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Thursday, December 24, 2020

From Ian:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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




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

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

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

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

The double-barreled attack on the deal by Baker and Bolton seems designed to give an opening for the Biden administration to renege on the deal, and to cite senior Republican officials as support. But Baker and Bolton are hardly disinterested in this matter. Baker had served as a UN special envoy for the Western Sahara issue and was the author of the latest failed peace plan for the area: a "two-state solution" known as the Baker Plan. Bolton worked for Baker on these issues at the State Department.
The Collapse of Palestinian Grand Strategy
The Palestinian quest for an internationally imposed “solution,” which would not require them to negotiate a compromise deal with Israel, has failed. Palestinian leaders may attempt this again after Joe Biden becomes US president, but this will fail yet again, since the collapse of their past strategy is due to much more than the policies of the Trump Administration. Indeed, evolving regional and global realities allow for a new Israeli peace initiative, which can preserve the underlying principles of the Trump outline for peace.

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

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

Rather than reduce the prospects for peace and stability, these developments make them more likely. Many countries around the world want to engage with Israel. Consequently, the Palestinians would be wrong to assume that their strategy of isolating Israel can be revived with Trump’s departure.
JINSA PodCast: Sanctions, Sanctions, Sanctions
What makes for a good sanctions regime? Is regime change a reasonable policy goal for a sanctions regime? Does COVID-19 change the calculus for economic sanctions? What changes to the U.S. sanctions regime, if any, might we expect during the transition from the Trump Administration to the Biden Administration with regards to Iran, Russia, and China? The Hon. Stephen Rademaker, former Assistant Secretary of State for International Security and Nonproliferation, joins The National Security Digest to offer his assessment of the U.S. sanctions approach. Mr. Rademaker currently serves as Senior Of Counsel at Covington in D.C, as well as a Senior Advisor to JINSA’s Gemunder Center and a Member of JINSA’s Iran Policy Project.

 

Seth Frantzman presents an interesting thesis in his op-ed in Newsweek this week. He argues that Israel's Peace Deals Show How Abnormal Israel's Treatment Has Been, based on his recent visit to Dubai -- along with 50,000 other Israelis since November 26.

 
Noting how normal his experience there felt, and how normal in fact it should feel, Frantzman writes that Israel's isolation within the Arab world is an artificial situation:
However, a concerted campaign over the decades attempted to make it seem acceptable that not only would Israel lack relations with dozens of mostly Muslim countries, but Jewish religious displays themselves would be considered taboo or "controversial" in those places. 
 
...Acceptance of the isolation of Israel and erasure of Jewish history in the Middle East has been an open wound afflicting the whole region. It should never have happened. Israel and some Arab countries fought a war in 1948, and there are legitimate reasons that Palestinians and their supporters opposed Israel's policies. But similar terrible wars, such as that between India and Pakistan in 1948, didn't result in dozens of countries not recognizing India or pretending that Hindus don't exist. Normalization and the presence of diplomatic relations are the most basic geopolitical norms throughout the world. Yet so many politicians, like former U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, who pushed for engagement with Iran, blindly accepted the fact that so many countries did not normalize ties with Israel. [emphasis added]
Frantzman sees the "anti-Israel crusade" of the past 70 years as the result of antisemitism.
 
The comparison of Israel with India is an interesting one.
 
On the one hand, one can argue that unlike India, Israel -- as a Jewish state -- provokes the long-standing animus in the Arab/Muslim world against Jews that is practically hard-wired into Islam. That tension has been evident throughout the Arab world since its beginnings.
 
Normalization is a Western concept and the goal towards which states work when they resolve conflicts with each other. It is not necessarily an Arab approach -- where hudnah, or truce, is used: a temporary solution, awaiting an auspicious change in the status quo with the enemy.
 
That is what makes the Abraham Accords so striking -- that it is not the way things are normally done in the Middle East, as opposed to the peace treaties Israel has with Egypt and Jordan, where there is a 'cold' peace and anti-Israel rhetoric there is common. In the Abraham Accords, there are Arab countries that have turned the corner and do not see Israel as the enemy; Egypt and Jordan have not yet been able to do this.
 
The similarity between India and Israel is in their active pursuit of improving ties, both globally and with the Muslim world in particular.
 
The Wikipedia article on Foreign relations of India has a list of the countries with which India has forged ties. In the section describing India's ties with the Palestinian Arabs, it says
In the light of a religious partition between India and Pakistan, the impetus to boost ties with Muslim states around the world was a further tie to India's support for the Palestinian cause. [emphasis added]
This claim that India's conflict with Pakistan is a motivator for better relations with Muslim countries is echoed in the descriptions of India's ties with some Muslim countries: 
Afghanistan: "The new democratically elected Afghan government strengthened its ties with India in wake of persisting tensions and problems with Pakistan, which is continuing to shelter and support the Taliban"

Bangladesh: "At the outset India's relations with Bangladesh could not have been stronger because of India's unalloyed support for independence and opposition against Pakistan in 1971."

Iran: "After the Iranian Revolution of 1979, Iran withdrew from CENTO and dissociated itself from US-friendly countries, including Pakistan, which automatically meant improved relationship with the Republic of India."

Tajikistan: "India's role in fighting the Taliban and Al-Qaeda and its strategic rivalry with both China and Pakistan have made its ties with Tajikistan important to its strategic and security policies"
And on the flip side:
Saudi Arabia: "India's strategic relations with Saudi Arabia have been affected by the latter's close ties with Pakistan. Saudi Arabia supported Pakistan's stance on the Kashmir conflict and during the Indo-Pakistani War of 1971 at the expense of its relations with India."

Turkey: "Due to controversial issues such as Turkey's close relationship with Pakistan, relations between the two countries have often been blistered at certain times, but better at others."
In other words, Pakistan has served as an impetus for certain Muslim countries to improve their ties with India, similar to the way Iran has motivated certain Muslim countries to improve their relations with Israel.
 
While one might argue with Frantzman's contention about how artificial the enmity towards Israel is in the Arab world, it is clear that prior to Trump, US administrations "blindly accepted the fact that so many countries did not normalize ties with Israel." The Trump administration didn't, and orchestrated not just the end of hostilities, but normalized relations between Israel and 4 Muslim states.
 
In a recent article, Jonathan Tobin describes How Trump Transformed ‘Quid Pro Quo’ From Democratic Slur to Diplomatic Triumph. He notes the opposition, including among Republicans:
That Latin phrase has become a term of abuse among Democrats, ever since it became the totemic phrase used to justify their failed Trump impeachment attempt. But the string of normalization deals showcases a triumphant side of the quid pro quo approach.

Far from indicating a shallow, cynical attitude to governance, these deals show quid pro quo is a swifter, smarter, saner strategy than the very different ideas and tactics pursued by previous administrations.
Tobin describes this quid pro quo approach as transactional diplomacy -- but good luck defining how it is any different from normal diplomacy.
 
Wikipedia traces transactional diplomacy back to former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who focused specifically on regional solutions and working with countries to build up their infrastructure and reducing their reliance on the US. The Christian Science Monitor sees transactional diplomacy as values free and compares it with the US agreeing to reduce its relations with Taiwan in order to improve relations with China or Obama trading sanctions relief in exchange for Iran's agreeing to a nuclear deal.
 
Tobin's view of transactional diplomacy is pragmatic and is about tossing ideas that don't work:
The point about Trump’s transactional strategy is that it worked. Instead of focusing on maintaining policies that could never achieve any results — such as the unrealistic hope the Palestinians would ever seriously negotiate, and the equally hopeless stalemate in the Western Sahara — Trump seized opportunities to make deals that did advance U.S. interests, rather than allowing himself to be bogged down by diplomatic traditions.
Maybe the Trump administration really is onto something here. No act of diplomacy could have created the kind of warmth and friendship we are seeing between Israel and the UAE. 
 
