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Tuesday, March 09, 2021

From Ian:

David Milstein: Trump Administration's West Bank and Gaza Labeling Helped Affirm Reality
Two weeks ago, six far-left groups sent an inaccurate and deceitful letter to the Biden administration that urged the reversal of the Trump administration's labeling requirements for goods exported from Judea and Samaria (the West Bank) and Gaza Strip into the United States. Their effort is not surprising, given their long record of vilifying and delegitimizing Israel and their support for the discriminatory Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign against Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria. But there is absolutely no legitimate basis to reverse the Trump administration's decision, which is consistent with long-standing U.S. policy and practice, as well as prior agreements and the reality on the ground.

The Trump administration's Notice issued on December 23, 2020 requires goods produced where Israel continues to exercise relevant authorities and administrative control under the Oslo Accords and Hebron Protocol in Area C and H2 of the West Bank be labeled as "Product of Israel" or similar markings. Goods produced where the Palestinian Authority (PA) continues to have civilian oversight in Areas A and B, along with H1 of the West Bank, must be labeled as "West Bank" or similar markings. Goods from the Gaza Strip have to be marked as "Gaza Strip" or similar markings. It is no longer permitted for goods from any of these geographic areas to be labeled as "West Bank and Gaza" or similar markings.

The central argument in the groups' letter is that the Trump administration's decision "marks a significant change from longstanding U.S. Customs guidance maintained under both Democratic and Republican administrations, which prohibits products from anywhere in the West Bank—whether from settlements or Palestinian areas—from being labeled as made in Israel." Their letter further states that "[t]he pre-Trump guidance was first promulgated in 1995 following the Oslo Accords." Both these claims are untrue. Indeed, these groups conveniently excluded from their letter the 1995 Notice text described prior to the Oslo Accords: "Customs required that the word 'Israel' must appear in the marking designation" for all goods exported from the West Bank or Gaza Strip.

The 1995 Notice changed the labeling requirements only after the Oslo Accords. Goods from the West Bank or Gaza Strip had to be marked as "West Bank," "Gaza" or "Gaza Strip," and could no longer use the word "Israel" or similar markings. The 1997 Notice then stated that the West Bank and Gaza should be considered one territory, thus permitting the label "West Bank and Gaza" or similar markings. Both the 1995 and 1997 Notices were reaffirmed by the Obama administration in 2016.

But there were three main problems with the 1995 and 1997 Notices.
CAMERA Op-Ed In POLITICO, Peace Processors Offer Bad Advice
Writing in POLITICO Magazine, Aaron David Miller and Richard Sokolsky proclaim that “elections have consequences” and herald that new U.S. President Joe Biden “will end the Trump sugar high for Israel and Saudi Arabia.”

Both Miller and Sokolsky have decades of public service to their credit, serving in Republican and Democratic administrations alike. Their years of service should be commended. But both, regrettably, have failed to learn either from their experience or from recent events.

First, Miller and Sokolsky assert that Israeli premier Benjamin Netanyahu and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman have the “two biggest egos” in the Middle East. While certainly subjective—and prime ministers and princes are not usually known for their humility—this claim omits the dictatorship in Tehran, where both the power and likeness of Iran’s self-styled “Supreme Leader,” Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, are omnipresent.

It is unsurprising that the two analysts omitted Khamenei. The rest of their op-ed reveals an inability to recognize the strategic challenges that confront the United States in the Middle East.

Iran is the main threat plaguing the U.S. in the region. Long listed as a chief state sponsor of terrorism, the Islamic Republic has, in recent years alone, plotted to blow up a restaurant in Washington D.C., murdered U.S. servicemembers in Iraq and Afghanistan, planned attacks at major U.S. airports and power grids, and sheltered and supplied both Al-Qaeda and Al-Qaeda in Iraq, the progenitor of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS). Tehran has also acted as arguably the greatest imperialist power in the world, with its proxies seizing power in Yemen, Iraq, Lebanon and, to a different extent, Syria.
Jonathan Tobin: Will Biden’s moves bring the Saudis closer to Israel?
What can the Saudis and other Arab states do to protect their interests in the face of America abandoning them?

As some sources told JNS, the breach with the Americans could draw the Saudis and other Arab states closer to Israel. Indeed, a desire to make things right with the Americans might impel Riyadh to break down and recognize Israel itself, rather than persist with the current status in which the two countries are actively allied but do so without formal recognition.

It’s far from clear that’s the most likely outcome.

As much as MBS and the Saudis value their relationship with Israel and regard it now as essential to their security, there is a big difference between them and the other Arab countries. The Saudi royal family sees its legitimacy as rooted in its status as the guardian of Islamic holy places in Mecca and Medina. Recognizing the Jewish state makes sense from a realpolitik perspective, but not from a religious one since such a move would render the Saudis even more vulnerable to attacks from Islamist critics.

There’s also the possibility that Washington won’t merely punish the Saudis but actively pressure them and the other Gulf states to make their peace with Iran. Indeed, muscling them into bowing to American demands may be a much higher priority for the administration than strong-arming Israel into making concessions to a Palestinian Authority that even Washington’s most ardent two-state solution advocates know won’t make peace.

While it’s hard to imagine such a turn of events right now, stranger things have happened in the history of the Middle East.

Downgrading relations with the Saudis might bring them even closer to Israel and further solidify an Israel-Arab alliance against Iran that could be powerful enough to deter Iranian aggression and transcend Washington’s feckless efforts to appease Tehran.

But if the Biden administration, despite its claims of support for the Abraham Accords, decides that it wants to actively trash them so as to assist its agenda of making nice with Iran or try to bring the dead-in-the-water peace process with the Palestinians back to life, it’s not inconceivable that they could wind up sabotaging the greatest advance towards Middle East peace in decades.

Seen from that perspective, Biden’s swipe at the Saudis isn’t so much a blow struck for human rights as possibly a devastating defeat for the cause of genuine peace between Jews and Arabs.
Saudi Shocker Temple Mount is Jewish, Muslims Should Pray Toward Mecca
Saudi Twitter users have recently been pushing a new line of thought that plays up the importance of Muslims praying towards the holy city of Mecca in Saudi Arabia, while downplaying the importance of the Al Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem, Israel National News(INN) reported Sunday.

The controversial campaign appears to be designed to push the message emphasizing the importance of the Saudi cities of Mecca and Medina as the holy places of Islam, and to eliminate the importance of Jerusalem and the Temple Mount for Muslims, thereby decreasing any Islamic authority the Palestinians have over the site.

One of the messages reportedly comes from well-known Saudi cartoonist Fahd al-Jabiri, who tweeted that “the direction of the prayers of the Jews is not important to us, what is important to us is only our homeland.”

Another English-language tweet is by a Moroccan user named Ibtissam Zegiga whose profile says he studies Hebrew and wants peace, and calls on “dear brothers and sisters” to join in the movement.

“This recent Saudi twitter movement believes that there is no importance of the temple mount to Muslims, and the waiting for the [Jewish] third temple. A new era, one of peace.”

According to the report, the Saudi campaign is in response to the Palestinian insults online and chants against the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia heard at at demonstrations at the Temple Mount after prayers on Fridays. The Saudis have quietly supported the recent Abraham Accords the established peace between four Arab countries and Israel, and that has infuriated the Palestinians.

The reaction of the Saudis is to emphasize that the Al-Aqsa in Jerusalem is simply a mosque like all mosques, but the direction of prayer for all Muslims no matter where they are on the planet is only towards to the city of Mecca in Saudi Arabia.

One tweet from the account Saudi Arabia In Numbers said Muslims were not religiously obligated to help the Palestinians by fighting for Jerusalem, where the Palestinians constantly emphasize that the Al Aqsa mosque is the “third holiest site in Islam.”

Sunday, March 07, 2021

From Ian:

David Collier: Exclusive – BDS network exposed as front for Islamic terror groups
BDS is an arm of the terror groups
Given all the evidence, it is clear that the terrorists and their supporters that dominate the GCRP and its events are not hangers-on but rather the driving ideology behind the entire project and its goals.

