parties – sends important messages to various significant audiences.

The first audience is US president-elect Joe Biden. The message to Biden is simple: the Mideast table has been reset – including a spanking new Israel-UAE-Saudi place setting – that he and his new administration will need to take into account when re-assessing Washington’s Iran policy.

It is no coincidence that this meeting took place now, a few weeks before Biden is set to move into the Oval Office, just as it was no coincidence that the deals with the UAE and Bahrain were consummated just before the US elections.


Dr. Sabah al-Binali: UAE and Israel: A partnership that can help the world
News of the Abraham Accords normalizing diplomatic relations between the United Arab Emirates and Israel has been greeted with enthusiasm across Emirati society.

The positive attitude is being led from the top. One striking example is the website of the Abu Dhabi Investment Office, which appears in Hebrew if you click on it from Israel. They are also running Hebrew promotions across social media and have announced that they will open an office in Israel.

Many business executives in the Gulf already have friends and even business relationships with their Israeli counterparts. Many of us have spent time studying or working in the United States, Europe and elsewhere, and established connections with Jewish and Israeli colleagues that in some cases go back decades.

The normalization of diplomatic relations now allows us to build commercial ties on existing social ties, and new ones are already flourishing.

The initial response to the Abraham Accords from Israel’s business community was to welcome the opportunity to access funds in the UAE and Bahrain for investment in Israeli startups. While that is certainly one facet of the new relationship, it is by no means the only one—nor the most significant.

While Israel has been building its Startup Nation in the western Middle East, the UAE has been developing its own high-tech sector over in the east.
Houda Nonoo: My first trip to Israel – when dream became reality
Last week, I had the honor and privilege of participating in a delegation led by Foreign Minister H.E. Dr. Abdullatif bin Rashid Al-Zayani’s to Israel – the first time Bahraini officials landed in Israel, flying on our national carrier, Gulf Air Flight number 972. While it was historic and memorable for all, it was particularly exciting for me as a Bahraini Jew.

This was my very first visit to Israel. As you may know, I was the first Jew to ever be appointed as an ambassador of Bahrain and the first woman to serve as Bahrain’s ambassador to the United States. During my five years serving in Washington, I made many new friends and was often asked if I had been to Israel. I always said, “Not yet.” In my heart, I hoped and prayed for the opportunity, but I was determined to wait for the moment when circumstances would allow such a visit. As a loyal and committed citizen of Bahrain, I naturally respected the reality of the situation. I could only dream. And hope. And wait. And dream some more. Last week, that dream became a reality.

I wish to thank His Majesty, King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa and His Royal Highness, Prince Salman Bin Hamad Al Khalifa, the Crown Prince and Prime Minister, for their leadership, vision, and courage to lead our nation proudly and boldly into the future through the signing of the Abraham Accords. I, like my fellow Bahraini citizens, express our support and enthusiasm for the opportunity our leaders have seized and the promise it represents to build a better life with security and opportunity for all of us and for future generations still to come.

2020 has been a difficult year for all of us as we continue to battle the pandemic sweeping across the world. However, 2020 was also a historic one in a positive way. It’s when Bahrain, Israel and the United Arab Emirates decided to pave the path forward for a bold vision of the new Middle East. During this time, the world has shifted on its axis in a very positive way. Amid a world dealing with so many difficult issues, a pandemic, economic challenges, social unrest, the Middle East gives all of us a ray of hope.

Sunday, November 22, 2020

11/22 Links: Holocaust Museum opens exhibition about the killing of George Floyd; Would Trump recognize Israeli sovereignty in east Jerusalem? - analysis

From Ian:

Holocaust Museum opens exhibition about the killing of George Floyd
An American Holocaust Museum has opened an exhibition about the death of George Floyd.

The Holocaust Memorial Resource and Education Center in Florida, established to educate future generations about the Nazi extermination of six million Jews during the Second World War, is housing a collection of 45 photographs of individuals reacting to killing of Mr Floyd, the African American choked to death by white police officer in Minneapolis earlier this year.

The exhibition is entitled Uprooting Prejudice: Faces of Change, and features images by Minneapolisphotographer John Noltner. One portrait features the father of Michael Brown Jr, who was shot dead by a policeman in Missouri in 2014.

Lisa Bachman, assistant director of the Holocaust Center, said: “We have produced this so that people can come and look these individuals in the eye. So you come face to face with people, so you can really experience the feelings that they were feeling.”


How Pollard was held captive by 35 years of politics - analysis
Peres’s message to Obama was to be the following: You don’t have to grant clemency. In fact, you can distance yourself from the matter completely. Just privately let the US Justice Department know that you don’t oppose paroling Pollard and letting him leave for Israel. Obama would not need to get his hands dirty, just keep the commitment he had made to Israelis 15 months earlier to treat Pollard fairly, like any other prisoner, and let his parole be assessed naturally on the merits of his case.

Following the meeting, Peres’s diplomatic adviser, Nadav Tamir, reported back to the lawyers with good news: The message had indeed been delivered.

Peres’s office leaked to the press that Obama had personally referred the matter to his attorney-general and close confidant Eric Holder – the head of the American Justice Department and the chief law enforcement officer of the US government.

“The entire nation is interested in releasing Pollard, and I am the emissary of the nation,” Peres told reporters after the meeting. “I don’t think of myself as Shimon. I am the representative of the State of Israel, and I speak in the name of its people.”

Pollard entered the room at his prison skeptical but cautiously optimistic, ready to see what his first parole hearing would be like.

But all hopes that the hearing would be fair were dashed immediately. The government’s representatives spoke menacingly, treated Pollard with contempt, prevented his lawyer from making his case, and made it clear that the Israeli agent would not see the Jewish state any time soon, if ever.

Those present described the hearing as a “kangaroo court” and even “a lynching.”