Maybe that quid pro quo did not so much create peace as remove the roadblocks to it.
 
And that brings us back to Frantzman's claim that normal relations for Israel, even within the Arab world, may not be such a strange or abnormal idea after all.

Wednesday, December 23, 2020

From Ian:

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

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

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

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

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

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


4th Anniversary of Anti-Israel UN Security Council Resolution 2334 Can you guess who played a major role?
This December 23rd is the fourth anniversary of the infamous United Nations Security Council Resolution 2334, which declares that “the establishment of settlements by Israel in the Palestinian territory occupied since 1967, including East Jerusalem, has no legal validity and constitutes a flagrant violation under international law.” The Obama-Biden administration broke with the longstanding practice of both Democratic and Republican administrations to protect Israel from one-sided, anti-Israel United Nations resolutions when it refused to veto Resolution 2334 and abstained instead. Biden was reportedly involved behind the scenes in pushing the resolution forward for approval, including purportedly pressuring Ukraine to vote for the resolution rather than abstain. Biden has not expressed any regret since then for his participation in the Obama-Biden administration’s decision to sell out Israel.

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

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

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

The question now is whether Joe Biden as president will return to the Obama-Biden administration’s support of the anti-Israel resolution and its distancing from our closest ally in the Middle East. The answer is most likely yes, despite Biden’s claims of unwavering support for Israel’s security. Biden, his Secretary of State-designate Tony Blinken and incoming chief of staff Ron Klain are adamantly opposed to Israel’s settlement activities.
David Singer: Trump’s two-state solution should not be trashed
Kerry was at pains to point out that America had nothing to do with drafting Resolution 2334: "The United States did not draft or originate this resolution, nor did we put it forward. It was drafted by Egypt – it was drafted and I think introduced by Egypt, which is one of Israel’s closest friends in the region, in coordination with the Palestinians and others… In the end, we did not agree with every word in this resolution. There are important issues that are not sufficiently addressed or even addressed at all. But we could not in good conscience veto a resolution that condemns violence and incitement and reiterates what has been for a long time the overwhelming consensus and international view on settlements and calls for the parties to start taking constructive steps to advance the two-state solution on the ground."

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

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

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

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

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

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

abuy

Vic Rosenthal's weekly column


Judging from the few public statements made so far and what is known about his appointees, the Biden Administration will take up the same stance toward Israel and the Palestinians as the last Democratic administration, led by Barack Obama.
That means that it will return to the idea of establishing a Palestinian state in Judea and Samaria more or less on the pre-1967 lines. It will go back to financing the Palestinian Authority, which will find a way to pay terrorists and support their families while pretending not to, in order to circumvent the Taylor Force Act which requires the US to deduct such payments from aid to the PA. The administration will likely close its eyes to the subterfuge. It will go back to funding UNRWA, the agency that supports the exponential growth of a stateless population made up of the descendants of Arab refugees from the 1948 war, despite the fact that it exists to perpetuate the problem posed by this population, not to solve it.
I believe that it will return to the principle that the main reason the conflict has not ended is that Israel has not made enough concessions to the Palestinians, and that the way to end it is to pressure Israel to give in to Palestinian demands: for Jew-free land, for sovereignty without restrictions, for eastern Jerusalem, and perhaps even for the “return” of the refugee descendants. Although not directly part of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, it will probably reduce pressure on Iran and possibly even return to the JCPOA, the nuclear deal.
It’s too early to tell if it will also adopt the open hostility to the Jewish state that characterized Obama’s reign. That will depend on who influences Biden, both among his official advisors as well as the numerous think tanks, lobbies, and pressure groups that have an interest in the conflict – including the one operated by Barack Obama himself.
I suspect that the administration will have its hands full with other matters and so will not immediately launch a new “peace” effort. But one never knows. Sometimes rationality goes out the window when the subject turns to the Jews and their state.
Although nothing can be done with those who take a position because they see it as a step in the direction of the ultimate elimination of our state, there are still “people of good faith” who believe that the Land for Peace paradigm that inspired the Oslo Accords does provide a path to ending the conflict. If the new administration is dominated by the latter type of people, there is hope that correcting their fundamental misapprehensions might lead to a more productive policy.
These misapprehensions are spelled out persuasively in a recent book, The War of Return, How Western Indulgence of the Palestinian Dream has Obstructed the Path to Peace, by Adi Schwartz and Einat Wilf (All Points Books, 2020). Schwartz and Wilf fall on the left of the Israeli political spectrum (Wilf was a Member of the Knesset for the Labor Party), and they still favor a two-state solution. But unlike most of their comrades, they have listened to the Palestinians, and understand their actual concerns and objectives. In their book, they explain why the traditional approach has failed and propose the initial steps that are necessary for any settlement of the conflict.
All previous Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations have miscarried because Israelis and Western interlocutors have failed to realize the paramount importance of one issue – the “right of return” demanded by the Palestinians. This is possible because they have systematically misunderstood the language – whether English or Arabic – used by the Palestinians. The “constructive ambiguity” that often characterizes diplomatic language and allows parties that don’t quite agree with each other to nevertheless sign agreements has made it possible for the same words to have diametrically opposed meanings when uttered by Westerners or Palestinians.
The prime example of this is the phrase “a just solution to the refugee problem.” To an Israeli or Westerner, this can include the normalization of the refugees* in their countries of residence, their emigration to other countries, or their resettlement in a Palestinian state, should one be created. This has been the approach taken by the international community to the numerous refugee populations, including Germans living in Eastern Europe after WWII, Holocaust survivors, Jews who were forced out of Arab countries after 1948, and so on. But the Palestinian position is that there is only one “just solution”: anyone with refugee status has the inalienable right to “return” to his “home” in Israel if he wishes to do so, or to receive compensation if he prefers. And that is what this phrase means when they use it.
Naturally, given the numbers of Arabs who claim this “right,” such a mass return would change Israel into an Arab-majority state, even assuming Jews were prepared to leave their homes and peacefully give them to their “rightful owners.” The absurdity of the demand is evident. Yet Yasser Arafat walked away from Camp David precisely because Israel would not agree to it.
Another phrase whose ambiguity has prevented agreement is “two-state solution.” Virtually every Israeli that favors this understands it as “two states for two peoples.” But the Palestinians want one totally Jew-free Palestinian state, and one state in which the right of return for Arab refugees has been implemented (and which theoretically might contain Jews, at least for a while). They have never accepted the idea of any Jewish sovereignty between the river and the sea, and hence reject the formulation “two states for two peoples.”
Schwartz and Wilf explain that Western and Israeli negotiators have always assumed – perhaps because the demand is so extreme – that the right of return was a bargaining chip that the Palestinians would cash in for the currency of borders, the removal of settlements, or rights in Jerusalem. But they were wrong. The demand for “return” is the essence of the Palestinian movement.
Palestinian children learn about it, down to the particular locations to which each has the “right” to return, in UNRWA schools where they are taught by Palestinian teachers (99% of UNRWA’s employees are Palestinians). Someday, they are told over and over, they will return. Guaranteed.
Everything UNRWA does is geared toward increasing this population of angry people, convinced that a massive injustice has been done to them, and that the only solution will be for them to return, and through this return, wipe the Jews from the face of the land they are convinced we stole from them.
UNRWA was created after the 1948 war with the intention of providing temporary assistance to the refugees until they could be resettled and normalized the way all other groups of refugees had been. But the only country that cooperated was Jordan, which gave the Palestinians citizenship and allowed them to integrate into their own populations. In Lebanon there were especially harsh restrictions and poor conditions. Little by little, the Arab nations changed the temporary UNRWA into a permanent tool to mold a refugee army that they hoped would ultimately do what their conventional armies could not: eliminate the Jewish state.
Today UNRWA is the main obstacle to solving the refugee problem. But it need not be. Schwartz and Wilf provide a relatively detailed, step by step program for phasing out UNRWA in the various places that it operates, and providing solutions for the refugees from the host countries and other agencies. For example, in the Palestinian Authority areas, they propose shifting both the responsibility for the refugees, and the money that supports UNRWA, to the PA. Former refugees would study in PA schools, go to PA health clinics, and so on. There are similar programs for Gaza, Syria, and Lebanon where the remaining refugee “camps” (today mostly neighborhoods on the outskirts of cities) are located.
Real peace can only be achieved when the consciousness of the Palestinians changes and they understand that the dream of return will not be realized. This would be a long and difficult process that could only begin with the elimination of UNRWA. But it has to start before it can finish. It will require cooperation of all of the Western donor countries that have been supporting UNRWA. Perhaps the fact that from a financial standpoint UNRWA will soon be unsustainable (after all, the number of “refugees” is growing exponentially) will encourage them to cooperate.
In the short term, it’s essential that everyone involved in relations between Israel and the Palestinians understand the real issues that underlie the conflict. And it would be a good thing if all parties could agree to use words the same way. Schwartz and Wilf say that “constructive ambiguity” should be replaced by “constructive specificity.” If the European Union, for example, believes that the State of Israel should be replaced by a Palestinian state, it should say so. Otherwise, it should unambiguously oppose a right of return, and work to dismantle UNRWA as quickly as is practical.
Back to the incoming Biden Administration. I hope it will resist the attempts of the anti-Israel Left to revive the hostility of the Obama days, and instead choose to be a force for real peace.
To that end, I will be sending Joe Biden a copy of this book, with a suggestion that he read it and pass it around among his foreign policy team.
________________________
*From here on, I use the word “refugees” by itself, although it refers to those descendants of the approximately 550-700,000 original refugees who have been granted this status by UNRWA. There are more than 5 million of them today, and the number grows every day. No such refugee status has been granted to any other population; the UNHCR agency which takes care of all non-Palestinian refugees, grants refugee status to those individuals who cannot return to their country of origin due to well-founded fear of persecution (see the full definition here), and to their children. Unlike UNRWA’s refugee status, it is not hereditary.