Take a look at this image:
It is the Scottish Palestine Solidarity Campaign (a supporter of the terrorist network) sharing an article from Samidoun (another supporter of the terrorist network) reporting an event in which Ahed Tamimi (a supporter of the terrorist network) was given the floor. The tragedy is that this event took place in the European Parliament in Brussels. It is Iranian Islamist influence spreading anti-Jewish hate throughout Europe and centres of influence in the west.

The GCRP now spew out an endless stream of propaganda via their outlets and their material is shared relentlessly in online anti-Israel groups:
And on campus:


The openly stated goal of this terrorist support network is to use participants in its events as tools to spread the word across the globe. The images above shows both how it works – and more scarily, how well it all succeeds. This is from the closing statement at the launch event:

The evidence is all here. Using solidarity movements as proxies and hiding behind human rights keywords, radical Islamic ideology spreads into our high streets and onto our university campuses. They turn up with catchy slogans such as ‘Apartheid week’ or ‘BDS’ – but the driving force behind all this is a radical Islamic genocidal force that seeks to destroy the Jewish presence in the region – simply because it is Jewish. This has nothing to do with human rights. It is a key element in a radical Islamic holy war.
Khaled Abu Toameh: PLO slams US for ignoring Palestinian misery and pro-Israel, anti-ICC bias
Palestinians have accused the Biden Administration of ignoring their suffering for its bias in opposing the International Criminal Court's war crimes probe into Israeli action in the West Bank, east Jerusalem and Gaza.

The US “totally ignored the legitimate rights of the Palestinians to have a viable state, while the Israeli occupation state continues to annex vast areas of the Palestinian territory in an attempt to undermine the so-called two-state solution," said Tayseer Khaled, member of the PLO Executive Committee on Saturday.

Khaled referred specifically to US Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s speech on foreign policy last week, in which he said Palestinian suffering has been completely ignored.

“Blinken did not even mention a word with regard to the suffering the Palestinian people face under occupation, nor anything about the Palestinian-Israeli conflict and its impact on security and stability in the region,” he said.

“This confirms that the new US administration pays no attention to reviewing the destructive policy of the Trump administration," Khaled said. Blinken did not mention the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in his major policy speech last week. Similarly, the Biden administration's Interim National Security Strategic Guidance published last week laid out a Middle East strategy that spoke of Israel, but not of the Palestinians. A senior Palestinian official in Ramallah also expressed disappointment with the Biden administration for opposing last week's decision by ICC chief prosecutor Fatou Bensouda to open a war crimes investigation into the actions of Israelis and Palestinians.
Palestinian Authority: ‘If ICC Indicts Israel, We Can Take US Firms to Court’
In an interview that aired on Palestine T.V. on March 1, Shtayyeh said, “Before we turned to the ICC, there had been tremendous and unparalleled pressure.”

“I was in New York when a delegation from the State Department came. They left Washington, D.C., at six o’clock in the morning so that they could meet [Palestinian Authority] President [Mahmoud] Abbas in New York. The reason was that our membership in the ICC is not only against Israel,” he said.

“If Israel is indicted, all the parties involved in the Israeli actions against the Palestinians will also be indicted. This means that we can also take the American companies and organizations that support Israel to court. Hence, the deputy secretary of state said to President Abu Mazen [Abbas]: ‘If you become members in the ICC, it will be like obtaining nuclear weapons.”

Neither Israel nor the United States is a signatory to the Rome Statute from which the ICC derives its authority.

The Palestinian premier also said that the P.A.’s appeal to the ICC had “shattered” Israel’s claimed “monopoly on pain.”

“Israel was basically purporting that the Jews in the world were the only ones who were tormented by the Nazis and so on,” he said.

“Our appeal to the ICC demonstrates and proves that the Palestinian people suffer, their prisoners have been tortured and killed, Palestinians have been martyred and displaced … So we shattered the monopoly on pain that Israel purported to have,” he added.

Saturday, March 06, 2021

From Ian:

Security Guards at French Jewish School Praised for Apprehending Suspected Knife Attacker
Jewish organizations warmly praised security guards at a Jewish school in the city of Marseille in southern France after they prevented a man from engaging in a possible knife attack on Friday.

“Attempted knife attack in a kosher grocery store near a Jewish school in Marseille,” tweeted CRIF, the representative organization of French Jews. “CRIF salutes the action of the school security guards and the police who prevented a new tragedy.”

Similar expressions of gratitude came from the World Jewish Congress, the American Jewish Committee and the Board of Deputies of British Jews.

Reports of Friday morning’s incident in the French press were contradictory, with Le Figaro quoting an unnamed police source urging caution, as the basic facts — among them whether the alleged assailant even entered the kosher store — were still to be established.

Other reports said that a man in his 60s with a prior criminal record had attempted to enter the Yavne Jewish School armed with a kitchen knife. He was turned away by security guards, who then apprehended him when he allegedly tried to enter the kosher store. Police officers were called to the scene and arrested the man.
‘Where Are the Jews?’: As Pope Visits Birthplace of Abraham, Chronicler of Mosul Calls for ‘Recognition’ of Jewish Heritage
On Friday, Pope Francis began an historic three-day visit to Iraq, his first foreign trip since the start of the coronavirus pandemic and a show of support to the country’s fraught Christian communities.

In Mosul, once a flourishing multi-faith metropolis, the Pope will visit churches ravaged by the Islamic State, which occupied the city from 2014 to 2017 and displaced hundreds of thousands of residents.

Omar Mohammed — an historian who was an essential chronicler of the occupation through his anonymous website “Mosul Eye” — told The Algemeiner that the visit would be a sign of encouragement to the handful of Christian families still living there.

“The pope — the highest authority in the Catholic Church — will pray inside Mosul; not from Rome praying for them, he will be among them,” said Mohammed, in an interview Thursday.

But he also hoped that the papal visit would pressure the Iraqi government to do more to recognize and protect Iraq’s non-Muslim heritage — including its once-thriving Jewish community, which has been all but stamped out.

“When I speak about the constitution of Iraq, there is almost no recognition of the non-Muslim societies,” he said, noting that the country’s laws are founded in Islamic practice. “This is completely against the meaning of diversity and inclusion. How could you possibly want the Yazidis and the Christians to accept to be living under a constitution that doesn’t recognize them?”

Iraq’s second biggest city, Mosul has historically been home to populations of Christians, Jews, Yazidis, Circassians and other communities, in addition to the Sunni majority. After the Islamic State overtook the city in 2014, Mohammed was one of the few able to tell the world about the group’s atrocities, publishing work that was critical for journalists and international organizations.

The Jewish community in Iraq dates back over 2,500 years, and numbered over 150,000 in 1947. Anti-Jewish riots and persecution drove many to flee their homes after the establishment of Israel, with over 120,000 emigrating to the Jewish state in the early 1950s.
Iranian Jewish leader tells US rabbi community freely observes its religion
Contrary to a commonly held belief, Jews living in Iran find it easier to practice their religion today than they did prior to the Islamic Revolution of 1979, according to a longtime leader of the Jewish community in Tehran.

Speaking live via Zoom on Sunday — Shushan Purim — from the land of Queen Esther and the Megillah, Arash Abaie, a civil engineer and prominent Jewish educator, cantor, Torah reader and scholar, explained why he believes Jews living in the country have intensified their religious observance over the past four decades.

Abaie said the Islamic Republic, with its deep commitment to religious law, interacts best with citizens, including Christians and Jews, who are themselves observant. He said Muslims respect Jews who pray regularly, fast, abstain from certain foods and believe in the Messiah.

“They look for commonalities” with Islam, he said, “and this leads to peaceful existence.”

The rare interview, conducted by Rabbi Jacob J. Schacter, was sponsored by Yeshiva University’s Center for the Jewish Future, where Schacter is a senior scholar. He is also a university professor of Jewish history and thought at Y.U.

