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Friday, February 19, 2021

From Ian:

The Biden administration’s moral compass on Israel - opinion
It’s been less than a month since new US President Joe Biden has taken over the reins in the White House. And while it seems that Israel and the Middle East are currently not the administration’s top priority as the COVID-19 pandemic remains front and center, the initial hints of changes in policy when it comes to the Jewish state should not be ignored.

This past Thursday, State Department spokesman Ned Price, who serves under current Secretary of State Antony Blinken, was asked about reports that the JNF (KKL-JNF) was considering implementing a new policy to officially purchase private Arab land in Judea and Samaria in order to expand Jewish communities there.

It should be noted that according to an official KKL-JNF press statement, not much will change even if the organization makes things “official” since, “Throughout the years and till this very day, KKL-JNF has been operating in all parts of the land of Israel, including Judea and Samaria.”

Regardless, Price responded:
“We believe it is critical to refrain from unilateral steps that exacerbate tensions and that undercut efforts to advance a negotiated, two-state solution. And unilateral steps might include annexation of territory, settlement activity, demolitions, incitement to violence, the provision of compensation for individuals imprisoned for acts of terrorism... ”

It’s disappointing that the failed two-state solution approach might be revived, but perhaps even more disheartening is that Price called for refraining from “settlement activity” in the same breath as compensation for acts of terrorism.

In other words, in the new administration’s view, building kindergartens for Jewish children in Judea is just as big of a peace deterrent as the Palestinian Authority’s “Pay for Slay” program in which terrorists are incentivized and rewarded, along with their families, for murdering Israelis.
Biden Nominee for Top State Dept Post Contributed to Book About How ‘Israel Lobby’ Controls American Politics
President Joe Biden's nominee for a top State Department position played a key role in assembling a book on the nefarious influence of the "Israel lobby" while working for an organization that promoted claims about Jewish media control and dual loyalty to Israel.

As a staffer at the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, Uzra Zeya compiled research for a book that argues that "the Israel lobby has subverted the American political process to take control of U.S. Middle East policy" by establishing a secret network of "dirty money" PACs that bribe and extort congressional candidates into taking pro-Israel positions. Zeya, a former U.S. diplomat who was nominated for undersecretary for civilian security, democracy, and human rights, worked for the Washington Report and its publishing group, the American Educational Trust, in 1989 and 1990. The news outlet is staunchly anti-Israel and has published articles questioning the national loyalty of American Jews and opposing taxpayer funding to the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum.

Zeya's work for the Washington Report and American Educational Trust raises questions about her views on Israel and could become an obstacle during her confirmation hearings. Biden's recent hiring moves on foreign policy and conflicting statements from staffers have made it unclear how his administration plans to approach Israel policy issues. White House spokeswoman Jen Psaki recently declined to denounce the anti-Israel Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement, contradicting statements condemning the movement from Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Biden's nominee for U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, the Washington Free Beacon recently reported. Biden also tapped anti-Israel activist Maher Bitar for a top intelligence post and is reportedly considering Matt Duss, an outspoken critic of Israel, for a State Department position.

Sean Durns, a research analyst at the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America, called the Washington Report a "fringe organization" that has "published content with anti-Semitic themes," including claims that the Mossad was behind the JFK assassination and the Sept. 11 attacks.

"Organizations like the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs have a history of propagating fringe and sometimes anti-Semitic conspiracy theories and I think it's absolutely fair for questions to be raised in any sort of potential hearings," said Durns.
David Singer: Action – not platitudes– is required from Jordan’s King Abdullah
Jordan’s King Abdullah continues to engage in platitudes – rather than concrete action - as he pontificates but does nothing to help resolve the 100 years-old Arab-Jewish conflict.

Jordan – called Transjordan between 1922 and 1949:
- Comprises 78% of the territory of the League of Nations Mandate for Palestine
- Is the key to resolving the long-running conflict.

Abdullah recently repeated one of his favourite mantras – insisting that peace should be:
"based on the two-state solution that guarantees the establishment of an independent, sovereign, and viable Palestinian state on the 4 June 1967 lines, with East Jerusalem as its capital, living in peace and security alongside Israel, in accordance with international law, recognized terms of reference, and the Arab Peace Initiative."

This solution could have been implemented at any time between 1948 and 1967 after Transjordan had conquered and occupied East Jerusalem and Judea and Samaria (aka the 'West Bank' since 1950):

Driving out all the Jews living there and refusing to allow their return and
- Unifying those territories with Transjordan into a single territorial entity – renamed “Jordan”.
- That 19 years window of opportunity was squandered after Jordan lost those territories to Israel in the 1967 Six Day War. That opportunity is not going to return – no matter how many times Abdullah continues to repeat it as the solution.

Abdullah also asserts:
“The Palestinian cause is central to Jordan, and we continue to stand alongside our Palestinian brethren with all our power and capabilities as they seek to gain their just and legitimate rights. We are constantly communicating and coordinating with them in this regard”

Talk is cheap – action is necessary.

Abdullah could with the stroke of a pen – preferably with Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) approval - restore Jordanian citizenship to his “Palestinian brethren” living in the West Bank – a status they enjoyed from 1950 until Jordan revoked their citizenship on 28 July 1988 under article 2 of the Jordan: Disengagement Regulations for the Year 1988:

Thursday, February 18, 2021

From Ian:

NYPost Editorial: New hate-mongering scandals at UN agency that Biden means to send millions
President Biden, in his obsession with reversing every Trump policy, means to reinstate funding to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency — hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars a year for an agency that teaches Palestinian children to hate “the Enemy” Israel and believe “Jihad is the road of glory.”

UNRWA began producing its own educational material last year to aid at-home learning during the pandemic — and some of its content is more venomous than Palestinian Authority propaganda.

The Jerusalem-based Institute for Monitoring Peace and Cultural Tolerance in School Education blew the lid off the scandalous teaching materials in November, revealing they glorified terrorism in the cause of destroying Israel. Canada and Australia opened investigations, but UNRWA claimed it had dealt with the matter internally and replaced the “inappropriate” material.

It didn’t. Though UNRWA blocked access to its material, IMPACT-se found it and released a report Wednesday showing the agency still teaches hate and intolerance to more than 320,000 Palestinian children.

A math problem asks students the number of martyrs from the first intifada. A grammar exercise includes the sentences “The Occupier commits all kinds of torture” and “We are an occupied people.” An Arabic-language lesson has kids write out a text read by a family member that says that “our Arab relatives have sadly recognized our Enemies and began interacting with them,” referring to the Abraham Accords, and insists one day “our Enemies will be banished, God willing, as failing losers.”
Castles in the Air? The American Return to the UN Human Rights Council
The Biden Administration has decided to bring the U.S. back into the UN Human Rights Council (HRC), first as an observer until the end of the year, and presumably as a member beginning in 2022. Secretary of State Blinken explained: "The best way to improve the Council, so it can achieve its potential, is through robust and principled U.S. leadership."

Yet the evidence provides little ground for optimism. In 2009, President Obama and his Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, expressed similar hopes, which were quickly and decisively proven to be unfounded. As a Council member, the U.S. was unable to steer the UN framework into confronting, or even addressing, the horrendous human rights abuses in Syria, Venezuela, China and elsewhere.

In parallel, the anti-Israel demonization exceeded even the previously absurd levels. When the U.S. voted against the latest anti-Israel resolution, it made no difference in the outcome. And when U.S. raised objections after anti-Semitic slurs or the use of the term "Zionist entity" from an Iranian or Syrian official, nothing happened. The structure of the UNHRC is largely impervious to change, reflecting the built-in majority for autocrats and dictatorships.
Netanyahu mourns radio host Limbaugh as ‘a great friend of Israel’
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu mourned Thursday the death of the US conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh in a tweet from his official account.

“I send my heartfelt condolences to the family of Rush Limbaugh,” Netanyahu wrote.