From Ian:

Seth Frantzman: Israel's Peace Deals Show How Abnormal Israel's Treatment Has Been
Acceptance of the isolation of Israel and erasure of Jewish history in the Middle East has been an open wound afflicting the whole region. It should never have happened. Israel and some Arab countries fought a war in 1948, and there are legitimate reasons that Palestinians and their supporters opposed Israel's policies. But similar terrible wars, such as that between India and Pakistan in 1948, didn't result in dozens of countries not recognizing India or pretending that Hindus don't exist. Normalization and the presence of diplomatic relations are the most basic geopolitical norms throughout the world. Yet so many politicians, like former U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, who pushed for engagement with Iran, blindly accepted the fact that so many countries did not normalize ties with Israel.

The whole nature of the conversation about Israel over the last decades has been tainted by accepting as normal a situation that was inherently abnormal. It became normal in Western universities to debate the very existence of Israel, and to advocate for a "one-state" solution without even consulting the eight million people in Israel and millions of Palestinians. In no other instance in the world do American college students blithely decide that they will erase countries and shoehorn them into new "one-state" solutions, like recreating Yugoslavia or Czechoslovakia without first asking people in Slovakia and Kosovo. Only when it comes to Israel was it taken for granted that people will debate its very existence itself. This semi-genocidal debate, like the erasure of Jewish history in countries like Iraq, places from which the Talmud was created, is a brutal assault on both history and international norms.

Now, long years of this abuse are being corrected with the new era of relations between Israel, Morocco, the UAE, Bahrain and Sudan. The usual predictions of doom and gloom have not come true. Israelis can be safe in these countries. Instead of the ingrained anti-Semitism and ways in which Jewish holidays have been made to seem controversial if celebrated in most countries across the region, we now see how countries are embracing Jewish culture and history. The Crossroad of Civilizations Museum in Dubai, for instance, now has brochures in Hebrew. Kosher food is now offered at the Ritz-Carlton in Manama. These are symbolic changes that speak volumes about a new normal that is banishing the intolerance of the past. It feels like a revolution is happening in the Middle East.
Understanding the Abraham Accords inside and out - opinion
The Abraham Accords signify a potential paradigm shift in the Middle East, one that moves away from rejectionism and toward normalization. In a historic pivot, Arab states, once committed to an ideology embodied by the 1967 Khartoum Conference and its “three No’s,” have normalized relations and moved to a paradigm where country after country – the United Arab Emirates, then Bahrain, Sudan and Morocco – have shifted toward the “three Yeses,” declaring yes to recognition, yes to negotiation, and yes to peace.

While “negotiation” and “peace” are perhaps more intuitive to understand, the fundamental step of “recognition” is the most essential; without it, the additional processes are impossible to embark upon. To understand the precondition of recognition, we must identify what it was, or is, that is being rejected. Indeed, the very legitimacy of the State of Israel as Jewish and democratic to exist was, and remains, the hurdle for some. Only when Israel as both Jewish and democratic is recognized by its neighbors is it possible to move toward negotiation, ultimately enabling peace.

The imperative for recognition must be acknowledged, even and especially in the euphoria surrounding the Abraham Accords. While headlines focusing on business opportunities and transactions dominate the press, and though this is part of the historic process, it is secondary to the monumental acceptance of a Jewish and democratic Israel as an equal and legitimate partner by the UAE. In this regard, the fact that the UAE inculcated its children with “tolerance” of religious differences for years is far more ground-breaking than what military technology may be sold or shared.

Similarly, Israeli business leaders and tourists flocking to the UAE, anxious to grab a piece of this peace, must not take for granted the fundamental step of recognition. By focusing solely on interests and implications, we might miss the monumental potential of applying the transformative framework of “three Yeses” internally, to achieve internal recognition, internal negotiation and internal peace.
Israel calls 4th election in 2 years as Netanyahu-Gantz coalition collapses
The 23rd Knesset officially dispersed as the clock struck midnight on Tuesday night and the deadline to approve a 2020 budget expired, sending Israelis to the polls for the fourth time in less than two years. Elections were automatically called for 90 days from now, namely March 23, 2021, though that date could yet be changed by vote.

The failure to pass a budget came just seven months after the swearing-in of the “unity government” between Likud and Blue and White. The two parties, which had fought each other bitterly in three indecisive elections, agreed to form a power-sharing government with a rotating premiership between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Blue and White leader Benny Gantz in May.

But despite pledges to put aside their differences in order to fight the coronavirus pandemic, the political turmoil followed them into government, with both leaders soon claiming the other was breaking their coalition agreements.

Unlike the previous three elections, when Netanyahu’s chief rival was Gantz and his centrist Blue and White alliance, the prime minister’s main challengers this time are set to come from his own right wing of the political spectrum. A former Likud minister, Gideon Sa’ar, has set up a new party, New Hope, dedicated to ousting Netanyahu, and the right-wing/Orthodox Yamina party leader Naftali Bennett is also aiming to try to supplant him. Both Sa’ar and Bennett are seen as more hawkish than Netanyahu on issues relating to the Palestinians and the settlements.

Netanyahu, 71, has held power uninterrupted since 2009, and also served a term as prime minister from 1996-1999, making him Israel’s longest-serving leader. He remains in office as head of the transitional government until the elections are held and a new coalition is formed.


Tuesday, December 22, 2020

From Ian:

Mother-of-6 killed in apparent terror attack remembered for her ‘joy for life’
Esther Horgen, who was found dead in a northern West Bank forest in an apparent terror attack, was eulogized for her love of life as she was buried on Tuesday morning.

“For 30 years we walked together, and two days ago you went for a walk and didn’t return,” said her husband Benjamin. Horgen’s body was found a day after she went for a run in a forest near their West Bank home.

“How can a few words manage to express the depth of your heart and your generosity, your joy for life and love for others?” he said.