The rabbi explained at the outset that he met Abaie at an international conference 18 years ago in Sweden sponsored by the US-based Memorial Foundation for Jewish Culture. Schacter was impressed with Abaie’s deep knowledge of Jewish texts, saying that “in a class I was giving on Talmud, his knowledge of even the most obscure references I made was outstanding.”

Thursday, March 04, 2021

From Ian:

J Street and the Problem of Palestinian Anti-Semitism
J Street's May 2018 condemnation of Abbas was a rare and impressive criticism of a figure whom J Street had almost never previously criticized. Publicly challenging a leader whose policies you generally support is never easy. At the time, some skeptics, myself included, wondered if the condemnation was sincere, or was just a quick gesture intended to make J Street look reasonable but with no intention of actually confronting Palestinian anti-Semitism.

If J Street wants the Jewish community to believe that its opposition to Palestinian anti-Semitism is sincere, it must insist that Abbas officially recant his speech, withdraw his anti-Semitic book from circulation, and eliminate anti-Semitic statements from the PA-controlled media and schools.

When I say "recant," I don't mean a mealy mouthed statement like the one Abbas issued in 2018, following the international uproar over his anti-Semitic remarks. "If people were offended by my statement in front of the PNC, especially people of the Jewish faith, I apologize to them," Abbas said. That wasn't a genuine apology. Not even close. The problem with Abbas's speech was not that some people took offense (as if they were being thin-skinned and overreacting); the problem was that what Abbas said about Jews was wrong, vile, and bigoted. That's what Abbas has to admit, and recant.

Admitting he was wrong is vitally important, in order to send a message to the Palestinian public that the anti-Semitic lies they have been hearing all these years – in their leader's speeches and books, and in their media and schools – were wrong.

Only when the Palestinians, starting with their leaders, genuinely give up their anti-Semitism, can we take seriously claims by Dylan Williams and J Street that "moderate Palestinian leaders" exist with whom the United States should interact.


Steven Emerson: Marc Lamont Hill’s Vile Antisemitism and Duplicitous New Book
Hill has only leaned in further to antisemitic conspiracy theories, such as repeatedly invoking the inflammatory and false accusation that a police exchange program between Israel and the United States leads to police killings of Black people in America. In 2018, he said: “But again, there’s a relationship between the two. The New York City Police — they’re killing us. But they’re being trained by Israeli security forces. [Host: “Really?”] Yes! They’re being trained — New York City Police and in other cities as well. So there’s a connection between the two.”

In October, the IPT exposed this narrative about police exchanges as a big lie, in the IPT series called “House of Lies.”

It’s also a claim that even an ideological ally of Hill — Jewish Voice for Peace — now says is antisemitic, and even admits to being inaccurate: “Suggesting that Israel is the start or source of American police violence or racism shifts the blame from the United States to Israel. … It also furthers an antisemitic ideology … Taking police exchanges out of context provides fodder for those racist and antisemitic tropes.”

All of this context makes it abundantly clear that Hill’s call for “a free Palestine, from the river to the sea” is a call to erase the Jewish state of Israel.

Hill now finds his infamous UN comments a joking matter — publicly, at least, so as to distract from the true meaning of his comments and to diminish the cause of his firing from CNN. At an April 2019 talk he gave at the University of Houston, he said: “I said, ‘we must do what justice requires.’ And justice requires ‘a free Palestine.’ Then there was like six other words. I can’t remember what they were…(laughs) ‘From the window to the wall…’ I don’t know. (laughs). And this idea of ‘from the river to the sea’ became the whole story.”

For good reason.

Hill’s record unambiguously shows that he has not stopped advocating for the destruction of Israel. He just tries to camouflage his antisemitism through a campaign of lying and denial, disguising his scandalous hatred of Jews in the form of a policy book that even “reputable reviewer” Kirkus Reviews falls for when praising his book as a “clear and evenhanded analysis.”

No.

As former US ambassador to Israel (under the Obama administration) Daniel Shapiro tweeted when he first heard Hill’s “from the river to the sea” comments in 2018: “This is disgusting. Calling for the elimination of Israel is anti-Semitic…”

Hill’s book is duplicity at its finest.


Beginning of a new era in Israeli-Arab relations?
On October 2, 1947, weeks before the partition vote that would signal the beginning of an Arab war against the Jews of Palestine, Ben Gurion wrote, “This is our native land; it is not as birds of passage that we return to it. But it is situated in an area engulfed by Arabic-speaking peoples, mainly followers of Islam. Now, if ever, we must do more than make peace with them; we must achieve collaboration and alliance on equal terms …. Talk of Arab Jewish amity sounds fantastic, for the Arabs do not wish it… they want to treat us as they do the Jews of Baghdad, Cairo and Damascus. (Nevertheless) history has … set conditions … which will compel Arab and Jew to work together…

For most of the past seven decades, Ben Gurion’s words have seemed hopelessly optimistic as one war followed another and Arab acceptance of Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state seemed forever out of reach. But in spite of ongoing conflict, there are signs that the situation may be starting to change.

Reasons for cynicism have been many. While Israel’s cold peace with Egypt and Jordan has held, all attempts to come to terms with the Palestinian Arabs have foundered in bloodshed and mutual recrimination. For those of us who believed that a new era was at hand in 1993 as Yasser Arafat and Yitzchak Rabin shook hands on the white house lawn, the disillusionment has been particularly bitter. The murder of Yitzchak Rabin and the upsurge of terrorism emerging from the Palestinian Territories after 2000 were coupled with the Durban declaration and a renewed attempt to convince the world that Zionism was colonialist and racist and to turn Israel into an international pariah.

Now, in just a few months, we have seen dramatic and encouraging developments in Israeli Arab relations. The normalization agreement with the United Arab Emirates has led with lightning speed to booming economic and political contacts. The dissatisfaction of Israeli Arabs with the Joint List as articulated by the Mayor of Nazareth has been fuelled in part by their stand against the UAE peace agreement, which is popular with many of their Israeli Arab supporters. As the new ambassador from the United Arab Emirates takes up his post and Israelis prepare once again to go to the polls, perhaps at long last we are seeing the beginning of that era of Arab Israeli collaboration foreseen by David Ben Gurion.
From Ian:

ICC undermines its own legitimacy
It is not justice the International Criminal Court's chief prosecutor Fatou Bensouda is after. Are there not enough real war crimes around the world? Hamas has sworn in its treaty to eradicate Israel down to the very last Jew. It launches tens of thousands of missiles at our citizens and uses its citizens as human shields, yet only Israel is barred from defending itself. The Palestinian Authority supports our killers with its budgets, a sort of family insurance for all those who want to harm us, but Israel is the problem. This is a moral disgrace under legal cover.

For months, the Foreign Ministry, including all of its emissaries and ambassadors, as well as the Prime Minister's Office have been working to blunt the outrageous determination by two justices at The Hague against the minority opinion of the head of the tribunal that played into the hands of a prosecutor overly eager to build her reputation at Israel's expense. Even when the court ruled it had the jurisdiction to open a war crimes investigation against Israel, and although we told policymakers in Italy that Bensouda had not yet decided to open an investigation, something that was true at the time, I said in deliberations at the Israeli Embassy in Italy it was clear she would announce the opening of an investigation precisely because Bensouda was nearing the end of her tenure. This was also the reason she chose not to handle other cases pertaining to Nigeria and Ukraine. Bensouda had to think of her next career move, and hatred of Israel has always been a good catalyst for advancing one's career.

The ICC drew its moral authority from the reason for its establishment following the atrocities of World War II and the genuine crimes carried out against our people. This decision harms its legitimacy and the reasons for which it was established because it is a politicization of the court and morality to be used against Israel.

The ICC's crude interference in Israel's affairs when Israel is not a member-state and Palestinian affairs when they do not have a state is an attempt to force the semblance of a solution on a yearslong conflict that has left cultural, religious, and historical scars. The cruel irony is that now, at a time when moderate Arab states have understood they cannot give in to the Palestinian refusal to move forward on the normalization of ties with Middle Eastern states when all that is needed is confidence-building steps, in walks the ICC and gives the warmongers who reject peace a prize.
The International Criminal Court Violates Its Statute
At present... the ICC renders itself irrelevant by adjudicating "national jurisdictions" perfectly capable of doing so while refusing to adjudicate or indict the world's worst violators of human rights.