Though Limbaugh was not focused on foreign policy, he was still staunchly pro-Israel, seeing the country as an ally against terrorism. Netanyahu said, “He was a great friend of Israel and he stood by us through thick and thin, always firm, never wavering.”

“We shall miss him dearly,” Netanyahu said.

In 2001, Limbaugh urged the George W. Bush administration to allow Israel to crush its enemies, citing America’s own suffering following the 9/11 attacks that year.

“Bush is right about ‘defeating’ the Taliban, al Qaeda and other terrorist networks,” Limbaugh wrote at the time. “It is, therefore, necessary that in the pursuit of real and lasting peace, Israel also be free to destroy its enemies — meaning the terrorists and, yes, their sponsors, who are at war with her, and that she do so before they obtain devastating weapons of mass destruction.”

Limbaugh died at the age of 70 Wednesday of lung cancer. He had announced the diagnosis in February 2020.

Zev Chafets, a Jewish biographer who earned rare access to Limbaugh for his 2010 book “An Army of One,” said Limbaugh’s outsize influence and his friendliness with Israel set an example for other talk radio conservatives.

Unflinchingly conservative, wildly partisan, bombastically self-promoting and larger than life, Limbaugh galvanized listeners for more than 30 years with his talent for vituperation and sarcasm.
From Ian:

Iran's Soleimani set up centers to monitor Jews for Zionism - report
The Iranian regime Islamic scholar Ahmed Abedi declared in a bombshell report in early February on Noor TV that the late IRGC commander Qasem Soleimani created centers to spy on Jews in the Islamic Republic.

"Regarding the Jews in this country who spy for Israel, [Soleimani] established centers for monitoring the Zionist spies. He established many such centers,” said Abedi, according to a transcription of the Iranian Noor TV broadcast by The Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI), an independent, nonpartisan press-monitoring organization.

The US military killed Soleimani in a January 2020 drone attack. Soleimani was the commander of the Quds force for the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). The US government accused Soleimani of being the architect of the murders of over 600 Americans in the Middle East. There is estimated to be less than 10,000 Persian Jews in Iran. Iran has a population of nearly 83 million.


JCPA: “The Yemeni Maneuver” – Biden Administration Gives a Free Pass to Iran
Iran has an interest in continuing the fighting in Yemen, which, since the Saudi-led Arab coalition forces were sent to the country has not led to any substantial change in the situation on the ground. The Houthis continue to control most of the territory they have captured, including the important Red Sea port city of Al-Hudaydah and the capital Sanaa. Beyond testing various weapons, the fighting allows Iran to continuously exhaust and attrite Saudi Arabia, its sworn Sunni rival.

The U.S. decision to remove the Houthis from the terror list and halt some Saudi military aid used to attack Houthi targets in Yemen with U.S.-made precision-guided munitions plays into Iran’s hands at the sensitive timing of the possibility of the United States rejoining the nuclear agreement. The decision raises doubt about the seriousness of the United States’ policy statements to “expand and strengthen” the Iran deal to address the issues of ballistic missiles and Iran’s “destabilizing actions in country after country” – two key issues in which Iran “specializes” and which it “exports” Yemen, Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon.

A Test for the Biden Administration in Iraq as Well
To illustrate the depth of Iran’s dilemma for American reintroduced policy in the region, pro-Iranian Iraqi Shi’ite militia linked to Hizbullah-Iraq – Saraya Awlia al-Dam – claimed responsibility for a rocket attack on the Erbil Airport and the adjacent U.S. military base on February 16, 2021. Fragments at the target indicate that 24 Fajr-1 (107 mm) Iranian made rockets were fired. The U.S. Secretary of State denounced the “outrageous attack”10 in which a civilian contractor was killed, and a U.S. service member and five more contractors have been injured. Secretary Blinken acknowledged that in the past, Shiite militias under Iran’s control carried out similar attacks in Iraq, “but for now it is too early to determine who is behind the attack” and that “the incident is under investigation.”11

It is possible that the action is another part of the pressure being exerted by Iran on the United States in the region, and it puts the American administration to its first serious test regarding its willingness to use force against Iran and its allies in the area, alongside its intention to return to the framework of the nuclear agreement.
JINSA PodCast: Crisis in Yemen: Analysis of an Ongoing Civil War
There’s an ongoing crisis in Yemen, financed and fueled by Iran. The Houthi movement, formed around Yemen’s Zaidi Shia Muslim minority, has seen an opening to try to take control of the country amidst the disorganized Hadi government. Why did the Trump Administration designate the Houthis to be a terrorist organization, and why did the Biden Administration reverse this policy? What does Yemen’s civil war have to do with the Iran nuclear deal? All of these questions—and more—are answered in this week’s episode. Erielle interviews Mohammed Alyahya, the current Editor-in-Chief of Al Arabiya in English.


The Tikvah Podcast: Shany Mor on What Makes America’s Peace Processors Tick
The peace process between Israel and the Palestinians has in the last several decades sucked up more American attention, time, and resources than nearly any other conflict in the world. Presidents, cabinet secretaries, national-security officials, and diplomats have poured themselves into solving the problem. These resources have been expended not only because of how Americans perceived the Israeli-Palestinian conflict’s strategic importance to the United States, but perhaps more so because it is a conflict that engages and symbolizes the way Americans see themselves acting in the world.

Despite that huge effort, Americans haven’t succeeded in bringing the Israelis and the Palestinians to any kind of settled arrangement. Furthermore, as the Israeli researcher Shany Mor wrote in this month’s essay in Mosaic, American policymakers seem insistent on returning to the same frameworks of analysis and strategy that have failed systematically time and again. Now Mor joins Mosaic editor Jonathan Silver to explain what’s gone wrong, and to talk about why so many American peace processors think the way they do about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Wednesday, February 17, 2021

From Ian:

Clifford May: Despots dominate UN agencies
He [Blinken] added: "When it works well, the Human Rights Council shines a spotlight on countries with the worst human rights records and can serve as an important forum for those fighting injustice and tyranny."

But when has the UNHCR ever worked well? Can you think of one country whose record on human rights has improved thanks to the UNHRC? Does anyone believe that the UNHCR's occasional resolutions on North Korea keep Kim Jong-un awake at night? Here's a clue: At a UNHRC session last month, the North Korean envoy took the stage to accuse Australia of "deep-rooted racism, racial discrimination, and xenophobia."

Blinken said he believes that "the best way to improve the Council is to engage." But the Obama administration, in which he served, spent eight years engaging with the UNHRC to no effect.

And, again, why not at least demand a few fundamental reforms in exchange for American participation?

For example, why not insist that the UNHRC stop treating Israel as its whipping boy, year after year issuing more condemnatory resolutions against the Jewish state than any other country? The UNHRC aims to de-legitimize Israel, even as Iran's rulers threaten and incite genocide against that nation – a violation of international law about which the UNHRC is silent.

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I understand President Biden's desire to shore up the international order which, not so long ago, could be characterized as liberal and based on equitable rules. But a growing number of the organizations that give the international order structure and substance are now dominated by despots.

That has increased the peril to the world's health, while both distorting and eroding the very concept of human rights. You think most people around the world see through the lies? I'd be pleased to see evidence to suggest that.

Must we continue funding these organizations? Should we consider establishing alternatives? Are we not at least able to disabuse ourselves of the quaint notion that American engagement alone will – as if by wizardry – transform them?
Ruthie Blum: When abundance breeds contempt
In a recent phone call, a friend complained about the pressure that the Israeli government, media and much of the public have been applying to citizens who refuse to receive the COVID-19 vaccine.

As someone who felt that she had been virtually "bullied" into getting inoculated, she was protesting, in particular, the latest carrot-and-stick element of the campaign to rid the country of coronavirus: a proposal to grant certain privileges to those possessing the Health Ministry double-dose certificate.

Among the epidemiological benefits being discussed – aside from the existing exemption from quarantine after exposure to infection – are unhindered entrance into malls, theaters, stadiums and other venues when they reopen.