Pollard’s parole came a year later and was granted for technical, not political reasons. The unprecedented parole restrictions he faced were typical for Pollard, whose life sentence was also an exception to the rule.

He served more than 20 years longer than anyone ever convicted of spying for an ally, the victim of attempts to make an example of him and deter future spies. The plea agreement he signed that was supposed to guarantee he would not be given a life sentence went ignored.

Former CIA head James Woolsey blamed Pollard’s continued incarceration on antisemitism, in an interview with The Post’s Caroline Glick. “My view is that he should be treated like other intelligence assets of allies,” he said. “We spy on some allies, and they have spied on us. Because they’re allies, usually they have only been in prison for a few years. What I said is that people shouldn’t be hung up on him being Jewish or Israeli. Pretend he’s Greek and release him.”

It is only fitting that Pollard finally ended up getting his release on Friday – not because of politics but in spite of politics.
J Street uses a pro-terrorist EU bureaucrat to malign Israel
J Street, in a mid-November email appeal, quoted an unnamed "top EU diplomat" in its tirade against an Israeli government call for bids for new homes in a nearly 30 year-old Jerusalem neighborhood, Givat Hamatos, where Ethiopian Jewish and Russian immigrants live.

What's worse than J Street's vitriol against the construction of Jewish homes, is that the name of the EU functionary was left off of J Street's rant, probably intentionally, because he is an anti-Israel extremist who earlier this year gave outright support for terrorists. According to Israel's Foreign Ministry, he stated that Palestinian Arabs affiliated with blacklisted groups remain eligible to participate in projects funded by the EU.

J Street is the controversial Washington, D.C., based Jewish pressure group that, judging by its actions, seems to have been created specifically, and almost exclusively, to lobby for an independent Palestinian state. J Street maintains, as a central theme, that Jews do not have a right to live wherever they choose and must be transferred out of their homes and neighborhoods in wide swaths of Judea-Samaria where Israeli citizens have lived for nearly fifty years.

The EU bureaucrat who opposes Jewish homes in Givat Hamatos in southern Jerusalem, and who was quoted by J Street, is a German named Sven Kühn von Burgsdorff.

Von Burgsdorff previously was the head of the EU's delegation to South Sudan and in a May 8, 2020 JTA article, he was identified as heading the "EU mission to the West Bank and Gaza Strip."

The Times of Israel news website reported on May 7, 2020 that an Israeli Foreign Ministry official stated that the letter by "von Burgsdorff, constituted a 'violation of all our agreements with the European Union'."

Wednesday, November 18, 2020

11/18 Links Pt1: Trump’s Parting Gift to Biden: A More Stable Middle East; Senators urge Trump to label goods from West Bank settlements "Made in Israel"; Israel, Bahrain Agree to Open Embassies

From Ian:

Trump’s Parting Gift to Biden: A More Stable Middle East
The indictments of U.S. foreign policy under President Donald Trump are as varied as his critics. The mandarins of the foreign-policy establishment have led the charge by insisting that the norm-shattering president has weakened U.S. alliances and empowered the country’s adversaries. Overlooked is the fact that the Trump administration has pursued a successful Middle East policy. And it succeeded precisely because it challenged entrenched assumptions. In the end, Trump will hand President-elect Joe Biden a region that is more stable than it was four years ago and an alliance network that is stronger than the one Trump inherited. This is a worthy legacy that will be squandered by the Democrats if they are determined to eviscerate all things Trump.

Among the world’s revisionist powers, none has taken the battering of Iran. Trump’s successes have confounded his critics. At first, many in the commentariat insisted that if Trump were to pull the United States out of the Iran nuclear deal, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, Washington would stand alone and be incapable of maintaining multilateral economic sanctions. In the end, the European co-signatories of the deal may have complained—but more importantly, European businesses complied. The next pillar of wisdom to fall was the notion that should the United States walk away from the deal, Iran would rush to the bomb. Tehran has accelerated some parts of its nuclear activities, but the country is still years away from having a nuclear bomb. The sabotage of Iran’s nuclear installations by unconfirmed intelligence actors has moved the atomic goal post further out of Tehran’s reach. And finally, the last notion to fall was that Trump’s killing of Iran’s famed Quds Force commander, Qassem Suleimani, would spark a war. Instead it provoked a missile attack on a relatively unoccupied potion of a U.S. military base in Iraq—with sufficient forewarning by Tehran to Washington that was passed on via the Swiss.

The stark reality is that the clerical oligarchs were prepared to negotiate with either winner of the 2020 U.S. presidential election. A regime that cannot stabilize its currency or protect its people from the ravages of a pandemic needs relief from sanctions and understands that the pathway to the global economy and financial system runs through Washington. The problem is that the Americans who will show up at the table after Jan. 20 may be so disdainful of Trump’s maximum pressure strategy that they fail to appreciate its many advantages.
Eli Lake: Israel’s Success Against Iran Poses a Challenge for Biden
When President-elect Joe Biden finally starts getting intelligence briefings, he may want to pay special attention to Israel’s successful operation against Abu Muhammad al-Masri, al-Qaeda’s second in command.

The significance of that operation, which took place in August and saw al-Masri shot dead in the street, is its location: Iran. According to the center-left conventional wisdom, this sort of thing should be impossible. While many analysts acknowledge that senior al-Qaeda leaders fled to Iran after the fall of the Taliban in Afghanistan, they have insisted that there was no significant relationship between the Shiite majority regime in Tehran and the Sunni-jihadist terrorist group.

In fact, al-Qaeda’s No. 2, who was wanted by the FBI for his role in planning the 1998 attacks on U.S. embassies in Africa, was living freely in an Iranian suburb. It should be obvious by now that Iran is willing to cooperate with al-Qaeda when their interests converge.

Iran and al-Qaeda have cooperated for decades against U.S. targets in the Middle East. “There is ample evidence going back to the 1990s that Iran is willing to work with al-Qaeda at times,” said Thomas Joscelyn, a founding editor of the Long War Journal. “Sometimes their interests are opposed and sometimes they converge.”