The ICC has already provided its critics with plenty of ammunition to question the Court's legitimacy as a consequence of additional violations of its founding statute. Neither Israel nor the United States ratified the Rome Statute (the ICC's founding treaty). The Court therefore has no jurisdiction whatsoever over the state actions of either country.

State parties dissatisfied with the ICC's dismal record should be encouraged to discontinue financial support for the Court or to withdraw altogether from the Hague-based institution.

Meanwhile, at least four Gulf Arab states and other Muslim-majority countries appear far more concerned, with good reason, about Iran's drive for regional supremacy, while welcoming warming relations with Israel, which will prove a most loyal friend.
JINSA PodCast: The United States, Israel, and the International Criminal Court
The International Criminal Court (ICC) recently made several controversial decisions regarding investigations into alleged Israeli and U.S. war crimes.
• How does a case land in the ICC?
• What are the bases of jurisdiction?
• What is the relationship between the authorization to investigate Israel and the authorization to investigate the United States?
• What does the potential politicization of the ICC mean for the realm of international law (including law of armed conflict?)?

Professor Geoffrey Corn of South Texas College of Law Houston joins host Erielle Davidson in an effort to answer these questions.


Wednesday, March 03, 2021

From Ian:

Israel has become a wedge issue due to progressive left - David Friedman
He said that “there was not a place to land this issue in a way that would have great consensus” during the time he served as ambassador – from May 2017 to January 2021.

“Had we reached out to get more buy-in from the Left, we would have lost the support of the Right,” he told the Post, referring to what he considers some of the Trump administration’s greatest accomplishments: recognizing Israel’s sovereignty over the Golan Heights and changing the State Department’s legal analysis with regards to the Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria.

While there were Democrats who supported the State of Israel, the push against by the so-called progressive Left, had stirred this controversy around support for the Jewish state. Friedman said he wished that more of an effort was undertaken to break that wedge by finding common ground - between both sides of the aisle - for Israel support among all Americans.

The Trump administration announced in November 2019 that it did not view Israeli settlements in the West Bank as illegal. The announcement by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo in Washington marked a historic reversal of US policy.

“Bipartisanship is important,” Friedman said, “but it does not mean that you are looking for the lowest common denominator. If that is the price of bipartisanship then it probably isn't worth it.” He said, “you cannot abandon principles to achieve great consensus” and “it is clear… that uniform support for Israel in the US is being challenged.”

But he said that the United States’ decision to move its embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem is one of the moves the Trump administration made that enjoys greater consensus.
Dexter Van Zile: Has Ben Rhodes Made the Descent into Antisemitism?
Ben Rhodes, the former national security aide to President Obama — who once boasted that he used non-governmental groups and the media to create an “echo chamber” to garner support for the Iran nuclear deal — can’t stand people looking over the government’s shoulder when it formulates policy regarding issues of importance to them.

Rhodes made his contempt for democratic accountability perfectly clear in a recent interview with Peter Beinart, a well-know Israel hater and a fellow at the Foundation for Middle East Peace. During the interview, which allowed Rhodes to promote his forthcoming book, “After the Fall: Being American in the World We’ve Made,” he complained about the interest that American Jews and Christians have exhibited in their concern for foreign policy in the Middle East.

“You have this incredibly organized pro-Israel community that is very accustomed to having access in the White House, in Congress, at the State Department,” Rhodes said. “It’s kind of taken as granted, as given, that that’s going to be the way things are done.”

Rhodes also complained about media oversight of American policy regarding Israel.

“The media interest is dramatically intensified,” he said, complaining of an “aggressive, kind of pro-Likud media in the United States” and of a “mainstream media that delights in Israel controversies.”

The pro-Likud media seems to be anyone who doubts the good intentions of the Iranian government, which is intent on developing nuclear weapons, and declares its desire to attack Israel and the United States on a daily basis. It’s also curious that Rhodes can’t bend the media to his will, since he once said, “The average reporter we talk to is 27 years old, and their only reporting experience consists of being around political campaigns. […] They literally know nothing.”
From Ian:

ICC prosecutor announces formal investigation into Israeli 'war crimes'
International Criminal Court Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda announced on Wednesday that she is opening a full war crimes probe against Israel and the Hamas terrorist group in the Gaza Strip

"The decision to open an investigation followed a painstaking preliminary examination undertaken by my office that lasted close to five years," Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda said in a statement.

"In the end, our central concern must be for the victims of crimes, both Palestinian and Israeli, arising from the long cycle of violence and insecurity that has caused deep suffering and despair on all sides," she added. "My office will take the same principled, non-partisan, approach that it has adopted in all situations over which its jurisdiction is seized."

Bensouda's announcement comes less than a month after a February decision by the ICC Pre-Trial Chamber recognizing a State of Palestine and authorizing her to move forward.

The probe is expected to cover the 2014 Gaza War, the 2018 Gaza border crisis and the Israeli settlement enterprise in the West Bank as well as Hamas' rocket attacks against Israeli civilians.

War crimes suits could be leveled at Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, defense ministers and any other high-level officials involved in such activity since June 13, 2014. Soldiers and commanders could also be targeted.


Israel attacks ICC for its 'scandalous' investigation
The International Criminal Court's announcement Wednesday that it would launch an investigation into Israeli conduct in Judea and Samaria and the Gaza Strip sent shockwaves throughout the country, drawing condemnation from both sides of the political divide.

President Reuven Rivlin called the decision "scandalous" on Twitter and asserted Israel's right and duty to protect its citizens.

"The State of Israel is a strong, Jewish and democratic state, and it knows how to defend itself and also to investigate itself if necessary," the president tweeted. "We are proud of our soldiers, our sons and daughters. We will make sure that they are not harmed as a result of the decision."

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the decision was "the essence of anti-Semitism and hypocrisy." He added that "there is only one answer: to fight for the truth with all our might, all over the world, and to protect our soldiers."

Echoing similar sentiment, the head of the newly created right-wing party New Hope Chairman Gideon Sa'ar accused the ICC of having been "hijacked by sponsors of terror" and vowed to work with Israel's "allies and friends around the world to defend our moral army, and brave soldiers who risk their lives to keep us safe."
StandWithUs TV: The ICC vs. Israel. Israel in Focus

Tuesday, March 02, 2021

From Ian:

Pompeo: US officials tried to undermine Abraham Accords to help Palestinians
Former US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is accusing certain US and European officials of attempting to block the historic Abraham Accords in order to keep the Palestinian issue at the top of the international agenda.

In a speech at the annual conference of the Combat Anti-Semitism movement, at which the organization awarded him a prize, Pompeo discussed opposition to the accords and said that the Russians, as well as certain policy-makers in the United States and Europe, would have preferred to see them fail to materialize.

According to Pompeo, the unnamed officials wanted to maintain the "delusion" that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict was the keystone to regional peace. The former secretary of state said that when the opponents of the accords, realized that no Intifada would erupt as a result of the agreements being signed, and Israel could establish "warm ties" with its regional neighbors, they saw that the Trump administration's approach had been correct.

Pompeo said he believed that many other countries would sign on to the accords, adding that he hoped Saudi Arabia would be one, as well as Muslim countries outside the Middle East.

Pompeo also discussed the processes that led up to the accords, saying that the Palestinians had clung to their line of "no, no, no," prompting the administration to decide to move ahead with other countries in the Middle East, whose leaders said they did not want the Palestinians to bar them from establishing relations with Israel. Those countries said they wanted ties "not founded on hatred," Pompeo said.

The Abraham Accords will last, he said, adding that people in Sudan, Bahrain, and the United Arab Emirates would not go backward.


Melanie Phillips: The return of American anti-anti-Islamism
As Pompeo observed about the DNI note:
The release of this report was reckless. It was political. It was aimed at harming a relationship with the kingdom of Saudi Arabia through the use of intelligence in a way that, as a former CIA director, I would have never stood for. I regret that because this administration wants to develop a relationship with Iran and destroy one with the kingdom of Saudi Arabia, they chose to use intelligence to do that.