Esther’s daughter Odelia mourned the loss of her mother and expressed pain that she would not be at her future wedding.

“My mother is my best friend. She came to visit me at the end of the world, in Australia. Where are you now, mother?” said Odelia. “I am sorry that you will not dance at my wedding.”

Dozens of mourners attended the funeral including Settlements Minister Tzachi Hanegbi.

Community leader Rabbi Reuven Uziel said that Horgen’s killer would not be able to “sully” Israel.

“On Friday we sat together at a Shabbat meal. Not for a second we did not think this was the last time we would meet. You were a person of love and lightness, of joy and a smile,” Uziel said. “The murderers will not be able to sully the land of the Land of Israel, which will remain blessed and holy, and you will remain blessed and pure.”

In an interview on Tuesday morning, Benjamin said that his wife had lived life to the full.

“She lived every moment of her life. She had so much to give,” Benjamin Horgen told the Kan public broadcaster. “I trust the defense establishment to do their job, they have updated [us] that things are progressing.”


The Moroccan deal with Israel fills me with joy
There were 20 years of silence. And then, last week, Trump announced that Morocco and Israel would be resuming diplomatic relations. In a tweet afterwards, the President reminded the world that Morocco was the first country to recognise the United States as a nation, in 1777 and, simultaneously, urged for an international recognition of Moroccan sovereignty over Western Sahara.

Good news is flowing from the region: the Jewish state, also at the behest of Trump has established ties with Bahrain, the UAE and Sudan. Of course, the most recent news did not please everyone. Some frowned upon the fact that the US released the information before Morocco or Israel; others criticised the power imbalance between Morocco and Israel on one hand, and Palestine and Western Sahara on the other. The latter has been waging a war of independence against Morocco for several decades, led by a socialist separatist group with Islamist ties.

Hamas, naturally, is outraged and denounced the Moroccan treachery; while in its customary partiality against the Moroccan monarchy, the French media — both mainstream, such as Le Monde, and more independent sites such as Mediapart — quickly attacked both Trump and King Mohammed VI of Morocco for an agreement in which both Palestinian and Sahraoui self-determination was jeopardised.

This grumbling contrasts with the elation and relief felt by many Jewish families around the world as the first candle of the Menorah was lit, and by many Muslims in Morocco who can recall what things were like before the 1960s. Having grown up in Morocco, and with a father who remembers those happier times of coexistence, I was moved to tears by the sight of Israelis dancing in the street to traditional Moroccan song, waving flags of both countries and pictures of the King Mohammed.

Almost a million people in the Jewish state are of Moroccan descent, from families who were exiled six decades ago, a mere blip in time compared to the thousands of years they’d spent in the Maghreb. For them, as well as Jewish North African communities in France and increasingly in London, the deal is a hugely welcome Hanukkah gift during a difficult year.
How Moroccans are Reacting to Normalization with Israel

Peace with the Arab world? Tunisian musican sings of peace, is threatened and fired
United Arab Emirates, Morocco, Bahrain and Sudan. The list of countries of the Arab-Islamic world that have made peace with Israel in recent months is impressive.

A Tunisian singer thought it was time to put this atmosphere of normalization into music. So, on December 13, Noamane Chaari uploaded a video of a song he had just recorded with an Israeli musician. The song, in Arabic, speaks of dreams of peace, of olive trees, of the sea, of Tunis, of Jerusalem. Chaari recorded it with Ziv Yehezkel, an Iraqi Jew. An invitation to build bridges between Jews and Arabs.

In the supposedly most moderate country in the region, the only "Arab Spring" of any success, it is still a crime to sing peace with the Jews. Host of a broadcast of the famous radio station Mosaïque Fm, the young musician was the subject of death threats. Stressing that the author of the lyrics, a Yemeni poet, remained anonymous so as not to risk beheading in his country, host Hedi Zaiem asked: "What will happen to the man who sang it?".

Threatened with death, fired by his employer, Channel 1 of public television, Noamane Chaari now tells L’Obs: "I have been accused of espionage and treason. Some media have deliberately tried to antagonize Tunisian public opinion, invoking the violence against me ".

Thus, in the supposedly most moderate country in the region, the only "Arab Spring" of any success, it is still a crime to sing peace with the Jews. Conservative president Kaïs Saïed speaks of a "Zionist entity", like the Iranian ayatollahs. And the Ugtt union, which won the Nobel Peace Prize, has put back on the table the idea of ​​a law that criminalizes the establishment of diplomatic relations with the Jewish state. The union of music professionals, affiliated precisely with the Ugtt, condemned Chaari's "provocation against the Tunisian people and all the Arab people".

The singer had also traveled to Israel with an Arab delegation. His "fault" is also that of having written the song with a Jew of Iraqi origin and a Moroccan mother, while images of Baghdad appear together with those of Tunis in the music video.

Saturday, December 19, 2020

From Ian:

Problem-solver Jared Kushner’s biggest win was Middle East peace
Of all the problems President Trump threw at senior adviser Jared Kushner, developing a peace plan for the Middle East was the toughest, a win that has eluded administrations for years.

For the Jewish adviser, bringing peace to Israel was personal. And any victory would provide the administration with an everlasting legacy in the region and the world.

He ignored the ridicule of former administration officials when he took a different and secretive path, as he had on several other projects.

“If you look up the definition of an impossible objective in the dictionary, people say Middle East peace. It's almost a metaphor for impossibility,” he told Secrets.

Kushner built a plan that had a big economic and prosperity push, and while many in Washington brushed it off, it has taken root in the region.

And it set the stage for the Abraham Accords, which has led four former foes ⁠— the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Sudan, and Morocco ⁠— to sign peace agreements with Israel.

“We took a very different approach, and this isn't a rebuke of Democrats, it's a rebuke of maybe more of the foreign policy people who've come before because they're Republicans and Democrats, and for years, they did this dance and didn't get results. Then, those were the people who criticized me the loudest for doing things differently than the way they did. I was like, 'Wait, so you want me to accomplish a different result than you got, but you want me to do the exact same way that you tried?'” he said.

Joel Rosenberg, a bestselling author, editor of All Israel News and All Arab News, and a roving diplomat, called Kushner one of “the most innovative and successful Middle East peace brokers in history.”
FDD: Occupied Territories Bill in Ireland Is Dead on Arrival
Amid a COVID-19-induced economic recession, Irish independent Senator Frances Black has revived a draft law targeting Israel after a previous failed attempt. The Occupied Territories Bill, if enacted, could have disastrous consequences for U.S. economic relations with Ireland – and Ireland itself.

The Occupied Territories Bill seeks to criminalize trade in goods and services produced in Israeli settlements. When the bill was initially introduced in January 2018, it triggered a sharp denouncement from the Irish government and U.S. policymakers.

During the 32nd session of the Irish parliament, which was dissolved in January 2020, the bill reached the seventh of 10 steps toward becoming law. Unpassed bills typically lapse at the end of Ireland’s parliamentary session and must begin the process anew in the subsequent session. However, Black succeeded in now having the bill reinstated at the same stage during the 33rd session.

If enacted, the bill could force U.S. companies with an Irish division or subsidiary to choose between one of two costly options: violate Irish law by continuing to do business with companies and persons in Israeli settlements, or violate U.S. law by participating in a foreign boycott not endorsed by the U.S. government. Major U.S. companies, including Apple, Google, Microsoft, and Facebook, employ over 155,000 people in Ireland. All four of these corporations have substantial research and development centers in Israel. Not only would these and other U.S. companies risk running afoul of U.S. federal law prohibiting compliance with an unsanctioned boycott, they would also be violating nearly two dozen U.S. state laws that prohibit unauthorized boycotts against Israel.

The bill has already received sharp criticism from officials of Ireland’s two leading political parties, as well as bipartisan criticism from the U.S. Congress. Earlier this year, Irish Prime Minister Micheal Martin of Ireland’s Fianna Fail party asserted that the bill would violate EU trade regulations by undermining the European Union’s exclusive right to determine trade policy for its member states.

