01/28 Links Pt2: Understanding B’tselem’s “Apartheid” Libel; Tu B’Shvat: The Festival that Proves the Jewish People’s Connection to the Land of Israel; California Is Cleansing Jews From History

From Ian:

Understanding B’tselem’s “Apartheid” Libel

If you’re looking for examples of spin in B’tselem’s latest anti-Israel document, in which the organization slings around the inflammatory terms “apartheid” and “Jewish supremacy,” there are plenty.

Consider, as one small example, the report’s charge that Israel has built “hundreds of communities for Jewish citizens – yet not a single one for Palestinian citizens.” The sentence was written to sound as damning as possible, which increases its shock value, but also left the authors in the uncomfortable position of having to immediately rebut their own falsehood. “The exception,” B’tselem admits in the very next sentence, “is a handful of towns and villages built to concentrate the Bedouin population.” Image of Bedouin town

The town of Ararat an-Naqab, which Israel built for the Bedouin community.

Which is to say, Israel built “not a single” community for Palestinians, except for all the ones it did build: Rahat, Kuseife, Shaqib al-Salam, Ar’arat an-Naqab, Lakiya, Tel as-Sabi, Hura, Tirabin al-Sana, Mulada, Abu Krinat, Bir Hadaj, Qasr al-Sir, Makhul, Umm Batin. It’s Orwellian newspeak: None, but many. A lie, but with the truth appended as a throwaway-line.

This is far from the worst distortion in the document. The big lie is conveyed in the report’s title, “A regime of Jewish supremacy from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea: This is apartheid.” But the semantic gamesmanship here is revealing. What should be straightforward, B’tselem makes a point of muddling. And so it goes throughout the report, with the result being a mess of factoids, fibs, and fraudulence meant to inflame and misinform, and which tells us more about the organization than about Israel.

The other side of the ledger – B’tselem’s comment about communities for Jews —is hardly better. It’s true that Israel has established hundreds of Jewish communities. But the reason for that isn’t nefarious, as B’tselem suggests. These towns and cities were needed to house immigrants numbering in the millions — Holocaust survivors, Middle Eastern Jews escaping persecution in Arab countries, Jews who wanted to live near their holy sites — absorbed by a country serving as a haven for Jews everywhere. It isn’t supremacy. It’s sanctuary.

Tu B’Shvat: The Festival that Proves the Jewish People’s Connection to the Land of Israel

The Jewish calendar has many holidays. Some celebrate the survival of the Jewish people over various enemies, some are solemnly spiritual in nature, but others exist, too. One such festival, Tu B’Shvat (sometimes written Tu BiShvat), is perhaps the greatest proof of the Jewish people’s deep connection with the Holy Land.

What Is Tu B’Shvat?
Tu B’Shvat is a Jewish holiday heralding the blossoming of trees and the beginning of the coming cycle of fruit. The name actually derives directly from the Hebrew date of the holiday, which occurs on the fifteenth day of Sh’vat. “Tu” stands for the Hebrew letters Tet and Vav, which have numerical values of 9 and 6 respectively, which add up to 15. Hence Tu B’Shvat literally means the “fifteenth [day of the month] of Sh’vat.”

Where Does Tu B’Shvat Come From?
Tu B’Shvat’s roots can be traced all the way back to the Jewish Talmud. While Rosh Hashanah, the main Jewish new year festival, is familiar to many people, there are actually a number of new year dates in the Jewish tradition. The Talmud records a debate with various opinions, leading to the establishment of four new years:
- The first of Nisan as the “new year for kings and festivals”;
- The first of Elul as the “new year for the tithe of cattle”;
- The first of Tishrei as the “new year for years,” including the calculation of the calendar and sabbatical years;
- The fifteenth of Sh’vat as the “new year for trees”.

Many centuries ago, a variety of different taxation methods were employed. One of the most common was called tithing. Tithing required separating percentages of produce, and handing them over to the local authorities. And for farmed in ancient Israel, Tu B’Shvat marked the date when calculations of the forthcoming fruit crop would begin.

The Talmud records this date as being the point in time when trees in the Land of Israel are said to awaken from their winter hibernation and start the process of renewal, blooming and bearing new fruit. While the date can naturally only be approximate, the month of Sh’vat was selected because “most of the yearly rainfall has passed” (Babylonian Talmud, Rosh Hashana, 14a), causing the trees to renew and their fruit ripen.

So before it was ever considered a festival, Tu B’Shvat was actually a formal date which was primarily significant for its function in governance. Over the centuries, however, the day has been transformed into an opportunity to connect with the Land of Israel.

California Is Cleansing Jews From History

As a result of the outpouring of criticism of the first ESMC draft, in August 2019, Superintendent Thurmond ordered a revision. A second draft was completed in August 2020 and was immediately criticized for simply moving objectionable material to the appendices and footnotes. In the current, third draft, released in December, some of the most offensive material was actually moved back in. For example, an historical resource was added with the following description of prewar Zionism: “the Jews have filled the air with their cries and lamentations in an effort to raise funds and American Jews, as is well known, are the richest in the world.”

Tammi Rossman-Benjamin, director of AMCHA Initiative, which fights campus anti-Semitism, points out that all 13 founding members of the Critical Ethnic Studies Association (CESA) are BDS activists. CESA, the national home base for critical studies, passed a resolution to boycott all Israeli academic institutions in 2014, and the group’s past four biennial meetings included multiple sessions demonizing Israel. “There are a couple thousand academic boycotters of Israel in the country,” she said, “and the largest percentage of them come from ethnic studies. Anti-Zionism is built into the theory and the discipline of ethnic studies, which demonizes Israel as an apartheid settler-colonialist Nazi state.”

But of even greater concern to Jews, she believes, is the singling out of Jewish students as enjoying racial privilege. “I don’t see any way that Jewish students can sit in an ethnic studies class and not feel they have a double target on their backs,” she said, fearing hatred and violence will ensue. First, because they’re Jewish, and considered white and part of the 1%, the purported villains of the teaching, and then through an assumed association with Israel. “There’s a state requirement that you have to sit through a class that says to Jewish students they have extraordinary racial privilege and yet forbids them from speaking because ‘this course is not about you?’ If you don’t accept it, you’re publicly shamed and ostracized—you can’t even speak up and say, ‘I’m not sure if I think that all white people are racists.’”

To placate critics, the third version has added lessons about Korean Americans, Armenian Americans, and Sikhs. Two lessons have been offered about Jews. One, following crude CRT dogma, teaches that Mizrahi Jews coming to the United States from Arab lands were mistreated by “white” Ashkenazim. The other suggests that Jews of European descent have white privilege.

The Jewish Journal points out that Jews are the only group in the curriculum for whom the term “privilege” is used. And this privilege is not earned by way of talent, or educational and professional attainment, but rather trickery. The ESMC, echoing Nazi propaganda about Jews as impostors and appropriators hiding in plain sight, points out that American Jews often change their names (“this practice of name-changing continues to the present day”) to change their rank in the social hierarchy.

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01/28 Links Pt1: David Singer: Biden declares Trump peace plan dead and buried; Vaccine found 92% effective in Israel, in first controlled result outside trials

From Ian:

David Singer: Biden declares Trump peace plan dead and buried

A Washington Post article in August 2020 summed up Biden and the Democrats position on Trump’s version of a two-state solution:

“The Democrats, led by presidential candidate Joe Biden, are determined to change course should they come to power. There are open discussions within the caucus about conditioning the billions in aid given to Israel on the basis of its actions. Biden and virtually every Democrat in Congress were vocal in their opposition to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s now-stalled plans to start annexing parts of the West Bank.”

Any attempt by Israel to extend its sovereignty unilaterally into any part of Judea and Samaria (aka 'West Bank') – incorrectly termed “annexation” – will assuredly be opposed by President Biden.

Trump’s Vision acknowledged the historic and biblical right of the Jewish people to reconstitute the Jewish National Home in the 'West Bank' – recognized and legally authorized by the 1922 League of Nations Mandate for Palestine - and preserved under article 80 of the United Nations Charter.

A jointly-appointed US-Israel Mapping Committee - headed by Friedman – had failed – after 11 months - to produce a detailed subdivision of the 'West Bank' embracing the concept of a two-state solution proposed by Trump - before Friedman’s retirement as Ambassador.

Closing the Embassy’s second Twitter page signals such a map will never be released under President Biden’s administration.

Biden has effectively declared Trump’s peace plan dead and buried.