According to US officials, by implicating MBS in Khashoggi’s killing but opting not to punish him personally the Biden administration wants to recalibrate the relationship with Saudi Arabia without destroying it. The Wall Street Journal reports that, according to President Biden’s press secretary:
as part of the recalibration of ties Mr. Biden sees the King as his counterpart, not the Crown Prince.

This is all astonishingly stupid. The King is old and barely functioning. MBS is the de facto ruler of Saudi Arabia. Moreover, MBS is a reformer trying to drag his country out of the dark ages. Saudi women now work, drive and travel abroad without permission of a male guardian. Previously banned cinemas have sprung up along with public entertainments such as rock concerts.

Sure, this is all small change by western standards; and the Saudi regime is still guilty of barbaric abuses of human rights. But at least MBS is pushing his country a little in the right direction. By damaging him in this way, the Biden administration has empowered his Muslim Brotherhood enemies who want to bring him down and return Saudi Arabia to an even more repressive ethos — as well as enmity against the west. What perversity is this?

The risks are that, with such cold winds once again blowing from the White House, Saudi Arabia will cosy up to Russia and China, thus destabilising the region and damaging western defences. And America will again shockingly become what it became under President Obama — anti-anti-Islamist. Which, whether the Biden administration wants this to happen or not, will put it on the side of the Islamic fanatics, whether the Sunni Muslim Brothers or the Shia “Twelvers” who are all at war with the west — and also intent upon repressing freedom-seeking Muslims everywhere.

Internationally, America is now a wasting asset. Its enemies can scarcely believe their luck — or conceal their contempt. Its allies are looking on aghast. And the Biden administration is still only six weeks old.
JCPA: Africa Is a Jihadist Playground for the Resurgent Islamic State and al-Qaeda
The presence of the extremist groups in the “jihadist belt” has destabilized the area and has had a crucial impact on the willingness of outside investors to risk huge sums in those regions at risk. The United States and France’s military presence, together with its local allies of the G5 (Mauritania, Mali, Niger, Burkina Faso, and Chad), has succeeded in limiting the damage perpetrated by the Jihadist organizations but has failed to eradicate the phenomenon.

“We also see a serious regional threat from violent extremist organizations emanating from the Sahel,” warned General Townsend, head of the U.S. Army’s AFRICOM. “Security is deteriorating rapidly, with a 250% increase in VEO violence since 2018 in Burkina Faso, Mali, and western Niger. Having quickly spread from northern Mali, al-Qaida’s JNIM, ISIS-aligned groups, and other VEOs are now operating throughout the Sahel region.”9 Nevertheless, France’s President Emmanuel Macron is considering a reduction of the French military force of 5,100 in the Sahel states.10

The involvement of Western powers in the fight against jihadism is meant primarily to fight the terrorists in their own territory in the hope that it will also thwart terrorism outside Africa. However, it is unclear if this method actually protects Europe, in particular, as many attacks have been carried out by home-grown jihadists affiliated with the Islamic State.

On the other hand, it is also clear that ending the West’s war carried out in Africa against jihadism would prove fatal to shaky regimes and open the doors to terrorist activities in Europe. The example of thousands of brain-washed Europeans who volunteered to join the ranks of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria proves that there is fertile ground in Europe to sow jihadist activity exported from Africa.

Today, it is obvious that the declaration of victory against the Islamic State was erroneous. “The international community is not making durable progress in containing priority VEOs in Africa,” warned the American Army commander in Africa.11

Even though beaten and left without its territorial base following its defeat by the coalition forces in 2017, the Islamic State is still very much alive and, from time to time, reminds all concerned that it has not been vanquished.
  • Tuesday, March 02, 2021
  • Elder of Ziyon


State Department spokesperson Ned Price, looking as stiff as a board, said something a little strange:

We seek to accomplish a great deal with the Saudis: to end the war in Yemen and ease Yemen’s humanitarian crisis, to use our leadership to forge ties across the region’s most bitter divide[s], whether that’s finding the way back from the brink of war with Iran, and to a meaningful regional dialogue, or forging a historic peace with Israel....But we can only address these many important challenges in a partnership with Saudi Arabia that respects America’s values.

The US has every right to condition its relationships with other countries on their human rights records. Admittedly, the fact that it is practically begging to build a relationship with Iran without any similar conditions makes this look a bit hypocritical.

But to say that the US won't try to broker peace between Israel and Saudi Arabia unless the Saudis meet certain arbitrary conditions? That is punishing Israel for Saudi Arabia's human rights posture! 

All this will do is make the US irrelevant in the region, as the Israelis and Saudis will not wait for US approval to do what is in their own best interests. In fact, Israel, Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Bahrain are discussing a common defense alliance.

Note that the US is not part of those discussions. This alliance would be in spite of the United States, not because of it, as the Gulf nations and Israel are wary of Biden doing what Obama did and discarding US allies in favor of coddling Iran.




Monday, March 01, 2021

From Ian:

Report: Obama offered Syria an Israeli withdrawal from Golan Heights
Just a few months before the Syrian civil war erupted in March of 2011, the Barack Obama administration offered the Assad regime an Israeli withdrawal from the Golan Heights in return for severing ties with Iran and Hezbollah, the London-based Arabic newspaper Asharq Al-Awsat reported on Sunday.

According to the report, which was relayed to the newspaper by senior American and Syrian officials who were involved in the negotiations at the time, the talks reached an advanced stage and the sides had even prepared a document for signing.

The talks involved then-American envoy Frederic Hof, the paper said, along with ex-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

As stated, the proposals in the draft agreement included Damascus' abandoning of "military relations" with Tehran and Hezbollah in exchange for the Israeli withdrawal from the Golan towards the June 4 border.

Asharq Al-Awsat is a Saudi-owned newspaper and often reflects the official government position. It's possible the timing of the report is not coincidental and was intended to pressure Washington on the Iranian nuclear program.

The report was not confirmed by any official source in the US or Syria, but does somewhat coincide with claims made by another former US secretary of state, John Kerry, in his book "Every Day Is Extra."

The final meeting between Syrian President Bashar Assad and Hof took place on February 28, 2011, the report said, at the height of the Arab Spring uprising that had already toppled regimes in Libya and Egypt and had just begun spreading to Damascus.
Amb. Dore Gold: Insufficient Diplomatic Strength to Stop Iran
A new Iranian law mandated by the parliament has cut back the monitoring of the Iranian nuclear program. There would be no more "snap inspections" by the West on Iranian facilities.

With Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei declaring that Iran's uranium enrichment levels would no longer be limited to 20%, and adding, "We may even increase enrichment to 60%," Tehran is now on a path to get closer to an atomic bomb than ever before.

When the West created an arrangement with Saddam Hussein at the end of the First Gulf War that sought to address his weapons of mass destruction, they included all ballistic missiles above a range of 150 km. But the JCPOA did not touch Iran's missile capabilities. There is no indication that this is now going to be remedied.

The JCPOA was built around the assumption that Iranian behavior would become more moderate as a consequence of the easing of economic sanctions. But the relaxing of sanctions on Iran did not moderate its regional behavior. The Tony Blair Institute for Global Change reported in February 2021: "The number of militias created by the IRGC surged."

Iranian expansionism spread in this period to areas which are not thought to be within its sphere of influence. Its support for the Houthi guerrillas in Yemen gave it a strategic presence along the Bab al-Mandeb Strait that connected the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean. Iran began working with the Polisario in the Western Sahara, basing themselves in Algeria. Iran was operating far away from the Persian Gulf.

What was needed was a robust response by the West to these Iranian actions. In the past month alone, Iranian proxies rocketed an American facility in Iraqi Kurdistan, as well as a civilian airport in Saudi Arabia. True, the U.S. hit back at an Iraqi militia stationed just over the border in Syria. But without a consistent American policy of striking back, the Iranians will not internalize the U.S. message. There was no indication that the U.S. and Europe understand what they are facing.
The UN Should Protect Human Rights, Not Human Rights Abusers
Secretary of State Antony Blinken announced on Wednesday that the United States will seek membership at the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) in January 2022 as part of the Biden administration's commitment to "putting human rights at the center of U.S. foreign policy."