"Why does it matter whether everyone complies?" she asked, pointing to the warning by officialdom that even after full vaccination, the virus can still strike and be spread. As a result, we've been told, mask-wearing and social distancing will continue to be required for a long time.

She clearly hadn't heard the more encouraging research revealing a serious drop in viral load after a single shot – indicating not only a less severe reaction to infection but a lower chance of transmitting the virus to others. Nevertheless, she is not alone in her resentment on behalf of the anti-coronavirus-vaxxers.

This might seem odd to foreigners envious of the fact that more than half Israel's 9-million-strong population has already received the first dose of the vaccine, and about a quarter has gotten both shots, which means that the country is moving steadily towards Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's stated goal of inoculating everyone over the age of 16 by the end of March.
Superman Was There When Jews Needed Him Most
In the Spring of 1938, Cleveland was abuzz with talk of “The Mad Butcher of Kingsbury Run.” He was never apprehended, although Cleveland’s Public Safety Director — Eliot Ness, of Untouchables fame for nabbing Al Capone — tried his best.

Instead, the date became famous when two teenagers from Cleveland, Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, who had worked together on their high school newspaper, saw the first publication of their comic strip — subsequently named “Superman.”

Siegel had never quite recovered from seeing his father die of a heart attack after being beaten up in the family store. Shuster earned nickels delivering newspapers.

Their hero, newspaperman Clark Kent — otherwise known as Superman from planet Krypton — was the creation of two Depression-era Jews, the children of poor immigrant parents.

Jerry Siegel later described his motivation for creating the character as, “Hearing and reading of the oppression and slaughter of helpless, oppressed Jews in Nazi Germany … [and] seeing movies depicting the horrors of the downtrodden.”

But did his unconscious inspiration reach further back to the avenger of Jews, the Golem of Prague? And like Moses’ parents, Superman’s parents had launched him, alone on a perilous journey, to escape doom. Superman’s birth name on Krypton was Kal El — in Hebrew, “Voice of God!”


Biden has yet to phone Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, though it has been a full 4 weeks since Biden assumed office as president of the United States. The more time goes by, the more speculation by the media on what, exactly, the lack of a phone call to the Israeli premier signifies, or whether it means anything at all. Is the lack of a phone call a snub, a slight? Or is Biden holding back until the results of the upcoming Israeli election are clear?

My host for this column, Elder of Ziyon, is on record as saying the no phone call to Israel is no big deal:
Some think that the symbolism of Biden not calling Netanyahu is important. I don't. Unless he calls Abbas first, this is not something to waste time on.
It’s true, as far as we know, that Biden has not yet called Mahmoud Abbas. Biden did, however, have Deputy Assistant Secretary for Israeli and Palestinian Affairs Hady Amr reach out to Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Dr. Mohammad Shtayyeh. So claimed Shtayyeh during an interview on France 24 Arabic TV on February 7, 2021, that was documented by MEMRI TV:

Interviewer: "Have you opened a channel of communication with the new Biden administration?"

Dr. Mohammad Shtayyeh: "Yes, there has been a phone call between myself and Mr. Hady Amr – Deputy Assistant Secretary for Israeli and Palestinian affairs. Mr. Amr reaffirmed what this administration declared during the election campaign: It will restore the aid, it will reopen the PLO office in Washington, and it will open a U.S. consulate in East Jerusalem. This is an important political message. In addition, the administration intends to restore aid to UNRWA and aid to the Palestinian people. These issues, as far as we are concerned, fall under the definition of confidence-building measures between this administration and us.”

[...]

"We requested that this administration reverse all the decisions that were made by the Trump administration, including the decision [to move the] U.S. embassy [to Jerusalem]. However, we know that the new administration, might not go this way, and instead choose an alternative option, which is opening a U.S. consulate in East Jerusalem in order to deal with the Palestinians directly. I believe that it sends a [clear] political message."

How important is this exchange? It’s hard to gauge, because first of all, it’s anecdotal. We weren’t there, and we don’t know if Shtayyeh’s account is faithful to the truth. But we do need to acknowledge that while Biden hasn’t spoken to Netanyahu, there have been contacts between the Biden administration and Israel. Haaretz, in fact, said that the first official contact between the two administrations took place on January 23, when U.S. National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan spoke with Israeli counterpart, Meir Ben-Shabbat.

The exchange with Ben-Shabbat, oddly enough, took place on a Saturday, when Israeli officials generally refrain from official business out of respect for the Jewish Sabbath, “Shabbat.” This phone call, like the lack of a phone call from Biden to Netanyahu, could, in theory, be seen as a slight by the Biden administration to Israel. Having his guy call Bibi’s guy on Shabbos? It’s certainly an affront to Israeli sensibilities.*

But I may be reading too much into this—it is likely that there are meetings and phone calls with Israeli officials on Shabbat all the time, they just aren’t advertised for fear of public backlash. As a result, when such meetings or phone calls take place on a Saturday, they tend to fall below the radar, and go unmentioned by the media. In this case, it may very well be that Israel wanted the media to put out the word that the phone call, in fact, took place, in order to take the sting out of the fact that Biden has yet to call Bibi.

Robert Spencer, director of Jihad Watch and a Shillman Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center, notes that Biden is the first president in 40 years to delay contact with an Israeli prime minister on taking office:

He called Xi. He called Putin. But three weeks into his presidency, Old Joe has pointedly refrained from calling the head of the government of our most reliable ally in the Middle East, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. And so it’s clear now: Biden’s handlers intend to put immense strain on the U.S.-Israel alliance over the next four years, at a time when Israel and the rest of the free world are threatened by Iranian mullahs who are newly emboldened amid all the signs that Biden’s handlers plan to readopt Obama’s appeasement policies toward them.

Of the phone call between Hady Amr and Mohammad Shtayyeh, Spencer says:

The import of that call was as clear as the import of the snub of Netanyahu: the money will flow again, the jihad will be enabled again, the Israelis will be treated with contempt again, the peace accords that Trump enabled will be put on the back burner, if not repudiated outright. Everything is back on track now after a four-year speed bump.
The Washington Free Beacon, meanwhile, describes the lack of a phone call from President Biden to Prime Minister Netanyahu as a “diplomatic slight” and says that “congressional Republicans are piling on the White House for not speaking with Netanyahu, with multiple members of the House Foreign Affairs Committee telling the Free Beacon it is a slight that endangers the close U.S.-Israel alliance at a time when the world’s only Jewish state is facing down multiple terrorist threats.”

The Free Beacon lists a number of prominent Republicans who have spoken out against the slight:

· Rep. Michael McCaul (Texas), the top Republican on the House Foreign Affairs Committee

· Rep. Lee Zeldin (N.Y.), a top HFAC Republican

· Rep. Jim Banks (R., Ind.), a member of the House Armed Services Committee

· Rep. Ronny Jackson (R., Texas), another member of HFAC member

· Rep. Darrell Issa (R., Calif.), who sits on both the HFAC and the House Judiciary Committee

· Rep. Mark Green (R., Tenn.)

· Rep. María Elvira Salazar (R., Fla.), also on the HFAC

· Rep. Joe Wilson (R., S.C.), ranking member of the House's Middle East Subcommittee

Former Israeli Ambassador to the United Nations Danny Danon also spoke out against Biden’s snub in this tweet of February 10th, tacking on Netanyahu’s phone number at the end for a bit of snarky emphasis:

In an earlier piece, the Free Beacon enumerated the history of US presidents contacting Israeli leaders over the past four decades:

Upon assuming office in January 1981, Reagan made overtures to Israel, vowing to protect its interests, and sent Secretary of State Henry Kissinger to meet with Israel’s leaders to build "Israeli confidence in the administration of President-elect Ronald Reagan," according to an Associated Press report from the time.

President George H.W. Bush followed this trend. He called then-Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Shamir on Jan. 25, 1989, five days after he entered the White House.