Ambassador Dan Shapiro Comes Home to Joe Biden’s Washington

Shapiro’s party often appeared highly factionalized during much of his post-administration life in Israel, especially on the Middle East. Jake Sullivan and Ben Rhodes might have co-founded National Security Action, an anti-Trump foreign policy-focused political organization packed with former Obama administration officials, in which Shapiro sat on the advisory council. But they represent different poles of Democratic Party opinion on the region, and perhaps on the exercise of American power in general. Whether the party would embrace Shapiro’s brand of left-leaning pragmatism, or the more ideological stance embodied in Sen. Bernie Sanders, would depend on the outcome of the Democratic presidential primary, in which Shapiro was once again an early backer of the eventual winner.

By the time Biden was elected president, Shapiro had been discussing the Middle East with Tony Blinken and the former vice president’s foreign policy team for well over a year. Blinken and Shapiro are reportedly close and have known each other for over two decades, ever since they served together on the NSC at the end of Bill Clinton’s presidency. Blinken was later deputy national security adviser when Shapiro was on the NSC during Obama’s first term. Their career paths mirror one another’s—Blinken is not a professional diplomat but a former NSC hand who advised Biden while serving on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee’s staff in the early 2000s; similarly, Shapiro was a deputy chief of staff for a Democratic senator who went straight to a senior NSC position after being on the right side of a closely contested presidential primary.

During the 2020 race Shapiro “participated in strategy calls about policy, and about the Jewish and pro-Israel community,” according to Marc Stanley, a Dallas-based Democratic Party activist and fundraiser. Shapiro phone-banked and appeared in multiple Zoom events a week during the decisive phase of the race—in terms of Jewish outreach, the only figure within the campaign who seemed to outrank Shapiro was Doug Emhoff, the husband of vice presidential candidate Kamala Harris. At one virtual event during the stretch run of the race, Matt Nosanchuk, a former Obama liaison to the Jewish community, marveled that Shapiro was “available 24/6” for anything campaign-related, despite the time difference between the United States and Israel. At another event, attended by over 1,000 Jewish communal leaders, Shapiro was the speaker who handed things off to Biden himself, who then repeatedly stated that he would be leaning on Shapiro for help once he won the presidency.

“I don’t represent the Biden campaign,” Shapiro cautioned during a June 2020 conference call for Americans for Peace Now. Yet he spoke to Jewish audiences with a unique credibility about what his candidate was likely to do once elected. Biden, Shapiro said during that event, has a “deep, I would say very personal and emotional connection to Israel ... He calls himself a Zionist. There are not very many non-Jewish politicians who openly embrace that word.”

Whether the capital that Shapiro has amassed with both Israeli and American Jewish audiences and decision-makers will be put toward a historic peace breakthrough with the Palestinians, or will simply cushion a series of conflicts and disappointments that will push Democrats further from Israel and Israel further from the United States, could end up depending on a single issue alone, one which Shapiro successfully insulated himself from during his ambassadorship: Iran.

Few people are in a position to know whether and in what fashion President Biden will try to reenter the Iran Nuclear Deal, the centerpiece of Obama’s second-term foreign policy, as he has repeatedly and publicly pledged to do. Until the new administration’s policy clarifies, no one knows whether President Biden will unilaterally lift sanctions and allow the Iranians to expand their fast-accelerating nuclear weapons program, or instead attempt to utilize the leverage the Trump administration has established over the Islamic Republic to create a breakthrough of a kind that both Iranians and Israelis might applaud. Shapiro is the only figure in the Biden Middle East policy world whom Israelis have known and lived beside for nearly a decade—when the time comes for attempting the near-impossible diplomatic balancing act of moving toward a new understanding with Tehran, Israelis and Americans might get to find out what Shapiro’s years in the Middle East have truly amounted to.

The Tikvah Podcast: Emmanuel Navon on Jewish Diplomacy from Abraham to Abba Eban

For much of its history, the Jewish people hasn’t had a state. The Israel described in the Hebrew Bible had emissaries and military power, and the modern state of Israel has a foreign ministry and an advanced military, yet there’s nearly 2,000 years of stateless history in between. Throughout that time, however, Jewish diplomacy has been constant. Even without a state, the Jewish people has integrated, separated, argued, and made amends with the other nations of the world. And, as a new book shows, there’s much to be learned from that long experience today, in the state of Israel and out.

On this week’s podcast, Mosaic editor Jonathan Silver speaks with Emmanuel Navon, the author of The Star and the Scepter: A Diplomatic History of Israel. Navon puts Israel’s diplomatic history in the context of the entire history of the Jews, beginning with the Hebrew Bible. In doing so, he and Silver try to dig up some eternal truths about the nature of the Jewish people.

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How Israel Could Get a Stable Government (Vic Rosenthal)

Vic Rosenthal's weekly column

The challenges facing the state today are enormous. Although the vaccination project has been a success, the more-contagious mutations are spreading among groups that haven’t been vaccinated, and there are worries that new strains for which the vaccines aren’t as effective may develop. The health-care system is past peak capacity now. The economic impact on some segments of the population has been exceedingly painful already, and the costs for the vaccines and lost productivity will ultimately be felt throughout the economy.

At the same time, the IDF is asking for more money, in part to prepare for the possibility that it will be necessary to neutralize the Iranian nuclear capability by military means. That also would involve conflict with Hezbollah and Iranian militias in Syria and possibly Iraq, as well as involvement from Hamas. There still is no 2021 budget, and since the Knesset has been dissolved in preparation for the fourth election in two years, there is no possibility of passing one until there is a new government. The election is scheduled for 23 March, and then there is the interminable process of forming a coalition after that – assuming that a coalition can be formed.

The “unity” government that has just fallen apart was very expensive, since it was put together by bribing various politicians to join it with ministerial portfolios; since there weren’t enough to go around, a bunch of new ministries were created, for a total of 35. In addition, it was ineffectual: since the main partners were PM Binyamin Netanyahu’s bloc and a bloc made up of anti-Netanyahu politicians (with no other ideology besides a desire to depose him), they were permanently at each other’s throats.

In recent years Netanyahu has become obsessed with protecting himself from the corruption indictments against him. As a result, he has been unable to stand up to the Haredi parties that hold up his coalition. Their constituents seem to believe that they are Rabbi Akiva and the government which is trying to enforce the rules to contain the epidemic is the Roman Empire. Their acting as an autonomous group within the state has always been a problem, but with the advent of Covid it has become much more serious. Recently they have engaged in violent riots against the police.

Bibi has always insisted on managing everything himself. Ministers often find that their authority is very limited, limited to precisely what Bibi wants them to do. Their individual initiatives are stymied, something very frustrating to people like Naftali Bennett, who have ideas and energy but are kept on a tight leash. Bibi is tremendously competent and able to do many things at once, but this sometimes results in particular areas being neglected. And lately this problem, too, has become more serious.

Everything the government has done to control the epidemic except for the vaccination program has been poorly planned, poorly timed, and poorly executed. I judge that this is because the PM wants to control everything, but lacks the power – and perhaps also the focus – to exert that control.

Finally, the temporary vacation from American pressure that Israel enjoyed under the Trump Administration has come to an end. Biden’s promise to return to the Iran deal means that sanctions on Iran will be removed and (almost certainly) limitations will be placed on Israel’s freedom to act against Iranian bases in Syria and the transfer of weapons to Hezbollah. Israeli officials believe this makes conflict with Iran much more likely.

In the Palestinian arena, too, Biden and his Secretary of State, Anthony Blinken, have reiterated their belief in the necessity of a sovereign Palestinian state in Judea and Samaria. They have said that they will restart payments to UNRWA, the Palestinian refugee agency that exists to nurture the growth of a population of stateless refugee descendants – now more than 5 million – that is a hothouse of terrorism, and which the Palestinians and their supporters demand be allowed to live in Israel. Biden also intends to reopen the PLO mission in Washington.

The administration hasn’t done much that affects Israel yet, and I would like to be optimistic about the future. But some of his appointments are troubling. For example, his new Senior Director for Intelligence Programs at the NSC, is former Obama Administration staffer Maher Bitar, a Palestinian activist who worked for UNRWA and supports BDS. Bitar will “coordinate intelligence between the White House and the intelligence community, receiving material from intelligence agencies, informing the intelligence community of White House policy, and deciding who gets access to secret information.”

All this requires a government that can pay attention to multiple issues at the same time, a coalition that can work together, and a PM that is not on trial for corruption.
How can we get one? The last three elections have been almost deadlocked. Twice no governing coalition could be formed, and the last election produced the Frankensteinian “unity” government that was almost worse than no government at all (I have discussed the technical issues in our electoral system here).