To be sure, the United States is at its best when it strives to model human rights at home and stand up for those principles abroad. And when Washington leads and assembles like-minded countries to advance international human rights together, we are more likely to succeed.

Accordingly, it would seem to be an easy decision for the United States to join the UNHRC. But that is not necessarily the case. To understand why, it is worth considering what the UNHRC has become.

The UNHRC certainly includes countries and individuals of good faith who are dedicated, sincere advocates for human rights. Unfortunately, they have allowed it to be increasingly coopted by countries that do not share a genuine commitment to human rights.

To escape unwanted attention or consequences for their illicit activities, criminal syndicates may attempt to control the local police department. That is not unlike what happens today at the UNHRC. The world's worst human rights abusers, such as China, have sought membership on the UNHRC to shield and enable their own egregious human rights abuses, seeking to shift attention elsewhere.

Take a moment to let that sink in. China has detained upwards of a million Uighur Muslims in what Blinken himself has described as a "genocide." China has violently suppressed pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong and continues to occupy Tibet. Yet China sits on the United Nations Human Rights Council.

If the Biden administration is successful in gaining membership at the UNHRC in 2022, China is not the only authoritarian human rights abuser the U.S. delegation will find around the UNHRC table.

Saturday, February 27, 2021

From Ian:

Seth Frantzman: Israel's Strategy To Stop Iran's Existential Threats
Israel is willing to take action to prevent Iran obtaining nuclear weapons, Israeli Defense Minister Benny Gantz said this week. His statement framed part of a full-court press of Israel warning of Iran's regional threats as Tehran continues to enrich uranium. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has long warned of Iran's pursuit of nuclear weapons, but the transition to a new administration in Washington has been exploited by Iran to increase its enrichment and threats. A senior Israeli defense official laid out to me this week how seriously Israel views the threat. Tehran should listen.

Israel has acted in the past to prevent Iraq and Syria from obtaining nuclear capabilities. Netanyahu warned in a 2012 speech to the United Nations that a red line must be drawn on Iran's nuclear enrichment program. Now Iran's Ayatollah Khamenei says Iran could increase the levels of enrichment to 60 percent. This is a nuclear numbers game that Iran uses like a game of chicken with the U.S., hoping the Biden administration will blink and jump right back into an Iran Deal 2.0.

For Israel, it's essential that the U.S. understand Jerusalem's views. Israel doesn't want a nuclear arms race in the region. Iran is an existential threat and no matter who wins Israel's elections next month, Israel will not accept a threat that violates its declared red lines. At the same time, Israel wants the U.S. and its Western allies to know that they can count on Israel to confront Iran's proxies and various entrenchments throughout the region. In January 2019, former Israel Defense Forces Chief of General Staff Gadi Eizenkot revealed that Israel had carried out more than 1,000 airstrikes on Iranian targets in Syria. Since then, Israel has continued what it calls the "campaign between the wars" to stop Iran's entrenchment in Syria and transfer of weapons to Hezbollah in Lebanon.

There is no substitute for U.S. power and influence in the Middle East, the senior Israeli defense official told Newsweek this week. This unshakable bond with the U.S. is essential, as is bipartisan support for Israel in Congress. Part of this support for Israel also anchors the Jewish state in the region via new U.S.-brokered peace deals with the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, and it is linked to U.S. support for other important partners, such as Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Jordan. While the Biden administration has been critical of Egyptian and Saudi human rights abuses, as Secretary of State Antony Blinken recently indicated in a call with his Egyptian counterpart, Israel hopes this criticism will go hand-in-hand with continued U.S. support.
Iran doesn’t hate Israel
Last week, the Iranian judo champion Saeid Mollaei, who accepted a life of exile rather than refuse to compete against Israelis, took part in a tournament in Tel Aviv. He was welcomed to the country by the Israeli Judo champion Sagi Muki, who called the Iranian his ‘brother’.

Mollaei was one of many young Iranian athletes from conservative roots who used their profession as a means to escape and take a public stand against the Ayatollahs. And it is not only the younger generation that is liberalising.

After the Islamic revolution of 1979, ordinary Iranians tended to embrace the anti-Israeli and anti-Western slogans pumped out by the new rulers. Not anymore. Pro-Israel views range from an ‘Iran first’ indifference to the Jewish state – a popular slogan is ‘Not Gaza, not Lebanon, my life only for Iran’ – to out-and-out Iranian pro-Zionism, which is tied into a hatred for the theocracy that makes hell out of daily life.

In such a corrupt, statist country, huge numbers of people rely for their living on the government, and this has traditionally helped to keep any resistance in check. And citizens have previously put up with the oppression partly out of a hope for reform. But the bite of sanctions is making people bolder. Sporadic demonstrations are put down with increasing levels of lethality, to which the public is gradually becoming inured. Perhaps the only thing saving the Ayatollah is the absence of a well-organised opposition.

From the regime’s point of view, all of this makes the threat of popular uprising very real. The authorities are in a constant state of alert, clamping down on organised groups such as labour unions in a desperate bid to cauterise any roots of dissent. State surveillance has become absurdly extensive. In fact, Israeli intelligence sources have told me that their spies are able to operate so effectively in Iran because the security services are burdened by having to monitor such large numbers of their own citizens.

Recently, while briefing off-the-record on aggressive operations targeting the Tehran regime, an Israeli official described the place as a ‘beautiful country with beautiful people’. ‘We are aiming to defend ourselves, not harm them,’ the source told me.

In this statement, I found great hope. Israel and Iran may be sworn enemies, but take the regime away and there is no bad feeling. In their deep tolerance, the people of Iran are remarkable. The international community must not lose its affection for them, or allow their reputation to be contaminated by their oppressors. Iran: we love you; we respect you; we are waiting for you. One day, there will be peace.
IfNotNow smears IHRA definition as a ‘threat’ to progressivism
The self-proclaimed Jewish-American “progressive” organization IfNotNow hosted a discussion on Jan. 27 about “how the IHRA definition of anti-Semitism has been destroying the progressive movement.” The word “discussion,” may, in fact, be too generous a term for what was, in reality, a diatribe of misinformation.

An address by Taher Herzallah, associate director of outreach and grassroots organizing for American Muslims for Palestine (AMP), took up much of the event. It should be noted right away that AMP’s platforms disseminate anti-Jewish propaganda. Articles on its website complain about “Jews … illegally colonizing the occupied territories” and “Zionist Jews” who have the gall to regard Jerusalem as the undivided capital of the Jewish state. Appallingly, a video posted to AMP’s Facebook page commemorating “Nakba Day” falsely presents a picture of Holocaust victims as Palestinian victims of Israeli violence (the picture in question is displayed at 1:25 in the video). IfNotNow has partnered with AMP in the past.

Herzallah has hardly shied away from hatred himself. At a 2014 AMP conference, he reportedly claimed: “Israelis have to be bombed; they are a threat to the legitimacy of Palestine, and it is wrong to maintain the State of Israel.” That same year, AMP hosted a fundraiser dinner in honor of Rasmea Odeh, a convicted terrorist directly responsible for the deaths of two civilians in a 1969 grocery-store bombing in Jerusalem. IfNotNow may purport to “stand up for the freedom and dignity for all Israelis and Palestinians,” but its embrace of AMP suggests otherwise.

The rhetoric spouted by Herzallah during this event is of equal concern. He egregiously asserted that “people like [him] … had to pay the price” for the Holocaust—an obvious attempt to appropriate the trauma of the victims of Nazi genocide on International Holocaust Remembrance Day, no less. He even dismissed the well-documented alliance between “certain Palestinian leaders” and the Nazi regime as part of a “myth” before later insisting that “we want to question the existence of the State of Israel itself.” This questioning, he urged, “should not be off the table.”