President Bill Clinton reached out to Israel even sooner. He called then-prime minister Yitzhak Rabin on Jan. 23, 1993, three days after being sworn in.

President George W. Bush phoned former Israeli prime minister Ehud Barak on Jan. 27, 2001, a week after taking the White House, to express his support for the U.S.-Israel alliance.

President Barack Obama, who faced criticism from Republicans for policies they branded anti-Israel, called the Jewish state’s leaders on his first day in office. Obama also called Palestinian leaders that day, laying the groundwork for that administration’s failed bid to foster peace between Israel and the Palestinians.

President Donald Trump not only called Netanyahu but made the historic decision to invite him to Washington, D.C., on Jan. 22, 2017, two days after he took the oath of office.
From Biden, however? Crickets. Of more concern to some, however, is the inability of White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki’s inability to confirm Israel as a US ally. Elder of Ziyon covered this story in White House press secretary cannot say that Israel is a US ally. This is very bad. Here too, Elder once again opines that the failure of Biden to call Bibi is no big deal. He does, however, see the failure of the White House press secretary to clearly state that Israel is a close US ally as an ominous and significant harbinger of doom:

I don't think that it is a big deal that Biden hasn't called Netanyahu, but the inability to say that Israel is an ally is mind-boggling. Even if she didn't want to answer the same question about Saudi Arabia so she avoided answering about Israel, it is a big deal, because this points to Biden as being the third term of Obama, and the idea that the White House believes that a tilt towards Iran and away from US allies is a good idea is a very bad harbinger for the next four years.

Note also that even President Obama had no problem saying that the US was a strong ally of Israel.

Perhaps, as Elder suggests, the absence of a phone call, in and of itself, is not very important. Or maybe that was true, up to a point. Now, however, it points to a deliberate diss, as time goes by—an entire month in which a certain phone in Israel just doesn’t ring.

People are talking about it, leaders are speaking out, calling the lack of a phone call from Biden to Bibi an insult. It means something that the phone call hasn’t happened. The delay is a statement of malignant intent.

Taking a step back and looking at the big picture only makes things look worse. Marjorie Taylor Greene, a Republican, is stripped from her committee roles as a result of airing her despicable conspiracy theories among them some that are antisemitic. Far left antisemite Ilhan Omar, on the other hand, is elevated in status, having been appointed vice chair of the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Africa, Global Health, and Global Human Rights.

Should someone like Ilhan Omar have a say on foreign affairs? Someone who applauds Biden for stripping the Houthis of their designation as a terrorist organization?
Someone who tweets: “Israel has hypnotized the world, may Allah awaken the people and let them see the evil doings of Israel.” Someone who publicly expresses hunger for the ICC to prosecute American ally Israel for imaginary war crimes?
But then again, Jen Psaki can’t say that Israel is a US ally. And that is the new reality: Israel, apparently, is no longer America's greatest ally in the Middle East. Which just goes to show that with Jobama in office, you can lead Netanyahu to wait and wait by the phone, but you can’t make it ring.

 *On reviewing this piece, Elder pointed out the time difference between Israel and the US. It would have been Shabbos in Israel only if Sullivan called Ben-Shabbat before 11 am EST. 

UPDATE: Biden finally called Netanyahu just as this piece was coming out. But the point was made. It took Biden an entire month to call, as the whole world was watching, and talking. We got the message: this will not be an Israel-friendly administration.




From Ian:

Israel negotiating release of Israeli woman held in Syria
Israel and Syria are intensively negotiating a prisoner exchange deal with Russian mediation, in which two incarcerated residents of the Israeli Golan could reportedly be released in exchange for a young Israeli woman who entered Syrian territory by mistake.

The woman has not been identified. According to Channel 12, she is a 25-year-old formerly Haredi woman from Modi’in Ilit who left the ultra-Orthodox community. It is not clear why she crossed into Syrian territory.

Syrian state media announced on Wednesday: “The exchange is taking place through Russian mediation to liberate the Syrians Nihal Al-Maqt and Dhiyab Qahmuz, the Syrian prisoner from the occupied Syrian Golan, in an exchange during which a young Israeli woman who entered the Syrian territories by mistake will be released. She entered the Quneitra region by mistake and was arrested by the Syrian authorities.”

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, in an interview with Army Radio, declined to comment on the negotiations but said: “We are working to save lives. I can just say I’m using my personal connections” with Russian President Vladimir Putin to secure her release.

Israel is “at the height of sensitive negotiations” on the issue, he said. “I believe we will resolve it.”

National Security Adviser Meir Ben Shabbat and hostage coordinator Yaron Bloom left Wednesday morning for Moscow to negotiate the release of the Israeli woman, according to Hebrew media reports.

The two prisoners Israel has reportedly been asked to release are residents of the Golan Heights. Israel captured the Golan Heights from Syria in 1967 during the Six Day War and annexed it in 1981. Many residents of the region retain Syrian citizenships and identify as Syrian.
Not Again: NYT Op-Ed Pushes Utopic, Unrealistic Israel/Palestine Vision
It’s unbelievable how often the very concept of Israel as a regular sovereign state comes under attack in the New York Times, and indeed across the media.

A recent article, titled “Want Israeli-Palestinian Peace? Try Confederation“ by Bernard Avishai and Sam Bahour encourages readers to toy with the concept of Israel as a state like any other and view it as a theoretical plaything that can afford to, “share a capital city, a transportation and urban infrastructure, and a business ecosystem.” Before proceeding with an analysis of this piece, it’s vital to note one fundamental fact: this view is not so much a minority opinion amongst Israelis and Palestinians as practically non-existent.

That the New York Times affords such a perspective means it gains prominence amongst the influential. But while the idea of doing away with Israel as a sovereign state with control over its population and a capital city like any other nation gain currency amongst outsiders, back in the Middle East – where people have to grapple with reality – such impractical ideas are laughed at by Arabs and Jews alike.

The New York Times’ Distortions and Impractical Ideas
Back to the New York Times’ piece. Among the impractical ideas and distortions of reality that the op-ed promotes are:
A “dotted-line border in Jerusalem”

The suggestion that Jerusalem can be split is something many Israelis and Zionists – as well as Palestinians, by the way – have extreme difficulty accepting. For millennia, Jerusalem was a single city. For precisely 19 years, it was divided by an ugly barrier, the frontier between Israel and Jordan. Since 1967, the city has been reunited, and while life is far from perfect, it has become immeasurably better for citizens of both sides. Not least because there are no more no-mans-land zones that citizens cannot approach out of fear of being fired upon by soldiers on the other side.

Nevertheless, Avishai and Bahour suggest that “Confederal institutions would permit dividing sovereignty in Jerusalem with a dotted-line border, actually keeping the city open to all.” As if the presence of armed Palestinian police in Jerusalem’s Arab neighborhoods, with no real border separating them from Israeli citizens, is something Israel could tolerate. Even more so when considering the reality that over 25% of Jerusalem’s Jewish population live in the neighborhoods of Gilo, Pisgat Ze’ev, and Ramot, all of which are on what would be on the Palestinian side.

All told, over a third of Jerusalem’s Jewish population live in such neighborhoods. Trusting the Palestinian security administration with the lives of hundreds of thousands of Jews, or effectively creating Israeli enclaves surrounded by Palestinians with the means of attacking them, and hoping for the best is no more than a wild fantasy.


Seth Frantzman: NYT accused of whitewashing Turkey’s Afrin occupation
The New York Times has been accused of whitewashing Turkey’s military occupation of Afrin and the ethnic cleansing of Kurdish people. This surprised many, given that the newspaper has covered other conflicts by giving both sides a voice but when reporting in Afrin it appeared to only give Turkish military occupation officials and pro-Ankara voices a place.