This came to the public’s attention in 2017, after the CIA released a batch of documents recovered at the compound of Osama bin Laden in Pakistan. One of those documents is a 19-page memo laying out the quarter-century history of al-Qaeda’s relationship with Iran. It says Iranian intelligence offered al-Qaeda money, arms and training and facilitated the travel of some operatives, while providing safe haven for others. Indeed, after the fall of the Taliban, the wives and children of bin Laden and his deputy fled to Iran.
Scoop: Senators urge Trump to label goods from West Bank settlements "Made in Israel"
A group of Republican senators led by Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) sent a letter to President Trump this week urging him to issue an executive order allowing goods produced in the Jewish settlements in the West Bank to be labeled “Made in Israel." Axios obtained a copy of the letter.

Why it matters: While the rest of the world views the settlements as illegal under international law and not part of Israel, the Trump administration has taken several steps intended to legitimize them and blur the differentiation between Israel and the West Bank.

- The letter — signed by Sens. Cotton, Ted Cruz (R-Texas), Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) and Kelly Loeffler (R-Ga.) — pushes the administration to issue the order before Jan. 20.

The letter was sent to Trump, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and acting Secretary of Homeland Security Chad Wolf. - The senators warned that a Biden administration would return to a policy of differentiating between Israel and the Jewish settlements in the West Bank. - That would make goods from the settlements “prime targets for BDS boycotts," they wrote, referring to the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement.

Tuesday, November 17, 2020

11/17 Links Pt1: Iran, al-Qaeda, and Joe Biden’s Middle East Trap; The NYTs’ Misleading ‘Analysis’ of Benjamin Netanyahu; Jordan king heads to UAE for meeting with Emirati, Bahrain leaders

From Ian:

Iran, al-Qaeda, and Joe Biden’s Middle East Trap
In terms of power, commerce, and security co-operation in the region, more has transpired in the last four years in the Middle East than the previous forty. The Democrats’ loathing of President Trump aside, reaffirming a commitment to an utterly discredited policy experiment would be a disastrous early foray into foreign policy.

Iran is now thought to have accumulated enormous amounts of enriched uranium. It continues to finance global terrorist networks and, most importantly, because of this leaked information, is now publicly linked to support of al-Qaeda.

And that, perhaps, is most interesting of all in this intrigue. Shi’ite Iran is not a natural ally of Sunni al-Qaeda, but the Iranians have proven to be accommodating when it comes to financing and controlling terrorist entities with aligned interests. But now, this exposure of a key al-Qaeda operative being protected by the regime makes it much more difficult for the Biden administration to court Iran. American forgiveness of al-Qaeda is not a popular position and would appear to play into the extreme left-wing of the Democratic party, which Biden is under extraordinary pressure to control and marginalize.

The leak of this operation will surely heighten the pressure on Biden to rethink his approach to JCPOA and Iran. Perhaps that was the point.

Americans are likely to be enraged by the prospect of appeasing a nation that harbors and supports al-Qaeda’s leadership. And that will mess things up for Biden. It has far less to do with Trump and much more to do with the alliances forged between Israel and its neighbors in the wake of Obama’s JCPOA dream. Whether they can see clearly through their hatred of the outgoing president and properly assess the Middle East four years on remains to be seen.

What is clear is that the prospect of getting all chummy with al-Qaeda benefactors makes JCPOA 2.0 way more difficult.


Dan Schueftan: The U.S. Should Back Allies, "Break" Enemies in the Middle East
The emerging coalition between Israel, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, and others brokered by the Trump administration has greatly checked Iran's ambitions. The Gulf Arabs now understand that Israel is the "only regional element that has a strong enough motivation to fight Iran" and "can be trusted because it must fight Iran for its own good."

However, Schueftan believes the "one major mistake" in the Trump administration's Middle East policy is its underestimation of the danger of Turkey, which he suggests is "going in the direction of a totalitarian regime" under President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. Not only is Turkey projecting its military power, notably in Syria and Libya, but it is sponsoring the Muslim Brotherhood, which has a presence throughout the Arab world. "The Muslim brothers are extremely dangerous because they have learned to pretend to be moderate ...They are as radical as you can possibly get, but smart enough to hide it."

Schueftan strongly recommends "persisting with the existing [U.S.] policy of maximum pressure on Iran" and "supporting local allies" against it, and he believes the same two-fold approach should be applied to Turkey. This means "see[ing] to it that Erdoğan's economy is undermined ... once he is economically challenged, he may lose a lot of support in Turkey." It means not only "backing the Greeks and the Cypriots against the Turkish attempt to dominate the Eastern Mediterranean," but also supporting the Kurds.

"Anything that the Iranian regime agrees to is ipso facto bad and dangerous for the other side."

Trying to reach an accommodation with either Iran or Turkey is a bad idea in Schueftan's view. "Anything that the Iranian regime agrees to is ipso facto bad and dangerous for the other side, if they agree to something, it means that we have been given a raw deal." The same zero-sum principle applies to Turkey. "Whatever is bad for Erdoğan, I think is good for the region."

Monday, November 16, 2020

11/16 Links Pt1: Where is the EU aid to the Palestinian Authority going?; Is Hezbollah’s ammonium nitrate linked to plot against Jews in Argentina?

From Ian:

JPost Editorial: We can't ignore the funding of terrorism any longer - opinion
The effects of Iranian-sponsored terrorism have been felt around the globe, through Hezbollah attacks in place as diverse as Argentina and Burgas, Bulgaria, to attacks regularly taking place against targets in Saudi Arabia.

Israel has not made any official comment regarding the targeted killing, but that is in keeping with its policy in such cases.