Friday, February 26, 2021

From Ian:

Ruthie Blum: Palestinian lies, American delusions on solving the conflict - opinion
The capacity of peace-process addicts to delude themselves about the Palestinian war against Israel is as bottomless as it is peculiar. It is they, after all, whose repeated attempts at solving the conflict have failed.

The only real shift in perception and action on this issue came from former president Donald Trump.

As a businessman with no political or diplomatic background, he refused to follow in the footsteps of his predecessors in many areas, key among them the Middle East.

His approach, based on rewarding America’s allies and rejecting the appeasement of enemies, was working. His replacement in November by US President Joe Biden signaled a backslide to the tired, old, false paradigms relating to the Middle East.

Palestinian Authority leaders heaved a sigh of relief. For them, dealing with Democrats in the White House, State Department and Capitol Hill is as second nature as manipulating the European Union and United Nations.

Their satisfaction at the outcome of the US presidential election only increased with Biden’s appointment of Hady Amr – a foreign-policy wonk with a history of hostility to Israel and sympathy for Hamas – as deputy assistant secretary of state for Israeli and Palestinian affairs. Due to his role in the new administration in Washington, Amr was handed an official letter sent to the White House last Saturday by the PA.
David Singer: Will someone emerge to rescue the Palestinian Arabs from Hamas and the PLO?
The first Arab elections to be held in Judea and Samaria (aka 'West Bank') and Gaza on 22 May in more than 15 years – to be followed by a presidential vote on 31 July – in theory give the long-suffering Arab residents in these areas the opportunity to get rid of their failed rulers – the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) in the 'West Bank' and Hamas in Gaza.

The remote chance of this happening however will require a citizens’ grass roots movement to contest the elections - promising a different way forward in reconciling their differences with Israel.

This seems extremely unlikely to happen.

Both the PLO and Hamas remain implacably opposed to making peace with Israel – as their respective constitutions make abundantly clear.

Article 11 of the 1988 Islamic National Resistance Movement (Hamas) is unequivocal:
“The Islamic Resistance Movement believes that the land of Palestine is an Islamic Waqf consecrated for future Moslem generations until Judgement Day. It, or any part of it, should not be squandered: it, or any part of it, should not be given up. Neither a single Arab country nor all Arab countries, neither any king or president, nor all the kings and presidents, neither any organization nor all of them, be they Palestinian or Arab, possess the right to do that. Palestine is an Islamic Waqf land consecrated for Moslem generations until Judgement Day.”

Article 13 is uncompromising in attaining Hamas’s goal:
“There is no solution for the Palestinian question except through Jihad. Initiatives, proposals and international conferences are all a waste of time and vain endeavors. The Palestinian people know better than to consent to having their future, rights and fate toyed with.”


Joe Biden’s Ugly Betrayal of the Iranian People
In the short time since taking office, Biden has already snubbed Iranian dissidents who courageously wrote to him from inside Iran, some writing from prison, urging him to maintain sanctions and other pressures on the regime and to provide support and solidarity for their democratic struggle. Instead, their message was received as an inconvenience by a White House national security team staffed with some of the regime’s leading U.S.-based apologists. The administration then quickly provided other sweeteners to the regime, including the lifting of sanctions on their proxy in Yemen, the lifting of restrictions on its arms buying and selling, the lifting of U.S. opposition to an IMF loan, and the neutering of a pro-freedom public diplomacy initiative from the State Department, which went overnight from being a popular source of information on the regime’s repression and corruption to the butt of jokes among Iranian democracy activists. The initiative‘s Persian-language Twitter account has had a steep drop in followers since the U.S. election because of its canceling of real-time statements about the regime’s human rights abuses in favor of promotion of the Biden team’s appeasement measures. When angry Iranians on Twitter pushed the State Department into taking a stand about the regime’s torture and killing of Behnam Mahjoubi, it only raised their ire by saying he was “mistreated.”

Biden’s decided U-turn away from maximum pressure on the regime to a posture of maximum accommodation has been accompanied by silence about the regime’s escalation of its war against its own people, and anyone else who is unfortunate enough to fall within its reach. Biden’s policy of appeasement has been accompanied by large increases in the number of executions and deaths in custody of political prisoners, the taking of foreign hostages for ransom, and threats to kill dual nationals like Swedish Iranian researcher Ahmadreza Djalali. The new administration has, in effect, taken every opportunity to demonstrate to Iran’s thuggish theocracy that it will give in, even signaling that the regime’s holding of American hostages will not be an impediment to negotiations on the nuclear program.

The results of this policy of accommodation are clear. Khamenei has not hesitated to respond by intensifying belligerence by the Islamic Republic’s proxies, who shell American troops in Iraq. America’s other leading adversaries, particularly China and Russia, are also taking note; they do not expect to be confronted for their aggressions and can more easily plot to fill the vacuum left by the United States in the Middle East.

Repeating the recent tragic mistake of Obama’s Iran policy is not simply a foolish replay of the past. It is especially egregious because of the recent, momentous gains made toward a transformation of the region toward modern, rational friendship and cooperation between Arabs and Israelis. It is as if the new administration is closing its eyes to the realities of the region and to American security interests to instead pursue a policy whose symbolism is in fact its purpose. By using “foreign policy” to convey an ideological worldview to a U.S. domestic audience, 80 million Iranians are being treated as props by U.S. policymakers who pose as “progressives” while openly displaying their lack of interest in our common human fate.
  • Friday, February 26, 2021
  • Elder of Ziyon
Here are two headlines published last Sunday, from Times of Israel and i24News:



 
These reports say that, according to a letter written by the PA to the Biden administration, Hamas has committed to a two-state solution and to peaceful resistance.

I've already mentioned that Hamas' leader Ismail Haniyeh has said quite clearly last Saturday that it still supports terror and absolutely does not accept Israel in any way. 

The US is insisting that all parties for any Palestinian election adhere to the principles of the Quartet (US, UN, EU and Russia) established in 2006. The position of the Quartet  has been "all members of a future Palestinian Government must be committed to non-violence, recognition of Israel, and acceptance of previous agreements and obligations."

The first page of the letter that the PA is said to have sent the US is on the Amad.ps website, and it shows that the Palestinians are still the masters at making credulous Westerners believe that they are saying things they are not saying at all. 

There is no contradiction between the letter sent to the Biden administration and Hamas' intransigent statements from last Saturday. There is no compatibility between this letter and the US position of what the Palestinians must commit to. And yet, Israeli media and apparently the Biden administration is willing to be fooled by the doubletalk in the letter and pretend that it says what it most definitely does not. 

The letter, filled with misspellings, says:

The following consensus (attachment 1) were reached by all political factions including Hamas at the meeting of all general secretaries of Palestinians political factions in 3 September 2020.
1. Commitment to international law standards.
2. Commitment to a Palestinian State based on the boarders of 1967 and East Jerusalem as its capital.
3. Commitment to the PLO as the political umbrella and the legitimate sole representative of the Palestinian people.
4. Commitment to the Principal of peaceful transfer of power through elections
5. Commitment to Popular Resistance (peaceful)


Not one of the Quartet conditions are met by this letter!

Non-violence: Hamas said that it supports comprehensive resistance "in all its forms," and one of its manifestations is popular resistance. It is still committed to terrorism. 

Recognition of Israel: The PA says that Hamas accepts a Palestinian state - but nowhere does it say or even imply that Hamas recognizes Israel or a two state solution. Hamas said it holds firmly to the principle of "non-recognition of the legitimacy of the occupier." Meaning, if the Palestinians manage to gain a state in any part of Palestine, Hamas will accept it, but it is still committed to destroying Israel.

Acceptance of previous agreements and obligations: It says nothing about that in this letter, only a vague "commitment to international law standards," which is meaningless.  Since there is no consensus of what international law actually is, they can claim to be committed to it with their own interpretations - for example, that Israel is obligated to allow "return" of millions of Palestinians. This is in no way an affirmation of committing to the Oslo accords, and in fact Hamas' leader  has explicitly rejected them as well in that same speech. 