An illegal military occupation. Stolen olives shipped to the occupying power for resale. Far-right settlers rampaging and attacking indigenous communities. Religious persecution. Locals kidnapped in extrajudicial raids, imprisoned in secret military detention centers. Ethnic-cleansing. All of this has happened in Afrin in northwest Syria, an area that was once Kurdish and was invaded and occupied by Turkey and Turkish-backed extremist militias in 2018. Since then, it has been ethnically-cleansed of Kurds, and minority graveyards and religious sites have been ransacked and destroyed. The New York Times is now accused of whitewashing Turkey’s occupation of Afrin in an article on Tuesday.

Experts, activists, former residents and commentators expressed shock at the article online noting that it failed to mention human rights abuses and the displaced people forced out of Afrin. Some compared the article to state-run Turkish media propaganda. For a US press that prided itself on confronting the far-right in the US and critiquing an authoritarian leader, or “speaking truth to power,” the article was slammed for not including any critical or dissenting voices.

Titled “In Turkey’s Safe Zone in Syria security and misery go hand in hand,” the article claims that while Turkey’s invasion three years ago was widely criticized, “today, the Syrians they protect are glad the Turks are there.” The article hints at the fact that 160,000 Kurds were ethnically cleansed. “Thousands of Kurdish families fled the Turkish invasion, along with the Kurdish fighters. In their place came hundreds of thousands of Syrians from other areas, who have swollen the population, taking homes.” Usually, when the indigenous population is expelled and other populations are moved in, it is called ethnic cleansing. In this case, Kurds were removed by Turkey and far-right religious extremist militias it controls, and Sunni Arabs and Turkmen were moved into Afrin.

 

During those eight years [of President Bush], there was no space between us and Israel, and what did we get from that? When there is no daylight, Israel just sits on the sidelines, and that erodes our credibility with the Arab states.
Obama, July 13, 2009

With each passing day, speculation is mounting as to what to make of Biden's failure to call Netanyahu.

Lahav Harkov of the Jerusalem Post quotes sources that there is not really a big deal going on here and no snub of Netanyahu, per se.

She quotes sources that claim Biden simply does not want to be seen as interfering with Israel's upcoming March 23rd elections by allowing Netanyahu to make political hay out of a phone call from the president of the United States -- this according to 2 Israeli political parties who have been in contact with the Biden administration.

That explanation might be taking for granted the respect that Israelis are supposed to have for Biden.

But take into account that Israelis favored Trump over Biden in last year's election and it is just as likely that the impression will be that Biden is specifically trying to interfere and influence the upcoming election against Netanyahu by refusing to make that phone call.

The fact that Biden has not contacted any other leaders in the Middle East is supposed to support the claim that there is nothing personal in that phone call not being made. 

And in addition to the phone call, Biden's putting his selection of an ambassador to Israel on hold until after the Israeli elections -- because some of the people being considered, such as former Obama chief of staff Rahm Emmanuel, have a poor relationship with Netanyahu.

Meanwhile, Jonathan Schanzer of The Foundation for Defense of Democracies points out that there is still plenty of communication going on between the US and Israel -- Secretary of State Blinken is speaking with Israeli Foreign Minister Gabi Ashkenazi and National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan is speaking with Meir Ben Shabbat.

With talk of returning to the Iran Deal, it's all very well for Biden to indicate a return to Obama's foreign policy, but those days are not the kind that Israel is eager to return to.

Those 2 sources Lahav quotes both claim that Biden wants to convey the message that “there is no special relationship with Bibi.” That may be, but in the process, Biden is also conveying the message that there is no special relationship with Israel either.

And that is something that conflicts with the readiness of past presidents to quickly connect with Israel's leaders.
Schanzer gives a short history lesson, pointing out that
Clinton called Prime Minister Rabin on January 23 and met with him 2 months later. 
o  Bush called Prime Minister Sharon on February 6. 
o  Obama spoke with Olmert on January 2 (before his own inauguration) and then called Netanyahu on April 1, the day after Netanyahu was sworn in. 
o  Trump spoke with Netanyahu on January 22, and hosted him the following month. 
Abbas is no doubt relieved to see Biden push off making that phone call -- imagine what kind of message Hamas might see in this.

But there is more going on than just a delay in making a phone call.

Last Friday, during a White House press briefing, press secretary Jen Psaki was asked what seemed to be a straightforward question:
Can you please just give a broad sense of what the administration is trying to achieve in the Middle East? For example, does the administration still consider the Saudis and the Israelis important allies?
Her response was a painful attempt to avoid giving an answer:
Well, you know, again, I think, we, there are ongoing processes and internal interagency processes, one that we, I think confirmed an interagency meeting just last week to discuss a range of issues in the Middle East where we've only been here three and a half weeks.

And I think I'm going to let those policy processes see themselves through before we give kind of a complete lay down of what our national security approaches will be to a range of issues.
If the Biden administration cannot even call Israel an ally when Biden is barely a month into his presidency, then we really are going to a very contentious 4 years.

And then there is the issue of some of the staff Biden has chosen for influential posts in his administration -- people about whom Mort Klein of ZOA has warned:
The new secretary of state, Anthony Blinken, has ‘publicly said the IRGC, the Iranian terror group, should never have been put on [the State Department’s] terror list, because that would “provoke” Iran’. Robert Malley, the chief negotiator of the Iran Deal, is a ‘public, unabashed supporter of the mullahs, an unabashed supporter of Hamas’.

Not forgetting lesser luminaries like Maher Bitar, who used to be on the board of the racist Students for Justice in Palestine and is now the NSC’s senior director for intelligence programs. Or Hady Amr, who used to be national coordinator of the anti-Israel Middle East Justice Network, has written of being ‘inspired’ by the Palestinian intifada, and threatened vengeance after Israel assassinated a Hamas leader. Amr is now deputy assistant secretary of state for Israel-Palestine.
The choice of Malley, Bitar and Amr are concerning.
But Israel is not the only country on edge.

Walter Russell Mead of The Wall Street Journal writes about Biden’s Rough Start With the World, claiming that "this has been one of the shortest and coldest diplomatic honeymoons on record," referring to Biden's boast that "America is back" not being welcomed by US allies quite as enthusiastically as Democrats may have expected. In Europe, American "wokeness" is being rejected by France while Russia and China are being viewed as attractive trading partners by Europe, ignoring Biden's talk of human rights.

And in the Middle East:

Iran is showing no eagerness to ease the administration’s path back into the 2015 nuclear deal. And both Israel and the conservative Arab states resent the American shift in that direction.

After just 4 years of Trump, Biden might just discover that this is no longer Obama's Middle East.
Or world.




  • Wednesday, February 17, 2021
  • Elder of Ziyon
Peter Beinart recently started a webcast at his position at the Foundation for Middle East Peace.

It doesn't seem to have gotten too many fans.

Last week, his guest was Ben Rhodes (40 YouTube views). Rhodes, of course,  was a Deputy National Security Advisor to President Obama and helped architect that administration's pro-Iran,. anti-Israel policies.

Here are three clips from the interview.

In this one, Rhodes claims that the US media is "pro-Likud." Really.




Here we see Rhodes say (to Beinart's delight) how sick he was to hear about Palestinian intransigence, because to his mind no one ever gave them a chance to accept a peace deal. Except maybe once. 

Really.




He flatly says that the Obama administration never gave them an opportunity for peace either, when in fact the Palestinians ignored  a framework that John Kerry gave them that would have given them far more than anyone else offered including a capital in Jerusalem.

Finally, here is Rhodes trying to get into Netanyahu's head, and the best he can guess is that since Jews have been persecuted throughout history, they justify being cruel as well. This is a watered down version of the antisemitic Jews as Nazis theme so popular amongst the Left.




Rhodes has literally no clue of what he is talking about - yet he is a contributor to NBC News. 

(h/t Brad)




Tuesday, February 16, 2021

From Ian:

Why Israel should be considered to join NATO
The recent Abraham Accords between Israel and several Arab countries could also trigger the idea that in admitting the State of Israel, NATO would be playing globally, on one hand, and on the other hand, open the doors to further members around the World.