Irish Foreign Minister Simon Coveney of the Fine Gael party has made similar assertions. In addition, Irish Attorney General Séamus Woulfe weighed in that the bill would be “impractical” to enforce.
Obama trafficked in anti-Semitic tropes — lefty media didn't notice
The words leap out and grab you. Former President Barack Obama characterizes no other world leader in anything like the terms he reserves for former French President Nicolas Sarkozy.

In his recent memoir, Obama tells us that Sarkozy is a “quarter Greek Jew.” Little wonder, then, that Sarkozy has “dark, expressive, Mediterranean features,” which resemble the exaggerated, often distorted figures “of a Toulouse-Lautrec painting.”

Little wonder, too, that he is “all emotional outbursts and overblown rhetoric,” while his conversation, which reflects unbridled ambition and incessant pushiness, “swoops from flattery to bluster to genuine insight.”

One might have thought Obama was deliberately directing at Sarkozy the insults notoriously hurled at Benjamin Disraeli (1804-1881), the first person of Jewish birth to become Britain’s prime minister. The colonial administrator Lord Cromer said of Disraeli that he was driven by “a tenacity of purpose” that was “a Jewish characteristic.” With his swarthy, “Oriental features,” Disraeli was consumed by an “addiction” to the “passionate outbursts” and “excesses of flattery” that were the hallmarks of his “nimble-witted” race.

Cromer’s taunts, which Obama so uncannily echoes, were hardly unusual. On the contrary, the traits Obama attributes to Sarkozy — from oily complexion to pushy, self-centered assertiveness — were at the heart of the anti-Semitic caricature of the Jew that crystallized, with murderous consequences, in the 19th century.

That history makes calling Sarkozy a Jew vastly different from noting, say, that Angela Merkel’s father was a Lutheran pastor; and if anti-Semitism involves using the label “Jew” to evoke, emphasize or explain an interrelated complex of unattractive attributes, Obama’s description of Sarkozy is unquestionably anti-Semitic.

Yet from The New York Times to The Washington Post and beyond, not one of the gushing reviews considered Obama’s statement even worth mentioning.

Friday, December 18, 2020

From Ian:

Eugene Kontorovich: The Israel-Morocco peace deal underscores a double standard on the West Bank versus Western Sahara
The basic, universal rule for determining a new country’s borders is to look to the borders of the preceding political entity in the territory, be it a colony, administrative district or Soviet republic. In Israel’s case, it was Mandatory Palestine, which included all of the West Bank. Concerns that the Trump administration’s actions could be used to justify Russia’s takeover of Crimea are baseless. Crimea was indisputably part of Ukraine, a sovereign country.

The Polisario demands a country of its own. Yet only a few countries have recognized the purported Saharawi Arab Democratic Republic. Self-determination in international law doesn’t typically mean the right of a people to have its own country. It can be satisfied by some degree of self-governance, and autonomy in internal matters such as language and culture. This is why the U.S. recognition was coupled with an endorsement of an “autonomy plan” for Western Sahara.

The Palestinians today have vastly more autonomy than the Saharawi would have in the Moroccan plan, which makes Rabat the final arbiter of Saharawi law. Ramallah, by contrast, has the last word on its own legislation. The Palestinian Authority and Hamas, for better or worse, govern the daily lives of their people.

The Obama administration also supported Moroccan sovereignty with Saharwai autonomy, as did other countries such as Spain and France—and even the Palestinian Authority. Morocco’s position has bipartisan support in Congress, and thus the U.S. will likely maintain the recognition policy.

There is a huge gap between many countries’ stances on Western Sahara and the West Bank that can’t be explained by legal differences. It will be a bad look for a Biden administration to harp on Israeli “occupation” and “settlers” while maintaining recognition of Morocco’s 1975 takeover. The U.S. recognition makes eventually doing the same for Israel in the West Bank much easier, and indeed a matter of consistency.
Rights Abusers at UN Oppose ‘Country-Specific’ Resolutions – Unless They Target Israel
Having supported more than a dozen U.N. General Assembly resolutions condemning Israel in the past two weeks, the representatives of some of the world’s most egregious rights-abusing regimes complained on Wednesday about “country-specific” resolutions targeting some among their own ranks – Iran, Russia, North Korea, and the Assad regime – saying they violate the cherished U.N. principles of “objectivity, non-selectivity, and impartiality.”

Among the most outspoken critics during Wednesday’s plenary session in New York were the delegates from China and Cuba, governments whose widely-documented human rights abuses at home have attracted not a single General Assembly resolution this year.

At the meeting, the assembly considered texts from its Third Committee – which deals with social, cultural, and humanitarian issues – including country-specific resolutions relating to the human rights situations in Iran, Syria, North Korea, and the Russian-occupied Crimea peninsula of Ukraine.

All four passed, but with sizeable numbers of “no” votes, and large numbers of abstentions: -- The Iran resolution passed by 82 votes to 30, with 64 abstentions -- The Syria resolution passed by 101 votes to 13, with 62 abstentions -- The Crimea resolution passed by 64 votes to 23, with 86 abstentions -- The North Korea resolution passed without a recorded vote (although several countries – including China, Iran and Cuba – then disassociated themselves from the “consensus.”)
Will Biden break the pattern of how US presidents approach Israel?
Patterns are everywhere: in nature, in art, in human behavior, in interpersonal relationships. They also exist in diplomacy. And for students of diplomacy, or more specifically those who carefully watch the ebb and flow of US-Israel relations, there is one particular pattern that may appear somewhat disconcerting as US President-elect Joe Biden is poised to take office in just over three weeks.

Veteran US Middle East negotiator Dennis Ross identified this pattern in Doomed to Succeed, his 2015 book on the history of US-Israel relations from presidents Harry Truman to Barack Obama.

“When an administration is judged by its successors to be too close to Israel, we [the US] distance ourselves from the Jewish state,” he wrote. And then Ross gave numerous examples.

“[Dwight D.] Eisenhower believed that Truman was too supportive of Israel, so he felt an imperative to demonstrate that we were not partial to Israel, that we were in fact willing to seek closer ties to our real friends in the region – the Arabs

“President [Richard] Nixon, likewise, felt that Lyndon Johnson was too pro-Israel. In his first two years, he, too, distanced us from Israel and showed sensitivity to Arab concerns. President George H.W. Bush believed his former boss, Ronald Reagan, suffered from the same impulse of being too close to Israel. He, too, saw virtue in fostering distance.”

And finally, Ross continued, “President Obama, at the outset of his administration, certainly saw George W. Bush as having cost us in the Arab and Muslim world at least in part because he was unwilling to allow any gap to emerge between the United States and Israel.”
  • Friday, December 18, 2020
  • Elder of Ziyon
Attorney Ibrahim Shaban writes a regular column for Al Quds and often publishes about Palestinian issues in other media. 

Today he wrote an antisemitic piece for Al Quds which was picked up by other Arab media in which he takes it for granted that American Jews have dual loyalty to Israel. 

The phenomenon of American Jews who occupy high positions in successive American administrations raises questions about their loyalty to the American state or the Israeli state. 

The matter is not a rare phenomenon that occurs occasionally, but rather a rampant phenomenon that occurs frequently, but this phenomenon is rarely addressed, for fear of being accused of anti-Semitism, mainly, and the striking Jewish force.

A simple look at the new American administration explicitly [shows this issue.] Here is the proposed new US Secretary of State (Anthony Blinken) of Jewish descent, and he will take over the Middle East issue and the Palestinian issue mainly. And here is Mr. Ron Klein, the Jew, who has been proposed to take over the position of chief of staff of the White House, which has wide powers. And here is the husband of US Vice President Kamala Harris, Mr. Douglas Craig Imhoff, of similar origins. And here is Alejandro Majoras as a proposal for the US Department of Homeland Security. On the proposed list is Janet Yellen, incoming Treasury Secretary, and many more.