The report itself serves Israeli interests even without an official statement: Firstly, it sends another strong message to Iran that Israel is closely monitoring what goes on in the Islamic Republic and able to take action there. This targeted assassination, not the first, follows a series of mysterious fires and explosions at Iran’s nuclear facilities earlier this year and the heist of its nuclear archives from a Tehran warehouse in 2018, for which Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu credited the Mossad.

Both issues – Iran’s nuclear aspirations and its backing of global terrorism – remain high on Israel’s agenda and the government is clearly concerned that the incoming US administration under Joe Biden, unlike Trump, will not see eye-to-eye with Israel on how to confront Iran. Israel, of course, is not alone in its concerns regarding the Islamic Republic. Saudi Arabia, a frequent Iranian target, is also concerned that Biden might roll back the US policy on Iran. Similarly, the recently signed Abraham Accords between Israel and Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates are also seen as being based on similar concerns about Iranian intents. Iran has created a crescent of terrorism that expands from Tehran to Beirut and as far south as Yemen.

If Iran is serving as a safe haven for al-Qaeda terrorists in addition to backing other terrorist organizations such as Hamas and Hezbollah, this should concern all decent peace-loving people everywhere – especially as Iran continues to advance its nuclear weapons capabilities.

No government can afford to ignore the deadly implications of the combinations of terrorism and nuclear weapons. When Iran receives funds through the lifting of sanctions, the world must ask where this money is going and what it is supporting.
PMW: Where is the EU aid to the Palestinian Authority going?
In May 2020, Palestinian Authority Chairman, Mahmoud Abbas, declared that the PA and the PLO no longer see themselves bound by the agreements signed with Israel. Implementing this decision, the PA has refused to accept tax monies that Israel collects and transfers to the PA. These funds provide for half of the PA’s annual budget. The unilateral decision to refuse the tax income has once again plunged the PA into a self-made financial crisis. In order to deal with the ramifications of the decision, the PA decided to cut the salaries of all of its civil servants by 50%.

Since the beginning of 2020, the European Union has provided the PA with hundreds of millions of euro in aid. Of that aid, over 90 million Euro was given to the PA, designated, according to EU press statements, for the payment of salaries to “civil servants mostly in the health and education sector in the West Bank.”

In November 2019, European Member of Parliament Carmen Avram submitted written questions to the European Commission seeking to ensure that the EU aid to the PA was not being used to fund the payment of salaries to terrorists. The March 2020 response of the commission explained the mechanism by which the EU ostensibly tracks the final beneficiaries of the EU aid saying:

“The Palestinian Authority provides a list of eligible beneficiaries which is checked by EU-contracted independent auditors against a list of eligibility criteria as well as a second check of individuals considered to be associated with any terrorist organisations or activities. No payments are made to any beneficiaries falling within these categories.”

According to this answer, the EU thinks it knows exactly which civil servants are the recipients of the EU aid.

Since the EU is providing a considerable amount of funding to these specific civil servants, one would assume that their salaries have not been affected by the PA decision to cut all salaries. But this does not appear to be the case.
Gov’t not enforcing transparency law on NGO foreign funding
The government has not enforced its law requiring organizations mostly funded by foreign government entities to submit special reports and disclose its funding publicly, a Knesset Research and Information Center report found.

The requirement was legislated in the 2016 NGO Law, which was highly controversial and drew international criticism. At the time, a US State Department spokesman said the law poses dangers to a “free and functioning civil society,” and the EU said “the reporting requirements imposed by the new law go beyond the legitimate need for transparency and seem aimed at constraining the activities of these civil society organizations.”

Yet, despite the pitched Knesset battle to pass the law and then-justice minister Ayelet Shaked’s defense of it to her counterparts abroad and in the international media, the Associations Registrar, a department in the Justice Ministry, has done nothing to enforce the law.

Knesset Research and Information Center report, ordered by Yamina MK Bezalel Smotrich, found that the Associations Registrar does not take any particular action to oversee the law’s implementation, beyond its general supervision of NGOs.

In 2019, only 118 (0.3%) of 39,399 NGOs registered in Israel reported foreign entity funding, a decrease from the previous two years; in 2017 there were 204.

One complaint from a member of the public on undisclosed foreign funding of 13 organizations found that 11 of them were violating the law, but the Associations Registrar did not take action to enforce it.

Sunday, November 08, 2020

11/08 Links: Melanie Phillips: Our teacher, Rabbi Jonathan; Arnold Roth: Could Jordan’s celebrity terrorist finally face justice in the US?; Jerusalem: Before and After Covid-19

From Ian:

Melanie Phillips: Our teacher, Rabbi Jonathan
The death of the former British chief rabbi, Lord Sacks, is a heavy blow not just to his family and not just to the Jewish community but also to the wider world.

The greatest of his stellar gifts lay not just in his learning but in the way he was able to draw upon this to convey moral and religious truths to Jews and non-Jews alike. His personal shyness made all the more remarkable his ability to communicate the most profound of messages in the most accessible way.

While he sometimes blundered as chief rabbi in a world of community politics where he was visibly uncomfortable, his outstanding achievements which will be his enduring memorial lay in his writing.

For the Jewish world, his great legacy is the body of prayer books he edited containing his unmatched commentaries on the liturgy. These furnished a profound and illuminating insight into the texts in a historical, literary and philosophical context, all written in luminous and accessible prose. His emailed commentaries on the Torah portion of the week have similarly sustained many with their creative, original and deeply human interpretation of a text whose often obscure or elliptical meaning suddenly emerged as a result into sharp and clear focus.

What blazed out from this great and hitherto unstoppable body of work was his deep love for Judaism and the Jewish people, and the overwhelming lesson of hope that he drew from Jewish teaching and Jewish history and offered to everyone.