With a solid democracy and values driven society, Israel military capabilities would fit perfectly the present and future needs of the Alliance. The military quality hardware, technology or intelligence would enhance NATO’s existing capabilities. In a moment where NATO’s budget burned share is at the centre of many debates, Israel’s military budget is near the singular value of 4.5% GDP.

To be part of an Alliance, also means that one loses partial autonomy and such issue is remarkably pivotal for a nation that faces singular and constant security challenges. One of the core, if not the main, debates about an Israel NATO membership, will always be focus on NATO’s Article 5 (collective defence) activation over a potential attack from Iran or any of Iran’s proxies, such as the Hezbollah. The odds of such an attack are high and such an event would put the Alliance in a difficult position as this could prompt an armed conflict of years in the Middle East and even some regions in North Africa.

It is also clear that the full membership would not depend only NATO members, especially if Turkey will not veto that same membership, but also in Israel willingness in joining it.

In the balance, if one looks to NATO core values of: “individual liberty, democracy, human rights and the rule of law”; with three essential core tasks: “collective defence, crisis management and cooperative security”; one sees here the natural place for Israel to be part of.

On the opposite side, Turkey’s membership, despite its overwhelming present issues, should remain unchanged even if Ankara will suffer different sanctions from NATO member countries as the US and face high political pressure from Paris or London.

Looking at future picture, it is time to start building on Israel’s full membership to NATO.


Mordechai Kedar: The Truth About Financial Aid to the Palestinian Authority
In the past, the donor states have at times sought to circumvent the Palestinian Authority, opting instead to finance specific projects. This idea failed because of the mahsubiya method practiced in the PA: a contractor who gets foreign funding for projects transfers part of the money to the “right people” in the PA, thereby serving as a pipeline for the funneling of “kosher” funds to the instigators of terror.

Another problem is the Israeli government, which is well aware of the situation and yet continues to give artificial respiration to the corrupt PA. Following the signing of the Oslo Accords in 1993-1995, many in Israel sobered up and realized that the PA’s continued rule could lead to the growth of a terror state in the West Bank compared to which the dangers posed by the terror state that arose in Gaza would pale into insignificance. But no Israeli government has taken the necessary steps to put an end to the Oslo delusion.

After 15 years with no elections in the PA, it was recently announced that elections would at last be held for the Legislative Council and the presidency, a move that will afford the terror Authority a democratic stamp of approval. The question immediately arose as to whether Hamas will be allowed to run in these elections. Many fear that the democratic process would result in Hamas again winning the majority of seats on the Legislative Council and possibly the presidency as well. But what kind of democracy does not permit a preeminent organization to run in elections that are supposed to be free?

The holding of the elections appears to be fully supported by key officials in the Biden administration: both those who favor the establishment of a Palestinian state because of their blind faith in the two-state solution, and those whose sympathies lie with Muslim Brotherhood organizations in the US and elsewhere. The latter group would see a Hamas victory in the PA elections as a desirable outcome.

Muhammad Aref Massad understands that a terrorist Authority has been set up alongside Israel that could give rise to a terrorist state. When will the policymakers in Israel, Europe, and the US understand this?
Blinken’s Worrisome Golan Heights Hedge
On Monday, instead of endorsing President Trump’s 2019 decision to recognize Israel’s claims of sovereignty over the Golan Heights — the disputed territory it seized from Syria in the Six-Day War of 1967 — Secretary of State Antony Blinken hedged. He noted, during a CNN interview, that Israel’s control of the territory is “of real importance, to [its] security. Legal questions are something else. . . . And over time, if the situation were to change in Syria, that’s something we would look at.”

Asked about whether Blinken’s comments should be taken as a sign that he’s open to reversing Trump’s recognition of Israel’s claims, a State Department spokesperson told National Review on Thursday that, “The Secretary spoke to this earlier in the week and we have nothing further.” Although Blinken has also pledged to build on the Abraham Accords and view Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, his decision to leave the Biden administration’s stance on the Golan Heights ambiguous raises serious questions about the new administration’s commitment to Israel, its strongest regional ally, in the face of the growing threat from Tehran.

Downplaying legal recognition of Israel’s Golan claims further strained an alliance weakened by the new administration’s push to reenter the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran. Both Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his chief rival, Minister of Defense Benny Gantz, immediately pushed back against Blinken’s comments. “The Israeli position is clear. In any possible scenario, the Golan Heights will remain Israeli,” Netanyahu’s office told the Times of Israel earlier this week.

Though Israeli officials may be displeased by Blinken’s comments, they can also rest easy in the knowledge that, for the moment, the U.S.’s official position on the Golan claims has not changed: Reversing Trump’s sovereignty-recognition proclamation would require an official act of unrecognition, a move the administration hasn’t yet said it’s considering. “The Golan is, for the purpose of U.S. policy, part of Israel,” said Eugene Kontorovich, a George Mason University law professor who advised the State Department on the 2019 move. “He doesn’t have to call it part of Israel every time he speaks to make that true.”

The key question concerns the likelihood that Biden formally reverses Trump’s decision. Kontorovich calls Blinken’s comments a “trial balloon,” an effort to see what the domestic and global reaction might be if the administration were to use unrecognition of Israel’s Golan claims as a bargaining chip in negotiations with Iran. “Here they’re playing with something, which was not a card that was theirs to play,” Kontorovich said. “It would just be an extremely radical policy to unrecognize Israel’s sovereignty over the Golan for no productive end.”

Monday, February 15, 2021

From Ian:

Caroline Glick: Navigating Israel's ship of state through the Biden storm
In a media briefing Friday, White House spokeswoman Jen Psaki refused to say whether the Biden views Israel as an ally.

Psaki's behavior was easy to understand. Although Israel is America's strongest and most reliable ally in the Middle East, Israel cannot follow where the Biden administration is now leading. President Joe Biden's policy steps and foreign policy appointments since taking office have made it abundantly clear that his first priority is to return the US to the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran.

The so-called Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action which was negotiated by Biden's top advisors when they served with him in the Obama administration is not a non-proliferation agreement. It is a blueprint for Iran to achieve independent military nuclear capability and regional hegemony.

Neither Israel nor the US's Arab allies in the Persian Gulf can partner with Biden and his team in advancing this policy. It puts them all in danger. This is the simple explanation for Biden's refusal to date to speak to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and to other regional leaders. Quite simply, given his commitment to a policy that places their countries in jeopardy, Biden would prefer not to hear what they have to say.

Netanyahu adopted a three-pronged foreign policy when he was faced with a similar situation with Washington during the Obama presidency. After a four-year hiatus, the time has come to reinstate the policy.

The first component of that policy is a recognition that the US is irreplaceable. No other ally can provide Israel with the partnership that the US provides. That doesn't mean that Israel's government must bow and scrape before Biden and his advisors as they rush to empower Iran at Israel's expense. On the contrary. Facing a hostile administration, Israel must unapologetically stand up for itself and defend its interests and rights.


My Telephone’s Not Ringing
There is genuine concern in Israel about several of Biden’s top advisers, in particular U.S. envoy to Iran Rob Malley, widely seen to be soft on Iran and less than sympathetic to Israel’s security concerns. There are also, though, significant yings to Malley’s yang, key among them the widely respected Secretary Antony Blinken, and others.

Which leads us to the second tweet. Jumping into the “phone call” fray two days after Danon, former U.S. Ambassador to Israel, Dan Shapiro, tweeted a sensible thread stating the obvious; that Biden assumed leadership of the free world at a particularly tempestuous time and was personally taking on only the most pressing and urgent domestic and global matters, reflected in the order of his days and his calls (well, with that Canada exception, eh?)

On Saturday night, the phone call question was put to Israeli Ambassador to the U.S., Gilad Erdan, on the most-watched post-Shabbat political talk show in Israel. His response, was, well, exactly what one might expect. A seasoned political operative, Erdan, with a bemused countenance, told the interviewer that the conversation is not so important.