This is a test of the Biden administration, to see if it is truly committed to the principles the US has insisted upon for any potential Palestinian government. So far, based on reporting about this letter, the Biden administration is flunking the test.

Not surprisingly, the PA has played this exact game during the Obama administration, with no pushback then either. 

Then again, when one party wants to gaslight and the other wants to be gaslit, there isn't much you can do.



Thursday, February 25, 2021

From Ian:

BDS Is Anti-Semitic
I rarely ever feel comfortable talking about Israel in a university setting, despite the fact that the land of Israel is such a dearly held part of my Jewish identity. I have always found it interesting that sweeping dismissals of this part of my Jewish identity, the part that is tied to Israel, are so very welcomed in certain academic and progressive circles. In these groups, it feels like everyone else has the right to defend their cultural, ethnic and religious identities except for the Jew.

On Feb. 9, 2021, the student government at the University of California, Irvine voted 19-3 to pass a Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) resolution. BDS stands for the boycott of, divestment from and sanctions on the current Jewish state of Israel. The BDS movement will not be satisfied until there is no Jewish state existing within the land of Israel.

From a principled perspective, the notion of divesting from one nation in the name of helping an entirely separate nation strikes me as odd. Why divest from Israel to help under-resourced Palestinians? Why not invest directly in Palestinian aid or grassroots movements?

It is a lack of satisfactory answers to these questions that leaves me and many other Jewish people feeling like these movements are more about opposing Jewish self-determination than they are about supporting Palestinian liberation.

Calling for the mass boycott of Israel is a way to publicly stand against the existence of a Jewish nation in a land that Jews are indigenous to. In doing so, the movement is denying a huge part of the Jewish identity from having an acceptable place in social life. If that is not anti-Semitism, what is?
David Collier: Na’amod – toxic anti-Zionism with no students to be seen
Nobody should be in any doubt that the group called Na’amod are at the core – an anti-Zionist organisation that was set up to undermine Jewish community support for Israel. They are targeting our children and their focus on the ‘occupation’ and ‘Gaza’ is little more than a strategic deflection.

If you mistakenly think Na’amod is some innocent student ‘anti-occupation group’ – you will be shocked to find out what they are really about – and who is helping to fund their attacks on the Jewish institutions (such as on the JNF, Zionist Federation or the Board of Deputies). Want to know more – Read on.

Talking about Na’amod
I rarely acknowledge Na’amod – it is a Jewish-led organisation that sits to the left of the left on the political spectrum. Like most astroturf groups they need external attention to survive. It is why for Na’amod, provocation is a primary strategy.

This is what they do. They provoke – Zionists respond – they play the victim – they get attention. When you respond to them – when you speak their name – you give them oxygen.

It is why I never rise to their bait – never allow them to dictate the narrative. This article on Na’amod is different. It had to be written as a vital part of our community conversation.

The journey begins last Tuesday. I tuned in to an Oxford University Zoom talk by Jamie Stern-Weiner. It was about the history of the IHRA definition of Antisemitism and his entire argument was to suggest the examples included in the IHRA definition were never properly adopted by the IHRA as part of the definition itself. A pointless exercise that included cherry-picking comments from those involved when it suited him – and ignoring them when it did not.

Unlike the Jewish, academic, anti-Zionist old guard, such as Jonathan Rosenhead, Stern-Weiner is a fresh face. Yet the talk was incredibly boring. His delivery is poor and he fails to spark any interest or emotion in what he has to say. Unlike fanatics such as Tony Greenstein, he remains coherent but after a while I just found myself zoning out. He has the air of a man who thinks he is intellectually superior. Weiner’s problem is that he isn’t as clever as he thinks he is.
It's Time for Black People to Reclaim the Term "Apartheid"
As a young black South African, I am reminded that our parents and grandparents were compelled to live under the viciously discriminatory system of apartheid. Precisely because we South Africans know intimately what apartheid involved, we have a duty to question whether it is an appropriate term to be used in the context of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Apartheid was about race, not religion or nationality, the domination by one race over another. By contrast, Arab citizens of Israel enjoy the same rights and freedoms as Jewish Israelis. Comparisons between the territories controlled by the Palestinian Authority (PA) and the bantustans in apartheid South Africa are absurd. As foreign governments refused to recognize them, economic aid was withheld, while the PA has received billions of dollars in aid from international governments. It already looks after a range of functions in Palestinian society, including policing functions and healthcare.

Unlike black people in apartheid South Africa, Arabs in Israel are entitled to vote in national elections and elect their own representatives. They currently have the third-largest party in the Israeli Knesset. In Israel, Arabs are found in the highest ranks of political, civil and even military life. Arabs in Israel enjoy more freedom than those living in the rest of the Middle East.

Those who apply the term "apartheid" to the Israeli-Palestinian impasse are guilty of cultural appropriation by denying the uniqueness of the racism and hatred that we faced and overcame with much blood and tears.
10 Things You Never Knew About Israeli Arabs
From Ian:

Israel in Talks to Establish Four-Nation Defense Alliance With Saudi Arabia, UAE, and Bahrain
Jerusalem is currently in talks with the kingdoms of Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, and the United Arab Emirates on establishing a four-nation defense alliance, according to an exclusive i24 News report.

While Jerusalem does not have official diplomatic relations with Riyadh, foreign media report that the two countries have long-standing clandestine ties.

However, the UAE and Bahrain signed a historic normalization deal with Israel in September 2020 known as the Abraham Accords.

The reported defense alliance talks likely come in response to the “growing Iranian threat” in the region, specifically regarding its budding nuclear program along with its expanding influence in the Middle East with countries like Syria and Iraq.

News of the reported talks comes as the Biden administration sends signals to Tehran and world powers that it is ready to rejoin the 2015 Iranian nuclear deal, brokered by former President Barack Obama, which Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vehemently opposed at the time.
A decade on, Iron Dome has intercepted 2,500 rockets, and counting
Ten years have passed since the Iron Dome air-defense system, produced by Rafael Advanced Defense Systems, made its first revolutionary interception of a Gazan rocket in Israeli skies in 2011. Since then the system has conducted more than 2,500 successful real-world interceptions, preventing large-scale carnage in Israeli cities.

It has achieved an interception rate of more than 90% and is considered an essential element of Israeli security, on standby against enemy arsenals threatening the Israeli home front from north to south.

While Iron Dome is indispensable today, it had to overcome some preconceived notions about the role of air defense in security before first making its appearance.

"A soccer team that goes to the field without a goalkeeper loses," Brig. Gen. (ret.) Shachar Shohat, Rafael vice president and marketing and business development manager of the company's Air and Missile Defense Division, said.

Shohat, who previously served as commander of the Israel Air Force's Air Defense Array, described Rafael as the national combat laboratory that has become a "symbol of innovation" in the world of Israeli security, winning 50-plus Israeli defense prizes for significant contribution to state security.

"Employees at Rafael, who go to work in jeans and sandals, are creating true added value to Israel's national security," he said. "They do it with a spark in their eyes from the founding of the state until this day."
Caroline Glick: Interview with CBN on the Biden administration, Iran and Israel

The Tikvah Podcast: Richard Goldberg on How Iran is Already Testing the Biden Administration
President Biden has been in office for just over one month, but when it comes to his administration’s relationship with Iran, the honeymoon is already long over. Just in the past few weeks, Iran has launched rockets at American assets in Iraq, refused to allow in-person inspections by International Atomic Energy Agency officials of its nuclear facilities, and extorted sanctions relief from South Korea by taking an oil tanker hostage. Through all these actions, Tehran is trying to determine the Biden administration’s objectives, probe its limits, and assess its political will.

Now it’s up to the new American team to lead a response, and to declare—in its words and actions—to the world, and especially to the Iranians, what the United States wants to do, what it can aide, and what it will not accept. On this week’s podcast, the national-security expert Richard Goldberg joins Mosaic editor Jonathan Silver to explain the Biden administration’s early moments of decision on Iran and to project what the short and long term consequences of those decisions might be.


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