And what gave him such unusual authority was something which conversely gave him the most trouble from ultra-conservative rabbis. This was that he straddled two worlds. While these conservative rabbis viewed with unassuageable suspicion anyone who had not been educated solely within orthodox Jewish institutions, the ultra-British Sacks had been educated in non-Jewish schools in London and read philosophy at Cambridge.
Prince Charles mourns UK’s Rabbi Jonathan Sacks: ‘He spanned sacred and secular’
Britain’s Prince Charles on Sunday mourned the passing of Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks, the former chief rabbi of the United Kingdom, citing his legacy as a leader.

Sacks, whose extensive writings and frequent media appearances commanded a global following among Jews and non-Jews alike, died Saturday morning at 72. He was battling cancer, which he had announced in October.

In an official statement, Charles called Sacks “a leader whose wisdom, scholarship and humanity were without equal.”

“It was with the most profound personal sorrow that I heard of the death of Rabbi Lord Sacks,” the statement read. “With his passing, the Jewish community, our nation, and the entire world have lost a leader whose wisdom, scholarship and humanity were without equal.”

“His immense learning spanned the sacred and the secular, and his prophetic voice spoke to our greatest challenges with unfailing insight and boundless compassion. His wise counsel was sought and appreciated by those of all faiths and none, and he will be missed more than words can say,” Charles said.

The statement continued, celebrating Sacks’s contributions.

“Although Rabbi Lord Sacks’s death is a cause of the greatest possible sadness, we give thanks for the immeasurable contribution which — in the tradition of the most revered teachers of the Jewish people — he made to all our lives,” it said.

“I send my deepest condolences to his family,” Charles said.
Tributes Pour in as Jewish World Mourns Passing of Former UK Chief Rabbi Jonathan Sacks
The Jewish world was in mourning on Saturday evening as it learned of the passing of Lord Rabbi Jonathan Sacks — the former chief rabbi of the United Kingdom and one of the most celebrated public intellectuals of the last 20 years.

Lord Sacks, who was 72, had been diagnosed with cancer last month. Sacks had been treated for the disease on two previous occasions.

Sacks was Chief Rabbi of the United Hebrew Congregations of the British Commonwealth between 1991 and 2013. He was the author of over 30 books. His most recent title, “Morality: Restoring the Common Good in Divided Times,” was published this year.

Rabbi Sacks was knighted in 2005 and made a Life Peer in 2009.

Tributes to Rabbi Sacks were led by the British Prime Minister, Boris Johnson.

Johnson said he was “deeply saddened by the passing of Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks. His leadership had a profound impact on our whole country and across the world. My sincere condolences to his family, friends and the Jewish community. May his memory be a blessing.”

UK Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis, who succeeded Sacks, said the world had “lost a Torah luminary and intellectual giant who had a transformative global impact.”

Rabbi Sacks was “an extraordinary ambassador for Judaism, helping many to understand and be proud of their heritage,” Mirvis said. “He will be deeply missed, not just within the Jewish world, which benefited immeasurably from his teachings, but far more widely, by all those whose lives he enlightened with his wisdom, profundity and inspiration.”

The Church of England’s leading cleric — Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby — paid tribute to Sacks as having been that “rare combination – profound depth, and equally profound commitment to relating with others – that made the leadership he offered possible.”


Lord Jonathan Sacks: 'Anti-Zionism is the new anti-Semitism'

Tuesday, November 03, 2020

11/03 Links Pt1: 4 killed in Vienna ‘Islamist terror attack’; Jewish institutions to remain shut; All of Israel is “Palestine” in Fatah message; Malawi to move embassy to Jerusalem

From Ian:

4 killed in Vienna ‘Islamist terror attack’; Jewish institutions to remain shut
Austrian security forces were carrying out a massive manhunt Tuesday for at least one attacker still on the run, a day after several gunmen opened fire at multiple locations across central Vienna, killing at least four people and wounding 15 more.

“We experienced an attack last night by at least one Islamist terrorist,” Interior Minister Karl Nehammer told reporters.

“This is a radicalized person who felt close to IS,” said Nehammer, referring to the Islamic State terror group.

Two of the dead were men and two were women. No details were given on their identities.

On attacker was shot dead by police, and a manhunt was underway for at least one more assailant. Austrian authorities have not publicly identified the attackers.

Police said at least one of the attackers was wearing what appeared to be an explosives belt that turned out to be fake.

Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz described the assault as a “repulsive terror attack” and said he could not rule out an anti-Semitic motive for the onslaught, given that the shooting began outside Vienna’s main synagogue. It was closed at the time.
Early Report: 7 Reported Killed in Ongoing Shooting Near Jewish Community Center in Vienna

‘Israel stands with Austria,’ Netanyahu tells Kurz after Vienna attack
Israel and Austria are sharing intelligence in the aftermath of a shooting at a Vienna synagogue, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Tuesday.

Netanyahu said he spoke to Austrian Chancellor Sebastia Kurz and told him “the people of Israel stand with Austria…against the savagery of Islamist terrorism.

“We are cooperating in every way, with our intelligence and every other way we can,” Netanyahu added.

The prime minister made the remarks in a statement with Romanian Prime Minister Ludovic Orban, who was in Jerusalem.

Wednesday, October 14, 2020

10/14 Links Pt1: Top UAE official laments PA’s ingratitude after Abbas envoy rants on Israel ties; Pompeo Urges Saudi Arabia to Consider Normalizing Ties With Israel

From Ian:

Top UAE official laments PA’s ingratitude after Abbas envoy rants on Israel ties
A senior United Arab Emirates official on Tuesday shot back at the Palestinian ambassador to France, who had attacked Abu Dhabi over its establishment of formal relations with Israel.

In an interview with French magazine Le Point, Salman El Herfi fired several unusually harsh salvos at the UAE and at Bahrain, another Gulf state currently in the process of normalizing relations with Jerusalem, including saying these countries “have become more Israeli than Israel” and are violating the charter of the United Nations.