This administration followed the path of successive US administrations that preceded it, as if the American nation had not given birth and the American womb was sterile. As if the new and old American administration had not escaped the issue of dual loyalty to American Jews, it decided to ignore it and sweep it under the rug.

This article will not be expanded to refer to all American Jews who held high positions in successive American administrations after World War II to the present day, as this indicates an inventory. The talk of Jared Kushner, Greenblatt, the Zionist Friedman and other aides of Donald Trump, is still buzzing in my ears. Before them was Dennis Ross' Jewish staff who served the days of Clinton and Obama in the late 1990s and the Camp David negotiations during the days of the late Abu Ammar and his famous position regarding the Al-Aqsa Mosque.

And here is Henry Kissinger, the American academic, deceitful Jew in the seventies, who manipulated Sadat and served Zionism with all his power in the 1973 war. There are many ambassadors, Jewish experts, and even doctors, who were recruited to serve Zionism under the banner of Judaism. Loyalty mixed, mingled, and American interest lost in the midst of dual loyalty.

Someone might say, the Jews are a cultured, liberal, educated and democratic group, so why is this strange, envy and jealousy of their appointment in the American administrations? Or do Muslims, Catholics, Hindus and Brahmins not enjoy such opportunities, and no one is surprised? Didn't Ilhan Omar of Somali origin and Rashida Talib of Palestinian origin succeed in the US congressional elections? Didn't people of Asian roots succeed in the US Congress? Wasn't Rima Dudin appointed to the legislative department in the White House in the incoming Biden administration? Absolutely, it is true, but the two matters are completely different.

There is no dispute that the Jewish community, regardless of its political leanings, holds high positions in the American community, in European society and outside official administrations. Many of the most prominent American lawyers are Jews, and among the most prominent American jurists are Jews, and law school graduates are Jews. Many of the owners of capital are Jews, and many of the print, audiovisual media are Jewish, and many university professors in the various colleges are Jews. But the Jews are not the same, some of them are liberal, some of them socialist, some of them are communists, and some of them are religious extremists, and some of them are secular and so on. Consequently, their positions are different on the issues at hand, but they converge greatly if the issue relates to Israel, its policies, and the Palestinians. Here emerges the issue of dual loyalty to America and Israel, and the extent of the attraction of the conflict around it.

The Jews occupy high positions and even participate in the American decision-making.  As for the [Muslim] names mentioned, they do not play a role at all in American politics, neither from near or far, in addition to the absence of a Palestinian Arab lobby that affects American policy. Even the Palestinian daughter of Dudin, whose work is secondary and far from creating American policy, and so is the Palestinian Rashida Tlaib. Add to that the fact the Jew has a state whose interests intersect with the interests of the United States of America and thus creates for him a problem of conflict of interests. Perhaps the case of the American spy Jonathan Pollard is still fresh in minds.

This happened in the recent past during the Camp David meeting at the end of the term of Democratic US President Clinton. Dennis Ross, the American Jew, vehemently objected to the position of the late Saeb Erekat regarding the alleged Temple. And President Clinton began to complain and incite against this basic Palestinian doctrinal, realistic, historical, and religious position and support Dennis Ross and the Protestant Christian mentality in general. Ross even asked Clinton to reference a book from the White House library that supported the details of the alleged temple. It is as though the American Jew will support the Israeli proposal in the end, even if it contradicts the American interest; rather he will prevail over it, even though he must basically prevail over the American interest and achieve international peace and security.

....Can we protest against the appointment of an American Jewish cabinet member, refuse to meet with him, or  boycott him, because of conflict of interest and double allegiance? An American Jew, whose Jewishness means he holds Israeli citizenship completely under Israeli law, also holds an American passport at the same time. Is this not only a contradiction, but a contradiction that must be avoided?

Neutrality, objectivity, and independence are conditions that must be met in every honest broker, so how can these conditions be fulfilled in a Jewish-American diplomat who is Israeli by default, even if he is a liberal or leftist? Or do these conditions apply to all peoples of the world except the Jews ?!

This is not anti-Semitism, but rather sheds light on the issue of conflict of interest, and the supposed dual loyalty of American Jews, regardless of their inclinations, and turning a blind eye to conflicts of interest.

One cannot serve two masters nor gather two swords in one sheath !!

One thing is certain: No Palestinian will publicly object to this antisemitism.

And it is articles like these that motivate anti-Zionist American Jews - leftists that Shaban throws into the same dual loyalty bucket -  to redouble their efforts to prove that they aren't like those other Jews, that Palestinians should love them because they are moral and pro-Palestinian and support terrorists like Leila Khaled and Rasmea Odeh and boycott Israel even more than Palestinians do.





We have lots of ideas, but we need more resources to be even more effective. Please donate today to help get the message out and to help defend Israel.

Thursday, December 17, 2020

From Ian:

Jonathan S. Tobin: Stop pretending that anti-Zionism isn’t anti-Semitism
One reason is that these anti-Zionists are, as Beinart claimed, speaking the language of the progressives who dominate the political and social culture of much of the American Jewish world. The other is that, as we have recently seen with respect to critical race theory and cancel culture, marginal ideas and movements that succeed first in academia are likely to eventually make inroads, if not to dominate the media and popular culture.

Among the infuriating aspects of this debate is the pretense on the part of groups like JVP and their fellow travelers that was aired at their Dec. 15 panel was that they are merely “critiquing” Israel. Mere criticism of Israel’s government isn’t anti-Semitism. What the BDS movement and anti-Zionists want is not a different Israeli government or changed policies. It wants to eliminate Israel and replace it with a binational state in which Jews will lose both sovereignty and their ability to defend themselves against hostile neighbors and Islamist terror groups that believe Jews have no right to a state in their ancient homeland, no matter where its borders are drawn.

Beinart, who only a few years ago was posing as the leading light of “liberal Zionism,” now advocates for just such an outcome and says those like Tlaib, who share his new goal, seek human rights for everyone. He says that when Tlaib and Hill advocate for “Palestine from the river to the sea,” they mean the Israeli Jews who live in between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea no harm—or at least no harm as long as they surrender without a struggle.

Put that way, the harm, as well as the denial of Jewish rights and history that are part of their agenda, is clear. But when you state your case, no matter how awful its goal, in the language of progressives, you are on the same wavelength of a Jewish community that prioritizes the universalist element of Jewish identity over its parochial elements. Speaking up for a Jewish state can sound vaguely racist to young progressive ears, especially when they are—as is the case with so many American Jews—ignorant about the conflict and most of Jewish history except for basic knowledge about the Holocaust. In a largely assimilated community, the sense of Jewish peoplehood that previous generations took for granted is now very much up for grabs.

Equally important is the need for us not to underestimate the way academia can influence other sectors of society. Not long ago, the sort of “cancel culture” in which those who questioned critical race theory and radical notions about history were silenced was only something that happened on college campuses. But as we’ve learned this year, the leap from such outrages being solely a way to protect hypersensitive and intolerant college students from hearing opposing views has gone mainstream.

Similarly, hatred for Israel and anti-Zionism used to be a marginal phenomenon that was rarely heard in mainstream media. But Beinart now preaches Israel’s elimination on the opinion pages of the Times and on CNN. He’s far from alone in that respect. And people like Tlaib and her colleague Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.), who might have been canceled and shunned by respectable media outlets for their trafficking in anti-Semitic tropes about the dual loyalty of American Jews and buying American legislators in Congress to lobby for Israel, as well as support for BDS, are welcomed everywhere and treated as their party’s rock stars rather than the hatemongers they are.
Human Rights Icon Natan Sharansky Calls Out Progressives Who View Jews as ‘Oppressors’
Renowned human rights activist Natan Sharansky called out on Wednesday progressives who viewed Jews as “oppressors,” saying such an outlook contradicted the concept of individual justice.