Based on recent polls, if we leave out the non-Zionist Arab parties, who will neither be invited into a coalition nor wish to be, and the Haredi parties, then neither the right- nor the left-wing blocs will be able to form a government. The Right, which has a majority of the Jewish vote, is split between pro- and anti-Netanyahu factions. With the Haredi parties, Netanyahu is very close to 61 seats – precisely the situation we were in the last time. But if he succeeds, the government will be weak, dependent on the Haredim, and will continue to be a one-man show. The Left has no chance, even with the support of the Arab parties from outside the coalition. Of course there are all kinds of imaginative solutions involving partners that would normally not be together that I haven’t mentioned. But they are unlikely.

I would like to see a fundamental restructuring of our system, but that is not going to happen under a caretaker government in the next two months. But there is one thing that could radically change the picture, and it is something that should happen in any event:

Binyamin Netanyahu should voluntarily step down as head of the Likud. This could unify the Right, and enable a solid majority right-wing coalition – without the Haredi parties, whose ability to bring down the government at will has made it possible for the Haredim to act like a state within a state.

This does not solve all of our problems. It doesn’t fix the imbalance of power between the legal establishment and the elected Knesset, for example. But it does at least make it possible to have a reasonably lean government with a unified ideological perspective that will be able to act on the problems at hand.

Since I’m dreaming, there is one other thing I would like: as part of the deal, all charges against Netanyahu – some of which are legitimate, and some fraudulent – should be dropped, in view of his service to the state.

There are only a few weeks to go before the election. Can our politicians, starting with Bibi, put aside their plans for personal glory and their thoughts of revenge, and agree to do the right thing for the Jewish state? I’m hoping they can.

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Palestinians dust off a 2018 "peace plan," where only Israel has to give up anything, to the UN Security Council

Now that Joe Biden is President, Mahmoud Abbas is trying to set the clock back to the Obama era by pretending to act like he wants peace and hoping that the world will go back to castigating Israel and praising him.

The PA's foreign minister spoke before the UN Security Council and managed to get the usual suspects to praise the Palestinians and slam Israel. 

The reason for the meeting was for the PA to push a 2018 "peace plan" that they put together as a response to the Trump recognition of Jerusalem. They are now treating this plan, where they are not expected to give anything up, as a serious proposal to try to regain some momentum and act as if they are interested in peace.

The "peace plan" includes:

An international peace conference led by the permanent members of the Security Council and the Quartet.

Accepting the State of Palestine as a full member of the United Nations

Mutual recognition between the State of Palestine and the State of Israel based on the "1967 borders."

 An international multilateral mechanism to assist the two sides  to resolve all permanent status issues within a specified time period with guarantees for implementation.

During the period of negotiations, stopping all settlement activities including East Jerusalem.

Freezing the US decision recognizing Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.

Implement the Arab Peace Initiative and no Arab nation can make peace until that is implemented.

"State of Palestine" capital is in East Jerusalem.

An international peace force to assist.

"A just and agreed solution to the Palestinian refugee issue on the basis of Resolution 194."

Continued international commitment to support UNRWA "until the refugee issue is resolved."

This is warmed over versions of Palestinian demands for years, where instead of Palestinians making actual compromises, they sit back and let the international community pressure Israel into making concession after concession on everything - Jerusalem, refugees, settlements, borders. 

They are clearly hoping that the Biden administration will back them up. 

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01/26 Links Pt2: What the War Over the IHRA Definition Obscures; The uncomfortable truth about BLM, Malcolm X and anti-Semitism

From Ian:

Jeff Jacoby: The politics of an Auschwitz survivor’s son

Equally menacing is an obsession with race and racial distinctions. Hitler’s Germany deemed “Aryans” the highest race and Jews the lowest. In their fanaticism on the subject, the Nazis demonized Jews, denied them legal rights, deprived them of their livelihoods, drove them from their homes, and finally destroyed them by the millions. As the son of a Holocaust survivor, I consider all racial categories fundamentally illegitimate. I abhor the labeling and sorting of Americans by race. “Classifications and distinctions based on race or color,” argued the NAACP Legal Defense Fund in a 1947 brief, “have no moral or legal validity in our society.” That has always been my position. It makes me heartsick that 50 years after the civil rights movement, America’s leading institutions have become more race-obsessed than ever.

I’m sure that some of the stands I take in public-policy debates have been influenced by my experience growing up with a father who survived the death camps and being raised in a community that was home to other survivors. I fervently opposed the Bush administration’s reliance on torture to extract information from Al Qaeda detainees, for example. I have always condemned the scapegoating of immigrants, whether it came from the left or from the right. I have no patience with foreign-policy “realists” who downplay human rights in dealing with other governments.

Above and beyond politics, however, my lifelong awareness of the Holocaust has made it impossible for me not to know that human goodness is fragile. It doesn’t come naturally but must be honed and practiced, etched into our nature one good deed at a time. Civility and civilization are only veneers, stretched like a bandage over an ugly wound. More easily than we like to think, that bandage can be pulled off, exposing the putrescence beneath. It was pulled off in Europe in the middle of the 20th century, and the consequences were diabolical — for the world, for the Jews, for my father and his family. Those consequences are never far from my mind. They shape my thinking to this day.

After converting to Judaism, I was surrounded by neo-Nazis - Opinion

When we talked about it over scoops of ice cream later that night, he told me it was surprising to have experienced neo-Nazis in Iceland, a country famous for its equality and peaceful society, but he didn’t reveal having felt anything beyond the surprise.

I took this experience home with me though, and it helped me understand the gravity of my conversion. It was the first time that fear made me reconsider my conversion and the choices I was making in my public Jewish life. It was the first time I truly looked inward and asked myself the hard question required of converts: Was I ready to accept the realities of anti-Semitism?

I also asked myself the question so many of my friends had asked already: As a gay man, why would I want to add an additional target on my back?

I used to find the imagery of a target on someone’s back too grotesque and melodramatic for the context of a religious conversion, but since my encounter with presumed neo-Nazis in the hot tub that day, the question has become even more reasonable. On top of all-too-common news of anti-Semitic threats and vandalism, there have been synagogue shootings and Jewish-oriented hate crimes around the world.

At the time of this writing, we are dealing with the aftermath of domestic terrorists storming and overtaking the U.S. Capitol building. Some rioters waved Confederate flags, others held signs referencing the anti-Semitic conspiracy theory QAnon. Others wore sweatshirts that read things like “Camp Auschwitz,” an obvious glorification of the Holocaust. During the pro-Trump “Save America” rally leading up to the storming of the Capitol building, a Republican congresswoman, Mary Miller, even quoted Hitler.

While I wait for my city’s mikvah to reopen after being closed due to COVID-19 in order to finalize my conversion, I find myself revisiting the same question I asked myself back in Reykjavík: Is my conversion a smart choice?

In the two years that have passed since soaking in a hot tub with neo-Nazis, I have to admit that my certainty in my desire to convert has taken a few blows. But what keeps me pushing toward the mikvah, however, is that when I’m asked if I’m Jewish, I always say yes.

The uncomfortable truth about BLM, Malcolm X and anti-Semitism

Fifty-five years ago, Martin Luther King delivered a speech to 50,000 Americans in which he demanded justice for persecuted Jews behind the Iron Curtain.

‘The absence of opportunity to associate as Jews in the enjoyment of Jewish culture and religious experience becomes a severe limitation upon the individual,’ he said. ‘Negros can well understand and sympathise with this problem.’

He then stated, in typically uncompromising style, that Jewish history and culture were ‘part of everyone’s heritage, whether he be Jewish, Christian or Moslem.’ He concluded:

‘We cannot sit complacently by the wayside while our Jewish brothers in the Soviet Union face the possible extinction of their cultural and spiritual life. Those that sit at rest, while others take pains, are tender turtles, and buy their quiet with disgrace.’

This speech – released last week by the National Coalition Supporting Eurasian Jewry (NCEJ) to mark Martin Luther King Day, and coming just days before we remember the Holocaust – feels particularly poignant in the newly radicalised atmosphere of 2021. Today's activists in the Black Lives Matter movement would be wise to remember King's words.

During the Los Angeles riots over the killing of George Floyd, Jewish shops were destroyed, synagogues were sprayed with ‘free Palestine’ graffiti, and a statue of a Swedish diplomat who had saved Hungarian Jews from the Nazis was defaced with anti-Semitic slogans.

In France, a Black Lives Matter rally descended into cries of ‘dirty Jews’, echoing the anti-Semitic chants that filled the same streets during the Dreyfus affair a century ago. Shortly afterwards, the #Jewishprivilege Twitter hashtag sought to lump Jews together with the forces of oppression – until it was subverted by Jews posting accounts of the persecution suffered by their families. Jewish privilege indeed.