“I was not surprised by the statements made by the Palestinian Ambassador to Paris, and his ungrateful discussion of the Emirates,” Anwar Gargash, the UAE’s minister of state for foreign affairs, wrote in Arabic on his Twitter account.

“We have grown accustomed to the lack of loyalty and the ingratitude. We proceed toward the future confident in all our actions and beliefs,” he added.

In the Le Point interview, El Herfi said that the UAE had long abandoned the Palestinian cause and that he wasn’t surprised by Abu Dhabi’s decision to normalize ties with Israel in August.

“The only new thing was the formalization of this relationship. I thank them for having revealed their true face,” he said of the UAE leadership.

“The truth is that the Emirates were never at the Palestinians’ side,” he went on, charging that the UAE froze aid for the Palestine Liberation Organization in 1985.

Abu Dhabi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan is merely “a little dictator who wants to become known, and he’s playing with fire,” the veteran Palestinian diplomat said. The UAE’s de facto leader “surrendered to Israel without a fight,” El Herfi added.

He also accused the UAE and Bahrain of violating a long list of Arab League and UN resolutions, even going as far as saying they violated the UN charter by normalizing relations with Israel.
PA instructs its officials not to attack Arab leaders, countries
The Palestinian Authority on Wednesday instructed its official spokesmen and representatives around the world not to attack Arab heads of state and Arab countries in the aftermath of the peace agreements signed between Israel, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain. The instruction came after the PA ambassador to France, Salman el Herfi, launched a scathing attack on UAE Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed, dubbing him a “little dictator who wants to make himself known.”

The PA has repeatedly accused the UAE and Bahrain of backstabbing the Palestinians and betraying the Palestinian issue by signing the peace accords with Israel.


Hypocrites… and enemies of the Islamic society- Abbas’ advisor about Arabs who normalize with Israel

PA official: The UAE and Bahrain=worms exposed by the sun, Netanyahu= a distorted copy of Mussolini

Khaled Abu Toameh: Why Palestinians Will Not Accept Advice from Arabs
Palestinian leaders are continuing to act not only against the advice of [former Egyptian President Hosni] Mubarak and other Arabs, but also against the interests of their own people.

"The Palestinian leadership has lost its credibility in the eyes of the new Arab generation, which is a generation of technology...." — Abdullah Al-Ghathami, professor of criticism and theory at King Saud University, Twitter, September 25, 2020.

Pointedly,.... the Fatah delegation in Istanbul last week met with officials from the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, as well as Turkish and Qatari intelligence officers.... and discussed... ways of "coordinating positions to direct blows to the interests of the Arab countries, especially the Arab Gulf states and Egypt."

The report added that "analysts specializing in the Palestinian issue commented that Qatar and Turkey will use Abbas to harm the interests of Saudi Arabia, Egypt, the UAE, Bahrain, Jordan, Kuwait, Oman, Sudan, Mauritania, Morocco and Tunisia."

The report also revealed that Qatar recently gave Abbas and some of his aides more than $50 million for their personal bank accounts inside banks in Israel and the Palestinian Authority areas."

Tuesday, October 13, 2020

10/13 Links Pt1: Palestinian PM: God help us if Trump wins; Why does BBC promote my daughter’s murderer?; Israel's coronavirus death toll exceeds 2,000

From Ian:

Palestinian PM: God help us if Trump wins
Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh told the European Parliament’s Foreign Affairs Committee on Monday that voting US President Donald Trump out of office is critical for the Palestinians.

“The election is very important. God help us, the EU, and the whole world if there are four more years of Trump,” he said.

Shtayyeh spoke out against Trump’s peace plan, presented earlier this year.

“Trump has wasted four years of everyone’s time,” he said. “The ultimate deal was not delivered. [Trump’s plan] was rejected by the Palestinians, the Arabs and Europe… The US is just too biased.”

Shtayyeh called for Europe to recognize a Palestinian state, saying it would help bring about a two-state solution and called for a full association agreement to be drawn up between the EU and the PA in preparation for statehood.

The PA prime minister lamented Trump’s “unilateral measures,” such as moving the US embassy to Jerusalem and the US cutting aid to the Palestinians.

Among other reasons, the US slashed the aid because of the Taylor Force Act, which halts American funding to the PA until it stops paying terrorists and their families through its Martyr’s Fund. In 2019, the PA spent NIS 517.4 million ($152.6m.) on salaries to terrorists, in and out of prison.

MEP Charlie Weimers of Sweden, a member of the European Conservatives and Reformists, challenged Shtayyeh on this front, asking: “Can you look European taxpayers in the eye and promise that none of their money - directly or indirectly - will be used for terrorism? Can you promise them that you will cease the support for terrorism and embrace peace?”

Weimers highlighted “loopholes in EU counter-terrorism financing legislation, which lead to EU funds to the PA being funneled to EU-listed terror organizations.”


Poll: Ahead of US Elections, 63% of Israelis Say ‘Trump Better for Israel’
A clear majority of Israelis favor the reelection of US President Donald Trump come November’s presidential elections, a new poll conducted for i24NEWS showed Monday night.

Answering the question, “which US presidential candidate do you think will be better for Israel?” 63.3% of respondents chose the Republican leader.

In contrast, Democrat candidate and former vice president Joe Biden came up with a mere 18.8%.

Moreover, 53.2% said they thought the Israeli right would be significantly harmed if Trump was not reelected. A little over 21% replied that “Israel acts independently,” and therefore won’t be influenced by a change in the White House.

Almost half of Israelis (48.2%) thought that US Jews are “mistaken” to support the Democratic Party, versus 35.5% who thought they were “correct” in doing so.