The former Soviet refusenik was a featured speaker at the “Dismantling Antisemitism: Jews Talk Justice” online event hosted by the Combat Anti-Semitism Movement (CAM), In collaboration with the Tel Aviv Institute.

The forum was organized as a response to a controversial Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) webinar on antisemitism held a day earlier that featured several participants, including US Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib and Professor Marc Lamont Hill, who have themselves perpetuated Jew-hatred.

“Today, there is an attempt to hijack the cause of human rights from Jews by so-called progressives,” Sharanksy remarked. “For the so-called progressives, all the world is the fight between ‘oppressors’ and ‘oppressed.’”

“’Oppressors; are always wrong and ‘oppressed’ are always right,” he continued. “There is no such thing as individual justice, it has to be for the group.”

Sharansky elaborated, “Jews are guilty of belonging to the wrong state, the State of Israel, the wrong group. Jews are accused as a group and Israel is accused as a Jewish State.”

“It is not the struggle for human rights, it is not the struggle for individual freedom,” he declared.

Also taking part in Wednesday’s event was US Assistant Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Anti-Semitism Ellie Cohanim, who highlighted a “pernicious new form of anti-Semitism” that sought to negate the history of Jews from Arab countries and Iran.

“This erasure of history allows the accusation that Jews enjoy white privilege and are neo-colonialists,” she noted.
Antisemitism Webinar Features Pro-Palestinian Activists Railing Against Jews and Israel
Lamont Hill and Tlaib both previously expressed support for Palestinian freedom “from the river to the sea,” which is commonly used as a call to destroy Israel. As the last panelist to speak, Tlaib, who supports the BDS movement, cried on-screen when talking about how she has been “demonized” and accused of being antisemitic.

“Tell everybody, I don’t hate you. I absolutely love you,” she said. “If anybody comes through my doors or through any forum to try to push antisemitism forward, you will hear me being loud with my bullhorn to tell them to get the hell out.”

She added, “I hope all our Jewish neighbors know we’re in this together.”

The night’s moderator, JVP’s deputy director Rabbi Alissa Wise, told viewers that she is “instinctively repulsed” by the idea that Jews need Israel “as somewhere to go” when they are next at risk of genocide. She also said that a “free Palestine is required if we want a free world for everyone, including Jews.”

She later stated that those who want to call solidarity with Palestinians anti-Israel are “using antisemitism to manufacture hate.”

“People who want to maintain Israeli government control over Palestinian lives and land play a very dangerous game when they call solidarity with Palestinians a form of anti-Jewish hatred. It’s not antisemitism to see that Israel has its boot on Palestinians,” she stated. “Antisemitism is a tool used to manufacture fear and division.”

Roytman-Dratwa said “this event was an attempt to turn reality on its head. It is nothing short of dangerous hypocrisy by those who have stoked antisemitism to claim that they themselves are serious voices in tackling Jew-hatred. Nobody, including self-styled progressives such as Representative Tlaib and Professor Hill, should be allowed to dictate to Jews what constitutes antisemitism. They simply would not treat any other minority group in the same way.”
Chief Rabbi launches scathing attack on China’s persecution of Uyghur Muslims
The Chief Rabbi has launched a scathing attack on China’s persecution of its Uyghur Muslim minority, in an intervention that will add further pressure on governments, companies and consumers to take action.

Writing in The Guardian on Tuesday, Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis said that, having heard several accounts from Uyghurs who had escaped, “and reflecting upon the deep pain of Jewish persecution throughout the ages, I feel compelled to speak out”.

He said speaking out was a duty, particularly at Chanukah, “when we recall attempts ‘to cause the Jewish faith to be forgotten and to prevent Jews from keeping their traditions’… These words refer back to the cruel oppression of Jews”.

Mirvis said the “weight of evidence” of persecution was “overwhelming,” with Uyghurs “beaten if they refuse to renounce their faith, women forced to abort their unborn children then sterilised to prevent them from becoming pregnant again”.

Lamenting “forced imprisonment, the separation of children from their parents and a culture of intimidation and fear,” he said in his discussions with senior figures he had “been left feeling that any improvement in the desperate situation is impossible”.

He added that, growing up in Apartheid South Africa, and ministering in Ireland during the Troubles, ‘impossible’ was a word he often heard – and in both cases, wrongdoing and conflict came to an end.

“Last week marked the 72nd anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights… That same year, the Convention for the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide was also adopted,” he wrote.
From Ian:

Caroline Glick: Trump's Legacy of Peace
For 72 years, U.S. presidents sought to achieve peace between Israel and the Arab world. For 72 years, they largely failed.

What for so long eluded presidents from Dwight D. Eisenhower to Barack Obama seems to have come effortlessly to President Donald Trump. In the space of just four months, together with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Trump has achieved four peace deals between Israel and Arab states—twice the number achieved by all his predecessors combined. Last Thursday, Trump announced Morocco has joined the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Bahrain and Sudan in the Abraham Accords normalization agreements with Israel. Three or four more Arab states are likely to join the circle of peace in Trump's final weeks in office.

Not only has Trump brought more peace to the Middle East, more comprehensively and faster than all of his predecessors combined, but he made it look easy. Israel's ties with its Abraham Accords partners are expanding massively by the day. Tourists from the UAE are streaming into the country. And with one in seven Israeli Jews descended from the Moroccan diaspora, the potential for business and cultural ties between Israel and Morocco is almost limitless.

Trump's sundry Middle East peace deals are humiliating for his predecessors. Not only did they fail where Trump has succeeded, but they insisted that his achievements were impossible.

For instance, John Kerry, who as Barack Obama's secretary of state oversaw the administration's failed Middle East peace efforts, insisted back in 2016: "There will be no separate peace between Israel and the Arab world."

Speaking at the Brookings Institution, Kerry continued emphatically: "I want to make that very clear with all of you. I've heard several prominent politicians in Israel sometimes saying, 'Well, the Arab world is a different place now. We just have to reach out to them. We can work some things with the Arab world and we'll deal with the Palestinians.' No. No, no, no and no. ...There will be no advanced and separate peace with the Arab world without the Palestinian process and Palestinian peace. Everybody needs to understand that. That is a hard reality."

The "several prominent politicians in Israel" certainly included Netanyahu. It was during the Obama administration that Netanyahu began developing close strategic ties with a number of Arab states—particularly Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the UAE. The sides came together due to mutual distress over the negative impact of Obama's Middle East policies.

What was it about Obama's policies that brought them together?
Jonathan S. Tobin: In praise of diplomatic quid pro quos
The ability of the Trump foreign-policy team to succeed in doing something its predecessors failed to do was based on two factors. One was that its members were not blinded by ideology when it came to Israel and the Palestinians, as were the Obama, Clinton and both Bush administrations. The other was that they took a more openly transactional approach to diplomacy.

The foreign-policy establishment likes to dress up agreements based on mutual interests in high-sounding language about principles. But the Trump team, which was composed to a large extent of people like White House senior adviser/presidential son-in-law Jared Kushner with a background in real estate, didn't get bogged down in such meaningless and ultimately counterproductive exercises, and stuck to dealing with the world as it is rather than as they'd like it to be. They strove to make deals that made sense for both sides. And as a result of what some consider a crass rather than a principled approach, they advanced the cause of peace far more than any of the experts who mocked them as shallow amateurs.