“Until there isn’t one,” she ricocheted.

As he must do, Erdan focused on the many sidebar conversations that have taken place at the highest levels between the most senior Israeli and Biden administration officials in State, Defense, and the NSA. The well-oiled relationship between the US and Israel is humming along nicely, Erdan reassured. No need for any concern.

Biden is also sensitive to the fact that Israel is in perpetual election mode and would not want to appear to be boosting a particular candidate. But, that seems to be a chronic feature of the Israeli condition, making it almost irrelevant.

Truth is, for the last four years Israel had become accustomed to being treated as a constant priority in the Oval Office, with the formidable and combined muscle of Ambassadors Friedman and Dermer, Jared Kushner brought to bear, combined with Trump’s reported lack of discipline in his approach to, well, everything.

If there is a message in the non-phone call phone call, it is likely far less dramatic than some may be thinking, and more like: “You’re important, Israel, but perhaps not always the most important.

Let’s hope so.


JN INVESTIGATION: How UK gives annual nod to hate-filled Palestinian education
British taxpayers are continuing to pay for a Palestinian education system in which school pupils are routinely taught incitement, hatred of Israel and glorification of terrorism. Many of the textbooks are written by vetted officials, whose salaries are paid by the UK.

Despite numerous assurances from the Palestinian education minister, detailed reports from the Israel-based Institute for Monitoring Peace and Cultural Tolerance in School Education (IMPACT-se) show that as recently as September last year, Palestinian school students were still learning maths by adding up the number of ‘martyrs’, including those who have led suicide bombings on buses and shopping centres. The curriculum is taught in Palestinian Authority and UNRWA schools in the West Bank, Gaza and Jerusalem.

Not only does Britain continue to pay – in the past five years it has spent an estimated £105 million on Palestinian education professionals, including on the salaries of teachers who write the textbooks – but it appears to have a blind spot when it comes to challenging the Palestinians on the content of those books.

The UK and the Palestinian Authority (PA) have a Memorandum of Understanding, or MoU, which supposedly commits the Palestinians not only to “uphold the principle of non-violence”, but to take action against “incitement to violence, including addressing allegations of incitement in the educational curriculum”.

Money paid by Britain to the Palestinian partner is supposedly contingent on the PA’s performance on “curriculum reform”.

Sunday, February 14, 2021

From Ian:

David Collier: Lies and more lies. PSC and the viral BDS fake news circus
I am just coming to the end of a project that has taken almost a year and had promised myself that I would not get distracted in the final stretch. But when this week highlighted just how badly anti-Israel activism is dependant on fake news and lies, I decided to take a slight detour to share it with you.

Divestment and the lies of BDS
The boycott movement against Israel is a complete failure. Israel’s hi-tech economy is booming (Covvid aside – tourism was booming too) and BDS has nothing to show for 16 years of effort but a few activists taking selfies next to avocados on a supermarket shelf.

Sure, in confined political student circles, 14 students can force through a pro-BDS vote whilst the 22000 non politically active students on campus are busy with their actual studies, but in the real world – all of these students use Israeli hi-tech to communicate with each other.

BDS is a noise that spreads antisemitism, demonises Zionism, and hurts Jews in the diaspora but it doesn’t actually do damage to Israel. Worse than this, where it does have some effect, it just ends up hurting Palestinians.

Because of this failure, what the BDS movement is forced to do is engage an absurd fake news strategy – any divestment of any Israeli stock or product for any reason – is promoted as a BDS victory.

For example – even when a football club changes kit supplier – something they all do every few years- if it is the brand of kit used by the Israeli team – BDS will falsely claim it is a ‘divestment’. In the end, the embarrassed club can even be forced to issue a statement rejecting the claim. This happened to Luton Town FC just last year. Think for a while how pathetic this all is.

And if the evidence is not even there, they make it all up anyway. BDS and toxic organisations such as the Palestinian Solidarity Campaign just love to spread lies. It is all they have.

The latest PSC fiction
This week provided a perfect example. The Palestine Solidarity Campaign ran with a story that the East Sussex Pension fund had divested from Elbit, a successful Israeli arms company.

The news went around. The official BDS movement bragged about it, the thugs at Palestine Action sang about it, and Middle East Monitor wrote an article in celebration.

Ben Jamal, the hapless director of the PSC followed suit. Incredibly, an industry magazine, ‘Pensions Age‘ ran with the story too, in an article written by Jack Gray, their Brighton-based ‘News Editor‘.

Except of course the story is simply not true.


Christian Post: Wanted: Christians to declare to the World Council of Churches 'not in our name'!
The World Council of Churches (WCC) has put on its theological anti-Semitic brass knuckles in its long-standing war against the Jewish State. The time has come for Christians to declare “Not in our name.” For their good, more than ours.

Rev. Frank Chikane, moderator of the WCC’s Commission of the Churches on International Affairs, lost no time in a recent Zoom call to ask Christianity to revert to its worst medieval Jew-hatred. For those who will not work towards delegitimizing the entire system (aka the State of Israel) that facilitates daily “brutality” against Palestinians, he intoned a curse, “The blood of the people of Palestine will be upon them.” This was an obvious reference to Matthew’s “His blood be upon us and on our children!” These words were used for centuries to prop up the charge that it was specifically Jewish sin – not the sins of all humanity – that caused the Crucifixion. That charge of deicide was the most important source of violence against Jews, persisting till today. Rev. Chikane is not concerned that his words might inspire violence, since he regards the potential targets not as human but as “demons,” the same demons responsible for apartheid in his South Africa. And it’s worse this time, he said, because these demons have invited other demons to make the Palestinian struggle more difficult.

“Every day people get killed” – a blatant fabrication, unless he means those who are stopped in their attempt to thrust knives into Israeli civilians. He had not a single syllable of criticism for those, nor the ones who try lobbing rockets into Israeli kindergartens.

Rev. Chikane didn’t invent the WCC’s anti-Israel policy, he just upgraded and supercharged it with New Testament imagery. Just three years after Auschwitz, the WCC – which claims 500 million Christians in its affiliates – chose not support the establishment of the Jewish State in 1948, warning instead that its political complexity might invite more global anti-Semitism. In the decades since then, they have strived mightily to convert their analysis into prophecy. It’s reaction to the Jewish state’s astounding Six Day War in 1967, when it defeated surrounding armies whose announced intention was to drive the Jews into the sea, was to blame Israel for the immediate threat of annihilation by its neighbors, Egypt, Syria, and Jordan. Israel was faulted for allegedly inspiring the fears of its neighbors because of Israel’s “dynamism and possible expansion.” If those darn Jews hadn’t been so successful in nation-building, their neighbors wouldn’t have to murder them…
New report by human-rights group responds to anti-Israeli bias perpetuated at UNHRC
Geneva-based independent human-rights group UN Watch published a detailed report in advance of the 46th session of the U.N. Human Rights Council, which is scheduled to open this month on Feb. 22 in Geneva and run until March 23. The study debunks more than 20 different major accusations leveled by numerous different countries—accusing Israel of violating Palestinians’ religious freedom, damaging their health and practicing racism.

In its first-ever report that thoroughly fact-checked and responded to the UNHRC’s anti-Israel claims, UN Watch released its 58-page “Agenda Item 7: Country Claims & UN Watch Responses” examining 23 accusations made by various countries under Agenda Item 7 against Israel in the period covering the six UNHRC sessions held in 2019 and 2020.

According to report researcher and writer Dina Rovner, legal adviser of UN Watch, the paper sets the record straight regarding distorted statements, including: “Israel hinders the Palestinian fight against COVID-19;” “Israel has occupied Palestinian territory for 70 years;” “Israel commits apartheid against the Palestinians;” “Israel damages Palestinian holy sites” and “Israel’s blockade of Gaza is illegal.”