On the question of whether a rift has grown between American Jewry and the State of Israel in recent years, 47% replied that it could be mended, 35.3% said there’s “no rift, only debate,” and 12.4% answered the rift could not be mended.
i24NEWS Poll: Ahead of US Elections, 63% of Israelis Say Trump Better for Israel

MEMRI: Saudi Journalist: Peace With Israel Is A Necessity, Not A Choice; Turkey And Iran Are A Greater Threat Than Israel
In an article titled "Peace Is A Necessity, Not A Choice" in the Saudi state daily 'Okaz, published one day before the signing of the peace agreements between the UAE, Bahrain and Israel, Saudi journalist Fahd Ibrahim Al-Dughaither welcomed these agreements as harbingers of coexistence, economic growth and constructive competition in the region. Al-Dughaither added that Saudi Arabia not only does not oppose the agreements, but has future development plans of its own that require peace and stability; therefore, it has the right to make decisions that serve its supreme interests, at a time of its choosing.

Al-Dughaither wrote further that the Arab states have supported the Palestinian cause for years and have sacrificed for it, yet the Palestinian leaders have been stubborn and corrupt, filling their own pockets with the aid money provided by the Gulf. Responding to Palestinian claims that normalization with Israel is an act of betrayal,[1] Al-Dughaither stressed that the Arab countries that have signed peace agreements with Israel, starting with Egypt and Jordan, have continued to support the Palestinians and their rights. However, he said, the recent decades have seen vast changes in the region, chief of them the growing threat to the Arabs posted by Turkey, Iran and their regional proxies, which is much greater than the threat posed by Israel. These changes have caused the Arab countries to reassess their priorities and to advance towards peace with Israel.

The following are translated excerpts from his article:[2] "After the signing of the peace and normalization agreement between Israel, the UAE and Bahrain we have begun to see, even if from afar, a new future, different from the past 70 years: a future that contains some hope of coexistence, development, constructive competition and the avoidance of war and military conflicts -- even if it does bring about the realization of all the aspirations related to the Palestinian issue. This is a trend that can isolate the rogue regimes and organizations, which support violence and benefit from the rivalry in our region. This future is very different from the destructive future that former U.S. president Barak Obama envisioned for our region, [namely] the so-called 'Arab Spring'…

"Saudi Arabia certainly does not oppose the trend of peace and has impressive development plans for the future, whose implementation required an environment of stability and mutual interests vis-à-vis all the countries of the world. Therefore, Saudi Arabia has the sovereign right to make decisions according to its supreme interests, whenever it wants and without paying attention to populist rumblings [that are heard] here and there. Let me just remind [the readers] that it was Saudi Arabia that laid down the foundations for the Arab peace initiative, known already in the 1980s.[3] [And] what have I said about Saudi Arabia and its development ambitions is also true for Israel and of all the Arab states…

Sunday, October 11, 2020

10/11 Links: UAE envoy to Britain: ‘The idea Arabs and Israel must be at war is nonsense’; What binds the radical US Left is hating both Israel and the USA; Does Israel need a ministry to fight BDS?

From Ian:

The makings of a true peace
It’s a new Middle East and anyone who has been following the news or more importantly, social media, is discovering an entirely new language with respect to Israel-Arab relations, one characterized by warmth, curiosity and excitement sparked by the recent peace deals signed between Israel and the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain.

The people have spoken, and they love each other. It happened so instantly that it has caused some skeptics to raise eyebrows and question the authenticity of this rapprochement, but anyone who is in touch with the “other side” knows that this outspoken sympathy is genuine.

Terms like “warm peace” and “normalization” are often used but only for lack of better description. Truth be told, the peace between Israel and the UAE isn’t just warm—it’s sizzling hot.

“It’s like we’re dating,” said Jerusalem Deputy Mayor Fleur Hassan-Nahoum, while Chief Rabbi of the UAE Yehuda Sarna believes “Israeli tourists won’t want to leave.”

Emiratis are reacting similarly. Dubai-based businessman Thani AlShirawi, who co-founded the Israel-UAE Business Forum with Hassan Nahoum, says he is “on cloud nine.” Emirati author Omar al-Busaidy, who attended the White House signing ceremony on Sept. 15, said he hasn’t stopped smiling and “you can feel the energy everywhere.”

If anything, the Abraham Accords is a people’s peace. For many Israelis—especially at a time when they face a second coronavirus-triggered lockdown that is compounded by political uncertainty and nationwide protests—this peace is a gift to be enjoyed by generations to come, one the impact of which will be felt long after the COVID and political crises have gone.

Less than a month after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and UAE Foreign Minister Sheikh Abdullah Bin Zayed Al Nahyan joined U.S. President Donald Trump at the White House for the signing ceremony, dozens of partnerships have been formed between the Jewish state and the Arabian Gulf power, and the list grows daily.


UAE envoy to Britain: ‘The idea Arabs and Israel must be at war is nonsense’
The United Arab Emirates ambassador has urged British Jews to visit the country as he expressed his wish to be an ally in the fight against antisemitism in the UK and decried hate in parts of the Arab media.

Mansoor Abulhoul made the comments in his first interview with the Jewish media after his country and Israel signed the historic Abraham Accords to normalise relations.

The envoy, who studied at Leeds University and whose British mother moved to the UAE in 1968, said the region had suffered from decades of “indoctrination stemming from the Arab nationalist movement” and been “held back” by a fear of engaging with others. “The narrative that the Arabs should be in endless war with the Israelis is absolute nonsense and the Abraham Accords proves that” he insisted.

“To have a dialogue you have to be at the table and we very much see the Abraham accords as a new pathway to peace. For us to ignore a major power engine we’re denying the region strengths and bonds from which we can build peace. We’re both very dynamic economies and its difficult not to be able to work together.”

He strongly disagrees with any suggestion that the deal doesn’t progress the issue of peace with the Palestinians, whose leadership have accused the UAE of betrayal.

“Where we had looming annexation – which would have sent peace into overdrive reverse gear – that’s been removed. It’s important the Palestinians use this time to come in and engage.”

It is up to the Israelis and Palestinians to decide what sort of solution they finally come to. But the UAE will do all it can to urge both sides to break the impasse. We will be able to help precisely because we can now communicate directly with Israel.”