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01/26 Links Pt1: Daniel Pipes: The Israel lobby is good for America; UAE, Bahrain: We need ‘unified voice’ with Israel on Iran’s missiles, nukes

From Ian:

Daniel Pipes: The Israel lobby is good for America

Israelis and Palestinians each call on the enthusiastic support of a great hinterland. Israelis have the Jewish diaspora, especially its rich and powerful leaders, from Chaim Weizmann to Sheldon Adelson, as well as a worldwide network of Christian supporters, from Lord Palmerston and William Blackstone to Clark Clifford and Nikki Haley. In parallel part, Palestinians have counted on Arab, Muslim, European and Communist states such as, respectively, Egypt, Iran, Sweden and the Soviet Union, as well as growing support from the global left, exemplified by former British Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn. Indeed, as Steven J. Rosen has shown, “the Arab road to Washington runs through Paris, London and Berlin.”

Through the past century, those hinterlands have grown and roughly balanced each other. Both came into existence during World War I, when British Zionists pressured their government to support a Jewish national home in Palestine, as Arab leaders extracted promises from Britain about Palestine before helping its war effort. During World War II, Western Jews and their allies applied desperate pressure on the British government to open immigration to Palestine for Jewish refugees, as Arab rulers threatened to sabotage Britain’s war efforts if it permitted that immigration.

After the war, American Zionists moved to the forefront, as independent Arab states tripled in number. Zionists successfully lobbied President Harry S. Truman to recognize the State of Israel in 1948, as five Arab states invaded the nascent polity. Each side learned from the other: Israelis developed a powerful army, as Arabs won increasing clout in Western politics, media and education. Each side developed and refined techniques for extracting funds from its hinterland, whether the United Jewish Appeal or Saudi, Kuwaiti and other government donations.

Repeatedly, when Israel’s enemies attack, its American friends defend. Arab states boycotted U.S. firms invested in Israel; Israel’s friends won legislation making complying with such boycotts illegal. Arab states withheld oil supplies; Zionists pushed against capitulation to such pressure. Arab states rounded up overwhelming majorities in international organizations; Israel’s friends did likewise in Congress. Each hinterland fights for its cause. Each provides diplomatic support, financial aid and armaments.

In other words, American Zionists serve as a principal counterpart to anti-Zionist foreign states. The Zionists pressure Washington from within, the states do so from without. It’s a significant difference but ultimately a technical one.

Thus, the Israel lobby does not impede the formulation of an objective foreign policy but constructively offsets anti-Israel influence. Arguing for Israel is not just protected under the First Amendment and entirely legitimate, it informs and improves American policy formulation by countering foreign influences. The Israel lobby, therefore, is good for America.

IDF Cheif Kochavi: Return to Iran 2015 nuclear deal is strategic mistake

A return to the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran, or a "slightly improved" deal would be a an operational and strategic mistake for the world, IDF Chief-of-Staff Lt. Gen. Aviv Kochavi warned on Tuesday

He said that Iran’s advance centrifuge progress and jumps in enriching uranium could eventually bring it to be "only weeks" away from a nuclear bomb.

The deal would still allow the Islamic Republic to break out to a nuclear weapon in 2030 when the agreement expires. The IDF chief said that the US and others must maintain all sanctions and pressure now as Tehran is at its weakest and closest to making real concessions.

In addition, he said that Israel’s strikes in Syria and other undefined parts of the Middle East had created the greatest deterrence Israel has ever known against its enemies.

Moreover, he said that the normalization trend is isolating Iran in ways that it never expected and was not prepared for.

UAE, Bahrain: We need ‘unified voice’ with Israel on Iran’s missiles, nukes

The Islamic Republic’s foreign minister warned last week that his country would not accept changes to the terms of the 2015 pact, which currently does not deal with Iran’s missile program or regional proxies.

“We must respond to Iran’s missile program,” Alzayani continued, “its support for proxies in the region, and its interference in the domestic affairs of states across the region, in order to bring about a broader peace and stability for the Middle East.”

The JCPOA was signed by Iran and six world powers known as the P5+1 in 2015. Then-president Trump unilaterally pulled the US out of the deal in 2018, opting instead for a “maximum pressure” sanctions effort.

One of the JCPOA’s “failures,” argued UAE Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Anwar Gargash on Tuesday, was the “absence of a regional voice therein.”

Iran drafted conditions for returning to compliance with the nuclear deal, one of which is that no new signatories — understood to mean Arab Gulf states — may be added to the agreement.

Since 2019, Tehran has suspended its compliance with most of the limits set by the agreement in response to Washington’s abandonment of sanctions relief and the failure of other parties to the deal to make up for it. It is now enriching uranium to 20 percent, just a short step away from weapons-grade levels.

Israel, UAE, and Bahrain all seek to dissuade the Biden administration from returning to the JCPOA in its original form.

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Time To Read The Tea Leaves: Where Is Biden Headed In The Middle East? (Daled Amos)

Now that Biden is president, Israel and the Jewish community look on as the various pieces of his new administration fall into place, waiting to see what this means for both the Jewish community and for Israel.

Everything becomes part of the cup of tea leaves that Jews are trying to read.

One of the things that got this process going in earnest was the change made to the Twitter account of the US Ambassador to Israel. 

Last Wednesday, the account suddenly read:

The question was: why change it to US Ambassador to Israel, the West Bank and Gaza?

Legal Insurrection quotes from the original article in the Washington Free Beacon which sounded the alarm:

The change in title marks a significant shift in policy toward Israel. The United States has for decades declined to take a policy position on the West Bank and Gaza territories, maintaining the Israelis and the Palestinians must decide in negotiations how the areas will be split up for a future Palestinian state. By including Gaza and the West Bank in the ambassador’s portfolio, the Biden administration appears to be determining that neither area is part of Israel—a move that is certain to rile Israeli leaders. [emphasis added]

In the end, it apparently turned out to be a false alarm, as the page was quietly changed back to "US Ambassador to Israel" and WFB updated their article accordingly. No one knows if it was the work of an overeager staffer or whether Twitter accidentally refreshed the old page.

But this is a good example of the eagerness to jump at the most trivial indication of Biden's new Middle East policy, especially in terms of what policy changes we should expect, especially when it comes to Iran.

Attention dutifully went back to following the procession of Biden nominees for various positions within his administration.

Biden's new National Security Adviser is Jake Sullivan.

Last May, Sullivan co-wrote an article in Foreign Affairs about America’s Opportunity in the Middle East, which advocated

a phased approach that delivers nuclear progress up front and creates space to address regional challenges over time. Under such an approach, the United States would immediately reestablish nuclear diplomacy with Iran and salvage what it can from the 2015 nuclear deal, which has been fraying since the Trump administration abandoned it in 2018. The United States would then work with the P5+1 and Iran to negotiate a follow-on agreement. In parallel, the United States and its partners would support a regional track.

It is to be expected that Sullivan supports some kind of return to the Iran deal, albeit cautiously.

On the other hand, Sullivan also praised the Abraham Accords back in September, saying it was a "positive accomplishment" that was "good for the region, it’s good for Israel, it’s good for peace" while balancing that with "we should praise this deal for what it is but not for more than what it is...It’s been a long time coming. This is not a bolt out of the blue."

But over the weekend, when Sullivan spoke by phone with Israeli National Security Advisor Meir Ben Shabbat, the White House released an oddly phrased statement that

They discussed opportunities to enhance the partnership over the coming months, including by building on the success of Israel’s normalization arrangements with UAE, Bahrain, Sudan, and Morocco.

Lahav Harkov, the Jerusalem Post's diplomatic correspondent, noted on Twitter

She also pointed out that while in Israel it was reported that

The two agreed to discuss soon the many topics on the agenda including Iran, regional issues and advancing the Abraham Accords.

in the White House statement, there was no mention of Iran at all.

There are those tea leaves again.

And then there is Tony Blinken.

During his confirmation hearings last week, Tony Blinken -- Biden's choice for Secretary of State -- was asked about Biden's Middle East policy.

The Biden administration would consult with Israel and Arab allies before taking any action regarding returning to the Iran deal, though he admitted that he "believes that if Iran comes back into compliance, we would too"

But Blinken went on to say, on the issue of compliance:

But we would use that as a platform with our allies and partners, who would once again be on the same side as us, to seek a longer and stronger agreement, and also as you and the chairman have rightly pointed out, to capture these other issues, particularly with regard to missiles and Iran’s destabilizing activities. That would be the objective.

Having said that, I think we are a long way from there. We would have to see once the president-elect is in office what steps Iran actually takes and is prepared to take. We would then have to evaluate whether they were making good—if they say they are coming back into compliance—[on] their obligations, and then we would take it from there. But in the first instance, yes, we absolutely will consult with you, and not only with you, I think as the chairman suggested, it’s also vitally important that we engage on the takeoff, not the landing, with our allies and with our partners in the region, to include Israel and to include the Gulf countries. [emphasis added]

First of all, Blinken seems to be taking an awful lot for granted about getting Israel and the Gulf Arab states on board negotiations with the leading state sponsor of terrorism in the Middle East.