With American foreign policy about to fall back into the hands of Obama alumni, some are lamenting the Trump administration's achievements in expanding the circle of governments with normal relations with Israel as boxing them and ignoring their obsession with forcing a two-state solution that the Palestinians don't want. Instead, the Biden team should learn from their predecessors. More Trump-style quid pro quos – and less magical thinking and expert ideological condescension from Washington – will make the world a safer place.
What Happens to Israel When Democrats Are in the White House?
Biden and his team have been harshly critical of Trump’s symbolic efforts to tilt U.S. policy toward the Jewish state, such as moving the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem and allowing the word “Jerusalem” to appear on the passports of Jews born in that city. But symbolic actions can have tangible effects. The muted reaction to the embassy move throughout the Middle East revealed the hollowness of the long-standing threat that the “Arab street” would greet any thaw with Israel with violence and revolution. Given how low the cost was, and the fact that the embassy move was directed by U.S. law, it is hard to imagine that a President Biden would expend any political capital on an effort to return the embassy to Tel Aviv. And indeed, Biden has indicated he does not plan to do so.

Another traditional lever used against Israel is U.S. military aid. Biden has both supported aid and threatened cutting it to Israel in the past, but aid to Israel is a bipartisan policy. The current levels are set out in a Memorandum of Understanding established under the Obama administration, and the Biden team has said it does not plan to make that aid conditional. Even more telling, U.S. aid is no longer the existential necessity for Israel that it once was—so threatening to limit it no longer provides the leverage over Israeli decision-making that it once did.

But it is very likely that the Biden administration will put more rhetorical pressure on Israel to strike a deal with the Palestinians. It’s not clear, however, what policy leverage the U.S. has to push Israel in this regard while the Middle East landscape is changing—or whether the Palestinians will even consider some kind of a deal in any case. Still, Biden could, as Obama did, support UN resolutions critical of Israel. He could also sternly lecture Israeli officials, as he has intermittently throughout his career. Biden is on the record unambiguously about restoring the U.S.–Iran nuclear deal.

Looking at all of this, one can discern the outlines of a policy framework toward Israel—call it Bidenism. It will be supportive of continued aid to Israel and unlikely to publicly question the wisdom of such aid. Rhetorically, Biden will repeatedly present himself as a friend of Israel and of Prime Minister Netanyahu, even as he questions whether Netanyahu is too far to the right and as he exerts private pressure for concessions with the Palestinians.

Bidenism will seek a return to the problematic Iran deal in some form but will continue to profess its concerns about Iran getting nuclear weapons and will be unlikely to try to stop Israel from allying with Sunni Gulf states as a counterweight to Iran. Bidenism will not seek to move the U.S. Embassy from Jerusalem—but it won’t encourage other nations to move their embassies from Tel Aviv. And Bidenism will likely be muddled when it comes to the woke left’s intersectional hostility toward Israel—willing to condemn certain outrageous and anti-Semitic statements but ever careful not to offend and, on occasion, will even apologize if its condemnations produce too much blowback.

Israel’s relationship with the outgoing administration was extraordinary. We shall not see its like again. The question going forward is whether the Biden administration will take the recent successes into account as it makes its own way in the Middle East—or whether the powerful urge to restore the status quo ante of the Obama administration will set the course for the next four years.

Wednesday, December 16, 2020

Vic Rosenthal's weekly column


Here we go again. Another yawning gulf between Israelis and American Jews, “a rupture that threatens Jews everywhere, the trust between Jews in Israel and the Diaspora, and in the long run, Israel,” say Evan Morris and Dennis Jett.
It’s not bad enough that the Israeli religious establishment does not show respect for Reform “Judaism,” or that we can’t appreciate how much Barack Obama really “[had] our back,” or that we keep electing “right-wing” governments with Bibi Netanyahu as PM, or that we keep failing to understand how an enemy state in mortar range of our center of population and our single international airport would actually be good for us.
It’s much worse than any of that. In fact, we are “going off the rails” and have “betrayed our American cousins.”
We did this by preferring Donald Trump to Joe Biden.
Oh sure, Trump did what no American president cared to do, carried out the will of the Congress and moved the embassy to the capital of the Jewish state. Clinton, Bush, and Obama loved to talk about our “unbreakable relationship,” but when it came down to the legitimacy of our presence in Jerusalem, they religiously signed that waiver every six months. Trump even instructed the oft-antisemitic State Department to allow those born in Jerusalem to have “Jerusalem, Israel” on their passports. Compare that to the Obama Administration’s refusal to say what country Jerusalem was in – they even scrubbed “Jerusalem, Israel” from official websites.
No big deal, Morris and Jett said. “Trump is not a reliable ally and could never be … Given the right circumstance or perceived slight, Trump would turn on Israel.” So then Trump went and recognized Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights, and sponsored the development of a peace plan that was for the first time based on reality, rather than Henry Kissinger’s 1974 promise to the Arabs to reverse the result of the 1967 war.
Trump did even more. He spurned the view that the Palestinians should be given unlimited aid regardless of their behavior, and enforced the Taylor Force act that demanded aid be reduced when it was used to pay terrorists. He ended the perpetual support for the descendants of the Arab refugees of 1948, and disproved the idea – expressed by John Kerry (ironic video) in 2016 – that appeasement of the Palestinians was a precondition for normalization with the larger Arab world.
And now, although already a lame duck, Trump continues to promote normalization between Israel and multiple Arab and Muslim countries. We’re still waiting for him to “turn on us.” Are you surprised that Israelis overwhelmingly prefer Trump to Biden, who promises to re-enter the Iran deal and go back to giving the Palestinians a free pass in an interminable “peace process?” How could it be otherwise?
Nevertheless Morris and Jett insist that Trump is Bad For The Jews. They say he represents “emerging Fascism.” And how do we know this? Because Trump “alternately excused and encouraged” “the white supremacists that marched in Charlottesville.” In fact, he did no such thing. The accusation is a perfect example of the Big Lie technique: it has been repeated countless times, and has now entered the realm of conventional wisdom. But it still isn’t true.
Morris and Jett say Trump supporters “promulgate conspiracy theories based on antisemitic lies.” Maybe some do, just like some of the remarkably vicious members of the American Left who are on the other side. Israelis are not in touch with the details of American politics, nor do we follow the swirling winds of accusations thrown at each other by the two sides. But I have yet to hear anything antisemitic from Trump himself.
Antisemitism is clearly burgeoning in America, and that is rightly a serious concern for American Jews. But the attempt to blame Trump for it – while ignoring the anti-Trump extremists like the Pittsburgh shooter, the Farrakhanists, the Black Hebrews, and the misozionist Left – is dangerously mistaken, despite its wholesale adoption by the Trump-hostile media.
Apparently Morris and Jett think as little of Netanyahu as they do of Trump, calling our PM “boorish” for waiting about 12 hours after other foreign leaders to congratulate Biden on the election. This is the cheapest shot imaginable, considering that the official announcement came on Shabbat, 7 November, and Netanyahu tweeted his congratulations on Sunday.
The piece concludes with an accusation that Israelis are “willing to ignore the very real threat to our democracy, to our way of life and safety, just to help advance [their] own parochial needs.” I admit to being struck almost dumb by this. The Iran deal and the conflict with the Palestinians could have existential consequences for Israel. America has enormous power and influence, which its presidents often wield in our region, sometimes to our great disadvantage, as in the case of President Obama. Israel, on the other hand, has little power to influence America; PM Netanyahu pulled out all the stops to derail the pernicious Iran deal, without success. Perhaps our concerns are “parochial,” but they are quite serious. And I remind them that Donald Trump received more votes than any previous American presidential candidate, even if he did not win the election.* So the vileness of Trump is not a forgone conclusion.
The entire article has an unfriendly, even threatening tone, as if to suggest that if we don’t fall in line with the 77% of American Jews who voted for Biden, we’ll be sorry.
The two authors are not just a pair of idiots, as the content of the article suggests. Morris is a specialist in biomedical engineering and radiology and a psychiatrist who teaches at Yale. Jett is a former ambassador who had a long career with the US State Department, and now teaches International Affairs at Penn State. Both were Fulbright scholars who worked in Israel.
But they share the arrogance of Americans who don’t understand the interests and apprehensions of Israelis, and who would prefer that we play our role as a banana republic that is an American satellite, quietly.
_________________________
* No, I’m not going to comment on whether the election was fair.

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