“The truth is very different from what is being put on the record at the United Nations,” she told JNS. “When Israel is accused of hindering the Palestinian fight against COVID-19, it is actually helping and coordinating with the Palestinians. When Israel is accused of violating the rights of Syrians on the Golan, the opposite is the case—the Golan Syrians have more rights and freedoms than their counterparts in Syria, and are flourishing economically. Israel damages Palestinian holy sites? No. History shows that only under Israeli control are the holy sites of Jews, Muslims and Christians fully protected.”

According to Hillel Neuer, UN Watch executive director and editor of the report (with contributions from managing editor of UN Watch Simon Plosker), it is being sent to all U.N. ambassadors in New York and Geneva “to make clear to all delegates who tell lies that, from now on, their countries will be called out by name before the international community and refuted with the facts.”

UN Watch has also submitted several written statements that will be circulated to delegates as official U.N. documents of the session, calling out the lie that Israel’s vaccination campaign—one of the best-run in the world—is “racist”; exposing UNRWA teachers’ incitement to terrorism and anti-Semitism; and documenting the Palestinians’ illegal use of child soldiers.

Saturday, February 13, 2021

From Ian:

Meir Y. Soloveichik: The Jew Who Ran Away
Forty years ago this month, a small movie was released in England by the name of Chariots of Fire. One year later, it won the Oscar for Best Picture, defeating the out-and-out favorite, Warren Beatty’s Reds. Both were about real people; Reds tells the story of leftist journalist John Reed while Chariots is a portrait of two British runners who competed in the 1924 Olympics. Strikingly, the Academy ultimately honored a film that celebrates Christian faith and religious liberty rather than Beatty’s multi-hour tribute to a famous American Communist.

The two runners we see in Chariots are a Jew named Harold Abrahams and a devout Christian named Eric Liddell. Abrahams is a Cambridge student angered by the subtle anti-Semitism he experiences; he determines that he will “take them on, one by one, and run them off their feet.” Liddell, in contrast, competes in adherence to the advice of his missionary father: “Run in God’s name, and let the world stand back and wonder.” The two are set against each other in the hundred-yard dash to determine who will be “the fastest man on earth,” but the qualifying heat is on a Sunday, the Christian Sabbath, and Liddell refuses to run.

I have long been obsessed with the film; I have read what I can about its historical background, corresponded with its producer, and attended a staged 2012 version in the London theater. The recent death of Ben Cross, who played Abrahams, inspired me to return to it again. And the more I watch it, the more I have come to understand the terrible Jewish irony that lies at its heart.

In the film, Abrahams’s response to anti-Semitism is not Jewish pride but assimilation. We see him ebulliently belting out lyrics from the ultimate British musical, HMS Pinafore: “In spite of all temptations / to belong to other nations / he remains an Englishman.” When he is confronted at Cambridge by anti-Semitic dons who accuse him of interest only in his own glory, Abrahams indignantly insists: “I am a Cambridge man first and last, I am an Englishman first and last; what I have achieved, and what I intend to achieve is for my family, for my university, and for my country.”

All this accords with the real life of Harold Abrahams. In an interesting doctoral dissertation on “Jews and British Sport,” David Gareth Dee notes that “Abrahams claimed the most important factor in Jewish sporting success was a willingness to ‘Anglicise’ and to move away from one’s religion.” In the 1920s, the precise moment in which the film is set, Abrahams wrote an article in an Anglo-Jewish publication encouraging English Jews to ignore Jewish Sabbath restrictions in order to compete.
Pfizer CEO shares his family's tragic story during the Holocaust
Pfizer CEO Dr. Albert Bourla joined the Sephardic Heritage International on January 28th for International Holocaust Remembrance Day, where he shared his Greek Sephardic family's story of tragedy and survival during the Holocaust.

"It’s a story that had a great impact on my life and my view of the world, and it is a story that, for the first time today, I share publicly," said Bourla during the January 28 virtual event. "Many Holocaust survivors never spoke to their children of the horrors they endured," he added.

Bourla's parents were of 2,000 survivors from a community of 50,000 nearly eradicated by the Holocaust in Thessaloniki, Greece where he was born. He began by retelling the story of his father.

"My father's family, like so many others, had been forced from their homes and taken to a crowded house within one of the Jewish ghettos," recounted Bourla. "It was a house they had to share with several other Jewish families. They could circulate in and out of the ghetto as long as they were wearing the yellow star."

"But one day in March 1943, the ghetto was surrounded by occupational forces and the exit was blocked. My father and his brother (my uncle) were outside when it happened. Their father (my grandfather) met them outside, told them what was happening and asked them to leave the ghetto and hide because he had to go back inside as his wife and two other children were home. So later that day, my grandfather, Abraham Bourla, his wife Rachel, his daughter Graziella and his youngest son David were taken to a camp outside the train station and from there, left for Auschwitz. My father and uncle never saw them again," Bourla recounted.


Coronavirus: Infection down, vaccination up - cabinet to meet Sunday
The coronavirus cabinet will meet Sunday to discuss the next phase of the country’s exit strategy, as the infection rate continues to decline, and the number of people vaccinated is on the rise.

The next phase of the exit strategy is expected to include street shops, as well as a number of other arenas that could be open only to people who have been vaccinated or recovered from coronavirus.

Those areas include shopping malls, cultural and sporting events, hotel (rooms only) and gyms.

“If all goes well, we hope we can open street shops and malls, and start carefully opening cultural shows for which entry will only be allowed for green passport holders,” Health Ministry Director-General Chezy Levy said in a weekend interview with KAN.

The Health Ministry has targeted February 23 as the start of the next phase of its plan, requiring a staged exit as was hoped for in the past, so that the impact of reliefs can be monitored. Levy said that the country will only fully understand the results of the various reliefs rolled out last week in about 10 days.

“I would recommend continuing to open carefully and thoughtfully,” he said.
  • Saturday, February 13, 2021
  • Elder of Ziyon



This is very, very concerning:


White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki gave a vague, rambling answer Friday when asked at a briefing to reporters whether the Biden administration considers Saudi Arabia and Israel to be “important allies.”

“Can you please just give us a broad sense of what the administration is trying to achieve in the Middle East?” a reporter asked — in follow-up to an earlier question asking why President Biden has yet to call Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

“For example,” the reporter asked, “does the administration still consider the Saudis and the Israelis important allies?

Rather than saying simply, “Yes,” Psaki gave this answer, according to a White House transcript of the late-afternoon briefing.

“Well, you know, again, I think we — there are ongoing processes and internal interagency processes — one that we, I think, confirmed an interagency meeting just last week — to discuss a range of issues in the Middle East. 

“We’re — we’ve only been here three and a half weeks, and I think I’m going to let those policy processes see themselves through before we give, kind of, a complete laydown of what our national security approaches will be to a range of issues,” she added.
On two consecutive days, Psaki said that the US has an important relationship with Israel. On Thursday:

The President looks forward to speaking with Prime Minister Netanyahu.  He’s obviously somebody that he has a longstanding relationship with.  And obviously there’s a important relationship that the United States has with Israel on the security front and as a key partner in the region
.  

And on Friday:
 
It is not an intentional diss.  Prime Minister Netanyahu is someone the President has known for some time.  Obviously, we have a long and important relationship with Israel, and the President has known him and has been working on a range of issues that there’s a mutual commitment to for some time.
 I don't think that it is a big deal that Biden hasn't called Netanyahu, but the inability to say that Israel is an ally is mind-boggling. Even if she didn't want to answer the same question about Saudi Arabia so she avoided answering about Israel, it is a big deal, because this points to Biden as being the third term of Obama, and the idea that the White House believes that a tilt towards Iran and away from US allies is a good idea is a very bad harbinger for the next four years.

Note also that even President Obama had no problem saying that the US was a strong ally of Israel. 

I fully expect Psaki to walk this back on Monday but that will be looked upon as firefighting, not policy.



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