Secondly, his metaphor about engaging US allies "on the takeoff, not the landing" implies a willingness to push those US allies off the plane -- if not under the bus.

And Blinken is nothing if not a party man, who claimed during his confirmation hearing:

In my judgment, the JCPOA, for whatever its limitations, was succeeding on its own terms in blocking Iran’s pathways to producing fissile material for a nuclear weapon on short order. [emphasis added]

But overall, the general consensus does seem to be that Biden's picks for his staff have been reassuring on the issue of Iran.

Except for one.

There are indications that Biden could pick Robert Malley as his special envoy to Iran, which Eli Lake describes as a reason to believe that Biden’s First Foreign Policy Blunder Could Be on Iran. The problem is that Malley favors talks with Iran as the only way to get any results, and claims that pressure does not work.

Lake demurs:

More important, the notion that Iran’s regime does not respond to pressure is a talking point of the Iranian regime, especially Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif. It also happens to be false. Obama’s maximum pressure campaign between 2011 and 2013 ultimately coerced the regime to enter open nuclear negotiations with the U.S., China, Russia, France, Germany and the U.K. [emphasis added]

More to the point, appointing Malley would directly contradict statements that Biden made just last year while on the campaign trail:

Biden himself during the campaign has said he would support targeted sanctions to punish Iran for human rights abuses, developing ballistic missiles and support for terrorism. And Blinken and Sullivan have committed to working with regional allies to press Iran to change its ways. What message would it send if the administration’s envoy to Iran believes no Iranian leader could ever agree to stop making war on its neighbors?

Part of Biden's problem is that he is beholden to the progressive wing of the Democratic Party, one that favors the Iran Deal and supports for a Palestinian Arab state on the one hand and is antagonistic to Israel and Saudi Arabia on the other, and is not impressed by the Abraham Accords either.

So it's no small thing that while praising the Abraham Accords, Blinken made a point to leave this window open:

However, he said the Biden administration would “take a hard look at” some of the “commitments” that were made in tandem with those accords.

Is Biden going to try to thread this needle -- both in terms of his Middle East policy abroad but also in terms of satisfying his progressive base that expects to be rewarded handsomely for their support?

And if he does make this attempt, will he succeed?

Or are we already seeing signs of it beginning to unravel?

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01/25 Links Pt1: Palestinians Need to Rethink the Way They Treat Israel; The Jordan Valley as Israel’s Strategic Line of Defense; 75% of Jailed PA Terrorists Vaccinated by Israel

From Ian:

Peres Center for Peace Chairman Chemi Peres: Palestinians Need to Rethink the Way They Treat Israel

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has promoted: "peace for peace," a rejection of the traditional paradigm of land for peace. He says the UAE deal sets a precedent: Israel doesn't need to cede land to the Palestinians in order to win friends in the Arab world. In the Persian Gulf, a new generation of Arabs is less consumed by the never-ending Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

"This is a model of how the peace needs to be with the Palestinians. Mutual respect and acceptance...looking forward to doing business together and living together," said Israeli investor Simcha Fulda after business meetings in Dubai.

"I think that the Palestinians need to rethink the way they treat Israel," said Chemi Peres, son of the late Israeli President Shimon Peres, who won a Nobel Peace Prize for peace efforts with Palestinians. Peres' son runs the Peres Center for Peace and Innovation, which is prioritizing Israeli business ties with the Emiratis, an approach he wants Palestinians to adopt in forging peaceful ties with Israelis.

"Their point of view has been, let's first solve the political issues and then we can start normalizing things and move forward. I believe those days are gone," Peres said. "I believe that the only way for us to really, really achieve peace, comprehensive peace, and save the region from backwardness, is to focus on moving forward together."

In Focus: The Jordan Valley as Israel’s Strategic Line of Defense

Following the 1967 Six Day War initiated by Arab countries, Israel, by virtue of its resounding victory, expanded the territory under its control. While the Sinai Peninsula was subsequently returned to Egypt as part of the 1979 peace agreement, and whereas Israel in 2005 fully withdrew from the Gaza Strip, the Jewish State has to date not fully relinquished the West Bank (also known by its biblical name, Judea and Samaria), which for two decades beginning in 1948 was administered by Jordan and, crucially, includes the Jordan Valley.

Historical, religious and legal claims aside, successive Israeli governments have often cited security considerations as a reason for retaining the area, which has been referred to as “Israel’s eastern line of defense.” As such, the issue has often featured prominently in US-mediated peace talks with the Palestinians, who claim the entire West Bank as part of a future state.

In this respect, while newly minted President Joe Biden’s exact policies regarding the West Bank are not yet known, his nominee for secretary of state secretary, Tony Blinken, has asserted that the current administration views Israel’s security as “sacrosanct.” At the same time, he said that the 46th American president would promote the two-state solution and oppose unilateral steps by both Israelis and Palestinians.

Israel’s Need for Strategic Depth
Defense experts have repeatedly acknowledged the need for so-called “strategic depth.” The 1921 journal of the US Infantry Association summarizes this military philosophy: “All essential elements of the defense should be organized in depth. If the forward defensive areas are captured, resistance is continued by those in rear.”

Before the UN Partition Plan of 1947, some prominent members of the Zionist movement warned against establishing a Jewish state in the absence of what they considered defensible borders. In a 1937 address to members of the British parliament, Ze’ev Jabotinsky described such a prospective country:
Most of it is lowland, whereas the Arab reserve is all hills. Guns can be placed on the Arab hills within 15 miles of Tel Aviv and 20 miles from Haifa; in a few hours these towns can be destroyed, the harbors made useless, and most of the places overrun, whatever the valor of their defenders.”

More recently, Israeli leaders have gone so far as to call the pre-1967 lines “Auschwitz borders,” pointing out that Israel is, by comparison, similar in size to New Jersey or Wales and therefore vulnerable to attack. Before the Six Day War, Israel proper at its narrowest measured only 15 kilometers (9 miles) wide across its middle.

Israel’s first ambassador to UAE ready for his historic mission

For Ambassador Eitan Na’eh, the excitement of being Israel’s first senior diplomat in the United Arab Emirates began even before he landed in the Gulf state this week.

Speaking from self-quarantine in Abu Dhabi on Monday, Na’eh spoke of “national and personal excitement mixed together,” which began “from the first time the foreign minister summoned me and asked me to come here.” That continued on Sunday, when Na’eh “got on a flight going east, over Saudi Arabia and landing in Dubai,” something that, as an Israeli, he still did not take for granted.

Now, Na’eh is the charge d’affaires of Israel’s new embassy in the UAE, opened five months after the countries announced the peace and normalization agreement called the Abraham Accords. Na’eh is in charge of the embassy until a permanent ambassador is chosen after the next government is formed, which will likely take at least three months.

Na’eh said he is in Abu Dhabi “with clear instructions to expand the ties,” because previously, Israel only had diplomatic representatives to the International Renewable Energy Agency based in the UAE, and not to the country itself.

“We need to build relations for the long term,” he said.

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01/24 Links: What apartheid?; Martin Luther King and the Jews; Biden Appoints Former Palestinian UNRWA Official as Director of NSC Intelligence

From Ian:

What apartheid?

Last week, I woke up one morning in my Nazareth home and was astonished to discover I was living under a racist, apartheid regime whose only purpose is “the promotion and perpetuation of the superiority of one group of people—the Jews.” I rubbed my eyes, read the story in greater depth, and calmed down as soon as I realized the reports were based on yet another report by the left-wing NGO B’Tselem.

The problem is that this report has spread like wildfire around the world, and the propaganda is working.

B’Tselem, which presents itself as a human-rights organization, is in fact known for its clear political stance that is in contrast to Israel’s position. As it turns out, people have no boundaries. How dare they claim that I, an Arab-Israeli who served along with Jewish soldiers in the Israel Defense Forces and managed hundreds of Jewish employees, live under an apartheid regime?

How can anyone say our society is living under an apartheid regime when among us you will find doctors, judges and even lawmakers? How can you say Samer Haj-Yehia lives in an apartheid regime when he is the head of the biggest bank in Israel? B’Tselem has already broken the record for hypocrisy, but to compare Israel to an apartheid regime is not only a distorted lie but an insult to all those South Africans who actually lived through apartheid. It is contempt for and cynical exploitation of the concept.

I am not here to claim that everything in Israel is perfect. Some things need to be fixed—and how. But show me a country where everything is perfect. I look around at our neighbors in the region and thank God I was born in the State of Israel, the only democracy in the Middle East. True, the Arab minority in Israel faces challenges, just as other national minorities do in other countries. Yet while minorities of all kinds across the Middle East—Shi’ite Muslims, Sunni Muslims, Yazidi, Kurds, and, of course, the Christians—are persecuted, Israel is the only country that grants minorities equal rights and the ability to influence their future.