What binds the radical US Left is hating both Israel and the USA
Note that the ammunition being used to separate the heretofore special bond between the U.S. and Israel is based on the lie that Israel is a usurper and an “illegal occupier” of another’s land!

To understand the calumny, read for yourselves what is enshrined in international law, as well as in historical fact. The preeminent expert in this legal arena is Howard Grief (deceased, June 2013). All the facts are contained within Legal Rights and Title of Sovereignty of the Jewish People to the Land of Israel and Palestine under International Law

For all intents and purposes, the Democratic Party’s current incarnation (as it moved left-ward, incrementally, over a period of years) is ideologically imbued with those who would like to see Israel’s destruction. America’s, too. Even though the Democrat Party of yesteryear, tradition-wise, has always been supportive of Israel, this no longer seems to be the case.

The party's radical, Marxist/communist element hates Israel for the same reasons they hate America. This tragic truth is plain for all to see, but only if one’s eyes are wide open enough to absorb the seismic upheavals taking place all over America. Akin to the outcome of a civil war, the upcoming 2020 election will determine the absolute fate of the nation. This is so on both the domestic and foreign fronts.

In addition to conservative leaning Americans - those who believe in the Constitution and all that it represents and upholds - the next biggest losers to a Biden win will be those who seek to safeguard the "sacred and special" friendship between America and Israel. This includes not only American Jews who seek to ensure the safety of Israel from within the diaspora, but millions of Christians in America who not only pray for Israel's safety, but support the Jewish homeland in a myriad of ways, seen and unseen.

The upcoming 2020 choice for President of the United States couldn't be any clearer, starker, or more monumental.

Thursday, October 01, 2020

10/01 Links P1: Merkel’s government is ‘undermining solidarity with Israel’; To the Washington Post, Palestinians Can Only Be Victims; How the Abraham Accords Are Making Iran Desperate

From Ian:

The UN must recalculate its route
In my capacity as a minister in various Israeli cabinets, I dealt extensively with the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement. I have come to know firsthand the bias and decades-long anti-Israel sentiment in the United Nations.

But despite this, I decided to begin my U.N. ambassadorship with a clear determination to fight for Israel’s reputation, to get rid of the hatred toward Israel there and to make sure that an automatic majority against it is no longer a preordained fate. I believe that now, with Arab countries embracing peace with Israel as a boon and Iranian brutality being exposed on a daily basis, there is a fighting chance at achieving this goal.

As soon as I arrived in New York, I began working alongside our friends in the Trump administration to restore the U.N. sanctions on Iran that had been lifted following the 2015 nuclear deal. Tehran’s windfall due to the sanctions relief has armed its terrorist tentacles in Iran, Syria, Yemen, Libya, Gaza and of course in Lebanon.

One would think that the United Nations, as an institution that has championed peace and security, would join the struggle against the largest terrorist regime in the world, which has continued to openly call for the annihilation of Israel. Unfortunately, the Security Council has chosen excuses over actions.

While Iran executes protesters, including wrestler Navid Afkari, a majority of Security Council members have shamefully refused to join the U.S.-led effort against Tehran, effectively choosing to reward such murderous action. There is no better proof for the disconnect between the theoretical ideas expressed by the U.N. Charter and their failed implementation in reality.
Merkel’s government is ‘undermining solidarity with Israel’
Germany has an anti-Israel bias at the United Nations, according to Uwe Becker, the commissioner to combat antisemitism in the German state of Hesse.

Following Germany’s abstention last week at the UN on an anti-Israel resolution, he told The Jerusalem Post: “Even in times of rapprochement between Israel and the Arab states, interested countries continue their smear theater at the United Nations and once again pillory the Jewish state. Now there must be an end to the ducking away. Germany’s abstention only strengthens Israel’s enemies at the UN and weakens the efforts for peace in the region.”

“I am very disappointed about Germany’s vote after a new resolution on the alleged violations of women’s rights by Israel,” said Becker, who is also president of the Germany-Israel Friendship Association.

“Germany is undermining solidarity with Israel if it does not finally take a clear and unequivocal stand at the United Nations against the politically staged permanent condemnation of Israel,” he added. “Neutrality is inappropriate when the moral verdict of guilt is passed on Israel.”

Becker is widely considered the most forceful German political advocate for the security of the State of Israel.

“Attitude and backbone are required, not passivity and diplomatic kowtowing,” he said. “If, at the end of a vote, Israel is the only country in the world accused of violating women’s rights, and countries decide to do so where women have virtually no rights, then the German side should finally wake up.”


Incoming Belgian government on collision course with Israel, local Jews say
Members of Belgium’s Jewish community this week expressed great concern at their country’s incoming government, saying some of its members are known for being extremely critical of Israel.

Even before the final cabinet lineup was set to be announced on Wednesday evening, friends of Israel familiar with the Belgian political scene predicted increased tensions with Jerusalem and the local Jewish community, pointing to what they said were several harsh Israel critics likely to be appointed to key positions in the government.

“Israel will find that this government will try to shut down all little dialogue left between both countries,” said Brussels-based Jenny Aharon, who advises Israeli officials and Jewish organizations on matters related to EU-Israel relations.

However, she added, the newly formed government, which will be sworn in by King Philippe on Thursday morning, “does not represent a Flemish majority. Therefore it would be inaccurate to consider its adopted anti-Israel policies as a sentiment shared by the Belgian people as a whole.”

Belgium is considered among Israel’s toughest critics in Europe, with Jerusalem and Brussels at odds over the Palestinian question.

In February, the Belgian ambassador in Tel Aviv was summoned to the Foreign Ministry for a dressing down over what Israeli officials called “a systematic campaign to demonize the Jewish state” after the country’s embassy to the United Nations invited a pro-Palestinian activist to address the Security Council.
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