Martin Luther King and the Jews

With deference, Prof. Bontemps relayed many instances of Dr. King acknowledging the organized and individual contributions of Jews, as well as bravery demonstrated while helping people of color during especially difficult and dangerous times. These included demonstrations where dogs, police batons, fire hoses and projectiles were employed.

There was no differentiation in treatment shown white Jews and blacks detained or arrested. Jews were often targeted upon release by waiting white mobs. In fact, during the 1950s and ‘60s, whites who aided in the cause of black civil rights and voter registration generally received harsher treatment as the price for what was construed, race betrayal.

That was then and this is now. While African-Americans are finding a modicum of better acceptance, the message of the Holocaust seems to have vanished. Antisemitism once again afflicts our nation, as well as much of the world, and is escalating. Shame upon those who choose silence or purposeful ignorance: black, white and brown; Jew, gentile, Muslim and others.

People, who know better and should be speaking up all too frequently seek cover within the silent majority. This includes people of color who have forgotten their history as they close their eyes, cover their ears and shut their minds to the painful malice afflicting Jews, and their tiny promised refuge in the Middle East, Israel.

I cannot imagine Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. approving of the way Jews are being treated in today’s America. I strongly suspect, at the very least, he would not stand idly by, in the face of torment endured by Jewish brothers and sisters – no matter if the ranks of the perpetrators included fellow reverends spewing antisemitic rhetoric, or a US president whose memory feeds unjustified hostility toward Israel – each would be held to account. Gut-wrenching falsehoods permeating today’s society, including the labeling of the Holocaust nonexistent or greatly exaggerated, would not be summarily dismissed.

Dr. King, a Zionist in his own right, would not have chosen silence as that would have violated his belief of an injustice done to one is an injustice done to all, and must not be excused by any.

A toast to Mike Pompeo

Pompeo separated himself from the current chaos and discord and summarized the legacy he was leaving behind in a logical, methodical, and clear manner. He placed the world's largest superpower on the side of good, fighting against the bad guys. That may sound simplistic, but it is a reflection of the simple line that refuses to be politically correct and refuses to play that all-too-familiar game of polite smiles, meaningless Nobel Peace Prizes, and a submission to the bullies around the world the likes of which the world witnessed with the late British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain's talk of "peace in our time" at a time when everyone knows war is knocking at the door. Or as Pompeo succinctly put it, "Wishful thinking won't restrain authoritarians in Caracas, or in Beijing, or in Tehran."

And so, beyond our little slice of heaven, the US has been revealed in all its glory as a supporter of Hong Kong, Taiwan, and a nation that stands up to the Chinese communist party and with the Uighurs, adopts a maximist policy of pressure on Iran, fights Al Qaeda, stands with the Iranian people and breaks through fossilized conceptual norms on the Middle East that saw the world hang its hopes for peace on the capricious tendencies of the Palestinians.

Nor did Pompeo hesitate to speak matter-of-factly about international bodies. "The U.S. is stronger when we acknowledge the failings of international institutions like @UN and try to fix them," he tweeted, noting the US had not wasted taxpayer money on failed and corrupt institutions like the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, the World Health Organization, and others.

He was one of the most important figures in the administration and left behind an impressive legacy. He also declared that "America has no greater friend than Israel and the people of Israel."

In an honest and genuine world, he would have received the Nobel Peace Prize. Pompeo, however, isn't waiting for recognition. He was excited about the Golan Heights and about Judea and Samaria. On the occasion of the end of his tenure, we should raise a glass of fine Pompeo from the Binyamin vineyards in his honor.

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01/23 Links: ‘Jews Don’t Count:’ Former New York Times Editor Bari Weiss Breaks Down Antisemitism on Left and Right; Explosion in Gaza home used for weapons storage injures dozens

From Ian:

‘Jews Don’t Count:’ Former New York Times Editor Bari Weiss Breaks Down Antisemitism on Left and Right in Megyn Kelly Interview

“Right now, Jews are in a very precarious and strange position,” said author and former New York Times editor Bari Weiss in a wide-ranging interview Friday, with former Fox News and NBC host Megyn Kelly.

“Jews don’t count,” she argued. “If someone said to another editor at the New York Times, ‘are you writing about the Blacks again? Are you writing about the trans again? Are you writing about the gays again?’ — think about how that sounds to your ear; it’s disgusting. And yet some people think it’s acceptable to say about Jews.”

The former opinion section editor resigned from The New York Times in July 2020, publishing an open letter that criticized colleagues for “harassing” behavior.

“They have called me a Nazi and a racist; I have learned to brush off comments about how I’m ‘writing about the Jews again,'” she wrote in the letter.

Kelly, the former news anchor who launched The Megyn Kelly Show podcast in 2020, asked Weiss on Friday why antisemitism had recently become more prominent.

“In the antisemitic conspiracy theory … Jews or the Jewish state comes to stand for whatever a given culture or civilization defines as its most loathsome or disgusting qualities,” said Weiss, who in 2019 authored the book How to Fight Anti-Semitism. “That’s how the Jews can be so many things at once,” under ideologies like Nazism and Communism.

“You have the accusation that comes from the far-right — from people like the killer who stormed into my synagogue in Pittsburgh two years ago, and he said ‘all Jews must die,’ and he killed eleven of my neighbors,” said Weiss, referring to the 2018 Tree of Life massacre in her home town.

I loved this conversation with @bariweiss on leaving the @nytimes, fighting anti-Semitism and her engagement -she's brave & brilliant. Check it out:https://t.co/K0ZhCbI4xV https://t.co/tfHp6MUFu9

— Megyn Kelly (@megynkelly) January 22, 2021

Fighting Terrorists while respecting International Law

Fighting Terrorists while respecting International Law: Col. (ret) Adv. Pnina Sharvit Baruch, former head of the IDF's international law department and Col. (ret) Richard Kemp CBE, former commander of British forces in Afghanistan, chaired by Natasha Hausdorff, Barrister.

Two exceptional speakers discuss the challenges facing moral armies when confronting terrorists, while seeking to avoid civilian casualties and comply with international law.

Col. Adv. Pnina Sharvit Baruch is a senior research fellow and the head of the program on law and national security at the Israel Institute for National Security Studies (INSS). She is also vice president of the International Association of Jewish Lawyers and Jurists (IJL) and active in Forum Dvorah - Women in Foreign Policy and National Security.

Pnina retired from the Israel Defense Forces in 2009 with the rank of Colonel after twenty years in the International Law Department, heading the Department from 2003. She was responsible for advising on international law, including the laws of armed conflict. Pnina served as a legal advisor and member of Israel's delegations to the negotiations with the Palestinians and with Syria.

After 2009 Pnina taught courses on public international law and on the legal aspects of the Israel – Arab conflict in the law faculty of the Tel Aviv University and at the National Security College. She has published numerous articles on issues relating to these topics. She holds an LL.B and LL.M from Tel-Aviv University.

Col. Richard Kemp CBE served in the British Army for 30 years, retiring in 2006. He completed eight operational tours fighting terrorism in Northern Ireland, including intelligence work, and was wounded in action. He took part in the 1990-91 Gulf war in Iraq and Kuwait. He served with the UN Protection Force in Bosnia in 1994 and was counter terrorism adviser to the Prime Minister of Macedonia in 2001.

He commanded British Forces in Afghanistan in 2003 and subsequently served again in Iraq during the second Gulf War. From 2002-2006 he was head of the international terrorism intelligence team at the British Cabinet Office and a member of COBRA.

Since leaving the Army he has addressed the UN Human Rights Committee in Geneva, refuting allegations of war crimes aimed at the IDF. He has also addressed the Knesset and several legislatures around the world on these issues as well as the threat from Iran. He is a media commentator and writer on defence, security, terrorism and intelligence and author of "Attack State Red", an account of the war in Afghanistan.

Grand Mufti’s Jerusalem mansion to become synagogue

Hajj Amin al-Husseini, the notorious mufti of Jerusalem in the 1920s and 1930s who spent much of World War II in Berlin as a Nazi collaborator and war criminal, must be spinning in his grave. In Jerusalem has learned that the landmark hilltop mansion he built 88 years ago in affluent Sheikh Jarrah between the Old City and Mount Scopus is slated to become a synagogue in a future 56-apartment Jewish neighborhood in east Jerusalem.

The 500-sq.m. manor house, called Qasr al-Mufti (the Mufti’s Palace) in Arabic, today stands deserted at the center of a largely completed 28-apartment complex, which itself lacks a tofes arba occupancy permit. The reason the new neighborhood is not being finished – and indeed has not been marketed in the 10 years since demolition and construction began – is that the developers have applied to rezone the 5.2-dunam site to double the number of units to 56, according to Daniel Luria, a spokesman for Ateret Cohanim, which backs the housing project.

Luria was unclear when the rezoning application, originally meant to build 70 apartments, would be approved. The historic house at the core of the site will be preserved and repurposed for communal needs including a synagogue and perhaps a day care center, he said.

“There is a beautiful poetic justice when you see the house of Hajj Amin al-Husseini crumbling down,” Luria noted.

Though al-Husseini built the mansion, he never lived in it. Following the outbreak in 1936 of the Arab Revolt against the British Mandate government, the mufti became a fugitive hiding in the Old City’s Haram ash-Sharif. When the British attempted to arrest him in 1937, he fled Palestine and the British made do with confiscating his property. The al-Husseini clan owned numerous properties in Jerusalem, among them the Palace Hotel (today the Waldorf Astoria), the Orient House, and the mansion subsequently turned into the Shepherd Hotel in Sheikh Jarrah on a plot of land known as Karam al-Mufti, named for al-Husseini.

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01/22 Links Pt2: Room where it didn’t happen: US mediators reveal failed Israel-PLO peace talks; Tikvah Podcast: Michael Oren on Writing Fiction and Serving Israel

From Ian:

Room where it didn’t happen: US mediators reveal failed Israel-PLO peace talks

Why, after more than a century of bloody conflict, have Israelis and Palestinians failed to reach a peace agreement? Israeli director Dror Moreh goes behind closed doors of the sincere, though largely failed efforts spearheaded by the United States by interviewing a handful of the American negotiators in his new documentary, “The Human Factor,” opening January 22 in the US.

This past November marked the 25th anniversary of the assassination of Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Rabin by right-wing Jewish extremist Yigal Amir. Moreh sees this as a fitting time to reflect on the derailment of the peace process Rabin worked so hard on. He does so from the unique perspective of the Americans who devoted decades of their careers trying to create a more secure and tranquil Middle East.

Moreh, whose work often focuses on geopolitics, is the director of the critically acclaimed, Oscar-nominated 2012 “The Gatekeepers.” In it, he conducted unprecedented on-camera interviews with all six former heads of Israel’s secret service — the Shin Bet — who were still living at the time.

In “The Human Factor,” we hear from well-known figures special Middle East envoy Dennis Ross, Ambassador Martin Indyk, Ambassador Daniel Kurtzer, State Department analyst Aaron David Miller, special assistant to president Bill Clinton for Arab-Israeli affairs Robert Malley, and State Department interpreter and Middle East advisor Gamal Helal. Most of these men have penned books sharing their insights on the peace process, but now they collectively reflect on what went right and wrong.

“The Human Factor” tracks in detail the diplomatic maneuvers carried out by American delegations at the behests of presidents George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton from the 1991 Madrid Peace Conference through to the failed Camp David summit in July 2000.

Haim Ramon: Former minister's autobiography blows through history

Supporters of Israel growing up in the United States in the late 1980s and early to mid-1990s saw two young politicians who explained Israel well in American media and were said to have bright futures as Israel’s leaders.

The one on the Right, Benjamin Netanyahu, became Israel’s longest-serving prime minister.

The one on the Left, Haim Ramon, never fulfilled his potential.

Ramon’s new Hebrew autobiography, Against the Wind, does a good job of explaining why.

The book takes readers through history, with each of 20 chapters representing another fight he led publicly or behind the scenes on issues in which he believed strongly. Each fight was an uphill battle, and whether he won or lost, he made enemies along the way.

In an interview with the Magazine, Ramon said he had no regrets about rubbing people the wrong way and earning those enemies, because it was worth sacrificing his own political future to ensure the future of the country.

“Basically, when I was involved in revolutions, I fought hard for my ideas,” he said. “I didn’t plan for the consequences that would prevent me from becoming prime minister. I did things that people didn’t like, and they never forgave me, even long after I was proven right.”

The title of the book is the same as those of classic songs in both Hebrew and English. The Hebrew song, by Shalom Hanoch, describes feeling like the most isolated person in the world but continuing onward anyway. The English song, by Bob Seger and the Silver Bullet Band, describes a man looking back at the independence and naiveté of his youth.

The Tikvah Podcast: Michael Oren on Writing Fiction and Serving Israel

Very few contemporary public figures have had as many successes in as many fields as Michael Oren. A writer-statesman in the model of Thucydides, Oren was Israel’s ambassador to the United States during the Obama years, and was before that a historian of the Jewish state, the author of perhaps the best single book on the Six-Day War. He’s also worked in think tanks, been a professor at Ivy League institutions, and served as an MK in the Israeli parliament. Now, with the recent publication of The Night Archer, a collection of short stories, Oren returns to the genre of fiction, a pursuit that animated his younger years.

This week on the podcast, Oren joins Mosaic’s editor Jonathan Silver to discuss how his varied career fits together—how the writing of fiction relates to the writing of history, how the study of history relates to the practice of diplomacy, how diplomatic service and writing both require the same aptitudes of perception, and how all of this came together in the service of Zionism and the state of Israel.

Biden’s inauguration, Blinken’s confirmation hearing, Iran, BDS and what to expect from the first 100 days. ?Our guests: @DanielBShapiro? & ?@dpletka?. All that and a look inside “Air Adelson” on Episode 2 of ?@JIPodcast?. Subscribe now. https://t.co/lSSCRQE52A

— Richard Goldberg (@rich_goldberg) January 22, 2021

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01/21 Links Pt1: Michael Oren: The Case Against the Iran Deal; American values are incompatible with funding UNRWA and the PA

From Ian:

Michael Oren: The Case Against the Iran Deal

The JCPOA allowed Iran to both maintain its nuclear program and revitalize its economy. Biden must make clear to Tehran that it can have one or the other, but not both. Tragically, spokespeople for the new administration are proposing to return to the JCPOA and lift sanctions, and only afterward negotiate a longer, stronger deal. Such a course has no chance of success. Even a partial lifting of sanctions would forfeit any leverage that could compel the regime to negotiate a deal that genuinely removes the danger of a nuclear Iran. At best, the regime will agree to cosmetic changes—for example, extending the sunset clauses—but not to dismantling its nuclear infrastructure. A fatally flawed deal would remain essentially intact.

The Biden administration must resist pressure from members of Congress and others who are urging an unconditional return to the JCPOA. Even the deal’s fervent supporters need to recognize that its fundamental assumptions—that Iran had abandoned its quest for a military nuclear option and would moderate its behavior—have been thoroughly disproved.

At the same time, America must consult its Middle East allies about what they think a better deal would look like. Such a deal would verifiably and permanently remove Iran’s ability to develop nuclear weapons. This means not merely mothballing the nuclear infrastructure, but eliminating it. It means empowering international inspectors with unlimited and immediate access to any suspect enrichment or weaponization site. It means maintaining economic and diplomatic pressure on the regime until it truly comes clean about its undeclared nuclear activities and ceases to develop missiles capable of carrying nuclear warheads. A better deal will deny Iran the ability to commit the violations it is now committing with impunity.

Achieving these objectives will require close and candid cooperation among the United States, Israel, and concerned Arab states. Such cooperation was not possible in the negotiations leading up to the JCPOA, which America initially conducted behind the backs of its Middle Eastern partners. In the final stages, U.S. officials misled their Israeli and Arab counterparts about America’s negotiating positions. This displayed not only bad faith, but a patronizing presumption of knowing the vital security interests of the countries most threatened by Iran better than they knew those interests themselves.

The incoming administration has declared its determination to restore the trust of America’s allies, along with promoting peace and human rights. But those objectives are incompatible with renewing a deal that betrayed America’s allies, strengthened one of the world’s most repressive regimes, and empowered the Middle Eastern state most opposed to peace.

The JCPOA is also incompatible with President Biden’s long-standing commitment to Israel’s security. At a 2015 gathering celebrating Israel’s independence, then–Vice President Biden said: “Israel is absolutely essential—absolutely essential—[for the] security of Jews around the world … Imagine what it would say about humanity and the future of the 21st century if Israel were not sustained, vibrant and free.”

Reviving the JCPOA will endanger that vision, ensuring the emergence of a nuclear Iran or a desperate war to stop it. Biden is a proven friend who has shared Israel’s hopes and fears. He must prevent that nightmare.

JINSA (PodCast): After the Abraham Accords: Relocating Israel to CENTCOM’s AOR

The recent Abraham Accords have solidified a growing anti-Iran coalition in the Middle East, and the latest decision to move Israel to CENTCOM’s Area of Responsibility reflects and reinforces this changing dynamic within the region. Jonathan Ruhe, Director of Foreign Policy at JINSA’s Gemunder Center, joins Erielle to discuss the importance of this relocation, the reasoning behind the decision, and what we might expect from future administrations when it comes to Israel’s role within CENTCOM.

Khaled Abu Toameh: Palestinians: Victims of an Arab Country

Like most Arab countries, Syria denies citizenship to Palestinians. Children born in Syria to fathers who are Palestinian nationals are considered Palestinians, not Syrian nationals.

Palestinian leaders see no evil or wrong-doing when their people are being killed, injured, displaced, arrested and tortured in an Arab country. The attention of these leaders is solely focused on Israel, which they denounce day and night not only for what it does, but also for what it does not do.

On January 9, Abbas entered the 17th year of his four-year term. He is again talking about his desire to hold new elections. This charade is played at least once or twice a year so that people will believe that he really wants elections.

The Palestinians do not need new elections. They need new leaders who will guide them out from their longstanding morass into a future of promise and peace.

PMW: American values are incompatible with funding UNRWA and the PA - watch lecture by Itamar Marcus

Itamar Marcus explains why funding UNRWA is the international communities’ worst investment ever: ‎because “UNRWA is just growing refugees,” in his recent webinar/lecture to the DC-based EMET ‎organization. ‎

During the 12 years of the last two American administrations, Palestinian refugees have grown by a ‎million from 4.6 million - 5.6 million, according to reports by UNWRA. Billions of American dollars during ‎this period were invested – presumably to solve the refugee problem – but instead UNRWA used the ‎money to literally increase the refugee problem. ‎

Funding of UNRWA should be conditional upon saving 300,000 people a year by removing them from ‎refugee lists and giving them a life and a future. Instead, UNRWA abuses nearly 100,000 additional ‎people each year, by condemning them to be refugees. Funding UNRWA is supporting the abuse of ‎human beings for political purposes.‎

Funding the PA likewise contradicts fundamental American values. The PA uses its money to reward ‎terrorists, glorify terrorists, fund terror organizations, disseminate vicious Antisemitism, celebrate the ‎murder of Israelis and Jews, and deny Israel’s right to exist. ‎

There is no logical reason why any US administration would want to support entities so diametrically ‎opposed to American values.‎

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What President Biden Will Mean for Israel (Vic Rosenthal)

Vic Rosenthal's weekly column

As I write this, preparations are underway for the swearing-in ceremony of a new President of the US. Nobody truly knows what this will mean for us in Israel. Caroline Glick, who can be depended on to see the dark side – often, unfortunately, correctly – finds Biden’s appointments of numerous former Obama officials, some of whom are demonstrably anti-Israel, to be evidence that the new administration will return to the almost maliciously anti-Israel policies of the Obama Administration.

On the other hand, as Bret Stephens notes (in a masterful piece that I hope will be required reading for Biden and his people), the situation has drastically changed since Obama pursued his diplomatic assault on Israel. Everything is different (except perhaps the Palestinians). Israel, Iran, the Arab nations, and the situation in the USA have all undergone significant changes. The damage to American interests from continuing Obama’s policy today would be even greater than in 2008-2016.

But not all politics is rational, as history amply demonstrates. Bad regimes sometimes follow policies dictated primarily by the misapprehensions, prejudices or even obsessions of their leadership rather than the interests of their nations. The Obama Administration was one of those.

Indeed, its interpretations of the intentions of the Palestinians and the Iranian regime – which could be determined simply by paying attention to their words – were so far from reality that I often found myself asking, “stupid or evil?” Did American officials really think that the Palestinians would be satisfied with a peaceful state alongside Israel if only the right concessions were forced out of us? Did they really believe that the agreement with the Iranians would prevent them from getting nuclear weapons, or even significantly slow them down?

There was also an ideological element, a clear affinity of Obama himself to the Muslim opponents of Israel that was demonstrated by the speech he delivered in Cairo shortly after his inauguration. There was his comparison of the Palestinians to black Americans, one of the worst possible analogies. And there was his antipathy for our Prime Minister, which he famously shared in an off-mike chat with the French president. Taking all this into account, one can be excused for thinking that one of the deliberate objectives of Obama’s policies was to weaken and hurt Israel.

While these personal characteristics of Barack Obama do not apply to Joe Biden, he does seem to believe in the traditional (and wrong) principles of American Middle East policy, such as the primacy of creating a sovereign Palestinian state in bringing normal relations to the region. He agrees with Obama that Israeli settlements in Judea and Samaria are “illegitimate and an obstacle to peace,” a position that the State Department reversed under Trump.

American policy toward the Palestinians, going back to the Clinton Administration, has always been to provide ample financial aid to them and get Israel to make concessions up front, both territorial and practical (like freeing jailed terrorists). And Obama’s Iran policy was heavily front-loaded with financial benefits to Iran. One would think that professional diplomats would understand why this strategy failed over and over. Both the Palestinians and the Iranians have objectives that they cannot be paid to give up. Giving them presents only made them ask for more, and in both cases they used the money to pay for terrorism.

The non-professionals of the Trump Administration did understand this. They reversed course and applied economic pressure to both the Palestinians and the Iranian regime, in order to create leverage for negotiations. Unfortunately, the policy hasn’t been in place long enough to tell if it will work, but the desire to be “not-Trump” may cause the new Administration to end sanctions on Iran and re-fund the PA and UNRWA – making failure a certainty. Biden has already promised to restore Trump-suspended payments to UNRWA, the Palestinian refugee agency, thus continuing the decades-long growth of a hostile population of heavily indoctrinated, stateless welfare clients.

We can also expect a resumption of objections from the US against Jewish construction in Judea/Samaria and Eastern Jerusalem, joining the chorus from Europe. It wouldn’t surprise me if another unannounced but near-total freeze on construction will soon go into effect.

In more encouraging news, recent comments by Anthony Blinken, Biden’s nominee for Secretary of State, indicate that he doesn’t intend to reactivate the Iran deal immediately. Nevertheless, we should watch for any loosening of the Trump-applied sanctions on Iran as an indication of the likely direction the administration will take.

Israel has been engaged in a “war between the wars,” against Iranian installations in Syria. The Trump Administration did not interfere. I expect that attacks against these targets will be less frequent under the new administration. A warning sign will be if they stop entirely.

I had hoped that Israel would utilize the last weeks of Trump’s term to destroy the Iranian nuclear installations, perhaps even with American help; but apparently our PM and the IDF believe that their lower-level activities are effective enough that such an ambitious project wasn’t needed. We might regret this later; I will be very surprised if it happens under Biden.

All of the above is based on the assumption that the “moderates” in Biden’s administration, including Biden himself, will be in control. And here is where the real scary stuff begins.

Biden is 78 years old, older than any other American president at the time of his inauguration (Trump was 70 and Ronald Reagan was not quite 78 at the end of his second term). He certainly does not appear to me, admittedly a non-professional, to be at the top of his game … or worse. Even if he remains as president for a full term, it’s hard to imagine that he will be calling the shots. His vice president, Kamala Harris, is an unknown quantity in the area of foreign affairs. And there are strong forces that will be trying to exert their influence on the administration – unfriendly ones.

One is the left wing of the Democratic party, which supported Bernie Sanders for the presidency, and which is strongly anti-Israel. The other is the Obama organization.

When Barack Obama left the White House, he did not retire from politics and retreat to his home state, like so many other ex-presidents. Rather, he bought a home in walking distance to the White House, and transformed his highly effective campaign fund-raising organization into a social action group, with both domestic and foreign policy goals. It’s hard to believe that he will not try to exert influence over the new administration.

I believe that Israel will be able to work with an administration that is somewhat less friendly than that of Trump, as long as it is honestly interested in regional peace. Israel will present the evidence – which is overwhelming – that Iran wants to develop nuclear weapons; indeed, is developing them now. Together with its new allies in the Arab world, it will argue that continued maximum economic and diplomatic pressure is the most effective way to stop Iran, short of war.

I believe also that Israel will be able to convince such an administration that the real reason for the lack of progress with the Palestinians is their refusal to accept the existence of a Jewish state with any borders. We will explain that the development of Israel’s relations with other Arab states means that Palestinian sovereignty can be delayed indefinitely, until the Palestinians are prepared to accept the legitimacy of the nation state of the Jewish people.

But if the American administration undergoes a sharp turn toward the left, either as a result of a takeover by the left wing of the Democratic Party or from the influence of the Obama organization, we could see a return of Obama-era pressure for concessions, restrictions on our actions, and appeasement of Iran.

We’ve made a great deal of progress in the past four years. It would be a shame if it were reversed.

We’ll find out in the next few months.

-- Victor

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